There was a lot of interest in this meeting with 190 tickets booked. [...] When the booking was made with Friends Meeting House Brighton, local organisers discussed in detail the nature of the meeting and that previous meetings had been protested. Despite this, the venue was happy to go ahead and accommodate our meeting. [...]
After lobbying by individuals (see previous statement), FMH Brighton cancelled our booking with only 5 days’ notice giving us no opportunity to address concerns that had been raised or to meet with them. We are still unclear how someone outside WPUK knew of our booking and we are investigating this. [...]
Local organisers made, and paid for, a booking at two other venues. Both were fully briefed about the nature of the meeting. One of the organisers went in to Jury’s Inn and met with staff. She explained what the meeting was about, took some written information and materials from the campaign. She explained that previous meetings had been protested and that a security team had been employed. We made every effort to ensure that the staff at Jury’s Inn were fully aware of the meeting content and possible protest. They were happy to go ahead.
Because of the high level of threat, we announced the venue much later than usual with ticket holders receiving details of the venue from 5.30pm onwards. We did this to try and reduce the amount of harassment for the venue and for our attendees. An agreement not to publicise or share the venue is part of the terms and conditions of ticket purchase.
Despite this, in breach of the conditions of purchase and with little regard for the safety of or rights of attendees or workers, some ticket holders leaked the venue on social media.
On the evening of the meeting, large noisy protests were set up at both entrances to the hotel. Police were in attendance. After the meeting had started, the hotel management approached us and said they wanted to cancel the meeting. They also said the hotel was being inundated with abusive phone calls which were upsetting the staff. [...]
The meeting went ahead and was concluded early at 9.15 as promised to the hotel management. Many women were afraid to leave through the main exits and we had to escort several of them out through the car park and side exits. Some women went to the bar hoping the protest would disperse and they could leave later without fear.
Despite the meeting ending at 9.15pm, the protests continued until at least 10.30pm causing great, and unnecessary, inconvenience to hotel guests. Several came down to complain about the noise.
We truly regret the inconvenience caused to those guests but we were not responsible for it. We are sickened by the abuse and harassment the hotel staff faced for honouring a booking made by a group of women for a legitimate meeting on rights they hold in law.
We would like to thank all the brave people who attended the meeting on Monday, all our speakers and the local organisers who persisted in asserting their right to meet and discuss issues of concern to them in the face of abuse, harassment, intimidation and threat.
The recently announced consultation on reform of Gender Recognition Act has stated the need to engage with all perspectives and yet, once again, we have seen how women face intimidation when meeting to discuss this issue. Councils, universities and other civic institutions have a duty to uphold democracy and provide venues where women’s voices can be heard. We call on them now to do so and facilitate this debate.
I certainly do. I would also disagree with an assertion that "transwomen are men."
So, a few women turned up at a Pride march, simply intending to march with their banners that said things like "lesbian = female homosexual". This annoyed the trans activists who then set about trying to have these uppity women ejected. The resulting fracas was blamed on the women with the banners and they have been vilified in a most unpleasant way.
[snip]
So, we have a whole thread dedicated to vilifying a few women who made some banners.
This is complete woo.
London Pride is a huge event. Planning for the next year's event begins pretty much the day after the previous one finishes. It is not a protest march that people can just turn up to take part in on spec. Who gets to march is arranged and agreed months in advance; the order in which participants take part is not something that is decided on the day.
I thought you were doing great, up until you went full Rule of So. Never go full Rule of So.So, L people trying to join an LGBT parade without the proper paperwork is an outrage worthy of its own condemnatory thread, but repeated (often successful) attempts to stop women having meetings by threatening venues and disrupting proceedings (including one bomb threat which police are taking serionsly) is no big deal?
Transgender political activists are almost exclusively men, campaigning for the rights of transwomen, who are men. They are explicitly antifeminist. Their oft-stated enemy is "TERFs"
What an idiotic question. God have mercy on us all!
You really, seriously think that hormones and/or plastic surgery can turn a male into a female?
And what about the trans-identifying men who don't bother with either but just put on some women's clothes and insist on their "pronouns"?
(An increasingly large proportion apparently.)
