To sign your name to this letter, go to: www.vancouverislandspeaks.org/about

~~~

The Royal Canadian Legion
National Headquarters
86 Aird Place
Ottawa, ON K2L 0A1
October 3rd, 2024

To whom it may concern,

On Saturday, September 14, 2024, Vancouver Island Speaks! (VIS) hosted their fifth event in B.C., discussing the debate and issues surrounding gender identity ideology, women’s rights, free speech, and kids’ safety. These events aim to bring a much suppressed, misrepresented, and censored conversation out into the open, and allow Canadians of all stripes to learn more, hear from other community members, and share their views and concerns. All five events have been well-attended, peaceful, and inspiring. In this case, after having lost our first venue, the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 292 in Victoria hosted us.

The women who speak on these panels draw from their experiences growing up female in this world, as well as from research, data, and news reports. Most of us never expected to have to fight for our rights and spaces in 2024, as women, nor our right to free expression, as Canadians. We never anticipated having to stand up publicly and insist men not be given access to women’s sports, prisons, shelters and change rooms. We certainly never imagined being protested, vilified, harassed, censored, libelled, and threatened for doing so, painted as criminals by our own “feminist” governments, but here we are.

Holding these events has always been a challenge. In every single case, the venues who
agree to host us are subject to harassment campaigns, threatened and bullied into
cancelling and denouncing our group and message, often without any real understanding of what our message is, and why these small but loud groups demand we be cancelled.

While our September 14th event went off without any issue, a small group of local activists sought to pressure the Legion into denouncing us, using fear-mongering and manipulative language, aimed at instilling fear by painting us as “hateful” and dangerous. A sample letter offered by an individual going by the name Lin Robinson-Young as a template for activists read:

To the Royal Canadian Legion, its Members, and its Leadership:

I am writing to you as a member and/or ally of the 2SLGBTQI+ community. I was
deeply hurt to hear that on Saturday, September 14th, 2024, the Victoria branch of
the Royal Canadian Legion hosted a panel focused on perpetuating hateful
anti-transgender rhetoric at an event hosted by “Vancouver Island Speaks” called
“Surgeries, Sports & Speech in Tranada”. This panel represented yet another attack
on the rights of our transgender community members, and the Legion’s decision to
host this event fails to align with your June 3rd, 2019 commitment to not affiliate with groups that promote hatred or violence toward protected groups including on the basis of gender, or your website’s core values, which include being “supportive,
inclusive, courteous and fair to all”.

The allowance of the Legion for this panel to be hosted at the Legion’s Victoria
Branch betrays the trust of 2SLGBTQI+ people in Victoria and in Canada overall.
How are we meant to trust an organization that is willing to host a panel promoting
hate speech against our transgender siblings, parents, and children? Transgender
people remain a deeply vulnerable population – even in Canada, transgender people
experience more physical and sexual violence and report worse mental health
statuses than cisgender people (Statistics Canada 2018). Even the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service warned us in February of this year that “extremists could “inspire and encourage” serious violence against the 2SLGBTQI+ community” (Tunney 2024).

The featured panelists at the hateful event hosted at the Victoria Legion building
included Meghan Murphy, a transphobic internet personality who was banned from X for violating rules prohibiting hate speech against trans people; Mia Hughes, founder of “caWsbar”, an “advocacy group” which is “focused on one issue: denying trans people rights” (McArdle 2023); Linda Blade, who says that trans athletes “harm […] female athletes” and pose an “almost existential threat” to cisgender athletes (2021); Bryony Dixon, who “publicly stated transitioning threatens queer youth, specifically gay children, and that medically prescribed hormone blockers to ease gender dysphoria “castrates” children” (Morton, 2023); and Magdalena Huston, who is associated with Murphy and characterizes transgender people’s self-realizations as “social contagion” (Huston 2024).

Our 2SLGBTQI+ community must assume that by hosting this event, these fair-right, anti-transgender viewpoints must align with that of the Royal Canadian Legion unless otherwise indicated. In fact, one of our Victoria community members called the Victoria branch yesterday while the panel was taking place and had a conversation that seemingly endorses this:

“The guy on the phone says he was a bartender. I told them that they are hosting a
hate group. Guy said ‘no, we are renting out a room – whatever they do up there is
not our business.’ I asked ‘Would you rent out to Nazis?’ and he said ‘Sure, if they
were paying.’”

In these times where Canada’s social progress is threatening to reverse itself, we as
allies and members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community look to organizations such as
yourselves to not only refuse to aid and abet hateful rhetoric against our community, but to actively include us and fight for our right to exist, just as our veterans fought for. I therefore urge you not only to denounce the Sept 14 event and its organizers and to formally apologize to the 2SLGBTQI+ community for hosting a group that promoted hate toward us, but to make and announce a public donation to the Victoria Pride Society as a gesture of support and good will.

Sincerely,
[Name]

Sources:
www.them.us/story/megan-murphy-terf-twitter-lawsuit
www.meghanmurphy.ca/p/never-give-up-never-surrender
www.transgendermap.com/issues/topics/media/mia-hughes/
www.maelys.bio/2023/06/anti-trans-mob-in-ottawa/
https://thediscourse.ca/nanaimo/nanaimo-fringe-festival-director-steps-down
www.threads.net/@magdalenahuston/post/C-s-cLSSvuw
www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2020001/article/00009-eng.htm
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-lgbtq-warning-violence-1.7114801
https://web.archive.org/web/20240323014905/https://legion.ca/news/2019/06/03/legion-r eleases-hate-group-policy
https://web.archive.org/web/20240829103013/https://rcl292.ca/our-branch/about-page.php?id=32
www.facebook.com/JodieGastel/postspfbid028FZFyJYLWStqQNqmRTM2Fx6

This letter, and others like it, including one from an activist named Tressa Brotsky, asked the Trafalgar/Pro Patria Legion to apologize for having hosted our event in order to “show compassion to and for trans people and their families and communities.” In her letter, Brotsky claimed that the aim of VIS is to “limit the rights and health of vulnerable people, and specifically to try to stop access to life-saving healthcare for children and youth of all sexes and genders.”

This is a wildly defamatory statement. In truth, we aim to protect the health of children and vulnerable people and aim to raise the alarm about the wide-ranging harms of so-called “gender medicine” and surgeries on minors who are not able to consent to such life-altering decisions, nor are they fully informed of the irreversible consequences of these treatments. Brodsky cites previous unwarranted cancellations of our bookings at other venues as justification for the Legion to cancel this one and to reject future bookings, writing:

A number of business [sic] have cancelled their booking with Vancouver Island Speaks once they discovered that the charisma and half-disclosures of Meghan Murphy and organizers mask their fundamental belief that trans people should not be allowed equal healthcare or to exist in Canada.

