A tale of hecklement and Labour royalty:
One of the students who led a trans protest that hounded Nadhim Zahawi off a Russell Group campus is the son of Labour grandees Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, it has emerged today.
Is a trans protest a bunch of people sitting at Starbucks pretending they’re at a protest?
Mr Zahawi was hounded by around 30 activists who chanted ‘Zahawi is a transphobe’ and ‘Tory scum’ outside a talk the Cabinet minister gave to Warwick University’s Conservative Association.
In video posted by the Warwick Labour society, Joel Cooper interrupts the Education Secretary’s Q&A to heckle him over his trans views. He then sits down to cheers from fellow Labour activists. Later, he shared the clip to his Instagram story, Guido Fawkes reported.
I wonder what the views are. That men aren’t women? Crazy stuff like that?
In a statement issued by Warwick Pride before the talk, they branded Mr Zahawi a ‘reactionary harmful transphobe’ after he defended Kathleen Stock, a former Sussex lecturer who was hounded for her views on trans rights and left the university following protests against her.
…for being “a reactionary harmful transphobe” blah blah blah and thus we go on until every reasonable human on the planet has been told to wheesht.
The group added that the Education Secretary ‘plays a significant role in institutional transphobia’ in the UK, ‘trivialises’ the effects of outing LGBT+ young people to their parents and claimed he has used the ‘common transphobic dog-whistle ‘adult human female”.
The what? We’re not allowed to use the words “adult human female” now? While “women” no longer means “women”? What word or combination of words are we allowed to use to name the female sex? (Obviously not “female sex”; I committed a crime by using those two words next to each other.)
The Mail tells us a little about the Pride activists who were protesting.
Less is known about Warwick Pride’s president, who goes by the first name Mia. A mathematics and physics undergraduate, Mia identifies as ‘transgender, non-binary, genderfae, asexual, demiromantic’ and ‘neptunic’. Their interests include ‘music, electronics, programming, arcana, community management and moderation’ – and ‘Lego’.
It’s not just the eccentricity of the labels, it’s also the wealth of detail. Nobody cares. That’s a basic truth that people should learn early and never forget. Nobody cares about the details of wonderful you. Ask yourself how much you care about other people’s details of wonderful them. Got it? It’s a very small figure, isn’t it. Now notice that it works the other way around. Now resolve never to forget it again.
I do wonder what “neptunic” is though.
Comments
14 responses to “The common transphobic dog-whistle”
‘genderfae’? Never mind; I looked it up. It may top several of the others for stupidity and incomprehensibility, and that’s saying something!
Apparently the Daily Mail cares?
https://sexuality.fandom.com/wiki/Neptunic
“Neptunic refers to an individual who is attracted to both Nonbinary and Female genders. ¶ It can also be described as the attraction to all people except men and man aligned and/or masculine aligned non-binary people.”
Well, those are two words I’d ever imagined seeing together.
Just try putting that on a business card in a font size that doesn’t require an electron microscope to read. The headstone will be the size of a billboard.
“But all those pronouns, identifications, alignments, declarations and claims supposed to make me more SPECIAL and INTERESTING? I even tossed in “Neptunic” to make people look up what it MEANS. Now you’re telling me they don’t WORK? That’s not FAIR! I’ll have you know I’m the scion of LABOUR GRANDEES!!”
I, too, looked up ‘genderfae’. Good god this is a whole rabbit-hole of stupidity and narcisissm
But still definitely not a binary man! I don’t know what I am, I just know I’m special!
This is how I, a non-binary person, fit in the binary.
All of these are from https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Gender_Wiki
I think it’s pretty telling that this is all on a fandom wiki for works of fiction
Well, no, because by using those words you’re committing biological essentialism by reducing women to their reproductive organs. That’s why you should use terms like “uterus-haver” or “bleeder” instead.
It’s a good thing that “they” have chosen a field in which precise definitions of terms aren’t really important.
I am guessing the math and physics will involve Medieval grimoires and spell books usable only by Special Adepts. Why not? Harpers Magazine this week spent over a dozen pages delving into some Ren Faire reject who thinks he is communicating with demons and causing earthquakes. Thank Gawd his invocation of a demon to kill James Randi didn’t work!
More likely not include curriculum that “decolonizes” math and physics…
Genderfae it’s too good for kids… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LZomv1wBbbo :P
It appears that there were two separate actions going on at this event. A statement by Warwick Pride, Warwick University’s student union society for “Lesbian, Gay, Bi+, Trans, Undefined and Asexual/Aromantic students and their friends” explains that a group of students attended the meeting with the stated intention of asking “questions concerning the rights of trans people in the UK”. Fair enough. Joel Cooper was evidently one of these, though if Guido Fawkes is to be believed, his intervention was less a question than a lengthy monologue. It is hard to tell from the clip on the web, which breaks off after a few seconds. Joel’s manner is challenging – well, this is a political event – but it’s hardly threatening.
The demonstration outside the meeting was organised by a different group, Trans Action Warwick. The statement by Warwick Pride makes it clear that they were not involved in organising it, nor were they in any way associated with it. I don’t see any reason not to believe them. But, of course, right-wing bloggers and journalists don’t want to know about that. Yvette Cooper is Shadow Home Secretary; her remit includes law and order. A chance to associate the son of the Shadow Home Secretary with a violent demonstration against a Conservative minister – the Tory press are not going to miss that.
Presumably the inventors of the concept of “mingender” were unaware of the meaning of “minge” in colloquial English. A glance at the OED might have helped them:
Origin: A borrowing from Angloromani. Etymon: Angloromani “minge”.
Etymology: < Angloromani minge (also in form mintch) the female genitals (1874 in G. Borrow) slang and regional (chiefly British).
The female genitals; pubic hair. Hence allusively: women, regarded collectively as objects of sexual gratification.
@musubk
Since this is all pretty much role-playing game language I’m wondering how long it will be before everyone has to carry a twenty side die just to be able to interact with others.
Twenty-sided die? Pfft. It’s much more complicated than that.
Nadhim Zahawi on Twitter, speaking of Joel Cooper and responding to the Guido Fawkes ‘exclusive’:
There is a big difference between asking a question in a political meeting and standing outside shouting mindless insults.