Open letter by UK writers in solidarity (not with us obviously)

[CrossPurposes]

Prepare for some disappointing names.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18p-rvgNitRKYs9C2PoIBC86Fb2ZQnBd8PzEfgGfnsKo/edit?usp=drivesdk

Didn’t Russell Brand write a book or two as well?

Daisy Meadows is not a real person. It is a group of ghost writers. If you are talking about the fairy book author.

OK - at some point, I will.

It's going to be tough to be succinct with this one!, so I'll have to find a way of condensing this stuff so that I'm not writing an essay. When I get a moment, I'll see what I can do.

I have hope that today's young liberals are tomorrow's middle aged conservatives and that their views change and mature as they get older.

Because let's face it we do all get more conservative and sensible the older we get and if / when we start a family. Not always, but that's a pattern I've noticed.

As long as any of these young people argue for male inclusion in women's sports then you just cannot give credit to anything else they say to be honest. Viva the supreme court of adults.

I adore those books and I won't get rid of them, even though he has proven himself to be such an ugly person. Unless someone has doen something utterly heinous, like Marion Zimmer Bradley, I try to seperate the artist from their work. But I would only buy secondhand, he's not getting my money! What I thought was really disgusting was a trans author who lectures asked on FB how they could use JK Rowling's work in their class without giving her any credit. One author feeling perfectly entitled to rip off another, because they don't like what they say! Sorry, I am derailing the thread now!

I have hope in the development arc I see in my daughter's friends. She is 23 and trans was THE buzz word when she was at school. Everyone talking endlessly about the trans issue and gleefully slapping labels on themselves and everyone else. She was also GC but kept quiet about it, but we have noticed that a lot of her very woke school friends have toned it down. They are rather boring 'cis' 20 somethings now, and while still quite woke, find that real life takes up a lot more of their time! Things have definetly been turned down a couple of notches and by the time they are 30, many may lean more toward the GC point of view. It has become a social contagion and I think a lot of the kids walking around saying, "I am a non binary trans person" are just going to find all this too exhausting as grown ups. I wonder if genuine trans people, who don't really feel as if they have any choice about their identity, are going to be relieved?

I know! Has he learnt nothing from all his time spent presenting the infinite monkey cage? Maybe they need to do a special episode for him on basic biology.

Georgina Wright has not called or messaged her parents since Wednesday, the day the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
Wright, 23, from London, has been avoiding the argument she anticipates will eventually erupt when her family sit down for Easter lunch this weekend.
“My mum is an old-school feminist,” she said. “I get she’s from the generation where women really had to fight for equality but I just don’t think trans people having rights takes away from my rights as a cis woman. It’s infuriating having to hear their recycled arguments about loos and pronouns.”

So Georgie hasn’t called mummy and daddy for days because she’s having a hissy fit but she’s still expecting an invite round on Sunday for roast lamb, she doesn’t want to hear about second wave feminism at the table though, it’s just sooooo boring for this top class feminist 😂

Yes, because as you say, they are utterly unhinged. Impervious to facts, sense, ethics, thinking exactly like the most zealous cultists... and (ironically for people who are always wanging on about this) busy "othering" . Many have got beyond the point that they can even see those who differ in their view as human beings. Even if they knew them personally before.

What I find terrifying—and I do also know some on that list personally, many are on the grassroots writing and poetry scene, even if they aren't 'big name' writers— is that they are perfectly happy to believe terrible things about women that many of them actually know and to claim such women hold beliefs that they simply do not, to allow lies to fester about them and to condemn them to a virtual witchburning on that basis.

Given that SO many of their beliefs are the opposite of factual, seeing that they believe nonsense so fervently that they actually think anyone opposing them is a "literal fascist" and are happy to spread and support that narrative, hound and target women who don't agree with them, and cheer on those who would commit violence on the basis of it, then yes, they are very dangerous. In the same way that throughout history terrible atrocities have been enabled once tribalism takes hold, among people who were once rubbing along perfectly well as neighbours.

And I think that guttural fear is perfectly natural. These are no longer rational people. Having to be VERY careful of what you say to whom because you might unleash real violence against yourself is not a normal state of being. This ideology and people's behaviour over it is one of the most toxic situations I can EVER remember.

I agree about Nikesh Shukla but, thinking about it, he didn't actually write The Good Immigrant did he. Just had a very good idea and ran with it, collating other people's essays.

I am dissappointed by Monique Roffey because I like her novels. Ironically I only came to them after it was thought Mermaid Of Black Conch missed out on a place on a women’s prize shortlist to a TW. I bought it in support of herGuess that'll learn me!

Also, WTF is the "privately funded" argument about? If it's a David and Golith spin they are going for then the respondents had the Scottish Government batting for them. And as for "they didn't listen to any trans people" that's all the Scottish Government listened to! If they hadn't they wouldn't have found themselves in court in the first place.

The ignorance in that article about the views of some young people is staggering. One seems to think that the judges actually took it upon themselves to make up some laws, and that as Old People they shouldn't be listened to anyway.

I’m disappointed in Max Porter (assuming it is the actual author?) because I though he was clever.

Apart from that, it’s a parade of useful idiots, air heads and nobodies 🤷🏽‍♀️

I don't think that actual "terf" views are remotely "conservative" though.

