We were exasperated by his abuse of us
The futility of arguing with people who believe in nonsense: Michael Gibbon KC, Counsel for Mermaids, asking questions of Bev Jackson of LGBA:
MG: Only a few questions left. Turn to disagreement with Mr Nicholson. He gave evidence that LGBA denigrated people and organisations that support trans rights.
BJ: yes that was his evidence.
MG: People were invited to make donations in Nicolson’s name, April 2021. See eg tweets here, by LGBA. Thank a JE for donation, she calls Nicolson a misogynist homophobe. Not a sensible thing to do.
BJ: Agree not sensible, would say mischievous. We were exasperated by his abuse of us. I believe a couple of people donated in his name and we then mentioned this and encouraged. I agree not very sensible. Was light-hearted.
MG: I would say inflammatory.
BJ: DIsagree, because JN had abused us first.
MG: There is a chronology by Mr Hewitt but not put to JN bcs after his evidence.
BJ: Not so; it had been written up long before that.MG: Not put to JN.
BJ: He had every opportunity to do so, was published openly.
I don’t know what that part means.
MG: JN was the object of this, his evidence must be preferred?
BJ: No, we were the object of JN’s abuse.
MG: I restate, inflammatory – not mischievous or light-hearted.
I say JN is correct, he was bombarded by abuse because of LGBA encouragement.
BJ: Completely disagree.
Honestly. Poor poor John Nicolson, the venomous abusive rude MP who shouts at lesbians who don’t agree that men are women.
MG: Again re JN – page 1290.
Begins “Dear Boris”. Second paragraph – says would you would be surprised to hear lesbians are harassed & accused of transphobia if they refuse sex with male bodies if they “identify” as women. I say, prejudicial language by not saying “trans”
BJ: Not sure what you mean
MG: should have said trans women.
Oh there it is – you’re not allowed to say they’re men who identify as women, you have to say trans women.
BJ: I think our language is clearer. Many people think “trans woman” means someone has had surgery, no penis, so our language is clearer.
MG: why quotes round “identifies as”?
BJ: because “identifies as” isn’t clear, it is jargon.
MG: you are saying TW are men.
BJ: no am saying transwomen are transwomen. It is clearer.
And besides, “trans women” are men.
It’s so religion-like, so theocratic, this forcing people to lie about reality.
MG: You say LGBA is not a single issue org. I say it is, the single issue is gender-critical, opposing gender identity ideology
BJ: Disagree
MG: only purpose of LGBA.
BJ: Disagree completely.
In a way it seems foolish for Michael Gibbon to press this point, because it amounts to saying lesbians and gay men can’t have anything just for lesbians and gay men, it’s saying they have to team with trans people in everything. I’m not sure that take is as popular as he (or Mermaids) thinks it is.
Re – the chronology
My presumption there is that ‘Hewitt’ (not sure who that is) has created a chronology document. BJ refers to it as establishing their comments were reactionary, not inflammatory in the sense of instigation. MG notes that it was not put to JN after his evidence, which is to say JN has not necessarily agreed with the chronology as a basis of his testimony. BJ notes the chronology has been published openly – essentially saying he had the opportunity to dispute the facts of the chronology, but did not do so.
Depending on the procedural rules, it is potentially important.
That makes sense; thanks.
Giving donations in the “name of” someone on the other side is rather frequently done, actually. Give to pro-choice groups in the name of Rick Santorum. Give to this group or that group in the name of someone trying to defund or stop that group.
It seems a pretty low bar for abuse. But then, I have seen few examples of abuse of TAs that come up to any standard for abuse I could agree was abusive. Misgendering? Puhleez. Saying men can’t be women? Hard to deny if you aren’t deep in the fantasy. Not letting male bodied people violate women’s boundaries? What’s the abuse? Calling a man who raped a female “he”? Who’s the victim here?
Did JN actually provide evidence of abuse? Or did he just keep saying “abuse” and the true believers accepted it at that? When asked to provide evidence of this abuse, they claim it would be transphobic to provide evidence. It might lead someone to kill themselves. WTF is the proper response to this. I don’t know of any court of law where you can just say “Your honor, he killed my dog” and that will be accepted without evidence. That isn’t even an extraordinary claim. It unfortunately happens all too often.
So provide abuse of the following:
(1) Transwomen are women.
(2) Male hormones don’t give an advantage to male-bodied people in sports
(3) Men can be lesbians
(4) A penis can be a female organ
(5) Men can get pregnant
(6) Housing men with penises in with women is no risk for the women
(7) Women who don’t want to get naked in front of people with penises are bigots and prudes
(8) No men are claiming to be women to violate women’s boundaries
(9) There is a mass of trans-murders
(10) TiMs “just want to pee” (which would mean third facilities would do, right?”
(11) Affirmation is good
(12) Puberty blockers are reversible
(13) There is no social contagion
Wow, I could go on for a long time. At this point, I haven’t seen any one of these claims, all accepted by the trans advocates, supported with robust evidence. Most of them aren’t supported with evidence at all, just shouting and abuse.
Here is the number one thing I think they need to show evidence for, because it really is a truly extraordinary claim: Trans “folx” are the most marginalized group.
To do that, they must overcome the following:
The holocaust
Slavery
The trail of tears
Forced conversions to Christianity
The Crusades
The Inquisition
Women as property
Rape culture
before they can convince me that being called “he” when you are male but don’t want to be is worse than even one of those things on that list, let alone all of them.
If you set your Super Secret Literal Violence Decoder Ring in reverse, you’ll find that “abuse” is often used as the translation for “criticism.”
I just read this rather one-sided Guardian article on the hearing.
I note that Bev Jackson is quoted as saying the LGB Alliance founders wanted to bring together “other LGBT people who agreed with our view that homosexuality was being redefined in a way that we found offensive”. Given that it’s in quotes, I assume she did say “other LGBT people”, but I’m looking to confirm the wording.
because it is a report of what some else said: a transcript of their words.
There is no objective fact in the world that allows us to know which men “identify as” women. It’s not like saying tall men or short men, where you can get a ruler and check. Their words are all we have to go by, so their words–in quotes–have to stand as the specifier for the category.
I agree with Naif’s interpretation. Besides, from what I’ve read so far, it seems to me that Nicolson’s ‘defence’ of what he tweeted didn’t dispute the timeline, or that what he tweeted was meant to be horrible; rather, that he seems to think that it was perfectly OK to say bad things about LGB Alliance because he didn’t single out a named person, but it was bad for anyone at LGB Alliance to respond because he’s a named person.