And when you look at the people who signed

The Bookseller reports on Mslexia’s shunning of Amanda Craig:

Amanda Craig has been dropped as a competition judge by women’s writing magazine Mslexia over her signing of a letter to the Times in defence of J K Rowling.

…Craig has said she is “very disappointed” by the decision taken after her involvement protesting “relentless bullying and death threats to a fellow author”. She also called on professional bodies, including the Society of Authors and English PEN, to defend authors from such bullying.

Craig had been appointed a judge for the Mslexia Fiction & Memoir Competition 2020 alongside novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave and literary agent Joanna Moult. Hargrave said on Twitter that she “wasn’t comfortable to sit on a panel of judges alongside Amanda because of the letter”. She said she had offered to step down herself in order to let Craig remain on the panel.

Craig said: “I was going to judge this prize as a favour to a magazine I’ve supported virtually since it began. I’m very sad, because I love finding new talent,” said Craig. “But I am just very disappointed in them [Mslexia] because it seems quite clear to me what I am protesting against, like the other signatories, is the relentless bullying and death threats to a fellow author. It’s clear that is what that letter was about. It wasn’t about views on trans matters, which I know there is a broad spectrum of opinion about; it was to show someone I very much admire as a writer support. So it’s disappointing and ironic that a magazine, founded to support and champion women writers, should have fallen in this ridiculous way. I’m afraid it’s pretty damaging for them.”

All the more so when the point of contention is whether or not men can literally transmogrify into women. If anything short of agreeing – noisily, enthusiastically, publicly – that men can become women is grounds for punishment and ostracism, then we’re in a realm of thought-policing in the most grimly literal sense possible.

Hargrave–who was to be Craig’s co-judge on the panel and has since been attacked on social media over her stance on the issue–said from her point of view she was glad Mslexia had “taken a stand in support of a persecuted minority”. 

Men? Men are not a persecuted minority.

One of the organisers behind a letter published in the Guardian on Wednesday (30th September) in solidarity with the non-binary and trans community, she said: “Following Amanda’s signing of the Times letter, I spoke with Mslexia and offered to step down as my views are antithetical with the signees. I’ve seen a lot of talk about how it was a letter opposing bullying, but where was the support for the trans community Rowling put in harm’s way with her views?”

Rowling didn’t put “the trans community” in harm’s way with her views. That’s the usual manipulative lying crap and it is a pack of lies.

“I do not support hate speech, towards anyone. I never condone or participate in it. And when you look at the people who signed –Graham Linehan, Lionel Shriver–it’s clear there is alignment with transphobia. That is unacceptable to me, and to Mslexia, who are after all a magazine for women who write. You can’t exclude trans women from that definition and truly represent all women.”

Yes you can. That’s exactly what you can do. What you can’t do is the other thing: include men in the definition of women and truly represent all women. Support and help and love and hang out with gender-nonconforming men all you like, by all means, but don’t try to bully us into agreeing that their gender nonconformity means they are literally women. That’s just stupid.

“If they had asked me to step down, I would have without fanfare or public statement. I’m disappointed the same courtesy wasn’t afforded me, and that I have been subject to character attacks by people with a track record of spreading hatred. The debate has become a binary of ‘supporting’ Amanda, or ‘supporting’ me and Mslexia.”

Whose fault is that? Nothing required Hargrave to ostracize Craig; the decision to do so was all hers, and was malevolent and destructive. Yes it created a “binary” but she’s the one who created it. We think she did a bad destructive anti-woman thing and we get to say so, even if it does create a “binary.”

“Really, it’s about trans people’s right to exist and have their existence enshrined in law.”

Like hell it is. Nobody disputes trans people’s right to exist. It’s not about existence, it’s about definition. Catastrophizing talk of a right to exist is just more bullying.

“I did not set out to ‘cancel’ Amanda, and the very people who say I have now seek to ‘cancel’ me. Those who claim to hate bullying share my name and invite others to ridicule me and the work I do – the hypocrisy is astonishing. Judging a prize is an honour, not a right, and I am glad Mslexia have taken a stand in support of a persecuted minority.”

There’s that “persecuted minority” again. Men are not a persecuted minority.

So much stale empty jargon thrown down like poker chips. Look behind the damn jargon to see if it even means anything. Use your brain instead of your box of slogans.

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