A Week in the War on Women: Monday 11th March - Sunday 17th March

Monday 11th March - Witch Burning In The 21st Century

THE TELEGRAPH: It has been alleged that police recorded a ‘non-crime hate incident’ against JK Rowling, breaching government regulations on free speech.

Last week, as part of a much longer discussion about women’s single-sex spaces, JK Rowling replied to a comment on social media which claimed that India Willoughby is a woman. She wrote, entirely accurately, “India didn’t become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is”.

Willoughby, of course, then raged constantly about being ‘misgendered’.

In an interview with Byline TV, he boasted that he had reported JK Rowling to the Northumbria Police for ‘misgendering’ him, (wrongly) claiming that JK Rowling had breached the ‘Equalities [sic] Act’.

However, Northumbria Police advised Willoughby that they will not be taking any action against JK Rowling and that her actions (ie referring to him as male, which he is) ‘did not meet the criminal threshold’.

India (formerly Jonathan) Willoughby prior to ‘transition’

58-year-old India (formerly Jonathan) Willoughby is a trans-identified male who has fathered a son. He enjoyed an unremarkable career as a regional TV reporter until, aged fifty, he announced that he ‘identified as a woman’ and embarked on ‘transition’. His new gender identity temporarily helped to boost his career and he became a regular panellist on ITV’s Loose Women and presented Channel 5 News for a while.

In 2018 he appeared, very briefly, on Celebrity Big Brother. In one memorable scene, believing that he had been ‘misgendered’, Willoughby raged at and bullied the female contestants. Singling out 80-year-old actress, Amanda Barrie, he yelled at her, “I’m a real woman, Amanda! I’m glad that’s sinking in. I’m going to say it one more time so it really penetrates! I AM A REAL WOMAN!”

As is so often the case with this ideology, Willoughby’s definition of a ‘real woman’ relies the stereotypical femininity to which he desperately tries to cling. He appeared on Woman's Hour a few years ago to discuss a news story about the Dorchester Hotel insisting on female employees shaving their legs. Willoughby said that hair removal is a 'grooming standard' to which women should adhere and implied those who don’t are ‘grubby’. Host, Jenni Murray, asked how he would have reacted had he been required to shave his legs when ‘living as a man’. He responded, “What a bizarre question, Jenni. Why would I shave my legs when I was living as a man?”

Willoughby has demonstrated his misogyny on countless occasions and vents his anger at the women who refuse to play along with his cosplaying of their sex.

Willoughby has likened JK Rowling to Hitler.

He also urged legal action against JK Rowling when she objected to a children’s charity appointing a paedophile apologist as a trustee. (For a former journalist, Willoughby doesn’t seem overly concerned about evidence and facts.)

He attacks Sharron Davies because she speaks out in defence of women’s sport.

He tried to sabotage Amelia Strickler’s sponsorship deals and training opportunities when she did the same.

His lesbophobia is frequently in evidence.

Without a trace of irony or self-awareness, he describes gender non-conforming women as dressing and behaving ‘like blokes’.

He can be blatantly homophobic, too.

On one occasion he expressed the view that the UK needs ‘a barbed wire fence like Trump’s’ to prevent migrants from entering the country.

He advocates for the medicalising of gender-confused children and, despite all the ever-burgeoning and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, only this week he tried to claim that puberty blockers are ‘totally harmless’. (Again, for someone who worked in journalism, he seems unburdened by any need for truth and evidence.)

And he’s no stranger to ‘misgendering’ and attacking other trans people.

Following the failure of his attempt to have JK Rowling arrested, Willoughby alleged that Northumbria Police recorded a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI) over Rowling’s comments describing him as male.

If Willoughby is to be believed, then Northumbria Police have breached Home Office regulations. Government guidelines make perfectly clear that police must consider freedom of expression protections when deciding whether to record NCHIs.

Maya Forstater told The Telegraph: “Guidance issued last year makes it clear that a non-crime hate incident should not be recorded for saying that sex matters. That guidance reinforced protections for freedom of expression and expressly stated that a non-crime hate incident should not be recorded on the basis of someone being offended. JK Rowling’s comments clearly don’t meet the threshold for a non-crime hate incident. If they have been recorded as such, Northumbria Police should be required to defend its decision to record a woman speaking in factual terms about a man who has persistently hounded her.”

