Glinner in Mail on Sunday today

[Lamahaha]

Fabulous article:

Speaking out against transgender extremists has made me the most hated man on the internet, writes Father Ted creator GRAHAM LINEHAN

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7982837/How-hated-man-internet-writes-Graham-Linehan.html

And Linehan is being treated as the second coming for getting published in a couple of newspapers.

What Chattylion said.

Also, when JK Riwling posted her famous Tweet if if I remember correctly there was similar jubilation and several long threads. It's not because he's a man. It's because he's a non-journalist person with a public profile of his own, who didn't have to but did. Any celebrity who speaks up is celebrated here.

It’s because he has a profile, inc. half a million Twitter followers. Very few women (or men for that matter) have that kind of profile.

This is where feminism can start to seem middle class and elitist.

There are marginalised women right now suffering due to anti-woman policies. The most important thing is to bring attention to them, surely? Regardless of who the messenger is. Patriarchy is hurting them most of all, right?

Yes it would be nice if female activists got their due recognition. We should elevate their voices whenever we can.

But the priority has to be helping the most marginalised women, whose voices are the most silenced of all.

goose yes I agree Graham is not unique in that.

I was just illustrating that one can (a) think GL’s contribution, overall, is positive while (b) not regarding him as “the second coming.”

Sometimes it feels like more established / important feminists want the rest of us to unite in excluding male input. But since doing so will not necessarily benefit all women, not all are going to agree.

I also thought some feminists had parted ways with Glinner .. in which case, isn’t his silence (vis-a-vis their stuff) respecting their wishes?

People can fall out and go separate ways, it happens in every walk of life.

I read a Tweet of his yesterday (and I rarely go on Twitter) in which he said she has asked him not to support her publicly as this could harm her case. I'll try and find that Tweet later today.

That tweet was from fair cop not glinner.

But don’t private / closed feminist groups give you exclusive spaces?

I read that as "back to the kitchen wrench, the men are talking"

Ok so, I’ve gone back and read the article again now to see if I can parse from it his belief in true trans, and where he feels that there are some males who will need to be given women’s rights.

All I can find is that the article makes reference to “rational” trans people, people with dysphoria, and people who believe that they’re born in the wrong body. I think there are rational trans people (I’m not going to name them because doubtless they’ll have done something awful on Twitter that I’m blissfully unaware of). I don’t believe that they’ve changed sex, and neither do they. Then there are undoubtably people with crippling dysphoria, and those who genuinely believe that they’re born in the wrong body - of course, I completely disagree that they actually have been, but they can believe what they like as long as they’re not forcing me to act as if it were true.

I don’t know what he’s done on Twitter, as I’m not on Twitter, like the vast majority of the population are not. so much of the current stridency of trans activism stems from people confusing twitter with real life, and I don’t think elevating twitter spats into major schisms helps anyone on any side gain traction.

In my thirty years of (often low key) feminist activism, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told I’m not doing it properly, so I guess I’ll muddle on doing it imperfectly for another thirty years, too. Like they say about environmental issues, it’s not about a few people doing it perfectly, it’s about many people doing it imperfectly.

Another good post SophoclestheFox As Imnobody4 commented last night: "This is how we lose - grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory"
The issue has thankfully become mainstream with many more people being aware of the outrageous things that are happening - especially to children. We need this and we need the freedom to comment and analyse what is being written and reported. #nodebate has always been an unattractive mantra.

I don’t know what he’s done on Twitter, as I’m not on Twitter, like the vast majority of the population are not. so much of the current stridency of trans activism stems from people confusing twitter with real life, and I don’t think elevating twitter spats into major schisms helps anyone on any side gain traction.

I loathe Twitter and am only on it for professional reasons. I find it utterly incomprehensible that grown-up people take the spats and the activism there as real life. I mean, COME ON, people, including the police. Twitter is NOT REAL. It's just voices in the dark.

I completely disagree Twitter is just 'voices in the dark'

What is said on there has had very profound impact on many people, not least the criminal and civil legal actions they face for speaking out.

Where do you think Maya F and Kate S cases came from?

I have had things I have tweeted lifted and published in national newspapers. My argument with Paedophile group Prostasia is being circulated on US paedophile site and there is already one comment that me and others should be killed.

How we conduct ourselves on Twitter as in any public space really matters and can have consequences way way beyond the keyboard.

You'd never have thought we had threads on purity spirals on just this same board, last week, would you.

