to be FURIOUS that Karen Ingala Smith and the Counting Dead Women Project were defamed?

[PottingCompost]

As I'm sure many of you know, for International Women's Day, Jess Phillips MP read all the names of the women killed by a man in the UK since the last IWD. One hundred and eighteen names. Usually she gets accused on social media of not caring about male murder victims afterwards. This year, I thought no-one would dare do that.

However, this afternoon, just a couple of days after Sarah Everard was found, a writer criticised the list on twitter, and claimed it was incomplete. She said, "Incorrect. Jess Phillips has never read out a complete list. Phillips and the author of Counting Dead Women deliberately exclude the names of murdered trans women (or as the founder of CDW calls them: 'males')."

That attack has been shared across twitter and across social media in general.

Just one big issue though. As Karen clarified, no names of murdered transwomen in the UK could have been read out, because none were murdered this year.

Karen said: if anyone wants to know why Jess Phillips didn’t read any names of men who identify as transwomen in the list of women killed by men since IWD last year, it’s largely because there were none.
There were 118 women though. One hundred and eighteen. Why do you overlook them?

She went on to add that if a transwoman is murdered, it would be Jess Phillips' decision, as she's the one to read the names in Parliament, whether to add her name to the list. (Which seems perfectly reasonable to me.)

This lie that names were left out has gone round all over the place. I don't expect it'll ever fully die.

Why was it so easy for people to believe the worst of Jess Phillips and Karen Ingala Smith? Thousands of people believed the worst of these two women who have done SO MUCH for women, on the basis of a twitter thread from a writer.

How much must a woman do to help and support others, before people give her the benefit of the doubt and do a fact-check, when someone smears her?

This has just broken me, more than any other amount of foolishness on SM ever has. That anyone could spread these lies, this week of all weeks. Someone will always find some excuse to get the public to dismiss projects like Counting Dead Women, instead of focusing on over one hundred dead women.

Something is very wrong. I keep coming up with analogies using other groups, and the selfishness just seems more stark.

It's something like the victim Olympics too. They can't bear it not to be about them.

Donkeys years ago when I was trying talking to people rationally on reddit (I know, idiot!), a transwoman there told me I was lucky to have had repeat miscarriages as they'd never even know what that was like. They meant it too.

(The whole conversation was in the context of "We're exactly like infertile women, and you don't call them men do you haha win.")

@Olderstyle1

Nice analogy Holdon ... I'm very fond of quokkas but have noticed that there are literally NO THREADS about them on MN and NO MENTION of them in threads about entirely different topics.

Time to start yelling what about the quokkas at regular intervals I think. Who's with me?

Quokkas abandon their young when threatened by predators. (So they can escape) They would be ripped apart on MN.

Yanbu....

I can't add more, people have said it above many times, much better.

DH and I were talking about gender based violence being excused at a young age after I made a comment about how I would complain if I was told “it was just boys being boys” after our 7 year old Dd was punched by a boy a school. (I wasn’t thankfully and it was dealt with by her teacher)

He had never seen it that way.

How boys being boys is the excuse right up until someone kills their partner.

I wonder if JP realises now that you can never appease or do enough to satisfy these people?

It’s worth pointing out that of the 11 Transwomen who have been murdered in the UK between 2008 and 2019 (don’t know the stats before 2008 and none murdered since 2019), not a single one of them was murdered BECAUSE they were trans.

They were murdered by partners, clients (several were prostitutes), friends and their drug dealers.

Luckily, I haven’t seen any of my friends saying “but what about..” I have this ready to deploy if they do

Real women who were murdered matter less than imaginary trans women who never existed.
118 women. In 12 months. 2 to 3 women per week. I get post 2 to 3 times a week. Everytime my letter box clattered a woman has been murdered.

And it got me thinking: how many times have I seen murderers reported on as lovely family men? Everyone gives men who kill women the benefit of the doubt. It's going to turn out that the warning signs about the man who killed Sarah were there, but they were ignored.

The he wouldn't do that, he is such a lovely man has already started in this most recent and harrowing case, plus the behaving out of character excuse/mitigation.

Also just like to commend you PottingCompost for your perfect reply to GottogetaGRC.

RedDogsBeg

Thank you for that, it's much appreciated. This situation has really rattled me.

Your welcome, PottingCompost, rattled me too.

I am heartily fed up and sick to the back teeth of TW and their allies putting TW front and centre in everything to do with women - reading out a list of names of dead women who were killed at the hands of men and here we go: What about TW, none of them have been murdered this year but, but, that's not relevant, what about us, why aren't you talking about us, why aren't we foremost in your minds.

@Olderstyle1

Nice analogy Holdon ... I'm very fond of quokkas but have noticed that there are literally NO THREADS about them on MN and NO MENTION of them in threads about entirely different topics.

Time to start yelling what about the quokkas at regular intervals I think. Who's with me?

I am full in and on for that. What about the quokkas will be my rallying cry from here to evermore.

They're incandescent with rage because FEMALES who were murdered because of their SEX were being talked about.

@GottogetaCRC

She went on to add that if a transwoman is murdered, it would be Jess Phillips' decision, as she's the one to read the names in Parliament, whether to add her name to the list. (Which seems perfectly reasonable to me

It's awful that this story has gone round.
Too many women are murdered by men.
Too many women face violence, sexual assault from men.
Too many women are afraid to walk home alone at night, they take precautions, alter routes etc
All because of the threats

If a transwoman was murdered by a man, they wouldn't count on the list Karen provides. She has made that clear in her blog.

kareningalasmith.com/2019/07/27/counting-dead-women-and-counting-people-who-identify-as-transgender/amp/

Her work is very important.

If a transwoman is murdered by a man because as far as the man is concerned, they see a woman, so it's a male act of violence against a woman, Karen won't count that on her important list.

If she excluded other groups of women from that list, there would be justifiable criticism.

But some people don't see a transwomen victim as female victim, even if the act was carried out by someone who saw them as female.

This is so stupid - she hasn't excluded anyone because no transwomen were murdered here last year. Do you want her to make a name up?

And that last line....wow. Now is not the time for your disrespectful whining.

Hello,

I came across this thread whilst looking for something else. THANK YOU all of you for the support. It means a lot.
They're not going to stop me prioritising women or talking about men's violence against women.

We should be thanking you Karen, for all that you do, and the times you stand up for women.

Keep fighting!

@KarenIngalaSmith

Hello, I came across this thread whilst looking for something else. THANK YOU all of you for the support. It means a lot. They're not going to stop me prioritising women or talking about men's violence against women.

Thank you, Karen.

Same here Karen. It’s a tough job you do so many thanks.

Thank you, Karen.

It’s frustrating

There is a movement about male
Mental health right now
I am totally supportive
I don’t say ‘what about women ‘
I say yes , I have two sons and I want to learn why this is an issue
(I say learn , I’ve watched one documentary so far but anyway)

But I think the main thing we can do is keep taking steps forward

There are many issues to care about and they can’t all compete
They have to exist and thrive separately

I do also aw we think that make
Mental health and addressing toxic masculinity is intrinsically linked with everything anyway

I also care about depressed trans people

So there

Thank you @KarenIngalaSmith

Thank you, Karen

Thank you Karen

Thank you Karen .