Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

anyways I can't understand anyone who wouldn't want HL fired from a trebuchet into oblivion, everything about her is rank. Although at least she has fucked off to the US for now, just need to get that passport revoked and they can fucking keep her!

"I can't understand anyone who wouldn't want HL fired from a trebuchet into oblivion"

That makes me laugh out loud! :D

There isn't any TERFery that I could see, she just mentions that the GRA has a clause in that says inheriting a title is the an area with a specific exception - you can't change your position in line by changing your gender.

Look Andrew, as much as I love you doing your usual thing to jump into a thread to defend a woman no matter what a bad person she is, you’re still wrong here: she actually can’t resist going wELl YoU cAnT iNhErIt PrOpErTy BuT yOu CaN bE nOnBiNaRy because of course she does.

idg what is so singularly alluring abt helen lewis 2 u?

lol.

also, helen lewis is just fucking awful.

If lockdown has tipped you into problem drinking, you're probably not alone

it's definitely statistically unlikely that only one person reading this has started problem drinking, and that person is you.

I'm not aware I'm defending her, I'm just pointing out that there's nothing TERFy there - but there doesn't have to be, if we just meditate on her badness long enough.

You did it again! Should start keeping a log.

Can you explain to me, then, why she manages to shoehorn in a bizarre, unnecessary, out of context reference to nonbinary people, in the midst of an article that otherwise has absolutely nothing to do with nonbinary people at all? Can you provide any context or meaning for that bizarre insertion, other than to make the recognition of nonbinary gender look strange, unnecessary or otherwise opposed to the putative rights of the cis women in the piece?

I mean, I cannot believe I had to read this PoS article to affirm that yes, it is weirdly obsessed with the existence of nonbinary people.

I agree, there is nothing *radical* about this article at all, in fact I’m struggling to see her portray it as even remotely feminist. But trans exclusionary? Yes, she definite drops a reference to nonbinary people in there for no other reason than to ride her hobbyhorse about how our rights and existence are... a weird joke to her?

The context seemed to me to be that the article talks about gender and 'modern times' - the passage starts It reveals a country trapped between tradition and modernity, between the Middle Ages and the 21st century.

If you're talking about signifiers of modern attitudes to gender, trans rights and non-binary rights seem like a fairly obvious hook?

with the context that helen lewis is thoroughly opposed to trans rights and one of the most prominent british transphobes, that section happens to come across a little differently! without that context i'd think wondering 'how many lords are nonbinary' etc. would just be a strange aside and i wouldn't think that much of it but considering she's an obsessive transphobe who no doubt considers the concept of nonbinary genders ridiculous, everyone else's reaction of "ffs helen you can't even write a stupid article about how the aristocracy needs to be less sexist in its rules without mentioning your pet issue" is very reasonable

A recently unearthed Suzanne Moore classic:

https://twitter.com/myblacklife23/status
/1329228698113990657?s=19

Goodbye England's rose or whatever I guess

My friend just reminded me of this absolute stinker from S**anne M**re pic.twitter.com/DuJbf2kbSI

— Madame Guillotine (@myblacklife23) November 19, 2020

Goes nicely with this column.

Get on a bus and you will hear many a robust exchange about "ethnicity" which polite and political conversation is afraid of.

I got the bus to go to work every day before the pandemic but somehow never heard this chat.

fbclid=IwAR2KgE5E6T8wKjB4uI0bbLEF6l5ONOGd4QA1rfX_JAhiXu1Q_ZGdtSDb_bo

https://nostalgiacentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/otb1971film.jpg

some robust political debate happening beside a bus recently

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/08/14/23/Lewis-PA.jpg?width=982&height=726

Labour on the meth

Great photo! There’s probably a phd available on the semiology of buses in political campaigning.

Think Keith could pick up a bargain here, bolster his hard lad credentials and see off a few tankies with this

https://tanks-alot.co.uk/product/margret-thatchers-armoured-bus/

good for driving roughshod over election pledges with as well!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/20/jan-morris-historian-travel-writer-and-trans-pioneer-dies-aged-94

another guardian obituary with a nasty take on the 1970s. this time dredging up classic period terf rhetoric.

theguardian.com what is yr problem

material interests 🤝 fixed progressive values

should probably have posted trigger warning but i feel like that could apply to literally anything in the guardian uk media now

It’s not British media unless you’re unable to tell the Spectator from the Guardian in a blind read!

