Dundee Women's Festival is trying to ban the wrong kind of women

[fromorbit]

Women who know biology are not welcome apparently. Lets hope they have the best lawyers because they are going to need them.

Women Won’t Wheesht
https://twitter.com/WWWheesht/status/1745824625060446625
Unfortunately, yet again, women's voices are being unlawfully silenced.

This time by Dundee Women's Festival ( @dundeewomensfest ) who have rejected our event application to be included in the 2024 Festival because our organisation does not "allign with [the] Festival values"

A bit of background.
Dundee Women's Festival is a series of annual events in Dundee & takes place around IWD.

DWF is supported by DundeeCouncil & the UCD_ISSF (awarded to dundeeuni)

The Festival's criteria for inclusion is that events should be:

* Women centric

* Promoting/highlighting issues affecting women

* A woman only activity/delivered by a women-only organisation

* Promoting women achievers

Rather ironically the theme of this year's festival is

BLAW YER AIN TRUMPET because WEEMIN MAK IT HAPPEN

However, it seems Dundee Women's Festival do not want us to mak it happen, nor do they want us to blaw wur ain trumpets, & it seems, would rather like us to wheesht.

They also boast that they have a "broad range of events" and that it's "rare" for them to reject an event.

They have made an exception for our women-centric, woman-only organisation's event which highlights issues affecting women.

We asked Dundee Women's Festival which "values" they believe we hold which do not allign with theirs - we've received no response.

We asked Dundee Women's Festival for details of their Trustees - we've received no response.

We submitted an SAR - we've received no response.

So, yet again, we find ourselves in the position of having to, potentially, take legal action against an organisation for unlawfully discriminating against us.

We sent a letter to Dundee Women's Festival yesterday reminding them of their legal obligations & requesting that our event be included in both the online & printed programme.

We will, of course, keep you updated.

#WomenWontWheesht

Brilliant! Well done, WWW. We always had right on our side, but we now have the law on our side too. And the bullies run away.

So well done ! My hat is not only off, it’s sailing into Dundee to support you all.

Amazing!

This isn't just a win in Dundee though. The attempt to BAN women from meeting to say they exist legally has utterly failed now. Wins like this and others like reinstatement of Joanna Cherry’s Edinburgh fringe show and Julie Bindel's apology in Nottingham shows that they can't cancel us from having events anymore.

So it is time for WAY more events in public spaces. Take advantage of our legal wins if they try to ban you from meeting get a solicitor's letter and 99% of places will cave. We get another win and the TRAs look like bigots again.

Also means that the IWD event in Bristol last year (there was a thread) will not be able or can be challenged on their banning of a GC stall.

But suspects if anyone can be bothered to look, many IWD events who have been trans inclusive for years, will still be this year.

eg York's International Women's Week that have many workshops for "self identified women only" and "self identified women and non-binary people aged 18+ only" plus Finn Mackay on Trans Inclusive Radical Feminism.
https://yorkinternationalwomensweek.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/yiww2024-prog.pdf

This isn't the end of the fight for sure.

It means that we need to make sure that we have some group to try to get a stall at every women's event that someone runs and threaten to sue if they are excluded. Because the general public mostly actually really like the idea women are real such stalls should be really popular. They will be in competition with the male women cosplay stalls of course.

Obviously it means a lot more battling. Yet give women a level playing field and women can win and keeping winning. After all women have been doing this womaning stuff forever.

A super update, well done WWW.

WWW can't stop winning another banger tweet after being accused of being a rich astroturfed org. Nope you got served by a bunch of Scottish feminists, running stuff on a shoestring while TRAs get support from the biggest corps in the world. Even with that support the TRAs still can't win.

Thanks so much to Hannah for giving us the opportunity to confirm that our funding is both via ourselves & the sale of our fabulous t shirts, mugs & wristbands.

They are very reasonably priced so won't make us rich, but they can be purchased below.
https://twitter.com/WWWheesht/status/1754566928385872162

Anyone wanting to celebrate WWW win then why not buy some cool merc.
https://women-wont-wheesht.square.site/

Brilliant. I'm a little concerned that the twat signal will have gone up. I hope the event goes well for those amazing women.

@fromorbit oh cheers hen ! will definitely grab wan o' them!

The Dundee Courier on WWW's win is pretty fair.

Dundee Women’s Festival U-turn over exclusion of campaign group
Women Won't Wheesht, a grassroots women's rights group, had been told they were not welcome to attend.

A campaign group controversially excluded from Dundee Women’s Festival is now being invited to take part in the programme.

Women Won’t Wheesht, a grassroots women’s rights organisation in Scotland, heard on Monday from solicitors acting on behalf of the festival to confirm their inclusion.

The climbdown comes after the group claimed it would consider legal action after being told by festival organisers last month that their application had been rejected.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240205191335/www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/scottish-politics/4887150/dundee-womens-festival-wheesht" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20240205191335/www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/scottish-politics/4887150/dundee-womens-festival-wheesht/

Remember how dumb this stuff sounds to the average person. "So you are banning women who say women exist from your women's festival."

This isn't the end of the fight for sure.

It means that we need to make sure that we have some group to try to get a stall at every women's event that someone runs and threaten to sue if they are excluded. Because the general public mostly actually really like the idea women are real such stalls should be really popular. They will be in competition with the male women cosplay stalls of course.

Obviously it means a lot more battling. Yet give women a level playing field and women can win and keeping winning. After all women have been doing this womaning stuff forever.

Evven though those of us on FWR now it is the source of all real news of interest to women(!) I am wondering how we can get this U turn made better known around the UK.

Many IWD events are genuinely local, but also dependent on a LA or something and probably dont feel able to take up the battle.

Will have a think, but maybe each of us when seeing a local or any IWD event could send a link to the article or ... ?

Woo hoo!

Brilliant news.

Does anyone have a ticket link to the event? I can’t find it online

You don't need a ticket for WWW, just turn up.
I'm going with a friend

Great, thanks

If you're on your own and want a friendly face the pm me and we'll meet you first if you like.
The women from WWW met me when I went to the first one last year.

Just bumping this thread as WomenWontWheesht event is in Dundee today 12-1pm! Blue skies so should be good :)

Up the Dundee wims! I'm from just down the tracks in central Fife

Have a great time, Dundee wims .

#WomenWontWheesht.

Have a ball, all!

Just read this in The Courier

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/dundee/4923914/dundee-city-square-women-wont-wheesht-trans-protest/

It's paywalled but you can paste it here to read: archive.ph

Police kept the two sides in the toxic gender debate apart, while a number of female stewards also formed a safety cordon around the feminist supporters who had travelled from all over Scotland to take part. But some, it has been claimed, were verbally abused, sworn at, and even spat at as the event drew to a close and women were being escorted by stewards past the trans supporters.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/womens-group-abused-spat-on-32375305

Such ‘ladylike’ behaviour.

When I see that stuff it makes me think people underestimate the anger from males and how motivated they are to get what they want