It's no secret that Billingham and I used to be friends, of sorts. We were friends and allies online for a few years and we met in person. I believed that his motives were similar to mine and that we were on the same side.
Now I almost wish it *was* a secret because the man is a nightmare and I regret almost everything about my past association with him. We were both involved in the atheism/skepticism movement, such as it was, and I had thought that we were both committed to truth motivated by kindness, fairness and justice.
It turns out that Billingham is motivated only by the opportunity to bully and especially the opportunity to bully women. He feels very much at home in the gender identity extremism movement. He realised quite early, in about 2015, that this ideology gives license to bully while pretending to be progressive. He realised that lying comes without consequence if you're morally bankrupt and your goal is to hurt, rather than to achieve.
Beware of him. He's dangerous not because he has any particular skill, but because there is no depth he won't sink to and because no gain is too shallow for him to relish. Everything he says is a calculated but not particularly sophisticated lie. Everything he does, now, is to undermine truth and decency and to muddy the waters.
Block him. Mute him. Ignore him. Starve him of attention.
I'm sorry now that I ever had anything to do with him, he is poison.
"When you disable the function to recognise and name reality throughout society, this is the result: a children and young people’s charity involved in an exhibition of kink, fetish and violent porn passed off as an ‘exploration of gender identities’ which is suitable for all ages."
You can imagine the woke conversations..."Oh you don't need boundaries, explore your identity...if it feels good do it.
fruitage...
Nudes, porn, abuse – the toxic culture in UK classrooms
He’s also going after LGB Alliance’s funding plug in provider, why is a straight man allowed to continuously attack, defame, and harass a lesbian led charity for LGB people?
"Billingham, as Sprout, also defended the Kiss My Genders art exhibition at the Hayward gallery, which was accompanied by a training session from Gendered Intelligence for teachers about how to introduce the work to young children. The exhibition contains imagery associated with BDSM, fetish and porn and includes a close up of an erect penis and video footage of a mock gang rape scene."
Scratch the surface...its always in there somewhere...sexual pervisions
A lesson on Gender ideology (101): history of the term "gender"
(1) "gender" is a term of grammar - nouns in Latin and other languages have masculine or feminine gender. This is the correct narrow usage.
(2) "Gender" was borrowed in 1950s by psychiatrists trying to pretend that their sex dysphoric patients were sane. These psychiatrists pretended, and the world did not challenge their idea, that there was a trait - maybe in the mind? - which described behaviour associated with, but separate from, biological sex (male and female, XY and XX). This idea is the basis of "gender ideology". You do not have to believe that "gender" in this sense actually exists.
(3) Although the Victorians were quite happy to refer to the "female sex" as the reproductive category of women, and similarly the "male sex" for men, we - including eggregiously most journalists - have become more and more prudish in the 1970s, 80s, etc culminating in the present day when hardly anyone uses the category sex when this is what they mean. Instead the word "gender" has been substituted for sex. This is so even on application forms for official purposes such as jobs or passports. This is an appalling confusion which leads to endless, pointless argument.
Conclusion: use the word sex if you mean the biological, reproductive category.
You can't say this too many times, Una-Jane! The avoidance of the word sex is almost laughable, watching people turn themselves into pretzels to say anything but.
Earlier this year in California, I rescued some kittens and eventually took them to a spay/neuter clinic. They informed me by telephone that my fellow rescuer and I had ‘misgendered’ one of the cats. I informed them on that telephone call and later via an email response that the appropriate term is ‘sex.’ Imagine having to inform VETERINARIANS that cats don’t have ‘genders.’ Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure cats are too smart to fall for transgender ideology!
The original definition of "gender" was "type or category". No sexual connotation at all and I'd love to know how it sort of picked up that connotation in linguistics later.
Since there is no reproducible, testable evidence to support the theory of "gender ideology", I think that it is time to reject "gender ideology", in the same way that we rejected "phlogiston" as a theory to explain combustion.
The entire subject area of psychology is in the Stone Age compared to physical medicine, according to a UK Medical Director for Mental Health services speaking to me privately.
It breaks my heart, and my brain, when I see people I used to respect as 'skeptics' decry the fallacy of "feelings before facts" in one breath, and then shout "Trans Rights Y'all" with the next. Critical thinking becomes completely bypassed, just because the word "Trans" has been uttered. It's like a magic spell to them. And it makes me sick to my stomach.
You're lucky you live somewhere that physical medicine is not utterly without conscience. I suffered medical negligence for decades until my hypothyroidism nearly killed me; my husband blacked out repeatedly and none of the specialists had or have a clue, only a naturopath/nurse practitioner. And she's not permitted to order scans.
Can we stop describing Maria Mac as 'a pensioner' please? IIRC she was 60 when the assault took place, so below state pension age. I get that describing someone using that word paints a picture to our advantage in those circumstances, but it seems demeaning and insulting to me. Maria Mac is a vibrant and active woman.
