People's History Museum & Sex Matters

[Littlesprouts]

Sorry I can't see if there's another thread on this.

Sex Matters had a board meeting in the People's History Museum this week. It has now released a statement grovelling to its trans and non binary community about how sorry they are for not doing their 'due diligence' and letting in people who 'don't share their values'. That would be women, then? Women aren't allowed in the People's History Museum to talk about women's issues? Because you're a 'welcoming and inclusive space'? Right-o.

Statements capitulating to the mob aren't anything new obviously, but this has to be one of the worst I've seen.

twitter.com/PHMMcr/status/1674375935741632516

I noticed this last night. They'd turned off comments but were getting absolutely hammered on earlier tweets.

Is there a way to access this without a twitter account please?

I know PHM - think it’s great except for its full embrace of gender ideology and subsequent exclusion of many marginalised women and same-sex attracted people.

Here it is on their website.

phm.org.uk/phm-story/statements-and-responses/

@Sickofwords You don't need a twitter account to read it, I don't have one. Some of the functionality, I suspect, is lost. If you get a pop up asking you to log in, you can just click the x to close it.

I'm on an android tablet. It might be different on other devices though.

Yeah, because throughout the entire history of people it's not as if the female ones have been given a bit of a raw deal is it? So obviously the People's History Museum wouldn't want to be seen to side with a controversial position such as 'sex matters'. I mean, what evidence do we have to support that wild claim?

(My reserves of sarcasm have now been exhausted for today.)

Again they turn off comments! Why can't they stand by their statement and respond to reasonable criticism, instead of demonising a group of women and painting them as some kind of cartoon baddies. What on Earth did anyone think they were doing in there?

Thank you @IcakethereforeIam - it’s diverting me to the homepage when I close the pop up, seriously annoying!

@Littlesprouts I agree completely. People with GC views are so often painted as cartoon baddies rather than reasonable people with evidence-based concerns about the implications of abandoning sex categories in favour of gender identity categories. I suppose it has to be #nodebate because the GC side of the debate is too strong.

I think SM are going to try and book another event there. It’s going to be a weird one because if they turn them down it could lead to all sorts of legal issues.

They have removed the statement pending legal advice.

I would say they have woken up that perhaps showing discrimination against women’s groups leads to legal cases where the organisations are being shown to be acting against the law. And that maybe, just maybe, listening so much to their indoctrinated complainers is not in their best interests if they wish to remain on the side of the law.

I keep asking myself, how many court cases is it gonna take?

I keep asking myself.

The statement is on archive sites though.

Was it something they said 🤣

Is it too early to think that some of these organisations are waking up to the fact that you can't discriminate against people who don't buy in to gender ideology

Really 😞 that's upsetting. I love the PHM.

How can they not support it - they have massive displays of suffragette banners fgs!

I hope they realise what a mistake they made and apologise.

Not one mention in there of women!! No mention that this People’s History Museum supports women. That women are marginalised and that women have the right to have their voice heard.

Nothing about women. No balance. Nothing.

Maybe they should have called us bleeding gestators with bonus fuck holes. That is the direction that statement was headed. Complete capitulation.

What ‘hostility’ did their ‘trans and non binary community’ experience? Did women push back and say ‘no, we had every right to have met there’! Or were women sending death threats?

Too right that museum needs to seek legal advice. They are over their heads and I think they just realized it.

Well, that's me telt They must have changed it overnight, exactly the same thing is happening to me. Bugger! I don't want to set up an account.

I’d be writing to them if you are a regular. The message will not get across.

How these people don't think further ahead than just trying to quell the mob and tell off the nasty women is beyond me.

I just about understand that they felt they needed to put out a statement to explain - not apologise - if they were getting so many criticisms. But to not examine that statement from all angles before doing so is just a basic failure of absolutely piss-poor comms.

That statement was misogynistic and vile, a weak and sorry attempt to stop people whinging at them. The very opposite of the 'inclusiveness' that only ever goes one way.

That there was no comms director there professional enough to identify how much worse putting it out that would make things for them is quite shocking.

Twitter not working for me either. Settings must have been changed.

Me too.

A screen grab

@Littlesprouts thank you for the screen grab

No mention of women at all in that statement

How did they not proof read that and think....hang on

So disappointing

I've just had a look in their recent Twitter, obviously the statement is gone now but a week ago they were putting out promo for their new display of suffragette banners on temporary loan and a tour of women radicals!

This isn't new, they always had one or two on permanent display but how can they not see the dissonance 😫

'our trans and non binary allies have been at the centre of a hostile environment on social media'

This doesn't hang together at all. If the trans and non binary allies are upset by the PHM allowing the meeting to take place at the museum, how did that generate a 'hostile environment' on social media? Are they saying that the existence of pictures of Maya and Helen smiling next to some suffragette banners creates a 'hostile environment'?

Surely the social media hostility has been towards PHM and SM from the allies objecting to the meeting taking place? Or does that not count as hostility because it's so very Righteous?

Statement on the SM website: Statement on the People’s History Museum - Sex Matters (sex-matters.org)

"The right to hold and manifest religious and philosophical beliefs (and lack of belief) is a cornerstone of our pluralist society, which the People’s History Museum was founded to memorialise. Its displays celebrate the courage and integrity of activists who stood up for women’s rights and against discrimination in the past. That contrasts sharply with the museum’s denunciation today.
We will not be deterred from our human-rights work, and we have written to the People’s History Museum seeking to book the venue for a future event."

It is not just women's sex-based rights under threat, it is those of men too. Sex Matters is not just a women's organisation anymore than the LGB Alliance is.