Apologies if I've missed it but 2022 has really been a banner year for absolutely batshit fucking insane takes from Plague Island's residents. I couldn't immediately see anything cataloguing it and I'm sure 2023 will be
even more normal but I thought I'd start with sharing some of my personal favourites.
1) Tala the Alien. (https://www.womensrights.network/post/who-cares-about-tala-the-alien)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeIPbAWaMAIHeCq)
Indisputably my personal icon for 2022, Tala the Alien is a genderless creature designed by a small library in Hitchen (Population: 36k) to help teach kids that gender doesn't matter when it comes to reading - reading is something everyone can enjoy!
Obviously the fact that this alien being has no gender provoked a frothing rage from Plague Island's most Normal residents culimating in noted weirdo Maya Forstater screeching that she NEEDED TO KNOW THE GENITALS OF THE CARTOON ALIEN and hundreds of freaks speculating about how the cute alien fucks. Just a wonderful time for everyone.
Oh, and the person who made the alien received a barrage of death threats and a bomb threat. Because of course they did.
2) LGB Alliance Operates From 55 Tufton Street (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/lgb-alliance-55-tufton-street-think-tanks/)
I'm sure that Cain could do a far better breakdown of 55 Tufton Street than I could, but the potted version is that if you've ever heard a foul opinion broadcast on the news from a UK source they are likely to be no more than two degrees of separation from that address. It is the birthplace of Brexit and the justifications for almost every poverty-increasing policy in the UK.
It was recently revealed that this is where notable hate-group-pretending-to-be-a-charity LGB Alliance operates from. This is really confirmation of what we've known for a long time; that the group has the ear of people high up in the Tory party who have pulled strings to let them get and keep charity status.
However the revelation did lead to a lot of TERFs on Prosecco Stormfront (aka Mumsnet) having a crisis of faith that they may in fact be the bad guys, and that's beautiful. Not that it made them stop.
3) TERF Commits Sex Crime in Name of Decency.
(I'm not linking to this one 'cuz ain't nobody needs to see a bigot's minge)
A rare W in the world of trans life in the UK was the reformation of the Gender Identity Certificate process in Scotland. This will make it easier for trans people to change their gender marker on their birth certificate which in turn means our death certificates and marriage certificates won't misgender us. That is literally all it is.
JK Rowling's good buddy flashed the viewing gallery with a merkin and shouted "If you won't be decent then I will be indecent" as she did it. Naturally there has been little mention of this in the press which has instead presented the crushing 86:39 victory as 'controversial'.
Whilst I personally think GICs are fundamentally flawed and I am not interested in being on the government's handy tranny list I DO think it is extremely funny that Sunak has already been hinting that he will invoke a never-tested procedural process to block the King giving assent to the law, triggering a constitutional crisis and likely hastening the breakup of the UK. This gives me joy. It gives me life. Let the whole world see what the UK really stands for.
Also: The full might of the TERF movement was thrown behind opposition to this, and in the final analysis what they managed to do was get a couple dozen freaks, massively outnumbered by supporters, into the chamber where one of them committed a sex crime and another shouted "I am a duck, quack quack quack" as she was led from the chamber. It is my dear hope that this massive humiliation means people looking to be opportunistically transphobic start to realise how massively unpopular this really is. But I won't hold my breath.
4) "Gender Critical" Movement Officially Recognised as Genocidal. (https://www.lemkininstitute.com/statements-new-page/statement-on-the-genocidal-nature-of-the-gender-critical-movement%E2%80%99s-ideology-and-practice)
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention - established to carry on the legacy of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide and initiated the Genocide Convention - officially stated that the Gender Critical movement is genocidal. This was a particular highlight for me:
Quote from: Lemkin InstituteThe gender critical movement is a loose international affiliation of people and groups who promote far-right ideas that have gained a degree of centrist respectability through their purported defense of women.
Which, you know, isn't groundbreaking or anything but it is nice to be reminded that you aren't actually insane and this is obviously and clearly what is happening.
Naturally most GCs the world over lost their shit at being called far-right whilst also palling up with their fascist buds.
