I hate it when I agree with Brendan O’Neill, but it does happen sometimes. He’s dead-on with this one.

It’s Pride Month, all month because it’s the anniversary of Stonewall, which was a fine thing.

The gains made by gay-rights warriors over the past five decades have been amazing and important.

But the melting of that great liberatory moment into today’s bland and virtually mandatory forced Pride shenanigans is depressing. It tells a broader story about the demise of radical politics. The riotous counterculturalists of the Sixties and Seventies demanded freedom. They didn’t give a damn what the ‘moral majority’ thought of them  — they just wanted the moral majority to leave them alone.

(It’s not quite that simple. … Read the rest

This happened yesterday:

https://twitter.com/sargesalute/status/1147176523092439040

The Green Room is part of the National Theatre.

The Guardian does a Both Sides:

The National Theatre has become embroiled in a bitter war of words after a group of lesbian friends was refused service in the venue’s Green Room bar in the run-up to the Pride in London celebrations.

The women and their supporters claim their treatment at the hands of staff, who called the police, was a response to their campaigning stance on gender identity. Other witnesses in the bar have described their behaviour as disruptive.

The small group, who arrived with placards, included Anne Ruzylo, a political activist and former member of the Bexhill and Battle Labour party, and on Friday

Which is worse – holding people captive in appalling conditions, or pointing out that people are being held captive in appalling conditions?

Adam Serwer discusses the issue:

The journalist Jonathan Katz argued in May that given the intent behind these facilities, and the conditions that migrants are being held in, they are best described as a concentration-camp system in the United States. That assessment was echoed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was promptly accused of trivializing the Holocaust. “Allegations that somehow the United States is operating in a way that is in any way a parallel to the Holocaust is just completely ludicrous,” Representative Liz Cheney wrote. Although Ocasio-Cortez did not mention the Holocaust, the association between the Shoah

Here we go again.

Brian Leiter points out an item:

Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association… (UPDATED)

…is a disgrace.  How can the Australasian Association of Philosophy permit such an event?  (And if the AAP isn’t hosting this event, why are they permitting the use of the AAP logo?)

What’s it done?

Scheduled an event for a conference on Monday with the thoughtful title “F**k off Holly Lawford-Smith”.

Under “Details” we get:

A well known TERF has been invited to speak at the Australasian Association of Philosophers conference at UoW. She has been overtly transphobic and is a huge supporter of the fake academic theories created by so called “gender critical” academics who use outdated terminology and ideas such

From Josephine Raap on Facebook:

… Read the rest

The mother of a “Drag Kid” is shocked, shocked, that anyone would sexualize her son.

If you really think this mother is surprised, then you have been fooled. No, this mother who has overseen the extreme sexualization & grooming of her son is likely now doing damage control. https://t.co/juh0rcQgDU via @gaystarnews

— Jon K. Uhler, MS, LPC (@JonKUhlerLPC) June 27, 2019

What could possibly cause anyone to sexualize a Drag Kid? How is sex even relevant?

"We are getting far more than just a celebration of gender diversity or an innocent display of precocious performance talent. So why all the denial? Why the coy insistence that kids’ drag performance has nothing to do with their sexuality?" This is at least

Naturally there are jokes.

One if by Land.
Two if by Sea.
Three if by the Delta Shuttle from LaGuardia.

~Paul Revere#RevolutionaryWarAirports #facts

— Marco Price (@Primar13) July 5, 2019

We shall not payeth extra for our bageth #RevolutionaryWarAirports pic.twitter.com/q8L61dGZev

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 5, 2019

Dearest Abigail,

The situation at ye Olde Laguardia Airporte is untenable. Amparts and ramparts clogging metal detectors, and a scrum has begun betwixt Kanye of Cornwallis and Frederick Douglass.

I may not make it to Bowling Green.

Yours,
Philippe#RevolutionaryWarAirports

— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) July 5, 2019

https://twitter.com/Ameligatha/status/1147160774898540545

One of the prized possessions in my family is this commemorative postcard of the Lexington, Va. Militia occupying the terminal at DCA in 1777. #RevolutionaryWarAirports

He said it. He said it. He actually said it.

He seriously can only just barely read. He reads like a 5-year-old who is still learning how. He barfs out each word like a hammer blow, wagging his head back and forth to keep time. He tries to make himself sound smooth and natural by having his voice go Up and Down word by word, which succeeds only in making him sound like a lunatic. And he sees airports where there are none.… Read the rest

Dr EM on Queer Theory as destroyer of boundaries:

Unnervingly, the reframing of child sexual abuse and liberating of paedophilia from the margins of society is a dominant idea within queer theory. Although it has attempted to cloak itself under the rainbow and harness the energy, good will and gains gay, lesbian and bisexual people have fought for over decades Queer theory is anything but progressive. Indeed, it is totally opposed to same sex attraction. As Professor Alassandra Tanesini outlines, a ‘characteristic trait of queer theory is its opposition to any view that treats sexual orientation as anything other than socially constructed’.[4]

It goes back to Foucault.

Foucault’s re-conceptualisation of the triad of discourse, power and knowledge entailed

The Lincoln Memorial in DC – normally a wide-open public space – has been fenced off for a very large distance.

It appears most of the folks down on the National Mall won’t be able to get very close to the tanks and military vehicles down by the Lincoln Memorial. That area is behind a lot of fencing and security (accessible to VIP’s and other ticketed guests). pic.twitter.com/2iWoyxqnip

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 4, 2019

The people are paying for it, but they’re not allowed to get close enough to see it.

Seems fair.… Read the rest

I beg your pardon?

https://twitter.com/cbckidsnews/status/1146820535931822090

What’s it like to be a kid drag queen? I don’t know, what’s it like to be a kid prostitute? What’s it like to be a kid wife? What’s it like to be a kid factory worker? What’s it like to be a kid in prison?

All pretty bad, I should think. Children are children, and there are a lot of activities that just aren’t right for children – because they’re of no interest, or because they’re too difficult, or because they’re abusive, or all those. I would put being a drag queen firmly on that list, myself.

But the CBC doesn’t look at it that way.

As an art form, drag has always

Funny kind of “birthday”…

Happy Independence Day, Marines.#HappyBirthdayAmerica pic.twitter.com/6DNndxHazV

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) July 4, 2019

… Read the rest

How it’s seen over there.

(Spoiler: not admiringly.)

The US president will deliver an Independence Day speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which honours the president who won the civil war and helped end slavery and was the site of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech a century later.

Yes, and the result is that that is how we see it and think of it now. It’s a place where we gather to petition the government for redress of grievances. It has a certain resonance. It’s not a place for triumphalist displays of military power. Right after WW II it might have been, but now, no. It stands for everything Trump hates, and … Read the rest

Pink News issues a correction and apology:

Last week we published and tweeted a story claiming Joanna Cherry QC the MP For Edinburgh South West and the SNP Justice and Home Affairs Spokesperson was being investigated for homophobia. The claim was untrue and we would like to apologise unreservedly to Ms Cherry.

It is well known that Ms Cherry is a human rights lawyer. She came out as a lesbian over 30 years ago and campaigned against section 28. She has spent a lifetime marching and campaigning for the rights of the LGBT+ community and as a politician regularly speaks up for their rights in parliament and beyond.

It was not our intention nor is it in our interest