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.
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 StreetI'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.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:
The 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 GovernmentNoted 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:
'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.
