THREAD @ReadingsBooks now 'regret' the apology. This is from @TimesLucy in the Times today (can't find online link): Bookshop forced to apologise for feminist's visit in 2018
The Times (London)

February 11, 2021 Thursday

"A bookshop in Australia has apologised for "any hurt

caused" by an event it hosted three years ago with the feminist campaigner Julie Bindel.

Readings, an independent bookseller in Melbourne, is to host an event on Zoom with Juno Dawson, a transgender author, and Alison Evans, a nonbinary author, on February 25. Transrights
supporters have long accused Bindel of transphobia because she does not believe trans women are women.

Evans, an award-winning author from Melbourne who writes queer sci-fi for young adults, tweeted on Monday: "I agreed to do this event providing Readings publicly apologise for
hosting Julie Bindel. Where is this apology?"

The next day the bookshop said: "Readings prides itself on ensuring everyone in our community feels safe, respected and considered. We apologise for any hurt caused by highlighting the work of an author whose current stance is to
divide our community.

"To that end, Readings regrets programming Julie Bindel in 2018 and thanks our community for opening the dialogue with us. Readings is committed to considering the work of all authors to ensure our future programme of events, reviews and discussions remain
relevant and diverse.'" Bindel questioned why a bookshop that sold editions of Mein Kampf in various languages found it difficult to support differences of opinion over gender. "The [no-platforming] has been happening for a long time, and this is not the nastiest example, but it
is the most ludicrous," she said. "This one made my jaw drop. I've been attacked twice now by trans activists but apparently it is the feminists who are dangerous and make everyone feel unsafe.

"This is about extreme misogyny and bullying. If we don't all stand up against this -
as businesses, individuals, political activists or just as decent people - then we've had it."

Bindel, who campaigns against male violence, spoke in 2018 at Readings about her book The Pimping of Prostitution. She recalled the event as "one of the most enjoyable during the
tour" and said she had been greeted warmly by staff and applauded by the audience.

Mark Rubbo, the managing director of Readings, told The Times he regretted making the apology. "Bookshops should be homes to all ideas," he said. "Julie Bindel has done amazing work for the
women's movement particularly in the area of violence against women. Her views on transgender people are particularly controversial and have caused distress in that community. The fact that we programmed an event with Juno Dawson brought it back to the surface. Our post was an
ill-considered attempt to acknowledge the distress that our event with Julie Bindel may have caused even though it occurred some time ago. I regret the apology."

Neither Evans nor Dawson, a Stonewall ambassador from West Yorkshire, responded to requests for comment."

More from Culture

One of the authors of the Policy Exchange report on academic free speech thinks it is "ridiculous" to expect him to accurately portray an incident at Cardiff University in his study, both in the reporting and in a question put to a student sample.


Here is the incident Kaufmann incorporated into his study, as told by a Cardiff professor who was there. As you can see, the incident involved the university intervening to *uphold* free speech principles:


Here is the first mention of the Greer at Cardiff incident in Kaufmann's report. It refers to the "concrete case" of the "no-platforming of Germaine Greer". Any reasonable reader would assume that refers to an incident of no-platforming instead of its opposite.


Here is the next mention of Greer in the report. The text asks whether the University "should have overruled protestors" and "stepped in...and guaranteed Greer the right to speak". Again the strong implication is that this did not happen and Greer was "no platformed".


The authors could easily have added a footnote at this point explaining what actually happened in Cardiff. They did not.
This thread examining a detrans story puts me in mind of something that shocked me to the core fifteen years ago in early 2004. I’ve not often told this so there follows a mini thread of my own.


This time in 2004 was very sensitive. Our little team at Press for Change was carefully helping to support the government to get the Gender Recognition Bill through its parliamentary stages. It had already started in the Lords and faced a committee stage with evangelical-backed..

..opposition facing the government’s Bill minister Lord Filkin and and others from all parties supporting him. The heavy lifting of daily liaison work was handled on our side by my colleague Claire @2legged whose back room lobby efforts should never go unacknowledged in any..

..account of events. Our political backdrop was a small but determined effort by two evangelical groups touting very familiar lies about trans people and, perhaps more worrying, a couple of contemporary journalists (one a Guardian staffer and one a freelance) determined to tout..

..detransition scare stories as a way to perhaps cast doubt over formalising a legal recognition process. The thing that was obvious at the time was that their stories relied on constant recycling of the same 10-12 case stories, which they had discovered because they were the..
@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission. @BloomsburyPub @Tim_Hayward_


1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:

2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660


3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….

4) @bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:

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and characters of Pandavas are described by the dialogues between Suutji and Shaunakji. Then there is the story of Parikshit.
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It also discusses the evolution of universe.(
https://t.co/2aK1AZSC79 )

Next is the portrayal of Vidur and his dialogue with Maitreyji. Then there is a mention of Creation of universe by Brahma and the preachings of Sankhya by Kapil Muni.


In the next section we find the portrayal of Sati, Dhruv, Pruthu, and the story of ancient King, Bahirshi.
In the next section we find the character of King Priyavrat and his sons, different types of loks in this universe, and description of Narak. ( https://t.co/gmDTkLktKS )


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In the seventh section we find the story of Prahlad and the description of Varnashram dharma. This section is based on karma vaasna.