Gawdelpus
Not helping what?
First, to repeat myself, I hate this use of “hit” and “hit out at” and “attack” for argument and disagreement. It frames dissent as physical violence, and that’s not a useful or intelligent way to frame it. Nobody hit anybody, Rowling was not hit, she was not hit out at, she didn’t attack the Scottish government. There’s way too much talk of violence in this discussion already, and newspapers shouldn’t be adding to it via stupid metaphors.
Second, nonsense. Women have rights too and we are allowed to remind everyone of that, and insist on keeping them, and resist efforts to take them away.
Third, yes she is “helping.” Who put Slater and Harvie in charge of who is helping and who isn’t? I’ve just been reading in the archives here from way back in 2010 when science journalist Chris Mooney spent many weeks telling the world that vocal atheists were “not helping” and we vocal atheists spent the same many weeks asking why he was in charge of who was helping and why we couldn’t just decide for ourselves what we wanted to help without being slandered by Chris Mooney for weeks n weeks n weeks. This seems like that all over again. We are “helping”: we’re helping what we want to help instead of what other people want us to help. Sometimes people get to do that. We’re helping each other defend women’s rights. Funnily enough we think we have every right to do that.
Well, what we didn’t accept was that Mooney “had the science” to back him up. And even now, the supposed science party The Greens claim that they have the science behind them.
The only way to help is to remain silent and let the smarts figure it out for women. These are complex topics!
Also relevant:
Now Gawd may decide to intervene in this, except that He has form for looking the other way and ignoring prayers for help, aid and guidance that have come up to Him from here below, and in a multitude of desperate historical situations, and since time immemorial.
Sorry if that’s a dampener, OB. But it happens to be Gawd’s Truth.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jk-rowling-keir-starmer-trans-women-b2034531.html
Mike, it wasn’t just the science in my case, it was the original premise, and his complete failure to justify it or defend it or even explain why he was the boss of it. And then as the discussion went on and on it was his way of conducting it.
Oh yes, our old friend “not helping”… Another common conversation-stopper I remember was “More voices are needed”, which pretty much invariably turned out to be a euphemism for “Less voices are needed (more specifically yours needs to go away)”.
Slater and Harvie were given low grade ministerial posts in return for going into sort-of coalition with the SNP, and so getting the majority in Holyrood. On this topic they are the shock troops – I don’t think any SNP ministers would “hit out” in that way.
So, speaking of data, here’s an interesting bit of recent polling in the U.S. on trans issues. (Sorry, I don’t have the original link, just this screenshot from a Matt Yglesias tweet).
On the question of whether transgender people should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military, the public is 66% in favor. I’m surprised it’s that low. It’s also down five points from 2019, though that kind of movement can be statistical noise.
On the question of whether transgender athletes should be allowed to participate in sports based on the gender they identify as rather than birth gender (that was the terminology used), “gender identity” is a 34-62 loser. Democrats favor gender identity, but only by a 55-42 margin. Interestingly, women are more supportive, 43% compared to 24% of men. Also interesting is that, while people aged 65+ are less supportive, there isn’t any real difference by age category below that.
But you would never know this from news coverage of, e.g., Lia Thomas.