So JKR can expect an apology any day now then?

[yourhairiswinterfire]

Along with Maya Forstater, Rachel Rooney, and every other woman (and some men) that were bullied, dragged through the mud, deplatformed, etc for saying the same things that Mermaids are now saying?

Hopefully the screenshots have attached, but look at what JKR said compared to Mermaids. Any real difference in their words? Nope, the difference was in the way they were treated for saying the same thing. JKR got threatened with death and rape, accused of harming trans people/children and was subjected to the nastiest hate campaign I've ever witnessed whilst everyone stood back and watched, and some encouraged. When Mermaids said it, they got a pat on the back, and suddenly everyone has been saying this all along?

Liz Truss's statement 2 days ago was praised by someone who has been very against JKR. JKR could have written Liz's statement, they made the same points, yet Liz was applauded by this someone, JKR not so much.

Rachel Rooney's book aimed at children called 'My Body Is Me' was labelled 'terrorist propaganda'. The aim of the book was to help children accept and understand their bodies. To teach that no one is born in the wrong body. Why was she vilified if everyone supposedly agreed with her?

Maya Forstater's has been wildly misinterpreted. She lost her job and people are contantly accusing her of transphobia because she believes that biological sex is real (something that shouldn't even need classifying as a 'belief'). Her reputation has been damaged by people not willing to read what actually happened, and she has to deal with ignorant people on twitter regularly, falsely claiming that she deliberately mis gendered a colleague that didn't even exist. Everything Maya has ever said has been true, and confirmed by Liz Truss.

I'm just really fucking angry at the way women have been treated for stating the fucking obvious, and now these gaslighting fuckers get to change their tune and no one bats an eyelid??

Everyone involved needs to hold up their hands and apologize, but I'm not holding my breath. That would take integrity and a conscience, something seriously lacking today.

Holy crap. Such compete and utter wtf.

This article must have been sitting ready for this day. Quotes from all these people worked in. "We've always said..." "we're not as against these ideas as people thought".

I hope some of the wonderful women who have been archiving will put it all together and publish it far and wide.
Now we need to persuade the government to stop funding the lobby groups that call themselves charities. The ones that have caused so much harm to women and children.

I don't know if this has already been said, but I also think there's another group deserving of a huge apology. How about all the trans people who have been led to believe by Mermaids & their supporters that anybody who remotely questions trans ideology "wishes them dead" etc?

They turn out to be lying hypocrites and I'm supposed to be what? Shocked?

it is outrageous.

Brassica you are really right. I was elated when all this came out but it only took a short minute to remember the unbelievable life altering damage that’s been done. There are a lot of normal decent everyday people, just like I would hope most of us are, who wanted nothing more than to be kind and absolutely bought into this. They’ve been duped, they were passionate about it and convinced they were right too. It makes me think of the survivors of things like jones town, when they finally realised what had happened to them. I hope they all come out of this as undamaged as possible.

Of course they're changing tack. They can't do anything else. Certainly can't apologise, remember those things called Law Courts and that word liability

I have a feeling they've never even read the DfE stuff because if they did, they either wilfully misunderstood or are incompetent

We've been thinking about this phrase for a while and have noticed a lot of our followers have too. We've spoken to our patrons, staff and allies to see what they think

I think they are trying to make the distinction between feeling like you were born in the wrong body and actually being born in the wrong body.

However, once you drop 'born in the wrong body' a lot of the other dogma like 'TWAW' starts to fall apart. You are getting onto the kind of shaky ground that would see you thrown out of the Lib Dems.

Nothing to add but agree and have just ordered that book for my baby, thank you for bringing it to my attention

I LOVE that book. My kids have, too. You'd need to be seriously troubled to find a sweet, gentle, upbeat book about human diversity, and celebrating that, and encouraging kids to value, respect, and celebrate who they are, problematic.

In the past couple of years I have seen a few TRAs say that the phrase "born in the wrong body" isn't an appropriate phrase to describe who they are. That's because a large number of TRAs see the idea of trans as being an identity that you choose rather than something innate. (Hence the ludicrously long list of types of people, including cross-dressers, Stonewall considers can be called "trans".) It's basically a post-modern, Judith Butler-type idea to do with gender as performance.

This is completely at odds with the other TRA argument that gender identity is an innate characteristic that can be fundamentally at odds with biological sex. The idea of "assigned male at birth" only makes sense (well, OK, it doesn't make any sense, but it has its own logic) if you accept that it's possible for a female person to be born inside a male body, or vice versa. This tends to be the argument adopted by Mermaids and all the lobby groups telling children that if they like the wrong kinds of toys and clothes for their sex, they are "really" the opposite sex to the one they were born as.

One of the reasons arguing with TRAs is so impossible is that a lot of them will argue both things at different times, or sometimes at the same time. The fact that they are mutually exclusive is no deterrent.

@NicholasTopliss

I hope some of the wonderful women who have been archiving will put it all together and publish it far and wide. Now we need to persuade the government to stop funding the lobby groups that call themselves charities. The ones that have caused so much harm to women and children.

I saw this on twitter yesterday.

mobile.twitter.com/thespiralquirk/status/1309484475089383425

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall yesterday in Mermaids crisis HQ. It takes damage limitation to new depths heights.

Language evolution mangling that must have left bleeding chunks of mantra all over the floor.

Great link to that Twitter thread Dial

Do we know yet what daft catch-phrase they've started using instead?

Do we know yet what daft catch-phrase they've started using instead?

Wibble?

😂😂😂

@ButcherManWasSomeLady

Great link to that Twitter thread Dial

Do we know yet what daft catch-phrase they've started using instead?

This?

Christ she’s got a nerve! Takes one to know one Sally.

Definitely hit a nerve, hasn't it?

sunset 😂

@Totickleamockingbird

I wonder how long till JKR writes something.

Oh I really, really, really fucking hope she does.

In a way I'm glad of this reaction from Mermaids, Stonewall et al. In moments when I doubt myself, when female socialisation kicks in hard and I wonder if I'm wrong, if I'm the bigot, if I should be kinder, here's the black and white proof that these organisations really are the abusive, gaslighting, manipulative, lying fucks that I thought they were.

I think the tides may be turning in our favour. Like fuck will they give an apology though. That'd be admitting the harm they have done.