Sarah Baxter in The Times

[Igneococcus]

Rather confused fence sitting:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/im-with-jk-rowling-but-lets-be-kinder-about-gender-hddmmsmk6?shareToken=a91974a238bfb7356c5fe29cea1beae3

I read this utter tripe first thing and went back to bed afterwards because I was so pissed off by it.

The implication that staunch opposition of medicalisation of gender non conforming kids is actually contributing to its rise is deeply unpleasant, unfair and untrue.

My comment is still pending from 3 hours ago.

A significant message of the article is that if only the gender critical side would dump Maya Forstater and then be reasonable, then all will be fine. We are told to be "kinder". But hidden in that is that this would mean dumping all of the non-compliant non-nice voices from the gender critical side leaving a bunch of nicely conforming women who will not make more noise or say things that will frighten the horses.

Note though that Baxter is very careful to avoid criticising JK Rowling. That's because she recognises that Rowling has enough power to hold her own against powerful men.

Either Baxter is completely ignorant about how we got to where we are: mummies should be nice and their role is to indulge screaming toddlers and raging teens, or she is trying to be on both sides of history at the same time to look out for her own future interests.

At last more critical comments are being published. Including one of mine.

Yes, how rude of Maya to be sacked from her job for stating something that even the most rabid tra knows is true.

How you could look at the replies to J.K's tweet and conclude that women need to be kinder is staggering.

It is frustrating to read articles that do this kind of 'on the one hand' while misrepresenting the argument and missing the point by miles.

I saw she made the same mistake as MN HQ with the Rohypnol reference.

I will always be grateful to Barracker's insight because I have read so many articles and heard so many talks from people who understand the feminist perspective and they undermine their own points by sticking to the 'preferred/required' pronouns.
It is presented as trivial and about politeness but actually is at the heart of the matter in terms of seeing and feeling what is going on when a man claims to be a woman.
Blaire White got even Ben Shapiro to do a bit of a climbdown on this by flicking hair around.

That's pitifully poor and misinformed from Sarah Baxter.

The Rohypnol piece is not literally about rape, ffs.

And what, Maya was too rude when she debated the GRA issue on Twitter. Was she? When?
When she 'misgendered' Gregor Murray and Philip Bunce? You should google them, Sarah Baxter.

And what's that - self-identification would mean fewer kids on 'puberty blockers'?
It's a shame to see Sunday Times drop the ball on this issue.

"If a self-identified woman wants to bathe in the ladies’ pond at Hampstead, it doesn’t bother me."
Says it all really.

Me me me

Me me me

Don’t be rude or unkind women.

Jeez this has pissed me right off this piece.

Lots more comments now including mine. Annoying article.

'If a self-identified woman wants to bathe in the ladies’ pond at Hampstead, it doesn’t bother me. Naturally, if she behaves as a peeping Tom, she should be expelled or arrested, but the same goes for all of us'

How are you going to tell which is which? More importantly, how are you going to persuade those in charge which is which, however viscerally you feel it? Muppet.

.

Ms Baxter has admitted that the Rohypnol article was not by May and apologised in the comments

These stupid women who’ve never had to confront the fact that almost any man can kill almost any woman with his bare hands have NO idea, how a man simply raising an eyebrow with a certain deadness around the eyes can evoke heart-stopping dread in those of us who’ve had to face the reality of male grip strength and the possible imminence of our own deaths. Most especially if that raised eyebrow and dead-eyed gaze occurs in a confined space with only one exit.

Have they forgotten their days of riding public transit and being groped nearly every day? Have they forgotten their days as a teenage girl being sexually harassed by men just for daring to walk to school?

FFS, is there to be NO place in public life where women can escape the male gaze? Those raised eyebrows, the completely unsubtle scan up and down our bodies, the riveted attention to our breasts, the smirks if we don’t meet standards? Not even for ten minutes for a wee and a check there’s no food in the teeth? Much less for a half an hour with ones eyes closed and face turned to the sun? No place at all, anywhere, but one’s home?

