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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Lighthouse 'radical' bookshop Edinburgh makes a statement on 'no platform'

167 replies

Laterthanyouthink · 17/02/2019 09:38

www.lighthousebookshop.com/2019/02/16/to-platform-or-not-to-platform-where-we-stand.html

I cannot get my head around this at all, a bookshop should be the last place to find censorship

OP posts:
Juells · 19/02/2019 18:36

*they'll still engage with everyone without judging what they're buying.

How sloppy of them. They're just not trying.

littlbrowndog · 19/02/2019 22:05

Oh haha

Justhadathought · 19/02/2019 23:04

Must admit I've never set foot in a feminist bookshop, and wouldn't have thought it was a viable business idea anyway, but to have a feminist bookshop and then decide to make it even more niche by making it all about men beggars belief.

'News From Nowhere' is a radical bookshop in Liverpool, which has ben in business since the 1970's. It is a women's co-operative with a non hierarchical structure. It stocks radical books, as well as a range of other literature; children's books; gifts; greeting cards; but also folk & world music; DVD's etc. It has always been the go-to place for feminist texts; but also stocks political, psychological, spiritual texts across a wide spectrum of interest. A successful and long-standing business with a lot of respect in its community.

Juells · 20/02/2019 09:31

Yeah, but that sounds like a fun place, where you wouldn't have people trying to educate and improve you Grin

nellieellie · 20/02/2019 10:03

This is scary. So, no discussion about whether a man who says he thinks he is a woman IS a woman. Or we are denying human rights.

“It is not “shutting down the debate” if we refuse to discuss, for example, whether trans women are women; to hold such a debate would itself be immoral. No serious discussion is ever held in progressive circles about whether human rights should apply to all human beings, for example, because a truly just society should stand upon certain bedrock principles which are not up for debate. Such is the case here, as far as we at Lighthouse are concerned.”

Justhadathought · 20/02/2019 10:19

No serious discussion is ever held in progressive circles about whether human rights should apply to all human beings, for example, because a truly just society should stand upon certain bedrock principles which are not up for debate. Such is the case here, as far as we at Lighthouse are concerned.

Which of course spectacularly misses the point. Nobody want to deny human and civil rights for anyone. But trying force a falsity; a biological impossibility on to everyone is counter to their human and cvil rights. Nobody is denying anyone's ability to express themselves in any way; to dress how they like; to name themselves what they like - but you cannot force the world to confirm your personal feelings about personal identity through legislation. Where would this end if everyone could self identify as anything or in any way they chose? Age? Race? Nationality? That would be nonsense, and utterly unworkable.

IDoN0tCare · 20/02/2019 11:20

But it’s perfectly acceptable to deny the human rights of actual women? Ok. We get you. Hmm

morningtoncrescent62 · 20/02/2019 20:25

“It is not “shutting down the debate” if we refuse to discuss, for example, whether trans women are women; to hold such a debate would itself be immoral."

Nope, it's not immoral but it's pointless. On the one hand you'll have the people who understand biological reality gender-critical feminists who'll insist that men cannot become women however much they might want to, and on the other you'll have TRAs and others who have lost touch with reality screaming that there's no debate and anyone who says there is must be a fascist. So there's very little point in discussing it and I don't blame you for not bothering. But let's not pretend it's immoral.

"No serious discussion is ever held in progressive circles about whether human rights should apply to all human beings, for example, because a truly just society should stand upon certain bedrock principles which are not up for debate."

Agreed. As all the GC feminists I've ever read or spoken to have also said. But applying human rights universally is very different from the claim that 'transwomen are women'. You make a mockery of human rights by suggesting equivalence.

How about some serious discussion of women/trans people in sports (there's lots of ambiguities left to discuss like how transmen can be enabled to compete fairly), or as this is Scotland how the census can be framed to protect the privacy and dignity of trans people whilst still providing the robust data that policy makers need, or how gender should be taught in schools, or any other of the really serious discussions that should be happening in progressive circles, but aren't because people like you are saying no debate? Just a thought. But hey, I have absolutely no place in your bookshop or at any of your events for saying such a thing.

Alicethroughtheblackmirror · 22/02/2019 17:05

Their in-house woke bloke is making a prat of himself on Twitter applauding the Glasgow Women's Library bailing on the audacious women event. twitter.com/Andrewscott222/status/1098938600551563264?s=20

Apparently, he thinks women's only spaces are great but only as he allows and only if we broaden the definition of women.

So: beard, believes GNC males are women, wants control women's boundaries, believes in censorship. I think he'd do well in Iran.

littlbrowndog · 22/02/2019 17:25

Beardy man trying to control women where they meet who to include what they talk about
Man trying to control women
Again

Sam3 old man stuff just dressing it up in different special wokie words 🙍‍♀️

HamiltonCork · 22/02/2019 17:30

Woke Bros always seem very comfortable in telling women what to think, feel and say.

OldCrone · 22/02/2019 17:51

As someone said on another thread:

Nothing illustrates more vividly the subordination of women than men deciding who can be one.

youllhavehadyourtea · 22/02/2019 18:37

Notice the same phrase used by both beardywokebloke ( in linked twitter thread above ) and LilaJude .

We’re doing just fine

Methinks previous posters were right calling Lilajude out as the new owner.

Alicethroughtheblackmirror · 22/02/2019 19:34

youllhavehadyourtea interesting...

He's very keen to point out that it's his partner who runs the shop. But when a "radical" bookshop becomes mired in the misogyny and the need to censor women's voices and attack their boundaries which exactly mirrors the sexism exhibited by woke bloke here, one does question who is pulling the strings!

IDoN0tCare · 22/02/2019 22:11

I really did laugh at this.

How do those semen-frosted virtue cookies taste?

Grin
littlbrowndog · 22/02/2019 22:25

och it’s just a shop
Nowt more
Nowt special

DancelikeEmmaGoldman · 22/02/2019 23:33

This is really apropos of nothing in the thread, but since both Orwell and bookshops are getting a mention, I offer you Orwell’s essay about his time working in a bookshop. He was the Bernard Black of his day and bookshops, and their customers, haven’t changed that much.
orwell.ru/library/articles/bookshop/english/e_shop

I have a long history with bookshops, including radical bookshops, and my heart hurts that a radical bookshop would be more interested in “safe spaces”, than free thought. Bookshops ought to be dangerous places, where you bump into challenges to your thinking on every shelf. More so a radical bookshop, who’s precarious existence depends upon carrying the weird, unpopular, niche and sometimes, frankly offensive.

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