A Week in the War on Women: Monday 8th January - Sunday 14th January
Monday 8th January - The Long Arm of the Law
WRN: Most police forces in England and Wales are allowing male officers to carry out strip-searches on female suspects if they ‘identify’ as women.
Feminist campaign group, Women’s Rights Network, has published a report on the ‘state sanctioned sexual assault’ facilitated by current police procedures.
In December 2021, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) approved a policy paper which permits trans-identified male officers to carry out strip searches and/or intimate searches on female suspects. This policy proposed that officers should be permitted to conduct strip-searches on suspects of the opposite sex if they ‘identify’ as that ‘gender’. It is now being implemented by 35 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.
By prioritising self-declared ‘gender identity’ over the reality of sex, this policy is in contravention of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) which specifies that searches involving the removal of more than outer clothing must be conducted by, and only in the presence of, officers of the same sex as the suspect.
Nevertheless, if a female suspect objects to being strip-searched by a trans-identified male, she risks further charges being made against her. The policy states, “If the refusal is based on discriminatory views, consideration should be given for the incident [to] be recorded as a non-crime hate incident unless the circumstances amount to a recordable crime”.
Furthermore, existing police guidelines force female officers to conduct intimate searches of male suspects if the suspect ‘identifies’ as a woman. Should the officer refuse to search a male suspect, she could face disciplinary action.
Retired police superintendent, Cathy Larkman, authored the WRN report. She told The Daily Mail that dozens of female police officers had approached the WRN to express their concerns. She spoke of ‘a culture of fear’ within the police force which prevents female officers from speaking out. “I fear both for my colleagues and for vulnerable suspects”, she said.
On Wednesday this week, Diana Johnson MP raised the WRN report at a Home Affairs Select Committee meeting. Chris Philp MP, the Minister for Police, Crime & Fire, told her that he believes it is ‘wrong, disrespectful and unsafe’ for trans-identified males with a self-declared gender identity to conduct strip searches on female suspects. He stressed that the PACE code requires these searches to be carried out by an officer of the same biological sex as the suspect.
However, Philp then went on to comment that a trans-identified male with a GRC is permitted to search a female suspect within the PACE code. He implied that a male having gone through what he described as ‘the proper process’ and being in possession of a GRC has somehow magically changed sex and that there are no issues with him conducting an intimate search of a female suspect.
A woman should never have to submit to a search by a male police whatever ‘process’ he’s undergone and regardless of any certification he’s been issued.
Later in the week, The Telegraph reported that the National Police Chiefs’ Council has temporarily withdrawn its guidance. The NPCC says it is conducting a ‘thorough’ review of its policy on intimate searches. Watch this space…
Also Today - Within These Walls #1
THE TELEGRAPH: The new ‘trans guidelines’ introduced by the Scottish Prison Service are ‘even worse than before’ and will endanger women, campaigners warn.
Last month, in the wake of the Isla Bryson scandal, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) unveiled its new policy for the ‘management of transgender prisoners’. Far from protecting female prisoners from men like double rapist, Bryson, these new guidelines still prioritise the feelings of trans-identified males over the safety of women.
According to the new SPS code, which takes effect next month, trans-identified male criminals who have a history of violence against women can still be accommodated in the female estate if there is “Compelling evidence that they do not present an unacceptable risk of harm to those in the women's prison”. More shockingly, the new code means that even male prisoners deemed too dangerous for permanent accommodation could still be allowed visitation rights to women’s prisons for work and social activities etc in order to ‘support their gender identity’.
Kate Coleman, director of Keep Prisons Single Sex, commented, “This blatantly and unashamedly sees female prisoners as providing a service of ‘validation’ or as objects to be studied and emulated in order that these male prisoners might have the chance to ‘practice’ being women prior to release.”
Lisa Mackenzie, of policy analysis group Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM), also condemned these guidelines. “The SPS believes there is an acceptable level of harm that should be borne by female prisoners. This is nothing less than institutionalised misogyny.”
Later in the week, Scotland’s Criminal Justice Committee met to discuss the new SPS ‘trans policy’. Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, addressed this committee and answered a number of questions with increasingly ludicrous answers.
Russell Findlay MSP asked Medhurst whether ‘a male bodied criminal with a history of violence’ could be moved to the female estate under the new policy. She replied, “It would depend on the circumstances of that individual case”. Discussing the admission process and prisoner assessments, Medhurst claimed that it is impossible to know what sort of risks are posed by a male convicted of a violent offence - such as assault or attempted murder - who is accommodated in a women’s prison.
