lgbtqia – Politically Enraged

Gender Critical Men are f***ing terrifying.

By Daviemoo

As always, when I write about trans equality I need to start off with a solemn declaration that violence against women and girls is a very real, genuine problem, a cancer in society; that women are subjected to horrors beyond the stunted imagining of the men behind that violence is inarguable. I also understand that as a man talking about this debate it’s easy to write me and my words off as more misogynist twaddle that doesn’t bear scrutiny. I can’t change anyone’s mind on that- but I can continue to talk about an issue that gives me grave concern, which is that the gender critical movement came out of a nascent period last year when certain gender critics questioned why far right activists were infiltrating their circles, and the movement as a whole decided it was a necessary cost to join hands with fascists to keep their movement building.
If you don’t take violence against women and girls seriously, shame on you is the weakest sentiment you deserve- but if you don’t take violence, both state level and personal, against trans people as seriously, you must live in a different world than I, and if you condone holding hands with far right activists to bolster your movement, you’re part of that group.

Women deserve to be heard about the violence they endure at the hands of sick men. Today the newspapers are awash with claims that Nick Cohen, long time well known alleged pervert is- shock horror- an alleged woman grabbing pervert. Nick’s defence is that he “doesn’t have the faintest idea” about the accusations, but he did ask:
1- why she didn’t report it sooner
2- he said the misogynistic conversation was “joking among friends”
3- he said the accusations come from critics including “pro Russia advocates” and “trans activists”
4- he said “I assume it was stuff I was doing when drunk”, relying on alcoholism as the fulcrum of his alleged sexual abuses

This case is important, as all cases of this nature are. It’s also common, one case in tens of thousands in the UK alone, likely more- where women are maligned for staying silent, judged for coming forward, slated for speaking up, insulted for not being able to take a joke and blamed for their own bodies. If you want to know why the gender critical movement attracts women it’s because there’s hardly scant evidence as to why women should be afraid of men. That’s something anyone with even a sparking scintilla of intellect can grasp- a movement based around rage towards men, the obvious oppressors of women, is attractive- and if that’s where the attributes of gender critical thinking stopped I’d be supportive. But gender criticals somehow take the existence of a tiny proportion of the population, trans people, and make them the malign target of their hatred towards men.
You don’t have to be a card carrying member of the tofu eating lefty brigade to see that there’s a gulf between trans women and cis men – As a cis man, do I typify the behaviours of a trans woman to you? I don’t do any of the things trans women do in regards to my gender, so it’s ridiculous, laughable even to put parity between someone like me and a trans woman. Even if you don’t believe transgender women are women, someone with any grounding in reality could see that trans women don’t behave like non trans men.

Trans folk are often maligned on the internet, accused of everything from fetishes to the newly in vogue “groomer” charge levelled at LGBT+ people by right wing demagogues. Unfortunately, too many in the LGBT+ are falsely sure that slating their peers in the community with these accusations will save them- make them the exception to the rule with regular pundits from tiktok right wingers like Kelly Cardigan to ostensibly academic folk like Debbie Hayton all too happy to agree with any anti trans sentiment, provided they can assert themselves as the only exception- But Hayton and those like her are a confusing array of figures who regularly talk about how trans women are indeed problems and shouldn’t use women’s spaces, all the while using women’s spaces if accounts are to be believed. It’s the hypocrisy of trans women who declare support for the gender critical movement who believe they, because they back the movement, should be the exception to the rule.

Additionally, one finds it hard to accept the assertion that is often levelled at trans people being erotically obsessed with your own genitals is wrong, bad and disgusting when the same group post things like this:

To ascribe your feelings to everyone is deluded, and yet this holistic monstering of trans people is commonplace- one newspaper article comes out justifying the fear of trans people- a trans rapist in Scotland- and it’s touted as proof, all that’s needed to justify the phobia, the aversion, the hatred, the violence both political and physical… whereas I just look and go ‘if one example is enough you may want to google “female teacher has sex with student” and keep a strong gin handy’.
I’m not trying to make light of these very serious issues, only point out that holistically ascribing bad behaviour or malevolence to an entire group of people based on tangential aspects of their behaviour or existence is not helpful.

And that is where we start to get to the crux of my fear. The gender critical movement is absolutely not empowering women and bolstering their protections- it’s causing wedge issue “debate” which is distracting from the continual weakening of women’s rights and protections, both away from the “trans debate” and partly- because of it. And even the front runners are guilty of an exclusionary attitude too, not just to trans women but fellow cis women too. The excerpt from Kathleen Stock’s recent musings where she declares that gender nonconforming women who are kicked out of womens’ spaces are a necessary casualty, not for a moment seeming to consider that they, as women, also deserve that protection and yet face denial from it, not by the cruel trans activists but by a fellow cisgender woman.

Let’s say we create an island and tomorrow relocate every trans person to a trans only society. Do you genuinely think that would deal with the rampant misogyny in today’s world? Would men stop hitting their wives, would police stop joking about rape victims, calling them ugly or insinuating that they like being domestically abused: see the met police texting “give her a tap, she loves it”. Would the hot-button row about abortion rights magically evanesce into nothing? Would period poverty be solved?
What issue are gender critics fighting for, besides the othering and monstering of trans women? Again, you don’t have to accept that trans women are women if you don’t want to. Nobody can compel that thought in you, but to deny the commonality in experience between trans people who experience an enormous threat of sexual assault, violence in public spaces and whose rights are being debated- not as opposed to women’s rights but in conjunction with them- see the overturning of Roe V Wade at the same time as over 300 anti trans laws emerge: surely it’s a fools errand to deny that there are shared experiences here which are of vital import, and are more useful in drawing people together than driving them apart?

But the most terrifying aspect of gender critical thinking is that, and I mean this with my entire being, it drives women into the arms of their abusers.

Gender critical men are terrifying. Honestly? I’m scared of men anyway- I understand women’s fears towards men, having been put through hell by other men in my life. If identifying out of being a man was something you could choose to do I would, because rejecting the label of a group I’m in that’s routinely oppressed me with violence, sometimes sexual, always degrading, my entire life would be appealing: but I can’t, because I am a man- and so I want to out the men who tarnish us. I want them to face up to, and be deprogrammed from their evils, to make the world actually function and to melt down the misogyny that forms the bulwarks of society. The only way to do that is to listen and understand- and I do. I understand women’s fear of men- I do not understand gender critical women’s embracing of gender critical men.

Gender critical men regularly assert that the key tenets of gender criticality when it comes to men are correct- that men are all thoughtless, violent thugs led by their penises into committing vile acts of transgression against bodily autonomy, every man a sneaky sleeper agent just waiting to pounce once your walls are down.
It is, frankly, bollocks.
We live in a society that coddles men, telling them it’s ok to get angry and shout, smash up your TV, fight in the street, thoughtlessly lay hands on other people as a “joke”. We all imbibe this as we grow, and never, not once, do our forefathers even attempt to highlight it never mind decry it as a horror. It is our job to pick this apart and we must encourage this in younger boys and men.
But it’s also our job to talk about the arrant nonsense in ascribing male violence to some magical rage gene that all men have that is just simmering away, waiting to explode. There’s absolute potential for a biological link towards being male and an increased risk of violence- but as beings who overcame our urge to chase wildebeest with sticks and live in caves, I think we can also overcome some childish urge to act with violence at every turn- to do so, society needs to push for that change, and until it does it won’t happen. Does society push men to eschew violence over thought? No. From the knee boys are told it’s ok to pull girls’ hair if you like them, the old boys will be boys trope, as young men we’re never taught how to respect others bodily autonomy and why we should, mostly because rarely does ours become challenged- and when it does become challenged, when young men prank each other in weird ways, it’s put down to childish humour rather than aggressively dealt with. As men grow we’re enabled at every turn to behave like we’re told we are wired to- to be aggressive, thoughtless, we’re bombarded with imagery of manly men or shown videos of guys on social media acting like utter fools and being celebrated, and nowadays you can’t turn left without another typically masculine looking stranger brandishing a microphone talking about how women these days don’t know how to cook as if they don’t sleep under a pile of their own laundry because they don’t know how to change bedding.

Gender critical men scare me because they embrace the nonsense- they DO think men are violent, they DO think we’re wired for it, they state blithely that men are always thinking about how to get what they want sexually. Gender critical men confess to the crimes we’re all accused of, accepting that yes, they are that way and levelling the accusation at people like me that we’re the same basal creature as they. I am not in any way like the picture gender critical people paint of the typical man, and I am not the exception- gender critical men who openly acknowledge these accusations and agree with them? They are. And yet, rather than looking at gender critical men as the dangerous openly confessed predators they admit to being, gender critical women link arms with them, pointing at them as evidence of their convictions- it’s a very “leopards eating face” moment. Rather than turning away from those who admit to being dangerous to you, you embrace them because they affirm your fears.

But of course, many reading this will assume I’m just a lefty prone to flights of fancy, no real proof.

This is an avowed gender critical man, who, in response to an Australian doctor saying his mother is trans-positive, is threatening to… well, you can read it.
When confronted on the fine point that misogyny is probably more likely to be threatening to chin an old lady than to be friendly to trans people, he claimed it was an “experiment” to “out trans activists as enjoying violence against old ladies”- his point somewhat punctuated with failure as every single pro trans person who interacted did so with rage and disgust. The most terrifying part of this is- it’s happening. It’s less than a week since Pink News reported that an 83 year old woman with dementia was assaulted by a man then thrown in a bin because he suspected she was trans- she wasn’t, not the point.

But this is the world in which we live now, where men think threats of violence against women are OK if it “owns the trans”. Where acts of actual violence are committed against women and that’s seen as collateral damage, acceptable in the battle against trans inclusion.
Because these men, these gender critical men have absolutely no interest in looking at their behaviour. They’re fine with their violence towards women- and the fact that women are turning a blind eye to it in favour of seething rage at trans people is probably worthy of celebration to them, because whilst there is a united hatred of transgender people existing, they go unscrutinised.

I will never convince gender critical women that trans people are worthy of the respect they so often reference in regards to their belief, nor frankly do I care to- it’s not for men like me to convince women not to fear someone, and as a man I understand contextually that bearded me wandering into a conversation to “um, akshually” someone who has fears about their safety is probably not helpful. That’s not my aim. But if I can make anti trans women realise that they allow their own fears to walk blithely among them, I’d hope that would at least see a shifting of the lens of blame onto the people who deserve it- non trans men who embrace this movement so holistically. I see gender critical women cosying up to men who proudly threaten violence as the same kin as women married to preachers talking about what a woman’s place is, smiling blithely that surely they’re the exception though, they’re safe because they are behind the gun- not in front of it.

There’s no point talking about the big examples- Donald ‘just convicted of sexual assault grab them by the pussy’ Trump, Matt ‘I’m literally a theocratic fascist, girls should be getting married at 14 and have babies at 16’ Walsh, Rishi ‘standing up for women but refusing to make misogyny a hate crime or entertain menopause leave’ Sunak: gender critics know, and they’ll probably never meet those men. But what about the men who proudly make their way to your marches, the ones like this:

That is a white nationalist, on your side, at your marches, or as Adrian Comerford has shown in response to Joanne Rowling on twitter, when Posie Parker interviews an avowed Neo nazi and literal confessed wife beater.
And what’s Rowling, who posted a nearly 5000 word diatribe accusing trans people of attracting Neo Nazis to these rallies, done with this info? Ignored it. Ignored the fact that Parker, who says she is not a feminist and that she will “destroy any woman who stands in her way” has open links to the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti womens’ choice group. She has called her “a genius” though.

Some gender critics questioned why so many far right fools kept showing up at their rallies- apparently the simple explanation of “your beliefs mirror theirs” was lost on them. I for example, attended a rally last year- a drag queen was reading a book to some children at Leeds Library. On one side, a huge collection of LGBT+ people and allies- on the other side- the Patriotic Alternative, described as a “neo nazi, far right fascist organisation” on their own wikipedia.

A gender critic wrote an article the next day condemning… Both sides. Oh it was terrible that the nazis were there, yes, nobody likes a nazi. But how dare LGBT+ people get angry at fascists holding up signs saying that we’re perverts and paedophiles, how dare we stand in opposition to people who virulently hate us? I note the article didn’t mention that the other side, the PA, so desperate to protect children- decided to set off the fire alarm, terrifying the kids. So many people, concerned with womens’ rights and protecting children, ignorant of the white nationalists amongst them or… embracing them.

Yes- embracing- what happened to the women who confronted the budding allyship with far right entities? Jane Clare Jones was critical of their attendance, many other women lodged concern that their movement, supposedly built around elevating women, was being swollen by those who think women should adhere to bible scripture. So what happened?
They were holistically told that it didn’t matter by other gender critical people- that the threat is so dire that allyship against trans people supersedes their allies thoughts. But can we be surprised? Let’s not forget when Allison Bailey called for allyship with racists and homophobes:

The madness in this entire thing is that if you strip back any and all nuance, it’s absolutely reasonable for women to have concerns about men and about having spaces which are dedicated to their safety and refuge. But rather than dealing with the societal reasons that we have to have refuges and protect women, anti trans campaigners think erasing trans people will solve these problems. They won’t- and the longer this goes on, the more precarity women’s bodily autonomy heads towards.

If you weaken trans people’s access to gender affirming care, you weaken a group’s access to bodily autonomy- and those same arguments can be recycled against you.
Why should trans women get access to HRT just because of their feelings, right? Well, by that same vein, why should anyone have access to abortion rights just because of their feelings?
You either holistically stand for bodily autonomy for all, or you author your own eventual downfall from your own pulpit, used by the very men who terrify me.

Nothing will change from my writing this piece, but I would hope that the less radicalised amongst gender critical women or those flirting with the movement because they understandably fear men, will hear my entreaties- gender critical demagogues do not care about your access to spaces, only for the denial of others’ access. They do not care about protecting your status as a woman, or halting violence, only to denigrate others’ status and enact violence against them, both personally and on a state level. And you can pull out your well used examples of trans people being terse with you on the internet but if you ally with radical nazis, proud anti feminists, anti abortion activists and more, I still see you are more of a problem for womens’ rights than people being mean on twitter because your views are quite literally eroding their public safety. I don’t want women to feel unsafe, I don’t want trans people to feel unsafe and I don’t want anyone to face death or rape threats- I sure do want the radical men amongst you who regularly threaten violence, both misogynistic, transphobic and just generally violent, to shut the fuck up- and you should too.

There is, and I know it doesn’t seem like it, a way through all of this, and it’s for both sides to ally against the actual problem. And the irony is, I come from that group. I am a non trans man, telling you that I walk in the spaces of cis men, I listen to them, I hear their conversations, I’ve listened to their justifications of their mad misogynist thinking. Men like that are the imminent threat, and will continue to be whilst you flirt with this distraction, and whilst you do they will continue to capitalise on it. How you handle that is your call. I have no right to tell anyone how to handle it- but I do know that continuing to work with the very men who threaten violence against everyone just because everyone happens to include the people you don’t like, does not a successful movement nor a compelling argument make.

You don’t fight authoritarianism with dad jokes at the despatch box

By Daviemoo

Here we collectively sit, watching a christofascist radical wave sweep the US whilst in the UK, our politicians openly lie in the public sphere.
Political honesty is decimated, taken to ruination by those in charge over the last thirteen years in the UK- though one could argue that Blair’s later stances were more aligned with center right politics than any iteration of leftism: and in the US, Trump’s meagre four years has left the country torn asunder- guns deregulated, women’s rights assaulted, LGBT+ people being legally ring fenced from the public under threat of literal capital punishment.
And what are we being offered in the face of white supremacy, of Neo nazism mainstreamed to the point that literal white nationalists marched on DC with a police escort the other day? Who will come to save us from the radical right wing rhetoric of Braverman’s “down the boats” speeches or Sunak’s calls to strip back the equality act?
“Moderation.”
You don’t fight against radicalism with moderation, you don’t offer a return to “sane politics”. You crush fascism and extremism. Moderation is capitulation. So be radical- you’re our only hope.

Many folk think that Starmer’s efforts to shift labour towards what I gingerly refer to as “the centre” is a master stroke- a repeat of Blairism for the iPhone age, a brilliant stroke of political engineering that will shore up victory for those tired of tory rule for their bakers dozen of disastrous years.
And whilst I’ve no doubt that some iteration of labour can potentially wrest victory from the tories in 2024, one has to wonder what we’re replacing radical conservatism with. But the centre isn’t the centre any more- everyone’s heard the allusion to the shift in the Overton window meaning the UK’s politics is more right wing than it has been before- so the centre isn’t the centre of the political spectrum- it’s the centre between a party who eschewed any more radical leftism and a party who is lurching towards fascism so quickly that even former members are leaping on stage to warn of fascist leanings at conferences.

Starmer himself has stated recently that labour is now the party of true conservatism- he doesn’t I’m told by many a labour supporter- mean that he is now a tory, and I don’t believe that either – because I believe you can be not a tory and still have bad politics.

