Smegg Wallace

[FinallyPeakedNow]

So I have been quietly considering all the trans stuff for years. Trying to see both sides. Acknowledging that my best friend's policing of my use of her trans kid's pronouns is just how the world is these days, and that my feeling that it is a devastating tragedy that they have removed their breasts and taken hormones that have made their voice break and hair fall out is simply the WRONG feeling and borderline transphobic.
It's been a struggle. I have always hated drag, couldn't put my finger on why. And then Masterchef reveals that they are featuring a drag act called Cheryl Hole and it happened. I peaked. I felt myself resist the instinct to feel that this name is deeply misogynistic, that if I was Cheryl Fernandez-Versini I would be forced to pretend I found it flattering, even if it's essentially being reduced to a hole so that people can laugh at the fact that women have holes.
I nearly peaked when I read that stupid university definition of lesbians as 'non-men attracted to non-men,' but I couldn't have had enough time to think about it then.
I just want it to stop now, please. I hate that left wing comedians I admire are all team trans. I hate that admitting I'm a terf puts me in the same box as a bunch of awful right-wingers, but also, terfs are my people. This is it now.

So, to my question:

WOULD THE BBC's MASTERCHEF PUT ON A MALE DRAG ACT CALLED SMEGG WALLACE?

I am going to get a baldy head cap and paint a dick on it and see if they bite. Who's with me?

I might write a letter of complaint to the BBC I'm that annoyed

I'm trying to remember where I saw some person or guidance that said White women shouldn't report rapes if the perpetrator was non-White because it played into Right Wing narratives, or maybe it was reinforced White privilege.

That was Oxfam.

But why have the left taken the side of the people who want to self-declare their own 'gender' and insist that this is more important than their sex? They could just as easily have taken the side of the women on here who believe that protection for children and women is more important than a man's right to be legally recognised as a woman.

Because men's rights > women's rights. Always.

@OldCrone
"I don't see how you can say that allowing people to choose which social category they belong to is not individualist."

Because it's the significance of social categories themselves that is Left Wing. Individualism says it doesn't matter what someone's social category is. What matters is their actual attributes. Black, White, Male, Female... these days even gay and straight. If someone can do the job better than someone else, that's who you hire. Conversely, the Left tends to take a view that social category matters. They want equity between social groups, (note, equity, not equality), they want representation for all the different social groups, etc.

What you are witnessing with transwomen and which you are ascribing to individualism, is, depending on how extreme you want to view it, a hack of the Left's social grouping. Or a taking advantage of. But it builds on the existence of social categories. Trans people need representation, trans people are a group that needs to have their "rights" (desires) accommodated, etc. The whole thing works because of this elevation of social categories / identity politics. I.e. you are your social identity more than you are you. The trans movement is playing the IdPol game - that's how they piggy back on the LGB movement. If a random man didn't have this elevated social category that Society is trying to prioritise and fall over itself to indoctrinate us all on, then he would be... a man. Judged on his own behaviour and attributes. Someone said about their being two lefts. Well yes - the idea that Socialism and the modern Left actually represents the common consensus view in some democratic fashion is false. Evidently "social values" as put about are imposed upon actual society rather than a representation of them. But that is the modern Left.

I guess short version: granting power to social categories based on some idea of equity, is leftist. Individualist isn't the ability to get into those social categories. Individualist is that the social category doesn't matter. I don't accept that a guy gets special privileges to access women's intimate spaces because of a label that is stuck on him. Whether that label is stuck on him by himself or another I don't care - it doesn't give him some special power to me. But current society says it does.

Regarding the question about how men would know that there is a man in the women's toilets, traditionally it was done by women going "help, there's a pervert in our loos!" followed by helpful blokes chasing him out.

I'd say most blokes especially in groups, would be more than happy to still do that. They don't for the same reason they're often afraid to interfere in domestic abuse: they think the woman will take the other person's side when the law gets involved. And they're not wrong. The way some talk on here it's as if this forum is speaking on behalf of all women. I do believe that it is speaking to what would help all women. But it's optimistic to think there aren't a legion of "be kind, TWAW" women out there ready to drop a guy in it if acts on his own initiative. That's why it's vitally important women ask for help. It gives men assurance that it's wanted and the women wont turn on them if they get involved.

