A good person doing nothing
Jess Phillips is still pretending not to understand the gender debate
The headline is immediately annoying. ‘‘No trans person I’ve met has said we can’t say “woman”’.
Then why can’t any of your colleagues define it? Why have they all lined up to humiliate themselves in interview after interview? This is a perfect example of a straw man argument. She doesn't want to answer the question 'what is a woman?' so instead pretends a different question, one much easier for Labour MPs, was asked: 'Can you say the word woman?'
But this jumped out at me too, Phillips calling cancel culture a ‘distraction’.
It certainly didn’t distract her from delivering platitudes. “Keep going, see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Keep going where, Jess? To a world without women’s spaces and sports? Is that where you’re going? Along with the rest of your humiliated party? If you truly want to live in a pre-Suffragette era, if that’s where you’re going, then bugger off on your own. Take Stella Creasy and Emily Thornberry with you. We’re not coming.
“A distraction”. Tell that to the feminist academics, doctors, social workers, illustrators, actors, therapists, and writers who lost their livelihoods because of trans activists.
Tell it to Raquel Rosario Sanchez who came here to study women’s rights and was bullied to such an extent that she’s now suing Bristol University for not protecting her. A case going to the wire because of the silence of figures like you.
Tell Posie Parker or Holly Lawford Smith or Meghan Murphy or any of the other countless women banned from Twitter and the public square because they’re braver than you.
Tell it to Rachel Rooney, driven from writing children’s books because she created one called ‘My Body Is Me’ and was targetted by vicious rivals like Clara Vuillamy.
Tell James Esses, expelled from his University Course for the crime of being able to say what a woman is, a charge no-one could level at you.
Tell it to Birdy and Doozer, who have been targetted for years by trolls who are determined to ensure neither of them can earn a living.
Tell it to this woman.
Tell it to Maya Forstater, one of the most important figures in this debate, who has been fighting for herself and for every woman who might come after her.
Because I suspected you were far from being “all over it”, I did a search on Twitter on your timeline for Maya’s name and, sure enough, these were the only two results.
You’ve not so much as mentioned her name.
Pretending you’re unaware of one of the most significant figures in feminist history—even while tagged in a thread about her— is what we mean when we say evil triumphs when good people do nothing. Maya’s case has also gone to the wire, eating up years of her life, when an early intervention from you or your party might have spared everyone the farce of moments like this, which refers to when two colleagues told Maya that lesbians would have to stop calling themselves lesbians because “transwomen are women”.
Finally, tell it to @RosieDuffield1, who has been frozen out of the Labour party because of the Vichy feminists you refuse to condemn. Do you only support Rosie when there are cameras on you?
Nothing seems to embolden you enough to stand for women’s rights. Not friendship, empathy, feminism, or concern for children. It’s beginning to look like we’re just going to have to vote you out.
Philips is being deliberately obtuse. Of course we can say the word woman. That's not the issue. But we can't say the word woman and mean exclusively adult human females. THAT'S the issue.
The trans lobby wants to include men in the definition of 'woman'. That's unacceptable. We have a right to the word for our sex class.
Sounds like she's your typical "cancel culture is a right-wing myth" exponent.
Which is particularly galling considering the high profile victims of cancel culture are old school Lefties.