LWS Birmingham 14/05

[Babysharkdoodoodood]

Is anyone here going to this? I'm pondering whether to go and whether it will be safe.

Yep, “queer” is anything that deviates from the heterosexual “norm.”

Dr EM
@PankhurstEM

1. Queer theory is the academic justification for paedophilia. At it's root it argues that the breaking of sexual boundaries is key to liberation & the only harm caused is in how an action is described. I mean what could go wrong there? What follows is my Trojan Unicorn series

https://twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/1577552847520006144

There are many people (some on the right) who say this is the logical conclusion of queer theory. ie its purpose is to challenge anything that has previously been accepted as the norm.

Are people adopting the word for themselves without fully understanding where the word comes from and what it actually means?

Are people adopting the word for themselves without fully understanding where the word comes from and what it actually means?

Yes - this what happens when the mainstream and social media started adopting words because they are a trend, and they end up devaluing them. Not to defend queer theory but I very much doubt how it is now used, even by those who wasy they are part of a queer analysis, has very little in common with those who first started proposing it.

But it is undoubtedly true that the introduction of queer theory into universities has had a huge impact, and its first victory was to get women's studies changed to gender studies. And this was back in the 80s so the product of that teaching can be seen in all sorts of spheres, eg the Guardian editor who has stated that queer theory informs all her decisions.

I don’t think for a second that most of the people who call themselves “queer” actually understand that definition or that origin

@DarkDayforMN It might've included that for a few writers, but there have been millions of LGBQ people since who have had input into what it includes and doesn't include.

I mean, LGB is a deviation too if you see it as deviant from the norm/not the average. But that doesn't mean it's ok to link them in with criminals either.

Maybe it is hard to denounce some paraphilias when you have males dressed as dogs being patted by toddlers at Pride.

I don't think so (not that I like to see that stuff. ) They could be ok with consensual stuff and not ok with crimes.

I mean, LGB is a deviation too if you see it as deviant from the norm/not the average.

Yes, that is precisely how the queer theorists conceptualised it.

But that doesn't mean it's ok to link them in with criminals either.

You would need to tell the queer theorists that. I didn’t watch her whole speech but based on what I saw, it seems like you are shooting the messenger. I don’t think the woman drawing attention to the problem is to blame for the problem. The systemic erosion of language and blurring of boundaries is being used as cover for very dangerous people.

I don't think so (not that I like to see that stuff. 😁 ) They could be ok with consensual stuff and not ok with crimes.

just want to check, what is the relevance of the phrase “consensual stuff” to the comment about toddlers?

Yes, well you don't know her, but WE DO. And what we know about her is that she is someone with multiple FB accounts, false names and fake qualifications. ( and we know this because when she denounced us online, threatened to contact our employers, we did a deep dive on her internet history, and found out all these fake identities and qualification she had ). If she was genuinely repentant, she would have contacted us, the women she defamed and threatened, rather than making a big public speech, trying to get the sympathy vote. Which women on Twitter are buying into right now as she's saying how hard it was for her to speak and she's getting all the sympathy and support.

I've been involved in this fight for over 6 years now, I'm part of a fantastic group of women who have such courage and integrity, and to see this fraud try to piggyback on the work ALL the women have done, often at great personal cost to themselves, really upsets and angers me.

I spoke to KJK in the pub afterwards to apologise for shouting, but also to try and let her know what this woman is like and to please not trust her. As I said before, in FEBRUARY, she unblocked a member of our group, to say, we had ' blood on our hands', because we were putting on a production of The Vagina Monologues, and blaming us for this tragic killing...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2519589 explains in about 20 pages how the application of queer theory to consent age laws puts girls at risk.

The core point is that age of consent laws are needed to protect girls from premature motherhood.

A political movement based upon undermining the idea of straight as default risks ignoring that, for most women, sex is with men, so sex for women comes with the risks of pregnancy. We lose sight of that risk to girls if we ignore that heterosexuality is the most common orientation.