Sharon Dowey MSP questioned the housing of males in the female estate with women who have survived emotional and/or physical trauma and are hyper aware of possible dangers and often find it difficult to trust others. Medhurst responded, “The women in custody are actually very kind and very understanding of transgender individuals…” As Ash Regan MSP pointed out, whether or not female prisoners are ‘kind’ is irrelevant to this discussion and should not inform SPS policy.
Tuesday 9th January - An Unsporting Chance
REDUXX: A girls’ basketball team from a San Francisco high school withdrew from a game against a squad featuring a trans-identified male player.
Averroes High School is a Muslim school in San Francisco. On 4th January its girls’ basketball team was scheduled to play a varsity match against Waldorf High School. The event, however, was cancelled at the last minute.
While the school has not given a reason for this cancellation, sources close to the situation have suggested it was due to Averroes High School discovering that a trans-identified male plays on the Waldorf girls’ team.
Reduxx has not revealed the name of the male player but it has reviewed footage of him competing on the Waldorf girls’ basketball team. “He is seen towering above his female counterparts, boasting an obvious height and limb length advantage.”
According to Californian women’s advocacy group, Women Are Real, the trans-identified male player is the captain of the Waldorf girls’ team. A video posted to social media makes clear his obvious advantages over the female players; his all-important ‘vertical leap’ is much higher than that of the girls.
Julie Lane of Women Are Real told Reduxx that a concerned father had drawn the group’s attention to this male player being included on a girls’ team. The man’s daughter had played a game against the Waldorf team and the experience had left her ‘traumatized’.
After watching him play, Julie Lane described this player’s performance. She said that, while he is not particularly skilled, “The boy had an obvious advantage… He got most rebounds and was able to jump much higher than the girls. They were at a complete disadvantage”.
Wednesday 10th January - Leave Them Kids Alone #1
THE TELEGRAPH: The Scottish government has unveiled its plan to ban so-called ‘conversion therapy’ which could see caring parents behind bars.
The Scottish government wants to ‘lead the way’ in banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’ with planned legislation which was published this week by Equalities Minister, Emma Roddick. The 86-page document states that actions designed to ‘change or suppress’ an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, causing them physical or psychological harm, will be illegal under the new law.
Parents of gender confused children seem to be particularly targeted by the proposed new laws. Preventing an individual from “Dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” and “Repeatedly or continuously controlling a person's activities and appearance” are given as examples of behaviour that would contravene the legislation. Parents who will not affirm their child’s ‘gender identity’, vetoing a change of name and pronouns and / or refusing to allow cross-dressing or the wearing of a binder, could, therefore, be criminalised.
The maximum prison sentence for those found guilty of a criminal offence would be seven years and those prosecuted could also incur an unlimited fine. Alongside these new criminal sanctions are pre-emptive civil orders which could be issued by social workers or even activist groups on behalf of alleged victims. A trans lobby group, for example, could obtain a civil order against a parent on behalf of a confused trans-identified teenager. If the parent then breached this order, by refusing to affirm the teen’s ‘gender identity’ and/or standing in their way of seeking medical intervention, they could face a lengthy prison sentence.
Marion Calder, a director of For Women Scotland, told The Telegraph, “We have grave concerns that these plans will criminalise loving parents, who could face years in jail simply for refusing to sign up to the gender ideology cult. They [the Scottish government] will also hand activists and social workers unprecedented powers to meddle in family life, while having a chilling impact on therapists and counsellors.”
Writing in The Daily Mail, Susan Dalgety points out that the proposed legislation was informed by an ‘advisory group’ dominated by trans activists. She explains, “There were no social work, education or child development experts in the group. And nowhere in the consultation document is there evidence of a widespread problem that justifies new legislation with criminal sanctions.”
On the subject of this ‘expert advisory group’, Wings Over Scotland reported that the Scottish government “Doesn’t seem to want you to know who they were”. He explained the difficulty he’d had trying to access details of the group members; the government’s website appears to re-direct users to other pages which then have broken links.
Luckily, Wings preserved a list of the group members from a previous article. “It appears that of the 15 members of the group, a total of [checks, counts again] 15 are committed, dedicated transgender activists all known in advance to support the Scottish Government’s policy… So with a fairly resounding 15-0 bias on the ‘Expert Advisory Group’, readers might perhaps feel like they understand why the Scottish Government is suddenly so reluctant to let people know who it comprised”.
