A well-meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming

>All has not been plain sailing, though:

One signatory – Matthew Yglesias, co-founder of liberal news analysis website Vox – was rebuked by a colleague on Tuesday for putting his name to the letter.

Vox critic at large Emily VanDerWerff, a trans woman, tweeted that she had written a letter to the publication's editors to say that Yglesias signing the letter "makes me feel less safe at Vox".

But VanDerWerff said she did not want Yglesias to be fired or apologise because it would only convince him he was being "martyred".

One signatory recanted within hours of the letter being published.

Jennifer Finney Boylan, a US author and transgender activist, tweeted: "I did not know who else had signed that letter.

"I thought I was endorsing a well-meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming."

She added: "I am so sorry."

Oh dear. "I did not know who else had signed that letter." Worried about being grouped together with Chomsky? Salman Rushdie? No, we know perfectly well who she was so offended by.

How to miss the point completely…

Update: the Times report – headed, of course, by a photo of Rowling – notes that both Rowling and Margaret Atwood have signed the letter, despite their differences:

Atwood, 80, who has twice won the Booker Prize, has expressed support for transgender campaigners, saying “biology doesn’t deal in sealed either/or compartments”.

But it does deal in either/or compartments. That's precisely what it does. Notably, with sex.