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Feminist "dinosaurs" are getting organised

Cheers David Lammy (Lily Maynard)

October 11, 2021 - 10:10am

“You’re not an ejaculator are you?” asked a woman who was probably about the age of the police officer’s mum. Another chimed-in: “You’re not a prostate-haver. I would imagine you refer to yourself as a man.” Stifling a smirk, the blushing constable stared hard at his notepad and asked what the demonstration was about. It was political; in defence of women’s right to be recognised as human.

On Friday, a crowd gathered to protest outside the medical journal the Lancet following a headline which referred to women as ‘bodies with vaginas’, the clumsy choice of language was an attempt to be trans-inclusive.

One of the organisers Katy Worley, who was sporting a purple dinosaur suit, said: “We are not ‘bodies with vaginas’ ‘menstruators’ or ‘cervix-havers’. Woman is not a dirty word.”

The group of over a hundred protesters moved from the offices of the Lancet to the Labour Party headquarters. During the Labour conference party leader Sir Keir Starmer offended many by rebuking Rosie Duffield MP for saying “only women have cervices”. Starmer’s folly was compounded by David Lammy MP who labelled feminists campaigning for sex-based rights as “dinosaurs”, describing them as seeking to “hoard rights.”

Worley told me: “I tore up my membership card over this, as did many others going to this protest. The dinosaurs at the top of the Labour party need to get a grip and realise this isn’t a fringe issue.” Worley was carrying model dinosaur eggs which she hoarded in pantomime fashion; written on the papier-mâché shells were phrases including ‘women-only prisons’, ‘crime statistics’ and ‘women’s sport’.

Another organiser Kellie-Jay Keen added: “Women across the country have had enough, we have been raising this issue for years and will not stop until the misogyny stops. Women are a biological and material fact – no amount of bullying or silencing will alter that.”

Despite inspiring the biggest mobilisation of women since the second wave of the 1970s, the fight for sex-based rights is still not recognised as a political issue by the main parties. Lammy seemed genuinely affronted when he was asked to clarify his comments about feminists being dinosaurs, complaining the issue “didn’t come-up on the doorstep”. This response was either a lapse of honesty or memory; many of the shadow chancellor’s constituents took to social media to remind him that they had raised the matter; one forwarded me an email received from Lammy in response to an enquiry about transgender prison policies. For the Labour Party the small matter of women’s rights is becoming to Starmer what anti-Semitism was to Corbyn; and it could prove equally damaging.

When asked the ‘cervix question’ prime minister Boris Johnson fudged his answer, waffling vaguely about ‘respect’. Similarly, when Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey was asked about the treatment of women’s rights activists within his own party he robotically stated “a trans woman is a woman and a trans man is a man. And that is the issue that we’re fighting on.”

Today not one head of a major UK party has had the wit to recognise that women’s rights are political. For many women, the right to refuse to have a smear test conducted by a male, the right to women-only changing rooms, the right to seek a rape crisis counsellor of the same sex are not minor issues, and nor are they part of a confected culture war. Were proof ever needed as to the existence of sexism, it can be heard in the answers of politicians who when asked about women’s rights routinely reply with sound soundbites about ‘trans rights.’

Eventually there will be political consequences. To quote from one of placards carried by the protesters in front of the Labour Party offices: “It was cervices which brought you into the world; and it’s cervices that will vote you out.”


Josephine Bartosch is a freelance writer and assistant editor at The Critic.

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Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
3 years ago

Woman — adult human female.

Kit Read
Kit Read
3 years ago

Why can no British Political Leader say that only a woman has a cervix? Can you vote for a Party which denies basic Biology?

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  Kit Read

Although Sajid Javid had a rather robust response – and good for him.

