Nigella Lawson apologizes for 27 year old column

[Igneococcus]

It reads like a hostage note:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9272cff6-f2cd-11ea-9de6-a6e4d4016fb7?shareToken=f1646908d8ee981cca03f1ebbff8ec12

this is so depressing - I know Nigella has her problems but I would imagine that she has the financial security to stand with JK and do the Right Thing. Watching the flying monkeys coming for the fragrant Nigella would be a big heads up for many people.
Instead, she keeps her head down and adds to the voices wanting to destroy women's rights and protections and it is mostly left to the ordinary women who are desperately trying to get the word out there and risking a lot to do it.

How do people find old tweets/articles etc that are "offensive" ? Do they forensically search a particular person's archive as they are targeting them in particular, or is there a small (or large?) army out there all digging through everything anyone said or wrote of a dubious nature, however long ago?

I read a lot, and virtually everything written pre-, er, now, contains something someone might object to. Some things a great deal worse than others, of course, but I foresee that almost every single thing ever published is going to have to be burned if we carry on with this "cleansing" business.

the moderators at the Times are having a busy morning - I wonder how many comments are now in the queue?

I'm not sure I understand the distinction between those who identify as a different sex or gender and those who identify as a different race. But that is seen as offensive, of being white privilege and cultural appropriation. There was another news story last week about a US professor who'd been living as a black person when she was white.

I will just add and

It also has a lot less integrity to apologise to an individual on an issue of a political disagreement while not actually setting out clearly that your politics have changed (and if you say that they have changed, to set out in what way and why).

In the future every politician, every celebrity will be entirely bland. No one who has put anything in public will survive.

Perhaps, and I'm just speculating because I'm feeling optimistic, NL feels the same way she did all those years ago, has been overly aware of what she said years ago, and has out on a façade because of the wokies and cancel culture trend which is on the rise.

Part of me really hopes she sticks to her old convictions.

I bet the glass is really half empty though.

JamesZebra I think you have misunderstood people's concerns.

Years ago people were very against gay and lesbian relationships but as time has gone on there has been a lot more understanding and awareness around this.

This doesn't have anything to do with gay and lesbian relationships which don't affect anybody outside the relationship and are simply an expression of a sexual preference.

If you want a comparators, the more relevant ones are discussions on religious and cultural beliefs and medical ethics.

Did Nigella's sister die from breast cancer at relatively young age?
I could imagine losing a family member to this disease & then hearing of healthy women having their breasts removed could be difficult to read and understand.

I assume her children have been ‘educating her’ like Jonathan Ross’s did to him

i agree. one of my most clever brilliantist most politically engaged and aware friends just says is 'we need to be kind and listen' -

its no coincidence both kids are v active in lgbt circles.

@merrymouse thank you.

I work in an environment where we have to be incredibly tolerant of everything so I am very open minded but I do understand why others are not comfortable. I am not always very good at articulating what I am trying to say some it comes out wrong so I hope I didn't offend anyone. I also wasn't saying that MH issues aren't genuine (god knows I've had my fair share), I just meant MH vs physical illness.

JamesZebra While you can speak for yourself, the "we" makes no sense. There is no reason to act like no one on MN could have any experience of gender dysphoria or that those who have would take issue with Nigella's originated statement (or care what she said 27 years ago) at least in the generalities if not in specific word choices. Mutilating is a word commonly frowned upon being used to apply to someone else (some apply it themselves but not accepted from someone else), but it doesn't automatically take away from the general message or that this was decades ago.

Also, don't use LGB people, and the past and presents issues we face, as a shield here just because anything to do with sexual or gender "differences" gets shoved under the same rainbow.

As a pp said, this has more to do with medical ethics, personal beliefs, and social factors affecting presentation of symptoms and treatment. Previous meta-analysis done by GIRES has shown strong evidence that a significant majority of people with gender dysphoria do not undergo medical transition. While the data on the why behind these differences are slim on the ground, and it may have to do with the severity in symptoms, there isn't the data to suggest it's the best, first course of action that it is now commonly portrayed to be.

Also, mental illnesses are more and more being found to have physical components (visible brain differences, as an example), the divide between the mind and the body is heavily blurred if one wants to think there is a divide at all.

@FeeBeeBooh

Did Nigella's sister die from breast cancer at relatively young age? I could imagine losing a family member to this disease & then hearing of healthy women having their breasts removed could be difficult to read and understand.

Good post. I've had a mastectomy and it's horrible.

How do people find old tweets/articles etc that are "offensive" ? Do they forensically search a particular person's archive as they are targeting them in particular, or is there a small (or large?) army out there all digging through everything anyone said or wrote of a dubious nature, however long ago?

In this case, the original article was about the person who has brought it up again tbf. Why choose to drag it up now I don't know though.

I’m not a Nigella fan. Whenever I think of the Kitchen Goddess Now, I have a vision of her crawling around the floor with the Nanny, high on coke. However, we’ve all said stuff in the past, I’m sure. They were not enlightened times.

She said that Elan-Cane’s desire for breast and womb removal surgery was “brutal” and had “no medical justification”.

These are odd terms to focus on as the source of offence. Loads of people describe their own surgery as "brutal" in the context on the toll it takes on the body. To pretend surgery is a risk-free breeze is delusional.
"No medical justification" - I'd agree that someone thinking gender dysphoria was a medical condition that is ameliorated by surgery would disagree with this, but then we are also told in very strong terms that GD should not be 'medicalised'. So which is it? Is the removal of healthy breasts and uterus a medical decision or not?

They were not enlightened times

Charlotte

There is nothing remotely enlightened about hounding people because they refuse to chant the new liturgy. The ongoing attack on freedom of speech is an existential threat to Enlightenment values.

JamesZebra, you mention the parallels with 'tolerance' of gay and lesbian relationships - would you define these as same-sex relationships? Do you think people have the right to restrict their sexual relationships to one biological sex?

I think people did say and do things, 25+ years ago which may be far removed to what they might say and do today. Opinions and knowledge have changed. We know better. We do better (or try to).

Why has Nigella apologised?

Could she not just have said she's 'had a re-think'?

Or why could she not apologise to CEC for the 'hurt caused' but stay true to her original principles that aggressive surgery is not the right way to deal with such issues?

I think it's a shame that personal examples are used (because this was a spat between NL and CEC) when actually the bigger issue is far more important.

As PPs have said, why does anything androgynous revert to 'male'? And why does the press continue to conflate sex and gender? I am female. But I'm not gendered. I say, wear, and do what I like. I've been the victim of sexism, but fortunately for me, not male-perpetrated violence.

@JamesZebra yes - to each their own - but not at the expense of women's safety.

I've seen two things on social media recently that have disturbed me. Someone pleading for help looking for their missing teenage DC who has 'had gender difficulties'. I actually couldn't tell whether we should be looking for a feminine-presenting girl, a masculine-presenting girl, a feminine-presenting boy or a masculine-presenting boy. Which could be quite important if I'm 'on the lookout' for someone.

And another friend who was supporting an acquaintance of hers crowdfunding appeal for 'top surgery' because 'he's brave and this will let him be his true self'. Broke my heart that one.

@BrollyKnickers

We will never understand what it is like to feel like we have been born into the wrong body whether that is a mental health issue or genuine medical issue - we don't get it. It must be incredibly distressing to feel that way.

Yes we will never understand what it's like - so we should pay very close attention to the words of the many de-transitioners who do understand.

This, a hundred times. We are all born into the right body, it being the only body we have. There is no other. It is detransitioners who have gone there and come back who know the whole truth, and can tell us. We should listen. For the rest of us, trans or not, it's just guess work.