The Misogyny Alliance
As a writer, feminist and literary events organiser in Scotland, I’m regularly sent links to information someone thinks might be of interest to me. This week it was a document commissioned by one of Scotland’s leading and most powerful publicly-funded literary organisations, Literature Alliance Scotland (LAS).
Nobody, of course, objects to transgender writers being included or supported, but the content of the guidance raises several extremely serious and concerning issues.
As a registered charity funded by Creative Scotland and the Lottery Fund, Literature Alliance Scotland is supposed to, according to its constitution, “encourage awareness of contemporary literature and oral literary traditions in all the languages of Scotland and in all sectors of society“. (Emphasis mine.)
As Scotland’s largest literary network it wields a massive amount of industry power. Its Board of Trustees include some who hold very important and responsible positions in the Scottish arts and literary world, eg: Sarah Mason, until recently director of The Saltire Society (creators of the Scotland’s National Book Awards); Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust (who have a large budget to fund writers, writing projects, events and more); Rosemary Ward, Director of Programming at the Scottish Book Trust; Sophie Moxon, Executive Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival; and Vikki Reilly, Events, Marketing and Sales Support Manager at Publishing Scotland.
So it’s alarming, to say the least, to see a taxpayer-funded body openly promote not only intolerance but also blatantly unlawful discrimination.
(Here’s an unedited screenshot from the “large print” version.)
How can an organisation purportedly committed to inclusion and diversity endorse a call which not only uses a derogatory term about women, but is also a call to illegally blacklist certain books from bookshops and no-platform certain authors on the grounds of their beliefs?
To be clear, “TERF” is a slur. It’s a term used to bully, intimidate and silence women who hold perfectly lawful views on the reality and importance of biological sex in life and law, beliefs not only permitted but expressly protected by the Equality Act 2010.
So who is it that LAS (being officially represented here in the shape of an American “queer, transgender writer of speculative fiction” and “freelance sensitivity reader” called Eris Young) want to ban and cancel? Scottish poet Jenny Lindsay has identified three core beliefs, namely that:
To express these or similar beliefs, to insist that rape victims be allowed to request female support, or that male-bodied rapists should not be housed in a women’s prison with vulnerable females, is all it takes for a woman to be labelled “TERF”.
I would like to hear Literature Alliance Scotland explain why, in a democratic society, they have approved guidance that claims that holding such beliefs should lead to an author having their books blacklisted and removed from bookshops, and to the authors themselves being cancelled from events.
What set of beliefs, in what is supposed to be a very diverse and inclusive nation, do they think they might single out next for blacklisting?
What message does the organisation intend to send to those, from authors and poets to bookshops and publishers, to festivals and event organisers, who are keen not to offend – and therefore will not challenge – guidance from not only the powerful LAS, but by extension the Scottish Book Trust, the Saltire Society, Edinburgh International Book Festival and Publishing Scotland?
Do they really, seriously think that they are upholding their own aims by sanctioning a call for blacklisting and cancellation of authors?
For the last few years, as an increasing number of feminist titles have been published, many readers looking to buy these books have complained on social media that they had visited bookshops to buy a copy, only to not only not find them on display, but to be told they weren’t in stock. Yet, when the customers insisted, and eventually, in some cases, took it to manager level, the titles requested were found to be wrongly shelved or brought out from the store room.
(Among the critically-acclaimed titles affected have been Professor Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”, Helen Joyce’s “Trans”, Olympic swimmer Sharon Davies’ “Unfair Play”, Victoria Smith’s “Hags”, Karen Ingala Smith’s “Defending Women’s Spaces”, and Hannah Barnes’ “Time To Think”.)
Scottish poets like myself and Jenny Lindsay have already faced no-platforming and ostracisation. But for this behaviour to be sanctioned by Literature Alliance Scotland, for it to be part of their guidance, is a very ugly new departure.
Where might this kind of partisan and discriminatory behaviour, this censuring and censoring of women authors for holding feminist views end?
Are LAS really advocating, for example, that the books of women of colour like literary giant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or successful children’s author Onjali Rauf MBE – founder of Making Herstory, a woman’s rights organisation tackling the abuse and trafficking of women and girls in the UK – be blacklisted by Scottish bookshops and banned from Scottish literary festivals for no reason other than they share the modest, reasonable beliefs outlined by Jenny Lindsay?
Chimamanda herself has spoken eloquently on the climate of censure and the threat to Freedom of Speech for writers in her BBC Radio 4 Reith Lecture on this very subject. Perhaps LAS should take time to listen and absorb its wisdom and insights.
‘TERF” is widely accepted as being derogatory, and associated with threats of violence against women. It’s a female-specific insult weaponised online against women who speak up for women’s sex-based – and entirely legitimate – rights.
(Women such as Roz Adams, the rape crisis centre worker who resoundingly won her recent employment tribunal against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, or Professor Jo Phoenix who won an equally important ruling against the Open University, or Rachel Meade, the social worker suspended by her local authority and discriminated against by Social Work England, and of course Maya Forstater, whose case first established that gender-critical beliefs are worthy of respect in a democratic society.)
How on earth did a prestigious charity like LAS – who claim in their constitution to be “trusted” – approve advice to booksellers and events organiser where such language is used? And where does this advice to the Scottish book industry leave those in Scotland who believe that there are two sexes, that sex is a material reality, meaningful and important in policy and law?
The guidance continues by linking “TERFs” – that is, women who hold gender-critical beliefs – with “transphobia”.
This is a dangerous and inaccurate conflation, as the Russell Group of prestigious UK universities found out to its cost yesterday when in an official document – ironically about the importance of free speech – it incorrectly referred to such beliefs as being unlawful and lumped them in with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, before hastily apologising and amending their statement after a public outcry.
But even the Russell Group hadn’t gone so far as to link gender-critical women to “fascists”. One would have hoped LAS would have rigorously questioned both these allegations, or at least requested robust back-up evidence to substantiate.
(All we get is a reference to an American children’s book publisher no one in Scotland or the UK is likely to have even heard of, never mind be teaming up with.)
Speaking as an atheist Scottish woman with deep working-class roots and lifelong left-wing credentials, such a clumsy attempt to link feminists with the far right is as utterly reprehensible as it is without foundation.
It’s also unfortunate that LAS saw fit to publish this spurious, malicious allegation just before the Liberal leader in Victoria, Australia, John Pesutto, was forced to issue an apology for making a very similar claim against Australian and English women’s rights campaigners after they brought a defamation claim against him.
LAS claims to be “a trusted, strong collective voice for Scotland’s literature and languages, which are celebrated locally, nationally and internationally”.
Their publication of this guide for the book industry has seriously damaged that trust. To have uncritically published an unevidenced claim that feminists in Scotland are aligned with American fascists comes very close to incitement in what is an already needlessly over-inflamed debate.
Scottish women like JK Rowling, Joanna Cherry and many others who hold perfectly legitimate political views are already being subjected to threats of extreme violence, including rape and murder. LAS should be ashamed of – and censured for – spreading further inflammatory disinformation. It certainly should never have been published by one of the most powerful bodies in the Scottish cultural sector.
The Saltire Society, the Scottish Book Trust and Publishing Scotland all have the power to supercharge or more worryingly, destroy a writer’s career. That they should be members of an organisation that would approve of and release such deeply flawed, unpleasant, divisive and blatantly unlawful “guidance” smacks of ideological rather than cultural motivations.
Yet it is sadly symptomatic of the toxic anti-women’s-rights climate currently prevalent in Scotland, most recently demonstrated by the Scottish Green Party’s expulsion of 13 members, including long-term activists, for believing that biological sex is a reality.
Literature Alliance Scotland has a basic duty to the people of Scotland – their ultimate funders – to behave responsibly and treat writers and readers from ALL sectors of society with fairness and respect, regardless of race, religion, sex, gender or belief.
LAS, Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government must immediately ensure that this unlawful guidance is removed from its website, issue an apology, and conduct an investigation into how it was allowed to be published. All Scots, but particularly Scottish women, deserve nothing less.
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Magi Gibson is a Scottish poet, playwright and novelist. A version of this article first appeared on her site.
