Helen Lewis really annoys me at times (unfair? perhaps) because she is so icked out by the idea that the wrong group might be right in a dispute with members of her tribe that she ostentatiously has to distance herself from the people she actually agrees with and invent an imaginary centre ground to stand on. In a past discussion on objections to sexual content in school books, she had to throw in a gratuitous and unfounded “nationalist” after Christian in describing many, but by no means all of the objectors. In this one, she lamented that right-wing TERFs were setting the agenda rather than a mild trade-unionist line. There is no trade union backing any of the women in the tribunals or who have come out in support of the Supreme Court. The health unions disowned the nurses and spoke up for the rights of men to leer at them in their changing rooms and the Lecturers Union supported the tormentors of Professors Stock, Phoenix et al. They wouldn’t be keeping what she clearly regards as the disreputable company of Toby Young etc if people with a much higher profile and reputation for fearless plain-speaking like her tossrag of an editor at Private Eye showed any guts at all. She’s nowhere near as bad, but she’ll make it up when she’s worried she’s getting into too much trouble.
I think (hope?) there is a middle ground where reasonable people can grind out compromises. And I think the majority of people (who are the majority of the people, in the UK and the US) believe that sex is real. What you are describing is not how I took what she said--she's angry not because "right-wing TERFs" (whatever that is) triumphed, common sense did, and her tribe is now pretending that it didn't abandon womens' rights, that it was on the side of common sense all along.
She's right. People have been attacked, lost their jobs, been questioned by the police. I'd be angry, too.
Helen Lewis really annoys me at times (unfair? perhaps) because she is so icked out by the idea that the wrong group might be right in a dispute with members of her tribe that she ostentatiously has to distance herself from the people she actually agrees with and invent an imaginary centre ground to stand on. In a past discussion on objections to sexual content in school books, she had to throw in a gratuitous and unfounded “nationalist” after Christian in describing many, but by no means all of the objectors. In this one, she lamented that right-wing TERFs were setting the agenda rather than a mild trade-unionist line. There is no trade union backing any of the women in the tribunals or who have come out in support of the Supreme Court. The health unions disowned the nurses and spoke up for the rights of men to leer at them in their changing rooms and the Lecturers Union supported the tormentors of Professors Stock, Phoenix et al. They wouldn’t be keeping what she clearly regards as the disreputable company of Toby Young etc if people with a much higher profile and reputation for fearless plain-speaking like her tossrag of an editor at Private Eye showed any guts at all. She’s nowhere near as bad, but she’ll make it up when she’s worried she’s getting into too much trouble.
I think (hope?) there is a middle ground where reasonable people can grind out compromises. And I think the majority of people (who are the majority of the people, in the UK and the US) believe that sex is real. What you are describing is not how I took what she said--she's angry not because "right-wing TERFs" (whatever that is) triumphed, common sense did, and her tribe is now pretending that it didn't abandon womens' rights, that it was on the side of common sense all along.