Let women speak London 30.4.23

[TangledUpinBlu]

Is anyone here going?
I booked train tickets a while ago and am looking forward to it but starting to get nervous and wonder how safe it will be?
Obviously there will be lots of tra as Posie is back for the first time since NZ.
I'm worried about escalation from the posts I've seen on Facebook/twitter.

I've often wondered why they don't allies to speak themselves. I mean surely some of them believe their own rhetoric.

I agree the optics would look better. But unfortunately, their content would then be available for all to hear.

Still, it's bound to happen at some point. <rubs hands>.

*get allies

Who is “the laughing auditor”? And is that Peter Thatchell at 20 minutes standing beside the police? Also I don’t understand why so many TRA’s wear masks, what are they afraid of?

They're afraid of being identified. Cowards.

I find it quite entertaining, the vicious chanting from behind a wall of umbrellas.

I wonder if Posie's thought of offering a zoom connection and then they can phone it in from home and keep their screens off?

Oh god yes, the umbrellas were risible. Was it some sort of homage to their Mary Poppins nanny fantasies?

They're afraid of being identified. Cowards.

This, but also it's part of the fantasy that they need to keep their identities secret because they are fighting fascism. It must be quite some task convincing yourself that the cheerful women are the fascists and the young thugs leading chants that incite violence are the kind ones.

The hypocrisy is ludicrously out of control when they use umbrellas, masks, even full face masks and wear gloves to not be identified, yet are the people repeating the mantra that ‘free speech has consequences’…..

I mean, they see the hypocrisy in those actions don’t they?

They demand free speech to silence women, yet are not prepared to handle the consequences of their actions? You could say, it is like they have not yet grown up to take responsibility for themselves.

Police intelligence gathering?

I thought they said it was in case of incidents. Maybe I misheard. Although there was a discussion about GDPR.

I suspect that it might be considered untampered evidence if something happened. It is concerning if they don’t destroy it or first compile a list of attendees.

It's part of the Lundy Bancroft Guide to Toxic and Abusive Relationships thing again.

Special people don't get consequences or have to make sense.

It's the minions. It's the minions who must watch what they say and do what they're told and expect to be consequenced for breathing too loudly.

Considering even having seen the attack on the steward from several filmed angles its still very difficult to make sense of what happened, I can see that the police want all the help they can get if they end up having to defend in court how they let someone get hurt. I can't imagine it's used any more than police body cam records are used unless needed for a specific follow up or prosecution.

Watched the beginning of the Laughing Auditor's piece - what was interesting was the number of police, vans, filming units, the TSG etc. That suggested 2 things, one that the police finally recognised the level of threat that some of those men pose to women and that they're starting to treat them as thugs, terrorists and enablers of VAWG.

Yes it does seem that now the police know the women are fine, but the others who object are thugs looking for trouble. With idiotic handmaidens in tow. The two women that were interviewed had no clue what the protest was about.

So the police are gathering evidence so they can identify them in case they attack someone, it already got serious with an elderly woman attacked in NZ and the sauce thrown at Posy. It's only a matter of time one of the agitators goes much further. Posy already had to cancel in Dublin.

Laughing Auditor's piece will probably be watched by the police too. He managed to get a lot of them without their masks.

Yes it does seem that now the police know the women are fine

It did really strike me that the vast majority of the police were facing the TRAs - by and large they they seemed to be policing them, not us. That does show where they think the problem lies.

I still would dearly love to know what it cost to put what looked like hundreds of police on the ground to surround a bunch of shouty umbrellas and a violent banner.

Who’s the Laughing Auditor?

The laughing auditor is one of a group of people who call themselves auditors. They go around holding the police to account. Presumably, at some point they've all had a beef with the force.

He unwittingly followed some police to a trans protest of some lesbians meeting. And discovered that the police are, let's call it, less than neutral over this issue.

He also saw, firsthand, the very explicit way, in which transactivists behave and their intimidating and bullying tactics.

He's hit the mother lode in terms of holding the police to account for their actions, or lack of.

Put it this way, he's probably not a feminist but he was aghast at the violent transactivism and the police response to it. So he's following it now.

The Laughing Auditor is someone who goes around filming and 'auditing' the police at work - apparently this is a thing.

He stumbled upon some TRAs protesting a lesbian conference*, was shocked by their and the police's behaviour, so has been turning up to film at various women's meetings since then.

*Thread about that here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4772051-film-of-protest-outside-the-lesbian-project-meeting?page=1

Oh, snap Datan 😄

Datun, even. Sorry!!

Yeah 😄

Faffertea, Derek's link is worth a watch if you've got a minute. It's really quite eye opening how someone who was totally neutral, went from 0 to 100 in just a few minutes.

He is a helpfully impartial observer of all this. And his video records tend to be thorough.

What amused me a little was that the TRA and police behaviour he witnessed in his first video wasn't the worst that GC people have experienced, not by a long shot. Yet he was still shocked by it. I suppose I'm just used to expecting the worst.

Thank you @Datun and @DerekFaker for the info and link. I’ve just watched the video instead of taking the dog for a walk 😬.

I think TLA might be my new favourite person.