Lily Maynard

Marion Millar is Scottish, a feminist and a working mum. On 28th April 2021 she received a phone call out of the blue, from a police officer who told her she would need to attend her local police station to be interviewed under the Malicious Communications Act (MCA). When Marion told her she had small children to care for (she has autistic twins) she was informed that social services would look after them while she was interviewed.  Millar was understandably both horrified and intimidated by this news. She was contacted again and told to attend the station on 27th May – which was also her birthday- but this appointment was cancelled, ostensibly due to the custody suite not being available. Her interview was eventually rescheduled for 3rd of June, leaving her to spend five weeks under huge amounts of stress.

“I shall be attending with my lawyers,” Millar told Twitter on May 28th.

What was her crime?

Tweeting.

Recently, feminists in Scotland have been tweeting under the WomenWontWheesht hashtag. ‘Wheesht‘ is Scots for ‘hush’, ‘be quiet’ or even ‘shut up’.

The hashtag took off a while ago, but yesterday, the day of Marion’s court appearance, it was trending on Twitter with nearly 16k tweets.

What do we know about Marion’s tweets?

Well, we now know that Marion has been charged on two counts of malicious communications under the MCA. The tweets could be seen as ‘aggravated hate crime’ and, under the MCA, theoretically she could face up to 2 years in prison.

It takes a lot to surprise me, but when I first saw one of them, the tweet that has been making an appearance in the press and on social media, I was so incredulous that I thought there must have been some mistake.

The offending tweet is on the left.

In the words of The Times newspaper, “The messages investigated by officers are understood to include a retweeted photograph of a bow of ribbons in the green, white and purple colours of the Suffragettes, tied around a tree (sic) outside the Glasgow studio where a BBC soap opera is shot. It is believed a complaint was made to the police suggesting the ribbons represented a noose.”

A noose.

Evidently, somebody thought that the suffragette ribbon (which was actually tied to a wire fence not a tree), fluttering lightly in the evening wind, was a noose, and that Marion’s tweeting of it was some sort of veiled threat.

We have yet to receive full details of exactly which other of her 11.5k tweets Millar is being charged for. A photo of a kitten in a basket that was mistaken for a  Basket-Hilt Broadsword, perhaps? It seems anything is possible.

However, it has been suggested to me that the three tweets below may also be among those involved. This has not been confirmed by Millar. The tweets remain in the public domain on her timeline, as Twitter has not seen fit to question their presence.

Whilst we don’t have details of all the tweets involved, it is probably safe to presume Marion wasn’t posting a picture of a ‘gun’ on Twitter and threatening to shoot people who disagree with her beliefs.

This was one Twitter users’ recent response to the #WomenWontWheesht campaign.

Andrea Cachia has now been suspended from Brunel University while the Metropolitan Police investigate his- sorry, zie’s- actions. Yup, zie’s an enby. It will be interesting to see if he ends up in court.

Cachia’s tweet is not the only astonishing thing to come out of this. On 3rd June, a group of women waited outside the police station for Millar, offering solidarity and support.

Some of them posed for photographs and this photo (below) had been shared on Twitter, later reposted by transactivist Joss Prior.

“This is the mass protest for Marion Millar the crank,” wrote Prior. “This is what their ‘grass-roots’ movement looks like without the GC blokes, without the right-wing blokes, without the sock accounts and the astroturfing. A handful of bored, middle aged, conservative dullards.”

Joss’s attack on women is a triple whammy, the epitome of bigotry – attacking women for their age, their politcs (entirely speculative) and their perceived intellectual capacity.

I imagine Joss’s idea of a feminist protest would have been a parade of 20-year-old bikini girls sporting full make-up and perfectly coiffed hair, chanting ‘transwomen are women!’

Prior- no spring chicken himself- is also disparaging about the number of women in the photo. I’m told that others were present who were not photographed, but bloody hell –   just yesterday someone was threatening to shoot gender critical women with a ‘gun’! It’s pretty damn brave that these women dare show their faces at all! And with just six day’s notice, on a week day, when most women are either at work or have kids to ferry to and from school. In the middle of a pandemic. And where, exactly? Central Edingburgh? No: Coatbridge. A town in the lowlands of Scotland, about nine miles outside Glasgow. I’ll just hop on my bike…

For Women Scotland tell me, “It was just some friends and supporters outside the police station, so not really a protest as such.”

