Grace Petrie on London protests

Are gender critical feminists lobbying all her venues to get her gigs closed down? Or telling her to die in a fire for having an opinion? Or saying that they will fuck her up with barbed wire around baseball bats?

That is completely irrelevant as to whether or not Petrie has experienced bullying as she describes.

This thread is such a prime example of all the things she’s accusing GC feminists of. I see people even moved onto insulting her music...

So many on this board (including many straight women) use lesbians as a gotcha or a talking point or whatever, and then the second a lesbian doesn’t fall in line they turn on them completely, as demonstrated here. If a lesbian isn’t going to be the perfect passive prop for GC arguments you might as well tear her apart, right?

*But she literally is, though. She’s saying: this has never happened to me, therefore I don’t believe it’s happened to anyone else. How is that anything other than dismissing their experience?

If her experience is that she’s being abused and yelled at by gender-critical feminists then I’m sorry to hear that. As a radical feminist I understand that we’re in this to liberate women as a class, and that class includes women who are working against their own interests. I would not scream at her or condone her being screamed at. I would say that she is colluding with patriarchy to silence women who’ve faced sexual coercion, though, and that I wish she wouldn’t do that.*

She's recounting her experiences. At no point does she say 'my experience is every lesbian's experience'.

I think this struck a chord with me because I joined here yesterday and within that time I was called a fuckwit, told I wasn't a feminist, had my sexuality and gender erased, told I didn't care about survivors (something which is literally abhorrent to me, as a sexual abuse survivor - not that I should have to disclose that in order to be taken seriously) and told I was playing a role of a 'wide eyed ingenue' - a gender role that I utterly despise - simply for disagreeing with people who appear to be fairly well established on here.

Gender critical feminists can say that they are protesting justly, but there appear to be some major misogynistic tendencies towards women that disagree with their views, who have their own experiences and trauma, while at the same time a demand that their experiences and trauma are taken seriously.

Yes, 'abuse' these days seems to mean 'my views have been challenged, boo hoo'. It's actually quite worrying, what is happening to robust debate amongst young people in this country?

This whole identy politics bs being played out and promoted, the sanctimonious bullying eedjits controlling the likes of student politics/student unions etc has made me very worried about the caliber of folk who will be going on to be our future politicians and running the country, creating our future policies and laws

Absolutely this. And it's why the Bullingdon Boys will continue with their reign. I mean FFS at least they just get on with shit.

Have any GC feminists threatened to kill or rape Petrie? Have any GC feminists incited violence against her? Have any GC feminists expressed a wish that she should die in a fire? Have any GC feminists called her ugly, dried up, unfuckable? Have any GC feminists suggested that nobody buy her records or spammed her label and/or agent with complaints about her? Have any GC feminists put her on a Twitter block list with the aim of weighting the reporting algorithm against her, then mass reported her in the hopes of a suspension?

No. Thought not.

Conclusion: women disagreeing with you is worse than all the above. Several rules of misogyny on display there, LGBTQIA. Try harder.

I think when people frame words as 'literal violence' or factual dictionary definitions as 'harmful and insulting', 'abuse' gets that much more difficult to define. I've not seen Gracie subjected to abuse. Can I assert it doesn't happen as I've not personally seen any?

If people could tone down the hyperbole I think we'd get somewhere. That & the rape culture apologising.

I dont understand this 'it's not happened to me so ha!' thing?

When #metoo happened, what would Grace Petrie have said to women who started saying 'Well I've never been sexually assaulted so whaddayatalkinabout?' as a way to shut the whole thing down?

Oh, Robin Ince. He's standing up for his friend while clearly not understanding at all. Robin - you are keen on evidence-based argument, no? Why not try some on this issue, eh? Or does evidence submitted by women your friend doesn't like not count, somehow?

If anyone remmebers the title of it, could you please put up a link to the thread here where lesbians discuss their negative experiences because of the trans debate. For the benefit of Robin Ince and anyone coming here from Grace Petrie's thread. Even better could someone tweet Robin with it?

It's an opportunity to show people why Grace Petrie's opinion has been criticised. I've spent 5 minutes trying to find it and haven't been able to. Thank you

Grace, I stand by what I wrote above. I would say it to your face, too. Just because you personally have not experienced something does not mean it's OK, ever, to deny that other women have

Then equally you will have to accept Grace saying she has experienced bullying by gender critical feminists. Isn't this thread what you call DAVRO? (Might have the acronym wrong)

I don't know whether to thank you for explaining or to ask for a bit more understanding, given my problems communicating. Which were clear. From my words.

I apologise, I missed the point that you have autism. I don't feel your words were particularly critical of Grace, unlike many others on this thread; in general your points seem balanced to me.

I do think there is an overall feeling of dismissal of her experiences which is a pity as people are demanding she adheres to those same standards, but your posts were not really part of my questioning.

Are gender critical feminists lobbying all her venues to get her gigs closed down? Or telling her to die in a fire for having an opinion? Or saying that they will fuck her up with barbed wire around baseball bats?

I very much doubt it. I understand though that if she even hinted at the definition of lesbian being you know - a woman who likes other women - the TRAs would do exactly that.

