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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Helen Islan at it again

57 replies

ArcheryAnnie · 17/12/2019 11:43

Helen islan - "mimmymum" - the notorious (ex?) Mermaids activist, is rather unwisely having a pop at women who want to maintain public space for women and girls to do sport in safety.

I wonder, is this the same Helen Islan who rather famously took a transwoman to court and lost? Who, exactly, is "trans-hostile" here?

Helen Islan also spectacularly misses the point that nobody is blaming "trans people". Plenty of trans people want to uphold single-sex services, although they are excoriated by people like Helen if they dare to say so in public. Personally I blame anyone, trans or not trans, who thinks biology is a real thing and that women and girls don't matter. I don't think Helen Islan is trans, and in fact, I blame her, and people like her, however they identify.

Helen Islan at it again
OP posts:
Dances · 02/06/2020 12:20

Her life is one huge self justification of her parenting decisions.

R0wantrees · 02/06/2020 12:12

Indeed. I would also note that unlike Helen most of the women she's shouting at have not hauled a trans person into court and had their case dismissed as utterly without merit.

Miranda Yardley wrote,

'Regina v Miranda Yardley: More DARVO from Helen Islan'
POSTED ON 3RD MARCH 2019
(extract)
"In the Daily Mail today “Britain’s first transgender hate crime trial is halted after one day as judge says ‘there is no case and never was a case“, the complainant against me Helen Islan tries to distance herself from the proceedings which were brought in her name:

‘The decision to prosecute was made by the CPS, not me personally and I accept the verdict of the court.’

It does not surprise me she is trying to wash herself of responsibility. Having tried to blackmail the court by saying she was unprepared to give evidence unless her name was subjected to a press restrictions order, her evidence on Friday appeared to me to be incredibly dishonest as she attempted to distance herself from anything and everything she has said and done: apparently never having tweeted under her real name, it was ‘esoteric search engines’ which created and posted tweets under the name ‘Helen Islan’, as shown by screen captures of these tweets in the evidence bundle. In spite of admitting in her statement and even evidence given to open court that she was a volunteer with Mermaids, getting her to acknowledge anything was met with denial of the facts, attacks on my character and reversals… now where have we seen that before?

The upshot is, her evidence was like witnessing a tooth extraction. I suspect the judge agreed, from the way he was rolling his eyes and having to tell Islan to stop wasting the court’s time waffling and just answer the questions. Islan was so unreliable as a witness, so truculent, I would not have been surprised should she have been indicted for perjury.

Anyway, back to the original quote which I will reproduce again so that we are clear as to Islan’s words:

‘The decision to prosecute was made by the CPS, not me personally and I accept the verdict of the court.’

On 10 August last year, I received from Islan’s solicitors Mishcon de Reya a three page legal letter threatening me with a High Court injunction, action for defamation and a costs order. This letter was I believe funded by the Mishcon de Reya ‘Pink Law‘ initiative, so again Islan benefitted from LGBT without herself being a part of this world.

What a hypocrite." (continues)
mirandayardley.com/en/regina-v-miranda-yardley-more-darvo-from-helen-islan/

Mail on Sunday article by SANCHEZ MANNING and JOANI WALSH referred to above:

'Britain's first transgender hate crime trial is halted after one day as judge says 'there is no case and never was a case'

(extract)
On one side was Yardley, an accountant, who describes himself as a transsexual and identifies as a man, even though he underwent gender reassignment to become a woman ten years ago.

Despite his own experience, his contention is that individuals cannot change sex – and this has drawn fierce criticism on social media.

Giving evidence via video link was his accuser, Helen Islan, who is married with children and works with the trans advocacy group Mermaids, which campaigns for children who want to change gender. (continues)

Initially, Ms Islan’s complaint was dealt with by West Yorkshire Police before being passed to colleagues in Essex, who decided it was a hate crime.

But when the case reached court the defence referred to pages of social media posts in which Ms Islan herself was regularly tweeting about her trans child, about him taking blockers, that he had ‘come out’ at school.

The court heard that a simple search on Google brought up Ms Islan’s personal details, including a family photograph that she had herself posted.

At one point during the hearing, Judge Woollard said: ‘Where is the evidence [of harassment] taking into account the need for free speech? You have to show a course of conduct and at the moment we have one tweet.

Where is the evidence for Miranda Yardley outing Ms Islan’s son?’ Later he threw out the case and awarded costs to the defendant.

Yardley told The Mail on Sunday afterwards that he was ‘horrified’ by the decision to charge him, saying: ‘I faced losing everything I worked for.’

Barrister Amanda Jones, who has represented clients accused of ‘anti trans’ comments, said: ‘The police and the CPS routinely ignore rape threats, death threats and abusive material targeted at women online.

The entire criminal justice system is falling apart from underfunding and this case appears to have been a complete waste of public funds.’ (continues)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6764763/Britains-transgender-hate-crime-trial-halted-one-day.html

Michelleoftheresistance · 02/06/2020 11:50

Azerothi the political lobby (and probably the male who blew that group apart) would see that as a deserved consequence to those women for their crime of failing to hurl aside their own needs and things like their faith, culture, fears, privacy, and be all about the male's needs, feelings etc, as male needs matter but female needs are just females being obnoxious and needing to get over themselves.

It's staggering how those who identify as women have such absolute lack of interest or care for women, or what they destroy for women.

Azerothi · 02/06/2020 11:28

I used to go to wonderful women-only swimming session. Only one hour a week but it was lovely.
All kinds of women of all kinds of races and religions, including Muslim. One day a man in a bikini showed up and got in the pool on this women only session and from then on this very supportive multicultural group was disbanded due to lack of 'interest'. What an odd way for the swimming pool company to phrase it.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 02/06/2020 11:22

Its useful to consider that in understanding abuse/control pattern behaviours false allegations will often be admissions/projections.