When asked about Willoughby’s claims that an NCHI had been recorded, Northumbria Police Force said it had no further comment to make.

Also Today - Under His Aye

THE SPECTATOR: When Scotland’s Orwellian new ‘hate crime’ law comes into force next month, women defending their sex-based rights could be criminalised.

Staying with the JK Rowling story above, now that India Willoughby’s attempts to have her arrested by an English police force have failed, trans rights activists in Scotland are trying to coerce the Scottish police into taking action.

They are trying to take advantage of Scotland’s Orwellian new law, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which, appropriately, takes effect on 1st April. This legislation will create a new offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ against those with certain protected characteristics. These characteristics include ‘gender identity’ but not ‘sex’. The definition of ‘stirring up hatred’ is incredibly vague and the Police Scotland website defines a hate crime as “Any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated, wholly or partly by malice or ill will towards a social group”.

Consequently, accusations of ‘stirring up hatred’ could be levelled at anyone challenging gender identity ideology or upholding sex realism, making it impossible for women to defend their sex-based rights and protections. Even those discussing gender identity ideology in private could be deemed guilty of a ‘transphobic hate crime’. As Iain Macwhirter writes, “It gives carte blanche to anyone who feels they have been misgendered… to leap to their nearest reporting centre to ventilate their hurt feelings”.

Despite a new policy which means that around 24,000 minor offences - such as theft and vandalism - will no longer be investigated, Police Scotland will be expected to investigate every single reported ‘hate incident’. Furthermore, Scottish police will be expected to record so-called ‘hate incidents’ even when no law has been broken.

With procedures which appear to have been borrowed from the Stasi, Police Scotland has designated 411 locations known as ‘third-party reporting centres’ where citizens can report ‘hate crimes’. Any business or organisation can volunteer to be one of these centres and locations include an ‘LGBTQ friendly’ sex shop and a mushroom farm.

SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC told the BBC, “This new law leaves women unprotected from hate crime”. It will, she pointed out, “Be weaponised by trans rights activists to try to silence, and worse still, criminalise women who do not share their beliefs”. Indeed, even before it comes into force, trans activists are trying to use it to silence JK Rowling.

Tuesday 12th March - Follow The Money

THE DAILY MAIL: Stonewall is still receiving huge sums of public money.

This week, an investigation by the think tank, The TaxPayers’ Alliance, revealed the extent to which Stonewall is still being funded by the tax payer. Not only does Stonewall receive substantial government grants, but publicly funded bodies also subscribe to its Diversity Champions scheme in return for training and services etc. Stonewall uses its funding to lobby the UK Parliament so, in effect, it is being paid by the government to try and influence the government.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance report found that during the financial year 2022/2023:

• Stonewall received £1,107,868 of public money through taxpayer funded organisations.

• Stonewall received funding from at least 173 public bodies via its memberships, conferences, events and training programmes.

• At least 165 public bodies and at least 71 educational bodies were members of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme with membership fees totalling £257,945.

• Stonewall received grants totalling £572,868 from public bodies with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Scottish government handing over the highest amounts; £173,034 and £101,613 respectively.

• The Scottish Government generated the most non-grant revenue for Stonewall, a total of £10,944.

Writing in The Times, Jawad Iqbal commented, “Stonewall is perfectly entitled to pursue its policy and campaigning agenda but it should not be given money to do so by the very organisations it is lobbying on policy. That amounts to a clear conflict of interest.”

Also Today - No Lesbians, Please; We’re Holyrood

This week a woman visiting the Scottish Parliament was forced to remove the badge she was wearing because it read ‘SCOTTISH LESBIANS’.

Campaign group, Scottish Lesbians, are comprised of “Exclusively same sex attracted females fighting for lesbian wellbeing and community”. This week they reported on X (formerly Twitter) that one of their number had to remove her ‘Scottish Lesbians’ badge before being allowed into the Scottish Parliament. It was claimed that the badge expressed a ‘partisan message’. The woman was then checked in by a Parliamentary official wearing a rainbow lanyard.

