GlinnerGate 2 - Penny: for the Guys

 

GlinnerGate part 1 - 

Penny for Your Thoughts - No! Not You is here

So, like an intrepid masochist I venture onwards with this, Laurie Penny's appeal to remove Glinner's SubStack account, sans any evidence of his wicked deeds. Picking up where we left off, Laurie is talking about SubStack's apparently radical principles on freedom of expression...

"It’s significant that most of those platforms are run by precisely the sort of people most likely, for all sorts of reasons, to be free speech fundamentalists"

I guess it's significant. When half the world's, (and certainly most of the left's) media run to mop the brow of every non-binary tweet squealing "It's not fair!", rushing to pull the blinds down on ugly (inconvenient) views of reality, the ones who will allow oTHeR PeOPLe'S OPIniONS to be heard might be the ones who dispense with fewer fucks for the offended...

It's just, when you say free speech fundamentalism, Laurie, do you mean it? Are there eugenicists on Substack? Are there 'pick up artists' sharing tips on how to coerce and gaslight women into bed, schooling rapists on how to evade prosecution? Are there paedophile manuals? Do they allow anyone to say anything? Because that's what 'free speech fundamentalism' is, and if that is the case, why on earth are you focusing on Graham Linehan?

"That includes white, straight, cisgender men who are far less likely to be personally harmed by targeted hate speech than they are to be disadvantaged by speech restriction;"

But what if the speech restrictions do harm? What if the white, straight, 'cisgender' men really are personally affected by harassment and hate speech? 

For example, having people say you're obsessed with your daughter's genitals? Speaking about the harassment you've suffered for taking a moral stand, and the subsequent failure of your long marriage and then have Ryan John Butcher (editor of PinkNews) mock you for it on Twitter? Or former friends openly speculate, to their 2.8 million followers, you've lost your marbles? Being subject to vexatious litigation and police reports? Receiving hand delivered threats? Being relentlessly piled on by a dishonest media narrative? Having your shows cancelled? Your wife's business doxxed?

I've followed Glinner for some time now and I'm yet to understand what it is he's ever said or done that could provoke this. So maybe I'm rabidly right wing, fascist and bigoted. The only thing is, I'm a life-long lefty who really cares about people, and if I'm hurting people, I'd appreciate it being pointed out how. That's, err, the way you could stop it. Do you want to stop it?

Back to those worthless white, straight, 'cisgender' men - does the fact Glinner falls outside of your narrow, ideologically stacked subgroup of 'people I care about' mean we don't take this seriously, or that he hasn't suffered? It really is extraordinary that the white, straight and no-effort-in-transition males can escape this category just by saying they are part of the special group, isn't it?

(I feel like adopting the tone of David Attenborough, crouching behind the PowerPoint presentation at a diversity and equality training seminar, whispering "by simply clutching a homemade badge, reading 'Marginalised' 'Persecuted' and 'Misgendering me is attempted murder' these males have managed to leap from the laissez faire, "fuck 'em, they're alright, the smug supremacist bastards" group to that of an endangered species with unparalled humanity afforded to them, celebrated with rich folklor...")

You, Laurie, are an upper-middle class, privately educated, white woman. Yeah yeah, you've said you're pansexual and genderqueer, which admittedly sounds like a debilitating and embarrassing set of conditions, but aside from the 'political act' of cutting your hair and going out with a guy called Margaret who has a beard, hairy chest and, presumably, cock, you are now married to a man - a very ordinary, if posh, man. Sounding suspiciously heteronormative there. Why should we listen?

Well, this is not explained: there's no time in this extremely verbose and meandering essay. Laurie goes onto list "tech libertarians soaked in a specific vintage of California ideology which considers the freedom of the individual utterly sacrosanct" which, A) surprised me, a commoner, who envisioned them as mainly gender identity nuts working at Twitter or other woke-washed multinationals and B) brought to mind the way the wishes of less than 1% of the population to access spaces reserved for women outweighs the wishes of a large share of those women themselves. Don't pretend you're a collectivist, mate.

Laurie says Substack (SS from here on in - just know it's not a dogwhistle - not of my making, anyway) has a position on muh' freeze peach that's "nuanced, considered and wrong". I get the feeling she's giving it the large one, puffed up like a proud cockatiel, all outspoken and zero fucks given while in reality treading very carefully so as not to upset her new platform. A posh form of "'old me back! 'old me back!" while being held back by five big men.

