This is my second letter in response to: "Can feminist causes be furthered by working with right wing or religious people and groups? And should we support and defend blanket free speech?"
I must respectfully and strongly disagree with the author.
The left has stabbed us in the back by embracing... NO, advocating FOR the misogynistic, homophobic, cult religion known as Transgenderism. As I view this anti-scientific, delusional ideology as an existential threat to women and homosexuals I will ally with any group to their right in order to successfully oppose them, even religious ones with which we share little else.
It is, imo, a tactical necessity that will enable and hopefully shorten the time to success.
I doubt anyone would expect this to be a permanent alliance. But with luck it may in fact lead to a greater understanding and even a grudging respect for those who have never worked together for a common cause.
At this time the right is NOT a captive of religion... but the left IS.
I refuse to re-define myself as non-left just because mainstream left organisations have taken a hard right turn.
I'm in this fight because I am a leftist, because I care about women's rights, and incidentally, because I have spent considerable time reporting on the Religious Right and esoterics and find the resemblance between them and transideology scary.
Aligning oneself with the Right has never been a good idea and never will turn out well. The mess the mainstream Left is in now is precisely the result of them throwing out all that's even remotely socialist and aligning themselves with Neoliberalism.
This all reminds me of a commentator from Iran who recently talked about how the Left in Iran allied with Khomeini to overthrow the Shah and when Khomeini came to power he promptly had the leftist allies killed - history likes to repeat
I agree allying with the right wing that dominates the media is a dangerous strategy, and I am hopeful that this type of honest respectful dialogue continues . I also am very serious but cautious about widening alliances where there is less extreme manipulation but a real lack of working information about what women’s liberation and feminism can and does mean to so many of us and how it can be a part of their lives too.
I want this to be a moment where we take a moment to wisen the women in our lives up and I know this transgenderism/, transactivism is a topic of agreement that I have never seen before.
I do think the erasure of women must stopped and reality has to win!
Very well said. For all of the foibles, follies, flaws, and f*ckery on what passes for today's woke cum neoliberal cum totalitarian regressive pseudo "Left", the Hard Right is far, far worse on balance, and certainly no friend of feminism at all. Even if the proverbial stopped clock is right twice a day, the rest of the time it is wrong, often 100% wrong. And unfortunately, the Hard Right is a package deal.
As for religious influence in politics more generally... The European descended left has historically pro-free-speech and anti-religion. Secularism was the path, and atheism even better. The problem is at some point, not a random point, the Left became obsessed not with secularism but with the social construct of "religious diversity", which was a virtue-signal for skin-colour diversity, and this basically took hold as a binary place holder between Progressives-for-Palestine and Conservatives-for-Israel. From that point on, leftists became entrenched with religious activism, so complaining of the "religious right" has become nonsensical.
Today, everyone except atheists are flying their religious flags or demanding their religious exemptions, be it Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, I really don't give a hoot, leftism should have never sided with religion.
But that is another lost battle, another reason to say adios.
And when worst of all *feminists* chant about this religious group or that one who are "incapable" or "disallowed" from sharing spaces with males, I call BS.
Either no woman is forced to share a jail cell or a swimming lane with is a man or no woman is. The fact that leftists argue for the same damned religious exceptionalism that the Christian right does is completely abhorrent.
Your articles are so refreshing! I too cannot ally with the far right. I feel the majority of left leaning people genuinely care about those with fewer privileges, and think it is this need to be actively trying to improve society that has resulted in the trans cult we see today. There is also the tendency to believe whatever Jo Blogs on the internet says if they agree with him or her on other issues. I really feel most on the left, especially the young, have little idea of feminism and why trans ideology has serious implications for women let alone why prostitution and porn are bad for all women and are in no way "liberating". I continue to have hope that lefty women are worth persevering with and that good, well researched argument will win in the end.
There are many of us around the country, in feminist networks, saying exactly this. For the new women being drawn into contact with feminism for the first time, there is definitely a need to refresh and promote foundational feminist ideas and feminist campaigning skills. Thanks heavens we have Filia for this.
