Matthew Parris, GC gay man speaking out.

[CallMeSirShotsFired]

Matthew Parris, writing in this week's Spectator, has shown his GC side.

Just a couple paras in to his latest article, he comments: "...it has been particularly sad in 2018 to see the ‘trans’ movement, with its hopes of modernising and liberalising public attitudes, walking straight into the same trap.

Sticking names on things and badges on people, and spouting corrosive nonsense about ‘crossing’ from one sex or sexuality or ‘gender’ to another can only warp self-knowledge and our knowledge of each other...."

He also names the "trans lobby" in his final sentences, showing an understanding of the type of people he means by these actions.

www.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/we-dont-need-new-categories-for-sexuality-we-need-to-abolish-categories/

Nothing useful to add, but Matthew Parris has been very high on my rather short list of loveable Tories for years.

"My firm belief is that in trying to categorise sex, sexuality and — yes — even gender, the late 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries have taken the medical and social sciences down a massive blind alley. No such categories exist."

Yes, they do, Matthew. There are two distinct sex categories. Jeez if someone like him can't get his head round that, we are in trouble.

Um… did you read the whole article, OP?

But before the Victorians, sex was described more by verbs than nouns — as something people did rather than were — and sexual leanings, mainstream as well as minority, were appetites to which almost anyone might on occasion be prey. Those earlier ages had been vicious in their approach to morally disapproved behaviour but relaxed in their understanding that many, perhaps most, could feel the pull.

That's because before the 19th century, people had little understanding of biology and it was generally believed, as per Galen, that male and female genitalia was identical, but women's was inverted and therefore women were faulty versions of men. To be fair to pre-modern people, even when modern people did figure out the differences, they used the information to make gender stereotypes even more rigid and constrictive for women so it can't be argued they used their new knowledge for good.

Also, people were not relaxed in their understanding of sexuality. They were most definitely unrelaxed, especially towards female sexuality which was seen as voracious and aggressive.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as I matured and experimented, what I’d been told did not tally with what I encountered. I was never very promiscuous (or I’d be dead)

And I'm really hoping he isn't implying what he appears to be implying here.

How has he managed to write that whole very sensible article, and leave out the two categories of sex? Is he being cowardly or ignorant?

Saskia I thought he was referring to AIDS, which was a death sentence at one point in history.

Scissor, I thought he was referring to AIDS too, but in the sense that it was reported in 1980s tabloids as something that only killed the promiscuous.

How has he managed to write that whole very sensible article

That whole very sensible article is calling for vagueness and shades of meaning.

Obviously it didn’t only kill the promiscuous- one chance encounter could be enough- but in the years prior to understanding about the transmission of HIV and the advent of HAART, promiscuity increased risk of acquiring HIV purely because there was greater exposure to the virus. It’s not a moral judgement to say that, though certainly was used as one in the past.

I used to have a lot of time for Parris, but since the referendum result didn't go his way, he's turned into an overbearing pompous know-it-all. The worst sort of liberal.

Take this (immediately preceding the previous sentence I quoted above)

"What follows is not written here for the first time, and much of it is neither original nor new; but on very few subjects have I ever been more sure I’m right, or more sure that future generations will see so, and wonder that it stared us in the face yet was not acknowledged."

...and in the next breath tells there are no sex categories.

(My BIB)

I think some posters are confusing "sex' in this article, i.e. fucking, with biological sex.

He says "there are no categories" or something to that effect, at the end. But there are categories of biological sex, which there obviously need to be.

I assume he means "everyone is a little bit bisexual, therefore there is no such think as gay/lesbian/straight". Maybe sexuality is more of a spectrum for some people, but there are still only two sexes.

I assume he means "everyone is a little bit bisexual, therefore there is no such think as gay/lesbian/straight".

I always find that claim odd. It's as if gay people are accepted to be exclusively same-sex-attracted but none of the rest of us are believed to be exclusively opposite-sex-attracted. As if we can't accept our own sexuality, and are suppressing our secret attraction to members of the same sex.

I agree he had some peculiar phrases in it, but what I took from it was a message to stop trying to label everything and everyone because it's not so neat as that.

(Agree that he should have been clearer on the binary that is male/female sex classification, as distinct to shagging sex which can be what ever a person wants)

But at the end of it all, he's still published something which isn't 100% brown nosing the tra position, for which they will be baying for his blood.

