The Guardian have upped their game, we’re now Anti-trans for asking for same-sex spaces

[AMCoffeePMWine]

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/18/dozens-arrested-in-los-angeles-as-anti-trans-protest-outside-spa-turns-violent

“Women carrying signs reading “protect female spaces” and “It’s worse in women’s shelters”. Calls to defend “female spaces” and “women’s shelters” have become rallying cries of anti-trans groups, who have falsely suggested that trans-inclusive policies endanger cis women.”

This, according to the Guardian, is what makes women anti-trans. It’s infuriating. Using “Falsely” to describe women’s experiences of having biological males in female spaces.

All this from one woman saying No to willies waggling in front of women and girls.

Long time lurker here this has moved me to post. Been reading the Guardian for 30 odd years, yes lefty liberal, clicked on the article while breastfeeding my baby in bed early this morning. Rising sense of wtf am I reading? I'm not feeling very eloquent or able to pinpoint what is wrong with this article - luckily there are many great posters on this board who can do that! It would be a great piece of teaching material for gender crit 101. This article is an active misrepresentation of reality. I wouldn't know that if I hadn't been on here. I find that really frightening.

It’s also telling that they choose to publish this now when the focus is on the protests, not at the time of the original incident. Because clearly explaining that a male got into a jacuzzi with a semi isn’t a good narrative. Fuck you Guardian.

That “falsely” is ridiculous. Given that a UK court has recently acknowledged that trans women do pose a risk to women in spaces that are designated single-sex - they didn’t give a shit, but they acknowledged it - would it be possible to get the Guardian to correct that?

I’m also confused about what actually happened. When it was women protesting and TRAs, the police didn’t protect the women. Now they’re being aggressive against the TRAs when the other side are mostly Proud Boys? I also note that Antifa thanked the cops early on in this particular fracas. Everything is very strange.

@cariadlet sorry but everything you've written is just nonsense.

For a start, almost every GC person I know is left wing. I've yet to meet these mysterious right wingers who give a shit about women.

Secondly, plenty of right wingers - including some ministry leader in the US recently who went viral wanging on about his trans daughter - absolutely embrace TWAW because in their bigoted (and poorly educated brains) it's far preferable to accept a child "born in the wrong body" than a gay one.

Thirdly, the era of left/right politics is firmly over. We live in a single issue world now and no one party can adequately represent any of us. Real world politics has yet to catch up with that which is one reason Labour is so split.

Fourthly, the rag tag bunch collectively termed the "left" have swung far more to the extreme left than the right have gone far right.

That's why in the US it's now the left wing trying to ban South Park and To Kill a Mocking Bird when 20 years ago it was the right wing.

And why it's the left who are regularly promoting almost unthinkable racism and trying to ban free speech.

Fifthly, the US generally is pitched further right than ours even in "normal" times (their Democrats are more like our middle-of-the-road Conservatives).

But blabber on all you like about how left wing you are and how awful it is those nasty right-wingers are defending women's spaces

Also, more on topic, I saw there were protests happening again at Wi Spa last night on Twitter and saw someone moaning that journalists had been hurt/arrested and when someone said one of the journos was from the Guardian I actually laughed because the Guardian haven't covered anything about Wi Spa for the last month.

This article now makes sense.

I won't be clicking on that bilge though.

I've noticed recently the Guardian only covering trans stuff one sidedly. Their depiction of trans (mostly ftm) 'heroes' doesn't reflect my admittedly more provincial experience of 1. A man who's dumped on his long term partner and kids so he can be his true self 2. Local builder in full make up/long hair who my partner says 'used to be a big arrogant prick, and hasn't changed!' But I doubt his change of gender will lead to a pay cut in his profession. 3. Daughter's friend's dad who told his son ' I'm not going to be as good at timekeeping now I'm a woman, I'm going to be late for stuff' sensible son can see right through it. In the Guardian it seems like a narrative which only involves brave community leaders. I would love to see 'Diary of a Transwidow' in the Saturday review.

Read it in disbelief and then came here to make sure I wasn't going mad!

what really depresses me is that so many left wing activists are TWAW, leaving the extreme right as the defenders of women's rights and safe spaces. I'm very left wing and hate finding myself on the same side as right wing extremists.

I cannot believe that the editor saw fit to publish this outrageous piece of propaganda.

That was the final straw for me with the Guardian. I’ve been a daily reader for over 30 years, but I’m done now. This is an unbelievably biased, propagandist bullshit piece.

47 years in my case, but I'm done. I'll miss Hadley, Marina and John Crace, but I'm done.

Read it too. It’s an offensive and belittling dismissal of women’s concerns about safety.

As far as i can see the far left and far right meet at either end

They both have extremists

@RufustheBadgeringReindeer, I've been saying for years that they meet round back, discussing the best means of silencing those who disagree with being dictated to.

