Supporting trans rights does not mean opposing women's rights.
Supporting women's rights does not mean opposing trans rights.
Please think about whose interests it serves to turn those who should be allies against misogyny and transphobia into each others' enemies instead.
I'm a 50-year-old gay man. I lived through the anti-gay moral panic of the 80s and the many battles against discriminatory legislation and social injustice of the 90s and 2000s, and I'm here to tell you that what is being done to trans people today is what was done to us then.
That Sunak article in the Sun is pretty extraordinary. He cites a "colder than usual winter" meaning we've "used up more of our gas stores". But the Tories shut down three quarters of the UK's gas storage in 2017, and so far this winter has been one of the mildest on record.
I just read a thread of older people saying when they were at school nobody transitioned gender, and nobody was diagnosed as autistic. Both have of course become much more prevalent today. What was fascinating was that not one of them mentioned that nobody came out as gay either.
She was murdered. And her parents, whose rights Glinner pretends to champion, affirmed her in life and continue to do so in death. Glinner's tweet is politicising her death.
Anyone with a shred of decency would stop supporting this man.
I no longer just want Corbyn to resign. I want him to write a personal letter of apology to everyone in the country, and then I want him, Milne, Murray, Clark, McCluskey, Murphy, Bastani and the rest to fuck off and never come back. Their destruction of our party is unforgivable,
It seems, at this point, to be largely socially unacceptable in a public forum to suggest the increase in gay visibility is due to social contagion (though it was a widespread view 20 years ago). But it's seemingly still acceptable to suggest that about autism or trans identity.
The next time you defend Rowling, remember this.
This "shit" she want to erase represents marginalised people of colour, people living with HIV and those we have lost, trans people and non-binary people.
I hope to god this crosses a line for some of you. But I bet it won't.
Adoptive mums, step-mums, lesbian co-parents all excluded by Rowling's definition here. I guess this is where gender critical biological essentialism leads. A world that is less inclusive, less kind, less fair.
Happy Mothering Sunday to all mothers.
Essentially the story of breaking down this sort of prejudice has always started with a few very brave people standing up and inspiring others in a snowball effect. And every snowball has been accompanied by the loud shouts of people dismissing it as fashionable self-indulgence.
To celebrate a Scottish football success the First Minister posts a gif of herself celebrating Jo Swinson losing her seat in the 2019 election. What a very, very odd thing to do.
Regular reminders for viewers outside Scotland:
📉 Most Scottish voters oppose independence and oppose holding a second referendum next year.
🗳️ The SNP has never received the majority of Scottish votes in any election.
🏴 "Scotland" and "the SNP" are not synonyms.
Cheers! 👍
Interesting that suddenly a flurry of angry anti-trans folk have found this thread and are piling in to deny reality. Out gay kids in schools in the 60s and 70s were the norm, apparently! And autism was widely diagnosed too, it seems. I wonder if they believe their own bullshit.
If I said the number of individuals coming forward had increased by 700% over the last ten years, and that cases were more prevalent among females than males, you'd probably think I was talking about trans folk, right? In fact those stats describe autism in the UK.
If it wasn't so horrific it would be hilarious. Not one of the hundreds of people you knew at school has come out to you as trans since you left, Mrs spends-all-day-attacking-trans-rights-on-Twitter? Well heavens Felicia, why on earth might that be?
People are demanding that Starmer should sack Barry Gardiner for breaking lockdown rules today. Clearly these people follow politics closely. Starmer sacked him on 5th April.
Just received a courteous phone call from
@Keir_Starmer
standing me down from Shadow Cabinet. I wished him and his new team well.
I will continue to do all I can to serve the party and ensure a Labour victory at the next General Election.
Massive set of giveaways in the SNP's election manifesto, from free bikes to free dentistry to free laptops and broadband. And yet after May 6th they will swear that every single vote they received was a vote in favour of a second independence referendum. It's a con trick.
#SP21
Julie Bindel in the Telegraph in 2023 during the fight against an anti-trans moral panic over GRA reform, compared to Julie Bindel in the Guardian in 2001 during the fight against an anti-gay moral panic over Section 28 and equalising the age of consent.
Quite something.
A thought experiment:
'I've got nothing against homosexuals. I think they deserve to live their best lives free from discrimination and hate. But I do object to suddenly being described as "heterosexual" as if that wasn't the default. I'm just normal. "Heterosexual" is a slur.'