“Is this Schrodinger’s GC feminists?” mused @CountessOfNice. “I thought we were a dangerous rightwing funded “international cabal of powerful lesbians” who must be silenced at all costs. They can’t have it both ways”

“I mean if your ‘enemy’ is a small group of ordinary women then maybe you’ve made some poor choices.” observed @crit_gen

“So women standing up to defend other women are being called cranks by men pretending to be women who have hijacked a mythical creature as their logo? Aye! Ok!” tweeted @ScotsKat

My favourite response was an… ahem… old photo of Prior in formal dress with the caption ‘bored, middle-aged dullard’?

If that seems harsh, bear in mind that Prior was not above doctoring a picture created by The Famous Artist Birdy Rose to make it look as if she had drawn Millar giving a Nazi salute.

Of course, it’s all a joke, ho ho ho. All done in the best possible taste, eh Joss?

When we take a closer look at the top left-hand side of the screenshot of Prior’s ‘mass protest’ post (above), we can see that it was retweeted by none other than Susie Green, the CEO of Mermaids.

Susie et al are excelling themselves recently: yesterday Mermaids tweeted an article with a cover photo that appeared to compare radical feminists to Hitler in make up.

So that’s nice.

“Make your minds up Joss and Suzie, are we a cluster of polite and sensible mature women or are we a rampaging mob endangering trans people everywhere? Because without the mob narrative, your fearmongering nonsense doesn’t really stand up does it?”

In the meantime, Marion Millar is waiting to be made an example of.

For Women Scotland told me, “The charge against Marion Millar seems highly politically motivated and appears to rely, at best, on interpretation and the belief that women’s rights are inherently hateful. During the Hate Crime Debate, we warned that some SNP officials and supporters were looking to use Hate Crime legislation against political opponents. Before the new law has come has come into force, we have been proven right. Part of the motivation of these complaints appears to be to outlaw legitimate protest: we have, for too long, heard that ribbons and stickers were hateful. It should terrify everyone that the police are now making arbitrary judgements on lawfully held and expressed opinion.“

We won’t know what happens next until July 20th, when Millar must report to the courts. By then she will have spent three months not knowing what she is supposed to have done wrong and with the potential threat of prison hanging over her.

Were ‘those’ tweets evil, threatening and fueled by hatred? Well, we won’t know for sure until we are told what they were.

It seems highly unlikely, as Twitter has made no attempt to shut her account down.  A look through her timeline- unsurprisingly- would suggest not: the accusation of homophobia seems especially strange as Marion is consistently an advocate for lesbian rights and the right to be same-sex attracted.

I’m not sure what it means for the future of free speech when a woman can’t express her support for women’s rights without being threatened with prison.

One thing I am sure of though – women won’t wheesht.

 

 

Heather Brunskell-Evans is an academic; a philosopher, co-founder of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign and co-author of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-based Rights. She has co-edited, with Michele Moore, the books Transgender Children – Born in Your Own Body and Inventing Transgender Children and Young People.

Her latest book ‘Transgender Body Politics’ was published by Spinifex press in October 2020- making my review somewhat tardy, but better late than never!

Don’t be fooled by the slightly-smaller-than-average 7″ x 5.5″ format: this little book is 163 pages of ‘exposure, argument and persuasion’ (excluding references and acknowledgements) offering explanations for and chronicling the political history of transgender politics in recent years. Unlike her first two books, which many choose to order from their local library, ‘Transgender Body Politics’ is a reasonably priced £12.71 on Amazon UK and just over six quid on Kindle.

The book is dedicated to her grandchildren, the wonderfully named Hugo, Hera and Octavia, “in the hopes that their healthy bodies can be kept whole and safe throughout their childhood, free from the tyranny of gender identity” and Heather fuses the personal with the practical on a whirlwind tour with a primary focus on the damage done to women and girls by the current trans ideology.

Some background

Heather has not only the welfare of little people to consider, she is no stranger to the harm that the current trans narrative can pose to female rights and the no-platforming that stalks women who speak out against the transitioning of children. A founder member of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) she was a spokeswoman for their policy on Violence Against Women and Girls. In November 2017 she spoke on the Moral Maze, expressing her concern about the transitioning of children:

““A genuinely progressive society would allow boys and girls to be whatever they want to be, so I am absolutely perfectly happy if boys want to wear dresses…. but the problem comes when we decide that the child is genuinely internally and in some sense not a boy but a girl and that is where we get into trouble.”

