Cashman's tweet about James in image.
James' reply -
'In case, you’re not aware this tweet isn’t from a troll, but from a former friend of over 25 years
@mcashmanCBE
I don’t normally make a habit of scrapping with people I once regarded as friends publicly. And I’m frankly astonished that some former friends feel it’s a necessary & normal thing thing to do. But this ex-friend has previous form. So I’ll make an exception this time.
I once knew you too, Michael.
And now, I do not recognise you.
At all.
I have no choice but to respond to your unpleasant & nasty comment publicly, as you have me blocked.
So here goes.
“Sad & desperate”? No, Michael.
“Angry”? You bet.
Because of what you have done recently to women & LGB people. You’ve led the charge to betray them in the callous manner. Your indifference & vulgar displays of misogynistic rhetoric have become the source of much consternation & concern to many because of your position of influence. I have very little influence, so it’s rather telling that you blocked me without as much as a phone call, bolstering your imbedded opinion that you are RIGHT & others are WRONG. It’s interesting that you find my voice such a threat now, that you find it so easy to smear me from behind a block. I have zero power. Why are my objections so threatening to you? Is it because some might very well agree with me? Is that so horrifying to you, that choose to behave in this manner?
Your tweet about me contains the nastiness that many of us have come to expect from you. And that’s what’s changed. You were never like this. So please refrain from projecting how YOU feel onto others.
You snickered & publicly humiliated an ex-colleague of Stonewall when he left, you declared anyone “an enemy” who didn’t agree with your dictatorial decrees, two hulking great Q+ bodyguards beside you, as you denounced all those who so desperately wanted to receive legitimate answers, you screamed “No Debate!” & look where that got you, you insanely declared that “GC” people should be “defecated upon”. Need I go on?
You abandoned your principles, & the once- mighty powerhouse that was Stonewall, who dishonestly claimed the “equality” was the only goal, was clearly a lie. And I fell for it. Like a fool.
You say I’m “bitter”. In a way, you’re correct. But not for the reasons you intimate. Like so many of us, we’re angry at the betrayal, at the arrogance, at your aggressive dismissal of women’s hard fought for & won rights.
Stop & think for a moment. Why IS it everything begun to fall apart roughly 10 years ago? Why did Ruth Hunt openly acknowledge Stonewall’s ‘new direction’ ‘would not please everyone’, & then act outraged, when that’s exactly what happened? Of course, ‘trans rights are human rights’, as you so often repeat. But those rights do not & never will include the “right” to impinge upon the rights of OTHERS.
I assumed you knew all this.
I was wrong.
So forgive me if I do feel somewhat angry & embittered at the fact your ‘progressiveness’ comes at such a dear cost. That you’re willing to throw women, girls & LGB people under the bus so effortlessly. That you utterly fail to comprehend just how many people you are alienating by your stance & just how many of those who once supported us so much are now having doubts & turning away.
THAT’s what’s truly ‘sad’, Michael.'