Bristol meeting tonight.

Fight? Fight? Fight?
Why do you always speak to us in these violent and warlike terms?

This from SistersUncutBristol FB group, just in case you were wondering why they get all their boy & girl handmaidens to do their dirty work for them:

"Thank you to all of the cis allies out there, it's close to impossible for us trans women to fight back against this spreading of hatred. If we speak out online we're accused of using our "male" privilege, mansplaining or just constantly misgendered until we need to walk away for the sake of our own mental wellbeing.
If we were to protest these events in person there's a risk these people would instigate violence then twist footage to make us seem like the aggressors.
As this debate rages on around me I can honestly say I've never felt so helpless".

Oh so sad

Wow.

I would like to know the legal position on this.

Presumably groups of men can't just go round blocking women from entering a public building for fun?

That footage is awful - and since when is it OK for a group of masked people to block access to a public, lawful event?

Having seen the footage from the stairs, Heather Brunskell Evans is a complete star for speaking so well after dealing with that.

Is it possible to get an exclusion zone around an event? If not, why not? The police usually separate two opposing groups of demonstrators.

The TRA's/sisters uncut look like the Westborough Baptist Church.

It's the suffragettes all over again. Thanks amazing women of Bristol.

Julie Bindel's footage is grim. The self-righteousness of these young fools!

The police were (as I understand it) waiting for some sort of permission from on high to take further action. So while they were waiting, there was a bit of a stand off. No one was really clear what was happening.

I have no legal knowledge but why were the police allowing them to block the stairs? What were the police doing while all this was going on? Was it caught on the TV cameras I saw on that clip? Can anyone be prosecuted? Who ARE these people? It must be fairly easy to identify them.

Do their Mums and Dads know what they are up to? Fucking hell!!

I find it really frightening actually. The decedence of it all.

Absolutely.

Here's Julie Bindel's view from the stairs. "Posh boy"

www.facebook.com/julie.bindel/videos/10160135907955316

I think it is rarely possible to men to be truly integrated into the category women, as everyone knows they are not women, and therefore they don’t get treated accordingly. Watching Paris Lees on QT I was struck by the peculiar fawning that happens, I also see it with IW. Where people are so desperate to show that they are accepting that person as a woman, that they treat them in a way no woman ever gets treated. Add to that the talking over everyone, aggression etc, and it is perfectly obvious that the person is not an actual woman.

It reminds me of the way people walk on eggshells around the abusive family member.

Spoilt, Indulged young people with no real problems and too much time spent looking inward. I find it really frightening actually. The decedence of it all. This is the sort of culture that leads to wars. The sea is full of plastic, women and children worldwide are being exploited, we are losing our large mammals one by one, our planet is being destroyed by humanity and yet a young women is so self absorbed that she is screaming abuse at an older woman for not using a nonsensical made up plural pronoun, because she is too “special “ for the singular ? Scary times.

Photos here of the protest outside the event: twitter.com/ruthserwotka/status/987047965285117952

twitter.com/Bristol_Jane/status/987028082015068161

That video is batshit. They really do think that misgendering is literally the worst thing anyone can do - even when a stranger can't possibly know what their preferred pronouns are... I showed the video to DH and he said "wear it on a T shirt then"

He also said that when I first explained the video to him - that the protester said "she!? You fucking cunt, my pronouns are THEY" - he thought but when I showed him the video - he was at the sheer vitriol with which it was said. Actual hatred. They've been brainwashed by the new gender identity religion - all non-believers must be eliminated.

These women, just as EH who breached Mumsnet data likely believe in an ideology which supports this presentation to NUS Women's 18.

www.slideshare.net/RowanDavis4/how-to-deal-with-terfs-93651217

"My pronouns are they!"

Oh just Fuck Off. Christ the level of navel gazing is utterly extraordinary. I really hope these precious snowflakes look back on themselves in five years' time and cringe. Because I'm really, really embarrassed for them

''She! My pronouns are they!''

Jenni Harvey in the comments nails it.

''These young women need feminism so badly. Imagine wanting to dissasociate yourself from femaleness to the extent that a stranger unable to read your mind is the enemy.''

video here of people trying to get into the meeting...

twitter.com/MagdalenBerns/status/987703549768491008

^10 hours ago and the abuser comment refers to someone called si
^

Midnight then, over 24 hours since it allegedly took place. Sounds dodgy. It would have been screamed all over twitter minutes after it took place if it had actually happened.

I think they've realised what a catastrophic mistake it was to have a group of mainly posh middle class white men try and stop a group of women from meeting, especially when the video of the event shows many of those women are working class.

As for this Si individual. They either point him out on the videos or I'm putting that down as bullshit too.

I think it is rarely possible to men to be truly integrated into the category women, as everyone knows they are not women, and therefore they don’t get treated accordingly. Watching Paris Lees on QT I was struck by the peculiar fawning that happens, I also see it with IW. Where people are so desperate to show that they are accepting that person as a woman, that they treat them in a way no woman ever gets treated. Add to that the talking over everyone, aggression etc, and it is perfectly obvious that the person is not an actual woman.
However I can imagine that someone within the much narrower group of older, long term transsexuals, who does not live in the hyper sexualised world of someone like PL, and who has close female friends, might fit in with older women perfectly well for most situations.
It is slightly different with TIFs. Mainly because they aren’t appropriating the appearance of the oppressed group, but also because more of them perhaps look convincing enough if they have hormone treatment, to get treated as men socially. I have never to my knowledge seen a trans female though, other than in photographs, , so this is a guess.

So then I want to say ‘Helen, isn’t accepting women as a social category just another way of enforcing the binary constructions of gender, what do you think?’, but I can’t because there is no venue to discuss the topic in a civilised way.

The closest you can get to that is MN, but whenever I try to ask somebody that question here, they either agree anyway or go AWOL. It’s really frustrating.

I think Helen's position is that human beings can't change sex but that male human beings can be accepted into the social category of woman.

Personally, I find this a mealy mouthed position and one that intentionally elides the way in which accepting "woman" as a social category has a disproportionately deleterious effect the further down the social scale/levels of vulnerability you go. Helen also spent quite a lot of time dismissing motherhood as a key feminist driver in the opposition to austerity (seems to have belatedly realised what working class feminists were telling her for years only very recently). I think this is related.

So. I don't agree at all with Helen. But I do think she has a properly thought out view.

I’d love to hear Helen Lewis talk about her views on this subject. I think she is brilliant - I love the podcast she does with Stephen Bush. She says she thinks that women can become men and vice versa and I’d love to hear her explain why - not because I think she must be misguided, but because I want to hear her reasoning.

I just wish it were possible for people to discuss this issue in public without having to wonder whether you’ll have to allow extra time for idiots on the stairs.

I love Helen Lewis and I even admire her commitment to not 'misgendering' although I disagree. But her 'transwomen are women' statement really gets on my nerve. She's far too logical to believe that and instead is putting her desire to be kind ahead of the need to protect the safety and rights of women.

Sorry, Helen, but you are wrong on this. And I think you know it