Indeed. I would also note that unlike Helen most of the women she's shouting at have not hauled a trans person into court and had their case dismissed as utterly without merit.

R0wantrees · 02/06/2020 11:19

Helen Islan "they'll literally weaponise anything...."

Hmm Its useful to consider that in understanding abuse/control pattern behaviours false allegations will often be admissions/projections.
Michelleoftheresistance · 02/06/2020 10:13

What Grin

The number of times I've heard Frankie Howerd in my head saying that...

Binterested · 02/06/2020 09:30

In Helen's defence, sort of, I loathe the fact that religious minorities and races are used to justify why we should have single sex spaces. I really wish people would stop doing it. Likewise when celebrities try and shield themselves with men with "gender dysphoria". Women are just never enough

Totally agree with this from PinkBrained

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 02/06/2020 09:29

Helen always reads like she's had a bit too much coffee. Try weaning yourself off, Helen, it would be good for your blood pressure.

Whatisthisfuckery · 02/06/2020 09:27

There’s no cure for stupid I’m afraid, so I wo’t mock the afflicted.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 02/06/2020 09:20

There haven't been nearly as many incidents but the evidence we have so far indicates that when men's sex segregated spaces are invaded they don't like it very much either. There was an incident at a Korean spa in Chicago and a university's changing rooms somewhere in the US that I remember offhand - in both cases the men in the changing rooms and shower areas set aside for men were deeply uncomfortable about discovering female humans in those spaces and didn't much care how those female humans identified.

DickKerrLadies · 02/06/2020 09:05

@Gncq

In a curious way, Dr Williams was referring to "lack of single sex gyms" and Helen Islan immediately jumps in with "it's about trans!" Almost admitting she knows that trans women aren't actually women or something...
Grin
Michelleoftheresistance · 02/06/2020 08:51

Allowing anyone to talk about single sex gyms raises the opportunity for people to think about there being such a thing as single sex, (even saying the words single sex is naughty) and about females having biology related specific needs that can't be met in mixed sex environments.

Thought crime!

May lead to realising that mixed sex spaces don't work for females. But shut up females because Pooooooor Males! Do your nurturing duty! Suffer in silence! Good females don't burden males with their silly little problems.

Gncq · 02/06/2020 08:48

In a curious way, Dr Williams was referring to "lack of single sex gyms" and Helen Islan immediately jumps in with "it's about trans!"
Almost admitting she knows that trans women aren't actually women or something...

SoldiersinPetticoats · 02/06/2020 08:47

I agree justifying single sex spaces should be enough but I don’t think it’s wrong to point out that some women have additional reasons other than privacy and dignity for keeping their single sex spaces .

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 02/06/2020 08:41

Certainly loves her exclamation points, doesn't she? I remain confused as to why she thinks they're going to make her (ethically indefensible) argument any more convincing.

Michelleoftheresistance · 02/06/2020 08:39

The reality is that this mixed sex policy will disproportionately disadvantage specific groups of females, it is the truth.

Yes, you have a very good point that people expect that BAME will attract more sympathy and drive to do something in their interests than Jehovah's Witness women for example. Being white and admitting to a religion is practically a social faux pas these days.

PinkBrained · 02/06/2020 08:36

In Helen's defence, sort of, I loathe the fact that religious minorities and races are used to justify why we should have single sex spaces. I really wish people would stop doing it. Likewise when celebrities try and shield themselves with men with "gender dysphoria". Women are just never enough.

Michelleoftheresistance · 02/06/2020 08:36

And not talking about something doesn't magically make it stop existing.

Honestly, how stupid can this get?

Michelleoftheresistance · 02/06/2020 08:35

The endless belief that a good female service human sucks up disadvantage without ever mentioning it because most important thing ever is taking care of males.

Of course if you make female only spaces mixed sex, you will exclude a lot of females from them (so not really inclusion or a success is it?) and there are groups of females (come on you like intersectionality, you say it every other sentence) who will be disproportionately affected by the policy.

County councils have spent years, huge amounts of man hours and a lot of funding trying to help BAME female people access things like gyms for all kinds of reasons including physical health, because of the barriers specific to their biological sex. Males commandeering female spaces is lovely for those males. It isn't fucking lovely or good for the females. It does not work.

What the hell do you think we've been trying to say for the past however many years?

BringbackLang · 02/06/2020 08:25

I'm shocked...shocked I tell you!

Ereshkigalangcleg · 02/06/2020 07:43

How unsurprising.

DickKerrLadies · 02/06/2020 07:31

I know re-tweeting something isn't the same as endorsing it

I think it counts as thought-crime though.

Xanthangum · 02/06/2020 07:03

I know re-tweeting something isn't the same as endorsing it, but even so - this article by Laura Izaguirre?

(Thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3921532-Resisting-TERF-s-and-Transforming-Their-Organizations - pulled by Medium, threatening violence, infiltration and doxxing?)

Why would you want to associate with such extremely unpleasant views Helen?

Helen Islan at it again
MoleSmokes · 19/12/2019 06:24

ArcheryAnnie Helen Islan has a trans child. One of her beefs with Miranda Yardley was that she reckoned Miranda had "outed" her child as trans. The judge pointed out that Islan spent rather a lot of time on social media publicly identifying her child as trans, so it was hardly a secret.

She kept her head well down when trans donors to Mermaids from the USA and Canada were having a right go at Susie Green on Twitter, about how Mermaids should be led by trans adults not by evil "cis parents" Grin

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