Cartoon in the Morning Star

@charlestonchaplin
It's moved on a bit, but I was reading your response to my comment yesterday.

I've chewed this over all day - my first reaction was to get defensive 'you're misinterpreting what I put' etc.

But actually, on reflection I think was straying into NATALT territory - which we all know is true, but I absolutely wouldn't tolerate NAMALT from anyone - yes, but too many are, would be my response.

I think you're correct & I appreciate the head wobble. I think Im feeling immense pressure to genuinely not be phobic (in the actual RL sense) in my thinking & #bekind while also being woman-centric.
It's exhausting & probably fruitless.

This cartoon is meant to offend predators who self ID into women’s spaces and politicians who enable that. It’s meant to ridicule the idea that transition makes a predator less of a risk.

It’s not meant to offend transwomen in general.

‘Terf’ is used in a way that is designed to scare women into silence. The overuse of it (and indeed the overreach of an ideology that wants rapists to pick their own prisons) means it’s beginning to lose it’s sting.

I think the reaction is an indication that Harrison doesn't understand women's perspectives and never will. Which those working with Harrison should keep in mind - you can work together in the short term, but your perspective and goals are not the same, and the person you are working with has goals of their own in mind (having an exception carved out for the "right" sort of transwoman, who will then retain the right to access any women's space).

As others have said it's clearly a kneejerk response and Harrison wouldn't be the first person to think that their immediate emotional response should be the basis for both law and media or corporate policy, but as to whether it's a reasonable response? No, it is not.

Goosefoot, we have people who genuinely don't understand what is offensive about the word "terf".
Those who don't mean to offend apologise and stop using it.
Those who do mean to offend argue the toss and carry on.

You don't have to understand why it's offensive, though perhaps asking Kristina would help to understand.

Kristina Harrison explained yesterday:

"This cartoon appeared in The Morning Star earlier this week
@ MStarOnline
It is a horrific, generalised demonisation of trans people which does not belong in a civilised society, let alone a socialist newspaper. I condemn it utterly

Trans people & progressive opponents of identity politics are owed an unequivocal apology, an explanation & reassurance about what action is being taken to ensure that the line between fierce but legitimate argument and bigotry is never crossed again. Totally unacceptable"
twitter.com/KJ_Harrison/status/1231317845507788802

& in response to The Morning Star's apology:
"This crude, clumsy & potentially dangerous cartoon was completely at odds with the substantial efforts you’ve long made to host a full range of trans voices from opposite perspectives & more generally to foster less toxic debate.

Thank you for this swift & unequivocal apology"

twitter.com/KJ_Harrison/status/1231531299954819072

Gee, Tanith, does that apply, for example, to women who offended by drag queens in libraries?

There is something of an assumption in polite society that you behave like this, apologise if someone is offended. It's never really applied to journalism though, certainly not political cartoons. And even in polite society it begins to break down the moment people lose perspective about what is actually offensive.

If Kristina found it offensive, then surely that's what matters: whether or not you are prepared to offend her.

You don't have to understand why it's offensive, though perhaps asking Kristina would help to understand.
If the cartoonist/paper didn't intend to cause Kristina offence, then it apologises and removes the cartoon.

What was it Lisa Muggeridge said about identity and safeguarding?

If safeguarding injures your identity then your identity is the problem?

Male bodied people who identify as trans but don’t seek to enter women’s safe spaces are not offended by this cartoon.

If someone takes offence at that crocodile, is it because it injures their identity? Surely it’s only offensive if you picture yourself as the crocodile? If you have completely benign motives, you aren’t the predator, are you? 🤷‍♀️

Isn’t that partly the point? That there is no way to tell the difference?

Yes.

think it's fine for transgender males to find the cartoon offensive. Maybe if they can't see a way of distinguishing between a real crocodile and a trans newt crocodile they will start to see women's problem.

Indeed.

I'n not sure I understand the offence. Surely all alligators who are also self-professed newt allies wouldn't dream of breaching newt boundaries? Surely they would condemn fellow alligators who think they can merely declare a 'transition' to newt and disrespect newt rights and safe spaces this way?

Yes, you'd think so, wouldn't you?

@Winniefred amazing post

I believe the cartoon to be fully accurate on the status of Trans Self ID globally. That it offends Kristina & pals, that is of course down to Kristina and pals.

However the whole concept of Trans is based on fetishism of the female form and the subjugation of Women to act as a shield and semi validation of the fetish. A difference was posited between HSTrans & APG Trans ... there is no difference ... all Tranwomen are male ... all demand protection In female space ... none care a damn about how that may affect Women & Girls as long as they can pass ... to continue performing their character acting. Kiristina is a male living with a female ... the HS Trans is a trope for a Paraphillia that affects a small number of men. Whether clinical depression, delusion or any other mental health issue Women are expected to be the caring one's and I only ever see care from Trans ID Males when it doesn't impact on their play acting. Kristina, imho shows concern for medicalising children only so far as it doesn't impact on Kristina's right to invade female & children's safeguarded changing rooms, shelters, loos, etc. As a Mother to Girls, Kristina's feelings on the matter are no longer of interest to me and the safeguarding of children . I refuse to be a shield for any man.

