Linkspam

[white_hart]

Meet the Feminist Academics Championing Trans Rights - a small counter to the clamouring voices of trans-exclusive "feminists" which dominate the media at the moment.

99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn't Hear About in 2018 - because it's good to remember that not all of the news is terrible.

The Thing About Ghost Stories, by Naomi Kritzer - slightly spooky and utterly charming.

The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society - what happens when fae men meet a woman who isn't given to pining. Great fun (and I think Nanny Ogg as a girl must have been a bit like Rose).

Twitter thread on the hidden history beneath an unremarkable field in France.

The Susan Archetype in Children's Literature (I was surprised when I went back to work this week to discover that my recent files list included files named Susan Walker, Susan Pevensie, Susan Death, Susan Foreman and Susan Calman, until I remembered that I'd been testing out the new workload model and decided to to with Susans as my sample people. I would have had Susan from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, too, but I couldn't remember her surname.)

We Rate Dogs' video of the dogs of 2018

How the World Improved in 2018, in 15 charts - more not-terrible news.

How to Make a Paper Crane, by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry - a beautiful and powerful piece about accessibility and disability rights.

The periodic table in haiku

Her Left Hand, the Darkness, by Alison Smith - a lovely piece on the writer's memory of Ursula Le Guin.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

That ghost story story is so lovely! Thank you for sharing.

[cmcmck]

Most feminists do support trans rights- it's a noisy, selfish, arrogant minority who don't and we really do know it! :o)

That same minority don't support street working women or working class women either.

Go figure!

[white_hart]

Well, this feminist certainly does (and so do all the feminists I’m friends with), but judging from the media the two things are completely incompatible!

[cmcmck]

I value that support and this feminist has to for obvious reasons! :o)

What do the media know anyway?

[jinty]

I had an intense and saddening passionate discussion (not quite argument) with my brother and my sister in law over Christmas about trans issues. The particular saddening bit was when she insisted that she wasn’t anti-trans but trans women shouldn’t try to put themselves forward as leaders of feminist groups but rather should ‘leave us to have our own thing for ourselves’ sort of thing. I wasn’t up for that view needless to say and stood my ground staunchly but yeah, she wasn’t up for ‘trans women are women, trans men are men’ which is of course my standpoint.

[white_hart]

I’ve had FB arguments with several family members about that, and self-identification not meaning men can just say they’re women to get access to women-only spaces. It’s really dispiriting how widespread it is, and it also reminds me so much of the anti-gay propaganda of the 80s.

It was disturbing to have the argument unexpectedly and in person

[jinty]

Generally I would say I expect to agree with her on most things and I would certainly expect to agree with her about homophobia, but clearly we do not see eye to eye about transphobia. I agree with you about how the same tropes as we had in the 1980s are re-emerging as anti-trans instead of anti-gay.

My brother mostly didn't like being labelled 'cis' which is a rather lesser (if pretty dumb) bad take in my book. I've been rehashing the discussion over in my head since then (obv being more eloquent!) and I hope we can move the needle another time, but yikes, it's not a view that's going to shift overnight.

[ironed_orchid]

I have been about the parallels and differences between Susan Walker and Susan Pevensie and I am so glad someone has written about it so I don't have to.