Julie Bindel - article on allies

Sorry pic didnt seem to work, am trying again.

Well, if we’re going down THAT road.....

Julie Bindel openly discusses in that article that she’s appeared on stage in debates with Milo Yiannopoulos. That video is available on YouTube.

Click on it and I’m sure ALL SORTS of wonderful content will be recommended. He’s not exactly known for having avoided ‘controversial’ guests.

By this ‘standard’ we must surely now disregard anything that Julie Bindel says, right?

@Kantastic

The website was set up by conspiracy theorists to promote conspiracy theories. Most conspiracy theories have antisemitism at the root and that is reflected in the content of the site. In the video that Harry Miller and Posie Parker appear in there is also an interview with Piers Corbyn claiming the COVID pandemic is a hoax. Sonia Poulton is clearly closely involved with this website and her video are it's flagship product. Presumably it is an attempt to draw in gender critical people and expose them to conspiracy theories in the hope of recruiting a few.

And that's far from the only problem with the site as a thread right here on mumsnet reveals: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4033648-The-Raw-Report-with-Sonia-Poulton-Posie-Parker-Derek-Bose-Harry-Miller-Mark-Saunokonoko

So, I too went and scrolled all the way down and got nothing like what you posted. It had a whole lot of covid vids (one of my saved internet search’s), some US election vids, and one about a horse. The ads were nothing to note either.

It is no doubt a site that has plenty of horrible stuff. As does twitter, YouTube and their ilk.

xxyzz It appears to be a YouTube alternative which emphasises free speech.

There is a problem with sites that emphasise free speech -it's described presciently and clearly but in far too many words in this essay slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-web/

to summarise: the problem is that any "free speech" focused space attracts mostly people with awful opinions who've been banned from speaking elsewhere. So if you happen to have a perfectly reasonable opinion that, a big organisation like, ooh, say, Google, wants you to shut up about, then you have to find your video hosting space alongside the conspiracy theorists and the NeoNazis, or you have to shut up.

I don't doubt that the content jj showed exists on BrandNewTube , But I think they have been somewhat pruriently looking for the worst things they could find on there.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be held morally responsible for all the content on Youtube just because I linked to a music video that's hosted there.

[quote xxyzz]@jj1968 - if true, that's extremely disappointing - Transgender Trend do so much good, but their ability to do good is based on their being the rational, sensible grown ups in the room, who care about safeguarding.

That is not consistent with connecting with a Nazi hate site.

Is this definitely true? It would seem very out of character for them. Can anyone confirm?[/quote]
Here's the tweet: twitter.com/Transgendertrd/status/1314836483082268673

The video they took part in has been removed, possibly after the site got hacked a couple of days ago, but they are still linking to brand new tube and if you scroll down or click around you'll see the type of content on there.

Xyzzy I’d take anything jj says with an entire saltmines worth of salt

I’ve just been on transgender trends twitter & website & colour me shocked but I’m not confronted with Nazi propaganda

And yes wines exactly!! for some reason mumsnet fwr has adverts for stonewall trans work the other week but I think it’s safe to assume fwr isn’t a hotbed of trans activism.

it’s a major own goal to decide to work with people who would deny women their bodily autonomy, who are anti-gay, who consider trans people to be freaks, and who are more likely to show bigotry towards marginalised groups.

And who is denying women their bodily autonomy?
Who is reducing women to uterus havers?

Surely as feminists we should be pulling together. I’m uncomfortable with bigotry to those who believe in religion, it’s not a good look.

Which women/ women's group is jj1968 slagging off today? There are so many it's hard to keep up

See this pic as an example of what's on the front page of Brand New Tube right now

I just went there and that's not what I see on the front page. I assume, jj, that this is the content you've been seeking out and the algorithm's giving you what you asked for. Consider me appropriately disgusted.

@jj1968 - if true, that's extremely disappointing - Transgender Trend do so much good, but their ability to do good is based on their being the rational, sensible grown ups in the room, who care about safeguarding.

That is not consistent with connecting with a Nazi hate site.

Is this definitely true? It would seem very out of character for them. Can anyone confirm?

