A Week in the War on Women: Monday 16th September

THE TIMES: Head of Rape Crisis Scotland, Sandy Brindley, is ignoring and dodging calls for her to step down over her part in the Mridul Wadhwa scandal.

Last week we reported on Mridul Wadhwa’s disastrous three-year tenure as CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) and the damage caused to sexual violence survivors during his time in the role. We also reported on Sandy Brindley’s part in this scandal. Not only did she endorse Wadhwa’s appointment and constantly defend his abhorrent behaviour, but she prioritised gender ideology over the needs of traumatised women and fostered an atmosphere in which both staff and rape victims were punished and vilified when they advocated for female-only spaces. She is now facing ever-increasing demands to step down from her role.

Mary Howden, of the Women’s Rights Network Scotland, said, “Sandy Brindley, the trustees and Mridul Wadwha have been so driven in their ideological belief of gender identity and self-ID they have allowed these beliefs to override the needs of vulnerable women who have been sexually assaulted. Their actions have caused irreparable harm. In any other area, such a damning judgment from a tribunal would have resulted in the immediate dismissal of an employee. The fact that Sandy Brindley remains in employment is a shocking indictment of how little respect they have for survivors. She should be dismissed immediately”.

Clare Blom, of the campaign group Women Won’t Wheesht, commented, “It is unforgivable that, even now, she is unwilling to be accountable for her own conduct, or the conduct of others she enabled by her lack of judgment. The women of Scotland need and deserve better and she should do the right thing and resign”.

Rosemary Whyte was one of the co-founders of Scotland’s first rape crisis centre in Glasgow in the 1970s. She told The Times, “Sandy Brindley should resign as she has been responsible for accepting gender ideology and applying it to one of the most intimate and essential single-sex services for women brutalised by men. It has allowed men to be admitted to rape crisis centres whether as clients or as employees. We may never know exactly the amount of harm that has been caused by this approach. In founding the rape crisis centre we insisted it was to be run ‘by women and only for women’”.

The Daily Record reported on Brindley’s claim that she was unaware of the ever-bourgeoning demands that she should resign. “I didn’t see growing calls”, she told the paper. She then asked, “Are you going to speak to some rape survivors?”, adding, “I think that would be an important voice if you are talking about me resigning from Rape Crisis Scotland, to include them.” Within half an hour of this interaction, the paper received multiple emails from survivors advocating for Brindley.

Journalist, Euan MColm, commented on the ethics of this situation. “Sandy Brindley encouraging a Sunday Mail reporter to contact rape victims in order to protect her own skin is repulsive. I was a reporter for more than 20 years and I’d never have called a rape victim out of the blue.”

Shockingly, an article in The Daily Record published later in the week reported that Brindley not only told journalists to get in touch with rape survivors, but she offered to supply them with women’s contact details.

“Sandy Brindley asked the Sunday Mail if we wanted the phone numbers of women who used the centre to bolster her role… She said: ‘If you do want the numbers of some rape survivors let me know’”.

As reported by BBC News, Sandy Brindley is claiming that she “Knew nothing of issues at the centre until October last year”. All of the press and social media coverage focusing on Mridul Whadhwa’s unacceptable behaviour and despicable comments etc completely passed her by, then?

Brindley’s own organisation issued this scathing response (in a tweet which has now been deleted) to those expressing concern about Wadhwa’s behaviour in August 2021.

Brindley herself defended Wadhwa from criticism in social media posts dating from four and five years ago. (She now appears to have deleted her X/Twitter account.)

Brindley also told the BBC that Rape Crisis Scotland had not been involved in hiring Mridul Wadhwa. However, she went on to say that there was ‘no reason’ to have opposed the appointment at the time. (The fact that Wadhwa is a man who lied about his sex to secure a job in the women’s sector is surely reason enough?)

Brindley commented, “…Most rape crisis centres in Scotland provide support to men, women, trans people and non-binary people. There is no inherent reason within that, that you could not have a trans person working within a rape crisis centre.” She did add that it is ‘crucial’ for a rape crisis service to provide dedicated women-only spaces. However, if your definition of ‘women’ includes males, such sentiments are meaningless.

In Holyrood this week, Conservative MSP, Sue Webber, asked the Scottish government for its response to the scathing report on the ERCC’s failings. She said that there needs to be a ‘complete reset’ within ERCC, RCS and the government “So that women’s safety rather than gender ideology takes precedence when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls”. She also called for Sandy Brindley to resign, given that she had “Championed the very policies that have been the centre of this entire caustic situation”.

