The Guardian... Blind Date 23 November

Are we, here, meant to be able to control what people say on Twitter? I dunno how we'd do that.

day no they wouldn’t need to disclose it if she said she was eg pansexual would they? Because then someone trans would fall into the potential dating pool and there is no need to ‘warn’ anyone beforehand.

I haven’t seen the form but I would be surprised if it didn’t ask what your dating preferences were beyond gay, straight, bi. Who knows? All I can see is that this is not a good look and some of the comments on twitter are cringeworthy and making anyone GC look bad.

Whatever Anna really thought about her date, it's interesting that she has

a) spoken publicly about this now, as predicted
b) done it in a way that repeats some old favourites of the TWAW script: gender critical people have "harmful opinions", it's "intrusive" to speculate whether a trans person had genital surgery or not (because of course we still live in the Victorian age), and the LGBT community is one happy family

I would have been incredibly surprised if she had done anything else.

Reality, even if the Guardian dating form was as elaborate as you suggest it might have been, the Guardian did not record or disclose Jen's trans status. I don't think that a discussion about whether they should have done is inadmissible.

I think it was more insidious on the part of The Guardian. They weren't looking for public plaudits and praise for their wokeness because they didn't mention Jen was trans anywhere.

It seems more like a 'we'll slip this under the radar' but then will be able say in the future 'hah! no-one noticed and nothing went wrong' so hence any other views are phobic nonsense.

Reality I'll tell you what, you show me the form where the Guardian (the Guardian!) explicitly asks "if you are same-sex-attracted, are you open to dating trans people who are the opposite sex to you", and I will agree entirely that you are in the right.

Archery how do you know that Anna didn’t indicate on the form you undoubtedly have to fill in that she was open to dating trans people? There is no evidence either way of what happened or that anyone was tricked. People on twitter are now saying that Anna was sexually assaulted by Jen. It’s seriously not a good look.

aw. ProTrans has been banned? I won't get to make my joke about when is AmateurTrans arriving any more

yes, if I was arranging a blind date for a woman who described herself as gay, I would not make a date for her with a male.

the fact that the Guardian did is deeply homophobic, regardless of how the woman in question defines the word 'gay'

Here, there is only a problem if Anna doesn’t want to date trans people and was unhappy about being set up on a date with Jen.

No - the massive, massive problem here is that there is no evidence anywhere that the Guardian gave Anna a choice. They made a decision not to set up a same-sex date in circumstances where any women applying for a same-sex date would expect a same-sex date. That is a deeply shitty thing for the Guardian to do.

If Anna happens to be fine with the outcome, great. That doesn't negate the problem of the Guardian doing this in the first place.

I believe they think there are half a dozen of us working very hard at sockpuppeting.

Projection being an interesting thing this makes me wonder how many sockpuppets some of the most, um, enthusiastic hate followers of this forum have.

It doesn’t make sense that the only way they could feature a trans person would be by tricking them.
As I've said, I think if the Guardian had disclosed to both parties in advance of their meeting then they would have been very keen to say so in their response.

I'm bowing out now. I still think The Guardian's behaviour deserves scrutiny but I also want to respect Anna's request.

I just don’t see the point. No, nobody is a totally free agent but we still make active choices.
Here, there is only a problem if Anna doesn’t want to date trans people and was unhappy about being set up on a date with Jen. There is no evidence of either and in fact Anna says the opposite is true. Where is the problem? Surely the idea that trans people can go on dates isn’t the issue? So setting someone up on a date with a trans person isn’t a problem if that person is open to dating trans people. The argument here is that Anna wasn’t really happy with it despite what she says, which is speaking for her and assuming her intentions.

I don’t think it’s helpful to keep trying to speak for Anna or to label her not a free agent.

But she isn't a free agent. None of us are. We cannot have a discussion about this without an acknowledgement that if we express "incorrect" views then we will have people setting out to destroy us.

That's not "speaking for Anna" - Anna is capable of speaking for herself, and has done so - it's placing what Anna says, what Jen says, and what absolutely everyone else in the world who comments on this says, in context.

