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

I think these TRA are so out there that they believe unless you too go along with TWAW then that must mean you don't regard them as women - ergo you wish them out of existence. All these people must be 5.

I'm sick to death of the "denying out right to exist" trope. What the fuck does that even mean? Does because I don't think you can change sex doesn't mean I don't think that someone has no right to exist. Same as with the "Trans Genocide" hyperbolic BS.

No comments allowed of course.

I don't think they have allowed comments on trans articles since about 2015. Even on OALA. (Opinions Are Like Arseholes)

Australia are about 2-3 years behind the U.K. on this conversation imo ( partly as they don’t have a Mumsnet!)
Generally the public debate in the U.K. on gender ideology is more advanced than the rest of the world ( hence the “ Terf Island”attacks) although the rest of the world is watching.
It be a much bigger and more contested issue in the next Australian election imo.

...a venue with gender-neutral toilets, but by the time her team arrived, handmade paper signs saying “men” and “ladies” had been stuck on the doors – underlining the point that, with her in charge, no one would ever have to suffer the indignity of the unisex toilet again... How is this Badenoch's responsibility? It's little hand-written slips of paper like my granddad would make (he doesn't like computers). Not even dastardly stickers! Anyone could have placed them there. (Also, if Zoe had proper respect for TRAs, she wouldn't be conflating gender and sex.)

The place in question was apparently a think tank where Maya Forstater had been based leading up to her ET judgment last month, and she says that the labels had been there for weeks, nothing to do with Kemi.

Dear The Guardian,

'Member back when you were anticapitalist? Now you're actually paying money in the middle of a mad recession for this whole dope to generate weird bigoted clickbait that seems.... less outraged (as is the tradition) than just dull, tired, unoriginal, behind-the-Times (literally!) and not really trying. Worse, this particular piece treats BOTH women and trans people as acceptable collateral damage.

What's actually even in here that's of any substance, provides and useful or new or even accurate information, provokes critical and constructive thought? Let's see ...

...a venue with gender-neutral toilets, but by the time her team arrived, handmade paper signs saying “men” and “ladies” had been stuck on the doors – underlining the point that, with her in charge, no one would ever have to suffer the indignity of the unisex toilet again... How is this Badenoch's responsibility? It's little hand-written slips of paper like my granddad would make (he doesn't like computers). Not even dastardly stickers! Anyone could have placed them there. (Also, if Zoe had proper respect for TRAs, she wouldn't be conflating gender and sex.)

Mordaunt referenced Thatcher’s “every prime minister needs a Willie” remark, giving it a new twist: “A woman like me doesn’t have one.” Look, here's Thatcher! You like Thatcher! Thatcher was a woman, and so am I!! Mordaunt may be guilty of something here, but it's hardly trans-baiting. Stop dragging innocent people in to generate outrage clicks whilst... checks notes ... hypocritically berating others for... um... the "cynical unkindness of using a minority group ... as a talking point".

Liz Truss wowed an audience of Leeds Tories by telling them “a woman is a woman”... and? Nothing specifically to do with Trans people. Stop othering everybody, Zoe!! ...while Rishi Sunak pledged in the Mail on Sunday that he would reverse the “recent trends to erase women via the use of clumsy, gender-neutral language”. Is Zoe equating misogyny with trans people now? Or blaming trans people for it? Why? (Oh, wait: $$$$$$$$$$$$$).

Even if we park (and I’m loth to) the sheer, cynical unkindness of using a minority group’s right to exist as a talking point in a popularity contest... You certainly ARE "loth" to stop using a minority group irrelevantly for your own gain, Zoe, as you've been doing it for almost a page now!

How could any person of serious intent be concentrating on “clumsy, gender-neutral language”? How could they not be?

Trans issues, which had been posed as two separate questions (participation in sport and rights more generally), came in at 26th and 27th, in a list of 28. But we're not talking about trans issues here, are we, Zoe? At least, the leadership candidates aren't. Based on your selected examples, they're mainly talking about equality and women's rights. YOU'RE talking about trans people. Ignorantly.

It’s just a tawdry play to divide the left, so that instead of building a coherent critique of this shambles of a government, instead of laying out a platform on which they are united, Labour MPs are signing open letters to each other about drivel. If the Conservatives are shambolically bad, why is that not GOOD for Labour? And while we're on the subject, what's the purpose of YOUR "tawdry ploy"? (Oh, never mind, here it is: to make a buck for me - fuck everybody else).

