Bernadine Evaristo

Thank you for the Globe Twitter link nauticant - interesting.

I hadn't heard of the book but it looks interesting - I hadn't realised how much I need full stops to mentally 'take a breath' so I may find it incredibly tiring to read!

It does help me both question and consolidate what I believe.

@nauticant
Re The Globe tweet. Theatre is in a very precarious position right now. If they double down on wokery, they may find more "traditional" punters stay away and they lose even more money. I used to be a patron of the Orange Tree Theatre but when they went very woke a couple of years ago, they were producing plays that I didn't want to sit through because of the shrill hectoring.

lots of contemporary fiction hurts my head
There is still plenty of good stuff like Edna O'Brien or the trilogy by Antonia White which deals with many of the issues women are still dealing with today.

If the writing and publishing field , for example, discriminates against feminine gendered people, then why wouldn't those people with a common cause stand in solidarity?

Men can't be 'feminine gendered people'. No matter how much lipstick they wear, no matter what pronouns they adopt.

The 'feminine gender' applies only to women. Some men do enjoy taking on stereotypically feminine appearance norms, whether for self expression or because they find it sexually arousing. Still, their interest in feminine stereotypes invariably begins and ends with the superficial (make-up, clothes), and nobody treats them like women.

As for Bernadine Evaristo, it is disappointing that she's endorsing trans ideology in the press, but that doesn't necessarily mean her book is crap. Lots of young women are identifying as 'non-binary' these days, so it seems a suitable subject for a female author. I wouldn't automatically refuse to read a book because it had a 'non-binary' female character - it would depend on how the author approaches the issue.

While I do understand the feeling of frustration towards Evaristo and others (especially Atwood), I think we need to forget about the vast majority of authors, actors and singers doing anything other than parroting the woke line. When it comes down to it, celebrities and artists are hustlers - they need to network and stay in with the press, and public image is everything to their brand. Very few are going to stand up for anything genuinely controversial. I don't understand why GC feminists keep challenging celebrities on Twitter about trans issues. It only ever results in them doubling down and then acting the martyr about how the mean feminists 'abused' them.

It will be ordinary people, not celebs, who will turn the tide against this ideology.

Here's the tweet by Shakespeare's Globe Black womxn working in theatre where you can see the gender critical replies:

twitter.com/The_Globe/status/1154749975626170368

That's not a flood of abuse. That's a tsunami of exasperation.

By the way I should add a content warning, the setting of her book is a ward for heavily pregnant women with the flu during the 1918 pandemic and it requires a strong heart and stomach. It's very, very graphic.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue is a magnificent read, which manages to touch on war, poverty, a pandemic, the most horrific realities biological womanhood and homosexuality in a very realistic and humane way. I don't know if Donoghue is woke, there's nothing to suggest it in what I've read. But if she is, it doesn't take one iota of my respect and admiration for her work away. I'd love to have a discussion of the book on here, it's very recently come out.

I replied to some of it on Twitter, as it happens.

But it was over a year ago.

Nauticant have you never seen women who don't agree insult each other?

Purity spirals?

Just had a look at their Twitter - they seem to be campaigning to look after all POC in the mass redundancies that are occurring in the arts atm.

Actually - you go out and look. I don't need asking twice when I was cross posting.

Oh, I see. There was loads of abuse and then it all disappeared.

The comment about her being at Goldsmith explains a lot. (Many threads on here are the damaging education at Goldsmiths)

Just because someone from a minority background (or working class background) wins a "prestigious" prize that is part of the white, racist, male heritage doesn't make they a culture warrior it more likely means they are "acceptable". Beware the women that men choose! That's why media feminism is so poisonous for women's activists.

But why I couldn't bear to read what she had written was the awful look at how liberated I am stuff about being a lesbian. And to claim as she did in the article that her "lesbian era" (puke) shaped who she is and went on to boast about how much of a prize she was for lesbian women because of her body shape, just made me think this is a man pleaser and I stopped reading.

