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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Philip Pullman is confused

32 replies

Rumbledore · 19/10/2018 10:18

twitter.com/philippullman/status/1053001990710710273?s=21
"Am I alone in finding the trans argument impossible to follow? If someone could tell me which side I should be on, it would save a lot of worry."

OP posts:
GCAcademic · 19/10/2018 10:20

How lazy. It’s that desire to be told what to think that’s caused this bloody mess in the first place.

Original poster
Rumbledore · 19/10/2018 10:20

"It's like a lot of angry people in a dark room swinging heavy sticks around with all their might. So far I'm most impressed by the voices advocating kindness."

OP posts:
Dragon3 · 19/10/2018 10:21

Get it together, Philip. He's a secularist isn't he? This shouldn't be difficult.

Bowlofbabelfish · 19/10/2018 10:22

Someone who wrote a most excellent series of books which had a strong theme of how totalitarian religion is a Very Bad Thing and how mutilating children is a Very Bad Thing can I’m sure form their own opinion on this.

Can’t they?

NowtSalamander · 19/10/2018 10:22

Bless.

Or not. You spent enough time
ranting on and on about how dangerous Christianity was as an ideology. You listened to no one asking you to just be kind on that one, Philip

NowtSalamander · 19/10/2018 10:22

Cross post, Babel

Bowlofbabelfish · 19/10/2018 10:26

I wonder how brave people like this would have been standing up to the church in the time of Galileo, when the church had real power, rather than in the twentieth century west when its fairly toothless in most countries? Or how brave they’d be in Iran?

When faced with a bit of twitter pile on, people just fold, dont they?

Honourable exceptions: the ordinary women on here.

Bowlofbabelfish · 19/10/2018 10:29

And I mean I’m sure I’d have been as cowardly as the next person if faced with the stake, but twitter can’t actually hurt you. And people telling you you’re a bigoted transphobic whatever can’t hurt you.

So why fold? Stand up. Be counted. Humans. Cannot. Change. Sex.

LangCleg · 19/10/2018 10:32

Someone who wrote a most excellent series of books which had a strong theme of how totalitarian religion is a Very Bad Thing and how mutilating children is a Very Bad Thing can I’m sure form their own opinion on this.

My thoughts precisely. Philip knows exactly what Philip thinks and is just having a wee test to see if he can say it and it's only the women writers like proto-dementia Joanne who cannot.

Pusillanimous and I expected better of him.

Didiusfalco · 19/10/2018 10:32

Oh. How disappointing that Philip Pullman has lost the ability to formulate an opinion.

gendercritter · 19/10/2018 10:35

Totally agree with you Bowl.

I'm very disappointed. Pullman is definitely clever enough to understand humans can't change sex. If he really isn't, my copies of his books will be heading to the charity shop.

NoRunAround · 19/10/2018 10:37

Oh I agree with earlier posters who say he knows exactly what he thinks. Shame he doesn't have the courage to say it.

arranfan · 19/10/2018 10:44

twitter can’t actually hurt you

I'm loth to disagree with you, Bowlofbabelfish but wasn't Posie Parker interviewed by Police for something arising from Twitter?

Womaningreen · 19/10/2018 10:47

I understand how he feels. there's so much bizarre "information" around, I can see it would take a while to understand. If I hadn't been on MN, I think I would have had a very confused stage too!

ToeToToe · 19/10/2018 10:47

Someone who wrote a most excellent series of books which had a strong theme of how totalitarian religion is a Very Bad Thing and how mutilating children is a Very Bad Thing can I’m sure form their own opinion on this.

Gosh yes! Can someone tweet that to him?

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 19/10/2018 10:48

All he will find out is what he can say on Twitter, rather than what everybody else thinks (or even, heaven forbid, what's actually true). And the more twitter silences people the less representative it becomes.

ToeToToe · 19/10/2018 10:49

He's about to head into "nasty feminists" territory, I fear.

Bowlofbabelfish · 19/10/2018 10:49

Fair point arranfan Shock

VickyEadie · 19/10/2018 10:49

"Oh, my ears and whiskers - I feel I want to day something but look at dear JKR, she was completely hounded and she's considerably richer than moi..."

MagicMix · 19/10/2018 10:59

It's a strange thing I've noticed, but a lot of the people I know or have seen publicly arguing 'the full trans orthodoxy' as I call it are actually atheists who are very critical of organised religion and things like homeopathy and pride themselves on their critical thinking skills.

Yet somehow can't see that the religion of genderism is just as much based on supernatural unproveable claims as Christianity is. Just goes to show how important the packaging is when it comes to belief systems.

Gncq · 19/10/2018 10:59

Unfortunately the comments are mostly depressingly stupid.

Including "Gender is a construct that humans made up. If some folks are a different gender to the one we assume they are, we should listen to them rather than running for our pitchforks"

Or how about we drop the whole crap and recognise people can have all sorts of personalities but sex matters...

But Glinner is on!

ApocalypseNowt · 19/10/2018 11:13

I went to see a stand up comedian a couple of nights ago and there was at least 4 jokes aimed squarely at all the gender fluid/trans malarkey. Damn shame he's not really on Twitter.

silentcrow · 19/10/2018 11:14

I was so disappointed with this when I saw it last night, I almost can't bear to see where it's gone today.

Poet Rachel Rooney has challenged him on the "women be nice" point, though, and I know she's already taken some crap from a certain TRA. If anyone's brave it's her.

Original poster
Rumbledore · 19/10/2018 11:17

but Glinner is on

After the pileon Philip has probably climbed back into his box

OP posts:
BigotedWoman · 19/10/2018 11:44

But Posie was interviewed in relation to a comment about a specific person, as was Graham Linehan. So as long as Philip Pullman keeps it vague he should be fine. Also he's a man.

So he's both lazy and cowardly atm.