Hadley Freeman: Identity is the issue of our age: so why can’t we talk more honestly about trans women?

But to me it feels so much like being in a totalitarian state where saying something as mild and blindingly obvious as "Acknowledging differences and being supportive are not mutually exclusive.” is seen as controversial and has to be spoken in such hushed and gentle tones. this is how it feels to me too. I'm really glad people are starting to speak up obviously, but it's all so hesitant. And still the backlash is such that you'd think these writers were actually issuing death threats!

Weirdly I've opened this thread after just reading her article - agree it was excellent, and just what's needed.

BogQueen - I'm genuinely shocked that you think you'd lose your job if you retweeted. That's appalling. I lead a sheltered life.

I thought she pulled her punches. Maybe this is as much as she can say?

Good article

Yes - thinking about it I wouldn't retweet Hadleys piece on Twitter for fear of losing my job.

So yes it is brave.

Amazed at the article as I didn't think Guardian writers would be capable of such free-thought on the issue. That fact alone tells me that this is a 'turn of the tide' moment. Freeman's article is relatively tame but in this climate and in that newspaper, it represents an important leap forward in the visibility of our concerns.

thebog I do feel the tameness is purposeful, a gradual drip drip drip.

Plus it's 'hate speech'. And women attempting to hold up their little finger as Spartacus or a TERF risk it being mauled, so I don't blame her.

I thought this was a very sensible article. And I'm sorry to hear she's getting ripped on Twitter for it but sadly not surprised.

I do not want to be referred to as a 'pregnant person' to spare someone else's feelings. Me and DH were talking about this recently as he was driving me to the hospital for my second early scan for bleeding. Of course he finds it upsetting, emotional and stressful but he said 'I know it's nothing compared to what you're going through because it's your body' and of course he's right. That's just common sense.

I was thinking about how the 'pregnant person' issue basically comes down to whose feelings trump whose. And if get referred to in that way, a way that I am not happy with and feel diminishes what I'm going through, it means a transperson's feelings are deemed more important than mine. How is that OK?

I'm glad it's not just me who questioned Eddie Izz- I was confused by what he said. To me he just likes manicures (man-icures!) and started his statement by saying long nails on a man would have been in the past used as a weapon to catch prey. Then equated it with the 'women' part of himself .

I'm woman who can't stand the sensory feeling of nail varnish on my fingers! (Toes are fine) (But rarely bother).

I thought it was tame stuff really.

Awful isn't it that people who write take opinion pieces such as hers then have to put up with being torn apart and have public/personal life trashed.

Usui I'd love to help but I don't do twitter anymore, for my sanity.

Paris Lees, for example, is a bellend.

Good article overall despite slagging off feminists and using cis to describe women.

Posters on the Guardian twitter feed are being harrassed for supporting Hadley and writing biological truths, this has to stop - I am one of those currently being harrassed and have been been accused of "abuse"

Hadley wrote an excellent balanced article but was twitchy enough not to go further.
The point is the current fashion is conflating transgender reasonable people with 'dress up' and worst of all children.
How children who are not fitting a Disney version of female or male are being considered as trans is spectacularly awful. It will be this that will turn the tide.
It is child abuse to even start a pre pubescent child on this path. And almost no one agrees with it but are generally too nervous to say.

On Radio 4’s PM last autumn – from the impartial BBC – a mother went unchallenged when she claimed she realised her three-year-old daughter was a trans boy when she asked for books about pirates instead of princesses

This is just sad. Why are parents committing their children to a lifetime of medical intervention and almost certain sterilization based on what toys they prefer. And this is apparently fine and it is Very Bad to challenge such ridiculous statements.

She is right of course. Do we not agree?
Of course Elendon.
But to me it feels so much like being in a totalitarian state where saying something as mild and blindingly obvious as "Acknowledging differences and being supportive are not mutually exclusive.” is seen as controversial and has to be spoken in such hushed and gentle tones.

It's almost like saying "I don't hate or want anyone dead, but I personally feel that 1+1=2".
Only a completely crazy or comprehensively brainwashed person would disagree.

Adichie said “Acknowledging differences and being supportive are not mutually exclusive.”

She is right of course. Do we not agree?

Hmm, Freeman seems to have changed her tune from previous articles on this subject.

I suspect she is quite happy to disregard the views of a late middle aged , white British woman but Adichie is far too cool (and I do not mean that in any way to be derogatory, I like her a lot) to be written off.

Paris Lees isn't happy about this, silly cis women shouldn't have an opinion about transwomen. Yet transwomen get to colonise and rename our sex, oh the irony.

Just dipping my toe back into Marxist feminism... I'm getting flashbacks to my misspent youth

Yes. Division increases infighting and weakens resistance. It's the classic tool of capitalism. Remember the left wing 'splitters' in the 60s (mocked by Monty Python in life of Brian)? And now, the scapegoating of disabled people?

It's the trend. Even Jenni Murray distanced herself from Germaine Greer, despite both saying the identical thing

This trend is what it looks like to be divided and conquered...

On Radio 4’s PM last autumn – from the impartial BBC – a mother went unchallenged when she claimed she realised her three-year-old daughter was a trans boy when she asked for books about pirates instead of princesses. In another BBC interview last year, Eddie Izzard said he loves manicures because he’s trans

Liking manicures does not make you trans. It makes you someone who likes manicures. Eddie Izzard seems to have changed his view on who he is.

Properly anxious when I saw the headline and before I read the article, I mean.