Activism Around Last Week's Trans Violence?

[YetAnotherSpartacus]

I'm a bit under the pump with work, but I have been thinking about last week's violence against Maria (specifically) at Speakers' Corner before the gender seminar and generally before and after the event with tweets about punching terfs and enjoying watching terfs get punched.

I've been thinking that if almost any other group was substituted for 'terf' (which of course means 'woman') it would be seen as a hate crime (at least in an informal sense). I've been quite shocked about some of the things I've been reading, but I've also been wondering how we can save them, and where we should save them (i.e. links and screenshots, all in one place) and about what we can do with them. Finally they are publicly showing their true colours and I think this gives us an opportunity to act.

Have people been using twitter to pressure the Met Police?
Can we tweet some kind of link with an accumulation of the threats, gloats and actual violence to all MPs?
Can we do the same to media sources?
Can we do the same to all potential philanthropic funding bodies who fund these activists?
Can we tweet all feminist organisations (especially those associated with violence against women such as shelters, etc.) with this information?

Caveat (I don't use twitter).

Beyond this, can we use other means such as boring old print to print out a selection of threats and send them to MPs along with a letter saying we feel threatened and unsafe and we want them to make sure that women's rights are protected?

What else could we do?

I thought I'd set up this thread to suggest action and also to collate ideas...

Who cares if Huntley is trying to get into a woman's prison. Martin Ponting has just done and has to be segregated because he made sexual advances towards the inmates.

And he's not the only one.

The mechanism is there. That's the point.

Who cares if Huntley is trying to get into a woman's prison

Me, I care. I care that it's being repeated when we have no evidence and it's designed to be emotive. I care because those are shitty tactics used by people who have no real argument... like "Statistics say your child will kill themselves if you don't transition them".

I mean isn't one of the key head fucks about this the handwaving of truth as insignificant in the name of "the cause"?

As you say it's there already, you don't need a half-arsed officially denied story about Huntley.

As you say it's there already, you don't need a half-arsed officially denied story about Huntley.

That was my point. I don't have to disprove that Huntley isn't doing it to know that he can.

Prove, not disprove

Just catching up here - going forward I'm going to fill in forms as follows:
sex - female
gender - TERF

MrsFogi

I think sport is probably more persuasive for the general population. Sure you might feel that you're in the wrong body but that means You. Have. The. Wrong. Body. For women's sports.

Oh yes sport definitely is a good one as lots of women know how unfair that is

Following on from Speakers Corner, the next meeting has been arranged in Brighton.

"PRESS RELEASE FOR BRIGHTON. PLEASE DM US FOR TIME AND DATE OF DABATE NOW IF YOU NEED TO ARRANGE CHILDCARE ETC. (WE ARENT RELEASING IT TO THE PUBLIC JUST YET) AND PLEASE SPREAD THIS FAR AND WIDE TO JOURNOS ETC

Debate Not Hate: We Need To Talk About Gender
New GRA Discussion planned to coincide with Labour Party Conference and Momentum World Transformed in Brighton

A recent event discussing the proposed changes to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act became newsworthy after it was violently opposed by trans activists. The incident was reported in several major online and hard copy publications including The Times, The New Statesman, The Mail on Sunday, The Mirror and The Sun. Liberal broadsheets have yet to publish any articles or commentary on this assault to free speech.

The original event, titled ‘What is Gender? The GRA and Beyond’, was scheduled to take place at New Cross Learning, a community-run library in South-East London. It was set up by a small group of local women to address concerns around how the legislation affects the rights of women and girls. Specifically that the proposed changes would:

• enable anyone to self-ID their gender, and change their legal status and official documentation without medical checks and without necessarily “transitioning” in any other way

• lower the age of consent for legally changing gender from 18 to 16

• conflate the legal definitions of “sex” and “gender” and therefore render “sex” meaningless, creating serious implications for the rights of women and girls.

• remove or diminish exemptions in the Equality Act designed to protect single-sex spaces, services and genuine occupational requirements.

Dr Julia Long, a feminist academic, and Miranda Yardley, a gender critical transexual, were booked to speak in opposition to the proposed changes. Two representatives from LGBT charity Stonewall, Bex Stinson and a colleague, were confirmed to speak in favour, but both pulled out at at late notice citing “personal reasons”. Invitations were offered to around 20 other trans activists and public figures to defend the proposals, but all declined.

