Zoë

Gen X female, working class, middle aged, rights-hoarding dinosaur and member of the biddy mafia 🤷🏻‍♀️🦖💚🤍💜

[Zoë @CatAnnoyer]

@vagina_museum No.

[ꪝe @_wej01]

Those 3 teenage boys who raped 2 girls that they targeted. Who filmed their victims being raped. Who were convicted of 11 rape charges between them. And walked out of court with nothing more than Youth Rehabilitation Orders because of a male judge who didn’t want criminalise children. I am absolutely raging about this. When we’re trying to teach boys about consent. And judges are showing them that rape has no consequences. Every man should be up in arms about this. This is why women are so angry

[Akua Reindorf KC @akuareindorf]

It's atrocious that trans ppl were misled about their rights for 10yrs+. It's irresponsible to continue misleading them, even if only through sheer ignorance.

The @EHRC Code isn't new rules or law (and isn't in draft).

Nothing has changed. The law is the law and sex means sex.

[Naomi Cunningham @LoudBonnet]

This. If it was about wanting somewhere safe and private to pee, third spaces would be fine. It’s not. It’s about claiming territory, validation, and winning.

Dominating, intimidating and humiliating women is the point.

[Trevor Phillips @TrevorPTweets]

My thoughts on the @EHRC guidance laid yesterday; this is not about non-existent "rights". It is about the safety of women - mothers, sisters, wives, daughters. We men need to hear their voices. Virginia Woolf : "Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes".

My intro on @TimesRadio yesterday:

Where I live there are two different routes to and from the tube station. One, let’s call it Acacia Avenue, is quiet and residential. The other, London Road, is a busy major route with lots of traffic. At all times of the day, I automatically head for Acacia Road. It’s just much nicer.

The women in my family, on the other hand, will never willingly make that walk after dark. They live with an anxiety that most men find it hard to imagine, and frankly, rarely think about unprompted.

Last year 739,000 women were sexually assaulted in Britain. Virtually all such assaults - nine out of ten - are perpetrated by men. One in four women have been attacked at some time in their lives. Acacia Avenue is exactly the sort of place in which most women fear that they become vulnerable, and they are right.

As the author Virginia Woolf once wrote " Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes".

I think this is the right context in which to understand the furore over the guidance being laid today by the government, over the meaning of the words man and woman when it comes to providing services and facilities in workplaces.

Many men think this is about a rather arcane dispute about who gets to use what loo. For their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters, it isn’t.

In a previous life, as Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I had a hand in writing this country’s equality laws, in particular the 2010 Equality Act. It never occurred to any of us that there could be any confusion or dispute over the meaning of the words man and woman. But it has taken a decade of campaigning, a Supreme Court judgement and now hundreds of pages of guidance to settle the issue.

This is not about so called trans rights, which are completely unaffected by this guidance, since no-one has ever had the right to walk into a changing room reserved for teenage girls.

What it does mean is that women and girls are guaranteed the protection they deserve, and that their safety, which we spent half a decade drafting law to ensure, is protected.

But the whole business illuminates some serious issues in our politics.

First that many of our institutions, in spite of the fact that they always knew what the right thing to do was, decided to ignore the fears of their women customers and employees, under pressure from noisy pressure groups. Instead, the people who were supposed to be the grown ups behaved as though the law said what campaigners wanted it to say, rather than what it actually said. They settled for what they hoped would be a quiet life.

In a democracy, there’s little point in Parliament deciding anything if the law is then made an ass by activists intimidating bosses in companies, schools, universities and the media into doing something different.

Second, at the heart of the campaign to undermine the Equality Act is an idea that we specifically rejected in 2010, so called self-identification. That is to say, that it should be up to the individual to decide whether they have what’s called a protected characteristic - are you male or female, are you black or white. The problem is that self-ID would destroy the operation of any law against discrimination.

Look, it would almost certainly have been to my advantage as a young man to self-identify as a handsome, white public schoolboy. None of those things is true of me. And at various points I am pretty sure it’s been to my disadvantage. It is certainly statistically likely to have been to my disadvantage.

But according to the logic of those who say that self-ID should be the rule and that anyone should be able to decide for themselves whether they are male or female, black or white or Asian, were I to complain about racial discrimination, it would be difficult for anyone prove that I’d been discriminated against because of my race since anybody to whom I’d lost out could just tell the courts that they too were black.

