Be Brave: The Law Is With You
Those who believe sex is real and it matters have had some stunning legal victories - but years later we are still cowering and hiding from violent misogynistic activists. This has to end.
I was asked to speak from the floor at an event on Friday 27th April organised by Women Talk Back. I was pleased to agree, but dismayed to receive the following email
Women Talk Back! is a feminist society at the University of Bristol, founded in 2018. Feminist Lawyers Talk Back! is a panel event with highly respected lawyers discussing women's rights. Holding this event at the university should have been a straightforward process. We have successfully held half a dozen such events, open to the public, since our founding.
We are taken aback by the opposition we faced from the University of Bristol. It imposed measures which meant our public event was no longer viable. Our event was only approved on the condition that we exclude the public while paying hundreds of pounds in security fees. No student society can afford hundreds of pounds for security fees on an event excluding the public. We challenged the restrictions and were told they were imposed because our fellow students might cause public disorder. The University has admitted that, in the past, it has always been anti-feminist students who have caused public disruption, never our speakers or attendees. Therefore, the University Provost decision to exclude the public and only allow staff and students (including protestors) into the event makes no sense.
Students who oppose women’s rights have used every trick in the book to silence, intimidate and to shut down feminist speakers. We are appalled that, rather than support us, the University has enacted measures which ensure our events are not viable on campus and has ceded complete control to protesters. The Government's Higher Education: Free Speech and AcademicFreedom report clearly states that Universities should not allow the prospect of protests to prevent speech from being heard or to intimidate speakers or audience members. The report states: “Higher education premises should be aware of, and protect against, a range of possible restrictions on lawful free speech. It is important that free speech is upheld, whether this is in the face of concerns about reputational risk, strong disagreement and protest from staff or students.” By allowing misogynist student protestors to dictate what restrictions are put in place for events held on campus, the University of Bristol is handing them the heckler's veto.
It is a disgrace that, in 2023, the University of Bristol’s campus has become such a hostile environment for democratic debate, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Our priority is ensuring that women’s voices are heard and that they feel protected when speaking out. We have found an alternative venue and security will be in place. We have made every effort to ensure that Feminist Lawyers Talk Back! is a success and we look forward to hosting a fantastic public event tomorrow night.
I agree. It is a disgrace. Why are we still here, years after the appellate decisions in Scottow, Forstater and Miller, the first instance decisions in Appleby and Bailey, the Reindorf Report, the Nolan report and the raft of litigation still to come - academic Jo Phoenix, James Esses, social worker Racheal Meade etc etc etc
It should be beyond doubt that the rights of women to talk about the material reality of their sex, on line or in person, at work and outside work are an established and protected legal right, under both article 10 ECHR and the Equality Act 2010. And yet, in 2023 Harry Miller is still asking the Home Secretary to curb the excesses of the College of Policing, who don’t seem to have quite woken up to the fact that their ‘hate crimes’ guidance is an unlawful breach of a fundamental law.
I think there are three reasons why. First - the men who demonstrate against women at such events are frightening. They cover their faces, they dress all in black, they scream and shout and physically attack people. I won’t dignify them with the term ‘trans rights activists’ because they don’t give a monkeys about ‘trans rights’. They have set the cause of ‘trans rights’ back at least a decade. What makes them excited is threatening and hurting women. They are Anti Women Activists (AWA).
While the police do seem to be waking up to this obvious example of domestic terrorism and are making arrests - witness the contemptuously lacklustre policing of the June 2022 Standing for Woman rally in Bristol as against the rather more organised approach in Hyde Park on April 9th 2023 - I understand why it is a really frightening prospect to bring these men to your doors and why the lack of available security puts people off.
Second - it takes a long time to turn a giant ship around, particularly when its crew have invested decades of their lives and staked their financial well being on fealty to a particular ideology. Some people are just struggling to realise that they are not in fact on the Right Side of History, as they comfortingly repeat, but instead will be lumped in with all the other examples of totalitarian despotism and cruelty that shame our historical landscape. I was naive to think that all this would all crumble after a few court victories. But I am disheartened its taking this long.
Third - we need to be braver. The law is with us! And I say this particularly to the female lawyers. I appreciate that I am old enough and angry enough to have the confidence and the resilience to fight back when I have been unfairly treated. I understand it isn’t easy - my battle against the police took nearly two years, my action against the College of Policing is still on going. My regulator investigated me for a year in secret and then took a further year and a High Court victory from Jon Holbrook to back down. My action against Eventbrite is likely to stall as they will insist on litigating in the US and I cannot raise sufficient money to fight this.
Oh, and an aside - WHY was this event advertised via Eventbrite? Do not give these organisations your money! If they deem you insufficiently morally pure - and they say any attempt by a woman to exclude men from her activities is ‘hateful’ - they will pull your event without explanation or right of appeal.
But the ice has been broken for you. Even with the disappointing lack of support from Bristol University, we are still able to meet and talk. I am still able to publish this on my susbstack. If the police or my regulator coming knocking again, I can tell them very politely where to go. Without Miller and Forstater we would have none of this. We would be considered nothing more than Nazis and our jobs and our voices taken from us at the whim of any entitled bully who was ‘offended’ by what we said.
Do not let that bravery be wasted. The hard work has been done and our fundamental rights re-affirmed. Use them, treasure them, wave them as a flag in the face of every angry, screaming man and force them to be recognised and honoured. If more women would stand up and reject this nonsense for what it is, do it in their own names, and make it clear that they will ask the courts to protect them where others fail, then I do not think we will have to waste many more years.
Many universities are proving to be cowardly institutions, in thrall to their students. If they are not careful they will become obsolete. As an outsider I am not getting the impression that they are centres of intellectual excellence, more like the climax of "Lord of the Flies". I think the key thing here is that the event IS going ahead, with or without their co-operation. Onward and upward.
I agree. We must be brave or we will lose everything for us all. Strike forward using the tools that you already have or can learn. Annoy every area of the establishment as much as you would a sibling as a kid. Disagreements with other women are a waste of everybody’s time when we must fight the shared threat. We can always scratch each others eyes out at a later date. Lol. FIGHT BACK!