War over trans lobby is manna for the right - Matthew Parris

[Igneococcus]

Matthew Parris really has only the most superficial understanding of what the issue is. Women's concerns don't seem to matter to him.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e1a55002-0176-11ee-a364-04e704863f75?shareToken=8726c8ee9cc9f1b6b564f26d97b17a88

Bev Jackson - assuming it's actually her - has commented underneath:

"Finally we hear what Matthew Parris really thinks. Yes let’s stop fussing about the tens of thousands of girls who are having their breasts surgically removed because of internalized homophobia - or simply because they hope they can escape from womanhood. Let’s not go on about the frightened women prisoners (often victims of sexual violence) locked up with males. Let’s not make a big deal about the women and girl athletes whose dreams are being crushed. Do you see a pattern here? Stop exaggerating, everyone. It will blow over soon enough."

I wonder if he realizes this is also going on in many other parts of the Western world with often very different political and social set ups.

What a prick.

To be fair Matthew P. has written past columns denouncing Stonewall because of their trans insanity.

Such as this one. But I agree, this latest piece makes it seem as if we should all just ignore the issues.

He's got a point: it is manna for the right, because the left have gone insane on the issue.

They will seize this opportunity because that's what politics is about. And I'm glad because it needs to be challenged because it's dangerous.

Yes there is now a war being slugged out in the media for us to all watch and cheer and boo. But 2 years ago the media wouldn't talk about this at all.

Maybe it's all a bit unedifying, maybe some people seem to be enjoying the 'calling out' a bit too much both ways, but it's necessary. This is how people get to hear what's happening, this is how people not in the centre get to understand what it means, this is how people get to realise that how they vote impacts this issue.

He seems to be complaining really that politics is a bit of performance played out in the media.
Well yes Matthew well done for noticing.

It's all a bit distasteful isn't it? Did you only notice this once you stopped being a Tory MP? And became...a political commentator??
Pot. Kettle. Black.

And he unequivocally stands by Janice Turner.

Most of the rest of it is just flim flam - a mixture of the obvious and whimsical musings about all sides being bonkers without specifying why. This does not lead to much beyond making him look a bit of a twit.

I think he has sadly become more solipsistic in general.

Oh fgs - stop talking about it & it will all go away? oh yes womens rights & protections will be toast if we do that but hey who cares about the support humans

if only women hadn’t made such an annoying vocal fuss about our rights being trampled on by entitled men who believe they have lady feelings

It took me a while to wade through that word salad. He's a very poor writer, isn't he?

He's not wrong that this culture war is a gift to the political right. Everyone knows women don't have penises. The political right knows women don't have penises and isn't afraid to say so. The political left knows women don't have penises but for some unfathomable reason have decided to pretend they do. The electorate knows women don't have penises and for some of us this is a reason not to vote for left wing parties. It's a political position that makes the left look batshit insane. This can only be to the political right's advantage.

But there's a whole paragraph in there about the victims of this ideology. Trans people who just want to live their lives in peace and privacy get one line. Children who have been irreversibly damaged get one line, although Parrish seems to be revelling in that, in a way I find pretty distasteful. The rest is all about how the political left will lose out. Yeah, they will, but it's their own stupid fault and I don't care. Women, who have lost our single sex spaces, services and sports, and even the very language we have to describe ourselves, don't even merit a cursory mention.

All this does is make me even more angry with Labour and the Lib Dems who have forced us onto the same side as this excreable turd through their determination to pretend that the earth is flat and water is not wet.

Where are the grown ups?

It's like he's decided it's all a bit too hard and difficult, and can't be bothered so just shut up and it'll go away. In which case, pushback is to be expected.

A more nuanced version of ‘nothing to see here’ and he doesn’t see the women crushed under the trans train!
Waste of time!

As ever, first response nails it succinctly.

I’m surprised at some of the comments here. I thought this was a good piece which cuts to a big part of the issue that is rarely discussed: that the issue is £££ for a small number of vocal minority interest groups. Stonewall has adopted this cause because, without it, it would basically cease to exist: almost all the rights they campaigned for they now have. Yes, as a piece it’s light on the impact on women and girls, but he directly refers to his support for Janice Turner, who has been very vocal on the issue, so I took this piece more as a “that’s all been quite rightly said and I agree - and here’s a different slant on the issue”. And of course, he’s right - it IS manna for the right. Everyone over the age of about six can immediately tell you, just by looking at someone, whether they are male or female. We need more straight talking about the issue and less hand wringing and philosophising.

