Name: How Britain’s Feminist Grass Roots Turned the Tide Against Gender Extremists - Quillette
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How Britain’s Feminist Grass Roots Turned the Tide Against Gender Extremists - Quillette

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In the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic and a series of massive protests over racist police brutality in the United States, one might find it hard to believe that an author’s common-sense views on human biology would make headlines. Yet everywhere you look, you’ll see coverage of Harry Potter author , who’s now being denounced as “transphobic” for speaking about the differences between men and women.In fact, so much attention has been focused on Rowling that some have missed the more significant British news in this area: The country’s Conservative government is distancing itself from proposed legislative reforms that would have enshrined gender “self-identification” over biological sex. Though Liz Truss, Minister for Women and Equalities, likely won’t be releasing the government’s policy response till July, leaks confirm that “self-ID” (as it’s widely known) will . Moreover, Truss says she wants to protect gender dysphoric children from making “” in regard to their bodies, and would allow women to create and maintain safe free of male-bodied individuals. This is a huge win for so-called “gender-critical” activists, who lack the deep pockets and institutional influence of the far more fashionable trans-rights lobby—even if there is still a long way to go to repair the damage that’s already been done.At less visible levels of policy-making, too, there have been substantial changes. The (NHS) has changed its advice on paediatric transitioning, which now reflects the fact that there is scant evidence to support aggressive therapeutic options at an early age. NHS resources also now warn parents in regard to the possible negative effects of some therapies on brain, heart, and bone health. Under threat of initiated by a 14-year-old girl, the Crown Prosecution Service withdrew a hate-crimes directive that would have enlisted teachers to bully girls into accepting males in their bathrooms. The fact that anyone thought this was a good policy in the first place shows how thoroughly trans-activist extremism had permeated official agencies.To understand why it has taken so long for these policies to be rolled back, it is important to consider the outsized influence of websites such as , which purport to advance mainstream LGBT news and attitudes, but in fact have been co-opted by a highly motivated faction of (mostly male) trans activists. This vocal minority attracted little opposition when transgender anti-discrimination provisions originally were implemented to protect a few thousand British transsexuals (as many then commonly self-described). But things changed when legions of middle-aged men suddenly began insisting that they were women trapped in the wrong bodies (not to mention a massive surge in adolescent girls laying claim to the opposite path). Women who spoke up about this were systematically pushed out of any public square—the same treatment that some are seeking to impose on Rowling. But thankfully, times are changing.Here are the death threats and harassment JK Rowling has been recieving. Including abuse from verified accounts.Dozens of hit pieces written about “the backlash to her transphobia.” Not one mentioned the threats she’s receiving from these radical activists.— Dataracer (@Dataracer117)Because of Britain’s system of devolved political administration, the situation is still in flux, however. officials, in particular, have suggested they may impose a policy of self-ID on their own initiative, despite receiving low public support in two separate rounds of . But even in Scotland, I’ve observed women organizing at the grassroots level to oppose male encroachment on their spaces—the only option we had before Rowling and other mainstream media figures began speaking out openly on our behalf. Ultimately, what motivated us wasn’t ideology, but safety. It should never be a hate crime for a woman to say, “I just don’t want to share a swimming-pool changing room with men.” Yet that was where things were headed.In late 2019, trans activists protested feminist ’s appearances at libraries in Vancouver and Toronto, where she discussed how all of these issues are affecting the safety of Canadian women. These confrontations became national news in Canada, and Toronto chief librarian Vickery Bowles was lauded for her to permit Murphy’s event. What is less known is that something similar played out in February 2020, when the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) no-platformed a feminist group called For Women Scotland (FWS), whose members wanted to discuss the proposed implementation of self-ID policies. At first, the feminist group was told that the library was cancelling the booking to repair a . GWL then denied the group an on the basis that they were fully booked. Eventually, GWL confirmed publicly that they’d cancelled the booking because FWS’s “values” with those of their institution.This venue hire is no longer