The Door Is Open Wide

I cancelled my Guardian (the newspaper) membership today. I've been a supporting member for years, and a reader for...decades, probably? And they do good journalism. But their UK editors are just...incredibly anti-trans. As in, raging TERFs. As in, they cut a whole section on how TERFs ally with fascists (a true actual thing that has happened) in a Judith Butler interview.

There's lots of sources on that, but if anyone's missed it, the interviewer put the cut paragraphs here for free on their Patreon.

And here's a good write-up of what's happened.

I read the interview before it was censored, and thought it was deeply insightful and true, and moving. The way Judith Butler phrases things - it stirs things in my head and in my heart in ways I don't often experience.

Coming back to it to see that The Guardian had removed the whole bit where Judith Butler talks about TERFs for no reason except that it clearly hit too close to home was...not shocking, really, because I've seen the pieces they publish on trans people (especially transwomen). Except that I had believed there was some kind of integrity, still. Something that would let me keep supporting the parts of their organization doing good.

Yeah. No.

The only upside to all of this is the whole Streisand effect thing - so many more people have now seen those censored paragraphs (and possibly the whole interview) than would have read it if the Guardian UK had simply let it be.

And I didn't post about it at the time, but I've also cancelled (= not renewed) my OTW membership. I still love the AO3, and think it's incredibly important to fandom, but they're just...not doing anything at all to be more anti-racist. Like. At all. I've contacted the Board a couple of times asking for a timeline on some of the things they promised to do in June 2020, with a few requests for comments on the instance of racist harassment a friend was facing (and in another case, non-racist but completely horrid harassment of another friend). I have received absolutely no reply. And it's not because they haven't had the time to do so! It's just clearly very much not a priority. In my communication I did mention I did not feel comfortable supporting them financially until I saw more actions to back up their June 2020 statement and...I have not seen that. So.

Disappointed. Not surprised.

Stitch has a great summary of what's happened on the AO3 anti-racism front. (Spoilers: nothing. Or the opposite of nothing: letting a user get away with harassing a scholar of color writing on fandom and race.)

The fact that the OTW/AO3 hasn't been held at all accountable for (so far) failing to live up to their statement on being actively anti-racist is just...proof that fandom, in general, doesn't really care that much about racism. (And anyone who wants to start a slippery slope argument about censorship kindly do not. This is not what it's about, it's never what it's about - it wasn't what the OTW statement was about, at all. What they proposed were practical solutions to make the AO3 more inclusive for BIPOC.)

Finally, please consider what you want to bring to the comments on this post. I am not here to debate whether or not TERFs are bad (they are), or whether or not wanting to see more inclusivity and less siding with racists from the AO3 is unreasonable (it is not).