The most offensive comparison possible
Ratcheting the rhetoric up and up and up.
He’s comparing people who don’t accept the claim that men can become or be or transition into women, to Nazi genociders. Nazi genociders.
Many more like that. Real fury and disgust.
FFS, the shit for brains moron thinks that Jews were murdered because of their biology? What was biologically different about a Jew compared to a NAZI?
Jews were unable to identify out of their Jewishness, many tried, almost to a person, they “failed to pass”.
BB might also like to reflect on the biological differences of Unionists, Socialists, and Communists and if that was why they were also eliminated. Come on Billy, you claim to be on the side of the workers.
Ethnic and family background is, to a certain extent, biology. I don’t think it’s terribly wrong, factually, to say that people of Jewish ethnic background are in fact people of Jewish ethnic background. My understanding of the situation aligns with #1, that many Jews tried to pass and were found out. I had a Hebrew School teacher who actually admired this, as I’ve mentioned here before. She said the Nazi’s “reminded them that they were Jews!”, as if that was the most important point here.
But BB says “defining people”, a squishy term especially currently. What does that mean? Accurately determining people’s ethnic background, like Ancestry or 23andMe? Accurately determining someone’s sex? Apparently not. Creating a description of a person that is consistent with what that person sees as important in himself or herself, even when that description is entirely at odds with factual information about the person, seems closer.
And BB seems to confuse merely identifying facts about a person, or contradicting the claims the person has made, with abusing and killing the person, or doing so to a group of people on a mass scale. That’s the disgusting part.
People reject the Passover story, saying that Jews were never in Egypt, let alone slaves in Egypt, nor did they wander the desert for a long time in search of the Promised Land. Making this statement is in no way a call to exterminate Jews, it’s just saying something claimed about Jews is wrong. There are ramifications to this statement, but they do not include concentration camps and gas chambers.
Noting the biological fact of sex, that men-who-claim-to-be-women are in fact men, also is not the same as promoting the killing or abusing of any such men.
Given that feminist critics of trans ideology are routinely accused of plotting genocide, Bragg’s comparison is hardly surprising, though no less disgusting. It’s just another example of transperbolic threat inflation and the lowered bar for what constitutes “actual violence” used to avoid any semblance of discussion or debate. If you’re absolutely desperate to deflect scrutiny of and accountability for your demands and actions, just paint those asking for said examination and justification as Nazis. Given the recent thugish deployment in Manchester of the balaclava clad, pound-shop ninja incels of TA’s Butler Youth, the hasty playing of the Nazi card might be seen as a bit of an own goal. The similarity in tactics is too close to home.
That in many circles, this odious invocation of the Holocaust does not count as an automatic Godwin is very telling. That this tactic still works as well as it does at all is appalling in itself. One can hope that the uncritical audience willing to agree with this analogy is shrinking.
It’s Logic 101 made easy: The Nazis ran those extermination camps. Therefore men who call themselves women can walk right in to women’s lavatories.
I spent a week in Hamburg a few years ago and spent many hours just wandering around stopping and reading those plaques. It was intensely moving. Fuck Billy Bragg.
There’s a difference between these two things:
1) To define someone by that person’s biology; i.e., to determine that there is nonformation relevant to any question that cannot be answered by reference to someone’s biological traits.
2) To define the words that refer to biological traits.
One is reductionism; the other; the most basic necessity for language. This is such a trivial, obvious, and fundamental distinction that I find it difficult to accept that people are completely unaware of their rhetorical crimes. Meaning they’re being disingenuous, mendacious fucks.
The implication here is that trans people should be defined by their gender identity. As if gender identity could be separated from biology. The whole point of trans depends on the biological differences and expression thereof.
Because people are one dimensional, right Billy?
Earlier in that twitter thread, BB says “No one is denying the existence of trans people? C’mon, the main anti-trans campaign group in the UK is called the LGB Alliance. This is erasure, pure and simple.” Apparently, an advocacy group cannot exist for lesbian, gay and bisexual issues unless the group also supports trans issues.
I replied to that tweet making much the same point. Having an activist group for X people isn’t “erasure” of not-X people. It’s such a dumb idea.
They can’t be excluded from anything. They should call themselves inclusexuals. :P
Billy makes this point by including them with Holocaust victims. Really disgusting. Trans trophies for all folks.
Thanks Ophelia, and yes, don’t encourage me… ;)
And when looking at reductionism, it is clear that “uterus-havers” “owners of ovaries” “front holes” and so forth are MUCH MORE defining someone by their biology in the reductionist way.