Thank you Helen - one of your best pieces and thats saying something. Articulating what I have been thinking in ways I could not. And putting your head above the parapet where you may well be shot at by both sides.
Not being a 'joiner-in' is such a good phrase. Research, think, and decide for yourself rather than run with a pack. A sound principle for life.
I worked at Mumsnet during the Gaslighting Period you mention and I will never forget our sense of relief when you and a few others (you mention James Kirkup who was a total mensch) started to weigh in after we’d taken a total pummelling for what felt like forever. I really value your moral clarity on this, including your refusal to get dragged into what is (as you say) occasionally genuinely transphobic bullshit.
I’m so glad academics are now paying attention to the role Mumsnet played; and how people tried to bully you all into shutting down the conversation entirely, rather than just moderating it.
It’s a great sadness that now it seems like the “Posie Tendency” is the dominant strand of activism there.
Yes, sadly I agree with you on that. The dominant strain that’s emerged is bug-eyed, paranoid, dimwitted and occasionally hateful. The only mitigating factor I’d mention is that some of those women really went through the mill when this topic was at its maddest. It’s a horrible object lesson in radicalisation.
Yes, I’m not going to be too harsh on people who really did get cancelled (unlike people like me, who have kept their jobs and their friends). It’s an incredibly painful and disorienting experience to go through, and people seek comfort and alliances wherever they can—see also the drift of many of the IDW into conspiracism.
Borrowed from <gasp> Mumsnet. Re: Lefty Scolding, exemplified here by Rowan:
"We, Female Labour Party Members believe that for us to get anywhere in negotiating with the Labour Party, we must be perfect, as they will seize on anything, even the slightest change in facial expression, in order to brand us as bigots. Unfortunately, the rest of the party are a load of sexists who quite literally see women as a monolith, so any time any woman anywhere says something they think is prejudiced, they hold us responsible for it because we are also visibly female
"We have decided it's easier to whip the rest of the adult female population of the UK into abiding by Labour Party expectations, than to challenge Labour Party sexism and force them to treat women as individuals. So women, sit down and don't talk to anyone we didn't pre-approve!"
Is this temporary banning the result of an algorithm? Hope so. Hopefully you'll reinstate what I did say, as there's an unhelpful inference to be drawn that I was aggressive or disrespectful, which I wasn't.
I'll add, that there are some who have given ordinary, powerless women like me an opportunity to recount our experiences (mine in Primary Education, which led to me leaving my much-loved job in protest). Some of us were in that WPUK audience. I’m talking about Sex Matters, Transgendertrend, and yes, Graham Linehan and Kellie-Jay Keene (at her Standing for Women open events).
The temporary suspension of my comments here stands in stark contrast to that, which is a shame, because I liked your speech. I would suggest you stop worrying about ‘bug-eyed’ transphobes here in the UK - whose existence is vastly over-stated - stop side-swiping people who get their message across (fundamentally the same message as yours!) in different ways to different audiences. If you disagree with KJK invite her to debate. I’m pretty sure she’d agree and then we could see it all laid out and hopefully move past tiresome infighting.
You deserve credit for what you have done; so does she. And incidentally so do all of us who have spoken out even though we have no newspaper column in which to do so.
You don’t know what activism is ‘predominant’ on Mumsnet - you can’t possibly know what posters and lurkers like me are doing. Some of us will have found out about the WPUK meeting on there! God knows there are few enough opportunities to meet with like-minded people and we don’t want it tarnished.
Most of us are able to agree with most of what you say and most of what KJK says and does , and not name-call about the bits we don’t agree with.
Just to add (yes it's a long one) I find the attitude of 'purity' amongst the Left really really off-putting, and I know I am in good company. I was a Labour voter and would like to vote for them again, but as Susan Dalgety said in her speech at WPUK, the Left invited this culture war - it provided an open goal for the Tories. What is more profoundly ridiculous than claiming a man is a woman if he says so? The GRA was Labour legislation - led by "Men Can Have A Cervix" and "Women Are Rights-Hoarding Dinosaurs" David Lammy. They failed to heed the warnings that were there about Bad Actors taking advantage of this, and here we are, and frankly I'm not inclined to believe anything else they say at this point if they are prepared to say that.