I'm not suggesting that we head back to the days of Section 28 and Alan Turing taking cyanide. LGB people's legal protection can be framed as protecting a minority who are vulnerable because we are a minority. We don't need to, and shouldn't, try to pretend that straight people aren't the default, majority orientation.

One of the replies to that Dr EM thread had this quote from Butler. That last sentence clause is chilling.

That last sentence clause is chilling.

Gross

Yes, that is precisely how the queer theorists conceptualised it.

Queer theorists basically seem to support homosexuality because it's against the norm.

It's not the homosexuality per se that interests them, and even less do they have any interest in the argument that it should be permitted on any sort of universal liberalism grounds.

That's basically as dumb as people who oppose it for being against the norm , or "unnatural". (And, to be honest, those who say it should be permitted because people are "born this way".)

You can't validly argue for the merits of something on the basis of who does or doesn't support it, or whether it's conformist or transgressive, or natural or unnatural. For policy, is it beneficial or harmful, that's what's important, and what are the costs and benefits of permitting it or not permitting it, also considering any wider societal principles.

Any sort of argument about "norms" is unstable, and potentially even paradoxical if "queering" becomes a norm. Jane Clare Jones on that:

When coupled with the belief that there is no basis for an account of ‘the kind of things that are harmful to humans’ (and certainly not one that says anything as gauche as ‘domination is harmful to humans’), you basically end up with an alleged system of critique that has no moral calculus other than ‘norms are BAD.’ (Oh hai there Queer Theory, towering over the academy, not being normative in the slightest.)

Now there are those who say that what queer theorists are really interested in paedophilia (see Derrick Jensen's Queer Theory Jeopardy lecture clip) - that the obsession with breaking norms is really about that one. Whether that was the original motivation or not kind of doesn't matter though - if you set up any sort of body that routinely and reflexively argues in favour of violating norms, then of course that will end up including violating norms that are a societal good, and it will attract people who want to tear down those societal goods.

So the "norms are bad" reasoning has to be protested against because it's inherently regressive for any society that has actually progressed far enough. Norms are only bad in a society that needs to progress to something better. Similarly "conservatism" isn't inherently good or bad - it depends what it is you're trying to conserve. At some point, you should want to hold onto the progress your society is made, and if you don't have any concrete improvement plan, once things are good enough, most changes will be for the worse.

At some point, you should want to hold onto the progress your society is made, and if you don't have any concrete improvement plan, once things are good enough, most changes will be for the worse.

When I was at school, knowing that change does not always mean progress was a KS3 learning outcome for History. It's bad when a whole field of academia ignores something that 14 year olds are meant to understand.

I thought we had got to the point where people were upset with Queer Theory because it logically had to queer itself, but wasn't?

Which meant it stays arrested in a kind of perpetual tantrum stage of rejecting norms over and over, long past those norms being 'queered' and falling away and becoming rather bored of the whole exercise.

It's basically ODD in academic form, no?

today I've been on Twitter, 2 Twitter spaces and on here, trying to warn women that this individual is not who she claims to be. She's v convincing, articulate and good at playing the victim. She's a dangerous individual and I'm tired of trying to convince pp of this. I've done all I can do I'm gonna leave it now.

Oh, my word, just watched the woman read her letter to her daughter. Big hugs to you, whoever you are.

This, in spades. As we keep having to point out, remember when the Permissive Society was suddenly a Thing, in the late 1960s/1970s, and all sexual taboos/boundaries were suddenly up for re-negotiation?

1. Some men interpreted that as meaning that all women and girls should be delighted to be objectified or outright assaulted.
2. Some perverts decided this was the time to push for their particular obsession to be legitimised, and, incredibly, some well-meaning liberal/left-leaning organisations said 'Yes, good point, that's definitely something we should be discussing' - leading to PIE, i.e. the Paedophile Information Exchange, whose membership was more or less entirely adult males sexually attracted to minors of both sexes, openly campaigning for the age of consent to be reduced/abolished and being accepted as a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties, now known as Liberty. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378

WTF does THAT mean??