Letters - 04 April 2025
From soul music to ethical banking
More soul music
I really appreciated Alastair McIntosh’s Thought for the Week (‘On song’, 14 March). As an admirer of Leonard Cohen’s music and poetry for over fifty years, I am always delighted to see his messages speaking to current times, and, as Alastair emphasises, with prophetic wisdom.
In the article we were taken on a challenging journey starting with our disappointing government, which seems to believe that it’s morally justifiable to expect the poorest of the world, the diseased, the starving, the dying, the dispossessed and the oppressed, to meet the cost of more weapons of destruction to boost our war machine. We then went to the brighter times of glasnost and perestroika, but then back to doom and gloom – Cohen’s ‘blizzard of the world’ where the ‘order of the soul’ is overturned.
And then we’re directed towards the prophecy – the solution, perhaps – which is repentance, a ‘turning back’.
But then it seemed that our final destination was the place where, as Alastair described, we’re easily ‘overwhelmed by things that are outwith our locus of control’ and ‘we have to dig from where we stand’ in order to have any influence on the blizzard of our broken world. Surely, though, we can all do a little more than share a meal, smile, cry, stroke the cat and admire the crocuses.
Or are these Jesus-like metaphors for deeper and more meaningful responses? I hope so.
Kevin Skippon
Feeling the benefits
Who were the greatest sinners? Those who built the slave-ships or those who built the concentration camps? Crucifixion comes in many forms and those who participate in it know not what they do!
Bill Bingham
Something in common?
I want to speak to those who think trans people inherently pose a threat. Have you spoken to someone trans before? Sat down with a cup of tea and biscuit and had a conversation with someone without thinking about their genitalia? Have you listened to your Friend’s experience of public spaces? Have you learned something about your Friend that wasn’t to do with their expression and how it differs to your ideas of manhood or womanhood? In other words, have you learned something about them as a person, not a gender?
I challenge you, Friends, to learn something about someone who is trans that doesn’t relate to gender or sex. What do they do for work? What’s the name of their cat at home? Find a hobby you have in common. See them as an individual rather than a trans person. If you’ve ever thought about changing your hair, you have something in common with someone who is trans. Please. Show some humanity.
I implore Friends to look to Advices & queries 17: ‘Do you respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern?’
Fact: some people are trans. Transness is not abstract. Trans people are people, with lives as complex as anyone’s, deserving of dignity and respect. There is no question whether transness exists; there should be no debate about whether people who are trans deserve human rights. If we accept everyone deserves human rights, then the only conflict is between those who think trans people shouldn’t exist – because that is the only way they wouldn’t have rights – and reality.
You do not have to understand a trans person to respect them. If you do not respect a person enough to affirm their belonging within the Society, you should consider whether this community of love and equality is the space for you.
Juno Lee
Not up for discussion
There has been much discussion in Quaker spaces recently about how we discuss trans inclusion. Phrases like ‘agree to differ’ have been used. The problem with agreeing to differ is that, like every approach in the world, it isn’t right for every problem. When we are challenged to agree to differ on trans inclusion, the issue is, ironically, pretty binary.
Suggesting that trans inclusion threatens female-only spaces (and note that referring to these as women-only spaces is already excluding trans people) is an opinion in which there is not a space for trans women to be treated equally to cis-women. In this worldview, what is the solution? For trans individuals to be systematically oppressed and excluded forever? It’s a view that, regardless of any well-meaning intention of the suggestor, attacks the validity of trans individuals. The same applies to other ‘controversies’.
This is why a great many Friends struggle to ‘agree to differ’. Because they are being asked to accommodate and respect and discuss a viewpoint that – if you are trans – doesn’t respect your right to exist as you are. We wouldn’t ask non-white individuals to agree to differ on segregated schools.
And regardless of your personal take on gender theory, trans identities do exist. Denying this is discrimination. That should not be up for discussion. We do not reserve a place or a platform for anyone who wishes to say that homosexuality does not exist, even that is a view prevalent in much of the world.
Anonymous
Name and address supplied
True politeness
When we find and cultivate the peace of silence inside ourselves, a shroud of judgements and thoughts are pulled aside… we can see.
When we can keep that silence after Meeting for Worship – senses now calm, yet awake – and we gaze into another’s eyes, an opportunity is revealed, gifted on the bridge of the stillness between two people. Sometimes verbal enquiry is welcomed by the other’s eyes and presence; sometimes a welcoming smile is enough.
This may be true politeness.
Whether newcomer or regular attender, it can be intimidating, at times, to be enquired upon. Many know, or sense, that an incoming judgement can close a door, both ways. Or maybe someone is just processing things that have arisen, and needs time. Others fear new groups. Some need a verbal enquiry for them to feel home.
All are unique to the moment, where, with the gift of stillness and its sense of enquiry, we have the opportunity to respond well. Just smile, or at least act, rather than re-act.
Silent enquiry can reveal the saying ‘the mind creates a gulf, where the heart bridges it’. Here is where the eyes speak to the soul.
Simon Iredale
Poetry corner
Thank you to Jonathan Doering for introducing us to the poet Helen Morgan Brooks (‘A clear lens’, 21 March).
