Sandi Toksvig "doesn't get it", poor love....

Why can't these men accept themselves for who they are, why does anyone else need to be involved in their delusions?
I absolutely will not.

It means: ‘I’m framing this emotively to prevent discussion by positioning anyone suggesting a discussion about whether men who want to identify as women are women into an evil villain’.

Every single man who "identifies as a woman" is identifying as his own idea of what a woman is. Which is invariably a collection of offensive, regressive stereotypes of how a woman is supposed to look and behave. Which in turn reinforces those stereotypes in the minds of everyone who accepts him as some sort of woman.

So yes, it does affect me, and all other women.

And what does being accepted for who they are mean?

You are part of the problem. With this ‘oh, but it doesn’t affect me’ and the distortion of it into ‘trans people being accepted and visible’.

You could however pull that to shreds in seconds in a tv interview.

One of the reasons that interviewers don’t challenge this stuff is that people just like @ScremeEggs start complaining about how mean and hostile journalists are etc. They just interrupt people and try to trip them up and it’s simply not kind.

One of the most depressing things about 21st century ‘kindness’ is that it is so effective at preventing any discussion and shutting down thought.

Add to that people not being interested in complex or nuanced arguments, and just wanting a cosy soundbite that makes them feel good.

When you say "accepted for who they are", for a transwoman that logically means "accepted for being a man who would like to be a woman" and for a transman "accepted for being a woman who would like to be a man" doesn't it?

How dare they elect - word used intentionally & ironically - to redefine me in the shape of a man‘s self-image?
I'm not being redefined though.
I don't magically become any less of a woman if trans people are accepted for who they are and more visible.

At a push we'd get reframe their trauma/ditch their religion/culture/sexuality.

Which is your basic colonialism.

Inferior person, abandon your language, faith, culture, traditions, history, identify and believe and do what I say or else. I am a better and more developed person who has the power and sense of entitlement to control you and force you into better ways to save your soul according to my views, but you will never be fully human.

Slavery, the Native Americans, the indigenous peoples, the control and suppression of Wales and Scotland, workhouses and the control and abuse of the poor, there's no difference. None. And the people doing all that would have smugly told you how righteous they were and they were doing it for the poor subhuman inferior being's own good, and how they wept that silly people had silly concerns for them instead of seeing they needed to be battered and controlled into compliance.

No difference. None.

The media has enabled all this.

Yes. And that, I think, is why I feel so very angry with the BBC.

At the top, you have politicians, partisan by definition. Further down, institutions like the NHS, swayed by political winds. But the BBC? Its mandate is to enable democracy by providing a buffer between political partisanship & our institutions and democracy.

How dare they elect - word used intentionally & ironically - to redefine me in the shape of a man‘s self-image? How dare they enable & effectively promote these devastating incursions into women‘s barely-won rights?

I’m not excusing the politicians, or other institutions, for a second. But it’s the BBC‘s selective reporting, misleading use of pronouns, unquestioning adoption of transwomen-are-women without qualification or reflection in contexts of their choice that I find unforgivable.

Inform & educate? When surveys suggest 1/3 the population are being actively misled by this? When they’re misinforming by active language choices & deliberate editorial omission?

That national shock at Isla Bryson that peaked so many previously ignorant of these issues is a damning inditement of their failure to uphold their mandate. Because it shouldn’t have been a shock by then. It really shouldn’t.

Present the argument that TWAW - go ahead. They have a right to have that perspective represented.

But to present it as a fundamental truth, reinterpreting reality for the population in the image of their own ideals without debate or reflection?

No. You don’t have that right.

Interviewer: What about tolerance for the women excluded when male people enter a mixed sex space? What do you think should happen to the women with disabilities, traumas, cultures and faiths that you don't share and obviously have zero respect forhomosexual women? Where do they go?

Which is going to lead either to a lot of stammering and backtracking and wittering and trying to avoid the facts, or a flat out declaration of classism, racism, homophobia, ableism and tada, male supremacism.

Yes, because what they really want to answer is They are not the right sort of women so they don't matter. At a push we'd get reframe their trauma/ditch their religion/culture/sexuality. For disabled women there would be a deafening silence because that is how much thought is given to them.

You could however pull that to shreds in seconds in a tv interview.

Twit whimpers about being a lovely person who believes in tolerance for alllll and oh the tears for the bad bad women who don't.....

Interviewer: What about tolerance for the women excluded when male people enter a mixed sex space? What do you think should happen to the women with disabilities, traumas, cultures and faiths that you don't share and obviously have zero respect for homosexual women? Where do they go?

Which is going to lead either to a lot of stammering and backtracking and wittering and trying to avoid the facts, or a flat out declaration of classism, racism, homophobia, ableism and tada, male supremacism.

"So by 'tolerance' you actually mean, women must do what this particular small group of men tell them, and embrace their exclusion from society?"

Any of us could take this shit down in seconds, and we know, you'd get a flounce followed by much tears and drama on twitter about 'bullying' (redefined to mean not unconditionally and head tiltingly enabled).

But journalists just nod along. The media has enabled all this. Look at what's happening to poor Emma Barnett for not cooing and pretending along with someone insulting the living hell out of her and her endometriosis with their fantasies and games.

