A strong independent acid snake in the skinsuit of a strong independent woman View RSS

Um... hi? 26 Apr 2024 6:39 AM (last year)

*cautiously pokes head above parapet *

Is this thing on?

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A response to Lib Dem Federal Board watering down the transphobia definition 15 Nov 2022 1:57 AM (2 years ago)

So yesterday Federal Board snuck out, with minimal fanfare or notice, the new, updated definition of transphobia. And when I say "new, updated" I mean watered down. Because the new version contains the following:

Holding and expressing gender critical views, whether in internal debates or publicly, is protected by law under the Equality Act, Article 9 ECHR and Article 10 ECHR and is permitted. Those who hold such views may express them freely, as long as they do not harass or discriminate against trans people, nor create an environment which is hostile or discriminatory to trans people.
Disciplinary action will only be taken for conduct that involves discrimination or harassment, hate speech or vilification or other serious abuses of the right to freedom of expression. If disciplinary action is taken, the focus will be on the misconduct itself, i.e. the way someone has acted or expressed themselves, not the underlying views of the speaker.

I am very very very angry about this. Would the party insert into our definition of anti-semitism "holding and expressing anti-semitic views, whether in internal debates or publicly, is protected by law under the Equality Act, Article 9 ECHR and Article 10 ECHR and is permitted."* Of course not, and nor should they, because that would be abhorrent. So why is transphobia different?

As someone who sits on the executive of LGBT+LDs, I am aware that Plus was consulted about this change. I am also aware that our advice was roundly ignored, and not even distributed to most of the Federal Board. So I’d like to set out here my personal response to some of the arguments I am seeing online from well-meaning cis allies who sit on the Federal Board:

1. "We had to do this because we had advice from two KCs"
   Were either of them particularly specialists in this area of law? Were either of them known to be in favour of one or other position before being consulted? The letters “KC” do not magically confer authority on a given subject, especially one as fraught as human rights. It’s a specialist area. Asking someone who is a chancery or probate or media lawyer to comment on transphobia will not result in robust advice.


2. "But Forstater"
   Forstater is an employment law case. Members of a political party are not employees, so it is advisory at best. FAR More relevant is ASLEF v UK, which is actually on the point of membership of a political organisation, and says that it is perfectly permissible for a political organisation to expel people who do not agree with its fundamental values. Did either of the KCs even mention that case? Whether to support or dismiss it? If they didn’t that is a sign that their advice is not robust.
   Furthermore, Forstater suffers from the fact that it is always quoted incompletely. The judge in that case explicitly ruled that while the right to HOLD gender critical beliefs is protected, the right to express them in any given situation MUST be lawful. This is considerably stronger than the way the new transphobia definition words things, in that in Forstater the onus would be on the person expressing the beliefs to show that they were expressing them lawfully, not on the person objecting to the expression to prove that the views were expressed unlawfully.


3. "We’re under threat of legal action from gender critical types, and it’ll cost the party money"
   Right, so because LGBT+ people play nice and don’t start spurious legal actions, we get punished for it? How is that fair or reasonable?
   Also, surely the entire point of a political party is to challenge and seek to change unjust laws?


4. "We always pass lots of trans positive motions at conference"
   Yes, so why does Board keep trying to water down our commitment to trans rights? Why does Board continually try to frustrate the expressed will of conference in this way?


5. "We’re only making it align with how the disciplinary process was working in reality anyway”
   Right, so the disciplinary process was not working and instead of trying to make it work you change the rules so that injustice is reinforced? How does that help?

I would really like for this party to be not just a safe space for trans people, but to actively welcome them and fight for their rights. The vast, vast majority of the party clearly thinks this too, if you look at every single policy we have passed on this topic at Federal, Scottish, and Youth conferences (examples here, here, here, and here). This party really really wants to be a safe space for trans people, and it is not because we haven’t heard the opinions of "gender critical" people, it is because we HAVE heard them, and dismissed them. And hearing them again and again under the guise of free speech is not going to change our minds. It is, however, going to make trans people and their allies feel that the party is not a safe place for them and maybe they should leave. Which is, of course, what the "gender critical" people would like to happen.

I get why Board has done this. The party is not rolling in money, and gender critical folks are particularly litigious, and it’s sucktastic that is the case. But please, please, I am begging you, cis allies, PLEASE stop trying to gaslight us that this is not capitulation. Especially not when you have done this at the start of trans awareness week. It absolutely is, and we see it, and we’re not happy.

* Although I have been reminded by a kind reader that we did accept the "criticism of Israel is OK" amendment from the Joint Committee so maybe we're not so immune in not-LGBT+-areas either.... -_-"

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Lib Dem Federal Conference 101: Filling In Speaker's Cards For Lib Dem Conference - A User's Guide 1 Oct 2017 8:12 AM (8 years ago)

One of the things I have to do at conference is help to plan debates; this necessarily involves looking at a lot of Speakers' Cards. There used to be, in the agenda, an illustrated guide to filling in Speaker's Cards. This hasn't been in there for a little while now, and judging by some of the cards we got submitted, it needs to come back.

