But WHAT “transphobic content”?
Oh now what.
What concerns?
Patrick Strudwick at Buzzfeed presents a typically opaque version of events:
Hundreds of staff and contractors at the Guardian have signed a strongly worded letter to the editor in protest of the newspaper’s “pattern of publishing transphobic content”.
Careful, and unhelpful. His use of quotation marks hints that he doesn’t want to defend or even spell out what this “transphobic content” actually is, but he does want to get the claim out there.
The letter has 338 signatures, Strudwick says proudly. Buzzfeed got to see a copy on the understanding that no names would be named – which is convenient. Some are household names though, Strudwick assures us.
The letter, which was organised over the last few days in response to a column by Suzanne Moore that has been widely criticised as anti-trans, said the staff were “deeply distressed” by the resignation of a transgender member of staff who said they’d received anti-trans comments from “influential editorial staff” and who criticised the publication of the Moore’s column at the editorial morning conference.
But how was the column “anti-trans”? Spell it out. Explain. Give examples. Let us see. But no, he doesn’t do that.
The column was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” the trans employee said, following a series of pieces that pitted trans people against women and against women’s rights. One leader article — the publicly stated position of the newspaper — claimed that trans rights are in “collision” with women’s rights.
Tell us how they are not. Explain why that’s not true. Offer us reasons. Don’t just repeat the labels endlessly.
We get the full letter.
As employees across the Guardian, we are deeply distressed by the resignation of another trans colleague in the UK, the third in less than a year.
We feel it is critical that the Guardian do more to become a safe and welcoming workplace for trans and non-binary people.
We are also disappointed in the Guardian’s repeated decision to publish anti-trans views. We are proud to work at a newspaper which supports human rights and gives voice to people underrepresented in the media. But the pattern of publishing transphobic content has interfered with our work and cemented our reputation as a publication hostile to trans rights and trans employees.
We strongly support trans equality and want to see the Guardian live up to its values and do the same.
We look forward to working with Guardian leadership to address these pressing concerns, and request a response by 11 March.
Same problem, you see? Generalities, stale generalities, with no examples, no explanations, no specifics, no reasons. What, exactly, are these “anti-trans views” that they say the Guardian keeps publishing? What, exactly, is the “transphobic content”? How is the Guardian “hostile to trans rights and trans employees”? What do they mean by “trans equality”?
Labels and epithets do all the work for this brand of “activism.” Labels and epithets aren’t enough, because we need reasons before we agree to pretend that men who say they “feel like” women actually are women. We need reasons and the reasons in turn have to be good reasons. “Because we say so” won’t cut it.
…means nobody actually signed it. Show your names, lying lyers. Cowards.
I bet even asking these questions is considered “transphobic.”
Followed by “It’s not our job to educate you!”
But you’re supposed to bow and accept the wisdom enshrined in the labels and epithets! You’re not supposed to question the judgement of the lived experience of TRAs to determine Good and Evil. Because they will either deplatform you or commit suicide, though maybe not in that order. YOU”RE NOT BOWING AND ACCEPTING OPHELIA!!!!
Having to point out the actual transphobia would mean showing that it is reality itself that is “transphobic.” If a flag bearing the definition Woman: adult human female is a “transphobic dogwhistle” then your struggle is against material reality not just women. As long as the fight can be described as one against a small number of “bigoted”, “right-wing”, “gatekeeping” TERFs ruthlessly and unjustly trying to “exclude” a powerless, victimized group by denying them their “rights”, then they stand a greater chance of winning. But if they’re actually fighting reality, and try to claim the simple stating of facts about material reality as somehow unforgiveably bigotted and hostile, then TRAs come of as looking more than a little delusional (and totalitarian). Add in a good dose of AGP narc rage and suddenly your side is a lot less sympathetic.
I think this is an instance where absence of evidence really does indicate evidence of absence. They have no good reasons, otherwise they wouldn’t have to keep recycling the tired claims of “sexual development is complicated”, “sex is a spectrum”, “whaddabout intersex people?” They wouldn’t need to use emotional blackmail like “you’re saying all transwomen are rapists”, “risk of suicidal ideation”, “you’re attacking THE MOST MARGINALIZED AND VICTIMIZED GROUP EVER”,”you’re denying trans people’s right to exist”, “YOU WANT TO EXTERMINATE US!”, etc. Instead they would use their time, energy, and platforms to make their case instead of just demonizing and villifying their opponents, real and imagined. We’d have heard actual good reasons and arguments by now, instead of the trans equivalent of creationists’s hackneyed use of long since discredited “challenges” to evolution. If you have no choice but to lie, obfuscate, exaggerate, and manipulate to make your case, you can’t have much of a case to make.
This was my favorite part of the linked article:
It’d be nice if they followed it up with a commentary on whether this letter, sent to a female editor and a female chief executive, whose purpose was to attack a female writer, itself embodies misogyny or contributes to a hostile workplace for women.
YNNB – “It’s not our job to educate you!”
Yep, had this one thrown at me on more than one occasion.
It was Gay people who helped educate me out of being an anti to a pro.
It was women who educated me about the need to see abortion as a health issue, not a religious or political issue.
It was teachers who educated me to read, understand, and empathise with opposing views, and then sift the chaff from the wheat and make an informed choice.
I am who I am because people took the time to advance my education. I am an anti-authoritarian because I do not accept being coerced into “choices”.
YNnB – Indeed. The reason they don’t provide these pesky details like exactly what the fuck they’re even talking about is because they can’t, because there ain’t nothin there.
If we point that out enough billions of times maybe people will start to notice.
Muddy the waters…. Where there’s smoke there’s fire…. Would I lie to you.? … Need I go on..? Still waters run deep… This is where we came in… Round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows… How do you get off this thing..? Where’s the gents..?…Where’s the exit..?…
When your “evidence” consists of memes and insults, the one thing you do not want is to lay out the evidence.
And of course for TRAs, any gender critical article, story or opinion piece is one too many. So denying media space, platforms and outlets is a key strategy.
They … can’t. It’s … it’s… it’s too terrible. Please …
Please don’t ask them to repeat it. If you have any pity in you … for mercy’s sake … don’t ask that of them.
It’s more than flesh and blood can endure.
Repeating them provides these views publicity and notice which TRAs does not want and cannot afford to give them. Yet, IF YOU CONVINCE US, YOU HAVE MORE ALLIES! If that’s not motivation enough to actually engage with gender critical arguments with something other than mantras, memes and slogans, then I don’t know what else could be.
Those of us who used to be on the trans side of the fence crossed over to the gender critical side precisely because all they have is rhetoric. Not only are they failing to gain support, they are rapidly losing it. But they can’t see that, because the movement is a cult and they are shouting loudly to drown out their own doubts.