I don’t believe in the disgusting radical conservatism that spills from the Conservative Party- it’s politics built on a lack of thought and even conservative MP Danny Kruger has said that the party must no longer appeal to the “intelligentsia”, but must work with “the values of it’s people”: no doubt a difficult task as the conservatives thrust their values into the flames of brexit, promising to forge a new way forward for Britain and emerging as a smouldering ruin, thick with shards of scandal and burning with political mediocrity. The party has wrapped its hands around the neck of the UK and dragged us bodily into culture war cacophonic nonsense, blaming people of colour during the BLM uprising in 2020, blaming people from the EU during 2016, blaming trans people from 2021 to now, or migrants, or “the woke”- as if daubing the label of “not insensitive” upon someone is somehow offensive.
And as this shift in the Overton window has occurred, we note a distinct lack of meaningful policy: no assistance with the cost of living, the highest energy bills in Europe, the prevention of scabbing by landlords, a protection of runaway mortgage increases- no protections for coronavirus which is now tangibly proven to be causing long term health conditions (I know intimately, for I am mid diagnosis for a health condition which coincidentally only began post covid)- and all the while we’re told that this is what the people want: but which people, and how big that group is, seems to be lost in translation from lies to alternative fact as it’s broadcast across the face of the media by compliant presenters.

Equally, dear reader- I don’t believe in traditional conservatism. I have no doubt it has its place in certain aspects of political discourse- none that I’ve ever encountered- and frankly I just don’t believe it works. Conservatism is what the party espoused from 2009 to 2018, before their radical cliff dive- conservatism is in my eyes the defining shift in the later Blair years- not wholly, but enough to be of note. Traditional conservatism got us here– through throttling of the public finances under austerity, through cutting welfare programmes for disadvantaged young people, upping university fees, a reluctance to update a curriculum to prepare people for life after education- plus, endless deregulation of banking, despite Sunak and his fellows being the arbiters of the crash that ostensibly necessitated all these cuts. Then after years of dissatisfaction, it was traditional conservatism being corrupted by radical elements like Patel et all, that led to the referendum that saw us leave our space in the EU.

Ultimately, conservatism is a brand of politics that appeals to the post-imperial ghost lurking in the attics of British- mostly English- people’s brains, decrying that we can do better on our own, that we don’t need trade deals or regulations on fairness, that we must eschew workers rights that supposedly protect the lazy, that political correctness is the cause of all our woes even when the anti politically correct people have been in charge as we’ve declined. Now we can see Patel again rising to critique the “central” Conservative Party eschewing her radical wing, claiming they’d be better placed if they would embrace her hideous vision of politics. All the while Rees-Mogg is on stage declaring that their attempt at gerrymandering failed- openly admitting to voter suppression to the roaring silence of the UK press. So why is it that the UK’s opposition party in chief has sought to embrace the same ethos of politic that has brought us to ruination? Frustratingly, the people seem to be to blame. Many people enjoy this iteration of labour, believing that things will be magically healed under a Starmer primacy.

But will it?
No doubt Starmer will steady the ship, a phrase I’ve heard often and loathe. No doubt he will deal with some of the haemorrhaging wounds left behind by the Conservatives. But a quick look at the positions espoused by labour typify the lack of braveness that encompasses the traditional conservatism he has seemingly embraced.

Brexit and its fallout batters the UK economy, causing a deficit bigger than covid. Trade deals in place that the government has sought out create a negligible boost and in fact our trade deal with Australia benefits them so much that the news coverage of it’s announcement was thick with the type of “I cant believe they agreed to this” that speaks to political illiteracy which throngs the tories’ current iteration. Starmer’s stance? “We’ll make brexit work, we’ll take back control”. I don’t know about you, but the cut and paste repeat of the conservatives’ own line on brexit- all aspiration, no actual promise, no solid information, no promise to actually deal with the issues which may or may not encompass a partial or wholesale about face- is entirely unhelpful.

How about NHS privatisation? Streeting states that there will be no NHS privatisation- as he promises to “temporarily outsource struggling areas to private companies on limited term contracts to deal with backlogs”. As someone whose entire career was built on maintaining the compliance of those private entities I can tell you that calling privatisation “temporary outsourcing” doesn’t prevent it from being, in fact, privatisation.

Worst of all, the draconian laws the tories have given concerted effort to implementing must be given time to “bed in”, says Starmer, that they have other priorities than simply removing legislation like the ID gerrymandering that Rees-Mogg spoke of, that repealing harsh anti strike laws don’t matter as labour is now the party of working people – seemingly forgetting that strikers are the working people.

Now, I must again reiterate that I’ve no doubt that things would be better under Starmer and Labour than the conservatives. Starmer offers some broad reforms I welcome- the implementation of EU citizenry voting, the offering of voting to 16+, an economic plan which seems dedicated to shoring up fair business practice and a step far away from deregulation meaning that instability in the markets would minimise, promises to offer out more aid to the young- I know that things will be better for the broad swathe of the public under Starmer- even a stop to the haemorrhage of political honesty would be good, someone preventing the conservatives from driving us down a very dark path paralleling that of the US’ brush with theocratic fascism- these are good things, labour does offer some hope and i’ve no doubt that things will be better.

But my issue links back to that phrase so oft repeated above- steadying the ship.

We have been dragged part way down a dangerous path by the tories, a path that over half of voters didn’t and do not want. We don’t need to steady the ship, to stop where we are, to drop anchor- we must move away from conservatism wholesale- not the least because, dropping anchor where we are still means we’re mired in populist right wing vapidry that continues to affect our life. Labour must make broad brave moves to drag us AWAY from this, we must strike out in the very opposite direction the conservatives continue to drag us towards every day of their tenancy in Westminster. Anything less is a failure to deal with the emerging radicalism that permeates the individual in the UK.

Without a clear departure offered by labour and its environs the worsening wave of hatred towards LGBTQ+ people will continue- our economic and social issues of worker shortages and xenophobia will continue unless common sense is spelled out in the brexit debate- promises to fix NHS shortages by offering fancy temporary privatisation will fail- educational reform to deal with new issues, and to educate the country’s young in politics will go some way towards enhancing our political literacy- offering a vote without perspective on its’ weight is unhelpful.

So whilst I understand that Labour offer some hope to those who feel escaping tory rule is key, it’s also vital to remember that labour must offer a distinction in their politics from what we’ve seen for over 13 years. If they do not, understand that conservative politics appeal to and improve the lives only of those who commit to it so political victory under conservatism, espoused by whoever, is a confirmation that the only politics you seek to support are politics that uplift you, and damn those who fall behind.

Labour has a chance to appeal to those disenfranchised: simple promises made to leftists who understand the broader cut & thrust of UK politics under the lens of hostile media and FPTP and consumed by knee jerk one issue voters. But if we continue to see our own political disabusement in favour of appealing to those very knee jerk voters, we cannot be blamed for losing hope in ever climbing out from under the weighty shroud of conservatism, the brand of politics that got us to where we are.

The clunky and unwieldy truth is that as radicalism has hidden in the dark, licking its wounds, we’ve become complacent and genuinely seem to believe that moderating away from radicalism is the salve we need- when what we need is to attack, to destroy radicalism in its entirety. Leftists are in for a difficult time as we fight back against the violently burning but nevertheless dying embers of a type of politics that has only harmed us as we’ve grown. Watching conservatism warp into right wing demagoguery is proof that its vital supply of ignorance is drying up at source- but we don’t deal with fascism or authoritarianism simply by lining up to vote every few years. Radicalism is dealt with by terrifying those who espouse it into silence, by breaking their chains of support, by wresting them from the positions of power they nepotised into. We don’t defeat fascism or authoritarian governments by asking them nicely, nor can we appease their environs by appealing to logic, because logic and radicalism are not in the same room. And my concern, dear reader, is that under the likes of Biden, under the guidance of Starmer, we won’t root out these issues and destroy them at source, we won’t shine a torch into the deepest, darkest corners of corruption- we’ll ignore it. And under that ignorance it will continue to gather the momentum that has led us to here and to now- to a place where the US is mandating the Ten Commandments on the wall instead of dealing with daily mass shootings, where the UK is giving voter disenfranchisement time to “bed in”, where groups of radicals like the Patriotic Alternative or the Proud Boys can line up in the street unafraid, unmolested- and taking solace from a grudging acceptance of their presence. Tolerating fascism in the street should be a stain of shame upon the tories and Biden’s presidency- and if that behaviour is to continue under yet another supposedly common sense branch of moderate conservatism, whoever espouses it, it is another death knell for progress.

Ultimately, I understand the political climate of the UK. There is a very clear chance that my politics may never be represented in parliament, because the country doesn’t have the appetite for it- and whilst some may find that amusing, that I cling to a branch of politics that others would let go in favour of power, I feel clear in my decision that I’d rather cling to politics that promises to do better for everyone, politics that wants to move us forward instead of “steadying the ship”, than sacrifice my aspirations to attain a power I use to please those who want what I do not. And overall, beyond anything, my final message on this: nobody wants to tolerate nazis right? What happened to the good old days of kicking their asses.

Dear Labour…

By Daviemoo

Politics in the UK is in tatters.
Everyone- from the people I hear discuss it in the streets, to Lord Heseltine on TalkTV, can see that. It’s hardly a controversy to point this out, the intellectual equivalent of leaving an apple on your desk for weeks, watching its skin dry, pucker, rot- then, one day, for no particular reason suddenly jumping up & exclaiming “my goodness, this apple is mouldy!” It’s played out in full view. Amongst many problems including the deep and intrinsic winding of the far right around key positions like Home Secretary, that rot has pushed people who used to be more radical in their leftism- when it was easy, in full swing in the political sphere- into centricism.
When you number amongst the dreaded far left who are demonised across the board, what is one to do when the leader of the Labour Party says “like it or lump it”.

Firstly let’s start with a disclaimer. Yes there are idiots amongst the far left. There are also total muppets amongst the center left, dicks aplenty amongst centrists, wankers galore amongst the centre right- and I dont think we need to go into the far right do we. No, I don’t condone the actions of twitter incels who call themselves far left but act like misogynistic weirdos, who spam people’s comment sections, who slurp at the shaft of weird totalitarian figures of communist atrocities past and present. It’s weird behaviour that I don’t understand and I don’t associate with my politics. If you want to think that because I call myself far left I’m lumped in with them I will not lose one iota of sleep over it.

The article Starmer wrote in the Times is misrepresented in several places- but it’s hard to know that considering it’s insultingly behind a paywall. It’s all well and good saying “if you dislike how I run my party you can leave” then monetising that behind a screen that stops you reading it, hardly a brave callout to clear off if you have to pay the Times of all people for the pleasure.

The times journos and pundits sell it as a kiss off in its entirety to the far left. It’s not that, the article itself is a celebration in strides made against antisemitism in the Labour Party. Whilst I’m happy to hear moves have been made to deal with antisemitism, which is disgusting and must be rooted out in the most aggressive terms, I can’t speak to that- I’m not jewish, nor am I a member of any political party and I prefer to take my notes about how to respond to antisemitism from Jewish people.
The only way to find out if antisemitism has improved in labour is to listen to jewish voices. Some are happy, some are not and that’s entirely their verdict to make.
What I found consternating on a personal level is the self congratulatory tone of a job well done in making strides forward, and yet the complete ignorance of other burgeoning equality issues in the party- and terming yourself the party of equality rankles me deeply.
Firstly, to be a true party of equality you may consider writing for a newspaper other than The Times who, upon the murder of trans teen Brianna Ghey on the weekend, went to pains to deadname Brianna, deny that her murder was linked to her status as a trans individual and who has also played an integral part in the anti-trans culture war- which an ex advisor of the Conservatives has resigned over, claiming that Sunak will fight the next election over culture war nonsense.
I’m not a stupid man. I know that Rosie Duffield is untouchable. If Starmer did give her the boot, the newspapers would practically gum up with front page stories: “SILENCED AND CANCELLED DUFFIELD- KICKED OUT FOR KNOWING WHAT A WOMAN IS”. She’s untouchable because any move to step her down would ratify her deranged movement in their eternally misplaced idea that they are the victims of their perpetual hate movement against trans people.

Nobody who is sane, least of all trans people, deny that women’s lives are awful- especially with the rise and rise of pindick incels like Andrew Tate, though it goes back further than that. Focusing all your anti misogyny energy on excluding trans people instead of men who quite literally want to subjugate women as sex slaves is something I’ll never understand and yet it seems to be the way of things- and lets be honest, who am I to tell women how to deal with misogyny. I just find it weird that the people saying “we’re literally women lets fight misogyny together” are often described as the biggest threat to women over the radicalisation of a huge swath of young men, the rise of date rape culture which has worsened dramatically in the last 4 years and the all but abolishment of rape punishment under a government who refused to make misogyny a hate crime. It’s entirely possible to stand up for women regardless of their gender. How about we do that- because I don’t see that as radical in any way, I see it as the bare fucking minimum.

That’s enough of a dividing line for me. My support of trans people and women in particular is a hard-line and I’m quite literally happy to end friendships and change my political alignment over it. But if that’s not enough for me to be constantly chewing my nails over labour, how about more?

Brexit. Fucking brexit.
Secret upper crust nonpartisan meetings of political leaders discussing how much brexit has decimated our lives.
Do you know how offensive that is- that British politicians retire for a couple of days to chat over just how much of a fuckup our lives are, all whilst turning their collective back to the public eye between reciting “get brexit done, unleash Brexit’s successes, turn on the brexit bonuses levelling up vaccine rollout siren”. It’s so insulting.
Am I saying this little tete a tete shouldn’t have happened? No, I’m saying we should be INVOLVED. If the UK government knows brexit is a failure and they’re happy to discuss that amongst themselves, just remind me who endowed them with the power to do it? The people they’re currently ignoring in favour of chatting to each bloody other!
Even the Times, again, a paper so steeped in the mythology of Brittania being unfettered by leaving the EU has reneged and called Brexit’s time of death. So for British political parties to completely cut out the PEOPLE in this discussion is an egregious betrayal.
Did Starmer know about this summit? Did Lammy get his say- so to attend? And why, why were the British people, especially those of us whose voices are hoarse from shouting about the brexit failures, completely circumvented in consultation? Starmer’s labour continues to promise that upon election they’ll make brexit work- by taking advantage of it, but not by reunifying in any way. This line of edict is just as undemocratic as the Tories tearing us out after harrying us into a yes or no then ignoring any indication of what had come before.
The very leavers who promised we’d stay in the single market and customs union now tell us it’s good we left them too, as the British economy writhes on the floor turning a disturbing shade of purple.
I feel like I’m being gaslit and not just by the ineffable liars in power- but by those I’m supposed to cheerfully vote to replace them. And when I raise that concern, when I say “ah, I dont know how much I like this”, I’m immediately shouted down- Starmer has a plan, Starmer has an ace up his sleeve. I can only go off the words he says- brexit was voted through by people who wanted to vote for a dream and now I’m being told to vote for a dream to undo it! That way lies folly. I just want to vote for reality- is that wrong?

Brexit is an issue we’ve been fighting on for a long time due to its intangibility right? Okay, how about the other culture war bollocks heaped on us by the shovelful every day: Immi-fucking-gration.

“There’s not much between labour and conservatives on immigration”.

Do you know which far left operative said that provocative, dangerous line?

Keir Starmer. On LBC. If that’s the truth, if we have another iteration of labour who are willing to -as Angela Rayner said on TV recently- tag asylum seekers for the crime of COMING HERE TO SEEK ASYLUM then I don’t know, I feel pretty good about not being okay with that. Treating every immigrant and refugee like a criminal when we don’t give them legal recompense to come or assign enough people to help their paperwork process in decent time is not “hard headed common sense” as Sunak calls it, it’s barbaric, a failure ridden system that needs abolishment and replacement with something that does work, is humane, that considers the world that we’re in and that is still suffering from the reverberations of the British empire and our ridiculous colonialist aspirations- people are being displaced from countries WE started wars in then we have the cheek to get mad when they turn up on our shore!

I sit in myriad group chats now on twitter, on WhatsApp, on instagram and I listen to people disparage me, my politics, people like me and my rage continues to grow. Ah yes, I’m the problem, silly little airhead me thinking that we might be able to forge a way forward that pleases reasonable people, that we don’t have to continually appeal to centricism – and I hasten to add that whilst I don’t personally dislike centrists because they are centrists, I eschew the idea that moderation is important when so many bulwarks of society, politics and culture are haemorrhaging simultaneously- we need radical reform and it may mean uncomfortable changes and far reaching reform- but for those who suffer under the status quo, I’m willing to bear discomfort as they have for so long: And anyway how much more discomfort do you need than skyrocketing bills and mortgages, stagnated wages, debilitating viral spread, people forced to strike and disrupt national services, an NHS in its agonal breaths and political lying utterly normalised?
Now I need to clarify, yes I understand that in this ridiculous broken system in the UK, we DO have to appeal to a broad range of voters. But if that means appealing to the xenophobes, the anti trans, the “acceptable” culture war nonsense then I am also allowed to lodge a very-big-bloody-problem with it.