Oolon is an infamous character from Free Thought Blogs who evolved from an enemy of the blog's SJWs to their most devoted servant. Even they dont quite trust him and thus he works really hard to prove his credentials. He is sick and I could have told you that 10 years ago.
I vaguely remember "Oolon" from my days when I was active in the New Atheist movement. I left the New Atheist movement in disgust when "Elevatorgate" happened. Elevatorgate was a pre-GamerGate woman-hating warm up exercise.
Rebecca Watson of Skepchick went to an Atheist conference in Ireland and during a talk she gave, she alluded to women feeling uncomfortable when attending these conferences because some male attendees acted like sex pests. Later in the hotel's bar, she was talking with a group of conference attendees and generally hanging out. In the wee hours of the morning, she excused herself so she could go up to her room and get a few hours of sleep. Some guy, who had not made his presence known to her up to this point, followed her into the elevator and asked her to come to his room for coffee. Later, she made a video that she uploaded to Youtube about the conference. She briefly mentioned the incident and said, "Guys, don't do that." That was it. She didn't even name or describe the guy. She literally spent, at most, two minutes on this incident.
I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that the entire online atheist community exploded into an inferno of raging misogyny and anti-feminism. Entire message boards were devoted to smearing and harassing women and their allies in the New Atheist movement. There was doxxing, and threats, and trying to get people fired or thrown out of atheist communities from both sides. Eventually, people like PZ Myers and others at FreeThought Blogs (FTB), tried to create a new movement they called Atheism Plus (+). It was supposed be a movement of atheists who were focused on Social Justice and leftist interests. Of course it was maligned from the start and it's pretty much dead now.
This post about Billingham made me think back to those days as well as the destruction of the New Atheist movement. I remember when they created the Atheism Plus forum, almost immediately proto-TRAs swarmed in and started with their bullcrap. But that was the kind of leftist interest they courted so everyone celebrated it.
Pretty soon, the topics of championing secularism, fighting Creationism in American schools, and so on starting getting drowned out by grievances and the Oppression Olympics. You couldn't say "that's crazy," at some egregious display of quackery because "crazy" was offensive to people with mental illness. You couldn't say "that's stupid," because that was abelist. Threads devolved into shouting matches because someone typed "transwoman" instead of "trans woman" by accident. People were banned and shunned.
In the meantime, FTB was still going. One of FTB's regular blogger was the illustrious TIM Natalie Reed. Natalie is known for organizing to disrupt the L’Ecole Polytechnique Massacre 'Day of Remembrance' because it didn't center TIMs. Let that sink in - a woman-hating mass murderer killed 14 women because they were women. Reed, upset that the Day of Remembrance didn't center TIMs, organized other TRAs to protest and disrupt a solemn public memorial dedicated to the 14 women who were murdered. http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/transgender-activists-plan-protest-against-day-of-remembrance-for-women-murdered-in-the-lecole-polytechnique-massacre/
Another FTB blogger by the name of Ophelia Benson was run off FTB for being Gender Critical and is now vilified as a TERF.
I always considered myself a very left leaning person and I still am but I've withdrawn from most leftist spaces because of the toxicity.
I swear, the second TRAs join a group, you know that group will probably be dead within a year, two a most. Trans activism is parasitic. It attaches itself to a host and then proceeds to take all the host's vitality. I have been involved with pro-social community groups and watched them get destroyed when the TRAs show up. Oh, you want to organize a product drive for a domestic abuse shelter? How dare you! TRANS WOMEN ARE DYING! DIRECT YOUR RESOURCES TO THEM! Oh, you want to do a toy drive for foster kids at Christmas? How dare you! TRANS WOMEN ARE DYING! ad nauseum. Pretty soon, people stop showing up and participating. The host is now dead and the TRAs move on to another host and the process repeats all over again.
The parasitic nature of trans-activism is evident everywhere from political parties to on-line interest groups with no direct relation to gender issues. The comparison with the cuckoo is well-founded in my view. There is no option but to protect the nest and the only way to do that may be small private groups that meet only in meat space.
Hi Bonnie, thank you and to those replying. That's such an informative history. And these responses are fascinating too. I wonder where the wider history of all this is, as it seems global yet very niche and without the personal experience it's hard to grasp at the edges. I knew little of elevatorgate and similar, but have been watching the tides of this wash around the globe over the last few decades with the skeptic and 'rationality' arguments as responses to other online/offline/online and religious debates. It weaves itself into all the philosophical and political debates most cultures have or are based upon. Women appear a very unwelcome grain of sand in the tech bro oyster and it time and again gives free rein to unleashed and unabashed misogyny. Then left/right, marginalised/dominant and everything in between gets thrown in too. It's hard for an outsider to understand how.
I noticed someone causing problems in a health charity forum the other day, and suddenly posts and threads disappeared and no objections were allowed. It got playground nasty very fast and moderators seemed caught unawares and reacted by classing everything as offensive. I couldn't keep up. Many were upset. I was having notifications sending me to pages that no longer existed and I am loathe to return there or invest any more time. Another community ruined. That really surprised me. Many people are directed to online communities now for health and mental health issues, and some are linked to charities with quasi-official standing. They get Government funding. We're all supposed to be online.
