But you're free to say whatever you want to say, doesn't mean other people or an organisation or business (or even a society and it's Police force and government) has to accept and support it and not take action if they feel it is unacceptable or against the law.
Heather Brunskell Evens account of the 'actions' taken by some TRAs to prevent people attending the 'We Need to Talk' event at the Jam Jar, Bristol. The stairs to the upstairs room were blocked.
May 2018.
'An assault on free speech and free thought'
Heather Brunskell-Evens describes her experience as a volunteer in the human rights observer in the Palestinian territories during a heated and dangerous situation
(extract)
"Why do I tell you this personal story? First, to let you know that I have a certain fearlessness, plus a strong, lifelong ethical commitment to resisting injustice and to the peaceful resolution of conflict.
Second, to illustrate the complexity of my feelings about the political protest in Bristol. I found myself trapped in a stairwell by masked trans activists who believed me to be the oppressor, equivalent to Israeli soldiers, and who believed transwomen to be actual women and the most victimised and oppressed of all social groups.
I appealed to the activist nearest me but he refused eye contact. I have subsequently been informed, perhaps erroneously, that he self-identifies as a woman.
Because I do not accept that transwomen really are women, identical with other women, although of course with rights as individuals to identify how they wish, he felt morally justified in using his superior physical strength and slurring me as a transphobe and a nazi.
I feared the injuries I might sustain if pushed downstairs; I looked down on myself being obstructed from speaking by a man almost young enough to be my grandson.
Parents, medics, social commentators and psychotherapists critical of transgender doctrine have far more to fear however than masked 20-year-olds using masculinist tactics of intimidation.
They fear being accused by social services of not safeguarding their own children, of losing their licence to practice as medics, of being no-platformed in their universities, of being expelled from their political parties.
I stand with other women, and with the men, transsexuals and transwomen who are my friends and colleagues critical of the proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
The reforms, currently in consultation (because women have pressed for their own voices to be heard as well as those emerging from the trans movement) would allow people to legally self-affirm their gender rather than, as now, being required to live as their preferred gender for two years and have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before a gender recognition certificate is granted.
I argue it is not being on the right side of socially progressive history to censor our reasoned concern about the rights of biological men to enter female only space and the possible consequences for women and children of self-declaration.
Any political movement that attempts to silence dialogue and that trivialises the entire being of critics, however thoughtful, into one label — transphobe — is an example of liberalism’s frightening converse. An illiberalism is entering our society that attempts to shut down not only free speech but free thought."
Heather Brunskell-Evans is an academic and formerly a spokeswoman for the Women’s Equality Party’s policy on violence against women and girls.
morningstaronline.co.uk/article/assault-free-speech-and-free-thought