SNP Equalities Minister, Kaukab Stewart, replied by saying it is ‘totally unacceptable’ that survivors were let down by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre but added that the board should now be “given the space to continue to rebuild the service and confidence within it”. She also tried to distance the SNP from the ERCC scandal, commenting that employment processes and decisions were the responsibility of individual organisations, not the Scottish government. (The SNP’s vehement adherence to gender ideology, however, can only have fuelled the atmosphere which allowed trans activists like Wadhwa and Grindley to capture the women’s sector services and dictate agenda-based policies within them.)

Kirkaub Stewart, you may remember, was one of four SNP politicians photographed at a demonstration last year while standing amongst trans activists who held aloft signage that advocated violence against women.

In January 2023, SNP MPs, Alison Thewliss, Stewart McDonald and Kirsten Oswald, and SNP MSP, Kaukab Stewart, attended a rally in Glasgow to protest against the UK government’s veto of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. They were photographed standing right in front of two signs which promoted violence against ‘terfs’. One of the signs stated “I EAT TERFS & TORIES”. Another read “DECAPITATE TERFS” and was accompanied by an illustration of a guillotine.

When the pictures began circulating on social media, both Kaukab Stewart and Kirsten Oswald tweeted to say that they had been unaware of the signs while being photographed standing right in front of them. They can’t be very observant.

REDUXX: A trans-identified male who brutally attacked a teenage girl with a knife has been released after serving his prison sentence in the female estate.

In September 2022, Cassidy Honsinger, a 27-year-old trans identified male, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

According to documents provided to Reduxx by the Parole Board of Canada, Honsinger had been riding his bike in a park in Cornwall, Ontario. A 17 year old girl was sitting on a bench with her friend and, for a reason which isn’t known, she called out to Honsinger. He then approached her, pulled out a steak knife, and stabbed her repeatedly. Honsinger was observed casually walking home from the park after the attack and then later disposing of his knife in a nearby sewer drain.

While Honsinger’s victim survived this violent attack, she had to be rushed to hospital and treated for quarter-inch puncture wounds. Her impact statement to the court revealed that the injuries she sustained have caused debilitating damage to one of her hands and she suffers night terrors due to the trauma she experienced.

Honsinger was subsequently convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to two years in federal prison. During the trial, it transpired that he has a number of mental health issues, including schizophrenia, PTSD, anti-personality disorder, borderline intellectual functioning, cannabis use disorder and attention deficit disorder. He also has a previous ‘not criminally responsible’ designation which was applied in 2014 when he was charged with four counts of assault for strangling his own mother.

The Parole Board of Canada documentation seen by Reduxx states that, when not taking the correct medication, Honsinger becomes “Paranoid, experiences auditory and visual hallucinations, and becomes violent toward others and property”.

Although he has now been released from prison on probation, Reduxx discovered that Honsinger served at least a portion of his sentence in the female estate at the Grand Valley Institution for Women.

Heather Mason, a Canadian advocate for incarcerated women’s rights, told Reduxx that the female inmates there had been ‘walking on eggshells’ around Honsinger. Mason explained, “My source revealed that he had significant mental health problems, including schizophrenia, and the women were concerned that he might experience an episode and become violent towards them… They were extremely vigilant and kept their distance from him, changing their routines and demeanour to minimize contact and prevent provoking him.”

THE EXPRESS: A women’s rights group was been vilified and branded at odds with party values at the Liberal Democrat conference this weekend.

Liberal Voice for Women is a group of Liberal Democrat party members who campaign for women’s sex-based rights and spaces. Last year they were barred from the party conference. This year, however, the group took legal advice and forced organisers to give them a stall at the Lib Dem party conference in Brighton.

Instead of welcoming this opportunity to encourage debate and engage in discussion about women’s rights, party officials made it clear that the group was not welcome and tried to characterise their views as extreme and harmful.

Party president, Mark Pack, told the conference, “We are required by law to be consistent in how we handle views that are protected under Equality Law. I personally find it very frustrating the law does not give us greater scope to make political judgements over what we want to happen at our events… I regret that – when the legal advice is clear, we need to follow that. We do allow people into our events who disagree with some of our stances – there will be some people who feel unhappy and unsafe at this event as a result”.

He added that members would have the chance “To express where the overwhelming majority view is in the party, which is our strong support for trans rights” at the party’s spring conference next year.

These are the Liberal Voice for Women views which, according to Mark Pack, makes conference attendees feel ‘unhappy and unsafe’.

