I’m just bringing this back because this is such a huge question and one I think about a lot.
Where will this end, really? We have been making some advances, for sure, but the “other side” are so convinced they’re right. They are digging in so hard. They still have so much support on their side in the form of institutional capture and funding, and young people are still being given an often entirely one sided picture of the whole issue.
How is this going to be resolved? When people like Owen Jones are so messianic in their fervour, when no one from “that side” is even willing to listen to any arguments, when it’s all gone so far beyond reason? Is there a way back?
And how do women like us move forward now we know the scale of the misogyny we’re dealing with? I feel such loathing and contempt for the men who’ve pushed this agenda, and the women too - so disappointed and betrayed by those I thought were on our side, as women, but who I now see as nothing less than the enemy, tbh, as in they are the enemy of the kind of world I would like to live in.
It does feel like a civil war, a war particularly between different aspects of the so called liberal left. Those who want to see themselves as progressive, on the side of social justice and equality. Both groups are laying claim to that mantle but it’s impossible for both groups to actually be the voice of progress when we are in such extreme opposition to each other.
I’m rambling, not sure what I’m trying to say - I suppose it’s partly that I do recognise that for some of the TRA/ally camp at least - maybe even most - they are genuinely motivated by the belief they’re doing the right thing, caring about a vulnerable minority, fighting for civil rights etc. And that makes it so much harder to combat them, so much harder than when it was liberals against Thatcher and Section 28, and it was nice and neat as to who was on which side.
So many people whose views would largely concur with mine on many other topics are on the opposite side to me in this arena. And while I can see that some/many of them are motivated by sincerely good intentions, however misguided and misinformed I obviously think those intentions are, it’s starkly noticeable that those on the TRA side never acknowledge the possibility of good faith on our side. Never. We are just demonised and dehumanised all the way.
Everything is so inverted with angry, misogynistic men/ male people comparing us to Nazis, saying how evil we are - while threatening us with the worse kind of violence/sexual violence. I saw one blue tick American guy (a Uni professor?) who actually wished for JKR to suffer a traumatic vaginal injury, but still managed to believe he’s on the right side of history.
Both sides believe they’re standing up for children, against child abuse. We just have completely opposing ideas about what keeping children safe means.
How the fuck does this holy mess get resolved? And even if we’ve got a chance here, how on earth does this play out in the USA/Canada, where things have gone so much further?
Sorry. No answers, just questions. I get heartened by the the steps forward, but then there’s always another new insanity that comes along and is lauded as something marvellous. We’re fucked, aren’t we? Can this really ever come to a reasonable conclusion? If we get the scenario we want, there will still be countless warriors on the TRA side very unhappy and still fighting against it; if things go more the way they want, we’re going to be the ones still angry and fighting.
I think this is going to be a very long civil war. I can’t see how it can resolve even in a few years. I fear it will be decades at least.
But god, I’d love to be wrong. (As long as the earlier resolution was in our favour of course!)