Thread by @MForstater

A thread about numbers and bravery and institutions

This is CGD's tweet announcing their disappointment in the UK court's decision to protect freedom of belief about sex and gender.

CGD has 6x as many followers as me.

They managed to garner all of 132 likes on this tweet.

It costs nothing to like that tweet. No one will start monitoring what you tweet and report you to your employer.

Yet only 132 people did.

Meanwhile 16,000 liked this announcement

A mix of anonymous accounts and identifiable ones.

More people are getting braver. I am seeing more names and faces everyday.

But disappointingly few amongst people with professional jobs - as @AbigailShrier writes

So called "opinion formers" try to make a virtue out of saying nothing

and complain about "both sides"

One side will disagree with you vigorously

The other side will try to get you cancelled from events, jobs, associations, social and public life and do material damage to your career and livelihood

This corrupts everything

The London School of Economics @LSEnews has allowed its Gender Studies Department to defame the academics who set up the OU Gender Critical Research Network @OU_GCN

218 people liked this tweet

The numbers of people who really support this is tiny

People with positions, careers mortgages, respect in society have been made terrified by them.

You may say "I don't really care about women's weightlifting" ...

What is at stake here is the integrity of institutions: universities, the rule of law, government, the media, the civil service, the voluntary sector.

This is about democracy v authoritarianism

Have some guts