Statement in support of women threatened with a 'device' for speaking

[JoanSummers]

A meeting planned by the women's rights group Woman's Place UK has been threatened that a "device" will be placed at the venue.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3278892-Womans-Place-UK-meeting-threatened-with-device

The device is allegedly being placed 'in retaliation' for the Hampstead Pool action taken by another women's rights group, #ManFriday, which is organised by a group of female Mumsnet contributors.

The Hastings Woman's Place event that has been threatened is likely to be attended by women from all over the UK, including many who are regular contributors to Mumsnet.

Given that Justine and MN have recently created new rules regulating the words which women may use here when speaking about women's rights, especially in the context of the current battle over gender, in which both Woman's Place UK and #ManFriday are involved, and that Justine's statement regarding these new rules begins:
"Mumsnet will always stand in solidarity with vulnerable or oppressed minorities. Mumsnet is also committed to freedom of speech."
www.mumsnet.com/info/trans-rights-moderation-policy

I would like to ask Justine and Mumsnet if they will make a further statement in light of this new threat against a women's meeting which multiple regular MN contributors will likely be attending, stating that Mumsnet stands in solidarity with women who are speaking and organising for women's rights, and condemning the actions of those who threaten them.

How about it?

Hi all,

Sorry it's taken a while to respond. We've been trying to track down the original tweet that seems to lie at the bottom of this but if we're understanding correctly it's been deleted. So the first thing to say is that we haven't seen the wording of the tweet.

Obviously we completely and unreservedly condemn all threats of violence. Civil debate and discourse is what we believe in, both in this particular area and across the boards, and people must be allowed to debate difficult topics without having to worry about their own personal safety. Some of you will know that both I personally as well as MNHQ and MNers have been attacked before, online (hacking/ denial of service) and in RL (swatting and bomb threats), so we know what we're talking about and how frightening it can be, and how it intimidates people and makes it more difficult to contribute to the debate.

If it's correct that the Man Friday protestors were namechecked in the tweet in question then we absolutely stand alongside them in calling for MN users (and all women - and, yes, all men) to be allowed to protest, campaign and speak without ever being threatened with violence.

If someone can provide us with details of the tweet, we'll see if we can reach out to Hastings Police and ask them if they can make a public statement.

@JustineMumsnet

These are the original posts warning WPUK about a device on retaliation for a #ManFriday action

I'm trying to find you other links but

1. it seems that police did find bomb making equipment at an address in Hastings after this threat but we don't know if the two incidents are connected
2. wpuk have since released info that this is not the first bomb threat they have had at their meetings

We also know that several venues have cancelled meetings by WPUK and apso Venice Allen's WNTT at the last minute citing safety and security concerns, so some of us are wondering if there have been other threats like this.

Here is the info about the emergency services finding "potentially explosive materials"

Can I add that this is not just about a tweet, Justine? Very shortly after that tweet surfaced there was a news article reporting the police had found potentially explosive materials found in a house in St Leonard’s, suggesting that this wasn’t a hoax.

www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/bomb-squad-called-to-st-leonards-1-8536449

The two events may not be connected, but if not it’s a pretty astonishing coincidence. Since then radio silence.

Oh crap, cross posted Joan

And the tweet from wpuk about a previous bomb threat:

No its all good Namechange.

Justine whether these were 'merely' threats or more than that, real plans to do violent harm, women are up against more than words in this battle over gender. We have to be able to speak frankly about what it means to be a woman and about our rights under the Equality Act as women - speaking frankly and truthfully is not hate speech. Please rethink your new rules clamping down on our ability to have this discussion. It is likely that they are in breach of women's rights as a sex under the EA. We are not your employees - we are service users. Trans people do not have a right to force people to pretend they are not the sex that they are, or to stop people talking about the impact of trans lobbying on women's rights as a sex. They also do not have the right to force their beliefs on us - our rights to have our own beliefs/understanding of sex and gender also appears to be protected under the EA.

I understand you may be caught between a rock and a hard place but - we are not the ones punching 60 year olds, waving baseball bats covered in barbed wire, wearing full face coverings to disrupt meetings, calling for rape and murder of our political opponents, vandalising venues, attempting to coerce gay people into sex they do not want to have, advocating dangerous and untested drug treatments for children, taking our children abroad while underage for non-medically necessary genital surgery, encouraging young women to bind their breasts which had a number of health risks, lobbying agencies to allow males access to females (Inc young girls) in places where they are vulnerable and bypassing the usual safeguarding checks (prisons, schools, guides, hostels, refuges) and now issuing bomb threats too. Our worst "crimes" on the other hand appear to be naming males as males and using pronouns in the traditional and most widely accepted way to refer to a person's sex rather than gender.

You have a number of women on your site telling you that they are feeling emotionally abused by the language they are being told to use here as they perceive it as gaslighting and forced submission to an ideology they don't believe. Please listen to these women. Trans people are not the only people with rights and feelings, women's rights and feelings count too.

I hope you can discuss what has happened with WPUK and/or ManFriday, and with the police. Please note that a trans activist who claims to have influence on local police is pushing for WPUK's Hastings meeting to be shut down.

@SwearyG Can you assist?

We need to not be scratching around for evidence here. There is actual begging. They want us on our knees and look at what we have to do to get a bomb warning condemned. Fuck this shit.