Not only are the letters and public statements made about our group, directed at the Legion and other venues, defamatory, but they are chock-full of medical misinformation; ideologically driven, with no basis in fact or science; and hyperbolic, inserting motivations that only exist in the imaginations of the authors. The aim of these activists is to frighten people into compliance by implying we aim to harm rather than help (and to simply have open, honest debate), bullying organizations into cancelling our events, denouncing our group, and refusing future bookings. This behaviour is authoritarian, undemocratic, and insulting to our veterans and the aim of the Royal Legion of Canada.

The truth is that no venue has cancelled VIS events because they disagree with our views or beliefs. Venues have cancelled or denounced us because they have been terrorized, threatened, harassed, bullied, and, in the words of our last venue managers, “abused” by these activists and their supporters. Venues and staff are confused and reasonably frightened.

In response to Brotsky’s letter, the Branch Manager of the Trafalgar/ProPatria Legion, Lorrie Weston, wrote via email :

I am Deeply ashamed and distraught over the group that was in attendance on Saturday, September 14th, 2024.

I understood this group to be a non-profit focusing on current woman’s issue. There is in NO Way that the Legion supports the beliefs of this group.

We have been and always will be here to support all military and all those who serve or have served.

There are not enough words to convey our deep sadness over this and apologize profusely to those who were hurt by this.

Activists took this private email and began sharing it as a “public statement” from the Legion about the “anti-trans event held at their venue.” When one of our organizers called the legion to ask for clarification on the statement, she was told that the branch manager “had repercussions from the Navy base, as well as from our head, BC Yukon command and Ottawa.” Weston told us she had been ordered to “issue an apology that if we’ve hurt anybody’s feelings as a result, like, that I am completely distraught and ashamed that people would think that of our Legion.”

The immediate capitulation of the Legion to the activists’ J’accuse! is emblematic of these activist tactics, which have been used to assail us for years — to censor our speech, libel us, and to ensure that the Canadian public does not hear our concerns, or is misled and misinformed about our just, fair, and reasonable concerns and views.

We support and advocate for the rights and protections of women and girls in Canada and across the globe. We are Canadians committed to human rights and the values of a liberal democracy. We support free speech, child safeguarding, and ethical, evidence-based, approaches to health care. We advocate for compassionate, ethical treatment of all Canadians, especially of minors who struggle with body image, mental health issues, and the natural and often distressing experience of puberty.

We are grateful to the Royal Canadian Legion for hosting our event. Every member of our volunteer security team are veterans. Holding our event at a Legion has profound
significance to them. They fought for the rights we now enjoy in liberal democracies and know all too well what happens to women and girls in places that do not enjoy those rights.

Our security team — again, veterans — supports our work by protecting us from activists like those who contacted you, as they seek to cause us harm. Not emotional harm — real, physical harm.

Meghan Murphy, for example, has been threatened with violence for nearly a decade for speaking out in defense of women’s sex-based rights. She has received death threats, been stalked, and has been attacked in public. She requires bodyguards, security, and a police presence almost every time she speaks in public as a result. This is not an uncommon experience for those of us who are critical of gender identity ideology and its harms. It is the norm and it is shameful.

Tactics employed by these activists include: intimidation, threats of violence, threats of sexual assault and rape, targeting employment, actual physical attacks, and criminalization.

They target women in particular, knowing we are vulnerable.

Women and girls remain a deeply vulnerable population globally — even in Canada. Women experience physical and sexual violence at disproportionate rates (Statistics Canada 2018). Female inmates are particularly vulnerable, often with histories of trauma, poverty, addiction, mental health issues; they come from marginalized communities and harsh backgrounds, yet are now being incarcerated with violent male sex offenders, with no way to advocate for themselves.

The letter template used by some of the activists who contacted you cites a statement
published on June 3rd, 2019, with regard to “hate groups.” The letter argues that “your
decision to host this event fails to align with your June 3rd, 2019 commitment to not affiliate with groups that promote hatred or violence toward protected groups including on the basis of gender, or your website’s core values, which include being ‘supportive, inclusive, courteous and fair to all.’”

Surely, women and girls fall under the category of “all.” Surely we deserve to be treated fairly and with the same rules and respect as any other group. Surely the Legion stands for women’s rights, and wouldn’t cave to pressure from bullies who threaten our rights, safety, and wellbeing. Surely, the Legion supports women and community members in their efforts to gather and discuss their concerns about the impact of something as controversial as gender identity ideology on women and kids — the most vulnerable among us.

VIS events are inclusive — everyone is welcome, provided they don’t endanger or disrupt. Ironically, we are accused of being exclusive, while being excluded ourselves.

What we do is dangerous, but we continue to fight, at our own risk, with no institutional, corporate, or government support, in the face of constant threats, harassment, and censorship, because preserving women’s rights and protecting kids, as well as defending free speech in Canada is of pivotal importance. More important than our jobs, safety, comfort, or income.

The defamation in these letters and social media posts collapse in the face of VIS’s demonstrated value of reality-based analysis, direct communication, and transparency. We invite The Royal Canadian Legion, your members and allies, as well as all interested and concerned Canadians to see for themselves what we have to say, openly, proudly and clearly. We are not ashamed of our words.

We urge you to review the footage of our Vancouver Island Speaks events, and determine for yourself whether or not they constitute “hate” and should be cancelled and censored.

Sincerely,

Meghan Murphy, VIS Organizer, Writer and Podcaster, Founder of Feminist Current

Bryony Dixon, VIS Organizer, Director of Development and Events at Civilization Works

Niki Fortier, VIS Organizer and Royal Canadian Legion member

Linda Blade, PhD Kinesiology, Co-founder of the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS) and Board Member of Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar)

Mia Hughes, Director of Genspect Canada and Director of Gender at Civilization Works

Michelle Mackness, Vice Director of Genspect Canada

April Hutchinson, Canadian powerlifter, founder of Keep Female Sports Female XX

Janayh Wright, VIS speaker and businesswoman

Magdalena Huston, VIS speaker

Kim Zander, Women’s Space Vancouver

DONATE TO VANCOUVER ISLAND SPEAKS

Individual signees:

Matthew Foxcroft, Business Owner
Christopher Shaw, UBC
Stuart Parker, Los Altos Institute
Kim Goldberg, Author/Poet
John Thompson, C.D. Canadian Forces Decoration
Kevan Hudson
Ingrid Berg, Attendee
Scott Geiler, LGB Alliance supporter
Sarah Rean
Syed Abbas
Eric Kaufmann, University of Buckingham
Elizabeth Ely, Retired Musician
Melanie Bennet
Rose Forte
Leslie MacMillan
Wilma Lawrence, Supporter of free speech
Harald Hewett, Attendee
Donna Schurman, Concerned citizen
Shawn Shirazi, Gays Against Groomers
Felicia Rembrandt, Lesbian
Suzanne Baril, Freedom
Pamela Buffone, Canadian Gender Report
Stella O’Malley, Genspect
Brian Driscoll
Gale Tyler, retired BC teacher
Margaret Sherlock
Karin Litzcke
Dr. Joan Russell, UELAC. RDB self-identified.