5) Keir Starmer Says Children are the Property of Their Parents, Pledges More Transphobia In Government (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/keir-starmer-mumsnet-trans-rights-lgbt-abortion-b2216792.html)
Noted spineless ham and alleged human rights lawyer (I've never had a clear answer as to whether he is for or against them) Keir Starmer came out with this amazing piece of rhetoric whilst giving an interview with Prosecco Stormfront:
Quote from: 200lbs of Rotting Gammon'We all know what it's like with teenage children and I feel very strongly about this...this argument that children can make decisions without the consent of parents is one I just don't agree with at all'
This statement is a massive rollback of established case law in the UK and if enforced would mean that many children saved by medical professionals against the wishes of their parents would have died. Naturally Keir Starmer has no principles beyond "more authoritarianism, less dissent" so he has also made some piss weak statements since implying a vague approval of trans people in the abstract whilst continuing to shelter MPs in his party who literally have their own folder in the Labour Complaint's Process with thousands of instances of transphobia that his office have declared cannot be pursued.
I was going to keep going but actually after doing these 5 I'm pretty tired. All of these happened Oct-Dec 2022.
Love it here. :)
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on December 26, 2022, 09:01:55 PM
Apologies if I've missed it but 2022 has really been a banner year for absolutely batshit fucking insane takes from Plague Island's residents. I couldn't immediately see anything cataloguing it and I'm sure 2023 will be even more normal but I thought I'd start with sharing some of my personal favourites.
1) Tala the Alien. (https://www.womensrights.network/post/who-cares-about-tala-the-alien)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeIPbAWaMAIHeCq)
Indisputably my personal icon for 2022, Tala the Alien is a genderless creature designed by a small library in Hitchen (Population: 36k) to help teach kids that gender doesn't matter when it comes to reading - reading is something everyone can enjoy!
Obviously the fact that this alien being has no gender provoked a frothing rage from Plague Island's most Normal residents culimating in noted weirdo Maya Forstater screeching that she NEEDED TO KNOW THE GENITALS OF THE CARTOON ALIEN and hundreds of freaks speculating about how the cute alien fucks. Just a wonderful time for everyone.
Oh, and the person who made the alien received a barrage of death threats and a bomb threat. Because of course they did.
You guys are turning into us.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on December 27, 2022, 02:20:13 AM
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on December 26, 2022, 09:01:55 PM
Apologies if I've missed it but 2022 has really been a banner year for absolutely batshit fucking insane takes from Plague Island's residents. I couldn't immediately see anything cataloguing it and I'm sure 2023 will be even more normal but I thought I'd start with sharing some of my personal favourites.
1) Tala the Alien. (https://www.womensrights.network/post/who-cares-about-tala-the-alien)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeIPbAWaMAIHeCq)
Indisputably my personal icon for 2022, Tala the Alien is a genderless creature designed by a small library in Hitchen (Population: 36k) to help teach kids that gender doesn't matter when it comes to reading - reading is something everyone can enjoy!
Obviously the fact that this alien being has no gender provoked a frothing rage from Plague Island's most Normal residents culimating in noted weirdo Maya Forstater screeching that she NEEDED TO KNOW THE GENITALS OF THE CARTOON ALIEN and hundreds of freaks speculating about how the cute alien fucks. Just a wonderful time for everyone.
Oh, and the person who made the alien received a barrage of death threats and a bomb threat. Because of course they did.
You guys are turning into us.
We really are.
Fun fact about Maya Forstater - her funding comes from the Alliance Defending Freedom (https://www.stephsplace.uk/the-alliance-defending-freedom-and-their-links-to-the-gender-critical-movement.cfm). An American Conservative Christian org set up to fuck with queer folks.
Basically this whole movement is awash with Evangelical money. They fund court cases over here which then get cited worldwide because for some fucking reason the rest of the planet still respects the UK's legal system.
We're leading the world in innovation when it comes to bigotry, and by all accounts business has been good these past few years. I'm hoping the recent Scottish embarrassment will slow things down but time will tell.
Our insane TERF movement actually influences the US one, in an odd case of far-right transatlantic meme trade.
A lot of this stuff was a lot more popular and respectable to say in the UK than it ever has been in the US - though the far-right over there certainly picked it up and figured they could use it as a wedge in which to smuggle in homophobia and the rest. The American and Australian versions of The Guardian actually called out the UK version of The Guardian over it's repeated mainstreaming of transphobia, to little effect.
It's also far more respectable among centrists and supporters of ostensibly left-wing parties here (see: Keir Starmer for example). UK Labour supporters and the like would not be welcome in US liberal-left or Australian left circles at all with their views. A lot of ours try to play off that they're left-leaning centrists, despite allying with the religious right and self-stated Nazis on numerous occasions (also see the LGB Alliance on that point).
