“Is this the Scotland you want for your children?”

Last night police were called to the Doctors bar in Edinburgh. Five officers turned up and ejected a group of about a dozen women who’d been quietly sitting eating, drinking and enjoying each other’s company.

Apparently one of the women had been wearing a T-shirt proclaiming that “women won’t wheesht”, which naturally offended the woman-hating member of the bar staff, who is a self-confessed porn-addicted autogynephile.

You may be getting a sense of déjà vu here. It isn’t the first time people have been offended by T-shirts bearing anodyne slogans worn by women who have been victimised as a result.  First, there was Rebecca Wershbale then the National Theatre debacle. In the latter, the group who were discriminated against initiated legal action. One member of the group eventually posted that the action was discontinued after “constructive conversations” with the theatre.

But that was in England.

Scotland is a place where a woman can be arrested and charged for tweets that are so innocuous they don’t even break Twitter’s draconian anti-women rules under which countless women – including me and some of our male allies – have been permanently banned, while the accounts of hateful, abusive bullies are allowed to remain. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting the woman in question – Marion Millar – and many others who had gathered in Glasgow to support her on the day her plea hearing was supposed to take place, having already been rescheduled from a month earlier. A few days before the rescheduled date, the hearing was postponed again but those of us who decided to go anyway had a wonderful day.

As I understand it, Marion was out with her husband celebrating his birthday last night and only popped into the Doctors bar to join her friends for a drink before heading home. She was recognised by bar staff and told to leave, which she did. Having met Marion and her friends and supporters, I have no doubts about their decency and integrity – these are not haters and bigots. Presumably, if they were they wouldn’t have the support of a number of trans people – including the one in the above photo (guess!).

Judging by the account given by the bartender at the Doctors bar, can anyone say the same about him? Look at some of the tweets from both sides and decide for yourselves.

The feminists:

The barman:

So apparently this group of women, who were enjoying each other’s company while partaking of the bar’s fare, were making staff and other customers feel “threatened”? How, exactly? Were they abusing people? Were they picking arguments with people who didn’t want them? Had they vandalised anything on the premises? I think we should be told and, frankly, seeing as this ‘porn-addicted male’ went straight onto Twitter to boast about having got them thrown out, it beggars belief that we aren’t told.

But then…maybe there is nothing to tell? Maybe it really is just a case of unconscionable bigotry on the part of this guy and other staff. The fact that he says he should have kicked them out the minute they appeared – before they had a chance to make anyone “feel threatened” – suggests it is.

Of course, the claim that they needed to be removed for the “safety” of his staff just makes him look ridiculous. Nobody who has all the parts of their brain working as a team will believe for a nanosecond that they were making the staff or customers unsafe in any way. There’s no excuse for this:

My (cis) staff were finding terf material in the toilets and felt really uncomfortable serving them.

Allow me to introduce you to this “terf material”. Apparently there was a sticker saying woman means adult human female and this leaflet:


On one side it says:

Do you believe a man is a woman if he says he is?

The Scottish Government is planning to change the law to allow any man to declare himself a woman. This is known as gender self-ID.

Why does this matter?

Men who say they are women are:

  • Treated on female hospital wards;
  • Joining women’s sports teams;
  • Acting as rape counsellors for women;
  • Able to access women’s domestic violence refuges;
  • Having their crimes, including rape, recorded as being committed by a woman;
  • Locked up in a women’s prison if convicted of a crime, including sexual and violent offences.

This is already happening in Scotland.

On the other side it says:

Women are taking action

We say NO to gender self-ID

We say SEX MATTERS

We know human beings can’t change sex.

We know no man is entitled to women’s rights.

We are the Sole Sisters and we are on the march.

Join our fight to protect the rights of women and girls.

What you can do

Get informed on gender recognition reform

Ask your MSP to commit publicly to the Equality Act 2010

Write to newspapers about the issues with gender self-ID

Visit www.fairplayforwomen.com & forwomen.scot

Pass this card to another woman

Follow @VoteWithOurFeet on Twitter

So what is the problem with this material? You may not like it. You may disagree that women should have the right to privacy and dignity and to feel safe on hospital wards, in refuges and in prison. You may not understand why or care that women are angry when we see male-typical crimes of violence and sexual assault reported in the media as if they are committed by women. After all, we are only women and our feelings don’t matter, right?

But what exactly is it about the content of this leaflet that would make bar staff “uncomfortable”? Because from where I’m sitting, the only people who could possibly be uncomfortable with it are people who are stewing in their deeply-rooted and unassailable misogyny. People like you, porno man.

As you obviously feel it threatens your male privilege, you could always have told the women off for leaving it in the toilets of your bar. It may well have saved you a lot of trouble if they then realised that it isn’t a welcoming space for those fighting for women’s rights, so they wouldn’t spend another penny there. But then you would have been deprived of your power trip and that warm fuzzy feeling you got when all your fellow bigots on Twitter congratulated you for taking on a bunch of uppity women.

As for “seeing their level of entitlement and belligerence develop”…this was after you told them to leave for no good reason, right? I hate to break it to you but you’re in the wrong job, mate. When people who haven’t been behaving badly suddenly get turned on because some nasty bully disagrees with their views, they tend to get angry. That’s human nature.

Naturally, the backlash on Twitter was swift and pulled no punches. It may have come as a shock to porno man and his fellow bigots that people are becoming fed up and disgusted at cowardly bullies using women as punchbags – women who are not hating or targeting or bullying anyone; women who are simply fighting for our rights against those intent of depriving us of them. People like porno man.