The group’s Chair, Dr Zoe Hollowood, told The Daily Mail, “It is important for senior leaders to make clear that our group hold beliefs that are worthy of respect in a democratic society, an opportunity to also defend the liberal way of respectful debate and disagreeing… Instead, what we have witnessed is an almost apologetic justification for allowing us a store based purely on legal advice, this prolongs the inference that our views are not acceptable… In reality, our views that women have the right to single-sex spaces and sports are the mainstream view, both in society and amongst Lib Dem voters. We also need to base policy on reality, not feelings, and the reality is that trans people are safe and welcome in our party”.

Now seems a good time to remind ourselves that Ferring Pharmaceuticals has been a ‘long-standing’ supporter of the Liberal Democrats for at least five years and has donated over £1.4 million to the party.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals manufactures the puberty blocker Triptolerin.

A California school board is enforcing mixed sex toilet facilities on elementary school children, despite vocal opposition from both parents and pupils.

Palo Alto is a city in Santa Clara County, California, and famous as the birth place of ‘silicon valley’. The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) has been in the news this week over its installation of ‘gender neutral’ toilets in a new elementary school.

For the last 18 months, Herbert Hoover Elementary School has been undergoing a rebuild and is due to reopen in spring 2025. While this construction has been ongoing, Hoover pupils have been attending classes on a different campus at Greendell School. The ‘gender neutral’ toilet facilities there have caused many pupils concern and mean that some children try to avoid using the bathrooms altogether while at school.

Parents have recently learned that PAUSD plans to install only mixed-sex toilets at Hoover’s new building. There will be no separate single-sex facilities there either.

As reported by Palo Alto Weekly, a group of parents created a petition demanding that the district provide single-sex and ‘gender-neutral’ restrooms at the new Hoover school to promote safety and inclusion for all children. 

This week, concerned parents and pupils attended a meeting of the Palo Alto Board of Education. Barely able to see over the podium, third-grade student, Rupali Rao, addressed the meeting. “I do not like that we have to share a bathroom with boys at Hoover,” she said. “A boy punched me in the stomach and spit on me. I really do not feel comfortable in an all-gender restroom. When I come to the bathroom I do not like that there is pee on the seats and toilet paper on the ground... My friends and I do not like that there are boys in the bathroom.” 

She is nine years old.

THE TELEGRAPH: A free speech group was evicted from a Brighton pub for expressing ‘the wrong’ opinions about gender ideology during a private meeting.

Free Speech Brighton, a subsidiary group of the Free Speech Union, had pre-booked a back room of the Southern Belle pub and hotel at which to hold a meeting. There were about 50 members in attendance. The group reported that they were evicted from the venue just after first speech because the landlord objected to the gender critical subject matter.

The first speaker, a retired teacher in her 50s, expressed her views that gender ideology should not be taught in schools and that parents should question what their children are learning about in sex education classes. She was just about to start taking questions when, it is reported, five security guards interrupted the meeting.

The group chair, Laura King, reported that “There was a rush of security guards coming into the room and demanding that we left”. She continued, “I said we had just finished listening to that speech and that there were two more on completely different subjects but they said the landlord had said we had to leave. One of them tried to grab the speaker and drag it out of the room, which was still plugged in.”

Videos shared on social media show one of the security guards shouting at attendees that anyone refusing to leave would be trespassing. In another video, he is asked where the complaint had originated and he replies ‘the management’.

The Free Speech Union intends to contact the pub owners and threaten legal action unless the group receives an apology and is allowed to rebook their meeting.

DAILY MAIL: A trans-identified male who murdered an 11 month old baby is to undergo ‘gender affirming’ surgery courtesy of the US public purse.

In 2001, Jonathan C. Richardson was arrested in connection with the death of his 11-month-old stepdaughter. The child had died in his care while her mother was at work.

When interviewed by the police, Richardson initially denied harming the child, claiming he had merely found her unresponsive. An autopsy subsequently revealed that the baby had died of asphyxiation by manual strangulation. Richardson would later tell a prison official “All I know is I killed the little fucking bitch”. He was found guilty of murder and is currently serving a 55 year prison sentence at the Branchville Correctional Facility in Indiana.

Richardson began identifying as transgender in 2020 and now calls himself Autumn Cordellioné. He has been receiving testosterone suppressants and cross-sex hormones courtesy of the US tax payer. Furthermore, the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) supplied him with make-up, women’s underwear and ‘form-fitting clothing’. He also demanded so-called ‘gender affirming’ surgery and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) supported him in this bid. In August 2023 ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the recently-adopted legislation which prevents the IDOC from providing ‘transgender surgeries’ to prison inmates.

