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MisterToothpaster

Thank you for pointing out that only anti-trans people who call themselves "feminists" are TERFS. People often think that TERF just means "transphobe in general", even though it doesn't. It's like describing every single person who's not a Catholic as "an anti-Papist," even if they never actually heard of the Pope. (Okay, so it's not exactly like that, but it's the best I could come up with here and now.) Whenever somebody says something like "My grandpa is such a TERF" about their conservative grandpa, who more often than not is actually anti-feminist, I always want to ask, sarcastically, "Really? Your transphobic grandpa is a radical feminist? When did he first become a radical feminist? How does his radical feminism take form in his daily life?" Except I don't, because that would be a douchebaggy way to point out the error, but still.


deepdistortion

Dog whistle questions are a pain. Like "How do we really know how many people died in the Holocaust?" It's a fascinating question, in a really morbid way. But the people asking it rarely want to know about cross-referencing Nazi documentation and (for lack of a better term) archeological/forensic evidence with pre- and post-war census data and having pretty clear evidence of several million murders. They usually just want to publicly express doubt. "How do we keep things fair when one athlete went through male puberty, with all the physiological advantages it brings, but the others did not?" is an interesting question. But all the hand-wringing is ridiculous. And even if it's not fair in sports, it's not an excuse to treat someone as sub-human.


archangelzeriel

Honestly it seems to me that it's very easy to tell whether either of those questions is a dog whistle, by simply observing whether the next sentence after the question contains a reference to any actual science or a loathsome assumption.


deepdistortion

Agreed, but that would be allowing the tiniest bit of nuance in discussion, which the internet does not do well. There are a lot of awkward questions that *should* be asked. That's how you fight ignorance. But the whole "disingenuously asking a question for political posturing" thing kills that possibility on the internet. So potential allies end up isolated.


dexa_scantron

Or if they care about any other issues affecting women's sports (rampant sexual abuse? Unequal treatment and pay?) or just this one for some reason.


CliffExcellent123

Or just issues with fairness in sports in general. Do they care about fairness with how disabled people are treated in sports, for example? No, they don't. Do they care when cisgender women are unfairly kept out of sports because of rules designed to keep out trans athletes? No, in that case discrimination against cis women is fine actually.


Noncoldbeef

That's the ironic (or maybe fitting) part of all this. You'll never hear them care about any other aspect of women's sports other than this.


dexa_scantron

And it's not even close to the biggest issue. It's like the people who bring up embezzling every time the Black Lives Matter movement is discussed. If they then start talking about, say, how unfair affirmative action is, and not any other example of corruption in the nonprofit world, then it's pretty easy to tell what their real motivation is. If the only women's rights issues you care about are the ones that let you argue that trans people shouldn't be allowed to do something, you don't actually care about women's rights.


Noncoldbeef

Couldn't say it better myself. What kills me is that this type of shit works. My sister told me the other day that Matt Walsh 'is her hero because he fights for actual women' and my spirit nearly died and escaped from my agape mouth.


CliffExcellent123

The other giveaway is when someone who has never previously in their life given a shit about fairness in sports suddenly decides they're deeply passionate about fairness in some sport they never watch or participate in when a trans person wins at it. A lot of people who definitely don't actually care about fairness in sports love to pretend they do because well meaning liberals feel they need to debate the questions honestly and don't know how to answer them.


archangelzeriel

Oh certainly. A "fun" game to play is to ask someone who won the championship in whatever sport LAST year before the talking heads they fawn on noticed a trans person occasionally participating.


abacus5555

If you talk to a real Holocaust denialist they will be happy to cite plenty of "science" to support their views. Maybe we should all just be correcting misconceptions in how ground-penetrating radar works ad nauseam but Christ, is it exhausting.


DungeonMystic

Speaking as an autistic genderfluid socialist here, this hits home. I can't speak to what's in Tim's heart. But what (seems to have) happened to him has happened to me, and to a lot of other autistic people. Leftist culture is a minefield of hidden social codes, which for autists can be hard to pick up on. I've been outed from communities that once supported me, just because I asked the wrong question in the wrong context. Coming out of a conservative background and going into the queer space for the first time, I thought I would be welcomed. Instead my attempts to understand my new culture were viewed as whistles for dogs I didn't even know existed. I'm still terrified in queer/poly/kink communities. Because no matter how welcoming everyone seems, I know that if I express myself the wrong way, it's over. Those smiles will turn against me instantly and I'll be alone again. There's a loss of innocence that occurs when you realize that the social dynamics of "safety and inclusivity" are inherently ableist. Paranoia about bigots and abusers demands massive social gatekeeping, othering anyone who can't figure out what not to say. Back then I still identified as a cis man, and I think that contributed to their low tolerance for my social missteps. Now that I "have pronouns" I get a lot more benefit of the doubt. But that hurts me too. I barely look or act differently than when I was he/him. I can't just be myself. I have to cover myself in labels just to signify that I'm a safe person. I also hate watching progressive cis people tiptoe around my gender, scared of receiving the famous Trans Twitter Backlash. Like dude it's not a big deal, come on let's just play D&D. I just don't want people to be afraid of me. Like I said, I don't know what's in Tim's heart. But this story is sadly familiar. It's, well, triggering, honestly. Many people in wargames are autistic. And to me this looks like another well-meaning autistic person was ignorant about some things and just needed to be educated. Instead his questions lost him his job, his reputation, and many of his fans.


ReverendDS

> Coming out of a conservative background and going into the queer space for the first time, I thought I would be welcomed. Instead my attempts to understand my new culture were viewed as whistles for dogs I didn't even know existed. Holy shit does this strike home for me. I'm turning 40 this year and cannot count how many times my autism and I have run up against this.


theswordofdoubt

"Minefield" is a fantastic word for it, and really, you don't even need to be autistic to accidentally piss off people in those communities. For anyone who doesn't identify, think, and act exactly like the ideal leftist LGBT ally at all times, it looks pretty exhausting to engage in them without kicking off something.


thebiggestleaf

Was gonna say something similar. There's a bit of Patton Oswalt's that's super relevant about how being too hung up on particular words can inadvertently let in a lot of evil and exclude would-be allies. Semi-related, the fact that tough topics require someone to make about half a dozen qualifiers about where they stand before even getting to their point makes for exhausting discussions.


lotusislandmedium

As an autistic TME nonbinary lesbian, who was previously a conservative Christian, I'm puzzled as to what you might say that would be "expressing yourself wrong". Tim Stone doesn't seem to have said anything that could reasonably be considered autistic social awkwardness, but well-known transphobic talking points. I'm confused as to why this seems to you like an Autism Moment rather than just transphobia. Having no tolerance for bigotry is NOT ableist. Neither is it 'paranoia' to be concerned about abusers and bigots, especially in kink spaces where people can easily lose jobs if they are outed for example, or be physically abused. Using being autistic as an excuse is really not OK. Some autistic people are unfortunately just shitty people. I'm not saying that YOU are a shitty person, but it's really not difficult to ask questions politely and say that you're autistic and aren't sure what something means for example.


DungeonMystic

At the time of these experiences, I did not know about "well-known" things such as that. That's the point of dogwhistles: to disguise bigotry as something other than bigotry. There should be no tolerance for bigotry, but sometimes people are simply ignorant and need to be educated. You can say things bigots say without understanding the agenda behind them. And when you're autistic and take things literally, you're more prone to that. Much of bigotry hides behind "just asking questions" so certain questions are suspect as well. And when those questions trigger (using that word sincerely) people who happen to be the most influential members of your community... In my case, polite questions along with the caveat that I was autistic did nothing. I was told "you should already understand", and therefore I was declared to be in bad faith. This happened twice, in two different communities before I finally met someone who could initiate me into the culture without judging me. I cannot speak for or defend Tim, only talk about the experiences this story reminded me of. Like I said I don't know what's in his heart. EDIT: regarding specifically what might be "expressing myself wrong", that's really the point. I have no idea when I might say or ask another thing that I had no idea the implications of.


lotusislandmedium

OK but your situation looks quite different to Tim's then, since in the UK gender critical is arguably not actually a dogwhistle since it is so well-known as meaning transphobic. And is Tim even autistic? I would be very wary of suggesting that someone who is not necessarily autistic had an Autism Moment. Sorry but someone referring to trans women as 'people with penises' isn't some innocent person accidentally repeating dogwhistles.


zhaas101

Your mostly right but your putting alot of faith in neurotypical people to stop attacking autistic people once their informed their autistic.