"I don't see how you can say that allowing people to choose which social category they belong to is not individualist."

Because it's the significance of social categories themselves that is Left Wing.

OK, perhaps I should have been more specific.

I don't see how you can say that allowing people to choose which sex they are legally recognised as is not individualist.

Do you really think that the significance of sex is left wing?

Hilarious, thanks! What an idiot.

@OldCrone
"I don't see how you can say that allowing people to choose which sex they are legally recognised as is not individualist."

I don't, per se. A specific persons choice doesn't matter in itself - that would just be freedom of expression. The issue is the social enforcement of their choice on others. You must respect their pronouns, you must give them access to your space, you must not be critical of this group as a group, and so forth. A specific person's desire to wear a dress is neither a Right Wing nor a Left Wing thing. What is Left Wing is when the State steps in to control how that is handled. Again, simplification but Large State, present in all aspects of our lives is at one end, Individualist 'I look after me and mine, society is managed through voluntary individual action' is at the other end.

It's a fundamental disconnect, I've just realised. You think Individualism is state recognition of an individual's choices and support for them. That's not Individualism. Individualism is the antithesis of Big State. Individualism is 'I don't need the State'. Mild individualism is 'keep the state out of telling me or my kids what to think' etc. Extreme radical individualism is 'F_ you, I'm going to live in a cabin in the woods and grow my own food'. But no form of Individualism is "I have the State impose my desires on others". Simplification but Left Wing = Outsourcing things to the State / Heavy State involvement. You're focusing on individuals within society and saying because they make choices, their choices are individualism. Their choices don't matter. What matters is if the State supports on them and lends them weight. It might help if for Individualism you read it as "self-sufficiency". When Sussex police arrest Caroline Farrow for saying a man is a man, that's not Individualism on the part of the dude she was talking about. That's State Enforcement of personal beliefs. I.e. Society above Individual.

I hope all this explains the Right Wing view of it. Not that I can speak for "the Right Wing" nor that it could ever be truly boiled down to such a short summary. But that's what is meant by Individualism in the ideological sense. Not a literal "this person is an individual therefore everything they do is Individualist". If Stalin orders a Pogrom, that's not Individualist because he is an individual.

Nicely explained, OldGardenia.

I HATE Laurence Fox. Just seen a thing of him burning the Pride flag in his garden. But I agree with him that trans ideology harms children

I am now in the same camp as Laurence Fox

FML

Kill me now

Although I'd add that there is again some.conflation of the left-right axis with the authoritarian-libertarian one.

State involvement in and regulation of individual identity is an authoritarian position - whether it comes from left or right. For example the far-libertarian position on whether to include sex of gender on driving license and passports, and conditions for getting a GRC, would be that the state has no business licencing people to drive or travel or call themselves anything and that the documents should all be completely abolished.

Fox also (possibly - I wouldn't actually put money on it) believes in gravity. Doesn't mean you think he's right about everything else.

I think you're being a bit hard on yourself, and still in the mind of 'guilt by association'. You can absolutely agree with one or two things someone says or believes, while vehemently disagreeing with many others. That shows you are thinking critically and not just going along with the herd.

As for the flag, well - this issue it very frustrating because to many gay people the Pride flag is a positive symbol. However, it has been massively corrupted by infiltration by the T (which in my mind is nothing to do with homosexuality), which means that for many of us it is most definitely a symbol of something else (belief in a bonkers ideology which harms women and girls). But if you try to argue that you are just labelled as homophobic. It's like they have created the perfect cover for their deception. Very frustrating.

@DemiColon On the other hand, id pol comes out of a lefftist group/class analysis lens that has moved away from economic class and role, and now uses groupings based on identity.

IMHO that movement away from economic class is a movement away from any meaningful sense of "left wing", however the identitarians might define themselves.