In other words, the Scottish government consulted only trans activists who already supported their proposed legislation and no dissenting voices were heard.
During the week, Emma Roddick made several posts on social media stating that there are ‘a number of genders’, that everyone has ‘some kind of gender identity’ and that ‘gender identity means different things to other people’.
She also seems to think that womanhood requires being ‘generally feminine’ and the wearing of make-up and dresses.
As Susan Dalgety points out, “The Scottish Government cannot even define ‘gender identity’ properly… Ms Roddick insisted on social media that gender identity ‘means different things to other people’, yet she is prepared to criminalise caring mums and dads on the basis of this nebulous concept... She has put forward half-baked proposals which, if they ever reach the statute book, will do far more harm than good for the young people she purports to care so much about”.
There is an online public consultation on this proposed ‘conversion therapy ban’. If you’d like to respond, you can do so here.
Thursday 11th January - This Never Happens
REDUXX: A trans-identified male who was jailed for murdering his wife is now seeking lifelong incarceration in the female estate.
In December 1992 Thorsten Heinz P strangled his wife to death with a clothesline at their home in western Germany. He was originally sentenced to 13 years in prison for his wife’s murder. While incarcerated, he held members of prison staff hostage on two separate occasions. One of the victims was a nurse who Heinz tied up and forced into performing ‘completely degrading sexual acts’. His sentence was extended to 25 years. When released at the end of his prison term, he threatened two couples with robbery in their homes, later claiming he had done this so that he would be returned to prison.
At some point during his incarceration, Heinz began identifying as trans. (The limited information available suggests his ‘gender identity’ developed within the last five years.) He called himself ‘Monica’ and started taking female hormones.
Heinz was recently released from a women’s prison and is now being held in a psychiatric unit. However, he is determined to return to custody, to a women’s prison, of course. This week he appeared in court, charged with faking a crime. He turned himself in to the Gelsenkirchen police, wielding a knife and claiming to have committed a robbery and to have assaulted a stranger. In court, Heinz told Judge Martin Hahnemann, “I think I should be locked up forever… I don’t deserve freedom – at least not yet. I have caused enough suffering… I’m still dangerous.”
Friday 12th January - Within These Walls #2
THE DAILY MAIL: Female prison guards will be forced to conduct intimate searches on trans-identified male inmates.
Further to the above post on the Scottish Prison Service (SPS)’s newly unveiled policy for the ‘management of transgender prisoners’, it seems that female prison officers are also being thrown under the bus of gender ideology.
Female prison staff will have to carry out intimate body searches on trans-identified male inmates according to the new protocols which come into effect in February.
Appearing at Holyrood’s criminal justice committee this week, SPS Chief Executive, Teresa Medhurst, was asked by Russell Findlay MSP whether female staff could refuse to carry out intimate searches on ‘male-bodied’ inmates. He wanted to know if there was an ‘opt out’.
Medhurst replied, “What I would say to you, Mr Findlay, is if there are concerns they are entitled to raise them and we will listen”.
So that’s a ‘no’ then.
Saturday 13th January - I Can’t Believe It’s Not Satire
BG NEWS: A trans-identified male convicted for domestic violence is suing the City of New York for an eight figure sum over his accommodation in a men’s prison.
Dylan Miles is a man who ‘identifies’ as a woman and calls himself ‘Ali’. In June and July 2022 he was held at the George R. Vierno Centre on Rikers Island, New York, while waiting for a transfer to Arizona in order to stand trial on domestic violence charges. He was subsequently convicted of harassment, aggravated harassment, disorderly conduct, threatening or intimidating, and false reporting to a law enforcement agency. He was sentenced to 312 days in prison and three years supervised probation.
Miles is now pursuing a legal action against the City of New York over his detention in a male facility. He is demanding $22,000,000 in compensation.
The suit claims that Miles is ‘in the process of transitioning’ and undergoing hormone treatment. It also alleges that Miles faced discrimination, assault, and human rights violations - such as a strip search carried out by a male prison officer as a opposed to a female - while he was housed in the George R. Vierno Centre.
Miles is no stranger to litigation and has filed a number of legal actions in the past, all based on so-called discrimination over his ‘gender identity’.
In February 2022, Miles filed a civil action against his previous employer, Sedona Soul Adventures, alleging he’d suffered ‘harassment and discrimination’ and seeking $75,000 in compensation. A month later he filed another legal action against a branch of Planet Fitness after he was escorted out of the women’s locker room there. In May 2023 Miles sued a Manhattan yoga studio for $5,000,000 because he was told to use the male locker room after female patrons had complained about his parading naked in the women’s area where female clients were undressing. He also brought legal suits against the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a café called Bagel Point, and a Bronx homeless shelter where, it is alleged, he assaulted a security guard.
