Livestream of Venice talking to protestors in Haringey

there are active lies woven

There certainly are!

The whole Aimee Challenor thing made me look a lot more closely at what was happening from the TRA side than before. Lots of IT savvy, gamers, multiple fetishists sharing files on the dark web, creating bots, socks, secret groups.

Weaving lies has been at the heart of transactivism for yonks. Think about WPATH and lies about made up research being 'peer reviewed'- professionals were so sure no one would ever lie about that, they never checked, so they got away with it- even Mark Helen/Natacha Kennedy of Goldsmiths University writing 'reasearch' papers on 'trans' kids, self 'co-authored'.

Lying is what they do and it is so easy to spread them, particularly with blocking software - they spread like wildfire, unchallenged by anyone outside the consciously constructed echo chamber.

The dangerous thing is that the majority of people simply can't be arsed with politics. Most people just want to get on with work, rest and play with a bit of superficial gossip at dinner parties, down the pub or on social media. Smear someone a 'phobe' and most people won't give them the benefit of the doubt. Got to appear right on. Those thinking and questioning and doubting, who have the guts to go against the grain are in the minority.

I remember how a few right on dudes (mates, i might add) crawled out of the woodwork to challenge me about supporting the Get the L out protest and the Adult Human Female billboards. I was astonished that they felt so certain of their right to admonish me and of course their arguments were piss-weak along the lines of 'you sound like a Daily Mail reader having those views'.

So anyway, lies are easy to spread if you are a lying, controlling arsehole with no conscience or moral compass because most people are more likely to believe any lies you tell them (especially if they make women look bad) than in the existence of lying, controlling arseholes without consciences or moral compasses who would spread that kind of shit.

YY Cwen.

That’s what I mean about these young people being so naïve and not seeming to the possess critical thinking skills needed to question bizarre claims such as women, often lesbians, with long histories of fighting for gay rights, women’s rights, in the trade union movement & Labour Party, have now become far-right Christian bigots with a particular hatred of transgender people. Although that doesn’t seem restricted to the students tbf, people who are older and should be wiser come out with equally bonkers beliefs repeated without question or critical thought.

Students do love their little protests don't they? T'was ever thus.
The subject of the protests is not actually important - they just like to protest. Must say they don't do it half as effectively though as 1960s students.

Replay it to them when they've grown up and watch them cringe.

Venice, you handled it really well - your good humour and calm is I'm sure what kept the "tone" of the protest (at that stage anyway) basically good humoured and calm on their part too. And I agree that there have been much nastier protests at other meetings. The ones we had at the Brighton Womans' Place meeting last July was about the same size, and while it wasn't anything like as intimidating as what went on at the Jamjar in Bristol they were much more sort of sullen and hostile.

I am not so sure about "generational divide". It seems to me (and it's very frustrating) that the actual students are 99% "there" - that you could have the conversations, agree vehemently all the way through the parts about nonconformity being brilliant (one protester at the Brighton meeting had a T shirt with "fuck gender norms" on it and of course everyone AT the meeting wanted one!) - there's just some "block" right at the end that leads feminists, sorry women's rights activists (!) to say ultimately "and that's OK" but which leads them to say "and therefore s/he's a wo/man" GAHHHHH. I'm hopeful that it's bridgeabe though - well, it has to be or this crap will never end.

The thing is though, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist I promise, that there are active lies woven into what is going on for the "studetnts". As I've said I was at the Brighton WPUK meeting and a month or so later I got talking to a group of Icelandic women all about 50 (it was their joint birthday outing) at the next table in a local restaurant. For their previous visit to the city they'd been staying at the hotel where the meeting was held and at the same time, and they had spoken to some of the protestors. They were told by them that WPUK were a Christian Fundamentalist group who wanted "being trans" to be made illegal, and a bunch of other stuff.

Now I don't suppose the protestors there (mainly perfectly ordinary looking students, if slightly at the blue haired end of things) had made up those lies either, but some people somewhere are (and other lies) and they are making sure that they are getting out there. (This is one reason why the Heritage Foundation thing has been such difficult optics - it has fed into lies that have already had such traction).

Oh, and you'll be glad to hear that my new Icelandic friends had worked out within 20 minutes of a bit of chat and googling on our phones that actually they belonged inside the meeting.

Thanks for posting this on here and for all your comments

They were actually the nicest group of TAs that I've come across so far. Some of them genuinely wanted dialogue.

It was a shame the livestream cut out then because there was another great 10 mins of it and it got quite interesting.

One TA said he'd made a gabba remix of one of my Christmas songs hahahaha but now I can't remember his name or soundcloud

I do like Venice Allen and what she says and how she says it. I find her entirely credible and it's shocking the way the 'Voices from the Left' event has been twisted and used against her and others.

