Jo Brand on transgender debate in the Guardian

[kesstrel]

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/10/women-avoid-transgender-debate-fear-reaction-jo-brand-germaine-greer-feminism

Lol, mean scary mean nasty feminists made me do it!

Such a familiar defense, where have I heard it before? scratches hairy feminist chin

Badstyley
It's at least the first 5 rules and probably some more...
1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.
2nd rule of misogyny: Women saying no to men is a hate crime.
3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.
4th rule of misogyny: Women's opinions are violence against men thus male violence against women is justified.
5th rule of misogyny: WATM! Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

DisrespectfulAdultFemale

You are so right.

Do women retain a legal right to ask for an HCP of the same sex, not gender, for intimate exams?
No. Risk assessment should show that all medical personnel are safe and appropriate people. You do have the right to have a second person in too if you feel you need one. I never get this?? If you are women and the intimate exam means you need a consultant, do you refuse the male gynae? Refuse a male gynae when giving birth? Why is the HCP such an issue?

Yes, pennydrew - I am filing this under the heading "when someone shows you who they are, believe them." That poster has repeatedly shown that they don't like women, don't care about women's boundaries, see "no" as unreasonable and at best the start of a negotiation, at worst something simply to be ignored.

These are very dangerous attitudes to hold. Yet this poster thinks we should all be cool with people who hold these attitudes forcing their way into women's spaces and situations where women are vulnerable.

The answer is still "no".

bd67th
Thank you for writing your post. hugs or fistbump or slight nod

she's on WH now

on appearance...
I don't care what people think of me

fab

JoBrand hello if you're reading this! I think I read somewhere that you were on mumsnet. Just want to say thank you for standing up for women on HIGNFY.

The mumsnet feminism board has a very bad reputation in the guardian comments btl.
I hope you can see here that we're not trans hating bigots but simply ordinary women sincerely concerned about the self id proposals for many, many reasons.

I have never seen a 'moderate' ask a transactivist to compromise. They only ask women to compromise. Why is that?

If there's one thing I'm certain of its that Jo Brand doesn't read Mumsnet.

The moment someone rambles on with confusion about sex and gender and misrepresents the feminist position you know they're speaking from a position of utter ignorance.

Whether wilful or lazy I couldn't say, but ignorance nevertheless.

What Barracker said. Brand is trying to sell her book. Fine. But she may be misjudging who her potential customers are.

Very good point @DisrespectfulAdultFemale. I’m in the target market for JBs book. Certainly would have considered buying it as a Christmas present. Not now.

I started a thread a while ago about why there seemed to be no GC famous women and I really hoped Jo would be one of them. But it seems there’s no one standing up for us. No one.

Except for all the wonderful women we already know about. Many of whom have made their voices heard at great personal cost to themselves.

Deborah Orr was pretty good in the I yesterday. It's progress because she was all about the T quite recently.

Maybe Will Self has goaded her beyond endurance and she can no longer be arsed playing nice.

Whether wilful or lazy I couldn't say, but ignorance nevertheless.

Honestly, I'm not sure about this.

I watched the Brand-written social work comedy Damned.

In its second series, it featured a trainee social worker character who was the epitome of an authoritarian, endlessly denouncing, pomo-addled woketopian. The main characters spent most of the series rolling their eyes at her but at the end of the series the Alan Davies character had a rollicking take-down speech of how her views were domineering and virtue-signalling and actually acted against the best interests of the service users. It literally channelled Lucy from the Deptford People's Project.

There was also a trans story line featuring a kid whose mum was transitioning to his dad and who was acting out at school to the extent of risking expulsion. So they all assumed he was being picked and/or bullied on because his mum was transitioning and went to investigate. But the school had been incredibly supportive and affirming and all his friends the same. It turned out that the boy himself was traumatised by the mum's transition but everyone around him had been so busy being cluelessly woke and virtue signalling that they'd completely missed how the boy was feeling.

I don't think either of these things would have been written like this if Brand did not have a very good idea of the complexities of the issues.

So I think she is probably too chicken to be blunt about her views.

It's not the lack of bluntness I'm condemning though.

people on both sides of the debate were being aggressive and they should sit down and talk in a more mature way.

if both sides just stopped shouting at each other and talked about it they would actually find a way of expressing their feelings without all this kind of hatred for each other.

that.
The positioning that there's some kind of equivalence, some kind of extremism on both sides, and that there is "common ground" is so false, and so very unfair.

The two sides are simply "we are biologically female and wish to be recognised as such" and "we demand that biological females be prohibited from being recognised as a group because it excludes us"

It's never been about denying men. It's always been about denying women.

Jo Brand has fuelled the "both sides are bad as each other" and her common ground can only ever be women and girls ceding their rights and their recognition as a sex.

I thought she was likely to get it, but what she said was stupid.

Who exactly does she have in mind as being extreme or unreasonable from the feminist side? Bellos, Long, Posie, Bindel?

She's condemning someone with this. What exactly is the extreme view she wants to reject?

That women deserve recognition of their sex?

Who exactly does she have in mind as being extreme or unreasonable from the feminist side? Bellos, Long, Posie, Bindel?

Be reasonable. Venice did say she might even take her glasses off - I'm sure there are activists who can unpack all sorts of implicit threats of violence in that.

Jo Brand has fuelled the "both sides are bad as each other"

Yes, I agree. I'm not happy about what she said and much less inclined to offer sympathy than most posters here. I simply disagree that her comments came from ignorance. I think she has a very good grip on what is happening and I would prefer she said nothing at all than hedge her bets in this way: false equivalences damage women.

I agree Langcleg.

Jo Brand has fuelled the "both sides are bad as each other

To which I say: Brand can fuck off with that.

I haven’t seen Deborah Orr’s article, what was in it ?

false equivalences damage women.

I completely agree. It's why I've lacked sympathy from the outset (while allowing space that she might have been edited but it seems she wasn't so I can dispense with that nuance).

@NoName99 Blimey - this really is an echo chamber isn’t it. You either join the hive mind or you are instantly dismissed. I’m amazed that women who pride themselves on your intelligence can not see the damage you are doing.

Damn straight, you just need to see threads that creep out of here onto the main boards to see that any other views just aren't tolerated and laughed off/dismissed. More people to call it out though.
One just closed with a poster trying to fill up the thread to get the last word in as they didn't like the way it was turning. Even though there was actual debate going on.

Jo Brand has apparently said that both sides are as bad as each other. I agree with that. As in there are extremists and bad on both sides. Why is that dismissed as "trying to be woke" "it's bollocks" "disappointed etc? Just from the first page?
She is entitled to her opinion. Not dismissed.

And the rest of us include Jo Brand do have the right to our opinion you know. It’s your arrogance that immediately consigns everyone who is not part of the echo chamber to the “handmaiden/stupid/troll” side

Well said. It's dismissing others, yet again.

I’m not sure how I feel about this tbh.

My knee-jerk reaction is ‘Fuck off, Jo’, (which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘Fuck off, Brian’ but hey ho), but presenting it as ‘both sides’ does seem more reasonable and fair-handed to outsiders. And when the TRAs refuse to engage as they inevitably will, it reflects even worse on them than it would if they alone were the ones being called out.

Did anyone see the recent Sunday Times article? Someone calling for both sides to calm down, and then a long list of everything the TRAs have done. It gives it more power in some ways, I think.