One of the few
On Tuesday, the Guardian published an interview with the American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, which included a scathing critique of so-called “gender critical” transphobes and trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who don’t believe trans women are women, and oppose the right of transgender people to exist in gendered spaces, such as a bathrooms.
We don’t oppose anyone’s right to exist anywhere. That’s a sly way of putting it that nudges people to think we want trans people dead. Trans people don’t have a “right” to be in women’s spaces if they are men. Men don’t have a “right” to intrude on women, no matter how they define their “gender.”
Then the Guardian removed that section of the interview, including Gleeson’s leading question.
According to Gleeson, who provided Motherboard with a written statement, the Guardian’s editorial team, and in particular its team based in the UK, “folded” under pressure from readers who took issue with the article and decided to “censor” Butler.
Gee, why would feminist women take issue with being called fascists? Women are so zany and irrational.
“Habitual bigots online are going to do their thing, and usually respond to pieces without even reading them,” Gleeson wrote in a statement sent to Motherboard. “What’s been more unexpected was how quickly the publication folded. I was expecting the Guardian US to stand by me as a writer, and while I have received apologies from their side, this has been a draining and consuming episode that I didn’t expect.”
Draining and consuming? Is it a plumbing issue or a grocery issue?
Gleeson told Motherboard that Judith Butler has also emailed the Guardian about its decision to remove that section of the interview, but has not heard back.
Gleeson said she last heard from the Guardian last night, and that her editor said “there’s not much I can do” because a decision has already been made.
“I have not encountered anything like this,” Gleeson said of the Guardian’s decision. “A few people I’ve spoken to, including at the Guardian US, said this is unprecedented.”
Maybe someone at the Guardian realizes that feminist women are not fascists? Just a thought.
Gleeson is nothing if not generous here.
“I’m not uncompromising here, I informed your editors that my question was flexible, but Judith’s answer was essential,” Gleeson said in an email to John Mulholland, editor of the Guardian US. “To me it seems perfectly clear that the ‘gender critics’ should not be beyond criticism, any more than the rest of the ‘anti-gender’ movement. And no discussion of the topic today can ignore them.”
Beyond criticism is one thing and calling people fascists is another.
“I’m loath to make an appeal to our identities at this point, but it seems a fine state of affairs when an intersex woman interviewing one of the few non-binary philosophy professors in the world is decried online as ‘misogyny,’” Gleeson said. “One last question for the editorial teams at The Guardian: why should ‘Gender Critics’ be beyond criticism?”
How does Gleeson know how few “non-binary philosophy professors” there are? Maybe there are billions!
All this while the planet is on fire. It’s so stupid.
Remind me again — how many gender critical writers and reporters and filmmakers and professors and artists and lecturers have suddenly been censored, fired, canceled, and otherwise stifled just for doing what they’ve always done, what people in their profession always do, but somehow transgender issues are totally different than anything else?
Here are some questions that might be asked of both Butler and Gleeson:
Why are some trans activists so quick to equate critiques of gender with far-right ideologies, even when those critiques are coming from left-wing women? Can we expect more of this conflation in the future?
Why are some trans activists unwilling or unable to see the threat that exploitation by bad actors of self-ID will have on the health and safety of girls and women?
Here’s a couple for Gleeson specifically:
Why should you be beyond criticism simply because you are an intersex woman?
Can you tell the difference between inflammatory, defaming smears and “criticism”?
What about the criticisms of the piece levelled by those who have read it and disagree with it? Are they all from “habitual bigots”?
@YNNB:
These are people who say that “refusing to accept someone’s gender identity” — ie disagreeing with Gender Identity doctrine — is a form of “phobia” and indicative of exaggerated fear, disgust, and hatred. So no, they probably can’t tell the difference between inflammatory smears and criticism, because they can’t tell the difference between criticism and inflammatory smears.
My god, that observation was so funny that I had to physically stand up and go laugh across on the other side of the room. Now my mind boggles with similar constructions.
I’d argue (admittedly with no evidence) that at least half the so-called “philosophers” in Europe and the United States are non-binary at this point and that (as an aside) there are far more transwomen journalists than is representative of the general population (mostly younger AGP). As Ibram X. Kendi says, different outcomes are indicative of a broken system so clearly philosophy and journalism are broken systems.
And once again, notice the double standard. To illustrate the fallacy of false balance and both-siderism, I have often used the metaphor of a soccer match where one team scores 10 goals and the other scores 0, and the referee decides to call it a draw. In this metaphor the Guardian is more like the referee that declares the latter team the winner, while Gleeson is like a player for the latter team complaining that the referee still isn’t sufficiently biased in her team’s favor.
One, non-binary is a worthless designation; two, and much more important, your interview was called misogynistic because of its content, not because of the anatomical features or claimed identities. Fucking numpty.