Times reporting the sacking of Angelos Sofocleous

Quite a few international publications are running this story too.

Fermat, exactly.

Self ID will affect all women, and have a disproportionate efect of the most vulnerable. I have looked up, and posted the thread about the consultation, the Cabinet Office Guidelines. This consultation breaches many of them. I think there should be formal protests by concerns groups to the Cabinet Office. Plus I hope some interested journalist will cover the fact that such an "under the radar", yet so important, consultation is happening. Lots of (most - probably) people clearly agree with Angelos and others. We dont want legislation that runs counter to both common sense and women's interests.

You bet the Consultation hasn't been run well. Its stated opening premise is to make it easier to obtain a GRC. If it thought women had any say in the matter it would not make that assumption. Idiotic. And I've pointed that out

I suspect one of the reasons the consultation is being run the way it is (under the radar) is because of the success the TRA lobby has had in positioning self ID as "just like gay marriage, it only affects people who are trans". Thus they have created, up front, an environment in Whitehall which dismisses dissenting voices towards self ID as being just like extremely socially conservative/extreme religious objections to gay marriage. Because of course in the case of gay marriage the come back of "well, it doesn't actually affect you - don't like gay marriage, don't have one" is actually an unanswerable comeback.

However self ID is not like this. It does affect other people. Suppose my firm had a Pip Bunce working for us. On Pip's "Pippa" days, Pippa could come to the workplace gym, saunter into the women's open-plan changing room (where there will be women naked) and get Pippa's penis and balls out. Women who didn't like this - whether because of past sexual abuse, religion, or like me, because they simply didn't want to be naked in front of a man who wasn't their sexual partner - would have two choices: grit our teeth and shut up; or stop using the facility. (Because conveniently Pips apparently has weeks where he feels more manly and comes to work as a man on most days, and weeks where he feels more womanly and comes to work as a woman on most days - so you couldn't even try to work round his pattern, because he has none, everything is done according to his whim).

And that's only a trivial example - there are of course the much more serious examples of women's prisons, closed psychiatric wards, homeless shelters, DV shelters, rape crisis centres.

Self ID is NOT like gay marriage: self ID genuinely affects other people, specificially women.

RaininSummer, I think that is important.

We probably have to allow that the media are taking babysteps. First an article without comments, then comments that are heavily moderated in advance, and then much freer comments. Now the Mail seems to be doing what MN sometimes seems to do, which is to pull stuff simply because it attracts complaints, whether those complaints are justified or not.

The consultation does not seem to have been carried out well. I am sure that there are guidelines for Government consultation. I am equally sure that someone on MN will know what these are. I assume that the consultation was set up quickly in response to the petition. I would not be surprised that to find that some woke people have found their way into this bit of Government policy making. (Only look at who the Government chooses to take advice from on the issue.)

If the consultation is not open and transparent and breaches guidelines, it would be worth concerned organisations complaining now. Easier that complaining about results that have been heavily skewed by organised responses. I feel there is an important newspaper story there.

In terms of the current media babysteps, I have always assumed that Mail stories change prominence, especially on the app, by the number of clicks. Lots of clicks, shares and comments tell them that this is a story people read. More prominence, so even more people reading. Good stats to give advertisers. So more reporting of storys covering the same issue. I assume The Times and Spectator monitor traffic in th same way. The more storys the less controversial the topic becomes, and the more diluted the voice to trans-activists. Plus the big advantage of tis mainstreaming is that for most people there is not an issue. TWANW. So the articles seem moderate and not hard to follow. Aruging the case for self ID is then the more difficult mountain to climb.

Why would that break the rules?
Honestly, no reporting on n the BBC or anywhere about this major consultation - it's banned to mention it - what?

19,000 shares
1800 comments

Just looked at Mail comments again and my one asking people to complete the.consultation has now gone. Apparently there were a number of complaints made. Oh dear.

Cartimandua clearly expects people to unblinking obey the word of the umbrella, even when it involves adult nappies, rapists and other assorted porn addled. You can almost see the bewilderment. He's not used to being questioned on anything.

I'm guessing the floodgates broke and it was too difficult to wade through all the comments to find the few that made no reference to penises. Though they do usually just turn comments off at that point.

Perhaps some things are just too absurd for even The Mail.

On a story about free speech and the lack of it, moderating comments kind of looks well...

... If they were serious about the story moderating isn't compatible.

Interesting the DM stopped moderating the comments.

when I posted on this thread ( page 1 about midday), there were only about 20 comments, and all mentioned free speech, nothing about women - and at that time the comments were all being moderated.

I wonder at what point, and why, they decided to stop moderating comments?

Wow the response and sharing is incredible

That's 14000 people sharing it with some comment along the lines of 'Have you seen this? Can you believe someone was sacked for saying women don't have penises?'

14000 shares 1800 comments.

It's done over 2000 shares an hour since 5pm.

Amazing what response there is when they don't moderate the comments.

Now at 12,000 shares and 1700 comments

I shared the DM article on FB. All comments were along the lines of 'this is ridiculous' and all comments were posted by women (surprise, surprise).

He was also fired from his position as editor of Durham University's online magazine The Bubble

The irony!

crwodfundee sounds like a Welsh dessert. Probably made with fudge. If so, count me in!

Yes, just read the comments. All the usual tropes about people with cancer, ed, gay etc.

It's also prompted me to poke my head cautiously above the parapet and post something gender critical on the Times comments (closest I'd got before was to applaud one of Janice's articles).

So that's me out and proud in my real name, which I think is actually quite useful. Because if anyone tries to doxx me I can say "well, here I am, posting in my own name on a national newspaper's site. I'm respectful, I'm polite, my right to freedom of belief is enshrined in human rights law, what's the problem?"

Cartimandua (in the Times comments) did an exceptional job. You could just feel the wave of peaktrans moving through the comments.

The Daily Mail are allowing comments now which a week ago were not being posted. Have even managed to mention the consultation so hope loads see it.

*crowdfunder