some parallels

[Manfreglory]

I've been teasing out this idea, that transphobia and xenophobia have much in common.

• both rest on 'you're not from here; your culture is different; you can't know what it is to have grown up 'over here'/had period pains/gone through labour.

• both reject difference or change in favour of sameness or stasis. 'You look and talk and think differently/you underwent a journey to get here/I can't fully relate to you'.

• both rest not just on culture but on biology: 'Your genes are different than mine/your genotype for phenotype A, B or C aren't identical to mine'.

• both are territorial: 'i sweated blood as a member of this sex/to make it in this society - who are you to come here and demand a seat at the table'?

• both are suspicious of the reasons for transformation. 'You just want the perks of being female; you just want to look up our skirts in the toilet; you just migrated here from Guatemala for financial stability.'

• both demonize, aggressively overstating the chance that the person has or will commit a crime. (Migrants: no need to give examples, just read the news. Trans people: 'you just want access to 'our spaces'' (i.e. the spaces where women/cis women enjoy their privacy from all men, cis or trans) so you can assault us'.

• both minimize or even deny, the need for the transition: 'No child is born trans/those parents were homophobic as the kid was just gay/trans women are men with their dicks lopped off/people should stay in their home country and migration is too dangerous'.

• both hysterically fear that the trans person/migrant will corrupt innocents: 'they will indoctrinate children in school/they will spread religious fundamentalism'.

Gender critical women: ask yourself if you've been radicalized into the new right.

Unless you believe people can magically change sex the analogy falls apart with the slightest bit of logic.

unless you’re straight white and married there’s always gonna be some odd bods who disapprove. But that does not change a universal truth: trans people remain as their biological birth sex, in a way migrants do not necessarily retain their nationality - that’s just how it is.

The focus for the believers appears to be on a change taking place, based on theoretical things like the "living as" or the "wearing of". When it doesn't really matter what changes take place (drugs/surgery) or pretence that sex is a way of acting. The final point never includes the elimination of the real sex.

A man can have a dilated hole and breasts but he hasn't removed his maleness. The alterations are to a male body before, during and after the 'change'.

Not a clue what you mean. Xenophobia, which is racism, is based on unchangeable characteristics you cannot identify out of. Transphobia - doesn't exist since trans doesn't exist but is just a 'feeling' which is unfalsifyable i.e. pseudo-scientific rubbish. Mammals cannot change sex. People can change country and make a new life. No link between these two ideas.

That's true ....I don't really think that they are ones Labour should emulate though.. Like a lot of communist parties, esp in practice, they seem opposed generally to even fairly mild feminism (dividing wives from their husbands' struggle as workers) and LGB rights, not to mention concerning stances towards Russia, Palestine & others & ofc the communist ethos itself,,which has never gone well..

Hopefully if Labour can pull themselves together they could lead the way in sane moderate politics. It's ridiculous for European left wing parties to be this horseshoe of either uber-woke omnicause stuff or very socially conservative communism. Surely 'not abandoning the working class base', which I agree should be a priority, doesn't have to come at the cost of adopting Wagenknecht & Co.'s more debatable views?

I'd also question whether 'baizuo' is used that similarly to how we would use 'woke/virtue signalling liberal'. I've read articles on the term & the Chinese who use it certainly have some valid points about immigration & others, but their view of uber-liberal is wider than ours (support for most LGB rights for one, also many who use it seem to condone Xi's authoritarianism & suppression of groups he sees as threatening, including feminist groups).