After a UK Supreme Court ruling, Hadley Freeman celebrated by lamenting the friendships she’s lost over her views. Her side may have won the ruling, but it won't improve her social life.
Also, she apparently does not understand that a "witch-hunt" is a fruitless search for laying blame at the feet of people who are different. Not surprised that she is ignorant, along with being a bigot. Those often go hand in hand.
Hadley Freeman writes in that opinion piece: "Of course there are lovely trans people, but the activists who have dominated this discussion for the past decade are bullies." The unnamed people who have dominated the discussion, hmm — perhaps she means the trans people who testified at the UK Supreme Court? Oh, I forgot, I'm sorry, **no trans people were allowed to testify**! Yet somehow we have dominated the discussion right up until the end of the case!
Not only that, but I would be shocked if she could find a single trans person who would be "lovely" with her when she deliberately and persistently misgenders them and calls them misogynists.
What she refuses to understand is that she's the one with the ideology, not us. And she's bought into that poisonous ideology so much that she can't understand why people shun her. Words fail. I feel sorry for her.
I don’t. Any loss she “suffers” for believing that she’s entitled to disappear those she has never bothered to meet, obviously having done NO due diligence before assuming she’s the lead-god of bigotry, hate, bullying and ignorance.
Point well taken, Rebecca. I don't feel sorry for her that she's shunned for her willfully ignorant bigotry; those are the consequences of her actions. I feel sorry that she's bought into the insecure, desperate manipulation of the patriarchy that has oppressed and sought to control so many for so many centuries. She's bought into the lies and the cruelty and it just makes it worse for everyone. Including her.
I knew what you meant, and I apologize. Didn’t mean to be so hostile.
These people, with no knowledge (are they afraid they might no longer hate?) cruelly discounting others are wearing me down. I’m afraid you got the brunt of that.
Oh goodness, Rebecca, apology accepted. I didn't feel any hostility from you. I understand your frustration with people who ignorantly cling to hating those they don't even try to understand. Trans people have a lot of company throughout history. As a 19th century Frenchman observed (though we in the US have falsely attributed it to Mark Twain), "It's not what people don't know that's the problem. It's what they know for sure, that just isn't so."
Before she became virulently "gender critical," I liked to read Hadley Freeman in the Guardian. Not any more (and not for a long while). And, in fact, this decision is making it to where I probably won't be choosing the UK as a vacation destination. It's bad enough I live in the USA where my transgender friends are facing threats, I'm not going to spend money in a country with a court that's gone with this idiotic decision.
She's lost friendships and a job? Welcome to the world of the marginalized at the hands of the religious right in any country in the world.
Erin, the last paragraph is a barn burner! It captures the stagnation of the MAGA movement as the rest of country has moved on. They need more than to be cruel now, they need to erase trans people and immigrants to drag us back into their retrograde swamp of straight, white privilege.
Great article as always, Erin 🤗💜Absolutely correct. I especially liked your point that: “Today, those who championed [gay marriage] bans are remembered not as protectors of tradition, but as relics of a bigoted era—and the same fate almost certainly awaits the loudest voices in today's anti-trans movement.” Freeman is totally on the wrong side of history and exhibits a stunning lack of self-reflection that she can’t seem to process that her loss of friends is 1000% her fault and the consequence of being a bigot. I was also surprised to learn from this article that the UK ruling declares that lesbians would not be considered lesbians if they are in relationships with transgender women. That’s absurd on so many levels. A bisexual woman is still bisexual if she’s dating a woman or a man, cis or trans. And, somewhat similarly, a lesbian woman is still a lesbian whether the woman she’s dating is trans or cis. The people writing these laws are so bigoted and ignorant 🤮
Its so predictable. The most privilege-adjacent of a marginalized group will turn on the movement that secured their rights and try to 'pull up the ladder' after them. It's a mistake, as the in-group will never allow them equal status, especially not without the backing of the movement.
These are ideological failures, witless tools of the patriarchy. For them feminism was only ever a fashion statement, to be abandoned the moment it became uncomfortable. They understood the basic concept, but once they were called upon to use them, they balked. So frightened of looking bad in the eyes of men, they have become ignorant, lazy, stupid and cruel.
Consider the source. Times Media publishes The Times, of News UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of (none other than…) News Corporation - Rupert Murdoch - with over half the readership age 55+.
The Guardian (the paper from which Freeman was let go) is owned by the Scott Trust, a trust established to ensure the newspaper's financial and editorial independence in perpetuity.
The average age of The Guardian readers is approximately 44. One in three 18 to 24-year-olds has read The Guardian online.
One of the characteristics of Guardian readers is a concern for social justice.
So, Freeman went from a context of younger, sympathetic readers to one of older, conservative readers.
The perpetrator believes she’s a victim. Not sorry for her one bit. Let her eat it.
Also, she apparently does not understand that a "witch-hunt" is a fruitless search for laying blame at the feet of people who are different. Not surprised that she is ignorant, along with being a bigot. Those often go hand in hand.
Hadley Freeman writes in that opinion piece: "Of course there are lovely trans people, but the activists who have dominated this discussion for the past decade are bullies." The unnamed people who have dominated the discussion, hmm — perhaps she means the trans people who testified at the UK Supreme Court? Oh, I forgot, I'm sorry, **no trans people were allowed to testify**! Yet somehow we have dominated the discussion right up until the end of the case!
