This is part two of a post on a lecture, given by Ruth Hunt, on how to build bridges amidst the Culture Wars.
You can read that piece below :
I have also transcribed it, after a fashion, below. Quotes used are verbatim but it was a long interview with some repetition so I have just summarised some parts.
Building Bridges Amidst the Culture Wars
Just to recap. Ruth Hunt actually chose the title and topic for this lecture. 😳
Questions and Answers
When she has completed her “prevarications” (I don’t think she knows the meaning of this word, by the way) she invites questions. I am confident this offer was delivered in the certain knowledge disagreement would not be forthcoming. People know what the limits of free speech are on this topic. I didn’t expect any dissenting voices and I was not disappointed. This group think is precisely why Ruth Hunt remains isolated from contrary opinions,
Social Media / Twitter
The first question is about the “fisticuffs” on social media. Ruth talks about her own experience here: “I have had a relentless kind of kicking”, which seems to be related to her, now deleted, twitter account. She goes on to lament the fact that nobody is taking “collective leadership” to reinforce a better culture on social media. Here she justifies silence about the social media attacks on others. Call me cynical but I don’t think she is talking about routine threats, of sexual violence, which accompany the term “terf”. She does, however, make an important point about people unwilling to jump to others defence.
What Hunt fails to extrapolate from this observation is what it says about how people use social media. Women attract, arguably, the worst abuse when standing up for sex based rights. There are twitter rules that officially allow women to be banned for referencing biological reality. Women have been removed for stating the legal definition of Rape, for correctly sexing abusive males and simply for quoting the official crime statistics on sexual offences. (At least 98% of perpetrators are male). If someone, with her social position, and organisational backing, admits to shying away from “a toxic debate” what does she think happens to women without these resources?
It is also worth pointing out the vast, vast, majority of people are not on twitter. Those of us who retain a connection to real life, and move in less elite circles, know most people have no clue about Queer Theory. The magical thinking of the Genderists may have corrupted the powerful but ordinary people do not (yet?) believe that Lesbians come equipped with penises.
Ruth then tells us of some research Stonewall commissioned, from a peace-keeping charity, to help the organisation on “trans issues” and social media. This was their finding: Apparently the opposition came from a “nest” of 700 accounts who were found to be linked up with Liz Truss. As an aside, I found her choice of words, and body language fascinating, through this interview.
So what conclusions did Ruth draw from this exercise? It seems the organisation determined they were giving too much credence to the unhelpful opinions of the, predominantly, female people. The nasty wimmin were a distraction 👇
There is a significant time given over to discussing the incivility on twitter and the failure to establish a culture of respectful dialogue. Hunt compares this to the conduct in the House of Lords and in Academia. (As an aside she expresses surprise that the House of Lords don’t regulate her conduct on social media). She clearly thinks legislation has a role but offers us the benefit of her experience on legal remedies. An observation which is daily more demonstrated by increasing public awareness of, and rejection, of the notion of women with penises.
Political Strategy
Hunt rightly identifies the change of heart from Conservative Ministers was on the basis of the perceived benefits to capitalism. Not a principled stance but governed by hard cash.
Ruth acknowledges her behind the scenes role with government 👇
Decline in Trust in organisations
Ruth Hunt, below, talks about the loss of faith in our institutions. Many of us would entirely agree with this observation and link our own disillusionment, directly, to the widespread adoption of policy based on Stonewall’s “misguided” advice on the law. My own council replaced “sex” with “gender on its public information, as did the Crown Prosecution Services in a guide for schools. Here Hunt identifies a direct line from a decline in trust in once respected, institutions to the emerging of terrorism.
It is not clear whether Ruth anticipates the emergence of balaclava clad bitches running riot across the land with bombs strapped to our bosoms, because we surely have lost faith in, the U.K. charity, Stonewall.
Sex Not Gender
In this aside Ruth cannot even bring herself to say the protected characteristic of SEX. She also prefers to imply that the nebulous concept of gender has some special status which needs to be enshrined in policies to tackle societal inequality. Gender is not, for the people at the back, a legally protected characteristic in U.K. Law.
President Joe Biden
All is not lost though, she reassures her audience. Joe Biden may be our saviour. Britain needs to trade with the United States and we may need to throw off our reputation for being “transphobic” to maintain our alliance with Uncle Sam (or should that be Auntie Samantha?)
