Typical Guardian piece by Zoe Williams: "Who do the Tory leadership candidates think they are impressing with their spiteful posturing on trans issues?"

I came on to say this. This constant 'misunderstanding' or conflating of unisex and mixed-sex loos is as dangerous and insidious as the use of the term 'conversion therapy' for 'not immediately agreeing with a child that they're a boy now, not a girl' IMO.
I can't bear ZW these days.

Well it's clear GIDs were reading more Hadley Freeman than some of her Grauniad colleagues were!

The sort of ignorance displayed in the column and lack of dot joining is unforgivable, given the massive publicity around the issue.

The ideology being challenged by stickers on loo doors is the exact same one that's sending children down the conveyor belt to surgery and lifelong medication.

She doesn't know what she's talking about. Thinking trans ideology is a trivial matter is an instant litmus test of ignorance.

If this is anything to go by, Hadley may well have kept careful notes. Here's hoping, anyway:

mobile.twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1553651240650825730?t=NToU7MNrhsTuRbLw6tz0jQ&s=19

Yes but she doesn't have a column any more and I can't imagine she gave it up voluntarily. I hope she's keeping a diary.

Yes this is what enrages me about the Zoe Williams and Alice Roberts out there. I work with people far more likely to end up incarcerated than they are. Far less able to advocate for themselves, who don't understand language such as menstruator or uterus haver. Who don't have the luxury of their fancy education. And who are utterly crippled by the cost of living crisis.

Luxury beliefs sums it up. Willing to shit on their less privileged sisters so they get invited to parties by pronoun people.

Is Hadley Freeman still there?

What a load of hyperbolic histrionics! I'd prefer it if she didn't exploit the catastrophic cost of living crisis to try to push for her extremely unpopular agenda. We have to concentrate on the important things now imo and trans is a luxury belief we can't afford.

I think the swell against the changes being forced through the state governments will grow very quickly now. And I notice that Albanese has not thrown much out in support specifically.

The court cases and the progress made in health care and rights has in the UK will mean things will happen a little more quickly in Australia as they have something to base the pushback on. Unlike the UK which is fighting from the very back foot.

The changes in the Scandinavian countries and the USA clinicians speaking out will also strengthen the pace around health care.

What is her spiteful posturing doing?

I’m glad other excellent female journalists have left The Guardian

The paper is rubbish these days

I've not read the article but I did catch this on Twitter last night - Zoe Williams referring to Julie Bindel and Claire Fox as 'skirting alt right' and critiquing their dress sense. Sorry I couldn't get it to screenshot but the link should work (unless Williams deletes of course):

twitter.com/bindelj/status/1554189162743570433

I think the "right to exist" claim is hugely ideological. It is saying "There exist women who are trans women (who are, because TWAW, literally women)." So not recognising that TWAW is denying the existence of trans women - because look, here they are!

It's a total mind bender because to see it that way you have to accept TWAW as a literal truth. And from that position it's very difficult to engage with anyone who says "yes, I accept trans women exist but I don't think they are literally (biological) women" because it just doesn't compute. Either the speaker doesn't understand that there are trans women or they are being transphobic and excluding a marginalised group of women from the "women" category.

So basically, it's a restatement of the TWAW thought-terminating cliche.

Thing is, the Tories aren't pro women, they're anti trans, these things are very different.

She did indeed.

And in my month back in Oz talking to women from across the political spectrum and from all walks of life, they all agreed that her points were valid. Maybe not voiced in a way that wins votes, but still everyone agreed that I spoke to.

Would they have voted for her… maybe not, but they still agreed with her points on these specific issues.

Yes.

This poster has a habit of plopping down a ‘gotcha’ that never quite shows what they think it shows.

Any poster who thinks that the quick shoe horning in of Katherine Deves as a Lib candidate in Tony Abbott’s old electorate when Katherine was not even a member of the liberal party before hand and the very adversarial nature of the Australian press at election time is comparative in anyway to the current UK situation has a very superficial understanding of the situation. (That has not stopped posters before though)

Anyone who understands that Australians are actually majority supporting of women’s sexed based rights being kept for females, and that there really is not yet the ratio of young females identifying as trans in schools so the conversations are only just starting, knows that Australia is behind the UK in timing but it doesn’t mean Australia has any more support than the UK for the changes that are happening there either.

It is just another failed ‘gotcha’ really.

She doesn't care whether she is accurate or not, unless she's proven wrong and even then she will just block the poster on Twitter.

Why break the habit of a lifetime?

the link to the Opinium poll she quoted was just to someone on twitter saying they had a leaked copy. So no, fact checking and source checking are not part of her skill set.

Even her last sentence “Sun Tzu doubtless puts this more pithily, but progressives, everywhere: if you are chasing a stick Liz Truss threw for you, you are chasing the wrong stick.” - see what she did? Can’t be bothered to find a Sun Tzu quote so she sort of makes one up and implies that hers is in Sun Tzu’s class anyway.

Williams is a fine example of hubris. Like Christine Hamilton.

Care to explain hearache how the situation in the Australian election is comparative to the UK?

I am all ears to hear this one.

Nice one dude....!!

Yes, the claim about the toilet signs has been debunked. Surely Zoe can do some fact checking?

minority group’s right to exist

Oh do fuck off Zoe.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

If you genuinely do not know why Scott Morrison was ousted, I suspect you probs do not have any kind of qualifications to be posting on a board about feminist topics.

🍆🎩😀👔👖👞👞👞👞👞

Katherine Deves got a very decent vote result for someone going against Zali Steggal and who had been ripped to shreds in the media.

Pretty sure I saw a tweet at the time pointing out these signs had been there for a while.

Which I thought was far more interesting than trying to say it was Kemi.

It suggests (to me, anyway) that

1.someone who worked at the venue was peeved enough at mixed-sex loos to rebel and put the signs up

and

1. Nobody at the venue cared enough to remove the signs.