Alice Thomson in the Times today

-Its only a word for gods sake, who cares if the meaning of a word is changed, you are just being awkward and hateful now. Whats the fuss about?!
-Transwomen are women. They must be referred to as such or they might self harm. Words are very important.

Along with

-Bigot, males are not a danger to female people in single sex spaces at all. They won't attack you, and if they do you can call the police about it anyway! Stop making a fuss and allow people to pee in peace. Male violence is not a thing at all, its just an excuse for you to be transphobic!
-Its incredibly important that transwomen be allowed into womens spaces, as otherwise they are at risk of male violence. Calling the police after an attack is not a good response, as the attack should have been avoided in the first place by letting transwomen into the womens. Waiting for an attack to happen is a shitty way of doing things.

TRAs always try to get us to talk about something else, ignore the things that would affect us badly, and instead focus on making life better for people with penises. And the hypocrisy..

Its very very obvious that noone sees transwomen as woman, for the simple fact that if they did see them as women, they would ignore them and belittle their fears and such. Instead, the safety and happiness of the people who are male, is always prioritized above those who are female, and is expected to happen even in feminism !

Just checking out the latest comments and this one jumped out at me!

“Let’s worry a little less about tweets...”

Really? Here’s what I know about those little tweets, speaking from the perspective of a published novelist:

We are in an age where a little tweet (think: “I stand with J.K. Rowling” or “Only women are women”) will pretty much guarantee a drop in sales, cancellation of a publishing contract, a worried phone call or email from your agent/editor, passes on future manuscripts, blacklisting by literary journals, and negative reviews from angry people who haven’t read your book. In short, the end of your writing career.

That’s the power of tweets these days. But we’re all supposed to “worry a little less” about them.

Sorry, Alice Thomson. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Christina, if you're reading this - I loved Vox! So glad to know you are speaking up for JK Rowling.

This is a conflict and as in the name of their Committee they purport to be for women's interests too. It would be nice if they could at least retain some semblance of impartiality.

gardenbird48 yes - how can we stay on track when there appears to be no reference in the questions to the effects on women?
And to see the Chair of the Committee put her name to such a one sided article is very concerning.

StandUpStraight thank you that's very kind and has cheered me up on an otherwise depressing day

The point is so obvious, how can it be so spectacularly missed?

If 'woman' includes males, then every single mention of the word 'woman' and 'women' in Alice's article is meaningless, because we can't know who she is actually talking about

Alice is getting an absolute pasting in the comments.

Interesting how Alice tells women to focus on the big stuff, but doesn’t tell transgender activists to focus on the big stuff (like male violence towards trans women, access to better health care etc) rather than focus on policing women’s right to have an opinion about their own oppression or the language women can use about themselves etc

Exactly Flo. She is Maria Miller mark 2, like someone said on the CALL FOR ACTION thread.

I'm now far more concerned about the Caroline Nokes article than I am by anything Thomson thinks.

Nokes appears to be Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, (who have just re-ignited the issue of GRA reform) and has arguably showed her hand already.

toxic debate, more important things to worry about, muted the conversation on twitter

Arrogant privileged twit.

Caroline Nokes has just confirmed that Conservatives by and large don't care about women's rights. They never did, I think we just (briefly) lucked out with Liz Truss.
It's an all-out war on women.

Policy is the reason this debate got as big as it now is. GRA reform would not have been so hotly contested, had self-id policies not been adopted nationwide in anticipation of the GRA reform proposals being adopted into law.

And had those policies not already have been adopted prematurely, we would not have been able to provide the evidence of why redefining women to include men is so damaging to women.

He could have handwaved this away in any number of ways, but mentioning policy as the thing to worry about when that is the thing we worry about just demonstrated his ignorance.

I wondered if she’s stopped to think why this issue has seen the revival and re-invogoration of the feminist movement and women mobilising on an international scale. Because it’s bloody important, Alice, you daft privileged numpty.

