John Davison BAFTA Tourette’s incident and competing rights

It took me a while to find it again but this is an interesting sociolinguistic study of the interaction between perceived social background and styles of swearing. I though it might be of interest here given that we're discussing cross-Atlantic reactions to a white working class Scottish man with Tourette's:

https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/471328/1/Journal_of_Sociolinguistics_2022_Hunt_Swear_ING_ain_t_play_ING_The_interaction_of_taboo_language_and_the.pdf

"People have a linguistic knowledge of swearwords - they have an understanding of the criteria that make up a swearword (see e.g., Ljung, 2010) in order to differentiate them from neutral words, including the pragmatic functions of, for example, expressing emotion or verbal emphasis, and their knowledge of swearing consists of all their previous experiences of it. People also have a social knowledge of swearwords. They know why particular topics are societally taboo and they have an expectation of the types of people who are more likely to swear than others and the situations in which swearing is most likely to occur. People’s previous experiences include both the linguistic aspects (e.g., the specific word, its pronunciation, and the other words around it) and the social aspects (e.g., the speaker and the setting) of the swearword they heard.

Swearwords are an area of language in which the social is always present and for which an integrated model of sociolinguistic cognition is a must. What makes swearwords taboo is societally dictated. Their deployment in conversation is socially motivated—with the exception of people with certain neurodevelopmental disorders, one always has the choice not to swear, but people do so to achieve particular social goals. They are perhaps the best example of stylistic choice that speakers make in order to place themselves in the social landscape...

...Swearwords are socially salient to the extent that they can affect how other linguistic sources of social information are perceived, which can make them central to a person’s speech style. Effective models of communication must therefore account for swearwords and their potential not only for their own meaning-making, but also for their potential to influence the emergence of social meaning in the context of broader speech styles"

The only thing most people have in common on here is being GC. Or in the case of some posters, are willing to present as GC in order to earn trust on the board. This covers a very broad church from the most dangerous misogynists who clearly know what a woman is so they know who to oppress, to extreme religious fundamentals, to right wing people using the trans issue as a trojan horse to challenge all equalities, to genuine concerned women.
Of course people are not 'even handed'. Typically they have consensus on the things that are directly tied to GC beliefs but will express bias in accordance with their other beliefs.
This is why there is agreement (or silence) when it is said that 'cis' is offensive and other slurs against other groups are 'magic words'.
This is why a man is welcomed onto the board by women supporting and encouraging him, praising and thanking him for his support of single sex spaces for his daughter, then once he has his feet under the table, he feels emboldened to tell a woman to 'reframe her trauma'.

To echo GenderlessVoid, in what ways are words treated as though they have magical powers? Especially in regards to this situation?

People tend to become offended over others disagreeing with them, as disagreement tends to be less tolerated in general casual interactions. In casual conversation I think people should be more capable of agreeing to disagree without taking it personally.
That's not thinking words have magical powers though, that's being intolerant of disagreement.

And I'm not sure that applies to discussions in forums such as this, where sharing one's viewpoint and defending it as valid or correct in order to persuade others to agree is an explicit part of the purpose of discourse. We could all just agree to disagree, but then there would be no point in discussing the issue at all.

I'm not sure what you mean by "as if words have magical powers,"

Are you talking about a trauma response? I think that's what most on this thread have been discussing. If so, let me quote Socrateswasrightabout voting. I apologize if this is unclear but I hope it helps people understand. I haven't had much sleep and I'm suppressing my Tourette's tics so my thoughts may be garbled but I hope this helps understand what those here who are focusing on a PTSD/trauma response mean.

NB: My PTSD is different from the below in that I can realize even as I'm having flashbacks, etc that the things I'm experiencing aren't really happening. But my body and brain still react as if they were. I feel terror and pain, my heart races, my blood pressure increases, I have intrusive thoughts, I may shout (often from Tourette's tics) or I may freeze and be too afraid to move. I still realize that I'm not in danger (except from my high blood pressure, motor tics, etc) but it doesn't matter, But the rest of the below holds for me and is true for many people with trauma responses.

