We could only pretend
Here it is .You do what you want with this info. I.was denounced on a room of 200.when I was not there. This letter does not name me but associates my articles with walkouts. I have never heard of most of these people.
And they are not editorial.
Some people pretended to take that last sentence as snobbery, but her point was that they don’t work with the writers, aka the content-providers. Content is the issue here – the letter is about content and its providers.
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.
Below is a list of 338 of Guardian employees globally who signed this letter at the time of writing.
One thing about this letter jumped out at me, and that is the complete lack of specificity about what they’re talking about.
Let’s look at it again with the lack of specifics highlighted.
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.
What is any of that? What are “anti-trans views”? What is “transphobic content”? What are “trans rights”? What is “trans equality”?
This is nothing new, of course; as I’ve mentioned more than a couple of times, slogans replace argument in this form of activism as a matter of policy. Slogans are all there is.
Why is that? Because if they did provide the specifics it would be all too obvious how absurd the whole thing is. “Transphobia” doesn’t mean “hatred of trans people,” even though that is the literal facial meaning. It means “failure to agree that people are whatever sex they say they are.” But it doesn’t mean that. It’s deployed that way, but that isn’t the literal meaning – but calling it phobia sounds so much worse than calling it failure to agree that people are whatever sex they say they are.
All the invocation of phobia and exclusion and rights and equality is just manipulation. It’s a way to make us forget that we’re simply seeing reality as opposed to fantasy, and that we couldn’t do otherwise even if we tried, we could only pretend to.
The above is why I could not understand PZ and the ensuing pile on during the Great Terf War.
People who supposedly believed in evidence, inquiry, rational thought, and free thinking, suddenly switched to accepting the most fatuous claims without evidence.
Claims made by religions were criticised, mocked, and ignored, and rightly so. But there was a mass failure to apply the same standards to “trans”issues. It reminded me of the innocent whose lives were turned upside down, and sometimes destroyed, by the satanic panic.
I recommended this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3510089-a-city-possessed
Same here. I was just dumbfounded by it.
Roj, the events in that book happened in my home town. It was, and still is, a deeply divisive issue. I could never understand how it went beyond the most cursory of investigations, let alone to a court trial and convictions. I had a stand up row with a social worker who adamantly proclaimed that children don’t lie or exaggerate. I pretty much screamed back “You’re a social worker. Have you never actually met and talked to a child?” Not to say that people don’t abuse children. That sadly is a given. But the claims and details in this case were eye poppingly ridiculous.
I suspect like a lot of people here I find this very conflicting. I’m willing and happy to support trans people having full access to all the basic fundamental human rights that the rest of us have and that many disadvantaged and non-conforming people don’t get. I will not throw women under the bus or make them invisible just so that others can maintain a self-delusion though.
Hi Rob, I lived in ChCh from 2002 – 2013 and was mystified at how many people swallowed the story whole. When I pointed out to one “believer” that Ellis was an out Gay man, yet was accused of abusing girls I was told “prepubescent children all look the same”. Not sure how he knew. :-)
As to your last para, 100% agree. I have a trans step grand son, love and support him. He prefers they/them, fine, not sure I understand, but no biggie. Thankfully, he and his friends are far more concerned about living their lives, trying not to be forced in to boxes, and not intruding into other groups.