She also wants it known she's taken an analytical, impartial approach in this. Which in reality seems doubtful.

She's telling us she's going in there and not taking no for an answer, then meekly gliding in with a little 'excuse me, sir' delivered with a curtsy.

Back at the soirée, however, we have a development; the nasty, homophobic arse has been kept in drink and he's now swinging his fists! This is, she feels, another problem with various solutions (a deep thinker, our Laurie), dependent on whether your party is a fundraiser or a fight club. Because, obviously, these really do exist (for those awful brutish people on council estates - and we've all seen Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, haven't we? Feral. There's no other word for it).

Ever the disciple of social codes, Laurie scolds herself for having already broken the first rule of fight club, but still has the guts to flaunt her contrarian non-conformity - she hates Tyler Durden, he's 'not a fucking folk hero'. Oh yeah, she went there.

After reciting SS's defence of its policy around that anachronistic free speech thing, which lists the Streisand effect, giving angry mentalists a martyr complex, ridding bad ideas permeating the culture by platforming better ones (inexplicably, Laurie thinks that's a crap idea. I cannot imagine why) Laurie contends the futility of this has been explained, like, sooo many times now. Come on guys friends, you're not expecting her to rehash all that now? It's near goddamn proven. She says. 

And anyway, Laurie has bigger fish to fry - explaining why these ideas are 'mistakes' would be falling into Glinner's infamous sealion snare of exhausting resources that could be spent on true activism, such as authoritarian diktat. He really is one sneaky fucker. Just let her get on with writing the rules Graham, OK?

"...it's a mistake to believe that the best and only way to resolve conflict is to treat all opinions as if they have equal merit"

I have to ask, who said they were all equal? Do you often read the responses to your tweets, reviews of your work? I can assure you, people are definitely aware some ideas are just shite.

Inviting us to consider Karl Popper (he of the paradox of tolerance) Laurie is starting to sound like any one of the indistinguishable but apparently authentically individual NB clones who populate the comments sections of PinkNews or Fully Automated Luxury Space Queer Communism (infamous for their banging material analysis and grasp on praxis). They too think Popper's theory means anyone who upsets or challenges their comfort blanket thesis is a monster who must be crushed. But, Laurie, Popper was not talking about people who say stuff you don't like but can't intellectually take down. He was talking about those who want to obliterate other groups, to wreak genocidal havoc or remove basic human rights and abuse power from thereon. Considering your side's performance, it's probably a silly thing to invoke.

"I could explain that the marketplace of ideas is heaving with short-sellers and stolen goods. I could explain that fascists don't come to the marketplace of ideas to shop."

Well, could you? It seems like you're cruising by with soundbites alone. But, of course, rigid, determined ideologues won't listen - although they'll still exist, and there's always an audience, which is the whole point.

So please, go on: explain how the man who wants discussion, who appealed to Stonewall for dialogue years ago, or the faction of feminists who have been abused, threatened, maligned and screeched out by the white noise (sorry, am I allowed to call it that?) tactics of gender activists are the ones who single-mindedly ride roughshod over the meek and decent at the scary bookfair you need to destroy.

As for stolen goods, this is not a copyright issue. It's OK to recycle ideas. What purpose did this analogy serve aside from making it all sound terribly dodgy and unsavoury and, and... just awful!?

Sadly, Laurie ain't got time for lowering herself to mere questions: as we saw in the first part she ran the gamut of possibilities. She's done her bit and the last thing she needs is diversion. Proudly straddling her warhorse, invigorated with unshakeable certainty, she's asking:

"what makes someone clench down with white-knuckled desperation on the notional redemptive power of liberal debate?"

I could perhaps suggest that reading a book would help you to grasp this, or, for once listening - but the following floors me:

"What, even when armed white supremacists storm the centers of government?"

What the fuck Laurie? I can't work you out - are you playing dumb, or just lumbered with the intellect and nous of a potato masher? The hypocrisy, complete absence of fact or self awareness are difficult to witness, my empathetic shame is triggered. I'd need to truly despise you to enjoy the shadenfreude and I don't know if I can bring myself to have the strength of feeling for such a clearly inadequate, vapid grifter. 

