The Once & Future Nerd

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

(apparently i am scheduled to go and see the Spooky Men's Chorale that day, courtesy of my partner's mum, so travelling down for the Gala isn't really an option. but GOD this made me sad about that all over again)

anyway if you get the chance to go to the Durham Miners' Gala (or to donate to the DMA - in addition to supporting Pride, they're doing incredible work right now with the Redhills community/cultural centre in Durham) you absolutely should, they have incredible speakers and brass bands and great craic all around. and it's a really valuable oasis of genuine solidarity in These Troubled Times.

Acting spitefully or cruelly to the object of your dislike (if it's sentient) is definitely wrong. Shaming people for liking something you dislike is wrong. Seeking to eradicate or harm something merely because you don't like it is wrong. But these things are wrong because they actually cause material harm, not because they're expressions of dislike.

"I don't trust people who don't like cats" is incredibly different from, say, "I don't trust people who are unkind to cats". One of these is criticising an attitude and action that not only potentially harms cats, but is also a bellwether for how that person may treat other creatures they dislike, including humans. The other is, I'm afraid, thought policing.

and no I do not accept that it's valid to mistrust people because they say they dislike cats, either. Obviously this is contextual. If you excitedly tell someone about your new cat who is your reason for living, and they say "man I fucking hate cats", that's a dick move. But again: it's a dick move because it was cruel (to you, not to the cat) and shows a callous disregard for your feelings. If you ask people how they feel about cats and they say "idk I don't really like cats", that is not a dick move, that is a person expressing a feeling they have to the harm of literally nobody.

Favorite quote in the whole book. I don't trust people who don't like cats.

Favorite quote in the whole book. I don't trust people who don't like cats.

And body autonomy does include things that you don’t personally like either. I was prompted to write this post after a series of bad takes from progressives, but one of them was re-hashing the Sabrina Carpenter album cover drama with “I don’t think it’s conservative of me to think that the album cover is a bad look when we’ve seen images of women being abused in this way” because I do actually think you’ve failed to understand feminism by projecting your morals onto a woman who was consensually expressing her own autonomy just because she expressed it in a way that you didn’t like or that made you uncomfortable.

Body autonomy also means unhealthy choices. Body autonomy also means regret rates. Body autonomy also means freedom of sexuality. Body autonomy also means mutilation. If you believe body autonomy has limitations and exceptions, then your feminism is most likely surface level.

there is something truly wild about how, in every single public conversation about trans rights or trans issues, cis men will leap six feet into the air in their haste to say WELL I KNOW WOMEN, AND WOMEN DON'T WANT MEN IN THEIR SPACES INVALIDATING THEM AND TALKING OVER THEM

there is something truly wild about how, in every single public conversation about trans rights or trans issues, cis men will leap six feet into the air in their haste to say WELL I KNOW WOMEN, AND WOMEN DON'T WANT MEN IN THEIR SPACES INVALIDATING THEM AND TALKING OVER THEM

(that's right, this is the one time where i will legitimately complain that we're not centring men enough)

because as vile as the J.K. Rowlings and Julie Bindels of the world are, there is at least a kernel of a grain of an iota of reality to their arguments. they are stupid bullshit arguments that rely on lies and "violence is when i am uncomfortable", but they do, I think, come from a genuine fear of actual harm. transphobic women tend to believe (wrongly, i have to underline) that they and their community are put at physical risk by the presence of trans women.

but when you ask cis men to explain why they are afraid of or uncomfortable with trans people, they either waffle on about entirely abstract concepts (the fall of the social order, confusion, "unnatural"ness, humiliation) or they immediately shift their fear and discomfort onto someone else, so they have no skin in the game. it's to Protect Women. it's to Protect The Kids. it's to Protect The Gay Community (no shut the fuck up i'm not gay how dare you).

and it really unmasks the hollowness of the whole project, right? if your priority was with the people you're arguing are affected, then why would you always be the first one into the fray, talking as loud as you can over the people you're supposedly protecting and calling them stupid bitches if they disagree with you?

the women of anti-trans movements have something real to their fear, however misguided. the men are just making up another vivian-from-gamergate to validate their own bigotry.