Disruption at Book Fairs

[SpookyFrank]

Is ‘trans women are women’ (alongside implication - or explicit claim - that women should accept men with dysphoria into their spaces) an act of violence?

Lucky there are no implications or implicit claims in this post eh?

 

[ViolentPanda]

And 'ACAB' is just the same as racism.

Sophistry. Again.

I've not threatened any TERFs with violence, nor defended anyone who has, nor has anyone here to my knowledge. Try again.

I haven't claimed that you or they have.

Really, try harder.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

As you say, they're probably not the same thing. With the NF selling their shit in areas with large Asian populations, it was part of a deliberate strategy of intimidation in several major cities, and they were opposed physically by anti-fascists. There's no strategy at play here. The "movement" of GC women that some claim to exist is a bunch of disparate small organisations that not only barely communicate, but in some cases actively dislike each other. Their words aren't born out of nationalist or racist sentiment that sees others as less-than-human. Their words mostly - and there are a few extremists who chat nasty shite that provides fuel for people to point and exclaim "ooh, look at the nasty TERFs!" - express concerns about the erosion of sex-based rights and exemptions.

I think that there clearly is a deliberate strategy (or perhaps strategies), VP. And it's been very effective.

 

[Shechemite]

Lucky there are no implications or implicit claims in this post eh?

Such as?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I haven't claimed that you or they have.

Really, try harder.

Not clear your rationale for mentioning it in the first place then.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Quite apart from being a deliberate tactic for upsetting people, this sort of shit does great harm to those with actual reasonable questions. We've seen on these forums, and I've been guilty of it myself, that those reasonable questions are sometimes associated with this small minority of acid-spitting firebrands. This again is deliberate. It's about polarisation, about creating a situation where nobody is having open discussions in good faith. The reason for this is that TERFs know they can't win a fair and open debate, they know that they ultimately what they feel is hatred and they can't defend it.

What's a TERF, Frank?

 

[SpookyFrank]

What's a TERF, Frank?

It's short for 'trans exlcusionary radical feminist' and it's apparently considered a slur by self-identified radical feminists whose focus is on the exclusion of trans folk from women's spaces and feminist thought.

It's not an ideal term I'll admit, but it's well known and understood. I don't use 'gender critical' because to me that seems overly neutral considering the non-neutral views of the people I'm referring to. Also I would never criticise anyone for thinking critically about anything.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not clear your rationale for mentioning it in the first place then.

I mentioned it because gender-critical women have been threatened with physical violence, with the violence occasionally being carried out. The justification for such threats being that their words are violence against trans folk.

What I'm attempting to establish is that these words don't come out of nowhere.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's short for 'trans exlcusionary radical feminist' and it's apparently considered a slur by self-identified radical feminists whose focus is on the exclusion of trans folk from women's spaces and feminist thought.

It's not an ideal term I'll admit, but it's well known and understood. I don't use 'gender critical' because to me that seems overly neutral considering the non-neutral views of the people I'm referring to. Also I would never criticise anyone for thinking critically about anything.

When the term was first used, several years ago, it had the utility of being precise. It's considered a slur now because it's used on ANY woman who speaks critically about not just trans folk, but about just about anything that SOME trans folk find annoying. It's far from ideal, because it's become a catch-all for any opposition to a particular "party line". It's become almost as ridiculous as a descriptor, as "far left" when used by idiot #FBPE centrist types.

 

[LDC]

In this case, the bookfair crew/collective. You can of course criticise them for that, but it's ultimately their call.

As I said already the people were asked and then forced to leave by the space (Partisan), NOT the Bookfair who were up or allowing them to have a meeting/discussion space.

That's afaik, I'm happy to be corrected by a Bookfair person if it's incorrect.

 

[PeterTCA]

Quite apart from being a deliberate tactic for upsetting people, this sort of shit does great harm to those with actual reasonable questions. We've seen on these forums, and I've been guilty of it myself, that those reasonable questions are sometimes associated with this small minority of acid-spitting firebrands. This again is deliberate. It's about polarisation, about creating a situation where nobody is having open discussions in good faith. The reason for this is that TERFs know they can't win a fair and open debate, they know that they ultimately what they feel is hatred and they can't defend it.

Right on. This post was intended to be about an "evolving pattern" and not about the rights and wrongs of gender politics.
Last year a group that wanted to address the full Manchester Book Fair on "anti-semitism" were swiftly expelled. They reported their removal to the police
and have since engaged in a crusade against Partisan. Peace News gave extensive coverage to the Liverpool Book Fair refusal to admit somebody who
had already been requested not to attend. London proved that a small group can cause severe damage in the course of mopping-up publicity for themselves.

Book fairs are not easy to organise. They require an awful lot of thankless work. Groups that turn up with the intention of being disrespectful to the T+C's should accept their are consequences to their acts.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I mentioned it because gender-critical women have been threatened with physical violence, with the violence occasionally being carried out. The justification for such threats being that their words are violence against trans folk.

