YogabirthUK cancel event after Freddy McConnell flounce

[WinterTrees]

Saw this on twitter this morning but can't see a thread here.

Milli Hill was supposed to be appearing at an event run by YogabirthUK entitled 'Gender and Birth: A space to listen.' Milli was lined up to appear alongside Freddy McConnell and another speaker, but Freddy pulled out after the event was announced, on the grounds that Freddy could not appear 'alongside/after/in the same remote vicinity' as a birth specialist who recognises biological sex.

Full tantrum available here. twitter.com/millihill/status/1498060037536714752

The YogabirthUK Instagram link is worth looking at too. Lots of support for Milli Hill and regret about the cancellation of an event that was literally supposed to be providing 'space to listen', but the TRA input is interesting and very telling. (Spoiler alert: TRA claims MH is a disgusting transphobe for being exclusionary to transwomen when - crucially - Freddy is a transman. And excluded Freddyself.)

I am having one of those days when my patience with all this feels very thin. Very thin indeed.

Just gone back to look at the instagram post and those comments seem to have been deleted, which is understandable.

All very sad. So many women expressing disappointment that the event couldn't just go ahead with a different speaker if Freddy didn't feel able to participate. But women, once again, have to miss out.

I'm at zero patience with all this shit. Absolutely pathetic tantrumming from FM, and shame on whoever decided to cancel the whole thing. And yes, yet again, women miss out. Sweet Jesus, are being pregnant and giving birth not among the most biologically female things it is possible to do? What a state we are in when that is considered even a mildly controversial thing to say

Milli and Freddie weren't even going to be on the same panel, just participants at the same event.

I've just realised that you need to scroll up to see all of that twitter thread on the link I posted.

MH has now revealed that FM absolutely did know the line up in advance of agreeing, so FM's claim that they were unaware is not true.

I just can't get my head around anyone wanting to be such an obstacle to other women accessing information and support. No one would criticise FM for deciding what's best for them and withdrawing without drama.

Sad that, as usual, women have to miss out because someone had a tantrum.

Ive been reading FMs account of the birth of FM's second baby on instagram. It's fascinating, but not, I suspect, in the way that FM intended.

This is how it goes, isn'it? TRAs says they'll speak, and then they flounce. Every single time.

Its as if "hashtag no debate" means "hashtag can't debate"

Seems to be rather a pattern with TRAs, to agree to participate in an event, agreeing to be part of it, knowing who the other participants are, then doing the dramatic "I feel uNsAfe" performance and withdrawing at the last moment. It's almost like it's a deliberate tactic to disrupt other people's events and gather attention as an """activist""" while not even getting off the sofa.

I wish these organisations would just do something along the lines of the tub of lard response on Have I Got News For You, and let the events carry on.

That's great, Ivy.

I propose one of those plastic tourist scene things with glitter and water.

Bet you get one with a rainbow in it.

They are useless little things that don't do much and need a good shake.

I guarantee if Milli had said she was uncomfortable with the event as Freddy was there she would have been told where the door was.

It was a panel, not a debate, about birth, not trans. But nooooo. It's a "risk"

I've had it up to fucking here with I feel unsafe, they're a risk etc. Unsafe from fucking what? Being in the same billboard as someone who won't validate you on demand? You know who's actually at risk right now? People in Ukraine, that's who. What on earth did Freddy think Milli was going to do, during an ONLINE event ffs? Freddy needs to grow up.

Anyone who starts talking about women who won't capitulate to gender woo woo being a risk, making them afraid, unsafe, etc, they can eff right off.

Fuck this.

I squeezed a back to back baby out of my vagina not very long ago.

I relied heavily on self hypnosis and yoga. Disappointed that the organisers cancelled. I'm not familiar with this particular organisation, are they just another bunch of privileged twits? I used a great local antenatal yoga teacher who was definitely a feminist!

I didn't know the political leanings of my incredible midwife, thank fuck. She was there to support me and she did an amazing job.

FM is clearly an individual with issues. I don't think bending language and practice around their whims is going to be anything but damaging to most other human females.

Fuck this.

Anyone who can watch what’s happening on the continent and still say they “feel unsafe” in Tunbridge Wells or Leamington Spa or Islington or wherever theyselves type people live, they need to get checked into reality pretty quick.

