UniMelb x ACON: Pride in Diversity

[@ninalorenlee]

Calm and articulate🙏🍃🌞❤️

[@goodyxeroxx]

Thank you so much for all that Holly. And of course to Kit and her tireless efforts.

[@womensactiongroup8255]

Such important information, thank you so much. Out of interest Holly do you know if there has ever been any Women's Rights type lobby group equivalent that had the same demands, the same reach and the same influence as ACON presently has? We're not aware of any 🤷🏾

[@hollylawford-smith]

i'm not aware of any specific examples that would parallel ACON, but i suspect some of the second wave groups probably did have this kind of influence, in the 70s, like maybe women's electoral lobby (WEL) in australia? there is also a workplace gender equality index, and the athena swan, and i'm assuming that these had their origins with feminists (but don't know for sure). www.wel.org.au/history and www.wgea.gov.au/publications/australias-gender-equality-scorecard

[@womensactiongroup8255]

@@hollylawford-smiththank you ❤

[@lexo3121]

One would imagine that if such an index were wholly genuine in its aim to advance LGBTQ+ people, its creators might have thought to check that its vision of progress was borne of broad consensus from those of us within the acronym. As it stands, the rights propounded and propelled in the name of the TQ cause are wide open to conflict with the inclusion for some LGBs. E.g., gender critical lesbians and gays feeling excluded from groups nominally created to advance their inclusion because of their ideological opposition; a butch lesbian feeling alienated by the ubiquity of pronouns and being incessantly asked hers, taken as an implicit exclusion of her from womanhood; the inverse for an effeminate gay man; and a lesbian who might not mind ten days off a year to spend affirming her lesbian identity, the methods for which shall remain nameless.

[@hollylawford-smith]

great comment, especially the last bit 😂

[@stonethecrone]

Thank you Holly 💜🤍💚

[@bawad6859]

After reading the statement from an ABC spokesperson (Media Watch coverage), I am outraged. The absolute deceit that goes on. I watch every week how ordinary and extra ordinary events are rainbow washed. The deliberate erasure of women (either through not including them, using alternatives language, offensive language or dismissive tone) is evident. This is done with a political lobby’s brush. If I had the damn time I would look at their org structure to see how many FTE are in this Q W EE R unit and reporting structure. Obviously they can have unofficial lines of influence too (but only whistleblowers will tell us that). It’s clear that a majority of online content is being run through this Unit. Similar to a Legal Unit giving it the ok, this rainbow unit is powerful. I have never seen the level of positioning of a cohort done so firmly and extensively. Literature write up - must have an author writing about women are needed to raise babies. Medical discovery - must have a trans person although ABC don’t mention potential conflict of interest (the clever pose in the photo is a distinct tell-tale sign; then research shows they are indeed trans). We are being fooled into believing scientific breakthroughs are made to validate trans. Etc etc. Their online content is saturated with this, and no balance of views to the contrary. As for careful consideration so as to not cause offence or undue distress - where is there consideration of Indigenous cohorts on meaningful issues. For example, (there are too many failures to mention): the coverage of the Netball sponsorship issue. They have zero consideration for the real impact and vulnerability of the MOST marginalised ppl. The Hancock sponsorship is much more than the old saying about poisoning the water (as if that was bad enough). No. There’s more. This horrific legacy has a mostly untold story of unimaginable suffering. It is about suffering and death of Aboriginal (and) other people. Tell me where was the ABc consideration when they had a pane of sports ppl discussing whether athletes should have a say. Having Wallam or other coverage of the issue, doesn’t come with warnings or links about the Elder who is making a strong statement now about this issue. Sorry for ranting. The ABC need to get a shake up for the harm they cause.

[@bawad6859]

Edit: the Literature write up had an author presenting a story where women were NOT needed to raise a baby.

[@hollylawford-smith]

totally agree that ABC's coverage has been woefully biased.

[@jasminwu8793]

Based

[@bawad6859]

Remember the days when diversity meant a wide variety of: people, experiences, socio economic status, culture, beliefs, nationalities, age, sex, opportunities, geographic spread, ability? And no need for gold stars, scoring, ladders.

[@hollylawford-smith]

the good old days!

[@thurstonhowellthetwelf3220]

Seems it was a short window...this acon really have a good grift going.. you pay to be lobbied..apparently they have around 17million dollars..not sure if this is annual income..

[@dansforth]

Holly, I was wondering if you had any thoughts (that you'd like to share) about Helen Joyce and her book. She seems to have been VERY active and very articulate in the critical space. Also there seems to have been a "low key" splintering in critical community on terf island...thoughts? Sorry for off topic.

[@hollylawford-smith]

hey! i think helen is great and her book was excellent. was there something more specific you were interested in? i don't know about the splintering.

[@maryanne6569]

Pride and Prejudice is a very clever title for the event. Love Austen, love terfdom.

[@kitkowalski]

Thanks. Melting a little bit.

[@Gemmations]

I failed to understand how they justify point 16. How does no longer keeping gendered data benefit a trans person anyway? Their idea of inclusion is to exclude everyone altogether from the data, which means the "trans and gender diverse people" this inclusion was designed for are excluded as well, making the move pointless. Instead, data and statistics based on sex and gender, for instance with different categories for women and transwomen, could provide useful insights on the particular situation and eventual discrimination trans people experience compared to non trans people. Unlike the others, this point doesn't even seem like a conflict of interest, as neither non-binary and definitely not women benefit from this, or at least I could not see it

[@hollylawford-smith]

i agree with you! i imagine they're only thinking about the collection moment, and not what the data is collected for. and then they think oh gosh, it could hurt a trans or nonbinary person's feelings to have to enter their sex into a form, so we'd better stop asking them to, and one way we can do that is to stop asking anyone to!