About time: Guardian waking up?

[aliasundercover]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/27/male-genitalia-week-in-patriarchy-women

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/27/trans-lobby-pressure-pushing-young-people-to-transition

How they square these articles with TWAW is anybody's guess, but it looks like somebody has finally had the sense to stop and think about a few things.

Woah, that link RTB posted above

Such a powerful letter and the Guardian ignored it

Floral has it. This is the wickedly complicit. All those drugged children, their development stunted. The Guardian really picked the wrong side of history

They chose to ignore the voices of the concerned practitioner experts.

In his Today interview last week, Marcus Evans referred to GIDS staff trying to whistleblow so it was interesting to see this letter. Freddy denying there is a transgender lobby . As a journalist, he knows every campaign group tries to lobby.

The Guardian evidently knew, because they were told by whistleblowing GIDS medics that kids are being harmed. They have known, because it's been an actual news item that men have been in women's prisons assaulting them.

If they believed that promoting the Genderist position was being on the right side of history knowing these things they are utterly delusional, and still not worthy of fondly coaxing into the light.

These people denouncing The Guardian as transphobic are surely just demonstrating the article's point very neatly.

The Guardian publishes an article about cries of transphobia shutting down concerns about child safety.

Orchestrated cries of transphobia try to get the article removed, thus shutting down concerns about child safety.

Stonewall and Mermaids official Twitter accounts staying away from the pile-on. Normally Mermaids would have much to say about "their trans kids" but I sense a deliberate distancing from both of those organisations.

Susie Green's own account is retweeting other people's accusations of transphobia in the article. Even that is unusual - normally she'd pile on and put herself front and centre with a "As a passionate advocate for our trans kids, I am disgusted..."

Stonewall and Mermaids both see what is surely coming.

The Guardian publishes

I'd like to point out that it wasn't actually even the Guardian.

We covered that upthread, Captain.

They are sister papers and share a website, called The Guardian. This article was published in the print version of The Observer and the electronic version was on The Guardian website.

This article was promoted and linked on The Guardian Twitter account, where the many comments were made.

The article on The Guardian website.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/27/trans-lobby-pressure-pushing-young-people-to-transition

The Guardian Twitter account.

twitter.com/guardian/status/1155208514194853889

I'd like to point out that it wasn't actually even the Guardian.

Yes it was the Observer.

However its confusing because its under the Guardian masthead online.

Observer brand identity is getting lost.

But you'd think LOJ would know the difference.

The Guardian sat on that for 2 years.

They chose to ignore the voices of the concerned practitioner experts.

They are complicit.

Picking up on the point about complicity. Yes, the Guardian, among others are complicit. However, what bothers me most is that John Hopkins University Hospital closed down their transsexual programme way back in the 70s because it didn't work.

They knew then than 'transitioning' did not significantly improve the lives of enough patients to warrant the risks. That was a time when it was only adults who were being experimented on and it didn't work.

To be having this same discussion about children, children for crying out loud, forty years on is horrifying. Treating this mental health issue with surgery didn't work then, it doesn't work now. This has been known for forty years.

So yes, the Guardian are complicit, but so are a whole load of other organisations and individuals. That society ever went back to this medical failure is so disgusting I don't even have words to express my contempt for those who even now push the agenda.

Correct would have been "the conflict between women and men who identify as women". That makes clear what is actually going on here. Using 'transwomen' for men hides the fact that this is a male assault on women's rights and boundaries; it differs only from previous historical assaults by men in the sheer brazen reality-denying audacity of it, such that even women who resist it are obediently calling these men 'women' while doing so!

Oh, I absolutely agree with you, DonkeySkin. I loathe the word transwoman only slightly less than I loathe the words trans women. But I am being realistic. An article in a mainstream newspaper is hardly going to the absolutely correct language you suggest. My rewrite was admittedly a compromise -- something that COULD be published in the Guardian. Their version was sneakily anti-woman.

It's a men's rights movement. And its proponents are hiding this behind Orwellian language that reverses reality and renames men as 'women' and reframes women as men's oppressors. We can never expose their true politics as long we keep going along with their language manipulation.

No question. But between MN rules (which I don't want to break) and what we can expect the mainstream press to publish, we seem to be stuck with transwomen for the time being.

I am curious about this claim in the tweet that the gay lobby was made up.

While I remember very clearly people said some crazy things about the gay lobby, clearly there have been gay rights activists and groups for years, and they lobby and make some claim to speak on behalf of the members of the group. So aren't they the gay lobby? Similar to the trans lobby or any other group that lobbies?

I don't really see what the idea that there is such a thing is seen as bigoted or a conspiracy theory.

we seem to be stuck with transwomen for the time being

Can't we say 'men who identify as women'? A bit long-winded, but it makes it clear which sex these people are.

'Lobby' sounds too politically organised, smacks of activism don't you know? See, they want everyone to think they're just quiet, ordinary folks quietly going about their ordinary business of quietly subverting institutions and policies and hoping no one will notice until it's too late. No agenda to see here. Yeah, well, maybe they should have thought to mention 'keep it on the downlow' to the more self-aggrandising types who've become the faces and voices of their movement.

No, there were (two!) long threads about this recently and we were told that is not okay, still must be transwoman/transwomen.