It seems that, in Holyrood, some things are deemed more partisan than others…

MSP, Jeremy Balfour, has now written to the presiding officer asking for an investigation into this incident. In his letter, he points out that, on another occasion, a woman at Holyrood was asked to remove the scarf she was wearing because it was in the suffragette colours. “Rainbow colours are fine and some political statements are fine,” writes Balfour. “But not those by women who disagree with the Scottish Government’s views on women’s sex-based rights.”

Wednesday 13th March - These Are Not Our Crimes

THE CHRONICLE: A violent man who terrorised his neighbours and assaulted a police officer now ‘identifies’ as a woman.

Andrew Fleming has been described as a ‘neighbour from hell’. He terrorised a Newcastle couple after moving into a flat downstairs from their home in February last year. Initially his female neighbour tried to be helpful and welcoming but Fleming’s behaviour was so bad - banging on her door at anti-social times and making unreasonable demands - that eventually, she asked him to stop contacting her.

He then embarked on a campaign of harassment and aggression, intimidating, stalking, yelling threats and insults at the woman, hammering on her door late at night and shouting abuse at her. On one occasion, as the woman got into her car, Fleming was yelling threats that he was going to punch and kill her. She was so frightened, crying and shaking with fear, that her husband called the police. When Fleming was subsequently arrested, he assaulted a police officer.

In court, Fleming’s female victim made an impact statement saying that she is absolutely terrified of him and extremely frightened of what he is capable of doing. Fleming pleaded guilty to harassment, putting a person in fear of violence and assaulting an emergency worker. He failed to attend his sentencing hearing this week but was jailed for 41 weeks and given a restraining order which prevents him from contacting the victims.

Fleming now ‘identifies’ as a woman and calls himself Susan Hope. He was referred to with female pronouns in this article in The Chronicle and, it would appear, in court.

Also Today - Putting The Men in Menopause

THE DAILY MAIL: New NHS employee guidance states that not everyone who experiences the menopause is a woman.

The NHS has just published a 17-page ‘menopause policy’ which will apply to all its employees in England. It is intended to create a ‘kind and caring culture’ for women affected by the menopause.

However, it claims that ‘not everyone who experiences menopause is a woman’ and states, “Transgender, non-binary, and intersex colleagues may also experience menopause and will have specific needs”.

The guidance was published briefly online but the NHS then removed the document after being contacted for comment by The Daily Mail. A spokesman claimed that it was only in draft form and had been published in error prematurely.

You may recall that a couple of years ago the NHS removed the words ‘woman’ and ‘women’ from its online information pages relating to cervical and ovarian cancers. In 2021, for example, the NHS information webpage on cervical cancer read, ‘Cervical cancer develops in a woman’s cervix… It mainly affects sexually active women aged between 30 and 45”. But by June 2022, this had been changed to, “Cervical cancer is a cancer that is found anywhere in the cervix”. Similarly, the information on ovarian cancer was altered from “Cancer of the ovaries is one of the most common types of cancer in women” to “Anyone with ovaries can get ovarian cancer”.

Now the NHS is subverting yet another uniquely female condition; the menopause.

And the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is at it, too, pretending that pregnancy and birth aren’t experiences exclusive to women.

Heather Binning, of the Women's Rights Network, told The Daily Mail “Using terms other than ‘women’ and ‘female’ confuses health policy and if you make ‘menopause’ a policy for ‘people’, don’t be surprised if men suddenly have more of a say in how it is implemented and followed”.

Thursday 14th March - Leave Them Kids Alone

THE TIMES: Despite the Europe-wide move against their use, puberty blockers are still being prescribed to gender-distressed children in Scotland.

Earlier this week NHS England (NHSE) announced that puberty blockers will no longer be prescribed for children who have issues around their gender. The new policy states that puberty blockers will only be available to dysphoric children as part of a strictly controlled research trial. “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”

Nevertheless, these contentious and experimental drugs will still be available at the Sandyford young people’s gender clinic in Glasgow. Writing in The Times, Alex Massie points out how both clinicians and politicians in Scotland have ignored the mounting evidence on the danger of puberty blockers and refused to research or debate their use. “The insouciance with which the authorities — political and medical alike — have treated this issue is something worse than merely reckless”, he says. “It is grotesque.”

