So much for 'good guy' allies

[ContentiousOne]

Am blocked by Jonathon Best for leaving a mild criticism of his choice to retweet Harrop, in the stampede to condemn the direct action of JL and PP.

I have no opinion on the action, having not seen the video yet myself.

But I do strongly object to male allies retweeting woman haters in an attempt to manage their own reputations.

Neither tweet was abusive; the emotion expressed was disappointment.

So that's what our male allies think of us. Disagree, even politely, and you're out.

Don't rely on male 'allies'. Their support is conditional on never being challenged.

Well-behaved women seldom make history,

Neither tweet was abusive; the emotion expressed was disappointment.

I have to disagree that your tweets conveyed only "disappointment". You in fact accused him of retweeting Harrop in an effort at "reputation management". While that's not abusive exactly, I think most people would feel extremely insulted at the implication of manipulative dishonesty. Why not just ask him why he did it, instead of assuming the worst?

He'd given his reason earlier, anyway: I RT this because Harrop wants to suggest that GC ppl are anti trans. And it ain't true.

Seems entirely reasonable to me. The reality is that transactivists leap on any chance to smear all gender critical people as bigots, and this needs to be countered. You may disapprove of Jonathan's tactics, but turning on allies because they've phrased something a bit clumsily seems like counter-productive over-reaction to me.

What Posie and Julia did was nowhere near as intimidating as the actions of TRAs, for example at the Jam Jar pub or Hyde Park. They had a point to make, they made it, but they didn't attack, obstruct or threaten McBride, who was able to pretend to ignore them.

My issue with his retweet of that particular tweet - though our if context I agreed it was ok - was that when I read the rest of Harrops thread, it wasn't great.

Rather odd to block you though.

And anyway Sarah McBride can always go and cry on the shoulders of the Biden family and CongresmanJoe Kennedy if she feels so threatened.

www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/meet-young-smart-openly-trans-leader-making-future-brighter-sarah-mcbride-memoir/

ContentiousOne

his choice to retweet Harrop, in the stampede to condemn the direct action of JL and PP.

And another thing. I could be wrong, but I can't see on Jonathon's timeline anything that would suggest his retweeting Harrop was in any way connected with "the stampede to condemn the direct action of JL and PP".

Maybe explain?????

Posies action was effective and necessary in my opinion, but let’s be frank. Sarah does not feel threatened.

Sarah is outraged that women are resisting their erasure. Sarah wants a new dawn, where men get to be women and remove women’s sex based rights.

You really think TRAs are sad when we tell them teenage girls are cutting off their breasts as a result of their polemics? I am sure it gives them a frisson of pleasure, to know that natal women have been convinced by them to destroy something they will never have: female bodies.

This is doing my head in. The argument seems to be that JB should not retweet a tweet by Harrop that JB agrees with because Harrop has said other things that are unpleasant.

But PP should be able to share a platform with X on an issue that PP agrees with because X has said other things that are unpleasant.

(For the record I think it would be madness for GC and feminist women to have constrained freedom of association because of ideological purity.)

I can follow JB's argument. I would do differently but I was persuaded on other threads that having a diversity of opinion was a strength.

twitter.com/JonnnyBest/status/1091009218587607040

I have finally managed to catch up and see the video of PP and JL thanks to the link in this thread, and honestly I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the hoohaa.

PP and JL interrupted a lobbyist in a public place and asked them some (important and valid) questions. They were ignored and wanted to get a response. No more than is done by a group of news reporters trying to get a quote, and this was done genuinely because they want to talk about the issues. Mildly rude if about something trivial but not for serious political stuff. It was a couple of minutes of mildly provoking and on-topic questions about a valid political issue. Nothing more.

I've been in more confrontational situations about car parking.

