Julie Bindel - article on allies

[Goosefoot]

Thought people might be interested in discussing this:

[https://unherd.com/2020/10/feminisms-dangerous-new-allies/]]

We've talked about this a lot here - I'm not sure Bindel has really said anything as worthwhile or interesting as lot of the regular posters here have, it seems a little one dimensional to me.

Maybe because she's really stuck on the left-good right-bad thinking and doesn't really consider whether there has been a change within those categories at all, or why the left has struggled with certain problems. It seems to me she sees it as almost random, and if we just take out the TRA stuff things can go back to normal.

[quote xxyzz]@jj1968 - if true, that's extremely disappointing - Transgender Trend do so much good, but their ability to do good is based on their being the rational, sensible grown ups in the room, who care about safeguarding.

That is not consistent with connecting with a Nazi hate site.

Is this definitely true? It would seem very out of character for them. Can anyone confirm?[/quote]
Here's the tweet: twitter.com/Transgendertrd/status/1314836483082268673

The video they took part in has been removed, possibly after the site got hacked a couple of days ago, but they are still linking to brand new tube and if you scroll down or click around you'll see the type of content on there.

xxyzz It appears to be a YouTube alternative which emphasises free speech.

There is a problem with sites that emphasise free speech -it's described presciently and clearly but in far too many words in this essay slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-web/

to summarise: the problem is that any "free speech" focused space attracts mostly people with awful opinions who've been banned from speaking elsewhere. So if you happen to have a perfectly reasonable opinion that, a big organisation like, ooh, say, Google, wants you to shut up about, then you have to find your video hosting space alongside the conspiracy theorists and the NeoNazis, or you have to shut up.

I don't doubt that the content jj showed exists on BrandNewTube , But I think they have been somewhat pruriently looking for the worst things they could find on there.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be held morally responsible for all the content on Youtube just because I linked to a music video that's hosted there.

So, I too went and scrolled all the way down and got nothing like what you posted. It had a whole lot of covid vids (one of my saved internet search’s), some US election vids, and one about a horse. The ads were nothing to note either.

It is no doubt a site that has plenty of horrible stuff. As does twitter, YouTube and their ilk.

@Kantastic

The website was set up by conspiracy theorists to promote conspiracy theories. Most conspiracy theories have antisemitism at the root and that is reflected in the content of the site. In the video that Harry Miller and Posie Parker appear in there is also an interview with Piers Corbyn claiming the COVID pandemic is a hoax. Sonia Poulton is clearly closely involved with this website and her video are it's flagship product. Presumably it is an attempt to draw in gender critical people and expose them to conspiracy theories in the hope of recruiting a few.

And that's far from the only problem with the site as a thread right here on mumsnet reveals: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4033648-The-Raw-Report-with-Sonia-Poulton-Posie-Parker-Derek-Bose-Harry-Miller-Mark-Saunokonoko

Well, if we’re going down THAT road.....

Julie Bindel openly discusses in that article that she’s appeared on stage in debates with Milo Yiannopoulos. That video is available on YouTube.

Click on it and I’m sure ALL SORTS of wonderful content will be recommended. He’s not exactly known for having avoided ‘controversial’ guests.

By this ‘standard’ we must surely now disregard anything that Julie Bindel says, right?

@Winesalot

So, I too went and scrolled all the way down and got nothing like what you posted. It had a whole lot of covid vids (one of my saved internet search’s), some US election vids, and one about a horse. The ads were nothing to note either.

It is no doubt a site that has plenty of horrible stuff. As does twitter, YouTube and their ilk.

You obviously didn't look very hard. It's here in this pic, note the url bar, on the front page.

Sorry pic didnt seem to work, am trying again.

@xxyzz

I am left wing (soft left) and understand where Julie is coming from. I'm generally in favour of staying shtum on inter-feminist bickering as I don't feel we have so many allies we can afford to split the movement down the middle. I'm also opposed to purity spirals.

That said, I am surprised that no-one on this thread has acknowledged that for people like Julie (lesbian) and me (Jewish), it's not about ideological purity, primarily, it's about safety.

Maybe if you're a straight white woman who is not a member of any minority group, you can hang out with the far right on sites that promote the Nazis and think 'the end justifies the means'. Or even 'Ooh, aren't I a rebel,' or 'This is a bit of a laugh'.

But I can't. There's nothing funny about neo-Nazis to me. And Julie repeatedly states that people or groups who pretend to be women's allies over the conflict between women's and trans rights but who are using that as a Trojan horse to repeal lesbian and gay rights, pose a very real threat to her and the rest of the LGB community. So if you're happy dumping on other threatened groups because it doesn't affect you, whether you call yourself left or right or neither, think again about whether that's who you actually want to be.

I used to follow Sonia Poulton on Twitter. I then discovered she was a batshit conspiracy theorist and as far as I'm concerned...no.

I'm not going to spend my time publishing articles about Poulton (and I'm no Julie Bindel so probably no-one would read them if I did!). But I'm certainly going to walk fairly fast in the opposite direction.

