Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

The Scottish press seems v. exercised about this, more so than in the rest of the UK as far as I can tell

I wouldn’t have thought it was physically possible to be more het up about it than The Times, which seems to have made it the central plank all other news is slotted around as space allows.

the paper of record loves a culture war and i guess campus safe space type pieces lost some of their luster, trans people make a better bogeyman.

the safe spacers are the ones who've turned cop in the trans wars. or at least, the terfs are using safe space rhetoric to assert their arguments. snowflakes imo

intersectional language being used to justify bigotry is going to be big in our future. i saw mike cernovich use "bodies" in a tweet yesterday

I think there's a general confusion about what ppl understand by 'trans' which isn't helping things.

maybe; equally we haven't had a good internecine ukilx bunfight in a while and this might be our hour

I've been wondering for months when it was gonna arrive tbh but if there's one place worse than Twitter for nuanced debate it's ilx

Looking forward to a bunch of cis men explain how to be a good feminist though

i love that element of the rhetoric around this issue. don't engage with the actual anti-trans element of the argument you would like to make but instead attack allies who don't have the correct identity to be allowed an opinion

this is most enjoyable when graham linehan perversely uses this angle

checks calendar

lads

its 2018 not back when ilx was good

i love that element of the rhetoric around this issue. don't engage with the actual anti-trans element of the argument you would like to make but instead attack allies who don't have the correct identity to be allowed an opinion

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, October 18, 2018 2:32 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and then they all het up

lol
hope you're not referencing fish there

Good luck uk

and then they all het up

I made an inappropriate Eddie Izzard joke on Facebook last night, I'm not touching this

http://www.thenational.scot/news/16993203.gender-recognition-act-debate-is-being-used-to-roll-back-trans-rights/

there's a couple of comments under that article that show what trans people are up against. horrifying

ilx didn't want the bunfight after all, of course - one part leave it they're not worth it, another part pure moral cowardice

I had a bloke try to speak for me yet again so yeah I'm out

i love that element of the rhetoric around this issue. don't engage with the actual anti-trans element of the argument you would like to make but instead attack allies who don't have the correct identity to be allowed an opinion

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, October 18, 2018 10:32 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a couple of comments under that article that show what trans people are up against. horrifying

― imago, Friday, October 19, 2018 9:51 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whenever i go back to scotland to visit I'm always taken aback by how prevalent enforcing gender norms is, it's a very traditional country in many ways

It’s been pointed out by several people (most notable caseyexplosion on twitter) that many of the anti trans groups on this side of the Atlantic are funded by far-right US religious groups who also oppose abortion and women’s rights in general. A lot of these people were the same groups who travelled to Ireland to repeal the 8th. So the argument that women’s (where they mean cis women) safety is in danger is absolute shit for two reasons: 1) these particular groups aren’t going to stop if they manage to roll back trans rights and therefore a danger to one group is a danger to far more of us 2) it’s a complete joke in a world where women are frequently sexually assaulted in all sorts of environments, most often by those they know to act as though they care about women’s safety. I would put actual money on the anti trans crowd overlapping heavily with those who defended Kavanaugh.

The whole thing is a vile and toxic mess but just to be clear; the proposed legislation does NOT erase the right of cis women to their own spaces. Trans women already use female toilets etc. All the proposed changes are about is allowing people to change their gender more easily.

All the proposed changes are about is allowing people to change their gender more easily.

yup. the rest is all "reasonable concerns"

exactly. Take that figleaf away and it’s obvious what it is.

repeal the 8th?

fuck off, Jim, I tried to not respond but you're proving my point repeatedly. Please spell out what anti-trans argument I'd like to make. Perhaps you'd like to tell me my gender identity too? Is it that difficult to let female and non-cis voices be heard and their experiences treated as valid?

Everyone bringing up 'female toilets' is missing the point spectacularly yet it always becomes the first thing trotted out.

agh why am I doing this

terf patter much more popular in the uk than it is in canada thankfully. a big thing i notice about the debate in the uk is how disingenuous the terfs are, talking about dangers of "men" using women's services when the majority of uk services for women ran by feminists, such as a rape crisis centres etc. are already trans inclusive and have been for ages!

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, October 18, 2018 9:28 AM

Terf war here in Vancouver is intense. You should google the likes of M3gh@n Murphy, K@ri Simps0n, H1lla K3rn3r and many other of the lower mainland's anti-trans types. The Women's March, the Dyke March and the Women's Library were all undermined by terf activity this past year. And did you know Vancouver Rape Relief & Womens Shelter excludes trans-women?

yeah, i am aware of all of that, the women's library is ran by terfs iirc, rather than just being undermined by terf activity? i remember friends of mine leaving a gathering to go and protest it when it opened. i just mean that in the uk there is a lot of coverage in national liberal press of trans issues from an anti-trans perspective, and in many left-wing groups or spaces anti-trans perspectives are uncontroversial and commonplace, whereas in canada the mainstream airing of those sort of views seems to primarily come from the right

so i expressed myself very poorly as usual

This is one of the worst lead paragraphs I've ever read by a 'name' journalist

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/18/michael-moore-we-have-the-power-to-crush-trump-fahrenheit-11-9

saw that earlier and just groaned without clicking, cos M M. Knew it would be rank!

Priti Patel given an opinion piece the other day we didn't really notice.

And then there’s the money. Back in the mid-1980s, when we had influence in Europe, Margaret Thatcher went in to bat for the UK. She demanded “our money back” and secured a rebate for the UK, reducing our contribution and saving our money instead for vital public services.

.. for the price of a frothy latte you can have quality journalism ....

I mean you do expect braindead "iron lady" hyperbole from moronic far-right Tories, but ....

I’m joining Facebook to build bridges between politics and tech
Nick Clegg

delet

The Atlanta architect known for his ‘Jesus moments’ – when visitors would look up and exclaim ‘Jesus!’ – remade his home town in ways few get to

Ah the old Guardian sub-heading brain scratcher. I eventually figured out the astounding revelation that few people get to remake their home towns.

that's quite magnificent tbh

no reason you'd write like that if you wanted to be understood but as a crossword fan theres.... something.....there

in marble clothed, he leaves the city

Shooting Harrisses in a barrel, but:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/23/rock-music-survive-testosterone-guitar-female

Heard of the cars (best friend's girl is a tune) but not the leather trousers

The leather trousers s/d?

'what if rock, but girls?' ponders veteran cultural commentator john harris in a visionary column published today

Why is he so painful to read? Does he even want to write about this subject? Does he even enjoy writing? Or music? It's like reading someone's media studies essay.

"It is much more noble and easier to write condescending fuckwit copy about female rock bands than write about legit concernism in the provinces" old Harissian proverb.

At least we know he's never heard Springsteen.

line breaks in the mobile version made me do a double-take:

the still overlooked genre-
cum-upsurge known as riot grrrl

fp'd for making me think about john harris' cum upsurge

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/24/truth-british-soldiers-northern-ireland-troops