Yes, some words/concepts like 'tolerant' and 'open minded' and 'non discriminatory' and even 'love' have been repurposed and probably cynically used to break down societal boundaries and rules.

And you don't get in trouble for parroting stuff like, "We need to be tolerant of everyone"

Yes - and yet this is actually a platitude that misrepresents reality pretty badly. Society is not tolerant of everyone by any means. Even aside from actual bigotry, we are quite reasonably intolerant of sex offenders, liars, cheats, etc etc. The narrative that trans people are literally the most oppressed, marginalised and harmless/saintly demographic in the world has allowed all sorts of people whose behaviour is not normally tolerated (fetishim, flashing, cheating at sport, even rape in some cases like the NHS hospital ward situation, albeit temporarily) to get a free pass under the label of “trans”. That is NOT to say that everyone who identifies as trans is a predator - an accusation often aimed at anyone who tries to point this out. But it is true that if you insist on seeing all trans people (TW in particular) as sad, oppressed, deserving, unfortunate souls who are literally trapped in the wrong body and must be welcomed into opposite-sex spaces - some people, especially predatory or unscrupulous men, are going to run with that.

Having set themselves up with “We need to be tolerant of everyone", allies can now not allow themselves to see this.

@Catiette

As PP have said, that kind of language from someone with the capacity to understand the sheer complexity of the debate feels inappropriate and even irresponsible. Freedom of speech and all that - no calls for silencing from me, either - BUT I'd far rather that she engaged meaningfully, than sharing emotive soundbites connoting existential despair at the very worst of humanity! Because doing that implicitly supports the more extremist condemnations of GC thinking.

Great point. I wish someone could make that exact point to her and see her response.

@WoollyBat

I think it's often a powerful need for people to see themselves as "good" and morally righteous, which they have reassured themselves that they are with their anti-racism, anti-homophobia etc standpoints that are essential for the modern western person who does not want to be seen as right wing or bigoted (and especially essential if you're in the arts, public sector etc). I don't think this is necessarily fake, but it does sometimes seem performative and can be performed without any critical thinking required. It's just, everyone is equal and shouldn't be persecuted etc etc. and that's easy to understand.

Yes I strongly suspect that this kind of non-rational motive is in play. Maybe part genuine they think they are being moral, and part vanity of wanting to see themselves a certain way.

And you don't get in trouble for parroting stuff like, "We need to be tolerant of everyone", "I can't understand the hatred".

It may be simple minded, and slander people that have actually thought about the issue; but it's "feel good" easy righteousness and "right-side-of-history" posturing without risk.

As a strategy, I think it is worth making the argument, "people are going along with something this nuts potentially because of such and such non rational factors".

Gosh isn't it interesting how this seems to have stirred the hive. Some very key points obviously poked in the article there Julie. Well done.

Just as an aside, Julie Bindel is currently under attack on Twitter/ X from trans allies who've taken against her for her article about Sandi. If anyone would care to join the fray...

Thank you so much for this absolute gem!!
(The Open Door 'Down with Feminism' has totally spun me out!)
Absolutely fascinating watching these in order.

I sometimes think I'd rather have fought for the vote than this. An exceptionally naive, complacent, silly thought, yes, I know I wouldn't really... but back then, at least there was a certain honesty to the other side: an explicit rebuttal - You're inferior, you're not worth the ballot slip, you should get over it! But this gaslighting - You've got your rights, you're perfectly equal, in fact you're privileged - therefore shut up and bow down to the patriarchy?!

It might be naive but I don't think it's silly. Until recently we knew where we stood. It was often being told that we already had it all but now it's you have it all and it's about time you shared it you selfish harpies. And it is all so bloody white. Intersectional feminism has gone by the wayside in favour of people who aren't women no matter how much they want to be. We shouldn't really talk about female genital mutilation because that would exclude men who through no fault of their own weren't born with the right genitals for that particular nightmare scenario. Instead of building on our gains and reaching out and attempting to understand issues outside of our bubble, we're now supposed to just care about men who want to be women. It's nearly always the men as well. Women who want to be men are on the margins because women don't count.

Yes. The phrase 'pimping out' other, less privileged and powerful women, is not inaccurate or an exaggeration.

It’s also offering up the bodies of other women (who often are much less privileged) in what is a largely symbolic act of penance for the flagellater.

Quite literally their bodies in many cases - because they’re the ones who experience the consequences of the ‘oh of course TWAW and should be in women’s prison/changing rooms/sports because they’re women’.

Yes, and ironically, that self-flagellation is extremely self-centred and lazy. It's really about denying responsibility for the privilege you do have, and trying to escape from the opprobrium heaped on you for being white, middle class, western etc. If you can show you're an "ally", or (as many do IMO) claim transness yourself (often NB) so you can join the oppressed, you no longer have to be the morally unacceptable "privileged" - even though of course you still in fact are privileged and nothing has changed.

It's like the whole bloody decolonisation crap. Decolonise the curriculum/infrastructure/literature/everything so we don't have to feel bad. No - it's inherent to how many western societies have evolved and developed and it cannot be erased. We should understand and accept it and own it and resolve to do things differently, not try to wipe it clean on the surface while continuing to benefit from it anyway.

Exactly!!

So so disappointed 😢