Not for the first time, I’m struggling to understand the blue-haired, woke individual in my life. A few days ago, she was all over the Jackie Weaver stuff on social media, posting about sexism and misogyny and (rightly) raging about the way those men spoke to JW, leading to a discussion among her female friends and followers about times they had been spoken over, spoken to rudely, side-lined and disrespected by men.
Today, she’s posting about transphobia at machine-gun speed. One of her posts confidently states that no “Cis-person” can claim discrimination nor oppression. This has been cheered on by an amazingly high number of people.
I’m agog at the lack of self-awareness. Surely she can see the link between these two posts. JW was discriminated and oppressed (or at least they attempted it) because she is a woman. All the commentators giving their own experiences are evidencing that women are victims of oppression. Look at what is happening in Poland – women, biological women, are being oppressed. Women have been oppressed throughout history and it is still happening all over the world, in countries where girls are seen as burdens on their families, are denied education, are forced into FGM, being child-brides, raped as a weapon of war. Yet pointing out this kind of thing is seen as transphobic.
She’s married to someone I love dearly and he has absolutely drunk her kool-aid. I usually stay quiet, no matter how infuriated I am at her opinions. To deviate is to be a transphobe or a T* and means automatic blocking in all walks of life and I can’t lose the person I love. So I’m venting here for a sanity check.