While primary school pupils in Cambridge take part in celebratory ‘transition’ assemblies, Welsh ‘boys’ share dorms with girls, and Scottish 12-year-olds are being encouraged to have their birth certificates altered, women on Twitter were banned, in May, from stating biological facts about men and women.
The social networking giant, Twitter, censored tweets which state what the women say are ‘basic, incontrovertible biological facts’, claiming the content goes against its ‘hateful conduct’ policy. The group, Fair Play for Women, wrote an open letter to Martha Lane Fox, a peer who also sits on the board of Twitter, asking her to help stop their views being silenced. She is yet to respond to them. The letter speaks out against a ‘concerted attack on women’s free speech’.
Women’s voices
Fair Play For Women describes itself as ‘a group of ordinary women who are concerned that in the rush to reform transgender laws women’s voices will not be listened to’. It said: ‘Online, women are threatened with violence for saying things that should not be controversial, but have become so. For saying that males cannot become females. For saying that women do not have penises. Women must not be shamed or silenced for speaking the reality.’
