Jane Clare Jones on navigating non-agreement/infighting
I haven't said much over the last few days, because, like many of you, I find it all incredibly distressing.
I understand the desire for us all to stand together, and share the awareness that division and infighting is a gift to those that we are standing against.
I feel however, that this kind of conflict arises not because we don't all agree about certain things, but as a result of how we navigate the fact that we don't all agree about certain things. It has always been extremely important to me that as a movement, we are okay with
the fact that we don't all agree with each other, that we are free to question, discuss and respectfully differ, that we respect other people's boundaries, and what they say about what matters to them.
So a few thoughts:
1. This is a diverse movement comprised of people from all kinds of backgrounds, with all kinds of different skills, expertise, and talents. The work that is has taken to built this movement has needed all of those different skills and talents.
Women have put themselves to the task of using their own skills and talents to make a contribution to this fight in a spectacular range of ways, and with huge amounts of enthusiasm and imagination.
All of it matters.
We have tied ribbons, made speeches, dressed up, handed out
leaflets, organised meetings, written to MPs, given parliamentary evidence, made videos, composed songs, sent in FOIs, written reports, argued on Twitter, lobbied behind the scenes, done policy analysis, put up billboards, taken court cases, spoken to our friends in the pub,
embroidered banners, dressed up as suffragettes and dinosaurs, spent hours filling in consultations...
It all matters, it's all needed.
We are trying to shift a massive edifice of ideology, and discourse, and policy capture, which is backed up with significant amounts of power.
It has to be attacked on all levels, in multiple ways, by people using many different skills.
Getting the message out to the general public is a massively important part of that battle.
I believe that as a movement, we have accomplished that. This issue is now fully breaking
through to the mainstream. I believe there are many reasons why we have been successful in doing that. Part of the reason is because we have very successfully taken apart the nonsense that is gender identity ideology, and have used clear arguments and data and analysis to
demonstrate that there are numerous problems with this ideology and with its implications. We have also consistently shown all the ways in which this ideology, while masquerading as progressive, is actually based on very conservative ideas about gender, is homophobic,
is against the principles of materialist and class based politics, is individualist and consumerist, and has wrapped itself up in the discourse of anti-racism, while actually using extremely racist arguments and imposing itself all over the world in an imperialist way.
I think these arguments are true, and I think they matter.
I also think all the detailed legal and policy work matters.
I also think getting the message out to the public, in as many ways as possible, matters.
If we are to all PUUUULLLL together, we need it all.
I am concerned, and troubled, by a narrative which is gaining increasing traction, that suggests that there is really no need for arguments, or any thinking really, that everything is very simple, that all that is necessary to win this fight is to communicate a very simple
message to the public, that anything else is a distraction, or is just pointless, or is elitism.
I believe that that is a misrepresentation of how this movement has been built, and why it has been more successful in this country than in other places.
I believe we have been successful because we have done all the many things we have needed to do, and all of them are valuable.
2. As I suggested above, I also believe that one of the reasons this country was able to mount early and effective resistance to transgender ideology,
is because we built this movement on the basis of a critique of this ideology informed by progressive political values, by commitment to the rights of women, and gay people, and the effects of this ideology on the most marginalised and vulnerable groups of women, including
survivors of male violence, sexual exploitation, and women in prison.
The development of grassroots resistance in America has been terribly hamstrung by their culture war and political polarisation, and by how hard it has been for
American women to get the message out that trans ideology is not a progressive political project, and that it profoundly damages the interests of many groups 'progressive' people are supposed to care about.
I believe our ability to do that has been a key part of our strength,
and why we have been more successful here in getting our public institutions to start listening to our concerns.
While, as we know, there is a lot of not-really-understanding-that-women-are-people at work in the capture of our institutions and political parties, this is a basic
feature of a patriarchal society, and spans the political spectrum. I do however think that many of the people accepting trans ideology inside institutions do so because they unthinkingly think it is progressive and 'kind.'
If we remember the results from the 'More in Common'
survey a couple of weeks ago, what we saw was that the British public's basic attitude towards this issue was one of generalised tolerance and a wish to be accepting, but which, when you drill down into it, understands the need to draw certain boundaries where 'sex matters.'
That is, is was basically a moderate GC position, which is what we pointed out to the media commentators who tried to frame this as a conflict between two extreme groups.
That is, I believe that the message that will most effectively carry public support for our concerns is
one that adopts a basic 'live and let live' position, but which draws the very clear boundaries where we need to in the places necessary to protect the interests of women, gay people, and to prevent the damage being done to gender non conforming children.
I know we are all very angry, and tired, and distressed by this conflict. But I do believe it would be a grave strategic, and political error, at the point where we are making so much progress, to adopt a political position that I don't think is actually in tune with the public's
attitudes on this issue.
I also think it would be a grave strategic error with respect to making progress uncapturing our institutions, who have a public sector duty to recognise the interests of various different constituencies.
I have seen a fair number of comments over recent days to the effect that this is a single issue campaign, and that we have no particular politics.
In some significant ways this is true. At this point there are a very large number of different groups involved in the fight
against trans ideology, and many people are coming from many different places. In that sense, what is called the 'gender critical movement' is in many ways, no longer, the gender critical movement.
As we gained more traction, this was always going to happen. Much of the
discord we are seeing is perhaps a result of what happens as we expand far beyond the original constellations of women who have been involved in this fight for so many years, and of some political tensions in those constellations that we have never been able
to make our peace with.
3. For me, personally, and with respect to whatever role I have played and will play in the work we are all doing... the question of what we stand for, and why we are opposing this ideology, and from what political ground, is important.
I respect the right of other people to understand this as a single issue, to think that this is not political in a larger sense, or to assert that there is no political belief they hold that they will not compromise or abandon in order to win this fight.
I understand that some people think that we must take any help that we can get because of the severity of the situation, that we can deal with the consequences of any political principles we may have compromised later, and that not doing so is 'purity politics.'
I am not arguing that within the political landscape of this country, I have a problem with us working in broad political alliances.
However, I think it is important that within the context of this country, we maintain some portion of the movement that stands on the ground of
the political values on which many of us have built this movement.
I believe this not only as a matter of political principle, but because I believe it is key to our strength, why we have been successful, and how we can appeal the British public.
In addition to how much I hate seeing discord in a movement which is so often mutually supportive, sharp, charitable, and hilarious, I have found the last few days distressing because it has felt to me that a demand is being made that we all agree to an interpretation of this
movement that understands it as a single issue, and as without any further political commitments.
As I have said, I believe that losing that part of the movement that critiques trans ideology on the basis of all the ways it is regressive would be a grave strategic error.
That is also the basis of all the arguments I have made, it is the core of whatever work I have contributed to this fight, and all the ways I have tried to explain why the lies activists tell about us are lies.
So, if this fight is not, or is no longer, to be at least in part
grounded in certain political values, I have questions about where my work fits into it all.
I have been very tired for a good long while now, and was planning on taking most of the summer off to try and recharge.
I think now is a good time for me to take a little step back for the time being, to let the dust settle, to let this play out, and to see where we find ourselves.
The women's movement is my life. Thinking about why we live in such an unjust, exploitative, dominating, destructive
culture is my life. Trying to work out how we could organise the world to support women, to support the life they make and nurture, to protect them and the planet from exploitation, is what matters to me.
I will never stop trying to carve out spaces, whatever the opposition, to do that work, and to share it, with so rage and so much joy, with the women who want to hear it.
All my love, Jane xxx
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