Jo Bartosch on the bullying of yet another disobedient woman:

During Lisa Townsend’s campaign to become Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner last year, the subject that most frequently came up on the doorstep wasn’t gang crime, burglaries, or car theft. It was Stonewall, and the lobby group’s influence on policing policies, such as the placement of males who identify as transwomen in women’s prisons.

Townsend was elected. She’s an outspoken critic of Stonewall.

But while her constituents greeted her comments with admiration, the reception from other quarters was hostile: she has faced calls for her resignation, an inquiry by Surrey Police and Crime Panel (PCP) and a slew of anonymous threats to her life. After [she received] over forty formal complaints, in October Surrey PCP finally cleared Townsend of “any breach of public conduct”.

Now, four months on, she’s set to be dragged through the process again — this time at the behest of a fellow Conservative: Crispin Blunt MP.

Blunt, who is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on LGBT+ rights, is one of a small number of politicians within the Conservative Party who fervently supports Stonewall and their stance on gender self-identification: he believes that it is discriminatory to exclude those who are male but identify as trans from women’s services and spaces. His constituency, Reigate, sits within Townsend’s jurisdiction as PCC.

Women are allowed to exclude men from women’s services and spaces. It’s women who are the underdogs here, not men who enjoy pretending to be women.

Blunt tried to bully her over a JK Rowling tweet.

The post in question was neither incendiary nor ill-informed: all Rowling did was highlight the absurdity of a policy introduced by the Scottish police which allows male rapists to self-identify as women. To Rowling’s tweet she added her own words: “It’s not a ‘niche’ issue, it’s not hysterical for women to be taking to the streets about it. We will not accept this gaslighting from men who keep telling us they are women, or from those who enable them.”

Blunt clearly disagreed. “He called again and effectively told me to stop speaking out. I explained that I wasn’t prepared to do that. I reminded him that I have a duty to defend women’s right to access single-sex refuges, hospital wards and prisons — not just because it matters to me, but because it matters to many of the people I represent.”

Women. It matters to women. Blunt is clearly indifferent to that.

A week after the ominous phone call, Townsend was informed that Blunt had submitted a complaint about her tweet to the PCP. In a lengthy formal letter, Blunt complained bitterly that his attempts to “counsel” Townsend had been rebuffed and that “she remains absolutely determined to take part in this most contentious of public debates”. Blunt argued that Townsend’s “messaging propagates dangerous myths that trans women represent a physical threat to cisgender [non transgender] women”.

Other way around, bro. It’s Blunt’s messaging that propagates dangerous myths that trans women don’t represent a physical threat to women. Of course trans women represent a physical threat to women in the same sense that all men do: not that all men will assault women but that a horribly large number of men will, and men are much stronger than women. Blunt seems to think, or he pretends to think, that being trans removes men from that potential, but it doesn’t. Which is more important: men’s freedom to indulge their fantasies, or women’s physical safety? You’d think it would be the second item, wouldn’t you, but to men like Crispin Blunt it isn’t.