There is a lot more I could say about this despicable individual but hopefully I’ve shown enough to persuade anyone who happens to be in Edinburgh to steer well clear of that particular location. It is NOT a safe space for decent law-abiding feminists. I’ll leave the last word to one of them.

Here is the story in the Edinburgh News: Inquiry launched into row over ‘transphobia’ in Edinburgh pub 

And here is the irrepressible Glinner. Women In Possession Of Opinions Will Be Barred 

 

Published 22.08.21

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4 Responses to “Is this the Scotland you want for your children?”

  • There is however a danger which I’ve noticed several times around the web of turning what was originally a useful, and I think very accurate description of a psychopathological condition into a term of abuse. It has happened to the word ‘paedophile’ which is now used in place of ‘child molester’: many paedophiles don’t act on the desires that they never asked for and don’t want, as you can see on, for instance, the forum ‘Virtuous Pedophiles’ run from the USA. And many (opportunistic) child molesters are not paedophiles.

    In a similar way autogynephiles, certainly those I’ve read and know about in some detail, never asked for that paraphilia, and some are extremely ashamed of it (see e.g. ‘Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexulism’ by Anne A Lawrence — publ Springer,2013: there’s a Foreword by Ray Blanchard, the psychologist / sexologist who first described AGP). But as with the other term above, only this time much more quickly, we may have lost another well defined term beyond rescue as it becomes ever more of a term of contemptuous abuse.

    Or, as probably in the case of the very unpleasant man described in Maria’s report above, someone who relishes idealising bad parts of his self. We should challenge people who do this, and I personally would challenge otherwise admirable, rational and reality-based people who use terms such as ‘AGP’ and ‘autogynephilia’ in abusive ways. It can appear to be almost a sort of doppelganger that other ghastly phrase ‘terf’.

    Autogynephilia is, as Anne Lawrence discusses, an example of an Erotic Target Location Error (ETLR) and as such a piece of psychopathology. People with AGP often suffer enormous amounts of psychic pain, as do those Virtuous Pedophiles I referred to. They really deserve as much compassion as do genuine gender dysphoric people and particularly so when such dysphoric people, or AGP ones, don’t exploit their condition to the detriment of others.

    That’s a very separate issue from those ones we oppose vigorously — the belligerent misogyny, the forced speech, the supremacist policing of ‘thought crime’, the houndings, cancelling, no-platforming, no debating. And of course the male sense of entitlement with all its arrogance.

    • I am familiar with the work of Blanchard & Lawrence, it is largely through this counterfactual evidence I came to abandon belief in the “x in y’s body” explanation of transgenderism. I also know where you are coming from in terms of compassion for the sufferers of such conditions – I rode that train for some time before getting off at Gender Critical station. The fundamental conflict is that the trans rights movement is attempting to reframe a pathology as a normative state of being for the benefit of these sufferers (and the non-suffering bad actors among them) – and importantly do so at others’ cost, who of course no one has stopped to ask if they are willing to pay. Indeed this was done precisely because those pushing “gender” knew full well society would refuse, hence the necessity of concealment and subterfuge.
      A conventional medical approach to AGP is difficult. If you are familiar with Blanchardian sources you will know that a feature of autogynephilia is the requirement that in NOT BE ACKNOWLEDGED that the subject has a fetish. This sends the sufferers into narcissistic rage and vindictive reprisals, which is of course so easily observable on the internet. The treatment of no other condition requires denial of its existence; and no other condition relies on others losing rights for the sufferer’s benefit. You sound like a typical mental health professional, full of compassion. I have relied upon many such people to get through my own imperfect life and to care for my late mother who suffered from schizophrenia. Doctors like this are invaluable for many, but this compassion is precisely what has been abused to drive this movement as far as it has gone.
      All this is made much more difficult by the fact that “gender” has such a strong political component. Those pushing gender ideology aren’t just (or even predominantly) trying to benefit the suffering dysphorics – they are trying to take society through a cultural revolution to realign social norms with their ideological values. Hence the indoctrination of children with bogus gingerbread men (sorry, non-binary ginger-people). Even doctors with best intentions have their hands tied by the political culture – look at the Evanses having to blow the whistle.
      I think there is danger of chilling effect in your warning about “AGP” etc being misused as pejoratives – what other terms can we use to talk about it – without obscuring it’s truth? (“The unmentionable proclivity”?, The self-love that dare not speak its name”?…) If this is indeed the predominant etiology of male to female transgenderism, how can it be discussed without using the words? I actually disagree with your final assertion that it is possible to challenge the abusive behaviour and individuals like “mebulous” separately from autogynephilia. Misogyny (or at least a significant degree of sexism) appears to be a core component thereof – even if granted that not all sufferers are actually abusive individuals.

  • Wouldn’t it make sense to contact Belhaven Pubs about this? As far as I can see Doctors Bar is part of Belhaven Pubs (Google search)

  • So is this person “real trans”?
    I don’t see any crippling dysphoria there. Only the swaggering confidence of the bully who gets away with it every time because he knows theteacher will punish the victim if they complain.
    Do those people who innocently claim to be real trans welcome him into their cohort?
    Unfortunately there is really no way to distinguish anymore. A self admitted AGP so confident he doesn’t even feel the need to hide it anymore. The misplaced sense of pity and sympathy for some have allowed many more to flaunt their contempt for women with impunity. Time to dispense with kindness. The other side are not being kind.
    Imagine a size 14 stilletto stomping on a human face forever – would have been the line if honest George were writing today. His greatest prediction was that the threat would come from the left and come under the cover of liberation.

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