Thread by @MForstater

#Transideology subverts in ways we have seen before

Call people names, smear reputations, punish heretics.

Faced w threat & fear many people will stay silent and out of trouble. Others will recite the words & point fingers, some will truly believe in the existence of witches

Nobody wants to be called a transphobe.

And defending someone who has been called a transphobe will get you called a transphobe.

"There are extremists on both sides" is a comforting rationale for staying silent, or even for pointing fingers.

This is a story about two people who have pointed the finger at me. Firstly there is @JolyonMaugham (Tax barrister, of #FoxingDay fame).

Jolyon believes that he occupies the middle ground between "extremists" in this debate.

But his "mutual respect" in practice involves telling women to budge up: being willing to give away women's spaces, women's sports and the definition of women.

This is not mutual respect it is telling us to capitulate and be nice about it.

He argues that people like me who say that women are female, and that female only sports and single sex facilities should be protected are extremists.

He says I should have been more nuanced and considerate.

I am a researcher. I write for a living. I have expressed myself carefully.

If I am not nuanced enough that means it is basically impossible for anyone to talk clearly in ordinary language about the two sexes without being dubbed a transphobe

Thats why I speak up

Jolyon takes comfort in saying that his view is in line the reputable feminist organisation @fawcettsociety

Fawcett society CEO Sam Smethers is a Director of Jolyon's Good Law Project.

Fawcett have fudged things.

They say we should be able to talk about biological sex....

....but we don't need words which refer to people of one biological sex and the other to do that 🙄

Trans women are women, but sometimes the rights of women and trans women are different.

They talk about lawfully balancing rights, and say that women's concerns should not be written off because they are perceived as transphobic.

But they don't say it very loudly

(because defending someone who has been called a transphobe gets you called a transphobe ...)

Read that paragraph again.

Women in prison are scared because male prisoners are being housed with them.

Fawcett say those vulnerable women's fears & trauma should not be written off.

But they cannot say the words clearly. They cannot stand up for those women.

The other person in my story is @_ClairQuentin (not Claire the owner of the dressing gown, Clair is also a tax barrister)

They say I am an "anti-trans hate cultist".

And a "conveyor belt of misinformation and hate mongering" .

They were @CGDev witness in the tribunal.

Clair also says this: "If you claim that the struggle for equal rights on the part of a marginalised or oppressed grouping is an attempt to take "precedence", you are an apologist for bigotry." ....

But here is the kicker. In this tweet Clair is not talking about me.

Clair is talking about Jolyon.

Clair says Jolyon's position is transphobic because he talks about balancing rights. Clair says Jolyon's position (Fawcett's position) is so extreme they cannot work together.

So here is the point: if you think that the people who are being punished must have really done something wrong; courted controversy, been outspoken, rude, engaged in toxic debate, done it the wrong way, been inconsiderate, created a hostile environment think again.

You can be as mushy as Fawcett. You can use the prescribed language. Still if you *ever* stand up for "natal women's" interests as different from "trans women" (or for scientific truth about sex) you will be called "an apologist for bigotry".

The finger will be pointed at you.

You can stay silent until that happens.

Or you can speak up.

It doesn't matter if you are late to the party (we are all late compared to @bindelj )

If the only thing stopping you is feeling bad because you haven't said it before, stop feeling bad.

Jump in the water's warm.