Most notably, the UK public opinion remains broadly supportive of trans people and transgender rights being expanded, but the papers have run a culture war on these issues from around 2019 onwards, with some publications running 300+ articles a year on the topic (none of which are penned by trans people, naturally). Hmm, what else happened in 2019? It's almost like they're running a culture war to distract from the abysmal state of the UK economy, which is now the weakest in western Europe, or the complete lack of credibility that the current government has.
That's about on point with what I had figured. Cyclic influencing -- US evangelical money pours into the UK (because of course it does, the US Evangelical Christian movement is practically a world power unto itself), the UK pours it into the most deranged forms of transphobia, and bricks-for-brains chuds in the US get fueled up on British bigotry.
All of which can only get worse over time, so long as that feedback loop is unbroken.
This is where I'm really hoping Scotland can put the breaks on things.
It's a big embarrassment for them. One that every part of the media is trying to downplay, but it's still going to hurt them.
If it breaks up the UK I'll take that as a consolation prize, but it has been nice to end the year on a W.
Quote from: Scribbly on December 29, 2022, 05:02:14 PM
This is where I'm really hoping Scotland can put the breaks on things.
It's a big embarrassment for them. One that every part of the media is trying to downplay, but it's still going to hurt them.
I hope so too, but even here in Scotland I'm seeing far more "SNP splinter over controversial gender bill" than "Scottish government passes trans rights bill" in the news. And the pro-independence Scottish government doesn't care much about sending a message to the rest of the UK, unless it's "We don't want the same things as you, so please let us go to do our own thing."
Last time we took a shot at independence, the UK government
did try and show how nice they were by rushing through a same-sex marriage bill for England and Wales before ours (which had already passed, but hadn't been signed into law yet.) But they used the speed and cover to sneak a *spousal veto* for trans recognition in E&W in the same bill, so.
QuoteIf it breaks up the UK I'll take that as a consolation prize, but it has been nice to end the year on a W.
I don't know, but my feeling is that this is going to be used more the other way round: anti-independence groups pointing to trans rights as the sort of out-of-touch woke wacko stuff that the crazy nationalists are obsessing over When They Should Be Focusing On Kickstarting The Economy or whatever. (There's already a rightwing splinter pro-independence party, "Alba", who are almost certainly doing more harm than good for the cause of independence, and probably don't care because hurting trans people is more important to them anyway.)
QuoteI DO think it is extremely funny that Sunak has already been hinting that he will invoke a never-tested procedural process to block the King giving assent to the law, triggering a constitutional crisis and likely hastening the breakup of the UK.
I didn't know that, but I wouldn't put it past him at all. Certainly one of the prize categories in the Tory leadership contest, and in UK elections for that matter, is who can ignore Scotland the hardest.
QuoteJK Rowling's good buddy flashed the viewing gallery with a merkin and shouted "If you won't be decent then I will be indecent" as she did it.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZFfoHLk.png)
The Sunak thing is utterly insane and I can only imagine he's saying it with no intent to follow through because...I mean, imagine triggering a constitutional crisis to appease fucking TERFs.
I don't know that he'd do it *just* to appease terfs, but he'd do it to put Scotland in our place if he thought it'd succeed. We're already a constitutional crisis.
Kicking off 2023 strong: https://transsafety.network/posts/equality-minister-foreign-gender-recognition/
TL;DR - The mad lad is actually going to cause a constitutional crisis AND ALSO piss off a bunch of other countries by calling them out for not being transphobic enough.
It just gets better and better.
A grand total of 11 Labour MPs voted not to fuck the Union over this. Starmer is bleating about biological sex on the radio.
Literally every trans person I know is now some variant of despondant or furious.
There is a lot of chatter from folks convinced this means Scotland will walk away easily.
I'm mostly sitting here wondering how long it takes before we get the SRA and how many hate crimes I'm going to suffer because this is, naturally, all the fault of trans people.
Quote from: Scribbly on January 17, 2023, 11:37:53 PM
It just gets better and better.
A grand total of 11 Labour MPs voted not to fuck the Union over this.
Three members of the Scottish National Party, whose
flagship policy (which I support) is to fuck the union—and one from Alba, an anti-"woke" pro-union-fucking party that splintered from the SNP along with its creepy former leader (both of their two MPs were elected as SNP candidates and later defected)—abstained. Turns out when it came to choosing between defending a direct attack on Scottish autonomy and fucking over trans people, they reached straight for the union jack bunting.
QuoteThere is a lot of chatter from folks convinced this means Scotland will walk away easily.
