rememberwhenyoutried:

wetpinkorthodoxy:

I’m sick to death of seeing right wing “free speech” justifications for dangerous bigoted notions. The Guardian today has another transmisogynist clutching her pearls at the exclusion of a TERF from an event on private grounds. A large part of the column is dedicated to pretending that TERFs are being excluded because some of them are lesbians.

I’m done with this alright? I’m making a commitment to find alternative news sources and it won’t be easy but there’s stuff out there if you look hard enough.

Political culture has messed us up and made us incapable of seeing bigotry when it’s staring us in the face. People need to realise there is no difference between long articulate columns that articulate transmisogyny and outright hate speech. Whilst left wingers, trans women, people of colour and many other marginalised people are being policed on their behaviour (how dare you not make friends with Tories???), people are publishing hate speech in the mainstream press under the guise of “sensible conversation.”

It’s not about freedom of speech it’s about the accountability that should come with having a huge platform. If you’re not going to use it responsibly I’m gonna block you out.

The extraordinary thing about that column is that the author quoted the Beard Society – “I’m sorry but we’ve decided not to host you. I too believe in freedom of expression, however Peterhouse is as much a home as it is a college. The welfare of our students in this instance has to come first.” – and then went on simply flatly to deny that statement. She didn’t engage with it, just blithely waved it away with the assertion that someone wielding the birth assignment of a vulnerable group against them was “not exactly a preacher of hate”. That’s not how you persuade an audience, that’s how you talk when you believe your position to be so obvious as to not be worth explaining.

Absolutely pathetic. Not just bigoted, but garbage writing. The Guardian’s standards have never been so low.