Truth is a complete defence against libel or...
Why the sexual abuse of children is baked into the queer theory cake.
Why Paisley’s rhetoric enables paedophiles.
In the wake of Paisley dropping his libel claim against me, I have decided to publish, lightly edited, the entire of my defence. It is a large document dealing with complicated issues, so I am publishing it in manageable, edited sections. The theme of the first few posts: I called Paisley a paedophile enabler; he sued me for libel; he dropped his claim based on the defence I set out. Truth is, unfortunately for him, a complete defence against libel.
It's worth noting that Paisley thinks that, aside from calling his rhetoric paedophile enabling, I called him a paedophile. First up, I’m not even sure that “a paedophile” is a thing you can be. There are sexual crimes against children and those who commit them. I don’t want to attach an identity to that. But even if I were to use that language, I deny ever using that language against him. Rather, I think that his language and his arguments consistently make the public square a safer place for those who would commit sex crimes against children, and a more difficult place for those who would uphold safeguarding boundaries.
I am publishing my (edited) defence because I think it is illustrative of an important point: trans ideology is, at its core, paedophile enabling. It is a predator’s charter, incompatible with the safeguarding of children. It isn’t just that a few trans rights activists have made safeguarding mistakes: the abuse of children is baked into the queer theory cake.
Although this series of documents focuses on the tweets of one individual, you will see themes that are repeated again and again throughout the debate. I hope that Paisley dropping his action against me will embolden and empower others to call a spade a spade. It is vital that we hold a line against this kind of language in the public square. We need strong voices, ready to call out this kind of rhetoric, consequences be damned.
I have typed out Paisley’s tweets instead of including screenshots, as ridiculously, he may be able to have this post removed if it has his photograph in it. I do have the screenshots though, if anybody wants them.
This is part one of several – starting with “least offensive” and progressing on.
The Staniland Question
The Staniland Question was framed by activist Helen Staniland. It is: “do you believe that male sexed people should have the right to be naked in a room with (teenage) girls in a state of undress?” The point of the question is to highlight that, under self ID laws, any male can simply declare himself to be female, get a gender recognition certificate, and get access to female changing rooms without having surgery or taking any hormones.
It is not a thought experiment or a hypothetical issue. The law already exists in Ireland and in other places. There are moves towards it in the UK. It has recently been passed in Scotland. There are many instances (including the Wii Spa incident in California USA, 24th June 2021),[1] where men with a history of sex offences have said that they were trans to get access to women and girls in a state of undress, and then used the claim to a trans identity to garner the sympathy of passers-by when confronted.
The Staniland Question has been called by Paisley a “transphobic dog whistle,” but in fact it is not about trans people at all. Self ID laws are designed to help trans people, but predators, trans or otherwise, can exploit such laws to gain access to women and girls in a state of undress. Sexual predators exploiting rules is hardly unusual. It is to be expected that they will find any loophole they can. The misuse of such laws by predatory men is always the expense of trans people as well as women and girls.
Fionne Orlander is a transwoman (a male who would prefer to be a woman). Fionne has had full genital reassignment surgery. Fionne campaigns for “third spaces,” while using the men’s facilities. Amongst other considerations, Fionne does not want to be tarred with the same brush as predators who are using Self ID laws as a smokescreen. Unlike Fionne, 90-96% of transwomen keep their male genitalia.[2] Full medical “transition” is rare.
The advent of “transwomen” who have no surgery and take no hormones has led to a lack of a clear definition of what it means to be trans. Stonewall’s definition is hardly helpful in clearing the matter up. They say, “Trans is an umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.” The astute reader will notice that no definition of “gender” is given, and that the definition relies on biological sex as assigned rather than observed at birth. Either way, what it means to “be trans” is not easily or clearly grasped.
Taken together, in the context of these facts, self ID gives adult males, who still have their male genitalia, access to women and girls in changing rooms in a state of undress. The facts outlined above also give those males an excuse when confronted, to say that they are trans. In the Wii Spa incident, this led to passers-by siding not with the women and girls who were the victim of a sexual offence, but with the offender.
This is a profound and novel safeguarding problem for women and girls.
Paisley was involved in debates around the Staniland Question, and then the Wii Spa Incident in the summer of 2021. In the context of those debates, eight days after the Wii Spa incident, on the 2nd July 2021, he tweeted the following.