taking place. Initially it was cancelled due to our building closure but it has since come to light that the person who made the booking was doing so on behalf of an org whose values do not align with GWLs. 1/2— Glasgow Women’s Library (@womenslibrary)Think about that: A “women’s library” tells its supporters that it is refusing to hold an event dedicated to protecting actual women—out of deference to self-identified women whose claim to womanhood is based on filling out a form on a government website.Needless to say, FWS members were . And this is part of a pattern: Whenever women have attempted to meet to discuss the impact of gender ideology-driven public policy on women’s rights, venues are bombarded with tweets, calls, emails, and other forms of pressure from trans activists who claim that giving an audience to the other side of the debate is inherently hateful. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, activists have led a genuinely McCarthy-esque campaign of against dissenters.The Scottish Poetry Library deserves credit as one of the first British institutions to take a stand against this bullying. In February, it released a decrying “bullying and calls for no-platforming of writers in events programmes and in publishing”—a move widely interpreted as being directed at gender extremists seeking to excommunicate local feminists. Approximately 500 writers and readers, including novelists Joan Smith and Lionel Shriver, added their names to an open letter the library for defending freedom of expression.Asif Khan, director of the Scottish Poetry Library, was pointed in his response when Scottish PEN—a group that ostensibly supports freedom of speech—somehow saw fit to slam the library for its pro-free-speech policy. “It is ironic that on International Women’s Day we find ourselves turning a blind eye to the censorship that is the ultimate endgame of no-platforming,” of PEN. “My thoughts are with all the women writers of the world who are prisoners of conscience. I’m afraid this might happen here, too, unless freedom of speech is championed.”It is telling that Khan is a man. For their own part, many Scottish women speak seldom, or only on condition of anonymity, about the abuse and attacks they continue to face simply for being critical of gender ideology in a country that has enabled trans activists to set the tone in literary life. As one to an wrote, “I know that if I speak out publicly at my [publisher], then I risk not having my contract renewed.” Another wrote, “My publishing house is currently all about ‘diversity’ and I know that if I speak out publicly then I risk not having my contract renewed which, being the sole earner in my home… a risk I literally cannot afford.” Other authors how their professional and personal lives were disrupted and curtailed by aggressive trans activists.It would be wrong to present these trans activists as working together as a single unit, let alone any kind of unified conspiracy. For the most part, this is nothing but a loose network of privileged millennials leveraging their positions within activism, arts, and academia to censor, ostracise, and, where they think necessary, punish women who oppose the idea that a man can become a woman by an act of self-declaration. Like all extremists, they believe their ruthless tactics put them on the side of angels. Unaccustomed to life on the breadline, they believe that any harm to a woman’s livelihood, relationships, professional networks, health, and security to be justifiable collateral damage in what they see as the great struggle of our time—the fight against transphobia.Eager to please this constituency, certain literary businesses, such as Lighthouse bookshop in Edinburgh, now actually about excluding Rowling’s books from their shelves. For its part, London’s Second Shelf bookshop didn’t remove Rowling’s books, but announced that every time someone bought one, they’d make a to a lobby group that supports paediatric transitioning. Some activists even about scrubbing Rowling’s name off the entire Harry Potter universe.Court: Gender-critical anti-trans beliefs are not worthy of respect in a democratic society, are incompatible w/ human rights of others.JK Rowling : Bigots must be allowed to be bigoted at work, protect the bigots!Hermione : Fuck you.— Lighthouse – Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop (@Lighthousebks)The novelists, librarians, and booksellers circling the wagons to shut women up have been insisting for years that they are motivated by nothing but love and tolerance. And for a while, people took them at their word—including many policymakers and legislators. But all cults eventually collapse under the weight of their own dogma once its absurdity is exposed. And thanks to the grass-roots efforts of women on both side of the Atlantic, that is what we now see happening. Erin Perse writes blogs at , and tweets at .Featured image: Liz Truss, currently serving as UK Secretary of State for International Trade, President of the Board of Trade, and Minister for Women and Equalities, photographed in 2013.Ironically, the radical trans activists who claim to be fighting against transphobia are causing a tremendous amount of