In all seriousness, who is clinging on to a framework of bullshit they manifestly can't justify here? Who really is in the hermetically sealed echo chamber, fingers shoved into their ears and launching into ludicrously verbose essays to defend not defending or evidencing their claims? This entire screed is nothing more an appeal to your arrogant self identification of idealistic purity and supremacy. You, the moral guide, issuing rules which stand "because I said so". Us, the simpletons who can't be trusted to know what is and isn't good for us, graced with your expense of words and instruction.

Are you suggesting we are somehow aligned with, synonymous with, the nutters who think Trump was ordained by God and needed reinstating by avenging militia? I'm starting to think you're stuck - or have forever existed - in a mode of stylised, vacant miming, with intermission only for occasional indignation and unconscious, unashamed floundering. You float through life, doing the bare minimum as an edgelord-left rent-a-gob, dropping sly winks and references - DOGWHISTLES! - as you barracade yourself up in your gated 'queer' community. 

Were any gender criticals involved in the Capitol storm? I know Jessica Watkins was, and, even as leader of Ohio State Regular Militia, that cheeky trans vulnerability card was quick out the drawer. And of course the neo Nazi Taylor Parker-Dipeppe escaped jail because 'he's suffered enough' and what can you do with a transman in prison? All Taylor did was target the homes of minority groups with swastikas and written warnings. And threaten journalists. Who knows, Taylor could have been trying to stop the spread of bad ideas? 

I suppose the spectre of trans people within violent militia / far right movements is both a reason for sadness, and hope. For fuck's sake Glinner - if the Oath Keepers can be inclusive, what's your problem? Even mosque bombers are trans-accepting these days - just check out Emily Hari.

"You can’t use pure logic to dismantle a defensive impulse, and you can’t argue down a trauma response with reason"

Have you thought of saying this to Mridul Wadhwa? That might actually be a feminist act. Do it, I'll sign a little certificate you can hang on your wall.

"It’s far easier to understand why someone is clinging on to an idea that obviously isn’t working if you consider what will happen if they let go"

Oh, do go on - does falling out of favour with your friends count? When you know, really, they're irrational and irredeemably indoctrinated? Loosing your hold on an identity which gives you a singular claim to relevance? Or, more to the point, being exposed as a waffling charlatan with no logical basis for your extraordinary assertions?

"it isn’t hard to see why absolute freedom of expression above all else might be a convenient thing to believe in"

Well, maybe. It makes me wonder though, what comfort might the censorship side avail from crushing it? And why does this not concern you?

I don't believe in absolute freedom of expression - I think, for example, PIE should not have been able to publish and organise as they did. Sharing instructions on bomb-making, child grooming, how-to guides on escaping legal consequences of certain crimes are wrong. I also believe graphic fantasies about rape, especially when in reference to real-life people are indisputably intolerable (do hope you can bring this up with Jane Fae, formerly John Ozimek, who wrote much in the defence of 'Girls (Scream) Aloud' a violent rape, mutilation and murder fantasy blog - Ozimek also gave out some sage advice on how to wipe your devices of illegal porn). 

I also believe that you shouldn't be able to spend probably thousands of words alluding a man is akin to an abusive, homophobic, violent drunk who upsets and offends all around him without a scrap of evidence or solitary example. It's just that righteous passion though, isn't it? Excited to see how you're going to take up the fragrant Jane Fae. Which you will, won't you?

That's all for now, folks. I'll be back soon with the nail-biting finale (or, the penultimate one, depending on my trigger level) to this seminal literary work and appeal for love, equality, and destroying that terrible man. Careful now!

GlinnerGate - Penny for Your Thoughts - No, Not You!

Penny for Your Thoughts - No! Not You

Part 2 is here

That great feminist thinker and cultural luminary Laurie Penny is feeling attacked again. So, she's fighting back with brilliantly cogent ripostes, making even the most ardent gender identity extremist think "meh. Course I'll endorse this, but it's not TWAW SMDCOIT*, is it? I'll probably use it to fill spaces where deflection  and waffle is required. Like a sort of rhetorical thickening agent". 

Shrouded in the Kevlar of Trans Vulnerability - Other Voices, Other Lives & Times

Other Voices, Other Lives & Times

 Shrouded in the Kevlar of Trans Vulnerability

Introduction

As I wrote yesterday in The Underclass: Lives and Times in the Gutter, there are multiple silencing tactics used against women when speaking about their experiences  - and these days, many come from supposedly feminist women.  

Then, having seen a growing number of women speak about their bad interactions with gender-diverse males, Panoramic Views of the Underclass decided to publish some of them.

