Meghan Murphy Petition Reaches 2000 Signatures

I’ve updated the petition, which now has 2,062 signatures. I’ll reprint it here.

We’ve Reached 2000

May 7, 2015 — Between reaching 1500 and 2000 signatures on this petition Rabble has given a response. I don’t know how Meghan or the rest of you feel about it so I can only say how I feel.

The response, in my view, gave quarter to a mob that I liken to Gamergate. They suggested the accusations were serious when any cursory glance at either the petition they created to fire Murphy, the comments on the petition, or the hashtag on Twitter, suggest otherwise.

In today’s online climate it’s easy for a mob to gather and target a woman. As a person who’s familiar with men’s rights activists, I’ve seen this time and time again. In fact, A Voice for Men, the largest MRA website, wrote a piece condemning Murphy and suggesting they use this situation as a way to divide women. This is what happens when you sit on the fence and refuse to fully support a woman.

Rabble wrote that Murphy’s position on prostitution was controversial. It’s not controversial to be against capitalist practices that commodify women’s bodies. They also suggested that Murphy’s analysis of prostitution was Canada-based when in fact it’s a global feminist analysis.

It was also implied that the accusations against Murphy had to be taken seriously and that Rabble needed to find a way to connect with its writers who write off-site. This is dangerous. To me it implies that Rabble wants a way to vet what writers do on their own sites.

Rabble should clearly come out in favour of Murphy’s free speech rights and not pander to the small mob. It’s bad enough women are socialized into the male gaze, now we can’t even write without having a voice on our shoulder whereby we self-censor.

This sets a dangerous precedent.

How many more women and men must sign this petition? How many women must be ‘reigned in’ and controlled because of a mob?

I want Rabble to support Murphy outright and say as much.

Petition · Rabble.ca: We Need Meghan Murphy · Change.org

Rabble Responds To The Mob Trying To Fire Murphy And It’s Disappointing

Rabble, that bastion of LGBT inclusiveness has just called Murphy’s position on prostitution ‘particularly controversial’ and have basically refused to openly stand up for her.  The first words out of their mouth are to the precious transmob, not ‘we won’t silence a woman who has a different opinion.’ Manfeelz are more important than women’s lives, as usual.

They’re trying to cater to this mob with their half assed response. In other words, they’re giving this mob a hearing and not the derision they deserve.

I used donotlink because I’m not giving these fuckers page hits.

If you want to read Meghan’s work without having it filtered through manfeelz you can find her at Feminist Current. Oh, and there’s Rabble saying they have to develop new ways of tsk tsking women who write off-site things that offend. So now Murphy has to censor herself on her own site so she can maintain employment at Rabble. So they’re gonna extend their reach to her fucking site.

We are currently reviewing the complaints, and in light of the past weeks’ events. rabble.ca is also considering a number of issues: how rabble.ca responds to our writers, collaborators, and contributors outside the rabble.ca environment, and how to make our policies related to trans rights and our editorial policies in general, more visible on the site.

Women’s rights? What’s that?

 

I’m disgusted. I have nothing more to say than to tell Rabble to fuck right off.

 

 

 

No-Platforming of Meghan Murphy by Fascists

Counter Petition HERE. PLEASE SIGN!

Today I woke up to find a bunch of neoliberal asshats started a petition to get Meghan Murphy removed from Rabble, where she is an editor. This is just another example of the twanz and pro-exploitation lobby attempting to no-platform and unemploy a radical feminist.

Here’s their ‘argument’ with my responses

Open Letter to the Editors of Rabble.ca,

We are feminists, grassroots community groups and organizations that support intersectional feminism. We are concerned about your ongoing relationship with Meghan Murphy as one of your editors. Murphy has been publishing material that dehumanizes and disrespects women with different experiences and perspectives than hers for many years, in particular Black women, women in the sex industry and trans women. By allowing Murphy to continue as an editor at Rabble.ca you are giving a platform to her hate and we are writing to demand that you end your association with her as editor and columnist.

In other words, you speak for all women ever. Murphy’s readership can’t be as dynamic as we are cuz we’re EVERYONE!.

Let’s see what they define as ‘hate.’

Recently, Murphy published a piece about Laverne Cox’s decision to pose nude for a US women’s magazine. In her piece, Murphy attacks for Cox for attempting to achieve a “‘perfect’ body as defined by a patriarchal/porn culture, through plastic surgery, and then presenting it as a sexualized object for public consumption” and later mocks her and other trans women for  “spending thousands and thousands of dollars sculpting their bodies in order to look like some cartoonish version of ‘woman,’ as defined by the porn industry and pop culture.”   

She didn’t mock anyone. She made a standard, run-of-the-mill 40 year old analysis of posing nude in front of a camera. Knowing that Cox is male isn’t hate. It’s a fact. Porn culture is a well established fact.

Laverne Cox is not a cartoonish version of a woman. She is a woman, a Black trans woman who is changing history by defining her own beauty and loveability in the public sphere.

It’s your opinion he’s a ‘she.’ People are allowed to disagree, especially when biology is like, a fact and people can’t change their sex. ‘Beauty’ and ‘loveablility’? WTF?  You think that’s an argument?

For years, Murphy’s racism and attacks on women who trade/sell sex or are trans have been tolerated or supported and published by Rabble, including this article where she pits Black women against each other, calling another Black trans woman (Janet Mock) “selfish” for using glamour to feel powerful–and again maligning a Black trans woman’s decisions about her body.

