Thursday - BBC Question Time - Need to lend support to The Baroness!

[Divoc2020]

BBC Question Time (Thurs 10.45 pm) is an "Under-30s special" this week . The panel "will face a virtual audience of young people from around the country."

One of the guests is Damien Barr (journalist, author, presenter) who has come out in force against the Baroness for her historic stance on gay marriage and is calling for her to be removed as an honorary vice president of the organisation (which her late husband founded!)

The Booker Prize Foundation have already issued their own statement:
thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/news/statement-behalf-booker-prize-foundation

Damien Barr has now protected his tweets, but as I used to follow him for book-related stuff I can see that he is intending to whip up an Under-30s frenzy about this issue.

I imagine there will be coverage in the usual places, especially twitter using #BBCQT. I'll be letting the Booker Prize know I support their current stance @TheBookerPrizes

Oh fgs! The most powerless voiceless vulnerable group of ppl my arse

That succinct statement speaks volumes to me by what it is NOT saying.

How refreshing to see that they haven't gone down the full TWAW, she is wrong and needs to be educated route.

The self righteousness will be high won't it? I wonder how many people will be canceled by them for having the wrong thoughts? I expect a lengthy list. Maybe some statues should be provided for smashing.

Oh, what, a man wants to whip up a frenzied mob against an older female? Again? What on earth could it all mean.

There's a lot of whining on Twitter about the Baronesses values and how these are damaging to the Booker. She has been around for a long while now people, point to the damage she has wrought on Booker with her values in that time please or we might suspect that your words are just hot air.

How come they now want to get rid of her from the Booker? The whole gay marriage thing was ages ago now, the views she has on that aren't new.

Damian Barr is lovely. I'm disappointed. But I can understand how a gay man could interpret that a straight person being against Gay Marriage is being homophobic.

Damian lives in Brighton and is a fan of Juno Dawson. He's never going to be a fan of the Baroness. Is there any trans representation on the under-30s studio panel? On one of the last under-30s Question Times they had Paris Lees.

I'll be honest: I'm not completely on board with the love for Baroness Nicholson expressed on this forum. She's come late to the campaign but seems to be enjoying the glory without recognising the huge amount of work that has been undertaken by feminists over the past two or three years, often at personal cost to themselves. I also think that if you were to dig very deeply into her views, there'd probably be some pretty unpalatable stuff in there.

Having said all that, I think attempts to remove her as honorary VP of the Booker are ridiculous. I wish the people who went round trying to get people expelled for wrongthink would take some time to reflect that one day it might be them.

I totally agree with all of your post RoyalCorgi.

ive seen damian barr telling people they need to be reeducated.

I hear what you're saying RoyalCorgi but I've also seen her acknowledging the work of others frequently, so I'm not sure I agree.

The thing is, she's one of those older women who has lived a full life with many fantastic achievements and she's willing to stick her neck out on behalf of the many women who feel unable to do so for fear of losing jobs, friends, family etc.

It astonishes me that she's nearly 80! She could be pottering around her garden, but no, she's taking this shitshow on...

But the vote on same sex marriage was YEARS ago? 2013? Loads of MPs voted against it at the time. A lot has changed since then.

This is cancel culture all over again.

Damian is telling his followers (on his locked Twitter feed ) that Gaby Wood – Literary Director, The Booker Prize Foundation has told him to get people to email their support (for his point of view!) directly to her:

[email protected]

Perhaps she'd like to hear some other points of view too?

“ for her historic stance on gay marriage”

in why way are they “historic”? She re-expressed them just the other day. She’s against equal marriage.

Who is the Baroness and what did she say/do? (Don’t live in the UK anymore but I’m very interested in the whole trans/women’s rights debate over there).

Grrrr.... apparently they have caved in: thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/news/statement-behalf-booker-prize-foundation-0

Removed all the 'honorary' roles and titles.

@AllCatsAreBeautiful

“ for her historic stance on gay marriage”

in why way are they “historic”? She re-expressed them just the other day. She’s against equal marriage.

I don't care if Nicholson was against gay marriage twenty years ago - opinions evolve and very few people were as supportive of LGB rights back then as they are now. I have no issue with that.

I do have an issue with how unclear her current stance is, and I'm uncomfortable with the vague tweets about same sex marriage "undermining women and girls", as if she's trying to tie it into the current transgender debate. It doesn't undermine my rights if two men want to get married. It certainly doesn't undermine my rights if lesbian and bisexual women are given the same legal protections as straight women.

Baroness Nicholson needs to speak more clearly on this. What does she actually believe same sex couples are / are not entitled to? How is she defining marriage here? Lay it out for us in plain English, please.

I'm glad for the actions she's taken for women and girls recently and for safeguarding (people from other political parties should have done so) - but equal marriage for gay people has absolutely nothing to do with modern day transactivism, except in the sense that getting it meant Stonewall needed something new to campaign for.

Equal marriage rights have NO bearing on women and girls' rights in the way she has stated there - or at least not in the way she's implying. The GRA was a direct result of fudging in order to try to avoid gay marriage. FFS. This WILL be used as "proof" that all women who want sex-based rights are evil homophobes.

@Divoc2020

Grrrr.... apparently they have caved in: thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/news/statement-behalf-booker-prize-foundation-0

Removed all the 'honorary' roles and titles.

Craven. Really, fuck this.