Claire D
Claire D
3 years ago
Reply to  Kit Read

They will not say it because there is money to be made. They are being lobbied and funded by Big Pharma, billionaires like Soros and Pritzker, international law firms like Dentons.
There is nothing to hold us humans in the West back anymore (apart from wokeness), no rules, no state religion, morals? old fashioned things. All that matters is that people should be free to live their lives however they please and the more money we spend doing that the better.
Politicians know that women are women, we are’nt going to go away and they take it for granted that enough of us are simple and will go on voting for them. I doubt, even if all women voters refused to vote for any politician that would not confirm what a woman is biologically, would make any difference. Most elections are won with less than 30% of the vote at the best of times.
What they care about is the economy and business, and the transgender thing is part of that.

Last edited 3 years ago by Claire D
Ann Ceely
Ann Ceely
3 years ago
Reply to  Kit Read

Yes you can – its called Labour

Victoria Hart
Victoria Hart
3 years ago
Reply to  Ann Ceely

Of course you can – Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens, and in Scotland, the SNP (unless you live in Jo Cherry’s constituency). Voting Conservative isn’t a safe option, either – plenty of Tories are happy to push gender ideology.

Jerry Jay Carroll
Jerry Jay Carroll
3 years ago
Reply to  Kit Read

The last time I looked, trans-gender people were .0003% of the population. That falls way short as a tail up to wagging the dog. Do politicians understand math?

Kirsten Walstedt
Kirsten Walstedt
3 years ago

It’s the hair on the dog’s tail wagging the dog

G A
G A
3 years ago

If they understood maths they’d be doing something more meaningful with their time than politics.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
3 years ago

Is this the place for such contraversial statements? 🙂

Eddie Johnson
Eddie Johnson
3 years ago

Becoming less and less so, sadly.

Drahcir Nevarc
Drahcir Nevarc
2 years ago

This is the unvarnished truth.

Mike Doyle
Mike Doyle
3 years ago

Writing as a ‘conservative’ dinosaur, it’s refreshing to see us and Feminist dinosaurs on the same page.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
3 years ago

Delighted to see women deploying humour and mockery of hypocritical humourless ideologs like Lammy. It is, of course, disappointing that Boris Johnson doesn’t have the nous to ally himself firmly with the vast majority of women who know what a woman is and that it is not a biological man however convinced he is of his status as a woman. He could ally himself with such sensible trans women as Debbie Hayton and the only votes he would lose would be those voters who would never vote for him anyway.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Spot on, my thoughts exactly.

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

I suspect Boris knows exactly what a woman is, and is not, but his domestic life might suffer if he acknowledges it.

Last edited 3 years ago by Judy Englander
Rach Smith
Rach Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Carrie is heavily influenced by Stonewall. No doubt, Boris is trying to keep everyone happy. Luckily for us, Liz Truss has talked a lot of sense on this subject as well as the wonderful Baroness Nicholson.

Rach Smith
Rach Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Rach Smith

Currently, the only party guaranteeing to uphold women’s concern over safe spaces/self ID and the encroachment of Trans rights, are the SDP.
(Cribbed from Twitter but succinct and pertinent)
Do you see the pattern?
1. Something big about women’s rights reported in the press (court case, Sussex uni scandal, etc)
2. EHRC and/or Liz Truss make a statement in support
3. Everyone thanks them
4. Tories let self ID continue.
Carrie Johnson in partnership with Stonewall and notorious woman-hater Crispin Blunt. Boris has hired Nick Herbert as LGBT envoy who has so far called women’s concerns about self ID a culture war to ignore, and has been meeting with countries who have self ID. It’s all out in the open, none of them are making it secret. Nick tweets about his meetings, including with a European LGBT group who want to make it easier for “trans kids” to “transition”. EHRC still don’t do anything, self ID still used by police, press, prisons. All words, no deeds.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
3 years ago
Reply to  Rach Smith

Many thanks for your reference to the SDP party policy regarding women’s spaces and Trans rights. I had a look at its other policies and most appear to be ones that the majority of the countries’ population would be happy to support if they cared to consider choices beyond the traditional political parties. The problem is they seem to have no money for publicity, no politicians anyone has heard of, no candidates in most constituencies and sadly no chance of being voted into power are a result.
Instead unrepresentative pressure groups for policies few support have managed to capture the traditional parties who have few principles beyond gaining or retaining the perks of office. As a result we vote simply to keep what we believe to be the worse party out.