The organisers decided to go ahead with the event, but were forced to re-advertise it as a discussion rather than a debate. Trans activists then began calling publicly for the venue to refuse to host to the event, as well telephoning, emailing and visiting the library in person to demand they cancel. The venue eventually capitulated to this pressure the day before the event, due to “safety concerns”. A new central London venue was hastily found but it was decided not to release details publicly, in order to avoid further harassment by trans activists. Instead, organisers announced they would meet at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park before going on to the new venue.

A group of trans activists then protested at Speaker’s Corner, and three of them violently assaulted a 60-year woman who was there to attend the talk. After the attackers fled and police had been informed, the new venue address was secretly disseminated in an attempt to avoid further violence or harassment, but the trans activists followed women in small groups to the new venue and tried to force their way in. When they were prevented by staff, they continued to protest outside, chanting loudly until police were called and local residents complained. As a result, the venue were forced to cut the discussion short with no time for a Q&A as planned.

Footage of the attack at Speakers' Corner - which is now under investigation by police - soon circulated online. Rather than outright condemn the violence, many individual trans activists and even trans and LGBT organisations, refused to do so, with a significant number justifying it and even calling for more violence towards women, using the misogynist slur “TERF”. Trans activism has a long history of suppressing debate and no-platforming speakers who are gender-critical, but the violence at Speakers’ Corner and the subsequent online outpouring of violent and hateful rhetoric towards women marks a watershed moment.

In response, the women involved in this event have formed a campaign group called Mayday to urgently address the need for open debate about the rights of women and girls. They have received many messages of support and offers of help from women and men across the country, and around the world - particularly from the US, Canada and Ireland where the conflict between trans activism and free speech is already a serious issue.

In a refusal to be silenced by the anti-democratic tactics of trans activists, they have scheduled another event in Brighton to debate the GRA, which will take place to coincide with the Labour Party Conference. We will publicly announce the exact date and location of the debate on Saturday 23rd September. They wish to issue an open invitation to trans activists, LGBT organisations, politicians or anyone else who is willing to defend the proposed changes. Anyone interested in doing so should contact
[email protected] or contact @GraDiscussion.

Debate Not Hate: We Need To Talk About Gender.
Brighton
Date and Venue TBA"

Oo in brighton? When? I live nowhere near but happen to be near there this weekend!

Don’t worry, I just read it again and saw it this time

Going back to cartoons and memes.

Sort of activism, I am in the middle of peak transing someone! A man, quite a sensitive intelligent guy who's getting into politics so I want to get to him and have him on our side before they do! He has asked me for something he can read about it which sums up the issues for women, I can only think of radfem stuff, I don't want to scare him, this is softly softly.

Does anyone have any suggestions for links?

Interestingly, I think DH has just hit peak trans purely by accident.
Last week, two more of the kids' schoolfriends 'came out' as trans, plus the child of a family friend we hadn't seen for a while.

DH has been very 'live and let live, can't see the problem, you worry too much, you're overthinking it'; and his reaction to the first two was a muted sort of 'Aren't other people's families odd?' response. But the third is a kid we've known from birth, had holidays with etc, so he was startled into saying unguardedly, 'Christ, what nonsense are they feeding these kids that they all suddenly think they're trans?'

When you see clusters like that I think it's just pure social contagion, especially in the younger teen crowds.

Purely because teens are so very vulnerable to this kind of effect I don't think any treatment - beyond talking therapies - should be allowed under at least 18. It at least gives a chance for these things to work themselves out.

harriet nightingale, the Fifth Column journalist Charlie Rae has written an incisive summary of the main problems with gender identity ideology, in point form. IMO, she does a really good job of exposing how sexist and regressive it is.

(My favourite is point 12: 'This entire ideology is incoherent, anti-female, and anti-reality' )

Thanks Donkeyskin, that's exactly what I was after. Have sent it to him!

Teachers must be reaching peak trans daily, hopefully since Kiri Tunks spoke out, they will be more likely to voice an opninion as unfortunately , the Teaching unions are officially Trans-inclusive.
My DD is a teacher and has a lot of gay and lesbian teacher friends, all of whom think gender identity is garbage, they are all understandably worried to speak out though

TheHumanRace

I will PM you.

There's a petition on 38 degrees calling for Keri thinks to be sacked for her comments. Reading the text depressingly shows what double think people are capable of... It trots out the idea that if anyone says biological women and males who self identity as women are not identical they are causing trans children to attempt suicide.