Owen. Not getting it or goady? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

[viques]

Article in the Guardian about why homophobia against straight men needs to be addressed. Apparently straight men are at risk of homophobic abuse if they “violate the boundaries of masculinity”, which according to Owen include, being kind and empathetic and “ by not objectifying women or treating them as equals”. Blimey, that will put the frighteners on the guardian readership even faster than news that quinoa is in short supply.

He also challenges ( if that is the word) “perceptive discrimination” when people are treated unfairly on the grounds that they are ‘perceived’ to have a protected characteristic, he gives as an example Sikh men( not, you notice Sikh women, or even Sikh people) who are abused because they are perceived to be Muslim. Not sure where “perceptive discrimination” leaves women, but am pretty sure it is low down on the pecking order as usual, though also in todays guardian interestingly enough is an article by a transwoman who is apparently astonished at the unwarranted verbal sexual harassment she gets, which apparently didn’t happen at all when she wasn’t a transwoman. Maybe she ought to get together with Owen for support.

Anyway good to know that straight men have such a champion in their midst. I hope they can all breathe a little easier knowing that OJ is on their side. He has done such amazing things for gay and transitioning men after all.

He’s a columnist, not a journalist, so no, it’s not really what he does.

I can’t think of any other story where someone has been attacked and he wants to get the attacker’s side like this.

Just the other week in fact he jumped straight to saying that it was an Israeli who killed the journalist while it was still unclear. No reaching out there to establish the facts.

No, he’s clearly got one agenda here, and that’s to undermine the victim if she isn’t on board with his hateful agenda.

How do you think he would have reacted if others had sought out his attackers to hear their side (and only their side) after he’d claimed to be assaulted?

Do you remember me answering your post on careful detail on this thread, explaining the issues you had not grasped?

Do you enjoy it so much? Is that why I have to keep on explaining very basic things

It is not necessary for Mr Jones to tweet "I want to name a child as a bully and a right-wing bigot's daughter in my column" for anyone internet-literate to foresee the likely consequences of Jones publicly interacting with that twitter account, prior to any article he publishes. He massively amplified the attention it was getting (hardly any followers) and got people looking through the posting history, looking for identifying information about her/his child's school.

Now I've explained that, please explain why you are being so careless of the reputational risks to the teenagers at this school. Given that they identify as being in support of trans rights, surely you should be able to summon up a scintilla of concern for them?

Or is it that your urge to back Jones (man, fast approaching middle-age) automatically trumps any concern you can have for the psychological and physical wellbeing of teenage girls, even ones who might agree with you on here? It would make sense.

Yes, the fact is that what he's doing (seeking to publicise the name of the school) would potentially harm the girls who bullied / are on board with TRA ideology as well as the girl who was bullied (arguably the former more as they're still at the school).

He obviously just gives no fucks about child safety and is more interested in silencing any evidence that uncritical adherence to TRA ideology can be a bad thing.

Yes, the fact is that what he's doing (seeking to publicise the name of the school)
Yet again, that's not what he's doing.
Nowhere has it said that the name of the school would be publicised, that's something that people seem to have made up on here and now apparently running as fact.
He said he wanted more details to verify the story.
NOT publicise them.

It is not necessary for Mr Jones to tweet "I want to name a child as a bully and a right-wing bigot's daughter in my column" for anyone internet-literate to foresee the likely consequences of Jones publicly interacting with that twitter account, prior to any article he publishes. He massively amplified the attention it was getting (hardly any followers) and got people looking through the posting history, looking for identifying information about her/his child's school

i think this answered your points janet

owen knows what will happen …he just doesn’t care

He's really not able to get such details through other, considerably more ethical, avenues rather than trawling for details by asking children to contact him (a grown man) through private messages?

Really?

Good point.

Surely if he has a problem with the Times not publishing the name of the school, it naturally follows that any report he makes will include the school's name. (Unless the Guardian's lawyers intervene.)

At which point, with that info alone, we are in The Bad Place of doxxing schoolchildren.

Name-and-shaming in national media, or on social media as the consequence of an article that didn't quite name the children in print, is not an appropriate avenue to handle school bullying. No, not even if one of the children has a foolish parent who agrees to be named in the Guardian, because s/he wants 15 minutes of fame.