Look, GC feminism is a broad church, which is as it should be. But whatever your views on the left, and I'm pretty bloody critical of the party that allowed itself to be taken over by Corbyn and his anti-Semitic thugs, I don't feel that's any excuse to embrace the far right either.

At the risk of sounding like a TRA here, not everything is binary. In politics, left and far right are not the only options. Centrism (albeit without a clear party to cohere round) is also an honourable option. You can leave the batshit left without feeling the need to therefore join the batshit right either!

Great point re safety.

It's possible to work with those unlike us, given we share some basic values.

But for feminism to embrace anti-Semitism? That's like inviting a disease to be hosted in one's body.

Unacceptable in any 'ally'. If we reject it from our own side of politics, why would we suffer it from others? Giving moral cover to anti-Semites is a price too steep, even for women's rights. Jewish women are women too; we don't sell them out to get ours.

That said I just actually saw the material that jj linked to and it really is foul and it actually is on the front page when you scroll down far enough - some of my video thumbnails didn't load.

I would definitely be looking for another video hosting site if I had material there, it's one thing knowing that stuff like this is lurking in the depths but seeing it on the front page is a whole different thing. I think I may have been experiencing a bit of a "boy who cried wolf" effect with jj, genuinely wasn't expecting them to make a valid point.

@BlackWaveComing and @xxyzz - I agree.

We're always saying the opposite side should do "due dilligence" - NSPCC should have checked out rubberman before employing him, the Greens should have checked Challenor's background, and the LibDems had no excuse whatsoever for not checking Challenor's background.

Well we should do the same. By all means be interviewed by the mainstream right of centre press - Times, Telegraph, Spectator.

But due dilligence means you shouldn't tether yourself to people who are espousing views which are outright evil, simply to get a platform (any more than political parties and NGOs should align themselves with people with very dubious background re. safeguarding, simply to get woke points).

Poulton is definitely the wrong side of a line I don't want to cross.

Also i think TT shouldn't link to it and anyone involved with TT should let them know, but they are not tarnished with guilt by association for having done so. It's an innocuously named site and they'll have linked directly to the video not to the front page.

This oft repeated phrase "hanging out with nazis" or "hanging out with anti-semites" is so bloody dishonest.

No one "hangs out" with nazis.

Everyone else has explained how this works: a site dedicated to free speech by definition is going to have lunatic material on it. But you don't get rid of the lunatic material by demanding that people stick to the usual misogynist sites. You get rid of it by drowning it out with your own material.

[quote jj1968]@Kantastic

There is actual Nazi propaganda one click from Transgender Trend's twitter feed. They are actively promoting a far right website. They know what's on that site, they have made the choice to promote it and appear on it. This isn't about the Spectator or the Tories but dangerous and potentially violent groups and individuals on the extreme right. And for what, to promote gender critical activism to conspiracy theorists and holocaust deniers. Do you really want them in your movement? Surely there are some lines you think shouldn't be crossed?[/quote]
Why do you care? You disagree with us so why do you care if we have 'bad' people on our side?

I think I may have been experiencing a bit of a "boy who cried wolf" effect with jj, genuinely wasn't expecting them to make a valid point.

Good point. I have a friend on Facebook who posts all kind of nonsense, occasionally she posts sensible stuff, but I don't notice because she's such an untrustworthy source.

@OldCrone

Why do you care? You disagree with us so why do you care if we have 'bad' people on our side?

Because like many trans people I'm worried enough about what the future holds without the far right getting even more on our case as well.

Oh well Laurie Penny...she's a bit hopeless isn't she.

And the important phrase there is "used to". Perhaps it started out as bants and became serious. Perhaps she didn't realise for a while. She's not hanging out with him now, so I don't think she can be criticised for hanging out with him before the penny dropped. Lots of us make mistakes about people. Laurie Penney also makes the mistake of talking shit about trans issues, so she's got form for not grasping stuff quickly.

Is Milo Y a nazi btw? I've seen him on Youtube a couple of times and was not favourably impressed with him but I didn't know he was a nazi. Are you sure? His grandmother is Jewish and he is gay so it would be a very perverse horse for him to back. But then, he is quite perverse isn't he, I get the feeling he's not quite the full shilling.

Is Milo Y a nazi btw?

Alt-right rather than Nazi. Anti-Feminist, Anti-Islam, weirdly anti-LGBT and yet pro child sexual abuse.

A special invite to Julie Bindel to come and have a chat.

@Floisme

Julie Bindel also tweeted: The problem is the so-called left abandoned women but also abandoned any notion of the left: twitter.com/bindelj/status/1315705705509330948

I'm seeing this argument a lot. It's very seductive and I really, really want to believe it, but it's a bit too 'no true trans / no true Scotsman' for comfort. I'm afraid I'm closer to the view that the left has always been authoritarian and always treated women like shit, but that I chose not to see it until now.

I tend to think both are true. You are right, the left has always had a tendency to a certain type of authoritarianism. And misogyny to my mind has little to do with the political spectrum, it's found in people of all political persuasions.

But there has been a few pretty clear changes in leftist politics - the support of globalism and identity politics, and the abandonment of certain leftist concerns like movement of labour.