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"I'm Jo" (John Phillips/Getty Images)
The other week, my wife kicked me out of the house. She wanted to chat with her Mum for the evening. So rather than get under her feet, I went to a do organised by the Israeli Embassy and then decided to take myself out to dinner with a book. What greater pleasure is there than eating alone in a great Italian restaurant with a nice glass of Chianti? Absolute heaven. And my friend James runs one of the best. Il Portico is the oldest family-run Italian in town. The rabbit and venison are to die for — James shoots it himself. Now, I’m no restaurant critic so I won’t go on about how great the food is, but Time Out called it the “legendary Il Portico”… Bear with me, this isn’t about food.
So I truck up to Il Portico with my book and, very irritatingly, it is full. Then I try James’s sister restaurant Pino next door. Also full. James spots me and apologises. It’s booked out for a fundraiser for Ukraine, he explains. As I turn and begin to walk out, slightly disconsolate, my friend Suzanne Moore — old mates from The Guardian days — gets up to say hi. “Stay,” she insists. Well, there is only one seat left. I don’t know anyone. But I sit down as invited. “Hello,” says the woman opposite. “I’m Jo”.
We chatted about politics and class. What a strange night. Later, after too many Chiantis, I pay silly money to have a rescued parrot in Sumatra named after my wife in the auction. I don’t care. It’s all for Ukraine. We raised £18,500 that evening.
A few days later, James had his restaurant windows smashed in. Then he starts to get a succession of one-star online reviews, complaining that the restaurant is not welcoming to trans people. “A supporter of transphobia and the food is dry to boot,” says one. Then, when these are taken down by Google, a load more reviews appear saying the food is rubbish and the place is dirty. Google won’t take these down because, who knows, they might be genuine reviews. Trust me, the food is delicious and the place is spotless. But the people who want to bring down James’s restaurant have worked out how to play the game. All this because J.K. Rowling sat at one of his tables and ate his pasta.
I haven’t written about the trans issue before for two reasons. First, because I know two people who have transitioned and, as a pastor, my first responsibility is to love them. In both cases, I believe that transitioning was the right thing for them to do and that they are more authentic human beings, more reconciled with who they are, for having done so. Both are, I believe, much happier now. And I certainly wouldn’t want to say anything that might hurt them.
And second, because I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man, and I have always thought this is a subject on which I ought to mind my privilege and simply shut up. But when your friend gets his windows smashed in, you can’t just sit on the sidelines and say nothing. Suddenly, the sidelines feel like cowardice. In retrospect, silence was my privileged position.
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Subscribe“… because I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man, and I have always thought this is a subject on which I ought to mind my privilege and simply shut up”
Oh dear Giles, you’ve fallen for this rubbish hook line and sinker haven’t you?
The concept of “privilege” is a tool, the purpose of which is the transferral of power from one group to another. From the majority to a minority of activists. The hierarchy of privilege and the concept of intersectional oppression deliberately ignores the universal nature of suffering in order to silence whole sections of society who might object to radical takeover.
Everyone suffers, regardless of their position in life. Everyone is subject to ageing, craving, sickness, loss and death.
Referring to yourself as “cis” means accepting the activist delineation of humans into those who are worth listening to and those not. It’s wiser not to accept the prefix at all. You’re not “cis”, you’re a man. A “trans woman” is also a man but who perceives himself to be a woman. Likewise a trans man is a woman who perceives herself as a man. A non binary person is a man or a woman who perceives themselves as neither. None of these new terms are needed. It’s best not to buy into them.
Giles, by buying into these notions you’ve done precisely what activists want – you’ve silenced yourself, until now at least. You took yourself out of the equation leaving others to do the fighting. It’s made you doubt your own thinking, and to give a free pass to those who do not wish you or the majority well.
Giles, you’re a well intentioned chap, but maybe now you’ll give these matters more serious thought.
Reality matters.
Thanks for educating Giles.
Someone needs to…
But someone who says “… because I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man, and I have always thought this is a subject on which I ought to mind my privilege and simply shut up” should not be listened to.
The worm my have turned on this single issue but it is still a worm on all other issues. It speaks volumes about the modern C of E
I have no idea what you mean by that attack on Giles Fraser, even if you do yourself, but you should either be specific on the issues you disagree with him on, or (better) decide that your comment has nothing to do with the article. Third – dispense with the ad-hominem attacks, which is always good practice. Giles Fraser through his writings has made shown abundantly clearly that he is hardly typical of the modern Church of England. I don’t agree with him on a lot – but so what? The fact that Giles Fraser now has real life experience of appalling bullying by some of these obnoxious characters is probably rather more educative than loads of people decrying (or indeed approving) his views on a forum.
The ability of the ‘anti-woke’ to endlessly alienate potential allies is a wonder – we recently had to put up with an attack on ALL Indian-Americans and Hispanics for example! No wonder the Left have so far been winning the culture wars hands down.
I can see from the comments below that many of us just prefer to live in an echo chamber with the same sentiments, albeit ones I largely agree with, repeated ad nauseam.
We could also I think all usefully actually DO something rather than endlessly whining about it. Jordan Petersen’s advice!
And yet, you don’t think it right for someone to criticise or disagree with Giles?
Excellent riposte to a fool.
Mr Fraser clearly doesn’t get it and probably never will.
Sitting on the sidelines on the trans nonsense is only now cowardice, because an issue has affected someone close to him?
Until now, like so many, he’s lied to himself and made excuses for his cowardice. But I’ll bet he supported lockdowns, masks and vaccine coercion all the way. I’ll bet he *believes* in the “Climate Emergency”, in BLM, etc.
As a church rector, has he never heard of Martin Niemoller?
The disaster now facing this country rests squarely on the shoulders of Mr Fraser and his ilk. You reap what you sow.
That’s a bit much.
Giles may have been attracted to Christianity ( he wasn’t born into it) because he , and others, came to see Jesus as a victim of colonialism and social justice warrior of his day .
Apparently some migrants ,for example the Old Testament Jews claiming the promised land and boat people landing in dinghies , have God’s blessing and others are wicked colonialists .
He even has a radical interpretation of the Tribute Money passage in the Bible ( see his article Why Bishops Should Be Political) and has justified the practice of publicly baptising Muslims for the sole purpose of giving them reasons to avoid extradition ,by claiming the photographs would make it too dangerous for them to be returned home .
Not all of the C of E fortunately.
The woke crowd must have read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four and thought it was a handbook or budding totalitarians, not a warning.
hear hear!
Winston Smith’s job was to edit old issues of newspapers, books, etc, to remove items that didn’t conform to the current party line and to replace them with versions that did. Does that seem familiar? Rewriting history and cancelling anyone associated however remotely with slavery, or the empire, is also stock in trade for todays budding totalitarians.
Bingo.
Thank you, as I was reading I was composing in my mind what transpired you had already eloquently written.
One point:
“A “trans woman” is also a man but who perceives himself to be a woman. Likewise a trans *woman* is a woman who perceives herself as a man.”
I think a *wo* too many
has slipped in 😀
Ta. Fixed it.
It is disconcerting that it’s taken this long for Giles to realise that stating facts is not bullying, however trying to destroy peoples livelihoods is.
There is a distinct lack of backbone in today’s society that we feel this need to coddle adults with trigger warnings and special treatment. These people need to get a grip.
The thrust of the article is about bullying and aggression and in the patronising tone of your comment you too are falling into a trap. I like the article because it reflects what many are thinking and doing. Being simply aggressively tribal about the topic as many of the other comments are is not helpful. I generally agree that much talk around transgender issues is silly and naive but it will pass and we can accommodate those that genuinely feel uncomfortable. Of course everybody needs to be something so many jump on the band wagon and fight the cause. It was an alien topic to me but having had discussions with friends very for or against you can get a feel for the nuance. I feel very male but what if I didn’t? (resist the temptation to crack a joke unless it’s properly funny).And that is probably a reality for some. But the sooner we all remember that we have to share the world with many others and accept it the better.
‘It will pass’. So naive! It will only pass if we stand up to their paedophobic, gynecophobic assaults on our society — on chlldren and women and all. If we don’t, they will achieve their aim of so weakening it that they will be free to replace it with one of their own choosing.
Time will tell. Sounds a little hysterical to me. Children and women and all – OMG..I guess ‘all’ is the inclusive bit.
And your response sounds wilfully naïve to me.
Yes, but endlessly making the same points to people who all agree with you on UnHerd isn’t actually fighting back….
No but it confirms to ourselves where we stand to start with.
One can only fight error with truth and that might be a long battle. We know some things are wrong but most of us do not have the ability to verbalise it properly in an acceptable way.
“But the sooner we all remember that we have to share the world with many others and accept it the better.”
Tell that to the blue-hairs.
Genuine question – why are they called “blue hairs”? I have seen this loads and I don’t understand the etymology.
The observation that many of the woke youth have dyed their hair blue.
Thanks.
I don’t mind the blue hair. It tells me what kind of people to avoid.
