Dear Partisan Collective,

 

We are three of the people you ejected from the Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair event which was held in your venue. We’re taking up your invitation to email you if we had anything to say about how we were treated. 
 

After arriving at the Bookfair and were walking around  chatting with people, mainly people we knew, asking whether  they would be interested in reading some literature written from a gender critical perspective. To those who were we gave out leaflets. Only a couple of people said they weren't interested and we moved on. We were calm, friendly and respectful.
 

We were told, when members of your collective approached us, that we were not welcome and that we were making people feel unsafe. Rather than attempting to find out what the leaflets said or asking us to stop handing them out, you instead demanded our immediate departure. We wished to engage you in conversation. After refusing discussion you finally physically forced us out of the building.

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Of course, we appreciate that there are instances where it is necessary to physically remove people from spaces if they are behaving inappropriately, for example if people are shouting, drunk, pushing or shoving people, forcing leaflets on people or wearing masks or acting in an intimidating manner. Indeed some of us have physically manoeuvred people out of autonomous social spaces on several occasions when it was necessary to do so due to such behaviour.  

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However, as our demeanour was entirely respectful, it seems it was merely the printed words on the pages of our leaflets that were objected to. Or, perhaps people felt unsafe because of what might be printed, as some people specifically said they hadn't read them, didn't need to read them, and refused to read them when invited to do so.
 

What happened at the Manchester and Salford Anarchist Bookfair, which you hosted at Partisan, raises questions about  how your safer spaces policy is applied. If you are approached by somebody during an event, who claims that someone else in the room is making them feel unsafe, do you immediately remove the accused without question?  Or is it only when a trans person says they feel unsafe that you would act in this way?

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We ask because when you contrast (a) people calmly handing out leaflets and talking with people, with (b) women being shouted at and physically forced out of the premises (a process which included a woman's arm being twisted behind her back causing pain for days afterwards, and another woman being carried out by several men) we know which action we think is more of a violation of a safer space.

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We made it clear in the introduction to the pack of information which we were distributing that we believe trans people should have universal human rights, that gender dysphoria exists, that people should expect help and understanding from society as a result of this condition, and should be able to transition and live their lives as they wish in so far as this doesn't impinge on the rights of others. Yet despite this we know that some, to justify the actions taken by your collective, will have accused the leaflets we were handing out of being transphobic. Truly, this denigrates the word 'transphobia'. 
 

We, who have long histories fighting for social justice, peace and the environment, would be the first to oppose actual transphobia, to rush to the defence of a trans person who was being abused physically or verbally. It's who we are. 
 

It is a fact that many of us who are gender critical are absolutely from the left, from the far left even. We are anarchists. We did not come to the Bookfair to disrupt it or to make a protest. We have been coming for many years. We asked if we could hold a workshop on this issue, but Partisan (not the Bookfair collective) denied this request. Therefore we wanted to discuss it informally, with our friends and comrades and to  share information that we have found valuable, and that has helped us formulate our position.  There have always been a variety of opinions at Anarchist Bookfairs and not everyone agrees with each other! We don't think that intellectual or political disagreement equates to violence.
 

While we are cross about being physically excluded on literally ridiculous grounds, we feel no ill will towards the people whose complaints led to this. We hope they eventually reach a place where their sense of self-worth isn't reliant on being protected from words they might not like.  To quote a recent blog: 

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“we identify as adolescent the furious response to the discovery that others do not perceive you exactly the way you’d like to imagine to yourself. Those who justify aggression as a response to the “violence” of being misrecognized fail to notice that everyone shares this experience on various registers of gender, race, age, class, professional status, nationality, religion, disability, attractiveness — the list goes on.......... the broader point is that we are all constantly perceived as someone other than who we think we are. Like (or as) language, social roles are systems bigger than any of us, and what we experience as misrecognitions are registers of other people’s perspectives. To try to shut down, rather than understand, those perspectives; to refuse to engage others as people who also have opinions (not to mention feelings) that might not be all about you; to arrogantly dismiss the past and the perspectives of those who have lived through more of it than you; to summon authorities to impose your will rather than trying to work out conflicts in a mutually respectful way — these are adolescent behaviors.”
https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/conversion-therapy-v-re-education-camp-open-letter-grace-lavery/
 

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We would appreciate a response from Partisan… 
 

• did any of your collective take time to read the articles we left with you? And if so, which particular parts did you think were transphobic? 
   

• how well do you feel your safer spaces policy is functioning to provide a space safe for all? 
   

• do you have a written procedure for dealing with complaints by one party about another which are made with regard to your safer space policy?

 

Thanks,

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Catherine, Nathan, and Another