Ash Sarkar on the News Agents - the backpedaling continues...

Oof. Yes. Of course the time lag between writing a book and publishing it can cause more issues when writing on a situation that is morphing in front of your eyes.

She'll have signed this off last year.

And everything's changed.

Don't make me feel sorry for her!

So, those are Ash Sarkar's Fully Automated Luxury Beliefs. Not only are they lacking any critical thinking contribution from her, but those excerpts alone are full of hostages to fortune. When everyone else is going through their social media to delete "inconvenient" posts over the next few years, Sarkar will need to be buying up copies of her book on eBay, trawling round the charity shops, and rumaging through the bargain bins in The Works.

'They don’t have to agree, but they do have to stop laughing and pointing'

Good point from Kathleen Stock. But I don't know if Novara media types are capable.

I suppose this is just the glimmer of realisation dawning. They see that their current approach is losing hard - morally, logically, legally, and in popularity.

But having spent ten years congratulating themselves for being on the RSOH, they are still unable to grasp that history is more complex and nuanced and less black and white than they'd asserted. Yet to acknowledge their own failures.

Either they need to catch up very fast, and develop a bit of self awareness, or they'll render themselves irrelevant forever.

That book quote is possibly the most un self aware thing I have ever read! It's something I could imagine Owen Jones parroting as well. Both of them have been the absolute pinnacle of self interested Leftist pundits spawning rancour on social media. I am agog that she had the front to say that. Her publisher must have been rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of all the publicity the book would get from the complete lack of self awareness demonstrated. She is ridiculous.

Enjoyed this book review by Kathleen Stock: https://unherd.com/2025/02/trying-to-forgive-ash-sarkar/

Ash Mark II has a serious book to punt, in which she argues that identity politics is a divisive cul de sac making anti-capitalist revolution further away than ever. Hear her out: the political culture of this country has been harmed by self-interested Leftist pundits using social media to commodify whatever currently fashionable identity characteristics nature gave them, spawning rancour instead of fostering solidarity among the working class.

Oh, that's interesting.

She describes herself as “anarcho-fabulous”.

Which says it all.

Isn't she the one who didn't understand the toilet issue, because everyone has a gender neutral toilet at home?

I mean seriously.

Once I spot 1.7%, I know that neither the writer nor their editors have done their job properly, so it makes me sceptical about everything else they say.

Exactly, it's a huge flag!

I’m pretty sure a few months, after the toilet incident, there was some very negative feedback, from other trans people, about the person who claimed they were the person in the toilet.

Christ, I'm losing the will to live reading that shite.

I get a third of the way down, and I can literally feel my life force ebbing away. I have to stop for the sake of my health.

God knows what kind of bubble this twit lives in, but she positively fawns over these men.

Talk about sacred caste - she can't pin their membership badges on them quick enough.

I don't know Ash Sarkar at all - just as I didn't know Owen Jones at all, but don't feel too envious, we have our own equivalents where I live🙄

So I approached the extracts with an open mind.

As well as the clunky writing '[ill-served by her editors' is I think the charitable way of putting it] and the misinterpretation of GC ideas, there was one more thing:

Yes, there it is! the unmistakable marker of gullibility and/or lack of proper research! the great gender shibboleth! the 1.7% intersex figure!

Even Fausto-Sterling who published it [in 2000 I think?] admitted that she couldn't back it up, and did a reverse weasel. The real figure of people born with DSDs [not 'intersex'] is more likely to be about 0.02%.

Once I spot 1.7%, I know that neither the writer nor their editors have done their job properly, so it makes me sceptical about everything else they say.

Final part of this section:

I'm not trans, but I know what it's like to trigger outrage just by existing. When I'm reading the newspaper, or opening social media, and there's another scaremongering story about how trans people are invading women's spaces, I can't help but reflect on how people of colour and immigrants are discussed in the exact same way. Maggie Steed, on a special broadcast with the academic Stuart Hall, once said that "a number is a fact, you can't quarrel with it." But, Hall continued, "as soon as you say numbers, it doesn't matter how you wrap it up - there is only one lesson to be drawn, the numbers are growing. There are too many of them." That's how it feels when you're reading about immigration figures, or birth rates amongst different ethnic groups, or dog-whistle references to "cultural change": no matter what the number, or the context, there are always just too many of us. It's dehumanising - like reducing trans people -to what their bodies might be like under their clothes, it presents race as the single defining feature of who we are. This is the essence of demographic panic - it turns neutral characteristics like skin colour or gender identity into objects of terror. And this feedback loop of fear and hatred is used to justify measures which limit the freedoms of majority groups.

Next she tries to argue that banning puberty blockers is like banning abortion:

Trans people are objects of fixation and hatred because of transphobia, there's no doubt. They're targets of obsession, abuse and discrimination for no other reason than who they are. But the state of exception they're forced to occupy also serves to roll back on the rights and freedoms of women. In the UK, following the publication of the Cass Review (an independent review of the NHS's youth gender-identity services, published in April 2024), the prescription of puberty blockers to trans and non-binary youth under the age of eighteen was suspended.

Puberty blockers are a treatment which blocks testosterone and oestrogen, and can stop young people from developing periods, facial hair, breasts, etc. For trans young people, taking puberty blockers as they approach puberty can make it easier for them to live as their chosen gender when they reach adulthood. They're not just prescribed to trans and non-binary people - they can be offered to children entering puberty early, or to adults for other health conditions. In 2024, fewer than 100 children and young people were being prescribed puberty blockers by the NHS - and in the UK, trans minors can't have gender transition surgery. But the Cass Review, and the way politicians chose to interpret it, was a game-changer. The report concluded that there is "no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress" - that advocacy groups tend to cherry-pick the data which suits them about the benefits, or harms, of prescribing puberty blockers to trans and non-binary youth. I'm not a doctor, so that's not an area I'm going to wade into. But what I do want to talk about is bodily autonomy, and how imposing different rules for puberty blockers from other medications puts the rights of women and girls more broadly at risk.