I'm going to have to mute this thread for a bit as it has become rather overwhelming. Before I do let me say to everyone who has shared their pain in the face of intolerance, or in impotence against it: I see you, I thank you, and you have the right to be you and be proud.
♾🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
I don't think chat about "Sturgeon's prohibition" is either edifying or fair. The FM is clearly trying to balance risk reduction with job retention and it's a tough gig. If your response is a wail about you not being able to go to the pub for two weeks, have a word with yourself.
London lefties: "I tell you what, that Nicola Sturgeon is really impressive."
Scottish lefties: "She's quadrupled austerity to councils and still blames the Tories for everything she's responsible for that's gone bad."
London lefties [not remotely listening]: "So brilliant."
Sunak gets painted as a decent sort by the media, but here he is being as disingenuous and self-serving as the rest of them. The focus will be on this as firing the starting gun for the race to replace Johnson, but the sheer misinformation in the content deserves attention too.
Fascinating to see the lauding of Bobby Sands on the anniversary of his death. Almost nobody acknowledging that as well as being a man of principle he was a man of violence. There's nothing heroic about planting bombs in shops. The heroes of the Troubles are those who ended them.
Just watched the Sturgeon-as-Big-Brother SNP election ad. I guess they have polling which suggests people will be swayed by that sort of stuff. Yikes. But as ever I'm struck by the central grievance that "Scotland must be allowed to choose". We *were* allowed to choose. We chose!
Just checked; the "we have had a colder than usual winter" line remains in Rishi Sunak's Sun article and is in the print version. It's a flat out lie deployed to excuse poor government. We deserve better than a government of liars trotting out fake sympathy and false narratives.
More fool me, I suppose, but I never imagined that so many people I've considered friends and political allies could end up buying into a moral panic against trans people so readily. I don't think they realise the impact of their words and actions. It is utterly heartbreaking.
I see we're still doing the "Drug problems are endemic in parts of Scotland, you can't expect the SNP to have fixed this overnight" thing when "overnight" now stands at THIRTEEN YEARS and counting. See also mental health services, school attainment gaps and all the bloody rest.
Hard to see how Farage et al could have made the
#MarchToLeave
any more of a massive metaphor for
#Brexit
:
-Called it "grassroots" when it's actually run by millionaires.
-None of them will actually march all the way.
-Experts doubt it can be completed as promised.
I've just been informed by
@BBCScotlandNews
that Nicola Sturgeon has "led" the condemnation of Alex Salmond's show on RT. That is an utterly preposterous claim. He's been criticised since the show started by almost everyone *but* Nicola Sturgeon. Playing catch-up is not leading!
That Loose Women interview with Sturgeon was very revealing. The woman whose job is to ensure we have good education, efficient transport and reliable healthcare will only consider standing down if she fails on the one thing which is *not* part of her job - breaking up the UK.
It seems to me that Suzanne Moore's problem was that she *wasn't* cancelled, she was just disagreed with. She ended up having to cancel herself in order to be able to emerge triumphant and get the adulation she is now receiving from those determined to ignore that stubborn fact.
He goes on to say it would not be credible to respond to this "significant shock" with borrowing, despite almost his entire tenure as Chancellor thus far being defined by a response to a significant shock paid for by borrowing. I realise this is a leadership pitch but honestly.
So Corbyn says something hard-Brexity, there's a massive outcry at his dishonesty, and then Starmer is wheeled out to give the alternate view. Again and again. This isn't clever politics,
@UKLabour
. It's the gradual erosion of any remaining trust voters had in us. It's shameful.
"The gay press, which had never been fond of me" 😂
Maybe because you wrote, in 2001, that gay men were campaigning "for access to younger and younger boys" as they "bleat about public perceptions of them as a league of child abusers"?
You're Katie Hopkins with shorter hair.
Today is 20 years since the woman-hating transactivists began to wage a war against me. Here's my piece, for
@unherd
, which gives a little of the context and my experiences since January 2004:
As well as overall concern about the central story, it's the small asides that give one pause. His car parked illegally amassing penalty tickets, for example, is the clear sign of a man who considers himself above the laws that apply to the little people.
It used to be "common sense" that two people of the same sex couldn't get married.
It used to be "biological reality" that a lesbian coparent couldn't be on a birth certificate.
