Bindel on how TRAs have captured a lot of the media.

[Fallingirl]

This is a really good piece by Julie Bindel to kick off the new decade. She outlines early capture, going back to 2008, before mainstream media took any interest. But, already then, pieces about trans issues were run by trans organisations for approval.

thecritic.co.uk/issues/january-2020/triumph-of-the-trans-lobbyists/

Lost my lengthier reply - it just boiled down to what a good overview this is.

Yes just read it, would recommend.

The Sun running all its trans articles past trans lobby groups eh. How did those groups get so powerful?

Excellent article. Thanks for sharing.

Imagine that - a supposedly free media having to run its articles past the trans lobby to ensure its writing doesn't upset trans people. A vulnerable minority so fragile mere words will cause direct death, but so powerful that media giants bend the knee to their ideology. Such impressive credentials for an oppressed group. Imagine if women and racial minorities had such influence.....

Thanks Julie. Another powerful piece exposing the vast reach - and pockets - of this totalitarian regime.

I know a small amount about some of the background to this. There had been a story in 2014 about a transwoman who had a freak accident (a freak animal attack). The papers sensationalised the transwoman’s “sex swamp” status (completely irrelevant to the accident) and the victim rightly complained. So the seed for the updated guidance was reasonable -but it has borne bad consequences I think.

Great article, mentions Chris “Don’t debate drag” Godfrey as well. I really struggle with understanding how people can call themselves journalists while being subscribers to an ideology, any ideology not just trans. Surely, when you go to journalism school that’s the very first lesson on the very first day?

The problem with articles by JB is she always has to make herself the focus. In terms of the politics many women have been speaking up about this for as long is not longer than her. If she wants credit as a journalist she should stick with reporting, not autobiography.

And why she was attacked for being nearly given an award was because of the extremely gross article published by the Guardian which used such derogatory remarks about trans women that it was eventually totally withdrawn from their web site. Something that has never happened before or since.

Some people suspect that she was in fact set up by the Guardian, because in any other circumstances an editor would have said to her we cant publish something with such vitriol. So the start of the campaign against her was not about any activism, by about the article that for whatever reason the editor let through.

And of course this became a convenient distraction. It made it impossible to discuss the issue/s, as it would always come back to that article in the Guardian.

Should have added she did later apologise, if not for the article contents, but for the tone.

Lies. The article was not removed:

www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/31/gender.weekend7

There is nothing gross or vitriolic about it at all. It discusses the inappropriateness of a male being a rape counsellor. It repeatedly reinforces the fact that a person can’t change their sex. It raises concerns about major irreversible surgery on healthy bodies. It points out how the ideology is driven by stereotypes.

The only reason it’s remotely controversial now is because everyone is conditioned to use pronouns of choice and not point out the material realities of sex and to “be nice”. There was nothing to apologise for and she actually wrote:

In hindsight, the sarcasm I used in my column was misplaced and insensitive ("Imagine a world inhabited just by transsexuals," I wrote, complaining about the way many transsexuals parody traditional masculine and feminine styles of dress. "It would look like the set of Grease."). However, the hundreds of angry emails I received, and the levels of vitriol contained within them, made me realise just how much of a sacred cow - at least among us liberals - the issue had become

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/01/mytransmission

Can you explain what you found so objectionable about the original article and why you’ve been led to think it was so awful it was removed from the Guardian website in an unprecedented way?

Personally I think what makes Julie’s article stand out the most is how far ahead of its time it was. The rest of us only reached that point recently.

There had been a story in 2014 about a transwoman who had a freak accident (a freak animal attack).

Coincidentally, I heard this story on the World Service in the small hours of Wednesday. I was only half listening, and thought the antler must’ve damaged the poor woman’s vocal cords as well, because her voice sounded so like a man’s. And then they started talking about the ‘sensationalised reporting’.

I would also add that the reason Julie has to talk about herself in relation to reporting this issue in the press is because she has been one of the few people who has tried to challenge the press for years on this issue. She’s probably more experienced than anyone on the press capture on this issue, and the problems at the Guardian, a major news organisation, that need to be highlighted.

And in the article linked in the OP, 3 paragraphs are about her personal experience, out of a total of 38. How is she making this all about her?

Look at the response from the Guardian to her original article:

www.theguardian.com/media/2004/feb/14/pressandpublishing.comment

“The column attracted about 200 letters, nearly all of which I have read. There was clearly an international lobby at work but this by no means accounted for all the mail.”

This is the capture the article in the OP is about. Trying to silence opinion. Bindel knows this more than anyone.

It reminds me when I was working as a journalist in China and we had to submit the magazine to the censors each week before it went out.

Why are they so influential? Why? why? Why? You can get woke points being pro-gay, pro-lesbian, anti-racist, etc etc. Wouldn't amplifying gender critical trans voices get you woke points? And yet nowhere except when it's transactivist issues is there the same level of genuflecting to authority.

The one thing that ties it together is it's the only supposedly progressive movement where you not only get to hang on to your bigotry (sexism in this case), it's required.

But I keep thinking that can't be it. Are progressive people that stuck on gender they'll make total fools of themselves so they can continue believing in it?

The evidence says yes, but my mind keeps saying No! Can't be!

This seems to be Trans week on the World Service. They’re puffing up a doc called Trans in Japan atm. I suppose since R4 have belatedly stopped serving as the official broadcaster of Stonewall they’ve had to find a new outlet.

The papers sensationalised the transwoman’s “sex swamp” status

And why she was attacked for being nearly given an award was because of the extremely gross article published by the Guardian which used such derogatory remarks about trans women that it was eventually totally withdrawn from their web site. Something that has never happened before or since.

As PP observed already, this is incorrect. I would like to gently suggest that others bear both this claim and the fact that it has been proven to be incorrect in mind next time the person who made it is telling everyone else that we're doing feminism/being GC wrong, which they have done on more than one occasion.

Back to the article in the OP - it's a good summary in general but particularly worth noting is that editors are running stories past lobby groups prior to publication. As Bindel says, that's not normal. I can't think offhand of any other group that would receive that kind of deference from the media, so the fact that it's happening is both significant and worrying.

... used such derogatory remarks about trans women that it was eventually totally withdrawn from their web site..

Examples?

Please.

Probably called transwomen...transwomen.

It was Julie Birchill who had an article taken down, perhaps this is where the confusion lies.

Ah yes - she said 'try didn't she?

Yes, PenguinB - exactly my thought. stumbledin was getting their Julies mixed up. Julie Burchill's article was much more provocative and forthright than Julie Bindel's, did attract a huge number of complaints and was indeed withdrawn.

It's always a shame to see certain prominent women repeatedly criticised with incorrect information. In fact Julie Bindel was one of the first feminists to start raising this issue openly. And the level of vitriol and harassment aimed at her is the story - not JB herself as alleged upthread.

sorry it was "sex swap" not swamp.

It was sensationalised reporting hipster.

As is so much reporting, I don’t disagree.

But interesting that a complaint from a male results in guidance being changed. I can’t imagine a female person’s complaint getting results so easily.

"I can’t imagine a female person’s complaint getting results so easily."

It wasn't easy.

I think that, as with so many well-intentioned changes, we often end up replacing one set of problems with another....