I cannot think of a more appropriate poem for the present times than ‘The bus comes’. As we face up to a world in which Gaza is crushed, Ukraine manipulated, Darfur starved and the Eastern Congo raped and pillaged, only the ‘strong silence’ and love within our Meetings will carry us through.
Julia Bush
Ethical banking
In further response to Martin Schweiger’s original letter looking for banking for small groups (28 February), I agree with Susan Holden (21 March) that credit unions are a good option. An alternative that our group is exploring (but has not yet tested) is the Social Change Nest, part of the Open Collective, which holds money on behalf of community groups that are unable or unwilling to register as charities. It uses the Co-op as its bank.
I was dismayed to see HSBC mentioned. According to Ethical Consumer, HSBC is, for instance, financing crude oil extraction in the Amazon, as well as fossil fuel extraction and use in power plants in many countries. It is also investing in nuclear weapons companies.
If Friends are not familiar with the site, I recommend Ethical Consumer (www.ethicalconsumer.org). It provides tables listing numerous firms, with information about their ethics. It gives HSBC a score of two out of 100; Metro Bank thirty-four. Unfortunately those at the top (Triodos, Co-op, Nationwide) either do not provide banking for such groups, or only serve registered charities, or groups registered in certain other ways.
Anne Smith
Comments
The letters of Juno Lee and an anonymous Friend, and of Mark Russ and Craig Wilson on 7 March, are a cooling stream in a desert. Mark’s blog post https://jollyquaker.com/2025/03/27/not-all-words-are-good-words-quakers-in-britain-and-anti-trans-debate/ also was blessed relief.
In 2010, the Equality Act allowed all trans women, from the moment we decided to transition, to use women’s services when expressing ourselves female. My authority for that statement is Lord Etherton, former Master of the Rolls. Yet a campaign of vilification in The Times, the Mail, the Telegraph and even the Guardian, and a campaign of lawfare recently reaching the Supreme Court, has sought to take away our rights even from those of us who have succeeded with the expensive and onerous requirements of getting a gender recognition certificate. People are murdered, simply for being trans.
In 2002, just after transitioning, I went to meeting for worship in Chester, and someone read from Advices and Queries: “Bear witness to the humanity of all people, including those who break society’s conventions or its laws”. I broke down weeping and was comforted, and my Quaker meeting became a sanctuary for me.
To read “women have concerns” or “sex is real, gender is subjective” in The Friend, when these slogans are used for the demonisation of trans people in the wider world, is a bitter blow. What space are Friends willing to give trans people, now? “Belonging is more than fitting in”- do we have to fit in to an increasingly oppressive atmosphere of suspicion and vilification, even among Friends?
By Abigail Maxwell on 3rd April 2025 - 8:25
Juno Lee asks about personal interactions with trans people. I first met a trans person when we were in Brixton prison together in 1970 (don’t ask, long story). I have had colleagues, Friends, co-congregants, lay readers and a rabbi who are trans. I went on a Rhine cruise with one of my trans friend and her mother in 2017 and we planned to repeat it, but COVID got in the way, and now long COVID has left me housebound.
My concerns are not with trans people. It is with those who preach an ideology that tells same-sex attracted young people that they were born in the wrong body, and that they can change sex though surgical and pharmaceutical interventions, ignoring the permanent damage these interventions will inflict. Promising they will feel better about themselves if they ‘transition’ when the latest evidence has proved the very opposite.
It is with those activists who insist on trans women having access to ALL women’s spaces, when it is a fact that some men are using this to access and assault women in places where women and young girls should be safe.
And it is with those dogmatists who insist that trans women should be able to compete against natal women in sport, when common sense shows us that men have an inherent advantage over women in sports.
I wonder how many sex-realist friends our Friend Juno has?
By Ol Rappaport on 4th April 2025 - 8:39
“My concerns are not with trans people,” says Ol. Here we have two myths: of the “good trans”, to be distinguished from those who “preach an ideology”; and that men, rather than trans women, are using trans rights to assault women. He goes on to say trans women should not compete with cis women in sport.
Well, if I do a park run, I want to compete as a woman. My name is Abigail, I look female, park run is about participation, why should I not? And, trans women under strict rules have been able to compete in the Olympics since 2005. All Olympic competitors have an “inherent advantage”, and including transitioned trans women with testosterone reduction from male levels was a matter of including people as we are. Laurel Hubbard did not win a medal in 2021, and no trans woman competed in 2024.
Evidence shows that people do feel better after we transition. There are parents’ groups dogmatically opposed to transition, and many of the parents there have lost touch with their children. Very few people detransition, and of them, a significant number retransition. Living in a transphobic culture is difficult.
As I said, under the Equality Act men only need to dress as women to enter women’s services. Sexual perverts have other ways of menacing women. I have no doubt some women are disturbed by the presence of trans women, but a society which values all its members makes space for all its members.
