"Cast Off - Diversity wars are raging in the knitting world'

[AncientLights]

I've kept the title from the article in the print version of The Spectator 28 Sept, as I can't improve on it.

It's the most astonishing piece - well, astonishing and yet horribly familiar to us here. I'll summarise as it's not the done thing to do a big c&p job and would also be a kick in the financial teeth of the Speccy, who have done so much, via James Kirkup, to publicise the illogicality of the trans movement.

There is a knitter called Nathan Taylor whose online name is 'Sockmatician' - he sounds an interesting character, shall I say. Sockmatician seems to have cause huge offence (and here I will quote as it's so bonkers) by posting 'a poem on Instagram about 'diversknitty' in which he boasted it was a year since he had founded this hashtag, and asked that people use it kindly, rather than attacking one another'. Seems Taylor was committing violence against Bipoc (black & indigenous people of colour, it says here) by telling them how to make their arguments about inclusion, tone policing from a white man - utterly unacceptable.

The war started & raged on. Sockmatation has MH problems, was hospitalised, messages from his husband held no sway. Things got really bad with the yarn festival: yarn producers & other knitting personalities (who knew?) couldn't believe Sockmatition hadn't been uninvited, someone was glad she hadn't been able to attend after all as she'd have been unable to teach her session knowing he was down the hall. Unsupported allegations online about an assault. His patterns have been dropped from two books, one of which was the first official Harry Potter knitting book - the cover was reshot to remove Sockmatition's work. His business has suffered a 75% drop in sales.

There's a similar story about a Kate Davies who is based in the Scottish Highlands. She wouldn't join in denouncing people for their 'transgressions', so she's been attacked, too.

I read it thinking it must be an allegory but have come to the conclusion it's genuine. It is total, stark-staring madness and I can only keep saying to myself and to anyone else who will listen 'How on earth have we come to this?'

There was also an article and radio 4 programme by Gavin Haynes:

unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d70h

Oh dear, just looked at Ravelry. The knitting seems to be a side issue now with posts on how to indicate you are hemi/ semi gender and a flag obsession

Tbf you can ignore a lot of the nonsense if you just stick to looking up patterns and other people’s projects. Just stay away from the front page, the forums and the groups, for dear life.

I've seen a couple of people on this thread say, "If that is what knitting is about, fuck it".

It is not what knitting (or any other needlework) is about and it shouldn't be. This thread is a revelation for me because I have been knitting for years now and never bothered to check out the 'communities'. Let me reassure others here that you don't need a 'community' to knit or sew. I don't bother with that and gods know if my trove of 70's/80's needlework books I've purchased at thrift stores are pc or not. I do not care.

Needlework exists to make garments and other useful items, or to embellish the same. This should not be political. Ignore the immature trendy types and learn the skills for yourself for your own enrichment, don't let idiots get in the way of the satisfaction that comes from being creative.

@Alicethruthelookingglass - I think a lot of people (like me) have learnt and continue to learn the skills for our own enrichment, were not particularly looking to join a community, and never had any desire to engage with any immature trendy types.

We came to Ravelry simply because it is by far the biggest and best source of online patterns (many of them free) and has excellent search features and allows you to look at how other people's versions of the patterns turned out and see what yarns work well with the patterns. It's incredibly useful. But now that I'm aware of its agenda, I don't particularly want to support it.

Ravelry is incredibly useful as a database (though I haven't used it in years myself, I got a bit bored with knitting and just keep a few socks and gloves on the go, I don't need a database for that) but I'd agree with Alice..... it's perfectly possible to do needlework without getting sucked into some hothouse "community."

I haven't got sucked into the community,but the home page alone atm is enough to massively put me off.

I just can't figure out why anyone would want butt plugs and poppers to be the public face of Pride. It's straight out of that old Onion article.

I've been a knitter all my life and been on Ravelry for a good few years. I use it purely to find and store patterns and, because it's American and I'm not, quite frankly I never gave any of the forums or even the cover page a second glance. For that reason the whole purity spiral (and the drama about the co-founder) completely passed me by - it was only when I saw a mention on here that I pieced it all together in mounting bemusement.