It seemed one disruptive poster (or maybe a few who knows) was wielding unusual and disproportionate power. They were well-known by other members for trolling, but no one could mention them without a ban, so it was draped in secrecy. The wrong person appeared to be banned. One came after me, accusing me of things I hadn't done, in a real conspiracy theorist way, and I reported them, and openly said I was and why. Nominal 'safeguarding' turned on its head. I was trying to explain how to behave safely on a forum to fairly elderly women who were asking genuine and innocent questions. Where do I even begin to explain? That seems to happen a lot on Twitter too, when there are TRA that mass block mention of women as being 'transphobic', and women (and men like Graham) are banned. Only some are allowed to express emotion or anger. I realise what I see is the tip of an iceberg. We can't see facial expression or body language and who don't 'know' posters.
I tried to find out from the mods and my replies and converations, even about other non-contentious topics disappeared too. This is radical censorship and they make it up as they go along and entirely outside any laws. I asked the mods privately and it was 'no comment'. It was strange and upsetting and reminded me how this seems a thing baked into online spaces and they are incredibly easy to disrupt as they are disseminated and in the hands of a few we have to trust to manage them well. They are not like social spaces have evolved before.
It seems Institutions, Governments and Professions have also been caught on the hop as TRA have taken advantage of many social narratives or fashions. It's culminating in this. No debate, no dissent and all the undermining and seedy elements of those who wish to disrupt and attack. It's at the heart of it. Demands magnified. Everyone is directed online; sometimes it's the only access to many services or 'community' and it's not what it was decades back. It's harsh and full of conflict. Very few seem to realise or give a cohesive response to why and how this is happening, so thank you.
I wonder how the 'development' of and misapplied 'hate crime' laws has grown alongside this, and it seems we've devolved all our civil responsibility into the hands of a few in California. This is squashing debate, and marginalising people, yet no one seems to know one from the other any longer. Some take advantage of that and people's propensity to be 'nice' and think 'rights' are always a good thing. I don't think inviting a few women to join boards, or to lean in, however far, will fix this.
This is an excellent summary of those times. It's interesting to note that Billingham was very much on the side of social justice - that, is, my side, Rebecca's side - when it came to Elevatorgate. Looking back, though, I can see that he was more interested in finding and silencing (punishing) a particularly nasty anti-woman and anti-social justice blogger calling himself elevatorgate than in fighting for actual women or any social justice. One of Billingham's friends (I forget which) eventually found out who the blogger was. I don't know whether they doxed him or threatened him with doxing, but elevatorgate finally disappeared.
My point is that although Billingham was on what I felt was the right side of that conflict, I now realise that he was only in it for the hunting and punishment of the blogger elevatorgate. I now think that was cause enough for him and I was mistaken to believe that his motives were anti-bullying, anti-misogyny, pro-women, pro-social justice...
The signs were all there and I'm an idiot for not realising it sooner.
Of course, Rebecca has since gone full gender identity extremist and has said disgusting things about some of my friends, as has PZ Myres and any number of other former skeptics.
One person who has done neither of those things, though, is Ophelia Benson, who you mentioned. Her blog is still going strong post-FTB and everyone should definitely read it (http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/). There are few fiercer, smarter or more incisive feminists around and Ophelia saw through the gender nonsense from the outset. You'll find me there in the comments, plus a few others you'll recognise, including Arty, occasionally. I won't go as far as to say that Ophelia peaked Arty and me, but she definitely took us along for the ride when she peaked herself.
B&W is still going strong and is still anti-misogyny, pro-woman and skeptical of gender-based nonsense. I'd strongly suggest giving it another chance. I won't say the same for FTB.
I decided years ago that many atheists -- thinking of some of the famous ones -- are essentially fundamentalists. Incredibly ironic, but stuffing your beliefs or absence of beliefs down others' throats is not appealing. I am decidedly NOT an atheist and I do not appreciate fundamentalism in any form.
He is obviously Cluster B. A malignant NPD. He will never stop as it gets him off. He is completely empty and fills it with his loathing of women. His wife must either be brain washed or same as him. I wish we could find a way of making him pay.
Oolon is an infamous character from Free Thought Blogs who evolved from an enemy of the blog's SJWs to their most devoted servant. Even they dont quite trust him and thus he works really hard to prove his credentials. He is sick and I could have told you that 10 years ago.
You write: “It’s a mystery why he is so invested in silencing women in favour of abusive and dysfunctional incels.”