Michele Kofod
Savanah Wright
Lorraine Hepting
Linda Batten, Retired educator
Kate Macdonald, Duncan Businesses owner
Paul ORorke
Ruth Waddell, BScN
Bryant Kashmere
Jenniffer Millington
K Houtby
Frank Pluta, Freedom of Speech believer
Steven Lay, local business owner
Toni Vonk, Gender Dissent
Brenda Brooks, Descendant of WW1 and WW2 veterans/Writer
Sandra Currie, Women’s Space Vancouver
Kristine Anderson, Vancouver Island resident
Kelly Constabaris, Adult Human Female
Ian Glass, Friend
Linda Stone
Jacqueline Carstensen

Predictably, if you are a woman accustomed to answering the “Where are all the women??” question weekly, with “HERE! We are right here! Exhausted of being erased while everyone demands to know where we are,” many respondents were less-than-jovial in their responses.

TLDR: The “moderate” female podcasters are out here struggling to survive and break through an uninterested or censorial algorithm while the males producing similar content are getting rich. It’s frustrating to observe as it is, even moreso when people like Tandler wonder why none of us are trying.

Tandler doesn’t appear to be some out-of-touch rando, either. According to her her X bio, she is Chief Marketing Officer of a podcast app called Podcast AI, which apparently uses “the world's most advanced AI-powered tools” to help podcasters publish and promote their podcast, saving “over 80% of post-production time.” Wow! This sounds like something every female podcaster I know could use, considering most of us don’t have the funding to pay a team of people to produce, edit, and promote our podcast — meaning many of us (Me!) do it all ourselves.

The irony of Tandler’s question is that I think the reason she hasn’t heard of women like myself, , , and , for example, is that we are women. And despite our modern world, the boys club is still a real thing that also exists in the podcasting world. Men really do support, promote, and fund another another, helping to push each other up through the ranks, seemingly unaware of the women struggling to make it as well.

A key (but not the only) means to becoming a “prominent” podcaster is by either already being a prominent person, or by knowing prominent people, who have the means to fund you, so that you can produce better quality work and get others to do the things you either don’t have time to do or simply aren’t good at (understanding social media algorithms, producing good clips and thumbnails that get eyes and clicks, finding advertisers and companies to sponsor your podcast, ensuring you sound and look your best in audio and video, etc). You can certainly do well and become successful on your own, if you are consistent and dedicated enough to plug away for years, but eventually, if you want to move into the next realm, make real money, and produce something that looks very professional, you need big funding, and you are more likely get this by knowing the right people, shmoozing with those people, and having an entrepreneurial sense and drive.

Tandler offers this caveat herself, accidentally, adding that she wasn’t actually asking where all the women like me were, who were doing the thing she claimed didn’t exist, but that she actually meant “prominent” podcasters, who are “cracking 20k listens” per episode.

I have nothing personal against this person, who I have never heard of before (not prominent enough, I guess), but can’t help but wonder how you are literally in the business of helping support podcasters, but don’t understand that you need a significant platform, as well as a team of employees, and funding to pay those employees, to be able to produce a podcast that is famous enough for Michelle Tandler to have noticed.

This is not to discount skill and committment, of course. The reality is that a lot of now-well-known podcasters started off on their own, and just plugged away until they grew big enough to monetize. It’s very hard to build a following and audience — it takes both skill and consistency. In order to get good guests you need to be big already, and in order to get big, you need good guests. But you can do it, if you are good at what you do, work hard, and don’t give up.

This has literally been my experience, as someone who does indeed have a succesful podcast, which is to say, I manage to eek out a living and have a decent sized audience.

When I started podcasting, few others were. I was co-hosting and producing a feminist radio show out of my local co-op radio station in around 2009/10 when I began podcasting the shows. When I was ousted from the feminist collective running the show for (what else) trying to address the trans debate on air, via a series of interviews with “all sides” (we interviewed trans activists, trans academics, and radical feminists alike — the transcript of my interview with Lee Lakeman was republished at Feminist Current, though the rest of the interviews, sadly, have disappeared into the ether), I went out on my own, launching the Feminist Current podcast in 2012. I produced, hosted, edited, and promoted that show for over a decade, all by myself. When I started it, it was the only feminist podcast advocating for women’s sex-based rights and offering pushback against gender identity ideology. I interviewed hundreds of women over the years (and some men), building up a decent listener base and audience. I never monetized the podcast, but just relied on monthly donors who supported my work.

By 2020, I began to want to branch out. Doing a “feminist” podcast no longer felt right to me, having lost interest in attaching myself to political or ideological labels, and I wanted to address topics and talk to people outside the limiting sphere of feminism and women’s rights. I launched The Same Drugs in March 2020, just as the whole Covid shebang was launched upon us, and was gifted with the ability to figure out what the hell was actually going on, in large part through skeptical guests like Toby Young and Peter Hitchens. I was lucky to already have an established audience, but at the same time, starting anew (and without Twitter, which had been my primary social media platform before I was “permanently” banned in 2018, for the crime of saying “Men aren’t women, tho”) was a risk.

There is a lot of truth to the “anyone can start a podcast” refrain, but there is an enormous difference between starting a podcast and maintaining a podcast, every week, gaining an audience, and being able to afford to continue doing the substantial work one must put into producing the podcast. You can’t really do it for free in the long term unless you already have money and time. Ideally, you are business-minded and, once the podcast has become relatively successful (i.e. has a decent number of listeners), you can monetize. I am not, alas, business-minded, and frankly have enjoyed and feel proud of the fact both my podcasts grew organically, only supported and funded by listeners who generously pay for a monthly subscription or donation. I like not feeling beholden to advertisers, funders, a boss, some company, or the Russians. Indeed, this is what has allowed me to be so heretical (and so me) in my work.

At the same time, because I have failed to adopt an entrepreneurial spirit, I have also failed to earn the kind of money so many of the podcast bros have managed to aquire. I didn’t become a writer, journalist, and podcaster because I wanted to run a business — I did it so that I could cover issues and ideas others were not, so I could learn, help connect others with new ideas and thinkers, and hopefully effect change. Without the platforms I created and ran on my own, there would have literally been nowhere for me to speak against gender identity ideology, for example, having been blacklisted by Canadian media and censored online. Independent media is one of the only tools we have for truly heterodox thought and speech. Again, a real gift, but not one that’s easy to navigate in a world run by algorithms run by corporations and governments who treat silencing dissent as their full time job.

