Thread by @WomanForWomen2

Today I am going to the #WomensRally at the Scottish Parliament, to protest against @scotgov, @scotgovfm and @shonarobison's move to reform the GRA. I am saying #NoToSelfID and #NoMenInWomensSpaces.

I have never been to a rally and I have never waved a placard. 1/

I am not an activist by temperament. I am a thinker, teacher and writer. My life is about ideas, books and people. (See @JKRsBarmyBooks.) And it's led me inexorably to this: my fundamental capacity to think, teach and write are under threat. 2/

I see things that are happening to women and children (and vulnerable men) and I can't say them, think them through with others, or write about them without fear. Enough of this. #Safeguarding #WomenDeserveBetter #FreeSpeech 3/

Until maybe 2018, I had a certain trust in the structures of our society: in our institutions to listen, think carefully & undertake due diligence; in our democracy to uphold our rights to express ourselves & associate freely.

I trusted them not to be, well, batshit crazy. 4/

(@HJoyceGender, who's speaking today, has also spoken about this trust ^ and its betrayal.) Ideas matter and have consequences. This is what I always knew, and am seeing played out in a horror-show for women and children. #Safeguarding #WomenDeserveBetter #FreeSpeech 5/

The recognition and protection of my material reality as an LGB woman is under threat. A woman is nothing more than a declaration; same-sex attraction is bigotry and I must be educated out of it. Enough of this. #RespectMySex #RespectMySexualOrientation 6/

We are saying No. #NoToSelfID; #NoMenInWomensSpaces; No to the destruction of #Safeguarding; No to being frightened to ask sensible questions; No to being made a sub-class of our own existence; No to the wholesale gaslighting, lying and bullying. #WomenDeserveBetter 7/

We will not sit quietly while you dismantle our rights. So we're meeting outside the Scottish Parliament today to tell you, @scotgov and @scotgovfm, what we think and why. Even those of us who have never been to a rally and never waved a placard. It's time. Enough is enough. 8/8

https://twitter.com/womanforwomen2/status/1577968086015262721