As a chattering Scottish independence supporting person, sadly, I don't think that silver lining is there (and wouldn't justify legitimising transphobia if it was.) All of the trans people I know in Scotland, and most of the cis queer people, are already vocally pro-independence; maybe if there were any trans unionists, they'll switch sides, but I doubt there are enough to make a dent. The next independence campaign will be able to point to this as a good example of Westminster undermining our autonomy when we do something they don't like, but people who care about that are already on side. And the next anti-independence campaign will have a nice supply of moral panic to dish out with the "better together" crap.
And that's if we get another shot at independence at all, which both the Tories and Starmer's Labour have made clear they've no intention of "letting" us have, despite the Scottish parliament having a pro-independence majority (SNP and the Scottish Greens) and several recent polls showing majority public support for independence. And Brexit has made a prospective independent Scotland even more prospectively fucked from the get-go (which the same politicians who claimed and still claim Brexit is the best thing since World War II will use as an anti-indy talking point.)
I'm sorry this is happening, and I'm sorry trans right are being used as collateral. Hope you're as safe as possible.
Thanks. I'm fine for now, luckily.
I've spent a lot of time the past few days trying to help talk people down from dark places though. Or being talked down myself.
It's difficult to describe the emotional toll this stuff takes. I try not to let it get to me, but it does. It's just a constant weight.
And it's insulting that this is the quality of enemy I have to worry about. They're not even competent. They just have vast amounts of wealth and the support of a bigoted media.
I have entire weeks where I refuse to look at any current events just because I feel the manic urge to burn every building in a quarter mile radius to the ground after so much time staring into the abyss.
And I'm in Chicago. I'm safe for AT LEAST 4 months, in the absolute worst possible scenario. There are people I know who are (who HAVE to be) doing combat training with their friends right now because carloads of armed fash show up at least once a week and have done so for months, and they're still in the US, not the UK.
So ... I get it.
https://twitter.com/PinkNews/status/1618389692097126400
QuoteJustice Secretary Dominic Raab has stated that the UK government will no longer house trans women who "have male genitalia" or who have been convicted of a sexual offence in women's prisons.
This one falls down in theory on several levels. The whole point of a Gender Recognition Certificate, for instance, is to change your sex in the eyes of the law. In theory that should mean that any genitalia you have are qualified as women's genitalia.
In practice between this and the new laws they have brought in to lock up protestors it is very obvious that the real story here is that the UK government are using institutionalised rape as a punishment against the trans community and the TERF capture of UK institutions advances one more step.
It has been a busy few months in TERFland so let's catch up with all our favourite bigoted pieces of shit.
Posie Parker Accidentally Gets Nazi Salutes Banned (https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/03/20/victoria-australia-ban-nazi-salute-posie-parker-rally/)
This gave me a good chuckle. Noted fascist dipshit Posie Parker began the Australian leg of her hate rallies this year and has disgusted people so hard that politicians are now realising they need to ban nazi salutes in public. Because TERFs and literal Nazis are so tightly entwined together at this point that they can't easily be separated.
Tory Councillor Fails to Obtain Lucrative Media Career (https://transwrites.world/i-think-i-might-be-the-penis-woman-sophie-writes/)
Sophia McAllister - better known on the internet as Sophie From Mars, whose media analysis series on YouTube is really fun and who has done a bunch of other great stuff - went to the pub. Because TERFs are just so incredibly normal some innocuous small talk ('I will wipe my hands on my jeans') became the Freudian nightmare 'I will wipe my hands on my penis'. The Daily Mail decided to publish this account even though it was clearly ridiculous because they are bigoted freaks. In a rare W for Plague Island, this mostly resulted in mockery from literally every other person who heard about it but it's still been quite harrowing for Sophia by the sounds of it.
JK Rowling Says Trans People are Death Eaters (https://www.themarysue.com/jk-rowling-compares-trans-people-to-harry-potter-death-eaters/)
This one is just fucking hilarious and I feel speaks for itself.
Quote from: Queen TERF
I would say that some of you have not understood the books. The Death Eaters claimed, 'We have been made to live in secret, and now is our time, and any who stand in our way must be destroyed. If you disagree with us, you must die.' They demonized and dehumanized those who were not like them.
I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious, misogynistic movement, that has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society.
TERFism. Not even once. It'll rot your brain so hard you retroactively justify the villains of your work as being persecuted minorities.
Oh god the Sophie situation was ridiculous. I watched the entire thing unfold in real time online and was like "this is clearly bullshit, even by the low standards of TERF bullshit". And lo and behold...
This isn't really reaching the levels of humour I try for in this thread but I didn't want to make another and I didn't want to shit up any other thread on the board with it so here we go.