The question of "Where are all the female podcasters" is frustrating for a variety of reasons, though there is some truth behind the question…

There really aren’t many women who do what I do. Most female podcasters seem more drawn towards sex-, relationship-, and gossip-style podcasts, or go the health and wellness route. Very few women are interviewing the kinds of people I am, week after week. What I am doing really is more of a “male” model, if you look at those producing something similar to I — interviews about political, heterodox ideas and issues (though of course I cover other things as well — friendship, health, addiction, relationships, etc.) While there are a few women doing something similar, there are far, far more men doing it.

I suppose this should offer me a niche, which I suppose there might be a way of monetizing, but god help me if I know how to do that or have the time to figure it out.

While my first reaction to Tandler’s question was to wonder why so many people are incapable of hearing women when they speak, thinking perhaps there is a lack of interest in female podcast hosts versus male ones, but I think my podcast is evidence that this is not true. I enjoy a literal 50/50 split between male and female listeners, and have no trouble booking quality, well-known guests of both sexes.

On some level, I think there is truth to the fact many men prefer to listen to male voices than female ones, whether that be because of literal tone of voice, or perhaps trust in a man who approaches conversations assuming he is an expert deserving of a platform, which relays a kind of confidence appreciated by other men. But on another, we can see the success that women like Bari Weiss and Megyn Kelly have had (not without a fight, of course), and I can see my own experience, which has been one of being equally supported by men and women alike.

My problem might be a “woman” one in a way — I am overly attached to authenticity and have an aversion to schmoozing or doing anything that feels contrived and fake; I have no idea how to run a profitable business and no real desire to take time away from my actual work to learn; and I don’t like asking for money or selling myself — all things which don’t lend oneself to getting rich, and all things men seem more apt at. I didn’t opt to move to Austin with the rest of the crowd, but instead checked out to a happy, simple, peaceful life in Mexico, so am left out of (and often forgotten) as part of the heterodox/media circles.

All this is to say that while indeed there is a maddening sexism behind the “Where are all the women” question (if only you’d been listening, you’d know?), I have made my choices on account of my values and the life I desire to live. I could have made different ones, and felt like I was selling out or been unhappy (but leveled up financially), but didn’t want to, and frankly don’t think I’m even capable of that. The entire reason The Same Drugs exists and that I exist as I do is because I’ve refused to play the game. And that refusal of course comes with pitfalls (as well as blessings).

Perhaps my meandering attempt at figuring all this out here can constitute a pitch, in and of itself: if you appreciate my voice, work, values, and podcast, please consider becoming a paid subscriber here on Substack, or — even less effort — go on over to Spotify and click the follow button on The Same Drugs podcast. Actually, doing both would be the best! These are the small things that make a huge difference to me, and my ability to continue doing this work, as a woman, existing in a world that apparently doesn’t want to see or hear me.

Subscribe now

Thank you all for being here either way! I really do feel so blessed to have the life I do, and to have a platform to speak my mind, share ideas, learn from those I respect so much, and to create something I enjoy and feel proud of. To do this for a living, no matter how meagre, is a dream, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Thank you for being here with me.

On Saturday night, we put on yet another all-female panel event discussing the harms of gender identity ideology in Canada. “We,” being Vancouver Island Speaks, the name a few independent women gave themselves in an attempt to have a conversation about the impact of gender identity ideology on women and kids on Vancouver Island. Never before had such an event been held on the Island, and after meeting a number of local community members, seeing several controversies erupt around men in girls’ change rooms on the Island, and finding some brave women ready and willing to speak out, I initiated an event.

I am not an organizer. I am a writer, a podcaster, a journalist, a tweeter, a public speaker, a reader, and a fan of hanging around in dark bars being ridiculous with my friends. I have been involved in numerous events across Canada and beyond, addressing the conflict between women’s rights and gender identity ideology, the threat to free speech and kids, and the desperate need for truth-speaking and courage on this issue, but organizing is a whole other beast. That said, someone had to do it, and having found some brave and committed souls invested in putting something together, no matter the challenges, I figured we had to plug forward and not overthink the complications and barriers, lest we psych ourselves out, which we probably would have.

The barriers were and still are immense. We have marginal funding, almost every venue we’ve booked has been harassed into cancelling us by local queer activists, we need a ton of security, we are not marketers by trade, nor are we fundraisers, nor are we experienced at event planning. But, as I’ve learned, if we don’t do it, no one will, so we just did it. It has been stressful and exhausting and also every one of our events has been amazing and galvanizing. I feel grateful and blessed to have the opportunity to connect with all these local Islanders, so kind and warm and bold and supportive and actually loving (not the fake kind of “loving” that involves saying the words “love” while spewing threats and lies at anyone who fails to kowtow to your cult).

We have managed to put on five of these events, to date: in Nanaimo, Parksville, Duncan (after being cancelled, initially), and Victoria (times two). They have all been peaceful, compelling, and well-attended (often even fun!). We intend to continue, (despite the fact that the activists are currently running around to every venue on Vancouver Island and beyond in an attempt to bully them into signing a contract guaranteeing they will never allow women speaking about women’s rights to book with them ever again).

Our most recent event in Victoria was fantastic, featuring the brave and brilliant Bryony Dixon, Linda Blade, , and Mia Hughes. The ever-cancelled, long-time Canadian leftist, , moderated.

This one was no less a challenge than any other, for all the same reasons: we are working with next to no funding or institutional support, we lose our venue almost every single time and need to bust ass last minute, frantically seeking a new one, and we are subject to unhinged harassment and slander from the "be kind" brigade, as are our venues. We organize these events with just a few people—volunteers working for free. We are fighting an unimaginably massive, extremely well-funded beast, with just the power of courageous people and community members who offer anything they can, at their own risk—filming, sound tech, security, postering, driving, working the door, setting up, cleaning up, simply being present at our events, showing their faces, donations, and of course speaking up.

These are the actual marginalized people of Canada—the ones the government ignores and disrespects at every turn, in favour of dark interests, including Big Tech/Pharma and their foot soldiers, who somehow believe it is "kind" and "loving" to put rapists in women's prisons and to sterilize children and mangle their bodies.

I was the first in Canada to speak publicly against gender identity ideology, from a women's rights perspective (at an event organized by Lindsay Shepherd via her university group, the Laurier Society for Open Inquiry) in 2018. It was very scary and I was not a good speaker, and probably wasn’t totally prepared for some of the questions coming my way. I hope I have improved marginally since then, but it was never my plan to be a public speaker… It isn’t my favorite thing to do, and in fact when I first started doing it, it terrified me—my hands would sweat and shake the whole time. Not only was I terrified of public speaking, but I was also terrified of being attacked and/or murdered while speaking, having to face down crowds of protesters who made it clear they would do anything to stop me from speaking. This is not a lucrative job, this is not a safe job, this is not a particularly relaxing job, but it absolutely is rewarding. I do love what I do, though of course I would love a little more financial security in my life (don’t worry—I trust you, universe!)