So how does that work.

Jones doubts the journalists at the Times because they haven't named the school. He makes a big thing of stating this. He gets lots of replies on social media agreeing with him and doubting the school exists.

So how does he expect his readership to react when he publishes his article, if he doesn't name the school? Surely he doesn't just expect them to trust him, because it's him saying it? He could be making it all up, about a completely imaginary school!

Surely he doesn't just expect them to trust him, because it's him saying it?

I suspect that he does.

So then some other columnist will have to seek out a child at the school to "verify" Owrn's account and confirm that the school exists, then.

At this rate, the entirety of the fourth estate will know the name of that school, the bullied girl, and the names of the ringleaders. And from there it will only travel.

avenues rather than trawling for details by asking children to contact him (a grown man) through private messages?
He said he would not be speaking to anyone without their guardian.

Yes, after people had pointed out how creepy his original request was.

Let’s not pretend he’s searching for objective truth here, he’s on a mission to back the attackers and frame the victim as a transphobe, and he knows that using Twitter to do this risks having her name becoming public.

I think the "children" issue is a bit of a red herring. The girls in question will almost all be 18 years old and so legally adult and able to talk to journalists without the knowledge or consent of a parent or guardian. The real concern is that the Times has taken care to protect the anonymity of the school and the girl, and it has done so for good reasons that OJ apparently doesn't understand.

You've rather interestingly completely avoided the first part of my post -

'He's really not able to get such details through other, considerably more ethical, avenues rather than...'

'Children' aside (our school start age runs differently to England but I'm assuming that kids currently in the 2nd year of sixth form have birthdays between now and end of August), it's difficult to believe that there's no other way to gain information than trawling Twitter.

Agree with above that OJ doesn't seem to understand the very good reasons why the Times didn't name the School. We keep getting told that safeguarding is a 'transphobic dog whistle' so perhaps that's why he doesn't think it important.

She's 18, she is very young but she doesn't need her "guardian" involved and I'm sure OJ knows that. What he is doing is unethical in and of itself.

Then why is he asking on Twitter? Where responses will be public, visible, repeated.

All he has to do is the same due diligence other journalists did (how the hell do you think this got into multiple media sites in the first place - especially as there seem to be at least 2 sources used?) , ask his mates maybe. The he could privately gain that information and seek out 'all sides' without blaring across the Twitterverse.

Don't be so quick to leap to his defence, He knows exactly what he is doing, has done it before and will, doyubtless do it again!

He could have asked one of the actual journalists at the Guardian to follow-up for him and try to get some more information.

Doing this via Twitter and without being a journalist himself is a problem.

I do wonder what he has over his editor that she lets him get away with his behaviour.

We keep getting told that safeguarding is a 'transphobic dog whistle' so perhaps that's why he doesn't think it important.

Yep! The scary part, writ loud!

I am not a journalist, but I would personally directly approach the 'female peer' who spoke at the school. There's a very narrow shortlist of candidates it could be, and if I'm right, he should already have her phone number. He could send a text asking her to check her diary.

Surprising he hasn't thought of this. But then, all of his behaviour here has been very for-display-purposes-only.

I do wonder what he has over his editor that she lets him get away with his behaviour
Sorry, but I do have to wonder what leads you to even think down this path?
Why would wanting to verify a news story lead to paranoia/conspiracy theory hints?!

So it’s not strange to you, when a woman is attacked, for a male columnist to think that the first thing to do is to organise a chat with her attackers?

It's not just this episode is it. LOJ definitely has something over his editor.

Pretending these points have not been answered and starting all over again is not an effective form of argument.

It's not just this episode is it. LOJ definitely has something over his editor.

he has styled himself as the only trans ally at the guardian, can you imagine what reaction they would get if they binned him.

The guardian have brought it on themselves though

I saw him tweet that once, and I asked myself, "so what are Zoe Williams and Elle Hunt? Chopped liver? And what about Fred McConnell, 'seahorse dad'?"

I suppose they're all female, and therefore they don't exist to Owen until they put a foot wrong, whereupon he strikes like a venomous viper.