Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Author: Carrie

  • “A level sufficient to qualify as a vendetta”

    One of the witnesses in Katherine O’Donnell’s employment tribunal against her former employer The Times  is Christine Burns MBE. Burns played a key part in the creation of UK equality legislation, and she’s been monitoring and reporting on the press coverage of trans issues for very many years. In her submission to the tribunal, she describes the Times’ recent coverage of trans issues.

    During the course of 2016 the Times and Sunday Times featured approximately half a dozen trans-related stories, led by writers such as Rod Liddle. This did not appear at the time to be a departure from business as usual. Certainly, for Liddle, the opinions voiced about trans children and adolescents (as an example) seemed to be in keeping with his brand of polemic. The level of coverage in the whole year did not raise eyebrows, except in exasperation at the one-sidedness.

    That pattern changed markedly in 2017, however — and it changed uniquely for the Times.

    Burns describes how the Times and Sunday Times coverage of trans issues went into overdrive, essentially demonising trans people at every opportunity.

    This wasn’t business as usual. It hadn’t happened in the run-up to the introduction of the Gender Recognition Bill in 2004, or of the Equality Act in 2010. The recent focus on and demonisation of trans people appears to be a deliberate change in editorial strategy.

    As Burns also points out, “the other notable factor about this tsunami of negative coverage, beginning in 2017, was the degree to which editorial standards appeared to be abandoned.”

    I’m not a news journalist, but I when I wrote tech news it was drilled into me that a single-source story wasn’t good enough; “person claims thing” is not news until it’s been fact-checked and experts consulted.

    Many of the people writing for these newspapers are members of the National Union of Journalists, whose code of conduct compels journalists to “strive to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair” and “differentiates between fact and opinion.” It also says that a journalist “produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.”

    Burns agues that the two papers appeared to decide that editorial standards, that the basic journalistic principles outlined in the NUJ code of conduct, no longer applied if the stories were about trans people. The views of failed sculptors were prized above those of experts. Baseless claims were printed without fact-checking, and often rescinded after intervention by Ofcom. Anti-semitic tropes of child sacrifice and sinister Jewish lobbies made it into print.

    The two titles were standing up their pieces with largely one-sided opinion from personalities with no genuine qualifications in the subject matter and an axe to grind. By comparison, clinical or legal experts in the subject matter did not feature highly and trans views appeared to be treated as suspect, driven by (hinted) ulterior motives and fit for condemnation. The paper’s line of topics seemed to reflect the talking points of a small cohort of commentators who had appeared as if from nowhere to be interviewed as authorities on a regular basis. Trans people and the charities working in this area were presented as ‘powerful’ (the implication being ‘too powerful’). Conspiracy theories about the involvement of jewish billionaires and ‘big pharma’ were aired without challenge.

    …What shocked trans observers in 2017 was that editorial standards appeared to have been suspended in this sphere. This is underlined when the basis for many stories was later established to be false. False interpretation of statistics about trans prisoners and offending. Unbalanced reporting of the nature of the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act, presenting only a one-sided pejorative view of the implications. False insinuation about the leadership of the trans charity Mermaids — even after the Heritage Lottery Fund had reexamined plans to award a grant to them in 2018.

    The tribunal continues.

  • On women’s rights, follow the money

    Writer Erynn Brook has posted an important thread on Twitter that begins with a simple question: why does she, a Canadian woman, care so much about abortion law in the US? The answer isn’t just that it’s a moral position, that if you care about women’s rights you should care about women’s rights everywhere. It’s that the same people – and their finances – turn up in other countries too.

    When Brook encountered anti-abortion protesters in Canada, she was struck not just by the callousness of the protesters but by their expensively produced, professionally designed materials. When Brook’s photo was used by the protesters online she discovered that the protesters were “a company. Like a real company with directors and managers and a lawyer on retainer.”

    Protest groups generally aren’t serious businesses too, so Brook investigated. What she found was effectively a PR company supporting anti-abortion protesters, and that company had deep pockets. As she dug further she discovered the company’s links with a prominent anti-abortion group founded by a US activist, and that group’s links with anti-abortion campaigns overseas. Ireland is a notable example.

    Brook:

    This isn’t an America issue. It’s a global issue, and the US is a megaphone. Not just that, they have actual companies, representatives and campaigns running in other countries promoting their propaganda.

    What you’re seeing on the streets and online isn’t a spontaneous protest. It’s a PR campaign.

    The funding is opaque, deliberately so, and in many cases groups use crowdfunding to disguise the source of their income.

    The same thing happens here in the UK with various groups raising suspiciously large amounts of money incredibly quickly, the timestamps and amounts of the donations strongly indicating that most of the money is coming from the US. This opacity isn’t just about hiding donors’ identities. In many cases it’s also designed to evade electoral law, which limits political spending during elections and referendums.

