Brilliant article on The Tavistock by Lionel Shriver

[Appalonia]

In her typical razor sharp, excoriating style, she blasts both The Tavistock and gender ID. I always thought she was a T**F! Really worth a read

www.spectator.co.uk/article/good-riddance-to-the-tavistock

Oof. That’s a corker. Brava, Lionel!

Really good to see the point about us being embodied, not digital avatars.

And the point about us being distracted by this narcissistic tripe while there are far more pressing issues to address. I am so resentful of the energy fighting this has taken - when feminists have many other important things (that don't centre men) to focus on.

The very nature of critical race theory is that it lionises subjective narratives over empiricism or attempts at objectivity. So she was completely correct.

Wow. Hope she handle the
Backlash surely coming her way but suspect she doesn't give a shit

Pretty sure she doesn’t. She’s a grown up established author - one of her books was made into a critically acclaimed film and she was (is?) a journalist for the Economist. Have met her she is fearless and intelligent. She could wither a TRA with a glare from 50 paces.

Plenty of people disagree with assertions of structural racism in the West. The evidence doesn't seem convincing and does tend to rely on subjective interpretations. Lionel Shriver agrees with this stance, hence why she phrased it that way.

I agree it's a good article.

A reminder that not everyone who is GC is coming at this from the same point of view.

Well of course. If you polled people who agreed with the statement 'The earth is not flat' you'd find a huge variation in the political affiliations and viewpoints of those people - left wing, right wing, centrist, far right, far left, atheist, buddhist, pro abortion, anti abortion.... Even racists know basic facts about the solar system.... Horrifying prospect for some, I know.
Imagine that - somewhere out there is a terrible, evil person who also agrees with a progressive, righteous person that the earth isn't flat. Such is life. 😆

This article from Quillette.com is also excellent. quillette.com/2022/08/05/closing-the-tavistock-is-an-important-step/

She's written some excellent incisive articles about identity politics for the Times in recent years. Like this one about the unthinking adoption of USA preoccupations and the lack of knowledge of basic data about our country
(share token):

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9f8b3ed8-e1c0-11ec-baab-53d14c642149?shareToken=95dd66c319ebfe6bad17a7a168ff30c1

I am no expert at critical race theory, or academic perspectives. And I am white. But the objective evidence is overwhelming- its pointless to go through them but range from maternal outcomes, who gets killed by police, job prospects... so I find it very ignorant to deny the lived experience of Black people.
We don't all have to agree on every aspect of course. But it does the GC argument no favours at all to muddy our arguments with minimising or denying institutional, systemic racism. It's clearer for me to leave it out for the sake of one sentence in an article. As if Lionel Shriver cares, but it reeks of privilege and ignorance.

I think anyone who is in favour of free speech and of heterodox thinking ought to be prepared to take issue with the nonsense espoused in Critical Race Theory. I think fearless thinkers will go there, and not care who it upsets in exactly the way gender critical feminists have had to be prepared to be accused of transphobia.

The arguments need to be parsed with the same care as the trans thing. To say "white fragility doesn't exist" is not the same as saying that people don't suffer racism. Just as saying "trans women are men" does not mean you want trans women to die.