Panic
Quite a large chunk was cut, as it turns out.
Here’s one I can actually read. Thanks Roz!
There were “developments” you see.
Tip Jar
Quite a large chunk was cut, as it turns out.
Here’s one I can actually read. Thanks Roz!
There were “developments” you see.
You know Butler’s rhetoric is unfit to publish when even the Guardian has to censor parts of it. Pretty awful indeed, and yes I agree with Roz, pretty dishonest as well. Is the Guardian trying to make Butler look less insufferable, or simply covering their own cowering asses?
It turns out the only way to tell the difference between a trans woman and a sexual predator is to discover a sex crime conviction. Too bad if he’s a first time offender…
I know the trans activists are going to claim that the sexual predator is not “really” trans, but those characteristics are orthogonal. It is infuriating that the first order of business in these cases is to protect the “brand”, to claim that this person isn’t “really” a member of the club, rather than to own up to the fact that some members of the club are horrible people.
So we are talking about a “No True RuPaul” defense?
Kind of like how gun-rights nuts insist that they’re only trying to defend the rights of ‘responsible, law-abiding’ gun owners, and never mind the fact that every gun owner is one of those, until the day he isn’t.
twiliter:
I doubt you’ll make a habit of it ;)
The edit is stunningly dishonest, but not in the way Kaveney means.
The Guardian editors need to remember that “the Internet never forgets”: the uncensored interview can be found at the Wayback Machine. The censor got to work some time between 11.51 yesterday and 7.11 today.
I was puzzled at this, because I had no idea who Roz Kaveney was, so I looked her up. On her web site she says:
So yes. She was probably offended that the most important part of Judith Butler’s wisdom got removed.
The TRAs are between a rock and a hard place here. If they argue that the predator is not “really trans” (despite what “she” says!), then they are admitting that some men will come into women’s spaces with evil intent by pretending to be trans, which is something they’ve been insisting could never happen.
If they continue to insist that Merager is trans, then they’re admitting that some trans women are perving on women.
They have only two very implausible escapes from that dilemma:
1. Continue to agree with Merager all the way – “she” isn’t a sexual predator at all, but every single one of these convictions is just the law bullying trans women.
2. Hope it all disappears down the memory hole.
Merager himself isn’t going to let number 2 happen. He’s still on the lam right now, but either he’s going to turn himself in or the law is going to find him on the street, and that’s going to be news. He’s going to give lots of jailhouse interviews and try to get agencies and politicians to intervene on his behalf. And, of course, when he’s convicted in California, he’s going to go to women’s prison.
Honestly, I’m hoping for a low-speed chase up the I-5.
I have not read much Judith Butler, but what has come across in the little that I have is her use of what is an intimidatory style that seems designed to persuade not by what it actually says but by pitching things at what looks like a great intellectual height so that the poor, despised reader submits out of a sort of terror of being too expressly humiliated.
@13 this essay has been shared a lot, but it’s an excellent exposition of Butler’s work. (Basically Nussbaum agrees with your assessment.)
https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody
Athel:
Yes, Kaveney is awful. His meaning here is absolutely as you say.
Papito:
They will just one-bad-apple their way out of it. The battle will not be won through a single example or argument, but by raising awareness a bit at a time until an acceptable level of batshittery is achieved.
You’re quite right that the Guardian, Penny etc have painted themselves into an ideological corner. That will definitely peak a lot of people, but it won’t be enough by itself. The point will need constant re-enforcement for some time, I think.
Thank you, guest, for the link to the piece by Martha Nussbaum (whose work I admire, as I do not Judith Butler’s – what little I have read of it). These sentences, in Nussbaum’s essay, struck me:
‘The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a sense of public commitment. In this sense, Butler’s self-involved feminism is extremely American, and it is not surprising that it has caught on here, where successful middle-class people prefer to focus on cultivating the self rather than thinking in a way that helps the material condition of others.’
It is not only America where that sense of public commitment is being, or has been lost, and this accounts for what comes across to me as the peculiar sterility of so much politics in our time.
The edited parts should have been left in either way. I also agree with Butler in that the concept of women does need to be clarified, but in very different ways than she (oops, I mean it?) thinks. Does Butler even fit in her own category of women? :P
I meant to point out that one of the things Kaveney said was that Butler’s response shouldn’t have been changed…. but the question Gleeson asked should have been altered after the fact to make it look better.
In re the Wi Spa and similar incidents, I suspect the ‘no true transwoman’ fallacy will fall to the wayside. I’ve seen arguments years ago on Tumblr (which at least provided a preview, if not an actual template, for much of the insanity that has taken over so much of our public institutions of late), which point out that if you *really* believe TWAW, then trans women criminals are both inevitable and not a contradiction; that, in fact, revoking one’s affirmation of someone’s transness based on their behaviour is itself transphobic, in that it reveals one doesn’t actually believe it, deep down, but is merely humouring the trans person in particular or the community at large.
I predict that such arguments will become ubiquitous, in the same way ‘a trans woman is a trans woman even if she’s a six-six linebacker with a beard, and neither the staff nor the clients of the homeless shelter or transition house should blink an eye lest they betray unconscionable bigotry’ went from being parody to party line about six years ago.
The Nussbaum essay was prominently and permanently placed in the left column of Arts & Letters Daily for years. It was also one of the foundational sources of B&W, along with the Sokal Hoax and the books and conferences inspired by it.
Tim @ 13: that exactly. It’s what I loathe most about “Critical Theory” and its various colonies. Butler’s writing looks difficult and technical and Over Our Heads, when in fact there’s nothing much to it. I hate hate hate fake difficulty of that kind.
But Butler early on was heading toward this current confusing mess of gender woo. Even in the essay by Nussbaum this is pointed out. Maybe she’s doubling down, armed now with the acronym-slur, in alignment with the trans cult’s contempt for anyone resembling normal, in order to claim the throne of Grand Poobah of the TRA’s. :P
Heh, looks like Linehan had the same thoughts I did, as shown in the next post. :D
It’s not Graham who wrote that post but JL.
Ah thanks, even better actually. :D
Papito, I think they have a third option and that is what seems to be favored. Admit the person is trans, but be surprised that there is furor and attribute the furor to the feminists. They are mistreating the trans person who is legitimately a female, and since females are naked in female spaces in the spa, she* is perfectly entitled. So anyone who thinks she* is a sexual predator is a bigot. For some reason, LP doesn’t seem to be toeing the line; she seems to be admitting he’s a sexual predator, and denying he’s a she.
*used only as an example of their argument
I’d argue not just sterility but stasis, particularly in the centre/centre-left. For some reason world wide hard-right politicians seem to have little difficulty dragging the centre toward them. The politicians of the centre-left recognise this, but seem incapable of articulating to the public why they should pull to the left in response. The paralysis of the centre-left is largely why there has been too little effective action on issues such as climate change that cannot be articulated in four words or less.
iknklast, isn’t that just what I postulated as 1?
I would neither be surprised nor upset if that became the main TRA line on Merager. That would hasten peak trans.
Papito, it is possible I misunderstood what you were saying. I have been known to be wrong. ;-)