stavvers

Why I signed the statement of trans-inclusive feminism and womanism

At the time of writing, 158 feminist and womanist individuals and organisations have signed a statement of trans-inclusive feminism, myself included. It is sad that such a thing needs to exist in 20-fucking-13, but it’s vital that we are vocal in our opposition to feminisms which decide to exclude women. I will quote my favourite part of the statement below.

By positing “woman” as a coherent, stable identity whose boundaries they are authorized to police, transphobic feminists reject the insights of intersectional analysis, subordinating all other identities to womanhood and all other oppressions to patriarchy. They are refusing to acknowledge their own power and privilege.

It is so important to acknowledge that transphobic feminisms are not just wrong, but dangerously so, and this statement does just that. Please read the whole statement and share it as much as you can! We need to be vocal about the unacceptability of bigotry in feminism.

Feminism and control of other women

This week’s issue which is calling some premium-grade nonsense to fly forth from the mouths of feminists is the topic of banning face coverings, specifically the niqab. It is something which appeals to politicians, satisfying both their desire for racist policy and managing to get a bonus bit of giving themselves further reason to mass arrest protesters as a shitty little cherry on top. As always, there are hordes of feminists who are perfectly happy to deal with this as it manages to sate their appetite for controlling other women.

I don’t think I need to go into why getting the state to dictate what women may and may not wear is hardly a feminist position, and is simply a manifestation of a white saviour complex. Go and look at what Muslim feminists are saying about this; this is not my argument to make.

Among certain strains of feminism, we see a lot of attempts at controlling what other women do, wear and exist as.

We see it in Nadine Dorries, who calls herself a feminist while simultaneously craning her neck for the best viewing angle of our uteruses. She literally wants to control our reproductive freedom, and believes this stance to be a feminist stance.

We see it in the TERfs, the bigoted feminists who bully and harass trans women for existing, who spread lies and misinformation, who exclude and who try to deny access to treatment. They call themselves feminists, yet they are trying to control women’s bodies, to set themselves up as gatekeepers to womanhood through establishing a firm grasp on what a woman must be like.

We see it in a lot of high-profile campaigns calling for bans on this or that manifestation of sex work. Behind all of this is a desire to control what work is acceptable for women to do. We see it in the entire prohibitionist angle towards sex workers.

Am I saying these people are not feminists? No.

They are feminists. They are simply feminists who will ultimately do more harm than good.

See here’s the thing. It’s a little bit Captain Obvious to suggest that patriarchy places controls on women’s bodies and women’s behaviour. We know that this is terrible and bad and we rightly kick up a fuss about it. And yet to many women, the control imposed by certain strains of feminism is just as bad as these manifestations of patriarchal dominance. It is no different, aside from the perpetrators. And this is why we see so many marginalised women turning away from feminism: feminism just appears as rebranded patriarchy, rebranded control and coercion.

The feminists who want to control other women will defend their stance by saying that the women they are attempting to control need rescuing somehow, that this control is salvation. You will note that they are never trying to save themselves, only others who are somehow letting the side down by letting themselves be oppressed.

And yet this defence is much the same as the patronisingly sexist attitudes we face from men. We don’t know what’s good for us. We need someone to sort it out for us, someone who knows best. We are literally incapable of knowing what it is we need.

We reject it from men, and we must also reject these impositions of control from women.

If we want to help marginalised women to be liberated, our task is not to lead or to legislate, but to listen. We need to ask what help is required, rather than barging in like a carceral Leeroy Jenkins and making everything worse. It is support, not control, that will lead to freedom.

Things I read this week that I found interesting

This week, I have been mostly playing Pokemon. Still. I also read some things. Perhaps you will find them interesting. I did.

On The Male Privilege That I Totally Have. (Alien She)- A badass trans sister says some shit that really doesn’t need saying.

An open letter to the men of the world (Days Like Crazy Paving)- Blisteringly brilliant.

Victim blaming: the easy option? (Sarah Thomasin)- On a very common reaction to abuse.

How *not* to write a blog about sex work (Sometimes, its just a cigar)- A useful primer on pitfalls to avoid, with reference to a particularly terrible example.

12 Angry Men… Or a dozen confused folk? The weeks in 1998 that changed me forever. (gibbsgubbins)- An account of being on a jury, and how the writer doesn’t trust jury verdicts anymore.

The hypocrisy of calling for anonymity for rape defendants (sian and crooked rib)- Bookmark this for when that waahmbulance ride of an argument comes up.

