After recent set-backs, the underground network of “uterus-havers”had scored a significant victory in Belfast. In a city and a country with a history of division and civil war and continuing tensions between political parties, amidst a breakdown in the effective operation of Stormont, there is at least unanimity amongst all parties on one issue. From the DUP to Sinn Fein, everyone agrees, do not say a public word on the question of whether one half of the human sex are having their rights eroded. 

Facing erasure in language, is it any wonder that “women” (as they were once known) are finding it difficult to freely meet, watch and discuss our film Adult Human Female, a documentary in defence of women’s rights? So it was that the Belfast chapter of the Women’s Rights Network undertook the task of showing the film with military level secrecy, inviting only those in their networks and trusting tight-lipped others who wanted to know more about the issue. 

This is not the first time a screening of the film has had to be carried out with military precision befitting a guerrilla organisation plotting the overthrow of a tinpot dictator. A screening arranged by Salon Sisters in Brighton took the precaution of vetting ticket holders to weed out any potential spies for trans rights activists. As with the Belfast screening, the venue was a closely guarded secret, announced only an hour or so before the screening was due, to minimise the amount of time protesters would have to pressure the venue into cancelling or generally harassing women with intimidatory protests. In the case of the Brighton screening, Salon Sisters engaged in that well known military tactic called disinformation. As a result the protesters all gathered in the wrong place at the wrong time — and, we were reliably informed, made their way home when it began to rain.

The political illiteracy takes double-think to new levels on the Orwellian meter

The media has labelled our film “controversial” because trans rights activists have called it “transphobic”. As with the erasure of women from language, so this abuse of language reveals much about how the Republic of Gilead continues to be built brick by brick in plain sight. It is “controversial” or “transphobic’”to hear women speak calmly, rationally, with evidence and reason on their side about their concerns, because women (or rather, “cis-women” — another perversion of language) have become not only a subset of their own sex, but an oppressor class. It could not be clearer that the word “women” has become equated with discrimination and exclusion; so women meeting and insisting that sex matters must by definition be a proscribed event. Women who defend sex as a material reality that matters, are now equivalent in the minds of many self-identified progressives and radicals, as fascists who must be “no-platformed”. The political illiteracy of this position takes double-think to new levels on the Orwellian meter.

Our film was first cancelled by trans rights activists who gathered en masse outside the Sherwood Methodist Hall in Nottingham in November 2022. Women from the local area and from as far away as Sheffield had come to see the film in public, to meet, to discuss, to strengthen their cause. The minister came in fresh from talking to the 80 plus trans rights activists outside, however. His face, white with fear or anger — it was hard to say which — announced before his lips moved that the screening would not go ahead. It appeared that the proclamation on the church’s website that it is a “diverse and inclusive place, caring for and welcoming all” does not refer to biological women who were not cared for, included or welcomed.

At Edinburgh University shortly afterwards, in the city that was the very seat of the Enlightenment, a post-Enlightenment gloom settled in. Student activists prevented the fascists (cunningly disguised as ordinary middle-aged women) from freely assembling. As one of the activists proclaimed, without a hint of self-reflection, they were not censoring the women because, of course, they could watch the film online at home.

Along with universities, churches, community centres, cinemas and museums have all been terrified into submission by those who are convinced that they are on the “right side of history”. Threatened by the planned screening in Brighton, the trans rights activists phoned as many potential venues as they could think of to warn darkly that the “community” would not easily forgive them should they make the mistake of allowing the screening of our film to go ahead. In nearby Lewes, a cinema booked and then cancelled a screening when staff revolted. On Guernsey, the museum thought the film did not align with their values, which obviously did not extend to allowing women to meet.

In Manchester, the local Women’s Rights Network was turned down by the Anthony Burgess Foundation, ignored by Friends Meeting House and booked then cancelled by the Cross Street Chapel. This Unitarian Church reminds us on its website that the core tenets of the faith are “Freedom, Reason and Tolerance”. There was little of any of those three words afforded to the Women’s Rights Network.

The liberal and left media hear no evil, see no evil

The Chapel did show at least Freedom and Tolerance to trans rights activist and cartoonist Sophie Labelle, who was scheduled to speak there. Sophie also has a self-described fetish for nappies — which “Ms Labelle” draws on furry creatures. If the Chapel was unaware that its event might raise safeguarding issues for children and young people, it was made aware of it by women who were furious that another attempt at screening our film had been shut down. The chapel, headed by the Reverend Cody Coyne, doubled down and insisted that the event would go ahead, only to later cancel, citing security concerns. Perhaps the truth was that Reason had called from central office and given instructions? Sophie, though, managed to rearrange the venue to another one in Manchester, so it is good to know that our civil spaces are available to everyone. 

Meanwhile, the liberal and left media hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil. Whilst we are constantly informed that cancel culture is a figment of our overheated imaginations, our freedom to screen the film in public, to share information, express ideas and consider experiences is denied. At the same time women’s economic and sexual subordination carries on apace. Of course, there is very little women can do about this if they are unable to construct themselves as a collective political subject. It’s almost as though there were an agenda here. 

Women have been driven underground. If they wish to meet together and watch our film in a public space, they must conduct complex guerrilla operations arranged by stealth. The revolt of those who now cannot be named is now on. 

Adult Human Female is available to watch on YouTube — but it would also be nice if it were available to watch in public.