For this, Brunskell-Evans was accused of transphobia, of being unfit to represent of the party  and of fundamental disagreement with the ‘core values’ of the party. Heather was stripped of her role and resigned. You can read more on her website, here.

“The core value that a child’s biological sex could be socially constructed had not been made clear to me.” observed Heather, wryly.

.

Heather opens with the story of her transsexual friend Emily, who was a glamourpuss at parties yet happy to whip off his blonde wig and help move furniture when necessary. At the time this left Heather pondering ‘what is a man?’.

She moves on to her thoughts on the 2015 transition of Bruce Jenner.

“In an Orwellian Twist, the artifice of gender (the constructions, fabrications and deceptions of Jenner’s airbrushed and silliconed body) had apparently transitioned him into a woman, but the empirical reality of his biological sex, including his fathering of children, was a fiction.”

Brunskell-Evans wrote an article for University of Leicester’s Think Pieces about Jenner’s transition; it was removed when Natasha Kennedy (aka Mark Hellen) accused it of breaching the Equality Act for ‘misgendering’ Jenner.

Lawyers from the university’s legal team responded that the piece was neither discriminatory nor inflammatory and it was reinstated.

A colleague told her, “Don’t go down the transgender route, Heather. It’s a vortex. It will suck you in and you’ll never get out. It will be the end of your career.”

In the first chapter, Brunskell-Evans discusses the difference between biological sex and gender, defining gender critical feminism as  ‘sex-class based politics’. It is termed gender critical, she says,because “it requires us to bring a critical lens to gender”.

She discusses the linguistic contortions of Butler’s ‘existentialist account of social construction’, queer theory, the concept of ‘women with penises’ and the breaking down of women into groups called ‘trans’ and ‘cis’.

Stonewall, which has become a powerful and influential organisation through it’s ‘Diversity Champions’ scheme, advocates for self-identification in law and describes anyone who doesn’t believe someone literally is the other sex as ‘transphobic’. Stonewall now defines lesbians as being ‘same gender attracted’.

Heather expresses concern that all psychological associations are now coerced into supporting ideas like those asserted by James Barret, who uses plant and fish variations to ‘prove’ sexual reproduction has variations and that the true reality is gender identity. She discusses the 2017 Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy and the current idea that a man who thinks he is a woman must only ever be affirmed in his delusion (my words).

The section on intersectional feminism is especially interesting: a discussion on how feminism should ideally encompass race, class and age and be aware of how these facets interlock.  She refers to Jane Clare Jones’ observation that the most striking thing about modern intersectional feminism is how un-intersectional it is. Academics who are gender critical, Heather observes, are frequently no-platformed.

Brunskell-Evans refutes transactivists claims that gender critical women are bio-essentialists and Sally Hines’ claims that gender critical feminists ‘police the boundaries of womanhood’. Lesbians are, in addition, accused of policing the lesbian community, and thus ‘transwomen lesbians’ – aka heterosexual men- become the most oppressed. Heather points out that intersectional does not mean inclusive: men cannot actually be part of the oppressed class because they’re part of the class carrying out the oppression.

Discussing women’s bodies and the binary nature of sex, Brunskell-Evans touches on the topic of pregnant men and the neutralisation of pregnancy through terms such as ‘chest feeding’ and ‘pregnant people’. It is women who are expected to make space for men in their spaces, she notes, transmen are, unsurprisingly, no threat to men’s autonomy or freedom. She notes, “the struggle against patriarchy must be led by those who own the means of reproduction: women.”

Of Posie Parker’s billboard, postcard and sticker slogan, the dictionary definition of ‘woman’, Brunskell-Evans observes, with some satisfaction:

“This simple statement drives transgender ideologues and their supporters to apoplexy”.

Chapter two discusses the increase in the transitioning of children, the concept of the ‘transboy’ and the idea that a girl should have the human right to be called a boy. It explores trans-affirmative psychotherapy and the concept that ‘a girl is a boy if she says she is’.

Brunskell-Evans refers to the case of Keira Bell, a young detransitioner who was prescribed puberty blockers after just three appointments, and examines the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) which is disconcertingly mandated to “recognise a wide diversity in sexual and gender identities (and) support young people to understand their gender identity” and the influence of organisations such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence.

A dozen years ago, most of the patients at GIDS were boys, now two thirds of patients are girls. GIDS are vague about the possible reasons behind this.

