A Week in the War on Women: Monday 5th September - Sunday 11th September GOOD NEWS SUPPLEMENT
A handful of this week’s good news stories from the gender beat. Enjoy!
JK Tops The Chart
Just one week after its release, JK Rowling’s latest book, The Ink Black Heart, sold over 50,000 copies and soared to the top of UK’s official book chart.
Richly Deserved
Our heartfelt congratulations to the incredible Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend who was presented with her British Empire Medal this week.
This award was made in recognition of Stephanie’s service to children. When notified of this honour in June, Stephanie said:
“I am very proud to receive this honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, as founder of Transgender Trend for services to children, and I am grateful to those who nominated me.
To me this is not only vindication of my work over the past seven years. This is recognition for all the parents who have been vilified for simply wanting a proper standard of care for their children. It is confirmation that their concerns are valid and not born of bigotry. My hope is that this honour will give all parents more confidence in challenging a system that is failing children and in holding schools to account for teaching their children non-scientific concepts as truth.
Everyone who cares about the safeguarding and wellbeing of children welcomes open debate and exchange of views. Tactics to silence debate create fear of speaking up and puts children at risk. I am proud to have played my part in facilitating discussion about the treatment of children who experience gender-related distress and I am honoured to have my work recognised as being in the service of children.”
Top Thinker
Our huge congratulations also go to Professor Kathleen Stock who has topped Prospect Magazine’s list of ‘top thinkers’.
“The people have spoken. From a list of 50 top thinkers we presented in the summer issue, our readers chose the philosopher Kathleen Stock as the winner—and by a significant margin.”
A Level Playing Field
Welsh Rugby Union, rugby’s governing body in Wales, has voted to alter its ‘gender participation’ policy and, with immediate effect, will limit participation in women’s contact rugby to female players only.
“The new policy means contact rugby for players in the female category is limited to those whose sex was recorded as female at birth.”
The PM Won’t Wheesht
Two government sources have said that Liz Truss intends to intervene over Scotland’s proposed self-ID legislation.
The new Prime Minister has asked Cabinet Office lawyers for assistance to ‘pause or prevent’ the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, according to Whitehall sources.
One anonymous source told Vice Magazine, “She has asked for legal teams to look into how to ‘pause or prevent’ the Scotland Gender Recognition Act Bill, as a priority. I would not be surprised if Truss successfully stops it.”
Another commented, “She is furious about what Scotland pushing ahead with this plan could do to women’s rights in the rest of the UK, but she is concerned for Scotland too.”
Banking On It
A major sponsor of the Pride event in Boise, Idaho, withdrew its funding on learning that the event was to feature child drag performers.
“When we committed to our sponsorship of this year’s Boise Pride event, we were unaware of the event’s activities involving children/minors. Since learning of these specific activities, we have made the decision to withdraw our participation in this year's Boise Pride event.”
Happy to see the Welsh Rugby Union addressing the 'gender' issue, but "those whose sex was recorded as female at birth” is still a suspiciously circuitous way to say 'women', don't you think?
Congrats to Stephanie Davies-Arai, JK Rowling, Kathleen Stock and Welsh Rugby Union!