An interesting thing happened at the 'Turn Up for Women' rally in Welly .....

Something interesting happened at the Turn Up for Women rally outside Parliament in Wellington (aka: Welly) last Wednesday. There was a minor incident, which in itself was fairly predictable, but what it tells us from a broader perspective is a bit more noteworthy.

First, a bit of back story about the newly-formed Turn Up for Women rally. In the time-honoured manner of how many a good idea is born, two birds¹ in a boozer having a couple of beers together birthed an event they decided to call “Turn Up for Women”. When the beers were finished, and the idea still sounded good the next day, they set about organising it,

The idea arose out of the ashes of the Let Women Speak rally in Albert Park, Auckland, on 25 March. The rally had to be abandoned shortly after it started due to the violence perpetrated on the rally attendees, mostly women, by trans activists. A huge number of New Zealanders were shocked to their core at the violence they witnessed on that day. It was the first time in NZ’s history that uncontrolled mob violence like that had been perpetrated on a gathering of women. Afterwards, a lot of people started asking gender critical women’s groups what they could do to support them here in NZ.

And this is where the conversation eventually led when two of the leading figures in the groups Speak Up for Women NZ and Women Act Up were having a chinwag over beers. They knew that not everyone could speak up in support, and not everyone could act up in support, but maybe they could just turn up in support. So, the event Turn Up for Women was created, where anyone could come along and support in whatever capacity they were comfortable, whether it be speaking, holding a sign, hanging out at the back of the crowd, or just being amongst it in solidarity with everyone else who turned up.

It worked a treat. An estimated 150 people turned up, despite the not-too-flash weather. Naturally, another crowd, organised by a so-called ‘anti-fascist’ outfit, also turned up - no doubt to prevent the trans “genocide” that them and their mates, like The Disinformation Project, are sure is rampant. However, this time the trans activists couldn’t drown out the Turn Up for Women rally with extreme noise, like they did in Albert Park, as there are noise level restrictions around Parliament buildings. The police and Parliament security also kept the two groups separated.

On this occasion the event wasn’t livestreamed, apart from an impromptu final 20 minutes by Rex Landy, accompanied by her trademark irreverent commentary, which she refers to more succinctly as giving “zero f*cks”. Going forward, I anticipate future events will be fully livestreamed, as there have been a lot of requests for that. However, Rex did capture the determined crowd-cry of “WE WILL SPEAK” between 15.30 and 16.30 on her video, as well as the young bloke who spoke afterwards under the pretence of being a woman.

Yes, a bloke who says he’s a woman gate-crashed it. Quelle surprise! Not. It's really not all that unheard of now for a man who says he’s a woman to gate-crash anything that women do, or any spaces or sports we have - or try to. We see it in women’s rallies overseas, and we saw the joker in a dress² in Albert Park, do it.

What is significant is that both these blokes walked away unharmed from the women’s rallies they gate-crashed. The worst thing that happened was that the joker in dress in Albert Park was sent packing by Kellie-Jay Keen’s security, and the young bloke at the Turn Up for Women rally in Welly got the mic taken off him by ‘zero f*cks’ Rex (unfortunately not caught on camera).

Can you imagine a woman pulling a stunt like either of these two blokes did, and just waltzing away unharmed from a group of trans activists? Me neither, and perhaps that’s why I personally haven’t yet seen a woman do it, despite watching a number of Kellie-Jay Keen’s ‘Let Women Speak’ overseas rallies. However, only the willfully blind didn’t see what happened to the women in Albert Park once the trans activists got amongst them.

To me, these two incidents firmly plant right in front of our eyes the yawning chasm between ‘trans rights’ groups and gender critical women’s groups. It kinda demonstrates why we women don’t want men in our spaces.

However, by all accounts, the inaugural Turn Up for Women rally in Welly was a damn good day – or at least, a damn good lunch hour. I believe it’s on the calendar to happen again, so keep an eye on Speak Up for Women’s public Facebook page for the next one.

·       ¹ Yeah, I know – inappropriate, blah, blah, blah. I claim licence to own the word in the same way that belittling words are often re-claimed by the groups whom they originally belittled.

·       ²’Joker’ – an older term of disparagement of varying degrees, usually for a man.

·       Rex’s video, for which she apologies for the ‘newbie’ quality of it 😊