Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today

[MargeH]

Go Rod...

"My favourite politician, Harriet Harman, has come up with an ingenious plan, as is entirely typical of her. She has suggested that the next Labour leadership election should be contested only by female candidates. The men, she says, can “jostle” for the position of deputy.
This is presumably an attempt by Harriet to stop the macho bullies of Momentum winning the race. But there is a problem she may not have foreseen. Labour’s National Executive Committee recently decided that all-women shortlists can include people who identify as women but are not, actually, women. So the next leadership election may be your first and last chance to see Andy Burnham wearing a gingham frock or Sadiq Khan resplendent in a niqab. Men are endlessly inventive when it comes to getting their own way."

I don't think he is a feminist either, but I will take that right now. Frankly, more people will listen to an everyday bloke with "normal" opinions, than one who was brought up on Spare Rib articles.

This has to re-framed as a mainstream freedom of speech and safety issue, and pulled away from the Feminist/gay/not-my-cup-of-tea/niche corner it is being (deliberately) hidden in.

Anyone have Jeremy Clarkson's email??

And no, I am not joking!

Apparently I am a grumpy social conservative rofl, have you tried the quiz? www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rod-liddles-culture-war-quiz-3jrlzhq25

I'm surprised to see I'm a Hand-wringing liberal fence-sitter. I thought I would be more to the right. I do live in a very nice part of a university town.

As the conservative would see it, you are a useful idiot. You go along with most of the SJW whining, but not its more outré pronouncements — yet. Basically, you just want people to be nice to each other. And if people need to be forced to be nice, then so be it. You live in a pleasant London suburb or a university town. You have been known to cycle. You have just had the old fireplace excavated for a woodburning stove

😂
I'm a Grumpy Social Conservative apparently:

A traditionalist who has the vague suspicion that things around here might have been slightly better in, say, 1952. You are glad the often unspoken opinions of Middle England are finally being aired. You work for a living in the private sector and do not take days off for stress or depression. You think London is a place to be visited once a year, max. You are probably over 35 years old. You once wondered about voting Ukip

QUOTE
No trans sex, please, we’re liberal-ish
More intersectional fun! A transgender website has offered advice to straight men on how to make love to transgender women (or “men”, as reactionaries tend to put it). This addresses the issue often raised by feminists, that while right-on, decent liberal heterosexual men are more than happy to accept that transgendered women are proper women, in a very real sense, they won’t actually sleep with them.

I have to say, that observation is a bit of a clincher for me: the juxtaposition of how liberals would like things to be and how it really is. I will not spoil your breakfast by going into the details of what one is meant to do. But the website does insist that transgendered people who have had extensive work on their private parts may provide a more comfortable and more “fresh” accommodation than “cis-women”, ie, real women. They really don’t like women very much, do they?
END QUOTE

Brilliant.

And I agree Suited - someone like JC (who I usually cannot abide - he appears to hate anyone who is not exactly like him) would take the piss out of the notion that a born male can be a woman.

Rod Liddle is not most pleasant of characters but he is clear headed and writes well. Will people take any notice of him?

At this pass, blokes who can fearlessly call a spade a bloody shovel and who would never claim to be feminists are some of the best allies women (and the types of trans people who are going to be collateral damage of the TRAs) can have.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/labour-left-splits-over-trans-rights-n9x0b6p2z

In the battle over transgender rights in the Labour Party a new front has opened up between Momentum and the trade union Unite.

Momentum’s Jon Lansman and Unite’s Andrew Murray appear to be at loggerheads over whether to allow people to self-identify without the need for medical or other certification that they have changed gender.

Lansman, Momentum’s leader, says in an email to colleagues: “I do not believe there is a real alternative to self-identification . . . in almost all circumstances transgender women should be treated as women.”

However, Murray, Unite’s chief of staff, has signed a letter attacking the “attempt to silence women’s voices” and saying that “all women have a right to debate how any proposed measures may impact on women-only spaces”.

Feminists say women lose all protection if men can become women on demand.

Last week, Labour delayed a proposal to allow self-defining trans women onto all-woman shortlists. The move may reflect the influence of Jennie Formby, a former top Unite official who saw off Lansman to become Labour’s general secretary.

Ruth Serwotka, convener of the Socialist Feminist Network, said: “What we hope we’re going to do is pull Labour back into an understanding that they and the unions did actually win sex discrimination law . . . and they’ve got to understand the consequences of what they’re doing.”

