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Artistic Director of Queer Up North speaks out on trans activism, Stonewall and women's rights

337 replies

SanctimoniousMorph · 16/08/2018 09:30

medium.com/@JonnnyBest/the-story-of-my-first-brush-with-trans-activism-and-what-i-learned-3ef13e31fd37

OP posts:
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10
JonnyBest · 20/08/2018 22:23

Damn emoticon function!

JonnyBest · 20/08/2018 22:27

littlbrowndog

I agree and see the class side of this a lot. I think your analysis is totally right.

JonnyBest · 20/08/2018 22:28

LangCleg
Thanks for the silencing thread - superb. I will not have much space in the Spec but will write a longer form essay with much more in it afterwards. this info is invaluable.

BraveAndStunning · 20/08/2018 22:29

twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/569136903829786624

BraveAndStunning · 20/08/2018 22:32

There's another one though, someone will have it

ToeToToe · 20/08/2018 22:40

Here: twitter.com/SandyDrawsBadly/status/980499992258449409

LangCleg · 20/08/2018 22:41

LangCleg we have to find that quote. It is too, too good.

Ask and ye shall receive! Screenshot on page 1 of the following thread. Robin Green is an utter, utter dicksplash (which epithet I like almost as much as cockwomble but imagine is equally unacceptable to the Speccie).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3139168--Transwomen-are-women

(I'm being as encyclopaedic as R0wantrees tonight!)

ToeToToe · 20/08/2018 22:45

He's on twitter right now asking about lesbians finding other women "hot". Or something.

twitter.com/greenrd/status/1031653741760573455

I think he might be a school boy. Confused

LangCleg · 20/08/2018 22:49

I agree and see the class side of this a lot. I think your analysis is totally right.

Dog is always right!

You know, I really don't give a toss about being called unfuckable, transphobic, bigot and all the rest of the misogynistic stuff that gets thrown at us. But I do get seriously pissed off at being called a right winger by proponents of an overwhelmingly bourgeois, hyper-individualist, ultra-capitalist ideology. Grinds my gears. The current "left" is a travesty.

BraveAndStunning · 20/08/2018 22:50

Here is the very chap

twitter.com/greenrd/status/951948874331099137

JonnyBest · 20/08/2018 22:57

LangCleg great stuff thanks. I'll file 'dicksplash' away for future use...I'm sure I'll write for something disreputable enough to allow it at some point...

Toetoetoe Sandy Draws Badly is a highlight of twitter for me.

BraveAndStunning Don't get me started on Owen Jones...I can't read him. It just makes me want to smash my laptop.

GColdtimer · 20/08/2018 23:07

@JonnyBest just replying to your question, sadly it didn't help with my friend. We shared some messages, which I thought were constructive, he said he read your article but told me trans women were women and that was that and then unfriended and blocked me. So I feel a bit sad but there you go. I think k he couldn't bare putting stonewall under a microscope. I linked to this thread but he said he didn't trust MN so he probably isn't reading. On a more positive note I have shared your article and had some really positive feedback so thank you. And a drag queen friend of mine wrote to me and said he totally agreed but he didn't feel able to say so publicly. .

JonnyBest · 20/08/2018 23:16

twofalls I am so sorry to hear this. I do hope your friend will find his way back to you in time. I can understand the Stonewall issue. It does feel very odd to be criticising them - I'm a gay man of 48 who has benefited directly from Stonewall's great work in the past on equal age of consent especially.

I'm really sorry to hear this news.

GColdtimer · 20/08/2018 23:20

Thanks Johnny. You are the same age as him so you probably have a mutual understanding of how important stonewall has been. I do hope we reconnect in the future as this whole thing evolves over time. I kind of feel his reaction was like putting his hands over his ears and singing "I can't hear you" loudly. Partly caused, perhaps, by an unwillingness to explore it further.

JonnyBest · 20/08/2018 23:22

twofalls
It's hard to change your mind I think, esp when it's on an issue bound up with emotion and identity. You planted a seed - as you say, Time needs to do its work now...