I don’t know any men who support any trans issues full stop, and I only sort of know one trans woman. I know a bunch of women and trans men who support trans issues.
No, I think they are ways of a transwoman changing her body or a transman changing their body to be more in line with how they consider themselves to be.
You do know that in order to actually start the surgery process, a person has to have lived as their intended gender for some time? It's not just a case of Trevor turning up in a suit at the hospital one day, and emerging as Tricia in a dress the next. It might come as a shock to you, but you don't get to second-guess where a person is in their transition process.
Really? You have the statistics to prove that, do you? Or could it just be that you're mischaracterising the majority based in a tiny minority who come to your negative attention?
Women want to discuss the implications of allowing any man who says "I identify as a woman" automatic entry into their protected spaces without any gatekeeping at all. That's what the meetings that are being shut down are trying to talk about. There's the obvious danger of predatory men simply saying the magic words for entirely abusive purposes - how do you tell if a pervert is simply faking gender dysphoria if there's no gatekeeping?
So not actually turning into the opposite sex then. I'm glad we agree on that.
You seem remarkably ill-informed about the issues.
At present someone who wants to transition officially and acquire a gender reassigmnent certificate has to do as you say. However, there is a proposal to change the law to do away with all that so that anyone can have a GRC just on their say-so with no requirement to live as a stereotypical woman or man and no psychiatric or psychological assessment. That's what the meetings that are being organised are about. No women's groups were consulted before this was proposed and it appears that the government(s) were pretty much just taking dictation from the trans activists.
Have you seen the submission the Edinburgh trans activists produced? Here is is reproduced on the Fair Play for Women web site because it's difficult to get the original now. https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-organisation-demands/ OK, that's extreme and they're obviously not going to get very far, but it's a demonstration of the mindset.
However, things are moving faster than even this proposed new legislation. There are actually very few trans people who bother to get a GRC. The vast majority don't. Legally, they belong to their birth sex. However public bodies and organisations are being advised that every man who says he identifies as a woman must be treated as if he was one in all respects. So we have teenage boys sleeping in girl guide tents with the girls (and the guidelines forbid the girls' parents from being told), competing against girls in sports competitions, and sleeper trains saying that they'll give a man a berth with a lone traveller woman if he simply says he's a woman.
Men who have had SRS are a fairly small proportion of the trans community. Men who have GRCs, ditto. Most trans-identifying men haven't even taken hormones never mind had surgery, and of the minority who have had surgery most of these procedures are breast augmentation and facial feminisation.
Women want to discuss the implications of allowing any man who says "I identify as a woman" automatic entry into their protected spaces without any gatekeeping at all. That's what the meetings that are being shut down are trying to talk about. There's the obvious danger of predatory men simply saying the magic words for entirely abusive purposes - how do you tell if a pervert is simply faking gender dysphoria if there's no gatekeeping? And then there's the fact that a proportion of genuinely transgender men are aggressive violent bullies. I saw something on twitter today. "Daddy, how do you tell a real woman from a trans woman?" "That's easy son. A real woman won't threaten to break your face if you refer to her by the wrong pronoun."
There will be no two years and for most there is no surgery (they're not "pre-op", they don't intend ever to have surgery) and for many there are no hormones either. But you want to call all these people women? Ian Huntley as well I suppose?
I'm sick and tired of hearing about this "tiny minority". There are a pretty large number of them in absolute terms and their bullying and violence are unacceptable no matter how many pleasant, peaceable trans folk are sitting at home minding their own business.
A seven year old girl or a 70 year old woman isn't going to get pregnant either.
Are you suggesting they can't be raped?
How is that relevant? Is it your opinion that transwomen are secretly undercover male rapists?
Twisting my words does not equal agreement. Since you have repeatedly failed to address some very salient points, despite direct questioning, and only seem interested in regurgitating your own bias, I'll leave you to it.So not actually turning into the opposite sex then. I'm glad we agree on that.
Don't remember saying anything of the like. We are talking if rape with a penis could logically be considered worse than rape using other objects.
Do try and keep up, or baring that, actually read the post.
Twisting my words does not equal agreement. Since you have repeatedly failed to address some very salient points, despite direct questioning, and only seem interested in regurgitating your own bias, I'll leave you to it.