And, Ol is apparently a “sex-realist”, proudly proclaiming that. It is very poor epistemology. Trans is real, as shown by the priestesses of Cybele, or the condemnation in Deuteronomy, or the Maxims of Ptahhotep, as well as by my trans friends and me. Ol draws a false equivalence. There are trans people, living our lives, and there are people like Ol loudly objecting to our rights (at least the rights as Lord Etherton sees them). As I said two weeks ago, it is precisely equivalent to objecting to Jews or refugees, and if Ol does not accept that he should look up Dora Richter and the systematic murder of LGBT+ folk in the Holocaust.
By Abigail Maxwell on 4th April 2025 - 10:22
Hi Abigail,
Mark Russ is well answered in https://thismagpiemixture.blogspot.com/2025/
You say, “People are murdered, simply for being trans.”
I cannot engage with the horrors of places like Brazil – my family, friends and local meeting are mostly more than enough these days – but I have researched each trans murder in Britain, because, like you, I care about trans people – and I have done for sixty years.
I did not find any murders in the 20th century. There may have been some in men’s prisons, although trans people were careful to avoid entanglement with the law, for fear of being strip-searched. I know the story of each trans person who has been murdered in this country in this century, except for one who earlier wanted anonymity. In all I found ten murders of transwomen, all very sad – but for none of them was being trans the primary issue in their deaths.
Because transwomen were unsafe in men’s prisons, they were put in women’s prisons. But this made women unsafe in turn, because a minority of men who claimed to be transwomen raped, assaulted and intimidated women, including women officers. I have these stories too, until the prison service started to censor them in 2017, because they were becoming such a scandal.
The same thing has happened in women’s hospital wards and women’s refuges since transwomen began to be admitted. Again, I can give you stats and research and many individual stories. Granted, they may have been predatory men exploiting the belief that they only had to put on a dress and declare they were women, rather than being transwomen. That is a part of the problem which you always dismiss too lightly, Abigail.
So separate prison units for trans people were established, as you and I have discussed, and, gradually, parallel units for trans people who wanted access to refuges, rape crisis centres, and counselling groups for women who had survived childhood sexual abuse. This is a rational compromise between the needs of transwomen and the needs of women.
And in every case, such units have been boycotted by transwomen claiming transphobia. Some transwomen – not all – are not content with having their own rights, and provision for their own needs. They want all those of women, too.
By Anne & Rob Wade on 4th April 2025 - 15:00
Mmm. “The prison service started to censor them in 2017”. Now, why would they do that? Are they conspiring with the Powerful Bad Trans to hurt women, because the prison service wants to protect trans women? The same prison service that puts trans women in men’s prisons.
And, for just one murdered trans woman in the 20th century, consider Dora Richter. Did you not read my comment before?
Anne, all this claptrap is worse than the hate storm in The Times.
As for the blog by Tim Pitt-Payne, KC., Quakers nationally started speaking out against slavery in 1727. I hope in the same way we will continue to speak out against transphobia. Some Quakers owned slaves; but, repeatedly, Quakers condemned that. It is not a Quaker creed that “trans women are women”, but that trans people are people, with the light of God inside us. It is that Light that makes us transition, and express our true selves.
By Abigail Maxwell on 4th April 2025 - 15:44
Thank you Abigail for speaking so clearly, if not precisely.
You affirm that as a self-identified woman you are entitled to compete in sports as a woman!
You claim that men need only dress as women to access women’s spaces and services. However the Equality Act allows service providers of single-sex services to lawfully exclude, modify, or limit access to trans individuals if such actions are a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, such as ensuring privacy, decency, preventing trauma, or maintaining health and safety; though you dismiss these latter considerations.
Oxford University’s Journal of Sexual Medicine recently published research showing that “Transgender individuals face heightened psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation” and concluding “Gender-affirming surgery, while beneficial in affirming gender identity, is associated with increased risk of mental health issues”
https://academic.oup.com/jsm/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jsxmed/qdaf026/8042063
You mention Dora Richter, unlike my wife’s grandparents, she was never imprisoned in a ghetto or concentration camp or gassed. She survived the Holocaust. No equivalency.
By Ol Rappaport on 4th April 2025 - 16:19
Dear Abigail,
Of course you are children of God, with your own splinters of divine Light sparkling in you - we have none of us ever denied this.
Take care,
with love, Anne
By Anne & Rob Wade on 4th April 2025 - 17:28
Dora Richter was murdered when the Nazis shut down the Sexuality Institute. At any rate, she disappeared and was never heard from again.
Excluding trans women is generally not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. For example, Lord Etherton dismissed the idea in relation to hospital wards.
Anne, you deny my light when you demand total exclusion from womens’ services.
By Abigail Maxwell on 4th April 2025 - 19:27
Dora Richter
Died 26 April 1966 (aged 74)
Allersberg, Bavaria, West Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Richter
https://www.wearequeeraf.com/historians-thought-this-trans-woman-was-murdered-by-the-nazis-but-she-escaped-and-lived-to-be-74/
By Ol Rappaport on 4th April 2025 - 20:18
Actually, I am glad to know that she lived. That does not mean Nazis did not murder trans women. Why are we even arguing about this?
By Abigail Maxwell on 4th April 2025 - 21:35
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