But of course is absolute fodder for the main stream media.

Nauticant - I did at the time, and I saw some, but they deleted what they could. What I saw did not threaten violence or the equivalent of 'suck my dick' but it was insulting and rude and aggressive.

So where is this abuse that filled the twitter feed?

Nauticant - yes, that is true in terms of TRAs.

But many of us live and work alongside Trans people (of both sexes / genders) who are also nuanced etc. Plenty of Trans people agree that Women's sport is no place for people who have been through male puberty. Plenty of Transwomen are happy with Transwomen are Transwomen. It's sort of how people live their lives, before the misogynist TRAs got going.

If a 200-strong group of strong black women decide that they can defend their sex based rights as well as include feminine gendered people in their campaign I am not going to attack them on Twitter.

In some contexts - defending sex-based rights under law - I can see the need for an absolute position. But I don't think our responses and decisions in a range of other contexts should be dictated by TRAs.

a group of black women put together a photo of them all at the Globe, to make themselves visible ... Guess who turned on the campaign and filled their Twitter feed with abuse?

Out of interest, do you have any links to this abuse?

It is possible to include Transwomen in certain gendered contexts without agreeing to the dissolution of women's protected sex-based rights.

That was sort of what was going on in general up to a few years ago. At that point the trans activists arrived with their insane demands and have been aggressively attacking women ever since. Frequently showing a hatred of women that is really astonishing.

What the gender critical side learned from this if you give an inch they take a mile.

The point is that when you are in a life threatening situation the last thing you'd worry about is your gender identity, and whether it was being validated by others.

Back during ww2 no soldier was agonising about his gender identity, no girl living through the Blitz wondered if she was really a man

I doubt that is true. In fact the briefest of Googles shows it is not.

Of course, not in the forefront of anyone's mind as the bombs are raining down.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-south-yorkshire-45937939/meet-the-99-year-old-transgender-ww2-veteran

An American soldier here who seemed to use signing up as a cover to change gender en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_personnel_in_the_United_States_military

nypost.com/2017/03/29/transgender-wwii-veteran-comes-out-as-a-woman-at-90/

remembermeproject.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/who-were-they-report-final.pdf

And Vietnam : progressive.org/op-eds/memorial-day-is-complicated-for-a-transgender-vet-monifa-190520/

It is possible to include Transwomen in certain gendered contexts without agreeing to the dissolution of women's protected sex-based rights.

If the writing and publishing field , for example, discriminates against feminine gendered people, then why wouldn't those people with a common cause stand in solidarity? Whilst still agreeing that Transwomen in a refuge or a prison, for example, is a different matter?

In a field where black people were found to be under represented, a group of black women put together a photo of them all at the Globe, to make themselves visible. They defined the group as 'womxn' ...presumably there were some Transwomen amongst them, presumably they found femininity, rather than sex, to be a cause of discrimination or lack of representation.

Guess who turned on the campaign and filled their Twitter feed with abuse?

Clue: it wasn't racists.

People do have nuanced beliefs. It's real life. People agree, partially agree, agree with qualifications, agree depending on context..or disagree but still respect and listen to another's pov.

That's why my preference is for historical fiction!
Back during ww2 no soldier was agonising about his gender identity, no girl living through the Blitz wondered if she was really a man!
Oh for the days when we didn't have this to contend with...! Good fiction takes me there, whereas lots of contemporary fiction just hurts my head.

I hear what you’re saying @Lamahaha and @RoyalCorgi.

Im still figuring out where my personal line is with writers and artists who are not gender critical.

It is worrying that so little critical thinking on this issue seems to be going in literary circles. The unquestioning acceptance of all this identity bollocks is strong....

‘Yes, Lionel Shriver isn't shy about saying what she - or more accurately, her characters - think of woke culture in her latest novel.‘

Ooh. I’ve not read that one yet, but I generally love her books (though not so much her personality tbh). Will be adding to my large to-be-read pile.