Cost of living crisis and Singletrack – An appeal

… any idea when either of the shirts will be back in stock?

Just a random comment but my interaction today with the stw team was fab, and reminded me what stw was, and is about. Thanks

After buying and tasting the coffee I have now paused my Pact coffee subscription and will be buying from STW – Purveyors of Fine Coffee

I’m a huge fan of print and hope that the critical mass required to continue to support both the magazine and all of the great editorial content in it is able to survive and thrive. I’m a subscriber from the US (and would understand a price increase). Will encourage other locals to consider making the addition of a digital or print sub to their reading. Another favorite pub was recently consumed in a large venture purchase and almost immediately put out of production. A huge loss.

Membership upgraded. 🙂 Do I have to cancel my digital only subscription, or has that just been upgraded?

plan is to subscribe come pay day.

I was going to donate some cash however thought that there might be a better way. If there is anyone out there who genuinely can’t afford a digital subscription but really wants one, let me know and I will gift it. Same price as the donation I was going to make but double the benfits I am thinking.

A one time offer, I am not Elon Musk

Live Q&A?…

…how about getting the forum big-hitters to have a scrap on Todmorden rec once a month. You could make it pay-per-view! 🙂

“…and Binners takes out TJ with a Greggs steak bake – things just got messy!”.

“And a stale pork pie caught him in the eye and Ernie bit the dust”

Any discount codes?

Geoff had some new finery coming

“…and Binners takes out TJ with a Greggs steak bake – things just got messy!”.

Highly implausible. You really think Binners would waste food?

Renewed. I was a member previously, then my credit card expired and I decided to make the most of it to cut down on recurring fees – none of them huge, but bit by bit they all add up. But given I do read STW most days it seems only fair to sign up again!

£39/yr Print+ – struggle to buy a half decent tyre for that.
I was thinking of cancelling my sub, after probably 15+ yrs, but you’ve convinced me to find the saving elsewhere.
Don’t really need a new tyre anyway.

Thanks for sticking with us @boxelder 🙂

“And a stale pork pie caught him in the eye and Ernie bit the dust”

😀 Two reasons I LOL’d at that, one I’m old enough to remember the song and two I once looked in one of the political threads

Hang in there Guys and Girls your mag news letters and brings so much to us

Paul

I’m currently on a digital sub, paying monthly.

Anyone know if I can I upgrade to Print and pay the rest of the year sub in one hit?

Drop Zoe an email on subs@singletrackworld.com and she can help.

I’m old enough to remember the song

Doh, I missed that. Number 1 when I was born, that.

Thanks Mark

I’ve just “donated” £20, but it’s not a really a donation. I shall explain…

Earlier in the year, I wanted to downgrade to digital only to save a bit of money, only I was too slow and it auto-renewed, so I had to contact STW Towers. I mentioned I wasn’t working as a reason, mainly so they wouldn’t think I thought the mag was s**t. That’s true, but only because I quit my job to have a few months off, so entirely my choice.

Zoe reduced my payment, but insisted on still sending me the mag, despite me explaining and trying to refuse, purely out of concern that I was unemployed and needed the mag to help me through.

I didn’t mention this on here at the time, not wanting someone to read it and try it on (this being an open forum), but here we are now. I’ve paid for the sub I’m still getting, and hopefully other people will see from this the kind of people them at STW are, and that it’s not hollow words about “community” etc.

The gesture meant far more than the magazine does, even though I wasn’t really in need.

Donated a wee amount to the pot. Keep up the good work at STW towers folks. Would hate to lose this place

I’m torn. STW has been a part of my life for decades. I’ve been a buyer then subscriber, on and off, through that time. A recent political (for want of a better word) declaration by the magazine was IMO so negative that I felt I had no choice but to cancel my subscription. Others apparently felt the same and, having posted to this effect, were told by those close to STW that their money was neither wanted nor missed. I’d like the forum to continue and understand it’s intrinsically linked to the magazine and staff. Like I said, I’m torn.

Just made a one-off donation and will follow-up with a more modest monthly donation.
I wish there was more in Charlie’s shop which appealed…bum butter received, Hackney GT top out of stock, will order some coffee.
Any update on re-stocking the Hackney top?
Markie – refresh my memory about the ‘political declaration’ you refer to.

@frankconway STW statement and following discussion here: https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/singletrack-world-response-to-nadine-dorries-comments-on-trans-athletes/

@markie I cancelled my subscription because of that. I like the magazine a lot and the forum a great deal, but I think I’m not as torn as you because I only discovered it and subscribed in lockdown.

Of course I understand others feel differently, but as I see it STW has chosen to become politically active in a way that discriminates against women and will be detrimental to my daughter’s chances as she grows up. I don’t want to help them by giving them my own money. Obviously I’m still helping them with my clicks, but that’s as much as I’m prepared to do while using the forum.

Markie – ah, that one.

I shouldn’t have gone into details – I don’t want to rekindle that discussion and won’t say any more here. To put it more as Markie did, if a previously apolitical organisation you support in some way decides to become politically active on an issue, then your own politics become a factor.

Is supporting inclusion and diversity political?

The thread linked above is prob the right place to carry on a conversation about the claim that allowing men into women’s spaces is supporting inclusivity and diversity.

You brought it up but ok – great, thanks.

