Why are police intervening to tell the public what we are permitted to think while those paid to influence the police threaten women with impunity?
Linda Bellos, Caroline Farrow, Andy Healey, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, Graham Linehan, Dr Julia Long, Harry Miller, Maggie Nelson, Kate Scottow, Miranda Yardley.
Various police forces in England have decided that the separate actions of these nine women and men required responses including an early morning phone call, a knock on the door, an interview at the station, a harassment warning, physical removal from an event, hours of detainment without sanitary protection, confiscation of personal property, referral to the CPS.
What were they all up to? What crimes had they committed? The grievous offence of disagreeing with transgender ideology: on Twitter, on personal blogs, and, in the case of Long, on a chair. (Long was at an Accenture event billed as being ‘for everyone’ and was physically removed by seven City of London police officers for, presumably, her thoughts, as she had not caused any disruption).
Ex-police officer Harry Miller was told his retweet of a lyric by feminist Ali Bee constituted a ‘hate incident’ against transgender people. The Telegraph reported: ‘PC Mansoor Gul told Mr Miller: “I’ve been on a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is.”’
Quite a statement, and one that leads us to wonder about the training that PC Gul received. It might be unfair to single out PC Gul as a confused individual officer given that in their diversity monitoring form Humberside Police give the following definition of ‘Gender Identity’: ‘For monitoring purposes the term Transgender is used to include: Hermaphrodite/Intersex, Transgenderist, Transsexual, Transvestite’. There is no such thing as a human hermaphrodite, and ‘intersex’ refers to a medical condition, not an identity. Intersex advocates are unimpressed.
Humberside Police have held training on transgender issues since at least 2008. In this 2016 article we learn that local radio DJ Stephanie Hirst, who once told Pink News ‘it was either tits or death’ delivers training to the Humberside force. In the Telegraph, Hirst said ‘ when…I was first wolf-whistled, it made me feel good’. I wonder if Stephanie has any thoughts on why so few women report street harrassment to the police?
Trans training certainly seems to thrive on the personal touch. Individual stories matter and the police are presumably invited to draw a wider significance from them. Let’s look at some more people who are sharing their stories and helping the police. No doubt all these individuals understand what equality and hate crime law does and does not mean.
Before we meet them, let’s look at the recent All Party Parliamentary Group report on hate crime. On page 26 it says: ‘Several of the submissions also included screenshots of social media posts (predominantly Twitter) that contained threats and encouragements of violence towards ‘TERFs’.’ (‘Terf’ is claimed by trans rights activists to be no more then an acronym for ‘trans exclusionary radical feminist’, but in practice it is used almost exclusively as a pejorative, and very often accompanied by violent rape and death threats). ‘It can easily be argued that this constitutes hate speech under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which people have been successfully prosecuted for’. It certainly would be shocking to see anyone working with the police against ‘hate’ using the misogynist epithet ‘terf’.
Carol Steele of Transfigurations Devon seems very fond of using the word. Here Steele blames women who disagree with transgender ideology for male violence against people who identify as trans. Is that what Devon and Cornwall Police think too? They work with Transfigurations. In another example of blaming women for male violence, Steele says that a 60-year-old woman who was assaulted by a young man deserved the assault. This is not a matter of opinion or interpretation — Tanis Wolf was convicted of Assault by Beating against Maria Maclachlan in April 2018. Maclachlan was at the Speaker’s Corner meeting point for a feminist event. Before going to Speaker’s Corner, Wolf wrote on Facebook: ‘Any idea where/if this is happening? I wanna fuck some terfs up, they are no better than fash’. Are Devon and Cornwall Police aware of Steele’s misrepresentation of a crime victim and defence of the convicted perpetrator?
Even more disturbing is this tweet by Steele: ‘…just wondering if you have any objections to prepubescent girls who are given these [puberty] blockers to prevent unwanted pregnancies when they are 8 or 9 years old and to allow them to have a normal childhood?’
Another West Country fan of hate speech against women is local radio DJ Cheryl Morgan, who trains Avon and Somerset Police. Morgan characterised women who disagree with transgender ideology as ‘an infestation’. In 2015 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein denounced radio DJ Katie Hopkins for using similar dehumanising language. Morgan works jointly with Avon and Somerset Police and SARI, an anti-hate crime organisation. Do they both endorse this language? Avon and Somerset Police allowed masked and intimidating misogynist protestors to physically block attendees at a meeting held by We Need To Talk in Bristol — in striking contrast to the swift actions of their City of London colleagues when removing Dr Julia Long from a corporate event.
Morgan is the director of the Diversity Trust, which provides ‘ equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility training and consultancy.’ Diversity Trust associate Aaron Barnes (30 years old) writes about attending a session for trans teenagers: ‘ I have been “Dad” to countless young trans people; I have provided or assisted access to first [breast] binders, packers [plastic prosthetic penises for girls to put in their underwear — available for age 4 and up], picking up and taking first hormone injections, writing coming out speeches to parents and schools, I have had young people on the brink of ending their lives sit in my kitchen and drink cups of tea and hold on for just a couple more minutes until they could walk out and get themselves home safely. I know what it’s like to be looked up to.’