She is staying safe.

As a lesbian who has been part of gender/feminism conversations for a long time, I do prefer if straight women refrain from pronouncing on whether lesbians are lesbians.

I also prefer lesbians not to call me a bigot for expressing my boundaries clearly. I do this as a coping mechanism related to autism.
I'm not good on flexible thinking eg 'lesbians all know what lesbians are so let's just include others too so they don't feel sad'.

who feel that Grace is dismissing the experience of other lesbians

But she literally is, though. She’s saying: this has never happened to me, therefore I don’t believe it’s happened to anyone else. How is that anything other than dismissing their experience?

If her experience is that she’s being abused and yelled at by gender-critical feminists then I’m sorry to hear that. As a radical feminist I understand that we’re in this to liberate women as a class, and that class includes women who are working against their own interests. I would not scream at her or condone her being screamed at. I would say that she is colluding with patriarchy to silence women who’ve faced sexual coercion, though, and that I wish she wouldn’t do that.

For those on this thread who feel that Grace is dismissing the experience of other lesbians - why is there no concern about the negative experiences she has experienced through the actions of gender critical feminists?

It concerns me, tbh. I can see she feels genuinely attacked on one level. I'm not comfortable with any individual being hounded by anyone.

However, if you're claiming to your many followers that there is no issue with transwomen being part of the lesbian community, when there are many documented cases of lesbians being threatened or coerced by males who consider themselved to be lesbians, then you should be prepared to be challenged. And yes it is a robust challenge at times but then it's a very emotive issue at present, for good reason. To be honest in my view Petrie is betraying those much more vulnerable than her. She is in a position of relative power and is throwing others under a bus. Does she not acknowledge at all that other women are being affected very negatively by the creation of the 'male lesbian?'

Even writing about male lesbians makes me feel like I am living in an authoritarian regime where in order to survive I must speak doublespeak and perform mental gymnastics in case of being targeted. Come on. Men are never lesbians. Being a lesbian means being attracted to biological females. If you have only ever been attracted to women and then you meet a man and want to bump uglies with them, that's fine. It is your private business. But that doesn't make that man a lesbian.

As I said, I have autism. I don't communicate well. I'm not generally insincere. When I said 'I hope' that is what I meant.

As an autistic woman having my words misinterpreted is distressing.
I don't know whether to thank you for explaining or to ask for a bit more understanding, given my problems communicating. Which were clear. From my words.

This one?

I really hope there aren't straight women going about telling lesbians they're not lesbians.
There's enough lesbianity police as it is.

I did, yes. However Grace has specifically said that she has received abuse and harassment from gender critical feminists - so there's no question that this is happening, if we're to follow the vital moral code that every abuse victim should be believed. Your 'hope' that it isn't true reads like a dismissal of her experience rather than an acceptance that it has happened.

A lesbian is telling us the abuse she has received at the hands of gender critical feminists. Instead of victim blaming, dissecting her words, and holding her up as an example of someone who should be acknowledging other women's experiences, perhaps it's important to address her abuse as well?

I dunno about you, Magpies, but I don't generally have a parade of strangers using my loo at home. I don't generally allow people in my home if I am unsure whether they are a threat to me or not.

But your loo at home is unisex, you don’t police who uses it depending on their genitals or gender - do you? So why do you suddenly get shirty and pearl clutchy about being the only woman in a unisex loo with a group of squiify men? Man up!

Oh, Robin Ince. He's standing up for his friend while clearly not understanding at all. Robin - you are keen on evidence-based argument, no? Why not try some on this issue, eh? Or does evidence submitted by women your friend doesn't like not count, somehow?

I sometimes wonder if it's an autistic thing but I feel I must write in invisible ink sometimes.

'I really hope there aren't straight women going about telling lesbians they're not lesbians.
There's enough lesbianity police as it is.'

Are you not dismissing her experience while accusing her of doing exactly the same thing?

No, LGBTQIA, we aren't. We aren't insisting that she must have experienced the rapey shit many other women have experienced. We are just despairing and angry and disappointed that she is denying that it happens to other women. She has a long track record of telling other women outright that the experiences they've described simply haven't happened. She explicitly and openly disbelieves women's experiences of rape culture and abuse.

Lgb etc did you read my post? Plenty concern there.

For those on this thread who feel that Grace is dismissing the experience of other lesbians - why is there no concern about the negative experiences she has experienced through the actions of gender critical feminists? Are you not dismissing her experience while accusing her of doing exactly the same thing?

love this:

"Its like Maria Miller being proud of the unisex toilets in the House of commons. And not understanding why they aren't like having to use unisex toilets in a multi storey car park at 2am"

The most gutting thing on the twitter thread about us is Robin Ince's response. It seems he's friends with Petrie, but come on!! Robin Ince!! That has floored me. He should have a little bit of a grasp of biology. It's going to take a lot to shake that off.

At least Graham Linehan of Black Books and the IT Crowd fame (with nearly 700k followers) has come out as one of us on the same thread. If you're on Twitter it would be worth supporting him as so far he's just been told to fuck off,