It's not just words like woman that are being redefined by the postmodernist project. The scrambling of meanings and boundaries consolidates the economic status quo and preserves it from challenge - which partly explains the enthusiastic adoption of gender ideology by for example mega corporations and private schools.

You can argue that, just like you could argue that Mormonism moves away from a meaningful definition of Christianity, from the perspective of the development of thought, that's it's parentage. It's not coming out of conservative or even right wing thought.

The whole flag thing has become completely toxic, IMO. My workplace last year had a sort of Pride flag bunting, where all the flags were different - it had all the "sexualities" from intersex (which is not even a sexuality but a developmental/medical category,) to 2 Spirit to Demisexual etc. It's all about the branding. Every time I really stop and think about it, I am struck by how weird it is that our specific sexual tastes and persona are now supposed to be public, and publicly supported.

It's also very awkward for people whose beliefs aren't in line with post-modern secularism. I was equally really struck last year by a client of ours, a traditional Mennonite woman who comes in with her disabled child to access services, looking at the literature table which included a big basket of Pride pins. Clearly something not in line with her belief system, but she's expected to get on with it like an adult. This year I didn't put them out, and it was mentioned by a young (12 year old) client who is recently identifying as trans - apparently the flags everywhere identified us, last year, as lgbtiq2+ friendly, and what happened. The fact that our services are for everyone is not enough apparently, even though we actively help everyone who walks through the doors, many of them difficult and marginalized people.

I'd also note that it is tricky for employees who don't believe the correct socially mandated things to have to try and fudge this in their employment.

@OldGardinia
A specific persons choice doesn't matter in itself - that would just be freedom of expression. The issue is the social enforcement of their choice on others. You must respect their pronouns, you must give them access to your space, you must not be critical of this group as a group, and so forth. A specific person's desire to wear a dress is neither a Right Wing nor a Left Wing thing. What is Left Wing is when the State steps in to control how that is handled. Again, simplification but Large State, present in all aspects of our lives is at one end, Individualist 'I look after me and mine, society is managed through voluntary individual action' is at the other end.

I agree with most of this, but you seem to be equating left wing with authoritarian and right wing with libertarian. Left wing doesn't have to mean authoritarian. Left and Right wing are normally used to refer to economic policies. People who agree with high taxation and generous welfare payments may have a whole range of views on other issues. So there are at least 3 strands to this - economically right/left wing, socially conservative/liberal and authoritarian/libertarian.

I agree that a man putting on a dress and saying his name is Sheila isn't a right or left wing thing. It's what happens next that's important.

If 'Sheila' is able to walk around the streets and go about his daily life as he wishes, this is due to society being socially liberal and allowing freedom of expression. This isn't a right or left wing thing. Social conservatives might have a problem with this, but they might be anyone from the religious right (in the US) to sexist people (who could be of any class or political allegiance) who think men should be real men and a man in a dress is someone to be mocked. Many working class people who vote Labour are socially conservative in this way.

'Sheila' now wants to join the women's swimming group and use the women's changing rooms. Social conservatives may obviously object, but I would also expect socially liberal people to consider the impact of 'Sheila's' freedom of expression on others. It's the old 'your right to swing your arm ends at my face' argument. This is what seems to be missing from the socially liberal view at the moment. People are equating the right of someone like 'Sheila' to walk down the street without being shouted at or assaulted with his right to impose his self-described identity in other situations where women and girls are negatively affected by it because they don't want to see Sheila's penis or for a man to see them in a state of undress.

Balancing of rights like this isn't a left or right wing thing, but the left seem to have forgotten about it altogether. In their haste to 'accept diversity' they seem to have forgotten that women and children also have rights.

Taking it one step further, we get to the enforcement of Sheila's right to be viewed as a woman and this is where the state steps in. In the UK both the GRA and the EA were brought in under Labour, but all the social enforcement that has occurred since 2010, like pronouns, has happened under the Tories. They've done nothing to stop this.

