Is this an about-face from The Guardian?

[NopeNi]

Well fuck me I wouldn't have expected to read this in the Guardian.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it still focuses on rights for transwomen and calls both sides of the debate "toxic" (of course) but it also says:

..."But misogyny too must be challenged. Gender identity does not cancel out sex. Women’s oppression by men has a physical basis, and to deny the relevance of biology when considering sexual inequality is a mistake. The struggle for women’s empowerment is ongoing. Reproductive freedoms are under threat and the #MeToo campaign faces a backlash. Women’s concerns about sharing dormitories or changing rooms with “male-bodied” people must be taken seriously. These are not just questions of safety but of dignity and fairness."

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/the-guardian-view-on-the-gender-recognition-act-where-rights-collide

Yes, it must be so disappointing to read a newspaper saying over and again that women are nasty meanies who don't matter and then printing a few paragraphs saying they might have a point about some things.

If you're a raving woman-hater.

Decades of supporting Labour, reading the Guardian and being a supporter of Stonewall. All gone. No more support, money or time from me. Everything redirected to what I would have seen as the 'right wing' press yet who have proved to be the defenders of democracy and free speech as well as providing genuinely excellent investigative journalism.

And as so many others have said - massive respect to Justine and MNHQ. She could have switched us all off but chose not to and even though I regret the nature of the moderation of this issue, we can all see writ large the excessive bullying and intimidation that Mumsnet must have been hit with.

And as for the Grauniad - too little and too late.

And as so many others have said - massive respect to Justine and MNHQ.

Yes. Sometimes I get crabby when the trolls and sock puppets show up and moderation seems lax but, yes. Thank you, Justine and MNHQ.

Yes, it must be so disappointing to read a newspaper saying over and again that women are nasty meanies who don't matter and then printing a few paragraphs saying they might have a point about some things

This!!

Re: The Guardian

I don't want it to spontaneously combust. Mainly because it IS still the the only broadsheet on the left and that counters some of the more right wing stuff in the Telegraph. We NEED a plurality in a democracy.

The guardian HAS reported a lot of other issues and areas over the last couple of years that I do regard as important. Particularly in reference to data protection, privacy and the use /misuse of big data.

So no matter how pissed I am at the lilly livered crap Reverse Ferret, I AM pleased to see this reminder to its self (as well as its readers) what its responsibility as a newspaper actually is.

It should help to calm everything down, even if it takes a pasting in the meantime.

But the Guardian need to know they have A LOT to do to restore trust that it has broken in spouting crap in an uncritical fashion and dispensing with engaging with readers and centring the concerns of readers.

I support The Guardian in this sense. That does not stop me being very, very angry with it. It didn't take its responsibility seriously and has let the public down. A newspaper which doesn't understand this, is simply pure propaganda and is a dangerous threat to democracy.

Here's some more from the Journosummit:

NewsworksUK @newsworksuk
Freddie Mayhew: Is it possible to do quality journalism in the digital age? Yes, absolutely says @emmayoule - "there's a real appetite for original journalism that is properly research, that gives people to voices that don't have them" #journosummit18

We don't want dumbed down shit! Well theres a shocker. I wonder who has seen MNs traffic figures by forum and the popularity of politics.

Press Gazette @pressgazette
We're seeing more great use of pictures in digital journalism - graphics, sketches and cartoons. You want to break up your content to make it make sense to your readers, Paul Foot award-winning Emma Youle says in discussion about quality journalism online. #journosummit18

Step forward and take a bow SandyDrawsBadly! You rock.

Press Gazette @pressgazette
Emma Youle: One of the early questions for me is who will be affected by this and how do we tell their stories. "That for me is right at the heart." #journosummit18

Cue Hallejulah Rift

Press Gazette @pressgazette
Emma Youle: The storytelling might not always be within your own site - journalists are often tweeting about stories too to create more of an audience. "I think it's really intuitive." #journosummit18

JOURNALISTS NEED EACH OTHER. They need others from across the political spectrum. They aid each other and make debate by having that plurality. This drives public debate.

