Standing for Women Manchester event Sun 15 May

[Mollyollydolly]

Currently streaming live on You Tube. Fantastic turnout many inspiring women speaking. Watch it if you can .. on Kellie Jay's YouTube channel.

Hooray, there is an app update that has fixed the quote cut off text issue!

Yes. This issue must be more of a minefield than usual for Piers. Because, for him, it's not quite clear enough which side he's supposed to be on. So he has to pick and choose.

Sport, absolutely. Changing rooms, of course. Names, not quite sure about that one.

He's not operating from any kind of personal conviction, so is inconsistent in what he says.

I've said it before, but this issue does make me look at the male sex in a completely new light. Really. God knows how they're in charge. (not really, I know how).

He's not operating from any kind of personal conviction, so is inconsistent in what he says.

Yes I think you're right. He doesn't want to look foolish, but he doesn't want to look too out of touch with the youth and liberal opinion either.

"I only came on here because I thought it'd be kind of funny".

Well, I laughed.

I think he did actually try to argue intellectually at first, that’s the amazing thing. He went off on a half baked spiel about the suffragettes being appropriated and Pankhurst being racist anyway. I think he got (even more) confused because it was a human interaction and not a social media post, and he wasn’t quite sure how to handle it and then just lost the head completely.

It's a perfect interview and I hope it's widely viewed.

Yes, I wonder which suffragette would be appropriate to hold up as the epitome of suffrage in their eyes. Who would be pure enough in the modern view?

I doubt that their own 'pureness' in the 'right side of history' lasted to the publication of the videos.

poundshop Magenta Devine

🤣

The Daily Mail said that the woman in the video was threatened by the police with arrest for breach of peace and had also been in a scuffle in St Ann's Square the previous month, we don't need people like this initiating violence at our events.

It would be interesting if the police did investigate because there would have been multiple cameras filming, maybe someone will do a FOI request.

The woman in the video with the suffragette flag was just interiewed on GB news. One of the presenters said: 'the trans debate has re-legitimised violence against women' - seems spot on.

Having watched the attack on Aleks again, I pretty sure one of the TRAs is Tolu Ajayi of the LGBT Foundation and Manchester Pride. He's the black guy in purple who to be fair helps drag off the attacker, but then tells the women off for coming into the TRA space.
If the police ever get round to investigating the assault, perhaps he could tell them who the hooded people providing 'security' were?

You have to laugh at the irony of a TRA criticising a woman for coming into their spaces.

Please let this be a turning point.

The Daily Mail said that the woman in the video was threatened by the police with arrest for breach of peace and had also been in a scuffle in St Ann's Square the previous month, we don't need people like this initiating violence at our events.

Given that she is tall, carries flags and is quite a confident, visible presence it is likely she has drawn certain kinds of people on to her just because she is there.

Given that "initiating violence" has come to mean, for some, "being female and visible" that's not at all unlikely!

Here's a link to the video

twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1526499251932610560?t=IIzyjRNoo-EknJEjki3jaw&s=19

That's a good point by Aleks Kovacevic. It's not a protest, it's a rally. It's a rally organised by Kellie to give women an opportunity to speak.

The right for women to speak was being denied by masked protesters standing under a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst.

Right side of history, my arse

I've been following this for years. There have been so many times we've seen women threatened, abused, assaulted, mobbed. Every one of those times we've said 'please let this be a turning point'.

And nothing has happened. Owen Jones is now saying that because nobody applauded a woman who spoke at the event and said 'transwomen are women', we are silencing women. Not a mention of the assault on the woman we're discussing here. This is how these things are spun. Most people don't even get to hear about it. A short blip on GB news. Nothing on the BBC. At least the Mail and the Times and the Telegraph are now reporting.

At most, I would say there is a larger proportion of the public who are silent. Less of the 'no debate' and definitely less 'transwomen are women'. Those who want a quiet life skirt the debate. That's most of us.

I'm sorry to sound pessimistic; I don't think people in general care enough about women or women's rights, or free speech, for this to even matter to them.

They'll bang on about sport, but nobody seems to care if women in prison get assaulted. Or if dysphoric children are put at risk.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

@MagnoliaTaint
Sadly, I think you are right. Until it starts to effect the middle classes, it will be ignored. I don't want to trivialise the situation, but part of the problem is when most people hear trans woman, they think Hayley Cropper or Chandlers dad in Friends. From talking to people about this, the assumption seems to be, it's only a minority, they've had surgery and you would be able to tell the difference. When you show them pictures of trans women lesbians, they are shocked but still shrug it off because, well its only lesbians being discommoded right? Until it hurts more people, it will be ignored and by that stage, it will be a massive effort to correct.

She didn't initiate the violence.

Oh, we're well past the stage where it will be a massive effort to correct. Many people have already been damaged, harmed, ostracised, fired, attacked, shunned, pilloried etc for speaking up - in academia, education, in law, in the health service, media, arts ...

The first line in her bio is 'thug life' in capital letters

I've only just stumbled upon this.

So from a complete lay person with no affiliation my immediate thought was

Women want to protect their spaces and have agreed to meet at a certain space to support one another against people encroaching on their space.

Up turns the other team, encroaches on the space, forces women out and then plead "were not after your space"

😳

Mate, the women literally wanted that space, and you came in and took it away from them, but then in your second breath say "it's not about taking your space". Really?! You literally just took their space.

I'm confused.

I haven't kept up, how do you know it was her?

@Sofaexpert I can understand why you'd think that but Thug Life doesn't necessarily mean 'thug'. It's an acronym from American hiphop, which, as a suburban British mum, I am obviously overqualified to pontificate on .

Two violent altercations in 4 weeks, THUG LIFE in the bio.

Occam's razor.

@Sofaexpert
"Especially in Black hip-hop culture, thug life refers to a determined and resilient attitude to succeed in life in spite of racism and injustice."

A women who is repeatedly targeted/attacked is 'violent'? Or do you mean 'she was asking for it', presumably by being out in public while openly female?