This is about becoming more reality-based as you gain life experience, not "becoming more right wing as you age, hurrah." I've aged, I haven't become more right wing or less liberal. My principles haven't changed.

But I value reality more than idealism and want to see things actually working on the ground and know when it isn't - it really doesn't, or shouldn't take becoming a conservative to do that. One of the biggest things I'm alarmed at is so many young people's total ILLIBERALISM, now the authoritarianism of their "activism" - it goes against everything I've ever believed. Which is what most of the liberal left used to believe. Not only that, there is a noticeable and very alarming tendency to mix up fact and belief - and that is not being corrected in academia or elsewhere. It would have been back in my day, even by 'liberals' - since they weren't afraid of robust discussion and presenting evidence.

I guess when I say conservative I don't just mean, becoming a Tory (although I voted for them for the first time ever last year hah).

I mean more conservative as in less likely to get a naughty body piercing / questionable tattoo / go to an illegal rave. I guess, grow out of ways of being and thinking.

Yes, more like coming to reality as you say.

Ness has been on this bandwagon for some time and some of his tweets aimed at women have been particularly unpleasant.

I work in publishing and the lack of what I would call big hitters on this list was the first thing that jumped out at me.

Saw a handful of names I recognised and wasn't surprised by any of them, but most of the writers and publishing people I know are not on there.

I liked the novel by Roffey as well, and I’ve actually heard from a tediously self righteous person (in fact I had an argument with them) that it was unacceptable cultural appropriation, as a white woman born in the Caribbean, so she should maybe be careful what she wishes for 🙄

@hihelenhi

One of the biggest things I'm alarmed at is so many young people's total ILLIBERALISM, now the authoritarianism of their "activism" - it goes against everything I've ever believed. Which is what most of the liberal left used to believe. Not only that, there is a noticeable and very alarming tendency to mix up fact and belief - and that is not being corrected in academia or elsewhere.

Completely agree with this. Using the word "cult" sets off all sorts of bells and whistles in the TRA groups because it implies mindless following and apparently denies them their autonomy, but when a large cluster of people with all sorts of reasons to escape society (abuse, trauma, wanting to exploit, wanting to shrug off responsibility) are misled by a group who strictly control the narrative and dictate the cluster should cut themselves off from family who knew them before, should funnel money into the group's organisations, and should learn the mantras and refuse to let them be debated (despite all scientific and experiential evidence against those mantras), it's hard to see how the description doesn't fit.

All the TRAs I know are extremely anti-religion, scornful at the idea of the harm it causes and the bigotry it enforces, but they talk about trans rights with exactly the same zealotry and recitative rigidity as the Christian evangelists I've met.

I googled and can confirm that Phoebe Éclair-Powell is the offspring of Jenny Éclair, but Lowri Izzard and Penelope Skinner are no relation to Eddie or Frank.

My phone only lets me type éclair with the French accent thingy.

Isn't Jenny Eclair herself a bit terfy, or have I imagined that?

Same.

Ness and his husband Nick Coveney have long been awful on this, especially Coveney, who’s Twitter feed is a steaming pile of vicious misogyny and bile that only got worse after her married Ness and presumably felt he could hide behind his name.

Hah! Exactly. And the MOST hell and brimstone versions in many cases.

Often it's the very same people who are SO scornful of religion, mainly Christianity (and I'm very much not religious, so really no skin off my nose, but I've been noticing the same as you a lot lately) that are buying into this and other crap in the name of political tribalism.

Astonishing how many wholly irrational, non-factual, deeply problematic and actual or quasi-religious beliefs can be ignored, accepted, or their problems handwaved away or blind-spotted if you tell yourself, "Oh, I'm a sceptic and a liberal, I'm not into fantasy 'old man in the sky' nonsense like religious people are! AND I've been to university, AND I vote for social justice issues. Therefore, everything I think and believe must be rational, factual, moral, just and very intelligent, and everyone whose opinion differs from mine must be the opposite."

Yep, I know a few people on this list and they’re very much in the “once-wrote-a-play-that-went-to-the-Edinburgh-fringe” category, rather than big industry names.

I see Deborah Francis White, The Guilty Feminist, is a signatory. She has never, ever been a feminist, while making a living out of pretending to be one. I'm pleased to see that my instinctive dislike of her is justified.

I used to rate Elizabeth Day. Now obviously will not purchase anything by her again.

Oh blimey, Caryl Churchill is on there. Author of Top Girls, which was full-on feminist and utterly amazing. She's 86. What a way to blight a brilliant career at the last minute, siding with the gender Stasi the moment it's all over. Touch of the Atwoods.

I suspect/hope that this "letter" has already been forgotten but it's worth pointing out that it's a fake. I am an established author, my name is on the list and I absolutely did not put it there. It might be worth considering how this letter was organised so swiftly. Do you think we're all on a massive WhatsApp group, ready to be summoned at a moment's notice?

Don't rush to burn the books of everyone listed. We all get enough criticism for our work. We don't need to be attacked for something we didn't do.

Are you able to get your name removed? That’s a difficulty scenario for you as if you do not agree with the premise of the letter, and publicly state so then I guess you are at risk of a backlash. Problem is, it would be so beneficial if people were able to state facts, ie in your case that you did not add your name to this. You should be able to do so simply to clarify it that’s not how it will be received.
No one knows what the truth is any more (except the Supreme Court!)