Maya, Whittle, and Phoenix

[RethinkingLife]

It's rather too much of a scrum to explain but Whittle is styling Sex Matters as anti-trans and a hate group.

Maya,
I was as blunt as it is possible to be in my lecture. All the examples of extremist assertions of apparent rights for women but not trans people, that I gave were from Sex Matters.
Any group which cannot support & respect the rights of others (in this case rights…we fought a very long & hard battle for) is suspect. You may claim your concern is women’s rights but your organisation is solely targeted on trans people & their rights.

https://twitter.com/stephenwhittle/status/1754114765616484384

Phoenix has intervened in an offshoot of the discussion that involves schools.

Been thinking about this overnight. @stephenwhittle your tweet bears an uncanny resemblance to the open letters in my ET against OU. You have published this to the world - if your beef was what the schools did the proportionate response would be to write to them.

You make a highly negative pejorative (I suspect) defamatory claim. You might want to consult your lawyer about this but it does look like a slam dunk.

There is no distinction between the group to which you refer and @MForstater.

It contains a direct call for discrimination on belief grounds.

It contains a veiled threat. “Better be a school without public funding or …. [threat: you are a failing head and we will come after you…]

This did not work so well for several OU employees.

I’m making no legal threat here but I’m thinking academics such as yourself might look to whether they are contributing to a hostile work environment for your GC fellow employees.

You may also wanna get ready to defend your defamation of Maya coz it really does look like defamation to me.

The way I see it, any of your fellow employees who are GC may well screen shot this and it could end up in grievance that has your name connected to it.

Either way, I am pretty sure you just crossed several lines and I’m kinda sure every VC, every uni lawyer and every head of HR will have read my judgement.

https://twitter.com/JoPhoenix1/status/1754079044432240929?

Phoenix wrote that in response to Whittle implicitly referring to Sex Matters as an anti-trans hate group.

What head of school lets this anti-trans hate group in?

Better be a school without public funding or the head is failing their obligations under the Eq Act s.149 public sector duty obligations

https://twitter.com/stephenwhittle/status/1753757101485142123

Transactivists are ramping up their fury at the prospect of being denied access to children and schools. The new draft guidelines with their focus on safeguarding & removing the ability for schools to transition children in secret from parents will inevitably reduce the scope for transactivists to access schools and children - thus depriving them of a lucrative source of funding & influence over the young and impressionable.

The idea of Maya being invited into schools to speak about her experiences and to engage in open discussion with children is also an anathema to those who rely on emotional manipulation of an audience, presenting fantasy as facts and creating a climate of #nodebate to ensure no challenges allowed to challenge evident untruths.

Good to see Jo Phoenix speaking up and interesting that she spots a similarity to some of the letters of complaint made against her.

I’m surprised to see Dr. Whittle behaving like this. He is usually so balanced and logical: one of the good guys.

Just in case anyone here doesn't know who Dr Whittle is 'he' is a woman who took steps to appear to be a man.

🤔

That it's satire, right?

Whittle is not a "good guy". Whittle has worked all "his " adult life to destroy women's rights.

This feels like the same tactics that were used to undermine LGB Alliance. Tie them up in endless justifications and investigations.

Yes, it will be interested to see if Phoenix's perspective is supported, even informally, by legal opinion.

Well spotted! It really does feel like the same tactic again.

Pluralism doesn’t exist for Whittle et al; they’ve had exclusive access to decision makers and had things their own way for too long so the idea of tolerating disagreement or accommodating the views of others is anathema to them.

thank you for the weekend laugh.

Whittle has been one of those working under the public radar for many years, bringing the Beaumont society on board with modern transactivism, embedding the GRA in public policy, driving WPATH and likely a lot of other political activities I am not aware of.

The only surprise here is that normally, Whittle is measured and works very hard to look rational and reasonable, but perhaps the apparent change is because there has never been any opposition to what was being demanded, not because it was reasonable, but because it was deliberately kept quiet.

I should imagine seeing so many years of barely opposed work undermined, in particular by intelligent women, by someone who hates women enough to try to opt out of womanhood, must sting.

Long may it continue.

Criminology lecturer Max Morris in response to Whittle and identifying not only Sex Matters but Transgender Trend as hate groups.

