The Times View on Harry Miller,Twitter & the trans debates:Thought Police 15/2/20

So many comments under that article from people who rarely comment - and almost universal horror at what's happened. We need to keep up the pressure on the government to roll back the influence of these toxic groups on schools etc.
And here's a share token for the outstanding Janice Turner's column on the witch hunt in the labour party:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3a8b02a4-4f49-11ea-b112-75acb94b3417?shareToken=22eb2a836e2b5ef695f367ab7f6f6f3e

The Times editorial piece is brilliant. It is great to see this getting such prominent coverage in The Times and in the Telegraph. The threat to freedom of speech, the police operating on behalf of a lobby group, it's all there, exposed to public scrutiny.

No one in a free society expects to receive a visit from the police for expressing a political opinion. Yet this is what happened to Harry Miller after he was reported to Humberside police for supposedly transphobic tweets. Among his offending tweets were a limerick that he had “liked” and a tweet that he had posted reading: “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me.” Police recorded Mr Miller’s tweets as a “non-crime hate incident”, visited his place of work and gave him the impression that he could be prosecuted if he continued to tweet. Yesterday the High Court ruled that the force had disproportionately interfered with Mr Miller’s freedom of expression. In so doing it has struck an important blow for free speech

Thanks for the shares. And thanks to The Times for giving this so much coverage.

I'm so grateful to Harry (and Kate, Maya and all) for pursuing truth and justice and our right to free speech.

Good to see Flash Maggie in there too, she's great.

I also have a huge crush on Mr Justice Knowles. He's a boy from an estate in Manchester who done good, he's done some good work prior to this too, and I think he's also got a good sense of humour.

It's a watershed moment.

So much respect for Harry for having the resilience to take it this far.

Thank you for the share tokens.

Is the puberty blocker article linked to in the leader worthy of its own thread? (Disputed trans guide gets NHS nod) It starts with this gem

'Three NHS trusts have endorsed a guide for transgender patients that approves puberty blockers and declares that anatomy “is not always a good guide” to determining a child’s sex.

There are already more than 1,000 comments under the front page article (Errol’s first sharetoken link). People are not happy about the creeping authoritarianism in this debate and are supportive of Harry’s case.

And the comments!
I did feel a bit despondent a week or so back but then read that this fightback might well be two steps forward and one back. This feels like three forward

I just came here to post this. Front page of The Times - wow!

*the freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”

This is gold. When I hear the words I'm offended I have to roll my eyes. I was taught as a child not to be offended. Sticks and stones and all that.

Margaret Nelson - @Flashmaggie on Twitter

www.faircop.org.uk/margaret-nelson

It got a lot of press attention at the time

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/why-are-the-police-stopping-a-74-year-old-tweeting-about-transgenderism/

There were a few threads on here too.

From the article: “Suffolk police were criticised for contacting a 74-year-old woman who tweeted “gender is BS” and telling her to “tone down” her posts. They later called back to apologise.”

WHAT?!

It does indeed feel like a turning point. Long overdue.

And for completeness, though there's another thread and it's a different topic, Janice Turners column

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labours-trans-pledge-says-anyone-who-disagrees-is-a-bigot-trlh72r0l?shareToken=7cd9f45aea12445dba720ec2b6ee882d

Very pleased about no 10 expressing a willingness to push for a review of the guidelines.

And puuuuuuuulllll....

The previous was the front page, this is the leader column

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-harry-miller-twitter-and-the-trans-debate-thought-police-s5r6kqg0h?shareToken=9f8407371b295db15d3241d94ba351c3

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0d3960f8-4f25-11ea-92ed-35f8fca55a87?shareToken=45b7368cf22e4b9b83bfbfd5508d8c3b