I say all this not as an attempt to gain pity—I am very happy and fulfilled in my life, and love my work. It is exactly what I was meant for, and I consider myself lucky to be able to do it. I have been able to meet and speak with and learn from and connect with the most incredible people, all around the world. I have had so many opportunities I never dreamed of. I have been able to go places I never would have been able to afford to travel to. I work for no one but myself, which is in itself a huge blessing. But at the same time I see endless people online, including feminists (once my “allies”), speculating about motives, wealth, political incentives, Russian funders, a excessive love of men, etc. etc.

It’s the same old song for anyone who doesn’t hide in their room judging everyone else from inside an algorithm, I suppose—the people who claim they “can’t,” but in reality won’t. Because in reality, anyone can. Anyone can speak up and push back and show up. But it’s a risk some people simply don’t want to take. They should probably just say that instead of pretending I and others put their lives and jobs and families and friends on the line because it’s not just easier for us, but lucrative. You guys are the ones protecting your careers and bank accounts, not us. Get real.

The only reason I started speaking publicly about this was because I had to—because if I didn’t, no one else would. So I did.

Since, I've spoken as much as I can possibly manage, and organized as much as I'm able, with a few wonderful, brave women and community members. Our events are generally ignored by the media, with the exception of platforms like Rebel News, some wonderful independents, and some worthy columnists. This has been the case since the beginning, so I’m used to it but am no less accepting of the patheticness of the Canadian media, who have opted not to do their jobs, but to cater to the biggest douche on the planet, somehow our Prime Minister.

Frustratingly, we also tend to be ignored by would-be “allies”—the WheRe aRe aLL thE WomEn (a refrain so common we started a weekly live stream in its honour—do subscribe!) brigade and the Americans demanding to know what the hell is going on in Canada (fair enough — Canada is f***ed). We tend to be left out even of the Americentric heterodox club, even, likely on account of not having moved to Austin like everyone else.

I am exceedingly proud of what we have done, but it's very difficult to do it within our limits. There are some big-platformed Canadian men who seem, like the Canadian media, to have adopted a “if it doesn’t fit our narrative or career ambitions, we can’t see it” approach to women in this movement, and then I think there are genuinely a ton of people who simply don’t know that there are women in Canada who really are trying to go it almost alone.

Those pretending we don't exist know who they are, and know why they’re doing it, but I can’t help but point out the hypocrisy in claiming to lead the fight against the erasure of women while intentionally erasing women from the fight.

But to those who genuinely do want to fight and to support us in the fight, we desperately need you. We are up against something massive here.

What I think we need is this (and not limited to this, of course):

1) We need to band together, stop these nonsense political divisions and political purity tests, and move on from this flat-brained "I can't stand next to a RigHt WinGeR!" thing. No more party allegiance to parties that don’t care about you. No more shitting on women because they don’t live up to your ideals. Your ideals aren’t real life. Real human beings are real life. We are real human beings, not political categories. You can either be stubborn or you can do something.

2) We need physical bodies — people speaking up and out in public, people coming out to events, showing up at school board meetings, at town halls — people showing their faces so the government can't pretend we don't exist by simply banning us from the internet.

3) We need to organize, to talk to politicians, to send letters to our MPs, to vote out politicians who go along with gender identity ideology—let them know this is a key election issue and that you will be voting based on whether or not they know what a woman is. No more tiptoeing around. Don’t let them get away with this anymore.

4) Funding (I hate to say it because talking about money makes me deeply uncomfortable, but not having funding is a huge impediment). We don’t have government funding (obviously), we aren’t working with any institution, we don’t have Daily Wire money or Jordan Peterson money or Russian money or tenored university gigs or or or. We pay for our events with the funds garnered through ticket sales and via individual donors. We have received a few funding chunks here and there, which are wonderful and super generous, but we have our sights on Vancouver next year, and so we will need larger chunks. If you wish to donate to future efforts, consider a donation!

DONATE TODAY!

I don’t know where this fight will go in Canada. We have some hope in voting Trudeau and the NDP out, as both the B.C Conservatives and the federal Conservative Party have expressed genuine interest in ending the gender identity nonsense. They are our only hope in that regard, so I hope you all will put aside your 30-year-old right wing yuck! knee-jerk, and recognize that politics are not what they were in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. The parties who claim to be working for you are not.

The real hope, of course, lies in the people—the people who show up, stand up, fight back, and say “no more.” We saw what the truckers accomplished, so I know Canadians have it in ‘em. Let’s see it.

The success and positive feedback from our last event in Victoria (and requests to do more events on Vancouver Island) have encouraged and galvanized us! We made so many amazing connections both at our Victoria event and our Cowichan event and feel inspired by all the bold and brave community members who came out to have the conversations the BC NDP and federal Liberal Party keep trying to shut down.

This time, we are bringing Mia Hughes, author of the groundbreaking WPATH Files, over from Ottawa to talk about the harms of transing kids, how minors are being rushed through the medicalization process and “gender affirming” surgeries, and the way in which parents and youth are lied to about the risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. We are also thrilled to have Linda Blade, co-author of UNSPORTING: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport, and founding member of the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS) on the panel to discuss the importance of protecting women’s sports.Our panel, “Detransing Canada,” will also feature Bryony Dixon, who was cancelled from her role as Artistic Managing Producer of the Nanaimo Fringe Festival for her views on gender and now works with US think tank, Civilization Works and , a young woman who got caught up in the "trans cult" in Vancouver, going so far as getting a double masectomy before realizing her mistake, and detransitioning.

Naturally, local trans activists are out in full force, and have begun a harassment campaign against our wonderful venue, Ambrosia Banquet Hall, who hosted our May event and very generously allowed us to book again for September 14th, despite the inevitable controversy. The venue owners, hard-working immigrants and community members, have ensured us they will not cancel, but the wrath of trans activists is always scary and dangerous. Please give them all the support you can muster and please, if you live on Vancouver Island or on the mainland, purchase a ticket and join us for this exciting and much-needed event on Saturday, September 14, 2024.

If you can’t attend in person but wish to support our group, future events, and help offset our costs, including security costs, consider a donation.

DONATE

PURCHASE A TICKET TO DETRANSING CANADA

The event will feature a panel discussion, starting at 6:00PM, followed by a Q&A. Tickets to the panel and Q&A are $30. For those who would like to join us afterwards for a cocktail hour/meet and greet with panelists, you can purchase a VIP ticket for $75.

We hope to see you in Victoria!

Some of you may recall that last October, our planned event at the Cowichan Community Centre (CCC) was cancelled after pressure from local activists. We moved the event to Parksville last minute, and held a wonderful discussion regardless, but we did not give up on Cowichan!