In lieu of that, though, I have done my own (somewhat irreverent, and rather long) version ( under the cut )

I hope to get more cards like that last one, and less like the other seven, by the time next conference rolls around.


ETA: just to add: feedback to your friendly FCC member is often helpful. Thanks to Holly's comment below, the new speakers' card now says "I will need step-free/wheelchair access to the stage", as mentioned above. Also, the app should now have line numbers in motions, thanks to Laura.


All posts in this series:

• "Timings" - standard colour scheme or pale colour scheme
• "How to survive your first conference" - standard colour scheme or pale colour scheme
• "Debates" - standard colour scheme or pale colour scheme
• "Filling In Speaker's Cards For Lib Dem Conference - A User's Guide" - standard colour scheme or pale colour scheme (this post)

Do you have a request for a post in this series? Pop it in the comments below; I'm not going to promise a full post on every topic, but it'd be useful to be answering questions people actually want answered. Future posts I'm planning to do include: How to Participate in Q&A sessions, How to survive your first conference, How to Survive Glee, Submitting a Motion to conference, and the UNIT Dating Controversy.

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An explanation of my colour scheme, and a fix for those who don't like it. 20 Apr 2017 2:02 AM (8 years ago)

More than one person yesterday mentioned a dislike of my colour scheme. The word "Geocities" was uttered. I am not unaware that everywhere else on the internet is bright white with lots of free space, and that my colour scheme might be seen as undesirable, so I thought I ought to explain (especially for non-LJ/DW users) why it is as it is:

If you use Dreamwidth (or any other code fork of LJ) your blog is not just your blog; it is also a social network and an RSS reader. Look up at the top right of any page on my blog, you'll see "what I am reading" - it does what it says on the link. It is my reading page.

If, like me, you suffer from crippling migraines, which can easily be triggered by looking at lots of bright white screens, this is a positive boon. It means that you can set up your style to be as restful and brain-kind as possible for you and it doesn't matter for any other DW or LJ user, because they have done the same. Dark purple on black, for me, means I can spend a lot, lot longer looking at the screen before it starts to hurt. I always have twitter/tweetdeck on Night Mode when I look at it, and Lib Dem Voice has a dark theme because I asked for it; pretty much every other blog or website I read regularly, I read on my reading page here.

However, I am aware that lots of people really like looking at bright white screens, and find them much easier to read. If this is you, you can add "?style=light" to the end of any url on Dreamwidth (not just my blog, any Dreamwidth url) to get a black text on white screen colour scheme. It makes the landing page of my blog look like this. And, as sfred points out below, if you're a Dreamwidth user yourself, you can add "?style=mine" and everything looks absolutely optimal for your own preferences!

I hope that helps :)

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Managing Social Media: a How to Guide 10 Jan 2013 9:05 AM (12 years ago)

((updated 26th April 2024))

Look, I'm leaving this up here for legacy because it's applicable to all social media, really, but if you're still on twitter, pouring your content into the maw of Musk, I'm not sure I want to know you.

How to stop Twitter Social Media swallowing your time

My feeds are reasonably tight, and an effective tool for me to communicate with others while not getting swamped by spam. Here's how I do it:

1. I don't backread further than the first scroll of my timeline. Ever.
2. I don't track or care who follows me. If you follow me, I won't notice unless you talk to me.
3. I always check my @ replies before my home screen, and regularly throughout the day, and am happy to talk to people whether I am following them or not.
4. I only follow people who post consistently interestingly, and don't pay any attention to whether or not they are following me. If you're a nice-but-dull person then sorry, but I won't fill my timeline with your stuff.
5. If someone I know posts something that annoys or offends me I unfollow them, even if they are someone I generally admire, but I don't generally mute or block unless the offensiveness comes in @ replies.
6. If someone I don't know spams me or sends me an offensive @ reply I block them immediately. Life is too short to put up with arseholes.

So you can see that the people I talk to on social media and the people I follow are two overlapping but distinct groups. I don't think I miss much, because people who post consistently interestingly are bound to get boosted, so I pick them up eventually. Also, there's no real pattern to the people I follow, other than that I find them interesting: there's politicos and journos, musicians, artists, sciencey tweeps, young folk, old folk... your job or your age or your gender or any other attribute doesn't really matter, as long as you are interesting.Oh, one other thing: I absolutely do not and never will get offended by people not following me back. Just because I am interested in what you have to say does not mean I will assume that you are interested in what I have to say. If you're not following me then I need to try harder to be interesting.


How to stop social media swallowing your sanity

Social Media can often be mentally draining, even if it's not draining your time. Tips to prevent a meltdown are as follows:

1. The most important one: know when to walk away. This is a thing that is useful in all aspects of interacting with other people, and not one I have always mastered. Sometimes people will be dicks. It's not always on purpose, but engaging dicks in conversation is often way more wearing on you than it is on them. If a conversation looks to be getting to the point where it's more bother than it is worth, walk away. Block if you have to.
2. Use Wheaton's Law. Seriously, we can all have days when we are less well-disposed to our fellow human than we might be; if you feel yourself starting to be dickish, walk away. Things which count as dickish on social media include:
   • Starting a dogpile when someone says something you disagree with. Whether you do this by replying or quote-tweeting, it's still dickish.
   • Sealioning
   • Replying to a very old post
   • Continually @ replying to a person who has asked to be dropped out of a discussion.
   ... as well as the usual ad hominems, gaslighting, etc.
3. Take a break if you need to. Don't be afraid to have a day off, or a week, or a month. Social media will still be there if and when you decide to go back.


