Susanna Rustin in the Guardian

[Botsy]

Couldn't see this posted but feels like a step forward

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/30/feminists-anti-trans-idea-sex-gender-oppression

SR has been amplifying other GC feminists for ages.

If this is a genuine change of heart at the Grauniad and not just a one off, then we should graciously accept their repentance and encourage their further progress back to the fold of women’s rights, however much we may despise them privately for their previous cowardice and betrayal.
If we scorn them, and the TRAs pile on to attack them, they will scurry straight back to chanting TWAW and throwing women back under the bus. We must nurture their small shoots of GC logic and encourage them to grow!

It's worth jumping on the Guardian Facebook page to give support to the people trying to argue with mansplainy Guardian men.

Yeah men on the FB page saying “Terf”🙄🙄

@BlackWaveComing

SR has been amplifying other GC feminists for ages.

Yes she has. Let's see what happens next. We've been here before with the Guardian.

"The Guardian has no shareholders or billionaire owner, meaning our journalism is free from bias and vested interests – this makes us different. Our editorial independence and autonomy allows us to provide fearless investigations and analysis of those with political and commercial power."

Did they ever write anything about the Denton report?

meaning our journalism is free from bias and vested interests – this makes us different.

Weren't they given 250k by the Open Society Foundation or something to write about gender identity stuff?

@Singasonga I so agree with your posts. SR has been very courageous on this, she's not a fiery columnist but a fairly sober and serious op-ed writer who specialises in climate. I love Suzanne Moore but they are two very different journalists.

And yes wholeheartedly agree that if we say we want less censorship and more debate we have to live those values, and not only when they 'benefit' our 'own side'.

@stumbledin

I think this is just a token. You can be certain there will not only be letters to the Guardian about how terrible and hurtful it was to publish it but expect at least 3 articles in response.

Going on past records for every 50 pro trans article there is one faintly pro woman article.

I just dont understand how someone who thinks like this can work at the Guardian. Nearly everyday they print something that denegrates women. Why would you work somewhere with people who dont think you have any rights.

I agree. They'll have to do a lot more than this to regain credibility. They have been instrumental in undermining women's rights, not least their right to voice an opinion. It's not just that their coverage has been unbalanced, it has been actively anti-women and has been dishonest and manipulative. They have silenced women - that's not hyperbole, that's a fact. So let's just wait and see what happens next. I expect it will be fifty rounds of articles about how evil women are, but I'll be happy to be proved wrong.

It's obvious that there's a split within guardian UK, with some people really wanting this issue properly discussed and others (most?) wanting articles promoting the aims & world view of the current trans rights movement (and as mentioned they have had funding to do that). But they have now published a few gender critical articles, or articles which report on the issue neutrally (like the one on the wep consultation). Those journalists who support that must have been working hard within a difficult environment to get it to happen at all. Rustin has been engaging with & promoting gc feminists and their ideas publicly for ages. That was brave anyway. This is definitely very positive and I don't care how much later it is than Janice at the times. If we criticised & discouraged everyone who came later to this than someone else, the only UK journalist would still be Julie Bindel.

I am not very 'out' in my own name so I am more of a late comer than Rustin anyway.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Most media organisations will have many editors and if the editor in chief doesn’t set an explicit line then it’s a question of second guessing what direction to take and those with loudest voices and most hysterical followers getting things published.
The measured, rational tone of that piece suggests susanna Rustin is not one for histrionics.

I genuinely think the TRAs thought they could get away with anything in terms of attacking JKR, but when they sent death threats and RIP hashtags over a book that any sane person could see wasn't even about a transgender person, I think it woke a lot of people up; the letter that dozens of writers signed (who could have envisaged that a month ago) and now a GC opinion piece in The Guardian that is pretty much identical to what JKR was saying.

I agree Susanna has been GC on Twitter for some time.

I may never feel the same way about The Guardian again, nevertheless I welcome this because it's the only way some of my lefty friends and colleagues are going to read and take notice of GC arguments. The time for settling old scores is after we've won.

No need to settle scores, except perhaps what should happen to OJ. Personally I'd like him to have to go out to dinner with 50 GC women

OJ at a FiLia disco?