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[EDIT 4.16pm: Within less than an hour of this article’s publication, LAS removed the document from their “Resources” page. They have not as yet issued any comment explaining either the publication or the removal. The document can be downloaded here, in normal and large print versions.]
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[EDIT 5.40pm: LAS have now issued a statement.]
YOU BEAT ME TO IT STU 😉 Great article by Magi, will share widely thanks.
As usual, the very people who blather about “inclusion” … are the first to EXCLUDE.
The very people who blather about “tolerance” … won’t tolerate other points of view.
I am sick to death of these publicly funded bodies pushing their queer agenda.
Robertson is on the back foot over Creative Scotland.
Another strongly worded letter to him and the Con deputy Megan Gallagher might do the trick.
They are discriminating against a PC
What the Hell is going on? These bigots all need to be removed from their posts ASAP. Also, this is a beautifully written article which will ensure I recommend the author to my wife. Well done.
I assume it is this Eris Young who is a “queer, nonbinary trans writer”.
https://books.google.com/books/about/They_Them_Their.html?id=5wegDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
Imagine having to read the 288 pages of that drivel.
There was a young man from Govan
Who wanted a bun in the oven.
Try as he could
It came to no good
All he needed was a spoonful of lovin.
They must be running out of sharks to jump.
Is the use of the word “terf” and calling for a ban on books by people who they define as such sufficient evidence to have their charity status reviewed by the Charity Commisioners and perhaps withdrawn?
Nobody, of course, objects to transgender writers being included or supported
Be a lot cooler if they did.
This appalling text seems hard to access now from ‘Resources’ on their website, but it is still available here:
https://literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Supporting-Trans-Writers_LiteratureAllianceScotland.pdf
LAS seems to be another body where sex/gender equality is also not a feature of their Board of Trustees – but that’s probably a dangerous thing to say these days.
Thanks for sharing.
Will the last sane person to leave the asylum (Scotland) please put out the cat and turn off the lights. Or should that be the other way around…
‘So who is it that LAS (being officially represented here in the shape of an American “queer, transgender writer of speculative fiction” called Eris Young) want to ban and cancel?’
Eris = Greek goddess of strife and discord. There’s a surprise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(mythology)
This is actually genuinely disgustingly hilarious.The ONLY people in Scotland who get grants from literary or poetic pursestringers-controllers are women or ethnic minorities or homosexuals – the bigger the combo in one person the better grants-sucking-wise. FACT. The writing scenes in this country are 75-80% middle class neurotic female and homosexual. Ho-hum.
The literary and poetic gutters in Scotland are a total fucking grift-fest, full of halfwits, misandrists, lunatics and anti-white racists. The more hateful towards the indigenous white working class men of the country, the juicier the grant. This pathetic handbag-fighting shit is just an extension of wannabe-writer Sturgeon’s middle class feminisation and ruination of the country, and Gibson is a noted bitter feminist misandrist. “All Scots, but particularly women” indeed.
These fucking clowns deserve each other, and they should all be defended and made to get a fucking day job. The taxpayer should not fund these arseholes. In any way. Ever.
“Bathrooms”?
This reads like some fool has grabbed copy intended for the north American continent, and pasted it in to stuff for our side of the pond.
The thing about neo-nazis and fascists is they are using exactly the same tactics as the TRAs themselves did in latching on to a, in this case growing, cause in order to, they hope take over.
If feminism was an easy and coherent mark and entirely right wing in mirror to the Greens and the SNP, lord help us, they’d have a point. Especially if feminists and women’s rights campaigners were simply longing for some, as it would invariably be, modern day male ideologue to take command and lead them.
It’s not the fascists that are the real problem. It’s that they recognise the resurgent suffragism the TRAs have provoked and the threat of the handmaidens lured in by the idea of simply being kind waking up to what that means.
Misogynists to be covered by the misogyny bill.
Bill coming soon. Couldn’t come at the same time as hate crime bill ….. ach I can’t remember.
Does Eris go to the same hairdresser as Lorna Slateloose?
Fascinated that Daily Mail Australia think that Kellie-Jay Keen is an “anti-TRAINS activist”! Which just about tells you the calibre of the children we are dealing with.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention Magi. I’d the pleasure of attending one of your writing programs and am saddened that you are unlikely to get the chance to run them again due to your unwillingness to bow down to these misogynistic ideology.
A note: PDF files, such as the one linked by ian.maclaren above, sometimes contain metadata which reveal information about their creation, e.g. the author.
It is also possible that an online tool may exist for viewing the metadata in such files.
What a basket place scotland has become
Lets use the Hate Crime Laws against them, Terf is a hate crime, folk in LAS should be reprimanded and whoever gave the nod for this to happen should be sacked, Oh but wait they don’t do sackings in Scotland getting caught only results in a piss poor apology if we’re lucky.
LAS is an utter disgrace.
There’s no accountability anymore.
Will the perjury queens have their collars felt before the election
I believe our public libraries hide all Gender critical books.
Professor Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”, Helen Joyce’s “Trans”, Olympic swimmer Sharon Davies’ “Unfair Play”, Victoria Smith’s “Hags”, Karen Ingala Smith’s “Defending Women’s Spaces”, and Hannah Barnes’ “Time To Think”.) all hidden away in a dusty basement or maybe never ordered by the Head Trans Librarian.
Narroweyed Observer: For hundreds of years, if they wrote at all, females had to assume a male name in order to be published. That is fact, so less of the misandry accusations. You come across as a men’s rights activist and as bad as these Queer Theorists. It is not females pushing into male literary prizes, into male arts, sports, spaces, etc., but the ‘transwomen’ (males) pushing into female literature prizes, and so on, and that now includes publishing and distribution, film and personal services.
The point being made in the article, if you could resist the swivel-eyed nonsense, is that public monies are being used to fund what is basically piles of ordure that have no artistic or creative merit but they do embrace Queer Theory at every level. I agree that some of the more outlandish nonsense taught in universities around the subject of female studies went too far into the ether, and, indeed, even black emancipation studies began to lose focus. Embracing victimhood ravenously, is rarely good for the soul – or for one’s mental health.
However, both women’s studies and black studies were firmly rooted in reality: both have been/are oppressed groups, albeit things are improving, or were, till recently. The ‘trans’ issue is not rooted in reality, but the importance gifted to this stuff defies all rational explanation. What, in the name of God, are publicly-funded organizations playing at when they make statements like those above, and deliberately exclude certain people from their hallowed grounds?
Angus Robertson needs to get his staff on to this post haste, whether they want to or otherwise (assuming at least some of them will be captured by Queer Theory, too). A top to toe cleansing is called for, because, if two areas of Creative Scotland are found to be contaminated, it is a safe bet to assume that all the others will be, too. It is, perhaps, not practical or sensible for the Minister to take over personally all these functions, but what must be done immediately, is to ensure that everyone employed understands that such tactics will not be tolerated in any part of the organization and that further breaches of protocol will result in sackings for gross misconduct.
Same needs to go for all public offices where taxpayers, via the Scottish government, fund the organization or service. These parasitical people, who care nothing about Scotland, its culture or its well-being, and certainly not its potentially independent future, need to be rooted out and given the order of the boot or start doing their jobs properly and to the expected standard, using well-honed critical faculties, not making judgements through their nether regions.
There will be some policy re equality and diversity in LAS. Worth a FoI request?
orri: don’t know whether you are male or female, but you make a good point, although it’s not really suffragism, which concentrated on the vote, but female anger resurgence. They have tried to exclude females from every public space, to be replaced by ‘transwomen’ and assorted ‘queers’. The daft lassies who believe they have been accepted as men had better think again. All they have done is put the spotlight on all ‘trans’. Now, a great many women are concentrating on having the 2004 GRA repealed as the source of all grief in this area. All kinds of women are finding their voices and banding together, just as men do routinely, to achieve their ends. The end result will be that women, as a sex class, will have less and less sympathy and empathy for men, as a sex class, and that will be passed on to present and future generations of girls. The ‘transwomen’ and the men’s rights activists have unleashed, in their desperation to destroy all female rights, a regiment of women who will not be told what to do any longer. Yes, the handmaidens, when they come to their senses, will see the reality of the situation to which they were wilfully blind. This is very much the same journey on which the Scots will embark to gain their freedom. When you are pushed too far, you never again, put up with being pushed. Both the women of Scotland and the Scots, in general, are just starting to learn that hard lesson.