To my friends who continually slate the hard left- hi, I’m the hard left. Am I a bad person? Do I seem mean? Do my politics terrify you? Or am I similar to you in a lot of ways but no longer knee jerk react to every person who lodges a complaint with labour’s slide away from radical reform with “OH WELL SEE HOW YOU LIKE THE TORIES THEN”. This tired narrative of “get on board and make changes later” never works- because you somehow never actually make the changes. So many people who claim deep rooted interest in politics want things to change- unless they are affected. I can see it now- “He’s only just been elected, he needs time, that would upset people, oh he’s trying, he can’t rock the boat” or, my favourite one: “it’s not the time”. When is the time to fight for our beliefs and aspirations.
It’s a tale as old as time and the people you’re so angry at, AKA the far left, AKA me, are people who have been asking for change for as long as you have and go from being utterly ignored to ridiculed to being told we have no choice but to vote for those who will not enact our will- the difference I see between myself and you is that I haven’t abandoned my more radical views, even if I’ve delayed them to match the crawl of UK political progression. Yes, you will win the next election- and keeping stuff exactly the same is the grossest betrayal of everyone suffering under the mire right now that I can imagine.

Do I think a labour government would do better for many people than the tories? Yes- but that’s not a glowing endorsement of labour and their actions. I have a Donald Trump toilet brush I trust to do a better job than the tories. They are parodies of politics, besuited shills set on benches in parliament to say empty lines about the jobs they’re getting on with and how levelled up we all are, whilst their back pockets positively strain to hold illicit cash. Preferring labour to that isn’t a ringing endorsement- it’s the least one can do.
Do I think some of the moves labour are offering to make are good? Yes, of course. I know things will be better in many ways under labour, but being better than disaster isn’t a ringing endorsement. I have to ask, how many sacrifices of things we dearly want and need are people like me going to be asked to make? How far will you go to demonise us and our aspirations rather than facing the literal hard right who are in power now?
I see so much garbage about the hard left from people who spend their time on twitter. Apparently its anathema to insult capitalism… How’s that capitalism workin’ out for ya though? Yes there are horrible examples of socialism throughout history, terrible crimes committed by those who espouse communism and absolute fools willing to enact authoritarian communist state politics. I also read a story the other day about an American man who now can’t bend his leg at any joint from hip to ankle because it was crushed at work and he’s too poor to have it fixed, or about an American housewife who died because she couldn’t afford to have the chemo needed to treat her cancer so it just grew inside her. Look at the state of the UK- as people turn their literal power off in their houses because they can’t afford their bills you decry those who lodge their issues with living in heavy capitalism?
You want to talk moderation? How about moderating between positive socialist ideals and positive capitalist ideals and finding your moderation there.

I don’t care about Corbyn very much. I know that’ll upset other people who have agreed up to this point. Yes he was monstered in the press, yes I wanted him as PM, some of his actions frustrated me then and they frustrate me now. I don’t think he’s the devil he’s been painted out to be but I don’t think he’s the only hope for leftist discourse and unity in the UK. In fact, I actively refuse to pin my hopes and aspirations on just one person, just one politician because my leftist politics hangs between the hands of every person who believes in it. We are the change, not anyone who sits in parliament.
I’d hope he’d agree with that along with anyone who believes in leftist reform. I believe we need broad, brave change across the UK. I believe we need to confront problems both archaic and new. We need to reform education, resuscitate our public health system and not look to privatisation as a fix considering we’ve seen how that works for energy, water and the public travel systems- we need to confront the sinuous twisting of the far right amongst our highest offices & to dispel the hate of LGBT+ individuals and migrants, we need to build in a societal buffer for women to ensure that men who practice vile misogyny face the harshest stricture.
I believe we can do it. But that involves change- not maintenance. The system is not fit for purpose. I am willing to watch it be chipped at, provided help is given to those suffering under it now purely because I do not believe blowing it up will be any more helpful than holding it in place as it crumbles.
If you ask for me to vote to keep things the same, you’re asking for me to vote for the mire into which we sink- is that what you want? Because It’s not what I want.

I am tired of trying to appease people who do nothing but disparage my politics. Tried of hearing “if the far left don’t like it they can leave”. Fine! This must be the epitome of the abusive political relationship where I’m told to leave my ideas at the door then I can come in and have the obvious stuff everyone wants but nothing else, the bare minimum stuff it shouldn’t even be a thought to ask for.
“But you’re tory enabling if you don’t vote labour”- a huge indictment of our voting system; but how far is labour allowed to stray from my ideals before it’s not my reluctance to vote for them with enthusiasm that’s the issue? I don’t like it, I’m told to leave, but then I’m told leaving is tory enabling so a genuine question: What do you want from me?! You keep asking me to go if I don’t like it then telling me that going makes things worse. Exactly what choices are you offering? Now we’re told “if you don’t like my vision, leave”. And go where? Vote for another party who will never see power? I’m stuck- it’s not for me to change my politics, it’s for you to represent them!

To those who read this and react with rage, I want you to understand that your knee jerk reaction to anyone questioning labour comes from fear of the tories winning and I understand it, but if labour win, and if labour maintain this horrendous status quo in ways that benefit you but not the oppressed who have lodged complaints- do you want change that helps everyone, or do you just want to win and make sure that you’re ok, at the expense of the rest.

It is also not radical to point out the failure of capitalism. Look at how our bills and rent and goods continue to escalate. It is hardly a shocking standpoint to rationally ask if this system that ties us to debt works- does that mean socialism is the answer? No. But it means discussion of alternatives that do work should not be anathema.

I am tired of pretending to be more moderate than I am. My politics make sense to me even if they aren’t perfect, even if they are “airy fairy”. I do not want labour to lose, I am not trying to work against them- rather I am trying to force a confrontation between the front bench and reality. Voters do not want to hear the same tory line about brexit and minorities do not want to see how truly disposable we are in the face of voter shares and polling. And those desperate people who flee the war zones our meddling creates do not deserve to be demonised by every party. Unfortunately these stances alone seem to be radical. A shame and an indictment on the British political status quo, and calling that out is not meant to be a defection against labour. It’s a cry to the wider voting public to ask why we accept these as the terms of engagement for voting- because to me they are all adding up to be a bridge too far. I don’t want to not vote for labour, I don’t want to vote for them through gritted teeth. I want to stand behind the party proudly and vote for better- I want them to win my vote, not take it through lack of options. That is not radical.

In his article, Kier Starmer clearly states “we are not going back”. Good, I don’t want you to. But I do want you to move forward. This is not about going back to the halcyon days of the Corbyn manifesto, it’s about moving through the socio-political quagmire into better days.
We need PR, we need broad reform to politics and we need political leaders who stand for bold progress- not establishment. If it’s a crime to think that, lock me up.

Eyeshadow and gunpowder: the imaginary war on cishet society

By Daviemoo

LGBTQ+ existence has long been pitted as a culture war where the bejewelled combatants assail everyday ways of life, hurling gay grenades down the halls of institutions like American congress or men in leather pants and harnesses are kicking in the doors of middle England to convert your children.
There is no war, and it’s time to quite literally put down your guns.

I had an argument today which I’ve screencapped for your perusal.
As an Englishman I find American obsession around guns and gun laws to be absolutely gauche. But most of all, when men crow about their love of carrying guns I look at people like that with a mix of utter suspicion and- frankly- derision.

I find this type of delusional thinking objectively fascinating. The lack of nuance never fails to amaze me: if I walked into a kitchen and saw a man brandishing a knife I wouldn’t bat an eye- contextually it’s normal even if a knife is a deadly weapon- but if I saw a man brandishing a knife walking down the street I’d be pretty within my rights to think “well… that’s not good”.
Same with a gun. In the right context, guns don’t scare me: I’ve been on shooting ranges and guns in that context are normal- I’ve also walked past the mint in Leeds where money is created, and had police with P90s stand looking at me warily. It’s intimidating, and it’s done for one of two reasons: to avert danger, or to threaten it.

Men with guns aren’t out stretching their firearm’s legs, there is a reason behind why they carry weaponry and walking out of my favourite gay bar after a show to find a line of men dressed up like marines rejects fingering the trigger of an AK47 is, understandably, nerve wracking- and yet honestly mystifying.

To act like fear is not the motivator for carrying guns- why else has anyone ever carried a weapon in history- either to do harm, or protect themselves from it- so which scenario do these anti drag folks envision- protecting themselves from drag queens or wreak harm on them. Ironic too, for people used to carry sidearms back in Shakespeare’s day… when this newfangled “men in dresses” thing started, because there were no women in Shakespeare’s plays, only men in drag.

Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps it’s rage. Either way it’s misplaced. If it’s rage, be reminded that drag queens aren’t trying to convert your children: it’s impossible to do that and a huge swath of the LGBT+ will tell you so. If it was possible to convert, how many of us would have chosen the path of least resistance in our youth to avoid this ridiculous argument we’re forced into. If conversion was possible, conversion therapy would work: it doesn’t, it leaves most of its victims psychologically scarred enough that they don’t act on their urges, but it doesn’t remove them. I’d also hasten to point out that the existence of conversion therapy speaks to who is trying to “groom” whom into being like the other.

If it’s fear that necessitates dragging firearms around, which I suspect, I fail to see what’s so scary about a man in a dress and fake nails, other than the possibility of a catty comment or being accidentally blinded by flying sequins. But can we be surprised that so many are radicalised into thinking LGBT+ people are creating a WAR on normativity? Look at the messages pumped out by conservative media outlets.

Each of these things has been described by Fox News as having a “WAR” against it

If there was a war; we wouldn’t stand a chance.
3.5% of Americans identify as gay or lesbian. 0.3% identify as transgender. If 3.8% of the population waged war it’s not exactly going to go well- is it.
But conservative types are desperate to push this narrative that anyone outside of their normative model is assailing it, coming for your way of life, trying to FORCE you to be like them.

Making small concessions towards a tiny fragment of the population isn’t war. Not asking people personal questions that you don’t want the answer to any more than we want to give it is not war. If you ask if I have a wife and I say no, and you tell me I should be married at my age and I just smile and say nothing you’re being intrusive- why not leave it instead of prying further then being offended when I tell you I’m gay? It’s like purchasing a rod, waiting for it to arrive, taking it out of the box then handing it to someone and asking them to hit you with it.

It may come as a shock: I don’t want there to be more gay people in the world: I want the people who are to be able to come out and be happy if they so wish, I want the people who are trans to get their healthcare and get on with their lives, and especially, I want people so brainwashed by the endless shouts of WAR, WAR, WAR against them to let go of the rhetoric and realise they’re not being threatened by gay people- but by their perception of us: you’re fighting ghosts.
Yes, you might get fired if you call me a slur. I might get fired if I call someone a slur… it’s not a right I have that you don’t, simply that there are no slurs to describe you and even if there were I wouldn’t use them- but of course, normative culture has a morose obsession with trying to make normal words slurs.
TikTokers like Nicholasvanj call heterosexual people “upsetterosexuals” or “straggots” and then face deluges of “HETEROPHOBIA” in their comments. People constantly decry the use of the word cis when it’s literally a descriptor like “tall”, “athletic” or “interesting”. If you don’t want to be called cis I won’t call you cis- but I’m sure going to be confused about how you’ll wring insult out of a factual descriptive word with no negative connotations, and I’ll make extra sure that you don’t use any offensive lingo either- you’d be fascinated by how many people offended by a biological descriptor like cis throw around anti trans or homophobic words with what they believe is impunity.

The saddest part is that most virulently anti LGBT+ people seem miserable, obsessed with something that isn’t their concern. I cannot imagine spending my life wrapped so intimately around something I find disgusting. But they cannot simply disengage because there almost seems to be a need to create a dark shibboleth of the community, to make us the enemy that worsens their lives, poisons their water and steals their precious children into depravity. I don’t just want them to stop because they endanger my life with their increasingly provocative rhetoric: I want them to stop because I don’t like seeing miserable people yelling about my private life 24/7 and I think they must have better things to do with their time: Imagine how much happier you’d be if you stopped worrying about imaginary genitals or whether I’m a top or a bottom. So much free time to knit, to go to the gym, read, drink beer, I don’t care- just stop obsessing over people who, frankly, want nothing to do with you.

Heteronormative men in particular are desperate for there to be some sort of attack against them- constantly pushing the rhetoric that they are having their way of life dismantled, their freedoms taken away, their free speech censored. Unfortunately this is what parity looks like: when you finally get held to the same standards as others it’s not because we’re taking your rights away, it’s that we’re applying societal norms to you that your predecessors did not face.
Let’s imagine there is this fabled war though, and when they win, when they finally take over… then what?
I don’t understand the world that the men who espouse such toxic nonsense actually want, and frankly I don’t think they do either. If you rid the world of the LGBT+ and the feminists and the feminine men, how long do you think it would be until the less masculine men were up next, charged with feminising the real alphas… and which group would you be in? If every man suddenly became a super masculine paragon of manliness it would be a flash before they turned against themselves- they have to have an enemy to survive, because the whole ethos of the “alpha” male is victimhood garbed as strength, and if nobody is there to pick on them.. what then? It’s an ideology that folds in on itself like poorly done origami the moment it’s subjected to critical scrutiny, and one too many men fall into to expunge blame for their own failings when they are often the arbiters of their own misery against each other.

The fallacious thinking of the meninist crowd is made complex by people debating the grossly vapid talking points of empty fools like Andrew Tate, who likes to spend his time failing to antagonise 19 year old women on the internet or by lionising the actions of those cosplaying Navy SEALs outside drag bars when it’s really very simple: Men have spent years being lied to by media, shown movies where masculinity is control, manliness is anger, where if you just keep pestering, eventually she’ll say yes- from James Bond movies to every other action movie dross, negative masculinity is at the forefront of most of our historical media. Men grow up being told if you’re rude and dismissive to women they’ll do what you want because all women secretly want bad men- but wait, no, feminism is ruining it, making women think they have equal status? You have to put effort into dating? To men who think like this, I have to ask: do you even like women? I saw an interview with a meninist recently who argued his girlfriend should not be allowed to go on holiday without him because other men looking at her is disrespectful to him.
Security with a partner comes from trust, and if you cannot trust you are deeply damaged. Forcing someone into fidelity by simply refusing to allow them to go anywhere and do anything is not a paragon of masculinity, it exemplifies true fragility- and if you disagree, reverse the roles and ask yourself how you would feel about a woman averse to allowing her partner to go on holiday without her…? Control freak? Crazy?… Insecure.
It’s no different in the inverse.
A partner is just that: someone on equal standing who supports you as you support them, and if you’re too weak and fragile to be in a relationship with an equal I want to heartily assure you- it’s not women who have the problem in that scenario. Strength seeks strength, so if you hope to find a weak willed woman who will do what you say it’s because of your own inherent weakness, not because of your strength.

Further, LGBT+ people aren’t coming for your way of life. Many LGBT+ people call for integration into cishet society and whilst I understand it, the older I get the more I want some form of base separatism. I want to be left alone to live my gay life in a gay subculture that barely bumps against straight culture. I don’t want to have to mask my irritation at insensitive questions about my sex life, or feign patience when I listen to someone say “I’m fine with it, I just wish they’d leave kids out of it” when I have always known I was gay and was suicidal as a child and into my mid teens because nobody could or would help me understand it, and despite this endless patient explanation still being told “but some people might take advantage”- again, creating imaginary “what if” scenarios proves to me only that you’re more interested in living in an imaginary world than the physical one.
If you want to have a realistic conversation about indoctrination lets talk about forcing children to say the pledge of alliegance, or splashing water on their forehead so they don’t go to purgatory forever or relentlessly pestering your young children about if they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend… or is is that there’s good and bad types of grooming and indoctrination?

Society is crowded with bigots riled up by media pundits whose mission is to make you think everyone who isn’t a carbon copy of you- skin colour, political affiliation, sexual proclivities- is coming to destroy your life. Ironic, then, that they so readily destroy lives that they see as apart from their own.
If your existence is maintained via the dismantlement of other peoples’ normal, perhaps your normal is the aberration.

When it comes to masculinity, the very idea of feeling so threatened by a drag artist that you hover outside their work with a loaded gun is not masculine: The essence of masculinity is security, displayed by being so unbothered by gun toting yahoos that you cooly stroll into work unbothered by the threat of their presence.
If you want to shame people for dressing up to be that which they are not, might I suggest you take off your store bought army garb, holster your unused firearm and realise you’re just as much- if not more than- a cosplayer as those you hope vainly to threaten.

Talking about LGBT+ people isn’t ruining your children- you are

By Daviemoo

Day after day, I see more brain dead ramblings from people who think that there is no way to explain gay people existing to children without bringing out a blow up phallus. Lets go through the arguments and make, and I use this word loosely, “sense” of them because – as a gay man- I have had enough.

It will traumatise them

It absolutely flabbergasts me that people think they can bring children up in religious doctrine and that’s normal, but telling them about LGBT+ people is the final straw.
So your kid can believe an all powerful being is looking after uncle Jerry after he plowed his car into a tree on his way home from a bar, that god sits there peering off a cloud watching people exist and that if that child does something wrong god will let them be tortured for all of eternity in fire- but telling them two men who were holding hands in the street are gay is what’s going to mess them up? The cognitive dissonance astounds me daily. LGBT+ people do exist, and acknowledging this simple fact prepares your child for a life of very occasionally encountering LGBT+ people in their daily/weekly life: we’ll be their doctors, hairdressers, accountants, baristas… You don’t have to teach them to like it, but “I can’t teach my child facts because it’s counter to my beliefs” is really fucking funny to hear people say unironically.

