Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover

Adult human female, genetically predisposed to pick up on your bullshit. Lesbians don’t have penises. Part of the bad crowd JK Rowling fell in with.

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

👇🏻

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

Several people have already contacted me about the situation at Oxford University.

Their messages make clear that some women DO feel uncomfortable with a man wearing giant prosthetic breasts to work. But that raising concerns is not easy.

If you feel you have anything relevant to share, my inbox is open. All messages treated in confidence.

[email protected]

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

I may have been the first journalist to approach Oxford University for comment on photographs of Matt Rattley appearing to wear giant prosthetic breasts in academic settings - images he has posted online himself.

Why? This is one of the world's leading universities FFS.

Speaking as a woman, as well as a journalist, these images raise questions for me. Clearly, I cannot establish someone’s motives from photographs, and I am not claiming to know his.

But these are the questions these images raise for me:

- Is there a sexual or fetish element to this presentation?
- Has the university considered whether staff or students could experience it as sexualised, uncomfortable or intimidating?
- What standards apply to sexualised presentation in academic settings?
- Do students and staff feel free to raise concerns, given the power imbalance between a lecturer and students?
- Have any complaints been made, and if so, how were they handled?

We do not need to know someone’s private motives to ask about the effects of their conduct at work.

These strike me as entirely reasonable questions about a university’s responsibilities to its students and staff - and therefore matters of public interest.

Yet I haven’t seen them examined in any mainstream reporting.

Why?
_______
P.S. If you’re a student or member of staff with information or concerns, my inbox is open. I’ll treat messages in confidence [email protected]

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

@JuliaHB1 They’re terrified of being penalised & victimised because the university has already demonstrated which side it’s on.

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

@TheAkoFiles @KatKitten1

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

The electorate aren’t goldfish. Our memories are long enough to recall June 2024, when you declared that trans-identified men with penises should be able to use women’s public bathrooms. It took a Supreme Court ruling to force you to uphold women’s rights, and now you pose as our bold champion? Please.

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

@janeclarejones In case you miss this. He’s got you banged to rights, but you’re far too convinced of your own moral and intellectual superiority to reflect on whether GC women might just have a point.

https://t.co/7pFuLhamrT

[Seán Ako 🇮🇪 @TheAkoFiles]

I think the discomfort is less to do with the antiwoke movement and more to do with how you fear being perceived because of the people who happen to agree with you on this one issue.

Many of us don’t have the luxury of caring how others perceive us.

As I’ve already explained, many of the GCs you dismiss as far right are working class who have watched their neighbourhoods and communities change beyond recognition. There are parts of London that make me think Ireland is the most salvageable country on earth.

These people don’t have another ten years to waste waiting for Labour or the Greens to get their shit together and call a spade a spade.

So when Reform or the Conservatives come along and start addressing concerns that the left has spent years either dismissing or demonising people for raising, of course you’re going to find those with otherwise liberal views supporting them.

What exactly did you expect?

You claim to understand women’s struggles regardless of who they are, where they’re from or which God they believe in, yet so much of what I see from you is contempt for women who don’t share your political allegiances.

You cannot claim to understand people while refusing to understand the circumstances that have shaped their politics.

And that’s exactly where I think you’ve failed.

In Ireland, we’ve had gay men murdered in recent years in attacks involving men who came here from outside Europe. I’ve been contacted by gay men who say they’ve been attacked, chased and harassed by newcomers.

Do you seriously think these gays have the luxury of waiting for the left to stop calling them bigots for raising concerns and start taking their experiences seriously?

Do you think the working class women who feel their communities have become less safe are concerned about whether their opinions might upset somebody at a feminist conference?

It is an extraordinarily privileged position to sit comfortably above all of this, deciding which political concerns are respectable and which people deserve to be cast out of the movement.

As with gender ideology, the consequences of migration policy are not distributed equally. Working class communities experience the changes most directly, while the people lecturing them about tolerance and writing essays are insulated from those consequences.

