Guardian back into the fray

[Kit19]

With a sorrowful piece from a TW about how what’s going on the media doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground & TW & feminists are really allies fighting the same battles

It

I kind of think I am tethered to the experience of being a woman based on my biology. That's what it means to have a body. I'm not sure what "immutably" means in that context - that it isn't experienced identically in every case? I guess but I'm not sure anyone has ever really claimed that. I'd even go out on a limb though and say that being tethered to our biology is universal for everyone, even if they don't think it is.

Of course people's experiences are tethered to being embodied. How could it possibly be otherwise? We're not brains in jars like the former presidents on Futurama.

@RoyalCorgi

You have to wonder about the cognitive dissonance.

I know. I do wonder at it.

Another word for it is "stupidity".

It’s not stupidity. There is no way that someone at an editorial level at the Guardian doesn’t see this, or hasn’t had it pointed out to them by women in the office, yet they persist with this editorial gaslighting anyway.

It’s malevolence, not stupidity. They’re doing it on purpose. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there are women in that office who are raging at it. But if you mention it, you get a letter attacking you, like Suzanne Moore.

I also like to imagine there’s a secret WhatsApp group with them all, plotting ways of sneaking things in .

But there’s an editorial malevolence that sees money more important than journalistic integrity, balanced coverage, or women’s rights.

I do wonder why they don't try and get some really substantial trans activist articles. I am totally fine with the fact that they want to give a platform for that perspective. That's what they are supposed to do. But the stuff they print is so lightweight.

What's the heavy weight perspective?

I bet it's clicks. We shouldn't, any more.

Anything else is either classed as "illegal" or subject to intimidating cancelation and abuse. The subject of your article in fact.

This is the heart of the matter. Sometimes I think they are fully aware that women can't say no to them, and it's a dominance display to point out how they are "warm" towards them.

@TheProdigalKittensReturn

Of course people's experiences are tethered to being embodied. How could it possibly be otherwise? We're not brains in jars like the former presidents on Futurama.

I wonder though, perhaps a lot of people do think that way. And have the impression that is what feminism says - maybe even a lot of people who think of themselves as feminists.

It would make some sense of the fact that gender ideology seems logical to so many.

It's some time since I read the Guardian. I found it had become 'Janet and John try a bit of Socialism' . Listening to what you're saying about some of it's trans debating stance, I wonder when they will work out that women read newspapers and that women are starting to look at the Trans debate and realise it isn't what they thought. They thought it was some benign people who had done a full transition - like me, until I did a bit more research. The Guardian needs to take care that it doesn't lose another tranche of readers, and are women really reading a newspaper that prints stuff by Owen Jones, the shouty, opinionated arse. New to this, and old😊

@HeistSociety

What's the heavy weight perspective?

Well, I don't know, but they certainly aren't looking for it or printing it. This person has actually made no arguments at all. There have to be some better trans writers/thinkers out there.

If the person who wrote that is an academic then perhaps not. Speaking of privilege on another thread though, I'd say that having your poorly written blog-like posts published in a national broadsheet just because you're trans would definitely qualify as evidence that you have quite bit of it.

Of course people's experiences are tethered to being embodied. How could it possibly be otherwise? We're not brains in jars like the former presidents on Futurama.

This is the heart of it, isn't it? It's crazy, it goes against all known neuroscience, all science of any kind, but TRAs are essentially dualists, they instinctively believe mind and body are separate entities.

Too much time on the Internet and living in a constant dissociative state will do that to you I guess.

I have no idea, outside of Butlerian nonsense, what it could be.

I mean, I'd say that my height has influenced how I interact with the world and thus my personality in some ways, and that's a far less profound aspect of my physical being than my sex.

What's the heavy weight perspective?

Perhaps one of those individuals who gave evidence to the trans inquiry which led to the self id proposal?
Like Jane Fae, for example. Their last contribution to the Guardian seems to be that piece in defence of extreme porn. Weird.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

We’re comments enabled on the article?

Not that I could see. In so-called "Comment is Free" this is their policy with trans articles, I think, and has been for some time. Because I think they know that a substantial chunk of their readership doesn't agree.

No, they never allow any discussion, ever, on transgender issues. @Ereshkigalangcleg is right - they're trying to shape the debate, against the feeling of a significant chunk of their own readership.

A major tell is Mariella Frostup's godawful advice column. They have to allow reader comment on that one - so the readers can offer their advice to the person writing in - and there is a stark divide between the male and female commenters. The men tend to be all "BDSM is a woke choice, your wife is just a prude", 'if his wife won't give him blow jobs she's denying him his needs " etc . Woke bros, though I'm sure they're too middle aged to consider themselves as such. The women, on the other hand, wouldn't be out of place here. They're often quite clear eyed about the sexism at play in these relationships, and unafraid to take the woman's side against Mariella's token wokism.

It's very illuminating. You can see what the Guardian is afraid of. Inconvenient women are alive and well over there, they're just not being given a platform to speak

@ThePurported

What's the heavy weight perspective?

Perhaps one of those individuals who gave evidence to the trans inquiry which led to the self id proposal?
Like Jane Fae, for example. Their last contribution to the Guardian seems to be that piece in defence of extreme porn. Weird.

Oh goodness, is that the aggressive knitter? The 'egg shell skull' person?

Like Jane Fae, for example. Their last contribution to the Guardian seems to be that piece in defence of extreme porn. Weird

Or James/Jamie Shupe. You can still find the article he wrote as Jamie for the Guardian about being the USA’s first legally “non-binary” person. Then if you google James Shupe, you can find his article talking about how it was all a lie and he has AGP.

Yes it is, Heist

Pressed post too soon.

It seems the Guardian doesn’t have a great track record on finding worthwhile voices in this debate.

See also Hannah Mouncey, given column inches, only for it later to transpire that the women on Hannah’s handball team didn’t want to share the showers with Hannah’s column inches.

The Guardian doesn't allow comments on any article where they think their readership might have significant disagreements with the party line. The stopped them for issues relating to Israel a long time ago, and they haven't allowed them for feminism articles for years either.

Can't see they've mentioned it on twitter...but they have highlighted the Halle Berry story. Most of the commentators aren't impressed

To my shame I do still check out The Guardian's food writing...I hate what its become as it's where I used to hang out online before I found my way here.

Even at the time of the Suzanne Moore/Julie Birchill incident the comments almost all toed the TWAW line. I only realised when I came here that it was because they moderated away all dissent...I can remember cheering inside on the rare occasion any such comment got through and those that did would be very mild in their questioning. Fae and Kaveney were regular contributors too.

There used to be some great posters btl line but if I venture there now it seems to just be woke blokes, I'm presuming any women with sense left a while back. Having said that, I was reading something there last week, possibly something LGB based and I noticed quite a few dissenting voices btl which gave me hope.

There are still some good commenters, but they don't have comments on those articles, so...

True enough Goosefoot , if any article might cause the bien pensant of the Guardian to clutch their pearls then it's closed for comment