I wish Posie had been there

Btw, I'm meeting a mate in town later for coffee - is that ok, or should I get a hair shirt out and start rending garments that I haven't thought to invite Baroness Nicholson and Kier Starmer?

This week alone, we have one activist who seems to think everyone female should present themselves to that activist for a decision on whether or not they look sufficiently stereotypical to that activist to grant them permission to call themselves a woman,

Another activist who even more fondly seems to think that before being permitted justice he wishes you to submit your mobile phone to him and he'll decide whether or not you qualify based on which model it is,

And now apparently you're supposed to submit your bloody guest lists for approval if you want to meet up with friends.

Grip shop. Over there. That away.

I'd like to thank JKR for standing up for women and using her far-reaching influence to achieve so much.

I'd also like to thank KJKM for standing up for women and probably only coming second to JKR for reaching so many people across the world. For an ordinary SAHM her influence and reach has been astonishing.

They've both been brilliant in the face of extraordinary opposition.

What a shame that people have to wet blanket and niggle about anything women ever do.

This was an online friendship group who met up in person ffs. It was not a formal meeting or awards ceremony recognising women at the forefront of women's rights, it was a group of people who knew each other online and wanted to meet in person.

Busily reproaching and policing where women aren't womening properly, that they aren't putting themselves selflessly aside and including everybody, thinking first of everybody (and optics), judging everything they do by what they didnt do right by someone else's fussing - ffs, this is what we're standing up against from bloody men, who can't see female humans as real people. We don't need it from other women too.

But I wouldn't class it as a private lunch, when images have been posted

I dont think the definition of a private event hinges on whether people took photos or not

Having said that this is mumsnet and there can be whole threads on not being invited to events/childrens parties etc so….par for the course really

Omg. What a load of divisive nonsense. Of course it wasn't a snub and how petty and self-obsessed would you have to be to take it that way.

It was a lunch ffs. JK is allowed to have friends and a social life. No one is entitled to socialise with her!

Has everyone lost their mind. It's lunch.

Welcome to Mumsnet OP, interesting first thread.

can't we move away from binary thinking on this?
I thought it looked great, and I loved to see those great women celebrating. Good for them.
But I wouldn't class it as a private lunch, when images have been posted and reposted.
And I believe it was a snub to PP, not that she would give a damn. She has done more than anyone else to push this forward.
Julie Bindel made a point of being snarky about her in the unherd discussion recently, and, to me , the lunch has a Mean Girls vibe.
But this always happens in successful movements, they split into smaller factions. Mainstream feminists find PP unpalatable, and it shows.

Set the time on this at just after midnight, when it wouldn't let me post...
I don't know if 'they have their clique'. My impression was that JKR was trying to draw people together. So many women are doing great things. Providing an occasion for some of them to meet and enjoy each other's company is a way of strengthening bonds and strengthening the movement (don't like that term, reminds me of glinner and the 'we are the movement' photo - it did make me wonder if JKR saw that and thought 'Are you, eh? I'll show you who 'the movement' are!').

It wasn’t a snub at all. People seem to think JK sat there deciding who would be invited to “her” lunch.
Rosie Duffield said on WH yesterday that most of them have been in contact with each other over the past few years, supporting each other via WhatsApp, so they “knew” each other. They decided it would be great to meet and planned it as an Xmas lunch but it had to be cancelled due to Covid. I assume KJ was not in this group and so wasn’t invited!

I honestly can't believe the amount of negative comment this lunch has produced - to be fair, not here really but mainly Twitter.

Men declaring it was some kind of sinister war room.
TRAs spouting horrific misogynist and homophobic comment about attendees appearances.

Now here, picking over who 'should' have been there.

It was a LUNCH. A bloody lovely LUNCH, obviously with friends for an much-needed laugh and chat....with booze. It was joyous. The photos are incredible. They certainly lifted my heart for the day.

That's IT. Stop with the over-analysis.