Also this week, an article in The Telegraph made clear that The Sandyford Clinic the is still following discredited WPATH guidelines.

Also Today - Oh, Canada

REDUXX: The Supreme Court of Canada has criticised the judge of a lower court for referring to a female sexual assault victim as ‘a woman’.

In 2020, Christopher James Kruk, of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, was convicted of sexual assault. Three years earlier he had met a heavily intoxicated woman late one evening in the city centre and offered to see her safely home. Instead, he took her to his own residence where the woman fell asleep or possibly passed out. She awoke to find Kruk penetrating her and, though she tried to fight him off, she was not strong enough to do so. Kruk was subsequently arrested and charged.

At his trial, Kruk claimed that he had not assaulted the woman. He maintained that he had simply tried to wake her up and she was so startled that she misinterpreted the sensation as rape. Justice Michael Tammen said that Kruk’s defence was ‘fanciful’ and pointed out that it would be “Extremely unlikely that a woman would be mistaken” about being penetrated by a penis. He found Kruk guilty of sexual assault.

In 2022 an appeals court overruled Kruk’s conviction, claiming that Judge Tammen had “Engaged in speculative reasoning” and “Made an assumption on a matter that was not so well known as to be notorious, that was not capable of immediate and accurate proof.”

This week, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the appeals court was in error overturning Kruk’s conviction and determined that Judge Tammen had acted appropriately in the case. However, in making this ruling, Justice Sheilah Martin challenged Judge Tammen’s description of the victim as ‘a woman’.

Justice Martin wrote, “Where a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty that they felt penile‑vaginal penetration, a trial judge must be entitled to conclude that they are unlikely to be mistaken”. She went on to comment that, “The choice of the trial judge to use the words ‘a woman’ may have been unfortunate and engendered confusion”. She did not explain how.

It seems that the female judges of the Supreme Court of Canada can and do describe themselves as women. But a rape victim has to be a ‘person with a vagina’.

Friday 15th March - This Never Happens

SALISBURY JOURNAL: A trans-identified male has been convicted of the possession of an ‘abhorrent’ collection of 16,000 child abuse images.

We have reported previously on Samantha Norris. In January 2024, the 56-year-old trans-identified male appeared in Southampton Crown Court charged with several sex-based offences. At the outset of the trial, Judge Christopher Parker KC told the jury that “Samantha Norris is in the course of gender transition at the moment and prefers to be referred to as she”. It appears the court acceded to his wishes and he was referred to with female pronouns throughout proceedings.

Norris pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing prohibited images of children and a charge of possessing an extreme pornographic image. He was also accused of exposing himself and performing sexual acts in front of two young schoolgirls who were passing his house in July 2023 but he was not convicted of these charges.

Following Norris’ guilty pleas, Judge Christopher Parker KC adjourned the case so that a report could be prepared to assess the risk Norris poses to the public

This week Norris returned to court for sentencing and the full horror of his crimes has been revealed. It is reported that Norris was in possession of over 16,000 indecent images of children. Around 2000 still images and 121 videos were deemed Category A, the most serious classification, indicating depictions of penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity involving an animal or sadism. The images included children aged as young as three and others depicted youngsters aged around six years old in ‘distress and pain’.

Furthermore, Norris had been found in possession of written notes describing his sexual fantasies involving a four-year-old child and his ‘new year’s resolution’ to sexually abuse a girl under the age of ten.

Following Norris’ initial arrest in July 2023, Police in the Hampshire town of Ringwood reported on the incident via social media. They were rather coy about revealing their suspect’s sex, stating that ‘a person’ had been charged and using gender neutral pronouns throughout their post.

Worse still, the media reported Norris as being a woman with some outlets even referring to him as ‘female’.

The Bournemouth Echo, for example, described Norris as a woman.

The Portsmouth News called him a ‘woman’ and also used the term 'female'.

Yahoo also described him as ‘female’.

