A cheer from the Spectator to us Mumsneters on the FWR board

Start a petition with our own views on the matter? Trouble is, women are so scared of getting cancelled and reported for standing up for our rights on social media that I'm not sure if we can beat their numbers, despite outnumbering them otherwise.
Start a different petition?: about how people shouldn't face employment difficulties because of exercising their right to free speech (that's another whole debate, of course - what is 'free speech' and what is 'hate speech' ).

thank you

I've also started subscribing to the Spectator. The btl comments need to be taken with a pinch of blood pressure medication but anyways an influx of commenters from FWR might help with that.

This isn't a publication I would usually read. But that may change. I enjoyed the article posted. Thanks for sharing.

Hi James 👋

And thank you 💐

I now subscribe to the spectator and love it.

Rod Riddle makes me laugh out loud most weeks!! Often in shock!

I'm going start commenting online! That should be fun! We should all do that, they won't know what's hit them 😁!!

Although I'll probably just discover I was mostly arguing with my dad 😁!!

Thanks James 🎉

I popped over to FWR a few years ago to see what all the fuss was about, and then got very fussed myself. Since then I have been writing to my MP, spoken to my Manager about my concerns (I'm a Social Worker & fortunate to have an excellent Manager who cut through the issues immediately), done some digging and I have been talking, a lot, to everyone I can. All of my best friends are on board and we regularly send each other articles etc on WhatsApp and my family are also on board. I don't post much due to time, but continue to read. My point is, I know I'm not alone in this and James is absolutely correct in identifying what the FWR board has done, there are thousands of us out there. I must stress, my discussions haven't solely been in relation to the GRA, but feminism as a whole, I feel like I've been stirred from a slumber and whilst it's been terrifying at times, I am very grateful for it.

PS

I only know about these issues because of MN. There will still be many, many people oblivious to this. A debate in parliament will open so many eyes. Bring it on, I say

I think it's too soon. Too many MPs think Twitter = real life. Not enough MPs understand the strength of women's concern. FWR still regularly gets posters who work for, or are married to, MPs telling us that their MP is not aware.

If we have a parliamentary debate now, Starmer will be forced to pick a side, and he will almost certainly toe the Stonewall line, because there isn't a clear enough downside for him yet. We don't want Labour to be able to represent women's concerns as the prejudices of a bunch of right-wing bigots. We need time to move more Labour MPs to feeling able to support GC women - or at least to support their right to be heard.

James it means a lot to have a good feminist ally. It gives me hope that my son can grow up to support women.

Yes, thank you FWR.

I'd heard about the debate but didn't really know much about it. I knew Germaine Greer had been 'cancelled', which I thought was strange. I knew that Mumsnet agreed with her, and was considered a transphobic site, so I thought I would come and read the so-called 'TERF' viewpoint. Then I planned to read up on the counter view. That was when I started watching trans channels on YouTube.

Anyway, I got to Mumsnet - and, well, the rest is history. Since then I've written to various political leaders and to JKR, donated to crowd funders, bought the Times on occasion, pointed out the inherent flaws of gender ideology to my workplace and am trying to push back on my gym's decision to segregate changing rooms on the basis of gender identity rather than biological sex. I guess I'm another one who has been radicalised by Mumsnet.

None of the things I have done has been big. None of this is impressive, especially in comparison to the women who have been taking a stand for years. But lots of women writing to political leaders, supporting JKR, donating to crowd funders like Alison Bailey's or Katie Alcock's, challenging stupid policy...well, that's how change happens.

In the meantime I am learning about other issues affecting modern feminism, eg surrogacy and the Nordic model. Hopefully I can find my voice on these issues too.

Ha!

con'd from above (hit send to soon):

It is my guess that the Times is divided internally between senior editors, who at the very least appreciate publishing a diversity of opinions, and younger staff in more junior roles such as online moderators who are ultra-woke in their world view. It will be interesting to see over the next few years if such fierce critics of woke ideology like Joanna Williams and Rod Liddle continue to be published in the Times when the woke puritanical junior staff who work on the censorship board of the comments section rise through the ranks. Finally, censoring your paying subscribers for agreeing politely with your own columnists is a terrible business model.

www.conservativewoman.co.uk/woke-war-at-the-times-is-bad-business/

I would very much like to extend my gratitude to MNHQ and @JustineMumsnet for putting so much committment into the fraught task of continuing to allow discussion of these issues in MN, despite the activist assaults hurled at them. I've sometimes felt somewhat critical of Mumsnet in the past on a few issues, but they have played a blinder in this respect. Many thanks.

This is lovely. I think this is one victory of many achieved and many still to come. I feel a bit tearful!

@TherapistInATabard Start a petition with our own views on the matter? Trouble is, women are so scared of getting cancelled and reported for standing up for our rights on social media that I'm not sure if we can beat their numbers, despite outnumbering them otherwise.

Sorry I think I might have let my love of a good joke get in the way of the facts upthread. I don't think that petition for a debate was organised by Stonewall - maybe they still don't want one.

Hellooooooo James! Waving back atcha sterling work you’re doing there.

We make a difference here. If I hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have found my way to Fair Play For Women, and I wouldn’t have been out leafletting and finding out what people in the street really think of this issue. It was that grass roots action that stopped self ID in its tracks. Hurray for us!

I'm so proud of us.

'Normal' women like me, with no knowledge of any of this until Mumsnet alerted me to this, absolutely pulling out all the stops to achieve something so important.

Thanks James, thanks FWR. No thanks to my MP.

Brilliant - took out a subscription to the Spectator last year purely because of James kirkup who was one if the few journalists willing to take this on. Will continue to buy it.

*Frankly, the only thing this issue ever needs is sunlight.

Let's have it.

Let's have the debate.*

Oh, we will. We are. We are having it household by household, we don't need the govt to facilitate it or have another consultation to 'educate' us like Sturgeon suggested. We are having this debate whether Stonewall likes it or not. EVEN THE BITS YOUD RATHER WE DIDNT DISCUSS.

I only came here to see why Mumsnetters were so hateful and nasty, as they kept being quoted in the papers. I then commented on a thread where a male bodied person who identified as trans, was showing a dress. Then this horrible poster came on to tell us to wise up and that we were behaving like cock centring fools. Boy oh boy, have I educated myself since that first experience. I shudder at my naivety and man pleasing socialisation, when I look back.

The FWR board and Spectator has really helped me understand what is really going on. Thank you to all involved, even the trolls, because their obvious hatred of women continues to show me what women are at risk of losing.

If the debate is going to start all over again, then this round will need to include taking to the general public, why is the GRA being repurposed when the issue it addressed no longer exists; should legal fictions such as this exist at all; and what precedents does this set for other legal fictions for other characteristics?