Last Monday, 6 Lib Dems ran the gauntlet of unhinged and unfounded accusations of "hate speech" to debate conference motion F32, "Supporting Trans and Non-Binary People in the Liberal Democrats." 1/22

Our objection was to lines 14 + 15, "Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are non-binary" We feel this is a matter of conscience, and goes far beyond what is reasonable to ask conference to sign up to in the context of a "business motion". 2/22

13 of us had signed a request for a separate vote on these lines, to enable all Lib Dems to pledge support for trans people without compromising their integrity of belief. The request was rejected, as documented by @DebbieHayton here. https://unherd.com/thepost/lib-dems-squash-internal-revolt-on-trans-rights/ 3/22

The 6 of us who spoke against the motion spoke to the party's philosophical heart. We spoke of values of reason, truth and freedom. We spoke of true equality, and against any approach that means some groups get to be more equal than others. 4/22

My speech was about the distortions in language that we are seeing take place in the name of "inclusion". My point was that these distortions lead us to a place where absurdity rules. This is a dangerous place to go.
These are some lines from my speech: 5/22

The trouble with words is they are, by definition, exclusive and "exclusionary". They distinguish one thing from another. They discriminate. They are neither kind, nor unkind. They can't be held responsible for the boundaries they set, however hurtful, painful or annoying. 6/22

"Trans women are women!" What is trans? The Lib Dem guide to transphobia says that we adhere to Stonewall’s definition. This includes "transgender, non-binary, gender queer, cross dressers..." "Cross dressers"? So male cross dressers are women? Really? 7/22

What about ‘Woman”? What is a woman? This question has flummoxed many a politician. Unwilling to touch the now transphobic dictionary definition of a woman, they grasp at abstractions “A woman is a gender identity… it is something akin to a man… but the opposite.” 8/22

“It’s more complicated than you think” “Have you heard about intersex?” “Don’t you know some people are born in the wrong body?” “This question is a dog whistle”. “A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman”.
And so it goes round and round ad infinitum. 9/22

Those pesky bigoted women with their same question every time, they won’t let it lie. Seems they think it’s somehow important that women continue to be adult human females. They put it on billboards, stickers, t-shirts. 10/22

A Ted Talk by Juno Dawson helpfully explained to us bigots word women is outdated and not inclusive enough. To fix this, the ‘e’ shall be replaced by an ‘x’ and that shall be our word. "Womixin?" "Womzyn?"

Ok. So trans women are womzyn? No! Bigot! Trans women are women. 11/22

We've been offered alternative words for our sex: “People with vaginas”, “people with a cervix”, "womb-havers", “chestfeeders”. @jk_rowling famously queried the ethics of referring to women as “people who menstruate”. A woman is a body part? A biological function? Really? 12/22

What could be the unintended consequence of the word “woman” becoming tabooo? 13/22

History has taught us of the grave dangers of dehumanizing language. Does referring to people as body parts count? From the violent reaction JK Rowling experienced for daring to express a view, it seems the language of dehumanisation is doing exactly as you might expect. 14/22

One Lib Dem online said that JKR deserved to be “castigated” for her various actions. I questioned the language – somewhat medieval, no? Others leapt to the member’s defence. "Castigation is a proportionate term."
Somebody bring the ducking stool! 15/22

If some people want JKR to be "castigated" it is because she set a boundary that they dislike. Some people do not like it when women set boundaries. 16/22

In response we see death threats, rape threats. We see threats of suicide, we see “look what you made me do!”, we see attacks on women’s livelihoods. We see unsolicited photographs of genitalia. We see threats of expulsions from political parties. We see actual expulsions. 17/22

JK Rowling and other "terfs" like us are the modern day version of the so-called common scold: disagreeable women of the Dark Ages who protested too much. Some of us are protesting today because we think words are important. 18/22

We believe the word woman is still needed and wanted by women today for clarity, for dignity, for freedom and for humanity. 19/22

Voltaire said “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”. 20/22

Let’s support trans people, while also supporting reason and truth. Let’s vote against this motion, against magical thinking and demand a better motion that respects everyone. 21/22

The motion was passed: 520 in favour v 74 against. 163 abstained. The video is here at 6:29:35 https://tinyurl.com/ybmo5yfq  22/22