Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags
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Suzanne Moore's left twitter again after retweeting that link. Self-immolation 
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
It's odd, cos this kind of stuff in The Mail would've been written off as par for the course, I think. Why expect, ahem, more from the Grauniad or an M/C journo or what have you?
Balbi
Hey, Dean Yager!
I think it's partially the manner of not actually apologising, and then making it worse. Mail columnists never say they're sorry, because they make their £££ from people with similar views. Moore's managed to cunt off a proportion of previous nodders and hmmm'ers of her work, and is just making it worse.
Rape, lol.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
And that's one of the reasons why it may be hard to get an apology. When so many people reach straight for the sexist insults and violent sexual imagery, it's hard to listen to what more reasonable people have to say. The sincere and polite individuals concerned aren't aware that they're part of a braying mob because they can't see them, or if they can, aren't necessarily thinking about the impact of them joining in regardless of how sincere their need to comment is.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
Rape, lol.
yeah, really helping the cause there. That's not uncommon either.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Aye - that account's obviously a troll - in the now-sadly-missed sense of the word - but guess how many of The Getalong Gang have steamed in on that comment?
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
That is why those who are anti-identity politics should stamp on this shit each and every time it appears from someone claiming to be on the left. All too often they seem too afraid of being accused of practising identity politics themselves to stand up to it.
I know many do. I also know many don't. And some actively feed this crap via their shaky grasp of the arguments.
I know many do. I also know many don't. And some actively feed this crap via their shaky grasp of the arguments.
it's fucking grim, and if you look at his twitter feed it's full of it and i don't deny that has a psychological impact
but that is what the internet is like, everyone here knows that and has the ability to filter out that kind of shit and not use it to close down genuine argument
This is a point that is all too seldom made re. 'Braying mobs'. They're often made up of perfectly sincere individuals who have been outraged by a particular contentious viewpoint. When this viewpoint has been expressed by some middle-class liberal 'worthy', what tends to happen is that all the other 'worthies' in the echo-chamber circle the wagons against what they see as a rabid barbarian horde. At no point do they stop to think: 'hang on...I seem to have upset a few hundred thousand people...maybe I should reconsider the implications of what I said'. Instead, the size and force of the opposition tends to confirm them in their minority position, since it's always been a given for them that they're part of that thin red line holding out against those vicious nihilist proles.
This helps explain the tenacity of identity and the more excessive features of state multiculturalism. In the face of mounting evidence that it's been a calamity, a smallish set of useful idiots, convinced that they're bang on the side the angels really can't be shifted either by rational argument, empirical evidence or widespread opposition. And of course the forces of capital can't believe their fuckin luck. Not only do they reap the rewards of such a divisive philosophy; they don't actually have to do a fuckin thing; step forward LP, Owen Jones and the other deluded liberals to do the job for them.
Sweet.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
I know it's what (some of them) want in the short-term. In the long-term, making it socially unacceptable will reduce the incidence to genuine trolls + right-wing cunts, not genuine trolls + right-wing cunts + lefties who aren't sure of their ground and thus pollute the proper arguments coming from the rest of the left.
Balbi
Hey, Dean Yager!
Articul8's favourite columnist presents the argument where everyone goes home happy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/19/feminism-trans-women-female-enough
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/19/feminism-trans-women-female-enough
Balbi
Hey, Dean Yager!
#Here’s why I take transgender issues personally…
Because I or someone I love might get cancer at some point, and a trans person who is capable of discovering the cure is otherwise occupied defending their right to exist.
I live in a world that needs leadership, and a smart, tireless trans person who should maybe be President is busy arguing that they deserve basic human respect.
I want to drive a fucking flying car someday, and the trans person who might invent it is stuck responding to Guardian editorials that treat them like they’re subhuman.#
Fuckin priceless.
That's why I've been calling for the immediate release of Ian Brady and Peter Sutcliffe for decades. I kinda suspect that between the two of them, they might be able to breed a three-legged chicken that can whistle Danny Boy while playing the spoons.
Buckaroo
Donkey piss and tractors
That fella is definitely taking the piss....'I might never invent a process that turns carbon emissions into funk soul hits of the 70's.'
BigTom
Well-Known Member
That's not analagous at all, Sutcliffe, Brady and that have shown themselves to be cunts of the highest order, they are locked up because they are serial killers, and it can be quite reasonably shown that all serial killers are a danger to other people and should be locked up.
The same is not true of trans people (substituting danger for whatever is right in terms of transphobia), and whilst it's a vomitsome argument with a serious defect - which is that you can suppose a trans person who doesn't discover the cure for cancer could still be a fine target for abuse - I don't think your objection to it is right.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
No. It isn't. I was pointing out the weakness of that line of argument by taking it to an extreme. In fact, it's not really an argument at all and I kinda hope the guy was takin the piss. That said, there's no reason to suspect that serial killers are any less likely to be superstar oncologists than trans people...or indeed transgender serial killers.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
I think your extreme takes it too far away from the original tbh, "serial killers" as a group is a very different prospect to "trans people" as a group, I don't think it's reasonable to take the argument that way, since everyone in the group "serial killers" has done something which is reasonably considered to be worth locking people up for, the same cannot be said of the group "trans people" who may or may not have done things which are worth abusing them for, but if they have done something that's worth abusing them for then it won't be for being trans, it'll be something else they've done.
