Jolyon Maugham says his wife was targeted in changing room

[BobLobla]

On Bluesky yesterday. Sorry if there’s already a thread but I couldn’t see one. The replies would indicate this is a common thing. Really?

As if any woman in a changing room would challenge an obvious woman who has had an obvious double mastectomy.

The fox hunter is an absolute fantasist and I truly think he's lost it.

Someone made the point on Nitter that he flew the flag of fox/kimono up the flagpole a couple of months before The Incident. And wife raised the 'oh no, what if someone challenges me' a couple of months ago. Almost as though they float things to gauge the reaction first.
Someone cynical might say.

my point is that it’s really not beyond the realms with how hyper focussed this is that somebody could ignorantly made a comment like this

It's also not beyond the realms that someone from Nigeria needs you to move a few hundred thousand dollars through your bank account, and you'll get a nice fee.

Do you have a general problem with weighing relative plausibility?

Would you like to buy some beans? They're magic

He’s like a toddler behind a curtain thinking we can’t see him

Do you even know what a woman looks like after a double mastectomy?

A woman. Who has had a double mastectomy.

Women do not look masculine without breast tissue. It doesn't change your hip shape, face shape, how you walk or indeed your DNA or chromosomes.

Are you unfamiliar with women’s physiognomy? A mastectomy does not change face/height/fat distribution/hips/arms/hands, never mind the fact that many women are pretty flat chested to begin with.

There might be women who have an obsession with other women’s breast size, as described by you, but I would suggest they are suffering from a mental illness, not ‘gender critical’.

1. His wife has/had short hair because of chemotherapy, and has had a double mastectomy due to cancer. She is a woman.
2. His daughters have short hair because they identify as men, and men don't have long hair. Despite their knowledge of the seriousness of the operation - they still presumably wish to have a double mastectomy because men don't have breasts.

You'd think they were <this> close to getting it, but no.

Ok I take it all back. Women are all perfect,
mean girls don’t exist. The end.

Absolutely, I agree with a couple of your points.

We weren't there and don't know the facts - exactly. However, JM has chosen to present a situation from a certain perspective and not clarify the facts. It's extremely light on detail. He's not obliged to include detail, of course, but it is very striking that he doesn't. Why wouldn't he want to be clear?

The issue is so hyper focused - yes, definitely. And if men had never forced their way into women's spaces in the first place it wouldn't have become so hyper focused. JM is a massive supporter of men in women's spaces. Many men, companies, organisations and even the HoP say they're going to continue allowing men in women's spaces. A hyper focused atmosphere is being created by the inability of many to accept the SC ruling.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, it's perfectly possible it did, but I suspect it's been twisted somewhat. As @Maaate said, he's attempting to use this as a stick to beat the GC side with.

I think some on the GC side are so concerned about males (born males) in female spaces, that it’s not beyond the realms that seeing no breasts there could be a fear / assumption of a male being in the space.

As KJK said "I'm not a vet but I know what a dog is".

As women we've been working on keeping ourselves safe since Adam was assigned a boy at birth 🙄 and one of the skills there involved is being able to identify what sex someone is whether they have breasts or not.

That's a good question, Goodluckanddontfitup.
Even if it was true, it's just an anecdote. A difficult and disturbing thing to happen to a woman - a woman - who has already suffered cancer and a double mastectomy.

But all it proves is that a woman said something difficult and disturbing to a woman in a changing room. It shouldn't have happened, but if it did happen it was an anecdote, and shouldn't be used by anyone - least of all a lawyer! - to critique a ruling of the UKSC.

It's the same with the 6' butch lesbians/muscly transmen who seem to be so common in women's toilets since the SC ruling - it's highly unlikely any of these stories of them being 'hounded out' are true, but if they were, they are just anecdotes.

Laws don't operate on the level of anecdotes; nobody says that there's something wrong with laws protecting property just because some poor unfortunate was wrongly pulled aside for shoplifting when in fact the magnetic tag had been accidentally left on..

If any of these anecdotes are true, which seems highly unlikely, they are unfortunate, but they don't actually challenge the SC ruling about the definition of the word 'woman'.

They are being used to sow confusion, to try to undermine the principles of the SC ruling The quivering voice, the sad face, the lovely lovely transwomen, the 6' lesbian friends... we see through the act, and it doesn't stack up against 88 pages of legal argument that 'woman' = 'biological woman'.

My teen son tried to insisted it happens - and he tends to understand and agree with women being disadvantaged by trans over reach.

I said I'm nearly 50 - DGmothers in their 70s if none of us have seen it happen how likely is this to be a common thing if a thing at all - as most women would look leave and go elsewhere rather than confront a potentail angry man in that situation.

