Margaret Atwood

What if digging in would lose you your status as national treasure? And the highly elevated status going with it?

I don't know about anyone else, but if a load of people sent me abusive messages telling me I was an evil, racist, transphobic bigot, and had always been an evil, racist, transphobic bigot, that wouldn't make me inclined to recant. In fact, it would make me dig my heels in.

It's still morning in Canada. Give her time to give a full grovelling apology.

Although she's going to recant by tomorrow so it might not be an issue.

Interesting that she's refusing to recant.
I wonder if the censorship of language is beginning to be a concern to writers. There's a perfectly reasonable and humane push for inclusion, but it must start to ring warning bells when this demands abandoning well understood and universally used words.
If MA is making a stand I would imagine this to be quite a big deal in Canada

If MA posted a link to Jenny Joseph or a picture of herself wearing purple and drinking brandy then I'd be so uplifted that I'd positively be levitating.

Newsweek (v tepid article, I'm just posting it here for the sake of gathering media responses): www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/what-did-handmaids-tale-author-margaret-atwood-say-exactly/ar-AAPKkb9

You might ‘feel female’ but without the surgery and living as a woman, including changing the birth certificate you are not a woman.

No surgery, lifestyle, or birth certificate, can change someone's sex.

I'm amazed the tweet is still up. Relieved, but surprised

Two more tweets (climate change) from Atwood.

No retraction.

There’s a blunting of the discourse and a lack of nuance. Like so many on this thread, I am generally left-wing, pro-choice, pro-human rights, pro-welfare state and pro-welcoming refugees.
I am also for legislation that prevents a trans person from being discriminated against or harassed, but that I also believe that being a woman is a biological fact and self ID is a road to abuse and a trouncing of women’s rights.
You might ‘feel female’ but without the surgery and living as a woman, including changing the birth certificate you are not a woman.

DiManno claimed that 'woman' was 'in danger of becoming a dirty word.'

She said the word was at risk of being 'struck from the lexicon of officialdom, eradicated from medical vocabulary and expunged from conversation.'

This from the article.

A poster was here yesterday saying exactly this! That language changes and using woman will go the way of bigoted words like "coloured" in the name of progress!

It's interesting that Attwood had no idea she was already a bigot!

Oh the Daily Mail piece is great. It opens up the debate and let’s people make up their own minds. And lots of comments are like - well if that is what transphobic means then I am a transphobe.

And living in Canada, she would have seen gender politics rolled out, not by stealth as it has been in the UK/Ireland, but right in her face.

I can see why you might think that, but it's not how it has played out. I seriously doubt Atwood has had more than an inkling of the problems involved in this. People have been very reassured by the state that these laws are just fine and will have no bad effects. They do not know about people like Yaniv and if they hear they think they are just crazies that you get everywhere from time to time.

The USA is just so polarised politically, generally people believe you're either on the left and believe in all the wokedom OR you're on the right, you're a christian fundamentalist and you believe in traditional sex roles and do not believe in abortion, same sex marriage or being trans. Most people in the USA just don't see how you can be on the left and have an issue with how far trans rights have trumped women's rights - they don't understand how those beliefs sit together in one world view. Indeed, many people believe that if you think trans rights have gone too far, you also believe in traditional sex roles and stereotypes - which I can see no evidence of, in the UK at least.

So why didn't she see the downside for women? Is she in fact out of touch? Handmaid's Tale was written/published nearly 40 years ago. Perhaps the TV version rolling out gave MA a reflected glow of contemporary relevance that didn't actually exist?

I think some people can only see threats to women coming from the right wing. Especially in North America where politics are even more polarised. Truth is both sides are only too eager to put the boot on our neck, they just differ in their means.

I read the Mail article as if the situation was all so ludicrous that they didn’t need to make much more comment. It wrote itself.

But maybe I’m being too charitable.

Atwood is at the top of an elite ultra-woke group in a very woke country. She has more status than you can shake a stick at. Having seen how she's enjoyed that over the past couple of decades I really don't expect her to put it at risk. I think her "coming out" here is more carelessness than statement. The next plausible move from her would be status preservation.

Ah, good point @ArabellaScott, I'd not scrolled down past the c**p to get to the comments. They are great! And one can use the 'ratings' buttons to help some up the chart too

I think the writer might be US based, which might explain how it's written. (certainly all her other articles seem to be US news)

That's another point - it seems to me that the context of Canada/US politics and media makes a huge difference to how the matter is positioned.