Personally, I make no claim to being pure and don't expect everyone else to be either. I'm living and learning all the time, and listening to different views and disagreeing with them is how we all progress. I don't wish to cancel anyone for being male/having had an impure thought.

If you don't like Glinner or want his support, fine, no need to read his articles or comment here - go boost the threads on worthier female feminists instead. Sure there are many equally/more worthy of discussion.

If our activism on Twitter is real and counts for anything then the platform can’t be divorced from reality so simply. (And if it doesn’t, then why do people point to Linehan’s Twitter following as why he’s so important.)

Having been subject to specific, violent threats on twitter when I spoke out about women’s rights, I can assure you that it impacts real life.

And having men who are uninformed or choose to sow dissent for attention (I don’t know which it is with Linehan) by deciding who are the “good feminists” who get rewarded with amplification and who are the “bad feminists” who get smeared publicly as trolls (Sweary, for god’s sake - Sweary!) and briefed against is not solely a twitter issue anyway.

I don’t have a problem with anyone appreciating the articles, or Linehan more widely. But saying so in a public, feminist place like this opens you up to then hearing experiences of women who have got to know the individual in question and had their fingers burned. And you’re only hearing the mildest examples because so much of it can’t be repeated publicly.

I don't think anyone is saying Glinner is perfect. I get this must be very frustrating for eg Sweary.

At the same time, taking the articles on their own merits, they don't attack any feminists or say anything that feminists on this board would object to, as far as I know.

I hope Glinner's articles have peak-transed a few (hundreds? thousands?).

I also hope none of those newly-awakened have come down to MN last night to find out more, or we'll have lost them straightaway.

As for me, when women's rights are firmly guaranteed, then I'll worry about cancelling the impure. For now, I'll take what support we can get, where we can get it.

I'm quite sure that people who join this struggle will have different perspectives and even different agendas. I think everyone has to make up their own mind about who they trust and who they want to work with or support. And even people on broadly the same side will still disagree, rub each other up the wrong way, fall out or simply dislike each other for no apparent reason.

I get all that. What I don't get is why some also feel the need to draw everyone else into their own personal arguments. I'm not interested and I'm getting really tired of it.

There is clearly a 'purity spiral' in operation here and it's what drove me off mumsnet in 2016 when I was harangued and followed around various threads by Dittany.

Let me be really clear, if I haven't already. This is the most significant attack on the rights of women and girls I am aware of in my lifetime. That's 50 years.

If you don't like Glinner and don't want to support him - fair enough. But there is more of a whiff on this thread of people being criticised for wanting to support him as not proper feminists, because patriarchy because blah.

If that is where people want to put their energies I can't stop them. I do however think it is a massive shame to divert energy and attention to what must surely be our common goal - to reverse this capture of almost all our institutions and laws.

We will see on 14th if the law is still able to hold firm.

And if the law falls - what then? More complaints about Glinner and anyone else who fails this purity test?

I guess I fail it and fail it hard - as was made clear to me by feminists on this site years previously.

Oh I fail it too. It was made clear to me when I was 19 that I'd failed it, and I've been failing ever since. I'm still here.

Bloody purity spirals!

Spero is it really a purity issue to expect men who claim to be feminists to treat women with dignity and respect? To not point people towards slanderous posts on kiwi farms calling us white supremacists because we disagreed with them on something?

Glad to know.

You say you were chased off the boards by Dittany. I was pushed out of the whole movement by the Glinner gang, only coming back recently and really deciding it’s not worth it for my own health.

Bullies always need a new victim. If you stand shoulder to shoulder with them eventually you’ll be on the receiving end.

Am out. I shouldn’t have come back.

With you spero and floisme

Such an attack on women’s and girls rights going on right now.

Where do you think Maya F and Kate S cases came from?

Exactly. This happens when "voices in the dark" are taken seriously. They really, really should not be. This should not be happening.

I can get people being on there and getting lots of "followers", getting popular, etc. But when arguments blow up on there that impact us in real life -- that is just absolutely bizarre. It's an alternative reality that really, really should not be taken seriously, least of all by the police.

Don't go, Sweary. It sounds incredibly bruising but ManFriday was tremendously effective. Not to say genius.

You sound like you've been on the receiving end of a different purity spiral.

The solution is not more purity spirals, it's no purity spirals.

No-one is asking you to forgive Glinner or engage with him in any way at all. But the movement can benefit from both your support and energies. We are stronger together. Even if on a personal level, we may not (we will not - we are all diverse) get on.

We need a broad church - even if in practice there are people in different pews who will not speak to each other and would probably rather not be in the same room!