They’re too young to understand

If they’re old enough to see two teenagers necking on in a bus stop, they’re old enough to understand that sometimes that might be a boy and a girl, a girl and a girl, a boy and a boy, two non binary people or any combination of these things. You don’t have to break out the action man and barbie figures and start smashing them together like you’re trying to reconstruct the large hadron collider experiments for children to grasp that sometimes people of different genders like each other.

“It’s grooming”

The amount of people who don’t think adult men tickling little girls or asking children if they’ve got partners jokingly or encouraging boys to bully girls to express their feelings are all normal behaviours, and yet think acknowledging LGBT+ people’s existences is grooming is increasing, and increasingly confusing. Grooming is normalising sexual behaviour with people who aren’t legally, mentally and physically prepared for it and should be protected from it at all costs. It’s a pretty fucking dark accusation. It’s also bullshit. If you’re ok with showing them sleeping beauty where a guy KISSES AN UNCONSCIOUS WOMAN, maybe ask yourself about your priorities VERY closely because “gay people sometimes exist” and “look, maybe some day a man will kiss YOU when you’re asleep” are actually not the same message. If you don’t get upset with half naked people writhing provocatively on a Jean Paul-Gaultier perfume advert, you can also not get upset about gay existence, because one is sexual and I would posit close to grooming and one isn’t- and it’s not the ones you think.

It might make them think they are

So? So what? Are you that afraid your child might not be the carbon copy of you that you were desperate to create when you mounted your wife like a drunk raccoon, and you think that means your existence was meaningless? If your child briefly wonders if they might be gay or trans just because they see a gay or trans person so what! If they’re not- they won’t pursue it, and if they are maybe immediately rejecting them based on that isn’t because you “failed”, but because you’re a bad parent…

It makes me uncomfortable

“I can’t cope with the literal fact that other types of humans exist” is not a compelling argument for not educating your children. It makes me uncomfortable to hear people talk about my sex life on tv, it makes me uncomfortable that people wear crocs in public and yknow what I do? Move on.

I think it’s an adult topic

Exactly how do you see this conversation going? “sometimes men like women, sometimes men like men” is quite a simple sentence. If you’re the ones who have to go into excruciating detail about where genitals go, what genitals are and who does what with them, its because you suffer from a terminal lack of nuance- that’s not LGBT+ peoples’ fault. If you don’t want to talk to your kids about it, don’t. But they will learn elsewhere, sooner or later, and leaving that to the world then getting mad about it is a pretty stupid look. And again, you can acknowledge LGBT+ people without having an adult conversation with your kids- it’s like, super simple.

I think it’s wrong

Ok? All the more reason for you to educate your children I guess but sure, hide us from them, lets see how that goes when little Timmy discovers he likes little Ben as more than a friend and has nobody he can confide in because his parents suck.

I have to wonder what people who endlessly moan about the LGBT+ and our existence think we feel when we look at them. Listening to people who waste their lives complaining about us gives me frustration but mostly makes me nonplussed. If you want to spend your entire life angry that other people exist, I can’t stop you. But I do wonder how much happier these people would be if they’d stop imagining my sex life.
We’re constantly told we “force it on people” because we wear flags to denote our existence- the same way you guys wear union jacks… its our identity and we like to share that… I’ll stop wearing mine if you drop yours?
We’re always accused of being everywhere- that is LITERALLY life now. Your hairdresser? Lesbian. The guy at the bank who approved your loan? Trans. The person who checked you in at the airport three weeks ago? Bisexual. Your admission that you can’t cope with the fact that other people exist is not a good look, and yet people continue to open throatedly confess that they dislike literal fact.

I wouldn’t even mind people constantly being arseholes about me and mine if we didn’t literally pay for society to cater to these losers. Ah you feel free speech is threatened because I exist? What do you propose you do about it? You want me to be prevented from talking about myself and my life? Uh, so you’re not really a free speech advocate then I guess. Cut my taxes to the bone, because if I’m not treated as a full member of society I shouldn’t be paying for it.

Honestly, society continues to confound me: people think that now is the peak of human civilisation and we can’t even go two weeks without threatening to drop bombs on each other. We have much growing to do, and we aren’t going to be able to do that until we stop causing division over nonsense. People continue to conflate my community with paedophilia to the detriment of actual victims of paedophilia, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender of the criminal involved. If you think our existence is the end of society, you may want to reflect on the simple fact that we’ve existed as long as you have and society still keeps on going, and perhaps it’s your wilful entitlement as “the right type of person” that’s causing division and societal friction and not the people who exist amongst you and just want to be able to kiss their partner without a bunch of yeehaws crying about it.

If you’re incapable of having a talk with your child about sexuality or gender without making it weird, if you can’t even bring yourself to acknowledge us to your child, it’s not because we’re awful evil people- it’s because you’re a bad parent, failing to prepare their child for a world in which we exist just as surely as they do and a world in which, regardless of your sentiments towards our community we deserve to exist unmolested.

Living as a minority is fucking exhausting these days.

By Daviemoo

The never ending discourse that minorities are subjected to about their identity is absolutely exhausting.
When I was in my mid teens, the amount of discourse around gayness was tailing off after many, many years of our time in the societal panic spotlight. I’ve mentioned before that we almost seemed to experience something of a renaissance in white gay culture, a time where nobody cared or thought about us and it felt very liberating to just be able to get on with life without any of the inane rambling.
Now, we seem to be back in the spotlight along with other minorities and the endless pathologisation is exhausting, and I would love for those outside of our experience to imagine how mind numbing it is to be subjected to this over and over.

There’s this thing that happens when you exist as a minority where you feel the need to speak out about something, and are instantly shushed. We all know what I’m about to say- from “why does everything need to be about race” to “you don’t have to talk about being gay constantly” or the monosyllabic ranting around gender, for every time you open your mouth to speak somewhere an ignorant person is desperate to tell you to close it. This is, though, especially ironic when the person or people telling you to quieten down have profiles or existences dedicated to the ongoing denigration of people just like you- from racists who would be out of work without the existence of people of colour to people like Maya Forstater who seems to do nothing but go from anti LGBT+ event to anti LGBT+ event. We can’t turn off whatever it is that makes you dislike us, and bigots can- could- should deal with their bigotry, but I have so often seen people of that creed reject founded evidence of their wrongness in favour of believing incorrect beliefs. In fact, if we’re mentioning Forstater let’s talk about the idea that Gender Critical beliefs are a protected characteristic because even if you present gender critical people with empirical evidence they are incorrect they will still hold the belief in the face of it being wrong. There is an ever growing tranche of evidence linking far right activism including anti vaccination and white supremacist rallies to gender critical activism and we can see why: Look at how the anti vaccine movement has stopped talking about autism in the face of billions and billions of COVID Vaccinations yielding not one additional case of autism- it’s the same conspiracy-esque nonsense as trans people secretly being funded by George Soros to “trans” peoples kids.
How is one meant to argue the case with people to whom fact means nothing. Judith Butler has often spoken out about those who will try to “silence” dissenting minorities, as if stopping adults from talking about their gender or sexuality would stop children from experiencing their own awakenings; trans people existed before 1990, as did gay people and quietening those voices does nothing to stop that. Let us not forget Butler’s Guardian article in early 2022, which featured a prediction of far right allyship with Gender Critical movements. Though this section of the article was removed, the truth of its words rang out and were ratified only last month when Butler’s prediction came true.

For most of us, identity is incidental. If we lived in a normal world, my being gay wouldn’t have been a big deal so I probably wouldn’t think about it much. But we don’t live in a normal world. We live in a world where stranger A’s being transgender offends stranger B so much that stranger B literally lobbies against stranger A being able to exist in society: we live in a world where a gay person existing on TV is so offensive to some non gay people that they will boycott shows just to avoid looking at someone who isn’t even doing anything adult- just existing as a gay person.

Now, the irony here is that it’s quite often the people complaining about these things who talk about how people like me are soft, sensitive snowflakes because we don’t like having our identity questioned and pathologised- but I hardly think it’s the people who don’t like spurious accusations of mental illness and perversion levelled act them that are the weak ones, over people who physically cannot tolerate seeing affection expressed between two consenting adults. But it’s an irony that is so often passed over, because acknowledgement of this presents a threat to the heteronormative status quo: if you question why straight men are so sensitive they can’t even see two men kiss, they will likely lose their temper, or immediately spit out nonsense in retaliation.

My personal favourite overused archetype at the moment is the “I’m not *insert flavour of bigotry here* BUT”.
“I’m not homophobic BUT I don’t support gay people’s right to get married”.
So you don’t think it’s homophobic to allow me to have equal rights to you? “You do, you could marry a woman”. Yes I could- do you condone me marrying a woman knowing I have no intention to follow what the normative model of that is…? Also under equal marriage, you have the right to marry another man- ah, you don’t want to because that doesn’t interest you. Interesting…
The most fascinating part of the “I’m not X bigotry BUT” types is almost a tacit acknowledgement that it’s wrong to be bigoted so they try to distance themselves from it whilst also rationalising a viewpoint that proves they are.
I’d posit that it’s possible to hold one, maybe even two ‘mildly’ bigoted opinions about a minority without being wholly a bigot, but it’s best to just unpick those opinions because having bigoted opinions does not help you in any way.
But the way in which bigoted people will try to remove themselves from the idea of being a bigot whilst perpetuating its existence is almost comical.

This seems to happen a lot with anti trans people. “I’m not transphobic” is said so often to me that I could genuinely use it as white noise, second only to “but what did she SAY that’s transphobic”. It’s a bad faith argument. When you’re told by multiple members of a minority that something is bigoted, why fight that? It isn’t affecting your free speech, you can still say it, but you will also be judged for it. If you’re being told that what you say is offensive you have options:
-Accept that what you have said is bigoted, apologise, acknowledging this is wrong and try to do your own work to unpick the thought patterns that led to this thought’s formation
-Accept that what you have said is bigoted but refuse to do the work, believing that it is your right to hold this view even if it is considered “wrong” societally
-Deny that what you have said is bigoted and explain it further, possibly alleviating the problem or making it worse dependant on your defence
-Deny that what you have said is bigoted and refuse to engage on the topic further

It is this key confusion I wish I could unpick. People seem to want to live in a world where they can both say the bigoted opinion AND escape culpability for having it.

A narrow minded opinion is not just a handcuff, it’s a ball and chain: if you want to have the opinion, you must be shackled to it’s consequences: any attempt to hold a bigoted opinion without ownership of it’s negative connotations is proof you are aware that the opinion is incorrect and is not defensible.

The relentless discourse around identity is part, I am almost sure, of human nature. It is human to examine, deconstruct and question identity- from the first moment one human saw another human. walking around in clothes, or choose to farm instead of hunt all the way to now, variation has been part of human existence and many of us spend immense amounts of time unpicking the human experience through the lenses of others: the idea that identity is a binary is laughably reductive in the face of all of human history. From body types, skin colour, gender to the more ephemeral concept of music taste, artistic level, hobbies and interests and so on, humanity is vast and varied: to deny this and to shrink identity to “right” or “wrong” based on its marriage to your own identity is bizarre. The problem is, culture is linked to the popular. White, blonde, fairly affluent right wing people seem to be the largest demographic (this is false, there are more varied and liberal people in western societies) based on social media and media presented to us by states and national interests. The reason that the more varied side fails often to stake its’ representation properly is that, within that vast and varied group there is still a reductive argument about identity that persists, alongside the idea that there is or are a way or ways in which to exist which is “correct”: this is false.

Every person has a mode of existence that suits them. Unfortunately, some people’s mode of existence intersects negatively with others. People who kill, people who hurt others, bigots etc- these people negatively impact on other people’s mode of existence. This is not acceptable, and whilst neither a wholly “live and let live” mindset is fully helpful, it is more conducive to a prosperous society than enforced rules of living that do not fit a certain proportion of people.

There is no “correct way” to exist, because each person is so fundamentally different from the last, though often having overlaps that to apply a unifying theory to existence is wholly pointless.

Looking at gender: many societies have followed similar but not wholly same methods of gender expression for many years. That doesn’t mean those methods are correct as much as that, at the time, they were considered appropriate: from Geishas in Japan as an expression of femininity to Boudica, stripped bare for statues- these are expressions of gender just as surely as petticoats, little black dresses and more. Society changes in huge, varied ways which lead to a retrospective interest in their originations: Think of it in terms of medicine. The reason that so many anti vaxxers exist is that many see medicine as it exists now as the “peak” of modernity: medicine can’t get any better, so any “new” medicine, like vaccines etc are not acceptable or safe: this is based on the idea that medicine doesn’t grow and change. Vaccines have been performed en masse since the late 1800s and whilst they, like every single medical procedure from dentistry to appendectomies have resulted in deaths, the numbers are small. Every time you have a medical procedure you should be aware of the potential for harm: vaccines are no exception.
I have no doubt that in 200 years, if humans don’t wipe themselves out, the way in which we treat cancers etc now will be viewed as just as brutal and unsafe as we view war wound amputations from the 1800s. This is the same for understandings of and ways to go about expressing gender, including the medical side- but one can also look at anything and see societal understanding adapt and grow through time. It genuinely functions the same: Archaic expressions of gender are seen as quaint, and our reductive understanding of gender and its expression now will, again, be seen as primitive if humanity continues to flourish.

But in examining these modes of existence we zoom so far out as to miss the micro-strands of daily existence and humanity woven between these existences, so to zoom back in and to get back to the original point, being under that constant level of scrutiny is wholly exhausting.

One reason I feel this could be the case is that those who live under “social norms” or who feel the need (like transphobic trans people) to reaffirm social norms even in the face of their own existence, feel their existence is threatened when someone exists outside of their reconciliation of their own identity.
In particular, gay men who rail against any man who does not conform to their idea of masculine seem often to be filled with a certain type of discomfort that, because a feminine man exists he will also be tarred with femininity. This leads into a broader discussion of what exactly is wrong with femininity or conversely why a “masculine” woman is problematic, but it’s original concept is that to be a man who does not conform to what another man’s expectation is cannot be a man. Norms are simply the base understanding we originate from, but do not have to be the finality of our understanding of how people can be, exist and function. I have been told innumerable times in my life that I’m not a “real man” because of my sexuality, but if homosexual acts remove me from my sex then sex is surely not innate and immutable- and yet many homophobic gender critical people can hold these two opposing beliefs in their heads at the same time.
I do have to wonder on a personal level if there is a connection between why a lot of gay men are more effeminate- is it biological, societal: who knows. But the question is, why does it matter. Behaviour is just behaviour, and why do normative people feel threatened by those who do not conform? Perhaps there’s a biological imperative on why certain sexes act certain ways, and a further conflation of why homosexual people act differently than this- but in a society that isn’t based on survival due to very base acts, actions and modes of existence it doesn’t matter.

I used to believe that humans would naturally become more understanding, kinder, better as we grew. But I grew up in the early 90s and we didn’t have the internet or smart phones. Now we do, we can reach out and speak to people of every walk of life- and that seems to have come with endless discourse from normative people on why anything outside of their experience makes them uncomfortable. One has to wonder whether this massive amount of discussion is simply a Richter shake of society as we strain to accommodate those who were quiet before: but the main issue we face is that society will not continue to improve until we stop recycling the same faces, the same voices: White cis women endlessly recycling the same 5000 words about their discomfort with trans women, middle aged men speaking out about foreign people in their countries, old people talking about the problems with the young… Until we change the well worn narrative it is only these recidivist attitudes that will continue to seem “normal” and whilst I personally do not want to appeal to “normal” because I am not by my nature, I would very much like for “normal” people to stop discussing people who are not they as a pastime.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

The LGBT+ are not groomers: the people calling us that, though…

By Daviemoo

If you think seeing gay people being gay in public or on TV shows is going to “indoctrinate your children” I cannot take you seriously. And if you think being part of the LGBT+ in one or more ways automatically makes you a groomer that’s quite literally the essence of bigotry.

“Backs against the wall, lads”. I heard that a few times at school after I came out at 15. I always found it funny to be honest with you, not the least because most of the guys I went to school with were ugly as fuck.

Homophobic people always seem to think you’re just barely restraining yourself from trying to sleep with them which is an odd reaction to proximity to someone with a different sexuality than you: but I think it’s broader than that. As you look at the rise and rise of political toss pieces like Donald “he says what he means but let me explain it” Trump or vexatious idiots like Liz Truss as she scrambles for the leadership, or- related to right wing politics even if not necessarily directly, the same pastiched internet losers like Andrew Tate, a man who looks like a 4 year old who has been told to eat his vegetables or he doesn’t get to watch tv, you begin to realise that people who are homophobic genuinely see themselves as so desirable that anyone- men, women, everyone around them, is just barely holding themselves back from sleeping with them. It’s why they’re so dangerous: they actually believe the same disgusting shite that the old James Bond movies pushed.
“If I just harangue, pester, annoy, rile up this woman enough, eventually she’ll stop pretending she doesn’t want to fuck me”. It’s deranged, and being pushed by the mainstream as idiots like “grab them by the pussy” or tit-head Tate speak out on their platforms to angry young men who suddenly find themselves denied the “do what you want and we’ll say it’s just ‘boys will be boys'” nonsense that defended our predecessors. And if you don’t think there’s a causal link between internet nut holders and right wing politics… well:

I can smell the testosterone and brut from here

This rhetoric of “I know what people REALLY think, im just brave enough to say it” also pervades other movements: the anti trans movement in the UK has been lovingly embraced by all tentacles of the insidious Murdoch media empire, who push out transphobic articles- some of which are quite literally false information (Allison Bailey LOST against Stonewall!) – purely to detract from and distract from governmental malfeasance and all the while pushing the idea that ALL women hate trans people, ALL women secretly hate men because ALL men are bad and evil. The irony is, a lot of us pro trans feminist types agree that men are the causal issue- we just dont think trans women are men and understand that you’ll never make societal change to better the behaviour of cis men if you don’t start, y’know… fighting cis men…

One of my favourite moments the other day was when Rosie Duffield, the most tory Labour MP in existence, tweeted the sentence “nobody believes trans people don’t exist” and I called her a liar. A TERF quote tweeted me to say “no matter what she does you’ll call her a liar”… all of 7 tweets later she told me “I don’t believe trans exists”.
Shocker- TERFS not only lie, but cannot follow logic past seven tweets: a TERF came to the anti Nazi rally to “report” on it, and of course her blockbuster article condemned us all for being there- begging the question “do you think we should just let fascists protest unopposed”.

