Eva Wiseman in today's Observer

[MarkWithaC]

Anyone read this?
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/02/our-hard-won-rights-are-being-erased-one-letter-at-a-time www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/02/our-hard-won-rights-are-being-erased-one-letter-at-a-time]]

I didn't like her already, but fuck me this is a new low.
Aligning the right to abortion with 'trans rights' (whatever they are).
Talking about 'restricting gender-affirming care' (by this does she mean the kind of 'care' that is against the Cass Review and schools guidelines?)
And the kicker: 'when the words start disappearing, our rights are surely not far behind.' What words, Eva? Words like 'woman'? like 'sex' (as opposed to 'gender')?

I'll say it again: fuck me. She's shameless.

Force teaming women with men who demand we call them women.

Fuck off Eva.

I've never liked her writing very much, but this is a truly terrible article.

I was listening to the radio documentary/podcast Criminally Queer this week, about the Bolton 7 case where men who had group sex in private but filmed it were prosecuted some time later. It's good, I recommend it, and it doesn't shy away from some difficult issues while being very clear on its stance. Also good interviews with Shon Faye who is very articulate and honest about the fact that homophobia is the common motivator in most attacks on gay men and transwomen.

Relating to this article though, I was struck by the constant use of LGBTQ and LGBTQ+ to describe campaigners in 1998. I know that there was significant campaigning for the right for trans people to live completely in their target sex role at that time - after all the Goodwin case was happening then - and I was married to a man who'd desisted from transitioning but who remained vocal about transwomen's need to marry as women, for example. But although I feel pretty certain that the term LGBT existed, it absolutely wasn't mainstream parlance then. I hate it when past language is overridden with current language, at least when it's done without acknowledgement. As for the continuing loss of 'women' for the term 'people', my God I hate it. The plastering over of real difference, the smoothing out of specific needs into a bland common denominator is so wrong.

So anyway The Observer is no longer part of The Guardian Group and is being taken over by Tortoise. And will be a totally separate entity from, I believe, April.

It'll be interesting to see what the new incarnation of the world's oldest Sunday newspaper will be aligning itself to.

Tortoise Media was co founded by James Harding who, as far I can tell, is not left wing.

Don't know if Wiseman is going to Tortoise or has been offered work at The Guardian or something else.

" It is bewildering, though, to see feminists who engage in anti-trans rhetoric offering up their own reproductive rights as a sweetener"

I wonder what she thinks the relationship between feminism, women and reproductive rights is? Something like "Access to abortion is important to most women becaue most women are female, but trans women are also women and just as much women as other women because being a woman isn't about biology you bigots, and access to women's sports is important to trans women, so women who don't want to give up their sports to make trans women happy are as bad as anti abortionists"

or something

I was on the Switchboards in the mid to late nineties and I can confirm mine was L&G. There was even a separate Lesbian Line run by a different charity in my city.

I wonder what Sonia Sodha thinks

She seems to be claiming that feminists who agree with Trump on trans issues are backing him on clamping down on abortion rights

Things change so fast, but wasn’t it the case a while back that certain groups were denying that gender affirming care for minors was happening? Then others found it was so according to people like Wiseman, it’s all okay now and it should continue. It’s hard to keep up.

Just written to her

Hi Eva,

I was reading your piece in the Observer yesterday and noticed a few concerns.
In the absence of a national health service, the US (big pharma) are only concerned with profits. “Gender affirming treatment” is not “better left to doctors” in this case; it’s a fast track to lifelong meds and surgery.
The whipped up panic has been caused by boys and men stealing sports trophies from girls and women (over 900 last year). You might deny that sex being immutable but if you do, the hard-won rights in the title of your column are meaningless. We fought for women’s sports categories and single sex spaces, no one wants to go back to the urinary leash.
The T popped on the end of LGB doesn’t make sense, T isn’t a sexuality. There were drag queens at the Stonewall riots, no one, including them called them women and those people are a million miles from the spicy straights who, exploiting the ludicrous self ID, can demand access to female only spaces, compel everyone to adhere to the rules of their ideology and use public money to sue when they don’t get their way.
The Q in queer is a reference to queer theory, espoused by Michelle Foucault, covering many kinks including sexual abuse of children. And the + stands for more kinks like animals etc. Stonewall decided to add the extra letters when it felt that there was nothing left to fight for in terms of sexual orientation, but you can’t close a charity and pay back all the funds thus it was reinvented and their guidelines are employed by most large corporations.
Lastly, there’s no conflation between pro life groups and gender critical groups, that’s absurd (at least in the UK). Read opinions on Mumsnet, X and other platforms and you’ll hear concern from dyed in the wool lefties who cut their teeth on The Female Eunuch and sat in the road to protest section 28.

Regards

Here's what I wrote to her

Having your column in a British newspaper perhaps leads you to believe that your beliefs are sacrosanct. They are not. I absolutely refuse to accept that the belief that men should have access to women's sport is an integral part of being a thoughtful supporter of women's rights. I accept your right to believe what you like, but wanting girls to have sex based competition in sport is a valid stance and one that makes most sense to me. I also support women's reproductive rights and if you feel that these are in danger, perhaps the solution is for women to collectively agree to support women, not add in a group of men.

I also don't understand why you are so fond of the Q as in queer, which many gay people still consider to be a slur.

Regards

I'll be interested to hear if she responds to these emails.

She's tweeted the article.
Oh dear me it is not going well for her,😂

The twitter twatter of tiny brains.

She's an idiot.

Not many replies yet but none are positive so far
https://nitter.net/EvaWiseman/status/1896113434774716820

I knew nothing of Eva Wiseman until ten minutes ago. It seems she is lazy and entitled, and lacking in basic journalistic nous. And a snitch, too. Hardly in a position to take the moral high ground. Clearly plenty in the Twitterverse have heard that kind of shtick before.

"Authoritarian movements require solidarity to resist, otherwise we’re all toast"

But resistance cannot be along authoritarian lines, it has to come from a position where debate is out in the open. I am sick of the attitude of self styled progressive leaders lecturing but not listening.

I don't think people with DSDs are in the mix - they too have been co-opted in the cause of 'trans rights'.
I was curious about the arrests for illegal abortion quoted by Wiseman. Does this include the woman who lied that she was under 10 weeks pregnant and then took the Morning After pill and aborted a child at 32 weeks gestation? I felt terrible for that woman, and that her need of care had been missed, but also that she had done a dangerous thing that could have cost her own life. Poor, poor woman.