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

[rich!]

Think there's been some 'issues' with the Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair too when the News From Nowhere bookshop was written to asking them not to bring offensive literature to the Bookfair and when they asked what was meant they were told anything that was related to the GRA or that could be considered transphobic. (Details have come second hand and might be be 100% accurate, happy for clarification.)

So i went to Liverpool for their bookfair, and spent the evening in the social centre under NfN. No-one was having a problem with not bringing books to the event.

One local troublemaker turned up to a workshop and was enough of an asshole they drove them out, politely or not.

Otherwise it was a really good Bookfair.

The Cunningham Amendment people put cash in to make it happen, and have a long argument in their zine about why.

Tldr? More local bookfairs.

 

[Rob Ray]

Norwich wasn't too bad today, other than the crypt being a bit on the cold and dark side!

 

[Pickman's model]

Very nice down Westminster. But no books.

 

[The39thStep]

Anyone know a bit more about this lot?

Building the base for radical change

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Anyone know a bit more about this lot?

Building the base for radical change

I think (and I might be wrong) that they've done a few different local newsletters over the last 10 years or so and that at least one of them was previously involved with the IWCA.

They've done some stands at the anarchist bookfair in London. Also (and I might be completely wrong about this) I think one of them got embroiled in the weird argument with Laurie Penny about multiculturalism, the IWCA and racism.

Broadly sound anyway afaik.

 

[TopCat]

Have another look at the Freedom collective statement about the last London bookfair. They didnt write it. It was put into their mouths. A similar set of demands will start being made from all the bookfairs and indeed any organised anarchist event.
Do people accept this set of demands as reasonable?
I say no.

 

[Rob Ray]

Please don't interpret things that aren't there. It was marked as majority view because not everyone agreed, not because it was thrust upon the collective from outside.

 

[Rob Ray]

On a related note btw the FA just put out a statement rejecting anti-trans sentiment in similar sorts of terms (below). Honestly I find this tendency to act as though the anarchist movement is uniquely under the thumb of some sort of powerful ID-pol trans lobby quite bizarre, it's not actually that weird to find the manipulative, mean-spirited tactics of active bigots who consistently demean, bully and misrepresent trans people abhorrent.

FA condemns anti-transgender flyers outside Wembley at women's FA Cup final

 

[Shechemite]

On a related note btw the FA just put out a statement rejecting anti-trans sentiment in similar sorts of terms (below). Honestly I find this tendency to act as though the anarchist movement is uniquely under the thumb of some sort of powerful ID-pol trans lobby quite bizarre, it's not actually that weird to find the manipulative, mean-spirited tactics of active bigots who consistently demean, bully and misrepresent trans people abhorrent.

FA condemns anti-transgender flyers outside Wembley at women's FA Cup final

‘the anarchist movement is uniquely under thumb of.. ID Pol trans lobby’. Er who has argued this?

And your position is supported by the FA. Well that’s settled it then.

Do you think there’s any reason for banning male-bodied athletes from women’s sporting competitions?

 

[Rob Ray]

Topcat literally just argued (from goodness' only knows where) that Freedom was being forced to push a pro-trans statement written by other people and that this was going to be a common occurrence in future. What do you think is implied by that sort of accusation?

And my point with the FA, as I thought was quite clear from context, is that it is very definitely not the sort of body likely to be pushed into anything much by the tiny number of trans people involved. But sure, turn that into a snide comment if you like I suppose.

Do you think there’s any reason for banning male-bodied athletes from women’s sporting competitions?

I think even from my limited reading on the subject of the impact of hormone treatment on trans people's physical attributes that it's a fuck of a lot more complicated than both the leading question you've just formulated and the leaflets which apparently managed to be so unpleasant that even the FA spoke out about them. I also think the tone of the "debate" on this subject is utterly poisonous and has been deliberately made so from the start by people who deadname and misgender as a matter of habit.

 

[Pickman's model]

Have another look at the Freedom collective statement about the last London bookfair. They didnt write it. It was put into their mouths. A similar set of demands will start being made from all the bookfairs and indeed any organised anarchist event.
Do people accept this set of demands as reasonable?
I say no.

Be reasonable demand the impossible

 

[newbie]

Do you think there’s any reason for banning male-bodied athletes from women’s sporting competitions?

The IAAF have just decided that measuring and manipulating testosterone levels is the best way to ensure fairness in some not all competitions.