The fash were protesting against “drag queen story hour” because apparently its perverted and sexual that a man in a dress reads a book to kids. We’ve never before in society allowed men in dresses to be near children…

The right- and all TERFS, despite their other wider political views, are right wing- are desperate to level accusations at others that they themselves partake in. The latest insult we in the LGBT+ have to endure and hear constantly is “groomer”. Apparently we’re grooming children because we want schools to teach acceptance. For us, it’s usually because we recall our own school days when people would say stuff like “backs to the wall” or ask me if I liked d*ck up my a**e- at fifteen… and we don’t want other kids to go through that. Not only does it mean that children don’t grow up as I did, fully aware that I liked other boys/men and with absolutely no one to talk to about it and with only negative things ever said about it, but it also means that younger people who don’t know about it and would choose the path of ignorance have that interrupted, and at least understand it before they grow into the monsters who will end up making our lives hell.

But how come the right are happy to push the idea that forcing your “ideology” on people is grooming, and still do it?

Handy proof that its only indoctrination if it’s not what YOU believe

Somehow it’s deemed as ok to take your child and get a total stranger to pour water on their head or dunk them in a font because you believe that a magical all seeing power wants you to do that so they prove their devotion, or to slap on a kid size MAGA hat and drag them to a rally where they’ll be told that everyone else is out to take their rights and guns and money. Somehow it’s not a problem when it’s YOUR beliefs, but someone else’s point of view- someone else’s literal existence- comes into the equation and suddenly that’s perverse, there must be some sexual element to it.

Tell me how many open cases of child abuse and sexual assault the catholic church has out against it at the moment, will you…?

I went to an anti nazi rally in my home town this weekend: there were well over a hundred of us, trans, gay, bi, lesbians all united in our white hot hatred of the Patriotic Alternative, or as I like to call them, Gammon MAGA. They dangled banners that called us groomers, paedophiles, said things like “Learn ABCD not LGBT”. I have news for the desperately uneducated incels on the other side of those barriers: Kids will still grow up gay, bi, trans without your little banners. They just won’t figure it out til later, and will leave wreckage in their wake when they do.

When I was younger I knew I was something… gay, bi? I wasn’t sure. And in the process of figuring that out, because nobody could help me thanks to section 28, I hurt people who didn’t deserve it.
If it’s about protecting the kids, how about protecting not only the ones who need help to figure themselves out, but the ones who get caught in the crossfire of people’s self discovery?

It’s never been about protecting children for the right, it’s never been about a balanced view, a “let them learn at age appropriate times” because if it was, we’d be listened to. I don’t want kids learning about sex too soon any more than the idiots on the other side of those barriers do: and I know this is hard to grasp but whilst SEXuality has the word sex in it, sexuality can have very little to do with sex.

Let’s say I decided that I was never going to date another man ever again: Does that mean I’m not gay? Did those warm feelings in my toes go away whenever I see a guy with a nice chest? Do I not blush when a good looking guy winks at me?
Hell no. Sexuality isn’t about where you finish, even if that’s a part of it: it’s about feelings. I knew I was gay at 4! Didn’t know what the hell sex was, just knew that a guy I went to school with was pretty to me the way the other boys said girls were to them. Teaching children that thats a possibility isn’t grooming: it’s fact. And I mean, facts over feelings, right…?

The fact is that LGBT+ people are called groomers just for existing and talking about our life and experience, and I regularly list the ways heteronormative people behave around others that would be absolutely torn to SHREDS if an LGBT+ person did it. It’s why I laugh when I see people say we have equal rights… try being terrified to show affection to your partner in public cos you might get murdered and then shout EQUALITY at me again.

But this brings me on the long cycling road back to the nature of this supposed grooming we’re doing. If we’re FORCING our IDEOLOGY on KIDS with our FLAGS and our PRONOUNS and you want all of that erased, it may be worthwhile examining your own societal behaviours…

Hope you’re not forcing kids to wear your flag whether they want to or not…

And it would of course be terribly hypocritical to force children to be around your political heroes, indoctrinating them into your beliefs…

And it always bears repeating that indoctrinating children into your religion, even when that religion is rife with covered up child abuse claims would definitely, surely, go under the definition of grooming…

The root of the issue is as simple as, none of this is considered grooming because it’s considered “normal”: but seen through a critical lens it takes on an uneasy tilt. Divergence from sexuality that is purely straight is also normal but it seems that cis het people grow up in a bubble, constructed purely of the idea that not being “like you” means you’re wrong and therefore bad.
Wouldn’t it also be ironic if, for example, virulently right wing anti LGBT+ figures were found to be quite literally grooming? Hope you keep this anti groomer energy for them…

Let’s be specific on sexuality: LGBT+ people are often uneasy around children specifically because we’ve had disgusting accusations levelled at us purely on account of our gender or sexuality. And it’s really, really heinous to sexualise children or push your sexuality on children… surely cis het people don’t ever do that… right?

LGBT+ people’s existence isn’t grooming, and if pushing the idea of accepting us instead of being a hateful piece of shit is controversial then we have bigger problems than we’re willing to discuss.

The right are hypocrites.
The left, and especially those of us on the left in the LGBT+ community who talk about steering children’s thought patterns and education towards not just grudging tolerance but acceptance, are open about our reasoning: because we don’t want to repeat the mistakes and the bigotry of the past. Children must be shaped early on to ensure their acceptance of others, especially in a world that shoves bigotry and flawed behaviour into us from every aspect- and untangling that is not easy. I’d rather save “normative” children the stress of untangling learned bigotry when they grow old enough to understand its wrong, along with the non “normative” children not having to suffer at their hand.
Call it grooming if you want- I call it learned decency.

The LGBT+ progress pride flag represents nothing of sex to me: it’s a symbol of a community who cares about those both within and without it. I feel sorry for people twisted by hatred for us, because what a sad little life it must be to be so deeply concerned with whether someone was born in their gender or falls in love with someone of the same gender… if that’s your biggest problem, you are truly blessed.
Now look at the flags of hate preachers like the PA and tell me you see tolerance and love in their ranks, or do you see people too stupid or narrow minded to accept that sometimes people are born different, and that’s ok.

As to wrapping your children in your paraphernalia, escorting them to Trump rallies or telling them how you weren’t a sissy growing up to stop the damn crying and to turn into another maladjusted adult who can’t manage their emotions so they take it out on everyone else, you might not call that grooming but I sure do: I won’t apologise for hoping and trying to help your children turn out less shitty than you.

The War of Friendly Fire – or ‘why would I blame a trans woman for the crimes of cis men’?

By Daviemoo

As I grew up, I assumed that the world would only continue its steady plod onwards re: progress, inclusion and justice. But it hasn’t: it’s been stalled- why? by an ageing generation who want permission to be awful under the guise of free speech, who want to blame the next generation for ruining the world they fostered and worse still- we’re letting them. Powerful men sit in mountain-high towers waving gold wrapped fingers to strike down rights they enjoy themselves- and all the time, as these men continue their oligarchical stranglehold on society, we’re all too busy biting each other’s backs to fight the real enemies.

It’s such a strange time to be alive. A virus that, in 2020, terrorised the globe now isn’t even a consideration: people cough and splutter openly in public (a woman just coughed near me in the cafe I’m in and my immediate thought was “great”) without masks or without even a hint of contrition. Minorities like disabled people, people of colour or LGBT+ people and all those who exist in-between those minorities are still fighting the same harmful battles we’ve been struggling against for generations, as ministers like Kemi Badenoch swell the ranks of a government whose race report was absolutely condemned by experts on racial disparity; and we’re called misogynists because we think trans people deserve to live in peace, because apparently misogyny is when you don’t hate trans people. Poor people line the streets to vote rich people into power, who spend their terms consolidating their wealth to unfathomable heights whilst telling poor people they just need to work harder. And all the time, everyone’s ire is aimed at each other, at cross purpose, never at those in charge.

At times it’s hard to picture better, but my good friend Dr Maria Norris said just that to me recently: it starts with the imagining of better. The world seems to be, less slipping and more lurching to the right politically, and the essence of right wing politics is the self. People are only invested in themselves and their own happiness- but this isn’t the fault of the individual. It’s right, fair even that people who are disadvantaged are only interested in themselves- their very survival. This is the essence of the trouble we’re in. So many people are economically deprived, two paycheques away from poverty in most cases, that we don’t have the mental space to imagine better for ourselves. How can we care that other people suffer more, when we suffer so ourselves? But care we must, or this cycle spins again.
The question I ask myself many times a day is- is this an accident? Are those in charge just so serially inept that they cannot come up with broad solutions to this? Of course not. There are ways, means to go about fixing these problems. But nobody with a scintilla of power will lever attempt it for reasons I understand but revile- but that is an article for another day: let’s stick with the material: the fact that society is fractured in a million ways.

The irony is how easy it is to point out the hypocrisy.
Lets take someone that I was always warm towards until recently as a perfect example of societal hypocrisy, an unexpected source no doubt: Bette Midler.

Recently in the US, the Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs. Wade which has upended the bodily autonomy and therefore safety and equality of roughly 50% of US citizens. The outcry was heard around the world and this terrible travesty has shaken any decent person’s faith in the idea that choice is sacrosanct when it comes to forcing a person to carry an unwanted child to term, and has even legitimised death from disturbingly common conditions like ectopic pregnancy as “god’s will”.
Midler was on fire, sharing stories about how Donald Trump’s wife allegedly sought an abortion previously, pointing out the logical fallacies around preserving life at the expense of those whose lives are fed to the baby making business, making memes that both twisted your guts and resonated in their truth.

Then Midler tweeted this:

There was immediate shock: anybody who knows the battle for trans equality knows those talking points. Trans people are often accused of erasing women, erasing the word woman, taking women’s rights away, appropriating women’s battles… so, was Bette Midler revealing transphobia writ large to the world?

As it turns out, no. Midler has since clarified that she was clumsily talking about the intersectional battle all women face. Let’s just break the talking points down and debunk them. The word woman is not being erased at all, there are simply alternatives on offer for medical journals to allow more inclusivity to trans people- women can still call themselves women, trans women call themselves trans women, and chest feeding and breast feeding are interchangeable as you see fit- nobody is forcing anyone to use gender inclusive language for themselves but when referencing society- if you want to fight a battle for people, consider that not acknowledging a significant part of those affected doesn’t exactly engender the fight in it’s totality. Trans men are capable of having children and will of course fight for abortion rights, but not acknowledging that they face that oppression is unfair on them and in tandem, lessens the true horror of just how many people this affects.

As for “people with vaginas”- are women not people who have vaginas or did I miss something? That tweet seemed to blame gender inclusive language for the removal of womens rights. but is it gender inclusive language that stripped back access to abortion or was it a bunch of rich right wing people?
The answer is obvious- and as I cover further down, blaming people whose very happiness and existence relies on bodily autonomy being a basic right for the rolling back of bodily autonomy is utterly wrong.

But Midler also tweeted this:

Another minority who shouldn’t be there in Midler’s very famous crosshairs.

Muslim people had nothing to do with this decision: not a single person who made the decision is muslim. But Midler tweeted this image, swivelling the cannon to face muslim people again, America’s favourite scapegoat. Amazing how many devisions in America made by Christians end up being blamed on muslims.

Please bear in mind as I write this some very simple facts: I do not hate religious people- if religion brings you comfort, happiness, security, answers then I wish you that joy in totality. But I hate religion. All religion. I don’t need a god, a book, a set of yellowed scriptures to tell me murder is wrong, women should be equal to men and that I’m not a disgusting degenerate because I think other men are attractive. If the only thing stopping you from shooting someone is fear of punishment then you’re scum. What’s stopping me from doing it? It’s wrong.
I’d love the same sort of respect and response from religious people. Your religion says I’m disgusting and immoral for being gay? Well I’m sure it also says only god can judge me so button your mouth and let god tell me when I die, but until then I pay the same tax you do, I have the same bad hair days you do and I struggle to get out of bed some days just like you do. Let god tell me why I’m wrong for existing in this skin and just let me be.

Back to the problem at hand.
Transgender people are a tiny part of the population. They had no say about the overturning of Roe V Wade, though trans people who do support the overturn are, frankly- stupid.
The very essence of trans existence revolves around bodily autonomy being a base sacrosanct right. If cis women can’t decide they are not ready physically, emotionally, monetarily for a child, why would trans people be able to decide to undergo hormone therapy or surgery? The battles are linked: anyone who separates the two lacks the zoom-out vision required to understand intersectional existential battles.
Muslim people are also not to blame: Midler tweeted a jibe at six very much christian people who, in their christian conviction, made the christian decision to christianly remove the right to abortion for the US. What do muslim people have to do with it: under the Taliban women are allowed to seek abortion so let’s congratulate the US Supreme Court for giving women less reproductive choice than the literal Taliban.

Aiming our ire at the wrong place is a life time mistake: those foreigners who come here and steal our jobs and endanger our families are fleeing the wars our governments paid into for oil or to reap economic benefit. They, like us, are just people seeking the best for their families and themselves, and the best doesn’t exist in a country ravaged by inequality.
Gay people aren’t forcing our agenda down your throat, you’re just bothered you have to acknowledge we exist: the problem is yours. If you get angry because a woman kisses another woman in a children’s movie then you’re insane: Throwing accusations of sexualisation at two women kissing belies the fact that YOU think it’s sexual. Children see two adults kiss. If it confuses them, it’s as simple as “sometimes ladies like other ladies”. Did society end or are you just being histrionic over nothing…?

When it comes to coronavirus, people will still flatly deny the virus was ever a problem, never mind that it is now. They’ll accuse scientists and doctors of being on the payroll of a government who openly scorned and reviled them through the whole pandemic, then turn around and critique the government too, heedless of the fact that we should all be united together in protection and against a government who used our ever higher corpse piles as tinder to alight the economy- and not even well!
If we had let coronavirus persist unabated the death toll would easily have exceeded a million in the UK alone, not just from coronavirus itself but from hospitals crawling with patients, unable to provide care for anything.
Zoom out, people.
Were you unhappy you had to sit indoors for a year? If we’d all done what we needed to, if we’d sacrificed for each other and listened to people who made their entire raison d’être fighting back against these once in a lifetime events we wouldn’t have had to play the Hokey Cokey with lockdowns. But did we? Or were we too busy concocting conspiracy theories about Wuhan labs, about spike proteins and 5G chips and the like? And why? Occams razor says the simplest answer is most often right. So was Bill Gates putting gay semen into vaccines to control your brain into accepting a new world order helmed by Jewish trans women- or did a virus start infecting humans and make a lot of people very sick, a lot of people die and did we need to try our best to prevent that from spreading?

Humanity is so angry at itself- why? Don’t we all have to exist together? Why would I be angry at someone who wears a face veil or a face mask – it doesn’t affect me? I don’t care what someone else does with their body as long as it doesn’t endanger me!
Coronavirus was and is such a problem because in this economy even a couple of weeks off work would decimate my finances- I could lose my home. But I’m a snowflake for popping on a thin bit of cotton occasionally, not taking my sickness like a MAN.
I once had garden variety flu and I wet myself in bed because I was too physically weak to get to the bathroom so even if coronavirus was “just the flu” it’s a flu I could certainly do without thanks.

And as for the other existential battles, isn’t it weird that transphobic people will scream at these “male impostors” IE trans people whilst almost completely ignoring the very real actual 100% garden variety cis men who are actively working against women’s rights?
If you’re more bothered about being able to call yourself a mother, or a trans person having a quick pee next to you in a cubicle in a gym toilet than you are about rich groups of men chortling into expensive whisky as they sign paper that means your healthcare options are limited, may I glibly suggest that your privilege overextends your awareness.

I don’t think we can win battles against these groups who work so hard against us until we stop aiming our ire at each other.

