A thread: I first came across Queer Theory in my early 20s, whilst working on the collective at Modern Times Bookstore, San Francisco, California. Now closed, it is rightly regarded & revered as an iconic institution of the progressive left in the USA. 1/
I hadn’t been to university yet & I was in awe & inspired by most everything & everyone around me. Kathy Acker, June Jordan, Angela Davis, Essex Hemphill, Alice Walker, Cornel West & so many others were all visitors to the store. Armistead Maupin lived around the corner. 2/
I was a black girl from Cowley, Oxford, living my very own Tales of the City in early 1990s SF & it was thrilling. People would come into the bookshop starry eyed looking for works by Foucault, who I’d never heard of but did my best to pretend otherwise. 3/
When Judith Butler arrived in northern California to begin teaching at UC Berkeley, she lived above the bookstore. We met, she was miserable, but she had just locked herself out of the flat & was stood in front of me barefoot. 4/
The bubble burst when doyenne of the left & 3rd wave feminism, Pat Califia (now Patrick) edited Public Sex (1994). In it Califia advocated for (extreme) pedophilia. They would later print a retraction in the 2nd edition & I’m grateful that they did so. 5/
But the dye was cast. My awe of the progressive left was shattered. The sexual abuse by mostly men of children was being intellectualised, rationalised & condoned by too many on the left, incl. Foucault. It was viewed as the next & perhaps the last sexual taboo. 6/
What chilled me to the bone & does to this day, was how many of the people who I respected & admired brought into this bull about paedohillia (none of the names mentioned in this thread save for PC). A whole language sprung up, seemingly overnight: it was a rights issue...7/
Children‘s sexuality needs liberating; they said the same about the gays etc. I had hoped that those sinister actors went away. They did not. I fear that they have once again embedded themselves within the LGB & T movement. 8/
What seemed thrilling & radical 30 years ago turned out to be the birth of a monstrosity, IMHO. People trot out Queer this & Queer that & I wonder if they fully understand the lunatic, offensive & dangerous ramblings of its most ardent advocates, both living & dead. 9/
All things that come calling dressed up in a Rainbow Flag are not benign. Stupid politicians & institutions, petrified of being labelled phobic, want a quick fix, a quick stamp of approval. Their gullibility, laziness & homophobia has brought us to this place. 10/
Do not be dazzled by the rainbow or anything else. Be clear headed, rational & compassionate. If you are, you will understand that the only sexual liberation & autonomy that children need is to be left to grow into young adulthood unmolested. 11/
We must demand that children be allowed to grow into maturity without adults & our adult organisations & institutions claiming first dibs on them, labelling them as LGB or T or S out of a need to validate our own adult identities. To do otherwise is child abuse. 12/
And that is why I am lesbian and not queer. Women like me & our male allies will never stop fighting against those who would seek to sexualise children & dismantle child safeguarding norms, regardless of how it is rationalised & marketed. We see you. 13/
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I am sorry that I have not succeeded in my Appeal against Stonewall.
I am grateful to The Hon. Mr Justice Bourne for his reasoned judgment, although I am of course disappointed with the result.
I will consider the judgment with my legal team, but my initial view is that there are five key aspects of the judgment which are of concern.
1/7
Firstly, the judgment gives permission for organisations like Stonewall to procure the withdrawal of employment from people whose protected characteristics they disagree with, if this can be framed as a “protest”. This seems to go directly against the terms of the Equality Act.
2/7
Secondly, sight should not be lost of the fact that Stonewall, a charity set up to protect the legal rights of lesbians like me, should be the ones to limit workplace rights like this. How far they have fallen.
3/7
1/ According to Ruth Hunt CEO of Stonewall until 2019, “It’s perfectly legitimate for Stonewall to advocate that position [that transwomen are women]. It doesn’t say ‘trans women are women’ and if you disagree, *we’re going to do something terrible to you*”
2/Well, Ruth, I did disagree and Stonewall *did something terrible to me.* On 21 October 2019, Stonewall wrote to my chambers (a few months after you stepped down as CEO) demanding that I be sacked, shamelessly leveraging Stonewall's influence to do so. allisonbailey.co.uk/wp-content/upl…
3/ Whether Stonewall's actions in soliciting my removal from chambers was unlawful under the EqA 2010 is the subject of appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. That Stonewall sent this letter to my chambers is not in dispute. All because I disagreed that TWAW literally.
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
2/The ET further found that GCC also victimised me by upholding the Stonewall Complaint because of my protected act: tweeting against the idea of the ‘Cotton Ceiling’ & about the appalling levels of fear and intimidation driving the Stonewall self ID agenda.
3/In doing so the tribunal held that my protected gender critical belief also included the belief that "gender identity theory as proselytised by Stonewall is severely detrimental" to women, and to lesbians.
1/ Over the past few days, I have beens subjected to a vicious & co-ordinated campaign of vile abuse & harrassment by trans rights activists.
They seized on single sentence from my speech: "Girls are having breasts removed that have never known a lover's caress".
2/ In a short while my speech will be released & everyone can judge for themselves whether I was advocating for the molestation of children or for young people to experience sexual intimacy in their bodies before having bits of them amputated.
3/ The point is this is a political tactic. Trans activists rightly worry that I will speak truth to power & they are scared. They have come for me, like they have for so many other women. The goal is to instil fear & to stop people speaking out. It's a form or terrorism.
2/ It's about sex stereotypes. You cannot explain the concept of 'gender identity' without them. The sudden jump in the number of girls wishing to present as boys correlates with same-sex attraction. The same is true for boys.
3/ I've been stunned by the number of trans men, females, who say they were lesbians & cannot conceal their discomfort with that word / reality. Being gay is seen as more difficult, more shameful; feelings that most lesbians & gays can relate to at some point or other.