This sort of thing plays into the hands of those intent on creating polarisation. I understand where it comes from, but I don't defend it.

When you say 'these words don't come from nowhere' are you suggesting that anti-trans rhetoric (which does undoubtedly exist, and which is distinct from 'gender critical' thought and theory) has arisen simply as a result of threats of violence from trans people? That being the case, how did these miscreants even know who to threaten in the first place?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I would be remiss if I did not mention the Manchester anarchist bookfair's failure to find an accessible venue for their event. As I understand it they preferred to use a space run by an allied organisation over one which would be more suitable for a public event.

Any talk of wanting to make this a safe space for all rings pretty hollow in light of that.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Hold up a second, so are people supposed to avoid hatred or just put up with it?

I'll make my point again. We don't have any choice but to put up with it. We do so and we fight for change, and sometimes we even achieve it. I'm disabled. I put up with ignorant taunts because if I punched everyone who made them, my hands wouldn't be able to hold my walking sticks anymore. We fought for change, and slowly we're getting to the stage where such crap is considered a "hate crime", but to get there we had to prove the harm. We had to show that a rhetoric around disability led to physical violence, and even now, the verbals etc are still prevalent. We have a simple binary choice, in my opinion. We put up with it, and work within a shitty system to bring about change, or we give in and top ourselves. Personally, I'd rather go down fighting.

 

[chilango]

Turning on each other in ever decreasing circles.

 

[ViolentPanda]

This sort of thing plays into the hands of those intent on creating polarisation. I understand where it comes from, but I don't defend it.

When you say 'these words don't come from nowhere' are you suggesting that anti-trans rhetoric (which does undoubtedly exist, and which is distinct from 'gender critical' thought and theory) has arisen simply as a result of threats of violence from trans people? That being the case, how did these miscreants even know who to threaten in the first place?

No, I'm saying that original thought, on both sides, can be hijacked by others who have an agenda - that what we might call "noble sentiments" can be and are corrupted, mostly by power, but sometimes through ignorance. This can and does cause simplification ad absurdum, which is then used to fuel simplistic and reductive arguments around complex issues. We know, for example, that Crenshaw's original theories around intersectionality were hijacked, cherry-picked, simplified and misrepresented by those whose agenda was furthering a revived identity politics.

 

[SpookyFrank]

When the term was first used, several years ago, it had the utility of being precise. It's considered a slur now because it's used on ANY woman who speaks critically about not just trans folk, but about just about anything that SOME trans folk find annoying. It's far from ideal, because it's become a catch-all for any opposition to a particular "party line". It's become almost as ridiculous as a descriptor, as "far left" when used by idiot #FBPE centrist types.

This I do understand, and I try to oppose it at my end where I see people dividing the universe up into TERFs and allies and condemning the former utterly. You don't get anywhere like that. But like you say, nothing comes from nowhere. There are organised people with a hateful agenda against trans folk, and their strategy does involve radicalising people in the middle ground. And just like with everything else, if we abandon that middle ground and the people in it because of their perceived association or sympathy with the stuff we actually oppose, then that's basically the opposite of fighting back.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I would be remiss if I did not mention the Manchester anarchist bookfair's failure to find an accessible venue for their event. As I understand it they preferred to use a space run by an allied organisation over one which would be more suitable for a public event.

Any talk of wanting to make this a safe space for all rings pretty hollow in light of that.

Sadly, although there's been legislation in place since about 1993 regarding accessibility, unless you're building a new venue, it's not incumbent on owners/organisations to render existing venues accessible. Similarly, public transport becomes accessible on an "as and when" basis, rather than on the basis of need. We've been trying to get London transport to take a leaf from Berlin's book re station and vehicle accessibility, but so far not a lot has been done, and that tosser Johnson nixed about £100 million of investment that would at least have got the ball rolling on the Tube - money spunked on that cable car across the Thames, and the fictitious Garden Bridge.

 

[M Testa]

I'm not a historian of these things but is this really the first time that this has happened? That someone has thought they should be allowed to be there and other people haven't?

i did a couple of bookfairs for the militant anti-fascist book and time and space are really tight on these things. you cant have people turning up and saying 'i want a room/platform' cos they have already been taken. At the london bookfair anti-fascist network started to dominate the discussion when they should have organised 1 themselves cos the book and contemporary struggle need separate discussion. so the discussion on 'what can we learn from the past' got sidelined and 1 woman shouted 'who are you?' well, im the writer of the book that this meeting is about would have been the answer to that. we fucked off to the pub sick of it.

 

[Santino]

Turning on each other in ever decreasing circles.

Did Richard Briers die for nothing?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Sadly, although there's been legislation in place since about 1993 regarding accessibility, unless you're building a new venue, it's not incumbent on owners/organisations to render existing venues accessible. Similarly, public transport becomes accessible on an "as and when" basis, rather than on the basis of need. We've been trying to get London transport to take a leaf from Berlin's book re station and vehicle accessibility, but so far not a lot has been done, and that tosser Johnson nixed about £100 million of investment that would at least have got the ball rolling on the Tube - money spunked on that cable car across the Thames, and the fictitious Garden Bridge.