Brava JoanSummers

From the CPS website:

Terrorism is the use or threat of action, both in and outside of the UK, designed to influence any international government organisation or to intimidate the public. It must also be for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

If someone can provide us with details of the tweet, we'll see if we can reach out to Hastings Police and ask them if they can make a public statement.

Also Justine I see that you have to some extent condemned these threats and harassment of women speaking about women's rights but we are asking you to make a public statement regarding this as several of your own regular contributors have been targetted for these threats and harassment and as you are obviously aware Mumsnet itself is already involved in this battle. Your new rules have not pacified the twitter trans activists - as we knew they wouldn't. Whether you want to be or not you are part of this already and you won't be allowed to step out now no matter what you do.

They are not going to win this - we are. Be there with us.

I will probably be banned due to my learning disability and my philosophical beliefs.

My post elsewhere on the site, which others on the thread agreed was taken out of context, seems to have been smugly used to get rid of me by MNHQ staff, along with me quoting someone who got a post deleted.

It seems only some people deserve their protected characteristics, whilst the rest of us don't.

Thank you JoanSummers

I am quite sure that the issue of transgender children is a huge scandal waiting to happen. Medicine is just as vulnerable to fashionable ideas as other fields. Feminism Chat has provided support to parents of gender non conforming children over the years. One found herself under pressure from others in the same lobby group to obtain hormones online without prescription. She said it was the main topic of discussion among members.

Then there's safeguarding... Best practice is being hurled aside in the rush to remove single sex spaces. It's truly astonishing.

What is happening to children and teens - from ROGD to sports to puberty blockers - is an overarching cause that should be dear to Mumsnetters. There's a terrifying absence of evidence for what's being promoted by activists. Puberty blockers are being used off label which means informed consent simply isn't possible.

There are a lot of really alarming aspects to this, and there are plenty of regular posters who can provide chapter and verse of what's happening. A girl who identifies as a boy has to leave the Guides now, while parents will not be informed if a boy who identifies as a girl is sharing overnight accommodation with their daughter. If MNHQ doesn't think this matters I'm wondering how much priority safeguarding and the rights of women mean to this site, which is not something I ever thought I would say. It's beyond disturbing.

prawn I could not agree more. The co opting of children into this is so disturbing. I kind of expect male sexual entitlement to encompass women (par for the course) but the total lack of opposition by the medical establishment here is baffling and disturbing. These are healthy young people encouraged down a one way path that leads to sterility and serious side effects. Who is promoting this?

Dh and I both work a lot with clinical trials - he is also horrified at this. He keeps asking ‘where are the ethics committees?’ ‘Where is the consent?’ ‘How can this be allowed?’

In any trial we run, dosing children with anything is fraught with difficulty. Ethics committees are rightly incredibly strict, teams of experts write protocols, which are agonised over and revised, consent forms are the same. We’ve both been involved in multiple paediatric trials of cancer medications for example and anything that can result in sterility is policed to within am inch of its life. I honestly can’t tell you how strict the rules are - and they should be strict. The oversight is so comprehensive

Then we see these powerful drugs being given to healthy young people - and it shocks us to our core.

I’m angry at the reduction in rights for women but what floors me is the impact on children. This is going to be a major scandal.

"Please note that a trans activist who claims to have influence on local police is pushing for WPUK's Hastings meeting to be shut down."

This trans activist has spent 19 days appealing on social media for anyone who finds out where the women's meeting venue is, to contact them asap.

Why?

The person has also posted that they will not be attending the meeting.

So why do they need to know where it is being held?

And why do they need to know 19 days in advance? Even attendees only find out on the same day as the meeting!

All the screenshots have been sent to the police, the local MP and the Home Secretary. The person concerned constantly boasts that they have influence over the police as a result of being LGBT+ rep on the police committee.

???

You have to question just how misogynist an ideology and it's activists are when it scares a website set up for mums too much to put out a statement of support for women who are the target of bomb threats.

Still nothing.

@JustineMumsnet you stated you were contacting Hastings police to issue at statement (not sure why when MN were being asked to issue a statement) - what's happened regarding this? Do you have sufficient information from the additional posts to now make a statement?

I think at this point my question is - why @JustineMumsnet would you refuse to make an official statement supporting women's right to meet and speak about our rights, free from violence and harassment? Why would you go out of your way to avoid being seen to show solidarity to women who contribute to your own website? What are you scared of?

Hi again,
Some confusion here perhaps around how we make public statements. I certainly haven't refused to make a public statement in fact that's exactly what I've done here on this thread when I said:

"Obviously we completely and unreservedly condemn all threats of violence. Civil debate and discourse is what we believe in, both in this particular area and across the boards, and people must be allowed to debate difficult topics without having to worry about their own personal safety."

Posting on MN is precisely how we've always made public statements - see all the previous statements around Heartbleed, Jeffrey, Gina Ford etc.

I've just checked and though we didn't hear back from Sussex police they did put this out:

"We are not disclosing details of the investigation or of our discussions with the organisers, however the threat is being taken seriously and is not currently being linked to any other event or offence. "We are not further proactively identifying the event - that is a matter for the organisers."

Bomb threats against women's groups (or any other for that matter) are cowardly and despicable acts and precisely the type of attempt to shut down dissenting views that at Mumsnet we've been working very hard to try and avoid for the past goodness knows how long.

Thanks Justine. Please stick with us.