Sandi Toksvig "doesn't get it", poor love....

[HootyMcBooby]

Sandi Toksvig slams anti-trans bigots ‘claiming to be radical feminists’ (msn.com)

"I could weep. I don’t get it. It’s beyond me"

Yeah Sandi, I don't get it either.
How is it possible that men can say they are women and have unfettered access to females in their safe spaces?
How is it possible that we are medicating children against puberty?
How it is possible that a woman can be raped on a female hospital ward by a man claiming to be a woman and then gaslighted to be told a man was not on the ward?
How is it possible that men are claiming titles, sponsorships and medals in women's sports?
How is it possible women and females are being literally erased from so many spheres of life, including health/medicine and marketing campaigns? How come the same isn't happening to males?

As a lesbian do you like "lady penis"?
Or do you actually know that men remain men whatever surgeries they may have had, and are just on the "be kind" train?

Have you even THOUGHT about the issues this ideology ushers in?

Actually you don't need to answer that.
It's obvious.

By the way, Mishy. Did you miss the women who wrote posts on FWR at the time of that BBC article about lesbians and the 'cotton ceiling' telling us that yes, they actually were raped because they ended up in situations where unwanted sex happened because they were too afraid to say no. Afraid of violence at the time AND of the violence of rejecting that person in the first place.

You are very dismissive again of violence against women, this time sexual violence. How many rapes do you find acceptable before you take back your ridiculous statement of 'No-one forces people on who they choose to have sex with'?

Do they have a proud ‘no blacks, no Irish’ sign too?

Presumably Mishy also missed the bit where Nancy Kelley had a go at lesbians who were only interested in other bio women.

I mean it's mightly good of the COE to 'accept the law' (as opposed to what? launching a theocratic coup?).

And the context you provide is all very interesting, but doesn't change the end position - that the COE as an institution does not consider gay couples to be worthy of marriage.

They are of course perfectly free to believe that. But let's not pretend that's not a bigoted view.

What do you think 'bigoted' means?

A fresh snippet about Sandi T, from an article about grief in today's Guardian:

'Black humour works for some people. In the journalist Catherine Mayer’s memoir Good Grief, co-written with her mother, Anne Mayer Bird, after both women were coincidentally widowed around the same time, she describes how her friend the comedian Sandi Toksvig made a mischievous habit of saying things others would consider shockingly inappropriate, and then adding brightly: “Too soon, darling?”'

Not much reading between the lines is needed to realise that sensitivity or empathy is clearly not Ms Toksvig's strong suit.

It can also come down to definitions - in this case, what marriage means. Much more clearly, when it comes to trans issues, what do ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘male’, ‘female’, ‘lesbian’ mean. Our society at a legal level has come down on ‘marriage’ being inclusive of gay couples. I think it’s debatable whether it’s bigoted to still use an earlier accepted definition, and not to go along like a sheep with the majority opinion, but you are obviously wedded to your worldview and anyone wedded to a different worldview from yours is by definition bigoted - is that right?

The trans redefinitions of sex-based words to gender-based words are a problem because gender does not lend itself to clear legal definitions which can be repeatedly determined or verified by scientific tests. So, on a gender-based definition, how can you determine who is and isn’t a lesbian? How can you determine who is a woman eligible to compete in female sports categories? Unfortunately the CofE is very confused in its responses in this area too, with a strong push to base its policy on ‘kindness’ rather than verifiable fact.

I have never understood why Sandi Toksvig (or Stephen Fry, for that matter) is held up as some sort of great intellect.

Been through this again and again with those two posters, you'll never get them to shift from their alternative reality where it's all lovely, and homosexual females can be homosexual and meet and date in peace and joy supported by the TQ+ lobby, except that none of them exist because all homosexual females love doing men.

Toksvig has a similar personal reality. It's all lovely in there and she cannot see nor hear any evidence or accounts or voices that does not fit with it. Which in my opinion makes her as culpable as those who deny the reality of homosexual oppression while doing it. Obviously. All over threads. Constantly.

'she describes how her friend the comedian Sandi Toksvig made a mischievous habit of saying things others would consider shockingly inappropriate, and then adding brightly: “Too soon, darling?”''

Oh god, what an arsehole

'I have never understood why Sandi Toksvig (or Stephen Fry, for that matter) is held up as some sort of great intellect.'

I know, it's baffling. It can only be because they have bags of confidence and sound very posh. Was it Julie Burchill who described Fry as 'a stupid person's idea of what a clever person would be like?'

@Flickersy
Don't be disingenuous
It's completely hypocritical to say shaming other women is unfeminist on a thread which is loaded with insults towards a woman because she has the "wrong" opinion
Pointing that out is not scolding or shaming. Or is it ok to shame and insult women when they have the wrong thoughts?

Exactly

Do the posters defending calling some people ‘bigots’ not recognise the difference between criticising the belief or argument and criticising the person.

As soon as you’ve started talking about bigots, you’re in personal attacking, villainising, name calling territory. You are calling people bigots. It’s playing the man not the ball.

It’s really weird to be defending someone (you agree with)’s right to call people names while complaining that the people you don’t agree with were rude about that person and called them names.

If Sandi wants to call bishops bigots in the international media, she’s opening up the whole discussion to proceed via name
calling.

Maybe she should have discussed the ideas rather than going straight for the nasty bigots attack.

It’s also incredible to pretend that in 2023 ‘bigot’ is high up there in the list of moral
crimes and terrible things you can call someone. Calling someone a bigot is intended to be a far worse insult than calling them a posh twat or whatever.

Yes, it would be better if we all just criticised Sandi’s behaviour and ideas rather than called her a twat or whatever. But it’s utterly disingenuous to pretend that calling someone a ‘bigot’ is a neutral or objective statement.

