Fiona Rintoul in the Times (Scotland)

[Igneococcus]

Sorry, still no working sharetokens, I think this is the first time that I (mostly) agree with Fiona Rintoul since she's been writing comments in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angry-trans-debate-is-a-gift-for-real-bigots-ldtpm3tnm

Not sure if this link will work -

Angry trans debate is a gift for real bigots

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angry-trans-debate-is-a-gift-for-real-bigots-ldtpm3tnm

Great piece which gets straight to the point.

It works for me Lizzie but I have a subscription. Without share token in the sequence it is unlikely to work.

It's a good piece but comments are all 'pending', which as I have commented, is another way of stifling debate.

That’s a great article. I’m also a subscriber so could read it.

Thanks for the info high, I need to work out how to do the share tokens.

I’ve too have found more and more comments are “pending” with The Times, especially when talking about women’s rights. The vast majority are eventually printed, I’m trying to work out which words are the trigger.

Lizzie I can't get share tokens to work and have worked out it's my laptop (lazy sod). I think on the pending question, they have worked out that on the Women/trans debate there is a lot of 'strong feelings' and Scottish government is moving on laws that will make debate more difficult. Newspapers don't like lawsuits, so best to pend first. Good article though.

Calling women's rights anti-trans is a real example of bigotry. An intolerance of others; in this case women.

I can't do sharetokens on some devices but they are now not working on my laptop where they usually work without problem.
I'm pleasantly surprised by this piece because FR has so far been relentlessly cheerleading for the SG and SNP in her column, so I wasn't quite expecting this take on it.

The sharetokens haven't been working for a while.

Archived here: archive.li/npwWj

Calling women's rights anti-trans is a real example of bigotry. An intolerance of others; in this case women

Owen Jones directs the label “anti trans” all the time, which is very telling.

igneococcus, I agree - Rintoull has been a one woman cheerleading team for Sturgeon so far in the Times. Does she realise that the Dear Leader will be mightily displeased with her latest offering?!
The SNP are committed to the wholesale dismantling of women’s rights to single sex spaces and protection, and ignore all safety concerns in their pursuit of woke cookies and pretending to be more progressive than England.

Thanks for archived version.

Really good article, thanks for the archived version.

If anyone can do a sharetoken it would be great to read the comments (when they are no longer 'pending').

Thanks again for archived version. Very useful. I always forward on to friends that are interested.

Thank you for the archive link.

Crikey that is a terrific piece.

Excelkent article but she identifues the problem with language and truth but has no problem with men claiming female pronouns?

Quite a stinger about Alex Salmond being the only leader of a political party who defends women's rights.

Not in Scotland and don't know this writer, but it's agreat piece - short, clear, incisive. I don't have an issue with pronouns as such. I think it's the same as lipstick, dresses, heels and first names, plus I've misgendered many a bird and animal and insect because I call them all she unless I know different. It's the compelled speech bit I balk at, not the pronoun. I would and do use she and he respectively for my one transwoman acquaintance and my one transman friend.

This issue of having rape victims 'reframe their trauma' and warning them they must submit to re-education to challenge their bigotry in wanting female-only counselling and medical attention is something from a totally different place, though.

@LizzieSiddal

Calling women's rights anti-trans is a real example of bigotry. An intolerance of others; in this case women

Owen Jones directs the label “anti trans” all the time, which is very telling.

It's effective and it successfully conceals that perspectives that are pro-women by transforming them into a label that guarantees social media harm (at best) or ostracism with consequences for other parts of life.

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

As Chimamanda wrote:

"There are many social-media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness. People whose social media lives are case studies in emotional aridity. People for whom friendship, and its expectations of loyalty and compassion and support, no longer matter. People who claim to love literature – the messy stories of our humanity – but are also monomaniacally obsessed with whatever is the prevailing ideological orthodoxy. People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class."

And a thought that I can't develop right now that relates to Auden's essay: Nature, History, and Poetry (all of the following is a quotation with bold added by me for emphasis):

“A crowd consists of n members where n > 1, whose sole characteristic in common is togetherness. A crowd loves neither itself nor anything other than itself. It can only be counted; its existence is chimerical.”

“A society consists of x members, i.e. a certain finite number, united in a specific manner into a whole with a characteristic mode of behavior which is different from the behavior of its several members in isolation (e.g. a molecule of water or a string quartet). A society has a definite size, a specific structure and an actual existence.”

“A community consists of n members, all of them rational beings united by a common love for something other than themselves.”

Social media platforms given the illusion of facilitating a society or a community but they give licence to crowds to behave in anti-social ways and they are successfully directed and manipulated by YouTubers such as Owen Jones.

The 'anti-trans' framing reminds me strongly of the pro-life movement calling pro-choice views 'anti-life'.

In one sense, we all tend to name ourselves what we think will best make our case, but even when I was convinced by the pro-life view, I could see that naming us anti-abortion wasn't an inaccurate pejorative, it was perfectly true. We were against abortion. Whereas to call the pro-choice view 'anti-life' wasn't accurate at all. No one who supports the right to get an abortion does so because they are anti-life.

The 'anti-trans' label is an easier sell for them than saying that 'women's sex-based rights' is a fascist slogan, though.

@Tibtom

Calling women's rights anti-trans is a real example of bigotry. An intolerance of others; in this case women.

Indeed. And this is exactly how much of the media frames the debate so that there CANNOT be a debate at all! One side has been deemed to be justified before any debate can start, and those who are on the other side will get silenced through thought-stopping mantras, bannings, cancelling, and worse threats having to do with possibly losing one's livelihood.

That Helen Joyce's book is not available in all bookstores is one example of that silencing: The book is deemed (by those who hide it) to be wrong to begin with, and should not be read at all. Yet it is not transphobic,, but describes the way the current trend is erasing women's concerns and weakening traditional sex-based rights.

OJ get all stroppy when his views are called anti-women or anti-feminist, even though they demonstrably are.

@Tibtom

Excelkent article but she identifues the problem with language and truth but has no problem with men claiming female pronouns?

Yes, and I also think there was a bit of both-sides suggestion there that misrepresents just who is doing the threatening:

'the conversation about trans rights and women’s rights has taken on a hysterical tone. [women are always called 'hysterical' when they say no.]

The recent cluster-stooshie provoked by comments on a podcast from the chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis, Mridul Wadhwa, about challenging “bigoted” survivors of sexual violence on their prejudices has descended into a foul-mouthed slagging match. [No. Women have respectfully, if furiously, told Wadhwa and those who enable Wadhwa that they are not accepting the situation. This isn't a 'slagging match'. Women are putting their jobs, reputations and safety on the line to stand up for what they believe in.]

Critics of Wadhwa, who is a trans woman with no gender recognition certificate in a job reserved for women, impute that she considers female survivors of sexual violence who want female-only care and access to female-only spaces to be transphobic bigots'. [why 'impute'? Mridhul was very clear that that is exactly what was meant, it was hardly inference. ]

(all emphases mine)

It's not a bad article, but I'm tired of women being held to higher standards than others.