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work/news/clarifying-definition-%E2%80%98sex%E2%80%99-equality-act
The EHRC have basically recommended that sex should be redefined in law to 'biological sex' regardless of whether you have got your tranny license from the government, which would render the entire thing pointless and legalise transphobia.
It is bitterly ironic to me that amongst the many arguments made to support this decision is the idea that trans people might be abusing their status to misuse gender pay gap tools.
Reminder that 1 in 3 employers in a big survey (https://www.crosslandsolicitors.com/site/hr-hub/transgender-discrimination-in-UK-workplaces) admitted that they would not hire a trans person despite this being an illegal thing to base a hiring decision on.
Anecdotally I am the only trans person I know with a relatively stable job, outside of the like... 7 other people who are in the trans network at the place I work, which employs around 60,000 people.
A lot of people I know are panicking about this. I admit I'm mostly just exhausted by it. I may *have* to enter the system to be able to afford my medication soon and if I'm even able to do that the fact it is a road which ultimately ends up with my name and address on the big government list of trans people whilst they're pulling shit like this does not make me feel great.
There's people making a stink about Budweiser having Dylan Mulvaney in their ad. The idiots don't fucking realize that they're just playing into Budweiser's hands and giving them the free publicity they knew they'd get from the "discourse." (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/866084417813872670/1093258463066464286/image.png)
Kathleen Stock Supporters Send Death Threat to Professor, Kathleen Says This is Dangerous to Her Somehow. (https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/22/oxford-university-lgbtq-president-death-threat-kathleen-stock/)
I don't keep up with all the nonsense these days, but this amused me.
Short version is that Stock - who hasn't been 'silenced' and is still being platformed at a debate - has received criticism from the local LGBT orgs as she always does, and her supporters have decided to start sending death threats.
Her response?
Quote from: Kathleen "A Serious Public Intellectual" StockThis is an opportunity for you to calm things down, ceasing the inflammatory invective against me that is based on a total fantasy version of who I am, what I believe, and what I have said, and enabling a respectful, responsible discussion to take place. I hope you take it."
Definitely the response of someone who deserves to be taken seriously.
Quote from: Scribbly on May 23, 2023, 04:10:13 PM
Kathleen Stock Supporters Send Death Threat to Professor, Kathleen Says This is Dangerous to Her Somehow. (https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/22/oxford-university-lgbtq-president-death-threat-kathleen-stock/)
I don't keep up with all the nonsense these days, but this amused me.
Short version is that Stock - who hasn't been 'silenced' and is still being platformed at a debate - has received criticism from the local LGBT orgs as she always does, and her supporters have decided to start sending death threats.
Her response?
Quote from: Kathleen "A Serious Public Intellectual" StockThis is an opportunity for you to calm things down, ceasing the inflammatory invective against me that is based on a total fantasy version of who I am, what I believe, and what I have said, and enabling a respectful, responsible discussion to take place. I hope you take it."
Definitely the response of someone who deserves to be taken seriously.
"Just because I want you all to be treated as subhumans is no reason to be intolerant of me."
Apparently I'm obligated to find this surprising.
Commission set up by transphobic government finds that transphobic charity isn't transphobic.
More as it develops.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/07/06/lgb-alliance-charitable-status-mermaids/
There's been a lot of stuff but I feel like the Tory Party Conference deserves a shout-out.
We've had:
The Prime Minister says misgendering trans people is common sense. (https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/04/rishi-sunak-tory-conference-speech/)
Trans women don't deserve hospitals. (https://transwrites.world/nhs-to-exclude-trans-women-from-female-wards/)
And six ministers promising to be more transphobic. (https://www.ft.com/content/0832548c-3750-4500-82c2-455e6f92faa7)
The big one in those last 6 - IMO - is that they are going to try and prevent sex offenders from legally changing their name or gender. It's worth noting that all sex workers convicted of sex work are also 'sex offenders' and that survival sex work is extremely common in the trans community.
It is reaching the point now where most people are quite aware that the issue is being used purely to distract from the fact that huge numbers of people can't afford rent (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rent-increases-borrow-money-b2396775.html) or food (https://www.swlondoner.co.uk/news/27082023-the-cost-of-living-crisis-led-to-record-demands-for-food-banks) and there are absolutely zero proposals from any real party to change that.
But they'll keep doing it. Because addressing systemic problems is beyond us, but innovating new ways to make the lives of minorities miserable? We've been world leading in that for centuries.
Love to live on Plague Island.