End male violence against women and girls. End male entitlement to assess and judge female physical compliance to male demands that we appropriately decorate their world. In other words: end male supremacy.

Then we can talk about opening up what we ourselves created for ourselves, for good reason, to males.

Until then: fuck off.

But she has frequently engaged in disputes on social media that have shed more heat than light on transgender issues. I can see why she might have got up the noses of more courteous colleagues

Hmm. Guilty of heated arguments? Should have been more courteous? This seems like a regressive stereotype of how women should behave.....

I'm finding it hard to get past 'bonking', tbh.

She's apologised re the misattribution on Twitter, but I don't think the article has been amended. I think it should probably be junked, tbh, waffly and badly informed opinion piece when so many other writers (inc Times writers) have written so much more eloquently on the subject.

twitter.com/SarahbaxterSTM/status/1208726688642863104

She really is only vaguely acquainted with the issues, isn't she? Totally fails to grasp the point that if anyone can say they're a woman to get access to spaces then ANY man can say it. Doesn't get the implications for women who aren't able or willing to share mixed sex facilities or for free speech.

The headline does not really fit the piece. Not unusual.

Ffs I wish I was on Twitter
She’s now using the “you wouldn’t ban gay men from Male changing would you?”
No-because gay men are men and so are...(Deleted)
That argument..she’s a journalist. So behind!

Neither of my comments have got through. I've never had comments not allowed before.

Over the past few weeks I've had a number of my comments deleted under The Times articles, or failing to be approved. Nothing controversial, for example posts which were effectively cut and pasted statute wording. Today's deletion was posting a comment under the Baxter article and a very similar one under the Debbie Hayton article. The former is still there while the latter was approved and then soon after was deleted. It is very irritating.

Just scanned through the comments and there are some excellent mumsnetty points. Well done women!
I think the author will be clearer now and won't write such a weak piece on the topic again.

Oh just saw she's blathering on twitter.

How insanely dim.
Misquotes, misattributes and gets facts wrong.

The ferocious trans wars echo the debates of the 1980s, when some feminists insisted that all men were rapists. Yes, there are perverts out there, but I don’t regard every trans woman as a walking sex offender, as Forstater appears to.

I don't know if this is is truly representative of feminist debates in the 80's or not because I was only a teenager then (I suspect it isn't). Whoever won these 'debates' though, we have never been required to admit men to female only spaces just because #NotAllMen are rapists.

“Pronouns are Rohypnol,” she once claimed ...

Sarah Baxter has said on Twitter that she posted in the comments section underneath her article to clarify that these are not Maya's words. This is clearly insufficient, she should publish a proper correction, not least because the author of that article deserves a credit.

There is a danger here that Pronouns Are Rohypnol is sacrificed as an example of 'dangerous wrongthink not attributable to Maya Forstater'. This case, and especially JKR's intervention, has caused an absolute fuckton of people to start questioning this totalitarian bullshit for the first time and if you're new to all this then the rohypnol article is pretty strong stuff.

We need to defend that article because it's not about what rights trans people do, don't, should or shouldn't have. Nowhere does it suggest that all tw are sex offenders. Pronouns are rohypnol is about the way language is being used to prevent women from articulating the problem and fighting for our rights. It's about the additional mental load that comes from having to comply with orwellian, reality-denying language rules.

Naturally, if she behaves as a peeping Tom, she should be expelled or arrested, but the same goes for all of us.

The only reason 'Tom' had to 'peep' is because he wasn't allowed in. I predict a massive decline in 'peeping Toms'

We need to defend that article because it's not about what rights trans people do, don't, should or shouldn't have. Nowhere does it suggest that all tw are sex offenders. Pronouns are rohypnol is about the way language is being used to prevent women from articulating the problem and fighting for our rights. It's about the additional mental load that comes from having to comply with orwellian, reality-denying language rules.

^This. I don't know how anyone can read it and think that it's about rapists. I'm guessing Baxter didn't read it through.