    Much of the social media activity and advertising against minority groups and/or progressive legislation is the work of bots (software) and sockpuppets (multiple fake accounts), much of which comes from internet addresses in the US: in the recent Irish abortion referendum, half of the online activity was by bots.

    From anti-abortionists to anti-trans activists, climate change deniers to far-right rabble-rousers, dark money from the US has gone global – and money’s coming from the other direction too, with Russia deliberately trying to sow discord and division in the West. It too runs bot networks, sock puppets and fake news factories, boosting the far right and activists working to restrict the human rights of women and minorities.

    The issues may differ but the story’s the same: whether they’re outside family planning clinics or primary schools, the protesters are pawns in a global game.

  • “A virus has spread, using technology to systematically tear at the social fabric”

    Danah Boyd recently gave a talk at the Digital Public Library of America conference. It’s chilling stuff and chimes with my own thoughts about the internet: what we once thought would be a powerful, enlightening force for good has been weaponised and by people who want to tear our world apart.

    What’s at stake right now is not simply about hate speech vs. free speech or the role of state-sponsored bots in political activity. It’s much more basic. It’s about purposefully and intentionally seeding doubt to fragment society.

    This is something we see again and again in everything from climate change and vaccination to whether minorities should be granted human rights.

    The agendas differ: sometimes it’s corporations trying to undermine legislation that might affect their profitability; sometimes it’s religious fundamentalists; sometimes it’s racists; sometimes it’s disaster capitalists.

    But what these various bad actors have in common is their attempts to create an “other side” when there is no other side, a “debate” when the facts are unequivocal. They do this not because there’s uncertainty, disagreement or division, but because they want to create uncertainty and disagreement and division. They want people to disbelieve the facts, disbelieve the scientific consensus, disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes.

    This line jumped out at me.

    Journalists often get caught up in telling “both sides,” but the creation of sides is a political project.

  • “I didn’t notice” doesn’t mean “it didn’t happen”.

    In Scotland, one of the most pernicious bits of anti-trans bullshit is the claim that gender recognition reform is a sudden development, something the Scottish Government is doing in secret and trying to rush through so that women’s groups can’t object.

    Not only does that overlook the extensive, well publicised public consultation on gender recognition that ran from November 2017 to March 2018, that received formal submissions from all the key women’s groups in Scotland and whose responses were overwhelmingly in favour of reform. It also ignores the fact that gender recognition reform was a manifesto commitment of every major Scottish political party in 2016.

    Here, courtesy of @scottishtrans, is what the parties had to say in their 2016 manifestos.

    The SNP: “We will review and reform gender recognition law, so it’s in line with international best practice.” International best practice means self-certification.

    Scottish Labour would “provide legal recognition for people who do not identify as men or women and remove the psychiatric diagnosis…Scotland’s young people…would be entitled to do so from the age of 16”.

    The Scottish Liberal Democrats would bring gender recognition “into line with international good practice…including consideration of the medical requirements placed on applicants, and recognise the gender identity of nonbinary people.”

    The Scottish Greens: “We will back the campaign to reform gender recognition law in line with international best practice.”

    And the Scottish Conservatives: “areas that we believe require review are…the Gender Recognition Act.”

    Just because some anti-trans activists didn’t notice – a claim I doubt given the formal submissions by various anti-trans and religious groups during the 2017 consultation, all of whom made their supporters very much aware of the issue – doesn’t mean it was a secret.

    The reason gender recognition reform didn’t hit the headlines back in 2016 is because it was, and is, a slight reduction in bureaucracy that is of no relevance to the vast majority of people.

  • “We are now living through the biggest anti-trans backlash since the 1970s.”

    I’m not the only one to notice the growing links between anti-trans groups, religious extremists and reactionary conservatives. Writing in Jezebel, Esther Wang explores “The Unholy Alliance of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists and the Right Wing.”

    In a sign of how their thinking mirrors one another, it can be remarkably difficult to distinguish between the talking points of the Christian right and the language of trans-exclusionary radical feminists.

    As the piece points out, it’s more than just language. Organisations such as the Hands Across The Aisle foundation exist specifically to bring anti-trans activists and evangelicals together. Their members, previously listed on their website but now deleted, include Transgender Trend, one of the most visible and vocal anti-trans groups in the UK, as well as prominent UK feminists.

    As I’ve noted before, most of the media panics over trans people follow a script set out by US evangelicals in 2017 that urged activists to:

    Explain that gender identity rights only come at the expense of others: women, sexual assault survivors, female athletes forced to compete against men and boys, ethnic minorities who culturally value modesty, economically challenged children who face many barriers to educational success and don’t need another level of chaos in their lives, children with anxiety disorders and the list goes on and on and on.

