Cartoon in the Morning Star

I can't understand why KH would be offended by this cartoon. It represents what the majority of women feel and if KH is the ally they claim to be the Offence taken is misplaced......

Maybe the hens are coming home to roost.......

Agree

It's been pulled and a public apology has been made

I 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.

I have a lot of respect for Kristina and am trying to understand the issue with the cartoon.

I read the cartoon as highlighting the danger of abusive men taking advantage of self-ID and no comment on someone like Kristina.

Romeo I think the whole point is that nobody can tell the difference just by looking at them or asking them (because the predator would obviously lie).

It should have said “I self identify as a newt”.

It shows a predator appropriating self ID to access its prey. It demonstrates how self ID is open to abuse. It's pillorying self ID, not trans people.

I think the cartoonist has a duty to make it clear whether the crocodile represents a trans woman or someone who is using self Id to pose as one

I just thought about it some more. If they'd drawn the crocodile wearing lipstick and a wig, I'd agree with the take that the cartoon is anti-trans.

As it is, it just strikes me as a satire on predatory men abusing self-ID, which is a thing that happens regularly and which we need to be allowed to talk about.

I can't quite figure out why my hypothetical lipstick-and-wig crocodile cartoon would cross the line for me, and this one doesn't. Just thought I'd throw it out there to see if anyone else shares my intuitions and can explain them to me!

It's only anti-trans if you take the alligator's word for how trans it is.

If you interpret it as lies told by a predator, what does it have to do with being trans at all? (Except for instant and automatic self-ID, I guess, but what does that have to do with being trans, really? That only has to do with validation, not the transness itself.)

If a predator pretends to be a priest to get close to choir boys, does it say anything about either priests or choir boys? No.

It’s a cartoon. Cartoons have a long history of being offensive, that’s their point. As it’s caused offence, arguably it’s succeeded in its aim.

I'm offended that women are having our existence redefined in law and policy and are having to fight tooth and nail to retain rights we've barely had for 50 years.

Would be nice if being offended over a satirical cartoon was the only thing to worry about.

As Floral says it doesn't benefit our case to afford loopholes to males we deem to be nice enough. There are plenty of nice men and men who identify as TW in the world but that's not the point if we want to retain sex based rights.

I understand why a particular TW might be upset by the uncomfortable point being made in the cartoon. That is not a point of confusion.

But in response to the complaint that the cartoon presents 'all transwomen as a threat' I will say, no, it presents all TW as a potential threat, because all TW are male, and all males are a potential threat.

If a TW ally doesn't understand that already, or that Ally thinks they are one of the good ones who can be allowed to slip past the boundary, then I'm afraid that, whatever we may think of the benefits of having TW allies, we are building a whacking great loophole into our case.

@charlestonchaplin
Would my analogy be clearer if the Muslim man carrying a bomb was identifying himself as a Christian? Your analogy doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. The closest your analogy could get to this scenario is a man wearing the traditional clothes of a country, say a part of Africa, where people are both Muslim and Christian. We wouldn’t be able to to tell just from his appearance whether he is Muslim or Christian, just as we can’t tell here, purely from the depiction, whether the crocodile is a transwoman or a non-trans male. Of course most British people have no idea of the variety of traditional clothes worn in Africa or which people follow which religions so they wouldn’t even get that far. You’re just flogging a dead horse with that analogy.

It’s easy to be dismissive when it’s something you don’t agree with but I repeat: if people honestly can’t see why trans people would find that cartoon offensive, no matter where they stand personally on the issue, I think that’s absolutely ridiculous of them.

I can’t believe all transwomen are lacking in intelligence. It’s not possible that they can’t understand the arguments women make for keeping single-sex spaces. The bottom line is that they feel their ‘need’ to use those spaces is more important. The logical end point of transwomen in women’s spaces is an increase in women being attacked, quite apart from any issues of privacy and dignity. We can argue about whether the increase in the number of women hurt would be small or large, but there will certainly be an increase due to much greater access to vulnerable women. These women are considered collateral damage for the validation of transwomen. So I’m not surprised that they would look at this cartoon and continue to refuse to acknowledge the problems of males (including transwomen) accessing women’s spaces. The crocodile is clearly any predatory male who seeks to use self-ID to access women’s spaces. Some women are at great pains to point out they aren’t concerned about transwomen but I say the statistics and the continual stream of media reports tell us it’s not only non-trans males we need to be concerned about.

Some people don’t have very logical minds, some people don’t like to try and stretch their minds and some people cannot or will not face the truth when it is contrary to their desires. Transgenderism in particular involves suspending logic and reality to some extent.

I can’t say any more on this subject Britney. You need to consider that just because someone is upset doesn’t mean they have good reason to be upset. Most men would understand us not wanting men in our spaces because of the deplorable actions of a few, why is it different with transwomen?

Reasonable people inquire of the artist what was meant, and do not persist in their misunderstanding after it is explained to them.

I'm not sure this is always the case.

If a drag artist claimed he was celebrating women I'm not convinced the majority on here would sit down and desist.

TheBewildernessisWeetabix
I do not think anyone is blind to the fact that transgender advocates manufacture outrage at every opportunity.

But that’s not what I said! I agree with you on your comment. What I’m saying is it’s completely disingenuous to look at a cartoon like that and state that trans people shouldn’t be offended by it when, I would argue, it was drawn to be purposely offensive, like all political drawings are.

But being blind as to why trans people wouldn’t find that particular cartoon offensive is just naive and cherry-picking IMO.

I do not think anyone is blind to the fact that transgender advocates manufacture outrage at every opportunity.
They are still having the rage over Jo Rowling's tweet, so this was to be expected. I hope the artist was prepared in advance for the death threats.

I mean, I can’t be the only one that came up with that conclusion, otherwise the thread wouldn’t be so long as it is...

@charlestonchaplin

“Perhaps because the crocodile mentions transition you have come to the conclusion that the crocodile is a transwoman”

What is this entire thread about then exactly, if not that?

I don't think it does your (general your) gender critical stance any favours that you are simply dismissing out of hand that it can be read that way.
You, general you, can misinterpret anything you wish in whatever way you wish.
Reasonable people inquire of the artist what was meant, and do not persist in their misunderstanding after it is explained to them.