I’m not a misogynist because I want trans people to be able to live how they want to- and if you think I am then that’s your very different definition of misogyny that you’re free to apply to my very unconcerned self. I’m not a woke snowflake because I choose to listen to people of colour who tell me their experiences of both casual and out and out galling racism, of how tiring it is to still be having the same discussions about racial disparity, or because I plop a face mask on both because coronavirus floored me and because if I have it I’d hate to accidentally kill someone I share a crowded coffee shop with- or even mildly inconvenience them by making them unwell if I could avoid that…

If your ethos is “if it doesn’t affect me, I don’t care” then how very sad for you. You can’t expect the world to do better by you if you won’t do better by other people. And if you don’t expect the world to do better by you and you’re comfortable both being miserable and pushing that misery just know that you and those like you are the axis of the problem, the enablers of those faceless rich men who laugh at their continued control of the miserable status quo, the men who get away time and again, generation on generation with betrayal of the masses because the masses have decided it’s each other’s fault and not the very purveyors of our misery.

Elliot Page, in his coming out speech a few years ago, said something I say to myself at least once a day: “The world would be a much better place if we could all stop being so horrible to each other for five minutes”. So start your five minutes now, lets all start our five minutes collectively and stop blaming the minorities and the other, and start blaming the same people who have been in charge for hundreds, almost thousands of years. Lets blame the decision makers who have pushed us, always pushed us, down the path of division. If we have to hate- lets hate the right people. And if we have to fight- let’s stop fighting each other and start fighting the people handing out the weapons.

Bigots are the real perverts

By Daviemoo

I am so tired.
I’m 34, and when I was 15 that seemed like a huge age- more than double what I was then. Light years away…
I picked 15 because that was the age I came out. To my family and friends, at school. I was so lucky; the bullying that had plagued me because I was effeminate and shy stopped. I found confidence, I could stop lying about things and hiding. But so began a journey that is wearing me down- like the head of a hip bone in the joint I was strong in my youth but there are some arguments I’m honestly so tired of, and I want to set those out here, on pride month, so people who aren’t part of this community or who are and feel differently can see my perspective.

“Why do you need to make it your whole personality” is one of the most headache inducing sentences I can hear.
Do you think I do it on purpose? It’s on my mind a lot. And I urge you to think consciously about how often you reference the people you like, the people you love, sex, sexuality…
But let’s look at some honest to god things that I’ve seen in the last month.

In a queue in Tescos a guy squeezed his girlfriends arse, right in front of me, brazenly. Do I need to be party to that? Is that not over-sexual and a bit grim when there could be impressionable kids around? Or is is ok because it’s ‘natural’ because boys will be boys or because straight is the ‘right’ way to be…
Less than 2 weeks later I went for a walk down by Leeds river and saw a guy literally rubbing his girlfriend’s buttHOLE through her lycra running pants. Sat by the river. In front of anyone who walked past. THAT is gross- and yet so normalised that apparently my response of looking like someone had shot me with a crossbow was inappropriate, not the whole guy rubbing his girlfriend’s bum-hole publicly thing…?!
I’ve seen so many straight couples holding hands, kissing, cuddling, I saw a guy pick his girlfriend up and carry her down the street- at the gym a girl sat behind her boyfriend and cuddled him as he did weighted rows. All normal, right? All acceptable and totally cool…

I was in Starbucks the other week and heard a lengthy conversation from an extremely loud guy talking about how he plans to ask his girlfriend to move in in September. It was cute- but Imagine for a moment if that was a nasty gay or lesbian or bi doing it. Filthily shoving their sexuality down my throat. It’s totally different in no way whatsoever and I for one am sick of it.

The inclusion trope is so funny as well. “You cant turn a TV show on now without a trans or bi character”. Oh no! One to two characters who aren’t a carbon copy of little you?! Is this erasure? We can watch 3 hour long movies about blue aliens that use their tail fibres to communicate with their planet, but god forbid one of those blue aliens goes home to a woman instead, that’s degenerate, unrealistic!

The double standard isn’t even the most exhausting part, it’s bigoted people’s absolute transparent desperation to remove the nuance of anyone and reduce them down to sex sex sex… trans people only transition for sexual reasons, gay men are filthy disease ridden sluts and on and on and on go the stupid tropes – if anything’s being forced down anyone’s throats it’s your unbidden opinions of us! I don’t care if my sexuality disturbs or bothers you, it’s possible anything from your chunky jewellery and unflattering shoes to your miserable hatchet face disturbs me and yet I can and do keep it to myself.
I’m tired of us being called the thought police. I don’t care if you’re a bigoty piece of shit- just keep it to yourself. If me being gay, being gay publicly, kissing a man, being effeminate bothers you- grow up. Your discomfort isn’t my problem any more than mine is yours, but I can’t help being gay and you sure as shit can help being a bigoted piece of shit. Look away! Go on your phone, imagine something, get a hobby- just leave us alone! The reason I’m worried about you saying shit to me is because violence is usually sure to follow.
And let’s be honest, it’s not just about SAYING it, is it? I was once teaching two girls the dance to Bad Romance in the bar I frequented when a guy came storming up to me, stuck his chest on mine, stared me right in the eyes and said “ERE…are you a fucking FAGGOT”.
I panicked, but I figured I’d rather get punched out for being honest than lying so I said yes.
He shook his head confusedly and walked away- I dont get it either. But the point is, I wasn’t doing a gay act, I wasn’t pleasuring a man, I was doing a fucking dance and that’s STILL too much for you people, still too provocative. How dare I… know a dance to a very popular song? People like you won’t be happy til every man has a “mum” tattoo on his bicep, anger issues and a pending restraining order from an ex girlfriend.

We are MORE than our sex, sexuality, gender – but we’re never allowed to be by you people. Even if I never told people I’m gay they’d know, and even if I was achingly private about it people would still ask. It’s never a case of “you wear it on your sleeve”, it’s a case of your coat is torn off by nosy strangers who expose you regardless of whether you want to be open or not.

Rebel Wilson was recently outed by a newspaper- staffed by gay people who made the decision to completely shatter someone else’s privacy! Wilson hadn’t spoken out about it but suddenly it was in the public’s interest to know that she is dating a woman… why? If homosexuality is so sinful and wrong and we should stop shoving it down your throats, why is it that we can’t just live in peace without neon headlines buzzing our names and announcing “she likes WOMEN!”

It’s because, to you, we’re the car crash you can’t turn away from. Straight bigots love to point and whisper behind their hands about us, gossip about us, ask each other who does the fucking and who does the sucking but the second we step forward to say “yes, it’s true. I like men” suddenly we’re the perverts.

If you can’t look at a progress or a pride flag without thinking about sex and orgasms, about sweaty bodies it’s not because that’s what that flag, or this community, or we as individuals represent- it’s because you are literally a pervert. You sexualise a community who comes together because of our feelings, because of who we are. And of course sex comes into sexuality. But it’s so funny to hear people whinge endlessly about pride. Overly sexual pride. Gee guys and gals, it seems like having a big party in the street is the least we can do after our predecessors being sawn in half from the genitals to the neck because we’re gay, or being burnt at the stake, or gassed, shot, hate crimed, forced to bury who we are because you people are so reductive you can’t for one second accept that we are not human cookies, churned out in a factory somewhere all from the same mould, same taste, same look and any divergence is a weakness.

I would be a gay man even if I never touched another man in my entire life- it’s about my core identity- it’s about the fact that when I look at a handsome man I can feel my pupils dilate a bit. It’s about imagining having a conversation with him and seeing if his teeth are nice, about finding out we both like to write, about that electric moment his hand brushes mine and we look into each other’s eyes. Its about when we’ve been dating for 8 months and he casually asks if he can keep some things in my drawer. About the morning after a huge fight when I wake up to 6 texts and we cry then laugh together. To take from real life, it’s about loving a man who passed away and being devastated that I’ll never get the chance to put my arms around him again and tell him I forgive him for the way he left me, about how frustrated I am that his ashes are sat in his homophobic father’s house and how every so often I get the crazy urge to go to his old haunt and steal them back and spread them where I know he was happy.

These are the real lives, the genuine things you overlook every time you roll your eyes and sigh about the nasty inclusive flag.
Every time you look at that flag you should see the bodies of people who died rather than face the endless suspicion, persecution, violence you put them through- because when you reduce us to nothing but fuck puppies you take away our humanity. I’ve seen more humanity in one random member of my community, one transgender person who spends their time counselling younger fellows or one lesbian spending her weekends working for a charity than I ever have in a thousand red faced, yelling homophobes whose lives are empty because they cut out a huge group of people just for standing under a rainbow.

Why I don’t believe in heterosexual marriage- but bravely back it anyway

By Daviemoo

I get that people are comfortable with their sexuality and feel the need to express it. I just feel like it’s being forced on me these days. Every time I put on the TV, every time I read a magazine or a book, there it is- the straight agenda. Men kissing women openly? I worry for our kids as we see the rise of this supposedly “woke” acceptance of straight people everywhere.

Let me preface this by saying, I’m not heterophobic- I believe straight people should be allowed to live in peace and with dignity. I’m just not comfortable with how open a lot of them are about their lifestyle.
Whether you chose to be straight, or you were born that way- it doesn’t really matter, you’re allowed to be and the world is more accepting of you now than it’s ever been – people almost never get killed just for being straight any more. But every day when I see perfume adverts of barely clothed straight couples gyrating on each other, or I’m forced to see another obviously straight-appeasing character indulge in a romance storyline on a tv show I’m trying to enjoy, I just have to ask myself how far this is going to go? Are we going to keep exposing our children to the sexual iniquities of the straight people out there in the name of supposed “inclusivity”?

I know this makes me sound bigoted but really hear me out. What if some poor, innocent gay child is minding their own business and one of their classmates decides to come out as straight and start talking about their lifestyle choice, and that poor impressionable homosexual is convinced that they might be too? When does it end? There should be limits on acceptable talk in front of children when it comes to heterosexuality- for their safety. I don’t want some poor confused kid going through hell trying to work out who they are, or pretending to be straight just to fit in when it seems these days it’s fashionable to call yourself a hetero and start parading around touching your girlfriend or boyfriend up in public. It’s deeply concerning to me.

Again I just want to say, I have no problem with heterosexuals! Some of my best friends are straight and I’m happy for them- but they also know how to act appropriately in public- they don’t go parading around kissing members of the opposite sex for fun, they don’t talk about their dates or their “marriages” that they’re suddenly allowed to have. I’m glad they want to say their relationships are as important as my own, I think they are well within their rights to do it. All I ask, and I’m sure this isn’t unreasonable, is that straight people just learn a little decorum. I do not need to hear your disgusting insinuations about your heterosexual bedroom activities, or worse as if it’s nice and normal to talk about it with silly phrases like “we’re trying for a baby!” because what I hear when you say that is that you’re having unprotected sex with each other- is that something you really want to broadcast, that you’re having unprotected sex?
Some heterosexuals just have no idea how to behave too. I was buying some things to cook the other day and a straight man squeezed a woman’s bottom in front of me! In public! In a store! It seemed performative, I don’t know how they had the nerve to do something so disgusting right in front of my face.

Ultimately, the Queen RuPaul’s bible does condemn heterosexuality in all it’s forms and I do believe it’s only fair to hate the sin but love the sinner- when people die, god will sort them all out and heterosexuals who choose to engage their lifestyle choices will pay recompense for it- that’s just what the bible says and I don’t feel I should have to apologise for that- it’s worthy of respect in a democratic society, obviously- and clearly my religion, my personal beliefs should impact on other peoples ability to live their lives because their activities make me personally uncomfortable, and we all know that this is the yardstick which all society should be formed upon.

Some people will call me woke but I do believe in straight marriage even if I dont agree with it per-se- I think hetero weddings are a beautiful idea (even if so many of them end in divorce because I think we know straight people, deep down, aren’t really “marriage material”) but if they want to do it, they should absolutely be allowed to- just as long as they keep it to themselves.

I really hope my straight friends understand what I mean when I say this- I don’t think your lives are worth less than mine, it’s just that being able to procreate is definitely something we should factor into someones’ worth as a human, because arbitrary processes like ovulation, sperm creation and being able to do missionary are really vital aspects of humanity and not silly irrelevancies like kindness, the willing to help others and any of that other nonsense. Remember, no matter who you choose to sleep with I will always think you’re alright: ultimately this is an issue of cultural appropriateness and I think once this fervour for “straightness” has died down and people realise they don’t need to play act we might see a calming down of the heterosexual agenda. Until then, be you- just please keep it appropriate in front of the children. I believe you’re more than your sexuality- I just believe it’s not really age acceptable to be cavorting around in front of the impressionable with something that’s a little too “adult” in nature.

I hope people read this and understand this is the sort of unmitigated hogwash LGBTQIA people have had to read about ourselves for literally our entire lives and I hope this is funny- but re-read it and imagine that it’s sincerely written about you by someone who actually believes it. Hard as it may be to believe this is the sort of unfiltered shitpipery that we deal with on the daily. Only you guys can sort this out- maybe it’s time to try doing that.

Really? During a cost of living crisis and the most corrupt prime minister in history you want to talk about GENITALS?

By Daviemoo

The law states that a transgender person- regardless of gender reassignment surgery- is their stated gender. So yes, by law a woman can have a penis. Whether you personally think a woman can have a penis or not is a personal decision, and doesn’t- and shouldn’t- change the law. But if you don’t have more important things to focus on than someone else’s genitalia then you live in unimaginable privilege and it’s time someone told you that.

As a young boy I was given a never ending list of things that made a man a man. If I’d imbibed them all I suppose I’d consider myself not a man now- or I’d have tried to become the woman bedding wood chopping dilettante that is constantly touted as what a “real man” is. Ultimately, whilst society can have a broad consensus on what constitutes a man or a woman it’s really down to every single individuals’ personal feeling, an answer that will of course frustrate any transphobic or regressive folk who read this- but think about it.
You know you’re a woman, yes? What makes you a woman? Is it just a lack of a penis or is it a multitude of things? And if someone else gave you a list of what they think a woman is that conflicts with yours does that make you less of a woman or is it irrelevant?
There is your answer to this entire protracted exhausting debate around gender. To themselves and in the eyes of the law a trans person is their stated gender and you can’t and won’t change that any more than the fact they are that gender to themselves alters your gender. NOW CAN WE MOVE ON?

Every day the media assails us with endless rhetoric around whether women can have penises, why do we need to call it chest feeding, what about bathrooms and shelters and on and on- as if suddenly 70% of children instead of around 0.7% identified as trans, as though trans people are positively sweeping the globe! It’s the new catchy phenomenon- that affects less than 1% of people.

Ah but then of course comes the argument- should 99% of people be made uncomfortable by this less than 1% of people? No… but they aren’t. Transphobia is not the popular theory we’re constantly told it is by right wing knee jerk reactionaries like the person who prompted this article today, the ever ineffable Nick Ferrari. Most people don’t feel uncomfortable around trans people because most people realise that a trans person is a person trying to live their lives in a world that seems to be doing its utmost to hinder that. Would I expect women to be comfortable with the pontificating, red faced pillock that is Ferrari tumbling into their gym changing room and haranguing them about their dress size? No. But Ferrari isn’t identifying as a woman, because he isn’t one. There’s a gulf between a trans woman and a cis man and the constant ignoring of this fact is what drives most of us who are not trans but are fucking sick of the endless recycling of the anti trans talking points are fed up of.

How often do you see strangers’ genitals? Me, usually about 50 minutes after I’ve hopped on Grindr, and other than that never.

I avoid looking at people at the gym because I’m not a creep- and if you, like utterly obsessive people like Staniland, spend your time talking about furtively staring at the dangly parts of strangers in the hopes of justifying your moral outrage, you may come to realise that you are the spooky one, not the person just trying to use the facilities.

Ultimately, I feel I need to say this very clearly for transphobic people- and I’m sorry to my trans mates, I don’t mean this to sound as insensitive as it will but- the correct answer to “can a woman have a penis” is I DON’T CARE. I don’t care what’s in your pants, what you were born with or as, I don’t care. I care about you on an individual level and the only time your genitals factor in is if I want us to see each other naked or if you plan to weaponise them against me.
The stats clearly speak to the fact that trans people are not a danger, not simply because they barely exist in the first place but also because trans transgressions (say that five times fast…) barely exist as well!
Websites developed by TERFS would have you believe that around every 3rd turn in a city a trans person is waiting to assail you with what they conceal beneath their clothes- it’s confected outrage and the fact that so many people endlessly fall for it is so consternating. Maya Forstater claims to care for women and yet has declared previously she doesn’t believe in period poverty and only referenced the overturning of abortion legislation in the days after it was leaked to say WOMEN, NOT PEOPLE. Truly, picking at language is the real indicator that you’re a champion of women.

With all of the things going wrong in the UK right now- coronavirus killing approximately 83,000 of us a year, a government making their own corruption legally unassailable, the breakup of the union, the worsening war in Ukraine and our ever increasing march towards direct involvement- focusing on whether a person has an inny or an outy in their private personal area is the height of pathetic. If you feel like trans people are encroaching on your freedom you may want to double check you can still vote after the restrictions on ID came in. If you feel that trans people are taking your rights away I hope you dont want to protest about it because you literally can’t do that any more without risking legal repercussions. And if you feel trans people are dictating laws and sensibilities to you, you may want to know that the government is enforcing laws that means the far right are able to visit and speak at universities and cannot be turned away.
All of the posture, bluster and noise around trans rights has done absolutely nothing but allow actual fascistic rhetoric to embed itself and breed in the fabric of the UK- and that’s why when people tell you you’re supporting fascists and authoritarians, they’re right.