An excellent speech. Maria McLachlan was sitting in front of me in the hall as you spoke; her experience of assault by a tall, young, trans-identifying male was one of the events which helped my daughters “peak” me. Her treatment by the judge, who criticised her for wanting to refer to him as a male (having promised to speak the truth in giving evidence) was a shameful moment for the law from which it has not yet recovered.
This is genuinely insane. Even if we take intersectionality/standpoint epistemology/victimhood olympics at face value - surely an actual rape victim would have a lot of victimhood points, probably even more than a trans "woman"?
Not if the rape victim is a woman, and the rapist is a man (all rapists are men). once you see the misogyny inherent in this ideology, you cannot unless it. It's a feature, not a bug
The group most supportive of the most extreme, science-denying version of trans activism is cisgender women. Do really think that they are deliberately misogynistic?
Benefit of the doubt is that they really are blind to the consequences of their own rhetoric.
Yes, I do think women can be misogynistic, and blind to it. It's so very upsetting how many women are pushing this. I also think that there are women who deliberately market themselves as 'not like other women'. They don't care because they don't think they will ever be in prison, be a victim of crime, need same-sex personal care, be in a homeless or domestic violence hostel. They can afford to be kinder to men than to other women, or to children. It's no skin off their nose if a man uses women's toilets because they, personally, don't have a problem with it. They have no problem with taking away other women's consent just as long as they are seen to be being kind and understanding to that man. Women and children matter less to them.
Right I agree with most of this description of how trans allies think, but I wouldn't necessarily label it "misogynistic". In my opinion, bigotry should be restricted to cases where a person's opinions are driven by their dislike of a particular outgroup. If supporting any idea that has negative outcomes for some group with protected characteristics, even as an unintended consequence, qualifies as bigotry, then literally everyone is bigoted.
I think that any man who says he is a woman because of how he feels, or what he wears, or his personality, is sexist - the very idea is rooted in sexist stereotypes. I think that anyone else who goes along with that, to the detriment of women, and children, shows clearly they care more about men than about women (which is misogynistic) and children.
Ms Lewis continues to deny that the "right," or conservatives more generally have had nothing to do with the festering pustule that is the gender/queer ideology movement. At every step she makes clear that conservative and reactionary voices are somehow complicit, that there is no way to talk about the excesses of this movement (some would say cult) without making sure that the mouth breathing morons who live to troll are brought along as if they have intellectual agency. They don't.
This cult like movement - well described both qualitatively and historically by Ms Lewis - can only be described as a product of the progressive left and their collective denial of human nature, their denial of their own dogma, and the idea laundering they have established in the academy. Had the trolls, reactionaries and conservatives not started yelling and proclaiming when they did, no pushback from Helen would have sufficed. She would have been steamrolled. And until recently, she has.
I live in Canada. The conservative political wing in this country is small beer. We elect them when shit goes bad, which is happening now. There is nothing about this movement/cult in Canada you can offload onto conservatives and reactionaries. They woke up to this medical and psychological atrocity 15 minutes ago. There is a massive lack of courage here which Helen acknowledges. But I refuse to let her off the hook with the both sides-ism.
I'm 64. I had two dear friends, very effeminate men, with whom I endured adolescence and early adulthood. I can't tell you how much I loved them and cherished deep and abiding friendship with them. Both of them died from AIDS before they turned 30, but they achieved adulthood fully, living as gay, effeminate men with realistic friends and parents looking over their shoulders.
They wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes with these ghouls. Progressive politics is evil. It needs to be abandoned.
People often say they are objective but this is an article from someone who has actively engaged rather than passively adapted. Highly recommend. I'll fawn no further. I take the point about the label 'groomer' but it would be a mistake to suppose that is only something only extremists would repeat. I read a Helen Pluckrose article where she says 'OK groomer' (a term devised by her colleague James Lindsay) is unhelpful. Yet after reading Helen Joyce, Hannah Barnes or even Kathleen Stock (who are incredibly measured in a way seldom credited) you may find it is a term that fits. Ideally it would be reserved for those cases - not that they are rare.
