Leaf Arbuthnot in the Times

[Igneococcus]

I can't even think of a proper summary of this:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/21af8f0c-641e-11ec-b5e6-0d64a8c5ca0d?shareToken=6c4dc036e9c4c28f457a1f1b97d450c8

*same

I was wrong about her dad. He's not a journalist he's a Baron

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JamesArbuthnot#Personallife

@KeflavikAirport

Woman with massive social capital in "can't imagine what life is like for vulnerable women without social capital" shocker

Quite.

But there's something more than that, isn't there? At a fundamental level, she hasn't understood what the problem is. She thinks it's about the tiny proportion of people who are trans, and the tiny (in her imagination) proportion of those who might be dangerous. She hasn't grasped that once you implement a system of self ID - which is already in operation in our law courts, our hospitals and elsewhere - then every dangerous man can identify as female.

It's not at all a bad article, I think it's written in good faith which comes through.

As far as not quite getting it, my sense is that for many people, they struggle to look at these questions systematically, and they struggle with the question, what is true. Nor do they understand that what is true is fundamental, that when as a society we don't start there, outcomes, even when things are done in good faith, will be poor.

Education is responsible for a lot of this. The majority of people do not naturally think systematically, and a godo education makes a significant differene to that ability, but it simply doesn't happen. And similarly, the idea that truth, not just scientific truth but truth at the level of ideology and meaning, is important, is not only not taught, it's taught against.

It's very unfortunate because it's been an effort to create tolerance and acceptance, but the message students get now is that the principle that controls all is kindness. Kindness, and tolerance which means accepting others views - which is to say, there is no truth. We accept the truth of those who have experienced intolerance, even if those truths are contradictory.

That this results in terrible intolerance seems ironic but it's really inevitable.

So many of these young people have no tools to even begin to see what the systemic effects of various beliefs, if instantiated in policy and society, would be. Even their courses on history are oriented toward understanding a kind of neomarxist movement from intolerance to tolerance, rather than seeing how what people believed about reality affected how they lived and what they did.

once you implement a system of self ID - which is already in operation in our law courts, our hospitals and elsewhere - then every dangerous man can identify as female.

This.

And further more every man, with any agenda of any kind, can walk into any female only space at will and expect not to be challenged or asked to leave. They don't have to self - ID - self ID means that any male must be assumed to have identified.

Female spaces are now freely available for male use and male viewing, this knowledge will be widely disseminated among men, and females can either accept this is now their lot in life or they can go without the space or resource at all.

If you were unlucky enough to be born with the burden of being biologically female, you're now a second class citizen.

Plus ça change....

@RoaringtoLangClegintheDark

I ask Forstater about the view that the books are about tolerance and love; that they celebrate difference, so Rowling’s wish to exclude trans women from some women’s spaces seems odd. “I see it the other way,” Forstater says. “I think the books are a story about an authoritarian capture of institutions and about the fightback of the truth.”

LOVE this quote from Maya. It’s a predictably shite question, a question that obfuscates as usual that the issue is about excluding male people from women’s spaces because they’re male, not because they’re trans. And Maya’s response is just excellent. She just doesn’t entertain the bullshit, and absolutely nails it.

Brava, Ms Forstater!

It's interesting how different people see the books, reflecting, I suppose, their own priorities and life experiences.

I certainly never saw the Harry Potter books as being about tolerance and love, and celebrating difference (although these are themes in the books). That seems quite a generic teen take on it.

Likewise, Maya's summary of the books representing an authoritarian capture of institutions and the fightback of the truth pretty much exactly mirrors Maya's own personal experience, so it's unsurprising she would see that as its essence.

It made me think - for me, I read the books as a clear allegory about fascism and the fight against it - which, thinking about it, mirrors my family's experience fleeing fascism.

It makes me wonder how much we all read the books through our own lenses, and how much modern teens or twenty-somethings, who know nothing of authoritarian states, much less fascism, simply cannot understand what it is we fear, where things can lead if left unchecked, and so favour a bland 'Be kind' reading of the books and of life.

They lack the knowledge of history and the personal understanding of its impacts and so risk making us all relive it.

And this, kids, is why Education Matters.

It makes me wonder how we explain to young generations quite how shit things can get without boring them away or terrifying them witless. It's difficult. 'It could get worse' is not a message anyone wants to hear.

Yes it is interesting xxyzz. I remember watching the 5th film in particular in the cinema as a teenager and thinking of the authoritarian parallels. I had no experience of any of those kinds of things but we did learn about some in school, so maybe that was why. I do find it ironic that for my generation (I am a similar age to LA) who claim to be such fans, they really don’t seem to understand any deeper meaning to Harry Potter. Or have any self-awareness, to realise they are behaving like certain characters, though probably not the ones they think of themselves as.

“JK Rowling’s left the story, at least as many of us fans see it,” he says. “Hogwarts — the love and magic of the original stories — is still there to welcome anyone home who wants it, but it’s in our hands now.”

I've seen this sort of sentiment before but am always blown away by the utter, breathtaking arrogance and staggering entitlement it displays.

I truly believe that people who utter these kinds of words are of the same type as those who pointed the witch finger at successful women in their village in order (subconsciously or otherwise) to appropriate any wealth or power that woman may have clawed to her.

Long live copyright.

The statement about no problem showing up in statistics is a bit disingenuous given the multiple different attacks on accurate record keeping of sex that we are now living with and in some cases attempting to unpick.

What Leaf tells us is that when you bin a class-based analysis and instead favour of a hierarchy of prioritised feelings, then it becomes very easy to throw anyone under the bus from outside your circle.

As far as Leaf is concerned that works brilliantly for Leaf and other Leaf-like people so what more is needed?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

"Imagine the amount of trans women who have suffered abuse in changing rooms because of what she’s said"

So zero, then?

I thought we weren't able to tell who the trans women were in changing rooms?

It made me think - for me, I read the books as a clear allegory about fascism and the fight against it - which, thinking about it, mirrors my family's experience fleeing fascism.

I am sure that this is a correct interpretation of the books and what JKR intended. For me there were shades of South Africa under apartheid there too.

Follow-up: the first section of letters in the Sunday Times today are in response to the Arbuthnot article.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-women-are-different-thats-something-to-celebrate-8whh7wx70?shareToken=74b3f3079494a26952bdb560b557efd4

That first letter makes a good point about celebrating difference.

Thanks for sharing those, interesting to see how it’s trickling through to people.

Santa makes really good points here:
It's very unfortunate because it's been an effort to create tolerance and acceptance, but the message students get now is that the principle that controls all is kindness. Kindness, and tolerance which means accepting others views - which is to say, there is no truth. We accept the truth of those who have experienced intolerance, even if those truths are contradictory.

That this results in terrible intolerance seems ironic but it's really inevitable.

So many of these young people have no tools to even begin to see what the systemic effects of various beliefs, if instantiated in policy and society, would be. Even their courses on history are oriented toward understanding a kind of neomarxist movement from intolerance to tolerance, rather than seeing how what people believed about reality affected how they lived and what they did.

I think this explains alot about how the disagreements and discussions on this topic (and otgers) play out. I need to think more about this but just wanted to say this is getting to the heart of something.