Also, if the Guardian wanted to be woke, why not pick someone who was up for dating trans people? (Anna may well have been someone who said she was and from her Twitter she says she is). It doesn’t make sense that the only way they could feature a trans person would be by tricking them. There are plenty of people who describe themselves as ‘pan’.

If Anna herself had claimed she had been tricked and was upset, then I would totally understand this thread. She’s said the total opposite.

I don’t think it’s helpful to keep trying to speak for Anna or to label her not a free agent. She will just refute it and the TRAs will jump on it. Prick News will no doubt write an article about it soon.

Also, Anna herself describes the kiss as ‘a snog’. I’m sorry but most people have a limit as to how far they will go to be polite to a bad date. Peck on the cheek, yes. Snog, no way.

I think there are other hills to die on.

Fair enough Anna may have had no objections to dating Jen as a trans person initially, however being publicly accused of bigotry and transphobia for not wishing to do so is a huge issue. It's just another way for men to force women who are not attracted to them into intimate situations with them.

I believe the guardian got thoroughly overexcited at the chance to be beyond woke and were pretty sure there was going to be a load of back clapping and praise for their airy decision to place a lesbian in this situation. As for whether or not the photographer or editor etc met Jen and saw they were trans, I am convinced they did and were beside themselves with excitement at the opportunity.

I don't think Anna can win, here. She was stitched up by the Guardian, who have behaved incredibly badly. It may be that Anna enjoyed the date and identifies as a lesbian despite being open to relationships with transwomen (although many others would then disagree with her about the definition of "lesbian"). It may be that Anna felt entirely uncomfortable with being set up with an opposite-sex date.

Of course Anna has now tweeted about it herself - so that's the final word on this, right? Well, no. She's not a free agent, here. It may be that she is being utterly truthful about how she feels in her tweets, and sees no difference between dating a tranwoman and dating another actual lesbian. But she is also aware, as we all are (whatever our opinions) that to express discomfort or anger at being set up with an opposite-sex date would be to be destroyed online, sent death threats and rape threats, may well be ostracised from her real-life friendship circles, whatever. She's not tweeting in a vacuum.

So, this isn't just about Anna, and her reaction to this event. It's about the Guardian putting one young woman in an impossible position without her consent. Even if Anna is truly, genuinely, totally fine with how it all panned out, that doesn't absolve the Guardian for their homophobic, disrespectful, dangerous fuckwittery.

Jen is doing a right number because any rejection is interpreted as transphobia. That's what that tweet is hinting at - that Anna's reluctance to meet up again is because Anna is transphobic. I daresay that refusing a kiss would have been interpreted in the same way. It's quite a coercive tactic really

But the whole argument was based on the fact that Anna was a lesbian who was misled. How can her sexuality be irrelevant? Everyone assumed she was a lesbian but there is no evidence that she actually defines herself that way. If she’s not a lesbian, there’s presumably no issue with setting her up on a date with a transwoman?

It’d rather leave it to individuals to define their own sexuality.

You can describe your sexuality, you can't define your own orientation. Different orientations have names. They already have definitions. Which are protected under equality law.

I couldn't care less if Anna says she's a lesbian or not. I'm saying a woman who is attracted to a male body is not a lesbian.

Yeah, I’d be careful about speaking for someone when you don’t know what their opinion is. It was blatantly obvious that it was going to turn out like this (that Anna wasn’t going to agree with her role as victim) and now it looks like you have appropriated her experiences to make a point.

FWIW, she says she kissed Jen in the guardian article. I think that if I was trying to make a polite getaway from a bad date, I wouldn’t kiss them. Jen sounds like a PITA but there were some serious leaps and stretching being performed by people like this and now it just makes everyone look bad because Anna has come out and said what she actually thinks.

It's odd that Jen and friends are framing the initial dating article as positive coverage. Is that why Jen signed up? Dating as political activism/propaganda?

It’s a win win for them

They get together - see see???
They don’t get togetherness - awwwwww those nasty bad homophobic lesbians. Those poor people what they have to go through on a daily basis...