And BOOM:

Press Gazette @pressgazette
Newstatesman digital editor Jasper Jackson on the power of Reddit when growing an online readership: "Reddit is one of the biggest traffic drivers ... but you can't have a strategy for Reddit, it just doesn't work that way." #journosummit18

You could replace Reddit with MN - though perhaps not to quite the same extent - its about the importance and power of forum based discussions. MN drives traffic to news content. MN's power is within this dynamic. And because MN is women focused, its will drive women related stories more naturally. Forum based sites, CAN NOT be ignored by the press.

The Guardian CAN NOT ignore what is said on MN.

We've known this all along, but there it is. Right there in that tiny tweet. And thats why you have a Guardian Reverse Ferret.

Press Gazette @pressgazette
Newstatesman digital editor Jasper Jackson: "Data is not going to be able to tell why people pay you, keep paying you and become a loyal subscriber." #journosummmit18

What did MN ask a couple of weeks ago? This EXACT question.

Press Gazette @pressgazette
Maeve McClenaghan on future: "More and more we're going to have to make sure our products are differentiated enough from the lower quality clickbaity stuff to keep people engaged." People are starting to recognise stuff that has value amongst internet noise. #journosummit18

Who would have thought it. Twitter and 280 character slogans, don't cut it in the long run.

I've thought that for a long time. If you want to get a message through and a nuanced complex argument through, its a LONG HARD SLOG. You will never achieve it in a twitter spat. You have to keep on trying and keep on plugging.

Arrhhh. This conference is sweet music to my ears. Its long over due and utterly fascinating.

As long as the Guardian talks about "trans women and other women" I shall take their stance with a damn great sackful of salt.

What is wrong with "trans women and women"? It's accurate.

What the journos forget is, of course, that they can only be as diverse as their backgrounds. They won‘t address that though, cause they might have to swap their job with someone like Lisa Muggridge.

I'm another poster who is grateful that Justine & MN hosted this debate. There have been plenty of times in the last few years where MN has been the only mainstream site to even allow discussion and that has been the starting point for many women to explore and debate this matter. It's frequently been the only place for women to read another view and that has been hugely important as a starting point.

I'm not blind to the fact that MN having the courage to keep this part of the platform open is due, in no small fact, to posters themselves who have, over the years, provided debate, information and perspective and have ensured that MNHQ is more aware of the nuances of this particular discussion than most. I think they've had to find their own way to support women and allow free speech without allowing that to infringe overly on the views and indeed, rights, of others. Sometimes support is what happens behind the scenes and not out front.

I'm also less inclined to hammer the likes of the Guardian because it's become clear the extent to which the TRA machine has been effective. We have a political culture that we're all responsible for and we've allowed social media to become the modern day equivalent of the stocks. An unthinking comment can result in worldwide vilification of private individuals - no trial, no investigation, just instant demonisation. TRAs have capitalised on this.

They have been funded. They have been organised and manipulative from the outset. They have changed tactics and strategy when necessary and they have played groups off against each other in a way that we've never seen in the UK before. They have ensured that they were influencers long before most of us knew that kind of campaigning and advertising existed. All of the successful campaigns by feminists have been studied and used by TRAs against women - we unwittingly gave them the tools to build themselves up and they took them and ran with it.

When it became clear that the bathroom issue was losing traction, they switched to comparing themselves to the LGB struggle. When they lost ground with that position, they switched their angle to children. When they lost ground with that position, they've switched to 'TERF's are men, not women'. They are now referring to Orwell and being silenced using the exact same arguments that we've all been using for the past few years. It's textbook TRA strategy to question who is behind the resistance to their agenda and to suggest that there are dark, shady movements at work funding this resistance. They know damn well that it's a bunch of indignant women who are throwing all the loose change they have at it but that doesn't suit their public narrative. It's not a coincidence that after years of threatening women, that they are now rewriting history by pretending that TERFs are men and they're scared of them. We told them that men were the threat and now they're pretending that that is what they have been scared of all along.