(In the past the ACLU has been instrumental in the transferring of numerous violent and dangerous trans-identified males – such as Cristina Nichole Iglesias, Danielle Demers, Dejshontaye Would, Marina Volz and Andrew Rondle – to female prisons.)

Claiming to identify as a Muslim woman, Richardson also embarked on a separate lawsuit against the Chaplain at his prison after he was allegedly denied permission to wear a hijab.

Tony Gray has been a prison Chaplain for ten years, volunteering at the Branchville Correctional Facility prior to taking up an official role. According to court records, obtained by Reduxx, the complaint against him relates to an the incident which took place in May 2023 when Gray informed Richardson that he was not permitted to wear a hijab outside his cell. Richardson responded, “I wear the hijab in order to cover my head and ears for modesty purposes, as I am an Islamic practising transwoman.”

In the lawsuit, filed in November 2023, Richardson accuses Gray of violating his First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights. He is seeking the ability to wear his hijab anywhere in the prison as well as $150,000 in compensation. This lawsuit remains ongoing. Richardson’s suit against Gray remains ongoing. His legal action against the IDOC, however, has now been settled. In his favour.

This week, Judge Richard Young of the United States District Court of Indiana ruled that Richardson – referred to, of course, as ‘Autumn Cordellioné’ – had been subjected to ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ by being denied the various so-called ‘gender affirming’ surgeries he has demanded. An order was issued to the IDOC instructing it to provide Richardson with the surgery he demands at the earliest opportunity.

The court’s verdict declares that the statute added to Indiana’s legal code in 2023, barring the Department of Correction from providing ‘gender affirming’ surgeries for inmates, qualifies as ‘sex discrimination’. This decision sets a precedent and leaves the way clear for other prisoners to demand publicly funded ‘sex change’ surgeries.

According to a report from Reduxx, Linda Thomas, Richardson’s former wife and the mother of the baby girl he strangled to death, opposed his legal attempt to obtain ‘gender affirming’ surgery. She submitted a brief statement to the court expressing her fear that he could conceal his new ‘female’ identity from her. “I live in fear for myself and my children of the day (Richardson) is released from prison”, she said.

GENERAL-ANZEIGER: A trans-identified male with previous convictions for attacking women may escape an indecent exposure charge because he’s legally female.

A 56-year-old trans-identified male is currently on trial at the regional court in Bonn, accused of threatening behaviour, grievous bodily harm and of exposing his penis. However, it’s possible that the ‘exhibitionism’ (ie indecent exposure) charge may be dropped as the defendant is legally female and, under German criminal law, this crime can only be committed by men.

In October 2008, when still legally a man, the defendant attacked a 52-year-old woman, throwing her to the ground and sitting restraining her so he could rip off the boots she was wearing. A subsequent police search of his home revealed he had a large collection of women’s boots stashed there. The following year, he attacked a 54-year-old woman in an attempt to steal her boots. When she resisted, his violence escalated and he slashed her face and neck with a knife. He also left abrasions on her torso and tried to strangle her.

The man was convicted of aggravated extortion and grievous bodily harm and given a prison sentence of two years and four months. A psychiatric report deemed him at risk of escalating his violent behaviour and posing a danger to the public so the court recommended that he be confined to a psychiatric unit to undergo therapy. It was apparently around the time of this detention that he began ‘identifying as female’. He started taking cross-sex hormones, had breast implants and, though he kept his male genitals intact, he changed his legal sex in 2013.

In August 2021, it is alleged that the defendant followed a woman home from the shops, grabbed her from behind and put a knife to her throat. The victim fought back, sustaining cuts to her neck and hand. Luckily, she screamed loudly so her attacker beat a hasty retreat.

The man is also accused of ‘exhibitionism’ after allegedly exposing his penis to two women on a train in December 2022. He is currently standing trial in Bonn regional court on both charges. The charge of ‘exhibitionism’, however, may have to be dropped as the wording of Germany’s Criminal Code implies the crime can only be committed by a man. And the defendant is legally female.

It seems likely that the chamber will take several months to make a decision on this vital legal question. It seems ridiculous that a man can expose his penis to a woman and a court of law must debate whether or not he’s male.