It was great to see Helen speak of Julie Bindel who I have long admired, without it turns out, fully appreciating her. I anticipated lots of good information when I got her book 'Feminism for Women' but what was unexpected that it would change my mind on issues that, steeped in complacency, I had long ceased to think about. Also for the first time I understood how some women have been recruited into acting against their own interests.
I'm just not a fan of thought-terminating cliches in general. I think "groomer" is a thing you say to own people on the internet, not because you want to open a serious discussion about child safeguarding. None of the three writers you mention use it, as far as I can remember: Helen Joyce writes about paraphilias in a useful scientific tone.
No those people have never used that term and I regret any implication made that they ever did. What I was trying to say (incompetently as it turns out) that in 'Trans', 'Material Girls' and 'Time to Think' there were clear instances of what could be legitimately called grooming. I don't advocate calling people groomers for all the reasons you have already given whilst accepting that it was precisely what I appeared to be saying. Mea culpa.
The person you refer to (who you don't name but I think we know) HAS opened a serious discussion about child safeguarding. Shame it's not a way that appeals to you, but we are all different.
You write so well - this is an excellent piece. The presentations at the Women in Journalism event were encouraging, and demonstrated that there is after all some strong mainstream journalism on this subject in the Spectator and the Observer. I admire the courage of yourself and other women journalists for not being cowed. But I also think that the grassroots work of GL and KJK on this issue is vitally important too. The ideological arguments used to justify the 'transing' of children and the removal of women's sex based rights - involve such a tortuous adjustment of language and meaning. It is sometimes a relief to hear raw, clear responses. The reach of GI is so wide that everyone who cares about it has a role in limiting the harm.
So much tricky navigating going on. So many painful moments. Thankyou for the vulnerability and being convinced to side step tribal flag waving. I’m glad for the discoveries you’ve made in those excellent writers and hidden heroes.
Thank you Helen - one of your best pieces and thats saying something. Articulating what I have been thinking in ways I could not. And putting your head above the parapet where you may well be shot at by both sides.
Not being a 'joiner-in' is such a good phrase. Research, think, and decide for yourself rather than run with a pack. A sound principle for life.
“Expenses cheat Maria Miller” is the most brilliant effortless-seeming zinger. I yelped.
And journalists as not-joiners-in: yes yes yes.
luv 2 b one of life's goats
Or geese? “Journalists as farmyard animals - an analysis”
I worked at Mumsnet during the Gaslighting Period you mention and I will never forget our sense of relief when you and a few others (you mention James Kirkup who was a total mensch) started to weigh in after we’d taken a total pummelling for what felt like forever. I really value your moral clarity on this, including your refusal to get dragged into what is (as you say) occasionally genuinely transphobic bullshit.
I’m so glad academics are now paying attention to the role Mumsnet played; and how people tried to bully you all into shutting down the conversation entirely, rather than just moderating it.
It’s a great sadness that now it seems like the “Posie Tendency” is the dominant strand of activism there.
Yes, sadly I agree with you on that. The dominant strain that’s emerged is bug-eyed, paranoid, dimwitted and occasionally hateful. The only mitigating factor I’d mention is that some of those women really went through the mill when this topic was at its maddest. It’s a horrible object lesson in radicalisation.
Yes, I’m not going to be too harsh on people who really did get cancelled (unlike people like me, who have kept their jobs and their friends). It’s an incredibly painful and disorienting experience to go through, and people seek comfort and alliances wherever they can—see also the drift of many of the IDW into conspiracism.
Borrowed from <gasp> Mumsnet. Re: Lefty Scolding, exemplified here by Rowan:
"We, Female Labour Party Members believe that for us to get anywhere in negotiating with the Labour Party, we must be perfect, as they will seize on anything, even the slightest change in facial expression, in order to brand us as bigots. Unfortunately, the rest of the party are a load of sexists who quite literally see women as a monolith, so any time any woman anywhere says something they think is prejudiced, they hold us responsible for it because we are also visibly female
"We have decided it's easier to whip the rest of the adult female population of the UK into abiding by Labour Party expectations, than to challenge Labour Party sexism and force them to treat women as individuals. So women, sit down and don't talk to anyone we didn't pre-approve!"
You have posted too many comments in a short period, triggering a 24hr suspension.
