Wtf is Alan Cummings blithering on about?

[IcakethereforeIam]

Just seems to be a stream of tripe and non sequiturs. Was he drunk? High?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12948343/Alan-Cumming-says-public-arms-Rishi-Sunak-denying-existence-trans-people.html

It does seem rather absurd to focus on the Tories here in light of Labour and Green parties' behaviour recently. Particularly as I have noticed so many activist MPs and councillors who attempt to leverage people with DSD medical conditions in as supporting their personal views.

In fact, many of those who are activist MPs and councillors seem to readily fall back on leveraging those people with DSDs to make their own personal position on prioritising gender over sex seem evidenced in science and medicine. I would say it is an ideologically driven and extreme trans rights activist position rather than declaring it a tactic used by a specific political party.

When a social worker has to take her employer to court because she's not allowed to hold legal viewpoints that the vast majority of the country hold and her colleagues are suspended from their own jobs for not reporting her, it can hardly be described as a culture war.

It's a wholesale attack on free speech in general, and women in particular.

He explained: 'I think that, you know, the sort of culture wars are so awful. We don't really talk about policies, we don't really talk about real issues, or things that are really important.

Lol. Yeah, the complete decimation of women's sport, the state sanctioned sexual assault on women criminals by male police officers and the state approved provision of incarcerated women to male rapists, the disappearance of male free women's rape refuges, and the vilification of women who need them, and the indoctrination and mutilation of children and teenagers.

Not real issues, and not really important (according to a middle-aged man.)

I'd recommend watching Alan Cummings episode of "Who do you think you are?" Or reading his autobiography. You might find you are more open to his perspective.

Why?

Someone's background may help you understand their motivations for holding a view, but it doesn't affect the truth of their statements.

Oh my lord

Exactly

Also, the head of the pin is the big bit, not the pointy bit. Evidence: www.sewessential.co.uk/sewing-tools-and-gadgets/sewing-tools/pins-and-safety-pins/glass-headed-pins

He said: 'I think it's interesting, I think I really find you know, the way sometimes I think politicians behave here because they, and I mean in England, that they are so desperate to hang on to their jobs that they do things that do not reflect the wishes of the people who elected them.

Usually, if your job depends upon the populace electing you, doing the opposite of what they want will generally not result in that.

I'd recommend watching Alan Cummings episode of "Who do you think you are?" Or reading his autobiography. You might find you are more open to his perspective.

I watched it, I really like that show. And mostly the people come across as interesting and nice.

And I'm sure cumming did. I can't really remember.

He comes across as a completely entitled, privileged, blind arse in this article, though.

Is this going to be Gulliver's travels all over again?

You're right btw. Pins are in the nail/screw family. You'd never say a nail head was the pointy bit.

I should really stop derailing my own thread.

The 'background gives validity' idea is a variation on the whole Victorian 'saintly invalid' or medieval 'divine fool' nonsense, really, isn't it? The idea that having the right sort of (pictuesque and not too demanding) difficulty in life gives you access to deeper spiritual truths.

That's very true. Individuals with CAIS are physically indistinguishable externally from females as their bodies do not respond at all to testosterone produced by their internal testes so external genitalia do not develop and they don't undergo the changes of a male puberty. Instead they have a snort "vagina" which looks normal externally but is short and blind ended as they do not have a uterus or ovaries.The condition is often only discovered when the individual reaches the age of normal puberty and periods do not start.

I think the confusion has arisen because affected individuals are seen as almost "honorary " females due to their female appearance and lack of typical male physical characteristics. They are probably the only class of DSDs where there is an argument to allow affected individuals to participate in female sports, female spaces etc. However, they are still genetically male.

It's interesting how all the gender stuff was great and progressive and kind and rightsideofhistory and hunky dory when it all went the way the genderist wanted it to go but now that it isn't going as well as they hoped it would it's all evil right wing clinging onto their jobs culture war stuff all of a sudden.

There's Swyer's syndrome too. Iirc sufferers are genetically male but the maleifying bit on the Y chromosome is defective or even deleted. I think at least one individual with Swyer's has given birth using donor eggs and supplemental hormones. Like CAIS it's often undiagnosed until puberty. Sufferer's usually are observed to be and raised as female.

I probably would say I disagreed with him if I could make sense of his word salad.

