Near unanimity about pronouns/EI on Radio 4 just now

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Interesting. Broadcasting House currently on air, Radio 4, does a newspaper review at the end. Trevor Phillips has just picked a story about Rosie Duffield refusing to use she/her pronouns for Eddie Izzard. Presenter Paddy O'Connell put the three other people there on the spot and asked them if they would use them, and after a momentary hesitation, they all basically agreed with Trevor Phillips.

@BoreOfWhabylon

Derailing the thread, but your name has just made me laugh out loud. :D

That was the shortest discussion I've heard on R4. They were all too scared to speak so it shut down.

Phillips is himself the living embodiment of Identity Politics. I remember him saying that ' people who talk about the class struggle are in a 70s time warp'. Diversity was the only show in town.

I don't think that's fair at all. The people in Labour talking about only the class struggle at that time were stuck in the 70s. Most of that same part of Labour are the ones now pushing ID politics.

Phillips has always pushed back when the work and language of equality he pioneered started to be stolen by those interested in performing victimhood rather than doing anything about inequality.

He is (laughably) routinely accused of being right wing for talking about the complexities of gender, ethnicity, integration and disability rather than paroting the requisite drivel.

The EA has helped tens of thousands, it's not his fault it gets misrepresented.

@MagpiePi
How very dare you!

I would vote for him for PM in a heartbeat, I don't think it would matter what party he was in.

Oh, just to add, I do think TP has rethought some of his ideas. If you watch his film Things We Won't Say About Race That Are True he talks about some of them. And similarly in his interview on Triggernormatry.

One of the things where I've disagreed with him is that he considers that living racism in he UK refers mainly to groups that have been historically disadvantaged, and so still have disparities. So if your ethnic group arrived in the UK, and went into an industry that then failed, so your group has made a limited recovery as of yet, that is an example of systemic racism that should be addressed.

Certainly such things exist and deserve real attention, but I have never been able to see why it on;y applies to groups that are not white. To my mind this applies to lots of people of all ethnicities including some whose ancestors have been in the UK for 1000 years. And who might not be picked out as an identifiable "other" ethnicity at all.

I don't think EI believes he is actually a woman? So on that basis being forced to use the female pronoun seems even more unrealistic. I would use it out of politeness only for someone who had a genuine belief that were a woman.

Not respecting Eddie Izzard's preferred pronouns is perhaps the easiest resistance to gender woo.

He's been a self declared transvestite for decades, it's a massive cognitive leap for many to equate transvestite with transwomen (or whatever people's idea of what a TW is).

You can also point to the obvious fact that EI has been highly successful and at times a national treasure whilst being an out and proud transvestite. He's hardly been the victim of transphobia, he's been hugely accepted.

Given that cross dresser comes officially under the Trans Umbrella (according to Stonewall) then E is trans. When he is a in girl mode he must therefore BE a woman.

I'd love to think he is engaging in performance art to push this to the limit in order to demonstrate what this means in reality.

I don't think he is though.

Well done to TP. Of course we can call Eddie E a man. Things are getting a bit silly. If someone has done a full legal gener change under English (not Scottish) law, had the pe nis removed too and only ever goes out there as a woman I don't particularly mind calling them female but if people are chopping and changing and legally are still a man then it is ridiculous people arei n trouble for not using what people want.

Eg I hate insurance companies etc call me by my first name as I am not on first name terms with them. However I am not going to sue because they treat me casually and use the first name. I just suck it up and get on with it.

The newspaper article talked about Izzard wanting she/pronouns from 2 years ago, but Izzard hasn't consistently been in "girl mode" (to use his words) all that time surely - isn't there a recent movie he is a man in?