The way I view it is that the government is just allowing social changes to happen (which is a libertarian attitude), because they believe this has nothing to do with the state. The problem with this is that it is allowing a sort of non-government driven authoritarianism to flourish. A social media and Stonewall-driven authoritarianism. As though what is happening socially has nothing to do with them. Their libertarianism is resulting in another sort of totalitarianism.

Christ's message was, of course, more of a left wing message - which is why you tend to find lots of Christians involved in various left wing causes.

Queer Theory, from which the theory of gender identity emerges positions the indvidual as creating their own truth and experimenting with performances of gender as a way of challenging existing power structures; there is nothing socialist or inherently left wing about it.

The Left tends to seek social solutions to social problems for whole groups of people, rather than encouraging the individual to create their own version of reality and in doing so challenge the status quo.

I think where the Left wing aspect now comes into the TRA agenda is through positioning everyone who has a trans identity as a particularly oppressed group of people - for whom a social solution is required.

This is how I used to feel.

It's very much a hallmark of the left that we hate to agree with any right wingers on anything. Everything they say must be bullshit.

I think this is a form of closed mindedness and superiority, I definitely feel more open to a range of opinions than before and doubt a lot of my beliefs.

Look, Laurence Fox is nauseating but I agree with him on stopping the push of ideology in schools, good on him.

Conversely, I think TVs Alice Roberts is full of a load of bobbins when she talks about clownfish and how that has anything to do with human sex, but I still watch and enjoy her programmes.

@NotHavingIt Some of Jesus' positions were left wing, but he also made it clear a lot of people are still damned to hell based on their behaviour.

A lot of people follow Nice-tianity rather than Christianity as it's actually described in the Bible.

A lot of people follow a religion which is man made, rather than cultivating. a personal faith in Christ. I had a brief peripd in my twenties as a born again Christian - which was a very healing experience, but the politics of the group/the church is what drove me away. People end up following leaders rather than they do their own inner voice or conscience.

The Christ you talk about is not one I recognise.

I don't think Christ ever damned anyone to hell.

@OldGardinia
It's a fundamental disconnect, I've just realised. You think Individualism is state recognition of an individual's choices and support for them. That's not Individualism. Individualism is the antithesis of Big State. Individualism is 'I don't need the State'. Mild individualism is 'keep the state out of telling me or my kids what to think' etc. Extreme radical individualism is 'F_ you, I'm going to live in a cabin in the woods and grow my own food'. But no form of Individualism is "I have the State impose my desires on others". Simplification but Left Wing = Outsourcing things to the State / Heavy State involvement. You're focusing on individuals within society and saying because they make choices, their choices are individualism. Their choices don't matter. What matters is if the State supports on them and lends them weight. It might help if for Individualism you read it as "self-sufficiency". When Sussex police arrest Caroline Farrow for saying a man is a man, that's not Individualism on the part of the dude she was talking about. That's State Enforcement of personal beliefs. I.e. Society above Individual.

No, I don't think "Individualism is state recognition of an individual's choices and support for them", although I can see why you might think that from my last post last night. I shouldn't have posted so late when I was tired. Do you agree that freedom of expression is about individualism? That's what I was trying to get at.

Transsexualism and transvestism are about transgressing social norms. They are about individuals doing what they want in the face of society's disapproval. Similar to long-haired male hippies in the 60s and punks in the 70s. They don't care about society's approval and even court disapproval. Grayson Perry has said that he finds his 'Claire' persona less satisfying now that nobody is shocked by it any more.

What has turned all this on its head is, as @NotHavingIt says, the left wing parties deciding that transvestites and transsexuals are the most marginalised and oppressed group, and forcing us all to go along with their self-declared identities, regardless of the effect on other groups. There is nothing left wing in this positioning of one group as more important than all others, and nothing inherently left wing about the authoritarian mindset which forbids any questioning of their position.

The current government has just introduced new laws preventing people's right to protest. This is an authoritarian law passed by a Tory government. It's not as simple as left=authoritarian and right=libertarian.

What do you mean by a left wing message and left wing causes?