Why are the police stopping a 74-year-old tweeting about transgenderism? | 5 February 2019

Margaret Nelson is a 74-year-old woman who lives in a village in Suffolk. On Monday morning she was woken by a telephone call. It was an officer from Suffolk police. The officer wanted to speak to Mrs Nelson about her Twitter account and her blog. Mrs Nelson, a former humanist celebrant and one-time local newspaper journalist, enjoys tweeting and writing about a number of issues, including the legal and social distinctions between sex and gender. Among the statements she made on Twitter last month and which apparently concerned that police officer: ‘Gender is BS. Pass it on’. Another: ‘Gender’s fashionable nonsense. Sex is real. I’ve no reason to feel ashamed of stating the truth. The bloody annoying ones are those who use words like ‘cis’ or ‘terf’ and other BS, and relegate biological women to a ‘subset’. Sorry you believe the mythology.’ The blog, meanwhile, is mainly about death and funeral rituals: Mrs Nelson has officiated at many funerals.