 

[Shechemite]

The IAAF have just decided that measuring and manipulating testosterone levels is the best way to ensure fairness in some not all competitions.

And that’s a touch more equitable than shouting ‘trans women are women’ and being abusive to anyone who thinks otherwise.

And the Caster Semanya case is an example of the childish viciousness of some on the ‘terf’ position, and alludes to the sheer dishonesty of many of those on the ‘tw = w!!!’ positon.

 

[Rob Ray]

"Some" on the 'terf' position and "many" on the 'tw = w!!!' position. How interesting. Please do expand on how you're sailing above the fray, the neutral voice of reason.

As an aside, I love how putting quotes and exclamation marks in front of a phrase can make it look like the mindless group chanting of unreasonable people. Add in a vague allusion to "abusive shouting" and hey presto.

 

[Shechemite]

"Some" on the 'terf' position and "many" on the 'tw = w!!!' position. How interesting. Please do expand on how you're sailing above the fray, the neutral voice of reason.

As an aside, I love how putting quotes and exclamation marks in front of a phrase can make it look like the mindless group chanting of unreasonable people. Add in a vague allusion to "abusive shouting" and hey presto.

I’m not ‘the nuetral voice of reason’ (but please point to where I’ve ever claimed to be). I’m making an assertion based on my perception of the issue we’re talking about. I’m happy to be wrong.

It’s telling that you don’t want to disagree (because disagreement is sin, obvs), instead you want make dishonest ad homs.

ID politics innit

 

[Shechemite]

"Some" on the 'terf' position and "many" on the 'tw = w!!!' position. How interesting. Please do expand on how you're sailing above the fray, the neutral voice of reason.

As an aside, I love how putting quotes and exclamation marks in front of a phrase can make it look like the mindless group chanting of unreasonable people. Add in a vague allusion to "abusive shouting" and hey presto.

Oh and to take your lead in being a dick, your post here is truly moronic.

 

[Rob Ray]

Goodness, how unreasonable. It's almost as though you're not in fact above a bit of rudeness when you feel put upon, and perhaps should consider this before leaping in to condemn trans people and their supporters as unreasoned ID Pol mentalists when individuals sometimes lose their tempers in the face of a concerted campaign of nastiness.

 

[newbie]

And that’s a touch more equitable than shouting ‘trans women are women’ and being abusive to anyone who thinks otherwise.

the comparison is with the FA's behind closed doors approach to identifying who they do and don't consider to be a woman, not with the leafletters, and to illustrate that simply banning male-bodied athletes from women’s sporting competitions isn't particularly credible.

All sports seem to have different approaches. A transgender woman would have easily won the womens weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games if she hadn't dislocated her elbow. By contrast women compete equally with men in horseracing, and have done since the original Sex Discrimination Act in the 70s.

However you are right, this thread is about leafletters

 

[Shechemite]

the comparison is with the FA's behind closed doors approach to identifying who they do and don't consider to be a woman, not with the leafletters, and to illustrate that simply banning male-bodied athletes from women’s sporting competitions isn't particularly credible.

All sports seem to have different approaches. A transgender woman would have easily won the womens weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games if she hadn't dislocated her elbow. By contrast women compete equally with men in horseracing, and have done since the original Sex Discrimination Act in the 70s.

However you are right, this thread is about leafletters

Well it’s an important development so useful to read about. Food for thought.

 

[Shechemite]

Goodness, how unreasonable.

Do you have a point?

I have no obligation to be ‘reasonable’.

 

[Shechemite]

You have nothing to say Rob Ray

Which you know.

 

[Rob Ray]

With you? Yes, it's that maybe rather than doing this:

And that’s a touch more equitable than shouting ‘trans women are women’ and being abusive to anyone who thinks otherwise.

As though you're in a position to judge you could stand to wind your neck in a bit and ponder that maybe trans people losing their tempers sometimes in the face of a poisonous campaign to deny they have a right to exist is entirely understandable and not actually intrinsic to their campaign for recognition, nor does it represent the sum of their political outlook and contribution.

Edit: Tbh I'm kind of amazed at this Jekyll and Hide performance - touch a nerve did I?

 

[Shechemite]

With you? Yes, it's that maybe rather than doing this:


As though you're in a position to judge you could stand to wind your neck in a bit and ponder that maybe trans people losing their tempers sometimes in the face of a poisonous campaign to deny they have a right to exist is entirely understandable and not actually intrinsic to their campaign for recognition, nor does it represent the sum of their political outlook and contribution.