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting
Context kicks in after the trauma response.
Chatgpt
Here’s a simple, layman’s way to explain it:
Your brain has two main “safety systems”.
The amygdala is the fast one.
The rational brain (the thinking part) is the slow one.
The amygdala’s job is to keep you alive. It scans constantly for danger using past experience. When it spots something that might be a threat, it doesn’t stop to think — it acts.
It hits the alarm.

That’s when you feel:
heart racing
muscles tense
on edge
This is fight - flight - freeze.

Only after that does the rational part of your brain step in.

The rational brain asks:
Is this actually dangerous?
Was that a real threat?
Am I safe?
Sometimes it says:
False alarm.
But by then, the body has already reacted.

Think of it like this:
The amygdala is the smoke alarm.
The rational brain is the person checking whether it’s toast or a fire.
The alarm goes off first to keep you safe.
You figure out the truth after.

edit: typo

ArrghNoJustNo

It's not about the involuntary action (the tic) but the intentional action afterwards that shows you someone's character. And whether posters can recognise those two things as separate - or choose not to - tells you something about them as well.

Assuming that this paragragh is about John Davidson.
What more do you expect from him?
He has put out a general statement and apologised directly to those directly affected.
I also wonder if this paragragh is also pointed at DL and MBJ, neither has put forward a statement to mitigate the abuse that JD has had to deal with due to his disability.

It's not unique historically or across cultures, but no, thinking about language that way, as if words have magical powers, is not something that is equally evident in all times and places.

Swearing is not the same thing, although it's true that current swear words tend to be about identity, whereas at other times they have been other kinds of words.

I would agree that sometimes people on FWR can be particularly attuned to things they perceive as misogyny, and not treat them as they might another issue. Overall though I think most people here try to be very even-handed about how they approach things.

In this case, I don't think your comment has any legs at all, there is no reason to think anyone on the thread would be bothered by nasty comments relating to women in the same scenario, and in fact they did seem to occur and no one was bothered.

As for the idea that people were somehow seeking out black people with Tourette's to comment, of course people were interested in doing so, given that any time anyone says anything relating to any group they are told straight away that they aren't supposed to have a view unless it has been somehow informed by members of the relevant group. You might consider that people also might simply like to hear the perspective of someone with a foot in both camps, so to speak, in order to actually learn about that experience.

I'm quite curious as to what is the basis for your claim that they wouldn't care what anyone black would say under other circumstances.

They were aimed at people. Not intentionally of course but factually, the tics were triggered by who or what he saw, hence why they seem to 'fit' whomever he's looking at (See his tic infront of the Queen). We mustn't obscure reality just because we are trying to be defensive.

However, saying he's guilty of intentionally ticcing words that people find despicable is not the point of my post at all and not something I would say because I'm very aware of Coprolalia. It's simply intrusive thoughts laid bare, like thinking out loud - the kind of thoughts most people can filter, suppress and shake off before they ever reach the surface. That ability helps keep society peaceful, but someone with coprolalia doesn't have that filter or ability to control it. That’s a fact.

It also neither confirms nor denies anyone's inherent beliefs. Only the person knows what they really think and if their actual views match up with any of those intrusive thoughts. The same applies to people who can control/suppress theirs.

But my post was actually addressing mumsnetters who can never seem to relate to anything or anyone unless it's to do with all the things they label as "Misogyny" or to use them to prove a point. You see it in this issue when some people specifically search for black people with tourettes who happen to support their views. Other times, those black people won't matter to them. I don't think most people need to be lectured or educated on Tourettes, I don’t see that as the point most of them are making.

It's not about the involuntary action (the tic) but the intentional action afterwards that shows you someone's character. And whether posters can recognise those two things as separate - or choose not to - tells you something about them as well.

Some of his tics on the night were.

We shrugged and moved on.

Have things not always been like that, really? It's just that back in the day, the restrictions on language were dictated by religious sensibilities, and now they tend to be dictated by identity politics sensibilities.

I notice that people seem to want to police what others say, yes, but then on the other side, you have people wanting to police how others react to things they say or do. So there's policing from every angle.

