IMPORTANT The Equality and Human Rights Commission. has opened a public consultation to run until the end of October. See link above. Please fill in the survey. Points to stress 👇equalityhumanrights.com/our-work/draft… One of their key themes is “Justice and the Balance of Rights” with specific reference to sex and gender - see below

5 years ago, in relation to the views of supporters of high profile GC feminists, I asked ‘can a movement be judged by its followers?’ Little did I know the very worst was yet to come. It astonishes me that the supposedly liberal GCs aren’t aghast at what they are part of. The people who regularly come into my mentions in support of GC beliefs are the very worst of humanity

This week the 'silencing' of Kathleen Stock reached extraordinary levels as Stock told her 'story' in a @BBCWomansHour 'exclusive', in a full length article in the @Telegraph and to @bindelj in a 50 minute video interview for @unherd This was the week of Kathleen getting revenge There is, as @graceelavery has noted, a shift of emphasis in the latest narrative of events leading to Stock's *decision* to resign from her post at Sussex. Student protests become 'high jinks' and it is the academic 'enablers' who are blamed for Stock *choosing* to leave her job

Very soon the current movement against the rights of trans people will be viewed in exactly the same way as most people see the movements against minoritized people of the past. That the advancement of rights for a disadvantaged group was catastrophised as an impending cut back on the rights of a privileged group will be seen with the distaste that most people view these same arguments of the past re race, class and sexuality.

One of the aspects of GC politicking that is particularly disgraceful is their collaboration with men who have no history with feminist movements and no interest in, or engagement with, feminist political thought. Indeed, these are largely men who, in the best case scenario, have no wider involvement at all with social justice movements or, in the worst-though frequent- case scenario, stand against the rights of minoritized groups. Men on the far right.

On Wednesday 3 cis women gave evidence to the @Commonswomequ select committee on #GRA reform. These panellists spent the majority of their allocated time arguing that proposed reform has the potential to harm cis women due to the presence of trans women in ‘women’s’ spaces Yet anyone who has knowledge about the issues at stake knows that changes proposed to the GRA would have absolutely no impact here. There is no connection as the Equality Act, by recognising trans women as women, ensures their right to women’s spaces such as toilets

#JudithButler The anti-intellectualism and defensiveness at the heart of the Gender Critical movement has been ever more apparent this week following Butler’s interview in @NewStatesman Rather than taking the time to engage with her arguments, writers for some of the UKs most prominent media outlets have collectively stomped their feet and cried that they don’t understand Butler.

As well as providing a stellar example of how to sassily navigate and transform agenda-led interview questions, Judith Butler articulates a number of crucial points about the relationship between trans and feminism. My Top 10 takes... 1)There is no tension between feminism and trans. Trans rights are an intrinsic feminist issue
2)Trans exclusive radical feminism is a minority position on the fringes of feminism that does not reflect mainstream feminist thought
3)’TERF’ is just a perfectly self-explanatory term

The key problem here - and with other similar EDI initiatives - is the false positioning of a level playing field. There can be no level playing field when a majority group meets to discuss the rights of a minority group. Rather, the uneven terrain becomes bumpier still.

https://twitter.com/ManduReid/status/1306952770952593411

Any productive EDI initiative needs to begin from the premise and with the intention that inclusion is the goal not the question.

#JKRowling I am not into sci-fi, magic realism or any other related genre that I don’t know the names of. I know lots of wonderful people who are but I just never got it. I like my culture nitty gritty. I’m a realist nerd. But my son was prime Harry Potter generation. He was around 6 years old when the whole releasing books at midnight thing happened and of course he loved the hype, the dressing up, the release parties. He loved getting the very big books really loved to walk around with them

Well this morning my mentions are full of people telling me that I look down on people who live in the suburbs and have children. To clarify, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with living outside a city if that’s your thing (though I do have a bit of an issue with farmers) I also (and probably more certainly) don’t think there’s anything wrong with having children. I have a child. Many of my family and friends have children. I’m leading on a project about the right to have children. I love children!

Given everything over the last few days, I thought I should give this video a go. I managed 6.03 minutes of this 41 minute Posie diatribe. In that brief (unbearable) time, I learnt that until very recently Posie didn’t know anything about trans. She was, to quote, “ignorant”.

https://twitter.com/Ellen91333928/status/1301110694008492033

Now, trans people have existed since time began and modern trans cultures in the UK are, well, hardly new. But Posie was at home having all her babies and only “found out about it” 5 years ago; in 2015 . When she did “find out about it”, it made her feel,to quote, “uncomfortable”

#AlevelResults #dontgiveup I left school at 16 with a handful of pretty rubbish grades (got drama twice though! - CSE and O level) and went to FE college to do A Levels - Drama (of course!), Sociology and Media Studies (shut up!). The summer after my first year of A Levels I went to Greenham Common and never left - well not for a while. I did my Sociology A Level at the local FE college in Newbury. They let me go to evening class even though I stank of wood smoke and missed class when there was an action!

Douglas had his first hair cut. Check out the Bouffant Babe. I give that look a max 10 hour window

When you are awarded research funding as an academic the money is spread over around 3 years. Usually there is a team of researchers and the grant covers their buy out time. It also covers the salaries of 1-3 ft researchers. It covers the costs for consultants. Then there are costs associated with advisory boards and admin and IT support. A significant proportion of the funding goes on estates and overheads. So that’s before you even start doing the research. Fieldwork costs include travel, accommodation, meeting rooms, subsistence

#TheRealEastenders @Channel4 Give Willow her own show NOW

https://twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1285683567113240576

With Nanny B ❤️

London’s murderous policing history: Wayne Douglas dies in Brixton police station, 1995. – past tense pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/tod… Brixton 1981

Re the GCs venture into the fashion biz... They *claim* that the T-Shirts are being printed to order. BUT I have firm suspicions that they were excavated from the ruins of ‘Silver Moon’ (sorry kids) and as such are likely to be a bit smelly

https://twitter.com/JeanHatchet/status/1262713894340083714

*Silver Moon was a lesbian bookshop in London in the ‘80s. It also sold jewellery like doubled headed women’s symbol earrings and labyrinth pendants. And t-shirts-🤔

#cleanergate I’m frequently scolded on here for not being serious enough - for being unprofessional, overly sarcastic, too jokey and just plain silly. So let me say that ... #cleanergate is the perfect case study through which to consider the overlaps of a number of very problematic discourses - neo-liberalism, colonialism, classism and gendered and sexual conservatism - within some strands of popular feminism.

I’d like to introduce you to Douglas AKA Dug the Dog. In 4 weeks time Douglas will be moving in. He’s gonna be extremely butch and fearsome by then - not really! So, please, don’t expect any political commentary, academic ramblings or even sarcastic digs at GC ‘feminists’. My mind and heart are occupied for the foreseeable.

Top 3 reads of the week (in no particular order) on #COVID19Pandemic #staycritical 1. nytimes.com/2020/03/15/wor…