@BlackWaveComing

SR has been amplifying other GC feminists for ages.

Yes I've seen this too. Such a good article.

@highame

No need to settle scores, except perhaps what should happen to OJ. Personally I'd like him to have to go out to dinner with 50 GC women

But what have the women done to deserve that?

[quote BeyondOpposition]I'm a researcher on a project looking at sex/gender and sexualities issues, including how gender and sex based rights and women’s rights impact people differently in their daily lives. There are some really interesting perspectives shared in these comments. I am wondering if anyone wants to share their experiences further? Would be really interested to hear your thoughts about how changes to women’s spaces affects you. Our confidential questionnaire is here: beyondopposition.org/questionnaire/[/quote]
You might want to approach MNHQ and get them to repost this in the right section (there is a questionnaires section somewhere) - they're not keen on random requests for this sort of thing popping up on the main boards (annoying, I know, but your post will just get deleted otherwise, so it would be better to move it to where you want it to go).

Though I must say, having had a quick look at the potted biographies of the four lead researchers, I fear this may be a bit of an exercise in "When did you stop beating your wife?"

For example Profs Browne and Nash have written recently on "heteroactivism": many of the women on here are in fact lesbian and worried by trans ideology specifically because of the cotton ceiling, the redefinition of lesbianism as "same gender attracted" and the pressure on young butch lesbians to "trans away the gay."

I've looked at the website. Basically if you are anti gay marriage, abortion rights and against gender equality legislation they want you to answer to better understand you. I'll pass thanks.

Yeah, I'm not keen on being lumped in with anti-abortionists, opposers of same sex marriage, people who believe the heterosexual nuclear family is the only valid choice, and those who oppose compulsory sex education.

And I'm raising an eyebrow at queer geography too.

If anyone's researching this from a women's sex-based rights angle, I'd be happy to contribute, but I really don't feel like I'm part of the target audience for this one.

I wonder if ANYONE is interested in finding out why left wing women are going GC? Why not?

If anyone's researching this from a women's sex-based rights angle, I'd be happy to contribute

Same here.

..Although setting up this kind of project would depend on academics and funders and sponsor HEIs and ethics committees allowing the possibility of gender critical thought.

Unfortunately so far from the outside it looks like 99% of UK academia has already embraced misogynIstic, sexist and homophobic genderist values in an unquestioning way instead.

I think it’s much more likely that a think tank (probably a politically right-leaning one) would do this work before an academic department does. Which is a grim thought because then, even if robustly done, the results will be dismissed because of who has gathered them.

Not to mention the depressing and self defeating truth of academia failing to question this dogmatic politics, and the chilling effect that having on important social research and on academic freedom in general.

How strange to think that on a feminist forum a questionnaire, aimed at people whose religious beliefs are why they oppose gay marriage and abortion, would be a good recruiting ground for participants.

But more depressing if this is why researchers think people, or particularly women, would be gender critical and want to preserve sex based rights.

Another of those funded exercises to confirm one's existing biases.

Another one to chalk up to the ERC. I wonder if they would ever fund a project that allowed gender critical feminists to survey other gender critical feminist to confirm a belief in sex based rights. I think not!

But more depressing if this is why researchers think people, or particularly women, would be gender critical and want to preserve sex based

See the 'Gender Critical = fundamentally right wing' thread. I think it stems from the states but it's taken hold here. It's an easy way to demonise GC feminism and avoid difficult questions all at the same time. Just shout bigot and you're done.

@HecatesHat

But more depressing if this is why researchers think people, or particularly women, would be gender critical and want to preserve sex based

See the 'Gender Critical = fundamentally right wing' thread. I think it stems from the states but it's taken hold here. It's an easy way to demonise GC feminism and avoid difficult questions all at the same time. Just shout bigot and you're done.

One might equally (and equally oddly) argue that being gender critical absolutely means the person is a Marxist as sex is based on something material in our circumstances and gender is not. Gender critical people vary a lot in their other political views, but I have found most to be moderately left-wing. Though might depend on the country as the concepts of left and right are very different between, say, the US and the UK.