Since 2015 I have followed credible independent channels that report on prominent child abuse cases, both in the US and UK. The behaviour exhibited by this man matches perfectly some of the sabotage I witnessed, targeting those groups. Sometimes it’s a single person with sock accounts galore, and what would appear to be a mental health disorder. But they are always relentless and determined and bullet proof, and an appearance on BBC is not unheard of. Destruction of a persons life and reputation is the ultimate goal. It is too familiar a pattern for me to believe they are sole operators. Yes, they really might be but then you learn about the secret police infiltrators of the 1990’s in UK protest movements who used stolen identities from dead people, and you learn about digital orgs like the 77th Brigade. And the same kind of CIA connected operatives working it in the US. What I learned was the independent investigations of child abuse cases had to be absolutely turned upside down. Well meaning groups had to be seeded with doubt and hostility and hosts of any channel daring to report on the sacred subject were pelted with abuse and lies. Disinformation campaigns will forever stain anyone who uses their real name, much like they have done to Graham. Also, Qanon was an obvious psyop from the start, designed to create an offspring movement that could be easily led and then labeled as whacko etc in order to discredit all abuse research, forever cited by establishment hacks. (Big sigh, thanks for listening 😆)
And in the U.S. we're listening to the gymnasts who were sexually assaulted by Larry Nasser describe their harrowing experiences talking to the FBI. Who fulfilled their role as enablers of The Patriarchy (guaranteeing unfettered access to women and children) by doing NOTHING. And I was glad to see someone point out the FBI's utter lack of investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, a drunken sexual predator who sits on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hi Susan. Yes, Larry Nasser being one of many horrible cases. I respectfully hold judgment in the case of Kavanaugh though. Not because I like him (I don’t) or think he should be spared if the allegations are true, but because his case was presented like a Democrat show - for political purposes. It was not brought before a legitimate judge & jury for a reason, it was brought specifically before the media for public opinion and “metoo” clout. The same people ignore and even dismiss the allegations made against Joe Biden by Tara Reid. We know JB is a predator because for years there has been footage of his hands and face crawling all over uncomfortable young girls in front of the camera. Not acknowledged. Apart from Rose McGowan, “#Metoo” celebs never spoke up for children abused in Hollywood and never supported those who did. I believe the #metoo movement is planted with distractors. ♥️
A Democrat show? You're on a blog dedicated to women's rights and you think it was a show that a woman spoke about her experiences with Kavanaugh when she was 15 years old?!?!?!?!? You picked the wrong woman to say this to. Susan Collins is unfortunately one of my senators (a woman who voted against equal pay for women) and she is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonard Leo, her billionaire feudalist backer who basically put Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett on the Supreme Court. These are people who want first to end women's right to vote then eventually to end everyone's right to vote so we can return to the halcyon days of feudalism in which they picture themselves as lords of the land.
I would suggest you learn to distinguish between lying for benefit (a lifetime term on the U.S. Supreme Court!) and telling the truth in order to expose yourself to a lot of pain.
I do NOT agree that the woman who testified was lying. People do not lie in order to come forward and cause themselves suffering. Of course I hold Democrats to the same standard; the only difference between the parties is that one can create a tiny bit of shame in Democrats (quoting Covert Action Magazine), a very tiny bit. I am done here.
I didn’t say the woman testifying was lying and not once have I implied that - I never would. I’m referring to the way these cases are presented to the public and the double standards that most certainly exist. “Believe Women” became “Listen to Women” when Biden was accused. To ignore how the media piled on to his accuser, Tara Reid, digging up absolute nonsense from her past, accusing her of lying, not giving her the same platform to speak.. well that’s very telling of the leading #metoo people who just happen to have enormous political bias. A similar thing happened to the sister of a friend of mine, it just never reached the media because it wasn’t the right predator to expose. Your response to my entirely respectful position is unfortunate, but that’s ok.
It's no secret that Billingham and I used to be friends, of sorts. We were friends and allies online for a few years and we met in person. I believed that his motives were similar to mine and that we were on the same side.
Now I almost wish it *was* a secret because the man is a nightmare and I regret almost everything about my past association with him. We were both involved in the atheism/skepticism movement, such as it was, and I had thought that we were both committed to truth motivated by kindness, fairness and justice.
It turns out that Billingham is motivated only by the opportunity to bully and especially the opportunity to bully women. He feels very much at home in the gender identity extremism movement. He realised quite early, in about 2015, that this ideology gives license to bully while pretending to be progressive. He realised that lying comes without consequence if you're morally bankrupt and your goal is to hurt, rather than to achieve.
Beware of him. He's dangerous not because he has any particular skill, but because there is no depth he won't sink to and because no gain is too shallow for him to relish. Everything he says is a calculated but not particularly sophisticated lie. Everything he does, now, is to undermine truth and decency and to muddy the waters.
Block him. Mute him. Ignore him. Starve him of attention.
I'm sorry now that I ever had anything to do with him, he is poison.
thank you for letting us know.
Is he a Friend of Saville?
this is also well-worth reading https://www.transgendertrend.com/gendered-intelligence-training-teachers-kiss-my-genders/
"When you disable the function to recognise and name reality throughout society, this is the result: a children and young people’s charity involved in an exhibition of kink, fetish and violent porn passed off as an ‘exploration of gender identities’ which is suitable for all ages."