I presume the LAS would support a book-burning event just like another ideologically driven organisation in the last century.
All invitees are requested to wear black or brown shirts…
If there’s any public funds going to them it should be withdrawn.
Funny how many SNP car crashes lead back to the name Robertson!!
Well it looks like Swinney is going to crash the SNP bus.
There is no movement to Alba, he defends Mr IPad because he is a friend!! And we are only in day 2
Mr Swinney don’t you dare stand up at the end of this and say I only managed a really bad situation. You could have fixed it and you did not.
The failure will be yours
Pretty sure that meets the threshold for a hate crime!
Wonder when the SNP/Greens will demand half the country wears a star of david in purple, white & green with the letters TERF in the middle? Because censorship of literacy was one of the first acts of the national socialist party in the 30’s, as was accusing their victims of being the violent oppressors!
Swinney is a failure and a liar. I don’t think there are any honest people left in the SNP front benches. At least we can take some comfort in their misery on July 4th.
I say that as a former 30 year member. I want them destroyed, just as they destroyed loyal members like me.
I have a friend who rejoined the SNP thinking Swinney would save the party! I don’t have the heart to give him a lecture. It’s like telling a kid Santa Clause is make believe.
Are there a lot of trans booksellers?
George William Addison
Exactly.
These eejits need ejected from all organisations as a matter of urgency. They’re intolerant, authoritarian & encroaching on everyone’s life to play along with this bullshit. It’s time ppl called time on this dangerous nonsense before they start erecting the gallows..
Another reason I think the Tories will hold on in the election. Labour can’t be trusted with this nonsense either & are as nuts on the kool aid as the SNP are. They’ve just shut up about it for now but it’s bubbling under the surface.
The thing is, even if these public organizations are forced to obey the law and the SG rules, the people already embedded will just discriminate anyway. Anyone they deem not to be suitable for funding will not get it and spurious reasons will be given. It is very hard to prove discrimination if it made to look as if there is no bias. Black nurses found this out when they were always overlooked for promotion and the reasons given seemed reasonable on the surface. Those doling out the dosh (or not, as the case may be) need to be required to also submit a written list of reasons for turning down an application and this should go to both the applicant and the Minister’s office and scrutinized for irregularities. When being interviewed, prior to appointment, the board member should be asked to submit a written statement of how he or she would apply strict impartiality to applications and applicants, and to adhere to the actual law, not some made-up version of the law.
“Terfs are actively joining forces with fascists.”
Straight outta the Orwellian playbook. Bless them.
Lorna Campbell.
I normally agree with your sentiments but on this one Narrowed Eye Observer is right.
Feminisation of society is the root of this, Pandora’s box was opened by women who happily watched as *masculinity* became interchangeable with the term *toxic*.
And no I do not refer to wife beaters and other scum.
Bridget Jones style you all revelled in having the requisite male gay friend, on programmes like Loose Women (my better half watches it) where they revel in gay guests such as Rylan (apologies if I’ve spelt that wrong) and the febrile joke that is tv adverts aside make male stars on so many tv shows now seem to have the obligatory gayish moment in order to appear right-on and in there and somehow relevant and *comfortable in themselves*.
My late faither many many years ago said it was appearing to be getting fashionable to be gay but heck that’s now been overtaken by the 72 gender (or whatever number they’ve now reached – hey, maybe Liz Truss can legitimately self ID as a lettuce -) brigade.
Males are stuck in the doldrums of *keep yer mouth shut* while women are only now kicking off because the weirdos and perverts that have been given *understanding and support* in feminised society have crawled out from underneath the rocks to gain access to female spaces.
Heck, what about the school indoctrination going on, largely passed by without much comment by and in many cases overseen by the fairer sex.
I reluctantly refer to the mother of Briannah Ghey, frequently evangelising on the topic on tv yet surely the one of two who could have done something better to steer their child.
However, with feminisation and the trashing of gender *norms* we have kids growing up to parents who clearly were themselves brought up to challenge boundaries and as a result their young (and often it seems) troubled minds have no grasp whatsoever of the concept of boundaries whereas being out there gets all the attention going.
*Males* aside, what about females?
As the saying goes, if unsmiling Lesbians hate men do much, then why do so many try so hard to look like them.
Both sexes need to take a check under the bonnet, it’s not simply men’s fault the crazy situation we find ourselves in these days
Sad.
Cue hate now I suppose..
To be clear, “TERF” is a slur. It’s a term used to bully, intimidate and silence women who hold perfectly lawful views on the reality and importance of biological sex in life and law, beliefs not only permitted but expressly protected by the Equality Act 2010.
‘Terf’, like ‘Karen’ is a way for pretendy progressive people to abuse women and think they’re still the good guys. I know some women have tried to claim ‘Terf’ for themselves and throw it back at the TRAs but it’s still a slur. Not just that, it’s used by people to suppress debate as we see here.
Scottish women like JK Rowling, Joanna Cherry and many others who hold perfectly legitimate political views are already being subjected to threats of extreme violence, including rape and murder.
As much as they’ve suffered during all this I don’t think women and LGB people would have been able to fight back as well as they have without Rowling and Cherry. When/if this is all over those two deserve a heap of praise for fighting this ideology. Sadly too many organisations are completely captured and I fear it’s going to take pressure like we’re seeing here as well as legal action before we can reclaim these organisations for sanity again.
As usual, the very people who blather about “inclusion” … are the first to EXCLUDE.
The very people who blather about “tolerance” … won’t tolerate other points of view.
Quite.
I think back to the 2000s when the rainbow flag actually meant inclusiveness and Pride events were something you’d enjoy going to as an observer with your LGB mates. It was great. You’d maybe see one or two transexuals there but they were always gay men. The word ‘transgender’ was barely heard of and here we are today with TRAs rewriting history to exclude the LGB people who died for equal rights and place Trans people at the heart of their centuries old struggle.
That’s the thing about Trans ideology. It’s a cuckoo ideology. It has little history of its own (and its own history is utterly horrifying) so it leeches onto others to reshape it in their own image which leads us to where we are now with TRAs trying to do things like adopt the Holocaust.
For all their talk of ‘tolerance’ they show precious little of it, instead showing intolerance, hatred and authoritarianism.
Re Big Jock at 7.53
Could not agree more. I will await the last minute polling prediction for my constituency then vote for the party or individual who has the best chance of defeating the SNP. If that is Labour or Tory so be it. We need rid of this malign charade of an independence party if we are ever to consign the union to the dustbin. Sturgeon et al betrayed our country and sabotaged independence, probably deliberately but, if not, by utter incompetence. I say this as a life long supporter of Scottish independence and an SNP member for many years before I saw the light.
Our only hope is to clear the decks and start again. At my age I will never live to see this come to fruition. If only AS had realised what he was about to unleash on Scotland when he resigned and nominated an abomination in his place we would be independent now and looking on at the chaos of a tory rump UK instead of enduring the hell of living in it.
Now the election date has been announced I assume that Police Scotland will be instructed by their UK masters to bring some more charges under Operation Branchform in good time to influence the Scottish Electorate. I hope they do as it will help rid us of the SNP. It is probably too much to hope that they will also charge the Alphabetties with perjury and charge Sturgeon and her main acolytes with lying under oath and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Sturgeon and a lot of her hierarchy should do jail time. Embezzlement is minor by comparison.
Lorna Campbell: the moment you addressed me I instantly knew what was coming and scrolled past your – as usual – lengthy diatribe. You like the sound of your own voice. I have no interest whatsoever in anything you have to say. You hate men, and are a female supremacist extremist. This is literally all you go on about morning, noon and night.
You live here, ranting about men every day. It’s sad. My guess is that some guy hurt you somehow, or damaged you, and for that I genuinely feel empathy for you. Doesn’t mean I have to read what you say, though.