So depressing. Those spiteful little bigoted comments must have been so unpleasant for her to hear at the time, how disgusting that almost 50 years later they are deemed worthy of including in her fucking obituary.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/20/jan-morris-historian-travel-writer-and-trans-pioneer-dies-aged-94🕸

another guardian obituary with a nasty take on the 1970s. this time dredging up classic period terf rhetoric.

revisionism about 70s feminism being 100% terfery is vexing- you'd never think it was controversial at the time, or that rejection of sex & gender essentialism/immutability was once considered a radfem position, based on how it gets remembered

likes of lewis, freeman, rowling, guardian etc should surely be called TELFs- afaict they don't have much in common with even the really awful 2nd wave stuff, apart from a few talking points so disconnected from any analysis that they might as well be taken from the far right

anyway death to the guardian

revisionism about 70s feminism being 100% terfery is vexing- you'd never think it was controversial at the time, or that rejection of sex & gender essentialism/immutability was once considered a radfem position

gender essentialism was rare but surely the position the constructionist viewpoint was most prevalent?

idk if essentialism was all that rare actually but afaict a constructionist view was often preferred- which like anything can be used in shitty ways but i dont think it’s necessarily transphobic, a lot of trans ppl hold / have held similar positions

these anti-trans liberals seem pretty straightforward biological essentialists, even if they occasionally cite social construction when it’s convenient for an argument. anything that works seems to be their guiding principle- their bigotry doesn’t seem to be connected to even the kind of nominally radical social critique I associate w old school terfs

yes, heartily agree with the last part. silly to call jk rowling terf really when she doesn't seem to be advancing any feminist viewpoints

I don't know if you guys are aware that today is Trans Day of Remembrance, or if this discussion is accidental?

I spent the evening reading the great long litany of the dead: https://transrespect.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/TvT_TMM_TDoR2020_Namelist_EN.pdf - literally hundreds of murdered women (and a handful of murdered trans men and nonbinary people), their last days detailed (or starkly anonymous), in heartbreaking and sickening detail. And of the identified perpetrators of those murders, like way over 90% are cis men - who rape, violently assault, and murder trans women en masse, on a systemic level.

But the conversation you guys are having on this TDOR, is this endless recrimination of... whether it's constructivist feminists or bioessentialist feminists who are somehow responsible for *causing* all this transphobia? (Because, yeah, I'm totally *positive* that these men are 100% down with 70s or 00s radical feminism, that is totally where they get their transphobia from, violent men are soooo inclined to listen to feminists.) Instead of understanding that "terfs" or transphobic feminists or whatever you want to call the various kinds of transphobes - are one of the many symptoms of societal transphobia, and not the root cause.

And every one of these conversations, of whether it's this kind of feminist, or that kind of feminist, acts as this kind of moral smokescreen of blame-displacement - so that we never, ever have to talk about the violent, transphobic, misogynist, entitled men who rape and kill trans women?

And you don't think that's a completely bizarre and off-kilter thing to be doing?

yes, I was aware it's the trans day of remembrance.

we're in a thread about the guardian commenting on a thing that was in the guardian. no one is saying that violence against trans people today is caused by 70s feminism. it's just most relevant to what we are discussing itt rn

I suppose I live in a bit of a bubble, I had seen the link you posted as it was emailed round my department at work, alongside with lots of other materials, this morning; I have trans co-workers, friends and family members. I don't really encounter transphobia in my day to day life as I'm cis. so it happens that transphobia in the media, which has the tendency to be "feminist", is what I see. I don't think jk rowling is the cause of violence against trans people, but I also know that when someone put up a billboard saying "I heart JK Rowling" by where I lived it hurt people I know. I think it's possible to think prominent people in the media being transphobic is bad while also being aware that they are not the font of all transphobia or as pertinent an issue as the shocking violence against trans people that exists everywhere in the world.

