Maya did retweet this see screen shot below. I am not saying she is directly involved though obviously.
Andrew Doyle and Toby Young did as well.
How grass roots it is remains to be seen I agree. It is great people are sceptical of this. Because being wary is sensible.
From what I can see so far it seems to be coming out of the pro Free Speech movement rather than purely women's rights. Free Speech is not a right, left or centre value. It is a universal one. There are a tonne of very wealthy people who want to support free speech, there are also a bunch of rich people who want to end free speech for their political/ideological opponents, especially if they are women and or gay. Wealthy supporters of free speech are going to be incredibly varied include traditional Tories, Blairite Bankers, Libertarian tech bosses, eco start up hippy types, Members of the House of Lords/MPs, Union organisers, wealthy academics, Scot Nat business owners, wealthy authors, rock stars add your own examples. Free Speech is going to be one of the few things these people agree on.
Riverside Advisory ran the first "Parliamentary event in support of freedom of expression" in 2022 as well. It was written up here:
https://unherd.com/2022/07/how-right-is-kemi-badenoch/
A short write up of the event last week is at the Free Speech Union:
FSU attend House of Lords free speech event!
On Wednesday, FSU staff along with some well-known and familiar faces (such as Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce and Baroness Ann Jenkin) were invited to the second annual parliamentary event in support of freedom of expression. MC’d by FSU Advisory Council member Andrew Doyle, the event was a great opportunity for pro-free-speech groups to get together, including Battle of Ideas, Big Brother Watch, Don’t Divide Us, Freedom in the Arts, LGB Alliance, Together and We Are Fair Cop. Each organisation gave a short elevator pitch, outlining their biggest achievements over the past 12 months and what they see as the biggest threats to free speech on- and offline in the coming year.
FSU Chief Legal counsel, Dr Bryn Harris, updated the room on our priorities for the next 12 months, namely, defending workers compelled to abide by the ‘progressive’ values of their employers, pushing the courts to recognise that academic freedom is a fundamental right and working with friends and supporters in Parliament to reform public order legislation (being offensive really shouldn’t bean offence).
As to what the What is a Woman Campaign becomes well that rather depends on what ordinary British people think. Either they participate and report their findings to the website and other people look at the website and it becomes very grass roots and viral during the election campaign or they don't. Ideally it would later be extended so we know whether our local councilors believe in biology or not.
It is an interesting example of finding out if people care about these issues beyond Mumsnet and twitter. Because the reality is if ordinary voters DO NOT care whether biology exists in the long run the TRA are going to win. Or rather biology will become an issue only for the right and our politics will become like the USA where the only choice is between what flavour of misogyny you pick from when you vote. To stop that happening we need every weapon we can use.
If this works great. If it doesn't then we will need to try a bunch more things. Because the TRAs are using schools, universities, corporate HR, the NHS and everything they can lay their hands on against us.