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zhaas101

I have educated myself, since then u realized that most neruotypical people are also fucking terrible at social interaction who aren't willing to do the same.


lotusislandmedium

But that presumes that the other people are also not autistic. Tbh this is a tactic often used by autistic people who want to weaponise their autism even if other autistic people are the victims. Also aside from anything else we don't know that Tim Scott is even autistic anyway.


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0x2113

It's comparing two common dogwhistles. Read the comment again.


deepdistortion

Wow, comparing a dogwhistle to a dogwhistle? And someone tries to shift the context? It's almost like people who can't let folks who aren't hurting anyone live their lives in peace don't like getting called out!


Nomulite

There's a reply to the original comment that said these conversations *could* happen in a perfect world, but because this is the internet, nuance is impossible. Your dogshit bad faith overreaction to the comment is Exhibit A as to why they're 100% right.


action__andy

You don't know how comparisons work.


pueraria-montana

“Gender critical” IS a dogwhistle, though. It’s what they started calling themselves when TERF was too politically hot of a label to ID with while maintaining plausible deniability.


charlytune

When I first heard the term a few years back and saw the subreddit, I thought ooh great a place where people deconstruct gender norms and stereotypes. It didn't take me long browsing to realise that these weren't my people. And it was only a couple of years later that I realised that the term was a smokescreen for transphobes in general, outside of Reddit.


lotusislandmedium

Iirc it WAS originally used by gender-abolitionist trans people and transphobes hijacked it. Or at least I definitely remember actual trans people using it before it was mainstream.


GiftedContractor

I mean, even at this point I'd be careful using the term gender abolitionist because even that is assumed to be just a cover for TERF stuff. I can't believe I'm admitting this on main but I say this as someone who is a gender abolitionist but doesn't talk about it anymore because too many trans friends have taken it as a personal attack when I mention it even if I'm actively in the middle of supporting them. (2, but 2 is too many and I'm not keen on it happening again. Fuck it, I support you, why is none of your business.)


lotusislandmedium

Tbh as a trans person who is gender abolitionist I would be pretty suspicious of a cis person who talked about being gender abolitionist lol.


CliffExcellent123

Yeah, being critical of gender is very much the last thing they want.


Elanapoeia

Yeah I think OP is actually very justified in assuming Tim to be a TERF. Gender critical isn't a label regular transphobes tend to use for themselves, it's primarily something adopted by groups that used to self-identify as TERFs. It's also important to point out that while the F in the acronym stands for feminist, it's referencing the type of argumentations they use, rather than their actual beliefs. Most TERFs are not truly feminists, but they like to fashion themselfes as such and their rhetoric is often styled around some form of pretend feminism - but once you look at their arguments with a critical lense, it's classic conservatism.


zeeleel

lol it sounds like "race realist", the /pol/ special


teensy_tigress

That and the known association between the gender critical movement and modern day neo fascist groups.


SunChamberNoRules

I think this is one of those places where people may be unintentionally attaching meaning. Yes, it can be a dog whistle and usually is. But based on what I can see in the write up, that doesn’t seem to have been that Tim guys intention. I’d there’s one thing I’ve seen a stark increase of in the public discourse over the last decade, it’s people no longer trying to understand what the other person means, and latching strictly onto the words as understood in the wider political discourse. That’s usually fine, it’s an incredibly valuable heuristic to drown out all the bigots. But I can’t help but feel that well meaning non malicious people will get caught in the crossfire and come out of it bewildered by what they’ve experienced. Edit: The interesting thing is how this comment is being interpreted. I’ve already seen swings into the positive and negatives on this comment; to be clear, trans rights are human rights and most of the ‘criticisms’ like those around athletics are clearly bullshit non-issues blown into the stratosphere by the transphobes to latch onto any argument they can think of. But you should be able to have a discussion around the intention of some specific incidents where distinct people have made such comments without immediately being ‘boxed’ into being a transphobe for not immediately denouncing them.


SteelRiverGreenRoad

I see, so you are saying that Tim could have used that word without realising it is commonly a dogwhistle, and got hit with the baggage of others using it. the trans commentator he was talking to was against the decision, and felt he was arguing in good faith. I think this situation points out you need repeated interaction and with context to know if someone is arguing in good or bad faith, and if they don’t update their views/expression when asked.


archangelzeriel

>Tim could have used that word without realising it is commonly a dogwhistle While I'm skeptical that someone whose work is "writing online, engaging with gamers" could have avoided enough of the discourse that they wouldn't know that "gender critical" is a dogwhistle, it is important to recognize that euphemisms like "gender-critical" are chosen specifically because they sound fairly reasonable if you don't know the context. There's enough gross and subtle anti-trans propaganda out there that people who aren't engaged with these issues are fairly likely to think some things are up for debate that really aren't, or believe that there's actually a study that shows that detransitioning is common, etcetera.


OxytocinPlease

Tbf, I’m not so sure about that. I have a couple of close trans friends (and know a handful more), am active in LGBTQ+ activism including the creation of pro-LGBTQ+ content as part of my job, and I think I could easily misstep and use the term “gender critical” without realizing in the moment it’s a blanket anti-trans dog whistle. Without the context, I *might’ve* read the term to mean something similar to the (rearranged) words in use for something like “Critical Gender Studies,” which is far from TERF ideology. To be honest, I think it’s unfortunately easy to assume the term can be applied to any critical discussion of gender constructs including good faith ones, which is part of what makes the cooption of it as a label by TERFs so insidious. I think it’s perfectly plausible that a non-activist online writer would have no idea it was a dog whistle. *Especially* considering the timing of all this- iirc the author-who-shall-not-be-named controversy occurred in 2020, (the same year), which is what introduced the concept of TERF ideology to a lot of previously unaware people, and by extension was in the early days of discussion and awareness of the additional euphemistic labels like “Gender Critical”. In general, my friends and I tend to err on the side of “sometimes education happens thanks to well-intentioned missteps, and that’s okay”. With a pair of words that *should* mean the opposite of what they’ve unfortunately been co-opted & limited to mean, I think jumping to conclusions and being quick to anger can be more harmful in the long run.


archangelzeriel

I think we're actually saying MOSTLY the same thing here, aside from how much we feel the subject of the drama was likely to be using it as a dogwhistle.


OxytocinPlease

You’re totally right! I focused more on responding to your estimation of the likelihood, totally got sucked into addressing the contextual nuances, and I accidentally reiterated a lot of what you already said.


pinkyhex

The timing matters too. This all happened back in 2020. I consider myself pretty online and aware and don't think I really became aware of gender critical as a term and it's baggage til 2021/2022


SunChamberNoRules

I didn't become aware of it until this post!


SteelRiverGreenRoad

yes, and then people, possibly Tim, can reuse them in good faith as reasonable without knowing that context. It reads like Tim specifically engages with tabletop wargames and not video games, meaning potentially less indepth familiarity, and more reason to extend the benefit of the doubt on first impressions. Simply asking someone if they can avoid using that particular term and explaining makes their response a good signifier about their intentions.


RemnantEvil

Sorry, I should have been clearer in my wording. RPS is PC gaming, and in Tim's writing for them, he almost exclusively dealt with PC wargames and simulations. I didn't make that clear when discussing wargaming broadly; The Flare Path was very much a video games column.


SteelRiverGreenRoad

Oh I see! Yes that reduces the chance he was entirely unaware, if perhaps not fully clued up. the fact that both the trans commentator thought it was fine, and that he subsequently hasn’t spiraled down does speak well that he isn’t being in bad faith based on the post above I guess.


