In Defense of Deadnaming - Brendan O'Neill

[heresyandwitchcraft]

Brendan O'Neill's take on Graham Linehan, deadnaming, the trans activist vs feminist wars, Orwellian principles, and being able to utter facts.

It's pretty uncompromising (particularly when it comes to Graham's positions in the past), but I found it an excellent read. Thank you Mr O'Neill. We do need the free-speech defenders to get over their schadenfreude and the temptation to adopt a "the-left-is-eating-itself-so-leave-them-to-it" attitude:

Fine, have a laugh about that, get it out of your system. And then let’s get back to defending Linehan, because even people who don’t believe in freedom of speech must have their freedom of speech defended.

Linehan’s speechcrime was to be trans-sceptical – or ‘transphobic’, to use the word preferred by trans activists and their allies, which include the police, the military, the Church, the educational establishment, the academy, and virtually every single celebrity. Such an oppressed movement!

Linehan has been getting into online spats for months with trans activists. He agrees with those feminists who argue that making it easier for men to identify as women (even referring to them as men is a transphobic hate crime, I know) is not good for women.

....

So we have to defend Linehan. And we have to defend ‘deadnaming’. For ‘deadnaming’ is just a Newspeak word designed to demonise the telling of historical truths. Not satisfied with seeking to control contemporary discussion and attitudes, now trans activists and their allies (all institutions, in essence) want to control the past itself. History. No way. The past happened, it was true, and we should not allow that to be erased and forgotten just to make some people feel better about themselves.

www.spiked-online.com/2018/10/11/in-defence-of-deadnaming/

Semp you said In the UK there is no public right to know if someone is a convicted sex offender or not; that would be a whole other debate one aside from if the person is trans or not.

Apart from Sarah's Law then:

"Sarah's Law, or the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme allows parents, carers and guardians to ask the police to tell them if someone has a criminal record for child sexual offences"

And apart from the fact that criminal trials are reported by the papers because it is in the public interest.

Sometimes we really must speak the truth and shame the devil.

Cross post Heresy you said it better.

As an aside, what the fuck has happened to the Sp!ked comments section?

I used to comment occasionally but now comments are linked to your Facebook account.

Who would risk commenting on trans-issues in particular knowing that TRAs will contact their employer?

"In the UK there is no public right to know if someone is a convicted sex offender or not"

So the newspapers shouldn't be reporting it?

Come off it.

Not at all, Plainspeak. Your post is excellent. Sarah's Law and Clare's Law are important. Sarah and Clare were both female victims of murder at the hands of violent men. I am glad their names are remembered.

Sometimes we really must speak the truth and shame the devil.

I tend to use the name someone is best known by.

I’ve read articles by pretentious prats who refer to George Orwell as ‘Eric Arthur Blair’. Unless he happened to have been a personal friend just give it a rest.

Cat Stevens had a great musical career but I really couldn’t give a toss for Yusuf Islam‘s output.

rightreckoner

See, the misgendering thing is interesting. I wouldn't flip my lid if I was referred to using male pronouns. I'm not "precious" about it. You can't deny biological reality and all that... If you were to call me he/him I'm not going to suddenly scream transphobia and being "verbally violent" or whatever crap the TRAs are using these days.

...I think it's more a "courtesy" if that makes sense. As I identify WITH women, not AS a woman - and present in a non stereotypically male manner, have a traditionally female name it's more "weird" not to use female pronouns - especially in "company". I was talking to a staunch feminist friend about this the other night and "courtesy" ended up being the buzzword for it. She also pointed out a lot of drag queens / some gay men use "she" as a reference point too.

I guess there'd be some that would say it's "pandering to a delusion" perhaps (and I'm ok with that), but as someone who has diagnosed GD and is almost at the end of the medical route, I think it's possibly more on the lines of being polite?

I mean at the end of the day, you don't really USE pronouns that much in every day conversation if you're talking to someone face to face - and does it really matter if "she" or "he" has "popped out to the shop to get a pint of milk".

I've probably tied myself up in knots and spouted a bunch of guff, but that's my take on it at least.

Seems to me like Semp DOES believe that the public have no right to know Karen White's trans status

Nor that they are a convicted rapist (?)
Nor that they committed further sex offences while in prison (?)

I'm not sure though.

Semp can you spell it out.

At the moment many news outlets are saying Karen White's previous name AND that they have been convicted of multiple sex offences. In your eyes - this is wrong? Should be illegal?

What about the photo of Karen before transition in the papers? That's a no-no right?

Do you believe that rape law in teh UK should be changed so it no longer revolves around penetration with a penis without consent? Because that can be a bit of a giveaway too.

