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At the weekend there was an event in Dublin billed in the following way: "The Countess conference exploring the impact of gender ideology on Irish society across legislation, policy, education, culture, and sport. This national event will bring together ordinary women and men from across Ireland for discussion, debate, and insights from activists, thought leaders, and experts across key subject areas"
I am not going to do potted bios of all people on the bill, or those that came to withdraw due to the last minute inclusion of Jana Lunden. All are readily searchable. Posie Parker/Kellie Jay-Keen was the keynote speaker which should have been reason enough to discourage the participation of anyone concerned about their reputation and credibility. That said, some people did decline to take part for reasons of political principle and we should commend them for drawing a line.
Drop outs include Gearoid O'Loinsigh, Annaig Birdy, Aja, Rhona Hotchkiss, Jon Pike & Stella O'Malley.
There have been a couple of statements giving reasons for their non participation which I'll post below.
Statement from @cleancitybird (Annaig Birdy) and @Aja02537920 (Aja)
"It is with a heavy heart that we have had to make the difficult decision to withdraw from participating in the upcoming conference on Saturday, April 27th. After careful consideration, we feel compelled to take this action due to our concerns regarding Jana Lunden' associations with violent individuals. This speaker was added at a later date, subsequent to our agreement to speak. We have had to make the decision to step back due to the likely presence of some of the violent men associated with this speaker. The presence of these men, such as Andy Heasman, whose violent actions undermine the feminist cause and perpetuate a culture war, deeply trouble us, as we know if it were a slightly different setting, we could be targeted by those men.
While we acknowledge the principles of inclusivity within our movement, we are of the firm belief that there must be a line drawn when it comes to tolerating individuals who espouse violence and hatred. Inviting speakers with close ties to these individuals, inadvertently invites their audience and supporters, including those who perpetrate violence against marginalized communities. Neither of us are a proponent of cancel culture or deplatforming, and advocate for freedom of speech and diverging opinions.
However, it is imperative to recognize the difference between political disagreement and the endorsement of violence. Individuals like Andy Heasman do not represent the working class; they exploit movements to further their racist, homophobic, and anti-woman agendas. Despite our excitement and anticipation for this conference, we cannot ignore the profound discomfort we feel at the prospect of spending a day in the company of individuals whose beliefs and actions contradict everything we stand for. We trust that the conference will be well managed, with strong security, but we feel it is not the environment to share testimonies as lesbians. We thank@TheCountessIE for the opportunity, and for the work they have put into organising a large scale event. We will record the talk we intended to deliver, so lesbian voices are still heard. Sincerely, Annaig, Aja and Not All Gays
Statement by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh on his withdrawal from The Countess RDS Gender Critical Conference
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh24 April 2024
"I had been scheduled to speak at the RDS event organised by The Countess on a panel discussing prisons and the housing of males in the female estate, alongside Rhona Hotchkiss and Paddy O’Gorman, two very knowledgeable people on the issue and I was looking forward to it. There were other professionals in their field such as Stella O’ Malley who are due to speak on other aspects. Such events by their nature often include a wide variety of opinions, some of them not exactly complementary to each other. This conference was no exception. I decided to let the fact that the sole speaker on media censorship was from Gript. It is a right-wing Catholic media, but not that much further to the right on many issues than The Irish Times, despite its liberal reputation.
However, the last-minute decision to invite far right activist Jana Lunden to speak on education was a bridge too far. Lunden came to prominence during the protests over sexually inappropriate material being available in children’s libraries rather than adult libraries. These books were eventually relocated to the adult section thanks to back room lobbying by others. Lunden’s response was to gather a bunch of far-right males to storm libraries threatening staff. They didn’t just object to sexually inappropriate material for kids but anything that gave a positive image of gay people.
It was said to me that the presence of far-right thugs Andy Heasman and Fergus Power at rallies with her was accidental, they just turned up, but there are lots of photos of them together. There is even one rather bucolic photo of them all on a boat. They are anti-migrant, racists, homophobes and anti-working class, dividing us on the base of race or nationality and blaming the failings of the Irish state on those who had nothing to do with the mess FF and FG have us in i.e. they blamed migrants and the working class.
The issue shows the limitation of the Gender Critical movement in Ireland, which has failed to mark off a distance with such people and has included figures that are clearly homophobic and anti-feminist. There is a need for a GC movement that fights for women on all issues, including “older” issues such as abortion, divorce, contraception, sexuality and of course the modern invasion of women’s spaces, representation and sports. The invite to Jana Lunden, who presumably will turn up with the usual far-right thugs was the last straw. These people do not defend women, when the opportunity arises they will turn on women and lesbians in particular.
I will continue to advocate for prisons as a single sex space and write about it. But I can no longer associate with those who think that the broad church of a GC movement which includes liberals and even some standard right wingers from Fianna Fáil is in fact an elastic band that can be stretched to breaking point and beyond.
Unfortunately, most reformist leftists such as PbP, Rise and Rosa have all jumped on the bandwagon attacking women’s spaces and demanding that males have access to them and participate in women’s sports and this leaves little room for the building of a more progressive GC movement. However, I am not willing to tolerate Andy Heasman and his thugs".
(As this group is mainly North American the comments in response are all about how there is no information about Jana Lunden on line and what are her issues etc..
The annonymous poster whose post it is above, then came up with this as evidence https://twitter.com/soundmigration/status/1666192445904674827 and for those not on twitter it is a tweet from a lone male saying "she promotes the conspiracy theory that seats in children's hospitals have a 'secret Pedo symbol' for some unclear purpose, only known to her batshit hate merchant followers." )