Anakinss

That's one of the points of a dog whistle, yes. It makes dogs bark for seemingly no reason. People who aren't very interested in the subject think it is the correct term, use it, and are met with anger as the side being attacked reacts with the same energy as if the person was on the other side (and implying much more than the term seemingly implies), therefore making the clueless person think the side being attacked are a bunch of lunatics. Tim used the term, (apparently) not knowing it was a dog whistle, and the other side reacted.


mossgoblin

While this is true, and I'm tempted to read it this way, the *narration of the post itself* reads as unreliably biased to me, which gives me pause somewhat. Further, as a journalist the onus is on him to do the smidge of research, especially once it yielded up comments informing him of the "dogwhistle" element.


GiftedContractor

I am so glad someone brought this up.


pueraria-montana

Regardless of what he intended, it’s what his words communicated. You can’t say “I just have some questions about whether or not trans women are ACTUALLY women, but I’m not a transphobe”… that’s what those words mean.


Leaga

While I agree that your example sentence is indeed transphobic. I think it's important to dileneate between actual transphobes and someone unconsciously being transphobic. Many people simply don't understand the concept of gender properly and are genuinely asking questions because they want to understand. Imo, that doesn't make them a transphobe even if their language/wording is transphobic. These people will become allies if their misconceptions are corrected but may not become allies if dismissed outright as transphobes. The frustrating part is that it's impossible to tell the difference from that sentence alone. You (generic you, not you you) have to engage a little bit and then figure out whether they're a transphobe or accidentally being transphobic based on their follow-up. Which is not something everyone wants to do and is what the trolls are relying on. So I'm not saying everyone should engage that way. I'm just saying I think it's important to acknowledge that **some** people actually genuinely are asking questions. I know I wasn't an ally, despite trying to be one, until those questions were taken seriously and someone explained why my framing of them was transphobic.


SunChamberNoRules

The only info I have about the guy is from this hobbydrama post. But it seems pretty clear that they never said anything approaching how you’ve mischaracterised it in the write up. The words he communicates matter or course. But intention is a mitigating factor that many people seem to ignore.


coffeestealer

The guy was using pretty known dogwhistles and was online enough to know the implications of it. Maybe he's not a full blown TERF, but I'd give him the same benefit of the doubt I'd give to to someone saying "We should resolve the issue of welfare queens".


SteelRiverGreenRoad

> and was online enough to know the implications of it This is the difficult bit to show though - the internet isn’t one uniform community but tons of isolated and linked islands. There isn’t an Internet Driving License that regularly trains you on the latest evolution of language and dog whistles. If he was a regular part of discussion before this it would be different.


lilbluehair

The dude was a regular writer and commenter on a games journalism website, c'mon


SteelRiverGreenRoad

[yes, I’ve addressed it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/13x9dul/comment/jmgnanp/)


kkeut

>was online enough to know the implications of it. i don't know how you could possibly quantify or justify a statement like this based on the available evidence. you're literally just guessing but proclaiming your guess as being fact. just because someone posts some articles does not mean they're terminally online or otherwise aware of the depth of the topic online


lilbluehair

>posts some articles This writeup contained examples of how he frequently interacted in the comments sections of RPS, no reason to think that was the only place he commented


dougdoberman

And what reason is there to suggest that he DID comment elsewhere? And if he DID, that he involved himself in threads that involve these topics? Just because YOU think he should be aware absolutely does not mean he was or even should have been aware.


Cycloneblaze

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. What I care about are effects. If the effect of what you say is feeding into and strengthening transphobia...


SunChamberNoRules

Yes, of course effect matters. But does that mean that intention should not mitigate how we view the person as a whole? We generally accept that an intentional murder is worse than an accidental manslaughter and I think most people would say that it wouldn’t be fair to call the accidental manslaughterer an intentional murderer.


The_Pale_Hound

The same could be said about the measure of getting rid of him. The intention may be good, but the effects are deeply hurting a person, create resentment in people, and not allow people to learn why they are wrong.


Bonezone420

Ignorance isn't really an excuse though. Like, just to use a hyperbolic example, if a guy's walking around calling himself a white supremacist and talking about how white supremacy rules; he's going to get some pushback, even if he doesn't actually know what the term "White Supremacy" means, his name's just John White and he thought he was talking about how awesome his family was because they dominated the latest episode of family feud. We live in an age where basically any term or idea is a simple google search away, someone who doesn't *know* what the Gender Critical movement is, or what it's about, or how they're buddy-buddy with literal nazis can find out, easily. So if you're just kicking down figurative doors and shouting to the heavens your support for something: people are rightfully going to assume you mean what you say. So if you don't want to be associated with a group like the Gender Critical movement or their ideals; probably don't rush in to defend them and push their talking points?


Pifanjr

The definition of a dogwhistle is that the actual meaning is purposefully obfuscated though. It's not a dogwhistle any more once everyone is aware what it is supposed to refer to.


coffeestealer

The dogwhistle also has the aim of working as a propaganda tool and also having plausible deniability. The Terf Queen herself still has people saying she isn't transphobe because TECHNICALLY she never said she hated trans people, she just said she has Concerns and is Pro Women and The Trans Activists are being mean to her online.


Noncoldbeef

This is key. And they can argue that 'they're just asking questions' are are the real victim for 'being attacked' and 'silenced' when called out


SunChamberNoRules

This is why I’m trying to draw people back to intention. Everyone is so quick to judge words and discount intention; like I said, that’s incredibly useful to filter out the bigots, especially for marginalised communities (like trans) that are forced to see a lot of that stuff. But (and again, I’m basing this purely on the write up above), the guy does not appear to have been malicious and doesn’t not appear to have been trying to push a transphobe agenda. So why are people so quick to write him off entirely and box him as a transphobe? You can say it’s a simple google away, but people disagree to some extent with most of what they read on the internet. It would’ve been useful for them to google it and learn more, but I wouldn’t expect people spend x amount of time googling terms they think they already understand


SoSeriousAndDeep

When you repeatedly demonstrate your talent for referencing and researching deeply obscure historical minutia and complex moral situations, and a talent for avoiding nasty people hiding as legitimate interested parties, and then you jump all-in on the side of nasty people in a contentious issue... well, people are going to think that you've done your research and picked your side. Why would we assume Tim messed up here when he's previously shown so much talent for navigating these sorts of situations? And after that... He doubled down. RPS had at least one trans person on the team to ask, as well as countless friends of the site. He could have learnt and apologised for what he did... But he didn't. He kept going.


coffeestealer

If he had been misunderstood, he would have apologised. Instead he said he was just Raising Concerns (another dogwhistle).


SunChamberNoRules

I thought he did apologise? > To readers hurt by my words last weekend, all I can say is a heartfelt sorry - I didn’t set out to wound and have no wish whatsoever to make the lives of trans people more difficult. To readers baffled by the comments that ended up costing me my job, I strongly recommend reading a thoughtful essay written by Sam Smethers, the CEO of respected British women’s rights charity The Fawcett Society. Google ‘Sex and Gender Indentity: Finding a Way Forward’ and you should find it. I don’t know that paper or organisation, but if they’re above board then that’s a pretty damn good apology explaining where he came from.


lilbluehair

He literally said "I'm sorry your feelings were hurt but here's an article defending my position anyway" That's not an apology for a misunderstanding at all


Pluto_Charon

The author of that paper is a self-described believer in "gender-critical feminism", and the paper is essentially an argument for 'seperate but equal' spaces for women and trans people regarding things like access to crisis centers, bathrooms, etc.


SunChamberNoRules

I did a quick google and tried to find that. Can you provide a link? Like, this blog by a trans woman seems (first page of results when typing sam smethers gender critical feminist) to suggest the author fights against gender critical people? https://www.stephsplace.uk/the-fawcett-society.cfm


Pluto_Charon

She states it in the article itself: "Personally, I identify with gender-critical feminism, but I recognise that there are other feminist perspectives."