In the UK, there's a principle called "Gillick competence" (officially known as Fraser guidelines, but I'm sticking with the more common phrase) which states that children can consent to their own medical treatment - including sexual and reproductive healthcare - as long as they are deemed competent to understand what's involved and there aren't any specific safeguarding concerns. The principle of Gillick competence is the reason I was able to access the contraceptive pill as a teenager, even though it would be a while before I had any tangible reason to worry about getting pregnant. Children in this country have the right, albeit caveated, to make decisions in concert with their doctor about medical treatment. Saying that puberty blockers for trans and non-binary youth are exempt from this principle puts a crack in the dam. Indeed, this appears to be the intention of some campaigners. In Bell v. Tavistock, a legal case in 2020, it was argued that somebody under the age of sixteen (in this case, Keira Bell) couldn't consent to taking hormones in order to transition their gender. After an initial ruling against Tavistock (a clinic in London which provides gender-affirming care), Bell lost her case at appeal; and in response, her lawyer, Paul Conrathe, released a statement alleging that the ruling demonstrated that "The Gillick competency test is no longer fit for purpose."

Paul Conrathe is an interesting guy. His CV reveals a long history of taking on cases which apparently seek to restrict abortion rights, from a man who tried to get an injunction to stop his girlfriend from terminating a pregnancy back in 2001 to a 2005 case in which Conrathe tried to argue that under-sixteens cannot consent to an abortion without their parents' knowledge. He previously acted on behalf of anti-choice groups such as ProLife Alliance and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. Transgender people might be a small minority, but the principles which protect their access to healthcare uphold the same for the majority as well. I don't see my freedoms as a woman being threatened by transgender people: I see them as being profoundly interconnected.

Next page and a bit, she writes about JKR:

It probably helps that J.K. Rowling - one of the most commercially successful authors who has ever lived - has vocally supported the "gender critical" cause. Abigail Shrier, a journalist and author, credited Rowling for mainstreaming opposition to puberty blockers for the purpose of gender-affirming care in the UK. What's more is that, according to Shrier, Rowling's political value lies in her ability to drive a wedge on the left ("She helped gender critical feminists pry [sic] away from the progressive left on this issue") - another way in which the relentless demonisation of minority identity benefits the right. Though Rowling has described herself as being "empathetic to trans peo-ple", that empathy has been hard to detect beyond her occasionally professing that it exists. Her preferred terms for transgender women are "trans-identified males", "biological males with gender recognition certificates" and "surgically altered" men. Her focus is almost always on trans criminality, trans women in competitive sports, or on what she perceives to be the risks of young people taking puberty blockers: she has remarkably little to say about the pervasive discrimination that trans people face in employment, housing and healthcare. Rowling seems proud to be part of a network of like-minded figures, occasionally sharing photos of herself at dinner with other "gender critical" feminists like Julie Bindel, Joanna Cherry, Suzanne Moore and Kathleen Stock. No longer simply an author of wildly successful children's IP, Rowling has become a political force to contend with. A single article by Rowling forces government ministers to respond in a conciliatory tone. These views, of course, are well within her rights to express. And nobody deserves threats, abuse or harassment for participating in live political discussions online.

What's striking here is how clearly we can see a particularly famous and wealthy person wielding an outsize influence on the policymaking landscape. Despite presenting themselves as under attack by trans activists and their allies, the likes of J. K. Rowling are well networked, well placed and more widely represented than their opponents. Rowling rejects the accusation that she is transphobic. But consistently presenting trans rights as being in conflict with women's safety ("Trans activism demands that women give away their hard won rights to men") contributes to an overall climate of hostility towards transgender people. If your position is that trans individuals can't be accepted in their chosen gender after transitioning as adults, but can't access puberty blockers as youths, aren't allowed in spaces which align with their gender presentation (but aren't safe in spaces of the gender they were assigned at birth either), can't choose how they're addressed, can't play sports, can't use the changing rooms, can't use the toilets - you can't be surprised when others come to the conclusion that "gender critical" is code for "anti trans". What are trans people meant to do, if there's no way for them to be socially recognised as their chosen gender in public life? Never leave the house? Evaporate?

Ash certainly knows her audience. The one example she picks of a woman being sexually harassed by one of these men in the bathroom is a Tory politician who writes for the Daily Mail. Her usual readers will already have dismissed Cllr Sampson's side of the story before it's even been told.

I didn't realise that one could be awarded an honours degree in failing to understand fucking anything. Congratulations Ash. I have daffodils that display better critical thinking than you do.

I didn't realise that one could be awarded an honours degree in failing to understand fucking anything. Congratulations Ash. I have daffodils that display better critical thinking than you do.

She's just not very smart.

There are some people who are well educated and so pass as smart, but really, they aren't.

She's totally not butthurt about that review from the Times. Oh no, definitely not at all bothered 🤣🤣

Good grief, I hadn't realised how bad her writing is.

God why does anyone give her any airtime? I'd happily forgotten she existed for a while there.

She has the viewpoint of a perpetual 15 year old. Tedious and embarrassing.

And what pray has Ash said to dismiss the concern of women being trounced by a tiny oppressed minority in sports.

Why have assessment criteria when you could just employ Mystic Ash?