Welsh / Scottish Wifie (https://teapaw.org/t.co/ENxqiCjvLp) & Veterinary Pathologist interested in Oncology, Dermatopathology & Education
Glasgow
Joined December 2011
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More than a year ago and still relevant.
Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?
#IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
A tale of two EU conferences:
On Tuesday afternoon, two events will take place in the centre of Brussels' EU district. Both of them are on the topic of women.
One of the conferences will host a panel of women who have been punished materially, socially, professionally, or otherwise, for insisting that women are real, that we are adult human and female, and that that definition matters for any law or policy that claims to protect or advance our interests.
One of the central themes discussed on the panel will be the treatment doled out to these individual women who have refused to abandon this material definition of womanhood. Court cases, physical violence, social exclusion, threats... you name it, we've been on the receiving end of it.
Another topic for the panel to discuss is a much wider and arguably worse: the steadfast refusal of the people in the same Brussels EU district -- from the media, to elected MEPs, to EU Commission officials - to acknowledge the role that they have played in these panellists' being treated this way, and their role in the erasure of sex as a coherent and important factor in the organisation of society.
For at least a decade, the powers-that-be in Brussels have pretended not to notice the erasure of sex in law, all while they have been themselves been advancing and promoting it. Exceptions, of course, come from traditionally right-wing parties (with some particularly relentless championnes, in the form of @MargaPisa @LaurenceTrochu @Barbarabonte and some notable others).
Athena Forum founder Faika El-Nagashi has told me that she thinks most EU officials (elected or otherwise) are not aware of the issue, as opposed to pretending not to be aware. I think she is far too charitable.
I myself had my employment contract terminated by EU officials because my insistence on the material definition of woman. I wrote on the European Commission internal message board about the danger (and stupidity) of pretending women and girls are not a definable phenomenon all while purporting to have a raft of policies and laws that are "for" us. A recent FOI request revealed that the Commission officials considered my views on material reality of sex to be contrary to EU values.
Which brings me to conference number two that will take place on Tuesday.
The other conference is about women as an idealised set of stereotypes that can be adopted or discarded at will, a concept that is open to ownership by any man who enjoys being seen by others as a woman - which a lot of men apparently do (usually as part of a distressing and all-consuming sexual paraphilia).
I had assumed, in my naivety, that once people in power heard the message that it harms women and girls - especially if you come from a lower class background, which I do - to pretend sex isn't real and doesn't matter, that they would do what was necessary to roll back the damage. I thought that once I presented the evidence that most men who claim to be women are motivated by sexual arousal, that politicians would find the courage stop causing more damage.
I was very, very wrong.
And those are the people who will be attending this other conference on Tuesday, the "gender" conference, which will kick of "Gender equality week" in the European Parliament. There's no point in attending, because we know exactly what they will say. Empower, glass ceiling, leadership. They will not mention sex, or Athena Forum, or the punished women on the panel *just down the street* (no Parliament invitation was offered to Athena Forum for this, the week of celebrating "gender" equality", which I think tells you everything you need to know.)
As it happens, the woman-is-a-feeling gender event finishes right at the moment that the @AthenaForumEU event begins (6.30PM). Take of that symbolism what you will.
I will be at the women's conference, and I will be tweeting it minute-by-minute. I hope to get some video interviews with some of the (truly courageous) women who will be there.
Zsófi Balogh
Rona Duwe
Sodfa Daaji
Anne Kalvig
Silvia Carrasco
Helen Joyce
Faika El-Nagashi
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Britain Owes No Apology for the Sins of Two Centuries Ago
There is something profoundly troubling about a British Prime Minister contemplating an apology on behalf of his country for events that took place two centuries ago. Andy Burnham says he is open to formally apologising for Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. He also acknowledges that today's British people bear no responsibility for those historical wrongs. Then why is he considering apologising in their name?
Slavery was a barbaric institution. Britain participated in it, profited from it and eventually helped bring it to an end. Those facts belong together. Yet Labour seems increasingly comfortable discussing Britain's historical shame while showing far less enthusiasm for defending its achievements. A nation cannot understand its history by examining only the chapters that make it uncomfortable.
Slavery existed thousands of years before Britain entered the transatlantic trade. African rulers and merchants supplied captives to European traders. Slavery flourished across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Some forms of slavery remain with us today. Yet Britain, which became one of the foremost powers in suppressing the international trade, now finds itself under renewed pressure to apologise.
In 1807, Parliament abolished the British slave trade. In 1833, it legislated to abolish slavery across most of the Empire, with full emancipation following in 1838. The Royal Navy subsequently spent decades intercepting slave ships, liberating captives and confronting traders along the African coast. British sailors risked their lives enforcing a principle that much of the world had yet to accept.
Abolition also came at an enormous financial cost. Parliament authorised £20 million to compensate slave owners, a vast sum at the time. The formerly enslaved received nothing, an injustice that deserves acknowledgement. Debt associated with that settlement was subsequently consolidated into government borrowing arrangements, with the relevant gilt finally redeemed in 2015. Britain's abolitionist history deserves to be remembered alongside its involvement in slavery.
