The Guardian

[ElfrideSwancourt]

I have a close friend who has 2 DD and I had always sort of assumed she would be gc.

Last time I mentioned the subject to her she was all 'but what about people who are born in the wrong body' so I let the subject drop.

When I saw her recently the subject came up again and she said she disagreed with me (fine) so I talked about my concerns in terms of boundaries - mine being if you have a penis I don't give a shit how you identify but please stay out of female toilets/changing rooms etc.

She then went quiet and the conversation changed. Something she said reminded me that she's a long time Guardian reader and it all made sense - all those years of reading it has really affected the views of someone who otherwise would be very gc - she's definitely a feminist and agrees that gender is a social construct - - bollocks--.

Don't have any conclusions but wondering if anyone else has had any similar experience?

I will keep dropping gc comments into our conversations though - and keep talking about boundaries.

Arrgh I did put in paragraphs sorry the app has removed them 😞

Put basically it's social conditioning.

I'm a lifelong Guardian reader and as GC a feminist as you can be.

Good for you Jen

Are you happy with their reporting of the issues?

I assume she's not on MN then? For a long time I was sceptical about how far the Guardian had gone because it didn't seem that visible to me. Then I started following the Guardian on Twitter and realised not a day goes by where there isn't a transgender story told from a particular perspective that's being promoted. I can see the issue if it's her main source.

No afaik she's not on mumsnet.

What’s your paper of choice then OP? I read the guardian online because it’s free but will buy the Saturday Times occasionally and have free access to 2 articles a week online for both Times and Telegraph. I don’t expect to agree with everything anyone prints.
Times this week was praising what Michael Gove did for education for example.

I noticed that articles now talk about trans women, not transwomen,

I find the Grauniad's reporting shallow and biased, often barely scraping the surface of complex subjects and rarely (if ever) daring to tell it like it is on gc matters. Way too much woke shite and a seemingly deliberate avoidance of truth and facts. But I still read it.

I am also very vocal in real life about the erosion of women's rights and the ramifications of self-ID. The widespread ignorance about what's happening is deeply worrying.

My first question in any of these debates is - how can women's rights be defined and protected if the definition of "woman" is changed to include men?

That's right. They can't.

Neuroscientists tend to agree that the whole notion of an essential ‘self’, gendered or otherwise, is an illusion.

There’s a shit-load of processing going on up there and we tell ourselves stories about ourselves that make us think of ourselves as a consistent, coherent entity.

We aren’t really as deep as we think we are.

It’s interesting listening to people like Sam Harris talk about this. He’s a scientist (and very vocal atheist) but he’s very influenced by Buddhism and practices meditation. He’s also experimented with psychedelics. He’s very much about surrendering your sense of self but not in some religious or hippy sense that the self is some kind of spirit independent of the body. It’s very much rooted in biology.

Daniel Dennett, another prominent atheist, writes about this too. Harris and Dennett disagree on things like free will (Harris is a determinist; Dennett is a comparabilist) but they agree that there isn’t really a ‘self’ innthe way it is popularly meant.

And if there isn’t an essential self, there isn’t an essentially gendered self either.

I'm a lifelong Guardian reader and as GC a feminist as you can be

I can only say you must stand firm, then - because the Guardian simply never prints, or reports, on anything that is remotely GC. Even when a woman loses her job because she says men can't become women, and a campaign is launched which raises thousands of pounds for her legal defence.

I do still look in at The Guardian- but it frustrates and annoys the hell out of me. I see it becoming less & less about journalism and more & more about political allegiances and right-on view points.

There are still a few writers I do really like, though.

What’s your paper of choice then OP?

I changed over to The Times, but that annoys the hell out of me too -apart from Janice and one or two others. It is fusty & conservative.
As with voting at elections, I can't find any news outlet that I can feel that good about.

I noticed that articles now talk about trans women, not transwomen,

Really? So introducing another level of confusion.

Try the FT just. Excellent unbiased journalism. I went over to it after abandoning the Guardian and never looked back.

Maybe send your friend a link to a Rachel Ivey talk online OP? That's what peaked me. I probably had finished saying "but they're born in the wrong body" one minute and "ohhhhhhhh" the next, after watching. Forever grateful to my critical thinking friend for that. It's interesting how people can be swayed by supernatural notions over reality, I was and I'm an atheist.

Another one for the FT - we do the crossword on the Guardian website and I even sent them money (for the Cambridge Analytica stuff). But their need to pander to the American anti-trump side of things (and Roz Keveney, apparently) really annoyed me. Just as their coverage (!) of the correctness of the Iraq war annoyed me and I switched to another paper then...

This is what happens when you only read one news source. You will never get the full story. You need to read different newspapers, magazines, blogs, social media, and watch different news programmes. In her case, probably all you can do is be prepared with answers and examples, especially ones that are relevant to her life.

I was just like her until the GRA consultation. I had thought the "bathroom debate" was ridiculous. Then I saw the Stonewall umbrella, the TWAW mantra, realised there were transwomen who are fully intact bearded males, saw the aggression, all of it, and completely changed my views.

"Born in the wrong body" - yes, people with gender dysphoria feel that, but 80% of transwomen keep (and use) their male genitalia, so they can't find their bodies that wrong.

I stopped my Guardian subscription over this too. But I appreciate Hadley Freeman and Suzanne Moore. Can’t be easy being GC there.

The Guardian has become the Wokedian IME. I never thought I'd say this but the DM often talks more sense on GC issues at least.

Op I was just like your friend under 2 years ago. What surprises me is how hard it is to remember what changed my mind. How I couldn't have seen the truth hidden in plain sight. One casualty is the Guardian subscription as I cannot fully trust them now. I do think most rational people will get there eventually (although some may decide that it's in their own best interests to carry on saying the lie). Your conversation may have started a thought process.

Neuroscientists tend to agree that the whole notion of an essential ‘self’, gendered or otherwise, is an illusion

always I remember hearing the end of a book review on R4 about a book where the author argued our identity, sense of self, is made up moment to moment and anything deeper is an illusion. Could that have been one of the authors you mention? I meant to find out more as the little scrap I heard I found intensely liberating. A bit like the feeling of insignificance I feel when thinking about space. I think I like these thoughts as it renders all humans equally insignificant and opens up the question "so how do we build our society?"

I do think most rational people will get there eventually

They certainly will, but at the current speed it'll be far too late to actually do anything.

I had one gender critical friend who I debated with over the GRA. I did my own research and transpeaked due to some American transwoman saying his pain was worse than a woman's because he couldn't have a baby (he could father a baby as he still had his penis).

Since then I have spoke to many friends and not really got anywhere with any of them, bar one or two. They just don't see it as important or they believe in let and let live, as I used to believe.

Unfortunately, I think things will have to get far worse before the majority of females stand up and be counted.

Someone mentioned Rachel Ivy above, so just googled. Hilarious that her gender is described as female on a good read!

Try the FT just. Excellent unbiased journalism. I went over to it after abandoning the Guardian and never looked back

I might give that a go. It is an entirely separate publication to The Times?

I am a lifelong Guardian reader, which means I am in a permanent state of rage.

Their report of the Dr Who story today was reasonably even-handed, but that's as good as it gets.

The have a weird piece by Frances Ryan about a disabled woman who was forced by benefit cuts into prostitution (sorry, "sex work"). It seems to simultaneously suggest this was a Bad Thing (nasty government with its benefit cuts to disabled people) and a Good Thing (because she earned a lot of money and sometimes even enjoyed it).