the feminist framing seems to be the context in which trans issues are most frequently discussed outside trans circles in britain in terms of actual controversy, the transphobia & misogyny of cis men being already assumed. popularity of this framing means attempts to raise the latter as an issue tend to be shouted down as if they’re part of the same patriarchal violence they’re calling out (and obviously violent men aren’t above using whatever ideological smokescreen is available). there is definitely a disproportionality with the focus on feminism- but in the context of the guardian it’s the primary weapon used, and it does act as a moral smokescreen for patriarchal violence, however relatively minor it might seem. of course we should be calling the actual physical violence out more than we do. the guardian is quite happy to enable it & should be called out for that. but maybe we’re falling into its trap if we accept it’s about feminism in any form

i do actually think rowling is *a* cause of violence against trans people. a minor one if you have to make these comparisons but still

branwell, as a trans woman, can i ask you to please stop continually derailing things whenever people are discussing & complaining about transphobic "feminists" to go "why doesn't anyone care about all the violent transphobic men!!!". everyone agrees that violent transmisogynistic men who murder trans women are bad and no one is really interested in platforming them or treating them as being a valid part of a reasonable debate. there's not much to really discuss there. there are plenty of violent misogynist men who use the cover provided by trans-exclusionary "feminists" to feel justified in their own violence and bigotry though, go look at all the self-proclaimed "gender critical" middle aged men on twitter. no one is saying that transphobic "feminists" are the source of all violence against trans people but as i'm sure you well know, the arguments put forward by transphobic "feminists" have done real damage to trans rights, especially in the uk, and helped to encourage violence against trans people. it's also particularly notable because by presenting itself as 'progressive' and 'feminist' it's become a respectable bigotry even in some otherwise left-wing and liberal circles.

i think i was using terf carelessly tbh, so it was a useful reminder (just speaking personally).

this is a thread where people bemoan the guardian. a frequent strategy that is called out here is the use of so-called progressivist pragmatism to undermine actual progressive discourses and actions. this is something that is not limited to the use of "feminist" discourses to denigrate trans people and to frame the identities of trans people and their rights as a 'question' that people may legitimately hold two sides on. however, this is a very prominent recent feature of the guardian's editorial approach.

The thread seems to have become particularly active in the last few years as the guardian for shreds its reputation for investigative journalism while increasingly peddling click-bait hate reads and, say, advertorials for child labour in the tobacco industry. Literally this is the subject of this thread, distinct from batting down every violent and reactionary piece of hate-content gleefully printed by the uk media which would be an endless, exhausting and thankless job. remember too that participation on this board is entirely voluntary, and threads like this are frequently bumped by the ongoing casual way that people encounter these frustrations daily, they are literally just a way to vent, in this case about a specific guardian-related complaint.

Even so i think its quite important differentiate between the views of a minority of terfy journalists and women's or feminist views in general. it is not my experience that contemporary feminists hold transphobic views or that adminstrators of women's shelters are v concerned about self-identification (quite the inverse, trans women for instance have been part of women's shelters since long before the 2004 gender recognition act). Why then are these voices amplified, and how convenient that the ongoing project of airing these discourses in 'respectable' contexts is increasingly seen as somewhat illegitimate? Might it not be more useful to see how this practice is analagous with other ways progressive discourses are eroded from putatively proximate discursive positions (as is tacitly or explicitly a major theme of this thread)?

Shouldn't we also seek to see discourses how these distort public debate (by amplifying the 'concerns' of a minority of commentariat types and suggesting that these obsessions are more widespread than they, in fact, are) and are also continuous with the kinds of violence faced by trans people everywhere: see how 'gender critical' discourses have recently found a foothold in starmer's army and thus tacitly legitimated as bipartisan. This has real consequences for policy both domestically (the dropping of self-identification) and globally* and it seems far more productive to see these things as continuous.

However, once again, this thread is not specifically about that, it is by its nature reactive. a kind of safety valve for the *myriad* and *particular* ways this one publication poisons the discourse daily.

*contributing to more reactionary interventions in foreign aid allocation, a tactic more identified with the reactionary right in the USA -the global gag for instance- but obviously gaining traction here as the culture war model becomes an increasingly lucrative angle for the conservatives, aped by a right-wing labour opposition

i was putting together some notes recently trying to explore some of this from a slightly different angle under a title 'so much for the savages.' i stopped recognising that i probably needed to go to people more knowledgeable than me in *all* the areas is covers, so i post those notes here in that spirit, and also with the request for guidance where i've got stuff wrong. it was motivated by the initial suzanne moore bullshit, at the beginning of lockdown, and a passage in a passage from clifford geertz that i'd read. oh god, there's so much, please please tldr it - it's pretty rambly i'm afraid.