    This activism leads to attacks not just on trans people, but attacks on legislation designed to help women and minorities.

    Walsh describes the anti-trans activists’ opposition to the US Equality Act, where angry women have been useful idiots for the republicans who want to discriminate against all LGBT people and who have learned to couch their bigotry in faux-feminist concerns.

    In their opposition, they have aligned with conservative, largely Christian rightwing activists and elected officials, who have their separate, reactionary reasons for wanting to maintain the notion that there is a strict dividing line between man and woman and who have, similarly, reframed the debate about trans rights as one about “safety for women and girls.”

    None of this is new, but it’s getting more dangerous.

    As Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said to Walsh:

    “I don’t understand how you can hate so much that you go out of your way to sell your soul to politicians and extremist organizations who have fought women’s rights and women’s welfare every step of the way. It’s really astounding and sad and pathetic.”

  • Make extremists afraid again

    Writing on Medium, Jessica Valenti discusses the horrific anti-abortion legislation in Georgia, which from 2020 will ban abortions after six weeks – a period during which many women aren’t even aware that they’re pregnant. It’s going to ruin the lives of many women.

    The law may also consider women who have miscarriages as murderers in the second degree.

    Valenti:

    Republicans want to ensure that women are forced to carry pregnancies no matter how far along they are, and these so-called heartbeat bills do double duty: They prevent women from legally being able to obtain an abortion, and were written with the hope that they’d be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court to help overturn Roe v. Wade.

    The open viciousness of the legislation, which would treat mothers of stillborn children as murderers, is staggering.

    Up until recently, the anti-abortion movement would have taken great pains to pretend that women wouldn’t be punished under such a law. That the GOP no longer has the need for such niceties should scare every single one of us.

    …Those who once fought so hard to seem “woman-friendly” have seemingly given up on their public image problem — embracing the most radical rhetoric.

    For some years now, the religious right in the US (and beyond; the anti-abortion mob’s money funds groups here in the UK too) has attempted to camouflage its anti-women views and its anti-gay views for fear of seeming extreme. But it’s become emboldened by the success of its anti-trans campaigning, and by the support of the criminal in the White House.

    …before now, the country and culture necessitated that they shroud their most extreme views.

    It does not bode well for the women of America that this is no longer the case.

    It won’t be the case here in the UK for much longer either. The religious right has had great success here in mainstreaming viciously anti-trans views and campaigning for the removal of trans people’s hard-won human rights, something that until very recently the chattering classes would have reacted to with horror. Emboldened by that success, the campaigning has long abandoned its “reasonable concerns” posturing to become a hate campaign that targets the very groups who work with society’s most vulnerable women.

    That’s no accident. The religious right has deliberately and cynically targeted anti-trans feminists in order to legitimise a long-term strategy that is also against women’s reproductive freedom, against equal marriage and against anti-discrimination protection for the victims of religious extremism. And it’s working. Again and again we see the anti-trans crowd apparently having no problem linking arms with the enemies of feminism: the anti-abortionists, the “women know your place” crowd, the right-wing religious fundamentalists.

    It’s astonishing to see. To use a colourful metaphor, it’s watching chickens recruit hungry foxes to protect them from something the foxes promise is really, really bad.

    It’s a funny image, but it’s not funny unless you’re one of the foxes.

    The rise of viciously anti-women legislation in the US is because the bigots aren’t afraid any more. When Donald Trump and his supporters in the media victimised muslims and trans people, the message was clear: you don’t have to hide your bigotry any more. Dangerous, hateful anti-abortion and “religious freedom” legislation were the inevitable next steps.

    Here in the UK we’ve seen a very similar process, although in our case it was Brexit rather than a travel ban that put racism back in mainstream society. We’ve got the racism, we’ve got the vicious anti-trans sentiment.

    You don’t need to be a Very Stable Genius to predict what’s next.

  • Don’t be a baby

    I used the term “man babies” on Radio Scotland this morning and pretty much immediately I received a private Facebook message demanding an explanation of the term.

    I’m not going to reply for two reasons.

    One, I don’t think the listener is asking in good faith, because it was perfectly clear what I meant. I was talking about LGBT characters in popular culture and said that there was a small but vocal group of man babies on the internet who threw their toys out of their prams whenever films, games or comic books featured characters who weren’t straight, cisgender white guys.

    And two, if I reply to a stranger’s private Facebook message that gives them access to my account and the ability to call my mobile phone at any time of the day or night. No chance.

    But I think it’s worth writing about, because it’s something that’s a real pain online.

    Man babies are a tiny, vocal minority of emotionally stunted men who lose their shit if something in the world is not made specifically and solely for them. They are not all men, most men or many men. But despite their small numbers they make a lot of noise.