It is true. I see this on the streets where I chat to youth where it appears blue hair seems to be a rebellion against normal.
as is often the case with these symbols it’s not actually rebellion at all, it’s conformity with the tribe. Show me a blue hair and I’ll tell you what they think about everything.
I have no idea what it means to “feel” male or female. Sex isn’t about feeling. It’s about possession of one or another set chromosomes which dictate bodies with one or another set of sexual characteristics. The only point of there being men and woman at all is reproduction. To state what ought to be the blindingly obvious a female body is designed to gestate, give birth to and then nurture infants. Of course there are many women who don’t want to. Or sadly cannot. And there are a tiny minority where the machinery goes haywire and the result is physically indeterminate. But individuals then categorised by their bodies as male or female have a wide range of personalities. They don’t fit stereotypes. I am a mother and grandmother, and what used to be called straight when I was young enough to care. But I love sport and tech and argument and ideas and being in charge. I have no interest in clothes, don’t wear make up and haven’t put on a skirt except for special occasions in years. According to today’s craziness, all that would be enough to make me a man. Or perhaps non binary. Nonsense. I’m a woman. If a man wants to wear a dress, put on make up, have sex however and with whomever (provided both consent), that’s fine by me. Doesn’t make him a woman and it never will. People are going to look back on all this in 100 years as we look back at those who burnt witches – some kind of mass psychosis.
Sex isn’t about feeling. It’s about possession of one or another set chromosomes …
Yes and no. Chromosomes determine which developmental pathway the foetus will go down – the pathway to male sex development or female sex development.
The sex of an organism is defined by which phenotype and the structures – hormonal and anatomical etc – that support the production of large immotile gametes (female) and small motile gametes (male).
And there are a tiny minority where the machinery goes haywire and the result is physically indeterminate.
Actually, no. If you are referring to intersex conditions (DSDs), sex can be determined via their phenotypic structures even – when incomplete.
I agree with your definition of “sex”. The problem with our common use of language is the frequent confusion between the words “sex” and “gender”, by both the media and some governments.
Sex is hormonal and anatomical, as you say, but gender is not. Gender is mental and emotional. It is a bit of an oversimplification, but to reduce the semantic confusion we could say that your sex is what you have between your legs while your gender is what you have between your ears.
Until queer theorists got hold of them, the terms sex and gender were interchangeable. By accepting that the two terms have different meanings, you start on the route to this madness.
Best not to.
ooops, that is a far too deterministic POV. Nothing is every true, sadly, things become true through common agreement
Then don’t agree.
So there is no objective reality?
‘gender’ now has two meanings, expression and identity. It is ‘identity’ that causes the problem, the conflation with ‘sex’. If we only talked about sex and gender ‘expression’ there’d be no problem. But it’s not possible because they demand that their ‘expression’ represents who they are, their identity. Thus, also, if you reject the stereotypes, you become ‘non-binary’. You have no sex at all.
The word ‘gender’ is less emotive than ‘sex’ which is the reason why its use is heavily encouraged. It allows ideologues to circumnavigate parental alarm systems and prey on the goodness of the psychologically susceptible (usually know-it-all teenagers, young adults, and naive teachers). On a macro level it gives the state power to intervene in families, particularly those that are resistant to woke ideology: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-dad-jailed-6-months-after-repeatedly-exposing-transgender-son-s-identity-despite-publication-ban-1.5390847
Thanks for that. I remember the story. As it happens, BC, Canada is where I live.
Gender is much the same as the soul and ghosts; which is to say, human created bollocks.
There is always one man who has to tell a woman she is wrong, and give more science than is actually needed. The prize today goes to you.
Perfect response. You’ve said exactly what I would like to say. Thank you.
But I guess you do feel like a woman. Is there any chance that some people may be different? I’m not defending the trans cult I’m arguing against bullying and a lack of thought.
It’s the transgender people doing the bullying, though. Most people were fine with cross-dressing and sex changes (among adults), but not when transgenderism became an activist movement seeking to recruit the young and gullible, change language, and rearrange the foundations of society.
Many trans people must be horrified at the hideous behaviour that goes on in their name but isn’t committed by them at all, it’s by their ‘allies’ who must be the worst allies on earth, they make everything worse.
They are. I have two friends who were bullied off social media and put of their community by transgendered people and their allies for being honest about who they are. Both transsexual. Both happy to tell people they are biological men who present as women who would have been gay men if homosexuality had not been illegal in the USA in the 60s. Their sexuality was a huge issue as they grew up 100 miles apart in the Bible Belt and had pastors for fathers. These pastors paid for their conversion. They met when they came to the UK in 1969. I met them in 1970 when my mum brought them home for tea. And we have been friends ever since.
Thank you hear hear I am also very much as you describe yourself.
Joyous with it!
Exactly. How does one know one “feels like a woman” if one has nothing to compare it to?
Precisely; I don’t know if I feel ‘like a woman’ – I just know I feel like me.
How can I possibly know how other women feel, when I’ve never been anyone else?
I bleed for 4 days (give or take a day) every month without dying. That, for me, is confirmation enough.
So-called nonbinaries are almost certainly bisexual and definitely narcissistic.
narcissism is a co morbidity to the whole idea
You don’t seem to appreciate that tiny minority of freaks is trying to impose their dogma on rest of society.
Against all the evidence of science.
As if Enlightenment never happened.
For anyone familiar with communism you are one of Lenin’s useful fools.
Try to buy the rope they hang you with before it becomes more expensive…
Not much reasoned argument there. I object to corporations bowing down to every minority so as not to cause offence but other than that it doesn’t affect me that much. It’s not the only cult we have to worry about. And I’m not sure what scientific evidence you are referring to, these might make you squirm :
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/q-a-mixed-sex-biology/
https://www.genome.gov/27557513/the-y-chromosome-beyond-gender-determination#:~:text=The%20X%20and%20Y%20chromosomes,only%20pass%20on%20X%20chromosomes).
And there are loads more if you wish to look. This is a very different thing to the cult that is developing but it is real.
And there is absolutely no need to try and be demeaning, you have no idea where I stand or what I believe. I like to listen and try and learn.
Thanks for the links. Interesting to note my own tribal response to the first one in Scientific American.
The chap is from the University of California and started his medical career in a Parisian hospital dealing with infants with malformed genitalia. While there he “just happened to be reading a book by a chap called Michel Foucault.”
From there on I assumed a scientist trying to prove a pre formed agenda. I’m not sure I was disappointed. How did you read it?
Totally endorse your plea for intelligent debate, but I find you usually get that here even when it’s quite one sided.
Well said – sometimes UnHerd comments fall into a self-congratulatory echo chamber. And frankly, a small minority of it does sometimes border on hate mongering and is actually racist. There was recently an attack on ALL Indian Americans and Hispanics for example. That is pretty damn stupid apart from anything else.
Thanks. I had hoped that Unherd would be a balanced forum as it’s often quoted elsewhere but sadly not, especially on topics like this. I’ve not particularly stated my beliefs (and they actually echo much of what people say here) but I had hoped to see a discussion that helps us learn. Which is the whole point of a good forum. I don’t personally know any trans people. Too many commentators here stuck on repeat, shouting and not thinking.
Yes, you already said that further up……and please dont start trotting out “racist” – that particular epithet has been so badly overused for anyone who says anything off message about anyone non white, that it’s totally lost it’s meaning and demeaned what is actually “proper” racism……..I doubt very much that there are very many actual bigotted, ignorant, proper racists on this board…..
I notice this too in the comments on Spectator articles. I wonder are these people lefties in disguise trying to discredit those on the other side?
I’m surprised you’re registering so many downvotes, you comment seems harmless.
Can’t decide between namby or pamby.
I honestly don’t know how we can “share the world” with an entire large segment of society which doesn’t believe in reality.
One of the most eloquent summaries I have ever read on the subject, thank you!
I have many more. Usually on the same subject…
Good comment.
N Forster said: “A “trans woman” is also a man but who perceives himself to be a woman.”
At best, we can say that a “trans woman” is a male who wishes others to perceive him as if he was a female, but we cannot know what’s in his mind about how perceives himself.
Quite right, your modification improves an already excellent comment.
Good point. So a person who has a strong desire to control others.
Thank you for putting so well what I thought
Excellent reply.
Everyone suffers, regardless of their position in life. Everyone is subject to ageing, craving, sickness, loss and death.
I would like to add what I call the Axiom of Woke Marxism “there is no genuinely meaningful difference between any human beings whatsoever …, that all such categories [of difference] are ultimately fictions …, and that there can be (almost) no consequential effects of holding different cultural values …, and thus any differences must be wholly the result of injustices that exist in the power dynamics between social identity groups.” I attribute this to James Lindsay of newdiscourses IIRC.
True, and then we face the pretzel-logic involved in this bedrock claim of the entire social-justice worldview. They say that all differences in outcomes of “groups” (as defined by them; primarily racial and sexuality based identities) are the result of “social systems” designed to favor one group over the other.