If people keep their genitals to themselves what they have shouldn’t concern you, and if you don’t believe trans people are who they say they are you have the legally protected right to think so- but you also can’t go around blustering at people about it because it’s rude- so you have what you want, you can air your views, you already have access to single sex spaces -but if it’s now gotten to the point that you’re dissecting, in depth, what genitals people have and don’t have you truly have walked off the reservation. I urge you to get some perspective and focus on actual tangible issues instead of the concealing of genitalia.

Our lives are not ideologies: your violent hatred is.

By Daviemoo

The UK faces multiple crises: people are calling radio stations explaining that they cannot afford food nor the energy to heat it. Coronavirus has hospitalised more people today than in January 2021. Our government had multiple illegal gatherings and our leader lied bold faced to the gathered parliament about it. And yet the press seethes with questions about women and penises. In America, the “don’t say gay” bill has passed, a ludicrous legislation that helps nobody but immiserates some, and recently a right wing pundit suggested that doctors who provide gender affirming healthcare should be killed. These are dark times indeed to be LGBT+

Nothing stokes my rancour so quickly as to see who I am described as an ideology. There is no such thing as the “gay lifestyle”, nor “trans trend”: we have existed since the human race began in our varied forms and every culture. Sometimes we were accepted, sometimes we were not but the fact of our existence has never changed.

An ideology is a set of beliefs or ideals brought together by a collective: capitalism is an ideology. Communism is an ideology. Religion is arguably an ideology.

The lives of your fellow rainbow humans are not an ideology. Our long and tiring discourse over acceptance is no attempt to recruit unwitting heterosexual or cisgender people to our ranks. We exist: we are, at our core, a collective who banded together because we faced discrimination historically and still do now.

Many people defend the seclusion of our community from society at large without once realising that the sexualisation, the insinuation of perversion always comes from without, not within: the “don’t say gay” bill had an amendment removed which would have explicitly forbidden discussion of sex or sexual matters: this amendment was voted down. Which means that HETEROSEXUAL acts can be discussed with children. In my eyes this is deeply disturbing. No child should be exposed to discussions of sex until ready: and it is here that the majority of the world itself still has learning to do.

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com

Sexuality and gender identity are not sex. They are not sexual. They are objective terms. If you can tell a child you have a wife, you can tell them you have a husband. If you can tell a child you think a woman is pretty you, you can tell them you think a man is handsome. Gender identity is deeply personal, to the point that my own gender identity as a cis man is different of that of another cis man: every single person has their own individual construction of their gender or lack thereof, and it is theirs to own and claim.

Terms like autogynephile were coined to insinuate that trans people are trans for sexual reasons and not simply that they were born into trans bodies and must reconcile that however they see fit.

We talk about spaces and inclusion, and there is a particular lack of nuance in the gender critical discussion around spaces that is endlessly frustrating: you are not “keeping” spaces single sex: spaces have been trans inclusive for well over 30 years, so to now MAKE a space single sex this necessitates trans exclusion, and exclusion is wrong.

Today I had a lengthy discussion with a gender critical account on twitter- they claimed to be a woman but I do not know as their account was anonymous, and I tried to reconcile gender critical ideology even against itself and came up lacking.

According to this account they “have trans friends” they’re fine with but are not fine with “males in their spaces” and “can tell when someone is male even if they don’t say it”.

Sometimes I admit I’ve found myself leaping to trans people’s defence so quickly, I haven’t weighed my words appropriately so I decided to do so this time. Let’s take this argument at face value despite the facile nature. What if we did ban all trans people from the spaces they currently use? How many murdered, beaten, assaulted transgender bodies would it take before gender critical people understood that trans people are at threat as well. And in fact, would they? Though many deny it there is a core knot of gender critical thinkers who would like nothing more than to simply see transgender eradication: and for those less hardcore thinkers in the gender critical circles if you do not wish to confront your feelings towards trans people, you may wish to confront those within your circles who condone a trans mass eradication.

Endlessly talking in circles around sexual assault and genitals and fetishes online is a dark, depressing and tiring struggle and lately I’ve found myself debating simply tuning it out and focusing on political activism- and yet time after time I find myself appalled at the language and falsehoods spread by anti trans activists.

How anyone who claims to be feminist can hold such damaging, narrow and regressive views is beyond me. Having an erection is not a sign of sexual enjoyment: as a man who has been sexually assaulted I can assure you of that. Almost 1 in 2 trans people have experienced sexual assault. There is a commonality here with cis women that should bring the communities together and in many cases does, and yet gender critical thinking uses this as a wedge.

But this goes beyond worst case scenarios. We come across a lot of very structured repeated language when we talk about trans people: “keep access to single sex spaces” (trans people have used those spaces for over 30 years so you’re ‘keeping’ nothing, any change to make spaces single sex would bar trans people, thereby removing their rights. “Protect dignity” what dignity is lost from a trans woman being present that is kept in the face of a non trans woman? The constant refrain of “safety” which is always paramount but also figmentary: safety isn’t guaranteed because of a sign on the door, or trans exclusive recommendations by the EHRC, or by legal declarations by an inept PM appealing to anger. A predatory person will do what a predatory person will do regardless of these things.

Trans exclusion is constantly being framed as womens’ safety- and yet we see very little to no actual founded evidence that trans inclusion is a threat to women in the first place. Uncomfortable for some, perhaps though it’s arguably more due to the bias of the woman than the existence of the trans person. Fear mongering around trans existence has no end result. Trans people regardless of hormones and affirming care or wigs or hair growth or blockers or dresses or packers or binders- will always be trans.

Again, I feel there needs to be a pointing out of the urgent need to reframe arguments to be seen as they are from the LGBT+ perspective.

When people argue that gay & lesbian people cannot be discussed, it is not we who are innately sexual: you are sexualising us, ignorantly placing our sexuality in this illusory realm of immoral behaviour. A gay man in a grey suit walking to work is not innately sexual- but he is gay. So why is referencing his sexuality so sexually explicit it cannot be mentioned?

If you want to protect children from sexual referencing may I suggest a law banning children from watching TV until they are 13. Adverts sexualising people are on TV all day- from perfume adverts with nude bodies as the containers to literal adverts for prophylactics: sexuality is everywhere- just, the sexuality you WANT for children. You don’t care if a little boy sees an advert of a half naked woman smelling another half naked woman’s neck, and you don’t mind asking a 5 year old if his female friend is his GIRLFRIEND at the school gates. I remember those expectations early on and they damaged not just me, wondering why I didn’t feel what everyone told me I should but they also hurt my family when I did come out, because this imaginary future they built for me all but vanished: was that my fault? Should I have lived a lie to make them happy?

The worst of the liars are those who claim to “accept us” but think we shouldn’t be referenced in front of children. If those children are straight all they will do is nod and move on. If they’re like us, the likelihood is they might just feel a little bit less alone: and treating us like we are watershed humans is a dehumanising experience.

Our community exists. It’s not an ideology: we have cultures we can, if we choose, loosely abide by or take elements from. Culture is pre-existing facets, behaviours or tropes which we can reference, imbibe or exhibit. That isn’t an ideology, and there wouldn’t even be a NEED for gay, lesbian, trans culture if we hadn’t been ostracised- by exculpatory ignoramus’ passed- from culture at large.
You notice also that those of us who are gender critical or even work against our own rights (see the regular gay republicans trotted out to say they AGREE with anti LGBT+ sentiment) are usually desperate to conform to what they see as hetero or cisnormative.

Anti trans, anti gay people and all of those in-between- at the very least stop referencing our very lives as "ideologies"- it demonstrates a poor grasp of the English language and an ignorance you're fighting hard to deny. — Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

When it comes to ideologies and damaging ones at that, I would point the accusatory finger damningly in the direction of movements aimed at removing rights from transgender people as a whole because of the imagined crimes of a few, of demonising gay and lesbian people so badly that we cannot even be mentioned in front of children. Looking at ideologies that monetise their hate- a new conversion therapy camp opened recently in the UK- or who make merchandise specifically geared to intimidate us (adult human female T shirts, umbrellas, key chains), who show up to our days of remembrance to harass us or stand on the sidelines of our marches to tell us we’ll face eternal agony for who we are- how can it be denied that these movements are inappropriate.

Nobody would deny women with legitimate concerns from speaking but I’d hasten the gender critical women who truly believe in their cause to step forward and kick out the monsters from your group – after all, one bad trans person means they’re all bad, right? So what does one person, five people, ten anti trans activists belittling rape victims stories say about your movement.

Conversion therapy is torture

By Daviemoo

Conversion therapy is a clumsy and useless umbrella term for everything that falls under it- from simple talking therapies to violence, rape and castration, it is a term that does not encompass the horror which it can, does, and has entailed for those who have suffered at it’s hands and – thanks to the conservative government, will continue to. This violence against the trans community must be stopped at all costs.

Firstly a disclaimer to the “gender critical” LGB and perhaps even T people who enjoy consuming my content to harass me: they were going to ignore any suggestions of a ban: you’re on the side of people who would happily see you tortured because of your identity too. Be careful throwing around the term ‘handmaidens’ in future because we may not be able to hear you over the flapping of your collars.

Anti trans activists have fastened their hands around some key phrases I want to debunk: “we are just women with concerns”. Many (not all, perhaps) of the concerns that anti trans activists have revolve around the bodies of trans people, information they are not entitled to: they revolve around baseless claims of transgender people as predatory, or about the damage that transition does to trans people rather than the successes of those who have been helped immensely by it- focusing on the small percentile who desist in their transition rather than those who happily, safely transition and live in their gender or those who choose to re-transition down the line. For women with concerns there is also a surprising amount of virulently anti woman commentary- Steve Brookstein, an X factor competitor tried to have a tweet saying “can we all agree the main purpose of a woman is to procreate” go viral.

We also see a surprising paucity of coverage of other concerns for women: a cursory search of some of the more prominent anti trans figureheads like Maya Forstater, JK Rowling, Kathleen Stock, Graham Linehan, Helen Staniland- reveal little to no discourse around topics like the horrific murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a policeman, or Blessing Olusegun’s mysterious death, Sabina Nessa’s murder in a London park. They, of course, will argue that they see trans people as the biggest threat to women, that women are being erased in favour of a hopelessly small minority. Not to insult your intelligence dear reader, but can you spot the flaw in claiming that trans WOMEN are erasing the word women, or erasing women in general when trans women ARE women?

The other phrase often repeated is “standing up for women and girls” which I find a truly bizarre sentiment when those who spend hours online describing the rising transgender menace rarely speak out on topics like medical misogyny, period poverty, the disproportionate ageism women face, rape culture, body shaming- yet today the daily mail, with a photoshoot, lauds Forstater with a campaign she deems “the most significant women’s rights movement since the suffragettes”.

Suffragettes committed acts of what would today be called terrorism in desperation to be legitimised as human beings, as people with feelings, thoughts, brains, pride, and a fierce determination to be treated with respect: one could easily argue that Forstater’s virulent anti trans rhetoric could be pushing trans people so far to the wall that they are the oppressed facing a violent struggle for legitimacy. There is also the often spotted repetition of anti trans activists stating glibly that they can ALWAYS TELL someone is trans then blithely calling non trans allies trans: and it brings up a philosophical point: if you can “always tell” why is there also a huge push for trans women to disclose their medical history to you? Perhaps transphobes like being told things they apparently already knew: it does explain why the discourse is so hopelessly circular.

I doubt that there are many readers who believe that women have equality or equity in society: for those that disagree, you are wrong. Women have been maligned by men for all of history and are now, and unfortunately will continue to be because whether you believe in patriarchy or not, some form of male supremacy does exist, persist and propagates in society. One must ask though whether the anti trans movement is a cause that champions women’s equality or whether it opens the door for further oppression of women and girls.

Looking at LGBT+ oppression specifically which obviously encompasses that of women and girls- cis and trans- let us view the statements the UK government itself has made;

there is no robust evidence that conversion therapy can achieve its stated therapeutic aim of changing sexual orientation or gender identity
the types of practices tend to be similar for conversion therapy for sexual orientation and for gender identity – for example, talking therapies delivered by faith groups or mental health professionals
conversion therapies were associated with self-reported harms among research participants who had experienced conversion therapy for sexual orientation and for gender identity – for example, negative mental health effects like depression and feeling suicidal
there is indicative evidence from surveys that transgender respondents were as likely or more likely to be offered and receive conversion therapy than non-transgender lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) respondents
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-assessment-of-the-evidence-on-conversion-therapy-for-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/an-assessment-of-the-evidence-on-conversion-therapy-for-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity

If you create a ruling against transgender people being able to access certain healthcare, that ruling likely speaks on the individual’s bodily autonomy. Bodily autonomy is already (for ridiculous reasons) still questionable when it comes to women: from seeking abortion rights to whether or when they may access birth control and which method- to the simple right to say no to men in some cultures. Propagating an argument about bodily autonomy against trans people can- and will – be weaponised against these supposed moral crusaders for women’s rights because it’s plain to see that the anti trans panic is being championed by those who also work against womens’ rights: fundamentalist christians and hard right figures who believe that their entitlement to control women’s bodies is paramount to women’s own rights to choose.

Don’t believe it? Vladimir Putin has, before defending JK Rowling, called trans acceptance a “crime against humanity”. Donald Trump almost immediately enacted a ban on trans people serving in the army (it is more nuanced than written here for the sake of expedience but is no less true). Trump’s son lauded Rowling’s scorn filled tweets about “penised people”. Let us also highlight the irony of Putin’s rhetoric- he claimed JK Rowling was “cancelled” and that the west is trying to “cancel” Russia: bold words from a man so afraid of political rivals he has them murdered, imprisoned or injured. Rowling enjoys wealth, influence and adoration untainted by her increasingly outspoken verbiage against a community she’s previously expected praise from for the crumbs of a non sexual gay character who went full wizard Nazi because his boyfriend wanted him to.

This does, however, run deeper than left or right wing politics though the case is easily made that this is right wing propaganda, especially as we see that the only thing the tories are levelling up on is the rhetoric that labour are woke lefties as we prepare for the announcement of an early election. MPs who would normally take pragmatic views step back on making clear statements of support for those they normally would for fear they would upset bigots. I myself have written to my local MP in disgust of both sides of the political aisle, from Rosie Duffield’s endless platforming to speak out against trans people to Wes Streeting’s repeated and ignored transgressions against trans people, and conversely to the openly empty sentiments of permanently angry sentient felt tip Sophie Corcoran tweeting “don’t call me cis!”.

Prominent news outlets like (and I won’t say respectable because) talk radio, sky news, LBC, The BBC, all dedicating portions of their air time to questions like “can a woman have a penis” or “should we ask men if they’re pregnant in hospital”.

Insanity incarnate rules the media: because who cares? Shall we entertain discourse about how big a penis has to be before a man is a man? Does a micropenis mean a man is not a man? Genitals do not define you wholly.

Non parody-parody commentator Darren Grimes leapt to an impassioned defence of conversion therapy on twitter- it’s strange that Darren is so passionate in the availability of conversion therapy and yet hasn’t gone through it. Mayhaps he hasn’t run out of hope that he’ll find someone who can overlook his personality, lack of intelligence and disturbingly toothy face in favour of his good qualities, like his mam’s cooking. Mayhaps Darren hasn’t partaken in conversion therapy because:

These troubling ethical practices have raised alarm in major mental health professions, particularly because of the harm to patients. Further, all of these factors raise another ethical issue: Even if the questionable claims of conversion therapy’s effectiveness are valid, should the conversion of some “homosexuals” to heterosexuality condone the iatrogenic harm done to other patients who later come out as gay or lesbian?
In other words, should it not matter how many gay or lesbian people are hurt in the process of creating a few heterosexuals?
https://meridian.allenpress.com/jmr/article/102/2/7/80848/The-Growing-Regulation-of-Conversion-Therapy

The argument has always been that you are what you are born, that biology and nature matter. This of course discounts the gene therapy people can have to prevent inherited conditions, the plastic surgery people can have on lunch to hide signs of ageing, the cancer destroyed by gamma knives, the towering blocks of concrete and glass we erect. Denying trans healthcare is to deny the progression of a species scientifically out of fear and bigotry: we live in a world where these things are possible- what does preventing it do?

There is no weight to arguing that women are women because of breasts which some women do or don’t have for one reason or another, or uteri, or hormones or this or that: combined, these things may- MAY – make up a huge proportion of woman, but cis or trans some women do not fit all or even any of these stereotypes. It is ultimately YOU who decides what makes your womanhood and though that can have commonality with other women’s ideas it absolutely does not make you more correct than the woman whose breasts never developed, who never had a period, and so on and so on. Nobody though is denying the biological reality of sex: but gametes do not dictate our societal treatment of each other (I would hope).

There is SOME weight to arguing that women are women because from the moment they grow they are treated as women are, for better or worse. But pause and ask the commonalities between trans and cis women’s growing experience and see whether you believe those common threads are enough that the experience is not wholly unique.

Now let’s move to a question on the topic at hand: do you believe conversion therapy works?