Battles of Cable Street (Michael Richmond)- Contextualising the Tower Hamlets antifascist arrests.

Allies Who Are Not Allies (Eponymous Fliponymous)- A story about needing a towtruck, which articulates a problem neatly.

And finally, this is the finest tumblr ever, fulfilling all your definitely-not-misandrist needs.

Guest post: Our Lady of the Bodice Ripper

!!!!ENORMOUS CONTENT NOTE FOR RAPE, RAPE APOLOGISM AND SUICIDE!!!!!!

This is a guest post from Sian Lacey Taylder, a writer and PhD student.

In September 2006 I was raped in what might be called a classic ‘date rape’ scenario, in the living room of my own home. I was encouraged by a friend to go to the police and, four days after the event, I called the sexual assault unit. I can’t fault the response or attitude of the police; I had two female officers who supported me through the interminable period between crime and trial. As a male-to-female transsexual I expected to expose myself to all kinds if ridicule but I experienced none; quite the contrary, in fact.

To my surprise the CPS charged my assailant with rape but for various reasons the trial didn’t go ahead until March 2008, some eighteen months after the event. It was a difficult time – my coping strategies mostly involved alcohol and self-harm and I was discouraged from seeking counselling as anything said in those sessions could have been used as evidence.

Apparently.

But that limbo was as nothing when compared to the trial. You’ve probably seen dramatic recreations on the television, probably read accounts of the Le Vell trial; let me you, nothing can prepare you for having to stand in that witness box and listen to every aspect of your life torn to shreds.

Inevitably, the case against him soon became a case against me. I’d expected and prepared myself for the predictable questions, about my gender and why hadn’t I gone to the police immediately. What I hadn’t anticipated was the counsel for the defence playing me at my own game – and winning. I’m a writer, I deal in fiction, some of it darkly erotic but even I couldn’t have invented the narrative my assailant’s barrister delivered in Luton Crown Court. It went something along the lines that, in order to take revenge on the male sex, I’d spiked his drink, masturbated him then spread his semen in and around my own anus. Yes, it was that sort of rape.

It sounds more preposterous now than it did then. You’d have thought nobody in their right mind would have believed it but the defence had already softened the jury with a character assassination that also belongs in the realms of metafiction. They fell for it hook, line and sinker. What follows is an account of the experience written shortly after the trial came to an end, the rapist having been found not guilty. I’d taken a leaf out of the defence counsel’s book and dressed it up as a third person narrative; it’s part of a longer memoir cum autobiographical novel that still remains a work in progress.

That Siân Lacey Taylder has not always been Siân Lacey Taylder was always going to be a predictable line of attack for the inevitable character assassination. I can’t be bothered to surf the internet for cases similar to hers; when women like Siân Lacey Taylder haven’t only been victims of rape but have had the temerity to report it to the police. If it’s happened half-a-dozen times I’d be surprised. She’s not like other women; she should’ve had the strength and physical prowess to resist. Perhaps that’s what you’re thinking, too. And let’s face it, chances are that the members of the jury fell for it hook, line and sinker as well; I doubt whether any of them had encountered a woman like her before; I’ll lay pretty good odds that each and every one of them saw the stereotype and not the victim. Doesn’t matter how intelligent or articulate she is, at the end of the day she’s a freak who can be perjured with impunity.

Because that’s what happened: perjury and a litany of false accusations so manifestly untrue she was immediately flummoxed.

Now, I’m proud to call myself a cynic, the so-called British sense of fair play is a complete anathema to me, an oxymoron – a dangerous oxymoron indeed but Siân Lacey Taylder still possessed a residual modicum of faith in the English legal system, not least because the Hertfordshire constabulary had treated her with nothing but dignity and respect.

Possessed a residual modicum of faith in the English legal system. I use the preterit advisedly.

How much can I tell you of the tissue of lies Siân Lacey Taylder’s assailant concocted with the help of his defence barrister? Let’s just say that they turned the truth on its head and accused her … well, more or less accused her of committing an act of violation against her assailant – or as close as was physically possible given her circumstances. I’ll spare you the gory minutiae, according to the counsel for the defence Ms Lacey Taylder spiked the drink of the man who raped her and took advantage of his comatose state.

It was, they argued, a classic case of revenge on the whole of the male sex.

I’ll tell you something, it would have made for an intriguing plotline but no agent, publisher or self-respecting reader would have bought it. God only knows how the jury were taken in but you can’t legislate for ignorance can you?

