A Week in the War on Women: Monday 14th September - Sunday 20th September
By JL
Monday 14th September - It Says the Pronouns or it Gets the Hose Again
Both The Independent and the NME published articles about Gina Carano’s refusal to play the pronouns game. However, they totally failed to mention the avalanche of threats and abuse she has received as a result.
Actor and MMA star, Gina Carano, has been subjected to months of online harassment after refusing to add pronouns to her Twitter bio.
In response to the endless abuse, Carano added the light-hearted ‘beep/bop/boop’ to her profile. Of course, she was accused of mocking transpeople and there were calls for her to be fired from her role in Disney’s Mandalorian.
“I’m not against trans lives at all”, said Carano. “They need to find less abusive representation”.
Tuesday 15th September - The (Predatory) Cuckoos in the Nest
FEMINIST CURRENT: A woman who works in a American women’s shelter speaks out about the protections afforded to the trans-identified males accommodated there.
“Men have always been welcome to stay alongside the women, on one condition: the men must tell us they are women.”
The author describes how one man, with a clearly visible erection, stalked a female resident around the shelter. Another man propositioned a woman in the bathroom, asking her to perform oral sex on him, and a third was watching porn and openly masturbating in a shared dormitory.
Most of the women in this shelter are escaping from male violence and male sexual violence and many of them are traumatised and suffering with PTSD.
But if any of them raise concerns about the males in the shelter, the staff rarely record or try to address their complaints. The males, however, are afforded the greatest respect and protection and any ‘misgendering’ is jumped on immediately.
“In order to conform to the caprices of the trending ideology, to be squeaky-clean on-message good progressives, to be caring and sensitive politically savvy good feminists, it is now shelter policy that we prioritize protecting men’s delusions, even if that means we can no longer protect women.”
Wednesday 16th September - No Sex Please, We’re Doctors
THE SPECTATOR: Transwoman, Debbie Hayton, writes about the Ideological capture of the British Medical Association; even medical professionals are prioritising gender identity over the reality of biological sex.
Surely if anyone should understand the significance of sex, it is medical professionals. Blood donations from women who have been pregnant can be lethal to males, for example, and Covid19 demonstrates how important a patient’s sex can be to a disease’s prognosis and morbidity rate.
However, At its annual representative meeting this week, members of the BMA passed a motion allowing for people to ‘change’ their sex, based solely on a 'witnessed, sworn statement'.
Last year we spoke to Clare Dimyon MBE, a rape survivor for whom female-only spaces and female clinicians are vital to her medical treatment. Earlier this year trans-identified male, “Julie” Marshall, was convicted of making indecent images of children after accessing child pornography in an NHS hospital ward. In January The Independent reported on the soaring numbers of sexual assaults on hospital wards. There are innumerable reasons why this policy is senseless and dangerous.
As Debbie Hayton says, “There is nothing progressive about such policies: this motion could demolish the boundaries that protect the rights women have fought for over the past hundred years.”
Thursday 17th September - Playing Mummies & Daddies en Français
FRANCE 24: A French court has prevented a trans identified male from being legally recorded as the mother of the child he fathered.
While this decision to uphold common sense over narcissistic delusion is laudable, let’s just pause to examine the facts of the case in more detail:
In 2011 a fully intact male was recognised as legally female by French authorities. In 2014 he fathered a child with his wife. He spent the last six years embroiled in a legal battle to be legally recognised as the child’s second mother, not its father.
In 2018 he was granted the status of “biological parent”, a newly created category, by a court in Montpellier. However, the Cour de Cassation, the highest court of the French judiciary, threw out most of that ruling at a hearing this week and has referred the case back to a lower court.
One of the man’s supporters said he found it ridiculous that someone who is legally female could not be recorded as a child’s mother. Well, yes. Because he isn’t female and should never have been deemed so in the first place.
Lawyers for the man said they’ll be taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.
Meanwhile, there’s a child in the middle of all this.
Friday 18th September - Shouldn’t the Courts Be Upholding the Law?
BBC NEWS: A “gender-fluid” worker has won an employment tribunal against Jaguar Land Rover.
A male, referred to in the article as Ms R Taylor, worked for JLR as an engineer for 20 years. In 2017 he began identifying as ‘gender-fluid’ and dressing in clothing traditionally thought of as female.
He claims he suffered insults from co-workers, was not supported by his managers and had difficulty using the toilet facilities he preferred. While nobody should be subjected to bullying in the workplace, putting on a dress doesn’t mean a man can women’s spaces.
Taylor resigned from JLR in 2018 before taking the company to a tribunal, claiming that he had suffered harassment and discrimination because of gender reassignment and sexual orientation.
Sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity. And sticking a skirt on is not gender reassignment. This point was made by JLR’s lawyers who argued that identifying as ‘gender-fluid’ or ‘non-binary’ does not fall within the definition of a person who has undergone gender reassignment and is not, therefore, a protected characteristic under the Equality Act (2010).
However, Taylor’s lawyer argued the government itself refers to gender as a spectrum in parliamentary debates about equalities legislation.
The tribunal found in Taylor’s favour.
Although employment tribunals cannot set legal precedents, this decision is deeply concerning. If baseless and wholly subjective ‘gender identities’ can be accommodated within the Equalities Act 2010, how will the law square this with the protected characteristic of sex?
Saturday 19th September - It’s Not Radical to Know the Difference Between Sex & Gender
THE SPECTATOR: Hadley Freeman discusses the ‘radical’ idea that sex and gender are not the same.
“I think I’ve long been pretty au fait with the idea that gender expression and biological sex are not necessarily linked. Who knew, 40 years after Boy George, 100 years after Radclyffe Hall, that this was a controversial idea?”
But, says Freeman, she has been radicalised in a way. Like so many women, she has been programmed to please, to fear upsetting or angering others. However, refusing to believe that being a woman is just a psychological concept and speaking out against the repercussions of gender identity ideology has resulted in online harassment and even cost her friends… But she doesn’t care.
“Now I’m a woman who displeases people, which gender theorists should celebrate as overturning gender norms. And yet, strangely, they do not. Turns out I don’t understand what being a woman means after all.”
Sunday 20th September - That’s the Sound of the Police (in TRA pockets)
Police arrested Posie Parker at an event in Leeds intended to discuss women’s rights.
Women’s rights activist and founder of Standing for Women, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (known as “Posie Parker”), organised an event in Leeds city centre. Supported by feminist campaign group, Leeds ReSisters, the meeting was intended to “Create space for women to speak without fear”.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen as police appeared to disperse the attendees and prevent women from speaking.
Initially, the objection seemed to be the number of people present, then police claimed the problem lay in the event was not a political meeting and, therefore, breached Covid19 regulations.
Um…
Eventually, Posie was arrested (though released some hours later).
This is not the first time Posie has been of interest to West Yorkshire Police; she was interviewed by the force after some of her tweets upset Mermaids CEO, Susie Green.
Our very own Graham Linehan was also on the receiving end of a West Yorkshire Police knuckles-wrap after engaging with a litigious trans activist on social media.
Further footage of the event shows police arresting another woman.
Here's Posie herself, fresh from the cells, to describe what happened in greater detail.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the West Yorkshire Police force has its very own Lead Trans Awareness officer.
See you next week.
An excellent round-up as usual. Thank you!
I was wrong in my comment the other day about the Leeds demo. I wasn't able to take the time to watch the entire video. I did watch Posie discuss what happened and it is truly shocking. Thanks for the follow-up.