Not being a stalker but think she said on one of her talk things that she’s going away with her family over Easter hols. I may have imagined that it was on in background.

If it had been an awards ceremony or a publicly funded event it might be a valid question, but not when it's a private lunch. If JK had invited Grace Lavery, Paris Lees and Adrian Harrop it would be none of our business.

Agree with AnnesBrokenSlate

It wasn’t a conference or awards ceremony. It was a small personal lunch between people who have apparently made a personal connection as a result of this fight. Who have then had the canniness to share the photos and keep the sunlight shining in.

We give TRAs a helping hand if we look for division and exclusion. Not least because a particular sort of man loves to roll out the stereotypical tropes about so-called female behaviour- cliqueyness, slighted feelings in friendship groups etc.

I have found the photos to be a combination of joyful and emotional. Five years ago I never imagined we would get to this point. Let’s celebrate that.

I thought I saw Maria MacLachlan there in one of the photos of the people who weren’t widely published.

Either way, we don’t know who was or wasn’t invited and it doesn’t serve any real positive purpose to speculate in my opinion. There is so many great voices to include that it would be a huge gathering.

(Do we really know if Datun was NOT there anyway!! )

I believe there from listening to one of KJ’s videos that there could be a summer picnic after speakers corner coming up. It is certainly worth checking if that will happen.

There are so many like-minded women we'd all like to sit round a table with! Let's just remember, none of us get to influence another's guest list...This wasn't our lunch. And I'm certain JKR values KJK's input as much as we do and maybe there'll be an invitation to another do at some point but can some of us please stop behaving like the mother who's child hasn't been invited to the birthday party for the most popular kid in class?

Nah ... the wide-eyed 'I'm just asking' whilst talking about 'cliques' and 'snubs' is bullshit. Women have been working on these issues for years. Of course they don't all socialise together or even necessarily like each other. They don't have to. JKR held a lunch. She wasn't crowning queens of the movement. She wasn't claiming to bridge all different gc groups. And I don't think the many women who weren't there will be upset about it. Because those of us who have been involved for years know who the different groups are and who the women are who have made a difference including names that never get lauded or interviewed. They're all important. They're all valuable in their own ways.
But threads like this don't have a value except to make TRAs happy; feed into a 'all women must be kind and get on with each other all the time' mentality and try to turn a positive story into a negative one.

I suspect Posie is grown up enough to say how she feels for herself without us speculating.
Posie is unsinkable. To imply she wasn't invited unless she says so herself suggests a snub that is deliberately creating division.

Pull together women!

Also, Maria MacLachlan... a HUGE amount of work for the cause with her Peak Trans website and YouTube channel.

I think JKR should book the Royal Albert Hall one lunchtime, and fill it with 5,000 GC women, who all bring a packed lunch and pay 1/5000ths of the booking fee.

It's where the suffragettes used to hold meetings.

Also, if we are listing heroes of the GC persuasion, shout-out to Andrew Doyle, who has spoken plain good sense on the T issue in about 100 videoed interviews so far.

But I think it is a shame to lament an amazing gathering by focusing on who wasn't there. Jane Claire Jones, Sharron, Posie, Emma Nicholson, Emma Hilton, Karen, Stephanie, Helen S, Glinner so many names now. The movement is large and growing thanks to each and everyone.

Exactly.
This was a personal lunch, rather than cliquey, and I don't recognise some of the women in the photographs because they're 'lesser known'. But I love the fact that all those women had that lunch and - unapologetically - posted their pics so we all could share. Every pic has made me smile.

KJK is fabulous - she knows it, we know it and everyone knew it on Sunday too. Let's not forge rifts where only superficial differences exist.

But I think it is a shame to lament an amazing gathering by focusing on who wasn't there

Agreed and it assumes Posie would want to go.

I think Posie is fabulous.
She is the child who points at the emperor and shouts that he is naked and she will not lie or play pretend to spare male feelings.