But what is “society” and “social systems” if not “culture?”
Yes. Essentially it is social constructionism plus structural determinism etc. I think it determines emotive and moral responses when such differences in outcomes are perceived through that framing. Then the neo marxian critical analysis is employed and hell follows in its path.
Yes! The woke seem to be all emotion and/or all power-driven so they have a sweet, sweet set-up where to dissent from their positions is to be monsterized and un-personed.
Mm now i know where Steely Dan got their album title from…didnt know pretzel logic was a thing.
And there was me attributing it to Robert Lindsay of Tooting Popular Front fame…
Blimey. How far back in the day was that?
NF privilege is an honor to be shared not squandered.
Reality is proven when one is in jail.
You can pretend to be anyone or thing in the outside world.
I love you. Are you single?
Happily married.
+495 likes, and counting. Sure, Unherd’s readership isn’t necessarily (or at all) representative of anything but Unherd’s readership, but this is a sign of our times. I wonder how many corporate HR departments are now having meetings about how they are going to climb down from the heights of the madness that they’ve been pushed to by a tiny minority of committed fringe activists, in which people can’t quite meet each other eyes or agree who it was, exactly, who decided that “the right thing to do” was to purge any reference to “women” from their all of their guidelines and policies and to bully everyone into proclaiming their pronouns on every email they send. And how many of them conclude vaguely, with an unspoken agreement to quietly drop it and never speak about it again.
A bit like the unspoken agreements not to officially unwind or discuss the Covid madness, which mean that we are left with arrows on floors everywhere and signage that literally everyone – even the poor folk out there in the jungle still fighting the last war in their surgical masks – ignores.
So nicely put: conjured images of shifty uncomfortable HR meetings and masked paranoids hiding in jungle redoubts.
I still see them in public spaces. Weary old pandemic warriors looking superciliously down at the happily unmasked populace. I wonder in which year they will finally feel safe enough to remove their masks.
And yet we are, nominally at least, a free country, so if people want to mask up they are free to do so. I’m not a mask wearer but will speak up for their right to do so.
Giles is part of woke church.
What do you expect from him?
People preferring neo Marxist dogma to teaching of Christ.
So well outlined in latest Douglas Murray book.
Indeed he sadly is, making false representation of Christ’s church, whilst hiding behind a thick veneer of mock Christianity. I choked on the bit where he says as a pastor, his first responsibility is…umm, hang on, I’ll try and find where in the Bible it says that a disciple’s first responsibility is to endorse obvious error…it must be here somewhere if GF says it…hang on, shall get back to you when I find it..
I noted that phrase as well, because I think actually a pastor needs to keep in mind that happieness is not always the goal, that suffering is inherent in living, and always being supportive is not pastoral. But I suspect Giles is aware of that. It is the case that sometimes, the right pastoral approach for an individual is not the same as a teaching approach, and only someone actually involved will be in a position to say what that might be The real error Giles made,it seems to me, is the idea that because he was supporting these people pastorally, he needed to be quiet about the issue in his role as a teacher and leader. It’s a mistake that seems to be made in the CofE quite a lot.
I think Giles is coming round to this point. Slowly, but surely, kindly and thoughtfully.
No. He’s not.
One of the finest responses ever written.
Spot on. #DontPlayTheRiggedGame.
Suffering is universal but not uniform. And it is non-uniform in predictable ways. Privilege is — or should be — a useful shorthand for advantages that tend, on average, to reduce suffering. If a 19th-century slaver had told a slave to stop moaning on the grounds that suffering was universal, the slave might reasonably have suggested that they swap places, and the slaver on refusing the swap would have been confirming (even if he didn’t admit it) his privilege. To dispute that there is such a thing as privilege, simply on the grounds that you dislike the politics of those who invoke it, is at best thoughtless and at worst downright dishonest.
It starts with begging for tolerance and it is ending with verbal war against normal people. These people are a small minority but large enough to cause damage in society.
Agree. He’s not “cis,”, and he isn’t “privileged.”
“Of course, I will use your preferred pronouns. It is a basic matter of politeness to call people how they would like to be called.“ No – it is not about politeness. It is about forcing you to claim to believe something that you know isn’t true. It is about forced obedience to someone else’s dogma. Do Terfs ask to be called Terfs? No – these rules of ‘politeness’ only apply for progressives.
In Giles’ defence he means his friends – so that is perfectly reasonable for him to be polite and respect their wishes if he so chooses. What happens between him and his friends is his business.
Where it’s not acceptable is to force someone to use preferred pronouns. Key distinction I think.
Good point.
Not at all. The more ppl that endorse fantasy as ‘fact’ suck the rest of us down that clandestine rabbit hole faster than you can say ‘Alice in reality’
My niece is trans. Around friends and family, I am quite prepared to refer to my niece using male pronouns. In the presence of gender activists, I pointedly refer to my niece using female pronouns, because I will not allow them to police my language, and also because I actively want to make them as angry as possible.
I’m curious. What does she get out of being trans? I can’t help feeling that it really isn’t about being born in the ‘wrong body’, but more a desperate cry for attention and social status. I may be wrong in this case, however.
Yes. #DontPlayTheRiggedGame
Pronouns like he/him she/her are usually used when the person is absent, so that person does not directly hear what pronouns you are using. No need to be polite. But I refer to someone by the pronoun that I believe the listener will more readily recognize – clarity of communication.
An interesting perspective. My only query is that if you do not agree with the tenets of gender identity ideology but the listener is someone who does, is your use of a pronoun – that is in accord with what the listener recognises as appropriate – a validation of the view that sex is not immutable (since pronouns are also proxy classifiers)?
I just run a mile when somebody is telling me to lie to them
Thank you. There has recently been a court case going on about this very issue: https://www.christian.org.uk/news/christian-professor-awarded-400000-after-refusing-to-refer-to-a-man-as-female/
Thanks for the reference. Needs to be more widely known.
It would be but folks don’t want to hear the truth; only what tickles their itching ears via bbc msm etc. As for me and my family, try http://www.christian.org.uk
I once worked for an organisation that had a bit of interaction with the CI. Unfortunately as I discovered, they’re just a bunch of right wing homophobes masquerading as Christians. They specialise in scaring Christians that they’re being persecuted when in fact, they aren’t.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48146305
Could it not be that theyve seen one too many Pride float Roman Orgies as part of a “family fun day’?
Wonderful precedent that I never saw reported in the U.S.
Thanks for the link.
I was listening to Matt Walsh, of the Daily Wire, talk about his film “What is a Woman”(I haven’t seen it as I refuse the paywall it is behind). Anyway, Walsh is bang-on, in my opinion, when he said “I cannot demand that others perceive me the way that I perceive myself. My self perception is not a joint project shared by me and the rest of human society. “
What Is A Woman is definitely worth the “paywall.” Daily Wire is right wing, intelligent and thoughtful commentary with a stable of terrific communicators, and their news reporting is unbiased as far as I can tell. I think we need to support alternative media to the best of our ability. Therefore I support Daily Wire and UnHerd. I suppose you could always sign up to watch the movie and cancel after one month but I bet you would continue!
I’ll use male/female pronouns but I refuse to use neo-pronouns (I mean, “xzy” or “fish-self!” Really?). It’s also a direct assault on the most important of individual freedoms to have governmental or institutional enforcement of pronoun usage.
I dislike how progressive has been hijacked. I still consider myself a progressive, but not so progressive I seek to deny reality and fact.
But unfortunately that is ultimately where progressivism leads to. Because progressivism is based on “man is the measure of all things.”
It’s “I”ll pretend this person doesn’t have mental health problems”..that way I can dodge their ‘victim’ bile.
The owner of Il Portico has a lot of well-connected friends. Today he has both an article about his situation in Unherd and an interview on Triggernometry. Good for him and I hope the restaurant’s bookings double from all this publicity. Heaven help regular folk, though, who are targeted by the trans extremists but don’t have close contacts in the media to highlight their plight.
Ah, that’s who it was. I saw the the preview image, but never clicked.
Highlighting this highlights the behaviour towards everyone. This restaurant literally did nothing but take a booking and they were targeted so it shows the militant lunacy of gender ideology. If its got people on the sidelines to say “oh hang on a minute this isn’t on” then finally the cavalry might have arrived.
I don’t think J.Bryant would disagree with you.
Re: ‘militant lunacy of gender ideology’ – if I am not mistaken, up until recently the medical establishment characterized transgenderism as a ‘mental’ as well as physical incongruity. Seems like the mental issues loom large.
Gender dysphoria has always been a pathology — only the activists got the craven medical profesion to disavow that. It is still evidence of a mental problem is you feel you have to change sex.
Which of course is impossible…..change gender if you believe that females always wear frocks and lipstick…..
Reminds me of those incidents during the early Trump years where people who were identified with him were literally chased out of restaurants by people who considered themselves to be righteous and tolerant.