Also the idea that there is currently hyper focus on men in women’s spaces suggests that previously all changing rooms were mixed sex, which clearly isn’t the case.

We know it’s nonsense because women and girls are very good at telling the difference between men and women. It’s a survival skill we have honed over our whole lifetimes.

We don’t need the presence of breasts or hairstyles to tell us who is a woman. We can tell from size , shape, their neck, shoulders, hips, and how they move. And sounds if they speak .

This is true for all women and girls , because we are all equally under threat from male violence . Men are a risk to us all regardless of our age, race, social class, religion, politics or beliefs. We are all on alert from about the time we start getting sexually harassed by men, around 10 or 11.

Second, women who use communal changing rooms are even more aware than other women that we come in many shapes and sizes. So they are even less likely to mistake a woman for a man.

Third, the scars for a mastectomy are sadly still visible when you are naked, especially after a year . So it would be blindingly obvious this woman had undergone surgery , which would generate nothing but sympathy.

He now has 2/3 daughters who are trans, so he has to buy in completely to everything.

revsoc21.uk/2024/11/18/trans-youth-fight-back-an-interview-with-trans-kids-deserve-better/

Someone made the point on Nitter that he flew the flag of fox/kimono up the flagpole a couple of months before The Incident.

Going to need a reference for that fascinating nugget.

It's a very confusing world that JoMo lives in. One where "changing rooms are all cubicles anyway bigots. No one looks at you" yet his wife is challenged at the pool. The same world where clearly male people are donning frocks and recording themselves dancing in the ladies while no one bats an eye. Strange, strange world indeed

Who are these 'vigilantes' going around changing rooms checking women's breasts? What did they say to her? "Oi, you with the flat chest, you're a man, get out of here!" What did his wife say to them? How did they react when she said she'd had breast cancer and a double mastectomy? I want the whole story before I believe a word of this.

I assume what he is saying is not that someone saw her scars and challenged her but that someone saw her fully clothed and decided having a flat chest made her a man. Don't know about you but I see women every day and at no point have I thought that a flat chest area indicates I'm talking to a man

Clearly he's made it up and I think that is a serious thing for a KC to do in an attempt to discredit a SC ruling

It's not a very confusing world.

Women don't matter to Maugham. They are there to be used as service humans. Understand that and it's not difficult to work out why two of his daughters might wish to be male and And then the only woman that would marry such a man is one who goes along with it, without questioning.

I don’t think it’s impossible this happened

It'd be one hell of a coincidence though.

He says his wife had a mastectomy a year ago. A few days after the SC ruling she's on BS claiming GC's will think she's a man because she had a mastectomy but she's more worried for trans people than herself, then whaddaya know-a few weeks later the very obviously female Claire is ''challenged by vigilantes'' in a changing room but the Maughams are more worried for the ''thousands'' of other ''cis'' and trans people than themselves...

Jolyon is an unreliable narrator. Look at the dangerous way he spouts utter shite about child suicide, how he's bullshitting about Supreme Court judges just because he didn't get his own way, how he pretends lost cases are actually wins. Is it any wonder people might struggle to believe him?

Yes, many of us would have witnessed it in a long lifetime of using women's faclitiies.

I'm a lesbian and at various stages of my evolution have often had very short hair. I've worn jeans and shirts and T-shirts every day for the last 25 years. I've never been accosted and accused of being a man in a Ladies loo or changing room and in my experience women are very protective of and compassionate towards any women bearing the signs of mastectomy scars.

Now I'm well into my 60s I think I probably do look more like a man than ever: my hair's going quite thin post-menopause and my hairline's receded a bit. I've had to cut it short because it's so fine. They say your nose and ears keep growing all your life and I'm now noticeably stronger-featured than when I was young. Slightly jowly, definitely more wrinkles. Always been quite flat-chested and narrow-hipped.

But the thing is, women 'see' this. They see it in their mothers, their grandmothers: they know that older women do often develop a more androgynous look as they get older — and they still recognise we're women through our voices, our posture, our gait, our height, our shoulder width and our general vibe.

I had a bilateral mastectomy for breast cancer ten years ago. I have never ever been challenged in a changing room, partly because all the changing rooms I use seem to have cubicles and partly because I am still very clearly a woman. A breastless and scarred woman but a woman nonetheless.
I feel very sorry for Mrs Maugham.

I used to regularly see a transman in an open plan swimming pool changing room. I never once thought she was a man. Not even with mastectomy scars, a wispy beard and slightly growly voice.