I started writing this just as lockdown came in, and ditched it as it seems largely irrelevant. I've resurrected it in the context of the Supreme Court passing employment legislation protecting LGBTQ+ rights, and in what looks like a highly regressive move, the UK government look like they're going to scrap plans to enable gender self-identification. It also comes through trying to think through (v clumsily) what it means to be a cis-het white male in relation minority and marginalised communities and groups, after being asked to <a href="https://diasyrmus.github.io/blog/2020/06/15/what-does-it-mean";>present myself as an 'ally'</a> in a company wide diversity and inclusion intiative.

There is an extraordinary passage in Clifford Geertz's 1975 essay, Common Sense as a Cultural System (collected in his superb book Local Knowledge). I should stress, ahead of quoting this, that I am not suggesting intersexed people are in some way equivalent to transgender people, or indeed non-binary and other gender identities. The focus here is the cultural response to non-binary gender identities:

Gender in human beings is not a purely dichotomous variable. It is not an evenly continuous one either, of course, or our love life would be even more complicated than it already is. But about 2 or 3 percent of human beings are markedly intersexual, a number of them to the point where both sorts of external genitalia appear, or where developed breasts occur in an individual with male genitalia, and so on. This raises certain problems for biological science, problems with respect to which a good deal of headway is right now being made. But it raises, also, certain problems for common sense, for the network of practical and moral concepts woven about those supposedly most rooted of root realities: maleness and femaleness. Intersexuality is more than an empirical surprise; it is a cultural challenge.

It is a challenge that is met in diverse ways. The Romans, Edgerton reports, regarded intersexed infants as supernaturally cursed and put them to death. The Greeks, as was their habit, took a more relaxed view and, though they regarded such persons as peculiar, put it all down as just one of those things - after all, Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite who became united in one body with a nymph, provided precedent enough - and let them live out their lives without undue stigma. Edgerton's paper indeed pivots around a fascinating contrast among three quite variant responses to the phenomenon of intersexuality - that of the Americans, the Navaho, and the Pokot (the last a Kenyan tribe) - in terms of the common-sense views these people hold concerning human gender and its general place in nature. As he says, different people may react differently when confronted with individuals whose bodies are sexually anomalous, but they can hardly ignore them. If received ideas of "the normal and the natural" are to be kept intact, something must be said about these rather spectacular disaccordances with them.

Americans regard intersexuality with what can only be called horror. Individuals, Edgerton says, can be moved to nausea by the mere sight of intersexed genitalia or even by a discussion of the condition. "As a moral and legal enigma," he continues, "it knows few peers. Can such a person marry? Is military service relevant? How is the sex on a birth certificate to be made out? Can it properly be changed? Is it psychologically advisable, or even possible, for someone raised as a girl, suddenly to become a boy?… How can an intersexed person behave school shower rooms, in public bathrooms, in dating activities?" Clearly, common sense is at the end of its tether.

The reaction is to encourage, usually with great passion and sometimes with rather more than that, the intersexual to adopt either a male or female role. Many intersexuals do thus "pass" for the whole of their lives as "normal" men or women, something that involves a good deal of careful artifice. Others either seek or are forced into surgery to "correct," cosmetically anyway, the condition and become "legitimate" males or females. Outside of freak shows, we permit only one solution to the dilemma of intersexuality, a solution the person with the condition is obliged to adopt to soothe the sensibilities of the rest of us. "All concerned," Edgerton writes, "from parents to physicians are enjoined to discover which of the two natural sexes the intersexed person most appropriately is and then to help the ambiguous, incongruous, and upsetting 'it' to become at least a partially acceptable 'him' or 'her.' In short, if the facts don't measure up to your expectations, change the facts, or, if that's not feasible, disguise them."

So much for savages. Turning to the Navaho, among whom W.W Hill made a systematic study of hermaphroditism as early as 1935, the picture is quite different. For them, too, of course, intersexuality is abnormal, but rather than evoking horror and disgust it evokes wonder and awe. The intersexual is considered to have been divinely blessed and to convey that blessing to others. Intersexuals are not only respected, they are practically revered. "They know everything," one of Hill informants says, "they can do the work of both a man and a woman. I think when all the [intersexuals] are gone, that it will be the end of the Navaho." "If there were no [intersexuals]," another informant said, "the country would change. They are responsible for all the wealth in the country. If there were no more left, the horses, sheep, and Navaho would all go. They are leaders, just like President Roosevelt." Yet another said, "An [intersexual] around the hogan will bring good luck and riches. does a great deal for the country if you have an [intersexual] around." And so on.