God I wish I wasn’t so ‘obsessed’ - life was far less stressful before men decided to muscle in on womanhood and our hard worked for rights. I am perpetually infuriated.

It is odd, isn't it Kit19:

order-order.com/2020/10/27/exclusive-news-uk-hacks-to-be-forced-onto-diversity-inclusion-training/

Warning: that's a website many people aren't happy to go to.

mobile.twitter.com/ooffydarls/status/1321404525098487810

This tweet rewrites the article using the word 'people' instead of 'women'.

Again I don't understand why the problems aren't obvious.

I think the fact the times has 2 articles today hand waving away women’s concerns is interesting

I’m very much hoping they’re reading the comments because 99% of responders aren’t having it

Have just skim read the article.

My first thought is that surely the way the trans debate has been fought has simply added another layer of shit to wade through for women trying to improve things - as PPs have said, if the language is monkeyed with to be "inclusive" then discussions become utterly fraught and the real issues become mired in a sea of generalities that take the focus away from the people at the heart of them - women.

It's all very well saying in effect "just ignore it and it will go away" but it isn't and women raising the alarm are being destroyed. Like it or not (and I personally don't) if you are actively engaged in the world, social media is a tool you have to use - especially in terms of commerce when paid for advertising is often out of reach of smaller enterprises.This is why women have to fight for their words, and challenge big companies who appear to wilfully ignore the damage they are doing every time they erase the terms that have served us adequately for centuries.

Addressing all the more important issues has become similar to doing a route march with a 60lb rucksack on, and then being told to add another when you're two thirds to your goal - and women didn't start this fight. We were kind and inclusive and then the inch that we gave became a mile.

I'm just getting to the point where my tolerance and understanding might run out completely.

It's simplistic and clunky, but one of the stand out passages is the 6th par on women's sport. I can't work out if she thinks most women are too stupid to understand the science so don't care about the long term implications for women's sport, or if she doesn't understand it, or worse still for a journalist hasn't bothered reading up on the subject.

Matt Chorley said at one point he can't understand why people are so angry, policy is more important.

I don't understand why he doesn't understand. You can't have policy without words.

If you look at the impact of Covid on women's employment, you have to ask why mothers are more impacted than fathers. It's not because women just love to homeschool their children. There are many factors, including the long term impact of maternity leave on pay, societal expectations and impact of Covid on different employment sectors. You can't talk about any of this is you can't explain what a woman is.

How is this not obvious???

Her paternal great-grandfather, J. J. Thomson, was awarded a Nobel prize for the discovery of the electron. Her grandfather, GP Thomson, was awarded the Nobel prize for physics for the discovery of the wave properties of the electron. Her maternal great-grandfather, William Henry Bragg, was awarded, together with his son, William Lawrence Bragg, a Nobel prize for Physics for the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-ray.

Sadly it seems that intellectual curiosity isn't an inherited trait in the Thomson dynasty.

Did she get the Times job because she is (also) related to RAC Gill?

@Melroses

I keep getting "this page isn't working"

Don't worry, Alice Thomson's brain isn't working.

Comment from silver lady below. She is a great writer. Take note Alice. A great writer

This is a fight that women didn't ask for.
Nobody consulted women about whether we wanted to be called uterus havers, chest feeders or menstruators. Nobody asked women whether we wanted to undress in front of born males in mixed sex changing rooms. Nobody asked teenage girls whether they wanted mixed sex toilets in their schools as they navigate puberty and periods. Nobody asked women prisoners if they wanted to share prison cells with men self identifying as women. Nobody asked women whether all our hard fought gains in sport could now be handed over to mediocre males so they can take the medals.
If you can't accurately name women and men then you can't identify sex based differences - be it covid, rape statistics, employment discrimination, the pay gap, maternity needs - nothing. Inclusion does not mean listening only to this tiny but powerful group and excluding women.
Nothing about us without us.