I think some posters are confusing "sex' in this article, i.e. fucking, with biological sex.

The two are only conflated in a modern context. Up until the late 18th century people didn't have a perception of biological sex in the sense that male and female were distinct. Of course, they did have a perception of sex as fucking. Matthew seems to be suggesting this was a good thing, but for the reasons I've outlined it really wasn't.

Poppyred85 I think it was a mistake for him to say that. On a logical level it isn't a value judgement, but in far too recent history it was used as one.

I always find that claim odd. It's as if gay people are accepted to be exclusively same-sex-attracted but none of the rest of us are believed to be exclusively opposite-sex-attracted. As if we can't accept our own sexuality, and are suppressing our secret attraction to members of the same sex.

Exactly this. I find the insistence that "everyone is a little bit bisexual" is to be pretty intolerant. It's the opposite of letting people be who they are.

Up until the late 18th century people didn't have a perception of biological sex in the sense that male and female were distinct.

I don't understand this - because they clearly did - they had knowledge of animal husbandry, they knew which babies could grow up to have more babies, and which ones wouldn't. Which people should be sent to nunneries and which to monastries.

Now, perhaps there's some high thought, philosophical way they didn't think of it the same way (although surely we could only infer that, since none of us were there), but they certainly had the practical, rubber hits the road understanding of the two sexes.

Up until the late 18th century people didn't have a perception of biological sex in the sense that male and female were distinct.

That seems unlikely to me.

I agree with OP and I agree with his argument on the whole. Firstly he's talking about LBGT not feminism and the fundamental binary category of sex. Secondly when he says gender doesn't he mean the same as feminists.
But with this sting which today’s trans lobby will hate. Don’t demand admittance to a new category. Don’t crave a different badge. Dare to believe that there are no categories, no badges, and no walls.

Micke and hackmum, it might seem unlikely, but I promise you it is true. Effectively, women and men were believed to have the same genitalia, but women's was inverted, and therefore women were simply badly formed men.

Up until science advanced to the point that anatomy could be studied in microscopic detail, reproductive biological theory was based on the teachings of Galen, who explained: "Turn outward the woman's, turn inward, so to speak, and fold double the man's, and you will find the same in both in every respect." -- Galen, 2nd century A. D.
web.stanford.edu/class/history13/earlysciencelab/body/femalebodypages/genitalia.html

Also: journals.openedition.org/cliowgh/339 - emilykq.weebly.com/blog/galen-on-male-and-female-anatomy

I don't really understand his argument. At least, I understand that he doesn't believe in categories of sexuality, so he wouldn't divide people into gay, straight and bi. He'd argue that people sometimes have sex with members of the opposite sex, sometimes with members of their own sex, and you don't have to stick a label on people. (I don't know what he'd say about people who are sexually attracted to children.)

But I don't understand how any of this relates to trans people. It doesn't help that he uses "gender" rather than "sex" so it's not clear what he's talking about. Many trans people would argue that their gender identity is nothing to do with their sexuality and although many of us would dispute this, it seems a fundamental part of the argument. Is he saying that if you do away with the categories of male and female, it therefore isn't possible to cross from one to the other?

Saskia - I rather suspect that what Galen said in the second century AD wasn't still widely held to be true in the 1700s. By that time they'd already started dissecting human bodies.

[of Kinsey] He found that almost half his male interviewees had reacted sexually to both genders

just once I'd like someone to use the word 'sex' instead of 'gender' when they actually mean 'men and women'. people as smart as Matthew Parris should know better.

and this:

we’re free to choose. The coming age may extend that from sexuality to gender.

is an implicit acceptance that gender is real. not my cup of tea.

hackmum it was until the late 1700s. Up until that point all medical 'knowledge' about biological sex was based either directly on his theories, or refined versions them. There was some Aristotelian stuff too, but ultimately it all ended up with the same overall belief.

I can understand how ridiculous it sounds, I thought that too when I first encountered it, but put it in the context of a belief in humoural theory and the effects of heat on the human body and it's easy to see how it made sense at the time.

Have a read, there's quite a lot of stuff about it and how biology (female/male/intersex) interacted with what we now call gender.

In fact, some of the theories about gender wouldn't look out of place on the Stonewall website.