I remain totally gobsmacked by the whole thing and can't remember the last time I logged in, but even though it's still a fantastic practical resource for patterns/inspiration, I'm inclined to agree with lazylinguist - I'm increasingly reluctant to be associated with it in any way, really. I'll carry on knitting, though.

This is the Quillette article:
quillette.com/2019/06/07/instagrams-diversity-wars-revisited/

It's just... wow. This is like some kind of mass religious scrupulosity.

A knitted butt plug seems like A Very Bad Idea.

I honestly don't know what to say about that Quillette article. It's jaw-dropping. The pompous, preening self-importance and the smug exhortations to 'do better' are just unbelievable. These people are so locked in their own bubble of virtuousness they're completely beyond all reason.

When I see that, and some of the stuff currently being directed at Tanis Gray for having the temerity to put out a book of Harry Potter knitting patterns (thus contributing directly to JKR’s murdering of transpeople, apparently) I am reminded of nothing so much as the Cultural Revolution and other such immensely harmful totalitarian movements. I wish I were exaggerating. At the moment people on Tanis’s Instagram feed are accusing JKR of ‘condoning genocide’ and Tanis of supporting this by publishing some knitting patterns. I hope they both sue.

Absolutely, BrownTableMat.

I'm a big fan of JKR and own the first Harry Potter knitting book. Though I must admit I couldn't help but laugh at a thing I saw shared on social media the other day:

Gender Critical Women: "We have no platform!"

TRAs: "You have Platform 9 3/4!"

Screenshots from Tanis Gray’s Instagram feed accusing JKR of genocide

Mind you, it’s hard to take seriously someone who says, “Hitler wrote Mien Campf” (sic). Kind of shows the level of knowledge and understanding they have about the history of fascism and explains a lot.

I am reminded of nothing so much as the Cultural Revolution and other such immensely harmful totalitarian movements.

You're not the only one. A lot of people with closer experience saying the same thing, trying to wake people up.

North Korean defector says 'even North Korea was not this nuts' after attending Ivy League school

Of course now Democrats and other nutcases seem to think "we're doing something stupid, and the Republicans/Fox News are highlighting it" is a valid argument in favour of the stupid stuff they're doing...

I was also shocked by what happened to Kate Davies. I will never buy anything again from that Scottish knitter who treated her so appallingly - they were friends in the past which makes it worse. I think it was envy from them and a desire to take her down because she's so deservedly popular and successful. Ironically, she was writing scholarly essays on her blog about topics like the historical links between the textiles industry and slavery long before they even pretended to care about such things.

Well quite. Stupid, faux-pious virtue-signallers. There's a thread on here atm referencing an excellent article by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie blasting this kind of weak-minded, ignorant, woke posturing.

I am reminded of nothing so much as the Cultural Revolution and other such immensely harmful totalitarian movements.

It's the US's Salem witchcraft trials (which involved both men and women), the McCarthy trials and Cambodia's Year Zero.

Yes. At least there are signs that the tide may be starting to turn, what with the Forstater case and the widespread discrediting of Stonewall.

It’s well known that when Hitler wanted to achieve power in Germany the first thing he did was to get Goebbels to design some knitting patterns.

I had a look at some of the comments on Tanisknits on Instagram. Just wow! The gender identity extremists sound insane, ignorant, brutal and lacking in compassion as much as they are lacking in reason. Surely there is going to be a lot of people in the knitting world having epiphanies. How can the gender identity extremists take the moral high ground when they behave like that, I don’t know.

I looked on Ravelry to see if I could see any backlash or negative comments about the butt plug homepage or the general witch hunting. But from what I now gather, Ravelry moderators are ruthless in zapping examples of wrongthink, including perfectly harmless and heartfelt requests about their new font/style which has caused so many problems.

I like the original patterns on Ravelry. For instance, I am going to a picnic on 20th July in Glasgow and wanted something in suffragist colours. There are some really good patterns if you search for "feminist".

What I'm casting on has been in my library for ages, and I'd totally forgotten about it. A wonder woman shawl. Roll on my online yarn shop purchase and thanks to Ravelry for allowing space for clever designers, even if you do think that butt plugs and poppers is what matters on a knitting site. www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wonder-woman-wrap-knit