Suzanne Moore Quotes

The sight of the hard left coalescing around Julian Assange is indeed sore. Yet again, those most vociferous about human rights seem somehow not to see women's rights as part of the same conversation.

At my former newspaper, there was a range of subjects that I and other mostly female journalists were not allowed to write about: what was going on at the Gender Identity Development Service clinic at the Tavistock, the scandal of Mermaids, the takeover of public institutions by Stonewall, the erasing of the word women from public language.
In short, instead of having a debate about gender ideology or the attack on women’s rights that some trans activism involved, The Guardian just put its fingers in its ears and for some time refused any discussion.
How did The Guardian enforce such censorship? Not by explicitly banning anything but by omission. It simply did not report on stories that ran contrary to its world view.

Reasonably sitting around waiting for equality while empowering oneself with some silicone implants does not really seem to have worked wonders, does it ladeez? Postfeminism – as personified by the Sex and the City generation – basically confused sexual liberation with shopping: a mistaken strategy even within its own market-driven terms. So we live on a permanent diet of crumbs from the table. A woman over 50 gets to be on TV! Whoopdiwhoop! It's a victory, sure, but is that all there is? It's time to wake up and smell the skinny latte.
A woman is murdered in Bristol and the response is to tell women to stay at home?! For their own safety. Though no one thinks it's a woman doing the murdering. A curfew on men would be considered a monstrous idea, even though most women live with internalised curfews anyway.

Or take comfort from Gideon's [George Osborne] "We are all in this together"? The last election was the most regressive for women I can remember. Women appeared as trophy wives, or not at all. The consequences of that are that this government – this new way of doing politics – is hitting women and children the hardest. Women are suffering most from the cuts that men are making. Just look at the figures.
This makes me very angry indeed. Which I know may increase "visible signs of ageing", but it's way too late now. Feminism has been dumbed down into politeness and party-political promises for far too long.

When I raised the question of the competing rights between biological women and trans women in the paper I then worked for, The Guardian, my world went bonkers for a while. A trans person who worked at the paper (I never went into the office) who had already resigned earlier, resigned again and 338 staff signed an anonymous letter about transphobia in that organisation. I was not named except the person that the letter was leaked to indicated it was clearly about me.
It all ended up with me choosing to leave a good job because I could no longer say what I wanted to say there. This is not a sob story. I was welcomed at the Daily Telegraph, who have honoured their promise that I would not be censored.

Stonewall had successfully captured every organisation and rewarded it for being "trans inclusive." What did this mean? Believing that womanhood was a feeling in a man’s head? Rewriting equality law so that people with male genitalia could now be in female prisons and rape crisis centres? Bad statistics were bandied about concerning suicide - all wrong and based on one tiny study. What has been censored on the Left is actual information, not opinions: information about puberty blockers, information about the number of sex offenders who claim to be women in prison, information about what JK Rowling actually said, information about trans athletes who have gone through male puberty, information about public attitudes. Most people are liberal and sympathetic to trans people, as we should be. When told most trans women retain male genitalia, they become more uncomfortable about females sharing intimate spaces with them.

I am under no illusion about the Tories' own record. Austerity hit women and children the hardest. We had two more female prime ministers – a win for equality, if only one that proved women can be equally as useless as men.
The problem with Labour people though is that they see themselves as anti-sexist, not to mention morally superior, and think they should be considered upstanding feminists even though they actually do nothing to advance the cause of women's rights.

Is there anything that women can have for ourselves alone that certain men do not want to take away from us? Or get access to? Anything at all?

The emails then came pouring in from people who wished they could say what I had said. I wished people would stop calling me brave. Columnists are meant to be made of titanium; I felt more like papier-mâché. But the orthodoxy which demands that Mary Beard must refer to an ancient statue with a little penis as "assigned male at birth" is powerful. The no-platforming of feminist warriors like Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel is abhorrent. I like freaks. I like fluidity. I just don’t like one set of rules being replaced by another. I was hurt that so many of my 'colleagues' denounced me, but I suppose everyone needs a hobby.

Most people want the tiny percentage of the population who are trans to have the best lives they can. Living your best life would be one free of male violence. It is not feminists who murder trans people, although this might be the impression you would be left with if you relied solely on Twitter for your information.

[On Russell Brand a year later] [T]he Jesus Clown is pilloried for being a dreadful influence on young people. If the youth don't vote, then policies that continue to punish them will be waved through by our decrepit politicians. Actually, the Jesus Clown is not what I call a young person, Lydon isn't, and I am certainly not, but the Clown has a reach, that's for sure. My 13-year-old adores him, and the part of me that is for ever 13 gets why. A lot of what he says is sub-Chomskyian woo, but these frustrations with existing political structures – they exist. Somehow it is always assumed that young people are naive idealists who, when they grow up and understand how things really work or don’t work at all, will buckle down and do the right thing. The right thing here means voting Labour.

There is no women's space or activity, from bathrooms to prisons to rape refuges to sports, that some male-bodied people are not lobbying to enter.
The reverse, I note, is not happening. Male spaces remain sacrosanct.

The Greens have suspended senior members who were writing a Green women’s declaration which understands that women's rights are based on biological sex. The rejection of biology or indeed reality by those who want to slow down climate change is frankly barmy.
But then so is the promotion of fetishistic men in wigs who only recently were in fact Tory candidates. I am talking about Melissa Poulton, Bromsgrove Green Party candidate, formerly Matthew Viner, now declaring "herself" to be a proud lesbian and a purveyor of sissy porn (don't ask). Is Ms Poulton a true trans woman? I cannot possibly say as I don't have the forensic skills necessary. But I can make the comment that what I see is a blatant opportunist.

Female oppression is innately connected to our ability to reproduce. Women have made progress by talking about biology, menstruation, childbirth and menopause. We won’t now have our bodies or voices written out of the script. The materiality of having a female body may mean rape or it may mean childbirth – but we still seek liberation from gender. In some transgender ideology, we are told the opposite: gender is material and therefore can be possessed by whoever claims it, and it is sex as a category that is a social construction. Thus, sex-based rights, protected in law, can be done away with.
I know from personal experience the consequences of being deemed transphobic by an invisible committee on social media. It has meant death and rape threats for me and my children, and police involvement. I also know that the most vicious stuff takes place online and not in real life. Still, I can’t stand by. As Roman Polanski was being rewarded for his latest film at the César awards, Todd was being silenced.

They say he has made the mistake of demanding the impossible – and they are right. He has demanded the impossible. But it wasn't a mistake.