But sex offender Samantha Norris is not female. He’s a dangerous, predatory man.

Sentencing Norris to two years imprisonment, Judge Nicholas Rowland told him, “Your views are alarming and complex – you present a high risk of harm to children”.

Also Today - A Room Of One’s Own

NEW YORK POST: Planet Fitness gym has revoked a woman’s membership after she challenged a man shaving in the female changing room.

Patricia Silva used to be a member of Planet Fitness gym at her local branch in Fairbanks, Alaska. Earlier in the week she visited the gym and encountered a man shaving at a sink in the women’s locker room. She described the incident in a video which she posted online.

“I just came out of Planet Fitness, and there is a man shaving in the women’s bathroom.” Patricia said that she understood the man may have issues with his ‘gender’ but that she isn’t comfortable with a male in the female bathroom. In a second video, Patricia revealed that there was a child in the locker room. “A little girl sitting in the corner, could’ve been twelve years old… in a towel, kinda freaked out that there’s a man shaving in her locker room.” Patricia said that she took a photograph of the man and asked him why, as a male with a penis, he was using the female facilities. He apparently tried to justify his presence there by saying that he is ‘queer LGB’.

The following day, Patricia’s Planet Fitness membership was revoked. She received a phone call from the gym to notify her that they had cancelled her membership. “Planet Fitness is defending the man in the women’s locker room, the man with a penis, rather than the child in the corner with a towel wrapped around her”, she said.

Planet Fitness chief corporate affairs officer, McCall Gosselin, gave a statement to Fox News Digital: “As the home of the Judgement Free Zone, Planet Fitness is committed to creating an inclusive environment. Our gender identity non-discrimination policy, states that members and guests may use the gym facilities that best align with their sincere, self-reported gender identity. The member who posted on social media violated our mobile device policy that prohibits taking photos of individuals in the locker room, which resulted in their membership being terminated.” 

IMAGE CREDIT: @libsoftiktok

This is the man, shaving in the women’s bathroom, whose ‘sincere, self-reported gender identity’ Planet Fitness deems more important than the safety and privacy of its female members.

Also Today - Disorder In The House

SKY NEWS: A group of MPs deliberately prevented the discussion of a bill which seeks to defend women’s sex-based rights and to protect vulnerable children.

Liz Truss’ private members bill - The Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill - is “A Bill to regulate access to hormone therapy for children under the age of 18; to make provision relating to social transition practices in schools and other settings; to make provision regarding the meaning of the protected characteristic of sex; and for connected purposes.”

It was due to have its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday, being third on the list to be discussed by MPs. However, a number of MPs engaged in a behaviour known as ‘filibustering’ - speaking at great length during earlier debates - to prevent Truss’s bill from being heard. Four hours were spent debating the Animal Welfare Bill with some MPs running down the clock by talking endlessly about ferrets and the names of their past, present and future pets.

Venting her anger about this sabotaging of her bill, Liz Truss singled out Labour MPs. “I’m furious that Labour MPs have filibustered in Parliament today to prevent debate of my private members bill”, she said. “Concerned parents will want to know why Labour don't even want to discuss how to protect children and single-sex spaces.” However, it is understood that some Conservative MPs also engaged in these reprehensible delaying tactics.

The bill has now been rescheduled for discussion on 22nd March but, as it will fall to the bottom of the list, it is unlikely to be debated. (If you’re in the UK, you could contact you MP and ask them to ensure this draft bill is heard. Sex Matters have supplied all the information you will need.)

Saturday 16th March - A Fistful Of Dollars

THE TIMES: The GIDS ‘activist clinicians’ who promoted the use of experimental puberty blockers for vulnerable children are to receive hefty financial pay-outs.

The staff at GIDS, the NHS child gender service, who championed the use of puberty blockers for vulnerable youngsters will receive huge NHS pay-outs now that the clinic is to close at the end of the month.

Many of the whistle-blowers at the Tavistock and Portman Clinic risked their jobs, careers and professional reputations in order to speak out against the harm being caused to children there. They have condemned the pay-outs being made to the main architects of the clinic’s failure, claiming they are being ‘rewarded for malpractice’.

