Is something going on at The Guardian?

[Doobigetta]

Four articles in the last few days:

• Praising Obama for denouncing cancel culture- and we all know he said “verbs” but he meant “pronouns”. The article says “you can make people change the words they use, but you can’t make them change what they think”.
• One about a support group in Australia for women whose husbands come out as gay in later life, highlighting the particular unfairness of having to watch your husband being praised for his bravery in ripping your life out from under you. No mention of trans widows but the parallel is very obvious.
• A review of “Who are you calling fat” asks “what are the limits on matters of self-identification? Where do we end up if there are no such things as facts?”
• And then finally Catherine Bennett in her column about the abuse of MPs specifically included the treatment of TERFs as evidence of misogyny in public debate.

This seems quite a shift from a year ago, when only Hadley Freeman even came close to voicing GC thoughts. Is the tide turning?

I really couldn't care less. Nothing could make me go back to the Guardian. They're worse than the Daily Mail for misogyny.

Well if there is then good but personally it's far too bloody late for me to ever forgive them for their craven and dismissive attitude to women's rights and safety from Cologne onwards. I can't get over how people can uncritically think they are the font of all knowledge on Brexit yet see the vile shitshow they have been on the trans issue.

Well I hope they are changing. I cancelled my subscription a while back when feeling particularly annoyed with Owen Jones. I don't expect to agree with everything written in any newspaper, but I do expect them not to explicitly insult their readers!

i noticed this too

Feeling cautiously optimistic

If the tide is turning, good. I suspect they have lost a lot of readers, though. A lot of readers. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd willingly click on a bloody Daily Fail link, over a Guardian link, but it came a while ago. They've a fair few bridges to rebuild if that is the way they are now heading. I wonder what has precipitated the change in direction.

Cologne was the beginning of the end for me too.

Heartening to hear that they are somewhat putting the breaks on anti-woman publishing, OP. I actively avoid the Guardian now. To be fair, I was guilty of echo chamber news consumption before. There is good mainstream journalism to be had elsewhere.

I really couldn't care less. Nothing could make me go back to the Guardian. They're worse than the Daily Mail for misogyny

At least right wing misogyny is 'out' and predictable; the problem with anti-woman sentiments on the left is that they are usually un-owned, unconscious and denied - because nobody on the liberal left can be misogynistic. I find this type of misogyny even worse in many respects, and more insidious.

I totally agree, justhadathought

Too little too late. I cancelled my subscription years ago when they started silencing women's voices. What has happened is the outrageous overreach by trans activists has become so increasingly dangerous, offensive and ridiculous that they have become impossible to condone. The Guardian, having enabled all this now want to do a teflon turn around and be able to be on the 'right side of history' as the proverbial hits the fan.
But of course, it's too late for them.....

I read the article about the aussie women and drew the same parallels. I was audio reminded of the trans widows threads. I do wonder if there is change afoot. I will continue to keep a hopeful eye out.

Maybe the new break-away LGB alliance has given a modicum of permission to be a little more reflective and critical?

Of course, I suspect that there are more than a few regular feature writers who are G.C...and the relentless nature of the PC editorial line and policy must be quite uncomfortable. When a newspaper does not even report on certain incidents because they cast shadow on that editorial line, it is no longer a newspaper for free thinking journalism, but for pushing an ideology.

I might start reading the Guardian again if the devoted an entire front page apologising about their behaviour over the past 5 yrs but that is extremely unlikely so I’ll carry on as if the Guardian doesn’t exist. Much as they’ve carried on that women’s rights don’t exist.

Every time you click on the Guardian, you’re lining the pockets of misogynists and homophobes like Owen Jones. Ignore them. Don’t click on them.

Opportunists always keep their nose to the wind.

Hopeful that more people are seeing that it's okay to question and even reject the TRA ideologies they would like us all to embrace. The way some of them practically equate not agreeing with TWAW with inciting violence or accomplice to murder is ludicrous.

I really hope so. I wouldn’t give them a penny but a lot of people I know still read it so from that viewpoint, their seeing sense would be a very good thing.

Jameela Jamil is on a tear because a Guardian journalist queried the body neutrality movement.

I hope so too. I'm certainly not getting excited and I'm fearful that their so-called partners in the US will have something to say about it, but I will still watch with interest. I will never understand the view that it's too late to change your mind. How exactly are we going to win this without people reconsidering their views?

How exactly are we going to win this without people reconsidering their views?

Absolutely. We need to celebrate any articles which don't blindly follow transgender ideology.

I have written to the guardian explaining that I will not pay them any money until I can trust their reporting, that a headline about a woman will actually be about a woman.

If enough people do this they might decide they actually want our money.

As others have said it was Cologne that made me realise The Guardian is not what it was. I carried on reading out of habit for a while, then cancelled my subscription.
They’ve been very quiet about trans issues. I think this started around about the time of rubber-wank-at-work man. They’d been in full “Bergdorf is stunning and brave” mode then suddenly went silent ... no more reporting on the story.

Since then they haven’t had much to say at all. For example: very little on the Yaniv case; nothing at all about M&S changing rooms; nothing about our favourite cycling doctor; not a mention of the LGB Alliance ...

I reckon there’s been some sort of argument about how to cover these things, so for the moment they’re saying nothing.

Too late for me anyhow. I won’t buy the Guardian again until Viner has gone.

How exactly are we going to win this without people reconsidering their views?

People will gradually change their views when they experience negative impacts themselves; or when in the case of some young women, when they have children - or start to encounter the very real oppressions and restrictions that arise as a result of their sex.

Young women, these days, have benefitted from the struggles of previous generations. They were not alive when abortion was illegal; or when you had to give up your job upon marriage; or when women couldn't have a mortgage in their own right....and so on.....

So many young people now go to university, and girls are expected to have careers and a live lived according to their own choices....they have not really encountered structural prejudices in the way that previous generations have......they don't understand, yet, the reality of their sex and what that can imply......but as they grow older they will, in one form or another.

When Layla Moran finds herself a lone woman in a unisex toilet in a restaurant, at night, in a queue of men...she might start to reflect on just how comfortable that feels for her......or when a male bodied trans 'woman' comes in to do her bra fitting, or perform her cervical smear......or after she's had a child and she realises that women can't have and do it all - even these days....and that she finds herself having to make choices her partner does not. Then she might realise what being a woman is -and that it is a real thing, and not just some magical essence in her soul.

I've been thinking of doing that, testing. I wrote to them when I cancelled my subscription explaining exactly why and they never bothered to respond.

Still read the odd article and whenever I see the begging message I'm tempted to mail and say why I'm not giving. May be time to try again.

Too late for me anyhow. I won’t buy the Guardian again until Viner has gone.

Or until Owen Jones has gone.

I haven't read the Guardian in a while. If there is a shift starting to come about, then that's a good thing. Hope it continues. I won't forget their behaviour and deliberately not reporting on events though. And I'm not sure I would ever donate any money unless there's been significant and sustained improvement. They will have to earn trust and respect back as an established newspaper.

Or until Owen Jones has gone
Absolutely.
Maybe I was harsh on Viner. If she publicly admitted that she’d made mistakes I’d accept that.
OJ though? No chance - it’s not the crap he’s said but the malice with which he said it, the glee with which he’s insulted women and especially lesbians.