Biden, as we know has embraced the rise of medically constructed identities with alacrity and elevates “Gender Identity” above biological sex, in his rush to appease the Gender Industrial Complex. This in a country that has failed to protect access to abortion or paid Maternity Leave. (See the draconion anti-abortion legislation passed in Texas). Just today Biden’s twitter account claimed this would affect “people”. Neither him nor the female Vice President acknowledged the “people” would be women!
Next she launches a broadside against The Sunday Times for shedding some much needed light on the activity of Stonewall and her own role in its, plummeting, reputation. For Ruth there is no legitimacy to the critiques, the media coverage is just click bait to appeal to shameless populism.
However, all is not lost. We may have fallen behind in passing legislation to elevate the transgender community but, she claims, to have the support of Boris Johnson’s wife.
Evidence Based Data
Here, without a trace of irony, she makes a plea for data based on the health and sexual orientation. In a world where women die, needlessly, because we don’t research sex based differences in health she is happy to undermine data on the category of SEX. She collides with the eradication of research, for women, but wants evidence based health care for herself. This is quite hypocritical because she has repeatedly bemoaned the people who think only in terms of “Me” and not “We”.
So where else will Ruth wander in the Q & A session? She is most proud of her caped crusader stint at Stonewall, where she spent 14 years “righting wrongs”. Stonewall do indeed have a proud legacy, right up to her tenure. Hunt took the helm and set in motion the new sex denialism, despite the fact biological sex is foundational to defending same SEX attraction. It is difficult to judge whether this is naïveté or knowing complicity.
Corporate Campaigns
Her next proud achievement, is, she claims the gullible companies, and public sector organisation who were co-opted as “campaigners” without them realising they were part of her cunning plan:
The question of regret garners some thoughts about reflective practice, learning all the time, constantly re-evaluating etc. Yet, the regret she focuses on is her adoption of a “heroic leadership” model when she became Stonewall CEO. Note the blame is shifted and described as mandate by Stonewall. Note also the consumer driven terminology as she laments the negative impact on the Stonewall “brand”.
She had another regret which was the failure to teach the Judiciary about “trans” asylum seekers which, helpfully, gets it on record that the CEO of Stonewall was training our judiciary.
“Terf” Island
The questions return to how transphobic the British are and the moderator asks Ruth to explain how she measures this and what are her benchmarks? Of course she goes straight to the, discredited, Hate Crime statistics. For the neophytes she is taking about “crimes” that are automatically recorded as “Hate Crime Incidents” based entirely on the perception of the “victim”.
Further evidence of our nation’s “transphobia” relies on the way we are percieved by Americans (by which she seems to mean the U.S because she has a habit of referring to “America” when she clearly means the United States). Yes Ruth it’s not science. 👇
Peppered with observations about British exceptionalism, a post Brexit society and our delusions of still having a great Navy she compares and contrasts the nature of the debate in the U.K with the United States. She waxes lyrical about our sophisticated “American” cousins. We, in the U.K, are aggressive which, she argues, is so “unBritish”. Well worth watching her body language at 1 hour 8 minutes, when she talks about the bigoted women worried about pesky details, such as the destruction of female sports and males invading rape crisis centres.
Academic Freedom
Finally she weighs in on the issue of Academic Freedom. Notice she substitutes and example about race for trans issues. She does this on the spurious grounds that people get so confused about trans issues and if they look at it in the same way as racism the course of action will be much clearer. This is a deliberate strategy. It would be a rarity for anyone in British public life, or private individuals, to advocate for racial segregation. The idea that women and girls don’t need sex specific spaces is far from won which is why she uses another example.
Academics discussing the importance of sex based data, rights to single sex spaces, accurate teaching about biology are not the descendants of the Klu Klux Klan FFS!. This is dangerous and irresponsible framing.in my opinion.
Pride
Some thoughts from Ruth on PRIDE. Given she has courted big business and establishment figures, as a central component of her advocacy, I would take this with a pinch of salt. In an era when Lesbians are ostracised, at Pride events, for declaring the exclusion of males from their dating pools, and when a gay man is rounded upon by a 🌈🌈 draped mob there is nothing to be PROUD of…
Divine Wisdom
I will leave you with this final thought from the moderator. Yes. He really did say this:
He also commends Ruth for her kind and compassionate lecture. There is something interesting about the appeals to the divine in this debate and the faith like certainty that they are on the side of the Angels. One thing is clear there is a lot of resentment that the days of backroom deals are over. The scrutiny of the media/social media has, hopefully, limited the stealth activism which has served the advocates of this ideology so, so well.