Plus, on a tangentially related matter. Thank you for leaving your comments open. I support Meghan on Patreon but not Substack, so I'm unable to comment there. There's a limit to who us lower peons can fund. So hopefully Meghan's reading these comments too :D
I agree THIS is not the Left. Anyone who embraces capitalism and the Davos Set and their World Economic Forum and all the billionnaires and superstars who fly to Davos on their private jets.
Until 2016, actual Leftists always demonstrated AGAINST G7, G20, Davos, WEF, is not a leftist.
A 2016 Vice article aptly noted the absence of leftists demonstrations for the very first time ever at the 2016 Davos WEF meeting.
Interestingly, 2016 is the year Trudeau declared "gender" (not sex) a protected religion in Canada, and I say religion very specifically, because Minister of Justice Raybould made that exact analogy in Parliamentary sessions when asked that we should provide a definition for "gender". She refused based on the fact that we do not demand receipts/definitions for religious people demanding religious accommodations in their workplace, so "gender" should be same.
The Left have been dying for a long time. In Canada again, when NDP leader Layton died in 2011, he was replaced by a Montreal capitalist and cultural conservative, Thomas Mulcair, in 2012. Some long time leftists believe that the left was moribund before that point, but it is Mulcair who oversaw the removal of socialism from the NDP, and turned the party in a vacuous woke identitarian party.
So you are both right!
The contexts of Leftism are ever shifting, both in time and geography, and IMHO, it is TOO LATE for women in Canada to hold on to "our left". "Our left" is dead.
Canada's Centre-Right-Centre-Left coalition are ALL for surrogacy, prostitution, mail order brides. In Canada abortion is NOT at risk, yet our fake left politicians are constantly using abortion as a dog whistle to make women and all people fear.
What Brits, Americans, Canadians, Aussies, call "left" is not often on the same page. Add in other languages, and the "left" really shifts, and latin cultures, the left tends to be quite religious and culturally conservative, even though their economic leftism is much stronger. The French and Italian and Scandinavians and Germans, yet more huge nuance for that definition. Me being from UBER-lefty-liberal Québec, I always thought I was in the most lefty place in the world, apart from Sweden and communist countries. Yet, in the past two years, Quebecers have accepted extended curfews, proposed additional fees to access national medicare for those not complying with dictates, and excommunication from society.
This is NOT my left.
And it is SO far gone, so dead, it is not worth trying to revive a corpse. At some point, the corpse needs to be sent downriver, and we all start afresh.
Maybe in the UK the "left" is salvageable? I don't know. But not Canada.
"Linehan is entitled to his opinion, but his tribe is the ‘gender critical’ one, which tends to be made up of those fighting trans ideology as a single issue." is an interesting statement implying no doubt quite reasonably that trans misogyny is but one facet of the general misogyny, which on the whole the far right embraces.
However one does not necessarily have to form an alliance with the far right to conduct a dialog with them. And in any case in Britain at least the uber "far right" probably consists of not more than a few thousand militant individuals with personality problems and who are well known to the police, forensic psychiatry and the court systems. There is a ground swell of millions of non thuggish people with civilized manners and right wing conditioned scepticism toward among other things - gender ideology. These people will not refuse to talk with you or platform you simply because you say you are left wing. They understand and play by the rules of democratic intercourse.
I'm in doubt as to whether there is anything to salvage of the left wing so completely has it been sold and distorted out of all recognition by identity politics. Let's be honest - who with any kind of genuine insight into the precarious position of women in society is going to vote for Starmer in the next election, when he doesn't even know what a woman is, and is unsure which sex has a cervix. It's a dismal scenario but we have to succour the less than rabid right wing elements if the left wing is to be jolted out of it's soporific wokeness (contradiction in terms both deliberate and possible in this strange world that is unfolding). They need to be made to feel painfully they have backed a losing horse, in allowing themselves to become stooges for this miserable cult.
As male I desist from calling myself feminist which I would regard as inappropriate, but nevertheless understand that women's rights are human rights and these rights are under the most serious threat faced by women in 70 years, because of the misogynistic tool gender ideology is. Not sure if being a subscriber to Linehan's substack makes me a "tribe" member, but I believe that this single issue is definitely worth fighting, since disarming them of this weapon will set the misogynist campaign back by many decades.
I must respectfully and strongly disagree with the author.