They're not going away. They are going to regroup yet again and come back with a different but yet another heartrending depiction of transpeople that our media is not going to be able to reject or ignore. They are invested in this and have created an army of vulnerable people who genuinely believe the narrative that their lives are in danger and that they're hated. They are the ones we need to look to if we want to change how this ends up because they are the ones that the media, the police, the woke bros believe are in need of protection.

This working together across political differences sounds quite funny when it is upper middle class reaching out to upper middle class that has a false leftie identity.

It's not just that the Guardian missed the story. They actively silenced women trying to point it out to them, quickly and comprehensively deleting ANY comments suggesting women had a stake in this debate.

Absolutely this.

Thank you for reminding me about the comment deletions too, I had forgotten that.

I hope the writer of this article (do we know who it was?) gets a job somewhere good once the Guardian disappears into the sunset with LOJ.

I'm also less inclined to hammer the likes of the Guardian because it's become clear the extent to which the TRA machine has been effective. We have a political culture that we're all responsible for and we've allowed social media to become the modern day equivalent of the stocks. An unthinking comment can result in worldwide vilification of private individuals - no trial, no investigation, just instant demonisation. TRAs have capitalised on this.

The TRAs traded on and relied on others acting in good faith and with trust. They took that and have acting in a way which totally exploited that good nature and they abused the position of trust that Stonewall had built up over many years.

This owes a lot to the public being naive and just being generally good people who haven't been exposed to the shit out there in the world. Its born of privilidge.

We live in world in which in the last couple of weeks a journalist was dismembered whilst still alive in an embassy on foreign soil, whilst the leader of the free world was probably aware of what was about to happen.

This is the back drop and the context of freedom. The Stasi. Nazis. Stalin. Saudis. Taliban. Iraq. China. All in which freedom of speech and expression ceased to exist and genuine oppression which got / gets you killed exists.

The Glulag comments and the santisation of Communism need to also be taken very seriously in this context.

They're not going away. They are going to regroup yet again and come back with a different but yet another heartrending depiction of transpeople that our media is not going to be able to reject or ignore. They are invested in this and have created an army of vulnerable people who genuinely believe the narrative that their lives are in danger and that they're hated. They are the ones we need to look to if we want to change how this ends up because they are the ones that the media, the police, the woke bros believe are in need of protection.

This. Yes. This.

Keep on keeping on. Its going to get crazier.

Oh yeah, and the opinion polls are showng that the Labour vote is suffering a decline which I suspect is largely from the centre left, revolted by suppression of opinion across a number of subjects. The trans debate is a particular demoralising issue to women voters who might consider voting labour.

This is due to a large 'don't know' group, of whom, women are a particularly high percentage being discounted in polling.

The Labour gamble is that when push comes to shove the don't knows will vote Labour anyway, because they want to keep the Tories out and the thought that the Tories are worse.

My suspicion is actually that lots of women in this group, won't do that. They will stay home thinking it makes fuck all difference.

Labour, despite the Cons current car crash haven't made a polling break though. They didn't even get a post conference bounce in the polls which is normal.

They have cause to be concerned, and yes the left need to get a grip on this.

I don’t usually post on this board. But I have to agree with a PP.

There is clearly big money and some big interests behind this sudden outbreak of legislation, which is being pushed through, and not just here.

Why do we suddenly find ourselves fighting a battle that didn’t even exist a short time ago? How come legislation is being pushed through which is not widely supported (understatement) and the public has never asked for? Why has the media stopped critically examining people and material, and started jumping blindly on any bandwagon that rolls in?

Because someone is throwing money at it. It didn’t appear out of nowhere.

I feel that we must tackle the immediate arguments and at the same time look behind the noise, and question exactly where these things are really coming from, and why.

Fantastic posts here, so great to read. Thank you. I have been reading Mumsnet FWR for a few months and it is/has been so informative.