And the irony is that people like you have spent so long throwing the label far right at anyone who refuses to toe your political line that you’ve helped make the term practically meaningless.

Which is a whole other can of worms.

You don’t have to agree with these people. You don’t have to vote the way they vote, but if your entire understanding of their politics begins and ends with the assumption that they’re ignorant, hateful or morally defective, you haven’t understood them at all.

You’ve just found a convenient excuse not to listen.

[Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby]

Abdul El-Sayed’s sister is mass deleting posts admitting that her family are active within the Muslim Brotherhood.

It would be a shame if this went viral.

[Andrew Gilligan @mragilligan]

Sayeeda Warsi is frontrunner, I hear, for the government's controversial "anti-Muslim hostility" czar, to be announced this week. As I explain, she'd store up huge trouble for ministers. And few nominal Tories are more despised by actual Tories than Warsi. https://t.co/QSk8ik2ceB

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

@mragilligan @starchanton No wonder Labour are selecting her. She’s got far more in common with them than the Tories. She’s toxic.

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

@jo_bartosch @EmmaBatemanGPW The Good Law Project only exists as a vendetta against women protecting their rights and upholding the safeguarding of children.

[Jo Bartosch @jo_bartosch]

Maugham’s latest campaign simply proves that the Good Law Project is a grievance engine... can you think of anything more tragic than a grumpy old man picking a fight with fairy lights?
https://t.co/kwunfQyiNZ

[Professor Alice Sullivan @ProfAliceS]

I'm pleased to be on the advisory panel of the independent investigation into Dr Jason Arday’s appointment at Cambridge.

All information will be treated in the strictest confidence. If you have relevant information, you can provide it here, anonymously if preferred.

https://t.co/4t7vkyI870

[Maeve Halligan @MaeveHalligan]

A year ago today, the Cambridge University Society of Women was launched. I co-founded it as a student, and tonight the new committee hosts its first guest speaker of the year. Couldn’t be prouder @CUSocOfWomen

Click below to read my reflections, one year on:

[The Australian @australian]

A UN human rights official has publicly slammed Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner for claiming breastfeeding protections extend to biological males who identify as women. Details: https://t.co/mLM9WUzseJ

[Dr Katie Alcock @wontsomeonethi2]

So I don't have to write it twice. He was 14. I usually mute my phone and don't get notifications but have set replies to only people I follow to avoid the ghouls.
My daughter M and husband G and I are being looked after well by friends.

[Matilda Gosling @matildagosling]

Brighton Council has now amended its plans for the Withdean Pool to include single-sex changing cubicles (hopefully in separate areas, though unclear). Original mixed-sex design was unsafe for women and girls.

Thank you for listening to residents’ feedback, @BrightonHoveCC.

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

@FranceskAlbs @BenC42 Palestinians in Gaza are oppressed but not by Israel. Many times Palestinians have been offered peace with Israel & a two state solution. They don’t want it. They want another holocaust and the eradication of the State of Israel. Hamas don’t want peace, they want jihad.

[Danny Shaw @DannyShawNews]

Pains me to say it, but there needs to be an independent inquiry into anti-semitism at the BBC. Lucie Kon's allegations - some of which are set out in this @TimesRadio interview - are so serious they can't be brushed aside. Over to you @lisanandy.
https://t.co/FIv3SPxWeJ

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

Trying to create a blog graphic with this fella (Oxford Uni lecturer) using AI. Got this message.

"The image tool blocked the graphic under its sexual-content filter, so I couldn’t generate it."

But this is perfectly appropriate working attire.

🤣🤣🤣

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

Meanwhile, in news that will shock no one, an abusive, manipulative, troublemaking male fetishist is causing trouble for another hospital that was mad enough to employ him.

Transgender doctor Beth Upton in new row at Australian hospital

Share token

https://t.co/OIInXcRdsx

[Rita Rake #IStandWithSalGrover @rita_rake]

Sandie Peggie’s appeal is going to be even more explosive.

Share token.

Sandie Peggie team could use released NHS Fife messages in legal fight

https://t.co/ch4ZWmsge7