John Freeman

On hiatus

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@fharris2011 Scotland vs Brazil should be interesting. Hoping George Hurst gets to play / score in that one.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

We don't leave our doors and windows wide open when we go out because 'thieves will find a way in, anyway.' Strangely, I've never heard anyone say 'let's stop background checking teachers, because paedophiles will always find a way to interfere with kids.'

When men - all men, however they identify - are banned from women's spaces, those who disregard the ban can be challenged, inside the space and out. They mark themselves out as suspicious by breaking a rule decent men respect. Nobody claims the rule has successfully kept out every single man who wants to commit voyeurism or sexual assault. What we're saying is that allowing males into female only spaces on the basis of their claim to be a women removes an obstacle that has hitherto been *proven* to increase women and girls' safety.

88% of sexual crimes committed in changing/locker rooms happen in those that are unisex. Why? Because malign men don't have to justify their presence near unclothed women and girls. They can't be challenged. They don't stand out. This is obvious to all but the terminally naive.

It is too seldom noted that every single man arguing for the removal of single sex spaces is arguing for his *own* right to enter those spaces. I know from experience that they feign outrage when this point is put to them, gibbering that they're just being good, virtuous progressives who're standing up for trans women, that they *personally* won't be availing themselves of the new opportunities afforded them. The fact remains that instead of calling out male violence against trans women, and working to make male spaces safer, these men have thrown their energy into the fight to remove women's and girls' rights to safety, privacy and dignity.

And if anyone genuinely believes none of these enthusiastic heterosexual, non-trans-identified male 'allies' aren't personally enthralled by the idea of women and girls losing basic protections, I have several bridges to sell you.

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@glosswitch I got both Hags and Unkind on audible and very much enjoyed them. The person who read the audiobooks was good too. :)

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@blablafishcakes #IStandWithMartine

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@KirstieMAllsopp @johnekennett @ForWomenScot When you are in a hole, stop digging.

[Helen Joyce @HJoyceGender]

"When men come to disrupt women's meetings, they come in gangs, with noisy instruments, and sing and shout together and stamp their feet" Emmeline Pankhurst. #FiLiA2025 goes ahead

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@tribunaltweets Oof, that looks bad for AL. To say they shouldn’t have to follow the law… in a courtroom!

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

He did that on purpose

Wait for it …
https://t.co/RCjCGzdaLe

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@IpswichTown Does the third kit come with scuba gear? :)

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@alexnljones Hey, as it stands, Town move above Norwich City on goal difference. ;)

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@jo_bartosch Sorry, that should be 'unfollowing'. Damn auto carrot...

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@jo_bartosch If this is a piece in defence of pineapple on pizza I'll be unfolding you, Jo. 🍕

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@Serena_Partrick I heard Sandie Peggie preferred Van Hagar to Van Halen.

[Prof. Gary Francione @garylfrancione]

There is no morally relevant difference between a religious person who barges into the home of an atheist and demands that the atheist accept religion and a trans-identified male who barges into a women's toilet and demands acceptance of his quasi-religious belief he is a woman.

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@RAF_Luton Yup, that all checks out.

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@iseult Yes, and with notable exceptions I don’t even like musicals.

[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.

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

@dragonleafyxx That’s just hilarious. Kudos. :)

[John Freeman @johnfreeman733]

Just listening to the bit in 'The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht' audiobook where women with suffragette colours were removed from Scottish Parliament... and saw this lovely display of green, white and purple.