Discussing some of the woowoo psychobabble (my phrase) coming out of the mouths of those who work there, Brunskell-Evans observes that the ‘transboy’ must not be pathologised or helped to find the causes behind her masculine identity, but instead simply helped to reach a greater degree of self-acceptance of her social identity.

Many experienced clinical psychologists are not happy with this model, and many express concerns about Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), but are forced to remain anonymous out of fear of accusations of transphobia or that they are supporters of ‘conversion therapy’.

This avoidance of addressing cause and effect to avoid a pathological diagnosis frequently results in the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Brunskell-Evans expresses her concern for GIDS’ support of this path, despite the ‘severe physical dangers’, including risks to heart and bone health, fertility and sexual function, associated with these treatments. Such treatments are marketed as an ‘existential choice’. The predominant issue for GIDS, in the words of Bernadette Wren, is ‘social justice’ for the ‘gender diverse’.

Likewise, Jay Stewart of Gendered Intelligence states “Queer theory was the roadmap to my own self-understanding” and claims that acts of ‘self-choosing’, including surgery, can help girls to ‘transcend their female sex.”

Our highly sexualised culture, observes Brunskell-Evans “signifies to girls that to be female is to be an object of male desire and male entitlement”. This can be especially difficult for autistic girls, or girls afraid of leaving childhood behind, and for lesbian girls for whom“dawning same-sex attraction occurs against a backdrop of homophobia, as well as a dearth of everyday lesbian visibility.”

“The disavowal of binary sex has done nothing to destabilise masculinity,” observes Heather.

The two different approaches to gender dysphoria can be described as such: gender critical psychologists hope to explore the girl’s wish to be a boy, whereas ‘postmodern’ psychologists see their role as affiirming the girl in being a boy. In 2018 David Bell wrote a report raising the concerns of Anonymous Clinicians that the co-existence of other ‘complex problems’ in many of the young people presenting to GIDS were not being addressed.

The report stated, “it is simply not possible for a child or adolescent to conceptualise a loss of fertility or sexual pleasure before they have developed their adult body.”

Brunskell-Evans writes of how GIDS threatened herself and fellow editor Michele Moore with possible legal action over their book, a collection of criticisms of the affirmative approach, Inventing Transgender Children and Young People,  suggesting that it was ‘defamatory’ and reached ‘inappropriate conclusions. The book was eventually published without issue.

GIDS refer to girls as ‘trans youth’, claim the increase is ‘the consequence of reduced social stigma’ and, somewhat darkly, in the words of clinician Polly Carmichael, “increased awareness of the possibilities around treatment for younger adolescents.”

“The GIDS is currently under scrutiny from certain sections of the media which are becoming more confident in challenging its pracitices,” writes Heather, noting widespread concerns about puberty blockers.

 

Chapter three deals with ‘queering the law and social policy’, the capture of the Labour Party, the Gender Recognition Act (GRA),and the erosion of single sex spaces, with especial focus on men in women’s prisons, most notably the now infamous case of Karen White.

Prior to 2004, men had to have undergone genital surgery to be legally recognised as women. The 2004 GRA allowed trans-identified people over 18 to get a GRC, without genital surgery.  They have to show they’ve got a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, have been living for two years in their ‘acquired gender’ , and that they intend to live in that gender for the rest of their life. Trans campaigner Stephen Whittle noted the GRA ‘makes gender into sex in law…even if one is a woman with a penis or a man with a vagina.’

In 2015, Maria Miller’s select committee for Women and Equalities carried out an inquiry into trans inequality. Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids were interviewed and Whittle was a specialist advisor. Women’s groups were not  consulted. Brunskell-Evans discusses the 2018 consultation and observes that “women, who make up more than 50% of the population, had no representation in redefining the category to which they belong.”

Female politicians seemed to have no issue with this. On the contrary, in 2017 Theresa May attended the Pink News Awards. In 2018 Penny Mordaunt gave a speech calling trans-identified men (my phrase) “the most marginalised of women”.  Heather herself was ousted from the Women’s Equality Party. Later that year, Dawn Butler announced ‘transwomen are women’ and in 2019 Nicola Sturgeon announced that she saw transgender ‘rights’ as no threat to her ‘as a woman’ or a feminist. Lisa Nandy, when asked if a rapist should be put in a women’s prison, replied that trans prisoners should be put in the prison of their choosing.