The reason anti-trans arguments don't work on most LGBT people is that we've heard them all before.
Summary of the council pay dispute:
• SNP claimed it was Labour's responsibility to resolve this.
• SNP claimed they had no more money to offer.
• SNP have now proved that both of those claims were lies.
• SNP supporters are clapping like performing seals anyway.
Hidden in this report is a genuine scandal. The SNP government has used pandemic funding to pay for holiday-time school meals and the extension of free bus travel. Meanwhile livelihoods have been lost due to businesses left under-supported during COVID.
Looks like Rachel Riley is trending because she's backing a campaign against online abuse and ... getting abuse for it from hard lefties angry that she held them to account for their antisemitism. Solidarity with
@RachelRileyRR
.
And the thing is, most people in the UK are incredibly well aware that it's been a very mild winter so far, because it's the only thing that's actually mitigated the disaster of the almost doubling of energy prices. I doubt the Chancellor even bothers to check his utility bills.
So Nicola Sturgeon didn't actually launch an
#indyref2
campaign today. She launched the SNP's 2024 general election campaign by teeing up a nice new grievance in preparation for it. And I'm certain lots of the people publicly claiming otherwise are privately well aware of this.
Hours before purdah in an election during which they plan to focus on a referendum outwith the powers of the parliament, the SNP produce an NHS pay offer that can only have been accounted for in the budget they passed weeks ago. And you wonder why folk are cynical about politics.
Corbyn voted No to Europe in 1975, opposed the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, opposed the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and supported a Tory bid for a referendum on leaving the EU in 2011. If you voted for him to be Labour leader, that's what you voted for. Own it.
I'm enjoying the angry posts to Edinburgh Castle from people claiming to be regular visitors saying they will never visit again now that one of its eateries is called "Redcoat Café".
These "regular visitors" clearly haven't checked the name of the cafe for several decades.
Seeing all the people happily jumping on the anti-trans bandwagon today I'm now pretty much certain that if we'd had social media - and the rapid and under-resourced professional news cycle that goes with it - 23 years ago we'd never have achieved the repeal of Section 28.
The saddest thing about this ever-mounting moral panic around LGBT kids is that we're seeing decades of careful policy burned on the altar of "common sense". "Of course parents should be informed if a child comes out at school" say people who simply haven't thought it through.
That link on the phrase "colder than usual winter", by the way, is to a story about a single cold night in southern England and Wales. The story itself talks of "balmier weather on the way", and comes after record-breaking high temperatures were recorded in December and January.
I see angry nationalists are now calling for
@GlennBBC
to resign because he accurately reported what Jim McColl claimed this morning and then accurately reported that what he claimed was incorrect when that information was supplied. In other words, he did journalism. Bravo Glenn.
It is genuinely amazing that Ian Blackford thinks whenever he stands up in the Commons he's speaking for the people of Scotland. He's the representative of his constituents, and leader of the SNP group. He does not speak, and never has spoken, on behalf of the people of Scotland.
Scotland is now a country where businesses have to publicise their loyalty to the government and the independence cause in order to avoid attacks from the thug element. If you aren't concerned by this you aren't paying attention. Nationalism is a cancer.
Today's front page 🗞️🗞️
Bar owners reveal truth behind the FM's no-mask pic, and the SNP Government's proposed bid to keep Scotland in the Erasmus scheme
Can we put to bed the ridiculous argument that a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament is evidence to support a rerun of
#indyref
. There has been a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament since 2011, and in 2014 we voted massively against independence.
It turns out that while claiming to be focused on the pandemic and crises in our NHS, the SNP-Green Scottish Government has actually been steadily increasing its spending on overseas offices. It now has 52 members of overseas staff at a cost of over £8m, and expansion is planned.
A furore over the baby box being used as an example of the best of the SNP in government on
#bbcqt
. But it's absolutely true. A policy that makes supporters feel good, was introduced on the back of deeply misleading spin and has delivered no proven benefits. SNP in a nutshell.
A terrifying number of people in Scotland seem to think independence means never having to restrain public sector spending. Glib lines about having our own currency are trotted out without the slightest understanding of what that would actually mean. A politics of disinformation.
This latest attack on Stonewall seems to be a reworking of the old line that teaching children cis-het norms is safe and good, but teaching children that non-cis-het people also exist is dangerous and sinister. And lots of the people parroting this crap used to understand this.