You can imagine the woke conversations..."Oh you don't need boundaries, explore your identity...if it feels good do it.
fruitage...
Nudes, porn, abuse – the toxic culture in UK classrooms
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nudes-porn-abuse-the-toxic-culture-in-uk-classrooms-fl3m7wjmg
'Rape culture' in schools and the role of pornography
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/01/culture-in-schools-and-the-role-of-pornography
I wonder how many progressive Head of Schools took their pupils along to this
https://www.into.ie/app/uploads/2019/10/We-All-Belong-Picture-Books-Resource.pdf#page=12
Gender Identity Ideology has taken root in Irish schools - this is for 4 - 12 year olds.
He’s also going after LGB Alliance’s funding plug in provider, why is a straight man allowed to continuously attack, defame, and harass a lesbian led charity for LGB people?
"Billingham, as Sprout, also defended the Kiss My Genders art exhibition at the Hayward gallery, which was accompanied by a training session from Gendered Intelligence for teachers about how to introduce the work to young children. The exhibition contains imagery associated with BDSM, fetish and porn and includes a close up of an erect penis and video footage of a mock gang rape scene."
Scratch the surface...its always in there somewhere...sexual pervisions
yes. Same with cult leaders, and spiritual gurus. Sexual misconduct is always there.
My God! Well I think I have worked out what motivates this bloke. Perhaps the authorities should investigate his hard drive. #QTpie
Exactly. And check if his wife and children are safe.
He is exhibiting the kind of hatred of women only shown by Friends of Saville.
Thank you for the info on how to donate to Marion Millar! The person you highlight looks like the creepiest person ever . . .
I’ve just sent Marion a donation via PayPal. Please just be careful that her info doesn’t get out.
Me too, I agree that care is needed but I am also glad to get this opportunity to give her a spot of dosh x
It's time to stop referring to these people as Trans Rights Activists.
They are Gender Evangelists.
We should also stop referring to ourselves as Gender Critical.
We are Gender Atheists.
Thank you, Brett.
Accurate terms which use rational language are the key to get the message across to the general public.
Gender Evangelists: tick! Gender Atheists: tick!
A lesson on Gender ideology (101): history of the term "gender"
(1) "gender" is a term of grammar - nouns in Latin and other languages have masculine or feminine gender. This is the correct narrow usage.
(2) "Gender" was borrowed in 1950s by psychiatrists trying to pretend that their sex dysphoric patients were sane. These psychiatrists pretended, and the world did not challenge their idea, that there was a trait - maybe in the mind? - which described behaviour associated with, but separate from, biological sex (male and female, XY and XX). This idea is the basis of "gender ideology". You do not have to believe that "gender" in this sense actually exists.
(3) Although the Victorians were quite happy to refer to the "female sex" as the reproductive category of women, and similarly the "male sex" for men, we - including eggregiously most journalists - have become more and more prudish in the 1970s, 80s, etc culminating in the present day when hardly anyone uses the category sex when this is what they mean. Instead the word "gender" has been substituted for sex. This is so even on application forms for official purposes such as jobs or passports. This is an appalling confusion which leads to endless, pointless argument.
Conclusion: use the word sex if you mean the biological, reproductive category.
End of lesson.
You can't say this too many times, Una-Jane! The avoidance of the word sex is almost laughable, watching people turn themselves into pretzels to say anything but.
Earlier this year in California, I rescued some kittens and eventually took them to a spay/neuter clinic. They informed me by telephone that my fellow rescuer and I had ‘misgendered’ one of the cats. I informed them on that telephone call and later via an email response that the appropriate term is ‘sex.’ Imagine having to inform VETERINARIANS that cats don’t have ‘genders.’ Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure cats are too smart to fall for transgender ideology!
Ditto, dogs; ditto, squirrels; ditto, bears; ditto, everyone but brain-dead humans.
🤣
The original definition of "gender" was "type or category". No sexual connotation at all and I'd love to know how it sort of picked up that connotation in linguistics later.
It's time to reframe the debate, in my opinion.
Their side spouts a religious dogma, our side demands proof before we accept it.
It used to be called skepticism, back in the day.
Since there is no reproducible, testable evidence to support the theory of "gender ideology", I think that it is time to reject "gender ideology", in the same way that we rejected "phlogiston" as a theory to explain combustion.
The entire subject area of psychology is in the Stone Age compared to physical medicine, according to a UK Medical Director for Mental Health services speaking to me privately.
It breaks my heart, and my brain, when I see people I used to respect as 'skeptics' decry the fallacy of "feelings before facts" in one breath, and then shout "Trans Rights Y'all" with the next. Critical thinking becomes completely bypassed, just because the word "Trans" has been uttered. It's like a magic spell to them. And it makes me sick to my stomach.