I'm not going to give the Guardian any clicks for that article. I honestly think that they are contemptible, not only on this issue but others as well.

And I also used to be a loyal reader, but a combo of a relentlessly urban focus and the trailer-loads of bullshit have completely put me off.

"who have falsely suggested that trans-inclusive policies endanger cis women.”

It's this constant misrepresenting of it. Trans status - ie whether someone feels they have a particular internal inner getting they call "gender" - has nothing to do with whether someone should be able to access single-sex spaces.
Just come out and say that "women are lying when they say that naked males are ever harmful to women" because that's what they seem to want to convey, but can't actually being themselves to write those words so come up with mealy-mouthed euphemisms about "policies".

Not often I'm speechless so kudos to the guardian on really achieving something here.

I'd like to think that they will take this down and apologise because as someone already said it's an opinion piece dressed up as news reporting. The use of "" around women's spaces etc to suggest they're some make believe concept rather than hard-won rights has incensed me.

It'll have to be Private Eye I think as my primary source of reasoned and intelligent debate.

The Guardian will hopefully clarify where their boundaries are in relation to indecent exposure.

They are clear that they vigorously support the right of transwomen to wilfully expose their penises to women and girls. Does this support extend to exposure for sexual gratification?

(In theory of course: we all know all men become saints once they say they’re women...)

Some of the protesters at the Wi Spa look like the kind of MAGA idiots who stormed the Capitol and are likely to be coming at the issue from a socially Conservative, probably trad Christian angle

@cariadlet - Wow. You can tell all of that by one photo? Seriously, yours was a seriously poorly-informed inflammatory post.

Well I did wonder what the guardians response to Helen Joyce’s unarguable fact based analysis of trans rights activism would be - it’s clearly this

And secondly that the trust that oversees the guardian is clearly very heavily influenced by the American members of the board

It's very, very lazy reporting.

I have no doubt that this issue is being exploited by some, right wing politicians in the US, who couldn't care less about women. However, this article operates on their level. The remark about womens' shelters (note the unnecessary quote marks) gives the game away.

@RufustheBadgeringReindeer

As far as i can see the far left and far right meet at either end

They both have extremists

Well yes but it's only the left's extremists who are being promoted and supported by supposedly mainstream outlets from the Guardian to the New York Times isn't it.

It was so obvious to anyone on the left who wasn't totally consumed with identity politics that the alt right and Christian
right in the US would use this as a stick to beat left wing "progressives" with - it's just so demonstrably wrong. If only left wing progressives could have been less bloody-minded and arrogant in their self-righteousness, they could have drawn a line in the sand somewhere and realised that there have to be some boundries. But nooooo...and now we have this massive clusterfuck.

I must admit that I am baffled by political binaryism. I've always dealt with issues on a case-by-case basis: on some I am more conservative and on others more liberal.

It's like using only one tool to perform a variety of tasks: need to hang a painting? Use a hammer. Need to fix a leaky tap? Use a hammer. Need to weed the garden? Use a hammer.

This is not difficult. If your facility has a female area, there should be no cock and balls in that area, regardless of who they are attached to. Otherwise it is not a female area and should not be advertised as such. Why is this so hard to grasp? And so controversial?

It was so obvious to anyone on the left who wasn't totally consumed with identity politics that the alt right and Christian
right in the US would use this as a stick to beat left wing "progressives" with - it's just so demonstrably wrong.

Exactly. It's an easy target for the alt right because it's so batshit!

Lois Beckett who co-wrote the article describes in this 2018 interview that she was employed by Guardian US specifically to cover the far-right after Donald Trump became president,

On The Media 'Face the Racist Nation'

www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-2018-03-02

Pinned tweet,
"Our hour-long onthemedia episode about mistakes journalists make when interviewing white supremacists is airing again this weekend.

Appropriately enough, since it seems that we will keep making the exact same mistakes again and again and again"

twitter.com/loisbeckett/status/1036708599198699520

It's very convenient for The Guardian to give the impression this is a US fundie culture wars thing.

They can pretend incidents like the Wi Spa aren't happening in this country that our own government isn't putting male rapists in women's prisons.

We don't have a group like the Proud Boys so it's harder to make the case for the framing they prefer closer to home. Much easier to pretend this is a bigoted USA thing than acknowledging that women and girls are being harmed the world over because of quasi religious dogma emanating largely from the left wing.

whenever i click on a guardian article and I get their massive yellow begging message telling me I've read X articles for free this year, I think good. The sooner you fuckers go out of business the better. And never more so than this morning

They used to be my go to place for news and comment. 15 years ago I'd have been on their site every day over the last 18 months trying to work out what was going on with covid. But now they're shit and I can't trust a damn word they way

Something great has become debased. the sooner it just crawls away and dies, the better