Of course he is well connected, and shall we say, swimming with the sharks
“booked out for a fundraiser for Ukraine”
Often goes together with
“restaurant windows smashed in. …complaining that the restaurant is not welcoming to trans people”
in a certain area, with well connected restaurant owners and well off food lovers who really, really care about certain things, there are certain risks that go with the business.
If I were anywhere near it I’d go out of my way to dine there.
“…Of course, I will use your preferred pronouns. It is a basic matter of politeness to call people how they would like to be called…”
Yeah, and the emperor walking around naked will insist that people acknowledge he is bedecked in full finery. But for myself, I will be the little boy who loudly proclaims “..that guy has got no strides on..”, and politeness go hang.
‘I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man, and I have always thought this is a subject on which I ought to mind my privilege and simply shut up.’
‘Of course, I will use your preferred pronouns. It is a basic matter of politeness to call people how they would like to be called. And I can see that some people live with an enormous tension between their given sex and the way they have come to think of themselves. My default response is to affirm these decisions.’
‘I believe in limits, in the givenness of some things. And, it seems to me, biological sex is one of them. I find the use of medical technology to transgress these limits to be Faustian in its hubris.’
I understand and admire the desire to be careful with others, and to be kind. It’s very Christian. But it is a trap here. As you say yourself, it is also very Christian – or just very real, or very scientific come to that – to affirm the reality of limits, biology, and nature: God-given as it is.
So it is true that this is an issue around which the bullying should be resisted. But also, you can’t call yourself ‘cis’ or use ‘preferred pronouns’ to affirm ‘transition’ at the same time as cleaving to traditional understandings of what these words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean. This reworking of language is part of a wider attempt to rework the whole culture. The reality is that there is a massive push by a small group of radicalised, intolerant people to redefine biology itself, and to turn society upside down in doing so. The impacts of this include the kind of thing that happened to your friend’s restaurant. They also include surgery on vulnerable youngsters and massive confusion in young minds.
Tolerance and kindness at an individual level are great things – there are not enough of them around. But they have to be overridden by a commitment to truth. We can affirm that truth kindly, but affirming truth is more important than protecting feelings – as Christ demonstrated. Personally, I start by refusing to use the term ‘cis.’ I won’t let these people rewrite language for me.
Societal suicide by conscience is how I have heard it referred to. There was a great essay in Tablet showing how a huge fraction of white Western liberals were by far the most outgroup-tolerant people in the USA. More usual levels of ingroup/outgroup preferences were present in every other studied grouping.
I’d find a link, but I’m in the bath…
“a huge fraction of white Western liberals were by far the most outgroup-tolerant people in the USA.”
Douglas Murray’ research into migrants in Sweden showed that the Swedish elite that preach about inclusivity and voting for the green party were the most likely to move away when migrants appeared. They were white flight incarnate.
Agreed. It is laughable to see all the BLM signs on the front lawns of the mini faux-mansions in the well-heeled suburbs of most large cities, where the school children, who are 98% white play lacrosse and arrive in one of 2 or 3 of their huge foreign SUV’s without bumper stickers, because that would be tacky. But if they allowed themselves to have a bumper sticker, it would be something about saving the planet. Then the driver heads to a drive through coffee shop to idle their engine for 20 minutes before being presented with their 1200 calorie “coffee”, heads back to the 6,000 square foot house with 3 A/C zones and surfs the web for more trinkets to purchase.
Are you out of the bath…?
if so, how did the essay show how a huge fraction ….?
Would be interested in a link if you can find it.
The info is in his book ‘The Strange Death of Europe”. A very sad and scary read.
Thanks. I didn’t read the comment underneath thew one I was replying to.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-white-saviors
I trust that you are not nude. For each of my daily half dozen bathings, I take particular care to array myself in white tie and tails, Zouave trousers, correspondent shoes and a monocle and top hat. Anything less is shameful and beastly and not to be countenanced.
Yes. Excellent observations. I have a few more.
… you can’t call yourself ‘cis’ or use ‘preferred pronouns’ to affirm ‘transition’ at the same time as cleaving to traditional understandings of what these words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean.
I agree. Personal pronouns are proxy identifiers but they are also classifiers. They carry a designation of the particular sex class to which the identified person belongs. Thus, using a preferred pronoun is an admittance that the pronoun has a different function – it is a means of changing the identified person from one sex class into another – it is now not a classifier but a re-classifier.
And the goal is to re classify a person into a different sex class in order that they can access the privileges and rights designated for that sex class. But in order to do that the word loses its codified, shared understanding – its meaning.
I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man, and I have always thought this is a subject on which I ought to mind my privilege
By the very adoption of this type of language to describe himself, he has ceded the argument. The emphasis of identifying a group and then generalising what he assumes are negative, moral-political characteristics to it is a prejudice that is preventing him from seeing himself as a unique human being with self autonomy and agency to speak the truth.
And the truth is sex is biological, and language has strict codified meanings that we use to describe our perceptions and experiences of reality. To be coerced to pretend to validate the false self-perception of others, is to agree to the downstream harms that result from the false idea that perception is built on.
Most excellently put!!
Well said. Language is very important, as we see currently in the attempts to redefine the meaning of the word ‘woman’.
whoever controls language controls thought. This is why ‘cis’ is the language of our oppressors and should be as unacceptable as those names that used to be given to black people or citizens of Pakistan.
I had to evict one of my lodgers a couple of months ago, after she shouted at me because I was wearing a t shirt bearing the slogan “I stand with J.K.Rowling”. I don’t know what she was expecting – I explicitly told her before she moved in that I was fairly right wing, and that I believe Black Lives Matter is a racist hate group and men can’t become women.
An excellent report. One must never accommodate ‘shriekers’.
You haven’t been sued yet?
It seems you took nominative determinism as a personal affront 😉
Presumably nominative determinism is the claim that the connotations of X’s name determine X’s character, e.g. if you baptise your infant with the name Pious, they will grow up pious. I’m not quite sure what bearing this has on the episode with my lodger. The bottom line is that I simply don’t tolerate being spoken to like that in my own home.
I think A. Spetzari is lauding your not conforming to your surname’s expectations.
Yes – was light hearted. He is clearly not Craven
Haha, sorry!
No need at all! But thanks
The guy’s saying that your behaviour was anything but Craven. Like being an (honest) Chief Constable by the name of Crook, a VC-winner by the name of Coward, a Miss World by the name of Pigge, a nun by the name of Tarte or a politician by the name of Worker.
So relax: it’s a compliment.
Yes you’re right, I should have realised.
So what was she expecting, you sound relatively mainstream to me?
My son is a trans man, and I want to thank you for your compassion. No one hates trans people more than trans activists, or does more to promote hatred against them.
Most of the people publicly claiming to be transgender today – like most of the people publicly claiming to be “queer” – are merely seeking attention and are not transgender at all.
Most of these people are trans trenders, who do not have sex dysphoria (a painful condition that I suspect is neurological) but are simply fetishists and narcissists.
“You will know them by their fruits” is a good rule of thumb: if they’re talking about “lady d*cks” and calling women “uterus havers” they are probably trans trenders, not transgender.
Because I love my son for exactly who he is, I do not have to lie about who he is: a genetic female with sex dysphoria who needs the palliative care of medical transition to ease his pain.
My son does not have to be a genetic male or in any way the same as a genetic man to be worthy of love and acceptance.
My son does not have to erase female biology as an axis of oppression or to erase female reproductive reality to love himself and be loved by others.
But trans activists clearly think he does.
Trans activists think my son is so grossly unacceptable that the reality of who he is – a genetic female with sex dysphoria – must be erased at all costs.
Why do they hate trans people so much?
Why must they lie about trans women – hysterically attempting to erase the fact that trans women are genetically male- for trans women to be acceptable?
Why must trans women and trans men be the same as genetic women and genetic men to be accepted by society?
Genetic and biological differences between men and women are REAL, and my son is not the same as a genetic man.
Why is this important to assert?
Because under no circumstances should someone like my son ever be sent to a men’s prison. Ever. A genetic female is NOT SAFE in a men’s prison – clearly.
But the same fanatics who insist on sending genetic males with intact penises – some of whom have been convicted of violence against women – into women’s prisons are creating a situation that would be extremely dangerous for trans men.
But they clearly don’t care. Trans activism centers the interests of genetic males at the expense of genetic females; it’s the same old misogyny with a nose ring.
Thank You for not feeling the need to lie about who trans people are in order to love them.
My son is a trans man, not a man.
I love him for who he is, and I wouldn’t have him any other way.
Thanks Penny. Great to hear that my own opinion is also held by someone so close to real experience.
Such a courageous stance, thank you! Do you mind me asking you how you feel calling the female who was born as your daughter, your son?
Your comment deserves 1000 upvotes.
Thank for your openness and kindness. I am certainly in agreement with your perception of misogyny as I have found it uncomfortable ever since this argument or debate or whatever we call it began.
“Why do they hate trans people so much?”
