Gender critical Twitter is on fire today...

[tabbycatstripy]

...after a Muslim children’s writer outed herself as gender critical, and when she received the usual ‘disappointed’ comments and accusations of being a ‘terf’, the ratio was clear: most people either support her, or they prefer not to say anything.

The tide has turned. Some of her accusers have been forced to delete their tweets, after their publishers were tagged in to the abusive content.

You love to see it.

Well, I'm cautiously optimistic...

Can you link to it, tabby? I’m not on twatter, but I do enjoy a good ratio!

I don’t do links (unfortunately) because of MN doxxing history. But the writer is Onjali Rauf. Dignified and immovable. I love her.

I do genuinely believe that the tide is turning. And amen to that because the last few years have felt like a very hard slog at times, and that’s just for me, a normal person who’s encountered unfriending and horrible comments, knowing that I’m labelled a terf behind my back and being worried that I’ll be “outed” at work.

Fuck even knows what it must be like for people who’ve really been bearing the brunt of it - Allison Bailey, JK Rowling, Kathleen Stock, Jo Phoenix, Rosa Freedman, Maya Forstater et al.

twitter.com/OnjaliRauf/status/1529352538872594433?s=20&t=0xR4gUCllRotxH7E86FNcA

I feel like I don’t do enough and haven’t been brave enough. Then I tell myself a team can’t all be strikers. You need ‘ordinary people’ who don’t make a big thing of it, quietly writing to their MP, reporting things to the Charity Commission, sending feedback to the BBC. You need Gervais and Chappelle, mainstreaming the laughter, not at trans people but at the ludicrous ideology that harms most of them because it alienates people who would otherwise support them. You need the right-wing, slightly religious, generally a bit conservative people who object to gender ideologue content in kids’ libraries. You need the left-wing, genuinely progressive feminists who reject gender ideology because it is a prison that has kept women under for centuries.

It’s a coalition of the willing (and the sane).

Also, see this as an example of trans activists abiding to #bekind:

twitter.com/RooneyRachel/status/1529441977183379456

Irony is not their strong point, is it? 🤦‍♀️

Rooney has no fucks left to give. And if she’s reading this, her books are BEAUTIFUL.

Onjali Rauf is wonderful. Such a clear and compassionate voice on this issue (and many) others. Anyone trying to shame her on Twitter would be a fool.

Onjali was always GC, what's new? Who wasnt paying attention?

She's a fantastic, best-selling author and the founder of the NGO Making Herstory, a woman's rights organisation tackling the abuse and trafficking of women and girls in the UK and beyond.

Rauf is an actual activist unlike many keyboard warriors on Twitter.

Looks like a children’s writer being GC might be a boost for sales...

Looks like some people made twats of themselves trying to shame her.

She wouldn’t have got away with it if she were a white Christian.

Possibly not.

Not quite sure what’s meant by this? Onjali Rauf has been openly gender critical for ages, and gets lots of abuse for it, mainly from people in the children’s publishing world, unfortunately. They have the nerve to criticise her for ‘lack of empathy’ whilst often displaying zero empathy themselves.Her books and her work generally are great.

I saw Nimco Ali mentioning that she's been put in a bin with Gervais some time ago and therefore expressed some solidarity.

I'm pleased to see OR has had support.

Ooh, I just went and ordered a couple of her books including the new one coming out tomorrow. 👍 Good for Onjali!

I've just bought another O Rauf book.

The people calling her a transphobe and saying it's 'hate' haven't thought through the issues of mixed sex (by stealth) toilets and other spaces for Muslim women and girls.

If I were to take a page out of their book, you could say they are racist. But I'm not going to do that. Maybe they think men are more important than Muslim women and girls or maybe they just haven't thought it through. Who knows.

And one thing that’s certain, children’s books get bought by women on Mumsnet — they don’t get bought by the faux-little-OJ male keyboard warriors (or, indeed, by most of the people who work in publishing).

So, so true.

I'm also noting the names of the authors who are reflexively labelling her a bigot. I won't be buying their books.

They do realise that mothers with a sound grasp of biology must be one of the most lucrative markets for children's books, right?

Cross post nightwakingmoon. You'd think children's authors would at the very least want to protect their revenue stream.

Apparently not.

It's unbelievable how some of them are saying things like 'and she wrote a book on empathy' like it's so outrageous.

Maybe it's BECAUSE she has empathy that she has this view - she has empathy for women and girls. Not just males.