But that’s not the half of it. The next thing she knows, Ms Lacey Taylder is having the content and subject matter of her website and novel quoted verbatim as evidence of her disturbed state of mind. Since when has a work of fiction purported to be factual and reliable account of events? It’s a fucking story, for God’s sake, you can’t use that in a court of law.

Apparently you can. Here are just a couple of the offending excerpts the counsel of the defence saw fit to quote as evidence; needless to say they were taken out of context and without reference to the genre.

They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned but the devil and myself only know the rage she suffers when deprived of the bodily bliss I considered, quid pro quo, to be rightfully mine. Whether or not he cried out ‘Rebecca’ is irrelevant, he had denied me. He was about to slump into narcosis when I threw him to the floor and, while he was still cowering in disbelief, surreptitiously removed from his wallet from his trouser pocket. In lieu of what he conspicuously failed to deliver.

Thus Siân Lacey Taylder is a woman of easy virtue, shamelessly flaunting her depraved and dishonest sexuality. Not only that, but using it for her own insidious ends.

In that split second of freedom I seized the burning candle and, before he had chance to recoil, tipped its burning, molten wax like a pellucid lava over the cherry-red helmet of his oscillating penis. He screamed, quite naturally, but with a clamour that terrified me for I had no idea as to the sensitivity of that ironically tender and fragile organ. It reared up in agony, like a wounded beast, and I cackled with undisguised delight.

Thus Siân Lacey Taylder is a woman of perverted sexual fantasies that border on the dangerous. Her fiction is the product of a disturbed mind and should carry a public health warning. In fact, it might be a good idea if Siân Lacey Taylder herself carried a public health warning, a placard around her neck advising any male unfortunate enough to cross her that she suffers from phallophobia.

On account of her once possessing one herself. You don’t think the counsel for the defence let that one pass without comment, do you? Talk about a condemned woman. They might have well have cast the first stone there and then.

She approached her victim, eyes set firmly on the prize, the dagger so close to her lips that with one slip she might have punctured them and left a trickle of blood behind her. She would not have cared; the unholy scream that came forth would still have echoed around the room and pierced the hearts and the souls of all who stood within its range. She raised the blade and brought it plunging deep into the heart of the priest.

Thus Siân Lacey Taylder is revealed as a woman with an unhealthy obsession with knives – as opposed to a healthy obsession with knives? She has sworn an oath on the bible and feels compelled to confess that, yes, she did wave the knife at her assailant and that, yes, she does have an issue with self-harm. Who the fuck is she trying to kid?

It’s not that we can’t trust anything she says; we’re not quite accusing her of being a liar (well, in actual fact we clearly are accusing her of being a liar but we have to be a bit more subtle about it); what we’re saying is that as we can’t trust everything she says (notice the subtle difference?). Her evidence simply cannot be considered reliable.

Or, in common parlance: Not only is Ms Siân Lacey Taylder a grotesque and deviant specimen, she’s completely off her trolley and her narrative’s riddled with inconsistencies. Fuck me; the case shouldn’t have been allowed to come to court in the first place. Just think how much of the Great British public’s hard-earned taxes have been wasted on this charade, no wonder the country’s in state of parlous moral turpitude.

But here’s the icing on the fucking cake. The protagonist of Siân Lacey Taylder’s work in progress, as featured on her website – went by the name of Lucretia. That she was named after the Sisters of Mercy song rather than Ms Borgia cut no ice with the defence counsel who neglected, of course, to mention the difference in the spelling.

But neither did her my own lawyer. Poor Siân Lacey Taylder. She never stood a fucking chance. The trial lasted over a week but the rapist got off scot-free.

You don’t need me to tell you how she reacted. More broken furniture and blood smears on the floor; the police calling round the following morning to make sure she was okay.

Okay? Okay?!! For fuck’s sake, of course she wasn’t okay. Siân Lacey Taylder would never be the same again.

Worse than that, Siân Lacey Taylder would never be Siân Lacey Taylder again; she’s reached the beginning of the end.

Seven years after the rape, five years after the travesty of justice – I mean trial – and I’m still a very angry woman. What that bastard did destroyed my already fragile sense of identity and, in April 2009, precipitated a suicide attempt. When my support officers came to visit me the day the trial ended, to say goodbye, one of them hugged me and, in tears, told me she, too, had been a victim of rape. Then, over the years, as I began to open up, so many more women related similar experiences. That’s why the furore over the Le Vell acquittal angered me so much I had to turn off the radio; the immediate assumption that the poor girl had been lying and the predictable calls for accused rapists to be given the same anonymity as their victims. ‘They will blame the woman’; it started with Eve, it’s still the default mind-set.

