To think trying to close down a library/archive because you don't like a event is just not on

[thecraftyfox]

Yes, it's trans related. If that gets your hackles up, stop reading now.

The small but very important Working Class Movement Library in Salford has been around for ages and does what it does brilliantly on a teeny budget and wth predominantly volunteers. It's such a valuable resource for historians and well, anybody interested in things like the Suffragettes, the Union movement etc.

In February they're hosting a talk by Julie Bindel on growing up and coming out as a lesbian in 1970s North East England. Julie Bindel wrote this article in 2004 which states that transwomen are not the same as women. www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/31/gender.weekend7 Since then she has been harrassed and hounded for it.

As a result the WCML is being bombarded online by transactivists in an attempt to punish them. They are giving them dreadful reviews despite never going there, attempting to cause financial damage by trying to stop funding and promotion of the place and getting people to call them. If you don't like it, don't attend. The talk is not about transpeople, it's about Julie's life and work which has been enormously important for many women, especially her work with women who have been abused. I can't understand why a small library can't host this event without being subjected to such vitriol and harrassment. Am I being unreasonable to think that if you don't like what somebody writes or says, you don't start a campaign of harrassment and act like a spoilt child. www.facebook.com/wcmlibrary/ the comments and posts are just unbelievably spiteful.

This doesn't surprise me.

Although I'm no fan of Julie Bindel at all she doesn't deserve the shit she gets from the trans activists.

Trans activists spend their time looking for a perceived slight, occasionally they find an actual issue, and then bully and issue threats and accuse everyone of being transphobic until people back down, then they feel validated because they got their own way. And so the circle continues.

I think that they may even buy into their own hype that they are doing some good, personally I think they are just on a power trip because being transgender isn't clearly defined by law they can pretty much say what they like and people don't have a clear definition to back their arguments up with, apparently simple common sense is transphobic.

Although I stay very anonymous online I have been called transphobic on here and another site, before and after I say I have a transgender child, and am supportive of my child. Even after I state all the ways these trans activists have been detrimental to my child and us as a family.

Trans activists just want a cause to jump on, it could be anything, it just happens to be this one just now.

I'm going to donate to the library just now to try and counteract some of the awful things the trans activists are doing.

Just wanted to add my support for the library - it's a fantastic and unique resource. Julie Bindel is controversial but no one is forced to turn up and listen to her and presumably if they do turn up they can ask questions and disagree with her in person. Not try to shut down a library.

However, the context here is that she has been invited to speak under the auspices of LGBT History month

You missed out IQA+++

°Given that she denies the validity of both B and T, I can see the point of those saying it is not an appropriate platform^

Platform for what? She is a lesbian talking about lesbian issues. Seems to be entirely appropriate.

(And T shouldnt be in with LGB, bit that's another issue entirely)

This is despicable.

I'm a former librarian and (without outing myself) used to work with someone now based at this library. They could not be a nicer, more dedicated or more professional person. To think they're having to deal with this bullshit makes me profoundly angry.

I have just sent the library a donation in recognition of the excellent work they do in recording working class history and standing up to homophobia and misogyny.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to put my money where my mouth is on this.

I visited that library for an event last year, wonderful place.

Personally I 100% support trans people but I don't agree with many transactivists. I disagree with this woman and perhaps this isn't the best platform but open and honest debate, not censorship, is usually the best way. Trying to get the library shut down is awful.

Itsallgoingtobefine No I'm not saying that at all! People should be free to be attracted to whoever they like!

It's great to see such staunch opposition to no-platforming.

I don't remember seeing it on the Paris Lees thread.

I don't remember seeing it on the Paris Lees thread

As I recall (hazily - it was a long time ago) folk objected to Lee's invitation as she was going to be speaking about Blogging for Good, when much of her blogging was harmful to women.

Unless Bindel goes off piste she is not going to be saying anything offensive?

Don't like that woman. I disagree with many of her statements...

Well, how couldn't I? I'm a married, bisexual woman with a child.

But I don't think non-platforming is a way to handle disagreement. Going there and questioning her politely would be the way to do it.

I'm not against trans people at all. I also don't think that trans women are men. My husband is a man, a trans woman isn't. Just like trans men aren't women, btw.
But my personal opinion isn't the issue here.

Just to be clear Horatio are you saying that transwomen are not male (sex) or not masculine (gender)? (And the converse for transmen)

I'm happy to be corrected, but I thought the situation with Paris Lees was that she was chairing a section on activism - and posters voiced their objection to her being chair.

I don't remember posters being threatening, or campaigning for mumsnet to be closed down.