I spoke nothing but truth, and anybody who knows anything about the pathetic arts sector in this confused wee country knows it is dominated by women and sexual and ethnic minorities, producing government-sponsored intersectionalist dross, nothing of any real worth. As I said, Sturgeon’s proud legacy. Let them get on with it, but I don’t have to listen to them, either. Ta ta now.
This may seem an odd question and I am genuinely interested in the answer.
How many folk here actually know personally any transsexuals, of either type?
I “personally” don’t know a single one and asking folk I know neither do any of them. The closest they have come is knowing someone that knows one.
This doesn’t mean I haven’t seen the odd obvious one in the street, although this is normally down south, but never actually met or spoke to one.
Now claims are that 1/200 in the UK is supposed to be trans, I know or have known/worked/played/socialised with a lot more than 200 folk in my life, why have I never came across even one? Is it because they are far rarer than claimed or have I just been lucky?
Rob
I’ve heard of one. Buffalo Bill LOL.
A fictional character as fictional as this bullshit is.
1/200 are lying.
What is more believable is 1/200 suffer a kink or fetish.
It’s fake bullshit along with all the pronoun/gender/attention seeking guff.
There are straight, homosexual & bi.
Male. Female. That’s it.
The “umbrella” they created is to ++++ to include all the kink, fetishes & paraphilias.
Every single person suffers body dysmorphia. Some genuinely take it to the extreme but the +++ crew aren’t those & have only used them as a Trojan horse to get their foot in the door on the sympathy card. Evidenced by them now celebrating openly no one needs dysmorphia at all to join them all under their umbrella..ella..ella..
A sane government & it’s lawmakers wouldn’t make laws for a fcking fetish but we no longer have any sane ones cause they probably have a fetish too & the sooner it gets indoctrinated into kids, who are already impressionable & confused, they can also have one along with a diploma in narcissism for their CV.
Narroweyed Observer
I’ve never read Lorna be hateful to men.
She has no time for Queer Theory or the parasites who push it as do everyone else here.
There needs to be a serious clear out of all these so called charities & government funded groups who have created their own wee cliques & branched off into networks to receive double/triple funding when they’re the same outfit. It’s a racket that needs stopping because if it’s anything like the GRR debacle these groups are used to rubber-stamp government pet projects or their funding is stopped – they’re cancelled.
Sturgeons legacy is shit.
A good clear out is on the way.
I think the “problem” in the liberal West is actually quite simple in some respects, but profoundly complex in others.
The West suffers from a lack of fear.
A society which isn’t afraid has the dubious “luxury” of people living their lives with no regard for consequences.
Politicians lie all the time because they get away with it. They’ve nothing to fear. Perverts start openly (almost) grooming kids and attempt to normalise deviancy because the vast majority feel no compunction to do anything. These freaks have no concept of self control or societal conformity, so when society is overly tolerant or looks the other way, – do the arithmetic.
There’s no fear of war. I mean there should be, but nobody really feels threatened by the prospect because we are seduced by the belief we are equal to any threat we’re ever likely to face. It’s a disarming complacency… literally. Wars are what happen to other people by default, They only happen to us by choice. So what if US tech in Eastern Europe is staring obsolescence in the face? Nevermind, the next generation of “Mk” will fix it.
There’s no fear of god or religion in our secular world of science and technology. There’s no fear of Hell and damnation for the soul, so being evil is a lifestyle choice. I mean yeah, there’s prison, but come on, only poor people on drugs and from broken homes actually go to prison.
Everywhere you look, for every fear there’s an equivalent escapism from fear; mind altering sedation from TV, the alternative worlds of computer games, the anonymity of global social media, or the escapism of drugs which makes the whole world go away – for a bit.
What sunk Scottish Independence in 2014 was a lack of fear. “Yeah, Scotland might get plundered for its wealth and resources, but I’m alright. I’ve got a no-bad wee hoose, an ok job and a decent wage. Independence is just for those less fortunate in life’s great lottery.
Even the fourth horseman, Pestilence, turned up in 2019/20, but his COVID human extinction event was defeated by St Nicola the Tre@cherous.
I dunno really. The only comparable outpouring of decadence and fear-free liberty was back in the Roaring ‘20s, when indulgence was all the rage.
But at least the 1920’s had something to shout about, a grievous war to end all wars survived; emancipated women who’d succeeded in a man’s world, flight, transport, and global travel to exotic destinations, roaring motor cars with unparalleled style and vitality, motorcycles, ocean liners and airships that tamed the planet. Wealth and prosperity, or at least the illusion of it, and telephones, electricity, Art Deco, Art Nouveau style, Jazz, Flappers and frocks, music and film… What a decade!
Fast forward a century… we have tr@itors and betrayers in positions of leadership, and everywhere it seems, weird joyless boys who want to be women as headline news, and it’s apparently more important and a higher priority than defending our Nation from malignant colonial assimilation.
What the actual fuck are you playing at Scotland? Sober the fk up, won’t you?
Maybe our best gift from the Western World to the rest has been our belligerent lunacy, and the fear of us which kept their own respective society focussed and on point. Being scared of stuff has its benefits.
Delighted to hear Michael Gove is to leave politics.
He joins a raft of high profile Tories who are leaving the sinking ship.
The public denied the right to vote them out into oblivion.
Estimated worth around £4 Million.
U.K. Debt grows at £450,000 every day.
6 Million living in abject poverty.
The gap between the rich elite and the average worker has grown wider every year for 60 years.
Since the Tories came to power the richest have increased their wealth by 25%.
To do so the NHS has been crippled.
Energy costs doubled
Schools crumbling and record staff shortages
Record back logs in the courts
Prisons full beyond capacity
Transport infrastructure never worse
Food inflation taken to its highest ever levels
Highest levels of taxation ever in U.K. history
Lost control of the country’s borders
Sleaze and corruption in parliament never higher.
And up to 30% of English voters would keep them in power.
What is a woman pal?
What do you mean by ‘the arts sector’
Are you referring to those who administer ‘the arts sector’ or the artists?
My knowledge of the ‘arts sector’ is very limited but the little I’ve seen I would agree that it’s dross.
Finding it hard to accept that it’s women who are responsible for all the dross.
Also that’s it’s Sturgeon’s legacy. ‘Modern art’ has been dross for decades.
I gave up way back after seeing ‘Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings’
Robert Rauschenberg started it and he’s a man.
Conclusion men are to blame for the dire state of ‘the art sector’. 🙂
Women are probably just making the tea, sending out the invites & pouring the wine at the openings of the art exhibitions. If things in the ‘art sector’ go the same way as sport the ‘lady dicks’ will be winning all the prizes/funding while women might be able to carry on sending out the invites, making the tea and serving the wine. Better be good ladies!
My prediction is everything is going to be run by the ‘Lady Dicks’ and that will be Sturgeon’s legacy.
These ‘Lady Dicks’ seem to be working their way into power in every section especially when government funding is available. See Wadhwa’s CV for starters.
The bigots alliance. TERF is hate speech.
Ah the old “hadn’t been approved for release” defence. Uploaded in error. Etc. Etc. Amazing how often these things happen…..
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Sturgeon’s real agenda was not independence but transhumanism. The SNP provided the likes of her with a platform and ‘ fashionable’ cause to leech onto.
IF and it is a big IF the wife of the president of France was born and raised as boy then anything is possible.
I have seriously asked myself several times if it possible Sturgeon herself was as well. But I assume it is something that could be verified by talking to people who went to school with her etc.
Sturgeon is 100% a misandrist but she is also a misogynist. Her slavish devotion to the trans community no matter what the political costs… It is really quite strange, unless…
She is an absolute psycho as well. And I really do mean that.
So yeah it ‘fits’. lol.
This is another manifestation of a far wider problematic issue which exists beyond Scotland.
The exact same process is operating across multiple issues with a common thread. Whether the issue is gender critical/biological reality, criticism of genocide, calling attention to double standards and hypocrisy and a myriad of other similar instances which challenge The Official Narrative (TON) on any matter the response it the same as seen in this example.
