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My daughter was in Cardiff the other day when a woman approached her and handed her a flier about the preservation of woman-only spaces, against transwomen. My daughter quickly scanned it and then gave it back to her saying, "These spaces should be open to all women, however they became so, as they are all women and they are all equal." She said she felt very angry that people should be prejudicial, it annoyed her feminism. I was very proud of her.
David Tennant the actor who played Dr Who for several years, and several meatier roles, was awarded an award by an LGBT group for his support of gay and trans people. He said it was pity that people couldn't be who they felt themselves to be or become who they wanted. He then complained about Kemi Badenoch, wishing she would disappear and shut up. Badenoch is Equalities minister and is the only black woman in the cabinet and she has a record of criticising transwomen and calling for things to be determined by biological sex not preferred gender. She of course came back at Tennant and got plenty of space in the Tory press, which pleased the bigot plenty.
An article in today's i newspaper by Kuba Shand Baptiste analyses it beautifully, Badenoch like many bigots sounds sympathetic to one side of an argument because it enhances her position or reputation, she makes the victim seem guilty and then revels in the praise she gets from the aggressors. It is done with false sincerity, while appearing to be totally sincere, but it's all pretence. Trump is another master of the art of insincerity as many politicians and one rather wealthy woman writer of awful novels, the insincerity drips off them like sweat on a hot day. And I thought my daughter's attitude was so adult and insightful, mind you she'll be 46 in a month and very clever as well as independent, and I hope I have helped her be so fair-minded. So I am proud of her, as well as love her to bits.
Comments
What a lovely true story!
I'm convinced that we have far less influence on how our kids develop than we think we do, but kids don't get good values out of nowhere. If my child did something like that, I'd be positively bursting with pride!!!
Emma
far less influence on how our kids develop
You're right we do have far less influence on how our kids develop than we think. But when they turn out good it's nice to think we might have been a good influence on them.
How your kids turn out can go both ways. Kids don't come with instruction manuals. I have two diametrically opposite in that area. One turned out to be highly motivated to coast through life. She skipped school to the point of never graduating and wasn't willing to put in the work to get a GED. As such she's unemployable at 55 years of age and living with us. The other stuck out her high school years and has worked steady since graduation. 28 years ago she married a solid, hard working man and they have produce two wonderful grandchildren for us. (The boy just got married on the first.) '
To be honest, each of them are the person they are in spite of me. I really worked hard at getting my oldest to straighten up and fly right. It seems that the harder I tried to shape her the more she veered off; defying all our efforts as parents. The other one hardly ever gave me cause to be displeased with her.
To my surprise, my youngest often credits my example when she makes decisions in life, where as the oldest blames me for her messed up attitude. Go figure.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
couldn't say
where my daughter stands on the subject but she doesn't seem to be phased by my 6yo grandson wearing nail polish and liking 'girly' stuff over more traditional boy choices.
And yes i'm proud of her and worry about her and yes, she's in her fifth decade now and we get on better now than we ever did when she was younger, we do share similar tastes in music and reading and other stuff. Have i had any influence on her? who can say? Maybe its what we don't do that matters?
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Proud as You Should Be
I'm proud of her also as she stated very eloquently and clearly her own opinion on a hot button subject. I also agree with J K Rowling who really shows zero tolerance toward transgender. It's her right to voice an opinion on what she thinks of those such as myself. I may agree with Trump but disagree he has the right as the leader of a Free Nation to put his opinion into laws causing hardship, pain, and suffering on the smallest minority. I feel the same about Oklahoma Gov. Stitt passing executive orders against transgender and regulating those like myself to non entity.
It doesn't make anyone less human, less of a person for what they believe and say. What makes them wrong is trying to impose their ideas, their emotions, their belief on someone else. This is the exact kind of person who wants to rule over everyone else. It's not only wrong but it's evil. Wrapping all their motives, their ideas, their drive to correct all those they believe doesn't belong to the human genome is following Satan. No matter how loud they screech they are religious and following God, they got it wrong. The worse fanatics are the ones spouting religion and are saving us from ourselves and eternal damnation. They have wrapped themselves up in a mantel of self righteousness and were appointed by God to save us.
I have few words of wisdom to offer to anyone who runs into these people. Do exactly as Angharad's daughter did. Hand them the truth and move on. Don't waste your life debating them.
Hugs Angharad
Barb
Life is a precious gift and too short to waste tilting at windmills.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
one rather wealthy woman writer of awful novels
She's an awful person; what other kind of novels could she write?
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
The novels may be bad ...
... but I wouldn't know, never having read any of them. I watched the films on my PC last year and wasn't impressed but they're not aimed at 84 year olds (they vaguely amused and were free :) ). What the books did do is get youngsters reading - even if it was poor literature. Who am I to criticise? At their age I devoured Enid Blyton, WE Johns, Dornford Yates, Leslie Charteris and even Hank Jansen amongst others who are probably no longer read widely and are hardly considered literary genii.