But Burnham's proposed apology raises another question. What exactly would it achieve? Caribbean campaigners have already declared that an apology alone would be insufficient. Their demands extend to debt relief, development funding and other forms of compensation. Burnham rejects reparations while proposing more favourable debt arrangements for poorer Commonwealth countries. He must explain where ordinary development policy ends and historical compensation begins.
This is part of a wider failure of confidence in Britain's political leadership. Labour ministers appear more comfortable revisiting the country's historical failings than defending its inheritance. National pride is too often treated as something requiring explanation, qualification or apology. Meanwhile, the country faces mounting pressures on public services, living standards, housing and national security.
The British people alive today neither owned the plantations nor authorised the slave ships. They inherited a country whose history contains cruelty and courage, exploitation and reform. They have every reason to learn that history honestly, without being expected to assume personal guilt for the conduct of distant generations.
Burnham says today's Britons cannot be held liable for historical wrongs. He should stand by that principle and explain why a formal apology is necessary. Britain's past requires honesty, perspective and moral seriousness. It does not require an endless procession of national apologies.
A Prime Minister's duty is to represent the British people of today, not burden them with the guilt of centuries past.
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Oh my word!!!
Every farmer and/or family business owner in the country right now..
BREAKING: Hampshire couple prosecuted by Hampshire County Council, fined £600 by Southampton Magistrates and ordered to pay a further £6,000 in costs for allowing their 14-year-old son, who had a passion for the business, to work on the family's mobile food trailer (via @BBCNews) bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8vg…
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Oh dear Kay. Possibly the greatest community note in the history of the internet.
Having just left Elmina Castle in Ghana, where enslaved Africans were imprisoned before being shipped across the Atlantic, I think Europeans should never tire of acknowledging the horrors of our shared history and asking forgiveness from our African friends.
Britain played its own shameful part in that history.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Elmina Castle was built by the Portuguese in 1482, seized by the Dutch in 1637 and acquired by Britain only in 1872—after Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807. Africans captured in wars and raids supplied most enslaved people sold to Europeans at such coastal forts.
britannica.com/place/Elmina-C…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmina_Ca…
britannica.com/topic/transatl…
rmg.co.uk/stories/mariti…
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
🚨 ISLAMIC BLASPHEMY LAW BY THE BACK DOOR 🚨
Kellie-Jay Keen (@ThePosieParker) has been charged with a criminal offence over posts criticising Islam, Muslim cultural practices and Islamism.
The Free Speech Union is proud to be defending her.
In a free society, no religion or cultural practice should be immune from criticism.
Since Labour came to power, the number of FSU cases involving people penalised for criticising Islam has doubled. It is now the single biggest category in our casework.
And now, with a state-approved definition of Islamophobia — rebranded as “anti-Muslim hostility” — things are only getting worse.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Communities Secretary Angela Rayner met Muslim community leaders in Downing Street. Burnham took a swipe at critics of Islam, saying “some of the language” opposition parties use “is unacceptable”, and told the leaders “we need to find ways with you to demonstrate that more and more”.
We now await Rayner’s appointment of an “Islamophobia tsar” who will help enforce the definition.
All five hand-picked members of the Working Group that drafted it have concerning links to Islamist organisations, as FSU Research and Policy Director @DavidRoseUK exposed in his report. We have little hope that the appointed tsar will be good news for free speech.
Meanwhile, the Government is refusing to say who submitted responses to the Working Group, so we cannot know which groups shaped the definition. Islamists may well have had a hand in its drafting.
Support the FSU’s campaign against an Islamic blasphemy law — and the people penalised under it 👇
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
And now the Home Secretary is going to effectively fast track the recipients of these patently fraudulent visas into ILR status - giving them the ability to claim all the benefits under the sun.
Extraordinarily reckless.
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
GERMANY: A teenage rape victim was reportedly questioned after accidentally referring to her transgender rapist with male pronouns in court.
The girl was forced to clarify that she did not mean to "misgender" her rapist.
reduxx.info/germany-teenage-…
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
If the contents of this discussion are ‘distressing’, then I dread to think what their ‘alarm and distress’ threshold is in the Bill.
The livestream link for today's evidence session in the UK Parliament on the Draft Conversion Practices Bill carried a warning telling viewers that 'The evidence session may include content that some viewers may find distressing.' parliamentlive.tv/event/inde…
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Poundland’s largest distribution centre is in Ashton in Makerfield.
Who is the MP for here now …. @andyburnham ….. 🤔
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
SNP’s David Linden says a woman raising GP access is using "racist tropes".
Meanwhile the NHS is paying for clinics inside migrant hotels, weekend surgeries, and a minibus to the doctor.
Her mum waited two years and died. Nobody sent a bus for her.
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Iran: The islamic regime beat 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh to death with batons, then called it suicide and coerced her mother into repeating the story on state TV.
Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old from Karaj, died on September 23, 2022. She was a YouTuber and poet who had openly criticized the compulsory hijab.
After Amini’s death, she wrote a protest poem condemning the killing and violence against women, posted it on Telegram on September 20, 2022, and joined the protests.
She was buried under security, and the family was not allowed to see her body. Around 10 a.m. that morning, the family was handed her body at the Behesht-e Sakineh Cemetery mortuary, already washed and wrapped in a shroud. Security officials did not let the family see her, and her mother only glimpsed her face by pulling back the shroud moments before burial.
The official story is that she jumped. On October 6, Alborz province chief justice Hossein Fazeli Harikandi called her death a suicide by a fall from a great height. He said police reported it to the on-call prosecutor at around 12:20 a.m. on September 24, and claimed she climbed to a fifth-floor rooftop at her grandmother’s home, crossed to the next building, and jumped. He also claimed she had previously tried to kill herself with pills. He dismissed reports that security forces killed her as claims by “hostile media” and said she died in an area untouched by unrest.
The official story contradicts itself. The judiciary said emergency services arrived shortly after midnight, but state TV showed a photo of a girl’s body on the ground in daylight. State TV said the incident happened at her mother’s residence, while the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency placed it at her grandmother’s home in Azimieh. Her death certificate lists shock due to trauma and multiple blows, alongside blunt force trauma from a fall from height.
Her mother was threatened into repeating the suicide story on camera. Security officials threatened her mother, Masoumeh Hamidipour, that she would never see her son Sina again unless she confirmed the suicide account. She was filmed repeating it twice: on October 8, 2022, for Tasnim, and on October 11 on state TV’s main evening news. In the first video, she is sitting in an interrogation room at the Criminal Investigation Department. Security forces made the release of her body conditional on the family publicly saying she had fallen from a rooftop. Iran Human Rights reported that her mother had been told at the prosecutor’s office to say her daughter fell from a building, and refused each time. Iran International reported that some people disputed whether the woman in one of the state videos was her mother at all.
Her online accounts were deleted or altered. The authorities never returned her phone, her Instagram account was deleted without explanation, and several of her Telegram posts were deleted or edited to add fabricated statements suggesting suicidal thoughts, according to Radio Farda.
Her relatives were summoned, and their lawyer was blocked. Her legal guardian and both of her uncles were repeatedly summoned to court and the Criminal Investigation Department, where they were pressured into forced confessions and told to file complaints against people who challenged the suicide story. Iran Human Rights reported that her mother, brother, and uncle were being summoned by security agencies every day, while the family’s lawyer was denied access to the case. Her classmates later replaced Khamenei’s photo in their classroom with her portrait.
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
I lived in Stockholm. I lived in the house of a Holocaust survivor. Six years a prisoner in three different extermination camps. Sweden was a safe haven for many survivors, not everything went well, but it was a home for those who lost everything.
It is with sadness and outrage that I see posters in the shop windows of Stockholm as if we were in the 1930s in Nazi Germany.
Photograph of the door of Green Laces – a shop for vegan shoes and accessories at Götgatan 28, Stockholm.
ALT #Stockholm #Sweden #Antisemitism
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
This is a lie. A humiliation of women through costume. You are being expected to see something absurd and pretend it is perfectly normal. It isn’t. It’s grotesque bullying.
The women face persona, a tool of humiliation … Of women.
And the more you accept this bollocks without question, the further they will push the boundaries of what they demand you believe.
Don’t accept this 🔥
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Nobody demands Arab nations give reparations because they know Arab nations will laugh at them.
It’s only because the UK has had a succession of pathetically weak political leaders that the demands keep coming.
Whether it’s for territory, like the Mauritian demand for the Chagos Islands, or money like the Caribbean reparation demands, they know that step by step UK governments will capitulate.
Burnham making a formal state apology for the UKs past involvement in the slave trade will achieve nothing other than to increase the demands which will no doubt be backed by the UN or some other corrupt ‘human rights’ tribunal.
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
Ministers have handed an eye-watering £35M contract to a firm in India to manage Scotland’s benefits handouts. SNP: Stronger For India!
dailymail.com/news/article-1… via @DailyMail
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
This unprecedented and frankly absurd trigger warning from Parliament shows just how much the quasi-religion of gender identity doctrine has permeated all our institutions.
“This evidence session may include content that some viewers may find distressing.”
It’s seriously wild that Parliament has heard detailed statements on, amongst other things: the Holocaust, the Omagh bombing, Hillsborough, Aberfan, & the 7/7 terrorist attacks.
But the only time in 200 years they’ve needed a trigger warning was @Jebadoo2 pitching up to tell them it was wrong to sterilise autistic gay teenagers.
Pauline McNeil #2144 retweeted
When Boris Johnson prorogued Parliament in 2019, (as Major & Attlee had done) EU Council president Donald Tusk accused him of "bypassing democratic scrutiny". Now Tusk has staged an actual coup, the Council & Commission are silent. There isn't a law yet globalists won't overrule.