4. If someone sets a dogpile on you, don't be afraid to go locked for a few days.
5. If someone starts serious abuse, don't be afraid to go locked permanently.
6. If someone issues criminal threats, don't be afraid to report them to the rozzers, AND go locked.

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Find me Elsewhere (updated 26th April 2024) 26 Dec 2012 2:16 PM (12 years ago)

This is a list of other places you can find me on the interwebs, in rough order of the amount of time I devote to them:

Mastodon
Bluesky

Other places where vestigial and/or barely updated accounts remain include Twitter (I refuse to call it X, fuck off Elon), Spotify, Goodreads, HuffPo, AO3, Pinterest, Posterous, Flickr, Last.fm, Flattr, YouTube, Formspring, Foursuare, Google Plus, Instagram Diaspora (I can't even remember what my account is on there), Lib Dem Act (same), and three Tumblr accounts: audio blog, Time Flies web comic, Magical Roxy's fortune telling.

I do not have an account on anything owned by Meta. Anyone you see on Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp pretending to be me is not me.

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How to get in touch with me (updated 26th April 2024) 17 Sep 2010 12:45 AM (15 years ago)

If you wish to contact me, your fastest method is to reply me on mastodon. I always read all my replies, usually several times a day unless I am unavailable, and I am not precious about only replying to people I follow (although if you're a dick I won't necessarily respond ;) ).

Second fastest is to leave me a blog comment on this blog. All comments are immediately emailed to me (unless they get caught in the spam trap), but I am a bit crap about checking emails these days....

Please don't send me a DM on this platform (Dreamwidth) if you want me to see it; it doesn't send me notifications by email for DMs so I will only see it when I go in to empty my DW inbox about once every six months, by which time it's usually too late for whatever it is people want to contact me about.

I don't currently have a public email address per se, but if you pass yours onto me by any of the above methods I'll email you from my regular one. I do have accounts on many many other internet services (see this post for details of the myriad other places I can be found) but none of the message functions on those are checked at any frequency, so they are very inefficient methods of getting in touch with me.

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Introduction & Comment policy 20 May 2010 3:45 PM (15 years ago)

Hello! There now follow some handy hints on how to make the most of your Reading My Blog experience:

• If you don't like my colour scheme (I am aware that many people don't) add "?style=light" to the end of any url to get a different version, or "?style=mine" if you have a dreamwidth account. For an explanation of why I have it like this, see here
• If you want to know more about me, click here
• If you haven't got a dreamwidth account you can still log in and comment or participate in polls with openID.
• Other platforms I am active on are listed here.

Comments Policy:

• Anonymous commenting is enabled, although anon comments are screened before publication; please, if you comment anonymously, give yourself a name/pseudonym/some form of identifier. If you don't your comment will not be unscreened.
• I don't censor comments from people I know unless pushed VERY hard. Red lines include racism, misogyny, homophobia, unjoking advocation of violence, and being horrible about (or to) people I love. Anons tend to get a lot less leeway and a lot less benefit of the doubt; sorry. My blog, my rules.
• If you want to point out cock-ups I have made, please direct them to Pedants' Corner; likewise if you want to ask me something off the topic of the post please go to this entry - this saves readers' scrolling fingers.

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Things I Want (last updated 13th November 2019) 31 Oct 2009 6:21 AM (16 years ago)

If you want to buy me a present, this is the place to be. Assuming it is not in your power to supply world peace or a liberal government, the list below gives some practical options:

1. Nice booze is always welcome.
   Here is my Master of Malt wishlist, but if you wish to use a local supplier, I favour:
   
   • Interesting (i.e. not Gordon's) when it comes to gin
   • Very very expensive XO Cognac when it comes to brandy, and fairly-to-very expensive single malt when it comes to whisky (I like the full range of whisky flavours from Face In a Peat Bog to Are You Sure This Isn't Brandy?, mind).
   • Kirsch and other forms of cherry-based spirit, as long as it's over 40%ABV
   • Very pale and hoppy when it comes to beer
   • Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc when it comes to wine
   • Unusual when it comes to cocktail ingredients/liqueueueueueuers.


2. My Amazon.co.uk Wishlist.
   This is reasonably up to date, and contains many items that are not actually on amazon, it's just a convenient place to have a wishlist.


3. My Universal Wishlist which somehow always ends up on amazon.com.
   This is less up to date because I often forget it's there, and merging it into the main wishlist is a total pain in the bum so I haven't done it.

Of course, if you do just want to give me money, I won't say no, click the button below to donate via Paypal:



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