As for me. If I’m ever diagnosed with a terminal disease and given a few months to live I know what I’m going to do; I’ve already planned it. It won’t be pretty but it will be effective.

The police and instrumentalising survivors

Content note: this post discusses rape

On Saturday night I sat shivering outside a police station with a bag of cereal bars and a friendly smile, waiting for comrades to be released from police custody following their mass arrest for Standing While Antifascist. Police came and went from the station, and eventually a car rocked up full of plainclothes cops, one of whom I’m pretty sure I recognised from actions and so forth; a meat-headed hegemonically masculine fucker.

Unsurprisingly, comrades were vocally critical of the police, particularly as it was a day where more than 280 people had been arrested for Standing While Antifascist. The police were asked what good they thought they possibly served in their role of police officers.

And they went on the defensive with a tired old line I’ve heard a thousand times before. “Tell that to the rape victims [sic],” they said. “Tell them we’re not doing any good.”

I’m not sure why it hit me so hard this time, but I kind of shut down. Full anxiety, unable to form words bollocks. Basically, I knew I would either cry or hit one of those jowly-faced pricks, and neither option was particularly appealing as showing weakness in front of pigs is almost as bad as assaulting one directly outside a cop shop. And so my brain decided to temporarily BSoD.

And now I’m left thinking of what I should have said, what I would have said had I been able to.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have said that as a survivor myself I never wanted to go fucking near the police because who on earth would? I would not want their sausage fingers probing my recently-violated flesh, hands more suited to violence than to aid. I wouldn’t trust the sensitivity of that porcine pair in any of it.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have pointed out the numerous fuck-ups that the police as an institution have made. Losing evidence, dropping cases on purely arbitrary criteria, all adding to unnecessary additional trauma. I could have mentioned how their Sapphire unit seems to be under a near-perpetual state of reshuffle as yet another survivor is let down. I could have mentioned how they continue to pump out propaganda placing blame on the survivor rather than the perpetrator. I could have mentioned how when police officers rape, it is often treated as an internal matter, only misconduct, much like fudging some paperwork (although, often their fudged paperwork happens to help perpetrators). I could have mentioned how they deceive women into sex to collect information on them. I could have mentioned how all of these failings put together paint a picture that suggests they cannot possibly be so awful by accident. I could have asked them whether they think their all-round hideousness contributes to the fact that the vast majority of rapes go unreported.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have asked why they had decided to point at an area where they are mostly contributing to a culture of violence by their inaction, rather than their usual method of actively perpetrating violence; in particular on a night where they were holding hundreds of non-consenting people merely because they had Stood While Antifascist.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have said that it is utterly disgusting that they use rape survivors as human shields against criticism. We are people, not an abstract concept which helps the filth sleep at night, that allows them to pretend to themselves that they are somehow doing good. We are not a trump card to be played, nor are we a distraction from the utterly unjustifiable. It is vile to instrumentalise human beings, yet this is what the bastards do time and time again. And it is horrible to see this line trotted out, confirming suspicions that this is all the police think of survivors. A problem to be solved so they have a success story so they can deflect attention away from their own thoroughly inexcusable violences.

I said none of this, because I was scared and anxious and angry and upset through their behaviour. I said none of this because as a woman and a survivor, the presence of gigantic meaty men who position themselves as gatekeepers for justice makes me feel fundamentally unsafe. I said none of this because I do not think it would have swayed them at all: they are incapable of reason, and it was not worth my while.

Fellow feminists and survivors, never forget that the police are not our friends.

Things I read this week that I found interesting

Oh dear, I’m very tired and hating on the police right now. But aside from that, I read some things.

The Perils of Being Trans and Mental (Alien She)- Heartbreaking post on gatekeepers in medical care.

Labels on my soul: “feminist” (Days Like Crazy Paving)- Why Jay has decided to start calling herself a feminist.

Why I Stopped Being a Grammar Snob (Mary Rolf)- On the privilege in grammar snobbery.

Something Rotten at the Sausage Factory: How Wikipedia Embraced Transphobia for Chelsea Manning (Philip Sandifer)- Long read, but everything you need to know about transphobia among Wikipedia editors.

Can the White Girl Twerk? (Ayesha Siddiqi)- On white girls, appropriation and sexuality.