The character of people and groups is traduced. They are smeared as “TERFS”/”anti-semites” (even when they are from the Jewish Community)/”Putin Apologists”/”Dangerous Extremists”/”Fascists” and so on from powerful interests simply projecting their own behaviors and social and political attitudes and stance/position onto others to silence and de-legitimise any view but their own.
And this does not stop simply at character assassination as recent instances attest.
People lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their bank accounts, their civil rights – such as the right to protest to hold those making these decisions and acting in this way to account. Even those in powerful positions have their lives and the lives of their families threatened.
Given the record of those likely to be shoehorned into Government after July 4th this trend is likely to accelerate to a point no one ever thought possible. And not just in Scotland.
I’ve been trying to make sense of the current ‘madness’ we are witnessing across various sectors of human society; and why women in particular seem to be the target.
And I am reminded of a conversation I had long ago in the mid 1980s with a Swiss student of philosophy named Viktor, who I met on a bus journey between Lausanne and Zurich.
We talked of many things on the three hour journey, but I remember one of the subjects we discussed concerned the nature of madness.
We often see insanity in humans manifest in actions contrary to the continuation of life; either the lives of those afflicted or the lives of those around them – or both.
But what is the nature of insanity, described as psychosis in medicine, in the human species?
In medical terms psychosis, a term first introduced by Karl Friedrich Canstatt, is viewed as a collection of symptoms where a sufferer has difficulty separating what is real from the unreal in their minds.
Psychosis frequently manifests in behaviours considered violations of societal norms.
I paraphrase what I recall of Viktor’s words here:
Viktor’s hypothesis was just a chat on a bus and was conjecture and speculation, but I always felt there might be some fundamental truth behind it.
That being so, women and children would become the obvious and particular targets of such insanity; being that women and children are the greatest symbols of new and continuing life for the human species.
On Viktor’s scale of life and death, the safeguarding of women and children is undoubtedly on the sane end of that scale.
“Embracing victimhood ravenously, is rarely good for the soul – or for one’s mental health.”
This.
One sentence that pretty much sums up so much that is wrong in this absurd millennial dystopia I find myself (reluctantly) living in. Thank God I’m old.
Rob
Ignored
says:
25 May, 2024 at 12:57 am
This may seem an odd question and I am genuinely interested in the answer.
How many folk here actually know personally any transsexuals, of either type?
I once shared a house with a perfectly reasonable, pleasant young woman who later transitioned to a perfectly reasonable, pleasant young man. I had no problem then with someone who gave a lot of thought to what was right for them and then went ahead with professional advice to transition and I have no problem now with similar people.
I do have a problem with people who demand that I go against science and human biology and accept views that are simply factually wrong. They can believe whatever they like as long as they do not expect me to uphold those views. In my opinion, they are like children having tantrums because life is not doing what they want it to do. They show an astounding depth of ignorance when they attack people who don’t agree with them. Labelling people who have demonstrated the opposite views during their life as ‘fascists’, ‘right wing’, ‘terfs’ etc is childish in the extreme. They should not be indulged but told to go away until they can demonstrate that they can hold discussions in a mature and respectful way.
Slightly off topic: I emailed my six list MSPs about the the case of Ms Adams. I said that the Scottish Parliament as a funding body should hold an investigation into the conduct of the Edinburgh Rape Centre and the Scottish Rape service. Any investigation should be external. The bodies involved in the scandal should not be allowed to investigate themselves. I have 3 Labour MSPs, 2 Tory MSPs and one Green. So far I have had one automatic acknowledgment from Sarwar’s office saying they may or may not reply. Nothing from the other 5 at all.
I wonder if I have been blocked? I may have to resort to setting up a separate email account which might get through. I may, old fashioned thing that I am, take to writing on paper and posting the letters to the people who are being paid to ignore my legitimate queries. I presume I also have the option of requesting face to face meetings in the Scottish Parliament. I am getting fed up with being ignored by my MSPs.
@ Grouser at 11.22
When I e-mail my MSPs I usually receive automated responses from several of them. Some of them do eventually reply; some ignore me completely. The ones who do reply usually send a stock response – ie it’s identical from all members of their party. One or two do reply properly. (Always the same one or two!)
But almost always there is a deadline for the action I’ve asked them to take and they don’t reply until after that deadline, so they might as well not have answered at all.
Maybe they really are overwhelmed and understaffed. But other people I know who write about other topics seem to be treated differently. I’m not in Glasgow, so it’s not personal to the ones you wrote to.
So far only one person has said they personally know a transsexual which if the bandied abou 1/200 figure was even close seems unlikely.
I do get the feeling that there are far fewer of them around that the propaganda would seem to be saying, they just are shouting louder are are more prevalent in certain places.
My opinion is much the same as grouser above, no issue with alternative lifestyles and no issue about tolerance of these lifestyle.
But this not does mean I need to buy into them or accept them as “facts” where they conflict with my views or scientific/biological facts.
When did JK Rowling become Scotch? Must have missed that one.
Scots, not scotch, scotch is a drink.
I thought she was from Edinburgh?
James
JK Rowling is Scottish, everyone and their inlaws in Scotland is Scottish.
#Ask Andy.
Rob
I know of quite a few transexual/transgender/fetishishts (not personally). Most are in the Green Party or in prison. Outwith the world of celebs, politicians & prisoners I know one. I can’t say I know him personal. I have heard him say to another customer when asked about his transition that he thought he had a mental illness.
He seemed quite happy to talk about it and wasn’t demanding pronouns.
I knew another way back and had to share a changing room & taxi with him. I was very uncomfortable.
Way way back when I worked abroad I knew of a whole dance troop full of transexuals. They looked like supermodels and there was often trouble in the nightclub when men thought they were getting off with a female supermodel. I think of them when I read about abuse of transexuals.
The Lady Boys come to the Fringe most years. I know of them but I don’t know them personally.
I know of know Eddie Izzard, Robin Moira White, Blair White, Kaitlin Jenner, and a whole load of other transexuals, transgenders, AGPS or whatever they might be.
Unlike yourself, JK Rowling & Grouser I do object to the alternative life style that allows men to masquerade as women, put on woman face, pretend to breast feed, have periods, be pregnant, generally make a mockery of women and all the bloody rest.
I think it’s a very dangerous life style.
Lochinvar/narroweyed: I, too, have had little time for silly ‘women’s studies’ that concentrated on victimhood at the expense of real subjects. I do not hate men, although there are times recently when I have had to wonder why I don’t. Possibly because the vast majority of males I have known throughout my life have been decent people, and they more than balance out the misogynists who seem to think that donning a frock gives them extra rights to torture females.
I am on this site, narroweyed, because I find the Rev a model of what a man should be and what a human being should be. Do you want me censored and ejected? Can’t face the truth?
However, I think you, narroweyed, need to take a good long hard look in the mirror. Men have been in charge of this Earth for millennia, and a fine old mess you have made of it. Women have had rights for just over 100 years and yet we are blamed for every blasted thing that goes wrong.
No, feminism did not bring these men out into the open, as I know you know full well because men have always known that these paraphiliacs and fetishists existed. They are misogynists and men’s rights activists. You, too, are one, it seems, although you don’t wear a frock – as far as I am aware, anyway. It seems that many men just cannot accept that women are autonomous human beings who have a life to live that is not in servitude to men.
How dare you patronize me with your utter tripe. No, I don’t like the sound of my own voice any more than any other female, but I am very, very, very angry – enraged, even, and I will not sit back and let these parasitical men off with their gross and vile behaviour. Nor you, with your vile accusations and slanders. By the way, if you are too thick to read more than a soundbite, whose fault is that? Grow up, you manchild.
Knowing these folk personally is what I was asking, of course folk know of them but do they actually know them personally?
I suspect, despite the hoo hah that there are fewer of them than the noise they are making seems to indicate.
As as as your objection goes, if you read my post I say that just because I may tolerate other lifestyles I do not have to agree with them.
Biological males, whether dressed as women or not, cannot breastfeed, get pregnant or have periods because they are men, that is fact and also my personal view. However if someone wants to fantasise this about themselves then crack on. Society doesn’t need to buy into the fantasy to just tolerate someone having it.
