A salute to Hadley Freeman

[NotBadConsidering]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/06/sport-trans-martina-navratilova

Some brilliant embedded links too, google images, Maria Miller etc.

Niiiiice! for Hadders

Bravo! I'm convinced Hadley reads Mumsnet.

Great article. Good for you, Hadley.

It's worth pointing out that there's more responsible for this debacle than Maria Miller though. She just jumped on a bandwagon that had been rolling for years.

Excellent! Lots of great points. To me this sums things up:

“But if – as the transgender movement rightly argues – sex and gender are two separate things, why should single sex suddenly mean single gender?”

Bravo Hadders!

Next: the scandal of hormone blockers please.

“But if – as the transgender movement rightly argues – sex and gender are two separate things, why should single sex suddenly mean single gender?”

Yes pinching this for future arguments with the woke.

I can imagine that it’s hard being a thinking woman at the Guardian these days. Nice one Hadley.

" Miller set off a savage culture war in which the losers were women, trans and not,"

It was brilliant until we got to this line, that's just another way to say 'transwomen are women'

And in the Guardian too

What a brilliant article. Thank you, Hadley!!!

There was a post on another thread that got me thinking. How much of this is being led from behind by the Civil Service advising politicians? Maybe even those at senior level with, shall we say, a 'personal interest' in getting these changes through?

That said I think she’s made some odd points:

Feminists and the LGBT movement are usually allies, and yet they have become antagonists on this issue – and if there’s one person in this country who has, at the very least, exacerbated this, it’s Maria Miller

This article ignores lesbian erasure and presents the LGBT movement as unified on the genderist agenda, which we know is is not.

Maria Miller will have been lobbied massively by multiple TRA organisations. Entirely consistent that someone who seeks to reduce women’s rights in other areas would happily undermine women in this area. She also may not be very good at thinking things through to their logical conclusions on top of that- because supporting gender self ID is such a completely obvious vote-loser if you have spent more than 1 second considering how it might affect women.

Also I don’t really understand Hadley’s point about it being a wrong move to seek to define who is a woman. This is key- not being able to define this confidently- or confidently being able to claim whatever the fuck you like, as fact- by creating a toxic, threatening atmosphere around any discussion of women’s needs in this clash of rights, is what has led us into this mess.

‘although this criticism came largely from a relatively unknown cyclist’ is my favourite sentence, that must hurt a male ego.

Lovely piece Hadley, thank you.

I hope that your colleagues on The Guardian treat you well, I have visions of a busy, loud, typewriters clattering newsroom, straight from the 1950s, coming to an abrupt halt when you appear, and you, head held high, walk bravely across that silent office to your desk, where you file your copy, and leave.

(I’m sure, that in reality you push ‘send’ From your laptop.)

Mostly excellent, but she does pull her punches. It’s not a complicated issue, it’s a simple one; don’t allow men to participate in women’s sports.

Pleased she got in a dig at little OJ with “wrong side of history”.

Thank you Hadley.

The highlight for me was the take down of her own newspaper:
The media, terrified of being on the wrong side of history, responded predictably - cut to a 'Martina criticised' Guardian headline.

And this made me chortle too: Strikingly, no one explains why, if biology doesn’t matter, no male athletes are worried about trans men competing against them.

I agree with Chattylion, its a decent enough article but lots wrong too

Hadley's conclusion is that Maria Miller has played divide and rule between two different kinds of women by starting a culture war

" But if – as the transgender movement rightly argues – sex and gender are two separate things, why should single sex suddenly mean single gender?"

this however beautifully words the argument, I shall be borrowing it.

An excellent article. And pleased to see that she calls out that awful 'Martina criticised' headline.

a relatively unknown cyclist, Rachel McKinnon I can hear the rage from here

It's great that it's in the guardian and will be read by lots of people who get their woke news there and serves as a bridge to more in depth analysis/research ...

And then she quotes McKinnon’s statement that lesbians such as Navratilova should “get over their genital hang-ups” when it comes to choosing sexual partners. Love that bit.

Yes, she called out her own paper for their poor reporting, highlighted that McKinnon is being given far more time than McKinnon deserves and has a history of what is essentially homophobia in telling lesbians to “get over their genital hang ups”, points out the size difference between these people and calls out, without giving him the satisfaction of naming him, a man who reports for the Independent and is misogynistic. I imagine getting that through was a challenge. Agree there are some things that could be different, but I’m sure Hadley will read suggestions here and take them on board [waves to Hadley] .

So much respect for Hadley. It wasn’t so long ago that she was pretty much the only GC journalist putting articles out into the mainstream press - I remember when it was only really her and Janice T in the Times that would dare publish this stuff, the rest was confined to Wordpress etc.

She also linked this tweet to her tweet containing the article

mobile.twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1103199514553446401

McKinnon using the "I'm not saying it but I have just said it" argument?

does he really teach philospohy?

what does he specialize in? pub arguments?