Adele, Alf and dinosaurs.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

Adele has nailed her woman colours to the mast, good for her!
And Alison Moyet has followed suit on the birdy-platform - hurrah!

Of course, they're copping flak for it - and I noticed that the dinosaur emojis have been co-opted into the babypink/babyblue flag brigade now.

Does anyone know why? I've removed dinosaurs now from my birdie-platform profile, as they've become ambiguous.

I believe the person who designed the emojis said they were trans dinosaurs, I kid you not, and we were appropriating them.

Oh FGS.
Well I'm glad that I've removed them then!
SO silly to have them be used as emblems for both "sides"!

I've just been given this link, which shows that there are subtle differences in dinos:
twitter.com/Claustunder/status/1450455155577692170
but I'm still of the opinion that they're better gone now, especially as the birdy-platform is more international and David Lammy's comments probably didn't travel too far overseas.

They have to take everything: hastags, emojis, the suffragette colours.

It wasn’t the person who designed the dinosaurs (though you could easily think that from how she went on ) - Courtney Milan asked unicode for dinosaur emojis. However, as the link ThumbWitchesAbroad posted above shows, Courtney has a touch of Main Character Syndrome & shameless disregard for the work of others which predated hers and was actually adopted. She is incredibly proud of playing what she clearly considers to have been a pivotal role in this - to the point she feels able to dictate a subtextual meaning that “must” be globally applied despite the (frankly shocking & unreasonable) socio-cultural Imperialism of her demand.

Leaving aside the crashing absurdity of asserting dinosaurs had* a concept of gender; if they did, while all dinosaurs being trans might explain extinction, it makes no sense when compared to the size of the human trans population. Claiming the dinosaurs are trans is saying people who aren’t trans are not allowed to use them to represent themselves. It is also being prescriptive in a way that some people with autism, for example, will struggle to cope with. Someone who likes dinosaurs & wants to use the dinosaur emojis in their own way, but who is also obsessive about following rules & respecting authority - how do they reconcile the former with the latter (when Courtney is claiming to be the authority & it seems there are some of those dreaded Unspoken Rules bubbling all around)?

Surely [part of] the point is that each time you use an emoji it can be (no pun intended) a unique character? You can choose to consistently represent yourself & the humans & animals in your life with certain emojis; but if you send a message about foxes raiding food bins and put in 🦊🦊🦊 emojis to reference the fuzzy thieves, they are those foxes. When you mention 🦊 sleeping on top of the bike-cupboard/shed thing or 🦊❤️🦊 sexy time noises (etc) - all different foxes with their different stories. You can’t just go round transing dinosaurs who are perfectly happy living their best dino lives just as they are. Which is presumably the majority of them again indulging idea dinosaurs could/would engage with concept gender & actually it’s really transphobic to just try to force all the dinosaurs to be trans. Presumably Courtney would say she’s opposed to conversion therapy were she asked, but she does this. Clearly it’s nowhere near as serious as the experiences of &/or risks to humans - but it is a useful illustration of (dirty great big gaps in) thought processes & construction of belief.

@ScreamingMeMe
The reason the genderqueer flag looks like such vexatious vexillology is that it’s an American creation; & the flag they’re most familiar with is that of the Congressional Union (later National Women’s Party), which swapped out the green of the WSPU’s flag for yellow. Lots on symbols of American women’s suffrage movement in this article if you’re interested. If you track out from the BL’s Votes For Women there are a few bits - worth exploring for itself though really - & the few beautiful posters used as examples of Cambridge University Library’s collection take mere seconds i. to scroll through & ii. to demonstrate wonderfully how just as the WSPU’s distinctive colours were used on all their publications, the red white & green of the NUWSS - & all its component parts & allied groups - appear on theirs. There’s an interesting Frieze article on art & the British women’s suffrage movement which mentions the stylised angel associated with women’s suffrage in this country - & I know that a considerable number of women’s suffrage campaigners were into floriography - the WSPU’s violets are the obvious - but nonetheless excellent - example (particularly given the INCREDIBLE popularity of violets across the period women were campaigning for the initial extension of the suffrage).
(Sorry. Get a bit keen for women’s history. Had Quite Serious Issues with people suffragetting-up the Fawcett statue in 2018 as result. Autism is such fun & makes one cool & quirky mmmhmm yes. **

• or have, if emojis are to be understood as characters/creatures that exist in the present

** Just reflecting on trend for self-diagnosis observed & discussed on several threads; identities constructed round self-diagnosed conditions; & who it is that’s speaking up & out vs spoken over; & whose needs are [not] being met (etc). Well away from point thread, sorry, but I’m just too tired to edit it all again

@NitroNine - thank you! lots of interesting stuff in your post!

That was a brilliant read Nitro, thank you. You have a very engaging style.

Unfortunately Alison Moyet had to delete the tweet. She has been here before iirc. She tweeted about not being cis a while back and that had to go too. She's still a bloody star.

One particularly delightful screenshotted reply to her 'women's rights are human rights' was "that includes trans women, bitch".

I’ve always loved Alison Moyet. As for the way she was spoken to

Oh bugger, I'm sorry she had to delete it.
I saw that tweet, @BraveBananaBadge - utterly disgusting.

But just goes to show that you can't stick your head an inch above the parapet without the TRAs taking shots at you.

Adele can't be happy that she's a female artist either, apparently.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad
Sorry, I get a bit caught up trying to communicate things; & really struggled to condense the emoji-related babbling Am glad I could at least provide the history of women’s suffrage background - possibly a bit much to throw in the stuff on violets from (?)Shakespeare’s birthplace, but if other people also like reading ALL the things I want to share, especially because embedded links mean that they are nearly tucked away.

That’s very kind of you @HirplesWithHaggis, but as I said to ThumbWitches (who was very nice to Nitro, Up-Clarter Of Threads ) I just get quite caught up in trying to communicate things. But hopefully in amongst the stuff on the women’s suffrage movement I will have provided people with some new + interesting things to ponder. Who knows when we might be reduced to communicating with each other by floriography, after all

Oh don't apologise - it was all good stuff!