Dumb down TV has a lot to answer for too & porn.
There’s something about Miriam was a grotesque sick joke. Then there’s the next drag superstar.
Or following Jazz Jennings receive countless botched surgeries with his neurotic mother cheering him on for the $$s reality TV fees.
A whole plethora of TV, film, soap aimed at young audiences & the abundance of influencers on social media, particularly YouTube.
All to desensitise. Half the influencers have since been busted for grooming/inappropriate behaviour towards minors & I think that’s it’s whole aim – to get to kids & have anything go.
They’re not transexuals. They’ve no intention of surgery – they want kids to do it though cause it’s a kink of theirs.
There are women who happily hand over their own kids to perverts too. Sick barstewards. Some recent high profile cases.
The West has turned into one massive cess pit. Another Sodom and Gomorrah.
“However if someone wants to fantasise this about themselves then crack on. Society doesn’t need to buy into the fantasy to just tolerate someone having it.”
The trouble is they do crack on & there are Doctors willing to dish out meds for men to lactate. That crosses a line. A baby shouldn’t be feeding on a cocktail if gunk & meds to satisfy someone’s perverted fantasy.
Then there’s the whackadoos who harvest body organs to experiment with male pregnancy.
The whole problem is they’re not keeping this shit to themselves. They’re forcing others to share in their psychosis & go batshit daft when you don’t. People could live with that but now there are laws against it LOL Too late now & I do blame some men for it – the ‘Achh, live & let live’ or “wheesht, I dinnie ken, this is a womens problem to sort out. I’m no getting involved” made this shit all the way to parliament & into law. If men had taken the piss out of grown men stealing wee lassies awards & sponsorship, instead of live & let live, maybe this shit would’ve been nipped afore it even started..
I originally come from Glasgow, do you honestly think that I wouldn’t take the piss if I came up against a transsexual who expected me to swallow all this nonsense.
As far as medical interventions and drugs go I am dead set against any NHS resource being used for this as long as there are folk on the waiting lists for knee replacements etc.
A bloke who likes wearing dresses is a bit more tolerable than the extremes you mention.
Geri: I believe that a lot of the men’s rights activists actually cheered on the perverts and deviants and comments like, “you women deserve all you get”, are commonplace on many threads and on X. It was Germaine Greer who said that women have no real idea of how much some men hate them, but we are beginning to get a handle on it now. Narroweyed, on here, has a mind to match his peepers, it would appear.
Deliberately advocating for the banning of female books and authors is quite another layer altogether. Creative Scotland is a cess pit, too, and mirrors the wider society. These people have no sense of irony. I would recommend one particular female author to everyone: Jane Hennigan, with ‘Moths’ and ‘Toxxic’, its sequel. They depict the aftermath of a dystopian future, where females are forced to keep men under control because of their dangerous behaviour, but many women are still decent enough to want men to return to society. I particularly recommend it to Narrowmind, sorry, Narroweyed. If he is capable of reading such hefty tomes, of course.
OK Rob no worries. You have your views I have mind.
Mine are pretty hard-core.
Although I do share your personal belief that biological men can’t have babies or breast feed naturally. 🙂
Sorry I couldn’t come up with a a cross dresser, AGP or even a urophile that I knew personally.
Not sure what difference it would make to the statistic if I knew them personally.
They are definitely out there. Loads of them.
I feel as if I know Ellie Gomersall personally because he’s never off the telly
also ‘Sophie Sparkle’ because he’s never off twitter.
The problem with the ‘wear what you like’ philosophy is that as soon as a man puts on a dress he then has to come into the ladies toilet ‘cos he claims he is too scared to go into the gents toilet when he has his dress on.
This banner of books Erin whatever his name is is American from California.
Obviously he’s Scottish #Ask Any.
However I was wondering how he got on with British immigration
Also if people who come on here on a visa are eligible for Creative Scotland arts funding?
I know! I know! I am a bigot and a natavistic bloody & soil fringe nutter.
This wasn’t a ‘error’ in the way LAS are hoping people will assume it is. This wasn’t a draft document. It was laid out and ready for publishing. My guess is that LAS ‘farmed out’ the writing of and trans related material to Eris Young (it could have been any trans author de jour – she probably stuck her hand up fastest or offered to do it for free). This is standard practice for most arts organisations, btw. There’s a logic to it (giving a voice to minority groups etc) – but also a built in trap, in that if they come back with some insupportable nonsense migrating from tiny radical or extremist groups to the mainstream… then the organisation has a freeze-panic. How can they say ‘no’? They typically over-promise involvement, and realise that rejecting or editing a contribution like this makes them a target. LAS wanted to avoid Eris Young and friends going at them on X, labelling them as ‘transphobic’ etc. So everyone goes quiet, stops answering e-mail – this is a Bank Holiday weekend, after all – then Eris, or their equivalent, finds their trans friend in their junior office role is happy to hit publish on a document that hasn’t exactly been signed off… nor rejected. Because no one in the organisation has the guts to take responsibility. Most staff in LAS will have seen this document. Panic-freeze.
And one of the notable things about this document is, as Magi Gibson points out, that a document in which Scottish literature and Scottish culture should be central is totally skewed by a North American perspective. ‘BRAVE books’ and ‘Real American Values’ have nothing to do with Scotland. Nothing. LAS have allowed a recently arrived American – not a significant writer, by any measure – to import their culture wars obsession, and dump it into funded Scottish arts culture guidance. They are being played for fools. Yes, Eris Young and a few of her loud friends will get mad when LAS have to say, ‘no, we can’t accept this.’ So what? Who are LAS accountable to? What are they for? Creative Scotland need to ask them.
Ruby Lobotomyday: you’re hilarious. Freely admit you know next-to-nada about the Scottish literary/poetry scenes, then go on to give us your utterly uninformed opinion about how women just make tea and pour wine at events! Pure ‘poor oppressed women’ victimhood-loving mindset rubbish coming straight out of the 19th century.
The artistic disciplines under discussion are diametrically opposed to how you describe them, which was my original point in the first place. I know this from experience at these events, and amongst these people. They’re mostly pretentious, neurotic middle class wankers, often gay or female (or ‘under-represented’, as they hilariously put it, when the converse is true). Why not just shut up about things you know fuck all about and give us all a break? Seriously.
And as for why yank homosexuals (emblematic of the general subject under discussion) are culturally colonising Scottish writing, well, he’s not the first or only one, but that’s another story altogether…
Oh yes, here we are – Eris Young was part of LAS’s 2023/2024 ‘Writers’ Advisory Group’. As Heather Young of LAS posts on their website. Eris and co were invited to the “core of planning processes for the sector”. Note the emphasis on “transphobia and mental health.”
So this document was not a mistake. Not an “error”. Someone at LAS handed Eris Young the keys to the castle. That’s the process that needs scrutiny. Perhaps someone should ask Heather Young for a bit of clarity. https://literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/las-announce-their-2023-24-writers-advisory-group/
FFS Big Chief Narrow Eye is angry again!
(Hey have you met the Hate Monster?
Better check this out before you get arrested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPeUtdT9oUM)
I mentioned ‘nada de nada’ about the ‘Scottish literary/poetry scene’ now I am telling you that I know absolutely nothing/fuck all about it. FFS pal I haven’t even read a single Val McDiarmid book. What do I know about contemporary Scottish literature & pottery.
I was referring to the visual arts but I would imagine the ‘Scottish Literary/poetry’ art sector could be similar except for the men pouring the wine and making the tea.
OK fine if you say it’s the men who make the tea and pour the wine at ‘the literary & poetry society’ I’ll accept your word for it. Sorry about that! I bet you make a crackin’ cup of tea and never spill a single drop of wine ever. Good for you!
You sound like a bigoted racist blood & soil natavistic fringe nutter with your complaints about yank homosexuals colonising Scottish writing. Me too!
These Yank homosexuals have done us the honour of coming here & accepting a ‘Scottish Arts Council Grant’ (I’m a bit behind the times but you knew that already) Yanks are Scottish too.