Fangirl Isn’t a Dirty Word (Deborah Stanish)- Smashing sexism in fandom.

Why I’m Never Going Back to Penny Arcade Expo (Rachel Edidin)- Unfortunately, the battle against geek sexism isn’t won yet.

An open letter to gaslighters on triggers, trauma, and women’s anger (The Fementalists)- Just amazing.

And finally, here is a cat politely but firmly communicating its boundaries. If you don’t like cats because you’re some sort of monster, here’s some adults recreating childhood photos.

Red flags

There are some things that people say that immediately ring the alarm bells, and I know that pretty swiftly they’re going to come out with something awful. These little conversational red flags could, hypothetically, possibly lead to something not terrible, but I’ve never seen that happen in action. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of red flags, the things which set off the Shitlord Klaxon. If you say any of these things, chances are I will jump to the worst possible conclusion, and it’s your responsibility to prove me otherwise. Feel free to pop into the comments and add more of your own red flags!

“Females” TERFs and MRAs alike really love referring to women as females. In the case of the former, it’s because they love dehumanising women into just sex organs. In the case of the latter, it’s because they love dehumanising women into just sex organs. Either way, anyone who says “females” doesn’t respect women or see us as human.

“But… but the false accusation rate for rape…” Never appropriate unless the conversation is actually about the false accusation rate for rape, you derailing rape apologist dickmelon.

“I was just trying to play devil’s advocate” Don’t. Seriously. Don’t pretend you just sent me a big long diatribe as some sort of intellectual exercise.

“I’m just trying to debate this” See above. Liberation and oppression are not abstract intellectual exercises.

“I don’t have privilege because [insert something here]” Go away, be quiet, and learn how sometimes you can have privilege over someone else, even when your life sucks.

[wears V mask] Sorry, mate, but you’re probably a rape apologist with pisspoor politics.

“Explain to me exactly why this was an oppressive statement” I’m not your fucking nursemaid. Also, if this is the first thing you say upon being called out rather than an apology, you’re probably a groaning shitbagel.

“You’re being irrational. Let’s be objective” You know what’s really irrational? Clinging to myths which have persisted since time immemorial. Clinging uncritically to your favourite cherry-picked research. Thinking that research is somehow magically neutral. So stop it.

Against equality

I am sick of bigots standing in the way of liberation struggles. Whether feminism, anti-racism, advocacy for people with disabilities, queer rights, trans rights and so on, they smirk and they go “Personally, I believe in treating everyone equally, so no special treatment for you”. It’s bullshit, and anyone with a semi-formed analysis can see straight through that nonsense.

They whine and they moan when people demand to be treated like fucking human beings, eliding the fact that oppression exists by pretending that they’re that much of a shit to everyone. And maybe, just maybe, they are that much of a shit to everyone. It doesn’t stop the fact that their behaviour hits some people harder than others, a fact which has never occurred to them, as in their feeble blinkered outlook it’s impossible to understand what it’s like to be anyone else that isn’t a bellowing turd.

I’m sick of hearing about equality from governments, a bunch of self-nominated gatekeepers with no clue whatsoever of what the word actually means. They scrawl something down on a piece of paper and decry any responsibility when it turns out that people are actually shit. The same goes for any organisation with an equality policy. You say the words, and expect them to become true. This might work in some kinds of magics: the true name of the demon is not “equal opportunities” and no matter how many times you say it, it isn’t going to be banished.

But most of all, I am absolutely fucking sick of activists banging on about equality. It betrays a devastating lack of imagination. From marriage equality to demanding better representation in boardrooms, all that is being requested is to maintain the power structures which bind us, while allowing a few more individuals to become masters.

So what if 50% of women become MPs? The system is still thoroughly broken. We still have gatekeepers, we still have masters. So what if queer people can serve in the military? We still find ourselves in a position wherein arbitrary groups are murdering each other based on an argument between some rich people in a faraway room are having. So what if people from marginalised groups get to be the CEOs? The most of us still toil, alienated from the fruits of our labour while those at the top become ever more powerful.

Fuck equality. I don’t want to be equal to people as utterly fucked as me. I want to be free. I want for us all to be free. I want us to be free from these structures which clip our wings, causing us to live hand to mouth, constraining the way we live and love, scapegoating those who are even more fucked. I want us to be free from being represented, and representing anyone else. I want us to be free to be: to exist in the way we want to without hate, without fear.

I want to be able to want, and to get.