I was also extremely disappointed in the Guardian and BBC. I am furious at them now and will never go back to reading/clicking/watching either. I too have taken out subs to The Times and Spectator.

I think Labour has always excluded women, except for brief windows in history. When Labour and the Trade Union movement got underway, they excluded women then. All the ‘working men’s clubs’ etc.

I am politically homeless. I was never and will never vote Tory/LibDems/Greens etc, but I will never vote Labour again either.

Journalism has changed dramatically from my day. There are far fewer paid jobs now. Subs (or sub editors) correct spelling/grammatical errors as well as ones of fact, plus tighten up waffle and cut to length. There are hardly any subs now, and I notice the difference.

Many smaller sites don't pay professionals. Instead they use enthusiastic amateurs who are only too pleased to provide free content just for a byline.

Then there's the intern issue. Anyone who can afford to work for nothing in central London is immensely privileged. The working class women (and men) who got into journalism decades ago wouldn't stand a chance.

The advent of student loans changed priorities. Who, these days, would study History of Art? Philosophy? Or Journalism?
The young want to know their debt will equip them for a career. I suspect that only those from certain backgrounds, or with contacts, are willing to take such a high stakes gamble. There seems to be a lot more overt nepotism now.

How come legislation is being pushed through which is not widely supported (understatement) and the public has never asked for? ... Because someone is throwing money at it. It didn’t appear out of nowhere.
Has this been answered anywhere? It's weird about this legislation. There hasn't been a general push for it, yet suddenly it's here. Why? (There's probably a thread on it, but I've not been here long.)

I'm also less inclined to hammer the likes of the Guardian because it's become clear the extent to which the TRA machine has been effective. We have a political culture that we're all responsible for and we've allowed social media to become the modern day equivalent of the stocks. An unthinking comment can result in worldwide vilification of private individuals - no trial, no investigation, just instant demonisation. TRAs have capitalised on this.

No. The Guardian deserves a right bollocking. I think TRAs are actually a product of leftist-endorsed identity politics and misunderstood intersectionality themselves. As Rose of Dawn noted, why is it that TRAs seem to be ideologically aligned with the far-left? How does that relate to the Guardian (who are also pretty left, what with people like Owen Jones travelling in first class with Jess Bradley and toasting luxury communism)? This isn't a random group of people who have hijacked a "free thinking" institution. The rot of toxic purity politics and "punch a TERF Nazi" was already there. TRAs are more like a byproduct. With trans ideology it is easier for ordinary people to point out that their claims that a man is a woman are absurd. Like Lisa Muggeridge clearly notes, the media class and elite institutions have created a little bubble for themselves of people who share the same background and education. They pretend to speak for the "ordinary folks" but cannot not hear the cries from vulnerable people, especially women. This is exactly why charities like Amnesty, are falling for the same crap - their ostensibly "left-wing" way of thinking already aligns at some level with the extreme "I identify as the most marginalized of all people, and if you disagree you're a bigot" rhetoric of TRAs. I think they share the same schools of thought. It's not deliberately malicious, but it's not actually benefiting anyone except the people who want to feel good about themselves because they want to be seen as morally superior. Open debate and investigation of controversial issues should not be labelled "right-wing".

I think the "leftists" need to wake the fuck up to the fact that their behaviour and blindness to defending actual liberal principles like free speech, freedom of consciousness, freedom of assembly, and listening to the concerns of normal people risks us all falling into a very dark place indeed.

This is why I find this battle so important - it is literally about the re-definition in society of the fundamental facts of human life. We are in a ridiculous place of arguing about the existence of reproductive SEX - the process that gave birth to every single one of us. If we cannot talk about this openly and honestly, then we have NO hope of defending truth. Absolutely NONE. We should not have gotten into a position where the Guardian begrudgingly acknowledges that biological sex still exists and that it matters!

The fact that "leftist" thinkers in important institutions cannot acknowledge the basic differences between males and females is actually the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed. Totalitarianism doesn't even begin to cut it.

Honestly.