Navaho common sense thus places the anomaly of intersexuality - for, as I say, it seems no less an anomaly to them than it does to us, because it is no less an anomaly - in a quite different light than does ours. Interpreting it to be not a horror but a blessing leads on to notions that seem as peculiar to us as that adultery causes hunting accidents or incest leprosy, but that seem to the Navaho only what anyone with head screwed on straight cannot help but think. For example, that rubbing the genitals of intersexed animals (which are also highly valued) on the tails of female sheep and goats and on the noses of male sheep goats causes the flocks to prosper and more milk to be produced. Or, that intersexed persons should be made the heads of their families and given complete control over all the family property, because then that too will grow. Change a few interpretations of a few curious facts and you change, here anyway, a whole cast of mind. Not size-up-and-solve, but marvel-and-respect.

That some of the language and conceptualising can seem out of date now only indicates that in many respects it is out of date. 45 years out of date. The language and awareness of gender identity has changed considerably since Geertz wrote his piece. Nevertheless I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in thinking there are parts of it that seem current.

I was struck by it in the context of the grotesque media circus surrounding a Suzanne Moore article, and today read this excellent piece by Juliet Jacques in the NYT – Transphobia is Everywhere in Britain. It's worth reading through, as it's a clearly stated description of the current state of affairs. However, in reference to the above excerpt from Geertz, it was this section that caught my eye:

To many, the sight of a center-left party failing to support trans rights without equivocation must be baffling — not least to American Democrats, whose party, divided in many ways, is firmly united in its support for trans and nonbinary people.

This passage highlighted something that I expressed elsewhere, that in fact most of the mainstream liberal space of the USA, and I include in this corporate and liberal institutional culture and governance (in eg education and the media), as well as the really quite centrist Democrats, consider trans and non-binary rights to be expected and unquestionable and, as far as I can tell, inalienable.

So, what changed? What's different between the US of then (1975) and the US of now, nearly half a century later, and why does Geertz's description of the US of then remind me so much of the current terrible... I hesitate to call it a 'debate'... a sort of nauseating and quite pathetic public litigation against transgender rights in the UK. Why is the UK debate so backward? How does 'common sense' get progressed?

I should add, and maybe this sort of exploration is necessarily always caveated, but it's clear that the acceptance of liberal institutional culture does not mean gender identity rights are universally accepted; it is still clearly a live and bitter fight against violent and murderous hate, as well as the more structural forces of social conservatism and conservative religion. 2019 was the joint deadliest year on record for transgender americans.

This is specifically about what might be considered the editorial voice in the UK. I'm not in a position to look at corporate, civic or legal standards, other than to note much of what is considered legitimate language and attitude in the commentariat would be unacceptable in most corporate environments of which I'm aware.

But why is the UK liberal media – the guardian is of course notable – so regressive? It is not generally, by which i mean editorially, either interested in the feelings or needs of non binary gender identities other than as a side to a controversy, or thinking honestly, curiously and generously about the frameworks that can be put in place to enable people to live their desired identity in society without hindrance or handicap. It is certainly not interested in editorially campaigning for those frameworks and that thinking.

Instead it is involved in what looks like a bitter rearguard action to spoil and crash any ability to look at the opportunities to improve society, and any obstacles there are to that, as clearly as possible.

uh, it gets even more 'note-y' from now:

COMMON SENSE & THE COMMENTARIAT

How does common sense change? And why has that common sense changed in the liberal institutions in the US and not the UK <- good example of an assumption that needs examining!

The lack of ability for our moribund commentariat to examine what might underlie their assumptions of ‘common sense’ is one of their hallmarks – they are old asserters of a historical status quo. They are people who say that progress stopped when they stopped thinking and examining (eg Suzanne Moore)

Is the controverting of what might be considered common sense into areas of expertise around social and economic liberalism causing the space of what people consider to be their common wisdom to be squeezed, and for it to assert itself aggressively?

the role of marketing in establishing common sense - geertz's example is people's basic 'common sense' acceptance of the germ theory of disease not being based on science, but the move from 'feed a cold and starve a fever' to 'brush your teeth twice a day and see your dentist twice a year' (we might also add in the uk 'coughs and sneezes spread diseases.'

sense held in common – the kantian sense – that allows shared communication
to be clear I am not talking about that, though retaining a sense that it *allows us to communicate* may well be helpful here.