I wonder, sometimes, what it is that people who beg for equality actually want. Do they think it some sort of transitional demand, with liberation as the actual goal? If so, they should know by now that going with cap in hand and begging something small only gets you something smaller. Or are they largely happy with the way things are, comfortable in their privilege if only one or two small tweaks were made? If so, they are complicit.

Either way, I am exasperated by this talk of equality. Don’t ask for equality. Demand liberation. Those who benefit will think us unreasonable, because they are happy profiting from our suffering. And that doesn’t matter a bit. They’ll never give us what we need, no matter how nicely we ask. Grind the fucking master’s house to dust.

Have we really declined so much that self-appointed leaders will settle for scraps and declare victory? We cannot allow this. Let us liberate ourselves from our attachment to equality.

Poly Means Many: Consent, negotiation, and group dynamics

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month, the PMM bloggers will write about their views on one of them. Links to all posts can be found at polymeansmany.com

This month’s PMM topic is “negotiation”, which is so broad I’ll admit to having had trouble with where to start, what with having the material for approximately nineteen sextillion blogposts and a million bajillion conversations swimming round my head. And even though a lot of the PMM bloggers are taking this month off due to IRL things, I really don’t feel like I ought to subject you to every little thought rattling around my brainspace, because you will probably die of boredom before finishing, and my fingers will have worn down to little stubs from all the typing. So, I’m focusing on a small area, one which people have asked me about before, and of which I’ve had both positive and negative experiences.

There has been a hell of a lot of discussion and modelling of consent and negotiation within relationships–however fleeting–between two people, but we don’t talk so much about what happens when there are more than two present. Decades of social psychological research have shown us that weird shit tends to happen in groups of people, and the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.

So how does negotiation of sex and relationships with several people together work? It’s easiest to look at potential pitfalls here to elucidate what makes things work.

In my experience, one of the biggest problems is that group dynamics can create an environment wherein it is very difficult to say no. When several people are up for sex, and your options are participate or go and wait in the kitchen until they’re finished, one often finds oneself taking the path of least resistance. This has actually happened to me once; I went and sat in the kitchen, that time, and smoked a lot of fags and felt like shit, but there have been other times when I have ended up involved in sex I didn’t want–and, indeed, I cannot say for certain that everyone was as up for a shag as I was, in certain situations before I figured out how to make shit work.

This sort of thing, the nagging concern that someone is just going along with stuff goes way beyond the bedroom.

So how do we solve this sort of problem? First and foremost is, of course, communication which goes beyond saying “I’m not OK”, and into actually checking in with people. This is all useless, though, without striving to make your relationships–of any sort–a safe space. It is not enough to say the words, it is necessary to foster a feeling of trust and security, an idea that it is OK to not be OK with something.

Without this ability to make yourself a safe space, negotiation is never going to work particularly well in any situation. It makes it hard to be honest, and it makes it hard to express non-consent. It stings to hear that no, and sometimes it does feel easier to send someone down to the kitchen, but it is absolutely vital that we make this happen.

From here, it is possible to build an inventory of how the dynamics work, an identification of what makes everyone involved happy, and what doesn’t.

The interesting thing here is that while I was focusing on group dynamics, I realised how much all of this applies when there are just two people present, too. So, I suppose, let’s all buck the hell up and make sure we’re safe.

Things I read this week that I found interesting

Good morning(ish). Here are some things I read this week.

After #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen: So You Want To Be An Ally, Now What? (Mikki Kendall)- A really valuable guide to being an ally, a must read.

Will the UK ever give up on its racist immigration policy? (Wail Qasim)- The definitive article on UK immigration policy.

Boris loves Aussies. Well, certain Aussies anyway… (The Rant Mistress)- Pointing out some hypocrisy in the latest racist shit coming from Tories.

When debate is worse than silence (fearlessknits)- On those times where debate is just awful.

The Protocols of the Elders of Feminism (sometimes it’s just a cigar)- On feminism’s problem with accepting TERfs.

Guilt, choice, and responsibility in the austerity kitchen (Ramona’s blog)- Ramona smashes a common bit of bullshit.

Dear Jamie Oliver… (Miss South)- Absolute evisceration of the bullshit dripping from Jamie Oliver’s fat-tongued mouth.

Consent, Sex Ed and Young People (Bishtraining)- An excellent analysis.

FilmScape (Lindsay McLeod)- A short story documenting a very plausible future.

And finally, I want to get this tattooed on me.