Tanya Hughes

Science loving fashionista interested in the relationship between fact and feeling

[Tanya Hughes @TanyaTalkPR]

@jk_rowling Absolutely gorgeous! 👏👏👏

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I hate to point this out*, but accusing me of hating men because I don't think trans women should be given access to all women-only spaces does rather suggest that (in spite of your feverish assertions to the contrary) you're well aware that these are, in fact, men.

*I don't.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

The shamelessness is not confined to the aforementioned.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Women have fought (and are still fighting) the single biggest land grab on their rights in my lifetime. Some have sacrificed their livelihoods and safety to combat a pernicious ideology that has infiltrated elite institutions, including government.

Women have been persecuted, harassed, smeared, roughed up and forced to take employers to court for discrimination. They've suffered severe detriments purely for believing what the Supreme Court has ruled to be reasonable and correct: that women are a definable biological class that has specific rights under the law to which males, however they identify, are not entitled.

Do these politicians have any shame? They sided with the persecutors, the issuers of death and rape threats, the violent men demanding access to women's and girls' protected spaces, including domestic abuse shelters, rape crisis centres and prison cells. Will any of them issue an apology or admit that they made a serious error in siding with well-funded activist groups lying about what the law actually said, and which had measurable, severe impact on some of society's most vulnerable women?

As another public wave of death threats is issued against women because of the Supreme Court ruling, their silence has become deafening. I'm just one of millions of women disgusted by the lack of accountability or remorse. We will not forget.

[Jon Pike @runthinkwrite]

TW: rude words ahead.

I've been on a *lot* of left wing demos in my time.

We wanted to *smash* the BNP, to *kick out* the Tories, to *fight* Alton's bill, to *stop* various wars, and Clause 27, then Section 28, then the Poll Tax, and we marched *in solidarity* with miners, and with refugees who we wanted to *welcome*.

You can argue with each of these causes, of course.

I don't recall chanting to *punch* *fuck* *shit on* *piss on* or *burn* anyone, including *bitches*

I know I'm getting old, and I may have misremembered, but there might be another explanation.

[Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins]

Aggressively dominant male mammals typically urinate to scent-mark their territory.

“I’ll piss where I like." "I❤️pissin' on TERFs."

They think they’re women. But can you imagine a better walking, talking, reeking advertisement for toxic masculinity? #SexMatters

[Tanya Hughes @TanyaTalkPR]

@HadleyFreeman Excellent piece. I love your writing.

[nazir afzal @nazirafzal]

South Africa weren’t allowed to compete as a country till they dismantled apartheid

Russia aren’t allowed to compete as a country till they leave Ukraine

So why do we still see misogynistic Taliban led Afghanistan still on the field of play

Kick them out

[Tanya Hughes @TanyaTalkPR]

@MailOnline It wasn’t ’sordid sex’, it was rape. Get your facts right.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

There's no difference between those who hushed up paedophile priests to protect the church and those trying to make it unsayable that some trans-identified men are sex offenders. Both prize an ideology more highly than acknowledging risk and preventing harm to women and children.

[Jonathan Pie @JonathanPieNews]

Election Special 4: The Conservatives.

[Cancer Research Horizons @CR_Horizons]

We had a great time connecting with the finance community this morning at our first ever Investor Networking breakfast. Here’s to many more!

Thank you to our team, speakers and everyone in attendance for an inspiring morning.

@Abingworthbio
#OnMyHorizon #IRchat

[Jess Phillips @jessphillips]

RISHI SUNAK IS A LIAR. Tell your friends

[Cancer Research Horizons @CR_Horizons]

Congratulations J.Kwok and everyone at #Infinitopes! With a Phase 1/2a #clinicaltrial scheduled for Q3 2024 and innovative proprietary science, your team is poised to deliver the next wave of #CancerVaccine treatments.

#OnMyHorizon @Kindred_VC @Powerscourt_Grp @OctopusVentures @BioEscalator @wilbe_science @MartletCapital @meltwindinvest

👉 https://t.co/P7oNlOVUkn

[Tanya Hughes @TanyaTalkPR]

Please join me and @BreastCancerNow to call on @NICEComms, @NHSEngland, @DaiichiSankyoUK and @ASTRAZENECAUK, to make the life-extending drug Enhertu available on the NHS. #EnhertuEmergency https://t.co/VPL1AKsFS6

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉

Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them.

In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.

For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of 'woman' to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women's and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.

It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.

I'm currently out of the country, but if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.

If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it.

#ArrestMe #AprilFools #HateCrimeActScotland

11/X

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

So rather than give females their fair sports results from parkrun - where it would be very easy to add course records for transmen & transwomen, they have removed from public view all records. Not the places or records, they will still be sent all the same! Now men are annoyed ( odd if non competitive event as they’ve been saying!) maybe @parkrunUK will listen to the fact the vast majority want simple fair sport for all based on the biological reality of the bodies we run/race/compete with. We don’t run with our feelings & the feelings of ALL females should never matter less than the feelings of a few trans identifying males. Parkrun have been guilty of sex discrimination for far too long & benefited from millions of pounds in public funding from Uk sport. Keep sport fair for both sexes!

[Jon Sopel @jonsopel]

Sorry. This is nuts. A presenter on a news channel uses platform to advance a conspiracy theory about a cancer in children linked to vaccines which is baseless, and OFCOM says it’s fine. If facts don’t matter on a news channel, then where are we?

https://t.co/neSaaFE9Pr

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

When world aquatics put on an open event inside this Octobers World Cup for trans swimmers not a single one entered. It’s not inclusion they want it’s the unfair advantage that males have physically over females. It’s unfair & It’s unsafe in a lot of sport. Just say no, we value our female athletes & the integrity of sport.