Is this temporary banning the result of an algorithm? Hope so. Hopefully you'll reinstate what I did say, as there's an unhelpful inference to be drawn that I was aggressive or disrespectful, which I wasn't.
I'll add, that there are some who have given ordinary, powerless women like me an opportunity to recount our experiences (mine in Primary Education, which led to me leaving my much-loved job in protest). Some of us were in that WPUK audience. I’m talking about Sex Matters, Transgendertrend, and yes, Graham Linehan and Kellie-Jay Keene (at her Standing for Women open events).
The temporary suspension of my comments here stands in stark contrast to that, which is a shame, because I liked your speech. I would suggest you stop worrying about ‘bug-eyed’ transphobes here in the UK - whose existence is vastly over-stated - stop side-swiping people who get their message across (fundamentally the same message as yours!) in different ways to different audiences. If you disagree with KJK invite her to debate. I’m pretty sure she’d agree and then we could see it all laid out and hopefully move past tiresome infighting.
You deserve credit for what you have done; so does she. And incidentally so do all of us who have spoken out even though we have no newspaper column in which to do so.
You don’t know what activism is ‘predominant’ on Mumsnet - you can’t possibly know what posters and lurkers like me are doing. Some of us will have found out about the WPUK meeting on there! God knows there are few enough opportunities to meet with like-minded people and we don’t want it tarnished.
Most of us are able to agree with most of what you say and most of what KJK says and does , and not name-call about the bits we don’t agree with.
Just to add (yes it's a long one) I find the attitude of 'purity' amongst the Left really really off-putting, and I know I am in good company. I was a Labour voter and would like to vote for them again, but as Susan Dalgety said in her speech at WPUK, the Left invited this culture war - it provided an open goal for the Tories. What is more profoundly ridiculous than claiming a man is a woman if he says so? The GRA was Labour legislation - led by "Men Can Have A Cervix" and "Women Are Rights-Hoarding Dinosaurs" David Lammy. They failed to heed the warnings that were there about Bad Actors taking advantage of this, and here we are, and frankly I'm not inclined to believe anything else they say at this point if they are prepared to say that.
Good speech. Could have done without the side-swipe at people who do things differently from you. It was out of place in the context of that meeting.
An excellent speech. Maria McLachlan was sitting in front of me in the hall as you spoke; her experience of assault by a tall, young, trans-identifying male was one of the events which helped my daughters “peak” me. Her treatment by the judge, who criticised her for wanting to refer to him as a male (having promised to speak the truth in giving evidence) was a shameful moment for the law from which it has not yet recovered.
This is genuinely insane. Even if we take intersectionality/standpoint epistemology/victimhood olympics at face value - surely an actual rape victim would have a lot of victimhood points, probably even more than a trans "woman"?
Not if the rape victim is a woman, and the rapist is a man (all rapists are men). once you see the misogyny inherent in this ideology, you cannot unless it. It's a feature, not a bug
The group most supportive of the most extreme, science-denying version of trans activism is cisgender women. Do really think that they are deliberately misogynistic?
Benefit of the doubt is that they really are blind to the consequences of their own rhetoric.
Yes, I do think women can be misogynistic, and blind to it. It's so very upsetting how many women are pushing this. I also think that there are women who deliberately market themselves as 'not like other women'. They don't care because they don't think they will ever be in prison, be a victim of crime, need same-sex personal care, be in a homeless or domestic violence hostel. They can afford to be kinder to men than to other women, or to children. It's no skin off their nose if a man uses women's toilets because they, personally, don't have a problem with it. They have no problem with taking away other women's consent just as long as they are seen to be being kind and understanding to that man. Women and children matter less to them.
Right I agree with most of this description of how trans allies think, but I wouldn't necessarily label it "misogynistic". In my opinion, bigotry should be restricted to cases where a person's opinions are driven by their dislike of a particular outgroup. If supporting any idea that has negative outcomes for some group with protected characteristics, even as an unintended consequence, qualifies as bigotry, then literally everyone is bigoted.
I think that any man who says he is a woman because of how he feels, or what he wears, or his personality, is sexist - the very idea is rooted in sexist stereotypes. I think that anyone else who goes along with that, to the detriment of women, and children, shows clearly they care more about men than about women (which is misogynistic) and children.