I know that sounds like Alice in Wonderland but you can google the case where a chap, both of whose parents are white, insisted he should get money from the Arts Council because he so identified with the black struggle that he considered himself black, and everyone should accept his point of view. In the United States and Brazil exactly such outlandish claims have been made and people rewarded to the disadvantage of people actually born into minority families.

I have even been told about firms who, when reporting their gender pay gaps have put men who just happen to like wearing dresses at weekends - nothing wrong with that, let me be clear - into the female column and told their women employees that they really haven’t got anything to moan about because statistically they are paid equally, and they should get back in their box.

So today’s guidance isn’t just another tiresome chapter in culture wars. It is , I hope, a halt to the efforts to undermine one of the most important pieces of legislation on the statute book, by people who, for their own reasons, would prefer us to be living in the 1950s world of Mad Men.

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

I am absolutely devastated
Men who claim to be women have more rights than actual women in Australia.
It is women who are being discriminated against, not the men who claim to be us.

But in a sense, nothing has changed: we will all wake up tomorrow & men will still not be women.

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

Yep.

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

According to Australian law if you can accurately identify who is male and who is female in these photos you’re in trouble.

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

It is the day after #GigglevTickle and I haven’t woken up believing that men can be women. You can try & punish me for not believing it, but you can never make me believe it.

Men cannot be women.

[Zoë @CatAnnoyer]

Petition:
For the Government to introduce legislation so that defendants charged with controlling or coercive behaviour cannot receive a sentencing reduction for a guilty plea entered after initially pleading not guilty and call it Paris’s Law
https://t.co/gIJNYrnav0

[Green Feminists UK @GreenFemsUK]

The Green Party's attempt to strike out most of @EmmaBatemanGPW's discrimination case against them has failed. It now proceeds to trial, with implications for women's rights in all political parties. Crowdfunder update: https://t.co/tgxz2iWdqE

[Zoë @CatAnnoyer]

https://t.co/sdBNZj7iW8

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

🚨 UPDATE: Scope has reversed its decision and reinstated my choir

Pleased to say Scope has now reinstated the invitation for my choir to perform at the London Marathon tomorrow.

While this is a win, the distress and uncertainty caused by this situation has taken its toll. At present, only one fellow choir member has said they feel comfortable performing tomorrow. Understandably so.

In a statement published on their website this evening, they’ve confirmed the choir is not political - and never was.

They also acknowledge that my gender-critical beliefs, cited as the reason for dropping us, are lawful -and that those views are mine and separate from the choir as a whole.

All of which we knew all along.

However, they go on to describe gender-critical views as “highly polarising” and potentially “deeply upsetting and alienating” - language and ideological framing that echoes previous public commentary that presented my lawful, mainstream views as extreme.

While this is a win, the distress and uncertainty caused by this situation has taken its toll. At present, only one fellow choir member has said they feel comfortable performing tomorrow.

We are now considering our options.

[Mara Yamauchi @mara_yamauchi]

NB! parkrun has 4 categories, Male, Female, Another Gender Identity & Prefer not to say.

Males are currently welcome in all 4 of them. What women are asking for is that JUST ONE of these be reserved for females.

For this, we are called bigots, c***s, transphobes, Nazis etc.

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

My choir - which specialises in singing at charity running events - has been dropped from Sunday's London Marathon.

Because I don't believe people can change sex - and said so publicly.

We were dropped by the disability charity Scope - who we've supported for the past two years - on the basis of two anonymous complaints. About MY gender critical beliefs.

So not only am I being discriminated against due to my lawfully held views - so are other people.

After months of preparation ... disappointed is not the word.

Suffice to say, if there are any organisations out there who are happy to welcome volunteers with lawfully held beliefs on sex and gender, we'd love to be your 'cheer squad' at Sunday's London Marathon.

Our running themed 'set list' is always a hit with runners and we bring fun, enthusiasm and props in spades (hence the 'Eye Of The Tiger' mask).

We'd love to help support runners raise money for good causes at this year's London Marathon - as we have done in previous years.

My inbox is open: [email protected]

Link to read the Telegraph article by @Craig_Simpson_ for free below 👇 (gift link).