Is it dead naming if someone transitions after gaining first class honours at Oxbridge, and needs to show their ccertificate (in which their old name is used) to get their highly paid job? Surely that degree belongs to a different person, if their criminal trecord can't follow them, neither should achievements.

Semp. Weird that you should bring to mind the possibility of my children being abused - when I didn't mention children at all, let alone my children, or child abuse., or even safeguarding.

Bloom I was going to say something similar. In that if a man builds up a career in his male name and then in middle age he declares that he now identifies as a woman, I'd bet my life that he would not be willing to drop back down to the bottom of the career ladder because he now has no career history, no previous experience etc.

That’s all fair hamster and I think we were all being courteous - although to be honest I do struggle with it.

But tbh I’m now done being courteous - I won’t allow politeness to allow me to collude in this massive con trick. As many people have said, and as you suggest, the TRAs have harmed people with gender dysphoria. And women. And the state of public debate. And my confidence in the press and our politicians.

It’s horrible

I changed my name a few years after I got married. Ever since then I have regularly been required to declare my previous name for a range of official and not-so-official forms - not the least when completing a DBS check.

I fail to see why anyone should be treated any differently from me.

I expect I've oversimplified but it does seem that a clean slate should mean a clean slate, not just wiped of the stuff they don't like, but all of it. Start at the bottom, no history, just a fresh start. Of course people are going to refetrenvce their previous identity, nobody would want to do all that work again. So its okay, when it suits.

Bloom
You make excellent points. I was thinking along similar lines, e.g. how would a CV work if all of your achievements are in another name? What if you won a prestigious award for something? Do you now have to distance yourself from it? (Of course not)
I don't think most trans people would want to pretend they didn't accomplish whatever impressive thing it is they've managed to do under their old name.
Like you say, if the good elements of one's history can be acknowledged despite "deadnaming", then the criminal record has to be fair game.
It just seems like we occasionally witness a bit of a "pick n mix" attitude to history from some trans activists. Oddly it's usually only mentioning any criminal or somewhat controversial behaviour that seems to be "transphobic"...

What utter nonsense.

Once in a while I get a letter addressed to Mrs ex-husband... Despite the fact I never took his name. I growl (because he's a bellend and I am temporarily reminded of him) - but the letter is clearly for me and not his mother.

I'm sure many women who took their husband's name are also sometimes called by their maiden name. Compare that to doxxing?

I'm a Celt - so I grew up using my middle name as my first name. When I turned 16 and had to do "real" applications I reverted to my first name. My childhood friends still call me by my child name - even hollering it across a Miami bar by a girl I'd not seen in 15 years! I thought I'd had a lovely evening with her celebrating st Patrick's Day by drinking green beer - but I realise now she dead-named me, hurt my feelz and committed a hate crime.

Hamster00 Please, please write to your MP. Your posts are very good and I think it’s important that MP’s (and the general public) hear much more from nice, normal transsexuals. I take it you’ve done the consultation?

...and that's totally fine rightreckoner. It's totally understandable and acceptable that people do struggle. It's acceptable that people have a right to be angry and sometimes for courtesy to go out the window. Not being a woman I can't even begin to put myself in the situation of many here. I can empathise, I can try and learn and support women better but I don't have the socialisation or life experience first hand that makes sense.

Your right in absolutely everything you say. The TRAs are hurting everyone. Being deadnamed or misgendered are MINOR issues in the grand scheme of things. Anyone who is getting upset over something so trivial given the state of affairs is a massive tool tbh.

If it's in the public interest, if it's in women's or children's interest - deadname away.

hamster your post has actually made me well up. Thank you for being brilliant.

Courtesy and politeness are important. However, they aren’t always the most important thing and sometimes they prevent debate and are used to silence opposition.

There are plenty of situations where I wouldn’t discuss politics or religion. I’m not going to stand outside the local Catholic Church on a Sunday looking for an argument on abortion. However, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for me to ever express my views on abortion, even though somebody might find my views distressing.

To be honest, even calling it ‘dead naming’ is a concession too far. When did we agree to that?

I think it's very relevant to know that vociferous advocate for free access to women's spaces Jane Fae is also John Ozimek who previously directed their energy at defending extreme and violent pornography.

My gym has a poster on the wall in reception with a photo of, and quote from Cassius Clay

Can anyone advise if I need to report them to the police for deadnaming and hate crimes..?

Reading that article made me think of the phrase: history is written by the winners. Are they trying to get in first?

The right to be forgotten ruling of a few years ago lay the path for this. At the time there were a lot of protests. I mostly ignored them then (funny how the examples given are always the ones you can sympathise with - embraasing video when they were a baby - rather than the ones no one should be able to hide such as a KKK member). Now I think they were right.