You're lucky you live somewhere that physical medicine is not utterly without conscience. I suffered medical negligence for decades until my hypothyroidism nearly killed me; my husband blacked out repeatedly and none of the specialists had or have a clue, only a naturopath/nurse practitioner. And she's not permitted to order scans.
I prefer Gender Apostate. And they are Transgender Ideolgues. 🙂
Ha ha, noice. Personally I was never a believer, so I can't be an apostate, but this is a broad not-church, all heathens are welcome here!
Can we stop describing Maria Mac as 'a pensioner' please? IIRC she was 60 when the assault took place, so below state pension age. I get that describing someone using that word paints a picture to our advantage in those circumstances, but it seems demeaning and insulting to me. Maria Mac is a vibrant and active woman.
Oolon is an infamous character from Free Thought Blogs who evolved from an enemy of the blog's SJWs to their most devoted servant. Even they dont quite trust him and thus he works really hard to prove his credentials. He is sick and I could have told you that 10 years ago.
This is my first comment here. Hi everyone!
I vaguely remember "Oolon" from my days when I was active in the New Atheist movement. I left the New Atheist movement in disgust when "Elevatorgate" happened. Elevatorgate was a pre-GamerGate woman-hating warm up exercise.
Rebecca Watson of Skepchick went to an Atheist conference in Ireland and during a talk she gave, she alluded to women feeling uncomfortable when attending these conferences because some male attendees acted like sex pests. Later in the hotel's bar, she was talking with a group of conference attendees and generally hanging out. In the wee hours of the morning, she excused herself so she could go up to her room and get a few hours of sleep. Some guy, who had not made his presence known to her up to this point, followed her into the elevator and asked her to come to his room for coffee. Later, she made a video that she uploaded to Youtube about the conference. She briefly mentioned the incident and said, "Guys, don't do that." That was it. She didn't even name or describe the guy. She literally spent, at most, two minutes on this incident.
I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that the entire online atheist community exploded into an inferno of raging misogyny and anti-feminism. Entire message boards were devoted to smearing and harassing women and their allies in the New Atheist movement. There was doxxing, and threats, and trying to get people fired or thrown out of atheist communities from both sides. Eventually, people like PZ Myers and others at FreeThought Blogs (FTB), tried to create a new movement they called Atheism Plus (+). It was supposed be a movement of atheists who were focused on Social Justice and leftist interests. Of course it was maligned from the start and it's pretty much dead now.
This post about Billingham made me think back to those days as well as the destruction of the New Atheist movement. I remember when they created the Atheism Plus forum, almost immediately proto-TRAs swarmed in and started with their bullcrap. But that was the kind of leftist interest they courted so everyone celebrated it.
Pretty soon, the topics of championing secularism, fighting Creationism in American schools, and so on starting getting drowned out by grievances and the Oppression Olympics. You couldn't say "that's crazy," at some egregious display of quackery because "crazy" was offensive to people with mental illness. You couldn't say "that's stupid," because that was abelist. Threads devolved into shouting matches because someone typed "transwoman" instead of "trans woman" by accident. People were banned and shunned.
In the meantime, FTB was still going. One of FTB's regular blogger was the illustrious TIM Natalie Reed. Natalie is known for organizing to disrupt the L’Ecole Polytechnique Massacre 'Day of Remembrance' because it didn't center TIMs. Let that sink in - a woman-hating mass murderer killed 14 women because they were women. Reed, upset that the Day of Remembrance didn't center TIMs, organized other TRAs to protest and disrupt a solemn public memorial dedicated to the 14 women who were murdered. http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/transgender-activists-plan-protest-against-day-of-remembrance-for-women-murdered-in-the-lecole-polytechnique-massacre/
Another FTB blogger by the name of Ophelia Benson was run off FTB for being Gender Critical and is now vilified as a TERF.
I always considered myself a very left leaning person and I still am but I've withdrawn from most leftist spaces because of the toxicity.
I swear, the second TRAs join a group, you know that group will probably be dead within a year, two a most. Trans activism is parasitic. It attaches itself to a host and then proceeds to take all the host's vitality. I have been involved with pro-social community groups and watched them get destroyed when the TRAs show up. Oh, you want to organize a product drive for a domestic abuse shelter? How dare you! TRANS WOMEN ARE DYING! DIRECT YOUR RESOURCES TO THEM! Oh, you want to do a toy drive for foster kids at Christmas? How dare you! TRANS WOMEN ARE DYING! ad nauseum. Pretty soon, people stop showing up and participating. The host is now dead and the TRAs move on to another host and the process repeats all over again.
I'm so sick of this.
The parasitic nature of trans-activism is evident everywhere from political parties to on-line interest groups with no direct relation to gender issues. The comparison with the cuckoo is well-founded in my view. There is no option but to protect the nest and the only way to do that may be small private groups that meet only in meat space.