As I recall (hazily - it was a long time ago) folk objected to Lee's invitation as she was going to be speaking about Blogging for Good, when much of her blogging was harmful to women.

Bindel's talk is listed to mark "LGBT History Month" and has frequently said things that members of the B and T communities find harmful and offensive.

I strongly oppose no platforming and she should certainly be allowed to speak, but there does seem to be one rule for Paris Lees and another for Julie Bindel

They are giving them dreadful reviews despite never going there, attempting to cause financial damage by trying to stop funding and promotion of the place and getting people to call them.

Where is the evidence of this, OP? (No dreadful reviews relating to the library on TripAdvisor). I strongly doubt the library is in any danger from (yet another) online spat between those with differing opinions on trans rights.

As pointed out by previous posters, Bindel courts controversy. She peddles stereotypes and ill informed opinion herself (her 2005 article: Why I hate vegetarians is a good example). It's inevitable that she will attract strong opinion from those who disagree with her/people who are upset by what she says.

itsAll

Masculine? I don't think trans women are masculine. Or that trans men are feminine.

At least not those that have genuine dysphoria and aren't ocean gender or an agender non-binary demi-boi... )Tumblr is a v v weird place...).

Male? Well, genetically in th case of trans women: yes. I do think that they aren't of the female sex. But after years of hormone therapy etc...? I mean, this changes the body on a very fundamental level.

Also in the case of trans men, there are non-reversible changes that change the female body to something that is no longer commonly associated with the female sex (dropped voice, clitoral enlargement, bone density, no periods etc...)

I hope my answer makes sense. If it doesn't.. well, we either disagree or my English failed me (isn't my first language...)

Where is the evidence of this, OP? (No dreadful reviews relating to the library on TripAdvisor

On their FB page.

Horatio it does make sense thanks for explaining

The negative reviews are on their Facebook page - their previous rating of 4.8 stars last week has dropped to 3.6 stars this morning, and it's only that high because lots of people who have previously found it a useful resource have organised to try to protect them from malicious reviews.

This entire campaign to no-platform Julie Bindel at the Library has been coordinated by one person. They have now made their FB page private. It was public and the page, which they are using to coordinate from, specifically asked people to agitate against the Trustees, Advertisers and various Funding streams that are used to support the library and keep it afloat financially.

They stated that if the library was direct under financial threat, they would be forced to capitulate and cancel the event.

This is a tactic that goes way beyond simply disagreeing. This is coordinated activism designed to shut down dissenting voices without debate, discussion, and without any thought or care for the consequences.

The Working Class Movement Library is a wonderful resource that documents and preserves the history of the working classes in this country. That it is under threat because a young person with an overinflated opinion of himself deems it so, is utterly beyond the pale.

YANBU It's bullying, plain and simple.

I am generally of the opinion that people should be allowed to speak unless actively calling for violence which Bindle has never done. The worst she is is rude. I don't agree with everything she says and her tone is not great but she is hardly a hate preacher.

LGBT includes the L and of course it's appropriate for her to speak under that heading. The T's get to speak on actively erasing the L through cotton ceiling etc and the SJW love it. Everyday Feminism even published a video by transwoman Riley J Dennis "Your dating preferences are discriminatory". This was explicitly shaming lesbians for refusing penis. People (loads) disagreed with Riley but no-one would make a fuss like this if Riley did an LGBT speech. Because Riley is T despite being anti-L.

I am of the opinion that trans people deserve rights and protection from discrimination. We need to look at creating facilities e.g. in prisons to keep them safe. What they do not deserve is the right to demand entry to every single opposite sex space and to force people to believe in their ideology.

I am of the opinion that trans people deserve rights and protection from discrimination. We need to look at creating facilities e.g. in prisons to keep them safe. What they do not deserve is the right to demand entry to every single opposite sex space and to force people to believe in their ideology.

Beautifully put YorkshireTree

Bindel should be allowed to speak, but not under the LBGT History Month label. If the library just dropped the LGBT it would be fine.

Bindel should be allowed to speak, but not under the LBGT History Month label. If the library just dropped the LGBT it would be fine.

Sure it would. The self-appointed censors would still be trying to "no-platform" her.

Surely ending up with an LGBT History Month which omits anyone who disagrees with the transactivists would leave to a very skewed and very bad history. Because women who have actually experienced the shit that happened to working class lesbians a few decades ago are precisely the ones who refuse to buy into the line that what matters is gender identification rather than sex.

I am of the opinion that trans people deserve rights and protection from discrimination. We need to look at creating facilities e.g. in prisons to keep them safe. What they do not deserve is the right to demand entry to every single opposite sex space and to force people to believe in their ideology.

Exactly!!