Whatever right-thinking zealots in our little corner of the universe agree on
More of the same:
i've just woken up to the news that @3ammagazine has de-platformed me by removing my interview with richard marshall, because of the comments i made about gender. and even though the bulk of the interview was about my other work. h/t @BrianLeiter. https://t.co/HQa4tlOBsI
— Dr Holly Lawford-Smith (@aytchellesse) March 19, 2019
3AM Magazine’s radical chic motto–“whatever it is, we’re against it”–turns out to be bollocks
Their real motto is “whatever right-thinking zealots in our little corner of the universe agree on, we’re for it.” The magazine has withdrawn Richard Marshall’s interview with philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith (Melbourne) because in the course of the interview she denied that trans women are women, and expressed the gender critical view of these issues familiar to readers of the blog from the work of philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex).
Richard Marshall has resigned from 3AM Magazine, given this insulting treatment of his work. He is right to do so, even though this is a huge loss for philosophy. As he told me, it means the “end of the series” of interviews he has done over many years now, which now numbers nearly 400 interviews with philosophers about their work in accessible terms and freely available on the Internet.
If you value Mr. Marshall’s work and freedom of expression and thought, then e-mail the owner and co-editor of 3AM to make that known. He is Andrew Gallix, reachable here: andrew@3ammagazine.com
This is completely outrageous. Why deplatform @aytchellesse, who has a lots interesting things to say? This is just usual invalid argument: Holly thinks X, I disagree with X, so everything Holly thinks is wrong. I expect more from philosophers – shame on you @3ammagazine. https://t.co/DQCTF7gTIQ
— Dr Sophie Allen (@sophie_r_allen) March 19, 2019
The norm against unpublishing stuff is weakening and I promise you you should be worried about it, even if you don't think this tactic will ever affect you or someone you care about. Three years ago we didn't think Trump could possibly be elected. Shit changes fast, in big ways. https://t.co/FB1JS8C2XF
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) March 20, 2019
Women must be silenced so that trans women can do Being a Woman correctly.
And if we would just shut up and listen, we (the women) might just learn how to do being a woman correctly. I can’t wait. Apparently I’ve done it wrong for 58 years, and I am eager, avid, excited to find out how to do it right.
/s
I recently saw a screenshot from an interview Trevor Noah did with a non-binary man, with the caption (presumably a quote) along the lines of “I don’t want to abolish gender, and have everyone be drab and grey; I want gender to be a playful thing that people can experiment with and explore in every facet of their lives”.
Being a gender abolitionist myself who has no interest in making everyone be drab or grey, I am…insulted.
What Lawford-Smith said is so utterly reasonable — and so even-handed and sympathetic to trans people — it’s beyond belief that anyone’s up in arms over it. Biological sex can’t be truly changed; “gender identity” is not the same thing as sex; there’s a broad range of transwomen, from fully passing post-operatives to hipster-beardos, and one set of rules doesn’t fit them all; transwomen feel betrayed that feminists emphasize sex over “gender identity”; sexism plays a part in the pushback against gender-critical feminists. None of that is even remotely controversial, let alone so bigoted it must be removed from existence. The backlash-against-the-backlash can’t come soon enough. How much longer do we have to endure this idiotic zombie epidemic.
Ditto.
I think gender norms try to render everyone drab and grey (okay, blue and pink, which are neither drab nor gray, but still, lots of the same thing as everyone else). If gender is abolished, there is no reason to assume we will all be alike; quite the opposite. We will be a rainbow of bright colors and weird ideas, and it’ll be a new world where we aren’t restrained by the same old palette and having to color inside the lines.
Insisting that you “experiment with gender” in the way these trans activists appear to mean is insisting that gender norms remain, but we feel free to move within them, and we call ourselves whatever fits the gender we are performing that day. I don’t want my life to be a performance piece, I want it to be a life.