It's actually a significant number of Labour MPs and councillors who are the ones obsessed with this nonsense, along with Lib Dems of course. Why don't you tell them to concentrate on more important things instead and stop wasting time?

And the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens.

Yes, it is a sure sign that women are not worth listening to in this Cumming's eyes.

He also said: 'What we do is we grab on to things like trans kids and bathrooms, and we make that the culture war.'

Women ARE talking about the 'real issues' when they talk about 'trans kids' and 'bathrooms'. THEY ARE THE POLICIES WE ARE TALKING ABOUT! AT POLICY LEVEL! What a fucking privileged position this man has that he can dismiss these so readily as being not 'real' fucking 'issues'.

And yes. The use of 'culture' wars is directly used to silence women and parents who are raising the alarms to get wider awareness of these issues and their potential harms.

Telling people it is a 'culture war' in effect is telling people that they hold extreme positions and there is a whole slew of inherent connections with that terminology that most people associate with the phrase. Of course, telling people that they are complicit in a 'culture war' is a silencing tactic. It is trying to shame anyone with an opinion that is the same or similar to one of the extremes of the relevant 'war'.

This man is telling women that they are participating in a culture war (like a moral panic) and that their issues are trivial and not real. The misogyny is there where it is intended or not. If Alan Cumming thought deeply about the issues he is dismissing, it has not apparent in his statement at all.

Why does anyone need to know anything more about his background? Will it change any aspect of those sentences?

He explained: 'I think that, you know, the sort of culture wars are so awful. We don't really talk about policies, we don't really talk about real issues, or things that are really important.

'What we do is we grab on to things like trans kids and bathrooms, and we make that the culture war.'

And the fact that he somehow thinks that humans can be other than female or male.

👏

I've said this before but it's interesting how the "culture war" accusation thing happens.

Group A says the earth is flat, they lobby to get all education around this changed, you can no longer mention the earth being round because you'd be a bigot. Some people go along with it, even if they don't believe it, because they think it won't affect them anyway so there's no harm. There's no proof but this is what we have to believe.

Group B says wait a minute, the earth is obviously round, here's the proof, it's a bad idea to change education based on a contested belief with no proof.

Group A accuses Group B of starting a culture war.

WTF?

"Up in arms". Alan you're out of touch luv.

And did you just make a dig at English politicians there or did you mean to exclude Scottish politicians from your jibe about them behave in a way that does not reflect the wishes of the people that elected them. Because we all know what the Scottish politicians were acting out against the wishes of the people who elected them.

Aye,they're all nuttier than squirrel shit when it comes to this nonsense.

*'What we do is we grab on to things like trans kids and bathrooms, and we make that the culture war.'

'What we do is we grab on to things like trans kids and bathrooms, and we make that the culture war.',

Honestly what an admission.

I quite like Cumming as an actor, he's got something. But even if I absolutely adored him, thought he was brilliant and loved him in everything he's been in, that would make me think he was an absolute misogynistic twat who truly believes that women are second class.

So much so that he doesn't find any of their issues of even the slightest importance.

It just doesn't occur to him.

You get to these two types of misogynist. Those who actively hate women, resent them and everything they stand for, like incels, MRAs and TRAs. Women figure in their consciousness, they just can't stand them.

And you get other men for whom women just don't enter their consciousness. Unless it's support or prop value. They remain completely unaware of them, they are irrelevant unless they're being useful.

The former must be pretty stupid not to realise they are women hating, the latter, would be truly outraged if you ever called them that.

The meaning of what he is saying might be able to be understood. That doesn't make some of what he is saying any less factual or any less than harmful misinformation.

I suspect that posters are struggling with him telling women that their discussions of policies and fighting for policy changes, and discussions of the issues that effect them as being trivial and a culture war is nothing but misinformation and harmful to women.

Do you think it is accurate or appropriate to frame women's campaigns and parent's campaign the way that he has?

' Why do we allow ' people to say there's only 2 sexes. Revealing choice of words. Does he think a law should be passed prohibiting the expression of this self evident fact ?
I've read a Keith Richards interview from the 70s that was more coherent.

I’m sure he’d like to criminalise women who express GC views if he could.

It is not as if Cumming is inexperienced at media interviews nor being asked questions around his LGBT activism.