Transpositions 2 the Manchester Book Launch

We promised a Northern launch. It took a bit longer than anticipated to get it up and running, but I'm glad we did. It shows how far we have come - but also how far we have still to go.

On July 22nd 2023, with the help of a very efficient and dedicated team of volunteers and co-editer Al Peters, we had the Northern Launch of ‘Transpositions’ - a collection of accounts from the ‘gender critical’ about when they first noticed something was going very badly awry in the discussion about ‘sex and gender’.

I say ‘discussion’ but anyone with even a superficial interest in what’s transpired over the last five years will know that it is the absence of discussion that has been the major difficulty, alongside the motivations for that absence. It wasn’t just lack of opportunity or refusal to talk from the gender critical that kept the gender identity ideologues silent. It was instead their dedicated plan, strictly enforced by using the police as their private militia to pursue women who dared speak up as ‘hate criminals’. There was to be ‘no debate’ - because once gender identity is dragged kicking and screaming to any discussion, it immediately reveals that it is as insubstantial as the morning dew; evaporating after even a few tentative rays of challenge or criticism.

We have a very evocative and recent example of this in the interview of Stonewall Chair of Trustees Iain Anderson by Beth Rigby of Sky News- kudos to him for turning up, but sadly null points for any coherent attempt to defend his ideology.

It was an excellent evening - even with a rail strike, the relentless rain and my lingering cold, we had a full house, a great array of speakers and a very superior raffle.

Natalie Bird spoke about horrendous discrimination from the Lib Dems for her recognition of material reality; Paula Boulton co-founder of Lesbian Labour, has been protesting for women’s rights for over 50 years; Bessie Braddock found that the ‘peaks’ courtesy of social media just kept on coming and we might never see the summit; Barry Wall leads his ‘Warrior Teachers’ to challenge the current EDI orthodoxy and Belstaffie worked in probation for over 20 years, specialising in sex offenders, and who therefore knows exactly why sex is real and it matters.

We also had a powerful presentation from a young detransitioner and desister who sadly did not feel safe to be publicly identified due to fears of reprisals from their employers. They spoke of the importance for young women to be able to see representations of all kinds of women, to know that being ‘butch’ was not necessarily a sign that you had to disown your female body.

It was still sad to see the number of attendees wearing badges to warn others that they could not be photographed. However, we had not a sniff of trouble or protest at the venue, for which I was extremely grateful and relieved. This seemed to be a cause of amusement for some men.

So I will pause here to remind Tom what we had to do to keep the 100 plus attendees safe

• Liaise with Manchester Police

• Keep the venue secret even from attendees until the last minute

• Try to liaise with the probation service to ascertain if one particularly violent ex-offender Sarah Jane Baker had been recalled to prison, as he had threatened to attend the launch

• Pay for additional security

No one should have to be doing ANY of this in 2023 when organising an event to discuss their lawful, protected and entirely unexceptional views - sex is real and it matters, it is fixed at conception and immutable thereafter, women have a right to single sex female spaces and medical transition of children is child abuse.

And not all women were as lucky as we were. At a gender critical event in Aberdeen on July 23rd, a woman was punched by a man and this was apparently welcomed by Esme Houston, a member of the Scottish Greens who tweeted “… we showed the TERFS that their hateful message is unwelcome in our city!”

At the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally in Portsmouth on the same day, women were intimidated by men in black who covered their faces, but at least this time the police kept them a sensible distance away. I am sure Tom and other men like him will be able to find something funny about all this. I find it hard however to raise much of a chuckle.

The day before our event, the Mayor of London launched a new campaign to stamp out misogyny which - insofar as I can understand it - seems based on the risible and childish premise that men who exhibit misogynistic behaviour will be curbed by a disappointed glance from their buddies and the word ‘maaaate’. This is the same man who refused to condemn the behaviour of Sarah Jane Baker on July 8th, who suggested to a cheering crowd of about 2,500 ‘trans allies’ that if they saw a ‘terf’ they should physically assault her. The same Baker who suggested he would turn up on the 22nd July at the launch and asked if I would buy him dinner. I’ve sent two emails so far to the Probation Service to seek reassurance that Baker is not at large. I have had not even the courtesy of an acknowledgment to my emails, let alone any information about where he is. The newspapers suggest he’s been remanded to a male prison, but I have asked a direct question of a public body and I do not think it unreasonable to expect a response. I have raised a complaint and will pursue it as far as I can.

So the event was bittersweet - an indication of how far we have come, but how far we have yet to go.

Transpositions Volume 2 - Activism

So where next? I would like to publish a second volume of ‘Transpositions’ - this time asking people what worked and what didn’t work in their activism to raise awareness against gender identity ideology. I would like to come back to Manchester in July 2024 for another event and hopefully this time have a crowd of people all able to be out and proud about their belief, to have no need to liaise with the police and no need to beg the Probation Service for scraps of information about the whereabouts of a violent and dangerous man.

Please send your submissions to sarahvphillimore at gmail.com. We attempted a 500 word limit for the first book but in hindsight I think it was a mistake. Please write what you like. And I very much hope you will be able to sign your name to it.