These are taboo, personal and frightening to share publicly, and the consequences of doing so can be serious. So we wish to give a voice to women who would like to speak about their experience of abuse from behind that trans 'vulnerability' shield.

To begin, we have Erin;

"I'm very anxious talking about this. Aside from it being very painful, I don't want it traced back to me. I'm surrounded by hyper-woke activists, they'd never let it go. I've already been called a liar, and I just can't manage with that again. I can't.

No one wants to believe that this stuff happens, that the identity of being trans is used as a disguise and cover. We cope with cognitive dissonance every time we see a story of a 'trans woman' who's accused of, or admitting to, some heinous crime. We try to rationalise it with the stock phrases and mantras we're taught; that bad people exist in all groups, that we can't punish a whole demographic because of one, or one hundred, bad apples; we can't talk about it because it will impact other trans women. There's this idea that masculinity is such a social imperative for men, so prized, they wouldn't reject that and fake being trans for nefarious or trivial reasons. That trans people are so endangered we must hold them to the lowest standard of expected behaviour or risk being responsible for their deaths.

This becomes a reflex. If these were just, straightforwardly, men - if we could see them as that without the shroud of deflective identity - we'd talk about believing women. We'd be reminding each other of how charming predatory men can be. We would share these stories - at least with friends, not battle on, shoving the incomprehensible disconnect back in its box. There's so many 'outliers' and those 'bad apples' just keep getting into the crate. I've seen the impact of that, and it's something I think we need to talk about. 

I've been asked for proof before, and I feel like I should maybe be providing it? But how do I prove a rape? A rape that didn't happen to me? I could show proof my friend is dead, but that would be wholly inappropriate and breaching the privacy of someone not here to defend herself. Someone who was hurting, badly.

It's difficult to reconcile who I am now with the person I was back then. I was young, and being played. I was blindsided by this spin of being trans; the famous vulnerability and earnestness, as well as the age-old believing in my man, not being able to see what was in him. It's something that's happened since forever. It's so often the women, the victims, who end up divided.

And we all know what TERFs do, don't we? TERFs like to make out that transwomen pose a threat to 'cis' women, and they weaponise these stories. I definitely did not want to be accused of this, the worst treachery and anti feminist move possible.

So, I can't prove it. Believe it or don't. I've no intention of getting into the trap of explaining the grief I'm left with. I live with horrible, nagging regret every day.

So, I had a boyfriend and I was younger. It's years ago now, and my boyfriend was presenting as a woman, called Jess - and that's how I treated them. He was into cute kawaii anime, and was, I thought, gentle, kind and genuine. So, I'd refer to him as she, as my girlfriend. But no longer.

(It carries some social kudos, going out with someone in the most oppressed group out there. It becomes a part of our identity sometimes.)

I also had a best friend, I'm going to call her Leah. 

Leah was troubled, she wasn't particularly reliable and I caught her out making stuff up before. After I got together with Jess she came to speak to me, and, she told me, that not long before Jess and I got together, Jess had raped her.

It didn't make sense, I couldn't believe it. I didn't believe her. Jess was not like that.

So I never asked 'her' about it - who wants to deal with that? It would blow up big time, and I knew Leah was prone to lying about things. It just didn't fit, at all, with what I knew about Jess, and what I thought I knew. I watched Jess's behaviour and attitudes and I just couldn't see it. Leah had lied about shit before. Jess was cutesy and girly, not a predator. There was just no way she could do it.

And I wasn't alone in this; no one believed it. Jess was the polar opposite of a rapist. 

So, we fell out. I stayed with Jess for a while but in the end it was one of the reasons we split up. I couldn't get it out my head entirely, and eventually I realised Jess really did have some 'issues' with consent; Jess was into horrible, abusive porn; Jess had a frightening temper and seemed to hate me for being a woman, could absolutely lose it and then act like everything was fine minutes later  - I realised it was true.

Leah was pretty into partying at this point and gave up on trying to make people listen. She had a new group of friends and they did a lot of drugs. The people in my social circle who did know just took it as more proof she was unbalanced and we didn't interact with each other, but she was getting more and more depressed and one day, Leah committed suicide. 

How could so many of us not see that girls like Leah are targeted because they're damaged, unreliable? It's such a classic sign of inner turmoil, like a kid looking lost in the street. Of course this is who gets preyed on.

