J. K. Rowling and other TERFs

The backtracking in that interview and the I don't want to talk about it are particularly awkward. Also that it was with David Mitchell as well, who must have sat there in silence cringing. The THANKS at the end are quite something.
 
On one hand, it felt like a bit of a trap, but also kudos to the podcaster for bringing it up.
 
ALL FOR A TRAP.

Part of the problem with bigots spouting off on Twitter is that, regardless of their status or popularity, nobody calls them out in media (eg. interviews) away from Twitter. so they see it as a safe space to go deep. that has to start happening. let's make them ACCOUNT for their words. and if they don't want to, they'll run out of places to promote.
 
That interview is delicious. Big respect to Jesse Thorn for bringing it up. Webb's non-response says it all really. These bigots need to be called out and confronted with their own bullshit constantly.
 
I genuinely don’t understand all this terf behaviour. Why go out of your way to attack people then go out of your way to defend yourself when questioned? My point being, why go out of your way at all?

I don’t know what Webb said initially other than it was about some charity, but unless you’re actively invested in the charity, why do you care? Why comment?

Just weird.
 
It's the arrogance of it all. Happy to share something on their platform, amplifying it and giving it an aura of credence, then crying "Well I'm no expert!" and trying to weasel their way out of it when confronted face to face. Just cowardly arrogance. The best time to admit you know nothing is before you dig in and do damage. Not later when you're held accountable.
 
Just saw a TERF on Dragons Den. Gross. (Don't think it's live but parents watching a recording)

she didn't get the investment for the whatever-it-was-for-real-women (wasn't paying much attention, something about menstrual cycles but with an emphasis from the outset on how "women aren't men")
 
gross! I didn't realise casual, implicit terfism was seeping its way into general cultural discourse in that way.
 
Other troubling news today on the TERF front is that the LGB Alliance have managed to get charitable status from the Charity Commission.

The article about it says that any organisation focusing on advancing human rights of one group essentially cannot indulge in hate for other groups, but clear also that in doing this they have cleaned up their social media act a lot in order throw a blanket of politeness and respectability over their hate.

Which is really just how things work in the UK, isn't it? You can say utterly heinous things as long as you are using polite language to do so. As a trans person (and even as a queer person), it feels like gaslighting to be told that this organisation is standing up for equality and for my human rights.
 
Other troubling news today on the TERF front is that the LGB Alliance have managed to get charitable status from the Charity Commission.

The article about it says that any organisation focusing on advancing human rights of one group essentially cannot indulge in hate for other groups, but clear also that in doing this they have cleaned up their social media act a lot in order throw a blanket of politeness and respectability over their hate.

Which is really just how things work in the UK, isn't it? You can say utterly heinous things as long as you are using polite language to do so. As a trans person (and even as a queer person), it feels like gaslighting to be told that this organisation is standing up for equality and for my human rights.
I’m assuming the ‘LGB Alliance’ is so called because they’re trans-exclusionary, and the justification for their charitable status is that exclusion doesn’t equal hate?

By that logic, are we to assume whites-only drinking fountains weren’t racist either?
 
The LGB Alliance claims to stand for rights and equality for "same-sex attracted" people (so lesbians, gays and bisexuals) but in practice do not do any work relating to these groups unless it is also talking about trans people. They pretty much never weigh in on any other issues relating to LGB rights, such as rising hate crime in the past few years. Whenever they do talk about things affecting gay, lesbian and bisexual people, like education in schools, it focuses on how we shouldn't be teaching kids about trans identities and not about why we should be teaching kids about gay and lesbian relationships.

Their rhetoric very much focuses on the idea that gays and lesbians are being erased. This is either in terms of their rights (and the oft-repeated conversation about trans women apparently forcing lesbians to have sex with them and calling them transphobic if they refuse) or the idea that gender nonconforming gay people are transitioning because their sexuality is stigmatised and transitioning means they will then be straight.

This is incorrect on a ridiculous number of levels, starting with the very obvious fact that being trans in our society is considerably more stigmatised than being gay, and that pretty sizable number of trans men are attracted to other men and trans women attracted to other women. You may have noticed that the implication that all trans people want to be seen at straight completely contradicts the earlier idea that trans women are forcing lesbians to sleep with them. The TERFs are a complete and utter BAG of contradictions who literally don't need to make sense to be taken seriously due to the fact that it all boils down to good old fashioned disgust which is depressingly shared by many.