It occurs to me the defence mechanism of common sense is against the vehicles that attack it – expertise, where training and learning have found that the best analysis is one that runs counter to existing common sense (usually sense that is outdated). Maybe we are just seeing a consequence of the rapidly generalised learning across society (no one likes their offspring telling them how things *actually* are), and, conversely, within that general learning, specialisation.

in that sense the failing media, to get specific to the UK, may be performing a specific function of trying to create a fungible language that can freight between specialisations - the need for commentary rather than reportage. there are people who do this certainly, but in general the commentariat retains its common language of communication by erecting barriers around its (increasingly bubble like to the commentariat) common sense.

How would we know if this were the case? What examples of trying to find a common language between different linguistic spaces or conceptual spaces can we find? Layman’s books - danger is we create feelings of expertise which are ‘thin’ to use Geertz’s term.

WHY ARE LIBERAL INSTITUTIONS MORE PROGRESSIVE IN THE US?

The question is obviously not here one of intersectionality, but intersectionality as one example handling the complexities and intersections of identity and identity vectors (eg race and gender). Is the US in a more sophisticated position (i tried to avoid ‘advanced’ and ‘mature’ to avoid prejudicing my thought, but frankly those are reasonable words to use), because it has legally and socially litigated frameworks for identity to a far greater extent than the UK?

Such imports from the US (check your privilege) we love to scorn. And I probably need to unpack why that may be a little bit, but it’s worth noting now that we also find ourselves taking them on after a while - for example the professional class love of exercise, scorned by the man with the pint a couple of decades ago as faddy, and in a sense unmanly because of a vain pursuit of bodily image.

Is that litigation because the US is a significantly more plural than the UK? It's very hard to get away from the overwhelmingly white middle class in the UK and a sort of rather silly nostalgia for the moral and societal frameworks of their youth and upbringing that anti-trans commentators can show. (needs support)

BACK TO THE COMMENTARIAT AGAIN

As I understand it eye-rolling is technically, historically and literally an invocation of God, but in its mundane form of ‘oh for God’s sake’ is effectively an indication that for the eye-roller, something is typical of a behaviour of a person or group and therefore the content of the behaviour can be disregarded. I wonder to a certain extent whether it forms the same protective ‘warding off’ signal of common sense, as described here by Geertz:

In this context, at least, the cry of witchcraft functions for the Azande as the cry of Insha Allah functions for some Muslims or crossing oneself functions for some Christians, less to lead into more troubling questions - religious, philosophical, scientific, moral - about how the world is put together and what life comes to, than to block such questions from view; to seal up the common-sense view of the world - "everything is what it is and not another thing," as Joseph Butler put it - against the doubts its inevitable insufficiencies inevitably stimulate.

They are not cognate certainly, but it is a sign of denial and dismissal, which says ‘i will not regard this matter further, as it goes beyond what i can reasonably consider’ and while there is no doubt that eye rolling can take place in isolation (god knows I’ve done it), it is also frequently used as a communicative device to people with one whom one wants to assert shared values. Imagine for instance eye-rolling at a person in a room, while someone else on a phone is talking, and you note with alarm the person is room is taking the person on the phone seriously. The alarm is twofold, but predominantly that lack of shared value and the exposure of yourself as the isolated one, the second is suddenly a concern that the content of what is being said matters.

We may with reason see our commentariat as in a collective state of eye-rolling at each other in this as in many other matters. But rather than occupying what even with charity can only be described as a position of ‘we understand and *you* don’t’ (because we are the commentariat and if we didn’t understand, then how could we justify that position?), or because of ‘special access’ to politicians etc ('we have special insight'), it is of course a deeply atavistic mode, incredibly susceptible to authority (who tells you that you are right? you need, like a neglected child, *someone* or indeed the world in same way (data/scientism) to show that you are *right*.)

I am obviously writing this in the context of the fall-out from the Suzanne Moore article, but it’s notable that every time I think of linking it or analysing it, or say a public response like Piers Morgan’s on a public service broadcaster, i’m reluctant to do so because it feels too grotesque and embarrassing to do so. that they are people who are exhausted by the category “commentariat”, precluding a wider expertise or richness they can bring to any subject (and categorical exhaustion they ironically intensify by demanding their right to continue to be heard on public platforms and in the papers).

The principles of intersectionality should for instance tell us to be wary of the resistance of one identity to oppression does not and should not exclude the possibility that those same oppressions are visited on others and that people who do not exclusively define themselves by one identity may be ostracised further - that identity is not a singular matter of excluding that which you are not but a plural matter.

