On Sunday afternoon, a bunch of ladies met for lunch — and then proceeded to demolish the internet. J.K. Rowling organised the event, which drew together women’s rights activists who have been accused of holding transphobic or gender critical beliefs.
The boozy lunch was held at Hammersmith’s River Café, an exclusive Michelin-starred restaurant. It was originally scheduled for pre-Christmas, but was rescheduled due to the high rate of Covid infection at the time.
The event came on the heels of the introduction of a women’s rights campaign called Respect My Sex if You Want My X, which “encourages voters to question politicians about sex and gender identity,” according to The Times.
Although Rowling had reserved a private room, the gathering was anything but secretive. Many participants shared images of themselves hugging and smiling on Twitter, with Helen Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, stating that it was “a genuinely wonderful celebration of sisterhood.”
Who was present?
Among the guests were Julie Bindel, a journalist and feminist activist who co-founded the campaigning organisation Justice for Women, and Rosie Duffield, the Labour Member of Parliament for Canterbury who has been at the forefront of her party’s internal divisions over the conflict between women’s and trans rights.
So many other people with us in thought and laughter pic.twitter.com/ng4M7bQgSu
— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) April 11, 2022
Kathleen Stock, a feminist philosopher who resigned from her position at Sussex University over her views on gender, and Maya Forstater, who made headlines in 2019 after tweeting about the distinction between sex and gender identity, were also in attendance.
Rowling and Forstater met for the first time at Sunday’s gathering, but it was Forstater’s case that thrust the Harry Potter author’s gender critical convictions into the forefront. Rowling was accused of transphobia in 2019 after tweeting “IStandWithMaya” in support of Forstater’s job search.
Forstater told The Times that meeting the writer had been “emotional,” describing her as a “source of strength.”
Suzanne Moore, a journalist who was also there at the gathering, said in The Telegraph: “I have now seen various explanations of why [the lunch] occurred. We must be a coven, or we must be scheming or beginning a campaign.”
However, she claimed, the “true motive” was “to eat, drink, and be tremendously joyful, which appears to have never occurred to these steely investigative reporters.”
Two ex-single mums now united for women’s rights ❤️ @RosieDuffield1 #RespectMySex pic.twitter.com/9iSXPifHa2
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 11, 2022
protest of transgender people
Pink News noted that the lunch occurred concurrently with a transgender rights demonstration outside Downing Street in protest of the government’s decision to exclude transgender persons from the UK’s conversion therapy prohibition.
“While Rowling had assured trans supporters that she would’march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of your gender identity,’ she was nowhere to be seen on the day of the protests,” the tabloid noted.