Transphobic Christmas lights

[Bitchyfrench]

Can't believe more people aren't up in arms about the transphobic Harry Potter Oxford Street lights.

Apparently a mere 10,000 people have sent emails to London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan demanding that he ‘pull the plug on transphobia’ and cancel the themed lights.

The Good Law Project, who are always at the forefront of good sense and well-rounded thinking are quite rightly outraged that trans folk can't possibly feel Christmassy when inanimate twinkly Christmas lights are mocking their right to feel festive.

Down with this sort of thing.

In which case it sounds sensible to include Harry Potter and use it as a means to discuss some of the key issues in an age appropriate way.

I agree, I can’t see anything transphobic in the actual stories (although I’m sure some people will find something!) There are of course a host of other problematic issues with JKR’s characters and writing, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the time she was writing in.

I walked past them yesterday. It was a man and a megaphone saying over and over again what do we want trans rights, when do we want them now. There was a few supporters say 10 with placards. Most weren't bothered just wanted to go the harry potter muesum.

Pro women's rights is not the same as being anti trans. I understand it is in the eyes of the TRAs but that doesn't make it true, no matter how many times they type it, shout it or write it on a placard.

I would argue that most people agree with JKR that women and girls need single sex spaces so the fact that a vocal minority are pushing for access to these spaces is in my view, concerning. I have to question the motives of any male that says he should be allowed access to women's toilets, changing rooms, rape crisis centres and sport simply because he feels like it.

I think JKR is a queen for standing up to this nonsense. The fact that she's received death threats and rape threats for doing so only demonstrates how important it is to hold the line and protect women's rights.

I said on another thread, she really should be. Imagine the tantrums 😂

The person in question was an academic I line manage. Who would she be reporting me to?

It was one resource that had been developed by a student of ours who was studying a teacher training programme. We also had resources based on Roald Dahl - should I be removing those too?

It was a resource produced by a student on a teacher training programme.
The brief is to produce a resource and activities suitable for primary school aged children using a children's book as a theme.

Any on Enid Blyton? 😆

Not recently! But I'm wondering if we might see a resurgence due to the recent film.

The students choose the book and often choose books that meant something to them as a child or they they've read to their own children. It's not a surprise that we see Harry Potter come up regularly.

Is this some sort of oblique reference to trans people being what they say they are? Because trans identified men remain men and trans identified women remain women. No one changes their sex.

Have a look at what happened to Rosa Freedman, Kathleen Stock and Jo Phoenix. Quite the eye-opener as to what happens in academia to those who don’t adhere to gender ideology.

Even the university union - UCU - is utterly captured (they talked recently about “rooting out” gender critical staff) so turning to them for help won’t get you anywhere either.

Where's the laughing emoji when you need it? 🤣🤣💀

How outrageous that it wasn't a Christmas rainbow flag light display instead 🙄 because everything has to be about them.
Where do all these loons hide out, I've never met anyone in real life who is offended by Harry Potter.

I’m sure I remember reading about a monk complaining about the true nature of Christmas having been lost. In the 14th century.

There’s nowt new under the sun…

Their basements

I read a book about this very thing just the other day, every adult generation thinks Christmas was better in the past for CENTURIES.

Four Hundred Years of English Seasonal Customs, 1600-2000

https://amzn.eu/d/01XwOzdk

Their mums' basements.

Yes, quite right.

I'm fully aware of what has happened to those women

But I'm also aware of the 'mood' at my own University.
I'm not going to censor student work in the way my staff member was expecting me to.
Academia is becoming quieter on this issue

Academia is becoming quieter on this issue.

That is encouraging.

'Let us not adorn our porches, nor arrange dances, nor decorate the streets; let us not feast the eye, nor enchant the ear with music, nor enervate the nostrils with perfume, nor prostitute the taste, nor indulge the touch, those roads that are so prone to evil and entrances for sin; let us not be effeminate in clothing soft and flowing, whose beauty consists in its uselessness, nor with the glittering of gems or the sheen of gold [Romans 13:13] or the tricks of color, belying the beauty of nature, and invented to do despite unto the image of God; Not in rioting and drunkenness, with which are mingled, I know well, chambering and wantonness, since the lessons which evil teachers give are evil; or rather the harvests of worthless seeds are worthless. Let us not set up high beds of leaves, making tabernacles for the belly of what belongs to debauchery. Let us not appraise the bouquet of wines, the kickshaws of cooks, the great expense of ointments. Let not sea and land bring us as a gift their precious dung, for it is thus that I have learned to estimate luxury; and let us not strive to outdo each other in intemperance (for to my mind every superfluity is intemperance, and all which is beyond absolute need) — and this while others are hungry and in want, who are made of the same clay and in the same manner.'

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310238.htm

Dec. 25, 380, or on Jan. 6, 381

I think the 'great expense of ointments' was an early complaint about the beauty advent calendars, tbh.

https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Text/an_ordinance_for_the_better_obse.htm

'...this day particularly is to be kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights; being contrary to the life which Christ himself led here upon earth, and to the spiritual life of Christ in our souls'

Act of Parliament, December 19, 1644

'I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas in these articles. It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous, and demoralising subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and any one who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages'

George Bernard Shaw, 1906

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