Even the pic on the article is confused: "Bad news for Badenoch: gender-neutral toilets" with a pic of someone opening a door with symbols of a 1950s-era stylised stick figure in a dress next to another in Star Trek pyjamas. That's anything BUT "gender-neutral".

I'd hire an editor and a fact-checker, The Guardian - bin Zoe's column to pay for it; I'll be happy to look at Shutterstock cat pictures instead and your readers would benefit and well.

Best,
Serena

They're impressing me.

& I could not be more obviously 'Guardian' if I tried. Female, middle aged, teacher, weakness for fringe-y skirts, kids with mildly pretentious names...

Zoe can shove her tutting. Her appeal to female socialisation is ill judged this week of all weeks.

& she's gone off terribly as a writer, tbh. She used to be funny.

Labour do seem worried:

Labour needs to be bold on trans rights, says party’s elections chief

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3c9577a2-10f6-11ed-b5dc-213f5c972cc4?shareToken=d3c3d4876ca62015784751ad295513e6

But I'm not holding my breath.

Not sure you could accuse either Truss or Sunak of not being focused on the economy.

The Australian Liberal party tried to use trans issues as a wedge issue in the last election and lost.

Tories will go the same way if they do this instead of focusing on the economy.

‘God help them if they ever get on a train.’

That is addled. You get on a train and there is a single toilet cubicle with a fully sealed door you can lock, and CCTV.

Is Zoe Williams suggesting that’s the same as (let’s imagine) an elderly woman walking into a public toilet in a car park in some little town somewhere, and having to pass two or three men at a urinal?

Mixed sex single occupancy toilets can be appropriate. Single sex toilets are necessary in some scenarios and perfectly acceptable in all scenarios.

I usually try and grit my teeth and not be too horrible about women who prop up the patriarchy. They are after all still affected negatively by it. And feminism is fighting for those women too.

But I really struggle when it's privileged women like Zoe Williams; she is so much less likely to be affected by the particular aspects of the patriarchy she champions. She also doesn't appear to bother to research what she writes about. I'd love to have her job, but would never have had the confidence or connections. Her approach seems so disrespectful.

I’m not sure what train loos Zoe uses but everyone I’ve been in, are single occupancy with washing and drying facilities included. No shared washing facilities and no gaps between cubicles like in some unisex loos.

It’s a dead cat of an article.

No comments allowed of course. The Guardian knows exactly what their readership would say, given the chance, so there must be no opportunity given.

Me.

Who do the Tory leadership candidates think they are impressing with their spiteful posturing on trans issues

women, Zoe. The cunty kind.

The good old right to exist got in there twice and the mumbo jumbo about train toilets - does Zoe normally share a train toilet with someone?

Utterly pathetic. I used to like her too.

Her argument seems to be that Tory members ( who no doubt she would happily disregard in any other circumstance as “pale,male, stale”) have listed womens right as low priority and so this means that no one else should or do care about womens rights either.
It’s a strange argument for a lefty to make, that Conservative members are representative of the general population in their opinions although she does suggest that they are not being transphobic as they are too busy being racist about immigrants instead 🤔🙄

This is what Zoe calls "open letters about drivel" that even some Labour MPs had the temerity to sign, disappointing her greatly:

It is therefore a huge source of disappointment to us, as Labour parliamentarians, that since Michael Savage’s report on 3 July, (“Labour accused of silencing women in row over sex-based rights groupp^”, News), the party has continued to refuse a conference stand to Labour Women’s Declaration, which advocates for women’s sex-based rights. The discussion about women’s rights and gender self-identification has become highly charged. However, as legislators, we feel we have much to learn about this subject, from recent decisions by NHS England about gender identity services to court rulings and developments in public policy.

Just as we have all appreciated and benefited from the presence of other campaign groups at conference, we had hoped that the presence of Labour Women’s Declaration’s stand, alongside those of groups with other perspectives such as LGBT Labour, would be an opportunity for us all to learn more.

Is anyone surprised by this? Graun has been grade a tin foil hat territory for years. I am old enough to remember the seventies when the reverend Ian paisley was on telly virtually every night ranting and raving. If you had told (or anyone else come to that) me then he would eventually share a platform and develop a friendship with Martin mcguiness I would assume you were completely bonkers. The chances of the graun back tracking from gender woo seems about as likely as that

Is she the only high profile female journo still flying the flag for them on this issue I wonder? She might be enjoying the air time.