Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian

Comparing the choice between women and the more extreme end of trans ideology as "Sophies choice" is fucking insulting to women.

It's not often one piece of writing would have me putting someone in the "nope, fuck off forever" category but seriously, did you read it?

Agree. I want nothing to do with her; she is as much of a misogynist, and a panderer to MRAs, as Owen. The Guardian has lost me forever as a reader because of its silencing of women.

If they are now in trouble financially, and dependent on an American readership, perhaps they should not have alienated 20-odd million adult females in the UK? Fuckwits.

Because they've never read it in the Guardian they've no idea there's even an issue. They're not on Twitter, so they were shocked to hear that LOJ is a spiteful little misogynist, too. It's amazing what you can get away with if (a) you're The Goodies and (b) you completely ignore a whole issue

That was me two years ago......a Guardian reader and not a user of social media or twitter. I hadn't the slightest inkling that any of this was going on....until the Women Don't have Penises sticker on the Anthony Gormley iron man on Crosby beach, in my home city, caused supposed outrage locally. I woke up pretty quick!

I will never ever click on an article by Gaby Hinscliff until she apologizes for her remarks on the Cologne attacks.

My family, all Guardian readers, think I've gone full on rightwing with my angry TERFiness and complaining about Guardian bias.

Because they've never read it in the Guardian they've no idea there's even an issue. They're not on Twitter, so they were shocked to hear that LOJ is a spiteful little misogynist, too. It's amazing what you can get away with if (a) you're The Goodies and (b) you completely ignore a whole issue.

I think its worth bearing in mind that this is probably written under the strong guidance of the queer editorial board, with direct supervision by OJ!

She has in fact written from a more woman focused position than this.

They are probably a bit shaken that Suzanne Moore has found this Labour stupidity so awful, but couldn't get her opinion published by the Guardian, that she went to the Telegraph (a sort of heresey for Guardianites).

This is their tokenistic attempt to acknowledge yes there is a sort of problem but really it is because "cis" women aren't being understanding enough.

And as someone has posted on facebook where this is also being discussed, you only have to go to the Guardian's own facebook page where they have this listed in the opinion section, to see that the Guardian's decade long erasing of women's rights has meant that most of their commentators have no inkling that this is anything to do with women's rights.

It is a very strong example of how a newspaper policy or not covering or just dismissing as trivial an issue (eg women's sex based rights) that the majority of readers just absorb this message over time.

(Not only is it badly written, but badly researched. Or as I said little more than a sop to show the Guardian is sort of in touch with the fact that there is an issue - but they aren't going to give it the energy of publicity.)

Some refuges have now accepted trans women (excellent risk assessment helps, and careful laying out of accommodation)

I'd like to know more about this excellent risk assessment. One of the things we know about abusers is that they can be very pleasant and charming - indeed that's how they win people over. So how exactly do you risk assess someone who hasn't got a criminal record but nonetheless poses a threat?

Well that's very simplistic. Because (nothing) can or has ever gone wrong in any of those situations.

Some refuges have now accepted trans women (excellent risk assessment helps, and careful laying out of accommodation). Some schools absorb gender-questioning pupils without fuss; teens queue happily for mixed Topshop changing rooms; and with time, maybe we’ll wonder why unisex loos were ever an issue.

Well that's very simplistic. Because can or has ever gone wrong in any of those situations. Also I notice that all the examples given here, which I think she is saying are where the two groups have found "common ground", are all very clearly examples of one group, taking precedence over the group. None of those are middle ground with compromises from both sides (unless you include risk assessments apparently being carried out, as a compromise). Those are all one group getting what they wanted and the other group being dismissed or made to put up with it.

You see I don't think Gaby Hinscliffe can ever have really thought the whole thing through; or else she's not fully aware of what constitutes 'being trans' these days. Has she ever taken trans ideology through to its logical conclusion? I Don't think so!

Didn't Gaby ask on Twitter whether the trans issue would make anyone actually change their vote, and on being told by scores of people that would, drop the subject?