Very easy to dismiss your line of argument I think, better ways to argue against their line - trans people are people and therefore deserve to be treated the same as other people, regardless of what they may or have achieved. A trans person who does an admin job in an office is just as valuable as a trans person who discovers the cure for cancer, and just as worthy (? that word sounds horrible) of not facing abuse for being a trans person.
Well I couldn't fault any of that...and nor do I wish to in any way disparage trans people. My beef is with the mode of argument...namely group X should not suffer discrimination because a member of group X may go on to perform outstanding feat Y.
This argument is a fuckin mess...and as you say it should instead take the form: group X should not suffer discrimination because every member of group X is also a member of humanity and thus entitled to the same considerations as every other...etc.
Nor am I trying to suggest there's any correlation between being trans and being a serial killer any more than I'm trying to suggest there's any correlation between being trans and not being a serial killer. In fact, I'd rather get away from any discussion of distinct groups altogether because identity politics boils my fuckin piss.
However, your suggestion that taking arguments to extremes is somehow suspect does go against literally centuries of the employment of reduction ad absurdum...and I'd resist the suggestion that it isn't a valuable tool in the critique of identity.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Yeah, just to be clear I didn't think or mean to suggest that you were disparaging trans people or comparing them to serial killers or anything like that, I just thought your line of argument against that stuff was seriously flawed - that's not to say that reductio ad absurdum is not useful in all cases, I just think it doesn't work here - and tbh, often it goes too far and doesn't really illuminate a flaw in the argument that is being made.
The argument is indeed a mess and on that we totally agree.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
This is where it gets complicated. What does 'the same' mean? For all the heat and fire since Moore-gate I've seen close to no discussion about what that means.
In the case of homosexuality, it's easier - in a nutshell - homosexuals should be able to partner, marry and adopt the same as everyone else.
For transgender issues, the main area of demands - overwhelmingly dominated by male-to-female transgender people (only about 5% of transgender individuals are female to male)
1 for males to be able to reassign themselves legally as female - and then even demand the right to work in female only rape counselling centres (a case in Canada).
2 for trans-gender children to receive hormonal drugs on the NHS (some even demand operations on the NHS at this early stage - even though there are estimates of 1 in 10 seeking re-surgery after the initial genital surgery because the root causes of the desire to 'be a woman' aren't resolved).
The operation can lead to complications (and obviously leaves the patient infertile) which leads onto
3 for trans-gender people to have uninhibited access to women-only feminist conferences and feminist spaces - even ones that are about child-birth, gynaecological health and child-rearing (I wish they didn't have to be women's issues but they are).
What is the same and what isn't - what's it being compared with? It's complex and confusing - unlike the glibness of that article - everyone can agree the Guardian article not an editorial as it claims was wrong where does that leave things?
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Yeah definitely, and I don't have any real answers to that. It's complex and confusing pretty much gets it I think, all I can say is that it feels right to me that a transwoman is a woman, a transman is a man, and that they were born in the other body is irrelevant to anything other than that there might be medical stuff which is particular to trans people that I have no idea about I suppose.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Well to some women on perfectly valid grounds it's not and I can accept that, it's a shame because Burchill's article has done any critical thinking about the issue a massive disservice.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
1. Same deal as any other woman making those demands.
2. That's unethical doctors. I had a brief fling with an FTM 16 year old who had been started on hormones before he was told about what the surgery involved. He was stuck in limbo with a deep voice, hairy face and big tits. This was 25 years ago, but there's a case coming up to court about these sorts of medical abuses now.
3. So the fuck what? They're women. I have no more right to say what a 'real' woman is than Netanyahu has to say what a 'real' Jew believes.
I'd have thought 'the same' would mean should expect to live their lives without gratuitous abuse based on their situation. But you're right. Their 'situation' encompasses exactly the issues you mention. But it seems that some or most trans people and others would regard your raising these issues as constituting de facto abuse purely by dint of the implicit suggestion that they weren't wholly or authentically female. I wouldn't know where the fuck to start. You see I've sympathy with the arguments that gender's a) a social construct b) a neurobiological state and c) a spectrum. Nor have I ever seen a convincing argument that I should favour any of the three above another.
Where I really do have a problem is 1) with the idea that as a 'cis male' my speculation on the topic is in and of itself irrelevant, worthless and an abuse of my 'privilege'
2) with anyone, even trans people, who dogmatically demand that their definition of gender trumps all others...often out of purely theoretical considerations.
However...and no doubt I'm abusing my privilege and demonstrating a distinct lack of nuance in saying this...the idea that 'biology' doesn't come into it strikes me as ridiculous...sometimes you've gotta go with your gut.
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