Cancellation of WRN NI event at Féile festival.

Bastards.😡

Stephen Nolan interview for those who are interested:

https://x.com/RoisinMichaux/status/2079891946483396783

https://nitter.net/RoisinMichaux/status/2079891946483396783

NI human rights legislation protects against discrimination on grounds of religion and belief, so that's an option as well as discrimination on grounds of sex.

The rumour on NI social media is that our resident 'friend of Keffals' is likely responsible for starting off the campaign against WRN at Féile.

I forgot to mention that in NI we also have legal protection for political opinion:

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/religious-belief-and-political-opinion-discrimination

Thanks, the BBC allowing itself to be used as the premier platform for misinformation again, I see.

Ferguson invokes "genital inspections" and emotionally powerful (if untrue) suicide stats.

The blatant nonsense from PBP about GC feminist groups receiving funding from Right wing American groups wasn't challenged.

Although, I note that European organisations receiving funding from Left wing American groups/individuals (or from Middle Eastern organisations) is not considered to be problematic by supporters of the omnicause 🙄

Background information on the cancellation campaign:

https://x.com/RoisinMichaux/status/2079618417263304935?s=20

https://nitter.net/RoisinMichaux/status/2079618417263304935?s=20

This is who they are kowtowing to, man they need their heads read, what stupid side to be on. 😂

It's amazing, isn't it? Logic and common-sense just fly right out of the window.

A wee bit of dry humour about the cancellation 😏:

https://x.com/modonnellDL/status/2079617402388484191?s=20

https://nitter.net/modonnellDL/status/2079617402388484191?s=20

Gaels For Fair Play were scheduled to speak at the WRN Féile event:

https://x.com/GaelsFairPlay/status/2079869715611074782?s=20

We are one of the groups that was invited to speak at this event. Feile an Phobail's comments are a punch in the guts to the 20,000+ women and girls in the north of Ireland who play Gaelic football and camogie. Wanting female players to have fairness, safety, privacy and dignity in their sport is not anti-rights. Asking our governing bodies to ensure that all males, no matter how they identify, compete in the correct sex category so that female players can have fair and safe sport is not anti-rights. We note with deepening concern the level of abuse directed at women by those who pushed for this event to be cancelled. These are ordinary women, living in the very same communities as those seeking to strip them of their right to speak. This is not right.

The famous Mitchell and Webb meme remains apt.

Well done them for speaking out, but pulling out of the event in solidarity might have been better. Deeds not words.

Article by David Thompson (formerly of The Nolan Show investigation into Stonewall) in a local newspaper:

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/jk-rowling-steps-in-after-feile-an-phobail-cancels-womens-rights-debate-stormont-minister-says-festival-capitulated-8816131

Stormont’s culture minister Gordon Lyons said Feile was happy to take public money “to platform ‘debate’, right up until the debate involves views they don’t like”.

“They accepted this event, then dropped it the moment an online mob kicked off. That’s not tolerance, but capitulation.

“Women discussing their own rights shouldn’t need to pass an ideological test to get a hearing. Féile has shown exactly whose voices it’s willing to protect and whose it’s willing to sacrifice.

TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said one of his proudest moments in Stormont was securing the opportunity for the NI Women’s Rights Network to give evidence before the TEO Committee.

“Their appearance marked a breakthrough against a Stormont establishment that, until then, had been totally captured by ideology.

“For the first time, the Committee heard from a group prepared to state the biological reality of what a woman is and to speak up for the protection of single-sex spaces.

…The News Letter asked Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance if they support the right of WRN or any other gender critical feminists to speak at the West Belfast Festival - or any other publicly funded event. None of the parties responded.

Thanks for the link

“Today’s statement from Féile an Phobail confirming that it is excluding the NI Women’s Rights Network is a slap in the face to everyone who believes women deserve the right to defend their own spaces from trans invaders”,

I love it. He doesn't pull his punches does he. 😂

I'm inclined to worry that this cancellation is possibly only getting airtime over here because JKR offered to fund WRN, if they wanted to go to law for discrimination, but I'm also hoping that the time has come here in NI for us to publicly have the debate that's been going on in GB for so long. As a society, in NI, we let bad things fester without acknowledgement or discussion for far too long because nobody in a position of authority is brave enough to grasp the nettle.

Of course, most NI media orgs, and most of the MLAs in Stormont, are determined to suppress debate for as long as possible but I'm fervently hoping that this story (plus hopefully an appeal against the decision in the Morrison v Belfast Film Festival tribunal case) will drag into the public sphere what ordinary people are thinking and feeling. The women of NI have worked together across the political divide in the past, I really hope this is another issue that WRN can bring that same collaborative energy to.

I'm glad for every bit of the airtime. And I'm grateful to JKR for her backing and amplification of it.❤️

JKR is still trying to get everyone to forget she hired a man found to be a domestic abuser and ignored every woman who pleaded with her to sack him.

At the height of #metoo she sided with a man over a woman who reported being abused by him. Even though a court had ruled against him.

it doesn't matter what Depp's lawyers managed to do later. JKR saw that judgement & not only hired him but issued statements in support of him.

She bought his yacht, easing his financial problems.

And ever since Warners did finally fire him, she's been claiming herself to be standing up for women.

Chucking money at anti-trans grifters isn't feminism. She had her chance to stand with victims, to prove she actually cared about DV survivors like me & millions of other women - and chose the man. Hypocritical doesn't even begin to cover it.

JK Rowling who set up a rape crisis center for women. A place for female victims. Yep clearly a woman not standing with victims.

As character assassinations go that's a feeble attempt, you've been doing it for a while, shouldn't you be better at it by now. 1/10

The first lot of frocks are at least in better taste. Not that I condone that lot one bit.

It wasn't Depp who was the abuser afaik? It was his wife.

I'm not sure why that's relevant to my post, I was commenting on yet another attempt to smear JKR. 🤷

Lol, yes, or perhaps women should be required to inhale helium before stating material reality.

I know. But the smear works because Depp was accused. One way of defeating the smear is to point out that Depp was not guilty, thus undermining the smear. But sorry, it was a derailment.