Bergdorf in The Guardian

Did anyone see Loose Women with Monroe on? I have just watched it and I am really shocked.

I agree with Monroe actually that it's no-one's business what surgical interventions they have on their genitals. The surgery is grim and if someone wants to keep their genitals as they are then that's much healthier.

I make no distinction between a trans person who has had surgery and one who has not in any case. Neither has become the opposite sex. A transwoman with an inverted penis is not closer to being a woman than a transwoman with intact genitals. A transman with a tube of flesh sewn above where their vulva used to be is no closer to being a man than one without.

I also agree with pp that Munroe's story is depressingly typical. I feel so sorry for feminine little boys. It must be very, very difficult to grow up with your self-esteem and self-worth intact.

I also think it's hard to be a highly effeminate gay young man, particularly just now. I can see why you might think that transition might give you something easier, particularly if you are also struggling with internalised homophobia.

Just so sick & tired of these characters. The whole charade, starting with the UBER pretentious name, the victim back story, the drugs, cross sex hormones, facial surgery, wigs, insistence on BEING a woman, the exceptionalism treatment in media, the 'modelling' contracts, the Loreal contract.

Why did they not stand by sacking him when he went on a vicious rant about white privilege and woman privilege. Utter typical example of toxic male shitishness.

Self gay conversion is not something to encourage and internalised homophobia should be warned against not actively encouraged as a cult behaviour.

It would be funny if it weren’t so depressingly true!

Imagine if the same were true for other minorities, she says. “We’re not looking to white people to be the authority on the black experience.”

Exactly. Imagine if we were looking to male people to be the authority on the female experience! ....oh.

The Graun are just an embarrassment at this point.

So pleased that Hadley Freeman now works somewhere that appreciates her.

Off to preorder the Barnes book now.

The Hadley Freeman article is excellent and the Barnes book sounds very important.

Meaning the Hadley piece, of course

What an excellent piece of journalism

That's a great piece by Hadley. Shame on The Guardian that she couldn't write it when she was employed by them.

The #nodebate command meant, and still does mean at the Guardian, that certain groups are now sacred castes and the only way they can be discussed is with pure praise or at most neutrality. This has boomeranged and damaged the trans activist movement, because they have been allowed to say things which are factually wrong and also create slogans which now have them in a corner ("acceptance without exception" as an example of how Isla Bryson must now be viewed as a woman by all and not doing so is bigotry).

In Bergdorf's case a more balanced coverage would have ultimately served even her better. That some things Bergdorf has said about women and feminism would certainly come across as dominating behaviour if carried out by some man with no transgender identity is something we can't even mention on the left.

Almost every bio I've ever read about an adult transwoman contains a history of homophobia and sexism, often at highly abusive levels. So I'm not at all surprised to read this.

A trans identity might be an understandable reaction, on a personal level, to these kinds of horrible upbringings.

But taking trans ideology to the masses and forcing everyone to believe in it, essentially endorses that homophobia and sexism. Society really screwed up by treating transwomen as super special males rather than tolerating them as simply believers in another religion.

It's kind of like, if PTSD sufferers decided to group together to fight for rights, understanding and recognition (perfectly reasonable) but then also pushed to ensure enough kids suffered traumatic childhood events just so that more people would grow up with PTSD, in order for the campaign group to keep on growing.

Oh @ArabellaScott you know the answer to that one already!

Bergdorf saying offensive stuff when young isn’t particularly notable to me, young people say all sorts of stupid shit. If they stop it by the time they are 25 or so, I can let it go.

Bergdorf using a mainstream platform to berate women’s rights activists for centring issues unique to female bodies? That’s much worse.

And Bergdorf soliciting private messages from gender distressed minors on social media? That’s the big one.
Absolutely no acknowledgement that it’s just not ok for celebrity influences to be private messaging other people’s kids. A simple ‘sorry, I’ve turned off the DM function and will seek out information on proper safeguarding protocols, it won’t happen again’ would’ve been nice.

Another piece supporting Bergdorf and suggesting that it's time to move on from Bergdorf's past homophobic etc. tweets: archive.ph/DrNDH

I doubt the author takes such a forgiving view of those "targeted" for cancellation on the other side of the debate, somehow.

I used to like Simon Hattenstone's interviews, but he seems out of his depth on this one. He throws in the sentence, "While Bergdorf and her allies argue that trans rights are on a par with previous battles for racial and sexual equality, gender-critical activists argue that trans women threaten the safety of biological women, and the sanctity of single-sex spaces", but in the very next sentence appears to join in with Bergdorf in characterising this as "the fact that the trans community has been weaponised by politicians".

As for Bergdorf's unsubstantiated claim that "trans people have been notable for their absence in the debate on their future", which Hattenstone allows to pass uncontested, this is somewhat undermined by the instrumental role that "Beth" Douglas has been allowed to play in Holyrood's legislative process.

I wonder if Bergdorf has discovered any compassion or empathy for women in all of this self-discovery.

This person told women that centering their own biology at a women's march was exclusionary and reactionary. So yes, I can imagine that being true for other minorities, very well

Here’s a receipt for that!

We lost one of these already today - here’s the deletion message:

Pehaps we should request it be moved to Chat or AIBU, where the rules are different?

Do all interviewers interviewing a transwoman have to pay some sort of tax in the form of referencing how beautiful/stunning they are? It seems to be a recurring feature.

Also - "The reasons are twofold, she says – the trans community in general doesn’t trust mainstream media, and mainstream media has not prioritised hearing trans voices. The result is unsatisfactory at best. Imagine if the same were true for other minorities, she says. “We’re not looking to white people to be the authority on the black experience.”

This person told women that centering their own biology at a women's march was exclusionary and reactionary. So yes, I can imagine that being true for other minorities, very well 🙄

From the Guardian piece: But at the time she was terrified by the response. “The amount of death threats and rape threats … I saw a really dark side of humanity.

Has Bergdorf ever criticised the death and rape threats made by TRAs, I wonder?