The misogynist Billy Bragg

Absolutely understood!

I know I'm sometimes a bit sensitive about this kind of thing because I don't want to be grouped with those mutilating nutjobs.

Back to BfB, I would so love to get in a room with him. Principally to confound his sad little brain with my rampant socialist gender criticism. Not a right winger, never have been and never will be. Labour is nowhere near left enough for me now, gender-worshipping bullshit aside. His head could explode. And wouldn't that be a thing to behold...

TragicMuse, I hope you're okay, that sounds very hard.

Thanks - of course, this is not a black and white issue and I need to clarify my point. I do understand what you’re saying and that for some parents, there is very little choice but to go along with it to a certain extent. To use their child’s new name and pronouns while inwardly being uncomfortable with it.

My post was intended to refer to those parents who unquestioningly affirm and put their kids on an unnecessary medical pathway and become cheerleaders for the cause. You’re clearly not doing that. You’re trying to respect your child’s identity so you don’t push them away and you can keep the lines of communication open. I hope everything works out, it must be so difficult. 💐

I don't agree 100%. My child is ftm trans and I call her they when talking to or about her. I know she's a girl. And I believe she is a girl. I don't believe she's a boy, I do think she doesn't want to be a girl. Which is different.

But I also want her to keep talking to me. And engaging with me. And I can't do that if I don't verbally affirm, even if it's not with my heart. She knows my feelings. We occasionally row. But I don't want to alienate her or shut her out or encourage her to shut herself out. I need her engaged and here and safe, where I can protect her from shitty dodgy predators who have their own agenda and don't care about her interests or future or health or anything that will actually directly affect her. And I'd saying they is what it takes then that's what I've decided to do. To keep them with me.

So I call her they. I can't stretch to he. I just can't. She's not my son, whatever she says. And I hope to get my daughter back one day. I can't do that if I've made her hate me by being the self-fulfilling prophecy she's being fed.

So no. We aren't all zealots sacrificing our children at the alter of the gender butchers and predators. Some of us do it because we are frightened of losing our children to those who want to damage and hurt them. And never getting them back in the whole and perfect form they were born.

His response exactly proves Helen's point in the clip that he attacks - she says that parents of trans children are the most angry because they will never accept that they've done the worst possible thing you can do as a parent, which is to harm your child, and that's why they direct so much abuse at her.

Yes, as Mollyollydolly said earlier, exactly proving the point that Helen is making in that clip.

I think parents who affirm their trans kids tend to be the most fervent, self-righteous activists because anything less than 100% adherence to the ideology means they let their children down. Nobody wants to think they’ve contributed to their child suffering unnecessarily. So instead they have to keep those colours firmly nailed to the mast and hold on for dear life, even as the storm rages all around them.

I'd never heard of Dorian Lynskey, but the trans child makes sense when you look at the utterly unhinged way he's responding on this issue. There's no rational argument, when apparently he's not a stupid man normally. Just weirdly angry insults, making things up, and calling people bigots. It must be frightening when the signs are starting to show that your child is on a damaging and completely unnecessary medical pathway and that you didn't attempt to stop it - if that is what's going on here.

We should all do one of these 'not interested in you, Billy Bragg' videos for X/Twits.

He's so dim he'll probably reply with 'I don't fancy you anyway' or 'I wouldn't touch you with a barge-pole ha ha'. And it would puzzle him.

Yes, I think it's Dorian Lynskey who might have a f2m child, not Billy Bragg.

Bragg's contributions to the debate tend to focus on all the stuff about men in single-sex spaces etc whereas Lynskey seems to be particularly irate about people criticising the use of unnecessary medical interventions on children.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lifes-a-beach-for-billy-of-barking-2pqb50d88ck

Refers to their son Jack age 11 many years ago so I don't think his son is trans.

"Women and men are different beings"

Yes Billy they are

That kind of is just a standard left wing protest however.

Gender critical beliefs have nothing to do with fascism, and it's a lunatic accusation, but it's just done to smear opponents and try to put them outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.

Blimey. That 2014 interview with BB is not what I know about women, more a list of some women I know. And how they are my support humans or wouldn't go out with me. I can almost hear him muttering 'Bitches'.

His child is a singer-songwriter called Jack Valero, lives in Brighton. I don't know if trans. Very little info online about him until a few years ago so certainly possible. No excuse for being a mysoginist though, if so.

Has Billy 'called out' his pal Justin, or is it just women he picks on?

'I know Billy Bragg so we had that connection. It's amazing how in place like London, you often cross paths with people that are connected to other people you know. There's somewhat of a kinship between all of the artists within the community.'

Justin Sane.

https://www.punknews.org/article/30641/interviews-justin-sane-anti-flag

'Anti-Flag’s Ex-Members Say ‘F-ck You’ to ‘Very Sick’ Justin Sane Amid Sexual Assault Accusations ... 13 women accused the punk-rock singer of predatory behavior, sexual assault, and statutory rape.'

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/anti-flags-ex-members-speak-out-against-justin-sane-assault-accusations-1234818094/

BB is a woman hating arse ...

I was at the Manchester meeting where Maya F and Helen J talked about womens and girls rights in law and how to secure them....as we left the building, a mob of transactivists were waiting for us. They screamed at us ' Nazis out', ' no Fascists here!' and 'f * Helen Joyce', banging drums as they followed us down a backstreet.

Bravely, Helen and Maya marched at the front of our group, openly defying the raging fools as we all now made our way confidently along the street .. heads up and. unbowed!

Seems that s not how Bragg likes his womenfolk!

ps Will be complaining to Manchester Police ... these mobs are being given a free pass ehen they clearly breach public order.

😂
Posie very much not holding back there! As usual

I love how she talks about 'pinching me in the playground' - that's exactly what it's like. I bet she particularly bothers him because she's incredibly gorgeous and also totally uninterested in him

https://x.com/ThePosieParker/status/1701902726949458266?s=20

I think BB has a son, now in his late 20's.

This article from 2014 "What I know About Women" is a bit dated - turns out he knows 3/5ths of fuck all about women

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/what-i-know-about-women-20140304-3438x.html

Thanks, inkjet. I think you're probably right in that case.

WearyLady - it was inkjet who listened to the Remainiacs podcast, I was quoting her.

He's certainly gone to a dark place of the soul. Question is, was it always there or is this a new thing?

My guess is that it was always there, and he was just able to mask it better in his earlier career, with his LARPing politics lifted straight from Bob Dylan and blues music. Similarly many men have masked using comedy. But really, they just fucking resent and despise women, probably because they're angry at their mums and a girl at school turned them down once. Then they got successful so they tightly controlled that feeling behind a smile - but it was always there inside, like a little knot waiting to unravel.

And you know for damn sure that he still think he's a Great Big Feminist. That he understands feminism better than we do, and he's got a lot to teach us all about how to do feminism properly

This latest comment to Maya 🤦🏻‍♂️ he's just getting worse and worse. Or maybe just getting braver and braver about letting his misogyny hang out for all to see. What an utter plum

Imagine if he told a person of colour that he had seen the footage of them being racially abused and they were smiling so it wasn't real racism, and get over it love. It would be the end of his career, but swop 'person of colour ' for 'woman' and it's all cool beans. Apparently 🙄

It's so rapey. She liked it she was smiling. She didn't say no.