harm to the cause they claim to support. Their tactics are reprehensible – “activists have led a genuinely McCarthy-esque campaign of against dissenters” – and their goals are indefensible. In a sane world, J.K. Rowling would be properly recognized as an ally of trans people: like most liberals (and many conservatives), she believes that they should be accepted, respected and supported. But the trans-activist “cult” demands completely fealty to its “absurd dogma,” demonizing and seeking to “censor, ostracise and … punish” anyone who refuses to kowtow to its agenda. Let’s hope that the author is right that the tide has finally turned.This kind of extremism threatens to alienate well-meaning people who are otherwise sympathetic to the challenges faced by trans people. Trans activists seem to be care more about ideological purity tests than the well-being of the individuals they claim to represent. Their campaign of intimidation is generating a backlash that’s likely to slow or even reverse the progress that trans people have made toward social acceptance. The activists may have good intentions, but I fear they’re paving the road to hell for ordinary trans people, women who want to retain access to single-sex spaces, and children who may be irreversibly harmed by decisions they come to regret. Thank goodness for brave celebrities like Rowling and for legislators and policy-makers who will not capitulate to the extremists’ demands.Do not be so foolish as to believe that this is some sort of a victory of feminists over trans. This is a minor victory of sanity over madness. Now that feminists have decided that biology is real after all, they will have to deal with the men they decried for years as patriarchal biological determinists.But all cults eventually collapse under the weight of their own dogma once its absurdity is exposed.or as I prefer it,For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.Pslam 33:4One of the causes of these problems is the tendency of governments to legislate more legal rights than can be exercised without clashing with the rights of others. These become legislated conflicts. As with governments printing too much money and causing inflation, legislating rights for one group without considering the impact on the rights of others creates inevitable rights inflation, leading to clashes of the type we see in this article.K_Dershem:Ironically, the radical trans activists who claim to be fighting against transphobia are causing a tremendous amount of harm to the cause they claim to support.Maybe they aren’t really interested in Trans people at all? Perhaps they just want to bully people to fall in line with “the cause”.Edit: Here’s a snippet from Douglas Murray about thisAnd here we all thought they were trying to help!I get the impression that feminists are more anti male-to-female trans than they are female-to-male trans.Seems biased to me.Women who spoke up about this were systematically pushed out of any public squareI’ve observed women organizing at the grassroots level to oppose male encroachment on their spacesAnd thanks to the grass-roots efforts of women on both side of the AtlanticApparently only women have been objecting to this insanity, and only women who speak up are attacked by the mob, and only women have been trying to do anything to stop it.Question for the Brits: would self-ID have been held back if Corbyn had beaten Johnson? Or should the author really be thanking a conservative government instead of grass-roots efforts by women?You could edit this essay by replacing “transgendered” with “feminists” and “feminists” with “Men’s Rights Activists” and make exactly the same points.The feminists who now decry the loss of free speech when they are the ones under attack were the same ones de-platforming men for years when they dared raise similar issues. Where were these “defenders of free speech” when men were prevented from beginning a discussion of men’s rights on Canadian campuses? Where were they when the movie The Red Pill was being censored around the world?Where were they when men’s right to privacy was discarded so that female reporters could go into men’s changing rooms?Where? Firmly on the other side of the issue, that’s where. Then free speech was a tool of the patriarchy to oppress women. Speech became hate, and anyone opposing feminism was committing violence.The utter hypocrisy of feminists is simply jaw dropping. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, suddenly those principles of free speech are looking pretty good, aren’t they?GrumpyBear:Or should the author really be thanking a conservative government instead of grass-roots efforts…“Primary school disruption over LGBT teaching/relationships education” (link below) was published in October 2019. Boris Johnson hold the office from July 2019, conservative government – from 2010.Don’t underestimate grassroots efforts, @!It’s about time. What the trannies did was cleverly stow away on the gay rights ferry boat, thinking no one would notice, or rather that no one would dare want to be “on the wrong side of history.”Everyone who bought into this should hang their heads in shame. I’m talking to you Obama.I can certainly see