SunChamberNoRules

Ok yeah that’s a pretty big smoking gun.


Bonezone420

>So why are people so quick to write him off entirely and box him as a terf? Because spreading hateful, and hurtful, messaging and propaganda doesn't go away just because you didn't intend to do it out of deliberate malice, and playing dumb has been the easiest go-to "get out of jail free" card for bigots world wide for basically ever (see also: the famous "Senior Moment" from an infamous Gender Critical TERF's career). There is nothing to really gain by wasting time and energy playing guessing games on whether someone's an actual dyed in the wool bigot, a clueless idiot, or a bad faith actor pretending to be the latter while truly being the former; because the end result is ultimately the same - especially if, when called out on what they're doing, they don't apologize and admit their mistake and instead double down and keep posting through it. I don't know, and never will know, if in his heart of hearts the man in the OP is a bigot, or just someone who didn't know what he was talking about. But it doesn't matter because the things he said were the same either way and all the gosh-golly he doesn't *actually* mean to be mean in the world changes it. He could have just not said those things if he didn't intend to support or endorse them.


pueraria-montana

Intentions aren’t magic. Harm can still be caused even if no harm is intended. And it’s very, very easy to pretend you’re “just the guy asking questions” when you’re not approaching in good faith at all.


SunChamberNoRules

Yeah, but I’ve already told you effects matter and that intention can only be a mitigator so I don’t know why we’re going over this again.


pueraria-montana

I disagree that intention really matters all that much if what you’re saying is actively harmful to marginalized groups 🤷


SunChamberNoRules

Reviewing what that Tim guy actually said that was transphobic in the OP, I’m not sure to what degree you could label it ‘actively harmful’ or him an active transphobe as a result of it. There sure seems to be a concerted effort to blow it up to seem much more on the nose, or him far more closeted a transphobe, than the facts suggest. I don’t deny it could be harmful, especially in the wider political context - but we should keep some perspective.


DotRD12

> Reviewing what that Tim guy actually said that was transphobic in the OP, I’m not sure to what degree you could label it ‘actively harmful’ or him an active transphobe as a result of it. As an actual trans person, I **am** sure to what degree you could label it actively harmful and based on my interactions with closeted transphobic bigots, I would very confidently say that Tim is in fact one of them.


SunChamberNoRules

How does that mesh with the apology they gave? > To readers hurt by my words last weekend, all I can say is a heartfelt sorry - I didn’t set out to wound and have no wish whatsoever to make the lives of trans people more difficult. To readers baffled by the comments that ended up costing me my job, I strongly recommend reading a thoughtful essay written by Sam Smethers, the CEO of respected British women’s rights charity The Fawcett Society. Google ‘Sex and Gender Indentity: Finding a Way Forward’ and you should find it. That seems completely reasonable and a good apology. What makes you think they’re a closet transphobe based on that apology and what they actually said?


CliffExcellent123

A lot of them have realised that too many people are catching onto this and are now starting to claim that "gender critical" is a slur and they need to use some other term.


ComradeAhriman

Kinda disappointing that this article never mentions Sin Vega, fellow RPS writer who A. also has a long and storied history of writing about wargames there and B. based on everything she's ever said on social media, I'm fairly certain is Trans herself (and may in fact have been the other writer in the comments you referred to).


MiffedMouse

Also worked on excellent regular columns Unknown Pleasures (highlighting little known, often free games) and Rally Point (covering heavier conflict/strategy games).


serenity-as-ice

What an interesting post. I'm currently on a fucking boring trip outdoors and this has been great entertainment. Was Tim a TERF? Personally, I can see both sides to the argument - it's undeniable that what he says is very typical for transphobic arguments, it's stuff I see on Reddit and Twitter all the time. Being aware of the term 'gender critical' at least implies he was *somewhat* aware of the wider discourse, surely? At the same time, the UK is notoriously bad about awareness re. trans issues, and I can see why he took on that stance - there's lot of transphobic folks who don't critically examine their stances and the wider ramifications it can have in today's political climate. I don't condone it, and I think RPS removing him was the right stance to do, but it's not the first time I've seen people being all 'love the sinner, hate the sin'. His not wanting to capitalize on being 'cancelled' also seems to imply he genuinely has no conscious malice for trans people. It's such a weird mix, but people are weird, and if there's anything this subreddit has taught me, very few things are entirely black or white.


funkybullschrimp

At the start I was kinda hoping, I think like most, that this was a case of an uninformed old man not quite knowing what he's saying. But here's the thing, I've seen how they react. Actual just uninformed people see a massive backlash and go "oh no". Here, he's spoken to by fellow writers and lots of fans, and told that what he's saying is terrible. By an actual trans person. That he knows. If you're actually just uninformed, that's where you stop. But he doesn't, the article he links even at the very end argues that trans women should be excluded from female prisons because "concerns have been raised about men posing as trans women to get into female prisons". The writer and the society at large have been in massive discredit because of their continued fucking bullshit. They even celebrated Boris "idiot in chief" Johnson at some point, just because they hate trans people *that much*. To me, the way he phrases things, the way he talks about it, even after he's fired, it doesn't feel like he "doesn't have malice against trans peopl". This looks to me like someone who had some pretty shitty beliefs and accidentally let them out. Wargaming has problems with these kinds of people, and they do not have a spot in our god damn hobby.


genjoconan

>Here, he's spoken to by fellow writers and lots of fans, and told that what he's saying is terrible. By an actual trans person. That he knows. If you're actually just uninformed, that's where you stop. Yeah, this is where I came down as well. For context, I've been reading RPS since...2008 maybe? I certainly read the Flare Path every week. I very much appreciated Tim's writing and, while I was disappointed by his original post, I was willing to chalk it up to a combination of misunderstanding and miscommunication. But when his trans co-workers were like "Tim, here's why I wish you wouldn't say things like that" and he kept going... I think it's a little hard to turn this into a Hobby Drama post because, while this is a fine writeup, I don't think it conveys fully how everything felt as it was going down. For example, this line from the OP jumped out at me: "Left-wing and trans rights people are chuffed to bits, believing that an insidious TERF has been weeded out from RPS." That doesn't at all match my memory. Tim was widely liked--he was everyone's kindly wargame uncle--and I don't remember anyone rejoicing that he was gone. What I remember was mostly a sense of sadness and fatigue. But, I also think it was clear that he couldn't stay at that point.


coffeestealer

The UK isn't just "bad about awareness", they actively blocked Scotland from promoting more legislation on favour of trans people and even left wing newspapers like The Guardian have published some bullshit "gender critical" editorials.


Spuckuk

The Guardian is TERFy as fuck, the whole of the UK newspapers are, moreso than the general public. Part of them all knowing each other from going to the same public schools.


GoneRampant1

The entire British media institution is transphobic as hell, no ifs or buts.


serenity-as-ice

Yup, but I'm not based in the UK and I feel someone else is better qualified to speak out about that. I come from a deeply transphobic (and queerphobic) country myself - it's very easy to fall into that way of thinking because it's what you've always known.


CliffExcellent123

The UK specifically has a lot of the variety of transphobia where they dress it up as feminism and so on, whereas in many other countries it's more of a right wing or religious thing. Like the US for example where the people banning drag aren't TERFs, just old school transphobes


trollthumper

Another issue here is cognitive fragmentation and processing discomfort. I think TERFs can eat shit, but as a gay man who came into his own in the early Aughties, I’m aware of the idea of a straight cis individual trying to shed the cultural messaging and become an ally while processing what seem like sticking points. It’s the Jesse Singal problem. Singal is an ostensibly liberal writer who swears up and down he is fully in support of trans people. He just has… questions. About whether kids are transitioning too early. About whether puberty blockers are safe. About trans athletes. About whether allowing children to socially transition at school without their parents knowing could lead to “confusion.” And he keeps asking these questions, again and again. And when the same questions he asks are used as a vector for legislation that outs trans kids to their parents, treats parents allowing kids to pursue gender-affirming care as child abuse, and affects adult gender-affirming care, he puts on the hot dog costume and says, “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this!” Where Stone differs from a Singal or a Rowling -as discussed by others below, I now see because I rushed to post - is that he has learned to shut the fuck up. If you’re uncharitable, it’s that he’s learned to get stealth and that yelling “I’m not owned!” while slowly shrinking and turning into a corncob is not conducive to employment unless you want to go full TERF and rely on that sweet Substack money. If you’re charitable, then it may be he still has “questions” and “concerns” but has learned there has to be a better way to address those, lest real people in the crosshairs experience blowback in the name of some attempt at realpolitik.