On other gender critical forums you can indeed say the other. I have received a 7-day Mumsnet Holiday for doing the same here before, even if just because it is what I am used to elsewhere.

Can't we say 'men who identify as women'? A bit long-winded, but it makes it clear which sex these people are.

Isn't a similar expression banned on MN?
And the mainstream press is certainly not going to use that expression.
Transwoman is the accepted word for the likes of DM, Guardian, Times, and much as we would prefer something more fitting, I don't see it changing to a more accurate one for a long while. Maybe when the shit really hits the fan, then.

'Lobby' sounds too politically organised, smacks of activism don't you know?

But surely everyone knows that a group like Stonewall, or dozens of others, are in fact politically organised activist groups?

FGS, there are people who make a living as gay rights activists and put it on their job title and such. I am assuming gay men are not unaware of these things?

How can it be seen as taboo to talk about gay, or rans, lobbyists?

Goosefoot, come on. You're not daft. You know that most of this rubbish coasts on perception and PR. They object to 'Trans lobby' because it comes across as powerful.

None of their demands make sense unless they consistently present anything to do with the trans umbrella as Most Oppressed Ever™️.

I kind of expect it with trans things, but it was the one guy comparing it to the supposedly mythical gay lobby that caught my attention.

I just can't see how any fairly regular person could find the claim that there is no gay lobby plausible, it's an industry at this point, I mean we are just finishing Pride week in many places!

If you are going to fib it should be plausible, shouldn't it?

we seem to be stuck with transwomen for the time being

I don't agree. Even in forums where we are operating under censorship or trans-lobby-written style guides, there are ways to avoid it. It just takes a bit of creativity and a commitment to being clear about which sex is benefiting from this agenda, and which sex is being harmed by it.

Susan Smith of forwomenscot recently wrote an excellent opinion piece for the Herald in which she didn't use 'transwomen' once. Had she done, her piece would have been much less impactful:

www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/17800445.man-can-identify-woman-women-s-rights-won-t-really-mean-anything/

Furthermore, you often see feminists defaulting to 'transwomen' even when they are free to choose their own words, e.g. at meetings and talks on sex-based rights. Fair Play for Women and other campaigning groups frequently use it in their literature.

I'm questioning why feminists would do this to themselves and their cause. Language is the key to this whole fight. If trans activists were forced to argue their case without all the doublespeak they have invented, almost no one would feel comfortable publicly supporting them, because the sexism and the harm to women and children would be SO CLEAR.

Language shapes perceptions. Language manipulation is the primary means by which trans activists advance their agenda. When people ask: how do they get all this crazy stuff pushed through, why is something so bonkers being written into law? The answer is: by changing the meaning of words, so that 'gender' means 'sex' and 'man' means 'woman'. All the other reality-and-sense-defying stuff follows from this: predatory men become 'vulnerable, marginalised women', sterilising and mutilating children becomes 'critical care', people who promote this madness are on 'the right side of history' while people who speak out against it are akin to racists and homophobes who propagate 'bigotry against a minority' by talking about male violence.

Trans activists and all political propagandists understand the importance of language, why don't women? Is it just a failure to think carefully about this, or is there something else going on? Is it a matter of prioritising politeness above self-preservation, a wish to not cause offence to men by calling them 'men', even when they are deliberately destroying women's rights and safety? Is it feminine conformity, a belief that if women signal submissiveness by not being 'rude' and using the 'approved' words, people will be more receptive to our message? I'm genuinely puzzled as to why so many brave, intelligent women acquiesce on this, and so easily surrender 'women' to men, thereby helping men to hide male domination.

Agreed Donkeyskin, I never say "transwomen" any more. They aren't women and it's an attack on women to use that term.

Totally agree, DonkeySkin. I'm going to use 'men who identify as women'. It seems to be allowed since neither of us have been deleted for using it in this thread. There is a shorthand for this which is on the banned list, but 'men who identify as women' is simply the definition of the word 'transwomen'. It has the benefit of making it clear to those not familiar with this topic that we are talking about men. In newspaper comments it is clear that some people think that a 'transwoman' is a woman who identifies as a man.

Even just ‘males’ is usually sufficient (I’d say ‘men’ but it seems to be deletion worthy). What people identify as is generally not really germane to the conversation I often find. Reality is more important

Area Mahdawi always posts terrible articles. Her takes on Corbyn and antisemitism are similarly awful.

*Arwa , obviously. Fuck autocorrect.

You might get away with 'men who identify as women' in general terms, but then again, you may not. The guidelines are an ever shifting test of the patience and ingenuity of the women here (read also: often destabilizing and rather gaslighty). It does often seem to come down to who is the external monitor, and what the mod on duty interprets the guidelines to be.

So, you can correctly sex in general sometimes, via TWAM, but not T*M.

When it comes to individuals, you absolutely cannot call a specific trans person he or a man if it is thought or known they believe themselves to be female. But you can if he's known to be a pervert, rapist or murderer.

There is no logic to any of this, btw, in case you were trying to see a pattern. Like most trans based anything, it both is, and it isn't. It's an endless paradox of contradiction, meant by those who badgered MNHQ for it to keep you off balance and control you.

often destabilizing and rather gaslighty

Yes I’d agree with this. I find the inconsistency of the application of censorship, suspension and banning very difficult to deal with

It’s a testament to how bloody interesting you lot are that I post here anyway (and love it most of the time)