Yesterday, the news broke that The Guardian had edited out part of a Judith Butler article because editors did not like what she said. Judith, an American philosopher and established gender theorist is a lesbian and is associated with Yale University.
The article entitled ‘We Need to Rethink the Category of Woman’ has caused a storm on social media and in particular on Twitter because she associated ‘Terfism’ with neo Nazi and right-wing extremism.
Gender-crits (often called the derogatory term “TERF’s”) were outraged partly because of the article’s title but, more importantly, because the article countered many of their fundamental beliefs.
But worse was to follow for the gender criticals when we learnt of the edit. In particular, because they demand for people like Maya Forstater the right to ‘free speech’.
So the question is, why did the Guardian editors make this decision?
Was it because The Guardian wanted to stave off complaints, or perhaps more likely, did not want their principally gender-critical views challenged?
Indeed, The Guardian has been the source of internal battles between the gender-critical and trans supporting journalists in the past, and it is noticeable that The Guardian has changed tact in recent years in particular on Sundays when sister paper The Observer is published. For the record, The Observer, I understand, has a different editorial team to the six days a week Guardian and is often the source of anti-trans stories in particular from journalist Sonia Sodha.
For sure, no one wants to be called a Nazi, and many gender-crits actively claim they are left-wing.
However, the bottom line is that Terfism is an extreme right-wing ideology created by radical Christian groups like the ADF, The Heritage Foundation and The Family Research Council. In short American right-wing groups who spread their doctrine globally.
Many trans supporters believe the LGB Alliance (LGBA), which are also spreading globally, are a hate group, and there are certainly links showing LGBA are associated with right-wing groups.
In short, it becomes complicated for gender-crits to say they are from the left when supporting right-wing extremism!
We also must consider one other fact.
Liz Truss, the Minister for Women and Equalities is obviously anti-trans folk and apparently was only interested in talking about “trans people and toilets” when meeting the now-defunct LGBA panel.
Truss also has proven links to the anti-trans right-wing group The Heritage Foundation.
In contrast, the Labour Party (for all its faults) has a policy of SELF-ID for trans folk regarding much-needed Gender Recognition Act reform.
So it is apparent – the right-wing of politics is anti-trans – the left-wing trans supporters.
And for claimed the left-leaning Guardian … well how about the name hypocrites?
Authored by Steph @PlaceSteph
