Andrew Doyle

Its madness to blame women for comments made on twitter. It's individuals intentionally trying to hurt him, not an official stance from an official organisation - the women can hardly take away the GC card of these individuals.

I thought Andrews interview with Hayton was pathetic- it was obviously just advertising haytons book. And for someone who used to teach, his lack of understanding of the safeguarding concerns with hayton is troubling. But helps me see how schools have fallen to the ideology.

Doyle was upset that he recieved negative reaction to his interview, and understandable upset to recieve homophobic abuse, but its not fair for him to conflate the two.

Im sorry he recieved abuse, but im baffled why he thinks women should take responsibility for something they haven't done.

I also think it's worth remembering that people can decide to go along with pronoun requests for a lot of different reasons. Many of us know people who have family members etc caught up in this kind of thing where there isn't really a good choice no matter what they do.

For someone doing an interview, there are other considerations as well. There may well be blow-back from readers whichever choice is made - what is most likely to get the most important information to the most people? What is the role of an interview with a subject, anyway - does it always have to involve directly challenging the interviewee? Are there times when it shouldn't, even if the person doing the interview has qualms? Etc.

Why can’t Twitter be more like FWR, eh?! 😬🤘

Edited to add: at least the opinion-columnists on both sides of the argument have things to write about this week after this blow up. Nobody ever considers the constant need of those poor people to be considered relevant 😈😉

@UtopiaPlanitia Oh I agree! I just hate that people always try to have these discussions over twitter. It never works because the reasonable points are being sent at the same time as the unreasonable and at the same time as the unbelievably vile. So it all turns into one amorphus pile on. Like you said its a clusterfuck.

There are always people who will complain bitterly about their political opponents being authoritarian, or unwilling to understand that reasonable people can come to different conclusions about some things, even when they broadly agree about a lot, or about them being unwilling to have a discussion and agreeing to disagree with good intent - but the moment they are in a position to do the same things they are all over it like white on rice.

I see what you’re saying and I agree that telling Andrew how to conduct himself is not something I would recommend - he is free to conduct himself in line with his own preferences and ethics.

He’s a thoughtful man and he loves a debate so what I’m advocating is stating a case (to him and other GC bods in the media eye) for accurate pronoun use especially in this case; it’s a way to make lemonade out of the lemons inherent in the 'Hayton Trap'. Demonstrating respectful and accurate sex-based pronoun use would be a model for others to consider following and it would make GC campaigners look a lot less inconsistent. Currently, it often looks like they employ sex-based pronouns only for people they dislike and reward those they view as allies by complying with the pronoun game.

I also wish this hadn’t become another divisive argument but I also saw a lot of people making valid points about this and if journalists or campaigners like Andrew are claiming to speak on behalf of women, children, and gay people I’d like them to make decisions based on effectiveness and not whether they’re acquaintances with someone. What they do privately when speaking to or discussing Hayton is not my business but public speech needs to move the discussion forward and I don’t think the argument of 'pronouns for politeness sake' stacks up well against losing opportunities to speak effectively and clearly.

Well it wasn't me, he blocked me years ago.

I was unnerved at the reaction to the Debbie Hayton article. We’ve spent so long resisting being told how people should use pronouns and now GC journalists and commentators were being bawled out for their pronoun use. It was so inflexible.

@UtopiaPlanitia
I dislike that active, effective GC campaigners like Andrew are falling on their swords to protect D Hayton. For a supposed ally, Hayton’s actions have been at the centre of a number of these disagreements and fractures over the years. Hayton always comes wandering out of the ensuing dust cloud smelling of roses, somehow…

I see your point there. But the only way to avoid falling into the Hayton trap is not to engage. When people immediately go on the attack it just blows up into another divisive argument. At the end of the day Doyle is free to fall on any swords he wants and use any pronouns he wants as we all are. I wouldn't like being told "don't defend that person". It would make me more likely to do so not less.

The thing is it could be anyone. But there's a risk that that develops into another side argument/distraction because I don't think its likely we will ever learn the motivations of all the people posting the abuse. It becomes another distraction.

