Apology for apology for apology
The Sydney Morning Herald on that slimy apology for letting Julie Bindel speak:
In 2018 Bindel, a campaigner against male violence, spoke at a Hawthorn bookshop event about her book, The Pimping of Prostitution, about the global sex trade.
On Tuesday, Readings issued a statement on its website saying it “regrets programming Julie Bindel in 2018”. The independent bookseller apologised for “any hurt caused by highlighting the work of an author whose current stance is to divide our community”.
Bindel told The Age that she believed the apology was directly linked to an online event with transgender author Juno Dawson, which Readings would be hosting later this month.
Why would she believe that? Because Readings posted a tweet about the Juno Dawson event, and the very next tweet after that, two hours later, was the one throwing mud at Julie. Gee, imagine seeing a connection.
“Readings have publicly humiliated me and insulted me,” she said. “They have cowardly capitulated to bullies when for decades they have supported a diverse range of writers and publishers.”
…
The apology was welcomed by Transgender Victoria media representative Sally Goldner, AM, and Dylan O’Hara, from Vixen Collective, Victoria’s peer-only sex worker organisation.
Ms Goldner said: “Her views have no reasonable and rational basis and they cause ridicule, vilify and could reasonably incite harm against transgender people.
“To say we don’t exist, or to use twisted terms like to call someone like myself … a so-called biological male, just denies that my sense of self exists.”
It’s not using “twisted terms” to say that a person with a male body is a man.
As for denying someone’s “sense of self exists” – what can that even mean? It’s an impersonal general truth-claim to say that people with male bodies are men, and is nothing to do with anyone’s “sense of self” and whether it exists or not. This gruesomely narcissistic idea that public discourse has to take into account some random guy’s “sense of self” is infantile and thick as a brick.
Plot twist: Readings apologized for the apology. Then another plot twist: Readings decides not to apologize for the apology after all.
Very impressive.
I’m constantly fascinated (and actually, it’s quite telling of their mental state) that trans people will so often say that a person observing reality will somehow erase their subjective personal view of themselves, and not simply be satisfied that these two things can (and apparently are) coexist simultaneously. I mean, what were they doing prior to being called male? Only existing because they believed themselves female? At what point did they (and everyone, apparently) begin believing them female, presuming it wasn’t from birth, on account of that penis and testicles, and complete lack of vulva? How did this later realisation bring them into existence that in any sense that they were apparently not existing before? If he could be established as a person at some point post-birth by sheer weight of belief, but is vanished by one unbeliever, could he not be re-established again by sheer weight of belief, or has this one claim (you’re biologically male) ruined the belief forever, and now it cannot be re-established?
The mind boggles.
Yeah, Arcadia, that kind of gives the game away, doesn’t it? It’s not about what they believe about themselves, it’s about controlling everyone else’s belief…especially women.
I have subjective views of myself that are occasionally..okay, frequently…challenged by other people who may or may not be asserting reality in what they see. I mean, their views of me are subjective, too, so am I really a generous, loving person, like some others see me, or an irascible bitch? Is it possible to be both? (I think so). And since neither view fits my own perceived view of myself (okay, I’m generous, but I have to balk at loving…I tend more toward aloof), does that erase my very existence when other people express those views? When my husband tells me I am not, in fact, lazy, but the least lazy person he knows, does that erase me if I believe, as I do, that I am lazy?
Yeah, the mind boggles constantly.
I’m sure they’ll ‘stand by’ Bindel…until the next troll whines at them.