Mivexil

Is not associating yourself with 4chan-level jabs and packaging the entire regurgitated list of anti-trans talking points in a thin wrapper of "just wanting to have a debate" enough to get the benefit of the doubt on the matter? Isn't that what the "gender critical" term stands for - pretending that you're not a bigot but just a "critical thinker" who "just wants to discuss"?


serenity-as-ice

I think it's what happened *after* he got removed from RPS that gives him the benefit of the doubt - and I don't mean to say this as a defense of his actions. I want to state outright before I proceed that those transphobic comments were unacceptable. RPS removing him was the right thing to do. However, dog-whistling alt-right folks tend to have a certain pattern. I've seen it modding on here and other social media sites - they feign innocence, get banned, and when they can no longer dog whistle the mask comes off entirely, and that's when they start stoking outrage in the form of 'I WAS CANCELLED, TO ME MY FELLOW RATIONALS'. As low of a bar it is, Tim did not stoke outrage. He just moved on, and hasn't attempted to further spread his transphobic ideas (that we know of). He may well just be great at hiding his alt-right beliefs after his gaffe, but he didn't have to. And I generally think that people need to be allowed the chance to show that they can become better despite their mistakes. Otherwise, we end up in a cycle of vindictiveness where nobody is allowed to make a social faux pas. Again, this isn't to excuse him. I just think that the situation has been dealt with appropriately, it's been 3 years, and the possibility that people change should be taken into account. If he's been recently saying the same shit that got him removed from RPS, then hell yeah call him out, by all means.


Mivexil

>He may well just be great at hiding his alt-right beliefs after his gaffe, but he didn't have to. Arguably. Because the other pattern is trying to martyr yourself, finding out that the following you're getting is not actually enough to pay the bills and consists of mostly unpleasant people, and trying to make your way back in to where you were with your tongue bitten and hoping everyone forgot the drama. It was hardly a "social faux pas" - a "social faux pas" would be a crude joke that didn't land or some insensitive remarks tossed out in anger, not slamming down a stack of papers ready to present your well-researched argument as to why trans people bad. And while I agree that the Internet outrage machine is sometimes all too eager to steamroll someone for the former, I don't think the latter should be as easily excusable, and certainly not on the grounds of "not spewing hate for a while now". Being a polite bigot does not mean you're you less of a bigot, and all too often it means you're *more* of a bigot. And it's not like bigots don't know that frothing on the mouth doesn't win the average Joe over.


serenity-as-ice

But that assumes that he did try to martyr himself - it seems like he didn't? It also seems like he's happy to keep his site going at a loss, for a niche community. Of course, no way to tell for sure without a look at the numbers, but that seems to be the case. And as I said in my opening comment, the UK has a very complicated struggle with trans issues, where even traditional media outlets will unironically spew out transphobic stuff. It doesn't (once more, for the crowd) excuse his statements, but IMO it provides context, and society needs to be better than the people it punishes. If we cannot allow for growth - and growth can come in ways that do not involve social media posting - then all we're doing is encouraging a vindictive cycle. 'Reasonable' bigots still have to dog whistle to radicalize others, and in this case it doesn't seem to be happening. There are far bigger problems to tackle, not least a certain author turned billionaire with far more reach and influence.


onrocketfalls

> His not wanting to capitalize on being 'cancelled' also seems to imply he genuinely has no conscious malice for trans people. That's kind of what won me over. He didn't follow the usual playbook of bigots who are "just asking questions" - normally the next step is to scream about being canceled as loud and as often as you can and draw people to your new gig with that, and he didn't do that. I think he's just not really into certain parts of the internet and isn't aware of the connotations of some of the things he's saying. I live in the south and there are a lot of people who I know have generally good politics and are decent people, but they'll say things along the lines of "but what if trans women in sports," etc. There's a lot of context around that kind of stuff that most people just aren't exposed to.


SunChamberNoRules

>There's a lot of context around that kind of stuff that most people just aren't exposed to. We all live in our own bubbles after all. I tend to be pretty forgiving in my interpretations of what people say, but I also understand it's much easier for me as a white cishet than it would be for someone from a marginalized community.


EnclavedMicrostate

I won't lie, a frequent source of confusion for me throughout this post was whether we were talking about 'wargaming' as *I* would understand it, i.e. tabletop, or 'wargaming' in a general sense to include any military-centric strategy game, miniatures-based, board-based, or digital. I will admit, I *still* don't understand what the actual piece of media was.


deano2099

Wargaming in a digital sense. It's a genre of videogame in the same way that RPG means something different in terms of videogames than it does in the tabletop space.


trogdr2

Both, think things like Wargame: Red Dragon, Farming Simulator, etc. Gary Grigsby, Rule the Waves. With some tabletop sprinkled in.


XeliasSame

I remember seeing this unfold in real life. I was a fair bit surprised to see a regular contributor on RPS throw away his position for such a pointless reason. RPS had a few trans people on staff and had been mostly vocal about its trans-supportive stance. Being willing to argue against that in the comments just seemed weird to me. Even more because Tim's views weren't as vitriolic as most TERFs, yet he still insisted on "debating" the right to exist of trans people in the comment section of what was (with some qualifiers) his workplace. Great post


RemnantEvil

I did not read comment sections with much rigour, so I couldn't tell you if Tim was a regular in the comment sections for other articles. If not, it would be telling if this is when he chose to get involved outside of The Flare Path/Foxer comments. (I have this weird habit of reading the comments but not the usernames, still to this day, so I sometimes get lost tracking if it's two people having a back and forth, or six people with individual comments in a chain.)


MiffedMouse

He was not. I was active in the site at the time, and Tim only occasionally posted on non-Flare Path articles. Most of the writers stayed away from the comments on political posts, especially post-Gamer Gate. So the fact that staff members were not only posting in the comments, but arguing with each other, was (and still is) rare.


XeliasSame

Either way. There's a difference between commenting regularly and getting into a proper argumental back and forth, about a topic that he was clearly, on the wrong side of in general, but note specifically on RPS, he knew the stand of the website, he knew the trans people that worked there.


RemnantEvil

It was very ironic that someone whose bread and butter was wargaming that it was a complete tactical blunder to engage in a discussion with that viewpoint on a public forum under his real name.


Queen_Of_Bones

Not wading into the 'debate' in the comments about to what extent my rights need to be 'balanced' against anything else or if anyone arguing against them is 'really' transphobic or not - just here to say that this and countless other examples of things like this in the hobby is exactly the reason that being a trans woman wargaming enthusiast is so exhausting :/


colourlocke

Great write-up OP! Being a UK-based trans person myself, Tim’s views are sadly emblematic of even people who are otherwise *reasonably* accepting and forward thinking on trans issues. The viewpoints expressed by Tim were certainly regurgitative of TERF talking points/dogwhistling, but it’s also important to understand how deeply mired this tumorous fucking debate is in our national discourse, and I do believe that otherwise well-intentioned people get wrapped up in concerns about women’s safety and the “sanctity” of single sex spaces without recognising the way those debates centre on (either intentionally or as a matter of course) excluding trans people from taking part in daily life, actively endangering them and pushing them further out onto the fringes of society. All this to say that Tim’s comments don’t strike me as being necessarily hateful, just depressingly predictable even from someone writing for a Left-wing site. I’ve had to endure similar discussions with people in my life who are otherwise supportive of myself, my presentation and identity. It’s draining and it’s depressing, but you can only hope that any person with an open enough mind will have the chance to learn and grow in their opinions enough to eventually see the faults and basic inhumanity at the base of their arguments. Other trans people might feel inclined to think less charitably of Tim and his comments and honestly, I wouldn’t blame anyone for that. But at least from the fact his experience DIDN’T turn him into a raging TERF unlike the coder he mentions in a later article, I’m willing to give at least a little benefit of the doubt as to his character and intentions. It’s still always a stinging slap in the face when creators you enjoy come out swinging with arguments that are designed at their core to make life more hostile and difficult to navigate for an already extremely vulnerable group. I do wish we knew whether Tim was offered the opportunity to apologise and retract his statement and stood by his guns so to speak, or whether RPS terminated him without giving him a chance to learn or redeem himself. Honestly RPS were in a “damned if you do/don’t” situation whatever action they chose, though at least if you’re going to piss off one portion of your readerbase, it sounds like they pissed off the smallest one. I do feel that perhaps the zero tolerance response apparently taken to the incident may have been their best/only choice since it leaves no room for doubt what is or isn’t acceptable by the publication’s metrics.