why the trans-lobby is kicking up a huge fuss; intersectionality-wise, becoming a trans-woman is a HUGE upgrade. What with white hetero males at the bottom of the pile, and white gay males not much higher, (roughly at the same level as hetero white women) identifying as a ‘trans-woman’ vaults you into stratospheric heights, previously available only to gay black men! If THAT isn’t incentive enough to buy a set of fake tits, then nothing is!As an added bonus, hetero-trans-women get to serve time in women’s prisons where they can put their ‘womans penises’ to good use! They might not even get jail-time for diddling in the girls washroom because it’s a ‘woman’s thing’ right? Upgrade time!As a political movement, it started entirely as a movement of white (mostly Anglo) people who thought slavery is wrong, a mix of Enlightenment and radical Protestantism. The slaves couldn’t have represented themselves anyway and weren’t able to in the slightest until the 19th century.It’s mainly the white woke left that’s lecturing the rest of us, not black people. Black people are watching a intra-white drama.And here I thought the definition of feminism was ending double standards based on gender to achieve equality for everyone?On second thought, you’re probably right. The real agenda of feminism has nothing to do with equality, does it?Aprilg:You mean feminists are more concerned about how women’s rights are impacted by men than how men’s rights are impacted by women? I think that’s the definition of feminism actually.Advocates for prostrate cancer aren’t required to bang on about all other cancers that affect women & children as well. Feminism in general is about bringing attention to issues that specifically affect women most recently being domestic violence & sex assault/harassment & rape. Just like Men’s Rights Activists are rightly more advocating for mens issues like custody. Specialisation in concerns usually helps solve problems more than generalising does & doesn’t indicate lack of concern elsewhere.This is a false eqivalency. Advocates for prostate cancer don’t need to bang on about all other cancers because they do not claim to be fighting a principled campaign against illness, but fighting a particular disease.But feminism began by asserting that women’s fight for equality was actually just a part of a principled argument against sexism and double standards. The basic moral value underlying their argument is that women should be treated as equals because all humans deserve equality. For that reason, they are logically and ethically required to fight sexism against both genders- because only if they did so could they claim to be true to their core principle of equality.But in fact, the opposite is true. Feminists argue simultaneously that they are fighting sexism and double standards, while themselves being the major proponents of both. Look at the way they claìmed that we should always believe the victim in cases of alleged sexual harassment and assault- until Avital Ronell was acussed of harassing her man graduate student. Then Judith Butler, the icon of feminism, suddenly rushed to her rescue by arguing that Ronnell shouldn’t be held to the same standard as accused men. This isn’t an isolated instance. Asia Argento, co-founder of Metoo, posted pictures of herself in bed with a 17 year old boy in LA., a minor. No charges were pursued. Where were the feminist voices of outrage then?So yes, feminists definitely must be held to the same standards they impose on everyone else, and that includes holding them accountable for not rejecting their own misandry and double standards. Otherwise, why should anyone, man or woman, support them?39 more repliesQuillette contributor Helen Joyce talks to Jonathan Kay about the many ways in which gender ideologues have tied themselves in knots by trying to make the sisterhood more “inclusive”.Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here:

In the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic and a series of massive protests over racist police brutality in the United States, one might find it hard to believe that an author’s common-sense views on human biology would make headlines. Yet everywhere you look, you’ll see coverage of Harry Potter author , who’s now being denounced as “transphobic” for speaking about the differences between men and women.In fact, so much attention has been focused on Rowling that some have missed the more significant British news in this area: The country’s Conservative government is distancing itself from proposed...

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Quillette

Quillette is an online magazine founded by Australian journalist Claire Lehmann. The magazine primarily focuses on science, technology, news, culture, and politics. It also publishes two podcasts, namely Wrongspeak and the eponymous podcast Quillette. It is associated with the intellectual dark web. Quillette was originally created in 2015 to focus on scientific topics, but has come to focus on coverage of political and cultural issues concerning freedom of speech and identity politics. Its has been described as libertarian-leaning.

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