Clearly, the complicated matter of the practical enfranchisement of transgender people and enforcement of their rights, and defining public spaces and legal frameworks to ensure those rights are supported by our public, private and institutional governance is ill-served by this so-called “discourse”.

the irony perhaps is that moore feels her identity is being encroached upon which she aggressively defends from her privileged public platform, by denying people their right of others to their own stories. we must all, when it comes to Moore’s view, live her story, or we are not valid (one might say that this only reflects an uncertainty about the validity of her own story, the need to prosecute it so publicly and the need to ensure other people also participate in and support that story. in some respects that is the point of the commentariat - their actual function.

Moore wants the sense held in common to be dictated by her and her own experience.

v good post. a lot to swallow at once

How does common sense change? And why has that common sense changed in the liberal institutions in the US and not the UK

I feel (note: feel, I don't have a ready made pile of citations here) that maybe the UK was on a more progressive path through the 80s and 90s and has regressed again in recent years. My overly simplified reasoning for this is that those lobbying against self identification don't come across as your traditional old fashioned right wing rabid anti LGBT folk.

They sound _reasonable_, they speak of women's rights and safe spaces for women, they speak in the same language as millions of women who have spent centuries fighting for women. They often sound like leftie progressives. It's a convincing narrative when they position their bogey"men" behind that language.

disconnected things, vaguely related to some of the points raised

- the exhaustion and shame over even addressing this stuff is of course an intended effect
- it has also succeeded in provoking a more conservative (reactionary in the literal sense) approach from people trying to counter it- wrt to certain narratives/theories/lives being considered far too complex/embarrassing/risky to consider in this climate- that is pretty troubling in itself
- for all the left/liberal/feminist rhetoric this is functionally part of the far right movement, not just vaguely similar to it- with the same colonial roots (I anticipate the eye roll over any mention of colonialism but britain is one of world history’s biggest gender cops)- & absolutely shamelessly godawful racial politics are universal regardless of political identification
- the trans-friendliness of US liberalism probably shouldn’t be overstated (it’s superficial & extremely conditional)
- what I’d take issue with in the Geertz excerpt are things that still crop up even in many apparently pro-trans and/or pro-intersex pieces so (unfortunately) it doesn’t seem particularly dated to me

Dw Fizzles, you will never be as incoherent as me.

I’d agree with that, onimo. Which is what the recurring conversation on this thread is about, the inherent danger in what should be progressive allies acting as mouthpieces for regressive values under the banner of feminism.

I can’t tell you how reductive and blindingly sexist it is to be reduced, as a woman, to my fucking organs, which is what my upbringing was like in Ireland, and yet you see supposedly smart and educated women falling for this and pushing this message every day. Can’t stand it!

I was talking to a friend the other day in Poland about the anti-abortion movement there and he felt (and I agreed) that British people were largely ignorant of the grassroots efforts to extend access to women in countries across Europe where it’s either illegal or limited. I am aware of and donate to the various charities and non-profits, for example, that fund travel for women in Poland, Malta etc and the reason those organisations are necessary, but there seems to be real ignorance about this wrt British feminists (you’ll see more articles about the GRA in a week than about the protests in Poland).

Obviously there are people interested and active, but considering the situation in NI and considering that it’s still technically a crime here, I’m surprised how little thought it gets. But this is me talking about one of the most formative political issues of my life.

I suppose this is a very rambling way of phrasing it, so let me try and then end: after abortion was legalised in Ireland, there now exists a slightly unusual situation where the laws that are in Ireland are more liberal than those here in Britain, where it continues to be a criminal offence (albeit one that is de facto legal though it is not prosecuted!)

In Great Britain abortion continues to be regulated under criminal law, but is legally available through the Abortion Act 1967, which permits abortions if there is:

risk to the life of the pregnant woman;
a necessity for abortion to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman;
risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation); or
substantial risk that if the child were born, it would "suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped".

The one where @jk_rowling gives right wing grifters, homophobes & transphobes permission for gript 'media' to republish her transphobia. pic.twitter.com/E3UutQClDr

— Daithi K. (@tvcritics) June 16, 2020

yeah the tentacles of us right wing Christian money into abortion rights in Ireland was definitely *illuminating* for those who lived through it and it's v interesting to see much of those patterns repeating in how anti trans narratives are currently disseminated here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2fj-Xtnjj8

tw: anti-choice content

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/23/guardian-obituary-peter-sutcliffe