@mragilligan

Frankly, I would be wary of aligning myself with Rod Liddle whatever he says. This is the man who effectively backed ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims, who regularly demonstrates blatant racism and Islamophobia, and definitely thinks women are inferior beings. Have a look at this pile of illiterate crap for instance.

To be honest, if Liddle supported my views I'd be seriously worried.

I just googled mragilligan ... looks like he is a senior journo who is also prepared to stand up to TRAs and his slightly unfortunate moniker is presumably Mr. A not MRA.

To be honest, if Liddle supported my views I'd be seriously worried.

Why?

Does the fact that Liddle supports my views on self ID mean that my views on self ID are therefore wrong, or bigoted?

This is the leftist 'progressive' dogma that serves no purpose other than to silence perceived 'dissent'.

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/03/23/leftist-women-uk-refuse-accept-labours-attempts-silence-critiques-gender-identity/

I would be wary of aligning myself with Rod Liddle whatever he says

On this issue, the fact that he may agree with feminists is about as worrisome as the fact that he presumably shares our views on the force of gravity.

Or about water being wet and fire being hot. Much like sex being a thing that exists and can't be changed, these are basic realities that are going to be agreed upon by people from all parts of the political spectrum. It's not exactly creationism, you know.

So no, we're not going to stop engaging with journalists who we aren't in agreement with on other issues, and we are going to keep hoping that this issue reaches as many people as possible, because a. that's what needs to happen for things to change and b. people with whom we generally disagree also deserve to retain their rights to single sex services.

Have a look at this pile of illiterate crap for instance

I agree with him re Emma Watson and Shami Chakrabarti. Both are self-satisfied, pompous and preachy. And the comments by Diane Abbott were extremely silly.

So are we all happy that he feels it's appropriate to refer to women as "poppet"? Or that he began an article "So — Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober." Nothing to say about his racism?

The whole "don't be happy about articles that oppose self ID unless they're ideologically pure" thing reads like "please handicap yourselves in such a way that you're unable to get anything done" to me. If the only people who you're interested in winning over are leftist feminists then sure, maybe that would make sense, but is the country being run by leftist feminists? No, it is not. So, in order to stop self-ID, is convincing just leftist feminists going to be enough? No, it is not.

Unless you're absolutely certain that Corbyn is going to win the next election then we need both Conservatives (party members and voters) and centrists on board.

Oh, right. So it's absolutely fine to get into bed with racist, misogynist bigots who support ethnic cleansing so long as they agree with us on self identification. Where's the dividing line? Should we be supporting Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins?

Interesting development DarthArts.

On another point, I really think we could benefit from using the word "feminists" less.
I don't want to start a big debate about what it means to be a feminist in 2018 etc, but I do think it is evident, both on here and in the media, that "feminist" is used in an "othering" way, and can turn people away from reading and thinking about the actual issue of Self ID.

I have seen a fair few article which use the term "Radical Feminist", when they actually just mean "women". I notice that the phrase "Men's Rights Activists" doesn't crop up much (!), but that is what they really are.

Words, and the wider public's perception of what they mean are really crucial here. Describing someone as a "Radical Socialist", for example, would probably make the average vaguely-leftie type feel that they were a bit too extreme for them...., and this just what the GRA supporters are doing, using the word "feminist" to imply that the women who are concerned about this are "others", and have a very particular and extreme view.

To me, being a feminist just means equal rights, but you don't have to look far to see that for many people, it also has connotations of being anti-male, anti-marriage and anti-SAHM. The whole GRA debate is being framed in terms of Feminist v Gender-confused men, which for the average person really just come across as "Two rather extreme groups arguing about something that doesn't affect me - I'm not a feminist/gay/cross-dresser/trans etc" - so it's just a case of move along, nothing to see or bother me there.....

We have to present this as very ordinary, every-day people, taking on something that will affect the lives of ALL women, and really watch our language!

Jumps off soap box!......

Grumpy social conservative too. I like "a sensible feminist" being one of the options for what a TERF is.

If you think that we can win this without the support of Middle England then you're welcome to try, Gnu. I don't like the guy, but I don't have to like him. Self-ID is fucking nonsense and the more people saying so in the media the better.

Really pleased so many articles in the Sunday Times re this. I bought it last week and would buy it more often if they got rid of a lot of the glossy magazines with articles on fashion and people I'm not interested in. I prefer real papers and magazines to digital ones but don't like the waste of paper of Sunday papers