Henry makes a number of specific criticisms - and I address a couple because I think of him intellectually as a friend.
The first is that progressives are wrongly sceptical of free debate.
The first is that progressives are wrongly sceptical of free debate.
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To them I would say, would you criticise a Jew for not debating an anti-Semite?
But if you wouldn't expect a Jew to debate it why ask a trans person?)
I tried to tackle that here (but sorry it's a B-minus piece.) https://www.politico.eu/article/gary-lineker-chose-to-cut-against-the-grain-of-power-good-law-project-social-media-guidelines-northern-ireland-british-government-immigration-clampdown-free-speech-rights-tim-davie/
There are lots of reasonable qualifications and good justifications and fair excuses going the other way. But I regret I haven't done better in my own work.
And that is: progressives have been massively outspent. /ends
Framing it as an 'ideology' or a 'debate' means they have to talk to someone who believes they don't exist, and why would you?
It's like me debating whether autism is real, or caused by vaccines.
Some things are facts. You don't debate facts.
what is there to debate beyond ‘why are you implementing the cass review when science is telling you its wrong?’
transphobes aren’t interested in a debate. they’re interested in propagating lies and paranoid conspiracies.
Anyone that thinks there's a debate to be had in that is a piece of shit not worth listening or speaking to for a single second.
Trans people were deliberately being harassed by a live audience, & that audience had been _prompted_ into agitation by showrunners.
Your brand of pushing mealy-mouthed couching of deliberate and willful antagonism by anti-trans agitators is horseshit.
See also “debate” about climate change, Brexit etc ad nauseam..
The idea of removing sexist assumptions embedded in English was always hysterically greeted as an extremist feminist assault on august tradition…
I saw Genderquake, it was vile television and no sort of journalism or debate.
No justice? No trust.
Single-authored pieces in mainstream news media, including broadcast segments is, in reality the main forum for debate….
That is the real issue. I have lost count of many times I have had pitches ignored or turned down by MSM. They are literally totally excluding us from this “debate” while…
Sulking in tents, we just punish ourselves.
There's no debate to be had on that topic.
The space you vacate is filled by Farage & co making political capital from trans myths. That's already happened. One can fantasise scenarios where journos are "punished" for anti-trans bias, but in RW trans people are being punished
they want us to accept their science denial as a neutral starting position when it very clearly isn’t.
They will try wishing that trans people won’t exist. And we always will.
They have tried previously wishing gay away. And it failed.
They tried wishing that they could own people. And that was abolished.
No, I just have a deeper faith in our respective dignity than you do