The government’s own compiled dossier on conversion therapy states as above that “there is no evidence that conversion therapy can or does achieve the aims it seeks to”. Those wishing to keep it legal will ask why it would then harm to keep it legal. This dry sentence does not encompass the horror that lurks beneath.
Documentaries covering the repeated brutal rape, beating, ECT, medication, physical and mental abuse that can- and does- encompass conversion therapy are widely available online. So is research into what these tactics achieve: high morbidity rates and for those who are “successfully converted” a lifetime of PTSD and dissatisfaction that may or may not prevent you from continuing to be exactly what you always were.

There is an irony I enjoy pointing out in fundamentalist anti LGBT+ thinking: you are the ones who sexualise us. The mere mention of gay men has people covering their children’s ears and hissing about inappropriate topics! But my penchant for finding men attractive is quite a distinguished topic from anal sex, poppers, doucheing. Did you know that the recently signed “don’t say gay” bill in the US had two proposed amendments offered? One suggested that it would be appropriate to provide assistive materials to those who a teacher reasonably assumed to be LGBT+ so they would be able to access materials to help them understand their identities? It was voted down. Another amendment suggested that it be made completely blanket illegal to talk about sex (of any kind): it was voted down. So you can talk to a 6, 7 or 8 year old child about heterosexual sex but not homosexual sex: because, it seems, it’s wrong to talk about gay sex but not straight sex? But this act is oft touted as “not homophobic, it’s about stopping children hearing about inappropriate topics”. No. It’s erasure.

There’s a saying which has deep roots in mythology: “we are legion”. And this applies to the LGBT+. You can legislate against us. You can demonise us, imprison and kill us; no doubt people will continue to do so. But we are born, not (to my knowledge) made- evidence backed up by the solid failure of conversion therapy to do it’s stated aim- convert.

We will continue to persist no matter what you do to us. Those of us with decency stand together. And again a reminder that you can only push a community so far before they need to resort to desperate efforts to defend themselves.

Please consider writing to your MP today regarding this fallacious state of affairs: the government must stop the rhetoric of transgender people being less deserving of dignity and safety and must start looking after the citizens of the UK. Legal torture protects nobody.

Using war to push an anti-woke agenda is Western decadence at it’s finest

By Daviemoo

First and foremost- donate to Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps LGBTQIA people escape anti rainbow regimes and did amazing work during Afghanistan. Secondly, exactly what and who are these right wing pundits helping or hoping to achieve with their scrivened nonsense about how “woke culture” has led to Putin’s moves in recent months?

Vladimir Putin has arguably been sowing seeds of discord in the west for years- would even decades be a tolerable turn of phrase? As the Berlin Wall crumbled he fled Dresden, Germany after destroying incriminating files, and he saw then that a society of liberty is anathema to his plans. He interfered heavily in the 2016 American election to install the gibbering sycophant Donald Trump and I firmly believe he hoped Trump would win re-election and America would be helping in this conflict. There’s proof to this pudding- remember that Trump was impeached for tacitly threatening not to help Ukraine if they did not toe Trump’s foolish line. Even this failure to manipulate worsened Ukraine’s diplomacy. If President Zelensky had said Trump DID threaten him this could be seen as a superpower threatening a weak nation, and if he denied it, people would assume he was lying to ensure he seemed like a strong leader. Every move came down on Putin’s side.

He interfered in Brexit, hoping that the UK’s departure from the EU would shake the core of the European counsel- not realising that the utter buffoonery that swept over the UK leading up to and after the Brexit campaign meant that we were likely such a hindrance that, save for Euros and some diplomats who were gifted and caring, the EU was likely to be relieved to see us go.

His plans are failing and as it stands he may well have started a war he cannot finish that will destabilise his regime unless he goes home and lays down an iron palm on Russia to crush dissidence.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky was originally a gifted satirist who was elected to highest office and has done his absolute best to help his people since that day. He’s on the front line now helping to direct aid and relief and to tell his people what is happening.

Where, then, are our leaders?

Priti Patel and her home office minions are tweeting lassitudinal promises about how Ukranians can apply for seasonal fruit picking visas to escape a War Zone as other countries waive any visa requirements.

Boris Johnson stands in front of a jet, brow furrowed like a trench as he’s briefed by people actually doing their important jobs- and sycophantic counsellors are tweeting this picture, well lit and staged, stating that Johnson is “on the front lines”- I beg these people to look up what the front line actually is.

Liz Truss stands before a Ukrainian and UK flag, heedless of wasting more taxpayer money on vain photoshoots when she should be engaging in real diplomacy and not yet more gesture politics. Her boundless buffoonery has been an embarrassment to the UK for weeks as she’s muddled into this conflict and spouted misinformation glibly to senior diplomats.

And the right arm of the right wing, the British press, is focusing on it’s favourite topic; how the gays and the trans and the people of colour are all responsible for this situation.

Right wing columnist Zoe Strimpel has written what I can only term as the most self indulgent bit of twaffle I have ever come across in my waking life- and unfortunately the sentiments of said diatribe are shared widely amongst the arc of the right with even sentient potatoes like Lawrence “I wear a mask when its convenient to me because I’m just a paid marionette for outrage culture” Fox using their feather weight to push the agenda too. Strimpel writes that it shows decadence that a society is focusing on, and I quote “woke acceptance” instead of war. And yet as someone who follows a huge amount of gay and trans activists on twitter, a giant swath of POC activists all I’ve seen is a coming together of people desperate to help in whatever way they can, and all this as right wing puppets pluck their favourite string – how it’s everyone else’s fault but theirs.

Ukraine is not LGBT+ friendly- and yet they are invaded. NATO is not even closely linked to any LGBT+ issues or affiliations. And yet they stand as one of the key defences against Putin’s totalitarian regime. The sheer decadence, the self involved wankery of the right to start condemning LGBT+ people for having the temerity to ask for simple equal treatment, for people to be polite, would be hilarious were it not for the severity of the situation.

The sheer deluded mindset of right wingers in war…

The idea that someone can, with no irony declared, sit before their laptop and write an excoriating article about how if we were just less accepting of LGBT+ people then we wouldn’t be at war; I cannot imagine the broken psyches that rest heavy upon the frontal lobes of these fools.

One issue is not like the other, but I do have a key question for these anti woke folk; would you, then, prefer to live in a regime like Russia? A poor country ruled over by a kleptocrat, who is on your side of the trans argument? Would you like to see LGBT+ people interred or forced to live miserable lives so you don’t have to think for one second about anyone with any difference to you? And who would you focus your ire on in an angry newspaper column in a country that would think that women should be married and producing children instead of hurling another recycled argument about lefties into the void from the pages of a right wing rag?

The utter dumbfuckery of the right to focus on LGBT+ inclusion at this time and ascribe it blame is hilartious and here is my true retort:

If anything is to blame for an authoritarian man seeking to cannibalise other countries in Europe into his regime, it’s not people fighting for civil liberties, it’s the power drunk flag waving plutocrats, standing under a Union Jack as an umbrella against the blood of everyone they want to throw to the dogs so they don’t have to ask someone’s pronouns when they say hello. It’s the people who gleefully voted to shrink our borders out of spite or some misplaced pride in British hard workingness. It’s the people who spend all their time attacking their fellow countryfolk instead of asking how we can make this place better for all of us.

And above all, it’s those safely over the age limit for national service calling for it’s reinstatement, those amongst us willing, yet again, to cast the young into the fire to maintain their selfish lifestyles. Perhaps we should reinstate national service- and those of you amongst us who voted for Brexit and Boris can go to the front lines for us, you can stand proud for the country you’ve created, use your sovereignty as shields and your reclamation of Britishness as a sword and as the bullets rain down on you, remember this phrase: you, however much you may not realise it, voted for this.

What is it that empowers the right? Political ineptitude, selfishness or a willingness to compromise on morals?

By Daviemoo

Forgive me for the rambling -As I write this on my lunch break at work I’ve posted a video I recorded this morning about some of the sacrifices I made during lockdown which have yet again been made fruitless by the incompetence of a government unable to follow their own rules. It’s past time that this blustering, self aggrandising mobster government be sent to the gulags of history and judged as a failure- not just because they are criminally inept at the job, but because they are criminal full stop.

A very American problem

The right have many a method to stay in power. In America, Donald Trump never won a popular vote- but won his first term as president due to an antiquated votership system, the Electoral college -and may have won again were it not for the valiant efforts of supremely invested politicians like Stacey Abrams who worked tirelessly against gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement. Abrams should go down in history as one of the truest patriots America has ever seen, and her heroism is unsung because America still fights in it’s hear for freedom from a dictatorial cancer – not “conservatives” or “republicanism” but the monster these two types of right wing populist politics have created- the GQP, a bent and blunted force for uneducated Americans to rally around, blaming the blacks and the fags and the jews for their woes- and not long standing contempt for working class Americans, not a broken health system which will bankrupt you for the sin of developing cancer, a deeply propagandist education system more interested in teaching the masculine values of waving a flag and a laughably flawed justice system which allows the gunning down of an innocent sleeping paramedic or protester with automatic weaponry.

Where is England’s Stacey Abrams?

The toxicity of tory

In the UK, the voting system in combination with the differences in voter demographic, mixed with a terminal indifference to politics for younger people have led to the continuation of the tory government. Right wing parties dropped out of the running in areas where tories could gain seats to prop up Johnson, and though over 50% of the UK voted for left wing parties we have in place a tory government with an almost unprecedented control of the house of commons. There is the first piece of evidence to my claim – instant switching of alliegance to tory just to win, even if you didn’t believe in their aims- you just wanted that 52 to 48 result respected. But do you know what else we have after twelve years of tory rule? Under the conservative government, poverty has risen, income inequality has skyrocketed- quite literally as Richard Branson achieved his wet dream of space flight as the rest of us wrote costing sheets to make sure we can afford rent and bills. Anti LGBT+ hate crime has escalated over 300% in 4 years.

The concerns of women about corruption in the police force, both from female officers and hapless women harassed in the street were met with ridiculous sneering contempt – flag down a bus, they were told by flippant Met Officers who backed and still back the tory government- why? Because they are given unique power to attack thsoe who stand against them. Meanwhile the met completely fails to investigate repeated, open, obvious breaches of the covid laws and restrictions which have seen over 5000 Londoners in court paying fines- and, I hasten to add, rightly so. To break lockdown is to thwart attempts to control and curtail a dangerous pathogen. So why are the tories uniquely protected against prosecution, as Cressida Dick wags a bony finger at journalists to dissuade further questions that may bring out more queries?

We have politicians who try to hold the government to account – Zarah Sultana is prodigious and fearless, Dawn Butler passionate and eloquent, Rosina Allin-Khan a front line worker who still finds time to visit parliament and beg the government to explain it’s lacklustre efforts. As an aside each one of these women of colour have been met with belligerent repudiation, told to “mind their tone”- a sentiment oft- weaponised against people of colour and especially women of colour who do not play to the demure-seeking demands of bigots.

The crux of this post is to make people realise that right wing people will do what others simply won’t because of decency. Be it solemnising a company then, before the company is even formed lobbying it to parliament to supply PPE (as a tory lord did), creating a VIP supply lane, using problematic language to slap down women of colour, or- as today’s news displays, showing pathological indifference to the suffering of people trying their best to curtail a pandemic’s deadly spread.

This pattern of thinking leads to a question I’m often asked- do you think all tories, all brexit voters, all right wingers are racist, homophobic, bigoted etc?
Not necessarily no- but they do what I won’t. They compromise on these issues. “Oh I don’t hate foreigners at all, i just *insert reasons for voting here*”. It seems to me that if I didn’t hate foreigners I wouldn’t vote for something that gave the strong and close to undeniably did in fact do that. And always with these voters they’re allowed plausible deniability. Brexit was for taking back control -of what? Our borders? We had more control in the EU. Of our legal decisions? The tories are trying to remove scrutiny from courts. Of our position as a world superpower? Our economy is decimated by brexit, international trade in and out is down, we have trade deals that WORSEN our GDP and we are a laughing stock, a tiny group of islands left to float in our own “anti-woke” seas, now swimming with happy british fish and, of course, tory approved human shit.

Voter ignorance or voter indifference?

Right wing politics, at their face, seems only to be about no compromise. We want this! We want the woke cancel culture agenda to end, we want the trans people’s rights gone, we want to continue to deny our imperialist role in slave trading, in white supremacy, in a devastatingly clear-cut class system. But that’s the lie- right wing politics is nothing BUT compromise from the voter’s level.

Voters who claim not to hate LGBT+ people somehow mysteriously fail to clarify that they are disgusted with the lack of action from Liz Truss who has been in the role for years and has just, again, rolled back the end of the consultation period for a complete block on conversion therapy in the UK- though 3 other countries have done so in the last 2 months. Voters who claim to be disgusted by racism will bend to apoplexy over the statue of a previously unknown slaver being torn down in disgust, and who borrow Johnson’s line of “context” to explain his comments about watermelon smiles or letterboxes.

Voters who say they don’t want foreigners coming here will stare on with blank eyed indifference about news headlines about atrocities the UK committed whilst holding tenderly on to the hand of the US.

Right wing votership is, in my eyes, about one of two things: the ability to wholeheartedly vote against your own self interest and protection because it will also make everyone else unhappy, OR the ability to vote for what you think is your own self interest whilst actually voting against it, under the guise that it strikes a blow against your imaginary enemy.

…but who IS your enemy?

Who is really making your daily life worse? The tired, hungry migrant in a boat out at sea who just wants to make it to shore without being tossed into the maw of the sea to lie with the bones of countless others? Or is it the politician gesticulating about the necessity of taking more money from your salary to prop up a health system they have criminally underfunded for their dozen years in power?

The ostensible links the right make are easily broken- but only if you are capable of listening to fact. Hate the hundred or so migrants who come here a day? Think of them as offsetting the death toll caused by conservative reluctance to place restrictions on the country to curtail coronavirus infection. You hate benefit fraud? Only a few dozen convictions- and who, may I ask, is in charge of the benefit system? It would be the very government you support who don’t and won’t change the system, because they know you can be angry at benefit cheats- instead of politicians who claim £50 back for a charitable donation. MP’s expenses combined would be more in a month than benefit claimants get in a year, even if they fudge the system. And yet the anger is spewed at our underprivileged fellows- because we don’t feel entitled to rail against the creators and maintainers of that flawed system.

Not all right wingers are this type. Some vote right knowing what they are voting for. Some want this sort of draconian rule by people who decry the censorship of language- you’re not even free to call people like me faggots these days- whilst supporting laws that effectively end the ability to demonstrate in public, which make voting more difficult and inaccessible to those who are already under-represented in parliament- tangible freedoms lost or pushed into the distance whilst people get angry about the non-existent thought police.

Still more are simply beneficiaries of the system. We’re taught to worship trickle down economics even as those at the top swim in oceans of wealth hoarded away from us and as our throats run parched, barely sustained from the drip drip drip of financial offcuts. Wealth disparity in the UK is at a terrifying new height- not just because of the pandemic which no one truly predicted, but because of brexit, because of a foolish lack of foresight by a government only concerned about enrichment of the already rich and by the complicity of an underclass who believes that the north star of the Union Jack is their guiding light to supremacy in the world. Just because the man who owns the company you work for is rich and the company is making world beating sales- doesn’t mean you’re prospering as you desperately try to save to pay your mortgage. And again – who maintains that system of tax cuts for your boss and tax hikes for you… but let me guess, Boris is a man of the people? You like his hair? Does he just “get” you?

It’s come to the point now where I wish right wing voters would just say the real truth, the truth we all know but never call out because “wokeness” and “censorship”, because “I’m allowed my opinion”. People vote right because they do not understand what they vote for.
You might be able to install a government that will roll back protections for those nasty trans people – but they are also a government who will force you into debt, crush your pension, close down your workplace and- whilst you wait at home, desperate to make sure your vulnerable mother doesn’t lie choking in a hospital bed as a plastic clad nurse tries to offer her muffled words of comfort- they throw back bottles of champagne which cost more than your daily salary.

Right wing voters compromise on their morals to install governments who work against their own people- and are too dense to see it.

Did I make you angry?

Good.

The point of this entire blog is to make people who think in opposition to me THINK about what they believe or vote for. If you truly believe for a single moment that Boris Johnson is the best representative for you, that he understands your daily struggles from a popped tyre to redundancy, you’re a fool. We are chess pieces on a very large board to the tory government. And the time to oust these flagrant shills is so far gone it can’t even be seen by the naked eye. If you truly wish to prove me wrong, and that you’re not willing to compromise your morals then show me by not voting for the people who “make me pay less tax which is good even if I don’t agree with them on drowning migrants”.

The United Kingdom deserves a government better than we have, a government who will work for the good of us all, a government run by those who have lived our experiences, have faced our issues, who are cognisant of our frustrations. Not a nodding dog of moral vacuousness who prattles on about building back better, about hands face space, about get boosted now- the only three word slogan the UK needs is “you’re our employees”.

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It will traumatise them

They’re too young to understand

“It’s grooming”

It might make them think they are

It makes me uncomfortable

I think it’s an adult topic

I think it’s wrong

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Where, then, are our leaders?

The sheer deluded mindset of right wingers in war…

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A very American problem

The toxicity of tory

Voter ignorance or voter indifference?

…but who IS your enemy?

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