Julie Burchill on Brighton transpride and nonbinary affectation

Working class bisexual woman scoffs at commenters who don't bother to read her bio.

She didn't grow up privileged?

She’s not straight?

Privileged, straight woman confirms LGBT people are not oppressed. Yawn.

She really can. Love her!

Yes i wish she hadn't put that bit in about gay men not having anything to complain about in western countries

come on, it wouldn't be a Julie Burchill article without a smattering of provocative generalities. she isn't an academic, she's a talking head writing an opinion piece.

by george that woman can write.

Brilliant. Why are the non-binaries such a vicious, miserable lot? this, a billion times over.

Yes i wish she hadn't put that bit in about gay men not having anything to complain about in western countries. Obviously they do - and it is those issues that organisations like Stonewall should be campaigning on, rather than dismantling women's rights and safeguarding.

Doesn't it depend a. It in how you define "oppressed"? Gay men face prejudice. I don't think they are oppressed in our society. Women are oppressed as a class (sorry for using the c word!) by our society.

I didn't see how her question was relevant. It's obvious that gay men are oppressed by men. It's also obvious that lesbians face more oppression than gay men, I wasn't denying that or saying that gay men had it worse. I just had a problem with the article because it suggests that gay men are not oppressed at all in modern society.

This is a good article. I love JB’s writing. (and I’m going to politely ignore that it’s published on Spiked Online who write some daft stuff on other FWR issues.)

@tacolover you still didn't answer @2rebecca's question: who oppresses gay men? I'll give you a clue: it's the same people who oppress lesbians and are mentioned in the following paragraph as agents of abuse.

I've had men throw verbal abuse and open cans of drink at me and my then-gf for daring to hold hands, so I can assure you that lesbophobic abuse happens and can be physical.

I never said or insinuated that men are oppressed as much as women

I had a problem with the article which suggested that as homosexuality is legal and gay men are represented in some creative industries, gay men no longer face oppression in today's society and that there is somehow a problem with gay men speaking about the discrimination they face.

OP also suggested that gay men are not oppressed in modern society and asked me to come up with examples. I gave some examples of struggles that gay men have in society. I'm not trying to play the who has it worst game, I just had a problem with that part of the article.

Compare not being able to hold hands in public to not being allowed to speak the truth in public, without attracting death / rape threats and run the risk of losing your job and / or being investigated by the police.
That’s a woman’s lot, in these enlightened times.
Oppression? Yes.

I see you haven't answered the question, which doesn't surprise me. I accept working class gay white men in the UK may face bigotry but am less convinced about middle class homosexual men. Owen Jones doesn't seem very oppressed

With Owen Jones as an example, he has faced many online homophobic insults which he's spoken about before. He probably hasn't had much worse, but this is most likely a result of him being both white and middle class(as you said working class gay men face more discrimination and LGBT PoC often face more discrimination as well).

Other examples of discrimination:
-Recent studies show two thirds of LGBT people fear holding hands in public(this probably disproportionately affects men as straight girls show affection in public all the time; that being said I'm not trying to say that lesbians don't face hate for this but it probably happens to men more)
-the idea that 'camp' gay men are not 'real' men, often mocked, called girly(also this is the stereotype placed on gay men)
-homophobia in sport(dominant in men's football)
-the idea that two men cannot be good parents/are 'damaging' their child(not talking about the surrogacy debate here just about generally)
-general hate crime(Orlando shooting if you need an example)

Honestly, the fact that you don't even think gay men are oppressed in today's society astounds me.

You can't think of a single way that gay men are oppressed in today's society?
Homosexuality is legal and they're represented in some industries therefore gay men are no longer oppressed and should just stop whining about equality.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Lesbians being discriminated against more than gay men isn't an excuse to minimise the homophobia they face in western countries though. I just dislike the way she has suggested that they have nothing to complain about; what's the need for her to dismiss the idea that gay men are still oppressed in western countries? And any bisexual person in a same sex relationship is as likely to be oppressed as any other same sex couple.

That's true but the way she worded it makes it sound as if gay men in western countries have no reason to complain because homosexuality is legal and they have representation in certain industries. It's like saying women shouldn't complain about sexism because we're protected against discrimination under the equality act and we're represented in teaching and nursing. I just found it very minimising and dismissive of the struggles that gay people still go through; and don't even get me started on her saying that bisexual people are never oppressed and therefore don't need to be included

Sometimes "diversity" reduces diversity.

Sometimes seeing the truth written down almost prompts me to tears.

The media certainly has more lefty middle class white male homosexuals than there are in the general population

Academia too. Literally 50% of the men in my department are gay. So it all looks very open and diverse, except we have massive issues with the way in which women are treated in terms of workload, types of tasks allocated, promotion, etc.

2rebecca

I think you are right there