[Sat 28th Oct 2017] London Anarchist Bookfair (London)
- Thread starter Kate Sharpley
- Start date
Treacle Toes
Time
Right then. The term Terf is new? Errr no it isn't.
Treacle Toes
Time
You implied it is new. It isn't.
Treacle Toes
Time
Like some terfs don't 'do' hatred? That hatred doesn't matter? Whatever indeed.
Interesting wave of historical progress. There's a generation for whom trans/genderqueer/... is the issue they see as worth fighting for. And a generation where the liberals have become conservatives by maintaining what were radical views in their youth and now are mainstream.
Personally, I'm shocked by how many radfem activists want to maintain hard gender boundaries. To the point of it becoming the fight they will destroy their communities over
Personally, I'm shocked by how many radfem activists want to maintain hard gender boundaries. To the point of it becoming the fight they will destroy their communities over
Yes, some women do hatred. Years and years of fighting for equality for ALL, just to end up with reactionary, gender-obsessed, delusionary fools demanding that trans women - who I believe have every right to identify as such without threat of discrimination or violence - should and must be able to be counted as women, as in female-born women, and have access to safe spaces as refuges, or women-only groups. These activists are taking us backwards in terms of liberation, not forwards, if you accept the gender as construct argument.
Yes, I have grown to hate this form of trans-activism because it seeks to erase my biology, my right to talk about my body (for fear of upsetting someone who doesn't have a vagina), to say 'pregnant woman' and not pregnant people, not to talk about breast-feeding because it's trans-exclusionary, fuck that shit. Really, fuck it.
And violence towards trans-women? Culprit? Toxic masculinity, men, patriarchy, rigid definitions of gender. NOT women/feminists.
Yes, I have grown to hate this form of trans-activism because it seeks to erase my biology, my right to talk about my body (for fear of upsetting someone who doesn't have a vagina), to say 'pregnant woman' and not pregnant people, not to talk about breast-feeding because it's trans-exclusionary, fuck that shit. Really, fuck it.
And violence towards trans-women? Culprit? Toxic masculinity, men, patriarchy, rigid definitions of gender. NOT women/feminists.
rich! feminists don't want to maintain GENDER boundaries at all. We want equality, we want to eradicate sex-based oppression. We see gender as something that was foisted on all of us, boys don't cry, girls can't do this or that.
As usual I missed all of the excitement as it happens when I’ve retired to the pub.
Ok, i guess the question that seems pertinent is whether someone can discover they have been assigned the wrong gender, and once they discover that should they be excluded from gender-binary safe spaces, or should we define gender-neutral safe spaces that subsume the role that old-skool gendered safe spaces provided?
Because I've personally never felt more included than at places where people start by asking my pronoun, and I'm white-cis-male-presenting.
ska invita
back on the other side
This mumsnet thread leads to all the details via twitter links
Two more women attacked by trans activists | Mumsnet Discussion
Two more women attacked by trans activists | Mumsnet Discussion
No doubt the book fair will have to be moved on again to an even less convenient location.
Why don’t people have their beefs away from it?
Why don’t people have their beefs away from it?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
All the details. Right. Nothing missing then, no doubts remain
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Because the beefs are specific to a non-authoritarian culture?
Geography has fuck all to do with it.
It didn’t occur to them that there might be a ruck? And that it’s the (unpaid) organisers who will shoulder the consequences. Perhaps if it stops altogether as people can’t be arsed with the grief then everyone will be happy.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
The ruck, perhaps, comes with the territory. That said, I share your concerns about the consequences.
ska invita
back on the other side
by details i mean the offending flyer, who handed it out and the twitter handles of a couple of the aggressors. The aggression was mainly corralling and shouting (for a couple of hours) but at one point there was a physical attack. Then someone set off the fire alarm, which hopefully won't upset the venue. It would be terrible if the venue got withdrawn.