But we continue to live in a society that has 'good' and 'bad' victims and talks about malicious accusations as if they make up the majority. We don't talk about how predators operate, and the fact that a man can, by saying he is trans, get such an invincible disguise is definitely not allowed. All this has happened, I'm so angry and hurt, it eats away at me, and I can't even talk about it.

After I split up with Jess he moved to the a country where being trans, 'queer' or gay is not a protected characteristic or treated as such. I see his social media profiles, and he is a guy now. No hint of the fact he was once 'trapped in the wrong body'; he left that terrible affliction, the dress up and a dead victim behind when he went to the airport. It was like it was another person had been my 'girlfriend' and raped Leah and now there's no trace of that 'woman' left.

I can't talk about this because there will be, literally, reprisals. Ive already been called a TERF (and lots worse, and harassed) because I spoke about this to a few people. That was by a friend!

What the fuck has happened to us as a society where this is the reaction? It's left me with this gnawing grief and regret, all bundled up like a shameful secret. 

I've seen what happens to people when they call out a trans woman as a rapist. I saw the demonising of Leah and how she was ostracised, and I've seen it since. I've seen stuff on online forums where someone is showing evidence of a much older, trans woman member sending explicit messages to her, a 14 yr old girl. She was kicked out of the group, and they covered it up, calling this kid a liar, until he did it again to someone else, and then more. They could have warned these girls but that was too damaging to 'the community.' 

The young girls on these groups truly believe that they have privilege and power over trans women, and should be making up for it constantly with money and nude pics and never saying 'no'. They desperately want approval from these people they see as peers and elders and it's ruthlessly exploited. If they speak out they will be humiliated and broken and ejected.

I've seen women talk about how they've been raped by a trans woman, with evidence or them admitting it, being harassed off of Facebook for talking about it because outing them puts them at risk. What the hell? Why are we supposed to care about that? How does this identity, which only needs a few words and some eyeliner, mean actual rapists can avoid responsibility? 

And if it isn't about the rapist's vulnerability, it's about all other trans people's existence and dignity and vulnerability. We're using 'TERF talking points' or dogwhistles or marginalising a group at risk of murder and suicide. Actual rape victims are being told to shut up and keep quiet because accusations ruin lives and you can't tar all with the same brush... It's the most misogynistic, right-wing, conservative narrative. I can't believe we've fallen into this, with the same people then tweeting about believing women and mocking the 'not all men' line.

The fact Jess was 'trans' is what made it impossible for anyone to believe 'she' was capable of it. And Leah not being believed is what pushed her over the edge. It started the spiral that led to her killing herself.

I wish every day I could change it, but it's too late. The least I should be able to do is talk about it, because this is happening out there and so many of us have been conditioned to see men as completely harmless, as innocent and vulnerable as children, once .they identify as trans.

I don't know how, collectively, we will deal with this when the fever breaks. I just hope it won't be long.

The Underclass: Lives & Times in the Gutter

The Underclass: Lives & Times in the Gutter

I recently saw a Facebook comment posted some months ago in response to The 'Rich Fantasy'  being given as evidence of sex offenders using the identity of 'trans'.

This was that the title of this blog was clearly a slur on trans people and as such they wouldn't even open it.

As convenient for the denialist this is, it occurred to me I should clarify what the underclass / gutter is reference to - and it is not trans people but being a working-class, poor or messy, 'difficult' woman who is represented nowhere and by no one. Who has been erased, scolded and dismissed by every political party she may have hoped would speak up for her.

We know women from every class, caste and creed are shouted down, silenced and held to hypocritical standards when it comes to speaking up for themselves (It's almost as if we need some new form of feminist analysis, which looks at the intersection of these factors... ) and shame is one method we are almost all vulnerable to. And, there is little more shameful or socially excluding these days than being labelled a TERF - until you realise the full extent of the madness our culture is in the grips of, that is.

There's a particular confluence of minimising factors at play specifically for those of us struggling under the weight of economic and social disenfranchisement. We are struggling to be heard, or too socially restricted to dare to be: as women are erased as a sex class, along with our words and ownership of feminism, and the disappearance of class analysis in supposed leftist politics, we are now totally unrepresented as well as taken for granted and openly disparaged and abused.

As women we are deemed unworthy of a central place in our own liberation movement. Unworthy and, paradoxically, given oppressor status as cis in a bizarre twist of logic that has robbed us of so much.