All of Miles’ previous lawsuits were dismissed. His case against the City of New York will be heard on 22nd February.
Also Today - Labour Losing Women
ON LONDON: The Labour Party candidate in a local council by-election has been suspended after expressing her views on the reality of sex.
Laura Pascal was the Labour Party’s candidate for a closely-contested council by-election in the Cazenove ward in the London borough of Hackney.
This week she was suspended by the party’s London region amid allegations of ‘transphobia’. A Labour source confirmed that she has been ‘administratively suspended’, suggesting that a party member lodged a complaint about her and a decision was subsequently taken to investigate it.
Hackney’s borough organiser contacted party members by email to inform them that ‘all planned campaign sessions’ in the Cazenove ward have been cancelled. Labour will not do any further canvassing on Pascal’s behalf.
Pascal is a gender-critical feminist and has always openly expressed her views. In July 2023 she posted on X (formerly Twitter), “My embodied reality as a member of the oppressed sex class is experienced in a world where biology has a significant impact. You can believe what you want but I believe that biological sex is a real thing and neither law or some kind of new scientific consensus wld change that”. This made Pascal a target for Labour’s gender zealots and resulted in allegations of ‘transphobia’ being levelled against her.
Furthermore, Pascal’s ‘likes’ of posts on X were clearly being policed, resulting in claims of ‘virulent transphobia’ and allegations that she was ‘bullying trans women’.
When Pascal was announced as a candidate in the Hackney by-election, trans activists described her selection as Labour embracing a ‘new wave of horrific transphobia’.
As with the relentless bullying of Rosie Duffield and Tonia Antoniazzi, Labour Leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has remained conspicuously silent over this witch-hunt against Laura Pascal. More fool him. The timing of her suspension means it is not possible to nominate a different candidate before Thursday’s by-election. Consequently, if Pascal wins, she will sit as an independent councillor and Labour will have lost yet another talented woman.
Sunday 14th January - Leave Them Kids Alone #2
THE TELEGRAPH: A DWP ‘diversity ambassador’ is instructing civil servants who work in education that gender-distressed children should be prescribed puberty blockers even without their parents’ permission.
We have reported previously on trans-identified male, Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale. He is the Diversity Ambassador on Trans Issues for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the National Co-Chair of the DWP’s LGBT+ Staff Network.
Judging from his LinkedIn photograph, in which he’s wearing a black lace basque and a lesbian symbol pin, Tweedale appropriates lesbianism as well as womanhood.
He’s in favour of self-ID legislation and, writing in The Morning Star a few years ago, claimed that trans-identified males are more oppressed than actual women. He has also slandered gender critical feminists as ‘far right’ and ‘genocidal’.
In June 2023 he tabled an emergency motion at the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union meeting in Brighton. His motion called on delegates to note that “The presence of far-Right activists at the gender critical rallies in Australia was welcomed by the organisers even when they gave Nazi salutes”, a dishonest accusation which has been fully refuted and repeatedly proven to be false. He also claimed that “Statements of a genocidal nature” were made by organisers of the Let Women Speak events. Again, an outright lie which is demonstrably untrue.
This week The Telegraph reported that Tweedale has advocated for the medicalisation of gender-confused children regardless of their parents’ wishes.
In October 2023 Tweedale gave an online lecture about gender identity to the National Group of Support for Schools Advisers, a group of DWP staff who offer career advice in schools. He told them that a child’s demand for puberty blockers should take precedence over ‘parents’ will’ and he compared suppressing a child’s natural puberty with medical intervention to teenage girls using the contraceptive pill.
He also told DWP colleagues that sex being binary is not “The modern scientific view” and that “There are as many genders as there are individuals”.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he works “Across Government and with employers large and small, local and national, developing Trans inclusive policies and practices, and delivering bespoke trans awareness training”.
A man who colonises lesbianism, seeks to destroy women’s rights, preaches anti-science dogma to colleagues and advocates the medicalisation of vulnerable children without their parents’ permission… and he has the ear of the government.
See you next week.
Why does Tweedale think that looking like Jimmy Savile is a good look? Surely this has been pointed out to him by his government colleagues...or are they too scared to open their mouths?
oh how depressing as usual. Thanks though JL.