Because they are activist neo-Marxist lunatics. They hate everyone.
Excellent post by the way.
Incidentally Giles, may I suggest you drop the term “late capitalism”? It implies a certain foreknowledge that no-one can possibly have.
Capitalism might be in its death throes, or might only just be getting started. Who can say? The use of “late” to describe it is common amongst those who merely wish it so, but are arrogant enough to think their preference inevitable.
Nothing is pre-ordained.
Rather than “late capitalism”, I use the phrase “consumer society”, as I think a lot of this gender nonsense is the product of an American culture that promotes the idea that we can be anything we want to be. It’s “lifestyle” versus real life. I also think that the proliferation of gender stereotypes in popular culture – from Kim Kardashian’s backside to Love Island – makes many young people feel alienated to the point where they want to opt out by identifying as non-binary.
The much-mocked Prince Charles observed this years ago, when he commented that he could not understand how everybody seemed to think they had a right to any job they wished, whether or not they were qualified for it. He was vilified for arguing that people should know their place, which wasn’t the point he was making at all. In a final thrash of jubileeism, I will say that I think Charles will be a better king than people expect.
I would agree except for his silly Net Zero views
He was vilified for arguing that people should know their place, …
As Clint Eastwood said in one of his films “a man has got to know his limitations”.
“Charles will be a better king than people expect.”
That is an awfully low bar since Charles is widely considered a naive fool.
Is this the “naive fool” who, 50 years ago, warned us about plastics and pesticides, or the dehumanising effect of many modern buildings? Is this the man who decided to build a small town using local materials, based around the needs of people rather than corporations? I’d be happy to have this kind of fool as Head of State.
He’s a useful idiot and the epitome of someone who’s not qualified for a certain job.
Oh absolutely. You’ve summed it up.
“Capitalism-of-late”?
Well said.
I think, what offends, is the unBritishness, of the terf war. Culturally, I think, the British have been rather relaxed about life, it allows a certain amount of muddling through, accommodation, amateurishness, acceptance of peoples quirks and peccadilloes. Not everyone gets with the program, but by and large we live and let live, we don’t take life too seriously. It is maybe what, as a country, stopped us sliding into fascism, or communism. I fear, however, that that is slowly changing, for the worse, I don’t know if it can be ascribed to ‘Americanism’ or ‘just’ the changing nature of this country’s population, but I find it rather sad that ‘we’ seem to, not only, be less accepting of ‘square’ pegs, but that those very same pegs seem to want to rub everyone else’s noses is their dirt.
“This is where I stand. Of course, I will use your preferred pronouns. It is a basic matter of politeness to call people how they would like to be called.”
I quite agree, with one exception. I will not call a ‘single’ a ‘plural’, I might fudge it, by avoiding ‘any’ pronoun at all (Is that typically British ?), but I will not pander to the inane ‘stupidity’ of calling a single person ‘they/them’, that really is just above and beyond.
“It is maybe what, as a country, stopped us sliding into fascism, or communism”
It isn’t. It was wise leadership, and the lessons from 1,000 years of history ingrained in our traditions and our institutions – which is precisely why those traditions and institutions are now under such sustained attack.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
“Of course, I will use your preferred pronouns. It is a basic matter of politeness to call people how they would like to be called.“
I like to be called “Grand High Poobah of the Universe” – can I expect people to politely address me as such?
If we can shorten it to Poo on all subsequent interactions, yes.
At my age and state of health even a short Poo is welcome 🙂
It’s a really important wedge issue. As the culture warriors of the left attempt to bring down western civilisation through destroying all accepted moral codes, the culture warriors of the right have a duty to keep their absurdity high on the agenda.
The majority of the voting public don’t read publications like this, and have never heard of Foucault or Gramsci, but men in female public toilets, or winning female sports, can swing large numbers of votes.
Was supposed to be an answer to NT below.
They won’t have read Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” either.
You have hit the nail on the head – this is a wedge issue exploited by culture warriors with a wider agenda. As the owner of Il Portico appeared to suggest in his interview with Triggernometry, the people who smashed in his windows probably were not trans – they were activists who are not doing trans people any favours.
It reminds me of the early 80’s when there were organisations such as the Anti Nasty League and Troops Out Movement which were essentially front organisations for the Socialist Workers Party. Other organisations such as Workers Against Racism and the Irish Freedom Movement were front organisations for the Revolutionary Communist Party. In all cases, they were not so much concerned with the stated cause – they just saw the riots of the early 80’s and the situation in the north of Ireland as being a threat to the state that they wanted to exploit.
The only difference with the situation today is that there is no obvious malevolent party behind the trans / BLM / etc. movements. Maybe there is no malevolent party – the followers of Gramsci have just infiltrated people heads.
Trans ideology is heavily funded – see journalist Jenifer Bilek. It’s not a grass roots movement and it’s not going away anytime soon.
It. Is. Not. About. Trans. Ideology.
Yes. Every word.
No different from Black Lives Matter activists and Muslim activists making threats to suppress a film or book.
I agree .. it makes me think this is all a deliberate ploy to break community & society apart into smaller, pernicious & downright mean sections. It’s like all the progress of the last few centuries since the industrial revolution is slowly being reversed. The worst part is that most people are live & let live & they do not see what is happening!
Absolutely. It is is deliberate and brazen, and it will not stop.
Neither does it have anything to do with a single issue such as the trans nonsense.
The meticulous corruption and obfuscation of language is everywhere, but even most of those who believe themselves resistant to the woke lunacy don’t spot most of it. Certainly not Mr Fraser.
“Cis”?
“TERF”?
“Infected”?
“Case”?
“Emergency” (as in climate)?
“Denier”?
“Hate”? (as in speech, crime)?
“Institutional Racism”?
I could go on…
Or the violent folk who have been disrupting field sports for over half a century. They came for the fox hunters first…
Yes. Someone who truly gets it.
Martin Niemoller must be turning in his grave.
Or mask fanatics. Or vaccine fanatics. Or climate fanatics.
Or….
A few issues with this post.
1. It was not “privilege” that kept you silent initially; it was common decency.
2. CIS?! You’ve got to be kidding! You’re either male or female. Whether you’re homosexual or heterosexual is inconsequential.
3. Pronouns?! You’ve adopted the language and viewpoint of woke.
Lies unopposed and frequently repeated by the zealous become “truth.” Glad you wrote, but you were already on a slippery slope called acquiescence.
Agreed – cut out the virtue signaling (which is really vice signaling), Giles, and I will read more of your writing. There are some good thoughts buried deep within.
It was cowardice, as even the author himself recognises, if somewhat disingenuously.
This article reflects exactly my own path from being entirely supportive of all that transactivists campaigned for to being skeptical of their most extreme positions and disgusted by their behaviour. As a medical doctor with a PhD in molecular endocrinology it is easy to appreciate that they are simply ignoring reality when they claim that biological sex in not binary in humans and is fluid. This is a dangerous view from a medical perspective as biological sex has diverse health implications. It, and ignoring it or trying to change it has massive health implication which remain poorly understood.It is also illogical to view gender as being more important than and thus superseding biological sex. One can only be trans with reference to biological sex. Ignore the latter and you eliminate trans people, which seems unfair. But the most objectionable aspect of their approach is their denial that there are serious risks to females associated with ignoring biological sex (single sex spaces) and that it is inherently unfair to them as well (sex based sports categories). So much for social justice.
Could you care to explain how, as a “medical doctor with PhD etc” you ever supported unscientific nonsense of transactivists?
I believe that’s what they call “rumbled”!
I don’t think that we will entirly get out of this mess, especially in places like Scotland or Canada where the government is tuuly captured, untol the medical and scientific community begin to clearly speak out about this. Too many regular people who support it have been taken in by the support of medical bodies or articles published by organizations they trust, like National Geographic.
Don’t describe yourself as a cis man, Giles. That’s playing their game. You’re a man, full stop.
#DontPlayTheRiggedGame
When people believe that because they are a “cis white middle-aged man” their “privilege” negates their right to an opinion on trans issues, then they have become part of the problem of shutting down peaceful debate and free speech on trans issues. Why did you wait for an act of violence against a man who hosted JK Rowling before you felt compelled to voice your opinion? Your outrage is long over due.
He’s not outraged. He’s virtue signalling.
I see Il Portico (where I haven’t eaten but will now, if I can get a booking) is in Kensington High Street. This must have more CCTV cameras per square foot than just about anywhere in the country, and it’s surely likely that the window smashers were caught on film. As well as criminal damage, the act must come into the category of ‘hate crime’ (dread term). I look forward to hearing it denounced by Mayor Khan and seeing the Met pursue the perpetrators with the utmost vigour…
You’re joking, surely Andrew. The met is utterly captured to the extent that not only do they have men who claim to be women in their ranks, they even have a “gender-fluid” off iced who has two different warrant cards for the days when he “feels like a man” to the days when he”feels like a woman”. He is of course allowed to intimately search women on his “woman days”……how did we ever get to this abomination towards women!!!
