Thread by @TwisterFilm

1./ 🧵A Tribute to Terf Island
I was at a dinner party in London last week. The host warned me she'd invited some woke yoof so I was to keep my mouth shut about sex/gender. Then the young mixed race German woman I was sitting beside asked me if I'd heard of @HJoyceGender. Err..🫣

2./ We were discussing what we were reading. I said I'd just finished Precipice by Robert Harris and was moving on to Ink Black Heart by ....@jk_rowling. Pause. "Isn't it strange how Rowling has been cancelled?", asked this woman in her mid-20s. Tentatively. It is, I purred.

3./ I saw the host staring over with a look meant to freeze but young Clara was soon expatiating on Joyce's book Trans. When I mentioned en passant I'd met Helen ...once or twice ...her eyes lit up. "God, reeeeally? It's such a brilliant book!" It is indeed, I purred some more.

4./ Clara's excitement attracted attention and soon she was explaining to everyone why she'd decided to read the book. She believed in trans rights (of course) but had been creeped out when a "biological male" insisted on coming to the meetings of her university Feminist Society.

5./ She was relieved to read Helen's defence of trans rights. The book had also helped clarify her own suspicion transition can't erase male socialisation. The creep at the feminist society had exuded "predatory entitlement", she said loudly. Pause. And then all hell broke loose.

6./ A bloke (straight) churned out the usual tropes. Tiny minority. Most vulnerable. Gays 20 years ago. I bit my lip. Pause. Then one of the supposedly woke yoof weighed in. He couldn't stand the fact no one talks about GAY rights anymore. By now I didn't even bother purring.

7./ The argument raged as the host tried to maintain her rictus smile. But in the end everyone except the straight guy in his 40s who has "a friend who is non-binary" (whateva) agreed women need single sex spaces and their sport to be exclusively female. They also agreed: 👉

8./ Even the straight bloke with his "non-binary" friend (yawn) accepted puberty blockers were a scandal. As the noise subsided Clara confided she'd also read a book by a female philosopher. Kathleen Stock? I asked. "That's the one! She's great too." She is indeed. And then..👉

9./ Clara who is studying here said she was full of admiration for the UK. "It's the first country to ask serious questions about this subject". She wasn't sure why that was and asked me if I had an explanation. My theory was we are blessed with feisty women. Always have been...

10./ From Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria to Barbara Castle and Margaret Thatcher some of our most iconic figures have been female. That's not quite as true of some other European countries. We are also lucky today there's an array of fearless women across the political spectrum.

11./ From lefties like @janeclarejones, @kiritunks and @bindelj to righties like @ThePosieParker. Then there are the groups that sprang up from nowhere like @fairplaywomen, @ForWomenScot @SexMattersOrg, @Womans_Place_UK, @LesbianLabour and lesbian-founded @AllianceLGB.

12./ The vitality of our voluntary organisations is a feature of our culture we Brits don't often comment on but foreign observers from Engels to Tocqueville have done for centuries. If British people see a problem their reflex reaction is to form a group to try to solve it.

13./ That's why we have over 170,000 charities alone. Clara thought there was another factor though: there was, she argued, nothing more British than refusing to be told how to think. Nowhere else could produce punk. Nowhere else would give such short shrift to trans ideology.

14./ There are of course brave feminists speaking out in other countries like Lidia Falcon in Spain, @el_nagashi in Austria and @doramoutot in France but the UK has a stellar cast of women who won't wheesht. @MForstater, @RosieDuffield1, the list goes on👉
womansplaceuk.org/2020/12/13/lid…

15./ @joannaccherry, @JohannLamont, @Baroness_Nichol @Baronessjenkin, @JoanMcAlpine, @AshReganALBA and many others. No other country has such a contingent of women determined to defend their rights (and those of children). Clara had another theory why the UK was in the vanguard.

16./ It was SO important, she said, that @jk_rowling had taken a stance. It gave permission for the man or woman in the street to consider the issues for themselves. As it had done for her. When Clara heard the accusations against Rowling she instantly dismissed them.👉

17./ "I'd read Harry Potter. I knew Rowling was all about fairness. So I wondered if she'd just mis-spoke. But when I read what she'd written about gender and sex I couldn't disagree with a single word". Then Clara went back to the angry denunciations of Rowling ...👉

18./ ...and suddenly she realised what they reminded her of. That creepy guy who kept turning up to the Feminist Society and telling them he was a lesbian. "Whenever anyone even gently suggested he might want to give us some space of our own he erupted accusing us of bigotry."

19./ It was this clarity, that Rowling had helped her reach, that inspired Clara to read @Docstockk and @HJoyceGender. Did I know, she then asked, that the rate of violent offending among trans women was no better than other men. I replied I had heard something like that...🤫

20./ My host asked us what we were discussing. She was horrified when Clara repeated her point. When everyone else weighed in, Clara asked them if they knew 80% plus of transwomen didn't have the op. The straight man with the non-binary friend claimed that could not be true.

21./ Clara put him right. When people hit the road the host sidled up to me and smirked, "You must be happy?" I was. A young, smart woman had joined the struggle. Inspired by @jk_rowling and other cantankerous British women. And me? I'd never been so proud to live on Terf Island.