Caitlin Moran discusses her absence from the trans debates

[MotherEarthisaTerf]

20 mins and 30 seconds in

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zlw2?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

the fact that she's not banging the TWAW drum suggests she's GC but doesn't want to risk her reputation and earning power by saying it out loud. I don't really blame her, although I have more respect
for Hadley Freeman

and people who say they don't understand and it's a toxic subject: (CM and Jeremy Vine among others) really boil my piss. They do understand completely and it's only toxic from one side: and that's not the GC side.

I can only assume that what she would actually worried about in terms of livelihood is “people might not like me anymore”.

I think this is definitely a factor. She seemed to really struggle when her latest book got a couple of bad reviews and there was a bit of pushback on it.

I agree with this point. Not a massive fan of CM but she may have family reasons for not wanting to wade into this debate.

Similar reasons to Adam Rutherford then, including the need to write a book and how that matches up with the whole, 'not enough research' argument.

Even a stopped clock is sometimes right but on balance, he and his papers have caused untold damage to this country over the years. It’s still going on.

I’m no fan of Murdoch but this is yet another example of gender ideology influencing the left to the point where a lot of left-wing people, and news outlets like the guardian (and bbc to an extent), are rejecting the truth in favour of “be kind” dogma that has departed from reality. If you care about reality, even as a left wing and/or gay person, you’re going to find yourself awkwardly allied with press and politicians who you don’t agree with on other issues, but who are the only ones who are free to be truthful and ask questions because not being left-wing means they’re allowed to.

This of course gives transactivists ammunition to say anyone who doesn’t go along with GI is “right wing” or “far right”. No, it’s just that left-wing people with critical thinking ability who care about women, children and gay rights currently have to look elsewhere to find honest discussion of the issues.

I have just listened to the whole podcast and found it interesting and insightful. Taken in context, what she says makes sense to me. I like her, and I think Nick Robinson interviewed her well.

www.thetimes.com/article/f99f43b5-26c8-4e73-a354-0a994f8bd2b2?shareToken=98fa31ca5ebdd135abc1815fe5a7028c

Just reviving this thread because this week, whilst the judgement on the definition of woman is up in the air... a pivotal time for women, for feminism, a piece of history playing out before our eyes....

Caitlin has put up a towel rack and spends an entire column talking about it.

I really liked her back in the day. I find her lack of engagement with this topic unforgivable for someone who made her name and money on being a ‘feminist’, The boys and men book sounded nauseating. I saw her speaking about it at a book event and it sounded like the most ill thought out nonsense. She couldn’t even articulate what it was supposed to be all about. I was genuinely embarrassed for her.

😄

She did DIY!? Is she sure she's not a bloke?

JV mentioned the news reports about John Swinney saying that men couldn’t get pregnant on his Ch5 show this week - he normally steers clear of any mention of trans matters, as you say.

Some youngish guy said it was “all very complicated” and Maria McErlone (best friend of Graham Norton) lectured Ann Widdicombe about how trans rights didn’t affect women, and those who wish to preserve female spaces are a small minority “who would be dead soon”!

AW was great - it affects womens’ sports and women’s’ safe spaces and while she might be dead soon, lots of younger women and girls agree with her.

Sorry - a bit off topic, but I had to vent!

I think the middle ground would be that there have always been some gender non-conforming people, whose natural sexual development got really messed up at some point, but historically they were so tiny as to not be of much concern to anyone. I’m thinking of eg Nadia on big brother.

but then the debate got so huge and polarised that it started affecting children, who do naturally play around with different gender roles as they grow up but eventually reconcile with their own bodies.

it seems to have been taken up by the left as a kind of lodestone issue in the fight against growing far right extremism in the wake of Trump et al. There’s a bigger existential question for the left, wherein some seem to think that by breaking down gender roles completely we can head towards a bright clear future free from sexism and homophobia, without realising that by doing this they are trying to erase the category of “woman” completely and therefore setting back women’s rights.

Is she the Times version of Adrian Chiles then?

@MotherEarthisaTerf "She said in the interview her children are now in their 20s"

My children are in their 20s too. I know I would lose them if I was publicly outspoken about my GC views. I can't blame her.

I have a job related to publishing, and I get why she hasn't spoken about it. Losing your job for GC views is a real prospect for female writers. It's not just publishers that won't offer contracts, it's young female staff that will deliberately screw up marketing/not push your book to reviewers, leading to poor sales, which leads to low royalties and no chance of a new publishing deal. Booksellers refusing to put your books on display, or to order them in the first place. Earnings are so precarious in the industry. You can earn six figures one year and less than a grand the next. Openly sharing GC views is if you don't have secure sales and a strong brand could have terrible consequences for your career. Maybe she just can't afford to comment.

So she's a coward, is well off and privileged so can largely avoid the issue about penises in mislabelled women's spaces (unlike women in prison and the victims of men like Dolatowski), and is willing to throw the most vulnerable women and children under the bus so she can have a nice life free of even the slightest conflict.

I'm sorry but I don't have time for women who are supposedly journalists and who take on issues where GI has clear relevance like Moran and Marina Hyde but fail to mention the massive elephant in the room. There are too many brave women who HAVE spoken up and done their jobs with professionalism and courage, Hannah Barnes, Suzanne Moore etc.

If she has family reasons for not getting involved she should go and do business journalism or something. It's unacceptable to build her career on being a feminist then sit this one out.

Women like this are actively colluding to harm women and girls.

I think most of us totally get that, and it would be fine except for the fact her career is positioned on her being a feminist for our modern era, then choosing to avoid mentioning the biggest issue currently facing modern feminism.

It makes her somewhat redundant if she is reduced to mostly talking about DIY.

I think there is a huge number of middle aged women who are absolutely terrified of speaking up on this because their children will disown them. I don't believe for a minute that any of the women believe men can be women, but when you have kids who've drunk the Kool Aid who are capable of disowning their parents and who surround themselves by people who've already done that, then the fear is what stops you speaking out.

What concerns me is the way that there's no give at all in the Kool Aid generation's argument. They don't accept that rape crisis centres, female sport, changing rooms or prisons are not places for TW. These are things I won't back down on, either, so for me and my daughter there is no discussion of this at all. The consequences of me speaking out would be to lose my daughter, even if that was temporary. I think people like Caitlin Moran are in a similar position.

I get the bit about the books but isn’t she rumoured to earn a good six figures from the Times? They aren’t likely to drop her for being GC.

I'm sorry but I don't have time for women who are supposedly journalists and who take on issues where GI has clear relevance like Moran and Marina Hyde but fail to mention the massive elephant in the room. There are too many brave women who HAVE spoken up and done their jobs with professionalism and courage, Hannah Barnes, Suzanne Moore etc.

With Caitlin Moran, I don't think it's cowardice, exactly - she seems to be fully on board with the trans rights agenda. Marina Hyde is different. I strongly suspect her of being a Terf, but too scared to say so.

Don't know which is worse!

Bingo.

and if she has difficult family circs I would not object to her publicly saying so and fence sitting.

but I didn’t like how she claimed she didn’t know enough about it and that’s why she’s avoided the debate. She doesn’t have a knob but she still released a book about how boys and men and their need to self organise.

I agree that Marina Hyde shows hints of Terfery, as you would expect from someone of her incisive intelligence. The difference between her and CM is that CM has made selling feminism her USP. So sitting this out is a betrayal of her special area of interest.

There's no way Marina Hyde isn't GC. She's far too clever not to be.

All Caitlin Moran needed to say about schools was that she looked at all the schools in the area and chose the one which would suit her children best. Everyone knows about the way CM was educated - she could say she didn't want that for her children.