Review of HP reunion in The Guardian…they just can’t help themselves

Buck Angel had a letter published in the LA Times, sticking up for JK Rowling.

That is a really significant list:

Maya Forstater: people lied about what she had said, truth vindicated in court.

Sonia Appleby: people lied about what she said about Jimmy Savile, claimed she was linking a paedophile to the GIDS service, truth vindicated in court.

Fair Cop: people lied that he had committed a hate crime, truth vindicated in court.

NHS: perpetuated the lie that puberty blockers are reversed, ended up in court with Keira Bell and Mrs A, truth vindicated in court.

When lies are allowed to flourish, good people end up in court. Even if they’re ultimately vindicated, it’s still a manifestation of what happens when it’s allowed.

No more.

The fashion for inventing a whole new gender for yourself which at present is popular among adolescents will give way to something new, the way that hippydom and punk and all the rest (which did less physical harm to the adolescents involved than drugs too powerful to be prescribed to adults for years at a time, with lifelong and life-changing side-effects, but that frankly is the adolescents' problem not mine) faded, and these days you get the occasional defiant ex-hippy and a few people in silly boots and crew-cuts at special events.

Women have been around for about twenty million years; trans for rather less than a century, and TRAs in any sort of number for about ten at the most. Women can probably wait out a fad.

Before the trans fashion there was the PIE, which has fortunately faded, though some members of it are active advocates of the right of anyone saying they are female to have access to any space where children may be naked.... Oh, oops, nobody is meant to have noticed that.

Floisme - Thanks for answering 😊

Floisme - Fair enough
I think that's a rather curious way of viewing all the progress women have have made - as outlined by other posters. But, as you say, fair enough.
but how do you see that continuing?
By women holding the line.
If you keep the same strategy you have now, do you see that as enabling you to continue progress?
Yes.

Maya Forstater - gc beliefs 'worthy of respect' and protected (employment tribunal)
Sonya Appleby -safeguarding at GIDS - upheld
FairCop - non-crime hate incidents may not be recorded
NHS - puberty blockers no longer listed as 'reversible'
NHS - puberty blockers no longer given to children
Scottish parliament - women have the right to request a 'female' examiner after rape and female means female (biological sex)
Stonewall - BBC and many others withdraw from support
Govt asserts the right of women to have single sex toilets.

There are a lot of things to change and a long way to go. But we are getting stronger all the time. And we will get there. Not by pandering to idiots on Twitter, but by the patient, laborious, brave and tenacious work done by individual women and tiny, unfunded grassroots organisations, even if we have to meet in secret, even if meetings are picketed, women attacked, threatened, doxxed, sacked and smeared.

Every article, every Judicial review, every case brought has been because of the work of fearsome, incredible, intelligent and courageous women.

Women are stating clearly and unequivocally that they want their hard won rights enforced and respected and progress is being made in this direction.

Please state clearly and unequivocally what you are wanting women to do in this debate and how that will achieve the stated aims of protecting the rights of women.

I remember physical attacks and violent verbal abuse that left women shaking in fear. I remember them blocking exits, smoke-bombing, hammering on windows. They set the police to arrest women for wearing t-shirts and giving out leaflets.

I remember sitting in the Speakers' Corner event listening to the transactivists shouting 'BURN IT DOWN' outside. Plus Stonewall calling the police on me, twice, for taking part in pro-lesbian demos outside their conferences. And compared to many others I've got off extremely lightly.

Still can't believe they thought it reasonable to let off smoke bombs near Grenfell.

They don't call the UK TERF Island for nothing.

I mean it took a while for the world to catch themselves on but we got there in the end.

We don't need to "engage with" the people who want to remove our rights. Now the mainstream press have picked up on the aggression, hypocricy and safeguarding red flags of the TWAW choir, the ordinary people of the UK can see for themselves. The Daily Mail just needs to keep publishing stories of "women" rapists with the revealing photo.

I remember when they were violently intimidating anyone trying to attend Women's Rights meetings and claiming they had no right to speak.
I remember the bomb threats and pressure so great that even Millwall FC cancelled a meeting in fear of them (Millwall!).
I remember physical attacks and violent verbal abuse that left women shaking in fear. I remember them blocking exits, smoke-bombing, hammering on windows. They set the police to arrest women for wearing t-shirts and giving out leaflets.

At least they seem to have realised the damage they were doing to their own cause.

Publicity of their tactics and actually pointing out the lies has done so much. How many were earnestly repeating the suicide lies until someone thought to say "Hang on a minute...!"?

Floisme - Fair enough, but how do you see that continuing? If you keep the same strategy you have now, do you see that as enabling you to continue progress?

I actually think we've made quite a bit of progress since we stopped being so polite and accommodating and pretending we hadn't noticed what was happening in front of our own eyes.

Ok so you don't like my opinion and you're perfectly entitled to that, no hard feelings whatsoever. But then I'm genuinely curious (not in a snippy way, but genuinely) as to how you think progress can be made if you don't want to engage with them? 100% genuine question.

The idea that people defending JKR and the rights she believes in and stands up for need to be willing to listen slowly and openly to people spout lies in order for progress to be made is so bonkers it’s hard to know what else to say. Put the onus on the people lying to stop lying!

It’s like saying if you want your toddler to stop drawing on the walls with permanent markers you should allow them to continue, let them finish their toddler masterpiece of scribble, and then patiently explain to them afterwards how they might want to use paper next time. Meanwhile, the damage is irreparably done to your walls and the toddler thinks they’re Vincent fucking Van Gogh.

No thank you.

Then as I say, absolutely no progress will be made, the situation as we know it will remain as it is. If you're ok with that then there is no problem.

you refuse to talk to the other side because you think its them who need to change?
We are tired of trying to engage with the other side because they never give a straightforward answer. It's like trying to knit fog.
We can define what a woman is; they can't, despite insisting that they are one.

No thank you

I find it astounding that ppl come on here and effectively tell us off for insisting on our own hard fought legal rights to be upheld

I can’t think of any other group protected under equality law where this is the case

And frankly given what TRA have thrown at us already and we’ve still said no, im not sure what they have left

How am I chastising the wrong side when my words apply to both sides? So you're fine to remain in the exact same place you are now because you refuse to talk to the other side because you think its them who need to change? The other side probably think the exact same thing, so no progress will be made unless there's a change from both sides.

I have read your points, and ultimately they boil down to "women should talk to TRAs and explain. And explain again. And keep explaining".
You seem new to all this Blackbird. Do you realise that for a long time the TRA had a policy of "No Debate" i.e. their stance was - literally - that they expected the world to cave to their every demand without question. We have only got as far as we have because some brave people have refused to kowtow.
It was never women that wouldn't talk, it was the TRA. You are chastising the wrong side.

I'm not hanging around waiting for misogynists to come to terms with their inner feels about why and how they hate women.

I am not asking for my rights. I'm fucking insisting on them. I am a human being and I will be counted.

Of course rape and death threats will continue, the problem is MEN and the fact that they rape and kill women.

Talking to men doesn't stop them assaulting, raping and killing women.

I mean, really? Be nice and hope they don't kill you?

Fuck that shit.

TurquoiseBaubles - Alright, then carry on exactly as you have been and in 10 years time things will be the same as they are today. The rape and death threats will continue, the insults and refusal to understand from either side will continue, the frustration.. all of it. It almost seems as if progress isn't what people what.