A London lesbian speed-dating event has been shut down amid accusations of transphobia after organisers had limited the event to only “adult human females”.
A weekly speed dating evening for lesbians in the Bloomsbury district of London has become a target of woke activists after discovering that it prohibited biological males from attending the event.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, the founder of the speed dating event, Jenny Watson, said that she was forced to enact a ban on transgender people from attending last year after a man came to the pub wearing a purple latex costume while having “an erection”.
“Another time, a trans woman came into the female toilet and pushed their body at a woman who was upset and told me after. It got me thinking that this isn’t fair on women,” Watson explained.
“Transgender individuals deserve respect. But there is a need for protection of sex-segregated spaces for lesbian women.”
In response to biological males showing up to the lesbian event, Watson wrote on her website last week: “If you are male, please refrain from coming to the events, you are not a lesbian,” while posting on social media that only “adult human females” should attend.
Her declaration that people with penises cannot, in fact, be lesbians enraged local LGBTQ+ activists, who reported the event to the local government council for being transphobic.
Appearing on Free Speech Nation with Andrew Doyle on GB News on Sunday, Watson said that the Stonegate Group, which owns the College Arms pub where the event has been taking place for over four years, has shut down the event.
During the programme, Doyle shared WhatsApp messages to woke activists allegedly from a manager at the Stonegate Group indicating his political bias, reportedly referring to Watson as a “Terfy asshole”. The term Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) has become a common slur used against female opponents of the excesses of the transgender movement, such as its encroachment on women’s only spaces and the negative impacts on children.
The unnamed manager said in the messages that he intended on shutting down the lesbian speed dating event and to replace it with another with “inclusivity” as a core principle, undermining claims that the decision to cancel it was a “commercial decision”.
Watson said that she is finding it difficult to find a replacement venue, claiming that transgenderism activists are discouraging others from allowing the event to take place, accusing her organisation of being a “hate group”
Responding to cancellation, author Helen Joyce — who is often branded as a Terf herself by the radical left — said on social media: “This story is immensely distressing. Lesbians being investigated for bigotry simply because they have the temerity to hold a speed-dating event from which men are excluded. I don’t know how anyone can defend this.”
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