Q. What's the difference between a drag queen telling kids a story and a pantomime dame?
A. The pantomime dame will use sexual innuendo, whereas the drag queen won't, but it's still easier to deploy a homophobic dogwhistle about drag queen story time.
Douglas you're a disgrace.
It’s totally inappropriate to hold a show like this for kids under the age of six.
Story time for babies and young kids shouldn’t focus on gender or sexual identity.
That is common sense and on behalf of constituents who’ve contacted me, I’ve raised this with the council.
A question: the Nicola Sturgeon who is getting plaudits for sincere calls for action on climate change, is that the same Nicola Sturgeon who ended bridge tolls, spends more on roads than public transport, and promised an oil boom during the independence referendum? Just checking.
My guess is that the photo comes from a Google Pixel 8 and whoever took it used the Best Take feature which extracts the best facial expression for each individual from a series of photos taken in rapid succession. That can create similar artifacts to those seen in this shot.
No comment from Kensington Palace tonight after at least 3 international pictures agencies refuse to distribute this morning’s photo of Kate and her children. Some of them (
@AP
) have claimed “the source [the palace] has manipulated the image”.
A significant majority of people wanted to keep Section 28 in 2000 because of carefully promoted fears that children would be endangered if it was repealed. Poll after poll showed public opposition to repeal, alongside public opposition to equalising the age of consent.
As the SNP launch their manifesto today we're once again asked to see them as the insurgent young upstarts boldly taking on the establishment, and asked to ignore the reality that they are the establishment and have been running things for fourteen years. Don't buy it.
#SP21
Brilliant politics from Sturgeon there. A £500 payment to NHS and social care staff tied to a "plea" to UKGov to make it tax free. And of course it's badged as coming "from the Scottish Government" though it's almost certainly only affordable thanks to UKGov COVID payments.
An *extraordinary* number of Scottish independence supporters seem to think that the UK is not a country. It's amazing how effectively lies like that can be embedded into a narrative.
Rather extraordinary to see
@NicolaSturgeon
claim that the Scottish budget is "effectively fixed" by the UK Government. The block grant makes up half of the revenue in the Scottish budget. The rest is defined by Scottish rates of tax over which she has full control.
Top tips for UK journalists reporting on Scottish politics:
- Nicola Sturgeon is not Scotland.
- The SNP is not Scotland.
- The Scottish Government is not Scotland.
- The Scottish Parliament is not Scotland.
Scotland can describe a land mass and/or the people who live there.
You have to hand it to the SNP. 16 years of telling people if anything bad happens in Scotland it's because of the union and independence will fix it, and if anything good happens it's in spite of the union and independence would make it even better, and folk are still buying it.
This is such a cheap line. Starmer, the son of a nurse and a toolmaker, grafted for his academic success and got his LLB at Leeds before doing the BCL at Oxford. He was knighted for his work as head of the Crown Prosecution Service. None of this is the entitlement Ross implies.
A flavour of my last 24 hours on Twitter. For my own mental health I'm going to have to mute the thread now, but thank you to everyone who has engaged with decency whether or not we agreed. Logging off for a bit.
Folk may not realise this but in 2018 the UK Tory government consulted on plans to reform the GRA to demedicalise the process in line with international best practice - i.e. exactly what the GRR Bill does. They issued guidance on the impact reform would have on the Equality Act:
There's going to be a carefully crafted narrative about Kate Forbes being "attacked for her faith" when what is happening is that she is being criticised for her opinions. Like Ash Regan isn't being "attacked for her feminism", but rather being disagreed with on her arguments.
I think an awful lot of people have forgotten, or are too young to remember, what the left said about Labour in the run up to the 1997 election; especially about its announced plan to match Tory spending limits. Yet Blair and Brown went on to improve millions of lives in the UK.
I'm far from a biased media conspiracist but there is something increasingly odd about STV News' framing. In this example there's no earthly reason why this needs to be a "Nicola Sturgeon says" story.
It's genuinely amazing that the party of
"We'll write off all student debt" (2007),
"We'll scrap the hated Council Tax" (2007, 2011),
and "We'll cut P1-3 class sizes to 18" (2007)
has the gall to demand that others must fulfil promises they never even made.