Not only that, but I would be shocked if she could find a single trans person who would be "lovely" with her when she deliberately and persistently misgenders them and calls them misogynists.
Um, “Bullies”, she says??
Projection, much?
"𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺; 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦?!"
Because they see you sharpening the knife to stick between their ribs next, Hadley.
Seldom have so few been slandered by so many.
I have always thought that TERFs were angry because they are no longer the center and be-all of the LGBTQ world. Fuck her and all of the TERFs.
Were TERFs ever the center of the LGBTQ world? Aren't most of them straight women like JK?
My experience is TERFs being lebians but it certainly has exceptionnel.
ROFLMAO! She burned those bridges.
What she refuses to understand is that she's the one with the ideology, not us. And she's bought into that poisonous ideology so much that she can't understand why people shun her. Words fail. I feel sorry for her.
I don’t. Any loss she “suffers” for believing that she’s entitled to disappear those she has never bothered to meet, obviously having done NO due diligence before assuming she’s the lead-god of bigotry, hate, bullying and ignorance.
She can walk alone.
Point well taken, Rebecca. I don't feel sorry for her that she's shunned for her willfully ignorant bigotry; those are the consequences of her actions. I feel sorry that she's bought into the insecure, desperate manipulation of the patriarchy that has oppressed and sought to control so many for so many centuries. She's bought into the lies and the cruelty and it just makes it worse for everyone. Including her.
I knew what you meant, and I apologize. Didn’t mean to be so hostile.
These people, with no knowledge (are they afraid they might no longer hate?) cruelly discounting others are wearing me down. I’m afraid you got the brunt of that.
❤️
Oh goodness, Rebecca, apology accepted. I didn't feel any hostility from you. I understand your frustration with people who ignorantly cling to hating those they don't even try to understand. Trans people have a lot of company throughout history. As a 19th century Frenchman observed (though we in the US have falsely attributed it to Mark Twain), "It's not what people don't know that's the problem. It's what they know for sure, that just isn't so."
Great quote!
Before she became virulently "gender critical," I liked to read Hadley Freeman in the Guardian. Not any more (and not for a long while). And, in fact, this decision is making it to where I probably won't be choosing the UK as a vacation destination. It's bad enough I live in the USA where my transgender friends are facing threats, I'm not going to spend money in a country with a court that's gone with this idiotic decision.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA this headline made me CACKLE
She's lost friendships and a job? Welcome to the world of the marginalized at the hands of the religious right in any country in the world.
Erin, the last paragraph is a barn burner! It captures the stagnation of the MAGA movement as the rest of country has moved on. They need more than to be cruel now, they need to erase trans people and immigrants to drag us back into their retrograde swamp of straight, white privilege.
TERF = Trans Exclusive Reactionary Feminist. There's nothing radical about them. They are defenders of the patriarchy.
Reactionary: relating to, marked by, or favoring reaction
: resistance or opposition to a force, influence, or movement
especially : tendency toward a former and usually outmoded political or social order or policy
I generally substitute 'Feminist' for 'F*ckwit' in that acronym.
I refuse to accept that a transphobe can be considered a "feminist".
My point exactly
I usually say the "F" in TERF stands for "Fascist".
"Ah yes, now that the court has come out in support of extreme bigotry towards women who are trans, I have decided to befriend transphobes!"
- Literally nobody who wasn't already a transphobe, 2025.
Great article as always, Erin 🤗💜Absolutely correct. I especially liked your point that: “Today, those who championed [gay marriage] bans are remembered not as protectors of tradition, but as relics of a bigoted era—and the same fate almost certainly awaits the loudest voices in today's anti-trans movement.” Freeman is totally on the wrong side of history and exhibits a stunning lack of self-reflection that she can’t seem to process that her loss of friends is 1000% her fault and the consequence of being a bigot. I was also surprised to learn from this article that the UK ruling declares that lesbians would not be considered lesbians if they are in relationships with transgender women. That’s absurd on so many levels. A bisexual woman is still bisexual if she’s dating a woman or a man, cis or trans. And, somewhat similarly, a lesbian woman is still a lesbian whether the woman she’s dating is trans or cis. The people writing these laws are so bigoted and ignorant 🤮
Its so predictable. The most privilege-adjacent of a marginalized group will turn on the movement that secured their rights and try to 'pull up the ladder' after them. It's a mistake, as the in-group will never allow them equal status, especially not without the backing of the movement.
These are ideological failures, witless tools of the patriarchy. For them feminism was only ever a fashion statement, to be abandoned the moment it became uncomfortable. They understood the basic concept, but once they were called upon to use them, they balked. So frightened of looking bad in the eyes of men, they have become ignorant, lazy, stupid and cruel.
Consider the source. Times Media publishes The Times, of News UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of (none other than…) News Corporation - Rupert Murdoch - with over half the readership age 55+.
The Guardian (the paper from which Freeman was let go) is owned by the Scott Trust, a trust established to ensure the newspaper's financial and editorial independence in perpetuity.
The average age of The Guardian readers is approximately 44. One in three 18 to 24-year-olds has read The Guardian online.
One of the characteristics of Guardian readers is a concern for social justice.
So, Freeman went from a context of younger, sympathetic readers to one of older, conservative readers.
No whining on the yacht, Hadley!