Suzanne Moore - naming and shaming

@BovaryX

Hmm. Isn't this quite extraordinary? These are journalists writing in an allegedly serious newspaper. Yet we are supposed to believe that they just sign their name to any petition with zero clue as to its purpose? It's interesting, isn't it? How journalists and politicians, like Lisa Nandy, will deny they knew what they were signing five minutes after pledging their signature. It really is laughable.

PAEDOGEDDEN!

@tobee 😊

@sophoclesthefox I think your options 1 and 3 are depressingly common. People just follow (what they think is) the herd. It reminds me of the actors who signed the petition in favour of Polanski a few years back and then had to do an abrupt reverse ferret when they realised they had actually publicly supported a man who had openly admitted to raping and sodomising a child.

I'm not actually that surprised by Simon Hatterstone. He once wrote an article about Paul Gasgoine where he blamed Gazza's domestic violence towards his wife on his drinking. I wrote a letter which to be fair they did publish explaining that alcohol doesn't cause violence against women. . .

Australian Guardian employed H. Mouncey to write articles.

Demonstrating disregard for safety and fairness in women's sports.
Maybe simply disregard for women's sport?

2018 by Hannah Mouncey for The Guardian:
"AFL's trans participation policy sets a dangerous precedent for women

With weight being used as a measure for exclusion, women are yet again being body-shamed
(extract)
ate last week, the AFL released its long-awaited policy on transgender participation in Australian rules football. In it are a set of requirements trans women need to follow if they aim to play at AFLW level. These include having your testosterone below a certain level for two years, which I have no problem with, as well as the requirement that trans women undertake number of physical tests designed to ascertain if they have an advantage over cis women playing AFLW – the presumption being that this is because they are trans.

The reasons I’m critical of the AFL’s policy are not the reasons people may assume. Essentially, every physical requirement the policy asks me to meet I will. I know what I can do, and I know how I compare overall. Yet, there are still a number of issues surrounding how the policy is applied.

It is not yet clear, for example, if the data being used by the AFL to compare cis and trans women can be independently verified. Nor can we be sure the clubs have accurately reported their data. The question that has been answered by the AFL, however, is that if a trans athlete and a non-trans athlete were both to perform above average on their testing regime, the trans athlete would be excluded from AFLW, but the cis athlete wouldn’t. Not very consistent, or fair." (continues)

My biggest concern is the fact that weight is being used as one of the key physical measures for possible exclusion. Forget the fact that in a game that has such an emphasis on endurance and speed, being heavy is not necessarily an advantage and think about the message it sends to women and girls about their bodies: if you’re too big, you can’t play. That is incredibly dangerous and backward.

It is an especially dangerous message for girls and teenagers (trans or not) who may not understand the difference between fat or muscle: they will simply get the message that being bigger is bad. If you don’t fit a certain stereotype, or possess a certain body shape, that’s bad. This is a message constantly reinforced through all types of media and the last place it needs to be coming from is sporting organisations: the very people who are currently engaged in a conscious push to increase physical activity for women and girls, which .

The AFL should know better, as a number of its own female playing cohort – including Western Bulldogs captain Katie Brennan – have come out since the AFLW started to speak about their own prior issues with eating disorders." (continues)
www.theguardian.com/profile/hannah-mouncey

People have already mentioned Guardian US signatories but I'd forgotten just how woke the Guardian in Australia is. Quite a few Aussie signatories on the list.

In light of Marina Hyde NOT signing the letter, I thought it might be interesting to consider that in the context of the the final paragraph of this (absolute belter of a) column amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/20/boris-johnson-covid-19-prime-minister-brexit?

Which is about Boris and Coronavirus, but it reads:
Time and again this week I have been reminded of that great line from last year’s Chernobyl drama series. “When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there. But it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.”

Interesting, huh.

To be fair, if all you had to go on was the letter, and took it at face value that your newspaper had been publishing vile transphobic slurs (and hadn't actually seen them yourself), you would probably have signed it too

Hmm. Isn't this quite extraordinary? These are journalists writing in an allegedly serious newspaper. Yet we are supposed to believe that they just sign their name to any petition with zero clue as to its purpose? It's interesting, isn't it? How journalists and politicians, like Lisa Nandy, will deny they knew what they were signing five minutes after pledging their signature. It really is laughable.

