Another week, another successful legal challenge — and another dent in the armour of extreme transgender ideology. This time, the weapon was a case against Nottingham City Council (NCC), who I threatened to sue for de-platforming me from one of its public libraries.
This summer, I had been asked to speak about male violence towards women at a library in Nottingham, in a working-class area, similar to where I had grown up. The talk sold out with mainly young, working-class women planning to attend. But while I was on the train up to the event, I was told it had been cancelled. In fact, it was made clear that I and the organisers would be forcibly removed if we entered the library.
I don’t need a room to make my point, and so in the spirit of feminist resistance, I made it in the library’s car park. Many brave women were there, as well as the predictable group of trans activists. They rocked up, making a show of themselves by playing loud music, shouting slogans and, during my talk, one man pushed right up close to me — close enough to touch — in an attempt to distract me. It didn’t work.
The same day, NCC released a statement: “Nottingham is an inclusive city and as a council we will support our LGBT community and have committed to supporting trans rights as human rights through Stonewall. We did not want the use of one of our library buildings for this event, taking place during Pride month, to be seen as implicit support for the views held by the speaker which fly in the face of our position on transgender rights.”
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I have been an out and proud lesbian since the age of 15, and have campaigned against anti-gay bigotry for decades. So the statement was incredibly insulting, if not entirely surprising. In recent years, the “holy month of Pride” seems to be focused only on trans issues, with lesbians so far down the pecking order we feel distinctly unwelcome.
I think something is starting to shift though. As I was speaking to this angry and vibrant crowd of women, messages of support began to flood in, including offers from lawyers to represent me if I wanted to sue. Since I am now so thoroughly sick of being called a fascist and nazi, i decided to go for it.
A few days after the carpark debacle, an email was forwarded to me from Cllr Rosemary Healy in response to a complaint about the cancellation:
“We cannot grant a platform to a public figure who has repeatedly expressed transphobic views. Not only are Ms Bindel’s past statements incredibly hateful to the trans community; she has also demonstrated homophobic and biphobic views in the past that we take issue with.”
Her clarification was helpful. In cancelling me in the way and for the reasons that they did, NCC was in breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010. It was also in breach of the substantive duties under the Equality Act applying to the Council in its exercise of public functions and as a service provider, for which the Council is susceptible to judicial review.
[su_unherd_related fttitle="Suggested reading" author="Maya Forstater"]https://staging.unherd.com/2021/07/the-transgender-lobby-wants-to-rewrite-the-law/[/su_unherd_related]
My very presence at the library, regardless of the subject of my talk, was deemed dangerous and traumatising. As such, my legal team cited the ruling in Forstater v Centre for Global Development Europe, the case in which Maya Forstater successfully sued her employers for pushing her out of her consultancy role because of allegations of transphobia by colleagues.
Initially, NCC refused to admit that I was covered by the same protection as Forstater: “The Tribunal held that Ms Forstater’s views were consistent with the law [but] the same cannot be said of the views as to trans people expressed by the Claimant. There is no evidence that the Claimant’s views are widely-shared, and certainly not among respected academics. Indeed, the Claimant’s views are often deprecated.”
Their stupidity beggars belief. NCC’s evidence of such “deprecation” was a 12-year-old article by a trans activist who, unsurprisingly, disagrees with me about matters of sex and gender.
As well as issuing an apology, NCC has since accepted that it acted unlawfully in cancelling the event. As part of the claim, we also requested that NCC carries out a review of its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy, policies and procedures, with assistance from an external body. This is because it was clear that the demands and rights of trans issues trumped those of any other group that faces discrimination. It is also apparent that NCC felt it had the right to review and cancel bookings on the basis of a speaker’s reputation.
This clearly unsettled the trans activists. They began to deny that we had won at all, pulling apart the phrase “procedurally unlawful”, suggesting that the phrase means something akin to “unlawful lite”. In this context, there is no real difference between an action being procedurally unlawful and substantively unlawful. The decision to ban me resulted in NCC taking actions which it should not have taken.
The line, “NCC has agreed that, if Nottingham Women for Change seeks to seek [SIC] to make a booking at any NCC venue by way of a fully completed booking form, the Council will make a fresh decision in response to such request upon a lawful basis,” has also been wilfully misinterpreted, with trans activists claiming that it is phrased in a way that would allow NCC to find a legal way to stop me from speaking at a subsequent event.
This is such an important win because any future refusal will be open to legal challenge. And other local authorities will have to think twice before deciding to de-platform or ban a speaker because they have decided their legal and reasonable views are offensive.