I think this is what then spurs on the political polarization, because everyone who hasn't been brainwashed completely can SEE that men are not the same as women, but only "right wing" people will say it out loud. So more people start listening to the "right." The clashes get worse, people keep getting frustrated, and you get protest votes because the thinking class are so disconnected from the rest of society.

It is not just the TRAs we need to worry about. It is the whole system, and the quasi-religious demand for political orthodoxy which has given rise to this insanity. In my view, we need to start with the so-called "left," get everyone back to basics, and all come back to the middle where we can talk to each other again.

Because if these people can be so completely blind as to the importance of biological SEX, then they can basically make anything up. And that's dangerous as FUCK.

I see this all as an argument over much more than just sex/gender or left/right. It's about authoritarianism versus liberalism, how we can listen to each other, talk to each other, and live together in a pluralistic society. It's about how our institutions are working or failing. It's about how we can get to a place where we all acknowledge that each one of us will look at the world slightly differently. It's about how we actually treat women and minorities. It's about the whole facts versus feelings question. And who knows what the influence is of any forces trying to significantly impact our democratic processes.

All I know is that I think the trans demands versus female rights debate is symbolic of something much deeper that afflicts our society right now. Women and vulnerable people are always at risk of getting fucked over. That's why I REALLY care.

I feel that we must tackle the immediate arguments and at the same time look behind the noise, and question exactly where these things are really coming from, and why

I agree. There have been some quite loony conspiracy theories doing the rounds online for a while now. And while I’m no tin foil hat brigade, I do think there is a bigger agenda here. The question is: whose?

I'm also less inclined to hammer the likes of the Guardian

I'm not. I'm more inclined to hammer the likes of the Guardian.

I'm not the biggest fan of Chomsky but manufacturing consent via faux progressive establishment liberalism is blindingly obvious when it comes to transactivism.

The Guardian and the BBC are more to blame, not less.

Great posts Heresyandwitchcraft, LangCleg and of course RedToothBrush. An intelligent and insightful thread.

for all of you!

There's something that we're all missing and I don't know what it is.

I do believe that the whole TRA agenda is simply a different manifestation of sexism and homophobia so I think it predates all the liberal handwringing and consciousness raising. I think what we're seeing is simply social media freeing the beast.

We're constrained, rightly or wrongly, when dealing face to face or with named people. The likes of Twitter removes that. People don't have to account for or even see the damage their words do. That's freeing to minority voices but it's a massively destructive and powerful weapon in the hands of men who hate women.

The bit that's missing however, in my view, is why the simple premise that women and girls are going to be harmed is not having much of an impact. Have we been duped about how serious people are about treating women equally ? What message have transactivists been able to get across or what soft spot in the liberal belly have they gone after that we've missed ?

Prawnofthepatriarchy & heresyandwitchcraft, YES.

Re. the ‘bigger agenda’ several posters have mentioned; I think one is definitely the Big Pharma and biomedics fields. Drug companies are desperately looking for new markets right now, because a lot (not all, of course) of the drugs they manufactured are turning out to be not very good/harmful or just useless. Imagine a massive new market of children and young people wanting to ‘transition’; the surgery, the drugs, the hormones, the therapy to cope with all the mind bending etc - it would be their dream! Quite a few politicians have connections to the pharmaceutical industry.

And the biomedics field; artificial wombs. Who needs women at all then?!

I also think in the UK a lot of this is due to the class system. As Prawn says, there is a lot more overt nepotism now, and people from less privileged backgrounds can no longer get to do things they would once have had the chance to do. Acting and journalism are prime examples.

I just don't see the Big Pharma thing, as it's just too small compared with lucrative other markets. And many of these activists are not really interested in true transition.

Heresy. I agree. For a while now I've honestly wondered if we are sleepwalking into a totalitarian state.

And it's a global shift. Freedom of speech is being systematically eroded worldwide. And liberal values are under threat from the very institutions - the Guardian, BBC and Channel 4 among others - that claim to be the torchbearers of liberalism. It is frightening.