Her attitude to trans-women is reprehensible but I wonder if it's due to some early life trauma. I do wonder at the reaction if someone like the late April Ashley (showing my age again!) or even (say) Angharad used the Gents toilets in a pub. Do they really believe that trans-women are only interested in attacking 'real' women in female only refuges and make the enormous sacrifices they do solely for that purpose?
Danger in the restroom
Those who oppose the use of the women's room by trans-women don't stop to think, or don't care, about the danger a trans-woman would face using the men's room. I debated for a long time about using the public restroom when out and about. I made a real effort to locate all the places in the areas that I frequented that had "family restrooms" so that I didn't have "invade" the "women only" sanctuary. I minded my early childhood training to go potty before venturing out. When wearing obviously women's clothing I sense the vulnerability of cis women. But I feel that it is magnified for trans-women.
Look at the number of our sisters who have been murdered by men. What was their crime? They dressed as women and made the men uncomfortable to be around them in public places. Now imagine how uncomfortable these irrational "men" would feel if they encountered a trans woman in their "men only" space.
My personal turning point in my internal debate came when one day I found myself out and about in desperate need of a rest room and no family restroom in striking distance. I tried to hold it as best I could, but in the end I had to use the facility or make a mess in my panties. I remember the outfit I was wearing as if it was yesterday. It was a pants and a top with strappy mid-heeled sandals. In desperation, I charged into the men's room, straight to the stall and sat to relieve myself. I breathed a sigh of relief that there were no men in there when I came in. However, that relief was short lived. As i was finishing up in the stall I heard the door open and close; footsteps to the urinal. In near panic I double checked that I was presentable an beat feet for the door out of there. The man was standing at the urinal and didn't turned his head, but the clacking of the hard sole of my shoes on the tile floor was distinctly not manly.
I was fortunate that he was occupied and I was able to escape without a confrontation. But that made me seriously reconsider my situation. OK, let's think about the worst case scenario if I went in the women's room. If I was read as a trans-woman, and a woman objected to me being there, it likely wouldn't result in violence. On the other hand, suppose there had been two men who had come into that restroom and just one of them had been homo/trans phobic and confronted me in the restroom. what are the odds that would have resulted in violence?
No thank you, I'll take my chances in the women's room. Since then, I've not concerned myself about using the women's room. Most often I don't interact with the other women I encounter while in there, but those few times that I have, have been without incident. But then I live in Oregon, on the whole a liberal state.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
what other kind of novels could she write?
She writes crime fiction using the name 'Robert Galbraith'. The 'Strike' series of stories isn't that bad.
My choice of name for my Transgender Policeman (Roberta Galbraith) was made before I became aware of her anti-trans stance. (around 2016 in my case when I made some notes about a character that became Roberta)
Samantha
hmmm
pot calling the kettle springs to mind!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Robert Galbraith
Was part of the name of a proponent of 'conversion therapy', i.e. torturing LGBT folk until they act straight. She has now admitted that she lifted several of the names in her derivative children's books from what she called a 'tragic love story': Lolita. Content warning for link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Galbraith_Heath
A new nickname for Rowling is 'Enoch Blyton', where Enoch Powell was a famously right wing UK politician, and racist, and Enid Blyton was a famous UK children's author. And racist.
Enoch Powell
I heard him speak in 1972. There were a bunch of left wing hecklers in the audience. He interrupted his speech to tell them,
"How about you shut up for the rest of this half of my speech. You might learn something. If you still want to heckle then do it after the break."
They shut up and let him speak about the errors we (the British) made in colonisation which led to the throwing out of Asian (Indian) workers from Kenya and Uganda. He hardly touched on UK Immigration policy. While I didn't agree with most of his views, the man could speak and hold an audience. Very few people today can do that.
What I'm trying to say is that we can learn even from our enemies (even if that is enjoying them dig themselves into a deep, deep hole).
Samantha
I haven't read them either but ...
... I watched some of the TV series on the iPlayer (IIRC - certainly on my PC as we've never owned a TV in nearly 60 years together). I quite enjoyed them.
I read Enid Blyton in the early 50s. when I was 9 or 10 (perhaps younger) and never noticed the racism but I did notice the classisms (her characters are very upper middle class - in the British sense). As regards racism, you must remember that as a child the only non-white faces I saw were those of miners when pit-head baths/showers didn't exist and I lived in a town that relied on coal mining for its existence. The world map on our classroom wall was predominantly red - showing the breadth of the British Empire in 1950. So we were as arrogant as US MAGA supporters are now, plus we were still suffering the after effects of WW2.
It was a very different time. I've witnessed and been part of huge changes, some better, some worse, mostly better IMO, but the 60s were a lorra fun :)
Childhood reading
As a voracious reader I have read a lot of Enid Blyton (in German translation) during the 1970s and 1980s. What stuck me the most at that time, was that a lot of the children characters in her stories were regularly shipped of to boarding schools, so the parents could have peace and quiet at home. Then during school vacations those self-same kids had to constantly tip-toe around their own “homes” in order to avoid exasperating their parents. I felt sorry for those unloved children.