For your listening pleasure
On today’s Woman’s Hour Emma Barnett asked Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall, a lot of probing questions, and pushed for non-evasive replies. It’s the first segment and it lasts about 35 minutes. It’s good stuff.
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On today’s Woman’s Hour Emma Barnett asked Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall, a lot of probing questions, and pushed for non-evasive replies. It’s the first segment and it lasts about 35 minutes. It’s good stuff.
If the CEO of Stonewall “doesn’t know” if JKR is transphobic, how the hell would anyone else be able to figure it out?!?
Maybe this was to forestall the logical follow-up question that would have followed if she had said she did know that Rowling is transphobic: “What exactly did she say that was “transphobic? Can you give me a quote?” That is assuming that Kelley has that much foresight, or self awareness, and wasn’t just responding out of blind fear, now that she’s squirming in the spotlight and being forced to answer “probing questions.”
In any case, this isudden agnosticism on her part is terribly disingenuous, given how long and how far Stonewall and its supporters rode on the coat-tails of the accusations of “transphobia” against Rowling. And not just that she was “phobic”, but actively seeking to harm trans people and encouraging and inspiring others to do so as well. (Never mind that all this allegedly open incitement was hidden behind layer upon layer of dog whistles, and somehow lurking behind repeated, heartfelt professions of support for trans people that actually meant the exact opposite. Nope. JKR was all in for Trans Genocide. If there was doubt and uncertainty (as Kelley now seems to be saying with this sudden backpedalling), then surely it should have been encumbent upon Stonewall to give Rowling the benefit of the doubt, and stand against the misogynistic pile-on to which she was subjected instead of cheering it on. Quite apart from the morality of the position, it would have been a better strategy to have claimed Rowling as an ally (which seems apparent from her sympathetic view on actual trans rights) than to believe that she could be cowed into submission and silence over the issue of trans over-reach and its violation of women’s boundaries. Too late, Kelley is perhaps realizing that Stonewall was both unethical and stupid in this move, among others.
A little happy story:
There’s a friend of mine who (like some other friends of mine) travels in some very woke circles; I remember a conversation a few months ago where she was asking me if I knew a bunch of various friends of hers (I didn’t), and regarding perhaps 50% them she casually mentioned that they were trans.
She was over at my place two weeks ago, and she saw that I had Helen Joyce’s book out. She asked: “Oh, is this book any good?” I put up my defenses, and said yes, I like the book, and I’ve been following this stuff a lot over the past year, because I’ve been into Gender Critical feminism. She asked: “What is gender critical feminism?” I said: “It’s feminism that recognizes that sex is real, but ‘gender’ is just a bunch of stereotypes imposed from the outside. That a little girl can grow up to do what she wants, not by playacting as a man, but as a woman. As opposed to the oh-so-woke attitude now that if you like fire trucks, you must ‘really’ be a boy, and we have to put you on hormones.”
She said: “Yes, it’s really scary and disturbing that so many people are putting little kids on sex hormones these days.”
I thought: Wow! I wasn’t expecting that!
Two weeks later, she was over here again, and she said: “I listened to the Helen Joyce book on Audible, and I really liked it! I really liked how balanced she was, that we have to balance compassion for trans people with women’s rights, and not at the expense of women’s rights. I mean, I always believed that, but this book really helped. Of course, trans rights do conflict with women’s rights, and the world hates women, so women always lose.”
She still says stuff like “bio women” and thinks that it was “perhaps not nice” for Meghan Murphy to write “Men Aren’t Women” on Twitter, but it sounds like she’s “peaking” (as they call it, as in “hitting peak trans”).
One ray of light.
@GW#3, hooray for the ray! It shouldn’t be so notable, but it is, and bravo to you for how you handled it!
I presume many people here read about India Willoughby, a trans-identified male, claiming he is a cis woman. Nothing is for women anymore. First they claim “woman” (but we can differentiate by “male” and “female”), then they claim “female” (but we have “trans women” and “cis women”), now they claim “cis woman”?
Man alive, Kelley really doesn’t like hard questions. Massively evasive. I bet she doesn’t hedge and evade like that when talking to a trans-friendly crowd. Barnett is a good interviewer.
Next Willoughby will say that he identifies as “AFAB” as well, I guess.
I’m quite sure, quite, that Willoughby considers themselves Assigned Fabulous At Birth.
Good for Emma Barnett. As for Nancy Kelley – what an evasive, irresponsible person. It is a pity, though, that the question of power didn’t come up more forcefully. Stonewall has managed to manoeuvre itself into a position where it has a great deal of power, power that has been, and is being, used irresponsibly.
I took a look at ‘Willoughby’ and quickly retreated.
“So, which is it, Nancy?”
“There’s a world of difference between such and such.”
#6 GW
TRAs are pushing for the ability to change their birth certificate sex, so, yes that’s precisely what they want.