Purity bull crap

I boldly went to Pink News (www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/02/23/morning-star-trans-political-cartoon-labour-party-pledge/) and wrote the first and only comment: "Stop getting your knickers in a twist. This cartoon is funny". Better than the po-faced condemnations from Pink News i.e. penis news.

It's a newt pond.
Not a crocodile pond.
There is a crocodile pond, just put of sight in the cartoon.
Any crocodile who intends to enter the newt pond has no respect for newts.
Regardless of whether it got a certificate granted by some other crocodiles to enter.
Regardless of whether it genuinely believes it's a newt inside.
Regardless of whether it's a bad crocodile, or a saintly crocodile that has just saved the planet and solved world hunger.
The bottom line is:
Crocodiles have no place in newt ponds, for ANY reason. No crocodile is an exception.

Decent crocodiles acknowledge that newts get to say no to them.
Any crocodile offended by newts demanding newt-only spaces, is probably not as decent as they like to tell themselves.

Keep out, crocodiles. You're not newts. You can't become newts. None of you are special newts. You're crocodiles. All of you. Always. Even the vegetarian crocodiles. You may be harmless crocodiles, but you're Just Not Newts.

So please, respect newts and leave them be. And tell the other crocodiles to keep out whilst you're about it.

Private Eye article on the Guardian's ressuming of using 'sex observed at birth' & styleguide definition of 'cisgender' concludes:

"Some, er, cis women, at the paper are still simmering. "Look at this bollocks" says one. "There are ructions coming in Socialist Gilead..... "

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3830652-Private-Eye-spots-Guardian-now-using-sex-observed-at-birth-when-describing-cis-people#prettyPhoto/0/

Tbh the cartoon has probably had a much bigger impact because of all this complaining and forced apology.

Well indeed. How many people read the Morning Star as a rule?

There's a whole bunch of people getting angry and offended because someone has shown them a cartoon that they would never under normal circumstances have seen. It's almost as if they're seeking to be offended. Heaven forbid.

Dr Jessica Taylor:
'Let’s talk about sex… and gender ideology'

(extract)
"As someone who works heavily in the abuse and grooming of children, I also tried to speak out about the potential for sex offenders to groom trans kids online a couple of years ago. Instead of anyone taking that safeguarding risk seriously, I was subjected to a number of vexatious complaints. Thankfully, I wasn’t merely making these cases up as they claimed and it was easy to back up. Complaints were not upheld and I was okay.

However, the cases were real. Social workers were holding UK cases in which kids who identified as trans were going online, seeking support and being groomed by sex offenders who were sexually exploiting and abusing them. In all of the cases I was made aware of, the abusers were men who identified as transwomen.

I can’t go into too much detail because the cases are so specific, but they included the abduction of a trans child who met transwomen online in a support group. The transwomen groomed the child to believe their parents hated them and would never accept them, convinced them their parents were transphobes and then trafficked the child hundreds of miles where they raped them and kept them there for days.

Another case of a trans child who was groomed on the internet by older transwomen was being given wigs, make up and money for images and videos of sexual acts.

When I tried to talk about this, I was immediately shut down and accused of making up these real cases. The reality here is that males make up 97% of all sex offenders. Therefore, it is more likely that transwomen (males) will sexually offend against children than transmen (females) would. There is no evidence to suggest that males who identify as women offend in any different ways to males who do not identify as a different gender.

Sex offenders can be anyone, this includes trans people. This might make everyone uncomfortable but it’s true. People accused me of using the same old argument as ‘gay men are paedophiles’. However, I was talking about real cases held in the UK – and I was talking about them for a reason.

My reason was that in both of those cases, the social workers were being limited as to what they could and couldn’t say or do. This was because they were being told by authorities that there were fears about being seen as ‘transphobic’ if they spoke about or reported on cases where transwomen had been grooming trans kids online.

It reminded me very much of the way we all gingerly tip toed around Pakistani sex offenders abusing children because the police claimed they didn’t want to be seen as ‘racist’.

Just like most Pakistani men are not sex offenders, most trans people are not sex offenders. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be talking about these cases. In fact, the only common denominator in sex offending and domestic abuse is male offenders. Biological sex is the underpinning factor. Maleness. That’s why we call it male violence." (continues)

victimfocus.wordpress.com/2020/02/23/lets-talk-about-sex-and-gender-ideology/

And yes, I am more offended by the erosion of safe spaces and rights than a cartoon, obviously.