The left has stabbed us in the back by embracing... NO, advocating FOR the misogynistic, homophobic, cult religion known as Transgenderism. As I view this anti-scientific, delusional ideology as an existential threat to women and homosexuals I will ally with any group to their right in order to successfully oppose them, even religious ones with which we share little else.
It is, imo, a tactical necessity that will enable and hopefully shorten the time to success.
I doubt anyone would expect this to be a permanent alliance. But with luck it may in fact lead to a greater understanding and even a grudging respect for those who have never worked together for a common cause.
At this time the right is NOT a captive of religion... but the left IS.
And it doesn't even know it.
Wonderful. I couldn't agree more.
I refuse to re-define myself as non-left just because mainstream left organisations have taken a hard right turn.
I'm in this fight because I am a leftist, because I care about women's rights, and incidentally, because I have spent considerable time reporting on the Religious Right and esoterics and find the resemblance between them and transideology scary.
Aligning oneself with the Right has never been a good idea and never will turn out well. The mess the mainstream Left is in now is precisely the result of them throwing out all that's even remotely socialist and aligning themselves with Neoliberalism.
This all reminds me of a commentator from Iran who recently talked about how the Left in Iran allied with Khomeini to overthrow the Shah and when Khomeini came to power he promptly had the leftist allies killed - history likes to repeat
Thank you Julie for this discussion and your opinion!
I totally agree. And look forward to Meghan’s response.
I agree allying with the right wing that dominates the media is a dangerous strategy, and I am hopeful that this type of honest respectful dialogue continues . I also am very serious but cautious about widening alliances where there is less extreme manipulation but a real lack of working information about what women’s liberation and feminism can and does mean to so many of us and how it can be a part of their lives too.
I want this to be a moment where we take a moment to wisen the women in our lives up and I know this transgenderism/, transactivism is a topic of agreement that I have never seen before.
I do think the erasure of women must stopped and reality has to win!
Very well said. For all of the foibles, follies, flaws, and f*ckery on what passes for today's woke cum neoliberal cum totalitarian regressive pseudo "Left", the Hard Right is far, far worse on balance, and certainly no friend of feminism at all. Even if the proverbial stopped clock is right twice a day, the rest of the time it is wrong, often 100% wrong. And unfortunately, the Hard Right is a package deal.
Thank you a thousand times xx
As for religious influence in politics more generally... The European descended left has historically pro-free-speech and anti-religion. Secularism was the path, and atheism even better. The problem is at some point, not a random point, the Left became obsessed not with secularism but with the social construct of "religious diversity", which was a virtue-signal for skin-colour diversity, and this basically took hold as a binary place holder between Progressives-for-Palestine and Conservatives-for-Israel. From that point on, leftists became entrenched with religious activism, so complaining of the "religious right" has become nonsensical.
Today, everyone except atheists are flying their religious flags or demanding their religious exemptions, be it Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, I really don't give a hoot, leftism should have never sided with religion.
But that is another lost battle, another reason to say adios.
And when worst of all *feminists* chant about this religious group or that one who are "incapable" or "disallowed" from sharing spaces with males, I call BS.
Either no woman is forced to share a jail cell or a swimming lane with is a man or no woman is. The fact that leftists argue for the same damned religious exceptionalism that the Christian right does is completely abhorrent.
Your articles are so refreshing! I too cannot ally with the far right. I feel the majority of left leaning people genuinely care about those with fewer privileges, and think it is this need to be actively trying to improve society that has resulted in the trans cult we see today. There is also the tendency to believe whatever Jo Blogs on the internet says if they agree with him or her on other issues. I really feel most on the left, especially the young, have little idea of feminism and why trans ideology has serious implications for women let alone why prostitution and porn are bad for all women and are in no way "liberating". I continue to have hope that lefty women are worth persevering with and that good, well researched argument will win in the end.
Thankyou so much for this VERY TIMELY comment. 🤩
There are many of us around the country, in feminist networks, saying exactly this. For the new women being drawn into contact with feminism for the first time, there is definitely a need to refresh and promote foundational feminist ideas and feminist campaigning skills. Thanks heavens we have Filia for this.