#AskAndy
PS Has the yank homosexual with the ‘Lorna Slater’ hairdo got a visa?
What’s going to happen to him now?
It seems unfair that the Chair of the Board, Sarah Mason has stepped down and taken all the blame.
You should invite her for a wee cup of your wonder tea!
“I haven’t even read a single Val McDiarmid book”
No-one has , Ruby Saturday. Apart from Nicola Sturgeon and Val McDiarmid.
“What do I know about contemporary Scottish literature & pottery”
Probably more than the two folk who’ve read Val McDiarmid’s books.
I believe I would make a great Boss of Creative Scotland
The following would definitely be getting big grants
Luke Warm Dave – For Magpies & ‘yer tees out Humza’
Shauny Boy – For Lorna & Patrick & giving us an in depth look into Scottish politics + great hair
Stuart Campbell for Wings Over Scotland, his nature porn & large supply of ice lollies in case of sprains.
Robert Hughes For Fringe & Bracket & A Thousand and One Witty Post.
Confused. – For being ‘Confused’
Dan – for his series about Mrs Harris also ‘Tales of the Riverbank’
Many more to follow.
Please nominate your favour ‘creative’ who you feel deserves a grant.
No human porn please. We’ve all been there, done that and bought the tee-shirt. ZZZZZ!
Ruby Philistineday: oh aye, it’s a post about literature, so we’re talking about the visual arts. Christ you’re stupid, you really are.
Go ahead, have the last word. Can’t bear to talk to you anymore. Nothing but undercooked BSE mince morning, noon, and night.
Bye.
@ Ruby Saturday
I’m hoping you wrote “Scottish literature & pottery” deliberately and it wasn’t just a typo; because I found the idea of a marriage between Scottish literature and pottery quite amusing.
I knew a literary potter once – used to write ‘made in Scotland’ on the bottom of his vases.
Northcode
I made myself laugh with that typo.
I have done ‘poetry on pottery’
It’s quite common.
It’s easy enough to write on the soft clay.
I really enjoyed pottery.
I was pretty good on the wheel!
Some say pottery is poetry.
‘Narrow Eyed Observer’ is no speakin’ to me anymore.
Shame I was really enjoying winding him up!
BTW It doesn’t need to be poetry on your pottery. It can be any word or phrase you like even a swear word like ‘Arsehole! or ‘Narrow Eyed Arsehole’
Do you want a grant when I become the ‘Big Boss of Creative Art Scotland’?
Alf will be getting three. One for Scots, one for recognising Scotlands colonial status
& one for shipping.
Ruby Saturday
I tried my hand at pottery a while back but I had no talent for it. I enjoyed trying though. I admire folk with that kind of skill and artistic talent.
Aye, Ruby. I could tell you were having a wee bit of fun in your exchanges with NEO.
I always enjoy reading your comments, woven through as they are with guid Scots humour and wit – no matter what day of the week .
I’m looking forward to your appointment to the role of ‘Big Boss of Creative Art Scotland’. Make sure everybody calls you Boss when they’re addressing you – and gie them a guid skelp aboot the heid if they don’t.
And I’d be honoured to accept a grant from your prestigious Scottish Arts organisation – especially if thon Alf Baird’s gettin’ three.
I’ll admit he does deserve aw three o’ them tho.
Why should the Trans get special support as writers? I am sick fed up of my Taxes going to support and give special treatment to these man and women hating queers and Scot hating queers and white hating queers. Sick effin fed up with it.
So the Scottish Green Queers banned 13 members. It is obvious that the Scottish Green Queers dont give a fuck deep down for the Environment, they only care about their sexual deviancy.
@Narroweyed Observer
For me – speaking as a complete outsider and one who knows absolutely zilch about the Arts (of any genre) – it just strikes me that, in an ever-increasingly desire to be “progressive”(tm), Scotland has thrown the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. Anything but the Tories. Anything but social conservatism. Anything but the *actual* working class (with actual working class views, as opposed to the tripe pumped out by left wing outlets like the Guardian et al). Endless grievance-hunting; “colonised” Scotland, very vocal minority groups who seem to do all the (endless) talking.
Scotland, ever more than its contemporaries, has lost itself?
The Greens are absolutely toxic to everything they touch.
We should be thankful for small mercies really that they left the environment the fck alone or we’d all be sitting on scorched earth & shitting ourselves a Bear was coming tae get us..
Privileged pricks. It was inevitable their pet projects would win over. They’re not indy & never were. They were just parasites that’s trashed Holyrood better than the Tories or Labour ever could & they did it all with SEVEN seats.
Get these eejits out of Holyrood & out of councils.
Captain Caveman @ 10:09 am
“Scotland, ever more than its contemporaries, has lost itself?”
Who are our ‘contemporaries’? Which nations are in our ‘condition’ – culturally, economically and politically?
What do you expect with a colonized people who are merely ‘bystanders’ in a ‘Manichean’ and ‘calcified’ society, and where:
“The colonized feels neither responsible nor guilty nor skeptical, for he is out of the game. He is in no way a subject of history any more. He has forgotten how to participate actively in history and no longer even asks to do so” (Albert Memmi).
Here are some of our ‘contemporaries’ in terms of GDP-per-Capita, see if you can spot the odd one oot:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/the-real-economic-price-of-the-uk-union-for-scots/
This definition from the online DSL:
EQUIVALENT, n. Sc. Hist. usage: a sum of money calculated on the relative amounts of the customs and excise duties in Scotland and England and fixed at almost £400,000 which the English government guaranteed by the fifteenth article of the Treaty of Union to pay to Scotland as compensation for Scotland’s prospective share in the public debt of England as part of the new United Kingdom.
Thon ‘Equivalent’ wis the michty bate; here wis the Sum of 398,085 Pound Sterling tae bi geid in cash tae Scotlan.
Tho’ the Scots wir tae pay it an muckle mair tae bak agin ow’er the years tae come by engagin’ tae bear a share o’ the burdens imposed on England, an appropriat fer payment o’ England’s debts.
It seems Scotland, having no debt, had to bail oot an England ridden wi debt an wis geid sum wee incentive tae dae sae thait wis recovered mony times ow’er by thon trickster.
Beads and baubles and lies in exchange for silver and gold – that be the trickster’s way of doing ‘fair’ business.
@ Alf Baird
“Who are our ‘contemporaries’? Which nations are in our ‘condition’ – culturally, economically and politically?”
This is surely a rhetorical question, Alf? Who might you think Scotland’s contemporaries might be? Have a think about it… could they be immediately adjoining countries like England, Wales, Ireland etc sharing a common language and much more besides in terms of culture, history et al? Maybe just across the English Channel or Western Europe? Surely you don’t need me to tell you this, do you?
“What do you expect with a colonized people who are merely ‘bystanders’ in a ‘Manichean’ and ‘calcified’ society, and where”
Honestly, everything always comes back to your tiresome “colonised” schtick, doesn’t it? It’s very boring – one might say it really does put the “colon” in colonised…
A word the wise, Alf. A “colonised” nation doesn’t get a 100% free, binding vote open to all, a clear, binary choice as to whether to remain, or leave the UNION. Further, given the clear 11-point decisive outcome of said free vote, merely a decade ago, means that the will of the Scottish people was duly and emphatically expressed – however much you, or anyone else here dislikes the outcome. You don’t get to call foul, and if you do, it doesn’t make it so.
I’d also mention, of course, the combined 300-year partnership of England and Scotland as avid co-participants of the Union, to very great effect: Scotland has played, and continues to play, a vital, dynamic part. By characterising Scotland as some downtrodden, weak, hapless hostage to fortune, you (IMO) demean it and its people.
Frankly, Alf, in my view you and your ilk are very much part of the problem, rather than the solution we collectively crave. You’re just another grievance monkey bemoaning his lot day and night; the same old lines, the same scratched record. Change it mate.
As far as this piece goes, I would agree that “don’t sell TERF authors” is an absurdity – but then I regret the supposed need for “leftist feminist authors”, “LBGT authors” and all the rest of them: how about just “good authors”? (I realise, of course, that such heretic views immediately marks me out as being on the “far right”(tm). Ironic, then, that all of the ills being discussed here – all of them – spring from the Left, and terrifyingly the REAL Hard Right is rising across Europe as part of some ghastly overcorrection backlash).