Can you provide a link? It might well be true, but it is too good a story to repeat without references.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/met-police-officer-becomes-britain-s-first-bigender-pc-a3546881.html
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/trans-police-officers-who-were-born-male-but-identify-as-female-can-search-women/
So it was true!!! My mind boggles.
“because I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man”. And that’s when I stop reading.
“Terf” in the headline usually does it for me, and the Giles Fraser byline is always skippable. Still, one can count on the comments to be lively.
Still, one can count on the comments to be lively.
More than lively. I would say many of the comments are very well articulated and thought out.
Often more so than the articles.
True. More grist for the mill.
Some people chose their pronouns. I choose my adjectives. I am a “natural-born man”, “natural man” or, preferably, simply “man”. Do not ever insult me by calling me a “cis man”
Just ‘man’ will do, surely?
My problem with the preferred pronouns is that they’ve gone way beyond politeness and into unconditional adherence. It doesn’t matter if the person in question is your sweet and gentle trans friend, or a serial killer of children who doesn’t warrant any politeness. The dogma dictates that you still must use their preferred pronouns – because if you don’t, you reveal that you’ve never really bought into another person’s preferred fictional reality. Furthermore, everyone must scold and police whoever steps out of line and doesn’t use the preferred pronouns, even if the person that’s being discussed is not actually around.
Oh and don’t forget the made-up neo-pronouns like “zir” and “kittenself”.
IMO it was always about coercion. Inclusion (from EDI) has that built in as a consequence.
The west is experiencing its very own version of China’s Cultural Revolution, complete with denounciation rallies. The aggressive, mouth frothing fervour that transactivists demand that all parrot their beliefs and those that won’t must be destroyed, in every sense of the word is so very similar to the collective insanity that was seen in Chinese youths of the Red Guard that it’s virtually a photocopied version, just coloured in differently and given a modern twist for the reboot.
The fact that they can’t recognise this in themselves either speaks to their lack of historical knowledge, or their lack of self critique. It would be sad, if only it didn’t present itself in the form of their being some of the most disgusting bullies I have ever seen in my life.
I remember, back in the day, you could just disagree with someone, rather than calling for the death of anyone who doesn’t parrot the same nonsense.
Spot on. The analogy with the Chinese cultural revolution is one I find entirely appropriate and one I’ve been using for the past few years. And yet few seem to sense the danger of such a phenomenon for society at large. One of the reasons may be that in our present day we are so inundated by narcissism and impatience with “limits” that anything goes–all you have to do is to say that it is so.
Giles, I have long been a fan of yours. Having been fighting the advance of transideology (please note, the ideology not the victims of same) since 2017 when I decided to retire from teaching biology rather than agree that girls can be boys I welcome your realisation that this ISN’T about “being kind”. As a faithful church-goer I have been appalled by the recent “Living in Love and Faith” course which conspicuously failed to even mention lesbians (who have been the canaries in the coal mine in this fight) or take into account ANY views from the many womens organisations who see clearly the detriment to women of adopting this ideology. Ask your wife how she feels about being called a “uterus-haver”, or your mother-in-law being presented with a man in a nurses uniform to perform her intimate care???
You have started on the journey, Giles, and you will get to full Terfdom in the end.
You have, however, made a very fundamental and important point. If people profess to believe in an all-powerful God who created everything, isn’t it rather arrogant and contradictory to assert that, in their case, He got it wrong and put them in the wrong body? If the Church believes in an all-powerful Creator, how can it even contemplate supporting transgenderism?
Well, to be fair, god did have to try out quite a few prototypes – hominids and hominins, up to Home Neanderthalensis, – before he got it right. Perhaps when he got to us he just thought ‘good enough will do’, without ironing out all the potential wrinkles.
What makes you think he was unhappy with them?
But many churches including CofE stopped believing and preaching gospel many years ago.
Why should we be surprised that Giles, like his Archbishop, promotes and believes in neo Marxist woke dogma of transgender nonse, BLM etc?
No one is “trans.”
No one is “cis.”
Using terms from the cult’s Lexicon of Lies gaslights everyone around you and normalizes the lies.
Why would you do that?
Precisely.
Because he’s virtue signalling. And lying to himself, as all sanctimonious fools do.
Because Unheard bravely publishes articles by people like Kathleen Stock who was hounded out of her job by rabid transactivist students and shamefully not defended by her employers. Because ‘trans issues’ are causing the biggest roll back in women’s sex based rights for at least a generation to the extent that politicians can’t say what a woman is anymore and people are called bigots for even asking the question. Because woman are being sexually assaulted by make convicted sex offenders who say they’re women to get transferred to the female estate. Because women’s sport is under clear and present danger from sporting bodies allowing men to compete with women. Because children are being taught anti science bullshit to ‘trans the gay away’ and put on lifelong experimental ‘puberty blockers and hormones and having irreversible surgery under gender ideology. Because lesbians are being told they have to accept ‘ladydique’ or they’re bigots. I could go on……maybe you don’t think these issues are important? Gender ideology is having real life consequences for millions of people, if you don’t think it affects you, you’re wrong, and it certainly has major consequences for your children, sisters, mother and female/lesbian/gay friends!
Excellent retort!
I am not prepared to be cissed by anyone.
Last one to transition is a cissy!
“All this because J.K. Rowling sat at one of his tables and ate his pasta.”
As I was reading still half asleep I had to do a double take re-read more carefully to see whether something had happened I was not aware of. 😀
Giles you do not call people by their preferred pronouns. You use their name or the genderless “you”. And by the way, your first responsibility as a pastor is to help people to grow in Christian character and faith. Love is the motivation, not the destination.
A great reply.
You’re not a cis anything, Giles. There’s no such thing.
The queer movement is not really about choice for everyone, is it? It’s about libertarianism for the new sacred caste (anyone who calls themselves by the meaningless, untethered from reality, terms queer or trans) and authoritarianism for the rest of us (cis, gammon, TERF, by which they mean heathen).
Well said Giles. I understand your compassion and confusion. By introducing new words “terf’, ‘gender critical’, ‘cis’ etc we allow even more misunderstanding. Most people who transition deserve our compassion and respect.
However this constant bullying by one section of the community forcing us to recognise their reality or lose our livelihoods is unacceptable as is the denial of the rights of woman to hard won rights which we do not (and according to the law) have to share.
I am sorry for your friend and what he has endured and will book his restaurant soon. We need more men on our side, so thank you both for speaking up.
It saddened me to read that Suzanne Moore had invited Giles Fraser to sit with her and her party at the restaurant – yet when she was hounded out of the Guardian, that had not prompted him to worry about ‘bullying’ on the part of trans-activists. Nor when Joanne Rowling was ‘cancelled’ – and airbrushed out of her own creation! Nope; when the women were being persecuted for saying there’s a reality to being ‘women’, he thought his ‘privilege’ meant he should sit on the sidelines! But when his male friend was, literally, defenestrated, and HIS livelihood put in jeopardy? Ah, THEN it was time to jump off the fence.
Even now he has done so, his scruples seem to relate only to the importance of acknowledging biological reality. The real problem, though, is that trans-activism doesn’t just deny scientific fact, it uses that denial to relegate the physical safety, and the fear of physical and sexual aggression, of female women below the amour propre of a biological male who feels more at home as a woman. Is that a matter on which Giles Fraser still feels cis- male privilege should be silent?
Sadly there’s a lot that’s correct in your assessment of his late arrival at the Transgenderreich Ball. It might have been better had he not mentioned his inertia prior to his friend’s broken windows. Nor are broken windows much of a yardstick in terms of assessing when to take action, given the previous well-reported bullying, threatening and hounding of Kathleen Stock and Maya Forstater to name but two, to which Mr Fraser turned a deaf ear and blind eye saying it wasn’t his business. If a pastor thinks this is the case he really needs to question both his faith and his role as a pastor. .
To be authentic is to be real, is to be aligned with reality. To be inauthentic is to be unreal.
When Olivier played Hamlet he may have been performing authentically, as measured against Shakespearean standards. His Hamlet may have been an extraordinarily ‘authentic’ Hamlet that perhaps the Bard himself would have praised. But Olivier the individual, while playing Hamlet, was not himself, being authentic (nor would the audience want him to be) as we measure his personal authenticity against the unreality of Hamlet. Hamlet and Laurence are two different individuals, one real and the other a fictional construct. Laurence, was not a prince of Denmark. His father was not murdered by Claudius. He did not know Yorick well.
To his own self he was not true…nor should any great actor, while acting, be concerned about being authentically themselves. Rather they should focus upon convincing the audience of the ‘authenticity’ of the make-believe.
So too with those who declare themselves a sex different than the real. Men cannot become women; nor women men. It’s impossible. Neither can cats become dogs or oak trees, cotton candy. Men, in the real world, are men and can be nothing else.
But –as with Olivier — they can certainly pretend to be anything they like.