Another thing about the LGB Alliance, as is the case with a lot of TERFs, is that their rhetoric veers into homophobia and biphobia on a relatively frequent basis. I'm also pretty sure that, considering this supposedly an LGB organisation, a concerningly high number of people involved are actually straight.

Them cosplaying as a gay rights organisation (and more recently, opting to use dog whistles rather than overt transphobia) plays on the fact that straight people, particularly liberal types, just don't care enough to read between the lines and will take their claim as a gay rights organisation at face value.
 
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Even ones own personal preferences and identity can be full of contradictions and cognitive dissonance, I know mine is, so it's no surprise to see that played out in LGBT society as a whole. But we should be accepting that those issues are a very common and natural part of the human condition, rather than trying to deny the rights of "group T" (or NB) to ease those feelings of contradiction in certain strict members of groups L, G or B.

they certainly don't speak for me. But I would best (try to) describe myself as pan anyway with a dating pool that includes everyone - it's just that I have a tendency to gravitate towards gay guys in terms of "who I seem compatible with romantically usually" and people with penises sexually as in "much like beer and wine I like both, I just happen to have a general preference that I tend to go for, all else being equal". I don't know what it's like to be exclusively and strictly gay (or lesbian) in both romantic and sexual ways. But pretty sure I would never deny someone else's experiences or rights and if this hypothetical (to me) scenario came up of being attracted to the gender someone presents as and turned off their genitals, I don't know what that "struggle" is like personally or how common it really is but would like to think we'd both shake hands, admit to the sexual incompatibility and wish each other the best. Anything else is just spiteful and unnecessary. We are all valid and no organisation that throws some sub-group under the bus to appease some uncomfortable strict members of some other sub-group speaks for me that's for sure. It's cowardly.

(I'm either preaching to the choir or making no sense at all or maybe even saying something problematic without realising here, but this ramble is more "thinking aloud" than anything else, hence there's so much of "my perspective" in there)
 
It sounds like the law is based on their stated purposes at the time of application, and that their past behaviour is irrelevant as long as they have promised to be nice in future.

Stupid law.
 
Just saw a TERF on Dragons Den. Gross. (Don't think it's live but parents watching a recording)

she didn't get the investment for the whatever-it-was-for-real-women (wasn't paying much attention, something about menstrual cycles but with an emphasis from the outset on how "women aren't men")
Just watching this. Ewww. What a strange woman in her Tory power stance. Even apart from the WIMMIN stuff, trying to tell 61-year-old Deborah Meaden about her menstrual cycle? Ummmm :D
 
Stephen King talks being cancelled by Joanne with the Daily Beast

Jo canceled me. She sorta blocked me and all that. Here’s the thing: She is welcome to her opinion. That’s the way that the world works. If she thinks that trans women are dangerous, or that trans women are somehow not women, or whatever problem she has with it—the idea that someone “masquerading” as a woman is going to assault a “real” woman in the toilet—if she believes all those things, she has a right to her opinion. And then someone tweeted at me, “Do you think trans women are women?” and I said, “Yes, I do.” And that’s what she got angry about—my opinion.
It’s like the old saying, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” So, nobody has “canceled” J.K. Rowling. She’s doing fine. I just felt that her belief was, in my opinion, wrong. We have differing opinions, but that’s life.

Q(K)oL :disco:
 
Basically some provincial dunce has read a Sarah Ditum column and got a bee in their bonnet then.
 
I'm not entirely sure what Teesside even IS. It's not a town, city or county is it? Is it just the area around the river?
 
The North East is generally a DEPRESSING SHITHOLE. I don’t know why ANYONE would choose to live there.
 
According to Wikipedia it's a conurbation. So a collection of shitholes with no individual merit, lumped together.
 
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Anyone else following this? Actor David Paisley had to flee his home due to threats because he's a trans ally

 
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I don't understand, aside from the likes of JK Rowling having a bit of a stupid opinion, are there actual people out there who are actively and aggressively trying to stop the promotion of trans equality?

WHY? Who even HAS THE TIME?!
 
This more than trying to stop trans equality, the TERFs and GC mob are actively seeking to deny trans people of any rights.
 

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