TriptychTwins · 21/08/2018 00:05

I think the bloke you're thinking of LangCleg is Robin Green

His Twitter handle is @greenrd

Hope this helps

Ereshkigal · 21/08/2018 01:32

I kind of feel his reaction was like putting his hands over his ears and singing "I can't hear you" loudly. Partly caused, perhaps, by an unwillingness to explore it further.

Yes I've seen this with others. The cognitive dissonance was too much so he had to shut you down.

Becles · 21/08/2018 09:17

Nick Ferrari on LBC doing a phone in right now. Well worth catching up on the repeat.

SaulGoodwoman · 21/08/2018 12:08

I think the weirdest thing about all this is the number of feminists [many of whom call themselves non-binary] who simply don't understand the regressive principles behind 'feeling like' a woman. Also the same people who often claim rad fems are 'reducing women to their genitals' They've got it all back to front. The whole point is that gender roles are oppressive and designed to subjugate women. The majority of women don't actually 'identify' with those gender roles, and yet still struggle with discrimination/subjugation based on their SEX, not which 'gender' they identify as. Twitter is so frustrating because this simple premise of the rad fem argument is never understood, and as soon as it is understood, someone else come along to say that rad fems are reducing women to their genitals and are being really regressive. They just don't seem to see that gender roles themselves are regressive, and that 'identifying' as female means identifying with gender roles that women have been fighting to be disassociated with for so long. And that is oppressive to men too - why can't men wear dresses/make up/heels/love cooking/talk gently/be caring/whatever it is that makes them feel like a woman,and still feel free to call themselves male/trans [but not indistinguishable from a natal woman?] The TRA movement is so regressive in terms of gender roles and why can't so many people bloody see it?

I think Jonny it is not just that you are a bloke, it is because of your affiliations with the origins of Stonewall - it is also because so many high profile gay men affiliate the TRA movement with the gay rights struggles of the 80s, and therefore refuse to see that this movement impacts on women. The irony when it impacts on lesbians especially.

OrchidInTheSun · 21/08/2018 12:22

I've come to the conclusion that they're thick Saul. Or (and this is a kinder theory) that this is a new twist on the cool girl phenomenon - they think they can identify out of female oppression. They're kicking against previous generations and see us constrained by our gender boundaries while they are all woke and free.

Of course what will happen in their lovely woke lefty circles is that the men will abuse and use them just as they always have done. But by the time they realise they've been had, there'll be a new generation along, telling this lot they got it all horribly wrong.

YesSirCowBoy · 21/08/2018 12:46

Of course what will happen in their lovely woke lefty circles is that the men will abuse and use them just as they always have done. But by the time they realise they've been had, there'll be a new generation along, telling this lot they got it all horribly wrong.

Millennials have been a bit of a joke in the press and you can see why when they are jumping all over this.

Generation sensible are starting university now as the minnelials leave - stuck with the previous students policy, no platform, safespace and wrong thought totalianism, they have been swept along via millennials grooming them on YouTube, it will not end well for millenniels.

ErrolTheDragon · 21/08/2018 12:56

Hm, but a lot of 'generation sensible' will be too sensible (not to mention, be doing demanding courses which don't leave enough time) to engage with student politics. As has always been the case, tbh.

YesSirCowBoy · 21/08/2018 13:03

Generation sensible had no vote in the EU ref, they did not get a vote in the last two GEs. In three years time Self-ID, May, Corbyn and Brexit will be old news, millenniels will stand for MP. They will have younger and middle aged voters looking at their tyrant type student politics history, that will not go away. I remember one issue that always followed Harriet Harman.

OhtheHillsareAlive · 21/08/2018 13:55

And that is oppressive to men too - why can't men wear dresses/make up/heels/love cooking/talk gently/be caring/whatever it is that makes them feel like a woman,and still feel free to call themselves male/trans [but not indistinguishable from a natal woman?] The TRA movement is so regressive in terms of gender roles and why can't so many people bloody see it?

Hear, hear!

The problem is restrictive models of masculinity which men force other men into - violently and coercively.

OhtheHillsareAlive · 21/08/2018 13:59

Of course what will happen in their lovely woke lefty circles is that the men will abuse and use them just as they always have done

Or they'll have babies, and see what it's really like to be bound by biology and treated as if the most important thing about you is that you're pregnant. And that because you're pregnant, your body is public property.