Disappointed to see your brilliant public lecture being misrepresented in this way Stephen. I will make a recording of it availabile (when I find a moment!) to dispel this. I also talked to representatives of hate groups such as Sex Matters and Transgender Trend who attended. 1/3

After the event one said they were "surprised to receive the tickets" as they have been excluded from similar events, perhaps leading to a perception of discrimination. Unfortunately, despite our hospitality, we were then subjected to a torrent of online abuse and harassment. 2/3

My intention was to host a public event, open to all, as we have heard too much about trans people but not enough from trans people. Perhaps I should have remembered the Popper paradox and been more discriminating – justified when the response to tolerance is intolerance. 3/3

https://twitter.com/Max_Morris/status/1754132841812627466

To be helpful, Whittle has compiled a threader app of threads.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1754114765616484384.html

Whittle? The one who reckoned mixed-sex Guide camps would be fine as long as the leaders handed out condoms, and backed this up on MN by reminiscing about fun times shagging a Venture Scout?

There was also something about girls taking 'a pair of sturdy pyjamas' to Guide camp too, iirc.

I believe biting that is a classic Whittle. The nonchalant reminiscing about having sex at scout / guide camp as a 15 year old as if that is not red flag territory.

I’ve seen Whittle lying on Reddit that Maya personally received the crowdfunding cash (rather than it going straight to the legal team, as all LegalJustice funders do) and insinuating that Maya has ripped off those of us that donated.

Silly old Whittle, that money was some of the best I’ve ever spent!

https://www.reddit.com/u/1955Stephen/s/0wWNBAXcla

<misty-eyed remembrance> Was it ADarkandStormyKnight who first coined "sturdy pyjamas"? I've quoted the part of a post to which they were responding in italics and the response in bold. This was 05 August 2018 at 13:58. The point of the sturdy pyjamas was to prevent unseemly exposure and immodesty rather than actually fulfil a useful function.

On a personal note, the two other leaders in the hall are women that I don’t know very well..... My sleeping mat was right next to hers as there wasn’t much space. It was fine but I could not have done this with a self identified (ie male at birth) transwoman. I don’t know any woman who would feel safe sleeping right next to a male bodied person they had only met once before. Really? I would be fine with that, and would just pack some sturdy pyjamas to save anyone from seeing anything they don't need to. It's a public hall, with several people sleeping in it. What do you think might happen?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3314566-another-girlguiding-update?reply=79987458&

I don't know if there was an earlier coining of the term?

Does he think that she got awarded costs, or that her lawyers worked for free? I don't think the award would come anywhere near covering them, would it?

think we can expect to see more examples of the outrage-o-meter being cranked up to 11 (and beyond). Why? because these people are fucking nutters and up till now have not heard the word "no", and certainly not from where it counts-i.e. law courts. The depth of wailing and gnashing of teeth to come will be a sight to behold.

I have no idea what the costs totalled but I doubt the award gets anywhere near it.

Besides, the award is for lost wages so it’s Maya’s (and it’s a bloody disgrace that the employment tribunal is no longer an option for great swathes of ordinary people, thank fuck for crowdfunding, although we can only realistically fund the cases that push the whole cause forward, or that disclose previously unconfirmed info (eg Sonia Appleby v The Tavistock).

No doubt Whittle is just jealous because the TRA attempts at crowdfunds are far less effective (see the non binary American who seems to be hellbent on personally bankrupting zirself).

After the event one said they were "surprised to receive the tickets" as they have been excluded from similar events, perhaps leading to a perception of discrimination. Unfortunately, despite our hospitality, we were then subjected to a torrent of online abuse and harassment.

Sounds like Maya and Sex Matters were set up. They went along, were encouraged to ask questions, as if everything was above board and discussion was allowed, then were casually accused in the aftermath of being a hate group, which they (quite predictably) objected to.

Given Whittle’s strategic history, it sounds like a deliberate attempt to discredit them, with the usual, tedious accusations of “abuse and harrassment”. I hope it backfires.

Even if it were true, I hope Maya got smashed on Dom Pérignon with 40 year old Scottish whisky chasers, then dived in the money like Duck McScrooge.

'Timothy and the Strong Pyjamas' was one of my kids' favourites.

Whittle is 68 now and I thought Emeritus rather than a full-time working academic, but I may be wrong. I have never thought Whittle was all that bright, and I do genuinely wonder what many decades on the wrong-sex hormones does to the body, including the brain.