Of all those in receipt of substantial NHS lump sums, perhaps the most galling is Dr Polly Carmichael. She has been the GIDS director for the past decade and a very vocal advocate of puberty blockers throughout her tenure.

In 2014, the BBC screened a programme called I Am Leo, a documentary about a 13-year-old female child who identifies as male, gets diagnosed at the Tavistock & Portman clinic and begins taking puberty blockers. Polly Carmichael, appeared in the programme, promoting the drugs as a harmless pause button with no side effects.

It was under Carmichael’s stewardship that GIDS began placing much greater emphasis on interventional medical treatment for dysphoric children and, for the first time, allowed puberty blockers to be considered for children under the age of twelve. In 2016 Polly Carmichael gave a presentation at a WPATH symposium in Amsterdam and spoke proudly about the GIDS early intervention programme.

Hannah Barnes’ book, Time to Think, details the relationship between GIDS and scandal-ridden charity, Mermaids, an association which has been ongoing since at least 2011. In May 2023, The Telegraph reported on newly-released documents which demonstrate the shocking extent to which former Mermaids boss, Susie Green, was involved in the running of the clinic. (Green, you will remember, is a former IT worker with no clinical training or expertise.)

The Telegraph report revealed that Susie Green was allowed ­to refer children to GIDS for treatment and it published communications between her and Carmichael on this subject. In one exchange from 2016, Green emailed Carmichael to challenge the rejection of a referral she had made. Green said that she had been told “The referral was not validated or risk-assessed by a professional” and demanded to know the reason for this decision. Carmichael replied, “We do accept referrals from third sector groups and I know that you have helpfully sent in referrals in the past. This continues to be the case”.

Emails from Susie Green referring children to GIDS

In 2018, Carmichael emailed Green inviting her to take part in research intended to ‘inform health and education providers’, looking at the development of gender identity in children aged 3-14. Carmichael wrote, “We are in the process of submitting an application to NIHR to follow younger service users. It would be great if Mermaids would be involved”.

As evidenced in Hannah Barnes’ book, Time to Think, it is estimated that over 1000 children have been prescribed puberty blockers at the Tavistock.

When the clinic closes at the end of the month, Polly Carmichael, one of those responsible for the medicalisation of over 100 children, gets to walk away with an NHS pay-out of at least £80,000.

A senior GIDS clinician who left the clinic for ethical reasons told The Times “They are driving off into the sunset, leaving ruin behind… It’s a total failure of accountability and governance and is an injustice. It’s a type of institutional rot.”

Sunday 17th March - An Unsuitable Boy

This week the Green Party Scotland announced its UK general election candidate for Aberdeen North; a male trans activist who celebrated the physical assault of a middle aged woman at a feminist event.

In July last year, The Women Won't Wheesht feminist campaign group organised a rally in Duthie Park in Aberdeen.

Trans-identified male and Green Party Scotland’s she/her du jour, Esme Houston, instigated a protest against this event. Not a great look on a would-be politician, interfering with citizens exercising their perfectly legal right to public assembly.

As we reported at the time of this protest, a 54-year old disabled woman, Julie Marshall, was seriously assaulted by a male trans rights activist.

The man at the protest stole a WWW banner so Julie tried to retrieve it and was assaulted in the attempt. The assailant hit her full in the face, causing her glasses to fly off, and he then punched her in the arm.

Julie, who has a bone disease, suffered a black eye and a badly bruised arm and was in a great deal of pain following the assault. She subsequently required medical attention because of her condition.

Julie Marshall’s bruised arm & black eye - IMAGE CREDIT: The Times

Following the protest he organised, Esme Houston posted on social media to celebrate the assault of a middle aged disabled woman as a ‘victory’.

It seems that Houston was at it again this weekend and turned out to try and sabotage another free speech event organised by Women Won’t Wheesht.

In one photograph he can be seen playing a childish musical instrument to try and drown out the women who were speaking.

This is the Green Party Scotland’s chosen candidate to stand as an MP for Aberdeen North, a man who celebrates violence against women and tries to interfere with women’s legal rights to assembly and free speech.

Houston, we have a problem.

See you next week.