I would have thought it was almost impossible to make me look like David in any circumstance, but the Goliath that is JKR & her followers might just manage it. I believe there is some middle ground where listening & understanding is possible, and I must prove it.
@KirstieMAllsopp I think Ms. Rowling has been extraordinarily restrained and polite given what has been hurled at her. No need for you to insert yourself there.
@SuzyQue27155082 If you go back to the beginning of this particular 48 hours period you’ll find that JKR decided to take odds with my views, I had never mentioned her name.
I'm interested in the words 'decided to take odds with my views', Kirstie, which implies that I was looking for some way to attack you personally, which I wasn't. I certainly do take odds with people trying to rewrite history, though, as you did in saying airily that we've always been able to debate so-called gender affirming care for minors. As I've already proved to you, many of those attempting to raise concerns around puberty blockers, and the ideology that led them to be used off-label, have paid for it with their careers, their reputations and their mental health. You've previously dismissed concerns about what's been done to young people in the name of ideology, along with the well-founded fears of women most in need of single sex spaces, as 'moral panic'. As far as I'm concerned, high profile people who've cheered all this on, without bothering to inform themselves of the real world implications of their feel good slogans, are complicit.
@jk_rowling @SuzyQue27155082 I have no interest in making this about me, or about you. I believe that there is a middle ground where people with a genuine desire to listen & learn can discuss these things with compassion. There are too many issues impacting today’s world which are scarily divisive.
@KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 It's as though I'm being lectured on the etiquette around dinner party table talk. Some very compassionate and knowledgable people who tried to find the middle ground on this issue received only violent threats and career loss in return, a fact you still refuse to acknowledge.
@jk_rowling @SuzyQue27155082 You know what this isn’t a bad idea, perhaps everyone should start behaving as if we were breaking bread under the same roof. The restraints that we impose on ourselves when accepting another’s hospitality would improve Twitter, and the wider debate immensely. 🍞
Throughout this exchange, you’ve focused solely on how politely we talk, rather than the substance of what’s being talked about. It seems you’d rather critique style than actually engage with the subject. Many in this debate don’t have that luxury. These matters affect them too deeply. I don’t think many women would want to break bread with those who’ve threatened them with death and rape, I’d be surprised if those who were bullied out of jobs fancy making small talk with their ex-colleagues and I doubt detransitioners want to pass the salt to therapists who shoved them onto hormones and approved them for surgery after woefully scant assessments.
@jk_rowling @SuzyQue27155082 So many of your comments look to the past, and I can understand why, but unless everyone looks forward and finds a way of communicating with compassion and without blame, then your aim of helping young people will be almost impossible.
Again, you prefer bromides to engaging with the issues. Young people have suffered irreversible harm. Are they supposed to feel compassionate towards the people jeering at them and threatening them for sharing their stories? Are lesbians supposed to be nice and polite towards the men trying to shame them into doing dick? Are rape survivors supposed to feel kindly towards those removing their few single-sex spaces? ‘Why can’t we all behave like we’re at a dinner party’ isn’t a solution, it’s a way of making issues invisible so people who don’t want to think about them aren’t made to feel uncomfortable. You lecture only one side in this debate and we both know why. You’re scared of the trans activists, and it’s far easier to tell women to be nice than face down the kind of people who issue death threats.
@jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 I was disciplined in my job for ‘not believing some women have penises, when they do’. Those words were actually written on my disciplinary. Believe me, there was no room for polite debate!
@WelshPegg @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 Did they really write "not believing"?
@WelshPegg @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 I had pictures of my office (not the building, my actual workspace) posted online to a hostile audience, by my colleagues, referencing me as a ‘Terf’. A woman I know lost her job for sharing a link about the Adult Human Female film in a work WhatsApp group.
@WelshPegg @MagnaCartwheel @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 Terrible. This DEI would be stopped outright in corporations if the SDP were in government. It is a total waste of time and forcing people to say they believe in something when they patently don't and self-censor. Reminds me of the commies.
@WelshPegg @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 It's mind crushing. What amazes me is the huge number of people who are unaware that this is happening. I hope if you haven't already that you find alternative employment.
@WelshPegg @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 I hope you quit.
@WelshPegg @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 Everyone should be made to read 1984 and really think about things
@WelshPegg @JMLoe1 @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 Disciplined for “not believing”…???? This is thought policing
@WelshPegg @AllisonPearson @jk_rowling @KirstieMAllsopp @SuzyQue27155082 That’s unlawful discrimination.