I've also spoken up in so many tough situations and didn't think I was particularly unusual, but by this reaction maybe I am. If I wasn't in an insecure situation with an ill dependent I would be speaking up too, and I will and do if I come across this directly. Soooo many would hate me it seems!!! I'm a true uppity woman!!! But for gods sake, get a grip people. When did everything become so sanitised and controlled? The condemnation of PP is straight out of the Handmaids' Tale. No wonder the world is so ripe for an ideological take-over.

Women (and humans) speaking up has to look like this. This is grass roots activism. Not sitting back and waiting your turn (that will never come), making an appointment, or being uber-polite or meek. It was a moment to seize about something truly and hugely important. A more respectful opponent would recognise that this stuff matters and respond differently. But the trans juggernaut does not respond with respect or debate does it. It has the privilege of going largely unchallenged and bloody well mowing women down. Hence the need to engage directly.

Its just normal when stuff matters. In politics surely this is bread and butter.

I have no idea why anyone would need to condemn it. I have not read any tweets from JB or anyone so cant speak to that. But oh boo hoo, some women were mildly confrontational in a political environment. Aaaaaaand?

Jees, all this needing to call people out all the time without context or nuance gets on my wick. Adults are allowed to express opinions, agree with whoever they like, about whatever they like and do it in whatever way they so wish as long as they aren’t being, or encouraging violence. We don’t have a hymn sheet that we all must sing to. God some of us have real problems that amount to more than other people having a slightly different take on something, or expressing themselves in a different way. Let’s all push in the same direction shall we, rather than arguing about who is pushing correctly. You don’t see TRAs calling out even the most vicious and threatening behaviour, so why are people getting bent out of shape about a few angry words or a retweet? Honestly...

I would Jonathan and others to think hard about what really constitutes harassment when it comes to politics and those involved in it. No wonder politicians and lobbyists get away with so much if we think that confronting them with some hardline questions is too rude.

A lot of the handwringing is not about the tactics but who it was that used them, who was on the receiving end etc...it's not something that is applied consistently across all issues.

There seems to be a sense that women should not be rude, pushy and persistent. The left wing doesn't view Jim Acosta this way as an example.

However if there are situations women are allowed to be that way then it has to be on an approved issue - see the Senate elevator women yelling at Jeff Flake.

Many of us will be old enough to remember ACT UP and their AIDS activism. They disrupted congress, arranged to cover a Senators house in a mocked up condom, scaled the building of a Big Pharma company, chained themselves inside causing a shutdown until the CEO listened to their concerns.

All of the above is 'quite rude' but utterly necessary and we rightly look back at those activists as being brave and admire their unwillingness to backdown and play by the rules.

Ditto to whoever brought up the Suffragettes.

Sometimes it's all the 'little people' have. I suppose Posie and Julia could have gone through the proper channels and requested a sit-down with McBride. Do we think that would have happened? Or do we think they would be ignored? I lean heavily to the latter.

I don't really care how things play out on Twitter to be honest. I don't use it and I believe it's actually in decline overall as more and more people realise it's toxic and a terrible way to do politics. We won't win this war via social media, it's the real life pushback coupled with quality journalism that will make the difference in the end.

If anyone thinks Julia and Posie aren't doing it right, then get out there and do it better yourself.

We seem to have very few doers in society and ever increasing numbes of judgers who sit smugly in judgement of the doers.

Every day is a new denunciation. It is cowardly.

I love you lot.

An oasis of measured independent thinking.

I agree with all of you. I've learned a lot about how people will stampede to save themselves.

In groups I'm in there's enormous pressure to condemn one side or the other, and as things escalate it gets harder to resist, as there really does start to be something to condemn.

Perspective.

Two tiny women were a bit rude and asked questions to a powerful, wealthy, political lobbyist who's a 'member of the Biden family' and who is actively trying to abolish sex based rights.
McBride smirked whilst they asked about young girls having mastectomies and their devastated families.

I'm seeing those who have publicly and loudly distanced themselves from a pretty innocuous action in an entirely new light.