I'm GC and I've never made that argument, btw - I agree it's not relevant to what the definition of man or woman is.

Given that bigot is a personal attack would it be okay instead to say that Sandi Toksvig holds bigoted views? Would it also be okay to point out that she has the privilege of not being damaged by occasionally being called bigoted or, indeed, a bigot? Is it okay to be disappointed and maybe a bit bloody cross that she can use her public platform to put forth these views without taking into account the complexities of the GI "movement" and how it impacts women, especially marginalised and more vulnerable women? Might we wonder if there will be a whole generation where there are no butch lesbians because they will have been convinced that they are, in fact, men?

Might we move on from the notion that women must always be kind both to each other and to those who seek to denigrate them just in case we are seen to be so very wrong in not being kind? Should we consider that even the kindest of GC women have been called Nazis and fascists and have had violence wished upon them, used upon them and lost their livings because they may have been kind but they have thought very, very wrong things? Further, and maybe finally, could we not understand that to have issues with the TRA movement, which very much seems to be the MRA movement in a frock, is not to be "anti-trans" but is to accept that there is a conflict of rights whether those who poo-poo this are prepared to accept it or not?

I'm about to undergo some rather serious treatment, part of which will take place in, what I see - disagree or not - a totally captured NHS trust hospital. The treatment is not something that makes me fear a MTF nurse but what is playing on my mind is that I will have to be aware of what I say or do the whole time this is going on. Of course, I'm not going to go around saying "Trans women are men!". I'm not a total twat - only partial - but I absolutely hate that I'm even thinking about this at all when it should have absolutely sweet FA to do with an NHS Trust which should just be about the health of the individual and have nothing to do with ideologies that are not scientifically robust. Other than that I am in the lucky position of being a woman who will probably never be in a position where I am in a vulnerable position and forced to share space with a MTF trans person. I won't be in prison and have to share a cell or a unit with a rapist who now decides that he is a woman. I almost certainly won't be using a rape crisis centre where there are men, not because I won't be raped - already happened - but because I have enough support that I would be able to make the decision not to use such a place. I'm lucky, most of us here are and I think it is therefore even more important for us to consider the needs of women who have no voice and are not so lucky.

Re lesbians. I have a lot of lesbian friends none of whom want anything to do with "lady cock", but I don't pretend to believe that therefore no lesbians are, I think that all of the fluid and "I don't care a damn!" among you might consider that your experiences are far from universal as well. You're in a majority in your bubble and nowhere else.

If this has already been posted, I apologise. If not...enjoy! Sandi has roused the Bindel

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-is-sandi-toksvig-to-lecture-radical-feminists/

https://archive.ph/TLcNZ archive link

Incidentally, the bit about unpalatable lesbians being excluded in the 70s by feminists. Does anyone know what she's talking about?

Did you read the article under discussion? She has discussed these issues, at length.

Not that I think gay people have any obligation to discuss bigotted views about them or their relationships before they can call them bigoted.

The consistent ignorance here about how lesbians were treated in the early days of the NOW and the entire Lavender Menace is astonishing, considering the title of the forum and the self-professed feminism of many posters.

Wikipedia
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C.[5] It is the largest feminist organization in the United States with around 500,000 members.[6] NOW is regarded as one of the main liberal feminist organizations in the US, and primarily lobbies for gender equality within the existing political system.[7] NOW campaigns for constitutional equality,[8]

I'll hold my hands up and admit I have no idea what was going on in NOW's early days, because we are talking about an organisation founded over 20 years before I was born, in a country I have never ever even visited.

If you find that astonishing, I'm going to keep you in a state of perpetual shock all night.

self-professed feminism of many posters.

Feminism has nothing to do with men, there is a huge fucking clue in the name, it is by women for women, not men however they may identify. Anyone who claims to be a feminist and then includes males in that is not a feminist, anyone who claims to be a feminist and pushes policies that will exclude women, some of whom are the most vulnerable and marginalised in society from the very spaces and services they need is not a feminist, anyone who prioritises males feelings, wants and wishes above women is not a feminist. Nor are they liberal or tolerant.

Oh dear. I mentioned the unmentionable. I forgot we're squeamish about that over here.

In summary... if I'm looking for the feminism in someone who doesn't care about female COMFORT with males in female spaces but is desperate for women to ensure the COMFORT of others while they breastfeed their babies... then I'm going to need a bigger microscope.

I was a toddler, I'm trying to educate myself. Something Ms Toksvig should attempt.

And we're not a hive mind. I assumed other posters would be more knowledgeable and they, not you, might be willing to share that knowledge.

Always that

Of all the things I've been harangued for, failing to know the history of 1960s US feminist schisms is possibly the oddest.

I don't know why she's doing this. Maybe she's genuinely swept along by the "be kind" concept and really can't see what's wrong with any man, however predatory, being able to simply ID himself into women's safe spaces, and teens having their health destroyed for life. I say that genuinely because I think there are people who really believe gender identity is a thing, it's never mistaken or faked and that these are the right reactions to it.

But, ST is an old hand and not an unthinking person, and I reckon it's far more likely that there is someone in her life who she doesn't want to upset - or it's because of fear of attack, cancellation etc. - or both. And to be fair I can't 100% condemn those motivations either.

I do think it's fair to debate ST on this and call for her to answer the obvious questions, explain the logical fails and address the obvious issues regarding sexual offending rates in TW, the suffering of detransitioners, etc. There are many on twitter saying GC people want to "let women speak" but want to shut down Sandi. Not me, I say let her speak too but she should be prepared to defend her statements with reason and logic.