"Why I stopped being a good girl" by Hadley Freeman

Hadley has nailed the issues in a clear way. I would love to be able to write so well. Thank you Hadley. Although she doesn’t use MN so won’t know.

I saw this this morning too - really good piece. I simply cannot see why anyone would think her views anything other than reasonable.

The Times has an article about this and, proving Hadley's point beautifully, turned the comments off:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/26028b74-9333-11ec-9aec-82f0032d4cd3?shareToken=eb704a091aeb5685e5d5d54ac1a6f675

Thank you, that is very interesting.

I think is a beautifully written, eloquently articulated piece and I agree with every single word. Go Hadley!!

It is an excellent piece. Very balanced.

It makes me wonder how many of her colleagues and former friends are now working out how to join her and her common sense views without looking like idiots.

I follow the "Oh God What Now" podcasts where Marie Le Conte is a frequent contributor and I imagine there are a few of them not wanting to be linked to her anti-older feminist (and reality) rants.

I agree with that transdimensional but I was thinking of her own well-being. There's a limit to how long anyone can tolerate being viewed by their own colleagues as a 21st century Phyllis Shafley (her words or similar). She sounds very down.

I read it via twitter this morning and thought it was a great piece - pleased to see it's been posted here.

Well said, although the reassuring reminders that TQ+ is lovely and absolutely important and all the other validations necessary to be permitted to speak at all are grating. And I'm afraid I disagree on one point: I think those who want to remove women's needed rights for their own benefit are terrible people. And quite staggeringly male supremacist.

Somewhat born out by the comments, the male ones of which range from 'this is feminists' fault for getting out of their box in the first place instead of serving men quietly and doing what they were told, so don't come crying to me', to 'wrong side of history (women give up now, you'll get used to your return to flat out, gleeful oppression)'

Yeah, good luck with getting me back in my box.

Excellent article, Hadley, thank you.

And well done, samsalmon. Every time someone stands up it helps about half a dozen others do the same.

Well I’ve gone and outed myself on FB as one of those nasty bigoted GC types (apparently) so this is going on there. Someone said to me that anything that impacts on trans people but doesn’t consider their needs is transphobic. If that’s true, then anything that impacts on women but doesn’t consider their needs is misogynistic. But no one seems to give a shit about that so 🤷🏽‍♀️
More power to you, Hadley.

Thanks for the link. She sounds like she's at the end of her tether with the Guardian. I think it's time she got out - it can't be doing her any good and she's such a talented interviewer, I'm sure somewhere else would snap her up pretty quickly.

What an excellent article. Brava, Hadley! And a nice little trip down memory lane to Dulwich swimming baths via her column.

One thing I've noticed with the parallel with anorexia (being a fellow sufferer) is that the eating disorder services have completely capitulated to the ideology. Every time I fill something out for them these days I am asked if my gender differs from the one assigned at birth. That they can see the causes of anorexia but not the causes of ROGD blows my mind.

It was a nice summary of her experience with this issue and I think would speak to a lot of people who have tended to accept the progressive narrative.

I felt it took a lot for granted in terms of the concept of "trans" - it didn't really spend any time thinking about what or why we suddenly have such an explosion of people who are using that label and what it represents. Which is fine, it was already on the long side and it would have made the article less focused.

But I do sometimes feel that when discussing this with other women who have concerns like HF, that is where they get stuck. They can't get as far as interrogating the concept itself, the idea that this is an innate category of person, some kind of developmental disorder that needs to be reconed with from that perspective.

That was a great read, so clear

Women are raised to fear male strength, and with very good reason. And now we’re called bigots for doing so.

Yep

Well done Hadley. The book on anorexia sounds interesting.

I love Hadley's writing. I stopped buying the Saturday Guardian when they scrapped Weekend and her column - great to see this piece from her, and the Attwood interview was such a good read.

I wonder if the Guardian is anything like one of the local Pride committees, where everyone is totally pro-trans and free with accusations of transphobia in public but behind the scenes (I'm told by someone who's been behind the scenes) things are very, very different. It gives me hope that gay men, in particular, are ready to revolt.

I watched a documentary series on the rise of the Nazis over this wet and windy weekend. What struck home was that few people in the governing group of Germany liked Hitler and his ambitions and ideas, but they all tried to use him and his Nazi stormtroopers as a way of furthering their own ambitions. It went horribly wrong of course. The parallels in our own situation are obvious, particularly all the politicians jumping aboard the transgender bandwagon in order to further their own ends without imagining that they'd end up arguing that men could grow cervixes if they took enough hormones.

Brilliant article. I’m so tired of being scared of losing my job at a otherwise great place because of its ties to Stonewall and my difference in opinion.

spacehardware
I've no idea why but MNHQ deleted their despairing threads about the state of society in relation to ideology. Won't say any more as don't want to derail this thread about the very good piece under discussion.

Also very pleased to see this. I hope the tide is turning since more people are willing now to openly defend JKR etc as having said perfectly reasonable things.

It's excellent.