I was going to open with an apology to my readers who are anticipating more information about the gender industry, that I am again using my blog to deal with personal business. However, this business needs public airing. Readers, other journalists, and media platforms should be informed about the lack of journalistic respect happening for my work because I am confident it’s not an exception. Using another writer’s research and presenting it as your own, is a very low manner of conducting oneself.
Today a fellow journalist sent me a Twitter link of a third journalist, Mary Harrington, @moveincircles on Twitter, giving a speech at a conservative convention. My friend sent me the tweet because it echoed my work. The part of Harrington's speech, contained in the link, was close enough to the issues I am always writing about, and they are still novel enough, that he recognized them. Harrington writes for The Spectator, The Daily Mail, the American Mind, and is a contributing editor at Unherd, where her recent speech at the convention was published. In the snippet of her speech sent to me by my journalist friend, Harrington talks of an emerging bio-state, opening our bodies, deregulating human nature itself.
I have introduced this concept in my work repeatedly, in tweets, articles, posts on my blog, and in interviews, all but the tweets copyrighted material, going back to the beginning of 2018. I write about the intersections of "transgenderism," technology, and capitalism. Creating markets out of the dissolution of sexual dimorphism, which opens our bodies in new and profitable ways for the state, is a distinct vision of mine regarding what I have called the gender industry, being driven by elites. I refer to what Harrington calls the “bio-state” as the techno-medical complex all the time, and often discuss how the boundary violation between male and female, the deconstruction of sexual dimorphism, being cultivated through the ideology of gender identity, is the very purpose of the “transgender” agenda. Mary also speaks about the deconstruction of sexual dimorphism, in her speech. “You might enjoy watching trans activism abolish sex dimorphism, to own the feminists, but the ideology is coming for your kids too," she writes.
I don’t own knowledge. Knowledge happens with the exchange of ideas. Harrington wasn’t totally lifting the words out of my work, as a plagiarist might do, but these concepts were definitively born out of my research about the gender industry, as many people involved in this fight know, and common journalistic respect warrants a mention of this fact..
I had half a mind to ignore this because so many people are using the research I began on the gender industry, that many of them don’t even know where it came from. To be honest though, at this point, I get more respect from people on social media, carrying the concepts I write about forward, and citing my work, than I have gotten from some journalists. I am thrilled for the most part that my work is in cyberspace and is informing people, that they are taking it in their own directions. But when journalists who’ve been following my work, take to using my research, while rearranging it with different words, conveying the same new ideas, with no credit or citation, I find it insulting and a dereliction of duty.
I found and read the speech by Harrington from which the video snippet was made, which was published a couple of days ago (11/1/2021). It went places I haven’t gone in my own work, critiquing feminism. She covered so many pertinent issues and interesting ground, I wanted to be happy she used my work and that it is poised to open more discussions.
The thing that made me think twice about ignoring this, is that Mary Harrington has done this to me before.
Several days ago, I had an exchange with Harrington on Twitter about an article she wrote in August for the Spectator World, where she used quite a lot of my research on Martine Rothblatt and Jon Stryker of Arcus Foundation, without crediting me or citing my work. I was aware the article was coming, because Mary asked me for an interview, sent a zoom link in July for us to engage. I agreed to the interview, and she agreed to credit me. We had a great chat in July. When the article came out, in August, I was annoyed that she hadn’t credited me. I was silent about it. She rearranged the research enough that it would not read as overt plagiarism and I am busy.
Here is that exchange:
Several days ago, Harrington, being tormented by TRAs on Twitter over the article in the Spectator, in which she should have cited my work, tagged me in a thread she made.
For anyone familiar with my post about the UK feminist/journalist, Helen Joyce, and her similar actions and subsequent harassment by TRAs, you won’t be surprised about my feelings of Deja vu.
Ironically, Harrington thought this tweeted thread would cultivate my sympathy and for a moment it did. But, as I reread the article and saw my work heavily reflected again, I reached out to Harrington in Twitter DM, to ask her why she didn’t cite me or credit me in the article.
This is our exchange:
Harrington didn’t deny using my work, as Joyce did, but admitted it. She just "couldn't make a citation work without things going weird." Wow. Nothing like a big "Fuxk you," to start one's day. When I told her this was an unacceptable response, that I would like her to go back to the Spectator and ask them to add a citation or credit, she refused saying she relied heavily on Helen Joyce’s book (TRANS). Except, Joyce’s book wasn’t out yet. Joyce’s book didn’t hit the stands until September. Harrington had obviously been following my work, appreciated it enough to ask for an interview, just as Joyce had, used the information in our exchange, and then claimed it as her own, as Joyce did.
I took it upon myself at that point to go to the Spectator and ask for a citation. After a brief description of the incident and sharing my correspondence with Harrington, the editors at the Spectator were happy to offer a citation, and it is now in the piece.
They didn’t seem to think it was weird or difficult. Funny, that.
I didn’t hear from Harrington again after saying how disappointed I was, that it showed no good faith on her part. She continues to mine and mime my work. This is a disgraceful way for journalists to behave. I want it as a matter of public record that this is occurring. Generally, those who would use another’s research are frightened off by big-name lawyers that a major publishing house or major news platform can afford but think nothing of using work from a personal blog.
As this is the second time this has happened to me (that I am aware of), it gives me pause about continuing my blog. I know it serves many of us in this fight. The work has kept me sane through the institutionalization of this worldwide cult. Mostly, the thought of leaving parents without the blog as a resource weighs heavy on me. I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place.
I came across an article this morning where the employees of a health company pushing for their dismissal, over their refusal to get a COVID vaccine, decided to ban together to give themselves legal corporate status, providing leverage against the company attempting to fire them. It struck a chord for me, that those of us who are blogging, may need to find an advantageous legal strategy by banding together, against those that think nothing of using our work without citation or credit of any kind.
It saddens me to have to think of this when I could be doing more research, writing more posts, all because of a lack of simple integrity and solidarity on the part of other journalists. Why don’t they care, I ask myself? I do what I do to help all of us. I am not winning any popularity contests, as they learn when they use my work. It’d be laughable to think I am in this for financial prosperity. Why treat others, with the same goal of ending this madness, with such a lack of regard?
If I do make the decision to stop the blog, I will let readers know, in advance. Right now, I will persevere. I will continue to call out journalists publicly who engage in this behavior, and I will, finally, speak with a lawyer.
In closing, if you like it, put a citation on it.
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