    A man baby is Piers Morgan getting irate over the existence of vegan sausage rolls. It’s film fans attempting to sabotage the Rotten Tomatoes rating for Captain Marvel because the hero doesn’t have a penis, or for Black Panther because the hero isn’t white. It’s men whingeing “but when’s International MEN’S Day?” on International Women’s Day (it’s 19 November) or “but when’s STRAIGHT pride?” (it’s every day) in response to a pride parade. It’s men complaining that other groups are “shoving X down other people’s throats” by simply existing or having their existence reflected in popular culture.

    The baby bit is deliberate, and specific. Man babies are not people who disagree with me, who have opinions. They are supposed adults who act like babies.

    I’ve helped bring up two babies, so I’ve some experience of this. It takes a while before babies can handle the huge emotions that run through them. It takes time for them to develop empathy and understand that the world does not exist solely for their benefit and that that the world does not exist solely to respond to their demands, no matter how loudly they express them.

    They typically develop that understanding at around two years of age, but sometimes it takes longer. At the time of writing, Piers Morgan is 54.

    Man babies may use bigger words, but the sentiment no more mature. It’s: “Waaaaaah!”

    Vegans want their own sausage rolls! “Waaaaaah!”

    A superhero is black, or a woman! “Waaaaaah!”

    An LGBT character isn’t played for laughs or killed off horribly! “Waaaaaah!”

    A video game has a girl hero! “Waaaaaah!”

    A man baby is somebody who looks at the world and sees it as a beautiful cake made only for them. Nobody is allowed even the smallest piece.

    It’s not their cake! It’s my cake! My special cake, made just for me! I don’t want to share it! It’s mine! Miiiiiiine! Miiiiiiiiiiiiine!

    That’s what a man baby is. If you’re contacting me on social media to clarify or debate it, you probably are one.

  • On bathroom abuse

    While commentators whip up hysteria over the imagined threat of trans people in toilets, here’s the reality.

    Reuters:

    Transgender youth, along with those who do not identify as male or female, are at increased risk of sexual violence in schools that force them to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender assigned at birth, a study published on Monday said.

    Correlation is not necessarily causation; it’s possible that the policies reflect an environment where anti-trans sentiment is more widespread, and it’s that culture rather than the bathroom policies that lead to the abuse. But whatever the reason, it’s clear that columnists and social media trolls are perpetuating lurid anti-trans fantasies while ignoring genuine and widespread abuse of trans teenagers.

    There’s another well documented effect of this: trans people trying to avoid using toilets altogether. I do this: in an unfamiliar place I’ll avoid drinking so I don’t have to go, or wait well beyond the point of physical discomfort until I don’t have a choice. In schools, many trans kids contract urinary infections as a result.

    We’re much more scared of you than you should be of us.

  • “It was a heady time!”

    The New Yorker has published a lovely essay by Emma Rathbone, Before The Internet.

    Before the Internet, you could move to a new state and no one at school would know anything about you. You’d have no online history. You could be anyone. You would lean against the lockers with a faraway expression on your face and let people assume whatever they wanted. Like that you were a girly girl but could also be a tomboy. Or that back in your home town you’d been friends with a bunch of crows.

  • Katherine O’Donnell could change UK media

    This case could be very significant. Former Times night editor Katherine O’Donnell’s employment tribunal raises an interesting question: does the content that newspapers publish fall under their duty of care to their employees?

    O’Donnell alleges multiple counts of illegal behaviour towards her after she transitioned to female, and her claims lift the rock to show a “boy’s club” of entrenched sexism, bordering on misogyny. But the case also introduces something that hasn’t previously been tested. Buzzfeed:

    O’Donnell and her lawyer… allege that it wasn’t just what happened in the newsroom but also what those inside it published in the newspaper about trans people that constituted a hostile, transphobic place to work.

    If O’Donnell wins, newspapers and other media outlets would have to reconsider their reporting of all minorities – not just gender and sexual minorities such as LGBT people, but anybody with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. Content that bullies and demonises groups would be considered workplace bullying.

    Should O’Donnell be successful, therefore, it would mean a newsroom’s output could be deemed an internal, employment issue too. News outlets may in future have to consider how their coverage of trans people and other minority groups could be in breach of employment laws that protect members of these communities on their own staff from discrimination and bullying.

    That doesn’t mean the titles couldn’t report accurately on minority groups or feature a range of opinion. But it could mean that the more vicious stuff would have to stop. It would be a welcome development in a climate where the press regulator IPSO won’t even rule that an invented quote was never said by anybody.

    I’ve been following O’Donnell on Twitter for a long time and she strikes me as a newspaperwoman of the old school, someone who really cares about her profession but who’s been treated despicably by her employer. The Times may come to regret that.