[Nick Wallis @nickwallis]

It’s really weird to see a disability charity openly admit they are practising unlawful discrimination simply because… they want to be spiteful? Nice one @scope. Keep thinking you’re the good guys. https://t.co/rFgBun9Jqw

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

First of all - for all those men frothing at the bit about parkrun. If @parkrunUK posts places & times, it’s competitive. Simply add extra categories;Transmen & transwomen, & why not bring back records? Why shouldn’t women, as defined by Uk law, have their own category? And finally 5 million pounds of tax payers money, who by the way, support fair sport for females, went to parkrun, in part to grow female participation, which with no female only category has zero way of showing it is doing so! Simply run in a category of your biological reality. It’s not rocket science. Everyone runs together anyway. But stop letting males displace females. And boys grow up, stop being idiot misogynists! No one wants to stop Parkrun. We simply want fair finishing places for women. Even you can grasp that, surely?

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

Some info for those defending @parkrunUK ‘s sex discrimination policy.

Remember this doesn’t affect males. Top male runners will remain male.

More than 20 female records held by males. Most are age category records but one is the outright female course record (Lauren Jeska, Aberystwyth). This is in the UK. Who went on to commit attempted murder & is doing time in prison when a volunteer reminded him he was still male!

More than 280 times, 1st finisher in Female category has been male (in UK).

Males in Female category get huge boost to their age grade % score (varies by age category but roughly 10-18%). Therefore they shoot up age grade rankings, pushings others (males & females) down.

Bearing in mind there are 4 categories: Male, Female, Another gender identity & Prefer not to say.

So trans identifying males can ‘prefer not to say’ & still run dressed how ever makes them happy without ruining female finishing places.

And 5 million pounds was given by sport England partially to grow female participation for which Parkrun have zero correct information because anyone can id as female.

A reminder self id is not the law in the uk & the Supreme Court recognises sex as biological.

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

Try not to choke on your cornflakes but the Guardian has written a piece acknowledging that sex cannot be changed and explaining why males who went through male puberty have an unfair advantage over women in sport.
As Tanya Aldred writes:

‘These physical advantages mean that the fastest 14-year-old boys run the 100m more quickly than the women’s world record; the No 1 women’s tennis player, Aryna Sabalenka, lost last December’s battle of the sexes game to an out-of-shape Nick Kyrgios, then ranked at No 671 in the world; and if there were no category for women at the Olympics, there would be no female medallists – except in equestrian events, and possibly static shooting. This does not mean that women’s sport is lesser, it just means the two sexes are different.’

Please no one tell ‘right side of history’ woke bros Owen Jones, Jonathan Liew, Alistair Campbell etc

Link below ⬇️

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

Women’s rights. She’s talking about women’s rights. If everyone acknowledged that, we wouldn’t be in such a mess. Women’s. Rights.

[Women's Rights Network - WRN @WomensRightsNet]

BREAKING NEWS! 💥The Women’s Sports Union, founded by @TracyEdwardsMBE and @sharrond62, is taking legal action against 10 sports governing bodies that have continued to deny women and girls their rights to fair and safe sport.

Sports governing bodies may be forced to comply with the Equality Act 2010 and protect the female category. EVERY sport that allows males to self-identify into the female category is flouting the law.

We are particularly pleased to see that @parkrunUK is on the list for legal action. We started our parkrun campaign in 2023. Since then, the organisation has refused to restore the sex categories to its race lists. Only last week the parkrun CEO told us ‘nothing had changed’ since the Supreme Court ruling last year and that they were ‘waiting for guidance’… maybe this legal action will concentrate minds.

Also on the list for legal letters are:

✅ FA Wales
✅ The Irish Football Association
✅ British Powerlifting
✅ Swim England
✅ British Gymnastics
✅ Royal Yachting Association
✅ British Baseball Federation
✅ BaseballSoftball UK
✅ Rounders England

Our Sports Listings have tracked policies since 2023. When we first started only SIX sports funded by @Sport_England excluded males from the female category from grassroots through to elite. Today, 32 sports are listed as fair and safe. We look forward to the day when fairness and safety is restored to every sport and fitness activity from recreational through to elite and at all ages.

Those sports that aren’t on the list for legal action but continue to flout the law should get their house in order… it’s only a matter of time!