It’s never been both sides

Anyone else sick to death of being told it’s both sides? Fed up to the back teeth with hearing “the temperature needs to be lowered on both sides”?

I went to the let women speak event in Portsmouth in July 2023.

It was the usual format. Standing For Women had organized security for Kellie-Jay and made the necessary arrangements with local authorities and the police to hold the event at a cost of around £1000.

Women took the mic in turns and spoke about their experiences. How Gender Identity Ideology affects them at work and in their private lives. Why they disagree with gender ideology and the policies that enforce it. The specifics of the damage it is doing to women and children. It’s humbling and terrifying in turns to listen to them. And it’s particularly concerning to hear what those women who work in the NHS have to say.

Over the last couple of years I must have heard more than 100 women – and occasionally girls – give their testimony about why gender identity ideology is a problem for them. Sometimes a woman swears in frustration or anger. Never at an individual, though. It’s the lack of care for women and children across our civic institutions and our health and education organisations that are the problem. Because they’ve been taken over by the cult of gender.

Anyone attending one of these events will have experienced the harassment from the so-called “trans rights” activists who line up – many with their faces covered – to threaten, abuse, harass and defame. Their aim, of course, is to close women down, to shut us up.

The police can’t do anything about this because these people have their right to free speech too, don’t they? The hands of the police are tied.

That sounded reasonable when the police officer I spoke to said it to me.

But it’s not at all reasonable. These activists are not “simply exercising their right to free speech”, they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign of harassment, intimidation and defamation. And one that would not be tolerated from anyone else.

Let’s look at the evidence.  

The “trans rights” activists turn up with the sole intention of disrupting the events organised by women. So that we can speak, women must get permissions in place, support from the police, and security organised. Costs that are incurred solely as a result of the activists’ appalling behaviour must be paid for by us.

The abuse we suffer – such as being called “c*nts”, “fascists”, “bigots” – is threatening, repeated, premeditated and it is targeted.

It’s targeted against attendees generally and against Kellie-Jay Keen specifically. It easily passes the threshold at which the police would intervene if women were to direct it at trans identified men.

How can I be so sure?

Jennifer Swayne was arrested by Gwent Police and held for several hours in Newport Police Station in January 2022. For some reason they were unable to interview her for 12 hours, and finally released her at 3.23 am. Only a cynic would suggest that they wanted her to be tired and upset for the interview. Her crime was to put up stickers and posters about the use of puberty blockers. They even searched her house. For putting up stickers.

Kellie-Jay Keen was interviewed too about a potential hate crime alleged to have occurred at the September 2022 Let Women Speak event in Brighton – the entirety of which is freely available on YouTube like all the other Let Women Speak events. The interview was voluntary. Only it wasn’t, because she was told:

'If you don't attend then we will potentially be looking at getting Wiltshire Police to come and arrest you so they can come and interview you themselves.'

Not to mention Caroline Farrow and Kate Scottow, and the seriousness with which Thames Valley Police deal with stickers of a certain kind.

Who knew stickers were so dangerous?

On the other hand ….

Sarah Jane Baker was recorded being abusive towards women outside the Education for Women’s Liberation Conference at UCL in February 23 and there is a catalogue of examples of him targeting women and lesbians.

Despite being out of prison on licence, he was not recalled until he incited physical violence against sex-realist women while the police looked on. And only then because women filed crime reports.

At women’s events, the “trans rights” activists aim to intimidate us and there are always some who make sure to encroach on our space. They often try to provoke a reaction that they can report to the police as an assault.

Just exercising his right to freely take pictures of women

This happens repeatedly and has been happening for years.

The threat of physical violence is not just theoretical. The same day we were being harassed in Portsmouth, a woman was viciously attacked at a Women Won’t Weesht event in Aberdeen. The perpetrator was issued with a caution – no further charges.

I am still travelling home from Aberdeen I am in the car in a great deal of pain, my arm neck and eye. The person who punched me twice ran over to us from about 500 yard they stole our big www sign as I tried to get it back he swung round with both hands, holding the sign and smashed me in the face, my glasses were knocked clean off my face with such force. I was then punched in the arm. I had arrived with the others just 5 mins beforehand, and we completely ignored them. Yet this person thinks that theft and violence are acceptable. Shameful.

None of this is dealt with proactively by the police, who at some senior level appear to think that it’s “trans rights” activists rather than women who need their protection.

The oppressed minority talking to Brighton Police

Women are legally entitled to meet.

Even if we’re not physically assaulted, the harassment we endure is criminal behaviour as described by the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The “trans rights” activists repeatedly engage in activities with the sole purpose of preventing women from speaking, and this satisfies the legal definition of harassment (even when the police keep them just far enough away that they fail).

They call us “TERFs” and “transphobes” because we lack their belief in the new religion of gender identity ideology.  They harass us simply because we say – out loud and in public – that women can’t be men, and men can’t be women. They are there for no other reason.

And because this is a belief that is covered by the protected characteristic of “religion or belief” (Forstater vs CGD 2021), this is not just a crime, but a hate crime. Exactly the sort of crime the police will prosecute with alacrity under just about any other circumstance according to the CPS guidelines:

S.28 CDA 1998 (and s66 SA 2020) defines “religious group” as a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief. This too is a wide definition and underlines that hostility can be targeted at faith communities new or old, be sectarian in nature, be directed at converts and also those of no faith.

We recognise that victims of hate crime can be repeatedly targeted. We will encourage the police to investigate any previous incidents or allegations. We will bring charges that reflect the overall picture of offending or, if possible, make a bad character application to the court to present evidence of previous conduct towards the victim or others.

It’s time to stop letting the activists game the system with their “hate crime” reports for misgendering and hurt feelings.

Report these actual crimes of harassment, of defamation and abuse.

If we’re being forced to pay so much for the privilege of attending a policed event, let’s at least get our money’s worth.

UPDATE 31-July-2023

I made a crime report to Hampshire police. It was quick and easy to do using online forms.

The crime I reported was harassment, and I added that I believe we were targeted for our sex and belief. Although Hampshire police say they cannot prosecute because the individuals are masked (yes, really!) they confirm that the crime has been recorded.