A Week in the War on Women: Monday 7th September - Sunday 13th September
By JL
Monday 7th September - Protecting the Equality Act 2010
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is a national body set up to promote and enforce the laws that protect people’s right to fairness, respect and dignity. As such, it is an important advisor to policymakers, public bodies and businesses. The Government Equalities Office is responsible for equality legislation and policies relating to women and people from LGBT groups and it works closely with a number of government departments.
However, for years these two bodies, which are supposed to uphold the Equalities Act 2010, have been giving inaccurate information regarding its terms, specifically the exemptions which protect female-only services and spaces.
As a consequence, public bodies and businesses have adopted policies which break the law, leaving themselves open to legal action.
The Authentic Equity Alliance has already taken legal action in respect of this misrepresentation of the Equalities Act. It wants the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Government Equalities Office to publicly acknowledge that they have been providing false information and to alert the employers and training companies etc to which they have provided guidance.
We spoke to Authentic Equity Alliance founder and director, Ann Sinnott, who gave us the following statement:
“The case is multi-faceted - one aspect requires the guidance to be amended and a public statement to be pinned to the home page of their websites for a specified length of time AND for a specified list of organisations to be informed directly.
The EHRC's unlawful guidance was in place for almost 10 years, accessed in that period innumerable times by countless organisations and then replicated in their equality policies. And also accessed and then disseminated by other public bodies, management consultancies and training agencies, including by Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence et al. The same goes for the GEO guidance which has been in situ for almost 6 years.
Untold damage has been done. Irrespective of outcome, fighting this case will greatly undo that damage - not least, it will be made clear that excluding transsexuals, with or without a GRC, from women-only spaces and services does not equate to 'gender reassignment discrimination' - just as it says in the Equality Act.”
For further information and to contribute to the AEA’s legal fees, please see its crowdjustice page.
Tuesday 8th September - Witch Burning in Scotland
THE DAILY RECORD: Women’s rights campaigners live in fear of trans activists.
Leaders of feminist group, For Women Scotland (FWS), told The Daily Record about the threats and abuse they have received as a result of campaigning for women’s sex-based rights. FWS had to increase security at their meetings after attendees were filmed and bullied and some meetings had to be cancelled altogether due to safety concerns.
Group leaders have also suffered abuse and violent threats by email. Spokesperson, Susan Smith, told the paper, “It’s frightening to be targeted, to open up our laptops and read personal attacks and lies, and to see them gain traction among groups with the ear of politicians.”
FWS believes that Sisters Uncut and Edinburgh Action for Trans Health are responsible for the abuse and threats. Neither group responded to the newspaper’s request for comment.
Wednesday 9th September - Women Tell Tedx London Tx Fxck Rxght Xff
THE DAILY MAIL: Tedx London are using the term ‘womxn’ to be more inclusive… of males
Tedx London is a non-profit volunteer-led organisation which holds events “Inspired by the TED philosophy”.
Last week, it tweeted about its forthcoming programme of online events using the made-up term ‘womxn’ instead of the actual word ‘women’.
When challenged on its use of female-erasing non-words, Tedx London responded, “‘Womxn is a spelling of ‘women’ that’s more inclusive and progressive… and explicitly includes non-cisgender women”.
“Non cis-gender women”?? Only biological females can ever be included in the word ‘woman’, however it’s spelled.
Thursday 10th September - Witch Burning in Yorkshire
The Harlequin Pub in Sheffield, or rather its redoubtable landlady, Liz, has been reported for “Gross misconduct” for having feminist opinions on Twitter.
In this brilliant blog post, Liz explains that someone claiming to be a customer has contacted one of her suppliers to report her for ‘transphobia’. Using the pub’s Twitter account, Liz has been ‘liking’ tweets which support female rights and interacting with online friends on this and other issues.
In his email to the director of a brewery which supplies The Harlequin, the complainant demands that Liz is sacked (apparently, he doesn’t understand the relationship between a brewery and an independent pub) and must apologise and delete her Twitter account. He also threatens to contact other organisations about Liz’s ‘behaviour’.
Liz is no stranger to such nonsense. A couple of years ago, The Harlequin hosted a WPUK meeting which prompted allegations of transphobia, not least from Sophie Wilson, vehement defender of strip clubs and the Labour Party candidate who lost Rother Valley to the Tories.
Sophie and her fellow Labour councillor, Neale Gibson, accused the business of being hostile to trans people and of making anti-trans comments online. Liz vehemently denied these allegations and they remain unsubstantiated.
Friday 11th September - Watching the Detectives
THE CRITIC: A new Fair Cop report demonstrates how Stonewall uses the police as its political lackeys.
On National Autism Day not one police force in the UK could be found flying an Autism Society flag. And yet every police force around the country is dripping with rainbow flags, repainting cars and wearing specially commissioned epaulettes during Pride month. (All funded by thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money, of course.)
A new Fair Cop report reveals how Stonewall can bypass existing legislation by using the police to further its aims even though they are not actually enshrined in law. For example, crimes are being recorded by ‘gender identity’ as opposed to sex, so even a rapist can be recorded as female if that’s how he claims to identify.
Just as disturbing is the Orwellian recording of “non-crime hate incidents”. Although no law has broken, such an incident will show up on a DBS check and relies entirely on the so-called victim’s perception for definition.
Here’s a reminder of the kind of ‘hate crime’ they’re talking about.
“Fair Cop’s report highlights that British police forces no longer have sole loyalty to British law... The police’s close association with Stonewall risks making it an accomplice to the lobby group’s political agenda.”
Saturday 12th September - One Billboard Outside Waverly, Edinburgh II
THE TIMES: Network rail removed a poster celebrating JK Rowling despite not receiving one single complaint about it.
Back in July a billboard celebrating the much-loved children’s author, JK Rowling, was put up outside Edinburgh’s Waverley railway station. It was commissioned by campaigner, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, and first appeared on Monday 27th July. It simply read “I ❤️JK Rowling”.
On 29th July the poster was removed because it was ‘too political’. A source at Network Rail said that the billboard’s ‘context’ meant it was ‘likely to cause offence’.
However, a freedom of information request has revealed that Network Rail did not receive a single complaint about the billboard.
A spokesman for Network Rail said: “The poster in question is against our code of acceptance for advertising in our stations owing to its political nature. We do not allow advertising that is likely to support or promote one viewpoint over another.”
That’s Network Rail, the Stonewall Diversity Partnership member.
Meanwhile, over in Canada…
Sunday 13th September - Witch Burning in Vancouver
…THE POST MILLENIAL: An “I ❤️JK Rowling” billboard was removed days after it appeared in Vancouver following just one complaint from a trans activist.
The organisers of the billboard, Amy Eileen Hamm and Chris Elston, were the subject of online threats and abuse.
One of the people attacking the billboard and its organisers was Nicola Spurling, a trans rights activist and representative of British Columbia’s Green Party. Spurling was threatened with legal action after making defamatory comments about JK Rowling on Twitter which he was forced to retract.
The billboard itself itself was vandalised.
Men gathered around the women to intimidate and frighten them.
Then, only days after it appeared, the billboard company, Pattison, contacted the organisers to inform them that they were taking it down.
A fact that was celebrated by a Vancouver City councillor.
For a “most oppressed and vulnerable minority”, trans activists certainly seem to wield awesome levels of power.
See you next week.
It is so interesting, isn't it, how police, overwhelmingly no friend to women, are so quick to approve of trans women and to call out mainly women about any so-called negative comment about them? Same old misogyny from the police.