Finding it really disgusting how many people are blaming the SNP for problems in Glasgow when all they are responsible for is the administration that runs the city and the national government that decides its funding.
I am glad to see that LGB Alliance founder Allison Bailey has lost in her attempt to sue LGBT rights organisation Stonewall. The sheer amount of money wasted on this exercise in bigotry is staggering, and should shame everyone who contributed to her crowdfunding.
#StonewallWins
Haven't been on Twitter most of today. Have just checked in to find screeds and screeds of people lauding Nicola Sturgeon for apologising over the exam results fiasco, saying it shows what a great leader she is. We really are through the looking glass in Scottish politics, huh?
Just two days ago Mhairi Black said Scottish MPs were unable to exert any influence in Westminster. This evening Margaret Ferrier has proved her wrong in quite spectacular fashion.
"There is a gap between how you present yourself and what is going on in Scotland."
#Marr
hits the nail on the head in his Sturgeon interview this morning. Good to see.
Just popped into a local butcher's in Fife. I said "Can I have a mince round?" and he said "Be my guest but it's not a very big shop and there's social distancing to think of."
Two arguments the Supreme Court has killed stone dead today:
1. That Scotland is a colony with the right to self-determination.
2. That a Scottish election can deliver a mandate for an independence referendum.
Both of these commonly deployed lines are now dead.
Owen Jones has left the Labour Party, and in his Guardian column announcing his departure asks those remaining in the party what we think will happen next.
Well, I think there's a decent chance that Labour will win the next election, and if it does so, lives will be improved.
It's truly bizarre that voting Green in Scotland, in contrast to almost anywhere else in the world, isn't primarily an indication that you prioritise environmental issues and climate change.
The sheer chutzpah of the SNP headlining replacing Council Tax as a key argument for independence, when they promised to do it under devolution in 2007 and 2011 (and had and still have the power to do so) and just never bothered. And yet the faithful will lap it up.
The London left really is in surreal thrall to the SNP. It's baffling how clearly they can identify the failings in British nationalism but completely and utterly overlook the failings in Scottish nationalism.
Isn’t it going to be quite hard for Tory MPs who’ve changed their minds about Boris Johnson and want a second vote to remove him to tell Scotland they have to live with the decision of the 2014 referendum for another generation?
Corbyn on
#Peston
says he opposes Single Market membership because there are restrictions on state aid that he would want to challenge.
1. You would need to be in it to challenge its rules.
2. Literally every EU country practices state aid.
Utterly sick of this dogmatic idiocy.
So-called "gender critical" campaigners are now demanding that Pride flags be removed from public spaces. It would be nice if even one or two of the tiny number of lesbians and gay men in that movement spoke out. But you won't, will you. You fucking idiots.
Can anyone honestly still argue, given today's focus on a disagreement with the UK Government, that Sturgeon's daily briefing is non-political?
I do not question the FM's right to make her argument. But a daily live broadcast in which only her argument is heard is not reasonable.
This keeps running through my mind: the Scottish Government *chose* to downgrade teachers' estimates for poorer pupils *more* than those of richer pupils, *explicitly* so that the historical disparity between the two groups was maintained. The attainment gap is now policy. What?!
A First Minister reduced to pretending a ruling in law from the Supreme Court which everyone predicted is somehow "Westminster" undermining "Scottish democracy", and who tells journalists not to "keep interrupting me" when they aren't interrupting her at all. Disturbing.
🏴🇬🇧 ICYMI: Has Nicola Sturgeon just been forced into playing a weaker hand in her announcement of a ‘de facto’ referendum?
It’s a gamble in which her independence movement can definitively lose, but winning doesn’t guarantee ‘the prize’ of independence. Why play those odds?
Huge numbers of feminists disagree with groups like For Women Scotland, so could we stop describing them simply as "feminist campaigners" please? They are campaigners against trans inclusion. But inclusive feminism exists and is widespread.
🚨Breaking: ScotGov wins court case against feminist campaigners over whether people can legally change sex.
Court of Session rules that "sex is not limited to biological or birth sex" and that gender recognition certificate do alter a person's sex in the eyes of the law.
Nothing better demonstrates how broken Scottish politics is than the behaviour of voters in the Western Isles, who keep electing and re-electing a government which has overseen the catastrophic failure of their lifeline ferry services and their tourism industry. It's incredible.