Germany’s new Self-Determination Act (SBGG) comes into effect in November. This legislation will allow any man, even a convicted sex offender, to change his legal sex with a quick bit of paperwork at his local registry office. It will also mean that a fine of up to €10,000 could be imposed for revealing someone’s real name and true sex. Sexual predators will have the perfect Trojan horse. And this case – of a trans-identified male fetishist who physically attacks women with a knife – demonstrates just how dangerous that law is going to be.

CNEWS: Trans activists attempted to derail a conference on the harms of gender ideology by detonating an explosive device at the venue.

Marguerite Stern is a Paris-based artist, radical feminist campaigner and founder of Collages Feminicide, a movement which draws attention to male violence against women through art. She has long been the target of trans activist violence for speaking out against gender identity ideology. In 2020, for example, a female-only space Stern had set up was broken into and vandalised. In 2021 she was physically assaulted while campaigning in Paris against the sexual exploitation of women.

Earlier this year, Stern co-authored a book – Transmania: An Investigation into the Excesses of Transgender Ideology – together with journalist, author and women’s rights activist, Dora Moutot. In May, they hosted a conference at Assas University in Paris. The event was besieged by trans activists who, despite a police presence, openly made death threats against the two women chanting “A terf, a bullet, social justice”.

This week, Marguerite Stern spoke at a conference – Comment L’idéologie Transgenre Détruit des Vies? (How Does Transgender Ideology Destroy Lives?) – at a venue in France. The event, intended to discuss the risks of medical transition and the harms of aggressive trans activism, was held at a private school, the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP), in Lyon.

Of course, trans activists rather proved the organisers’ point by trying to derail the event with tactics little short of terrorism. At 4am on the morning of the conference, there was an explosion and a fire started in the electricity meter housing of a building adjacent to the ISSEP. According to Marguerite Stern, there are domestic residences above the school where people were asleep at the time of the explosion. Luckily, firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze before anyone was hurt.

In addition to causing the obvious damage, the explosion meant that residences in the area were without power. The investigation into the explosion is ongoing, but CCTV footage appears to show an individual detonating the device.

Trans activists also vandalised the ISSEP building. Insults and slogans – such as ‘Dirty TERF’ and ‘TERFs out of our struggle’ – were painted on the school’s walls.

Regardless of the threats, sabotage and destruction of property, the conference still went ahead and Marguerite Stern very bravely spoke at it.

As reported by Lyon Mag, despite a very heavy police presence, trans activists still turned out in huge numbers to protest the event.

THE DAILY MAIL: Trans activists tried to sabotage and derail a Let Women Speak event, throwing a lit flare at attendees and physically attacking Kellie-Jay Keen.

Let Women Speak held one of its now legendary events in Sheffield this week.

Of course, the event was besieged by trans activists who tried derail and sabotage it. The (mostly male and mostly masked) protesters tried to stifle women’s voices with their usual tactics of shouting through laid hailers, chanting puerile insults and blasting amplified music.

At one point, aggressive male trans activists threw a lit flare into the crowd of women who’d gathered at the event.

While Kellie-Jay Keen was in the middle of setting up the YouTube live stream, a man in the crowd assaulted her, suddenly running up behind her and throwing a can of tomato soup over her head.

The incident was captured by YouTubers, Street Hawk and Marti Blagborough.

Of course, the cowardly attacker tried to flee the scene, but he didn’t count on the mettle of the women present, some of whom chased him through the streets while attracting the attention of nearby police officers.

A suspect – Ben Lindsay – was soon apprehended and arrested.

The Daily Mail reported that Ben Lindsay is “A university graduate who boasts online about being Southampton Solent’s first Student Equality & Diversity associate”. However, Solent University later issued a statement that, despite his online claims, Lindsay has not worked for them for a number of years.

South Yorkshire Police later issued a statement:

“A 34-year-old man has been charged with two counts of assault by beating following an incident in Sheffield city centre earlier today (21 September).

Ben Lindsay, of Fitzwilliam Street, Barnsley, was arrested by officers earlier this afternoon during a demonstration in Barkers Pool.

He has since been released on conditional bail and will appear before Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on 25 November.”

Of course KJK continued unbowed.

She told The Daily Mail, “I felt quite defiant. It’s so silly because it’s just soup, but I just felt then it doesn’t really matter what they do. They’ve just proven my point, and we have to get on with this and let women speak”. She added, “It’s all tied up in intimidating women so we don’t feel like we can speak in public”.

At the end of the event, the trans activists chanted ‘Fuck you, fuck you very, very much’ at a group of women who just wanted an opportunity to talk about their lives.

Both sides, eh?

See you next week.

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