Edit: Tbh I'm kind of amazed at this Jekyll and Hide performance - touch a nerve did I?

Except I wasn’t talking about trans people. Believe it or not all trans identifying people have the same politics. I explicitly referenced a particular political position, and a particular political style.

If you’re too thick to read what others say, that’s about you, not anyone else.

And fuck off with your ‘wind your neck in’. You know nothing about my personal existence, certainly nothing about my relationship with my body, and with gender.

 

[Shechemite]

Edit: Tbh I'm kind of amazed at this Jekyll and Hide performance - touch a nerve did I?

You’re going to say I’m gaslighting next

 

[Shechemite]

Do you suffer from dysphoria Rob Ray ? Have you ever been given a diagnosis about it?

Who the fuck are you to tell me to ‘wind my neck in’.

Fucking mug.

 

[Shechemite]

ID politics writ large: there are discrete, concrete identities; these indentities have inherent cultures, beliefs, politics; any lack of compliance with these beliefs is an attack on the existence of that ‘identity’.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

As though you're in a position to judge you could stand to wind your neck in a bit and ponder that maybe trans people losing their tempers sometimes in the face of a poisonous campaign to deny they have a right to exist is entirely understandable and not actually intrinsic to their campaign for recognition, nor does it represent the sum of their political outlook and contribution.

A major contributing factor to this toxic mess is people’s insistence that those who are questioning self ID are “denying trans people the right to exist”.
Sure, there’s some horrible people perhaps doing that but not everyone (most?) can be simply dismisssed as doing so.

 

[Rob Ray]

Except I wasn’t talking about trans people. Believe it or not all trans identifying people have the same politics. I explicitly referenced a particular political position, and a particular political style.

Wait trans people don't all agree?? Mind. Blown.

More seriously though, what you went after was trans people and their allies, yes with a specific position on trans rights but your implication has repeatedly been holding that position entails a particular, concerted political style, characterised as three exclamation marks-worth of unstable.

I don't care about and haven't at any point mentioned your personal relationship with gender, what I'm getting at is the assumptions and characterisations being made about trans people and their allies who have been under continuous attack, which you've been contributing to above, and its impact on the adult debate you seem to be saying you want.

I mean no-one forced you to like an unsourced, inaccurate post that happened to paint the trans rights movement as some sort of malignant "ID Pol" force making people support them, for example — that was you participating in the construction of a shibboleth.

 

[Shechemite]

Wait trans people don't all agree?? Mind. Blown.

More seriously though, what you went after was trans people and their allies, yes with a specific position on trans rights but your implication has repeatedly been holding that position entails a particular, concerted political style, characterised as three exclamation marks-worth of unstable.

I don't care about and haven't at any point mentioned your personal relationship with gender, what I'm getting at is the assumptions and characterisations being made about trans people and their allies who have been under continuous attack, which you've been contributing to above, and its impact on the adult debate you seem to be saying you want.

I mean no-one forced you to like an unsourced, inaccurate post that happened to paint the trans rights movement as some sort of malignant "ID Pol" force making people support them, for example — that was you participating in the construction of a shibboleth.

Again nothing (but transparent disingenuounity).

What’s a ‘trans person’? Who are the ‘allies’ of trans people?

‘Trans people and their allies’. Dear god.

 

[Rob Ray]

A major contributing factor to this toxic mess is people’s insistence that those who are questioning self ID are “denying trans people the right to exist”.
Sure, there’s some horrible people perhaps doing that but not everyone (most?) can be simply dismisssed as doing so.

So to go back to the structure of the sentence for a minute, "people’s insistence" meaning who? All pro-trans people? Probably not. So who? some people on the internet? Some people who shout at rallies? Why is this phrase a focal point?

What is meant by the phrase? Does it have a unified meaning? Is it always referring to the practice of questioning or debating self ID whoever is doing it, or is it more aimed at people who use the word "questioning" as a handy shield when what they actually mean is "campaigning against expanded rights for trans people."

As MiB so eloquently notes, there isn't "a" trans position here, just people, some of whom I would agree are headbangers, some of whom just don't put things very well, some of whom like a good slogan, some of whom don't use the phrase at all etc - like basically every campaign ever.

This is what I'm trying to get at. Yes sometimes people talk a lot of rubbish online. But the construction of an "ID Pol" dismissal and/or acceptance of a (heavily trailed across the mainstream press) view that trans rights advocates are unreasonable on a concerted basis is also foolish.