Wish it was a permanent ban, but Iāll take it.
The Mirror and the i are probably relatively OK, they still print transphobic shit but they will also publish our side of the story too. The FT too, they are too focused on accurately reporting what is going on in capitalism to want to get involved, which isnāt good but it is an improvement. There is a reason why the FT is required reading for socialists.
The really scary part is all our major parties have also been captured by transphobes. The speed of the collapse of Labourās trans support is very worrying, trans people are considered to be Corbynites by default so we are getting treated like shit even though the deputy leader is a trans ally (Angela Rayner is the only member of the shadow cabinet who Starmer canāt fire. She is also not a Corbynite, but that isnāt enough for Blue Labour). I have a resignation letter waiting for me to do a second draft, Starmer isnāt going to resign until he loses the next election. I should have trusted my judgement and never joined in the first place, at least then I wouldnāt have seen how shit the Labour party are from the inside.
The SNP say they support trans people, but Joanna Cherry is still an MP, and other than that there is only the Scottish Green Party who are only a major party in Scotland. I think Sinn Fein are also OK, but they see themselves as an Irish party and refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen, so they canāt take their seats in parliament. There is no major party in England and Wales who will stand up for trans people.
I think I have mentioned that Keir Starmer used to be in charge of the CPS, who have a long record of criminalising trans people for minor crimes (most trans people on the sex offenders register are on it for sex work while homeless) and dropping assault and rape/sexual assault cases against us.
I have a get out plan, but I donāt know when to enact it. Iām considering making a bug out bag, but I donāt know how, most of the guides are for natural disasters or end time fetishists. If I do leave then it will be the second time that I have lost my home to transphobes (third if you include a shitty landlord from 15 years ago, but I found a new house for rent on the same street.)
Iām not advocating Red Fightbackās politics, but this might be worth reading.
https://redfightback.org/read/transphobia_in_the_left
Red Fightback had to split from other Marxist-Leninist groups and parties, partly because of transphobia. There is still an attitude of āStalin was right to criminalise queer peopleā in British M-L groups, I encountered it in the 90s and spent a few years politically disaffiliated until I learned about libertarian-socialism and itās history with LGBTQI+ people (There were a lot of queer anarchists in 1920s Berlin). I would have been a poor fit in M-L politics anyway, Iām too anti-authority and decentralist for them.
Iām no expert. But Iām looking at things like getting a second copy of my passport and ID; which you can do here. And renewing my passport early as it expires in 2024 - and who knows what that year will be like? Cash, of course. Important docs and family stuff. Scanned copies of family photos, docs etc - backed up online and thumb drives.
I have a wood cane with a brass handle that breaks down into three pieces. Good for self defense. Pepper spray. Changes of clothes and cleaning wipes. Meds. Prescription copies.
Maybe buy some mailing boxes and postage so I can load up things to mail to myself on the way out. Or to a friend to get to me. Paperback book or two. Rain poncho. Emergency blanket & sleeping bag made of that Mylar that folds up like a deck of cards. Bottle of water. Protein bars.
I need to get a flask!
The New Statesman moves from Socialism to National Socialism with these TER lies and dogwhistles.
Ah, the article is by a Guardian TER columnist, that explains everything.
I wouldnāt bash Lorraine Kelly based on her current show. She got her break by reporting on the Lockerbie bombing, which got her promoted from Scotland correspondent to main presenter on ITVs breakfast programmes. Her journalistic credentials are better than a lot of British current affairs presenters today.
She is also a reliable LGBTQI+ ally, and has won awards for her support.
āThe aristocrats!ā
Maybe cross post in misogyny?
Feel free to do so 
This is an excellent, horrifying example of why fear and hate mongers love revisionist history.
Posted elsewhere but should also probably be in here.
The BBC keep showing us who they are.
Mercedes Lackeyās husband apparently decided to spend last night melting down on Twitter about trans people being mean to him and his wife when really all theyāve done is be such incredible allies to that community.
The āthisā in question is an extremely reductive and harmful attitude towards trans characters that Lackey wrote in 2003, but which is still up on her website in 2021, unedited and unremarked upon:
Which has most recently been brought up because she was named a Grand Master by the SFWA this year.
Thereās a difference between āI havenāt written a trans character because I donāt feel comfortable enough to be able to do it properlyā and ātrans peopleās stories are such a niche interest and focused entirely around their gender struggles, and there just isnāt a way for a fantasy setting to provide a means for dealing with that problem[?!?!?!?!] and also it wouldnāt sell very well.ā The latter very much proves the former, but both she and her husband seem to be incapable of understanding that problem, and getting extremely upset that people are upset by that lack of understanding.
The fact that trans people are mad at them is apparently, in their minds, because trans people are Drama Llamas who canāt do anything but repeatedly point out how Lackeyās remarks have hurt them.
(Bonus round: in 2017 she argued that they/them pronouns in a book are enough to make her want to throw it in the trash, and she actively discouraged a writer from using them in their short story because the editor would just excise them anyway because Chicago Manual of Style Rulesā¦ And her husband has tried to patiently explain that she just canāt abide they/them pronouns because of the deep trauma she had over being taught that they were grammatically incorrect in school so, yāknowā¦ thatās also Not Greatā¦)
Sheās not wrong. We donāt have families, jobs, interests, artistic interests, political interests outside of trans ones, friendships, medical challenges, sense of humors or god forbid romances.
Nope just that period of time when we transition. Just like every gay person is limited to coming out and every cis woman can only have their first period be written about.
Have you stopped to consider that youāre just to limited a writer?
Also he seems to spend a lot of time defending himself in the replies by saying āno, you misunderstand me, what I meant wasā¦ā, which is also not really a good sign for someone who makes a living off of the written wordā¦
Itās a damn shame to read that, considering all the time Iāve spent reading the Valdemar booksā¦ Iām deeply disappointed in both Lackey and Dixon.
They clearly arenāt aware of the changing trends in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, where more and more books questioning gender and ātraditionalā relationships are being published and purchased. (My TBR pile includes Iron Widow, a SF YA title blending kaiju, mecha, feminism and revenge, where the heroine winds up in a relationship with two of her fellow pilots, both men. The bookās getting tons of praise on Twitter, and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 7 weeks now.) I also find it seriously hard to believe that a writer of Lackeyās longevity and reputation wouldnāt be able to publish whatever she chose to write and not have a significant volume of sales, on name recognition alone. (Well, maybe not after thisā¦)
Besides, fantasy (and science fiction) is uniquely suited to āwhat-ifsā and questioning the status quo, by the very nature of the genre. The only limits are the authorās imagination and ability to spin a tale. Lackey and Dixon are admitting a lack of that imagination and ability if they canāt rise to the challenge of creating compelling stories featuring transgender characters-- and thatās justā¦ sad.
Yes, itās hard to overcome what earlier eras taught us about gender and grammar and other rules that just donāt hold water any moreā¦ but isnāt it worth the effort to try? I agree that it would be entirely different if theyād said, āwe just donāt feel we could do the concept the justice it deservesā instead of basically ānObOdY cArEs lolā and shrugging. Guess what-- we do care, and some of us gladly read things outside our own experiences, that stretch our understanding of the world. Thatās what fantasy and sci-fi are supposed to do. How can anyone be considered a Grand Master of the field without understanding that???