So when the author tells us, speaking of the trans-people he knows, “they are (post-‘transition’) more authentic human beings.” That is simply not true. To pretend to be something you are not. can never be somehow ‘more authentic’ than being what you actually are.. Olivier was not a ‘more authentic human being’ when he was pretending to be Hamlet; he was simply being a great actor. If I believe myself the King of Siam, I am not ‘more authentic’ when I require you to use my preferred pronoun, ‘Your Majesty’. Rather I am just being delusional.
He tells us, “Both are, I believe, much happier now”.
Perhaps. Buyers remorse can be very painful if that remorse is connected to one-way body mutilation and hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills. But the fact that they are potentially happier (now) does not make their play-pretend real and it definitely doesn’t make them a more authentic, Mrs. Doubtfire.
If I tell you I’d be happier if you gave me your car, I’d be surprised if anyone nodded and handed me their keys, saying, “At least he’s happier now!”
As for the heartfelt, “I certainly wouldn’t want to say anything that might hurt them,” who would? But neither is it helpful to continually validate a lie. As much as we all might like and respect the Emperor, it is long past time we tell him, “You’re naked, sir, and your ‘new clothes’ are a hoax.
And that would be authentic.
Here is “authentic” as used in ‘woke marxism’.
https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-authentic/
Great link; thanks. Not surprising, of course. Authentic meaning whatever, really, they want it to mean. Kinda like Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Here is another, since you mentioned the very on-point Humpty Dumpty reference.
This link is to a discussion regarding language use, between Andy Lewis and a trans activist. It is one of the most relevant discussions I have read and Lewis raises the most dangerous hidden consequence of transgender language – the destruction of the function of language and how it carries meaning. It is brilliant IMO.
https://medium.com/@lecanardnoir/the-humpty-dumpty-wonderland-of-transgender-language-e0cbbecedcbc
Lewis’s points should be front and centre in any push-back in my view. They are that important.
The semantics of Humpty Dumpty were trenchantly criticised by Lord Atkin in Liversidge v Anderson [1942] AC 206. Tragically, he was the sole dissenting judge at the time. However, in R v Inland Revenue Commissioners, ex parte Rossminster Ltd [1980] AC 952 his argument was expressly upheld by the Appellate Committee, and by Lords Diplock and Scarman in particular. For more than 40 years the semantics of Humpty Dumpty have been outlawed. Transideologists, and others, please take note.
Giles, please do read up on this and do something about the Church of England’s embrace of gender identity ideology which is being embedded into all our institutions. By using the pre fix cis you are also bowing to it. The CofE’s Valuing All God’s Children and the recent Living in Love and Faith all spout Stonewall’s ideology without any critique at all. It is a dereliction of duty especially to children. I was in touch with the powers that be on this but my concerns have fallen on deaf ears..
Lucky you Sarah. I cannot get any of the high-ups to reply to any of my communications!!
Because it’s currently a major discussion, especially online. Writers are going to write articles on current events, such as politics, Ukraine and the culture wars online. Otherwise they wouldn’t have much of a readership
I am unsure why everything seems to be understood in terms of right and left. Is it also assumed that everyone on the left is extreme left but not everyone on the right is extreme right?
Both ‘sides’ are guilty of doing this. I too dislike this false dichotomy. It obfuscates the true battle line between state authoritarianism and individual liberty.
You are unsure because you are clearly not interested in facts. There are plenty of people on here with clear knowledge of the neo-Marxist Long March, the role of Gramski and others but that doesn’t interest you. There are “two sides to every argument” and you are the “balanced adult in the room”.
Only in your own mind.
“I am not prepared to be cissed by anyone at all” is a relevant point dealing with the subject under discussion. Could a moderator please explain why it was censored?
Well, I suppose that we all have our tipping-point: the act that makes us say, “Enough is enough!” Welcome to the struggle, Giles.
As a so called ‘cis gender white member of the patriarchy’ and a loving and loyal husband of 38 years (no complaints so far apart from Led Zep being played too loud after a few whiskies) I am afraid all this trans stuff is a load of lefty bollocks. Have you noticed a similar gender confusion trend in Saudi Arabia, China or North Korea? No….I thought not. What the UK needs is more lunatic asylums. Or a decent world war to concentrate your virtue signaling minds on the genuinely important issues in life.
Thank you Giles, Il Portico is now my first choice next time I eat out in London
The moment one appears to be intolerant to other people’s beliefs to the extent to harm them, the red line is very much crossed. Free speech and other human rights are violated.
“I disagree but I put my life on the line for you to have the right to express your self freely” is the flag we have to raise once more.
“The public sphere is becoming so unpleasant, so full of vitriol and accusation, …”
You didn’t take this point of view when you heaped vitriol and accusation against Prince Andrew and the Queen, without mentioning one relevant fact, did you?
Giles, a big thank you for this article! I know that standing up for truth, reconciliation and justice is habitual with you, but well done anyway. One of the few things to give me slight cheer in these turgid times is the way the much abused Telegraph, Spectator and Unheard are giving homes, or at least temporary logings to people who speak truth in sincerity even when they are their political critics. That they will defend the bullied is both surprising and cause for joy.I struggle to read the Graun; it makes me angry, but I do it for my sense of balance, Keep up writing, with all your fellow passengers; I will admire you so much I may even change my views on something.
Interesting that the majority of the Guardian readers abandoned ‘the faith’ and supported Johnny Depp despite many articles supporting the Heard angle. All is not lost.
Sociopathy is narcissism.
Autogynephilia is narcissism with a sexual paraphilia called transvestites. Most drag queens are transvestites but some are sexual inverts who are typically preyed upon by transvestites.
Sexual inverts are homosexual transexuals. Known as ladyboys or he-she’s in Asia.
There are two types of transgendered – heterosexual / pseudo-bisexuals Autogynephiles / autoandrophiles transvestites who can not pass as the opposite sex and homosexual transexuals sexual inverts who can easily pass as the opposite sex. There are also the social contagion derived transtrenders which is a for profit endeavor by gender clinics and planned parenthood who is the number one purveyor of gender hormones and also pushed by the Chinese communist party as part of a psychological operation via social media – TikTok in particular – to psychologically, socially and physically mess up Western youth and their families.
Triggernometry interviewed the restaurant owner, the interview went up in June 7 or 8. And everybody who cares about what the barbarians are doing to good people should read Millenarian Mobs by Angelo Codevilla, in the Summer 2020 issue of Claremont Review of Books. Especially Christian clergy who consider silence an option. There is a long history to self-righteous movements like we are now suffering.
You have bodies and you have minds and this is about mindless violence, inflicted on others. Free speech means not only saying what you believe to be true but allowing others to do the same. It is not about necessarily agreeing with alternative beliefs and being ‘converted’ that is joining an alternative way of being but leaving people in peace to get on with lives as they see fit. I believe as spiritual beings we have no sexual identity and as children and the old, this part of our anatomy lacks importance until we reach puberty and finishes when our breeding days are over. Self righteous violent people are always the same, no matter what the subject is they are getting on their high horses over but they will always tell you different, despite their actions betraying the truth of mob rule and mob violence. Long live the courageous individual and as for you cowardly kids, grow up and stop hiding in the shadows, blaming others and avoiding adult response-ability
I’m puzzled by your use of “Terf”. Doesn’t it stand for trans-exclusionary radical feminist? I doubt that you’re a radical feminist, no matter what you think of trans women. Or has it become a synonym for “transphobe”, a weird term itself, since there don’t seem to be anyone actually afraid of trans people — unless they’re the radical, bullying sort. But that’s due just to bullying, not transgendering.
The entire article is insincere. The use of ‘TERF’ is but one small giveaway.
Compassion may be at the center of Giles Frasers’s approach to this subject, but the denial of reality doesn’t seem to me compassionate. His, and others’, misuse of the word “authentic” is now so ubiquitous, that it has become, shall we say, inauthentic
But bold and payhetic in the same measure
For a man of god “the meek shall inherit the Earth” has gone too far but for a man who had ‘Guardian days’, his sins have found him out. I used to mock the militant feminists shouting about not becoming CEOs with ‘while you were out shouting the gays crept past and took all your jobs.’
To the contrary, Giles, as you’re a ‘cis’ (I don’t use or like that term personally) white middle-class middle-aged man, you should be saying something. I note that it’s a male friend’s plight that’s motivated you to finally get involved.
We need more people in your position speaking on this issue (where is Brian Cox, for starters?)
But anyway, I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face; I’m pleased you’ve become engaged.
The issue is not the gender confused, a tiny minority, but those who take it upon themselves to support them violently. We saw them clad in black with masks pre covid at Grenfell. The Protest movement are a lot more subtle and organised than those at Greenham Common. Look at the Gilets Jaunes in France.
Well here’s the flip side scinario : if Peter Hitchens or George Galloway (Pro Russia) showed up at the restaurant, James would have kicked them out… and we would all be silent. George Orwell ‘s ANIMAL FARM would be more ralevant in this case though.