Accessible venues are available in Manchester though, including activist-friendly ones. I know this because I've helped organised large events there before.

 

[LDC]

Being able to avoid 4 people quietly giving out a few leaflets (that most of the people demanding the removal of the 4 people there admitted they hadn't read) hardly strikes me as an act of violence that threatens a space being safe, especially in a gathering of anarchist revolutionaries. If that's something you can't cope with how did you even get through Manchester to even get to the Bookfair, or leave your house every day?

And I'm sure there are accessible venues in Manchester, but I think it'd nice to give the Bookfair collective the benefit of the doubt that there were really good reasons (cost, availability on certain dates, etc. etc.) why they couldn't use them... or we could just do what seems to be in vogue at the moment when dealing with comrades and just publicly denounce them as fucking disabalist scum that need driving away from politics for the safety of everyone.

 

[M Testa]

I think it'd nice to give the Bookfair collective the benefit of the doubt that there were really good reasons (cost, availability on certain dates, etc. etc.) why they couldn't use them.

exactly.

 

[Pickman's model]

the book and contemporary struggle need separate discussion.

i didn't realise the material in the book bore no relationship to the contemporary struggle

 

[SpookyFrank]

Being able to avoid 4 people quietly giving out a few leaflets (that most of the people demanding the removal of the 4 people there admitted they hadn't read) hardly strikes me as an act of violence that threatens a space being safe, especially in a gathering of anarchist revolutionaries. If that's something you can't cope with how did you even get through Manchester to even get to the Bookfair, or leave your house every day?

And I'm sure there are accessible venues in Manchester, but I think it'd nice to give the Bookfair collective the benefit of the doubt that there were really good reasons (cost, availability on certain dates, etc. etc.) why they couldn't use them... or we could just do what seems to be in vogue at the moment when dealing with comrades and just publicly denounce them as fucking disabalist scum that need driving away from politics for the safety of everyone.

Comrades. The favourite word of those who seek to gain the allegiance of others without actually earning it.

I didn't say they need driving away from politics or that they're scum. Just that they've failed to provide an accessible venue, which is true. How much you care about that is up to you.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Being able to avoid 4 people quietly giving out a few leaflets (that most of the people demanding the removal of the 4 people there admitted they hadn't read) hardly strikes me as an act of violence that threatens a space being safe, especially in a gathering of anarchist revolutionaries. If that's something you can't cope with how did you even get through Manchester to even get to the Bookfair, or leave your house every day?

And I'm sure there are accessible venues in Manchester, but I think it'd nice to give the Bookfair collective the benefit of the doubt that there were really good reasons (cost, availability on certain dates, etc. etc.) why they couldn't use them... or we could just do what seems to be in vogue at the moment when dealing with comrades and just publicly denounce them as fucking disabalist scum that need driving away from politics for the safety of everyone.

Kind of takes us back to the "lifestyle" anarchism debate, where many of the lifestylers never gave a toss about the politics, just about wasting a couple of years pretending to be anarchists, before going off to work as uncle Tarquin's land agent on his 10,000 acres. Yes, I am guilty of being sweepingly-prejudiced against lifestyle "anarchists".

 

[Threshers_Flail]

I would be remiss if I did not mention the Manchester anarchist bookfair's failure to find an accessible venue for their event. As I understand it they preferred to use a space run by an allied organisation over one which would be more suitable for a public event.

Any talk of wanting to make this a safe space for all rings pretty hollow in light of that.

You're right to highlight this. The building Partisan Collective chose is a listed building, and needs a lot of work doing to it. Unfortunately, the original founders were unable to find a more appropriate space so settled on this one. They are looking to raise £2000 shortly to pay for an access ramp, and have longer term ambitions of raising £60,000 to pay for a lift to make the space fully accessible. The latter here of course is a huge amount of money for such a small space.

Partisan only has three part-time members of staff, and is in a financially precarious state. I appreciate that asking for more time on such an issue isn't good enough, but accessibility is a priority for the collective.

 

[M Testa]

i didn't realise the material in the book bore no relationship to the contemporary struggle

it was to discuss the history of militant AFism and to situate contemporary AFs in a long and successful struggle. the issue of the struggle against the far right today demands a separate although obviously connected discussion. bear in mind, you have only 55 minutes, 30 for the presentation, 25 for discussion and you lose the 1st 5 minutes whilst folk drift in etc so it's not very much at all. the combination of both subjects is far too big for that time slot.

 

[Shechemite]

‘Violent words’ perhaps not so violent

https://www.2harecourt.com/2018/11/...nist-anti-racist-campaigner-linda-bellos-obe/

 

[Edie]

Scary women with their ‘violent words’ must be man-handled out of the door (with no irony allowed).

What a fucking joke. The patriarchy.