Murphy is entitled to disagree with the sex industry. Also, show me proof she’s pitting black women against each other? Once again you’re speaking for all black women. You’re the fucking idiots speaking for all women here, not her. Radical feminists don’t support the beauty industry. Am I a foodphobe if I’m critical of the fast food industry? Morons!

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2014/05/bell-hooks-will-save-us-all-long-slow-death-popular-feminism.

Her anti-black racism extends to men as well as in this tweet where she calls for the death of Chris Brown  https://twitter.com/aurabogado/status/376380825542987776/photo/1

Context people. It’s pretty nervy to suggest she’s a racist when she was talking about domestic violence. Kill all wife/girlfriend batterers is what I say. Also, if she was such a racist she wouldn’t love bell hooks. Next you idiots will go after hooks since she probably disagrees with you too. Feminists disagree, DEAL WITH IT.

She is famously antagonistic toward sex workers and has a long track record of using degrading, dehumanizing language such as “prostituted women”, being ageist and factually incorrect by suggesting older women cannot be active sex workers, mocking and misrepresenting sex work activists and employing racist terminology such as “illegal immigrants”. We were shocked when on the pages of rabble.ca, she blamed Cindy Gladue’s murder on pornography, co-opting the deaths of Indigenous women in the sex trade to denounce our calls for rights and respect.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2015/03/owen-jones-its-political-flaws-matter-not-women%E2%80%99s-lives

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/a-prostitution-solution-outlaw-the-customers-not-the-hookers/article12306020/

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2014/04/feminism-new-misogyny-on-belle-knox-feminism-and-new-backlas

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2014/12/feminism-existed-2014-well-other-years

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2014/12/hi-media-do-your-job-love-feminism

I’m antagonistic towards an industry that harms women. Sorry dudes but ‘prostituted woman’ is how many survivors of the sex industry describe themselves. Once again, you’re claiming to speak for every single woman. Illegal immigrant is hardly racist. It’s the standard terminology every damn government, including the UN, uses.

Ah, yeah, Cindy Gladue, whose vagina was brought to court in a bag. Meghan is allowed to have an opinion on what caused her death. Deal with it. Co-opting my arse.

This is not a question of free speech, it is a question of offering active support to bigots. For example, Rabble would not employ right wing christian fundamentalists for their opinions as their stance clearly undermines the dignity and humanity of communities they are not a part of. The same is the case for Murphy. She is a white, cis, non sex working person who writes with contempt about communities that she is not a member of. It is unjust of Rabble to financially support her bigotry. Rabble is stronger and more relevant when it publishes the voices of those who are directly impacted by the issues they cover. Doing otherwise has made Rabble unsafe for many members of marginalized populations who write from a place of personal experience.

Oh yes it is. It’s another attempt to no-platform a woman you don’t like and don’t want to hear. I have an option for you. If you don’t like her opinion, don’t read it. The fact you’re attempting to speak for everyone and silence her is fucking fascist. You don’t have to be a member of the fast food industry to critique it. You don’t have to be a member of the Green party to have an opinion on it. You fucking fools.

Rabble is not unsafe. If you don’t like her opinion don’t read it. You haven’t quoted her or given any examples of bigotry and hatred. You’ve used silly words like ‘loveable’ and ‘beauty’ as if those subjective terms mean something definitive.

Other feminists and womanists have taken notice.

Yeah, well I’m a radical feminist and I take notice of this lame attempt to silence a woman because you don’t like her opinions.

http://www.thefrisky.com/2015-04-27/the-soapbox-on-laverne-coxs-nude-photo-spread-meghan-murphys-transphobia/?utm_source=share-tw&utm_medium=button

http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2013/12/twitter_feminism_meghan_murphy_sparks_outrage_on_black_twitter.html

http://www.gradientlair.com/post/70596255418/stop-dismissing-women-of-colour-feminsts

We support working with people to transform their politics toward more equity and accountability. Despite endless attempts, Murphy has remained unwilling to evaluate her racism, transmisogyny and whorephobia. We’ve chosen to use an open letter as a medium, only after all other avenues toward accountability have been explored and have failed.

We demand everyone think like us. Fascists.

Whorephobia? WTF is that? Another meaningless neoliberal term along with ‘transmisogyny.’ Totally FUCKING MEANINGLESS. Accountability? You mean like burning the witch in the square you fascist pigs?

We demand a discerning voice of equality and equity that respects and values all women including trans women, women of colour and women in the sex industry. Displays of racism, whorephobia and transmisogyny have no place in a progressive publication like Rabble. It is time for Rabble to take responsibility and cease offering a platform for hate in the form of zealous bigotry from Meghan Murphy and others like her.

Well I demand to hear her opinion. Not everyone is going to agree with you. Deal with it. You’ve not proven a single accusation against her. You’ve not quoted her or made any legitimate case.
-on behalf of

STRUT

Maggie’s – Toronto Sex Workers Action Project

Black Lives Matter – Toronto

No More Silence

TransPride Toronto

Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform

Southwest Ontario Sex Workers

Stella, L’Amie de Maimie

PACE Society

Sex Professionals of Canada

Winnipeg Working Group for Sex Workers’ Rights

PIECE Edmonton

Butterfly (Migrant and Asian Sex Workers)

Toronto Migrant Sex Worker Project

ASTT(e)Q : Action Santé Travesti(e)s et Transsexuel(le)s du Québec

Shameless Magazine

Fuck you people. You’re not everyone. No more money to any of these fascist assholes.