Treacle Toes
Time
Treacle Toes
Time
Geri
wasn't born to follow
Well I for one am unlikely to ever bother with it again, after last year's incident with Leila Al Shami being prevented from speaking, and now this. There are too many fucking idiots on the scene.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
To be fair these idiots not as good idiots as the idiots who thought trying to have a rave in the coronet was a good idea, sparking the 2005 battle of holloway road
andysays
Love and solidarity
I don't think we need to concern ourselves too much with being "fair" to the idiots on both sides of this and similar beefs, like the one at Speakers Corner a few weeks ago.
I suspect that ultimately they don't really give a fuck if their actions jeopardize the future of the Bookfair. To hideously mangle the famous quote
Emma Goldman never said:
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
simple point being every year you have twats fucking about, if it's not this lot next year it will be other twats.
ska invita
back on the other side
I think TERF is an accurate term...it doesn't have a judgemental component to it. Can you explain how it's hateful?
...and as for cis its a noun like any other - an accurate descriptor. good luck not "accepting" it.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Starting on Helen Steel -a bad bad move that i do not think will end well for them. That will surely bring things to a head. In london at least.
H
Humirax
Guest
Hi, I am new here. I am an anarchist-communist and was at the bookfair, what I saw of it was awesome. I got there late unforunately. Getting there was a pain in the arse though to be honest, it was out of the way but atleast now I know where it is, unless the venue changes again. Got there in time for the Carne Ross/David Graeber/Lisa Mckenzie talk and they had a woman from the Kurdish People's Assembly there aswell- it was great, really thought provoking and interesting and Martin Lux and Lisa Mckenzie's meeting on Taking it to the Streets was great aswell, that meeting followed the Graeber/Ross one.
That was all I saw of Bookfair meetings, don't think I actually had time to see all of the stalls etc, think I missed some, the stalls were divied up into different buildings instead of being in one big hall. Got my much desired Mark Bray book though (Antifa: The Antifascist handbook- apparently a great read). The only thing that bothered me was the fact that you had 'religious anarchist' stalls, there was also a jewish anarchist stall, and they had a sticker or a badge that had 1 god, no masters on it- didn't sit right with me, then you had catholic worker stall aswell, meanwhile the SPGB stall was left outside. This doesn't make sense as inside you had a Marxist humanist stall- so why exclude the SPGB? I do find it odd what is included and excluded at the bookfair. Anyway, it was still a great bookfair and I'm glad I went.
That was all I saw of Bookfair meetings, don't think I actually had time to see all of the stalls etc, think I missed some, the stalls were divied up into different buildings instead of being in one big hall. Got my much desired Mark Bray book though (Antifa: The Antifascist handbook- apparently a great read). The only thing that bothered me was the fact that you had 'religious anarchist' stalls, there was also a jewish anarchist stall, and they had a sticker or a badge that had 1 god, no masters on it- didn't sit right with me, then you had catholic worker stall aswell, meanwhile the SPGB stall was left outside. This doesn't make sense as inside you had a Marxist humanist stall- so why exclude the SPGB? I do find it odd what is included and excluded at the bookfair. Anyway, it was still a great bookfair and I'm glad I went.
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Not sure the sign applied for a stall, chuck
And just ignore the stalls you don't agree with
gamerunknown
Well-Known Member
Did you speak to the SPGB? They voluntarily set up shop outside every bookfair since they're libertarian socialists. Never seen any animosity directed to them. The bookfair is primarily for extraparliamentary groups (Marxists Humanists are one), but Class War are welcome since they're mostly street theatre. The Jewish Anarchists aren't religious to my knowledge, one was in the Anarchist Federation, which has moving to a world where religion has no sway as a plank. It's more of a racial/cultural thing for them.
I kept out of the confrontation, but it seems some guy attacked the feminists who were hounding Steel.
As for keeping trans women out of refuges, their rates of abuse and self-harm are actually higher than for cis women, so they'd experience it from regular society and then from their supposed comrades at a shelter - which'd be pretty shit. I can see the merit of spaces for people with wombs, but fixating on biology does no service to feminism: gender oppression survived the bourgeois revolution, if environment cannot alter it, patriarchy and hierarchy are inevitable.
Edit: and yeah, the Catholic Workers don't tend to hassle anyone. Though if anything radical feminists should be organising against them.
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