Slightly off track but look.. JK Rowling has set up open access for teachers to read to kids
www.jkrowling.com/j-k-rowling-grants-open-licence-for-teachers-during-covid-19-outbreak/

twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1241018513151664128

Commenting on someone’s journalistic integrity when they sign a letter anonymously to silence a fellow journalist is not a personal attack. If I said Simon Hattenstone has an ugly face (for the avoidance of doubt I’ve never seen him) that would be unpleasant and unnecessary. I see nothing on this thread like that.

@HebeMunsnet Can you clarify the personal attacks thing?

I know personal attacks on other posters are deleted, but opinions on public figures? The Harry and Meghan threads are full of attacks on H&M, for example! Is this because they thought they were signing in secret?

Bit not but

No that's is correct @franke. I was being unfair. I shouldn't have put that but.

I wonder what else guardian staff have got up to in secret? Fuckers.

Marina Hyde and Hadley Freeman are worth fifty of anyone else at the Guardian. So pleased they didn't sign. And that Zoe Williams, who I also like, clearly recognises the need to agree to disagree - good for her.

he constantly whinged that he had to address her as Lady Hale and she wouldn't let him call her Brenda? Perhaps not so surprising after all that he turns out to have a problem with clever women

That's more likely to be a problem with being told to use snotty, divisive, and class-ridden titles ... isn't it?
Titles area bit like pronouns - it's up to the speaker what words they choose to use.

I've got zero time for people saying "it's just about trans rights". You're a journalist for goodness' sakes. The letter specifically references anti-trans articles published by the Guardian - surely the least you'd do is ask which articles and read them.

So it looks like the signatories have gone for one of four options: I didn’t read it properly (so I’m slipshod and don’t research things, and can be easily compelled to sign any old bumwash); I expected it to be kept anonymous (so I’m a backstabber and a weasel and I don’t own my actions); I didn’t understand the implications of what I was signing (so I’m a bit dim), or lastly, owning it and saying “yes, I stand by this” (so I’m a bully and don’t think a newspaper should publish opinions that differ from my own).

Pretty sorry state of affairs all round, really. Don’t blame Suzanne for hitting the nuclear option.

Sorry: link mobile.twitter.com/katherinepurvis/status/1240576121319628800

This response from signatory Katherine Purvis is interesting.

It suggests that a) people signing weren't expecting their names to be anonymised, and b) that she hasn't yet made the link between the letter and Suzanne Moore.

To be fair, if all you had to go on was the letter, and took it at face value that your newspaper had been publishing vile transphobic slurs (and hadn't actually seen them yourself), you would probably have signed it too.

Conclusion: letter authors were duplicitous in how they asked for signatories, and also some Guardian staff don't read the stuff their paper publishes.

The whistleblower thing is hilarious. The whole point of whistle blowing is that you publicly reveal bad or dangerous practices that are currently being hidden by the organisation. As Suzanne's article was published for the whole world to see, it's hardly whistle blowing to draw people's attention to it. Idiots.

Does anyone remember Hattenstone's recent interview with Baroness Hale where he constantly whinged that he had to address her as Lady Hale and she wouldn't let him call her Brenda? Perhaps not so surprising after all that he turns out to have a problem with clever women.

revealing the names in public is violating ‘whistleblower’s’ safety and women’s ability to report abuse privately

Seriously? It takes some industrial quantity of disingenuous to pretend there is any equivalence whatsoever between the signatories to this letter. And whistleblowers.

How did they actually execute it and approach folk though? Keeping it quiet all the time? Were likes of Cohen approached, was everyone approached?

Also the bollocks trotted out on Twitter about revealing the names in public is violating ‘whistleblower’s’ safety and women’s ability to report abuse privately.

Bollocks; the whole point of a mass signing is safety in numbers / solidarity. And how these idiotic people can protest that revealing names endangers women’s safety when this has been a mass signing against one woman, I don’t know.

Totally different to a lone employee talking in confidence.

I'm pleased to see the absence of Guardian 'top' journalists on there, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're on 'our side'. They just aren't bullies and weasels

Quite. The whole point of a free press is free speech. Moore as a professional doesn’t expect everyone to agree with her. She rightly expects to be able to operate without censorship and states that this is a free speech issue.