To think homophobia will get worse in the Western Europe and not enough is being done to combat this prejudice

[evilcherub]

I know homophobia is already pretty common but I think it will get worse the more immigrants from cultures that are intolerant of homosexuality and homosexuals come to Western Europe. I hope gay people will remain safe here in the UK and able to lives their lives without fearing being "out".

Ego, I understand that you are concerned about everyday homophobia and transphobia. I wouldn't dream of telling you that you shouldn't be. So kindly refrain from telling feminists what they're allowed to think is a threat to women.

I think I get what Ego is saying: stop cynically using homophobia and gender violence (which is real and widespread) to advance hatred of immigrants/minority racial and religious groups. Because that strategy is hate-filled, cynical, and ultimately poisonous of politics.

It is also a strategy of 'othering' and that strategy of dehumanising groups - refusing to see them as real, actual human beings - is also extremely poisonous - for all of us.

I could be completely wrong about this interpretation but - having read the OP (which is, frankly, something we should challenge), I think it may well express my concerns.

I'm sure you are worried about threads that discuss trans women. That's understandable. Other people have different concerns, which are sometimes in conflict with yours. They're not going to be silenced, either over transgender politics or incidents like Cologne, Rotherham etc.

And yes of course the far right will hijack these discussions which I deplore as much as you. But silencing people's legitimate concerns with accusations of bigotry creates a fertile ground for that to happen.

Finding an effective way to talk about the sexual violence in Cologne in a way that doesn't feed the poisonous racism that is a real, growing force and a real, present danger is a huge challenge. And I think we will rise to it. Though it may well cause us pain as we try one approach, then another; encounter failure, pick ourselves up; try again.

However, we have to remind ourselves what is at stake: the refusal to be silenced on either sexual violence or to be silenced about the entryism of dangerous racism, intolerance, and dehumanising into the centreground of political thinking. The stakes are very high. That's why it's difficult and painful.

I see Katie Hopkins et al as a horrible warning of what will happen if 'we' fail.

Islamic jihadists attacks are rare. Legal discrimination against the trans community and the rhetoric and othering against us in the West is real.

Ahhh, I see now. If it didn't happen to you, it's not real. This is not a luxury I have.

Yes, I agree. But you really can't silence people's legitimate concerns for some perceived greater good. And that is what I believe the left thinks should happen.

So we should control immigration more tightly and only let in those who share British values of tolerance.

I've no idea what the answers are, I just feel that all views should be able to be discussed freely. Obviously racist and homophobic hate speech should not be allowed. But that should be limited to actual hate speech, not things which people find it politically convenient to silence or merely find offensive. Have faith that stupid views will be shown up as stupid in a fair argument.

The thing is with all the homophobia and misogyny etc from the Christian Right is that there aren't any lefty liberal types that would gloss over it, deny it, minimise it, justify it in any way. Because of the direction it is coming from, it is clearly seen as being odious and unacceptable. People who are generally against misogyny and homophobia will have no conflict about condemning it and challenging it.

The same is not true when similar attitudes are espoused by members of a minority group. The liberal left has a tendency to stick its fingers in its ears and sing "la la la, we're not listening" - it is taboo to say anything negative or critical of any part of a community that is itself oppressed in some way. And if something cannot be named and recognised, it cannot be challenged and confronted.

This is the problem I see in this issue. There are genuinely liberal Muslims who are themselves pointing out the social conservatism in their own community and and trying to challenge it but they're stymied in their attempts by the collective denial of well meaning liberals.

Look at the response to the Muslim Women's Network when they raised the issue of Muslim women being pressured or coerced into not standing for council elections in safe Labour areas. (Clue: there wasn't one. The Labour Party just did the fingers in ears thing and bleated about being the party of equality. Despite clearly enabling a deeply misogynist and undemocratic practice in certain parts of the U.K., despite being called on it by members of the Muslim community themselves.)

I would like to see others on the left overcoming their fear of being thought racist or Islamophobic and showing more solidarity with the minorities within minorities who are at present very isolated. I really recommend this blog by Iram Ramzan - a Muslim journalist who questions and challenges her own community just as the Muslim Women's Network does, while still being very much a part of it. These women are fighting Islamophobia too!

There is no easy answer to all of this. Of course we want to embrace tolerance and inclusion but if we are by so doing embracing intolerance and exclusion towards other groups, then we're setting ourselves up for a nasty fall somewhere along the line. We have to be able to name this in order to address it, but the question is how to do it in a way that genuinely isn't fuelling the very real racism and Islamophobia that exist.

I totally agree Talking. Great post. People on the left really think it is better just to pretend these issues don't exist. I'm sure Owen Jones would be more than happy to throw women under the bus, but I think he had a real problem dealing with the possibility of an Islamic terror attack aimed at gay people. He could deal with the idea of a random ISIS terror attack that wasn't targeted at LGBT people (like the Bataclan nightclub, a similar attack aimed at western values) or the idea of an isolated homophobic terror attack that wasn't based on extremist Muslim attitudes to homosexuality, but not both. It doesn't fit his own belief and value system. But he can't pretend this attack didn't exist, nor would he want to. Hence his complete inability to debate it rationally with others, and his belief that he should be able to shut them down when they tried to raise other causes apart from generalised homophobia. I think it's cognitive dissonance. Just my opinion, naturally.

Talking That is just nonsense about 'the left' not being critical of sexism and homophobia in 'minority groups'.

It is, I suspect, mainly 'lefties' who work in solidarity with the 'minorities within minorities' and to amplify the voices of those working to criticise-from-within.

It's been a long time since I was really involved in politics but I used to work to publicise the work of 'Women Living Under Muslim Laws', for example.

The thing is, these voices get so much less airspace than right-wing mouthpieces, with a racist agenda, like Melanie Phillips.

Don't mistake a power imbalance for silence. It just adds to the difficulties these people face.

I have a theory that it's actually harder to access these voices in these internet days than it was when people would go along to an alternative bookshop or resign themselves to having to do research.
I think the easy access to many voices/much information actually disguises the fact there is an unequal access to representation and you STILL have to emit research.

It really isn't nonsense. Have you read the Guardian lately?

You need to widen your reading. Seriously. Thoughtful 'leftie' critiques will be in journals and attached to specialist websites, written by people who have worked with groups and/or done research.

You're probably spot on with your second point, but it doesn't change the fact that publically these problematic attitudes aren't being called out as misogyny and homophobia.

Its not just about me, and my reading, thanks.

Yanbu

I lived in a Muslim area. They're pretty open about how much they hate gays. And women.

I'm honestly not being a wanker. I think it's a real problem about access to information.

And I said I agree with you. But public leftists aren't saying this. People feel like no one will speak for them.

I'm really interested in all this stuff but I've been out of political activism and out of academia for a while and I've lost my 'routes to information' ( if you see what I mean.
Also, a lot of this is accessible only through paid-for access on-line or an academic library.
I think that's quite worrying.