Damian Barr

[AbsintheFriends]

I know there's loads going on at the moment, and Damian Barr is just one bearded misogynist in an increasingly dystopian world, but he's the one who kicked up a huge self-righteous fuss about Baroness Nicholson and got her ousted from her position at the Booker Prize on the grounds of homophobia and transphobia. Who would have imagined that such a zealous icon of ideological purity would turn out to have said things like this??

twitter.com/MLagouste/status/1278345389150662658

(Oh yes. Any one of the several million of us on FWR who has seen a bearded misogynist hiding behind a trans-rights banner...)

Fucking hell...

Barr is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I wonder what they would think of his enlightened Twitter history?

If—and it’s a big if—“tranny” was once used among certain circles by LGBT people as a normal, even affectionate, term (and in my experience it was)...we still have the repugnant mocking of a failed suicide attempt.

How dare he stand on a high horse looking down upon anyone?

*I think this tweet is spot on:

'Looking at his timeline using this language about trans people, I’m beginning to see why so many gay men are rabid TRA. They know they treated trans people v poorly, using these terms & are desperate to engage in whataboutery blaming women for abuse they gave out themselves."*

Yes, this is an interesting point. TRAs use the line 'you've been sharing toilets with transwomen for years' as some sort of gotcha, but the truth is we used to turn a benevolent blind eye, while this was the kind of vile stuff the blokes were spouting. Because this was the kind of vile stuff the blokes were spouting, and as women we had been socialised to be kind. It's only since our rights to self-definition and language and our own spaces have been threatened with removal that we've begun to push back.

And, surprise surprise, who gets vilified (and sacked, cancelled and threatened with rape and violence) for transphobia?

I don't know if 'lady man truckers' has ever been deemed acceptable.

Is anyone surprised at all? What a nasty little man.

Of course all of the women who have been defending him won't dare to even acknowledge any of this (looking at you Sarah Perry). They'll just pretend they never saw any of it & continue to gush over how brave he is.

Nothing ‘affectionate’ about ridiculing a suicide attempt or ‘a granny tranny’ going through his bins.

Joking about a trans hen and saying a cock might fix it???

Let’s also not forget the jokes about sex workers.

It’s vile and I am sorry for the trans people who are seeing what transphobia really looks like.

@Snorkers

What an awful person. I feel v v passionately about what women are having to ensure right now, but NEVER ever in a million years would I or anyone else I know say anything so disgusting and offensive. This is true hate speech. Laughing about Anyone trying to injure themselves is bad enough, but the use of language too. This man is a hypocrite and a disgrace and completely without scruples. He must lose his job over this.

Yep that's beyond the pale. I don't know any GC Feminist who would say anything like that and side not (I am also starting to wonder if the people who do say that are trolls deliberately trying to get female talk threads shut down.) What he has said is disgusting. That's not someone not understanding and saying something inaccurate, nor is it even someone giving an insult. Can someone get this to the papers?

Just another run of the mill misogynist, who also happens to be transphobic.

I'm not a fan of cancel culture, but Damien is a huge fan of people being accountable for their actions so i will make an exception in this case.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a trans activist in pursuance of a misogynistic witchhunt, must be in want of a thorough purge of his twitter account.

— Anon

More hypocrisy!

"It’s been 'revealed' I once shared a stage with Charles Moore. Indeed, I often talk to and, more importantly, listen to people I’m not sure I agree with – I recommend this where it feels safe to do so. I abhor Moore’s views on equal marriage and made this very clear to him."

twitter.com/Damian_Barr/status/1278005273983176704?s=19

I hope people archived pages. They need proof and I'm sure he'll deny that the tweets are real. This is just fucking mind blowing

I think what will happen is that he will simply ignore the grossly offensive tweets, maybe tackle some mild ones, and out of a sense of chummy propriety none of his peers will be impolite enough to mention them.

What an absolutely bloody horrible thing to say.

Right side of history, O My Arse.

You know, just once, I’d like the TRAs or people like Mimmymum / Munroe / Joss /Steph /Harrop to call out shit like this. To actually stand up and give a bloke like Barr some of the same shit that they give us.

NEVER have I seen a woman / RadFem / T*RF whatever they want to call us JOKE about someone attempting suicide, whether that person is trans or not. NEVER have I seen rampant homophobia like Barr’s come from the mouth (fingers!) of a female.

Shit like that would be an instaban on here. But no, they’ll go at us hammer and tongs shouting TRANSPHOBIA for the most minor comments, slagging MN off constantly, trying to shut us down or shame us.

Look at the jerks feed - look how many messages of support he still has. They are still supporting a male who has PROVED his transphobia.

It shows it’s not about the trans at all. Their silence proves it.

What vile tweets. Far more vile than anything Baroness Nicholson said.

He's not the only one to be caught out on this.

The man who called the police on women handing out leaflets at the Green Party Conference a year or two ago - derogatory tweets about "tr*nnies" were found on his twitter too.

There was a couple of others too.

Can't remember their names I'm afraid - but there were threads/screenshots at the time. These people have jumped on the rainbow/trans bandwagon, and find it very, very easy to bully women now - when they themselves have said far worse in the past. The hypocrisy and opportunism is astounding.

Oh my, and there are so many of them. I'd only seen two when I started reading this thread!

Well I’ve got my most surprised face on that a beardy bloke who hounded an older woman out of a public role turns out to be a raging misogynist 😳 amazing!

I’m as always leery of outrage archaeology on people’s twitter accounts, but given that supposedly offensive tweets have been Damians weapon of choice, it’s really hard not to want to see him hoist by his own woke petard...

Let’s see those activists calling him out. Come on, monitors, here is some real live transphobia for you to do something about!

Though I eagerly await this somehow also being feminists fault.

Those tweets are disgusting. They are really vile. There's one laughing at a transwoman who he says tried to kill herself & failed. Unbelievably vile. Suicidal feelings, mental suffering, are not a joke.
And this person is lauded as a woke hero? Has influence?
I am absolutely shocked that this person has a public profile.

Urgh this is just awful.

I think he’s ticked most of the boxes on EA protected characteristics in his insults:

Age
Sex
Disability
Gender reassignment
Race
Sexual orientation

That’s a lot of bigotry.

You know what? I expect him to not be ‘cancelled’ in the slightest. He’ll issue a grovelling apology and the TRA’s will treat it like Keir Starmer treated Lloyd Russell-Moyle, one rule for us....

His twitter is now "protected"!

I doubt he’ll even apologise tbh