Andrew Doyle

This.

Some of them undoubtedly are.

Yes, that's what I thought.

I mean the very notion of being 'gender critical' precludes homophobia.

But, I have noticed, that the term gets bandied about now in a way that has stripped it of its meaning. Hence quite a few women discarding it as a description.

I'm not on Twitter either, so I didn't see the exchange. Not having an account means I 'exceed my limit' in a bloody nanosecond these days.

Personal pronouns is an odd one. It's a bit of a lightning rod. Because it's the first potential demonstration of which camp you're in. Plus, like toilets, it's used all the time, so if that's what does for you, it's going to be fairly constant. And therefore, important.

Obviously, for many people like Andrew Doyle and Janice Turner, they are not in the TRA camp, at all, quite the opposite, but they would still use preferred pronouns.

So it depends how much store you set by pronouns as to the depth of your disagreement.

I think quite a few women have said they would use preferred pronouns at work, for instance. Personally, as I've said, I don't see how you can assess the motivation for that, when we are generally compelled to do it anyway.

Take away the compulsion, and then see if you still want to do it.

But it was different with Janice Turner. I couldn't work out what her motivation was. Being polite simply doesn't fly when you know it's a sexual fetish.

You either don't care enough and are happy to accommodate it, or you don't get the fetish.

And, the one thing that this site does, above any other, is inform people about AGP. We've got, what is it, 5000 or 6000 posts from women who are married to them.

It's just about the most revealing, enlightening and informative set of threads you can have.

This is the reason why I say it's a journey.

Personally, I just don't believe you can fully understand this issue and what drives it, until you understand what the transwidows have to say.

Especially, as, generally speaking, they all say the same thing.

I think the gc movement is a pretty broad church, and there are women I don't particularly agree with. But I haven't seen any homophobia at all, so I'm a bit surprised at Doyle's accusation, and he's someone I generally like.

Oh definitely, but there are plenty with pictures of verifiable named people holding baseball bats etc. And don't forget there's been physical violence from TRAs against realism believing women in real life.

What happened to KJK in NZ was terrifying.

The bots feed that behaviour though, undoubtedly. The problem is male violence. No doubt the bots are programmed by male violence loving humans too.

I think if we're going to argue that maybe these were sock puppets or whatever the term is, then we have to accept that potentially the same could be true for a lot of the TRA 'die in a grease fire' type posts which get used as evidence of how abusive the trans lobby are.

Every time I go onto twix, mostly from links here, I have new zero post followers that I have to go and remove and block.

The whole way that twix is set up feeds whatever beast of the moment. There are absolutely millions of bots. There are bots that have been programmed to post about every single hot topic as it arises, and change on a daily basis. There is no consistency to them. If you look at some of the most virulent haters, they hate everything, not just gay broadcasters who call men 'she'.

My solution would be to get off twitter. I'm not on twitter so can't read any of it, for which I am grateful.

It seems AD has gone to another site and Twix will me a broadcast mode medium rather than somewhere for exchanges.

I'm a bit nonplussed by the 'no-one on our side would ever do that' kind of responses.

Before realising it was about a Twix-related matter, I was uncertain whether the stramash was about the discussion on FWR so I was baffled. On balance, a lot of the recent froth seems to be about Twix. That's a shame in many ways because I understand the principle of level access and exposure to other people's bubbles and world but it seems we can't have this nice thing because it's trivially easy for a couple of individuals or bots to ruin it for literally millions.

Didn’t even think of bots 😳

This is not directed at anyone on mumsnet, i am someone who won’t be scolded into or out of something, i just go quiet and carry on with what i am doing

i do use preferred pronouns and sometimes i don’t, i agree with datuns journey comment. I might be a certain way down the road from other posters and maybe i will never get any further down it, maybe i will 🤷🏻

Yes, I'm sure there will have been a wide range who committed the homophobic abuse. Also bots. Not just humans.

Why anyone stays on twitter, I don't know. There was some study that a ridiculously high proportion of posts weren't even from humans.

This

i like him and i am really sorry that he has been subjected to homophobic abuse

this will have come from feminists, and non feminist women and obviously men

i am not using GC because its another phrase/word that is losing its meaning for me

Twitter is a cesspit- AD should come on over here to reasoned and 'in the spirit' debate!

There's a difference between abuse and women robustly challenging use of wrong-sex pronouns - i.e. mangling the English language - on the say so of certain men.

As soon as you call someone like Hayton 'she' you're throwing transwidows and children of transitioners under the bus and making a decision that they are less important than an individual man.

AD should read the transwidows threads on here, all of them, and then see what he thinks.

But he can use the speech he wants, and we're free to call out the misogyny in his actions. That's what a free society is, and AD presumably isn't against women having robust opinions?