For years, trans activists have been trying to intimidate feminists and other refuseniks of trans ideology but we have fought back hard. And various organisations that have been brainwashed by Stonewall, including Garden Court Chambers, successfully sued by the black lesbian barrister Allison Bailey, have been given a legal kicking of late.
Women’s hard-won rights are not up for grabs. And I think the message might be finally getting through. So let this be a lesson to all councils. You need to follow equality law as it is, not the law as Stonewall wants it to be. Or you will be sued. And you may well lose.
Good to see Julie Bindel seeking a legal remedy against a bigoted decision to exclude her and that she seems to have carried the day. Legal remedies against the suppression of free expression should be sought more frequently.
‘Cllr Rosemary Healy in response to a complaint about the cancellation:
“Ms Bindel … has also demonstrated homophobic and biphobic views in the past that we take issue with.”’
Julie Bindel has demonstrated no homophobic or biphobic views whatsoever, and should seek legal redress from Cllr Healy for this flagrant libel.
Cllr Rosemary Healy has posted these sentiments:
“For me to be able to pick up a book and read the carefully considered words of key figures in any country or period of history at will is thrilling.
Creativity can unlock potential talent and promote our shared culture, which brings communities together at a time when so much of life is in isolation much to our detriment. Nottingham has much to celebrate culturally but we must build on this or risk losing it.”
From this one might conclude she is a keen free speech advocate who wishes to “bring communities together”.
However, she has form having been suspended as a Labour Councillor for retweeting a modified Tory poster suggesting Tory plans led to the death camp of Auschwitz. She claimed not to have noticed the destination indicated. So clearly not too hot on detail but high on hypocrisy if you compare her words above with her attitude to Tory’s and Julie Bindel ( a juxtaposition I never thought I would see).
Julie Bindel is certainly not homophobic as anyone with the slightest acquaintances with her writing can observe.
I’m learning very quickly that “believing in your truth” means no truth is actually necessary to the truth.
Just as the torturer O’Brien in 1984 wants Winston to agree to whatever the Party says is the truth at any time so we are being taught that there is no truth but that which is officially endorsed. We all know that a man can’t become a woman by stating he is one or even by undergoing surgery and chemical castration but the dial is being turned to ensure that we accept the official lie, whatever that is. At present the Stonewall official lie is that a man simply has to declare he is a woman but the actual official lie has not progressed that far yet. As far as Ms Healy is concerned Julie Bindel is an official enemy of the people and so must be homophobic despite the ample evidence to the contrary.
In the struggle session model, the dictatorship of the proletariat is infallible. Thus, attempting to defend yourself is an admission of guilt, and a counter-revolutionary act in and of itself.
When a previous article appeared on Unherd not long since where she outlined what had happened with NCC, i expressed the hope that she would do exactly what she’s done.
It’s one victory, but an important one; not least because it sends a vital ‘pushback’ signal against Woke-captured bodies and institutions who seek to silence perfectly legitimate positions on sex, gender and protected spaces for biological women.
I’ll express a further hope; that Julie uses this victory as a springboard for further pushback, and as a beacon for others to do the same.
Hear hear!
“We did not want the use of one of our library buildings for this event, taking place during Pride month, to be seen as implicit support for the views held by the speaker”
The problem with stupid comments like this, is that if the council does not allow events because it would be seen as implicit support for the speaker’s views, then it follows that the views expressed by speakers at events which it does allow can legitimately be seen as endorsed by the council. It can’t have it both ways.
It also means they would have to scrutinise every single speaker (going back to when?) to ensure they were not guilty of wrongthink.
Well said. I am wholeheartedly in support of Trans rights, and have family and friends who are transgender. I also accept that hate speech is something that must not be allowed free reign, especially in public properties. However, the hard fought rights of LGB and T as well as those of all women, and indeed the emancipation of all men and women, cannot be subservient to one section of society exclusively and without contention. When this happens especially within and between a group with shared goals, such as the LGBT community, then it echoes the madness of the far left and their pursuit of ideological purity with no dissent allowed. I congratulate Julie on winning a small but significant battle on behalf of all citizens of this country, to ensure that the freedom of speech and assembly are not “rubber stamped” away without, at the very least, the right to open appeal and discussion. Otherwise, where lies the future of one of our basic freedoms?
I agree but wonder if the “trans” activists have any shared goals with the LGBT community or indeed any other community. They are merely a violent rent-a-mob that happens to follow Labour/snp/swp ideologies. In the 70s the same crowd would join F Troop or the NF. Attracting such supporters should worry Labour/SNP but i expect they are either not bothered or worse quite proud of the glamour they think rubs off from the violence they’ve unleashed.