“This whole moral panic stranger danger thing about other people’s genitalia is mad. It’s practically a condition, let’s call it stanilanditis.”
The tweet was made in the context of other, well-regarded individuals on Paisley’s side arguing that the nine-year-old girl involved should simply have “averted her eyes,” [3] or “not stared at a stranger’s junk.”[4] To be absolutely clear, in the Wii Spa Incident, “a stranger’s junk” refers to the semi erect penis of a man with a history of sexual offences, being exposed in the women’s changing room to four women and a nine-year-old girl.
The meaning of Paisley’s tweet is that anybody who has a problem with this is “mad,” in the grip of a “moral panic,” and most egregiously, “obsessed with other people’s genitalia.” The effect of Paisley’s tweet is to shame those with safeguarding concerns, and to make it more difficult for them to raise issues in future. This breaking down normal and necessary boundaries around mixed sex nudity, between adults and children, directly enables paedophiles.
Further, this tweet shames woman for raising safeguarding concerns about male nudity in the changing rooms of women and girls, and mocks Helen Staniland, a tireless campaigner for single sex spaces. It is difficult to see how this could have any other effect than emboldening and enabling child molesters, and those males wishing to expose themselves to women and girls in a state of undress, and get a “free pass” to do so without consequence.
When Helen Staniland was permanently suspended from Twitter for asking the Staniland Question, Paisley tweeted,
“Twitter finally permanently suspended Helen Staniland, of the infamous transphobic dogwhistle the Staniland Question. What a time to be alive.”[5]
In this tweet, Paisley repeats his shaming of Helen by libellously calling her transphobic, He also calls a normal safeguarding question a “transphobic dogwhistle,” presumably with the aim of stopping people from asking it.
A reasonable person might conclude that Paisley celebrates the silencing of safeguarding campaigners and their exclusion from the public square. The fewer women there are upholding safeguarding standards and asking difficult questions, the safer the platform is for child molesters. If you celebrate the suspension of a woman who argues tirelessly in favour of safeguarding, you are directly enabling paedophiles.
Paisley’s tweet breaks down barriers between men, and women and girls. It puts the blame that belongs to adult male predators in women’s bathrooms onto the women and girls who are victimised by them. It normalises sex offenders showing their genitals to children. It provides a justification for men who engage in gross indecency by exposing their genitals to women and girls they do not know.
I make no statement about why anybody would want to make such a statement. It is not possible to tell whether somebody is, themselves, a danger – or whether they have, for example, been groomed by somebody who is a danger, or whether they have been abused to the extent that they lack all boundaries, or whether they simply don’t understand the implications of the arguments they are making. Whatever the motivation, the effect in the debate is the same.
Shaming women upholding safeguarding boundaries as “obsessed with other people’s genitalia” and “in the grip of a moral panic,” is, whatever the intention, directly paedophile enabling, and capable of the interpretation that Paisley has no appreciation for appropriate boundaries between men and women, adults and children.
[1] The Wi Spa scandal is worse than we thought - spiked (spiked-online.com)
[2] Demographic and temporal trends in transgender identities and gender confirming surgery - PMC (nih.gov)
[3]Journalist Laurie Penny
[4] Activist, Zinnia Jones
[5] The tone of this tweet also speaks to allegations of bullying which I will discuss in later documents
Terrific stuff, Ceri. Thank you so much for sharing.
So important to note that their motivation doesn't matter, it's the effect of what they do that we should be concerned by. And Drag Queen Story Hour is exactly the same thing - doesn't matter if any specific Drag Queen has bad intent or not. It's the blurring of boundaries and normalisation of the behaviours that is the problem.
There's a strange kind of prudishness among trans activists that I think can only be understood in this light. They are (or act) *disgusted* by references to genitals or sex but at the same time boast wildly about their own (fictional) non-conventional sex practices. They simultaneously accuse us of being prudes because we have such boring things as sexual orientations yet deviant because our preferences might involve genitalia and sometimes we mention them. Just yesterday someone on a thread used a gif of an obviously female, obviously naked (and obviously not real) silhouette to illustrate a hypothetical question. The TAs went hog wild decrying it as filth and abuse.
It's all about erasing boundaries because that's what's required to support an incoherent ideology. We have to be extravagantly sexual with everyone, open to sex with everyone, but must never mention the sex part. Because that reminds us that there are, after all, boundaries.
Besides, *we all know* that they are totally TERFs in the sheets.