I wonder how bad the abuse of him was compared to say, the abuse JKR's received, or Joanna Cherry? Or, more recently the remarkable Linzi. I bet it's no worse than lesbian women receive regularly.

My solution would be to get off twitter. I'm not on twitter so can't read any of it, for which I am grateful.

I agree with AD about the infrastructure and inflammatory algorithms that make it difficult to participate in thoughtful exchanges on difficult issues on Twix.

Its madness to blame women for comments made on twitter.

As for this, I thought most of us accepted blame and condemnation for pretty much anything - including the Battle of Teutoberg Forest and the Loss of the Dead Sea Scrolls amongst others. Mostly see the comments here.

http://crookedtimber.org/2008/02/14/will-you-condemn-athon/

I watched the interview and didn't see Andrew Doyle bowing to the pronoun requirements. Hayton has stated to not caring about being called male or people using male pronouns. Andrew Doyle made is own mind up and in my world that is acceptable. Whoever is hounding him, is irrelevant, this is where the debate (not) is and perhaps we are all at some fault.

If being GC now means I have to bow to an orthodoxy, then count me out. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions.

Andrew Doyle is really excellent, he is never puffed up with indignation, he uses humour and intellect to get his point across. He has my support, more like him please.

I agree it seems untypical but we're an anonymous site and we just don't know. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it. I thought Janice Turner was being needlessly defensive with her remarks on Twitter on Monday and I'm trying to avoid falling into a similar kind of trap.

I don’t think people are saying ‘no one on our side’ or ‘no one GC’. It’s clear there are many different types of people united in biological realism.

But the women on this board can be short and sharp, can scold at length and disagree passionately, but I don’t think I’ve seen abuse.
It’s just a different communication style.

People get deleted for saying wrongthink rather than anything nasty.

He’s back, but only to say he won’t be on xitter much any more

https://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1755133064051630317

I agree with Brainworm's point that gender critical feminists are human beings like any other and all of humanity has a dark side.
I'm a bit nonplussed by the 'no-one on our side would ever do that' kind of responses. We don't know and I think it's unwise to jump to conclusions.

Gay male culture can’t be above scrutiny, surely? Does he really think that all criticism of gay male culture is homophobia? If all criticism is homophobia then what happens if something bad is happening?

No group or culture should be above scrutiny. This goes for gender criticals too.

Posters on this board often suggest / believe that those disagreeing with them are victims of female socialisation, internalised misogyny or ignorance when I see the disagreement as symptomatic of drawing different conclusions.

Gay male culture can’t be above scrutiny, surely? Does he really think that all criticism of gay male culture is homophobia? If all criticism is homophobia then what happens if something bad is happening?

Recently, I have found more zealotry and intolerance of different opinions within the GC movement.

I don't think having GC and/or being female makes people immune to being obnoxious and unpleasant.

As with all groups, those who are being nasty bring disrepute to the group, by association.

The issue is, people hold different ideas about what counts as being nasty, and about which ends justify which means.

I am trying actually to think of an interview with an author which was really unfriendly, and the one that comes most to mind was Gian Gomeshi interviewing Terry Eagleton. And Gomeshi just came off as an ass and it wasn't very interesting to listen to because you couldn't get much sense of what TE was about.

I'm not sure what you mean by caveats?

I'm not that interested in the interview so not inclined to watch, but any time a journalist or pundit, or whatever it is we want to call Doyle, does an interview they have to make decisions about how they are going to approach the person. Sometimes the person sets out what they will accept to agree to be interviewed too so it may not be limited decision if the interview is going to go ahead at all.

In general, in my experience, interviews related to book publications tend to take the approach of exploring on friendly terms what the person has said in the book. Basically allowing the person to speak for themselves and questioning in a way to draw that out. Typically they aren't that hostile or even challenging. I think that is a fairly standard approach to that kind of interview.

It's also pretty common for an interviewer to put aside a lot of their own personal political views, religious views, etc, and take an interview from a relatively neutral position. It can still be challenging but not in a personal way IYSWIM. They aren't functioning in an activist role, and to do so could somtimes be inappropriate.

How to deal with requested pronouns is still very contested in the general public, and even among people who are broadly GC. Many will do it in some settings but not others, or will avoid them altogether. That being the case, Doyle might have felt that using male pronouns would make that the issue of the interview, which isn't what he wanted it to be about; or that it would have created a challenging interaction when that would work against the kind of discussion he wanted to emerge; or that it would have been too much a reflection of his personal politics, rather than just covering the story.

I don't see it as being a lot different than other instances where people interview a controversial figure they have differences with, for example religious differences. Yes, sometimes they might be directly confrontational, but often they won't be.

If you’ve seen the Doyle - Hayton interview I’d love to get your analysis of where you see those caveats you mention coming into play in that particular interview.

If you haven’t seen it, no worries - I’m not trying to set you homework 😊😀