A Week in the War on Women: Monday 3rd August - Sunday 9th August

By JL

Monday 3rd August - Female Athletes Outed By Outsports

The website Outports, doxxed a group of women who had signed a letter trying to protect the integrity of female sports.

Last week a group of over 300 professional female athletes co-signed a letter to the US’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The letter urged the NCAA not to boycott Idaho over the state’s law preventing males from competing in women’s sports. Oganizations such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and the National Center for Transgender Equality tried to bully the NCAA into moving championship events out of Idaho so Save Women’s Sports organised the letter in response.

After threatening Save Women's Sports by email and on social media, Outsports made public the names of the letter’s signatories without their permission.

The managing editor of Outsports is trans-identified male, Don “Dawn” Ennis, a father of three and former ABC producer, and a person whose ‘gender’ seems to change at will.

His ethics, on the other hand, do seem consistent in that they exist only to protect himself and the other males who are currently doing their best to colonise women’s sport.

If you want to do something about this issue, please consider signing this petition.

Tuesday 4th August - Misogyny Won’t Wash at Lush

The Edinburgh branch of cosmetic company, Lush, wrote a Facebook post claiming that their store had been “Targeted by a transphobic group”.

Lush Edinburgh would not disclose the details of this “Act of hate” and, when pressed, deleted its entire post. Perhaps it was a sticker expressing support for JK Rowling (like the one below seen elsewhere in Scotland) after the city’s recent controversy regarding the removal of a poster celebrating the author?

One Facebook user asked Lush if she would be able to use the store whilst wearing a t-shirt bearing the dictionary definition of the word “woman”. Lush said no; “We would recommend you shop with companies that share your beliefs.”

Biological sex is not a ‘belief’; it’s a fact, one which Lush understands perfectly well.

When legislation requiring large employers to publish data on their gender pay gap came into effect in April 2018, it was revealed that Lush Retail pay women 5.1% less than men while at Lush Manufacturing women are paid 2.6% less.

Lush certainly knew which sex to exploit and expose to sexual harassment during its “Cruelty Free Kisses” campaign. And let’s not forget that Lush recently asked its retail staff, the majority of whom are female, to work wearing nothing but aprons.

Wednesday 5th August - Meet the New Priests, Same as the Old Priests

WOMEN’S SPACE IRELAND: The Irish government plans to make it easier for teenagers and children to legally “change their gender”.

Ireland’s coalition government is going to make it easier for 16 and 17-year-olds to legally "change their gender" and will remove the medical safeguarding measures previously in place.

The coalition will also examine ways of enabling even younger children to ‘change gender’ and plans to give legal recognition to those who identify as non-binary.

Furthermore, there is a suggestion in the Programme for Government that the Equal Status Acts could be altered so as to effectively remove the existing safeguards which protect women and girls as a sex class.

Thursday 6th August - How To Define Misogyny

Dictionary.com, “The world's leading digital dictionary”, tweeted its definition of the acronym “TERF” to its 390,000 followers.

“TERF is used to describe cisgender women who self-identify as feminist but who are opposed to including transgender women in spaces they reserve for people who were assigned female at birth. This is because they believe trans women are men and since men cannot coexist with their feminist ideologies, they exclude them from their beliefs and support. In fact, they often believe they should be denied rights and sometimes advocate for harm against trans people.”

Seriously? In this debate, “TERFs” are not the ones advocating harm against others.

Since the original post appeared, Dictionary.com have tried to disguise their naked misogyny of displaying the international female symbol with a line through it; the site has been updated and that visual removed.

Too late, lads. We see you.

Saturday 8th August - More Evidence Of Links Between Autism & Trans Identities

THE TIMES: A new study has shown that trans-identified adults are up to six times more likely to be autistic.

The research carried out at Cambridge University involved more than 600,000 adults. The data was analysed by autism research centre scientists who concluded that trans-identified adults are 3 - 6 times more likely to have been diagnosed with autism.

A study conducted at Anglia Ruskin University over a year ago also found that people with transgender identities are significantly more likely to have autism, or display autistic traits, than the wider population. Marcus Evans went into more detail on his recent unmissable interview with Posie.

Sunday 9th August - Mermaids Now Law Experts As Well

THE SUNDAY TIMES: JK Rowling’s publisher took advice from Mermaids on the text of an article for ‘A’ Level law students.

Hodder Education is part of Hachette UK, JK Rowling’s UK publisher. Prior to publishing an article on the Harry Miller v The College of Policing judgement, Hodder Education invited controversial charity, Mermaids, to review and alter the text.

The article was to appear in the A Level Law Review magazine and was intended to update students and teachers about the outcome of the legal case. Hodder Education asked Mermaids to provide ways “to counteract the tone and opinions in the piece” and to suggest changes to anything they deemed “untrue, unfair and / or offensive”. Mermaids responded with a critique of four closely typed pages.

James Benefield, a senior executive at Hodder, contacted Ian Yule, the author of the original article, to send him the amendments. “Mermaids have requested quite a few changes here”, wrote Benefield. “It is important we do follow all of the attached advice.”

Yule was so angered over Mermaids being allowed to censor his work that, after nine years in the role, he resigned as chairman of the A-Level Law Review’s editorial board. “My article did not express my own thoughts or beliefs but was a straightforward and accurate report of a High Court judgment”, he said. He also told colleagues, “In the process of ‘reviewing’ my article [Mermaids] effectively destroyed it.”

In short, an educational publisher invited a charity to censor a factual article in a law magazine.

See you next week.