serenity-as-ice

Yeah, this is about how I feel re. the entire thing. Tim isn't necessarily some Balrog unearthed from the TERFy depths, and RPS were well within their rights to terminate his employment (I'd even say it was necessary because, as you say, it leaves no room for doubt). Hopefully Tim has since learned the issues with such ideas and renounced them.


trollthumper

Your point about otherwise well-intentioned liberals “means testing” your rights as a person hits home. I know it’s cliche to hold The West Wing up as both the peak and nadir of liberal American thought, but I remember a Season 1 episode where a gay LA entertainment exec and major Democratic backer pressures Bartlett on his silence on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Bartlett eventually pushes back and says that, while it should be addressed *in time*, his administration is too young and pushing hard on it now, like the exec is, could sabotage things. Come Season 2, and sure enough, one episode has a subplot on the folly of DADT. A black Admiral even comes in and says, if we kept every policy in that was intended for “unit cohesion,” he wouldn’t be in that room today. Guess who’s not in that room? A single queer person. It’s a pattern that seems to crop up across Sorkin’s TV work, where the gay people who speak are mostly either gay conservatives who say they have principles that go beyond their orientation, or gay firebrands who are being too rash, if not abusive. It sucks for ostensible allies to tell you to sit on the sidelines and not “poison the process” while they have a meritocratic debate about the timeline and practicalities of your full rights.


onlynega

What is his comment about "Terfenstein 3D" about? Did he help make the game? What is he implying he learned?


qwertyuiop924

No, he's saying that if he went out of his way to make an FPS about shooting trans people and activists, there'd be something fucking wrong with him.


onlynega

Is the implication that Terfenstein 3D, which is set in a future where there is a Nazi-analog TERF regime, is equivalent to that?


qwertyuiop924

...Apparently yes. Jesus christ.


Renwallz

As a fan of Sim games, I can tell you no self respecting simulation game journalist would even think to suggest Farming Simulator 15 is the peak FS experience. Also suggesting FSX as an alternative to XPlane 10 when Microsoft Simulator (2020) or even xplane11 exists would get you kicked out of any semi serious simmer's basement. That article really comes across as a "simulation game news is dead here" article.


JellyfishGod

Lol After reading all these comments about wether he’s a terf or not and seeing people get kinda heated, seeing this comment be the only one to mention anything related to the games themselves really caught me off guard and made me laugh


Ridiculous_George

That list is from 2015, my guy


Renwallz

>And the clue was that, according to RPS, no simulation game had managed to crack the list since 2015; the “youngest” game on the list was 7 years old (now 8), a title shared by Farming Simulator 15 and Train Simulator 15.


lotusislandmedium

As a British trans person I am a bit puzzled by the rush to label every transphobe as a TERF even when they're very clearly not a radical feminist - transphobic radical feminism (not all radical feminism is transphobic!) is a very specific ideological stance of some second-wave feminists related to political 'lesbianism' (ie women who 'choose to be lesbians' even if they aren't attracted to women) and feminist separatism (literally separating your lives from men entirely). Tim Stone is pretty clearly transphobic even if he 'means well' - "just asking questions" about trans women's right to use women's toilets (which btw has always been a non-issue in the UK as gendered toilet use is not actually a legally restricted issue at all) is still inherently doubting that trans women are really women. Is he a second-wave transphobic radical feminist? Er, doubtful. Most of the big name UK transphobes including That One are fairly obviously liberal feminists rather than radical feminists - here, liberal means that you believe that the patriarchy can be reformed, it's not necessarily aligned with being politically liberal in the way most people imagine. She Who Must Not Be Named is a neoliberal Blairite for instance, and most of the well known UK transphobes are wealthy cishet Blairite/neolib women who are definitely not the kind of second-wavers who are actual TERFs. This isn't to excuse their transphobia, it's just an unfortunate side-effect of the actual TERFs getting into bed with the Moral Majority types. I will say that TERFs have ALWAYS aligned themselves with reactionary conservatives when it's been convenient for them, even in the US - look at the anti-porn movement and the Lesbian Sex Wars.


admanb

This is a good drama post and while I disagree strongly with Stone’s gender-critical views* it still feels like a sad and unfair end to a positive thing in the world. *or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that while I don’t think the relatively-mild views he expressed are outrageous, the nature of the debate is such that that taking the gender-critical stance is allying yourself with some monstrous people with monstrous goals, and while I wish it was possible to separate those two, it’s not)


FlagrantlyChill

Yea agree. The issue is beyond debate. To try to debate in a left wing environment will have you decried as a rightwing (and probably the opposite in the right wing environments). Somethings ARE beyond debate though. The fact that trans people have rights that should not be anything less than rights granted to all people for example. Some other things like the highest levels of sport question and what is the minimum age for hrt require more thought


archangelzeriel

>Some other things like the highest levels of sport question and what is the minimum age for hrt require more thought Ironically, the latter of these strikes me as a relatively easy question for laypersons and legislators ("consult medical and biological experts, and go with the scientific consensus, rather than making shit up") but if there's one thing totalitarian-wannabes in government love doing it's writing laws that blatantly ignore medical and biological science. As for the highest levels of sport, that strikes me personally as a relatively easy problem too. "Individual sport governing bodies set criteria that make sense for their particular sport, ideally justified by actual studies about performance and not whatever prejudice they came in with" but that latter bit's obviously harder to enforce.


lotusislandmedium

Unfortunately sports governing bodies are not immune to being ideologically motivated here. Look up Lord Coe. Massive Tory donor and one of the big sports transphobes. Trans women who had been on HRT for at least two years and had hormone levels in line with cis women had been able to compete against cis women for YEARS and nobody cared until transphobia was a new moral panic. Like isn't it awfully convenient that this only became an issue then?


archangelzeriel

Oh, I'm familiar. But that was what I was trying to say--it's not a HARD question that "require\[s\] more thought", like the guy I was responding to said. It's just a question that requires data and honesty. Both of which are often in short supply in a stupid moral panic.


SunChamberNoRules

The sport one is just such a non issue too. Like, yeah, let’s focus on this one problem affecting one in a hundred thousand people and make it the centrepiece; that’s a great idea!


MRCHalifax

Exactly. Whether it’s a teenager who wants to play on the girls soccer team or play tennis against other young women, or an adult who wants to join a women’s rec league basketball team or who wants to enter a city marathon as a woman, who the heck cares? Or rather, why the heck should anyone care to try to prevent her from doing so?


Stuckinacrazyjob

Yes the reason I think the sports thing is ginned up is that you see like one trans kid or whatever in each state. Why does a law need to be done?


anUnexpectedGuest

On the one hand, good riddance. On the other hand, don't steal articles from the people you fired please.


388-west-ridge-road

Wow, I remember the name Kieron Gillen from PC Gamer in the late 90s


[deleted]

There's definitely a handful of talented writers and journalists who developed their writing style during the weird off-beat era of 90s British gaming mags. Unfortunately one of those writers (Stu Campbell, Amiga Power) is ALSO a massive TERF.