Hi Bonnie, thank you and to those replying. That's such an informative history. And these responses are fascinating too. I wonder where the wider history of all this is, as it seems global yet very niche and without the personal experience it's hard to grasp at the edges. I knew little of elevatorgate and similar, but have been watching the tides of this wash around the globe over the last few decades with the skeptic and 'rationality' arguments as responses to other online/offline/online and religious debates. It weaves itself into all the philosophical and political debates most cultures have or are based upon. Women appear a very unwelcome grain of sand in the tech bro oyster and it time and again gives free rein to unleashed and unabashed misogyny. Then left/right, marginalised/dominant and everything in between gets thrown in too. It's hard for an outsider to understand how.
I noticed someone causing problems in a health charity forum the other day, and suddenly posts and threads disappeared and no objections were allowed. It got playground nasty very fast and moderators seemed caught unawares and reacted by classing everything as offensive. I couldn't keep up. Many were upset. I was having notifications sending me to pages that no longer existed and I am loathe to return there or invest any more time. Another community ruined. That really surprised me. Many people are directed to online communities now for health and mental health issues, and some are linked to charities with quasi-official standing. They get Government funding. We're all supposed to be online.
It seemed one disruptive poster (or maybe a few who knows) was wielding unusual and disproportionate power. They were well-known by other members for trolling, but no one could mention them without a ban, so it was draped in secrecy. The wrong person appeared to be banned. One came after me, accusing me of things I hadn't done, in a real conspiracy theorist way, and I reported them, and openly said I was and why. Nominal 'safeguarding' turned on its head. I was trying to explain how to behave safely on a forum to fairly elderly women who were asking genuine and innocent questions. Where do I even begin to explain? That seems to happen a lot on Twitter too, when there are TRA that mass block mention of women as being 'transphobic', and women (and men like Graham) are banned. Only some are allowed to express emotion or anger. I realise what I see is the tip of an iceberg. We can't see facial expression or body language and who don't 'know' posters.
I tried to find out from the mods and my replies and converations, even about other non-contentious topics disappeared too. This is radical censorship and they make it up as they go along and entirely outside any laws. I asked the mods privately and it was 'no comment'. It was strange and upsetting and reminded me how this seems a thing baked into online spaces and they are incredibly easy to disrupt as they are disseminated and in the hands of a few we have to trust to manage them well. They are not like social spaces have evolved before.
It seems Institutions, Governments and Professions have also been caught on the hop as TRA have taken advantage of many social narratives or fashions. It's culminating in this. No debate, no dissent and all the undermining and seedy elements of those who wish to disrupt and attack. It's at the heart of it. Demands magnified. Everyone is directed online; sometimes it's the only access to many services or 'community' and it's not what it was decades back. It's harsh and full of conflict. Very few seem to realise or give a cohesive response to why and how this is happening, so thank you.
I wonder how the 'development' of and misapplied 'hate crime' laws has grown alongside this, and it seems we've devolved all our civil responsibility into the hands of a few in California. This is squashing debate, and marginalising people, yet no one seems to know one from the other any longer. Some take advantage of that and people's propensity to be 'nice' and think 'rights' are always a good thing. I don't think inviting a few women to join boards, or to lean in, however far, will fix this.
This is an excellent summary of those times. It's interesting to note that Billingham was very much on the side of social justice - that, is, my side, Rebecca's side - when it came to Elevatorgate. Looking back, though, I can see that he was more interested in finding and silencing (punishing) a particularly nasty anti-woman and anti-social justice blogger calling himself elevatorgate than in fighting for actual women or any social justice. One of Billingham's friends (I forget which) eventually found out who the blogger was. I don't know whether they doxed him or threatened him with doxing, but elevatorgate finally disappeared.
My point is that although Billingham was on what I felt was the right side of that conflict, I now realise that he was only in it for the hunting and punishment of the blogger elevatorgate. I now think that was cause enough for him and I was mistaken to believe that his motives were anti-bullying, anti-misogyny, pro-women, pro-social justice...
The signs were all there and I'm an idiot for not realising it sooner.
Of course, Rebecca has since gone full gender identity extremist and has said disgusting things about some of my friends, as has PZ Myres and any number of other former skeptics.
One person who has done neither of those things, though, is Ophelia Benson, who you mentioned. Her blog is still going strong post-FTB and everyone should definitely read it (http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/). There are few fiercer, smarter or more incisive feminists around and Ophelia saw through the gender nonsense from the outset. You'll find me there in the comments, plus a few others you'll recognise, including Arty, occasionally. I won't go as far as to say that Ophelia peaked Arty and me, but she definitely took us along for the ride when she peaked herself.
You experience mirrors mine. I was reading B&W and FTB for years but the incessant wars and rigid thinking finally drove me away.
B&W is still going strong and is still anti-misogyny, pro-woman and skeptical of gender-based nonsense. I'd strongly suggest giving it another chance. I won't say the same for FTB.
I decided years ago that many atheists -- thinking of some of the famous ones -- are essentially fundamentalists. Incredibly ironic, but stuffing your beliefs or absence of beliefs down others' throats is not appealing. I am decidedly NOT an atheist and I do not appreciate fundamentalism in any form.
