And a mad letter
Good morning from my single hotel room in Manchester I am about to get out of bed to don my lycra and head to Alexandra Park in Moss Side to do Parkrun with Fiona McAnena, Helen Smith and various other Manchester Fringe Book Festival attendees. I hate Parkrun right up until the moment I've finished. I hate getting up, getting there, being cold beforehand, dreading the pain of running, experiencing the pain of running and feeling sick as I try to sprint finish. Then I stop and the endorphins come in and I feel great and set up for the day and I love Parkrun and its great. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. On the off chance that anyone read this newsletter last week and is heading to Philips Parkrun in Manchester, a decision was switch to go to Alexandra Park quite late in the day, so apologies if you are now at the "wrong" Parkrun. Glinner judgment On Tuesday I went up to London to attend the hearing to hand down judgment in Rex v Linehan. As you will know by now he got done for criminal damage of a mobile phone and got off the more serious charge of harassment. I was lucky enough to join Glinner and his legal team in a cab back to Doughty Street Chambers, where Graham and I did a sit down interview. My plan was, and still is, to write it up for the GenderBlog website, but when I mentioned I had got the first interview with Graham after the trial, the Sunday Times asked me to write it up for them, which is what I have spent most of the last week doing.
There's no guarantee the piece will go in until you actually see published, but do check out tomorrow's News Review section to see if it's there. The mad letter As you may know, I am in Manchester to interview Susan Dalgety, co-editor of The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, the book they have now tried to ban twice. Earlier this year, the head of the Scottish National Library decided not to put TWWWW in an exhibition because its internal LGBTQ group complained. There was an outcry, an internal investigation and the book was given its rightful place. This week, an open letter was sent to the library demanding TWWWW not be given prominence by the library because it made people feel "unsafe". This is worse than demonstrable nonsense, but also excellent publicity for the book and it makes today's chat with Susan timely and relevant. TWWWW is an excellent piece of social history. I should know, because I've now read it twice. It is so well put together (and the packaging of the hardback is a thing of beauty), containing so much fascinating detail and reads very much like the first draft of an incredibly important wave of feminist history.
I love reading books twice as it always a completely different experience second time round (especially when you get to my age and can forget what you were doing yesterday). It is possibly wrong to pick a favourite chapter as so much of it is so good for so many different reasons, but Elaine Miller's chapter on That Merkin Moment brings everything alive, and is very funny. Claire Heuchan's chapter is visceral too. I cannot imagine what it was like to go through with events and talks when the mob which signed the latest letter were in the ascendent and the authorities did nothing to stop them. In fact, whilst Sturgeon and her cronies come out of this as pretty nasty pieces of work, the craven cowardice and complicity of Edinburgh University shines through as a beacon of anti-intellectual evil. It's alright for me, I can make a joke of it (see above) and not suffer any consequences. For women then, careers were being ended, social circles collapsed with denunciations and witch hunts happening all over Scotland. It's a wild place, man. The puberty blocker trial
I was delighted to be able to print a slightly more serious open letter earlier this week by Marcus and Sue Evans, two of the original Tavistock whistleblowers. Do have a read, alongside this heartfelt piece by the wonderful Stella O'Malley from Genspect. I think there is a groundswell of opinion growing that this trial is simply the wrong thing to do. Whether that will stop it or not is a completely different matter. Write to your MP, I guess, though I never know if that actually works. Will there be some kind of proper parliamentary debate about our proposal to sterilise kids to see if they like it? There should be. The Cambridge University Society of Woman are Legit!!
Finally, I am delighted to tell you that on Thursday CUSW received official recognition by Cambridge University. This is a massive step for them. They would have survived without it, but formal recognition means a huge amount in terms of access to facilities and protection from the groups and people who would seek to deligitimise them. Congratulations to Maeve, Thea and Serena and the dozens of new members who have joined since I was privileged to announce their launch just over a month ago! I am very much hoping that Thea and Maeve will be here at the Fringe Festival today, alongside some journalism students from Salford University who are here to cover this seditious gathering for their university projects and media. If you are attending today please do come and find me and say hello. Right I've got to go and drag myself around a park in Moss Side. Have a great weekend! Nick This is the GenderBlog newsletter. If you have been forwarded it and would like to join the mailing list so each newsletter (and GenderBlog blog post) drops, freshly-baked, directly into your email inbox, please consider making a small one-off donation via the donate page on my GenderBlog website. Thanks. © Nick Wallis 2025 |
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