Moving east, Kent Police work with a group called TG Pals, whose members include former boxing promoter Kellie Maloney (another person who calls women ‘terfs’). Maloney has personally delivered training while being a self-confessed domestic violence perpetrator. The following extract is from an interview in the Mirror: ‘the red mist descends. He [Kellie Maloney] snaps and lunges at her [Tracey Maloney, Kellie Maloney’s ex-wife], closing his hands around her neck. He sees fear flood her face. Then their two young daughters burst into the room screaming…’
The TG Pals’ support group meetings are called ‘Drab Or Dress’ and TGPals list the meetings on Tvchix, a ‘Tgirl contacts and dating’ site which welcomes ‘ all TV’s, CD’s, TG’s, admirers, their partners and friends’. ‘CD’ is short for ‘cross dresser’, ‘TV’ for ‘transvestite’ and ‘TG’ for ‘transgender’ — ‘dressing’ is a male crossdresser’s term. TGPals are clearly connected to the seedy crossdressing subculture. Of course, crossdressing comes under Stonewall’s capacious ‘trans umbrella’, and ‘transvestite’ under ‘Gender Identity’ for Humberside Police. A sample profile on Tvchix is of ‘a gurl who is a bitch’ whose listed interests include BDSM, kilts, admirers and erotic nights in. Under the ‘Youth Engagement’ heading, their website says: ‘We offer support to young people who can access our peer support groups, the ‘Drab or Dress’. There is no mention of age requirement or need for parental consent or attendance.
Next door in Essex, the police until recently had their very own celebrity trans officer – Gina Denham, now retired from Essex Police. The website of Transpire, the group founded by Denham, says: ‘ Working in partnership with Essex Police, Transpire have 15 officially trained ambassadors for the Southend-on-Sea area.’ Transpire’s previous work includes a social media shaming campaign that forced a school to change its policy and allow a male pupil to use the female toilets.
In February 2019, Basildon Crown Court in Essex heard the case of Regina vs Miranda Yardley. Yardley is a transsexual male who is critical of transgender ideology and lobbying. Helen Islan of transgender lobby group Mermaids had reported Yardley to the police for harassment — Essex Police interviewed Yardley at length in April 2018 and then sent a file to the CPS. The judge declared that the prosecution had failed to provide any evidence; there was no case to answer. From the Telegraph:
‘Mr Yardley said: “The first I knew of my case was in April last year when two police officers turned up at my door and told me that I had to come in for an interview under caution. I was extremely shocked… I knew the allegation was nonsense but I was concerned because clearly the police were taking it seriously… If this had been successful it could have set a dangerous precedent that could have criminalised the legitimate expression of lawfully held views.”’
Essex Police’s Gina Denham appears in this video, created by Leicestershire Police and transgender activists Fox and Owl Fisher. Branded with the logo of the National Police LGBT+ network, the video also features Megan Key, Equalities Lead at the National Probation Service. In the video, Key misrepresents the Equality Act 2010 by saying that a trans-identifying colleague must be granted instant access to the facilities of their choice, and that staff who express concern should be subject to a disciplinary process. Women and their rights at work don’t get a mention from Key, another trans equality advocate who refers to women as ‘terfs’.
Julie Cooke, Merseyside Police assistant chief constable and LGBT+ lead for the National Police Chiefs council, told the Huffington Post that the video is a vital resource: ‘I have written to all police chief leads to ensure they have this information alongside a further piece of work covering our own police processes.’
Merseyside Police and ACC Cooke have a close relationship with Mermaids, going so far as to host their Christmas children’s party. Helen Islan, Miranda Yardley’s accuser, is Mermaids’ marketing officer. CEO of Mermaids Susie Green has reported critics of transgender ideology Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and Caroline Farrow to the police for their online comments. These included describing the ‘sex-reassignment surgery’ performed on Green’s child Jackie as castration. Green took Jackie to Thailand for this surgery on Jackie’s 16th birthday (this surgery has subsequently been banned in Thailand for under-18s).
Green eventually dropped her complaint and it is unclear whether Surrey Police are still investigating Farrow. West Yorkshire Police, who sent two officers all the way to Wiltshire to interview her, are no longer investigating Keen-Minshull. However, Wiltshire Police, Keen-Minshull’s local force, are now conducting a second investigation.
Susie Green was a speaker at the Accenture panel event mentioned above, from which City of London Police took such swift action to remove Dr Julia Long. Also on the panel was Gina Denham
The biggest transgender lobbying organisation in the UK is Stonewall, which reported an income of over £7 million in 2017. Cheshire, Lancashire, Sussex and Northumbria police forces are on Stonewall’s Top Public Sector Employers list. Derbyshire Police have had trans awareness training from Stonewall and state: ‘ We are proud to be a Stonewall Diversity Champion and a committed LGBTQ inclusive employer.’
Stonewall is an overtly political organisation which has explicitly campaigned for the removal of women’s sex based rights, and encouraged supporters to submit pre-written template answers to the 2018 UK Government consultation on Gender Recognition Act 2004 reform.
The police have a duty to act ‘without fear or favour’. Individual police officers are banned from taking any part in politics, yet the forces that employ them receive training from a political organisation.
Let’s finish where we started. Let’s think of those women and men who have simply stated facts and spoken the truth. Let’s think of the ordeals they have endured and are still enduring because of police decisions. Kate Scottow wrote on Mumsnet: ‘I was arrested in my home by three officers, with my autistic ten-year-old daughter and breastfed 20-month-old son present. I was then detained for seven hours in a cell with no sanitary products (which I said I needed) before being interviewed then later released under investigation. I was arrested for harassment and malicious communications because I called someone out and misgendered them on Twitter.’ This was in December 2018 — Scottow had her photograph, fingerprints and DNA taken, and Hertfordshire Police have still not returned her mobile and laptop.
Why are the police intervening and using their powers to tell the public what we are permitted to think, say and write, while those paid to influence the police abuse and threaten women with a pejorative associated with graphic violence, with seeming impunity? Are due diligence checks and safeguarding assessments forgotten by police forces when it comes to ‘diversity’ training?
Linda Bellos, Caroline Farrow, Andy Healey, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, Graham Linehan, Dr Julia Long, Harry Miller, Maggie Nelson, Kate Scottow, Miranda Yardley — and anyone else going through this whose names we do not know. Here’s to you. Thank you for standing up for the truth.