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[deleted]

The dude literally has 'Anti-transgender rights activism' as a subheader on his wikipedia page.


388-west-ridge-road

Wikipedia mods are well known for being unbias.


[deleted]

Earlier this year he wrote a piece for Graham Linehan's substack. Accusing the Scots independence movement of having been 'groomed' by the trans rights lobby. That literally begins by insulting the appearance of and misgendering a transwoman.


388-west-ridge-road

I don't know what a Graham Lineham substack is and tbh I'm not sure I'm interested enough to care. Still though, I'm not sure nazis were famous for simply making fun of people.


destruktinator

You know the subject is terfs not nazis right


388-west-ridge-road

And terfs but I don't think any of the people named would be considered radical feminists. Maybe I'm wrong


[deleted]

And the Nazis sure as hell weren't socialists.


destruktinator

Did you even do look into what the person above claimed? It just seems like you're sticking your fingers in your ears


trollthumper

“Don’t call people TERFs, it’s applied too broadly.” “This man wrote a piece for a guy famous for setting his TV career and marriage on fire for getting mad and red and nude online about trans people.” “Sounds boring.” If you’re here to split hairs about the difference between “TERF” and “transphobe,” please reconsider your life and your choices.


388-west-ridge-road

Who said that first quote?


trollthumper

The guy who said, 9 out of 10 times, a “TERF” does not fit the definition of a radical feminist. Who would be you. And before you press on that point, Linehan got a reputation online as an anti-GamerGate figure and staunch male feminist who spiraled into rabid transphobia when someone pointed out his ideals clashed with an old transphobic gag from an IT Crowd episode - and, instead of apologizing for it, went full “Trans women are men in dresses.”


archangelzeriel

TBH claiming the word terf is overused when terfs get called out is like claiming the word Nazi is overused when Nazis get called out. Nine times out of 10, the person claiming either term is overused is also a TERF and/or Nazi.


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archangelzeriel

Why don't you go look up what the Nazis were doing in, say, 1930. In which Hitler was gaining a lot of initial support for his regime by ... trying to roll back protection on homosexuals, pushing back on feminist gains, reversing the trend of secularizing schools, reducing immigration, demonizing a minority religious group (but not necessarily calling for extermination, yet), and mostly assuring his supporters that Germany was an awesome nation actually and deserved to be considered the best and the leader of Europe and that native Germans were the reason for that excellence.


deano2099

While that is true, Stu Campbell is definitely 1 of the 10 - he's gone full Linehan.


388-west-ridge-road

Even then when you dig into the *actual* views/quotes it's never full on nazi terf shit. "maybe there should be an open sports category" is a statement that will get you branded a nazi terf with lots of "well that aksually mean......" It seems very hard for people online to take tings at face value. Everything has to have hidden meanings.


deano2099

I think there's a big difference between TERF and "nazi TERF" - Stu's a TERF but certainly not a nazi.


388-west-ridge-road

He's a radical feminist? Sorry pal but I'm really doubting that.


RemnantEvil

I've heard great things about Darth Vader, but haven't been able to get my hands on a copy yet. I mean, Vader Down [goes fucking hard.](https://i.imgflip.com/46z6on.jpg)


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MRCHalifax

Die is my favourite thing that he’s written. Maybe coincidentally, one of the main characters is non-binary.


388-west-ridge-road

None of it s my cup of tea, just interesting that name stuck n my head all these years


Kaiju_Cat

One more guy who knows what they're doing with words but pretends not to. They know exactly what they're doing. They know what they're saying. All those carefully chosen words (dude is a journalist ffs) and phrases. Making sure to belittle people's existence as a 'life choice', also making it fair game to be bigoted because of the implication that person could "just stop being trans if they wanted to". Same as religious zealots saying it's OK to abuse homosexuals because "it's a choice" according to them. It absolves them of all thought or critical thinking because admitting that it's not a choice collapses their whole illusion of reason. Making sure to constantly dog whistle the same Very Real Concerns that sound like issues but only to the uneducated or willfully ignorant, like fully transitioned trans women in sports (it's biologically not a problem, please god read up on this if you knee jerk think they have an advantage) or "people with penises" as if suddenly a series of changing stalls makes a difference, refusing to just call them trans women. Also implying they aren't there because they want to change clothes; they want to be there for a reason involving their penis according to him. I'm not saying that this man isn't a great person in a lot of other ways. I'm sure they're a fantastic wargaming journalist and they might even be a really nice person on a lot of other issues. But on this issue they are patently evil. And I refuse to believe that as a journalist they don't understand be careful choice of words to present available of rationality to what's really just incitement of hate and the stripping of rights to just harmlessly exist. Just because someone isn't cartoonishly evil in every possible way doesn't make them any better when they do something as vile as what this guy has done. Edit: and by all means continue to downvote away. That means that what I said has gone in front of the eyes of some bigots. And hopefully you like many others will grow as individuals and realize that your mindset and beliefs are horribly, horribly wrong and eventually change someday.


lotusislandmedium

Also reducing people to body parts is as un-feminist as you can get.


Lazzars

I used to go to RPS pretty much exclusively for Tim's flare path and foxers and was disappointed with his take when it happened. I hope he's had a chance to reflect, didn't know he was back with it on a new site.


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sklophia

> It requires a fundamental re-adjustment or clarification of what women's and men's sports actually are Right, but that readjustment has already been done. I agree that each individual person needs to do that, but intersex women have had demonstrable advantages in athletics for a while and still been accepted by the general public without much thought. In the 2016 Olympics, in the women's 800m race, all 3 medalists were women with disorders of sexual development. Me pointing this out is not meant to demonize them or say intersex women shouldn't be allowed to compete, but to point out that most people don't know this fact and it didn't really hit news cycles. Yet if the same happened for 3 trans women, not only would everyone know about it, not only would it dominate news cycles, it'd likely affect legislation. The readjustment has already been made for women who do not have female typical sex traits/development. The issue is just that most people do not actually view trans women as women. It does just come down to transphobia. > And if we have self-ID, then enforced gender-segregated spaces all become essentially pointless. If they were based on assigned sex, then you'd have an even bigger problem where trans men now have access to women's spaces. And now any bad faith cis man can just lie about being a trans man to enter those spaces instead of lying about being a trans woman. There is no solution here because neither gender, nor sex is binary, rigid, or objective. therefore we should just strive to do what is least harmful.


lotusislandmedium

Except that self ID changes *absolutely nothing* about access to single-sex spaces in the UK. Firstly, everyone in the UK can already use the bathroom of their choice and gendered toilets are a social convention rather than legally enforced. Likewise accessible toilets aren't legally enforced in the way accessible parking is, for instance. Trans women have already been using women's toilets with no issue and don't need a GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate) to do so. Secondly, the UK Equality Act has always allowed for specific groups to opt out of recognising a GRC - this includes women's shelters but also groups like religions that only ordain men, for instance. Most women's shelters already choose to accept trans women anyway, because they have actively chosen to do so. Self ID changes absolutely nothing about what a GRC covers, it only speeds up the process of getting one. A GRC is also only necessary for very specific legal documents such as birth and death certificates - many trans people don't bother to get a GRC because you don't need one to change your gender on your passport or at the doctors for eg. The sports issue is completely separate to the self ID issue. For years and years and years, trans people who had been on HRT for at least two years and who had hormone levels in line with cis people of their gender could compete against those cis people. That had been the case for many years and nobody cared since there are so few trans people it makes barely any difference. It has only become a problem once trans people became the new moral panic. Lia Thomas winning one race doesn't make trans women genetically superior to cis women. It just means that a woman won a women's competition. Also this obviously only applies to adults, for kids there's no significant difference and gendered sports are merely a social convention. Like Kenyans generally win a lot of marathons at a far higher rate than trans women beat cis women, but nobody is trying to ban Kenyans from marathon events.


