[Sat 28th Oct 2017] London Anarchist Bookfair (London)

[krink]

class war (at least on twitter) are another anarchist group who have taken a side in this

Spoiler: for those who like guessing games

they're with the anti-terf peeps

 

[butchersapron]

This is quite one of the shittest, out of order, and most pathetic things I've ever seen in the 'movement'...



(Short video of some pricks burning an Anarchist Bookfair banner in 'protest' at events of the weekend.)

A close long term anarchist friend of mine last night told me if it came to pinning colours to the mast, she'd pin hers to the 'TERFs' side. I disagreed and said that was both not needed and also not OK.

Watching this video makes me think she might have a point. When you find yourself burning the same banners as fascists it might be time to seriously reflect on your politics. Seriously, what fucking (...insert insult of choice here...). FFS.

Lordy, aside from the serious daftness, choosing L7 for the music in 2017...

 

[Magnus McGinty]

class war (at least on twitter) are another anarchist group who have taken a side in this

Spoiler: for those who like guessing games

they're with the anti-terf peeps

Unsurprising given one of the people allegedly involved in the Hyde Park incident is also allegedly a member/involved with CW.

 

[LDC]

Lordy, aside from the serious daftness, choosing L7 for the music in 2017...

For the full satirical double take it really should have been

 

[Fozzie Bear]

If I was them I'd have put music by one of the numerous excellent trans artists on the soundtrack.

Amateurs.

 

[Athos]

If I was them I'd have put music by one of the numerous excellent trans artists on the soundtrack.

Amateurs.

Anohni - Hopelessness

 

[LDC]

Where the fuck is any level of humility, solidarity, and understanding from some of these trans-activists?

Do they realize that these spaces have been carved out by women over thousands of years of struggling against patriarchy? They've been hard fought for, resisted every step of the way by men, and are build on the bones of murdered, raped, enslaved and tortured women throughout countless generations.

Is it so completely incomprehensible and impossible to engage constructively with the fact that some women might at the very least be wary and wanting some discussion about giving them up entirely at the recent demands of a small number of male-to-female trans activists?

 

[Athos]

It'd be nice if people would just be a bit more generous of spirit, have a bit of humility, and realize we're (mostly) all a bit flawed and fucked up and have some shit ideas and actions sometimes, rather than jumping to the worst possible conclusions about everyone and everything.

We're dealing with zealots, seemingly incapable of empathising with vast swathes of a community to which they aspire to belong (women). So the chances of them behaving that way to event organisers are pretty much negligible! We need to resist them, instead.

 

[lazythursday]

Burning of the bookfair banner may seem extreme, and juvenile... but if, say, this had been homophobic leafletting with prominent activists defending free speech, I'd probably happily lend my lighter to start burning things. I think many people fail to begin to comprehend the deep sense of hurt that this kind of aggressive leaflet engenders. To some extent I understand the political / ideological TERF view - but there are real, hurting oppressed people who are/see themselves as the victims of those views and they are going to respond to that and not always in the most sensible of ways.

Six months ago I was probably at least sympathetic to the TERF viewpoint and but as time marches on it seems clearer and clearer that on one side is a rigid theoretical view (often presented by people comfortably ensconced in academia) brandishing all sorts of theoretical possibilities of future harm to women and on the other are people who face some of the worst discrimination and prejudice going.

 

[Athos]

Where the fuck is any level of humility, solidarity, and understanding from some of these trans-activists?

Do they realize that these spaces have been carved out by women over thousands of years of struggling against patriarchy? They've been hard fought for, resisted every step of the way by men, and are build on the bones of murdered, raped, enslaved and tortured women throughout countless generations.

Is it so completely incomprehensible and impossible to engage constructively with the fact that some women might at the very least be wary and wanting some discussion about giving them up entirely at the recent demands of a small number of male-to-female trans activists?

It's almost as if these people who have been socialised as men expect their demands to trump women's interests.

 

[Athos]

Burning of the bookfair banner may seem extreme, and juvenile... but if, say, this had been homophobic leafletting with prominent activists defending free speech, I'd probably happily lend my lighter to start burning things. I think many people fail to begin to comprehend the deep sense of hurt that this kind of aggressive leaflet engenders. To some extent I understand the political / ideological TERF view - but there are real, hurting oppressed people who are/see themselves as the victims of those views and they are going to respond to that and not always in the most sensible of ways.

Six months ago I was probably at least sympathetic to the TERF viewpoint and but as time marches on it seems clearer and clearer that on one side is a rigid theoretical view (often presented by people comfortably ensconced in academia) brandishing all sorts of theoretical possibilities of future harm to women and on the other are people who face some of the worst discrimination and prejudice going.

That's no more an accurate characterisation than someone suggesting all those on the other side support violence towards women. The reality is that many ordinary women question what's being increasingly forced upon them (even if they're often too scared to do so openly).

 

[LDC]

It's almost as if these people who have been socialised as men expect their demands to trump women's interests.

Indeed. One of the most unpleasant moments on Saturday was seeing a young trans-women aggressively screaming "ugly TERF cunt" in the face of a much older and smaller cis-woman. Not very thinly veiled misogyny. And they wonder why some people might be concerned/scared about giving up cis-women only spaces?!

 

[Pickman's model]

Burning of the bookfair banner may seem extreme, and juvenile... but if, say, this had been homophobic leafletting with prominent activists defending free speech, I'd probably happily lend my lighter to start burning things. I think many people fail to begin to comprehend the deep sense of hurt that this kind of aggressive leaflet engenders. To some extent I understand the political / ideological TERF view - but there are real, hurting oppressed people who are/see themselves as the victims of those views and they are going to respond to that and not always in the most sensible of ways.