And as for characterising and condemning those 1.5 minutes as 'violence'?
All credibility of that speaker destroyed henceforth. I won't be able to read any of her words going forward without wondering whether it's actually factual, or insane hyperbole.

ContentiousOne

Can you please give an explanation of how

the stampede to condemn the direct action of JL and PP has anything whatsoever to do with Jonathon Best's retweet?

Because I can't find anything on his timeline to support that.

And also explain your justification for accusing him of an attempt to manage [his] own reputation?

Because there are numerous tweets on his timeline that make it quite clear that his retweet was in fact motivated by concern that opponents of self-ID should not be seen as transphobic, because that is damaging to the campaign against self-ID. In his own words:

What I don't like in this tweet is how Harrop (and most trans allies) talk about equal rights when they mean rights they want to remove from others - usually women. But I RT this because Harrop wants to suggest that GC ppl are anti trans. And it ain't true.

Unjustified smearing of allies (even if they do have the misfortune to be male) really isn't a good look, people.

You think retweeting Harrop at the exact same time that half of GC Twitter was running about like headless chickens shouting 'literal violence' and 'Take Posie, not me!' was a co-incidence ? ?!!

Best has been in my bad books anyway, since he decided to call anyone who had qualms about Drag Queens in library 'homophobic'.

People can do what they like on their timeline. They can retweet whom they like. But retweeting the words of that vile misogynist isn't something I'd personally like to defend.

He's not the only GC person involved in rep management over the last 24 hours, I will say that.

But none of them have retweeted Harrop in agreement.

'Some of us have real problems ' Jeez louise, some of you aren't shining lights of female solidarity.

My 'real problems' involve a partner in ICU, and scraping together money for rent, and a kid recovering from ROGD - that 'real enough' to be allowed to have an opinion ?

Isn't JB the guy who co-ordinated the petition to Stonewall? I think we can safely assume we are on the same side.

I don't know what's gotten into people this week. Everyone is laying into each other, apparently just because people are doing things in a different way to how they would themselves do it.

Everyone has a contribution to make. Not everyone can be as fearless and forthright as Posie and not everyone can be as articulate as Doc Stock or Dr Jane Clare Jones.

OP, if your activism depends on other activists always being in perfect accord with your opinions and strategies, you are in for a lifetime of disappointment.

Disagree with their opinions, strategy or tactics by all means, but extrapolating "I am disappointed that someone blocked me" to "you all need to know that this person, who we previously thought was Good, is now Bad" is not useful or helpful.

Harrop is vile, the Heritage Foundation are vile, lots of people in this fight are pretty vile. The rest of us are, well, lets say just very heavily flawed on some angles, and pretty damn perfect on others. We do what we can with strategic alliances - or, in this case, from what I can see, making use of an opponent's own words to bolster your position on the opposite side - but that's not the same as becoming best buds forever.

Jonny Best has done some absolutely stonking work which has really collectively got us further forward to what we want. I'm sure there's plenty on which Jonny and I would disagree, but jumping in to condemn him just because you are disappointed in him is not something I'm interested in doing. Perhaps there will be a point in the future where he will whip off his mask to reveal the devil beneath, but that point is not now. I'd happily buy him a pint.

Same goes for other "join me in condemning this person who is broadly on my side but does not behave at all times how I'd like them to behave" threads.

Agree archery

OK. Let's expel Jonny Best. Right, that's done, who's next?

Johnny explained what he did on his twitter feed. He also said harrop was a sexist piece of work

nauticant You said in ten words what it took me five paragraphs to do!

Tweeting the words of a vile sexist is not the right thing to do. If people want to support and back it, that's up to them.

Just don't be surprised when male allies don't turn out to be all that down the line.

I liked your post too . Once you go into expulsion mode based on some people being purer than others, the end point is fragmentation into a million and one campaigns each comprising one person.

Now, for whose benefit is that?