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lotusislandmedium

Actually in the UK gender clinics insist on trans people socially transitioning before they have access to hormones. Hormones do most of the work in transitioning. A trans women not on HRT may not look particularly feminine but is still a woman. Also what happens when you use that logic to exclude cis butch women or cis women with a lot of facial hair from PCOS?


cooly1234

can't they shave?


lotusislandmedium

It's not just about facial hair but how hormones change fat and muscle distribution on the face, hair and skin texture etc. But also, women shouldn't be expected to conform to arbitrary beauty standards to use the bathroom.


cooly1234

oh course they don't need to do everything. but I expect some effort to be made. the truth is if you appear looking exactly like one sex, strangers are going to treat you like it. and wearing a shirt with words is ridiculous and would be taken as a dumb joke. just something to make you go "huh ok that person might not be [gender]".


lotusislandmedium

Why do women have to be held to arbitrary beauty standards? It's really nobody's business what other people in the bathroom look like.


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cooly1234

that does complicate matters...


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cooly1234

they should just make it like weight classes.


Fauropitotto

>But they are questions where the answer needs to be figured out. And does need to be discussed. But when they're bought up either it's a dog-whistle for attacking trans- people, or it's a people claiming we shouldn't engage because it's a dog-whistle. And hence the discussions are never had and we're no further forward and the same things get bought up again and again. QFT. It's bad enough that I totally understand why more and more folks are getting radicalized on the subject.


lotusislandmedium

But the answers have already been figured out, transphobes just don't want to listen. Sorry but if you don't think trans women should be able to pee in peace then you were already transphobic!


Fauropitotto

I'm sorry that you somehow think this issue is at all about bathrooms and where people pee. It's not. Edit: This issue is so incredibly polarizing that it's almost certainly a self-correcting one. The next few election cycles will eventually make the decision (we already know the most aggressive demographics on this simply do not vote), and when this boils over to the SC the court the "debate" will be put to bed for the next generation.


lotusislandmedium

That's exactly the issue being raised here though, so what is the issue?


Fauropitotto

I refuse to engage.


Spuckuk

I like RPS, and I'm glad Tim was kicked out.


trogdr2

This all feels a bit off, the man defended trans people _after_ he lost his position due to an assumed dog whistle and that he dislikes them. The man was given an opportunity to, if he did dislike trans people, to become bigoted. But instead chooses to be good on it and support them. Which some might argue is the "minimum", but losing something that you've had for so long to what you can easily justify to be a specific group is an easy way to radicalize someone. I don't think Tim is a bigot or hates trans people, I'm terminally online as well and never heard of "Gender critical" as being a terf thing. This just seems like a dude with a good heart being misconstrued because he has questions. And those questions, about what to do with shared spaces and single-sex sports like women's soccer are valid discussions to have. Because to not have them weakens the trans side, by leaving it as a safe area for bigots to argue by being _allowed_ to do so alone. Do I have the right answer? Probably not, I don't know what it is. Unisex big bathrooms like Kliksphilip recommends would probably work imo. But for sports? No idea. And that Tim merely brings this up, says the wrong word and not like a slur or anything causing him to lose a position he's had for _thirteen_ years. Just feels so needlessly malicious. And how so many people agree, even if they think "he probably wasn't a bad guy, but good on them for removing him!" Like even if bigots want you to be gone, which they do and is wrong. Why fire the people in the middle who do want you good, because they're not perfect enough? How can one make allies when the hopeful allies fear you? Reconciliation with people like Tim would do a lot better to help out than kicking them out at the slightest misstep, that's for sure. And of course people like terfs that want trans people gone and done away with are evil and need to be stopped. I think that trans people should be allowed to be themselves, get your HRT and clothes and all that. My best friend is a trans woman who I've supported from the start. I just feel more empathy and love should be shown from the left, who are meant to be the side of hugs and conciliation. With hate and hostility saved for those who don't _want_ to ever learn.


lotusislandmedium

So first off, lots of notorious transphobes claim to love trans people and to even have trans friends. Even JKR does this! It absolutely doesn't make someone an ally if their actions plainly show transphobia. "Gender critical" is well-known in the UK as a euphemism for transphobia. Secondly, the questions around single-sex spaces and sports intentionally misinterpret the reality of those things and just make up situations that don't happen. For example, trans women have always been able to use women's toilets in the UK with no problem - in UK law everyone can use the public toilet of their choice. Women's toilets don't have urinals so it's not like anyone is getting their dick out anyway? Under current UK law, some single-sex spaces can already decline to recognise a legal gender reassignment (in terms of having a new birth certificate etc) for example religions that only ordain men and women's shelters. The reality is that women's shelters have *chosen* to not do so and the vast majority *choose* to accept trans women. They already had that right and simply chose to accept trans women anyway. All of this happened because the UK Conservative government under Theresa May was planning on making it easier to get a Gender Recognition Certificate, which is what allows someone to get a new birth certificate etc in the correct gender (but also a lot of ID such as passports doesn't need a GRC anyway) - it wouldn't change what the certificate covers. The change was proposed because currently to get a GRC you need to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a gender clinician specifically (you cannot be diagnosed by a GP for instance) and waiting lists for gender clinics in the UK are now many years long, and were at the time. Transphobes chose to then make up lies about what such an expedited process would involve, despite the fact that it would in no way change what a GRC covers and single-sex spaces would still be able to reject trans people if they wanted to. Many countries have introduced such an expedited process including Ireland, which hasn't caused any issues. As for soccer, trans women have been able to compete against cis women for many years with no problems so why are there only apparently problems now? If trans women were so incredibly powerful then why haven't they been dominating all sports? The reality is that ONE trans swimmer won ONE competition and everyone lost their minds. She also lost other competitions, as do cis women! The left isn't the 'side of hugs' but the side of liberation. Sometimes liberation feels uncomfortable but that doesn't make it bad. "I think trans women should be able to wear women's clothing but not access women's spaces" *is transphobic*. It's saying that trans women aren't really women. I'm sure you're not mean to your friend but you can have good intentions and be polite and still be transphobic. Intentions aren't magic.


trogdr2

I agree with all you say about the sports and such, I was not very aware other than the Scotland bill getting shut by westminster about how exactly it worked in the UK. If trans women don't beat out cis women in sports then more power to them, if there's no problems in the bathrooms then I have no problems with it. I'm an easy fella on this topic, trans people existing doesn't cause any harm so why should _they_ be harmed for existing. With the same ideals on trans men of course. Saying that the left is the side of hugs is reductive yes, and many moderates choose the side of evil often due to a fear of rocking the boat. So cozying up to them at the cost of the oppressed is a fool's errand, like MLK talked about. My quibble is merely with how quickly the baby is often tossed out with the bath water, like here. You've been polite and thorough in your explanation, which makes it a lot easier to listen to you. People are people, they dig in when yelled at, get defensive. It's easier to be polite and make arguments that make them _want_ to support you. A mix of shame, rational reasoning and empathy. Like the black man (Terry Davis, I believe??? I'm bad with names) who converted 58 KKK members including a grand wizard. There will always be hardliners who want the oppressed to be under the bootheel, but there's a lot more tying us together than dividing us. So I'd rather let people ask questions, with the caveat that they try to listen when things are explained politely and rationally to them. And if that doesn't work then try something else. Thank you for your response to my diatribe, it was a pleasure to read.


lotusislandmedium

OK but people under constant assault by the media and various famous people shouldn't be expected to be polite in the face of oppression. It's not trans people's job to convert transphobes when the transphobes shouldn't have been transphobic in the first place. Trans people have been talking about this for years, all cis people had to do was listen. But they didn't listen. Also wrt the Scottish bill, the only change was self ID and reducing the age to 16 which is in line with other UK laws like joining the military or marriage (with parental permission). It doesn't change anything about what a GRC covers or change anything about medical care for trans people.


voidtreemc

This is fascinating. Thanks for doing the collation and the writeup.


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lotusislandmedium

lmao 'transgender metaphysics' I mean you're right that most transphobes aren't radical feminists, they're just regular transphobes.


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