Last edited 3 years ago by Jeremy Bray
Rach Smith
Rach Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Totally agree.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Unfortunately Boris Johnson has shown himself to be, on this issue, as so many, an utter charlatan. It is not as if he actually cares about anything, except possibly being liked, in the most superficial sense. Even power is something he wants just to possess, rather than any have concept of what to do with it. He got Brexit (partly) done, very good, but, unlike, say, Farage, only because it happened to benefit himself! It is beyond parody that his hero is (supposedly) Churchill!

Last edited 3 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Douglas H
Douglas H
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

The last thing women need is Boris Johnson’s support

Andrew D
Andrew D
3 years ago

Happy to be an ‘ally’ of the ladies on this one. Also prefer cervices as the plural form.

Last edited 3 years ago by Andrew D
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
3 years ago

Good. I don’t understand the hold trans activists have on our politicians. Why are their feelings more important than 50% of the (voting) population’s rights??

Victoria Hart
Victoria Hart
3 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Because the majority of trans activists are men, and so are the majority of our politicians. Of course they like an ideology that eliminates women. The Lancet didn’t have a problem referring to men in its article on prostate cancer.

Natasha Felicia
Natasha Felicia
3 years ago

It’s 2021 and the UK political leadership is trying to cancel women. Has noone told them we are over half the population? Women are getting very angry at this insane nonsense. Our rights and words for our lived reality are not yours to give away. Men always seem to know exactly what a women is when searching for an intimate very up close look at our biology in on-line porn. The absolute hypocrisy is infuriating. I never expected to see such cowardice and misogyny in my lifetime.

Eddie Johnson
Eddie Johnson
3 years ago

“Men always seem to know exactly what a women is when searching for an intimate very up close look at our biology in on-line porn”
Blaming solely men for this gender madness is also absurd, but sadly so depressingly typical, and effectively, perhaps even deliberately, destroys any semblance of solidarity.
Virtually every article I’ve read supporting the transactivists on this issue, particularly in the Guardian (edited by Katherine Viner) and Independent, have been written by so-called 4th wave feminists.
Perhaps you should also address your accusations of misogyny and cowardice to them?
And within my own circle of male friends and colleagues, I know of no one who takes this utter nonsense seriously.

Last edited 3 years ago by Eddie Johnson
Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
3 years ago
Reply to  Eddie Johnson

Men know that venturing any opinion on feminist issues will get you attacked, labelled a misogynist, etc. It is feminist ideologues who are mainly enforcing this new ideology by attacking any gender critics as TERFs. So it really is up to women to take this issue on – as well as other controversial issues that involve women.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Gunner Myrtle

Um … feminists are at the forefront of the fight against women’s rights being eroded.

Sharon Overy
Sharon Overy
3 years ago

And feminists are also the main supporters of trans ideology. There was a good article in Quillette a year or two back:
https://quillette.com/2019/08/01/how-feminism-paved-the-way-for-transgenderism/

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
3 years ago

Very well put, Natasha.

Paul Sorrenti
Paul Sorrenti
3 years ago

What do you call a blind dinosaur in 2021?
Do ya think h-, oh, no, I do apologise, it’s just that your crest was so large that I thought . . . yes, no, you’re right, I shouldn’t have presumed that just because most male . . . No, no, no! I think you make a very convincing fem . . . no, I didn’t mean ‘convincing’, I meant literal, you clearly are an actual female and look I’m really genuinely sorry just please please please don’t eat me-saurus

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
3 years ago

Women’s rights not a political issue? I can only presume that the political parties are about to take the vote away from women.

G A
G A
3 years ago

Lost what little respect I had for Boris over that. What a coward.

Alison Tyler
Alison Tyler
3 years ago

Trans people have the same rights as the rest of us but not at my expense, as a rapidly disappearing woman. I refuse to be defined by men.