Too Loud to Cancel: The High Price of Speaking for Women

Too Loud to Cancel: The High Price of Speaking for Women

Let Women Speak has never asked for sympathy—but what we have faced would break many. In a culture that rewards compliance and punishes truth-telling, we have been cancelled, banned, demonetised, and now debanked. And yet, we are still here.

Here is a list of just some of the ways we've been blocked, cancelled, or penalised:

Mumsnet: Banned from the platform entirely.

Crowdfunding platforms: Blocked from mainstream services like GoFundMe, and even from alternative platforms such as GiveSendGo.

Change.org: We are unable to launch petitions, silencing us from campaigning through one of the most used online activist tools.

Patreon: Removed and denied access to their monetisation services.

Buy Me a Coffee: Also shut us out, refusing us a means to collect even small one-off donations.

YouTube: No access to subscriber fees or revenue features—completely demonetised.

X (formerly Twitter): We receive no ad revenue, despite meeting the content engagement levels many others are rewarded for.

And now, most seriously of all:

Debanked: Our previous payment provider shut down our account after a secretive and biased investigation. Despite submitting documentation, they repeatedly refused to accept evidence. We were given no right of appeal, no clear reason, and no path to reinstatement. This has left us without the ability to process membership payments or donations using standard tools. Even our replacement provider failed to notify us that recurring payments would not continue—causing further disruption and financial instability.

And while we are locked out, others use the very platforms that penalise us to say the same things we’re punished for. They can monetise it. We can’t. That double standard isn’t accidental—it’s systemic.

The forces against women’s voices are no better exemplified than by the fact that when I speak in public, I require Close Protection Officers for safety, while simultaneously being denied the basic tools of online communication and commerce. We are not treated like political dissenters—we are treated like pariahs.

This is not new. Women who speak the truth—particularly about our bodies, our rights, and our boundaries—have always been punished. From the suffragettes who were arrested and force-fed, to campaigners like Mary Whitehouse and Andrea Dworkin who were mocked and vilified, to rape victims disbelieved and shamed, history is filled with examples of women who dared to speak and were met with contempt, coercion, and sometimes violence.

In the Middle Ages, they called us witches. They gagged us with scold’s bridles, humiliated us in public stocks, or simply erased our words from the record. Today, they demonetise, deplatform, debank, and delegitimise. The tools have changed—but the impulse to silence women remains the same.

Not one to brag, but it takes a fair bit of resilience to keep going when the system is stacked against you. And still, we do.

Why? Because we speak clearly and unapologetically about women’s rights, sex-based reality, and the safeguarding of children. We do not bend, and we do not lie. And for that, we pay a price.

But here’s the truth: we are a genuine grassroots movement. We are powered not by institutions, not by elite funding, but by ordinary people who refuse to be silenced. And despite every attempt to shut us down, we remain.

I don’t know anyone else facing such relentless and pernicious targeting. But we will not stop. Because we know what’s at stake. We’ve seen what happens when women are told to be quiet—and we know that silence has never kept us safe.

The reason I keep going is simple. When I ask myself, “If not you, then who?” and “If not now, then when?”—the answers are “Me” and “Now.” I simply can't walk away until the job is done.

Until every last woman and girl is reassured that a single-sex space is truly single sex, I can't stop. I can't rest until the Gender Recognition Act is dead, until the European Convention on Human Rights is a distant memory, and the Equality Act is buried. No men in women’s spaces. No men using our language. No state-imposed sanctions for women who refuse to comply.

Let Women Speak isn’t just a slogan. It’s a rallying cry.