Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Bulls 1. Makes a change from a china shop.
- Bulls 2: The summer has brought its normal quotient of idiot males gored - or even killed - in similar events around the country.
- Abused women: A strange development from Andalucia, where the egregious far-right party Vox now has an influence on government.
- A recent visitor was so British that he neglected to tell me the glass of wine he'd been served was bad. After our lunch, I remonstrated with him, stressing that Spanish waiters would always change a glass of wine immediately. I was reminded of my old friend when I saw this old cartoon in my collection:-
- The good news is that there are signs they've begun to lay the granite slabs at the city end of the O Burgo bridge.
- The new trans orthodoxy is scaring even the most stalwart organisations into silence. Frightening. See the article below.
- The Republican reactions to the latest gun atrocities are just too depressing to comment on. In dreadful thrall to the NRA. What a political system. The irony being that American exceptionalism has compelled our cousins to try to impose it on the rest of the world.
- Word of the Day: Echar.
- A kenning: 'A compound expression in Old English and Old Norse poetry with metaphorical meaning, e.g. oar-steed = ship.'
- One of my daughters lives in Madrid and the other in Manchester. Both of them are having continuous problems with nits (head lice) on their bairns. These prefer young bonces, it seems. Anyway, this reminded me that in my primary school we had regular inspections from a nurse - Nitty Nora the biddy explorer - and my mother used to regularly comb our hair with a special nit comb. I know these still exist as a I bought one a few years ago - not the €15 metal one I was offered but the €2 plastic one they admitted the also stocked. I wonder, though, if primary school inspections still take place.
- Another amazing coincidence. On Tuesday night I gave refuge to 3 young camino 'pilgrims' who were looking for an albergue that doesn't exist and couldn't find a bed elsewhere in the city. One of them was Danish and I took the opportunity to pass on my recently discovered knowledge that it was the Danes who'd simplified English after they'd taken control of the northern-eastern half of England. (Danelaw, Danegeld and all that.). And then, the following morning, I tuned into this BBC podcast. Wonder what the odds were. Interesting to know we got the astonishingly useful 'get' from Danish.
- BTW . . . This well educated young Dane wasn't aware of the Danish colonisation of a large part of England.
The new trans orthodoxy is scaring even the most stalwart of organisations into silence: James Kikrkup, the Daily Telegraph
Katie Alcock is an unlikely heretic. For a decade she helped run Brownie and Girl Guide groups in Lancaster. Then she was expelled.
Girlguiding said she had violated its policies on equality and diversity. Her offence was to suggest that people born male who now say they are female should not automatically be welcomed by a female-only organisation and, for instance, share tents or bathrooms with girls.
In any other context, Alcock’s views would be uncontroversial. Organisations like Girlguiding have safeguarding policies to control interactions between girls and those whose male anatomy gives them the potential to be a threat to those girls. In any other context, Girlguiding would stand squarely behind Alcock.
So why, when the interests of transgender people are invoked, does Girlguiding seem to apply a different standard? It is far from alone. Universities, local councils, the BBC, and charities are among organisations where women who question policies intended to promote transgender equality fear sanction and dismissal.
A common concern is that measures intended to make life easier for people born male who now identify as women will have consequences for services and opportunities previously reserved for people born with female bodies.
Toilets come up with depressing frequency in this debate. Lots of organisations are adopting “gender neutral” bathrooms, or renaming their women’s toilets “gender neutral” to spare transgender people the awkward choice of whether to use the facility that aligns with their physical sex or their professed gender.
Yet what about women who aren’t happy sharing such spaces with biological males? Or who worry that opening up services reserved for women to male-born transwomen is unfair on women who have faced a lifetime of social and economic sexism?
I know women in half-a-dozen organisations, mainly public sector ones, who have such worries but say they don’t dare raise the issue for fear of violating diversity policies or of being accused of prejudice. The well-meaning drive to do better for transgender people can leave women feeling silenced. Strikingly, the organisations responsible pride themselves on being progressive, inclusive employers who would never dream of treating women so poorly in other circumstances. So how does this all come about?
This is a story of institutional capture and skilful lobbying. Many organisations embracing trans-inclusive policies do so in light of advice from trans-rights groups that don’t just provide workplace training, but also lobby politicians to change laws and policies to favour transgender people. There is nothing untoward about the activities of trans-rights groups such as Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence, but it is a fact that they are not neutral providers of objective advice on implementing equalities laws.
Such advocates can exert great influence, partly because the law on transgender rights is complex and messy. Even the language can baffle. Many public bodies routinely conflate “sex” and “gender”, which mean very different things in law. “Sex” denotes a person’s fundamental biology. “Gender reassignment” indicates a person is seeking to change the social role in which they live; crucially, no physiological change is required.
Imagine you are a public sector manager trying to navigate this social and legal minefield. An authoritative-sounding group advises you that failing to respect someone’s “gender identity” could breach equality laws, making no mention of your obligation to consider sex too. In the back of your mind is the knowledge that if you get this wrong, you could face a career-ending accusation of transphobia. Is it any wonder that so many organisations subscribe unquestioningly to trans-rights orthodoxy?
This is how a woman such as Katie Alcock finds herself having to sue Girlguiding to have her concerns take seriously. And all of this is possible because politicians have either refused to engage in the complex, emotive debate about sex and gender, or have simply signed up to the trans-rights orthodoxy without question or scrutiny. The results are bad for women and transgender people alike. In the absence of leadership, Katie Alcock’s case will not be the last.
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