I went to a screening and of this film with a panel discussion after and the main trans person cancelled last minute. The event went ahead as planned with an empty chair where they should have been. I would have preferred to hear from them but if they won't turn up we can have the conversation without them.

Trans-Actions: An Exploration of Gender Dysphoria

@ninetynineAu

Seems to be rather a pattern with TRAs, to agree to participate in an event, agreeing to be part of it, knowing who the other participants are, then doing the dramatic "I feel uNsAfe" performance and withdrawing at the last moment. It's almost like it's a deliberate tactic to disrupt other people's events and gather attention as an """activist""" while not even getting off the sofa.

That is precisely the tactic. They know organisers are spineless and tend to cancel the entire event. Gender zealots are cowardly bullies and enjoy exerting this kind of disruptive influence. They can only do this because people let them get away with it. If events carried on without them, the tantrums would stop.

If anyone else had a hissy fit and stripped off - would they have cancelled the whole thing? It’s not like they were puting on a show and the main act pulled out.

The same people who criticise women like JK Rowing of weaponising their trauma cry about feeling unsafe in the presence of people who merely have a different viewpoint to them. Fuck this shit.

@OperationDessertStorm

Fuck this.

Anyone who can watch what’s happening on the continent and still say they “feel unsafe” in Tunbridge Wells or Leamington Spa or Islington or wherever theyselves type people live, they need to get checked into reality pretty quick.

Yup. Anyone with a grip on reality wouldn't behave like this in the first place instead of insisting the entire world play along with their delusion and then demand the punishment of anyone who doesn't play along.

I wonder how Freddie's fellow Guardian journalists, camped out at various war zones around the world, feel about Freddie's risk level at the hands of Milli Hill?

I remember Stephen Fry doing an IQ squared debate on the Catholic Church with Christopher Hitchens. Ann Widdicombe was on the other side. Stephen Fry didn't last-minute flounce from the debate because homophobic Ann Widdicombe made him feel 'unsafe.' He debated her.

Freddy is something else. Just been sucked into a twitter feed about how removing his nipples prior to deciding to give birth is not his fault, but the fault of 'cos-normative' people. Last time I checked both males and females have nipples.

And at the time, couldn't conceive the idea of parenthood, however is for medical transitioning of children.

I've just read Freddie's statement again, because 24 hours on this is still mightily pissing me off.

Freddie says 'I won't speak alongside/after/in the same remote vicinity of anyone who takes such a discriminatory and disingenuous position on trans people.'

Discriminatory? Milli Hill wasn't being discriminatory. If she had refused to share a platform with Freddie, that would have been discriminatory, but in fact the opposite happened.

Disingenuous? Let's look at the dictionary definition, shall we? "Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does." Milli Hill certainly isn't doing any of that. She is courageously candid in voicing her sincerely held, reality-based views. It is the fact that she's not willing to pretend to know less than she does that is the problem for Freddie.

I am just so sick of this Alice in Wonderland world where words can mean anything and the truth is a amorphous, shifting concept that means people like Freddie can adopt a tone of self-righteous indignation and have people yield to their utterly bullshit claims.

(I can't even begin to unpick 'in the same remote vicinity', though sinister associations with infection/vermin etc come to mind. And I'm not going to comment on Freddie's grammar because that would be petty.)

I'm so pleased that baby was delivered safely and had the good sense to come early and be born in the UK. Perhaps Freddie is sad about not being registered as the "father" on the birth certificate but, better than trying to travel back to Blighty with a tiny baby, during a pandemic and a war.

F's lack of curiosity about WHY the infant had stopped growing is fascinating. I'm not an obstetrician but I can't imagine that cross sex hormones are that good for a uterus.

@WinterTrees - this person is a journalist, though?

I assume that means some sort of journalistic training was undertaken?

I mean, surely you don't get a job in the Guardian by identifying as a journo? Despite which, yes, totally agree.

Baffling.

'I am just so sick of this Alice in Wonderland world where words can mean anything'

Jesus, me too. These people do not behave like grown adults. Whining about being 'unsafe' every time someone refuses to pander to them. It's truly pathetic

Whiny cry babies. Mental strength of a wet tissue. This is how the human race, not with a bang but with infertility and a whinge.