I love and respect the first line ..”Estimated reading time : 8: mins. Thats so polite !

Is it possible to pay a bit more for your sub? Buy the crazy Piñata gloves, they’re ace! Also the innertube belt and the shirts!

We are working o a solution for that. But in the meantime you can drop Zoe an email and she’ll adjust your existing payment manually. Subs@singletrackworld.com

I don’t think I ever talked about my feelings on the ‘political’ statement that STW made so I’m going to do that now.

I subscribed because because I wanted to read the article on Jamie Hibbard back in issue 139. I remember him suddenly disappearing from the scene and thinking that was a bit odd but I didn’t realise the levels of homophobic hate mail he was getting or that he was getting abused in the street and on the trails for being gay.

Ironic, given the fact he was entirely hetrosexual, at least as far as I know.

This brings me to why I think the statement STW made was so important. Back in the 90s it wasn’t enough to just be straight if you wanted to avoid homophobic abuse. You had to ‘appear’ straight at all times.

In the UK now the country is drifting towards a stance where more and more limits are going to be imposed on trans people. This is not going to stop with trans people.

If you are going to put up barriers people are going to feel it is their duty to police these barriers. It won’t be enough to simply ‘be’ cis-gender. You will also have to appear cisgender at all times.

Many of the comments in support of Nadine Dorries talk about protecting our children. They don’t seem to take into account the fact that our children are going to be pressured into ‘appearing’ cis-gender at all times or risk accusations, persecution, and abuse.

I’m a fairly terrible father in many many ways. One thing that I am at least sure of is that I am going to support my kids no matter how they choose to see themselves. I don’t want my son to have to present himself as ‘masculine’ or my daughter to have to present herself as ‘feminine’ in order to live a quiet life. I want them to grow up to be themselves, nothing more or less.

This was a really important statement and one that you’ll be able to look back on with pride in 10, 15, or 20 years. I understand how risky it was given the state of the ‘debate’ in the UK right now (it’s worth remembering that the UK is far behind most liberal countries in terms of trans-acceptance).

I may or may not have renewed my subscription before your statement but you can be sure that I will always renew from now on (assuming you wanted an argumentative **** like me in the first place but you’ve made your bed now 🙂 ).

@Mark, I’ve tried to email Zoe as you said. I’ve used the subs@ address and received a mail delivery failure reply. I tried again to make sure and the same happened.

Anything you can suggest?

@BruceWee said (I paraphrase)

It’s like homophobia, innit?

No, it’s not. This is about the entitlement of men (which I mean in the sense of human males) to take from women (which I mean in the sense of human females) as they deem fit. Same as it ever was.

It’s not progressive. It’s sexism upon sexism upon sexism.

First, you claim that people can be grouped by their female brains. This is Victorian era ‘ladybrain’ bioessentialism with the twist that female brains can now be born in male bodies. Bioessentialism 2.0.

Second, you claim the name for female-brained people should be the word we currently use for female people – that the word ‘woman’ should be taken from female people, leaving them no word at all to decribe themselves. This is intentional becuse…

Third, you claim that every right, space and service women that fought for to allow them to particiapte in a male-dominated society now already belongs to men if they want them, because you just redefined ‘woman’ with some semanic slight of hand.

I cancelled my sub to STW because I don’t wish to fund a men’s rights movement.

P.S. My son and daughter can each do what they like. What I don’t do is talk about these things in terms of masculinity or femininity, becuase these stereotypes are what we’re trying get away from, right? Not reify as the very definitions of the words man and woman.

It’s like homophobia, innit?

Ah, so you can’t actually make decent arguments against people so you’ve decided to bravely battle strawmen in the name of women everywhere, I see.

Let’s put aside the stream of consciousness essay where you took idea from one particular branch of feminist theory and tried to pretend it encompassed all forms of feminism (and that you are of course an ardent feminist yourself) and assume for a moment that you are 100% correct.

If you are going to gatekeep women’s spaces (bathrooms, changing rooms, shelters, sports, etc) to prevent transwomen from invading then you’re going to have to have some way of identifying transwomen. What is your suggestion to separate transwomen from cis-women?

Are you going to become one of these gatekeepers where you look at less ‘feminine’ women with suspicion and require them to visit a doctor before you will allow them into a women’s only space?

What is your policy on intersex women going to be? Are you going to have a list of allowable conditions or are you going to be an absolutist and use Markie’s definition from the other thread, thus making Caster Semenya get changed in the men’s changing room?

So yes, you were right. It is like homophobia in that you are creating a group of ‘others’ who are not always easy to distinguish from those of us who are ‘insiders’. Because these others are not easy to distinguish, people who are actually insiders can come under suspicion of being ‘other’ which means everyone comes under pressure to conform to conventional ideas of masculinity and femininity.

https://www.advocate.com/business/2015/06/17/detroit-woman-kicked-out-restaurant-bathroom-looking-man-sues

This is the direction your own particular brand of ‘feminism’ is leading. Women are going to be challenged (mostly by men) in bathrooms, in changing rooms, in shelters, and on the sports field for the crime of not conforming to a definition of feminine largely created by men.

If you think it’s somehow going to be different in the UK I’d love to hear how.

Guys, there’s a thread for this, and it isnt this one.

https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/singletrack-world-response-to-nadine-dorries-comments-on-trans-athletes/