An Open Letter to Martha Lane Fox of Twitter

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Please share if you’re on Twitter

fairplayforwomen.com/martha/

fairplayforwomen.com/martha/

fairplayforwomen.com/martha/

Click link (I hope).

Cross post!

This has made me feel extraordinarily sad. Imagine having to beg someone to do something so basic as allow us to say women give birth.

What a fucking state of affairs.

I know. It’s awful, that is has come to this.

Supporting.

Maybe now is the time to mention this agreed "fucking state of affairs" to people we have kept quiet to before, for fear of being labelled as a transphobe.

After all, you don't even need to mention the word trans. You can just talk about how you've heard that twitter won't let people talk about certain issues of biology.

Then when it dawns on them they'll likely peak trans.

Article about this on the BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44288431

Oh how feminism has changed. When I was a girl years ago, feminism was about breaking down male-only spaces and ideas. Feminists today are doing the opposite and trying to defend women-only spaces and ideas. It's a complete betrayal of feminism. A generation ago it was men saying "women shouldn't be managers because they have a womb". Now it's feminists saying "trans people shouldn't be allowed do (blank) because they don't have a womb". It's a stupid as it was for men to say those sorts of things.

It's a Neanderthal attitude and will be assigned to the bin of history. Good to see Twitter is taking action.

I agree. I've just read a very useful thread on twitter about organising and moving forward, off twiiter, into real life
Last week I peaktransed my bookclub.
On Friday I spoke to a children's therapist who I know, it turns out she is researching the implications of the new sex and relationship education curriculum. She peak transed long ago it seems.
We've decided to plan a public meeting for parents in our borough.
Its about doing not posting now.
Courage calls to courage and all that.

Just seen the BBC article. Fantastic to get this coverage. Well done everyone who made it happen!

GibbertyFlibbert, are you open to considering the possibility that you may have massively misunderstood what those ‘Neanderthal’ people are saying?

Good to see the BBC article. It does look like more and more of this issue is getting some light in the mainstream.

Oh how feminism has changed. When I was a girl years ago, feminism was about breaking down male-only spaces and ideas. Feminists today are doing the opposite and trying to defend women-only spaces and ideas. It's a complete betrayal of feminism. A generation ago it was men saying "women shouldn't be managers because they have a womb". Now it's feminists saying "trans people shouldn't be allowed do (blank) because they don't have a womb". It's a stupid as it was for men to say those sorts of things.

It's a Neanderthal attitude and will be assigned to the bin of history. Good to see Twitter is taking action.

I am always amused at how people interprete what GC women are saying. Talk about bending language and hearing what you want to hear, but not what is said. It is like we are saying the sky is blue and everyone else going: why are you saying the sky is red...

And complete bold fail. First paragraph is not mine...

This is good. I would expect someone like Martha Lane Fox to receive press clippings with her name on I would imagine she'd take note of a BBC article. The phrases that have caused bans are so obviously not transphobic.

Oh how feminism has changed.

Which bit of feminism? The bit still fighting for the liberation of women? Or the bit you seem to like that is all about the menz? Cos my bit is exactly the same as it always was and is still being called a coven of witchery, just as it always was.

I'm not on twitter, but this is a great letter.

Gibb There is no comparison between saying that a woman doing the same job as a man should be paid the same rate of pay (an ongoing fight, see today's news about doctors' pay) and fighting against, say, allowing someone born with a penis, a biological male, to compete in women's sports.

It is a different fight. Heck, we are even having a fight to say that woman means adult human female.

Agree. We are fighting because some men want the word woman to be twisted to encompass men. I'm happy with the word transwoman but transwomen will always have a Y chromosome and will always be male. This is important for women's sports and it's important for sex segregated spaces when people with penises want to access them.
The Hampstead ponds issue shows that men don't want to give up their single sex spaces either.
Sex exists, it's not a fluffy concept that you can ignore if you don't like it.
Men can wear what they want and wear make up and sleep with who they want but they can't magic in to women just by wanting it enough. That Y chromosome that affects so much of their bodies will always be there.

My feminism hasn't changed either. It's still about putting women front and centre. It's still about hanging on to the hard won rights that women have died for. And I am prepared to campaign for transwomen to have all the rights and freedoms they should have-in employment, in housing, in society a-up to the point where they impose on the rights of natal women.