The other way of looking at Tuesday's Gender Wars documentary is that, yes, the two sides were presented as somehow equally worthy of coverage, and given equal time, but then any reasonably intelligent person would have been able to see for themselves who was talking sense and who was spouting fatuous slogans. 

Joanna Williams:

In the documentary’s opening sequence, clips of the mild-mannered, scholarly Stock are set against footage of the masked-up, smoke-bomb-throwing trans-rights activists outside her former university. Stock’s insistence that transgender people exist and should be respected is set against her critics’ incredulous claims to know the real transphobic ‘meaning behind her words’. Transgender interviewees complain about their identity becoming a ‘debate’, while refusing even to acknowledge that gender self-identification means the end of single-sex spaces. Through showing rather than telling, Channel 4 allows viewers a rare glimpse of the intimidation and dishonesty at the heart of the gender wars.

More than anything else, Gender Wars shows how the fight for a sex-based definition of womanhood has become a fight for reality over fantasy. The biggest fantasy of all is, of course, the idea that transwomen are women. Activists assume that frequent repetition of this mantra will make people forget about biological facts. They expect us to affirm the delusions of people who believe that their self-perception is reality. As feminist campaigner Julie Bindel makes clear in the documentary: ‘The word woman is already taken.’ These male fantasists need to find their own label.

The lesson from Gender Wars is that when fantasy is allowed to overrule reality, all possibility of rational discussion is closed off….

And here we are – Oxford on Tuesday:

Twarw

Well….no. No, they're not. It's a fantasy. 

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2 responses to “A fight for reality over fantasy”

  1. TDK Avatar
    TDK

    ” Transgender interviewees complain about their identity becoming a ‘debate’”
    Joana was too kind there. TRAs argue that their “existence” should not become a debate. The language is carefully chosen. If my identity is not acknowledged by everyone then somehow, I cease to exist as my authentic self.
    I say I am Napoleon, Mick. Your failure to acknowledge that destroys my existence.

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  2. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Sorry about that TDK, but you can’t be Napoleon: I’m Napoleon.

    Like

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