We went back and forth with the CCC over the past year with the help of our legal team at The Democracy Fund, and got some good news late last week! The CCC very kindly offered us the opportunity to rebook this Saturday, June 8th.

This is of course very short notice to plan an event, but we have scrambled to pull it together and are looking forward to a fruitful and galvanizing discussion about the conflict between trans activism, women’s rights, lesbian rights, parental rights, and kids’ safety.

This conversation is desperately needed across Canada and has been silenced and suppressed for too long.

Cowichan in particular showed its desire to push back after a man entered the girls’ change room at the Cowichan Aquatic Centre earlier this year, brazenly declaring his right to be there on account of gender identity policy. The community pushed back and said “No” to predators in girls’ and women’s spaces.

We are so inspired by the courage of this community, and are thrilled to be able to host this conversation — giving space where space has previously been denied.

Unfortunately, since we announced the event this afternoon, activists have already begun organizing both to pressure the CCC to cancel and to protest the event. We are hoping to get as much support as possible to demonstrate that these conversations are important and valuable to the Vancouver Island community, and would love to have some of you there with us!

Please join us on Saturday for “Pushing Pride: When activism conflicts with women’s rights, gay rights, and the safeguarding of kids.” This event will take place from 6:30PM-8:30PM at the Cowichan Community Centre, in the Heritage Hall room — 2687 James St, Duncan, B.C. (Doors at 6:00PM — please arrive early to ensure we can start on time!) Contact vancouverislandspeaks@proton.me with any questions.

You can purchase tickets online by donation ($5 minimum) or pay with cash only at the door. If you cannot attend but wish to support our work and offset costs from the event, we very much appreciate donations!

Support us with a donation!

I hope to see many of you this weekend! Let’s gooooo Duncan!

As a world-renowned hater who has openly expressed my unapologetic judgment of people who have bad taste in music, I feel obligated to offer myself up to the masses, and show you mine, as it were.

What follows is my personal hip hop playlist, which I have been adding to for several years now. It has never been intended for public use, just my ears, so is not put together in any way at all. Literally I just add songs I remember, find, and like to listen to. There are some silly tracks on there and lots missing. It is not complete, presentable, or definitive.

Sharing a completely unedited, disordered, sixteen hour long list of many* of the hip hop tracks I like, even the embarrassing ones, puts me in a vulnerable position as someone so deeply critical of those who have wrongtaste, but I feel it is only fair.

Judge away. Feel free to make suggestions, though I reserve the right to ignore them.

Read more

Oooooh Victoria get ready — BC’s capital is in for a treat!

The political class, their unions, the state-funded media, and the progressive urban elite can silence us no longer! Vancouver Island is ready to talk about gender identity ideology.

Canadian institutions and politicians pay a lot of lip service to "inclusivity," but do they mean it? At every turn, Canadians who wish to discuss their concerns about gender identity ideology are silenced. Women like me have fought for years to host these conversations, only to be protested, censored, cancelled, and threatened. Just last year we lost two venue bookings last minute on Vancouver Island, leaving us scrounging at the last minute. Activists pressure venues to drop us, claiming we are guilty of “hate speech,” but is expressing concerns about the safety of women and girls “hate speech”? Is asking questions about what is being taught to kids in school “hate speech”? Is standing up for female athletes or demanding male inmates be kept out of women’s prisons “hate speech”? Is discussing the harms of puberty blockers and hormones on kids “hate speech”?

We don’t think so.

Please join us on Thursday, May 30th in Victoria, BC for a panel event discussing all these issues and more!

We are bringing brilliant UK-based journalist and advocate for women, ; founder of Detrans Alliance Canada, Kellie-Lynn Pirie; the brave, cancelled local single mother, Bryony Dixon; and myself together to host an open, respectful conversation, moderated by Erin Graham, about the things we are told we may not speak about.

Tickets for the panel discussion and Q&A alone are $30. We will also be hosting a meet and greet/cocktail hour after the panel event, from 9:00-11:00PM, so guests who purchase a $75 ticket can meet the panelists, chat, have a drink, socialize, and relax after the event.

We are keeping the exact location of the event secret to protect the venue from attacks, harassment, and vandalism, and will release the address to ticket holders 24 hours before the event. We can say the event will be held in Downtown Victoria.

Click here to purchase tickets or use the QR code below:

If you can’t attend in person, we greatly appreciate donations to support our work and organizing!

We hope to see you all on TERF Island 2.0.

People say a lot of things about me. Mostly wrong things. No one understands me is the childhood trigger I manifested in adulthood times a thousand.

This is also and of course the norm for anyone who is a public figure. Imagine being Joe Rogan. Or Kanye West. Or any statue. It is certainly the norm for anyone who is a controversial (and unpolished) figure, as I am ever-committed to being. After over a decade of being called things I am not, I have become mostly used to it. But not fully accepting.

I sometimes do not practice what I preach. Which is to ignore what people say about you, not let it bother you, not dwell on it, and not run yourself ragged trying to respond to and correct every misrepresentation, misunderstanding, or libel. It is simply impossible, for one. I would have to either become very litigious — which I don’t have the time, interest, or money to invest in as a pastime — or give up any life outside the internet. Just correcting the regular old misunderstandings would be a full time job in and of itself. I do it when I can, of course, and try to be as clear in my work and writing as possible, but the peanut gallery cannot be expected to follow all I produce, and, in the internet age, people’s perceptions tend to be based on what their friends say on Facebook rather than on the content of the actual book/argument/interview/talk/person in question.

Needless to say, every once in a while, a misrepresentation grates on me. I find this usually happens when it feels personal. It’s one thing for a Twitter rando to call me a Nazi, but quite another when someone who know does it.

Read more

Yesterday we were informed by the Cowichan Community Centre that they were cancelling our October 4 booking for our event discussing inclusivity, gender identity, and women’s rights. They cited the BC Human Rights Code, claiming there was a “likelihood that the purpose of this event is to promote, or would have the effect of promoting discrimination, contempt or hatred for any group or person on the basis of sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor.”

Not only is it insane to predict such a thing with zero evidence it might be true, but it isn’t true. I consider the statement libelous and plan to use legal avenues to push back.

Canadians have the right to speak openly and publicly about issues and legislation that concern them and their families. Disagreeing with gender identity ideology and defending women’s rights and the safety of kids is not hateful.

Needless to say, we will not be silenced, and have secured a new venue in Parksville, BC!

Please join us at 7PM tomorrow night (Wednesday, October 4) at the Parksville Community Centre (223 Mills St, Parksville, BC) for a panel discussion followed by a Q&A. You can purchase tickets ahead of time by donation via the button below or pay cash at the door (I recommend you purchase ahead of time to ensure we don’t sell out).