He is obviously Cluster B. A malignant NPD. He will never stop as it gets him off. He is completely empty and fills it with his loathing of women. His wife must either be brain washed or same as him. I wish we could find a way of making him pay.
Blocked by him. Do we know who his wife is? Id like to send her a bunch of flowers
Flowers and a print put of her hubby’s tweets 👿
I'd like to send a policeman to check the hard drive of their shared computer.
Oolon is an infamous character from Free Thought Blogs who evolved from an enemy of the blog's SJWs to their most devoted servant. Even they dont quite trust him and thus he works really hard to prove his credentials. He is sick and I could have told you that 10 years ago.
I’d love to ask his wife if he’s a closeted transvestite. It would explain a lot.
More likely to be a Friend of Savilles.
You write: “It’s a mystery why he is so invested in silencing women in favour of abusive and dysfunctional incels.”
Since 2015 I have followed credible independent channels that report on prominent child abuse cases, both in the US and UK. The behaviour exhibited by this man matches perfectly some of the sabotage I witnessed, targeting those groups. Sometimes it’s a single person with sock accounts galore, and what would appear to be a mental health disorder. But they are always relentless and determined and bullet proof, and an appearance on BBC is not unheard of. Destruction of a persons life and reputation is the ultimate goal. It is too familiar a pattern for me to believe they are sole operators. Yes, they really might be but then you learn about the secret police infiltrators of the 1990’s in UK protest movements who used stolen identities from dead people, and you learn about digital orgs like the 77th Brigade. And the same kind of CIA connected operatives working it in the US. What I learned was the independent investigations of child abuse cases had to be absolutely turned upside down. Well meaning groups had to be seeded with doubt and hostility and hosts of any channel daring to report on the sacred subject were pelted with abuse and lies. Disinformation campaigns will forever stain anyone who uses their real name, much like they have done to Graham. Also, Qanon was an obvious psyop from the start, designed to create an offspring movement that could be easily led and then labeled as whacko etc in order to discredit all abuse research, forever cited by establishment hacks. (Big sigh, thanks for listening 😆)
And in the U.S. we're listening to the gymnasts who were sexually assaulted by Larry Nasser describe their harrowing experiences talking to the FBI. Who fulfilled their role as enablers of The Patriarchy (guaranteeing unfettered access to women and children) by doing NOTHING. And I was glad to see someone point out the FBI's utter lack of investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, a drunken sexual predator who sits on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hi Susan. Yes, Larry Nasser being one of many horrible cases. I respectfully hold judgment in the case of Kavanaugh though. Not because I like him (I don’t) or think he should be spared if the allegations are true, but because his case was presented like a Democrat show - for political purposes. It was not brought before a legitimate judge & jury for a reason, it was brought specifically before the media for public opinion and “metoo” clout. The same people ignore and even dismiss the allegations made against Joe Biden by Tara Reid. We know JB is a predator because for years there has been footage of his hands and face crawling all over uncomfortable young girls in front of the camera. Not acknowledged. Apart from Rose McGowan, “#Metoo” celebs never spoke up for children abused in Hollywood and never supported those who did. I believe the #metoo movement is planted with distractors. ♥️
A Democrat show? You're on a blog dedicated to women's rights and you think it was a show that a woman spoke about her experiences with Kavanaugh when she was 15 years old?!?!?!?!? You picked the wrong woman to say this to. Susan Collins is unfortunately one of my senators (a woman who voted against equal pay for women) and she is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonard Leo, her billionaire feudalist backer who basically put Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett on the Supreme Court. These are people who want first to end women's right to vote then eventually to end everyone's right to vote so we can return to the halcyon days of feudalism in which they picture themselves as lords of the land.
I would suggest you learn to distinguish between lying for benefit (a lifetime term on the U.S. Supreme Court!) and telling the truth in order to expose yourself to a lot of pain.
We can agree they all lie. I hope you hold lying Democrats to the same standard. The people who drag accusers against them through the dirt.
I do NOT agree that the woman who testified was lying. People do not lie in order to come forward and cause themselves suffering. Of course I hold Democrats to the same standard; the only difference between the parties is that one can create a tiny bit of shame in Democrats (quoting Covert Action Magazine), a very tiny bit. I am done here.
I didn’t say the woman testifying was lying and not once have I implied that - I never would. I’m referring to the way these cases are presented to the public and the double standards that most certainly exist. “Believe Women” became “Listen to Women” when Biden was accused. To ignore how the media piled on to his accuser, Tara Reid, digging up absolute nonsense from her past, accusing her of lying, not giving her the same platform to speak.. well that’s very telling of the leading #metoo people who just happen to have enormous political bias. A similar thing happened to the sister of a friend of mine, it just never reached the media because it wasn’t the right predator to expose. Your response to my entirely respectful position is unfortunate, but that’s ok.