Watching JK Rowling at speak @PENamerica gala in 2016

HT @DanielleDASH

danielledash.com/a-quick-read/j…
"In my 20s, I worked for Amnesty International, where I learned exactly how high a price people across the world have paid and continue to pay for the freedoms that we in the West sometimes take for granted."
" I worry that we may be in danger of allowing their erosion through sheer complacency. The tides of populism and nationalism currently sweeping many developed countries have been accompanied by demands that unwelcome and inconvenient voices be removed from public discourse.
“It seems that unless a commentator or television channel or a newspaper reflects exactly the complainant’s worldview, it must be guilty of bias or corruption. Intolerance of alternative viewpoints is spreading to places that make me—a moderate and a liberal—most uncomfortable."
"[Donald Trump's freedom to speak in the UK] speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot. His freedom guarantees mine. Unless we take that absolute position without caveats or apologies, we have set foot upon a road with only one destination. "
"If my offended feelings can justify a travel ban on Donald Trump, I have no moral ground on which to argue that those offended by feminism or the fight for transgender rights or universal suffrage should not oppress campaigners for those causes."
"If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed the line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture, and kill on exactly the same justification."
... Long may @englishpen @pen_int @PENamerica continue to fight for the freedoms on which a liberal society rests and without which no literature can have value.

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More from @MForstater

9 Oct
So the @CareQualityComm @CQCpressoffice have also updated their equality policy on their website.

Remember this was the mess they'd made of it before Image
This is their revised version.

At least they've got 9 characteristics this time (and remembered about pregnancy/maternity) , but still they refuse to say "sex" and "gender reassignment"

Instead they replace sex with "gender" and add in "gender identity and expression" Image
Please try again. Don't make things up.

Refusing to use the word "sex" for the protected characteristic of sex even after other errors have been corrected suggests you don't take seriously your responsibilities in relation to sex discrimination and sexual harassment
Read 6 tweets
8 Oct
Acceptance without exception: Don't. Ask. Questions.

I asked @LGBTIQAGreens about whether women can ask for a female doctor

#deleted

Karen Varley @CUPWomensPledge asked about the definition of woman in a @fawcettsociety @5050Parliament @Conservatives meeting on women in politics

#deleted #ejected

thecritic.co.uk/expelled-from-… (HT @jo_bartosch )
. @kiritunks asked about why Stonewall is lobbying to have the single sex exceptions in the Equality Act removed, at a @stellacreasy @stonewalluk meeting on Stonewall

#deleted #ejected

Read 5 tweets
8 Oct
. @TheLawSociety got so excited doing a spring clean of the protected characteristics they put pregnancy and maternity in the bin

@MaternityAction @EHRC @PaolaUccellari #sexmatters Image
Image
This is what they say ..... lawsociety.org.uk/about-us/work-… Image
Read 4 tweets
8 Oct
Nobody understands the @WomensPrize criteria!

@LouisaJoyner and @alex_is_editing seem not to understand the word "or"

The prize is offered to anyone who is either a "cis women" or a "trans woman" or legally a woman or biologically female

@FaberBooks

faber.co.uk/blog/louisa-jo…
Louisa & Alex seem to think that Awaeke Emezi is ineligible because they identify as non-binary.

They are of course still a female author and still legally a woman, so there is no suggestion they are ineligible.
Louisa & Alex are confused both about the law and about @WomensPrize criteria which give 4 different ways to be eligible, only one of which relates to the legal definition.

@WomensPrize have said Transwomen are eligible, not stated only those that have legally changed sex
Read 5 tweets
7 Oct
Another belief case.

Kristie Higgs lack of belief in “gender fluidity” & her lack of belief that someone could change sex were judge to be included under s10. Equality Act for belief discrimination

That means they passed the test of "worthy of respect in a democratic society"
"The belief that sex/gender are “set at birth” may be upsetting to certain people but if freedom of speech in art 9 & 10 of the European convention of human rights only extended to expressions of belief that could upset no-one they would be worthless."
Referring to my case & Mackereth: "Essentially, to find as the tribunals did would amount to a declaration of “open season” on people that hold & express the beliefs in question – that they do not deserve protection. That seemed a strange & somewhat disturbing conclusion."
Read 4 tweets
7 Oct
When the combined voice of @englishpen @ScottishPEN @pen_int come together to make a statement on freedom of expression and online harassment it should make a boom, not a whimper.

PEN's weak statement dropped like a tiny pebble barely leaving a ripple. How embarrassing.
@joglanville1 's excellent piece in the Bookseller on why all writers & publishers should speak out in support of JKRowling even if they don't agree with her, in order to resist censorship has had a bigger response

This is what PEN should have written

What is the point of PEN if it can't say something brave about freedom of expression and about the silencing of women (and men) who want to be able to say that #sexmatters ?

englishpen.org/posts/news/sta…
Read 6 tweets

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