Julie Bindel on women who self-ID as Gender Critical

[yeahbutnaw]

Does this match your experience?

Pure tolerance in a secular liberal society versus repressive tolerance per Herbert Marcuse.

newdiscourses.com/2021/02/repressive-tolerance-left-good-right-bad-what-could-go-wrong/

This is my main reason for joining this "debate" as gender critical.

Not because I have personal boundaries that I worry about being breached by trans women (for myself), I am quite happy with unisex spaces, but because of the terrible danger of deluded utopian beliefs that undermine liberalism. A postmodern revolution would lead to a totalitarian state and destroy the very liberal conditions that permitted it to come into being.

Stirring up a little in-fighting are we? Within a movement that isn't actually a movement, more a collection of rational people concerned about the rapid progress of regressive and unscientific gender ideology. Never witnessed that before.

Quite. I'd call Boyce anti-woke rather than gender critical. Like Triggernometry, Douglas Murray, Andrew Doyle, Spiked etc (who I believe Julie has written for) Aligned with him on some things, not on others.

@yeahbutnaw

Does this match your experience?

No, none of the people who have told me to 'choke on a dick' or 'eat glass' has held views I'd describe as gender critical.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Stirring up a little in-fighting are we? Within a movement that isn't actually a movement, more a collection of rational people concerned about the rapid progress of regressive and unscientific gender ideology. Never witnessed that before.

Quite. I'd call Boyce anti-woke rather than gender critical. Like Triggernometry, Douglas Murray, Andrew Doyle, Spiked etc (who I believe Julie has written for) Aligned with him on some things, not on others.

Exactly.

Anti woke, pro free speech, all sorts of people are going to be critical of this.

I haven't seen all of BB's interviews, but I think he's a reasonable interviewer in that he gives people time to talk. From what I've seen I don't think he's a feminist.

My main reaction is 'bothered'.

Closely followed by the refutations and analyses of women here, who are generally, far more knowledgeable than the odd random who turns up to finger wag.

I think you need a hobby

the one thing you can rely on, is certain individuals thinking that users of a site called mumsnet could never out argue them.

Bless ....

Possibly people assumed she was a woman because she was pregnant

Tsk tsk tsk. Jumping to conclusion like that.

Stock's comment is worthwhile, I'm not at all sure what Bindel is trying to say. I'm not inclined to assume that it's tolerant of other viewpoints as that isn't what I've come to expect from her.

This thread is a set up.

You want us to slag off Posie or Bindel, or any,other woman brave enough to speak her mind.

I wont.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Stirring up a little in-fighting are we? Within a movement that isn't actually a movement, more a collection of rational people concerned about the rapid progress of regressive and unscientific gender ideology. Never witnessed that before.

Quite. I'd call Boyce anti-woke rather than gender critical. Like Triggernometry, Douglas Murray, Andrew Doyle, Spiked etc (who I believe Julie has written for) Aligned with him on some things, not on others.

He IDs as anti-fanarchy

“I do not operate under a fanarchy. "All opinions my own and not necessarily those of the arbitrary number pinned to my twitter account" should be implied as part of my bio.”

twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1379114140841566211

He also wasn’t ‘calling out’ this transman specifically but the ideology behind posting the video, so not trying to dog pile anyone either despite how some people would try to spin this (not on their thread, just generally and to highlight that whatever his views he doesn’t go in for dirty tactics to try and discredit or ‘cancel’ someone)

“I internally left the subject blank (who has more regard for pronouns than life?), to call out the society that has produced this sympathetic video.”

twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1379113735059476482

I think it's admirable of Julie Bindel to point this out. She always centres women and girls at the heart of everything she does. Why not call out extremists who tag themselves onto feminism when their priorities are often anti woman?

It would be positive if trans allies did the same to trans activists, distance themselves from the extremism and call out their appalling behaviour. It might actually lead to progress.

Love how Julie Bindel is unapologetic in her views and flatly refuses to fawn over transphobes (Posie Parker). It's very refreshing.

Though in your black and white world of good and evil you see yourself as morally superior, and Mumsnet as a hive of intolerant bigots, you my dear are the chaotic incoming threat to enlightenment liberalism. A postmodern revolution would lead to a totalitarian state and destroy the very liberal conditions that permitted it to come into being.

Thank you for picking this thread up AdHom - in 100% agreement. (I felt I'd said enough.)

It is worth listening to New Discourses podcasts like the one AdHom linked to. Even if you don't get along with essay James Lindsay or Twitter James Lindsay or encyclopedia James Lindsay, try at least one podcast - I think he's easier to listen to than to read. He's a good lecturer.

This thread is a set up. You want us to slag off Posie or Bindel, or any,other woman brave enough to speak her mind. I wont.

This.

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

This thread is a set up. You want us to slag off Posie or Bindel, or any,other woman brave enough to speak her mind. I wont.

This.

Yep.

@SapphosRock

I think it's admirable of Julie Bindel to point this out. She always centres women and girls at the heart of everything she does. Why not call out extremists who tag themselves onto feminism when their priorities are often anti woman?

It would be positive if trans allies did the same to trans activists, distance themselves from the extremism and call out their appalling behaviour. It might actually lead to progress.

Love how Julie Bindel is unapologetic in her views and flatly refuses to fawn over transphobes (Posie Parker). It's very refreshing.

Good point and absolutely right about the extremism. It also underlines the fact that there are a large group of people who have independent thought and opinion and a strong sense of their own moral values.

This independent thought has led them to forming a common view on a subject but that there is no 'party line' or 'movement' as such where people can be cast out for wrongthink. There is much crowing from certain people that support gender ideology that gc women are fighting among themselves but I read Julie's tweet and, as I do on a regular basis, I just revisited my thoughts on this subject and reviewed my position.

I came back, as I always do, to the basics. Women need and have a legal right to single sex female spaces and facilities. Children need safeguarding and we need to retain our words in order to advocate for ourselves and our needs as specific to us.

I would like the government to uphold the existing law, the media to report events accurately and I would like all organisations to apply safeguarding rules to ALL people and not create a 'sacred caste' that are exempt as we seem to have now.

Sapphos, I'm afraid I can't agree with your last statement that Posie is a 'transphobe' - I'm sure that along with most of us, if there wasn't an immediate threat to women's rights and safeguarding, she wouldn't be doing what she is doing. Prior to the big push from Stonewall to get the law changed, I think like most of us she didn't pay much attention to trans people. Although thinking about it, when you say transphobe, the fact that she is campaigning for women's rights put her in that category for some people so it does depend on what you mean by that.

Obviously you are entitled to your opinion and I agree with the rest of your post.

Thanks for sharing this debate op. It was interesting to read the twitter thread.
I love JB. Proper feminist icon who relentlessly works to better the lives of women and girls at some cost to herself.
I agree with sapphos: Why not call out extremists who tag themselves onto feminism when their priorities are often anti woman?

I also liked this tweet in the replies: twitter.com/rachel__julia/status/1379891094318616581?s=20
"You, alas, are miles and miles. The issue is not with difference and diversity; the issue is with appropriating the language of sex such that we cannot speak of women's bodies, needs, or rights, of the differences of which sex is causal, and of discrimination on the basis of sex."

There are lots of reasons someone might have a GC view. Sometimes that's because of religious, socially Conservative or homophones reasons. Sometimes it's because they view women as group oppressed because of biology, that need to be able to use language to describe the harms being done to them. I think Julie is saying she is in the latter group and does not want to be associated with the former. I agree with her.

Frankly I am very suspicious of anyone who wants to stop women being able to talk about their issues.