Suzanne Moore Guardian - new column

[Newuser123123]

Despite significant protest :
I wish everyone raw strength, however they identify

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/10/i-wish-everyone-strength-however-they-identify-suzanne-moore?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

The trans writer Julia Serano says: “In trans women’s eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognised as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world

Serano here mixing up wanting to express in feminine ways and being female - as if 'being female' is a fixed mental and emotional state or way of being, rather than than the condition of being in a female body, with female biology.

I have no idea what she's saying and don't see the positive that PPs have identified. She quotes Butler approvingly:

“If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”

Isn't that actually fully supportive of TRA theory? No such thing as sex, woman as performance, femininity as drag.

And yet on the basis of sex, half the population were deprived of the vote and deprived of the right to own property once they were married for centuries. On the basis of sex, girl children are mutilated. On the basis of sex women still earn less than men for doing the same jobs.

It reads to me as more of a surrender. 'Okay, you win, you can be whatever you want to be.'

What are you all seeing that I'm missing?

Agree Floisme.

What are you all seeing that I'm missing

I agree! It feels like an appeasement of sorts to soothe her nerves......and to restore sanity.

Yet she does come back to the body - which is exactly where it all begins.......and ends. Certainly on Planet Earth.

.....and also a plea for people to recognise that women actually suffer on account of their body. Personally, I've always gone for celebration too.......

Thing is trans activists don't care about women's sufferings in the slightest.

My experience is that most trans/ allies don't give a flying fuck about women's lived experiences, as they relate to their female body, and in their position as women in our society. They really don't. In fact, quite the opposite. Contempt

Yes - the gender identity extremists (aka Transactivists) aren't actually interested in the constraints of gender roles and stereotypes.

It feels like an appeasement of sorts to soothe her nerves......and to restore sanity.

That just makes it worse. How does capitulating to trans madness – no such thing as sex or gender – restore sanity? As for journalists doing swift u-turns to soothe their nerves, surely they lose all integrity when they do that?

As I said, I highly doubt it will placate the TRAs. They have the Guardian in their sights, with a deluded idea of it being one of the most transphobic publications.

No, of course it won't placate the TRAs. So that makes the climb-down all the more pointless, doesn't it?

Head in hands time here.

I don't think Moore's done a U-turn or that she's trying to placate anyone. I think she's expressing what she thinks - albeit less coherently than usual - just as she did last week. Like I've said, she's unpredictable; sometimes I think she's brilliant and sometimes I find her quite annoying. She doesn't always think in straight lines and she certainly doesn't toe any. If you expected her to step up as a rad fem spokeswoman then quite frankly you haven't been paying attention this last 30 years.

No I agree Floisme.

That just makes it worse. How does capitulating to trans madness – no such thing as sex or gender – restore sanity? As for journalists doing swift u-turns to soothe their nerves, surely they lose all integrity when they do that

I think she's written that piece after her weekend in Amsterdam....the mother of all weekends....."Suzanne Moore leaves the Guardian" is big news. She's trying to explore the furthest reaches of " discourse" ( as she puts it), to show willing, and to show empathy to those struggling with dysphoria.....( she's a woman after all......); whilst simultaneously sharing some of her intimate self and experience as a woman, and in a woman's body........

I've done the same myself in recent times......in some attempt to reach out for, or achieve, a consensus - that women's lives are real and not imagined; and that being a woman has a full range of implications on every level.

But do you know what......trans activists simply do not care; they have no empathy for women - in fact they display utter contempt and disregard for women........That's certainly my experience of having done, and shared, the same sort of 'story' with opponents in a bid to extend and expand their empathy and sympathy towards actual women.....a waste of time........

So, I do have sympathy with SM on a purely human level, and as a woman who has found herself at the centre of a media storm.........but have to admit that I hope she firms up again over the next week or so.....and leaves the guardian behind. It really isn't the place for a nuanced debate of the sort she is attempting to offer.

Then, Floisme, I wish she'd steered clear of the subject.

No, of course it won't placate the TRAs. So that makes the climb-down all the more pointless, doesn't it

I understand your despair and frustration, but actually think it represents a stage on the journey......she has "shown willing" - but the fact is that none of that is enough or can ever be enough for trans activists.........this will become apparent to all. nothing but utter capitulation will do. she's not really done that. though......she's just shared some of her own intimate self with the readers.

Then, Floisme, I wish she'd steered clear of the subject.
Seriously? Why?

Also she's probably been courted by Katherine Viner - who doesn't want to lose one of her best journalists........

I think another publication will step forward and employ her....and then she won't be solely dependent on income from the Guardian ( if she currently is).

I can see what she's trying to do with this, and I guess it's ok at the level that it's at. I've never thought of SM as being really capable of stepping outside her own experience or seeing things from a different perspective or even being able to apply a systemic analysis - it's why I have a hard time with her columns generally.

Because I do, unlike you, read that article as back-tracking and unreliable. And as one of the quiet army of GC women who are daily putting themselves on the line and risking censure, pile-ons and worse as they go about raising consciousness and pointing out the madness of TRAs, I get pissed off with people who step up, say something, then back-track.

I appreciate that Moore isn't one for linear thinking but as far as I'm concerned, this is a subject on which linear thinking is important. The TRAs have already muddied the sex/ gender issue so much that they've managed to capture a lot of things by sleight of language. Moore doesn't help by throwing more mud into the mix. Sex is binary, gender is a social construct. Quoting Judith Butler questioning that is not helpful.

I guess we'll just have to disagree then. I do concur she can be annoying (and I've already said so) but I still don't see what she's written as backtracking, I see it as Moore being her usual self - both courageous and infuriating in equal measure. She's no icon and has never pretended to be.

She's on fire! Good for her! 🔥 👏

Like I've said, she's unpredictable; sometimes I think she's brilliant and sometimes I find her quite annoying.

Same. She definitely doesn't think in straight lines, as you say. The first time I read this column, I was annoyed by it, because I thought she was endorsing Butler's 'gender is performance' crap. But the second time I read it, I realised it was actually quite a forceful rebuttal of Butler's analysis, and of the currently fashionable feminist narrative that sex is both undefinable and unimportant.

By listing in intimate detail the ways that being female has impacted her life, she shows up the 'sex is socially constructed' guff for the dishonest academic conceit that it is. The whole column is a declaration of the ways that sex has mattered to her and continues to matter. And of her determination not to shut up about it.

Even the quote from Serano at the end was quite cunningly chosen, since it demonstrates that Serano equates 'female' with 'feminine'. IMO Moore is using that quote to highlight the ways in which the experiences of women and feminine-presenting men do NOT overlap.

The problem of course is that I had to read the column twice to get all that.

Sorry hadn't read the thread; I think she's been clever in using Butler's words. And the female drag.

What donkey said.

The problem of course is that I had to read the column twice to get all that.
Yeah, I wish she'd had a bit more time after Amsterdam to write it. But that's journalism.

I want it to be true that sex is as fluid a category as gender, but that hasn’t been my experience. I don’t want smear tests and mammograms and anti-ageing creams. I don’t want to care any more. My gender now is irrelevant in ways my body can’t be, for it will deteriorate and cease.

Material reality v ideology