Unnie @MEVring

Dear Lush (cc Chelmsford City Council), As a woman who had half a breast removed last year due to cancer, I am writing to raise my concerns about your “Proud of My Stripes” window display. I am also, on behalf of other women who have experienced breast cancer, respectfully requesting its removal. Because mastectomies are not a fashion statement, an identity marker or something to be celebrated. They are something women undergo because they are ill, because they are frightened, because they are trying to stay alive. Around 59,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year. Many will undergo surgery - a mastectomy, lumpectomy or other procedure. Others choose preventive mastectomies because they carry a high-risk BRCA gene mutation. If a woman chooses to have her breasts removed to affirm a gender identity, that is her personal choice. I honestly don’t know the number of women who have elective mastectomies for this reason. What I do know is that it is a tiny number compared with those for whom breast surgery is medically necessary and not something to be celebrated. I think I speak for many women who have experienced breast cancer - and for their families - when I say this: Breast removal surgery is not something I regard as cute, playful or empowering. Nor is it something I believe retailers should be celebrating. For that reason, I am requesting that the display be removed and that @ChelmsCouncil apologise for promoting it on social media. Yours sincerely, Janet Murray

@AngelicaDevine_ Huh? If you had just changed your outfit and bought a wig four years ago, you wouldn't have wasted money on HRT without having nothing to show for it.

Differences of Opinion, 2026 by Diana Alastair He tells her that he is a girl, He has perfected every curl! With threats of rape, and violence too, He orders her to get a clue. He screams and screams: a girl he is! He yells at her, he rants and rails She calmly checks his furious fizz. He shouts some more, to no avail; And yet he goes on being male.

I’ve been thinking, and we should have a slogan, a motto for everyone who refuses to be guilt tripped into saying things we know aren’t true, or into denying things that are. In 1633, the Catholic Church, via the Inquisition, forced Galileo to recant his claim that the Earth moved around the sun. He is said afterwards to have defiantly stated, “Eppur si muove” — “And yet it moves.” He knew that whatever the Church dictated, whatever lies they forced him to repeat, the Earth, nevertheless, continued to move. The binary and immutable nature of human sex is as scientifically certain as the motion of the Earth. Even if the entire world - every single one of us - believes that some women are born with penises, and that some people are neither male nor female, neither of these things will ever become true, just as no amount of human belief ever made the sun go around the Earth. Eppur sono uomini — and yet they are men.

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points. I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created. When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said. The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness. Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison? I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges. The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest. Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.

Sex Matters @SexMattersOrg

9 months ago

“I think she’s going to find that you can’t sit on the fence... The real win is when ordinary people can say these things.” @DerryBanShee speaks to @joshxhowie about Emma Watson’s comments about JK Rowling. 📺 youtu.be/r2OGEITYe2Y

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@jippypippy22 @isgaldemsugar This is false. Some gay me, however, differ from straight men, as do some lesbians differ from straight women. Apparently your sexual orientation has some impact on your brain. We still don't define women as "anybody who is sexually oriented towards men".

@zaelefty BTW. I still don't want men in women's spaces. Just like women are not defined by sexual orientation (lesbians are not really men), so are women not defined by how we signal that we are women. The marketing strategy of women does not equal the actual woman.

@zaelefty getting confused about sex. They know what they are, but desperately need to perform femininity to feel attractive enough, and often want body modification. So that's a biological argument. It's an inborn strategy, meant for reproduction, that has taken a different path. >>>

@owenjonesjourno @akuareindorf @EHRC So what does "other countries" say about femicide? Like South Africa, Naru, El Salvador and Jamaica? The statistics are influenced by the level of protection women have. Or do you really think that men in relationships are more prone to violence than single men?

@MinnOrchia @MrMennoTweets @LibVoice4Women OMG! That's THE most idiotic thing I've ever heard! 1. Queens, Empresses, Matriarchs, Bossladies, Heroines, Witches, words for powerful, assertive women. 2. FemDom, Dominatrix, Domina, sexually dominant women. 3. Submission to oppression is not being submissive, it's survival.

@DannyWxo @jk_rowling Sure. But this balance should not remove any rights or ignore any needs of women. The needs for specific male groups must be balanced within male rights. So trans identified males should get their needs sorted within male spaces.

@SamanthaNiblet4 @MrMennoTweets It is you who sees it as an attack. It's actually a defence. As a member of several oppressed groups (woman, disabled, neurodivergent, bi), I'd say that all oppressed groups need to protect and define themselves exclusively in order to advocate and secure special needs.

@kristinkilli @odahaukaas Da burde menn gå i seg selv og skape trygge doer for alle menn. Det er ikke kvinners ansvar å være buffersone for menn i konflikt. Hvorfor skal kvinner ta vare på redde transpersoner, men ikke andre kvinner? Massevis av kvinner som er redde for menn, uansett hvordan de kler seg.

@IncitatusAlpha @SVPhillimore Whatever has happened to Sarah, I hope happens to you too. One should walk a mile in other people's shoes before assuming anything about them. What awful feeling? The sickening feeling of realizing that you're wrong?

@kristinkilli @odahaukaas Da er det vel ikke et problem at menn banker menn på do, så lenge vi heller kan snakke om alle de andre stedene menn begår vold og overgrep? Skjønner ikke logikken din.