We hope to see more brave islanders ready for dialogue tomorrow night!

PURCHASE A TICKET FOR OCT 4/PARKSVILLE

Update: On Monday, October 2nd, we received an email from the Cowichan Community Centre cancelling our booking. We have moved the event to the Parksville Community Centre.

We are coming up to our first Vancouver Island event discussing gender identity, women’s spaces, and parental rights and are very excited this conversation is finally happening over here! This event is taking place in the Nanaimo, B.C. area on Sunday, October 1 (the specific location will be released on Saturday to ticket holders) and is now sold out! There is clearly a huge demand for these kinds of events in Canada, and specifically on Vancouver Island, where the discussion has been suppressed and silenced for far too long.

We have therefore decided to do a second event in the Cowichan Valley area!

Please join myself, Bryony Dixon (who is also speaking at our Nanaimo event), and Serena Winterburn on Wednesday, October 4th at the Cowichan Community Centre (Heritage Hall) for a panel discussion followed by a Q&A.

This event is open to anyone and everyone, provided you are peaceful and respectful of panelists and attendees. The rule for all of our events is that if anyone is disruptive, they will be removed immediately by security, no questions asked.

We want to have an open, productive, and respectful conversation.

Please join us!

You can purchase tickets by donation online ahead of the date (I would recommend this option, lest the event sell out again) or purchase tickets on a sliding scale at the door.

PURCHASE TICKET TO OCT 4 EVENT

We have been very disappointed by the lack of response and interest in protecting the safety of Vancouver Island Residents wishing to have peaceful conversations about these issues on the part of the local RCMP. After what happened in Victoria, BC at the #1millionmarch4children, we have little to no faith that the police will follow through on any commitments to protect us and our right to speak freely and openly in what is supposedly a democratic country.

We are very lucky, though, to have a dedicated security team supporting us and keeping both attendees, venue staff, and panelists safe.

If you cannot attend either event please consider a donation to offset our costs and support our team.

DONATE TO SUPPORT OUR TEAM

We can’t wait to see those of you who purchased tickets to our Nanaimo event on Sunday and hope to see many more in the Cowichan Valley on October 4!

I am SO excited to announce that I will be in Nanaimo on October 1st, alongside fearless women, Bryony Dixon, Janayh Wright, and Gwen O’Mahony, to open up the conversation about gender identity, women’s spaces, and parental rights.

The gender identity debate was slow moving to begin with, but really fell silent once Justin Trudeau locked us all down in 2020, and is in desperate need of revival. Prior to the Covid lockdowns, we had managed to make some headway in terms of forcing the debate into the media and public sphere, by hosting events in Vancouver and Toronto. Prior, the media had roundly refused to acknowledge there was a debate at all, and mainstream political parties forged ahead with gender identity policies and legislation, regardless of what women and parents thought about it.

I’ve learned the only way to force this conversation is by having it. In person.

So we’re doing it!

If you are on Vancouver Island, please join us on Sunday, October 1st in Nanaimo, BC, for Vancouver Island’s first panel discussion on gender identity, women’s spaces, and parental rights. The exact location is currently secret, in order to avoid harassment and threats to the venue from trans activists, an unfortunate but consistent occurrence, terrifying staff and often forcing cancellation due to “security concerns,” as happened in 2019, days before I was scheduled to speak at Simon Fraser University. As such, the precise location of the event will be revealed to ticket holders a few days before the event.

The panel discussion will start at 7PM sharp, so please be sure to arrive by 6:30PM at the latest to ensure everyone is seated and the event can begin on time. The panel will be followed by a Q&A, where you can make your voice, concerns, and questions heard.

Tickets are on a sliding scale in order to make the event accessible, meaning there is a low income option at $15 and a regular, general admission option at $25. If you are unable to attend, but wish to support the event (and offset our costs), please consider a donation! We are funding this all on our own and via ticket sales, and are hoping very much to cover our costs. We are all independent women who simply want to have this conversation in places where it has been silenced; and to enable, empower, and galvanize others to start talking and to take action in defense of women, kids, families, and reality.

On account of Eventbrite’s censorship of previous women’s events, we have had to set up our own private ticketing site — yet another hurdle women are forced to overcome simply to speak about their rights, safety, and concerns. Not only do we not wish for our event to be cancelled, but we don’t wish to support a platform that silences women.

PURCHASE TICKETS

DONATE TO SUPPORT THIS EVENT!

Our panelists, as you will see, are brave and incredible:

Bryony Dixon is a British born single mother of two young boys, as well as a multimedia artist, administrator, and researcher whose work stems from a performance-based practice. She holds a B.A. in Drama from Queen Mary University of London and a Master’s in Film Aesthetics from The University of Oxford. In 2023, Bryony’s role as the Artistic Managing Producer of Pacific Coast Stage Co. (the presenters of the Nanaimo Fringe Festival), was subject to a cancellation campaign after local activists took umbrage at her personal views on sex and gender. Despite being placed on an "advisory leave" and having her movement restricted at Nanaimo’s flagship performance venue without due-process or investigation, Bryony remains committed to championing free expression, particularly addressing taboo subjects having a fundamental impact on our social fabric.

Janayh Wright is Vancouver island business owner and mother of three who spoke out after a man in a wig and face mask accessed the women’s changing room at at the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre, where her nine-year-old daughter was present. Janayh confronted the man, who was peering under the stalls, and escorting him out of the change room. The Aquatic Centre warned Janayh she could be arrested and charged for her actions, confirming it was the man's human right to be in the female changing room. She spoke out publicly and organized a protest shortly thereafter.

The third panelist is, of course, me, who I presume you already know.

We are very lucky to have Gwen O’Mahony as our moderator, an ex-NDPer (shock gasp) who represented Chilliwack-Hope in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from April 2012 until April 2013 as a member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP). Gwen was the first NDP candidate and the first woman to win the riding of Chilliwack-Hope and is enthusiastic about opening up this conversation on Vancouver Island! I can’t think of any other NDPer who has spoken up about this issue and we are very excited to have her on board.

If you have questions about the event, please contact: vancouverislandspeaks@proton.me

We hope to see you on Vancouver Island on October 1st!

TERFing USA! Join TERF All-Stars, Michelle Evans, Mary Lou Singleton, Isabella Malbin, K. Yang, Amy Sousa, and myself in Austin on August 12th for a Let Women Speak rally followed by an intimate meet and greet with some of America’s top TERFs.

The rally itself is a public, outdoor event. Anyone can come, but we need you to register as we won’t be releasing the exact location until a day or two before the event, and you will need to know where to show up! Please register here.