Ms Lewis continues to deny that the "right," or conservatives more generally have had nothing to do with the festering pustule that is the gender/queer ideology movement. At every step she makes clear that conservative and reactionary voices are somehow complicit, that there is no way to talk about the excesses of this movement (some would say cult) without making sure that the mouth breathing morons who live to troll are brought along as if they have intellectual agency. They don't.
This cult like movement - well described both qualitatively and historically by Ms Lewis - can only be described as a product of the progressive left and their collective denial of human nature, their denial of their own dogma, and the idea laundering they have established in the academy. Had the trolls, reactionaries and conservatives not started yelling and proclaiming when they did, no pushback from Helen would have sufficed. She would have been steamrolled. And until recently, she has.
I live in Canada. The conservative political wing in this country is small beer. We elect them when shit goes bad, which is happening now. There is nothing about this movement/cult in Canada you can offload onto conservatives and reactionaries. They woke up to this medical and psychological atrocity 15 minutes ago. There is a massive lack of courage here which Helen acknowledges. But I refuse to let her off the hook with the both sides-ism.
I'm 64. I had two dear friends, very effeminate men, with whom I endured adolescence and early adulthood. I can't tell you how much I loved them and cherished deep and abiding friendship with them. Both of them died from AIDS before they turned 30, but they achieved adulthood fully, living as gay, effeminate men with realistic friends and parents looking over their shoulders.
They wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes with these ghouls. Progressive politics is evil. It needs to be abandoned.
Excellent piece, because based on years of hard work / clear thinking / integrity.
Thank you 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
People often say they are objective but this is an article from someone who has actively engaged rather than passively adapted. Highly recommend. I'll fawn no further. I take the point about the label 'groomer' but it would be a mistake to suppose that is only something only extremists would repeat. I read a Helen Pluckrose article where she says 'OK groomer' (a term devised by her colleague James Lindsay) is unhelpful. Yet after reading Helen Joyce, Hannah Barnes or even Kathleen Stock (who are incredibly measured in a way seldom credited) you may find it is a term that fits. Ideally it would be reserved for those cases - not that they are rare.
It was great to see Helen speak of Julie Bindel who I have long admired, without it turns out, fully appreciating her. I anticipated lots of good information when I got her book 'Feminism for Women' but what was unexpected that it would change my mind on issues that, steeped in complacency, I had long ceased to think about. Also for the first time I understood how some women have been recruited into acting against their own interests.
I'm just not a fan of thought-terminating cliches in general. I think "groomer" is a thing you say to own people on the internet, not because you want to open a serious discussion about child safeguarding. None of the three writers you mention use it, as far as I can remember: Helen Joyce writes about paraphilias in a useful scientific tone.
No those people have never used that term and I regret any implication made that they ever did. What I was trying to say (incompetently as it turns out) that in 'Trans', 'Material Girls' and 'Time to Think' there were clear instances of what could be legitimately called grooming. I don't advocate calling people groomers for all the reasons you have already given whilst accepting that it was precisely what I appeared to be saying. Mea culpa.
The person you refer to (who you don't name but I think we know) HAS opened a serious discussion about child safeguarding. Shame it's not a way that appeals to you, but we are all different.
Terrific
Just terrific from word one to the end
Excellent
Great piece. And brilliant punchline.
Love your writing, Helen. 💜 I read or listen to anything you’re attached to!
Great speech.
You write so well - this is an excellent piece. The presentations at the Women in Journalism event were encouraging, and demonstrated that there is after all some strong mainstream journalism on this subject in the Spectator and the Observer. I admire the courage of yourself and other women journalists for not being cowed. But I also think that the grassroots work of GL and KJK on this issue is vitally important too. The ideological arguments used to justify the 'transing' of children and the removal of women's sex based rights - involve such a tortuous adjustment of language and meaning. It is sometimes a relief to hear raw, clear responses. The reach of GI is so wide that everyone who cares about it has a role in limiting the harm.
So much tricky navigating going on. So many painful moments. Thankyou for the vulnerability and being convinced to side step tribal flag waving. I’m glad for the discoveries you’ve made in those excellent writers and hidden heroes.