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 actually reminds me very much of the fuss about Milo Yiannopolos' book. People are not just urging other people not to buy it, or the publishers to reconsider publishing it, they are trying to get the entire publishing house shut down. Simon & Schuster publish loads of books in various different imprints, written by authors of every race/gender/culture/religion/identity. All these people and all their readers are under threat from dickheads who think that anything they disagree with must be annihilated (and their families, and their children, and their pets, and everyone who ever held a conversation with them).
I usually feel a bit of an urge to smirk when Bindel gets no-platformed, given what a fan she was of no-platforming other people in her younger days, but trying to shut down a library is appalling behaviour.

I'm so glad that in this current economic climate of plenty, people are focusing on shutting down the real evils in life such as libraries and publishing houses. Fecking idiots.

FWIW, I think it's very useful that Milo whatshisname is publishing a book - it means if I see someone who's bought it I can know to avoid them.

well, oneflew people have to find out what the enemy is saying, don't they?

It's interesting that the phrase used is "no platforming" rather than "censorship".

I would have thought the wrong word is being used. No platforming is deciding what you and your own organisation are not prepared to give a platform to. Censorship is deciding what other people and organisations are allowed to give a platform to.

This is the second.

I see.

I'm a liberal, dedicated to free speech.

You are a hidebound, establishment lackey.

I 'no platform'.

You 'censor'.

A new level of hypocrisy then....

Wow brasty, just read all the comments on your Facebook link. Some silly twat saying "the event has been made unsafe for trans people". In what way?

That's exactly why these idiots need to be exposed to perfectly valid opinions they find unpalatable (which isn't even what's going to happen). So they can get a sense of perspective and self-awareness, something quite useful for dealing with the world and which these slactivists are sadly lacking.

WrongTrouser: "Censorship is deciding what other people and organisations are allowed to give a platform to."

Exactly. It's very troubling. As is the hysterical shouting of "transphobe" every time someone says something these activists disagree with. (I notice they never attempt to engage in rational debate.)

The value of free speech is something that seems to need to be re-learned every couple of generations.

Signed, and donated direct to the library via their own webpage.

They're getting their arses kicked for supporting free speech. The sort of free speech that allowed us to discuss women's rights and even conceive of trans rights in the first place.

Gingernaut Was your post in reply to mine? If so, I think you have missed my point. It's not about who is not allowing someone to speak, it is about whether they are making this decision for their own organisation (presumably through the decision making processes of the organisation, be they democratic or otherwise) or trying to impose what they want on another organisation, often as in this case, by unpleasant and bullying tactics. I would have thought the difference between these two is fairly clear.

I have had a quick google and is does seem that no platforming is usually used to refer to making decisions for one's own organisation (eg NUS np policy) and not for trying to stop people speaking else where.

It is important as distortions of language are all part of the attempt to shift the boundaries of free speech.

I do wonder if people who are happy with these sorts or attempts to censor others ever contemplate what will happen if the cultural tide starts turning the other way, and they find themselves silenced because it has become acceptable to limit free speech.

Is it censorship?
Legally speaking (where I grew up and went to uni, not in the U.K.) censorship tends to be about the State's interference and is therefore an issue of the State curtailing free speech.

I have to look up the English definitions. Grumble.

I doubt it Wrong. I don't think they spend much time contemplating anything too deeply.

Making sure an invited guest isn't heard is censorship regardless of who's doing it or how it's done.

We aren't talking about Holocaust deniers or lizard people conspiracy theorists here.

This is a woman, who grew up a particular way in a particular environment, how it shaped her and her opinions.

Does it matter in your opinion whether somebody 'is a woman, who grew up a particular way in a particular environment' or a holocaust denier? Or an anti-feminist? Or a preacher with homophobic rhetoric?

I've just lost what I was about to post. Dammit.

The platform is the Working Class Movement Library. The autobiographical talk is about growing u a working class lesbian. The two kinda go together.

If a working class transgender speaker wants to givexa sinilar talk, there's nothing to stop them.

That's wasn't my question.

If a working class anti-feminist wanted to give a talk (not for the L, presumably) would you support that?

That wasn't. ;)

1horatio, why would I want to censor someone who is speaking by invitation at an organization I have nothing to do with? As long as they aren't advocating crimes of violence it's not down to me. I can't abide plenty of politicians. Doesn't mean I think you have the right to silence them.

Not sure if I get your point.

Personally, I wouldn't actively support it but I wouldn't oppose such a talk as provided they weren't advocating hurting, harassing or bullying anyone they're entitled to their opinions, however stupid I might think they are.

And it's useful to know your enemy and to sharpen your critical judgement and know how to challenge harmful ideas. I think it's worrying that they don't acknowledge that.

I would support the right of absolutely any organisation to invite absolutely any speaker to speak unless a speaker posed a credible threat to public order (eg someone who was going to encourage all attendees to go out and hang their neighbours or plant bombs or something - or someone who travels with an entourage of supporters who engage in either physical violence or extreme property damage).

It does seem that most of the aggressive no-platforming, censoring and social-media witch-hunting is directed at individuals with little or no real power: noisy gobshites or cult entertainers, writers or musicians, (and very particularly at radical feminists, a small and often skint group of people) and not at the groups with real power to infringe others' rights...

You're spot on about who is being no platformed, user147 (in the nicest possible way, please get yourself a name rather than a number if you plan to stick around.)
.
It's never people with real clout. And to describe a working class, middle aged lesbian as some sort of threat to a bunch of transgenderists verges on the ludicrous. But I guess it depends on your perspective. If, more than anything, you want the world to perceive you as a woman - and you aren't - then maybe the fact that one small lesbian, despite being much weaker physically, refuses to go along with your mythmaking might be interpreted as an existential threat and the source of narcissistic injury.

@1horatio

I wouldn't support it, I might go and see what he/she has to say but I wouldn't try to get the venue hosting it shut down either.