“From prisons to youth hostels to colleges to changing rooms to swimming pools to shared train sleeper carriages to hospital wards, self identification has become the de facto criterion of entry… all political parties and political leaders supported the rollout of these societal changes,” observes Heather.

This approach effectively gave men access to women’s spaces on demand and seems to be tolerated by the media, religious bodies and human rights organisations. Women’s Place UK was established to help women’s voices be heard on these matters: transactivists describe it as a transphobic hate group, and attempts have frequently been made to shut down WPUK meetings, which, like many other women’s meetings, are now often held in secret.

There are reasons that prisons have traditionally been segregated by sex. Brunskell-Evans shares some important statistics: in England and Wales, there are 21 male prisoners for every female, 36% of women in prison report having being sexually abused as children (compared to 6% of men) and 98.5% of sex offenders in prison are male.

In 2016 the Ministry of Justice claiming it would be harmful for trans prisoners not to be put in the prison of their affirmed gender, claiming this was ‘the most humane and safest way to act’. No female prisoners were consulted and no organisations advocating for women were involved in the review. The result was that male prisoners with penises were allowed to live freely alongside female inmates. Karen White was one such man, convicted of three rapes, a wounding and burglary, he was sent to a women’s prison where he assaulted two female prisoners.

One in fifty male prisoners now identifies as transgender.

In her final chapter, Heather deals with ideas of diversity and exclusion, ‘the transgender empire’, the ‘gender industrial complex’ and ‘big business dressed in civil rights clothes’.

Women have fought hard for their sex based rights and biological sex is still extremely relevant to women’s experience of discrimination, but trans policy capture is erasing this. Alice Sullivan points out that when critical voices cannot be heard, ‘a false consensus emerges’. If we can’t gather data on sex, we can’t gather data on the effects of sexism and misogyny. This approach will also inevitably affect crime statistics.

I know I’ve noticed that there are more and more sexual offences and violent crimes being ascribed to women in the media: more often than not a closer look or a quick Google will confirm that these are not actually female crimes at all. The May 2020 video ‘These are Not Our Crimes‘ chronicles some of these.

Brunskell-Evans discusses how the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme embeds Stonewall’s values into the workplace and the education system. Stonewall, we are reminded, has redefined same-sex attraction into same gender attraction. Criminal defence barrister Alison Bailey, founder member of the LGB Alliance, argues that this is an especially egregious betrayal of LGB people, especially women. Stephanie Davies-Arai, director of Transgender Trend, expresses concerns about Stonewall guidance for schools.

Heather discusses Dan Fisher’s term ‘The Butlerian Jihad’ which declares ‘critics of queer’  to be enemies of human rights, and observes that it is women who are at the forefront of these accusations. She speaks of her personal experience of being forced down the stairs and called a Nazi by a masked ‘sister’ (aka man) whilst attempting to gain access to a meeting, and gives examples of individuals who have been intimidated and silenced by those who support the doctrine of gender identity, which she calls ‘an unprecedented threat to academic freedom’.

Three American billionaires have bankrolled the transgender movement, including the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Whilst eight trans people have been murdered in the UK in the last decade, “more than a hundred women are murdered each year at the hands of males, but no day has been set aside to commemorate their deaths.”

Listing the huge sums of money made available to lobby organisations from the government and other statutory bodies, Heather observes that this ‘effectively normalises transgenderism as a lifestyle choice‘. Even the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK is a Stonewall Diversity Champion which ‘creates a real risk’ that expressing gender critical opinions could leave dissenters open to being investigated for hate crime.

Over the last five years, she concludes, women have worked tirelessly to inform the public about the dangers of potential GRA reforms. Now she holds out hope that Liz Truss, the government’s Minister for Women and Equalities, may take these concerns seriously.

“Dare we hope,” she asks, “that the men’s rights movement is now finally in retreat?”

There is a final tale in the Epilogue, about Heather’s trip to the inaugural event of the Detransition Advocacy Network, which I will leave you to discover for yourself.

In ‘Transgender Body Politics’, Brunskell-Evans has created for the reader a thickly woven tapestry of fact and philosophy; history and ideology.

“The way to defeat bad ideas,” she suggests, “is by exposure, argument and persuasion.”

This book does all three. As a document for and about these times, it will no doubt become a feminist classic. I encourage you to buy a copy.

 

 

Those in the UK can purchase it here.  It is also available from WHS and Waterstones.

Those in Australia & New Zealand can order it from Spinifex Press, here.