Matthew Parris is saying what my male identified progenitor of the same vintage says: utter disbelief at it all.

We've had arguments about it, with him calling me an extremist for saying sex is binary and immutable! He's right that it is attention seeking nonsense, but doesn't realise how ingrained it is in his grandchildren's environment. He thinks there's some happy compromise to be found if only hysterical females (like me) would calm down dear.

Then I retort: easy for you to say, you're not adversely affected. Cue defensive huffiness, as his self image is open minded, right-on, progressive boomer.

DH gets it. Although not engrossed like I am, he's aware our teenage children are prime targets. Probably not interested in the fate of female prisoners and other marginal women though.

Fair points Abra1t and Heliotroper

I think even if he spoke with the woman who was raped on the "female" ward by the transwoman the staff let in he still wouldn't give a shit. Or any of the other women attacked, verbally abused by, and made pregnant (prison example) by transwomen.

While men love individual girls and women and many throw in when sexism directly affects a daughter, mother, spouse- on a general level, men just don't give a shit about us. It's not even hatred, it's indifference, blithe disregard. (Very few exceptions to this rule, sadly, and another thing which makes Linehan such an outlier, for his flaws he actually seems to care about women as people.) The Woke Bros who defend transgenderism so ardently don't do so by actively seeking out and including trans men for friendships or homosexual relationships, but by defending the first kind of woman they've ever been able to relate to - a man.

So of course some of them just want us all to bloody stop talking about it, but I won't as long as my sisters are getting mutilated, brain washed, raped in prisons, unfairly beaten or horrifically hurt in sports, or made unsafe in female spaces.

I read this earlier and thought it was a load of pontificating that we are making a big fuss over nothing. Very little said or acknowledged about the fact that women don't have the luxury of 'just ignore it and it will all go away'. It's not going away, in fact it will take a lot of pushing back to get this to go away.

Also, the fact that listed out the victims of all this and put transsexuals as number one shows where his bias is. Eh, no mate the biggest victims of all this are the vulnerable children caught up in this nonsense, followed swiftly by the women dealing with our loss of spaces and language.

He thinks he gets it, but clearly misses huge swathes of stuff because he is a man who isn't really affected, except in a theoretical sense. Meanwhile in the real world actual women are being actually affected, and it's not just going away.

Agree@Clementyme

And to end it, all Starmer has to do is say that a woman is an adult human female. No exceptions. Repeal GRA and clarify EA.

What's so strange is that he keeps doubling down on a massive own goal.

Helen Joyce is not impressed and has tweeted:

This by Matthew Parris is downright despicable. Can be summed up as ‘men claiming they’re women, and ideologues indoctrinating kids, don’t affect me so they’re being made up.’ One of the smuggest, most self-centred displays of wilful ignorance I’ve ever read

I don't read Matthew Parris's columns unless someone here has kindly shared a link (Thanks for this one, Igneococcus) but I do listen to his radio programme Great Lives. I have found that he is astonishingly lacking in empathy. He can't worry about teenagers who want puberty blockers or women in prison feeling threatened by a transgender prisoner because he is simply incapable of putting himself in another person's position.

Yep this is what worries me @Clementyme

It's a gift that if they solve it goes away.

There's an assumption that TRA/woke/left are demanding more because the right are fueling it by giving it attention. If questions weren't asked, politicians wouldnt have to say anything, TRA wouldnt feel threatened and demand more rights.

It sound very reasonable, but its not what happened.

If everything worked and everyone was happy before self id was proposed, why was it proposed? Why fix something that isnt broken?

The truth is the politicians on all sides support the definition of women being 'whatever' and have been introducing policies under the radar for years.

When women started asking politicians justify their policies, they can't and have to backtrack. The hostile environmental is driven by TRA not getting the policies they demanded. The policies came first, not women asking questions.

1.2k comments on this piece! Largely all gender critical.