Working-class women are denigrated as uneducated, unsophisticated, gullible to misinformation and prone to crass judgement. Our likelihood of ending up in institutions through other associated factors (poverty, drug addiction, the care system, absence of social support networks, lack of qualification or higher education and mental health being just a few) isn't properly recognised, and when those of us who are economically oppressed or socially exiled end up in these systems we experience a particular set of difficulties.

That our welfare and dignity in refuges, psychiatric wards and prisons is, in fact, important and under threat is high-handedly dismissed as hysterical fear-mongering that our superior sisters would navigate with compassion, class (un-ironically) and better feminism, which seems beholden to self sacrifice with a gnarly smirk. When there is evidence that we really have been harmed it is again dismissed. That was an aberration; the procedures failed and will now be fixed. 'She' was not a trans woman (although female pronouns still apply) or is just one of those really bad women. Shit happens.

Even if we aren't classically defined as working-class but are welfare dependant or in minimum wage work; having missed out on those priming experiences in schooling or functional family; having suffered isolating and coercive control early on in life; being floored by mental health crises or maladaptive behaviour - we're still out of the public discourse. It leaves us ostracised and muted.

I have heard a phrase - "Nothing about us without us". I wish that was true for everyone, when it came to their lives. 

Instead we are a fleeting guestimation in the head of another's imagination, and rarely is that ever going to be a multifaceted character with full range of emotions and experience. People can picture themselves, as they are now, in situations they think they can realistically envisage. It isn't likely accurate though.

At it's most profound - good people, fundraisers who spent a night out sleeping rough in an event etc - it reminds me of those t.v. shows where a celebrity or secret millionaire walks into a crappy, bleak flat as a 'social experiment' to see how they'd manage living on the breadline for a week. We can all buckle down in the short term, especially when we have decent shoes and a full belly up til recently. Especially when we have a crew to accompany us and keep us motivated. It's when it lasts for months or years, with no end in sight, no new shoes, the legs start to go out from under you, your mind breaks and only more darkness floods in. The real limitations put upon us, the real struggle, isn't replicable. Our inner dialogue and reflexes aren't either, and we are changed and judged.

As one woman puts it in her upcoming piece;

"You're not really a woman when you're street homeless. You're not given any of the courtesy women often are. You probably wear men's clothes, you act tougher, you walk and talk differently. You are way more at risk if you show the vulnerability of being female, so you crush it. They know you have a vagina - that comes into 'conversion' a lot - but you're very much a sub-woman. A shell. You failed at woman-ing."

We can't even have a unified gathering in tribute to the women killed by men. Trans Day of Remembrance garners mass coverage and bleeding hearts, while our own refuges and charities against VAW will refuse to participate in vigils for murdered women because transwomen are not honoured (despite there having not been a murder of a transwoman in the UK in years). 

Sarah Everard's memorial was hijacked and trashed in the pseudo-anarchic hysteria of Sisters Uncut and their desperate need to centre someone a bit edgier - less white, straight and heteronormative - which lead to the desecration of a public expression of grief.

As women struggling with life's mundanities we aren't important enough. We have little online presence outside of our social circles in the age of social media mantras delivered by icons of manicured perfection, replete with edgy selfies. Except for that most hated platform of radicalisation, that hot bed of harpies - MumsNet - there's nowhere for us. We are ridiculed, demonised and reminded that we should, really, be sharing childcare and cooking tips alone, not sticking our noses into the politics of gender. As well as this, we generally don't have the time or energy to engage in the unholy mindfuck / minefield that is gender politics.

Women like Laurie Penny (privately educated, wealthy with a huge platform and no understanding of living as so many of us do) step up to dictate on our errors, giving critique to those who don't see people with male bodies as women. They instruct us on the correct etiquette for the child victim of a 'transwomans' cock-flashing - somehow under the guise of having shown solidarity with the common woman previously.

Surely, on the subject of single sex spaces, Penny's aware there's never a time in her life that she would be left to struggle on, traumatised and penniless with nowhere to turn but a refuge? She has been asked on Twitter, to read my personal account of this but, alas, no reply.

For Penny, there was never a time she was helpless with no one to help - give her a place to stay, a shoulder to cry on or just to lend her a fiver to top up her phone. That knowledge filters in through every sense, it informs everything you think and feel. It is integral. It will never be the same until you have been completely alone.

