Another incredibly annoying Guardian article

Agreed, FloralBunting. Articles like this repeat the same tropes ('be kind!' 'feminism has to be inclusive!' 'that never happens!' 'lots of my friends are trans and they're nice!') because they're about reputation management, not genuine argument. American feminists like Rebecca Solnit who want to be maintain their position on the left, have to write articles like this now or risk being denounced for suspected Wrongthink. It doesn't matter what they say or how inelegantly they say it as long as it is pro-trans rights.

Same with the Harry Potter actors who had to denounce JKR. Their statements were equally bland & unthinking, just checking a box to ensure they prevent their own denunciation for suspected transphobia by TRAs. 'Silence is violence!!', after all. If you don't speak out, you're condoning genocide and erasure of trans people etc etc etc.

Saw the cis in the headline and cancelled my Guardian direct debit. Haven’t even read the bloody article yet.

Just out of interest I went to see if they had posted a link on their facebook page, as when they do on trans issues they usually get a very negative response.

This time it looks like a couple of OJ acolytes have been put on guard duty. Needless to say they are both men telling women they dont understand what the article is telling them and they should curb their transphobia etc..

Some women have bothered to leave interesting posts but no one seems to think as this thread does that it is such awoeful article.

Even if you are not on facebook you can read, just have to keep clicking not now to get rid of irritating message about signing up.

www.facebook.com/GuardianOpinion/posts/3458472434185261

I see she finally listened to those men explaining things to her and listened hard.

Sorry that link doesn't appear to have archived correctly, try this one;
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200810120844/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/10/trans-rights-feminist-letter-rebecca-solnit" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200810120844/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/10/trans-rights-feminist-letter-rebecca-solnit

Archived;
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200810203001/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/10/trans-rights-feminist-letter-rebecca-solnit" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200810203001/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/10/trans-rights-feminist-letter-rebecca-solnit

archive.is/Kof6R

[quote Goosefoot]An in interesting take on Solnit from The Walrus.

thewalrus.ca/why-i-dont-read-rebecca-solnit/?gclid=CjwKCAjw4MP5BRBtEiwASfwAL3o9X2s9MHRVy9a_2Zrdke-TjggA1V2d7_Psf8YdjEvtW5AZFV3NkxoCaNwQAvD_BwE[/quote]
Sometimes I come on here to see who replied after me and sometimes I come on here and my mind is blown by elegant and thoughtful writing - as above. Every day is a school day!!!

Yes, exactly.

Eresh, yes, I do think there may well be a sort of strategy somewhere to blanket lots of this kind of thing, probably because it provides handy links for people to mindlessly share as some sort of empty appeal to authority by virtue of the amount of it, and clearly, lots of people don't read content with any attention.

But still they churn them out. Which leads me to believe that they are not designed to be persuasive. They are sermons for the convinced congregation, meant to reassure the true believers they are in the right religion moral place.

I totally agree, Floral. I think they are also designed to just flood the public square with so much bullshit that people don't question any of it.

And also that quite a significant number of people are born intersex.

Quite a "significant" number huh? And there was me thinking DSDs are extremely rare. Not that it matters anyway, since those people are still male or female.

It's not a persuasive piece, on any level. When you read enough of these 'rebuttal' articles, and there have been a steady stream of them from the Guardian and on Medium etc, you realize that the exact same talking points are wheeled out every time. It becomes very apparent that, while I may be doing them the courtesy of reading my opponents views (even sometimes with a vague hope that I might hit upon a new and good reason to believe that way), they just do not return the favour.

Every single one of these arguments has been repeatedly debunked, and it's been put in articles, podcasts, forum and facebook posts and even tweets that these arguments completely misunderstand and misrepresent what feminists are saying.

But still they churn them out. Which leads me to believe that they are not designed to be persuasive. They are sermons for the convinced congregation, meant to reassure the true believers they are in the right religion moral place. It's just soothing noises for those who prefer to read prose rather than pink and blue striped slogan pictures to confirm their own righteousness.

Talk of bathrooms and feelings; no mention of prisons, sports, refuges, women's awards, intimate care. It's like a marketing campaign for a shit product.

Why? Why did she disengage her brain?

Of course men explain things to you, Rebecca, because you have an inferior 'ladybrain', and they have superior manly brains (according to this guardian article).

Exactly. Something tells me Rebecca would be happy (or forced to pretend to be) with MTF trans people explaining things to her.

Thought a twenty year old student had written this article!! Its nomsensical, transwomen arent a threat to women because they are what ? Women? But in what way are they women though? But straight men are a threat, how are they are threat if its not to do with male physical size and strength and those pesky male genitals that can rape, all of which the majority of transwomen still have, especially those ones that are attracted to women. Oh unless being a woman is about being born with a feminised brain but then i think but what about all those women who dont do feminine, but they still have female genitals and have the organs required to birth a baby, what are they ? Transwomen are transwomen otherwise they can be a sub category of men but they are not women/female as that word means something.

Surely, if "feminism is a subcategory of human rights advocacy," then one of the key words is subcategory.

If I, for example, campaign for better maths teaching in schools, I might be described as being an activist for "a subcategory of educational improvement". It would not be hypocritical of me not to campaign for better English teaching. (And it would certainly not be surprising if, for example, I were to be strongly against a campaign for more teaching of astrology.)

So even if her premise is true (which I'm not willing to take as given) the conclusion does not follow.

How can you live in San Francisco, not notice what went on with Yaniv just a thousand miles north in Vancouver, and not stop to think “hang on a minute...”

Do they actually get news like this from the rest of the world in San Francisco or is it filtered out? I’m only half joking, because I can’t fathom how someone could be so ignorant.

Also, no-one is saying to women: ‘don’t ever question the credentials or ID of a workman who comes to your house. Doing so causes profound harm and may cause the workman to commit suicide & you’ll be the one to blame. Men who claim to be workmen are who they say they are. #believeworkmen’ and so on.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Women are generally encouraged to question people who want access to our spaces - unless they claim to identify as female and then they are sacrosanct and can never be questioned and anyone who does so is a hateful ignorant transphobe.

“
"pretend to be repairmen or emergency workers to get into our homes, and actually have, and we haven’t banned repairmen and emergency workers yet"

I think she’s missed the point here. It is not at all uncommon for men to pretend to be repairmen or emergency service workers, (or all sorts of other occupations), in order to gain access to women and children.

It’s not uncommon for men with actual professions to prey on women and children.

It’s not even uncommon for men to pretend to be young girls or teenage boys or wise councillors or lovers onlinr, to prey on women and children.

So why would this one category of men be exempt from suspicion? Why would we not try and construct safeguards to protect women from them, as we do with other kinds of potential threat?

"pretend to be repairmen or emergency workers to get into our homes, and actually have, and we haven’t banned repairmen and emergency workers yet"

Yet we haven’t decided to let anyone who calls himself a workman in at any time, whether they are or not?

Does anyone remember a sketch show called Absolutely and Morwenna Bank's Little Girl character? It read as if had been written by Little Girl

Yes, nepeta: that’s the biggest disappointment of the article. Solnit has enough critical faculties to engage seriously with this topic and think deeply about it. But she hasn’t. She just wrote the usual bunch of straw-penis-haver arguments and wrapped it up with a pretty bow saying, ‘just be nice! You’re causing harm to male-born people with all this feminist BS!!’

It’s truly sad to see so many good feminists who are unable to think outside of leftist doctrine on this.