The after party/meet and greet has a very limited number of tickets, as the venue has limited us in terms of capacity. We will most certainly sell out, so don’t wait till the last minute to buy your ticket! We won’t have any wiggle room for plus ones or special extra tickets for friends. Buy your ticket for the VIP TERF party here.

~~~

In case you don’t spend your life on Twitter, as I do now that I am back (even though Elon refuses to give me a subscribe button, I just love it there — honestly), you may have missed Matt Walsh’s most recent garbage take.

His aim is, naturally, women. They are the worst! (The non-passive ones who don’t “fall back” and let him lead like proper ladies, in any case.) This is not new, of course. From the moment Walsh released his doc, What is a Woman? (which I have always said I liked — it was funny, and revealed the nonsense of gender identity ideology), he has behaved like a petty little child towards “gender critical feminists,” who insisted Walsh was not the only person brave enough to speak out against the trans insanity and noted that he could have chosen to support women struggling to speak out on this for many years, but chose not to.

Walsh — the man; the narcissist — had to present himself as the only true spokesperson on this issue, mostly because he is so limited by his own rigid ideological aims that he cannot share, support, or work with people who he disagrees with even a little bit. In other words, he is exactly like a trans activist, and exactly like the left he abhors so. In Walsh’s case, it’s just that his religion says men are men (rational leaders) and women are women (stupid idiots), rather than saying that men are women because pantyhose gives them boners.

Instead of working together to end this nonsense, dangerous ideology, Walsh chose to create division, and attacked “gender critical feminists.”

This is because, in my opinion (which I believe is right), Matt Walsh doesn’t care about gender identity ideology. He doesn’t care about protecting women from male predators, he doesn’t care about women’s spaces and sports, he cares about his agenda.

In other words, Walsh has used the gender identity debate to build a much broader platform than he would have otherwise been able to, with his regressive, religious, not-very-smart takes. He knows gender identity ideology is something with broad reach: a lot of parents are angry, women are angry, men think the whole thing is crazy. So he decided to make this his issue to build a base, and once he succeeded in doing that, he pivoted back to advocating women lose all of their rights because gosh they are too emotional and irrational even to vote. Now that he has this base of people who believe he is fighting the good fight, rather than the bad fight, which he was seen as doing prior, he can spin this into “feminists are to blame for all of this — let’s get em.”

It’s actually quite ingenious, albeit evil.

You can read what I wrote in response to Walsh’s attempt to blame feminists for the trans takeover here.

~~~

In other more wordly news, I am in Hungary! It is wonderful. I was invited to attend a festival called MCC Feszt, which combines political and intellectual panels and talks with a full blown culture and music festival. I am told approximately 30,000+ people are in attendance (we are on the last day, today), who, during the day attend talks and panels featuring politicians, journalists, and academics, then at night party until the wee hours. Attendees are young, old, families, and everywhere in between. It is a fantastic concept that I can’t even imagine working in North America. Canadians are too dull to attend/pay for such a thing and Americans are too degenerate, and would turn the whole thing into drunken pandemonium.

I knew nothing about Hungary prior to visiting, and am only just learning, but my impression is that they are a rather serious culture, which makes a lot of sense considering their history. I was surprised (albeit thrilled) to have been invited to speak on a panel about modern dating, which in fact is probably my favorite topic to speak on, despite appearances, as my views on modern dating are so cynical (and because generally I am known for speaking on other topics — primarily gender identity and porn). The panel turned out to be quite conservative, with me as probably the most liberal one, which is pretty funny considering my views on things like dating apps and porn culture. I loved that, having come from such an extremely woke city and continent. It is simply not normal to have these kinds of discussions in North America. Such a panel would either be liberal feminist nonsense or ultra-conservative Christian marriage or bust.

I cannot imagine a panel on modern dating, featuring myself — an anti-Big Tech, anti-porn culture, anti-everyone-younger-than-me cynic — Nina Power, who during the panel admitted she was coming off as something of a puritan and is relatively conservative, albeit not quite as conservative as the third panelist, who I’d not heard of, Vincent Harinam, whose message was “faith, family, and flag.” Harinam did not see the problem as dating apps (I see dating apps as a massive problem that should be avoided at all costs and ideally destroyed), but as a lack of focus on family and faith. Power also felt that a focus on the individual over family was a major problem, but leaned a little closer to me on the notion that we were approaching dating in a completely unnatural way that did not inspire relationships, respect, and commitment, but dehumanization. Personally, I can’t stand families and enjoy my life in large part because I chose not to have a husband or child, but concede that I am in the minority on that front. Most do want families — women especially. Which means that the last thing you should be doing is trying to sell your one-dimensional body and face to tens of thousands of men who would prefer to use you as pornography than to commit to you and fatherhood. Moreover, dating apps aren’t actually meant to get you into a relationship, no matter what they tell you. They are programmed to keep you on the app — swiping and swiping for all of eternity, just like a slot machine.

Hungary, as most of you probably know, was a communist country for many decades. This destroyed the country and its people, who are only just recovering. Hence the seriousness. They now have a generation of young people born after the fall of communism, who can offer more hope and positivity than the generations prior, who are burdened with the fear that everything could be taken from them at any given moment. The country is also right wing, which explains the conservative bent of the festival (Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire was their keynote). This is also honestly refreshing, as these days I’m so woked out that conservatism feels refreshing and interesting, even if I’m not entirely on board with the whole right wing project.

I won’t speak any further, as I am really not equipped to, being new to the culture and politic of Hungary, but it’s been very interesting and I’m looking forward to exploring Budapest on my days off this week, before returning to Mexico (briefly — I head to Austin on August 7th) on Wednesday.

~~~

And finally, as unwordly as I am (working on it), I have learned only recently that Spain had a very unproductive election, resulting in… nothing! Well, barely a left wing win, to the point there will probably need to be another election. Spain has had an actual socialist government recently, which is something I would have been thrilled by 10 years ago, but now know better. And hopefully everyone knows better, as this “most feminist government in Spanish history” pushed through a “Trans Law,” nullifying women’s sex-based rights without any debate. This is no surprise, as progressive governments across the globe have done the same. One might think this would result in a backlash leading citizens to vote right, but so far no luck in either Spain, America, or Canada. Whether this happens in the future Canadian and US elections remains to be seen. I get the impression Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party has a good chance of winning, which I would support, and I would far prefer a Republican government in the US over the moronic Democrats. While I do not like Donald Trump as person, he was actually not bad as a president, comparitively. I think we can all agree that most politicians are not to be trusted, but the progressive ones are the ones creating bad addiction, crime, environmental, and reality policy, and therefore I cannot support them. Abortions are a thing women can handle on their own, though I abhor the idea of any abortion legislation at all, never mind laws limiting women’s right to.

In conclusion, clearly I am a far right, Nazi-loving, ball-palming, conspiracy theorist grifter. Spread the word!