Feel sad that more people in the media don’t speak up

[FizzyCow]

I know this kind of thing has been posted before but I just need to vent about it.

I just feel so sad when I think about writers and broadcasters who I always respected and I felt challenged the norm and made me think differently about things. In reality they are all just privileged, wealthy people who only look like they are rocking the boat but in reality they just care about virtual signalling to their friends.

Caitlin Moran is a big one for me. I always loved her writing, I know the area she grew up in and saw her as different to the usual champagne socialist types. Now I just see her as over privileged and so out of touch. She wouldn’t understand how today’s accepted transgender views could negatively affect poor women today.

The same for Adam Buxton. I loved that he had a variety of people on his podcast and covered a variety of topics. Now I just think about what he doesn’t talk about and why. I recognise I am being totally naive to think that he would care.

Similar for Jane Garvey, loved her so much but she is depressingly silent on the issue.

I know none of these people have to say anything but it’s depressing that they don’t.

Sex IS fact. Biological sex is reality.
One can remove one's genitals, one still remains, at a genetic code and cell level, biologically as one came out of one's mother's womb. The rest of us have the right to observe any individual as WE see them, not as they see themselves.

If you read her interviews, it's clear she has no idea what she is talking about. She is really living in a bubble.

Yes and she has flip flopped and got herself in trouble with the zealots before.

I’m not going to answer questions about my religion (or my job, as one pp alluded to).

Fair enough.

It’s not relevant.

Yes it is 🤦‍♀️ You could easily have answered question 3 without talking about your own religion, but never mind.

It is the inability to accept that there are different viewpoints that I consider bigoted.

I can't speak for anyone else but I fully accept that there are different viewpoints. I also fully accept that you consider mine bigoted. That's exactly why I asked the questions - to explore different viewpoints and the perception of bigotry. That's the relevance.

It is those holding GC views on this thread that want their position to be considered ‘fact’.

Personally speaking, I want things that have been proven by science to be considered fact. I'm not a globe earth believer, a big bang believer or a gender critical believer. Instead, I recognise that science has shown that the earth is not flat, the universe was created by the big bang and there are two sexes. I simply don't believe the alternative explanations of flat earth theory, creationism or that we all have a gender identity. If that makes me a bigot on all 3 counts, so be it I guess. However, I would argue that science does seem to agree with me, ergo these are what might otherwise be called "facts".

Atwood wrote a bestselling, critically acclaimed and culturally significant novel set in a dystopian future in which the female half of the population lost their status as citizens overnight and became broodmares for the benefit of the other half.

The logical conclusion in modern Canada is that all the women in the story needed to do was say "oh, but I identify as man-gender, look at the pronouns in my email signature!" and they'd have been ok. If anyone genuinely thinks this is possible, they have solved all the problems for the women and girls of Afghanistan; we just need to ship them out a load of non-binary rainbow lanyards to wave at the Taliban guards.

The issue is that otherwise intelligent people are ignoring logic and reality.

If anyone genuinely thinks this is possible, they have solved all the problems for the women and girls of Afghanistan; we just need to ship them out a load of non-binary rainbow lanyards to wave at the Taliban guards.

Genius. I think we should set up a crowdfund for these lanyards. I bet Amnesty International, Oxfam and Liberty would back it.
The ex-women of Afghanistan will finally be safe and able to speak again in public 🏳️‍🌈 I can't believe nobody else thought of this simple solution 🤦‍♀️

Say what you like about the Taliban, but they know what a woman is!

Will Ferrell 😭

To be fair, that's their viewpoint. They don't actually know 🙃

Anyway, no biggie. Their viewpoint won't matter one bit once all those lanyards arrive.

Atwood's statements on gender identity are all over the place, so I'm not sure she has a coherent viewpoint. What I can say is that the idea of innate gender identity is not compatible with the philosophy that runs through her writing. Her feminism is very much centred on the reproductive capacity of the female body.

We know this. We can only speculate about why she's saying something that's incompatible with her well established views. It might just be that she doesn't want to break from conventional wisdom, which for her generation of Canadians is what is broadcast on CBC.

Or it's quite possible that she's got one or more trans-identified friends or family members, and wants to be a good ally. Many of us have been in the position of saying "this is my general principle, but I'd like to make an exception for my lovely trans friend", until it became unsustainable.

The fact that she's old doesn't preclude that. Joe Biden is a true believer because Beau Biden had a close colleague who was a TW and who bonded with Joe and Jill over Beau's death. I think Joe's position, to the extent he's compos mentis at all, is "I don't really understand the philosophy behind this but I want to be a good ally". You could see that from his interview with Dylan Mulvaney, when he obviously didn't know what to make of this strange person but felt he had to make friendly noises.

Margaret Atwood isn't Joe Biden. She's a serious feminist intellectual who still has her marbles. You kind of expect her to be coherent. But she's subject to similar influences and pressures.

She still hasn't said anything about Neil Gaiman either.

She still hasn't said anything about Neil Gaiman either.

Ah yes, the man who allegedly self-identified in to the babysitter's bath.

In her defence, there will be lots of awful things (that other writers get up to) that she hasn't commented on. But given her enthusiasm for her own literary world to become reality, the jury is out on where she would draw the line on protecting women and girls.

@BonfireLady I thought Ben Elton was on the side of the angels. Saw his show live a few years ago and he was talking about people being 'Benophobic' and mocking that. Please don't tell me he's lost his terfy sensible outlook.

(And I agree, he does repeat stuff)

I've read a lot of Ben Elton books in my life, but I was a bit put off by one of the most repulsive sex scenes I've ever read (can't remember which book it was in). I believe he is also somewhat responsible for the awful Queen musical (We Will Rock You), which also puts me off.

But perhaps I should give him another chance.

Im monumentally disappointed in Ben Goldachre.

I used his books and writings to help study for an essay about autism and the MMR debarcle, amongst others

How he can't see parallels is beyond me.

I think the thing with Ben is, he clearly knows it's bollocks but he can't say so without losing social credit. He knows who his audience and his friendship circle are.

And how sad is that?

I have a principled position that anyone has a right to not comment on any issue. It might be personally difficult for them, put them in a bad professional position, they might have conflicted feelings, not have a strong opinion at all, or feel that this is the wrong place to say what I say in another place.

All I'd say about Ben is that he's built his entire persona around being a fearless advocate of scientific rationalism and opponent of woo. Sometimes he takes it too far - his view of Catholics would strike the late Ian Paisley as a bit harsh, but that's unlikely to make him unpopular with Guardian readers.

But he's been asked repeatedly about gender identity woo, and his consistent response is to mumble something about how it's all very complicated and anyway he's too busy.

Ikwym - of course anyone has the right not to comment on anything.

But when you've built a career out of vocally opposing unscientific claptrap, to remain silent strikes me as both cowardly, and as sending a message that this issue is not worthy of his time. That in itself speaks volumes.

Especially as he's not a member of the group that this ideology hurts the most (women).

Well, yeah. It's not that he doesn't comment, it's that he's consistently shifty about it.