Some thoughts off the top of my head about this:

• I like and respect Andrew. He puts a lot of thought and effort into campaigning for sense in the areas of free speech and gender vs sex.
• I hate the idea that anyone took the opportunity of this discussion to be homophobic towards him. It’s disgusting.
• I disagree with him that being anti-surrogacy or disliking drag is homophobic, or is hating gay male culture.
• I disagree with Andrew that people telling him that we felt frustrated by his going along with the pronoun game is attempting to control his speech - it’s trying to get someone in the media to take on board the argument that sex-based pronouns are not disrespectful and it’s arguing for someone to test it out in the mainstream media as an example of doing it respectfully and correctly (particularly as in this case, the interview subject has no stated preference for pronoun use), otherwise we’re going to be stuck on this bloody issue forever.
• I dislike that active, effective GC campaigners like Andrew are falling on their swords to protect D Hayton. For a supposed ally, Hayton’s actions have been at the centre of a number of these disagreements and fractures over the years. Hayton always comes wandering out of the ensuing dust cloud smelling of roses, somehow…
• Some men who claim to be pro-women but in reality strongly dislike feminism (Billboard Chris, Billy Bragg etc) will take any opportunity to malign GC feminism as man-hating - it doesn’t mean it is true, it means they have an axe to grind and are seizing an opportunity to grind that axe by making use of Andrew’s feeling attacked and vulnerable. They’re shameless.

As I said on another thread, this is a traditional Twitter clusterfuck.

Hmm, Waldo looks pretty suspect tbf but I'm sceptical about it all being a conspiracy by TRAs.

It was clearly tempting for Doyle to portray the criticism of his DH interview as coming from a Feminist, GC POV. I have no doubt that much of the criticism he received came from homophobic and anti feminist posters.

Unfortunately him calling that out would not go down well with his anti-woke🙄 GBN viewers.

Well...

Its about Russia but its very useful in general - especially the bit about Belorussia and saturating the information environment and creating divisions.
You don't need to be a super sophisticated state or organisation to do it. Small groups or motivated individuals can do it (see sealions that appear here). Also 4chan. But also I think the way Twitter works encourages this to happen organically (random homophobe poster could be a troll, they could be exactly who they said they are. Its impossible to tell. The effect is the same)

Its completely understandable for Andrew Doyle to be upset about this and IMO its also unrealistic to expect anyone outside of the loop to be able to spot accounts which aren't really one of the real GC crowd.
I'm not saying all of the accounts that piled on Andrew are fake, but there are some dodgy accounts out there.

Its tempting to think all those accounts saying incredibly homophobic things/cartoonishly misandrist stuff were not real women/not real GC feminists. But its twitter. Something about that platform seems to bring out the very worst in people (not making excuses) and I don't think purity spirals and unpleasantness are linked to any particular group. I do think its a little unfair when its used as proof of female/feminist toxicity when you don't see isolated male rage tweets used in the same way most of the time (or maybe you do). But that's going of topic its completely understandable for Andrew Doyle to be upset about this.

GC women have been clear from the start. Men are not women.

What is pathetic is well paid, adult commentators with a massive platform, who've made names for themselves the back of feminists, women's rights and child safeguarding campaigners defer to transwomen when face to face with them. Then complaining about mean GC feminists when pulled up on it.

It's utter hypocrisy to say children shouldn't call transwomen teachers "Miss" if the so-called adults in the room refer to them as "she" and "her".

Me neither.

But I'll say one thing, I genuinely believe this is a journey and that they are just not yet at the destination.

And yes I know that sounds patronising...

... but I really think I'm right

And yes, I know that sounds patronising too 🤣

I could keep going...

The same people that say they are in this fight to try and preserve single sex spaces, are happy to pander to, promote and be friends with the man that wrote the policy that removed the rights of girls and women in schools, to single sex spaces.

Make it make sense. Why are they so chummy with him? I just don't get it.

Very sensible.

No it wasn't fuck all. He's had some truly vile homophobic abuse. I've seen a few screenshots and I've no idea who from though no-one I recognised. But I imagine he's feeling pretty shaken and I'm not going to take anything he's said tonight that seriously. Let the dust settle.

He said he wouldn't be GC anymore...

Seriously? WTF? Does he know what GC means?

Looks like a lot of fuss over fuckall imo.

I've read his message and I disagree with his accusation of homophobia in the feminist movement, given the lesbians in it. He was happy to use female pronouns wrt DH and that was his choice. Given his knowledge of the situation I'm shocked that he was surprised by the reaction he got.

To cry "homophobia" and hatred of men then flounce was his decision and he's perfectly entitled to do so. But it doesn't make his allegations against feminism true. Feminism is a pro-woman movement. Not a pro-trans, pro-man (heterosexual or homosexual), or "Be Kind" movement.

The idea that women need to be so grateful to men for stating biological reality that they stay silent is anti feminist.

I've read Andrew's message (thanks for the screenshot) he too assumes its women, the original kind, that are making these pronouncements.
I'm yet to be convinced. Of the screenshots a pp put up, one had a blue tick, the others could have been anyone.

Still no idea why the entire of MN is being blamed for it and still not sure what "it" is. Looks a lot like a man threw a strop and closed down his social media?