The spin and misrepresentation of information/events in this whole debate troubles me greatly.

On a more positive note I am glad to see that the meeting went ahead, was not prevented from happening by authoritarians, and that everyone inside the church got to talk in peace.

Stupid idiots. How fucking dare they.

How anyone can claim with a straight face that they are pro choice on abortion- which clearly is an issue centred on FEMALE anatomy ONLY ....for want of which now and historically, women have been:

banned from safe services, hounded and socially and criminally punished and ostracised, died self-aborting, been injured self-aborting, had to marry against their will for legitimacy, have abandoned their babies at birth or been forced to give them up for adoption or to bring up babies they don’t want... the list goes on and on.

HOW can you at the same time believe you are ‘pro choice’ knowing what the lack of abortion rights does to WOMEN and their children yet believe so fervently in this utter gender bollocks?

Let alone call out anyone else that doesn’t go along with it as a ‘nazi’. how dare you.

Fuck you, anti-women wankers. Your denial of biology, and how women are still treated due to their biology, is pathetic and insulting to the millions of women who DO actually have to deal with unintended pregnancy or abortion and unplanned motherhood right now today, the world over

AND

Your stupid childish words are vastly insulting to the millions of victims of the Nazis and the traumatic legacy they have left for millions of people today.

AND

You are propping up a really fucking creepy authoritarian ideology. Well done in some ways. I’m glad you didn’t hit anyone who disagreed with you tonight but your politics absolutely SUCKS and is causing absolutely avoidable suffering for lots of people.

@Cwenthryth we're there any ideas about how that could be achieved?

I also attended the meeting. A few of them had scarves covering their faces even when Venice didn’t have her camera on. It is weird, and as an attendee just felt designed to intimidate. The worst they could come up that I saw was ‘shut up, transphobe’ and shouting ‘terf’ in someone’s face, at women (and some men) who were leaving the meeting. They were not interested in coming in and listening to the speakers.

The main impression I had was that they were overwhelmingly very, very young, using big words they didn’t understand. They fervently believed that people attending the meeting were baddies but didn’t seem to be able to coherently explain why to the people who did choose engage with them (beyond hurling insults and telling people to shut up). Most did not seem confident in what they were doing, they came across as fairly naïve/gullible/vulnerable and having been sold a massive lie.

There does seem to be a generational divide and it was something Heather spoke about last night. How do we, as more mature adults, empower those young people who do question gender ideology and don’t believe humans can transubstiate sex, nor that gender is innate and paramount and the reality of a ‘wrongly’ sexed body something to be rejected and medically and surgically altered to better fit whichever sex-based stereotypes the inhabitant ‘identifies with’ - how can we support and empower young people to stand up against the indoctrination they’re facing.

I also didn't understand why they were hiding. I wondered if it was because of all the death and rape threats and "literal violence" they'd be subjected to by women if we knew who they are - to a) make us look dangerous and b) them look braver - conveniently forgetting that it's not us who make those threats, but their buddies.

Bloody hell Venice is brave for sure. Also distracted the protesters so women could go in.

I don't understand why they are concerned about being "doxxed" though, they have a right to peacefully protest? I thought they were on the right side of history?

liked not like.....MN edit button please!

I clocked that too NotTerf. If I'd been there I would've like to say to him, "What about the teenaged girls and boys who are throwing away their reproductive rights before they're even old enough to drive, vote, get a tattoo or buy alcohol?". Then I'd have taken away his screens for a month and refused to cook, do laundry or be mum's taxi for a bit. Naughty step for the over 15's.

Ha liked the bit where the protester says reproductive rights for women, then corrects himself to say 'uterus havers'.

Thanks Empress.

Does anyone know what this event was? The event they were protesting about?

Yes, I was there. Haringey ReSisters organised an event about gender ideology & schools / young people, chaired by Venice Allan & with Stephanie Davies-Arai, Heather Brunskill-Evans & Julia Long speaking.

The protesters helpfully kept quiet during the event itself. The talks were all excellent.

Incidentally, @haringeyresist are now shadowbanned on Twitter so I’m sure they’d appreciate some retweets & follows.

I've got close family members in their early 20's, recently left uni. None of them would do anything like those protesters. Not because they're not politicised or have opinions but because they are more mature in their outlook and behaviour than those protesters. They find that kind of behaviour (shouting 'fascist' and 'nazi') embarrassing tbh.

Well done Venice for trying to get a dialogue going with them but sadly they don't appear mature enough to have any form of debate.

In defence of students and younger people, I don't believe that mob were representative of the next generation.

If that is ever a good protest 👆

I can still view it via the above link HeyDuggees.

Venice didn’t give 2 fucks
If that’s the ever of protest well

Heavens lols shite demonstrators tbh