Working-class women are placed into the role of enforcer when someone complains about a male in a female-only space. The toilet attendant, the woman working in the changing rooms - they are left at the sharp end, implementing self identification rules proudly embraced by the boss who gets glowing praise and rainbow stickers and never has to deal with the shocked faces of these bigoted women. 

We have no voice. As the complainant we are hidden, and so wildly caricatured mental images develop in the public consciousness. We are the heartless harridan, vulgar and afraid of what we don't understand. Or maybe we are just old, 'conservative', religious (this is great for dismissing women of colour) and a bit backwards. We cannot be sympathetic characters, we are bad women, bad feminists. A TERF. She who needs educating.

No one, bar those terrible TERFs, wept at the indignity and suffering of the prisoner FDJ or the victims of Karen White. Whereas Jade Eatough, Nicola Cope, Marie Dean were all sex offenders, all trans, and all subject to fawning tweets, petitions, headlines and tributes. The very fact the gender ideologues feel able to brush aside sex offences of self-declared transwomen, but not the ultimate thought crime of not accepting them as women, is one thing. What they are too cowardly to admit (or even so unaware of themselves they don't know) really uncovers their simpering devotion to their favoured sacred-cow (the undeniable mascot of misogynists) and their allegiance to doctrine - that women in prison or living on the streets have broken gender norms to such a degree they can't even be viewed as worthy of protection anymore. Those who complain about being left to clean up the piss on the toilet seats in the ladies have always been easy to caricature as petty, spiteful nags.

Do the Emma Watsons, Jameela Jamils, Katherine Ryans or Laurie Pennys of the world really believe they are of equal worth to the woman serving time for shoplifting or drug offences? Can they honestly accept that, given different beginnings, their places could be swapped? And have they ever tried to empathise with these underclass, gutter-dwelling sisters?

For the idealistic, pop-left paragons of virtue there are simple, sweeping answers on prison abolition, a few repeated stats on how prisons don't work and are used disproportionately on the poor and marginalised. What there is very little acknowledgement of is the true vulnerability and life of (almost always male) violence these women have had to survive and continue to contend with. 

The high-class, luxury feminist may well have endured domestic or street violence, rape and coercive control. But, that's not the point. What they have not endured is that while stuck in social systems that can't care even if they wanted to.

Like being stuck in a judicial system in which even the professional advocates collapsed with compassion fatigue years ago, can't keep up with the workload and have absorbed too much; in a system that has neither time nor inclination to delve into their specific situations; that has, literally, no beds at the inn and is rushed of its feet with ten other, near identical or worse, cases.

So, that's what I want to do here - speak as a woman who has been left on the steps of the council, homeless, beaten and with no options. As a woman with no access to legal funds to tackle unlawful evictions, sackings or harassment: who isn't taken seriously when challenging the school or the office or media: who doesn't have the presentable, 'good victim' profile for TV or radio. Myself and my contributor do this, and our hope is to amplify others. For this we will be publishing several pieces on the stories of women who are rarely heard.

Unlike transwomen, the urge is not to 'be kind' and take a good faith interpretation. The violent, murdering sex offender in San Quentin has emerged from their crysalis to be a delicate lady now. Not like these women. Us. We're rough and troublesome; we don't live the same way or care as much, we don't see the bigger picture like they do - you can see it in our words and deeds. We're able to manage in these situations by pure weather-worn resilience. 

For them to really be like us, it's like trying to imagine a prize racehorse ploughing a field or carting coal down a mine. We are of the underclass and in the gutter, and the chattering classes in ivory towers telling us to avert our eyes and eat cake is getting a bit much now.

A genderist asked a question. Two types of people replied:

A genderist asked a question. Two types of people replied:

In no way am I suggesting that any conclusions can be drawn from this. Just, maybe bear it in mind...

Women (feminists) respond;

And trans identified males and a couple of lib-fems;

By the way - pop phenom has some extraordinary pride in 'her' penis, if you dare take a look at their profile

Ah, of course! It's all of our favourites, isn't it?

Liberational, I'm sure you'll agree 

Answers on postcards, comments, via a tweet or messenger pigeon - any format you like. Someone, please explain...

The number of people fleeing macho stereotypes is very troubling

This woman dares to speak unfavourably about the whole 'being a woman' predicament, much to the disgust of others...

Are you tired of your oppression? Stop being a bigoted assclown today!

So there we have it. In this sample anyway there was no mention of escaping dysphoria, and I know that exists and is the reason for our old-school transsexuals. There's something else going on here, and it doesn't look very deep.