Captain Caveman @ 12:42 pm
“This is surely a rhetorical question”
Well, you raised the matter of Scotland’s ‘contemporaries’, though you appear unable to answer it. So, wha’s like us?
And, are a people suffering a colonial mindset and subject to colonial procedures really as ‘free’ as you believe?
Your version of reality seems wishful thinking. As Northcode implies, Scots were ‘procured’, i.e. soveranety bocht an selt.
“Well, you raised the matter of Scotland’s ‘contemporaries’, though you appear unable to answer it. So, wha’s like us?”
Erm, I did answer it? Let me spell it out a simply as I can for you Alf: Scotland’s contemporaries (in the context of my original post to which you’re referring) is obviously her immediate neighbours within the Union (England, Wales, NI), upon which we share a common language and much common culture/history (all as per previous post), as well as EU States such as France, Germany, Spain etc.
All of Scotland’s contemporaries appear to be a lot less “woke” than Scotland IMO. (In fact, it could well be argued that Scotland is the wokest country on the planet). If we accept this is true (and I assume that you do, given the absurdities of the Scottish government’s agenda as extensively critiqued by Rev Stu as over dozens of well-researched articles), the question is then “Why?” What is it about Scotland which makes it different?
Again as per my previous post, in my view the answer lies in Scotland’s overriding aversion to the Tories – and right-of-centre politics in particular. Perfectly sensible and pragmatic “small c” Conservatism – including in social terms – was/is derided as “evil” or worse. To me, it’s as plain as day that if ever a country needed a reset it’s Scotland, but I can’t see it ever happening. As I’ve said, in my opinion the issues discussed here very much stem from the Left, so what chance of redemption when it’s just one bunch of lefties who’ve never had a real job to the next?
If this sounds like I’m gloating, I’m not. England is a mess too; Mrs C and I are seriously thinking about upping sticks to the sun somewhere. I honestly don’t think I can bear another Labour government.
Alf Baird
Thaim fer the unioun (or thaim sinners as a lyke tae caw thaim) aither dinnae forstaw hou colonialism wirks or juist be it the windin an afftakkin us fer fuils.
I have to tell you, Alf. I’m having a lot of fun gettin ma heid aboot oor Scots leid.
The more I find oot aboot it the more impressed I am with its variety and depth and power of expression.
I’m sure Scots schuilweans will hiv a lot of fun gettin learnt ther ain leid tae once the learning of Scots proper becomes mandatory in oor schuils.
@ Northcode
I hate to break it to you but you’re writing in English mate.
Captain Caveman @ 1:38 pm
“Scotland’s contemporaries … is obviously her immediate neighbours within the Union (England, Wales, NI), upon which we share a common language and much common culture/history”
Aye, richt, in yer dreams! Thon micht be your virtual reality (or colonial cultural/historical illusion) but its nivver mine.
“What is it about Scotland which makes it different?”
The brilliance, humanity and humour of her magnificent people. Her huge and singular contribution in the form of technology, medicine, philosophy, enlightenment, literature and education she has made available to the peoples of the modern world.
Just think what the Scots could achieve if freed from their subjugation and oppression – they could probably lift humanity up out of the mire of stupidity it currently finds itself in and save the world from itself.
sing us a song caveman, howsabout
“take me back to dear old blighty”
I can see you and the-missus, pearly king and queen, playing the spoons, rattling the ivories on the old joanna …
heading off to tenerife maybe? They love you all over there, uno beero por favor, manuel … they love us, we’re putting money in their pockets …
no one cares about the ugly anglo anywhere and your opinions are like the eructations of donkeys
YOU WOT MATE CARNT UNNERSTAADN WOT U R SAYIN WIV YOUR ACCENT SPEAK THE KINGS INGLISH INNIT
“Aye, richt, in yer dreams! Thon micht be your virtual reality (or colonial cultural/historical illusion) but it’s nivver mine.”
Well I’ll tell you something, Alf: you “nivver” answer a question, and when someone answers yours, you just respond with empty ad hom and mince. You’re a complete waste of time.
“The brilliance, humanity and humour of her magnificent people. Her huge and singular contribution in the form of technology, medicine, philosophy, enlightenment, literature and education she has made available to the peoples of the modern world.”
What an absurd, pathetic straw man. Lol.
Still, at least you’re not quoting Bible verses or speaking in riddles, so I guess it’s still a step up for you at least.
@ confused
What an abusive cretin you are.
Like I said in a previous comment somewhere – it works every time. Throw in a bit of non-rude hyperbole and a rude response is guaranteed.
I like this from Confused.
“…like the eructations of donkeys”
Creatively descriptive and simultaneously accurate, Confused. And it has wee hint o’ the Biblical aboot it tae.
And God said, “I am becoming that which I am becoming.”, or something similarly Godlike.
In the case of this mere mortal tho – I am becoming ambidextrous in both the paratactical practical simplicity of English and the magnificent complex creative brilliance of Scots.
“Throw in a bit of non-rude hyperbole”
“YOU WOT MATE CARNT UNNERSTAADN WOT U R SAYIN WIV YOUR ACCENT SPEAK THE KINGS INGLISH INNIT”
I’m only amazed Stu puts up with this sort of leering stupidity on his board.
‘The Arts’ have always been full of pretentious people, and you don’t have to be an aficionado of ‘high art’ to understand what has happened with Creative Scotland. It is very simple. The same thing has happened across the board at every level of society, in every public body: Queer Theory happened.
Just a short time ago, a German politician filmed himself licking a public toilet bowl. Apparently, he also liked to smear faeces on himself, and, although I’m not 100% sure about it, he liked to eat it, too, I think.
Now, that is one humdinger of a fetish. Now, I’ve never heard of any female doing this, albeit females do sometimes have fetishes of a milder kind, but, if anyone can find evidence of the more disgusting habits of female deviants, feel free to regale us with it.
Needless to say, his public display of his fetish(es) was this politician’s downfall. In Scotland, he would probably be shepherded off into a sanatorium for a few weeks, handed a GRC and be welcomed back like a lost sheep.
Some of the comments on this thread prove that many people simply do not understand what a paraphilia and/or fetish actually are, in reality, a nd why females in the know, are so distressed for our sex and our children.
They have this image of a poor, distressed transsexual with his bits removed, dressed in a Laura Ashley frock, who only wants to pee in safety away from nasty men who think they are a bit odd.
They don’t think of the guy who rummages in the bins to find used sanitary towels, or the chap who wears floaty dresses so that his h**d-on is not seen, or the fellow who rolls in pig dung to m**turb**e in piggy heaven.
The reality of what Queer Theory is and what a lot of the ‘trans’ movement is – not all – would make you vomit – but this is what our politicians want to set loose on women and children, remembering that 99% are intact males and they want access to female spaces for a reason – and it’s not to deliver a box of chops.
Any man who thinks this is hunky dory or that it is solely a female problem, needs to be administerd a hard kick in the cojones to catapult him into reality. Actually, and I don’t know who said it on the thread, but there are a lot of AGPs and fetishists out there. If self-ID is brought in properly, you’ll be shocked to discover just how many – and where they are.
A good result – well done to all.
What`s wrong with these people, they are either seriously thick or downright nasty. Every time they get caught out they bleat that “it`s an error”.
Magi’s article is excellent and it resonated with me. I’m an author of what I believe is the 1st ‘terf’ fiction book called ‘The Twenty Murders’. I wrote this crime thriller to surface the issues with trans ideology and to peak people who may not read non-fiction. Unsurprisingly, no agent or publisher would touch it (although I’m not an amateur and I write successfully under different names) and it’s because of organisations such as Scottish Literary Alliance, and the censorship of wokerati in large publishing houses. I’ve been told they are only interested in my work if I’m from the BAME, LGBTQ+ etc. community, I’m neurodiverse, or … and this is the best one … if I’m being rehabilitated after having committed a crime. Perhaps I’ll ‘off’ a literary agent just to get published 😉