In general though, people tend to make arguments from emotion without logical consistency, which makes discussion difficult. I think we're all prone to that, and emotion obviously needs to be taken into account, but a lack of logical consistency - if this applies to x, then it should also apply to y...except it doesn't, because the argument is logically inconsistent - is frustrating.

As a society, we seem to be hell bent on creating taboos and/or shibboleths on all sides of the political spectrum. I find it po-faced, priggish, performative in a lot of ways and largely counterproductive because, in general, people don't enjoy being lectured, condescended to and policed - eventually there's a backlash which ends up making things worse.

Going back to the main topic of the thread, I couldn't agree more strongly with @TempestTost :

I've often thought in recent years that we are creating a way of thinking about words and certain kinds of actions that gives some of them an almost magical-power significance.

I think that most days. As a linguist, this both saddens and infuriates me. It makes good communication almost impossible.

There were vocal tics on the night that happened that are also phrases considered insulting to women - we discussed it earlier in the thread. I posted a great video explainer from a young black woman with TS, her explanation of the issue really helped me to understand the issues involved even more.

Davison's tics aren't 'aimed' at anyone, they happen outwith his control: he's hearing his body saying them at the same time as the other people around him are.

Coprolalia is not a reflection of the speaker's inherent beliefs and feelings so it's not rational to hold someone responsible for their vocal tics.

I can't imagine it's pleasant, if one is not used to it, to hear these unpleasant phrases but it's essential to remember that they are unintentional and to not see the person with TS as culpable.

I completely agree. It's very odd.

Especially when the view he's espousing directly supports the view that women and girls should just get over any discomfort they feel about men/boys in loos. He's arguing for the other side here.

Edit: Sorry, mean to quote @ElenOfTheWays

Oh. Ok it seems very counter intuitive of him. He's certainly not doing his cause any favours on this thread by acting like such a dick. I guess that's why I questioned it.

I wonder if his partner was 'burnt out' by all the philosophical mansplaining. Or bored.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5361843-single-sex-changing-spaces-in-brighton-secondary-schools-part-4

Oh. Ok it seems very counter intuitive of him. He's certainly not doing his cause any favours on this thread by acting like such a dick. I guess that's why I questioned it.

I just copy/pasted and advance searched the name, and the school threads came up. So, same guy.

I was wondering about that. The user name has 2 letter ls and one capital I in it. Easy to copy by switching one of these. It would LOOK exactly the same but MN would allow it as a different name.
I've seen this done before on here.
I only wondered about it as this poster doesn't seem at all like the poster I know as SingleSexSpacesIn Schools

I wonder what Mumsnet would've looked like had his tic (or worse, if it was a black man's tic) been something aimed only at women (Think of whatever words or phrases you find the most despicable as a feminist or GC feminist).

There would be loads of threads and pages and pages discussing the M-word (Misogyny) and hardly any mention of disabled people or Tourettes or sympathy for the (black) man who ticced.

Bear in mind there are Black people with Tourettes as well as black disabled people in general.

(Not on any side but I"m just holding up a mirror so the double standard and gaslighting that's happening are easier to see).

He is. But clearly he's a father who thinks his daughter deserves dignity, and shouldn't just 'choose not to be harmed' by the presence of boys, but all other women and their trauma responses are stupid nonsense to him. It's a pretty typical male attitude, to only care about the women that 'belong' to him and screw the rest.

Personally I'm ignoring, now I know he's posting in bad faith and trying to provoke. He's not worth the time and bother.

Yes I think ignore. It may be the Brighton father but there have been a couple of instances recently of people using a similar name to regulars but turning out not to be them at all. Even if it is the same person he's being an arsehole on this thread.

Can’t he just tell the girls to pull themselves together? It’s just a willy they’re likely to see. It’s only going to bother them if they let it.

I haven't read it in years so I have no idea what I would think about it now. Does it bother you that people change their minds?

Should I ignore him? He may be trolling but isn't this the father who's trying to get the Brighton and Hove schools to have truly single sex loos? Or is that someone with a similar name?