What does Val McDermid mean?

The Big Tent argument isn't about logic or facts, though, it's about emotive reasoning. It's just 'be nice and accommodating'. But it falls on that count too, as soon as you start looking at what 'inclusion' actually means in practise - it means 'prioritise the feelings of males over those of women'.

Yes, indeed. Val's tent is for only certain women - women of some faiths would be excluded, as may women with PTSD, rape survivors, domestic abuse survivors, some feminists, shy women, women who just don't believe that its possible to change sex and don't wish to be in a tent with males, lesbians who don't want to include the bepenised in their love-life.

I don't happen to agree with either of them, but I respect them as people. Also, and I know this sounds preachy, if we want people to stop dismissing GC feminists as dumb and right-wing maybe we have to also stop the kneejerk abuse of anyone who isn't GC.

Who is abusing anyone, here? And yes, that does sound preachy. I've never heard anyone dismiss feminists as 'dumb and right-wing' other than various bad-faith posters on here.

The trouble with the tent analogy is that if some 'women' who were not biological women were allowed in, many other women would self-exclude, some on principle, while others would feel unwelcome, or frightened, or unhappy.
So Val's tent wouldn't be for all women anyway.
(Bet the excluded women wouldn't be allowed to set up their own tent...)

I'm reading it as 'Kim Kardashian is a bloke'.

Amirite?

I can understand how that might lead you to feel solidarity with other people with atypical gender presentation.

But she knows that this isn't about presentation, it's men climbing into the womanhood tent.

I'm with @AmaryllisNightAndDay I think. I tried to read a VM book once and it was so appallingly violent I didn't get past the first couple of pages, but whatever - she's not a stupid woman and she's faced down quite a lot of crap in her time I think.

There is a subset of butch lesbians who feel they've suffered greatly at the hands of women's gatekeeping and (frankly) blind prejudice - Finn McKay (radfem TWAW) talks about the number of time women have aggressively challenged her in toilets.

I can understand how that might lead you to feel solidarity with other people with atypical gender presentation.

I don't happen to agree with either of them, but I respect them as people. Also, and I know this sounds preachy, if we want people to stop dismissing GC feminists as dumb and right-wing maybe we have to also stop the kneejerk abuse of anyone who isn't GC.

I'm envisaging this tent. Must be pink and frilly, I suppose? And its gotta be a big one to include everyone.

<studiously not commenting on the size of the erection>

The Scottish literary set has been extremely backward in coming forward to support JKR. There hasn't been a public peep from any of them- despite JKR having supported VM in the past.

I’ve read it, and loved it. But no one, regardless of how GC they are, would write it today.

This is interesting as I thought she was mates with JKR - in fact I remember reading about an author friend of JKR who phoned her after she went public with her support of Maya, and congratulated her - I thought this was VM.

I guess I was wrong. Or she's been told to change her ways.

I think Val might still be trying to compensate for this book:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mermaids_Singing

Which I've not read - looks too much torture/grisly violence for someone of a delicate disposition.

😂

She's a good writer (some of her stuff is far too violent for me, though).

Men can't be women.

Necessary jobbies has a different meaning in Scotland. Don't offer to do a jobbie in anyone's tent, it won't go down well. Ditto blancmanges, for that matter.

Val McDiarmid, Sandy Toksvig — such a disappointment to so many lesbians.

How's about we sell her a blancmange, telling her it's a tent?

If a 300-foot event marquee and a small 2-person jobbie can both be a tent, there's certainly room in our camping shop for blancmange.

Then we can see how many men fit into a blancmange.

There is a distinct & important group of humans that are manly men, all the dregs can be rounded up & stuck in the woman tent 🙄

Also "Nicola Sturgeon is my BFF" 🤢

That woman needs a one way ticket to mountain warehouse.

I didn't pick up any bitchiness from that quote. She's a very good writer, so I don't think 'dim' really applies either.

@achillestoes I read this as Lady Bouncerful.

It sounds as if Val is 'being kind' to some of the trans people she knows but isn't aware of being anything but kind to other women

She knows much more about politics than that. People prioritise. I think she's saying she might identify about as much with (naice) trans women who use a lot of artifice to look more feminine and engage with gender and LGBTQ+ politics, as with a straight woman who uses a lot of artifice to look more feminine and wouldn't recognise gender etc politics if it rode past on a sparkly pony.

(Though this is speculation. Obvs I don't know what she really thinks.)

everyone seems to know lots of trans people,

She's always been a visible and active part of her LGBT(etc) community so I'm sure she does.

I think she's mistaken about this, but she's certainly not stupid or ignorant or dishonest. I respectfully disagree with her.

So she's effectively saying 'Womanhood is a big tent. It embraces me and Kim Barbie Kardashian'.

Umm, ok then Val, you do you, I'm not in the same fucking tent as BK, in any way apart from the widest umbrella of 'human'