India Willoughby, Question Time Thu 2 Feb 2240

[Consufed]

India Willoughby is going to be on Question Time tonight. BBC1 10.40pm.

It has come to something when you hope that people in power are being dishonest rather than stupid.

Tbf, I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. It is perfectly possible that the person in question is both dishonest and stupid.

I wouldn't mind so much, but India relies on the fact that they are male in order to make a living. It's their entire USP. If India was actually a biological woman, no one would give a fuck what they thought and they wouldn't be asked to comment on anything.

And India boasting on Twitter that they ignored a gender neutral toilet to walk 'miles' out of their way to access the women's facility at an airport, neatly demonstrates exactly why we need sex segregation.

Publicly bragging about making women uncomfortable, knowing other women will read it, constitutes exactly the sort of behaviour that sex segregation is set up to mitigate.

Let's get more of India on the telly. Aggressively making the case for women everywhere.

Did anyone notice at the beginning Willoughby said that most people think women's prisons are like the WI, sitting around making jam and knitting. How fucking patronising. No, India, we don't think that. Our little, soft lady brains are actually able to understand what prison is like for women. Probably more than you do, you numpty.

Yes. Important distinction to make.

Dear lord, Windy's been whingeing on Loose Women.

Windy's not even loosely a woman.

I think this is part of the problem.

They live their loves in an echo chamber.
Blocking anyone who disagrees and end up just with people agreeing and applauding them.
Then when they are in the real world- apparently it's been fixed, a bunch of transphobes/ GC blockbooked.

Yes!
It's so interesting when India makes these sweeping generalisations that only serve to reveal India's own ignorance, prejudice and rank misogyny. Like when India said that everyone assumes that MN is for discussions about prams and nappies or something.

India has not the slightest inkling of what women's lives are.

I now have IW in my head like a hermit crab looking for a new shell ! 😁

By virtue of who I follow on Twitter O encounter a lot of India's tweets.

They spend rather a lot of time on MN, judging by the number of screenshots of posts I see.

@hamstersarse , I was thinking the same as @Whatsnewpussyhat

I would add that there is no issue with misunderstanding - merely an attempt to persuade us that the waters are now so muddied that we have to cede more language. If any significant proportion of the general public subscribed to the Butlerian definition (which is what IW means by saying "I am a woman"), the SNP MP on Question Time and Nicola Sturgeon would have said that Isla Bryson/Adam Graham is a woman, and many would have gone along with it. It's because we all know (and they know) that the category "woman" is universally understood as a sex category, that neither of them could say it. Because he is a man and they know he has not changed sex.

It's so interesting when India makes these sweeping generalisations that only serve to reveal India's own ignorance, prejudice and rank misogyny.

The reveal last night that they think rape victims should go to prison was a bit concerning. Or maybe the thinking is that rapists are the true victims of rape? I’m not sure I entirely want to understand that one, although it is morbidly fascinating.

That's a nice thing to know - thank you @IcakethereforeIam

And agree @NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom - good post

There's a really bizarre article in the SNP fanzine about last night's show:

www.thenational.scot/politics/23297413.question-time-audience-glasgow---atmosphere-poisonous/

Written by “Josh” who says “I know the smell of bigotry” and characterises Whelan’s comments as “nasty diatribe about biological sex and how women are the victims among all of this”.

Are women not the victims when they are expected to put up with a rapist in their midst?

No idea who “Josh” is related to, that this stuff, which a student newspaper would reject, gets published less than 12 hours after the event.

Have youe ever heard the phrase "Give someone enough rope to hang themself"

I wouldn't mind so much, but India relies on the fact that they are male in order to make a living. It's their entire USP. If India was actually a biological woman, no one would give a fuck what they thought and they wouldn't be asked to comment on anything.

I was just about to type exactly this. India would be a nobody if India were really a woman.

Tbh I think at sone point last year we agreed it stood for Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits 😁

I expect most people using the term terf couldn't tell you what radical feminist means and they certainly don't check your politics beyond knowing (and saying) that men aren't women.

It serves the same purpose as heretic. We just need to keep on making our arguments.

Willoughby said that most people think women's prisons are like the WI, sitting around making jam and knitting.

Real women don't think the WI is about sitting around making jam and knitting.

I now have IW in my head like a hermit crab looking for a new shell ! 😁

Thank fuck I'm old and fat! I don't even want my shell!

Real women don't think the WI is about sitting around making jam and knitting

Such a silly picture India paints. The jumpers would get sticky.

That's why they used a woman to play the first transwoman in Soapland.

Would people have been so sympathetic to little Hayley Cropper if Hayley Cropper had been 6'5, built like a brick outside convenience and still in proud ownership of a "ladydique"?

I think not . . .

😃

This reminds me of last Friday’s bizarre thread re: nattering (& knattering and gnattering).

My brain has now wandered off to a vaguely sci-fi looking future fantasy-land…

It’s now 2323 and a group of academics are puzzling over the possibility of a shared etymological origin for ‘‘terfyn’ (noun: boundary, limit end) and ‘terfing’ ‘terf’ ‘terfed’ (verb/noun: to define and uphold boundaries relating to the sex based rights of all humans, but especially those of women & girls).

(works like dancing/dance/danced)

eg ‘She terfed happily all around the town, accompanied by her new, extremely experienced terfing partners’

‘I’m perfoming a 5 minute terf on stage tonight, with live, musical accompaniment’

😃😃😃

I'm so glad to read this thread - I started reading it last night, started watching QT this morning and had to turn it off (round the 'jam and knitting' comment I think). IW is just so....willingly disingenuous? Not even sure. But genuinely don't know why she believes she is trotted out all the time if not for the trans status.

Anyway, for me it boils down to:

1. A large population of men are predatory. We know that some will go to extraordinary lengths to get to their victims. For some reason, a lifetime of celibacy for an abusive priest is accepted but wearing a dress for an abusive man trying to get into a shelter is not. Even though we have evidence of it happening.
2. Due to 'Be Kind' (and in general, socialisation), we cannot say that sorry, you might be a transwoman but we can accurately sex you as male in 99.9% of times. In fact the only time it's not evident seems to be in still images. No one will say this out loud. Add this to 'trans people offend in the same patterns of their natal sex' and it's a double whammy of important info people just won't admit let alone say.
3. TRAs are quite happy to erase years of safeguarding advice because they know no one will say these things, and then we find ourselves in this ridiculous situation.

I love this quote, which is from the 1993 film Demolition Man. It has literally nothing to do with trans people, but I like quoting it to those people who are happy to put women at risk so long as no male feelings are hurt:

Chief George Earle: We can just wait for another code to go red. And when Phoenix performs another Murder Death Kill, we'll know exactly where to pounce.
John Spartan: [sarcastic] Great plan.
Chief George Earle: [not realising the sarcasm] Thank you.
Erwin: He likes your plan, Chief!

Oops clicked post too soon!

Wanted to say thanks to all the far more articulate than me women on this thread. I appreciate your time and input more than you'll ever realise.

Funny that Josh can smell bigotry - all my little-lady-nose can detect is the distinct whiff of BeardyWokeBro misogyny?