That’s simply your bias-where is any evidence that such people joined labour,et al? The trouble with all this stuff is that “conservatives” get to join is and bash the LGBT community under the guise of “support”.
My niece declared herself transgender about 18 months ago. She is a young teenager, and more than anything needs protection from the unsavoury individuals behind organisations like Stonewall and above all Mermaids.
Well done Julie! Nottingham City Council define “inclusive” as meaning they exclude anyone who dares to differ from Stonewall.
And please ensure that this report and the details of the case are transmitted to the Local Goverment Association (LGA) the representative organisation of Councils in England.
Excuse me, Julie, for catching up with the news a few weeks late, but how heartening it was to read about the blow you struck for free speech, sanity, and against the hateful and cowardly spirit of censorship that’s hovering over so many institutions.
Great job!
Well done Julie. Keep up the good work.
Very pleased to hear. However the Equality Law is anything but – we now have white heterosexual males not equal before the law. So should one protest against say their children having a trans drag queen in their literacy lesson, what would happen?
– Author Unknown
Well done indeed, Julie. People such as Cllr Healy should be made to state exactly what ‘homophobic and biphobic views in the past’ Julie was supposed to have made. Same with all those disgusting Twitter trolls screaming (sometimes literally it seems) for JK Rowling’s blood. My contempt for the Healy’s of this world knows no bounds.
It’s truly shocking. Keep up the good work
Well done Julie. A great and important victory.
It’s that phrase ‘through Stonewall’. Like ‘through Jesus Christ’. All that was missing was the Amen.
Has this been settled out of court or what?
Anyway, thanks for sharing the news as I had not heard.
Not surprising you hadn’t heard the news. The BBC website did carry an announcement, but you would have had to drill down through England | Local News | Regions | Nottingham to find it.
Let trans people eat trans food, and see how long they last by denying basic biology.
Congratulations, and good luck for the future
You know what? For the many of the trans-activists this is just fun, as in, ‘Everyone loves a good demo.’ For the rest of us it’s deadly serious.
Is there somewhere we can read the correspondence with the council in full?
Well done , Jules!
Well done Julie
Cultural Marxists have thrown lesbians under the bus and replaced them with delusional autogynephile men. In time they too will be thrown under the bus, in favor of some other group that can be exploited to undermine Western sanity.
In the short term, the future is not female. The future is mad men pretending to be female.
Well done, Ms. Bindel.
This is fantastic news. We need to keep bringing these claims and especially some punitive libel and defamation suits against those with the smallest of brains but the largest and loudest of mouths.
You rock Ms Bindel!
Interesting to see the emphasis NCC place on ‘respected academics’. Clearly the route they intend to go down is to have a few ‘academics’ acting as gatekeepers of accepted speech.
Congratulations on your success. It is not just for feminism but for all. When trans activism is defeated and feminism resumes its place as the loudest voice in public discourse, this case will be a useful precedent for anyone silenced by feminists. Free Speech For All Not Just The Few.
We should not forget how deminists shut down debate and discussion of men’s issues for decades.
“Respected academics”? By whom I ask.
So many comments to make, so little comment space, I’ll try to be concise.
If Julie Blindel has been an out and proud lesbian since age 14 (~1976), and has been fighting against the misogynistic patriarchy since then, and is still fighting against misogynistic patriarchy in 2022, is it the same misogynistic patriarchy or a completely different one ?
If it’s still the same old patriarchy, then what happened to all the old rules of the literal old school patriarchs such as Abraham and Jacob ? And of course Moses, who (by tradition) wrote in Deuteronomy 22:5;
Personally I believe that Ms. Blindel’s problems don’t come from the 70’s lesbian feminists failing, but rather from them succeeding.
You bought the ticket, now you take the ride.
What an insightful comment. I love Douglas Wilson’s saying “It’s Christ or chaos.” Obviously chaos comes in many flavors.
Y’know, I really don’t care. Fight it out among yourselves.
I remember feminists shutting down men giving talks and lectures. Don’t expect me to sympathise.
I don’t sympathise either. But these legal precedents can be used against feminists when they return
Interesting observation.
Yes. The Red Pill was cancelled all over the Western World. Try talking about female violence in uni. Feminists started all this rubbish to begin with.
Absolutely spot on. I hope they stretch it out for a good few years before white blokes get blamed for everything again.
Feminists love posing as free speech advocates but they shut down any discussion of men’s issues