Yes.... and did Transgender trend get any say in the ads at all? Kind of like, should I post anywhere on social media where an ad could be shown near my post that I have no control over. Even on MN, I might post and it lands just above a post from an advertiser I don’t agree with at al ...

Sounds a touch extreme there. If I give an interview, I could not expect to control the ads the site or the shows producer shows. That isn’t how it works.

See this pic as an example of what's on the front page of Brand New Tube right now

@Kantastic

There is actual Nazi propaganda one click from Transgender Trend's twitter feed. They are actively promoting a far right website. They know what's on that site, they have made the choice to promote it and appear on it. This isn't about the Spectator or the Tories but dangerous and potentially violent groups and individuals on the extreme right. And for what, to promote gender critical activism to conspiracy theorists and holocaust deniers. Do you really want them in your movement? Surely there are some lines you think shouldn't be crossed?

I am left wing (soft left) and understand where Julie is coming from. I'm generally in favour of staying shtum on inter-feminist bickering as I don't feel we have so many allies we can afford to split the movement down the middle. I'm also opposed to purity spirals.

That said, I am surprised that no-one on this thread has acknowledged that for people like Julie (lesbian) and me (Jewish), it's not about ideological purity, primarily, it's about safety.

Maybe if you're a straight white woman who is not a member of any minority group, you can hang out with the far right on sites that promote the Nazis and think 'the end justifies the means'. Or even 'Ooh, aren't I a rebel,' or 'This is a bit of a laugh'.

But I can't. There's nothing funny about neo-Nazis to me. And Julie repeatedly states that people or groups who pretend to be women's allies over the conflict between women's and trans rights but who are using that as a Trojan horse to repeal lesbian and gay rights, pose a very real threat to her and the rest of the LGB community. So if you're happy dumping on other threatened groups because it doesn't affect you, whether you call yourself left or right or neither, think again about whether that's who you actually want to be.

I used to follow Sonia Poulton on Twitter. I then discovered she was a batshit conspiracy theorist and as far as I'm concerned...no.

I'm not going to spend my time publishing articles about Poulton (and I'm no Julie Bindel so probably no-one would read them if I did!). But I'm certainly going to walk fairly fast in the opposite direction.

Look, GC feminism is a broad church, which is as it should be. But whatever your views on the left, and I'm pretty bloody critical of the party that allowed itself to be taken over by Corbyn and his anti-Semitic thugs, I don't feel that's any excuse to embrace the far right either.

At the risk of sounding like a TRA here, not everything is binary. In politics, left and far right are not the only options. Centrism (albeit without a clear party to cohere round) is also an honourable option. You can leave the batshit left without feeling the need to therefore join the batshit right either!

We have been clearly and conclusively dumped, and yet even though they ended the relationship, they're following us around, accusing us of cheating on them, if we so much as look at any other group's proposals.

I suppose that's a rather pompous way of saying I have become a floating voter! Which is funny really as I never used to understand them at all and yet here I am.

For me - I haven't joined, let alone voted for another party and have no plans to make any 'alliances'. I'm in the UK where GRA reform is now thankfully off the table and there's no real prospect of a general election for 4 years so I see no reason to hurry. In the meantime I shall read what I like and I will listen and talk to whoever I like - it is none of the left's business.

That's not to say I will never vote left of centre again - it's possible. But I no longer regard Labour as my natural party, and that is entirely down to them and them alone.

I think conflating the US and the UK right is wrong. I know UK right aren't great for women, but I can't imagine them rolling back abortion rights for example? I don't think that's likely anyway.

But more importantly, if abortion rights were rolled back, wouldn't they be easier to fight when we can say who we are fighting for? I don't understand how we can vote for a party that openly wants to end "women" as a category of people and remove single sex spaces and everything else. I don't see how that's a better option.

I should say, all this is a bit above me. When people talk of leaving the Left, I don't really know what they mean. Voting Tory instead of Labour, or does it mean leaving the Labour party if they were previously a member (and presumably voting Tory)? Julie's article sounds like she means talking to and working with groups affiliated with the Right, and ruling that out seems a bit extreme to me.