Back to the letter.
Andrew, it is just not true to say "the letter's main complaint is that other people are using speech in ways the letter-writers don't like" and you know this. Its main point is about people losing their jobs and their reputations, which is having a chilling effect on writers and the arts. Here's its key paragraph. I recognise something real in it. Aaron, the link about right wing clampdowns on campuses is disturbing. There's nothing below that wouldn't include that sort of thing too. This is why this needn't be seen as a right/left issue. The left wing critics of the letter, and those who signed it but are now distancing themselves, are
making it a left/right issue by complaining that some people who they disagree with have signed it. That's the whole point! Otherwise you're just saying "I believe in open debate, but only for people who agree with me".
Quote:
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We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.
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On the trans thing my instinct is to side with anyone vulnerable who is being made to feel uncomfortable (apart from clear bigots and religious crazy types obviously). And it seems that lots of people are feeling like that: trans people, of course, who are especially vulnerable, but also the parents of trans teens who worry their child may make a decision they regret, or (some) feminists and lesbians who feel the lived biological reality for which women have long been oppressed is being somehow diminished. I maintain the issue is complex
https://arcdigital.media/harry-potte...n-926ad6519451
https://www.afterellen.com/general-n...irls-and-women
I'm prepared to believe that one day I might be proved wrong to think that there are any valid feelings or points to be made here, but I'm OK with that. I think people sometimes fear being on the "wrong side of history" more than they value their own autonomy of thought. But the spirit of the
Harper's letter (which isn't primarily about the trans issue of course, despite Aaron bringing it up because Rowling's signature got so much publicity) is about being able to think and speak freely without fear of being publicly shamed or losing one's job, which does seem increasingly to be happening, to both the privileged and to "ordinary" people with regard to this and other issues. Since we have ended up on this issue, I've been asking myself some questions. Maybe you could think about your own answers. Are trans women and trans men "real" women and men? (whatever that means, which nobody seems clear about). Well, if it's going to hurt someone's mental health to insist that their sense of their own existence constitutes a state of "unreality", then yes, of course they are. What should the regulations be around administering hormones and puberty blockers to young people who begin to identify as trans? What age, if any, is too young? How do we
know the young person isn't just a feminine boy or a "tomboy" and mightn’t it be better just to assure them that that they don't have to conform to stereotypical gender roles? I've no idea, I'm not a scientist or a doctor or a child psychologist and even those three groups don't seem to be able to agree either. Should lesbians who aren't interested in sexual relationships with lesbian-identifying trans women,
because they are trans women, be considered transphobic and encouraged to move beyond this? Well, if the answer to the first question (are trans women real women) is unequivocally 'yes' then surely the lesbians must be considered transphobic. They've certainly been accused of it. But my instincts to agree with the woman in the video below and say 'No' are
really strong.
https://youtu.be/dQ35T3H7Arg
So it's complex. Isn't it? And interesting. My point, and the point of the letter, isn't about the rights or wrongs of this, or any other question. It's that nobody should be losing their jobs or
receiving death and rape threats for
asking these questions, or giving the 'wrong' answers, or for thinking that the answers aren't obvious, that they contain contradictions, that they require some thought. But that's what happens. There are
far too many death and rape threats for my liking. If anything is adding to prejudice against trans people and their allies it's this, rather than any inherent aversion to them as human beings.
https://mobile.twitter.com/tibby17/s...86483807113221
But yeah, Rowling probably needs to back off now. It's gone on far too long. And the bathroom thing is a silly argument.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sco...-2877977%3famp
I know the right wing media will jump on this sort of thing, as they will opportunistically jump on anything that might further their agenda. Like this, which you yourself linked to Aaron, in a previous thread, as an example of worrying stifling of speech by the left and which I assume is the study referred to in the letter.
https://twitter.com/jenbrea/status/1271148784316108800
I'm more than capable of discriminating between a thoughtful opinion and a hysterical right or left wing (or "woke" or whatever you want to call it) appropriation of it. Clearly the guy who retweeted Omar Wasow wasn't racist or right wing and didn't deserve to be fired and equally any right wing attempt to use the study to discredit the recent wave of protests would have a shady political agenda. And clearly Magdalen Burns, whose video I linked to above, is not right wing, though the right might happily attempt to appropriate her. You may think she's a hateful bigot and nothing more, but by no stretch are her views coming from a reactionary or right wing place. She was eulogised after her death in
The Morning Star.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/arti...-gone-too-soon
I've no doubt it's true that the right uses institutional power to suppress speech it doesn't like, and that this doesn't get the same publicity as these "woke" cancellations. That's bad too!
But anyway, It seems I'm alone in thinking this letter has any value (apart from Kevin and while I've nothing against you personally Kevin, it's hard to get past the Trump thing)