Plus, on a tangentially related matter. Thank you for leaving your comments open. I support Meghan on Patreon but not Substack, so I'm unable to comment there. There's a limit to who us lower peons can fund. So hopefully Meghan's reading these comments too :D
I agree THIS is not the Left. Anyone who embraces capitalism and the Davos Set and their World Economic Forum and all the billionnaires and superstars who fly to Davos on their private jets.
Until 2016, actual Leftists always demonstrated AGAINST G7, G20, Davos, WEF, is not a leftist.
A 2016 Vice article aptly noted the absence of leftists demonstrations for the very first time ever at the 2016 Davos WEF meeting.
Interestingly, 2016 is the year Trudeau declared "gender" (not sex) a protected religion in Canada, and I say religion very specifically, because Minister of Justice Raybould made that exact analogy in Parliamentary sessions when asked that we should provide a definition for "gender". She refused based on the fact that we do not demand receipts/definitions for religious people demanding religious accommodations in their workplace, so "gender" should be same.
The Left have been dying for a long time. In Canada again, when NDP leader Layton died in 2011, he was replaced by a Montreal capitalist and cultural conservative, Thomas Mulcair, in 2012. Some long time leftists believe that the left was moribund before that point, but it is Mulcair who oversaw the removal of socialism from the NDP, and turned the party in a vacuous woke identitarian party.
So you are both right!
The contexts of Leftism are ever shifting, both in time and geography, and IMHO, it is TOO LATE for women in Canada to hold on to "our left". "Our left" is dead.
Canada's Centre-Right-Centre-Left coalition are ALL for surrogacy, prostitution, mail order brides. In Canada abortion is NOT at risk, yet our fake left politicians are constantly using abortion as a dog whistle to make women and all people fear.
What Brits, Americans, Canadians, Aussies, call "left" is not often on the same page. Add in other languages, and the "left" really shifts, and latin cultures, the left tends to be quite religious and culturally conservative, even though their economic leftism is much stronger. The French and Italian and Scandinavians and Germans, yet more huge nuance for that definition. Me being from UBER-lefty-liberal Québec, I always thought I was in the most lefty place in the world, apart from Sweden and communist countries. Yet, in the past two years, Quebecers have accepted extended curfews, proposed additional fees to access national medicare for those not complying with dictates, and excommunication from society.
This is NOT my left.
And it is SO far gone, so dead, it is not worth trying to revive a corpse. At some point, the corpse needs to be sent downriver, and we all start afresh.
Maybe in the UK the "left" is salvageable? I don't know. But not Canada.
O
"Linehan is entitled to his opinion, but his tribe is the ‘gender critical’ one, which tends to be made up of those fighting trans ideology as a single issue." is an interesting statement implying no doubt quite reasonably that trans misogyny is but one facet of the general misogyny, which on the whole the far right embraces.
However one does not necessarily have to form an alliance with the far right to conduct a dialog with them. And in any case in Britain at least the uber "far right" probably consists of not more than a few thousand militant individuals with personality problems and who are well known to the police, forensic psychiatry and the court systems. There is a ground swell of millions of non thuggish people with civilized manners and right wing conditioned scepticism toward among other things - gender ideology. These people will not refuse to talk with you or platform you simply because you say you are left wing. They understand and play by the rules of democratic intercourse.
I'm in doubt as to whether there is anything to salvage of the left wing so completely has it been sold and distorted out of all recognition by identity politics. Let's be honest - who with any kind of genuine insight into the precarious position of women in society is going to vote for Starmer in the next election, when he doesn't even know what a woman is, and is unsure which sex has a cervix. It's a dismal scenario but we have to succour the less than rabid right wing elements if the left wing is to be jolted out of it's soporific wokeness (contradiction in terms both deliberate and possible in this strange world that is unfolding). They need to be made to feel painfully they have backed a losing horse, in allowing themselves to become stooges for this miserable cult.
As male I desist from calling myself feminist which I would regard as inappropriate, but nevertheless understand that women's rights are human rights and these rights are under the most serious threat faced by women in 70 years, because of the misogynistic tool gender ideology is. Not sure if being a subscriber to Linehan's substack makes me a "tribe" member, but I believe that this single issue is definitely worth fighting, since disarming them of this weapon will set the misogynist campaign back by many decades.