Here's another empathetic article Gaby wrote about women's concerns:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3391208-it-may-be-a-while-before-older-women-stop-feeling-erased

Even a person who poses no danger whatsoever can inadvertently frighten a traumatised person, if something about them - a sound a scent, a habit - triggers flashbacks.

Something about them ...... Gaby whatever do you mean?

Clumsy wording to avoid the elephant in the room: sex based violence.

How about:

Even a transwoman who poses no danger whatsoever can inadvertently frighten a traumatised woman, if something about them - the fact that they are male - triggers flashbacks.

What's remarkable is that Gaby has been to at least one WPUK meeting, talked to gc feminists, read the Twitter threads and other articles and still doesn't get it. She talks about the conflict between trans women and women whereas this is really about the threat men pose to women. Women don't want men in their hospital wards, changing rooms, sports teams, toilets, prisons, refuges etc. The threat men pose to women in these situations is well-established, and in countries where self-ID has become law, there are examples of the way in which predatory men have taken advantage of the law.

This stuff really isn't difficult but Hinsliff seems clueless.

Is it that Hinsliff sees it as oppressed group v oppressed group and can't compute; is it that she's so locked into the 'oh, be nice' mindset she can't get out of it or is it something else?

Internalised misogyny. This is from the Cologne article:

...young male migrants exchanging life under repressive regimes, where they may at least have enjoyed superiority over women...

Gaby thinks that all men are entitled to feel superior to at least some women and that men's feelings are more important than women's safety.

Is it that Hinsliff sees it as oppressed group v oppressed group and can't compute; is it that she's so locked into the 'oh, be nice' mindset she can't get out of it or is it something else?

Oh, sorry, I must have missed p2 of this thread!

KimikosDreamHouse

Less than 20 seconds in it

Why are vulnerable children like this being taught that they can choose their sex?

Oh that's very mild compared to some advice... I wrote to the Scots government a long time ago now, having seen advice for special schools. We're talking very vulnerable, possibly non verbal children.

The advice (written of course by political lobby groups, I did ask what specialist educational qualifications and experience they held but the govt didn't answer) was that to non verbal children who may be delayed at very early stages of development, staff should present them with and treat them with heavily gender stereotyped toys, materials and clothes for one sex, and then after a period of time present the other set of stereotypical stuff and see which the child appeared to respond to. This was supposed to help staff identify the child's true sense of gender.

Where do you even start with something so utterly thoughtless, token and damaging to any child? The disrespect to anyone and anything other than the politics is beyond offensive.

This piece on Cologne - posting the para for anyone unaware of it:

'Young German women thankfully enjoy historically unprecedented economic and sexual freedom, with their expensive smartphones and their right to celebrate New Year’s Eve however they want. The same isn’t always true of young male migrants exchanging life under repressive regimes, where they may at least have enjoyed superiority over women, '

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/08/cologne-attacks-hard-questions-new-years-eve

Yeah, that's fucking cold.

There's a specific issue around pupils in SEND schools / colleges that teach pupils with autism in particular.

A young female who identifies as male may need specific physical support in specific circumstances to either keep themselves safe or support them with intimate hygiene etc.

Why are vulnerable children like this being taught that they can choose their sex?

Discussion and journalism on transwomen is simply lazy when it doesn’t refer to self-id. Hinsliff mentions transwomen accessing refuge shelters without the possibility occurring to her that it is fully intact male-presenting men who are the objection. The article makes a throw-away reference to self-id only in the context of criticising a Tory government, but it is the increase of men presenting as men and insisting they are women that is the real issue. How many trans people are there? A tiny minority. How many women born women are there? Half the world. The latter surely don’t have to persist their oppression or lose their (only recently-won) rights to accommodate the former, who are clearly nuts.

But nobody should want trans people to feel unsafe or cast out, and barring a trans woman from women’s services seems the cruellest of personal repudiations.

Surely nobody should want women to feel unsafe and cast out, and barring women from women's services seems the cruellest of personal repudiations too.

This is the inevitable result of making women's spaces into mixed spaces. The hypocrisy is remarkable.