Good point.
What DRIVES this madness? Male sex drive? Territorial drive? Religious instinct? Sexual jealousy? Totalitarian impulse? Nihilism? Misogyny alone seems an inadequate explanation.
Narcissistic self-loathing. They love and hate themselves, and know deep down that they can never really become the object of their desires. I feel sorry for them, but not enough to play along with their insanity.
Neo-Marxism.
The beginning of being red-pilled. Most people who are red-pilled start to notice more and more discrepancies in the narrative. May it continue for the author.
I’ve known two transpersons as “friends.” The first was many decades ago when no one had heard of trans except maybe Christine Jorgenson, and he certainly didn’t ID with CJ. He first thought he was gay and then said, “no, that’s not quite it.” He worked it out differently than they do today and was a good friend who would never have demanded pronouns of anyone. He is why I think there are transpersons, though quite rare.
The second was a man at the beginning of the current nonsense who turned out to be an AGP/cross dresser and a pretty bad person, liar, con artist, and narcissist. He took advantage of the current atmosphere and plenty were drawn in. Part of my red-pilling once I discovered how deviously bad he was. Why I scare-quoted the word “friend.”
I generally avoid people who use alternative pronouns or bios with “preferred pronouns”). Virtue signalers don’t make good friends, trans or not. And the term “cis” is just ugh. I have started to avoid filling in the expanded demographic portions of questionnaires. I’ve always been against compelled speech, and doing it out of politeness is a slippery slope that affects more than oneself. That children are at risk should make people wake up.
That this is a well-financed and previously stealth campaign is finally starting to come to light. Decades in the making, apparently. Choose the red pill!
Giles Fraser is a human being, why does his opinion on fundamental human matters have to be qualified by his ‘privilege’?
Thank you, Giles, for joining in the fight and declaring your views publicly! As a fellow Christian, I completely agree that gender ideology contradicts the tenets of Christianity. It is its own religion and cannot sit well with any other.
Mr Fraser clearly doesn’t get it and probably never will.
Sitting on the sidelines on the trans nonsense is only now cowardice, because an issue has affected someone close to him?
Until now, like so many, he’s lied to himself and made excuses for his cowardice. But I’ll bet he supported lockdowns, masks and vaccine coercion all the way. I’ll bet he *believes* in the “Climate Emergency”, in BLM, etc.
As a church rector, has he never heard of Martin Niemoller?
The disaster now facing this country rests squarely on the shoulders of Mr Fraser and his ilk. You reap what you sow.
Trans activists have done terrible harm to trans women. We used to accept the odd discreet trans woman in the ladies room but that is completely different from demanding a right to enter and thereby opening the door to all men. They were excluded in the first place for a reason.
You should read Scripture and remember when these demonic devices slither into your view as normal, when people want to be addressed as they and them, there is a Biblical precedent – the Demon possessed man in Gadarene – his name was “Legion because we are many”.
“Religious people can’t possibly agree with this.” Nor can I, of no religion.
For anyone wishing to become a “trans ally” I can recommend the pasta at “Il Politico”.
My daughters persuaded me not to wear a t-shirt of my own design saying “Privileged and Proud”. I suppose it would have been needlessly provocative. A bit like not calling someone by their preferred pronoun. Good manners allow us to make others feel at ease in our company. Even if you don’t like someone or agree with their opinions, there’s no need to be impolite. Just ask Her Majesty The Queen.
As for the rest of this stuff, I am not sure I need to have an opinion. So many better informed people are already involved.
Politeness is the mark of civilization. Polite disbelief, polite incredulity even, or just polite evasion (“you have no idea how much I enjoyed your …(book, cooking, whatever)…”) allow us to reduce the friction coefficient of human interaction. However, manners are more than empathy, and may operate in its absence. Choosing words and responses carefully allows one to communicate neutrally, affirming the individual without actually having to validate things about them one finds personally distasteful. In fact, in reframing a conversation in strenuously neutral terms is pro-active. On the surface one is elevating the ton of the discourse, but one is also quietly seizing agency. A disinclination to worship the Idols of the Theatre is a position of (polite) power aka boundaries, or as they used to say, the courage of one’s convictions.
Well said, who cares about this nonsense, besides being an all too obvious sign of decadence, there is nothing more to say.
Incidentally 5% seems very generous indeed.
I think there’s something more subtle going on here for religious people.
1. We do want more, without limits. It’s been called having a restless heart until rest is found in the all, aka God.
2. Our destiny is beyond gender. As the gospels put it, after the resurrection we will be like the angels.
So, if you remove the divine frame, you’ve no transcendent reference points. Distress, moralism and confusion results.
It’s possibly a different debate, but what you’re alluding to is that “Distress, moralism and confusion results” for those who NEED a god to believe in and to provide transcendent reference; not everyone does, and not everyone has those characteristics you allude to whilst having a lively connection with transcendence without a god.
I strongly suspect that the disproving of many of the tenets of religion, which held sway for many centuries, is responsible for the philosophical transition to what we now term “post-truth”. In other words, it’s the religiosity that’s at fault, and in some respects comes through in Giles’ article, already commented upon.
Or to use your classic expression people :”might develop enough backbone” to think for themselves occasionally.
It’s where the veritable and the vertebral collide.
If one agrees with Ms Moore et al. on this issue, yet rejects ideas such as the patriarchy and other casual misandry now found in common parlance, does that make one a ‘TE’?
Jesus was condemned by a mob.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Was the mysterious “Jo” with whom GF shared a meal actually JK Rowling?
Giles, I often listen to you on the Moral Maze and always enjoy what you have to say. My feelings on this topic are very similar to yours. I have no issue with trans-identifying people. My beef is with the activists, and the gulf between these activists – TRAs – and the constituency they claim to represent seems to be growing wider and wider. For many TRAs, trans-activism looks like an excuse to commit acts of violence and bully women. They are doing trans-identifying people no favours, and I am certain the majority of trans-identifying people do not endorse the death threats, the intimidation, the doxxing and attacks on people’s livelihoods carried out in their name.
Is it not also quite likely that the “crime” committed by Il Portico was raising money for Ukraine? The lever that runs between woke causes and right-wing russophilia has two ends.
“I am a cis white middle-class middle-aged man,”
Me too. Don’t apologise for being part of a group that has contributed so much benefit to human development over the last 300 years or so. We pay most of the income tax too. Maybe in 200 years time things will be different. In the meantime we are entitled to a voice.
Missed the chance to do a pasta/pastor pun.
“Israeli Embassy” “Suzanne Moore” “Fundraiser for Ukraine” “JK Rowling”
One out of four ain’t bad, I suppose.
I’m glad the food was good.
J K Rowling has probably shopped in Tesco’s, bought tickets from a UK railway company, and used that well-known tissue on her derriere. That online campaign isn’t the result of the restaurant’s financial support of that country whose flags now fly everywhere in Britain?
That thought occurred to me. It’d be a rather more likely explanation in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
For the likes of me, please, what is a Terf. The vindictive viciousness of what you report sounds like it may well be the work of an agent provocateur of whatever their own particular bag of tricks is. Similar to on-line bots.
It is arguably the key issue of our age. If they can successfully alter reality as they see fit, anything and everything is up for grabs.
What a thoughtful and brilliant piece.
I’ve never ever seen pasta on the menu at The Terf Club?
“Of course, I will use your preferred pronouns. It is a basic matter of politeness to call people how they would like to be called.”
I’m sorry,Giles, but — no, it isn’t. Truthfulness has to win out over politeness. A normally developed adult male is a man, whether or not he wishes he were a woman or someone of indeterminate gender/sex. So I can’t refer to him or “she” or “her”. It might be polite (that’s arguable) but it certainly isn’t truthful. Similarly a normally developed adult female is a woman . . . mutatis mutandis.
And it isn’t helpful to him to be encouraged in his mistaken opinion, nor to her to be encouraged in her mistaken opinion, that he or she can choose to be whatever sex he or she wishes. None of us have a choice in this matter: we are the sex we were born as. I appreciate that there are some — a few — genuine cases of intersex people or people with incorrectly developed sexual organs, and my comments here do not address their situation at all. The overwhelming number of so-called “trans” people have a perfectly normal and natural sexual development as a man or a woman, but wish they hadn’t or doubt that they have. That is a mistaken opinion. Encouraging someone to believe a lie and to act on it is not an act of kindness: it is more akin to an act of betrayal.
Where individuals do have genuine sexual dysphoria — where their perceived sense of their sex/gender differs from their actual sex/gender, this is undoubtedly a severe problem for the person, and one can only be sympathetic towards them. Their individual cases clearly demand sensitive treatment from family, friends, medical practitioners and others. But the solution can never be to collude in a lie and pretend that their inner perceived sense of their sex/gender is more “real” and more “true” than their actual sex/gender. Collusion with a lie, with an untruth, can never be the right way forward. This applies to the use of pronouns, as well as to many other aspects of how to relate to such individuals.