It is apparently Pride Month, which has in recent years been stretched from one day in June to 30. This is presumably to allow time to recite the name of every single identity it represents. The flag supposedly representing the group formerly known as ‘lesbian and gay’ has been gradually updated to ‘better represent’ everyone on the planet. The flag, dozens of which can currently be seen hanging in central London, is the ugliest yet. The latest addition, as displayed during the Queen’s Jubilee, is a circle inside the yellow, which means intersex. It looks like it was designed by a group of drunken art students who broke into a Dulux factory and dropped some acid. ...  Continue reading

When FINA announced that natal males would not be able to compete alongside women in swimming, it was rewritten by much of the press as well as trans activists as ‘trans women banned from competing’. But no one was ‘banned’, the rules have simply been clarified.

The rules are now clear; a person of the male sex that has gone through any stage of puberty is not allowed to compete against females, which puts a stop to the unfairness that Olympic medallist Sharron Davies has spoken out about. FINA has also established an ‘open’ category, as Davies has advocated for, where transwomen can compete. ...  Continue reading

Yesterday, while watching the Allison Bailey case online, I heard one of the worst takes on the ‘transgender rights’ to date. Bailey, a criminal defence barrister, is suing her former chambers, Garden Court (GCC), alongside Stonewall, after claiming she was unlawfully discriminated against. Her crime? She believes that sex is biological and cannot change.

Bailey, a black lesbian, argues that GCC wrongly treated her views as transphobic. She is also claiming that her chambers, as a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme, came under pressure from Stonewall to get rid of her.

One of two tweets by Bailey deemed to be ‘unacceptable’ by Stonewall and GCC was in response to the announcement of a series of workshops run by Morgan Page, a transwoman who was subsequently employed by Stonewall. The series was called ‘Overcoming the cotton ceiling’, the premise of which being that transwomen are discriminated against when lesbians refuse to have sex with male-bodied transwomen. This, apparently, amounts to discrimination and unfair treatment. ...  Continue reading

I awoke this week aghast to discover that the Supreme Court in America has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The 1973 decision ruled that the constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to have an abortion without unreasonable government restrictions. It expunged many US federal and state abortion laws, replacing them with a woman’s right to choose.

Ever since that decision, American conservatives have fought to remove the rights of women to choose if and when we give birth. Removing these rights will affect all women, but most of all, those who are black, poor, and the victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse. They will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term in a country that has no paid maternity leave and, in addition, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world. ...  Continue reading

The LGB Alliance (LGBA) has always been a target for trans activists. While Stonewall chose to prioritise trans ideology ahead of same-sex attracted individuals in 2016, the LGBA has always advocated for lesbians, gay men and bisexual people alone. The alliance campaigns for our rights and — importantly — against the notion that gender non-conforming youths should be marched down to Tavistock and diagnosed as transgender.

Eventually, activists found a way to get to the LGBA. The story is this: LGBA applied for funding to the Arts Council England’s, ‘Let’s Create Jubilee Fund’ for a film about gay men’s lives through the period of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Queens would have been an important record of the history of the fight for liberation from bigotry, prejudice and legal discrimination, and a celebration of gay culture. ...  Continue reading

The actor June Brown has died, and with her ends an era. Her most famous character, Dot Cotton, whom she played in EastEnders between 1985 and 1993 and then from 1997 onwards, exemplified everything that is superb about British working-class women of a certain generation.

Chain-smoking Dot, long-suffering mother of Nasty Nick, wore her headscarf with pride, and was far less of a parody than the likes of Corrie’s Hilda Ogdon. Rather, Dot was a real-life character that those of us raised by such women recognised. She wore too much make up, clutched her cardigan at her breast, and took liberties left, right, and centre. ...  Continue reading

In January this year I was asked to speak at an event organised by York Free Speech, part of York University. I love engaging with open-minded students and I was delighted to accept the offer. The topic was feminism, specifically a critique of what I call ‘feminism for men’, which is currently the only topic that gets an airing at most universities.

I sat and waited. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before certain trans lobby groups tried to get me de-platformed. Almost every time I am invited to speak at universities, there is a massive fight between those that want to hear a genuinely feminist perspective, and those who think that my mere presence will cause the death of transgender and ‘sex working’ people on campus. ...  Continue reading

Cressida Dick, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has just been forced to resign by Sadiq Khan. I first became aware of her when my partner, Harriet Wistrich was representing the family of Jean Charles de Menezes. He was an innocent man, but police shot him dead in London in a case of mistaken identity. Dick was the officer in charge of the operation, but did not face any consequences for her role in the tragedy.

During the case, I got to know some of de Menezes’ family members, including Maria Otoni de Menezes, Jean Charles’ mother, who I interviewed after the 2008 inquest. I still recall her distress at the fact that Dick had not just kept her job following her son’s death but had been promoted through the ranks. ...  Continue reading