Six months ago I was probably at least sympathetic to the TERF viewpoint and but as time marches on it seems clearer and clearer that on one side is a rigid theoretical view (often presented by people comfortably ensconced in academia) brandishing all sorts of theoretical possibilities of future harm to women and on the other are people who face some of the worst discrimination and prejudice going.

yeh. i've posted earlier about people reaching for insults based around youth. how does that make young people think we view them, when we associate acts we dislike with people younger than us?

 

[lazythursday]

Don't you realise how calling for transpeople to show humility and not be demanding is so very reminiscent of how white people complained of 'uppity blacks' or the way groups like Outrage! were presented as shrill extremists? Look - I'm absolutely not saying there isn't bad behaviour on both sides of this debate but perhaps I find it much easier to put myself in the shoes of the trans activists, remembering how people responded to gay rights protests in the 80s.

 

[Pickman's model]

Don't you realise how calling for transpeople to show humility and not be demanding is so very reminiscent of how white people complained of 'uppity blacks' or the way groups like Outrage! were presented as shrill extremists? Look - I'm absolutely not saying there isn't bad behaviour on both sides of this debate but perhaps I find it much easier to put myself in the shoes of the trans activists, remembering how people responded to gay rights protests in the 80s.

i'm not calling for transpeople to show humility

 

[lazythursday]

i'm not calling for transpeople to show humility

Sorry Pickmans - I was referring to Lynne / Athos.

 

[TopCat]

class war (at least on twitter) are another anarchist group who have taken a side in this

Spoiler: for those who like guessing games

they're with the anti-terf peeps

That statement was put out before the stolen banner vid was posted. I doubt there is 100% support subsequently.

 

[TopCat]

Sorry Pickmans - I was referring to Lynne / Athos.

I dont think either of those posters did either? Or were you politically paraphrasinģ?

 

[Athos]

Sorry Pickmans - I was referring to Lynne / Athos.

I've not asked for trans people to show humility; I've asked for a tiny minority of Trans Rights Activists to stop physically assaulting women for daring to consider the question of 'what is a woman'.

 

[Pickman's model]

I've not asked for trans people to show humility; I've asked for a tiny minority of Trans Rights Activists to stop physically assaulting women for daring to consider the question of 'what is a woman'.

thank you for the clarification

 

[LDC]

Yeah but the thing is it's not as simple as an oppressed group of people demanding equal rights and freedoms in society as it was with the examples that people give re: black/POC and gay rights struggles.

It's a group of people demanding access to an oppressed group's (cis-women's) spaces and hard fought autonomy. Some understanding by trans-activists that this is controversial and should be at least open to discussion is the least I think that should be expected.

Maybe humility is a bad choice of word, but can you see how people are feeling attacked by this, especially in the context of a wider anti-feminist and growing men's rights/alt-right backlash? And I'm excluding the worst of the radfems, but plenty of left-wing feminist and anarchist cis-women want this debate to happen, and you have trans-women saying no, to even discuss it is transphobic.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah but the thing is it's not as simple as an oppressed group of people demanding equal rights and freedoms in society as it was with the examples that people give re: black/POC and gay rights struggles.

It's a group of people demanding access to an oppressed group's (women's) spaces and hard fought autonomy. Some understanding by trans-activists that this is controversial and should be at least open to discussion is the least I think that should be expected.

Maybe humility is a bad choice of words, but can you see how people are feeling attacked by this? And I'm excluding the worst of the radfems, but plenty of feminist and anarchist women want this debate to happen, and you have trans-women saying no, to discuss it is transphobic.

tbh some understanding by 'terfs' that this is controversial and should be open to discussion should also be expected.

 

[lazythursday]

Yeah but the thing is it's not as simple as an oppressed group of people demanding equal rights and freedoms in society as it was with the examples that people give re: black/POC and gay rights struggles.

It's a group of people demanding access to an oppressed group's (women's) spaces and hard fought autonomy. Some understanding by trans-activists that this is controversial and should be at least open to discussion is the least I think that should be expected.

Maybe humility is a bad choice of words, but can you see how people are feeling attacked by this? And I'm excluding the worst of the radfems, but plenty of feminist and anarchist women want this debate to happen, and you have trans-women saying no, to discuss it is transphobic.

If I was a transperson I don't think I'd see it as 'demanding access' though. I think I'd absolutely see it as part of my fight for equal rights. But yes, I get what you're saying, but I can't see how that leaflet is a particularly helpful contribution to such a debate.

 

[TopCat]

I personally have never found the rad fem viewpoint helpful. Spent my life being cunted off by them in fact.
Never lamped anyone at the bookfair for selling SCUM though.

 

[Pickman's model]

I personally have never found the rad fem viewpoint helpful. Spent my life being cunted off by them in fact.
Never lamped anyone at the bookfair for selling SCUM though.

always next year mind.

 

[LDC]

Yeah, and I largely agree, I think putting up leaflets about trans stuff in the toilets is for many reasons a very provocative and not very useful thing to do. But it's tricky, if they'd been a meeting requested to discuss this can you imagine how that might have gone? How does this stuff get discussed?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I’d love to know how many of the players using the book fair as a platform for their beefs are actually anarchists. Because being a trans activist or feminist doesn’t automatically make you one.

 

[chilango]

Lordy, aside from the serious daftness, choosing L7 for the music in 2017...

L7 was the best bit.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah, and I largely agree, I think putting up leaflets about trans stuff in the toilets is for many reasons a very provocative and not very useful thing to do. But it's tricky, if they'd been a meeting requested to discuss this can you imagine how that might have gone? How does this stuff get discussed?

 

[TopCat]

It gets discussed but in the teeth of opposition from people who see discussion as the same as violence