Nandy’s fashion statement
UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy is coming under fire for wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Protect the Dolls’ at Wigan Pride on Sunday.
If you keep up with trans-activist trends, the ‘Protect the Dolls’ slogan might sound familiar. Celebrities such as Pedro Pascal, Tilda Swinton, Alan Cumming and Madonna have all worn t-shirts bearing the phrase. According to the t-shirt’s creator, a New York-born fashion-school grad now living in London, ‘the dolls’ supposedly in need of protection are transwomen. In other words, blokes.
So men need protection and women don’t?
‘In queer communities, “doll” is a term of affection, pride and belonging – a coded word that speaks volumes without explanation’, claimed a piece in Forbes when the t-shirt first appeared at London Fashion Week earlier this year. Apparently, the term is ’emotional, not clinical, protective, not patronising’.
If it’s coded how can it speak volumes without explanation? That makes zero sense.
And I still want to know why men and not women.
Nandy’s fashion statement is merely the latest proof that when it comes to trans ideology, Labour really hasn’t learned a thing. Last year, Jess Phillips, ironically the women’s safeguarding minister, said that she would be ‘happy to refer to transwomen as women’. Work and pensions minister Andrew Western responded to the UK Supreme Court ruling on gender by raising ‘the fear and distress’ that men might suffer if they are barred from using women’s loos.
Carefully not mentioning the far more realistic fear and distress of half the population if men are not barred from women’s loos. On and on it goes.
Quite ironic given that dolls are completely manufactured and bear only a superficial resemblance to human females.
Assuming the “dolls” need special protection. Maybe Donnie can call in the National Guard.
That’s pure primate tribal instinct, right there. Anthropology’s the hat you reach for when you want to really grasp this: Protect the vulnerable among our tribe!
But it also feeds into the gay male compulsion behind trans identity: ulitmately, they do what they do because they’re vying for sexual attention from straight men — like dolls. Objects. Pretty objects. Sex objects.
AND it feeds into straight men’s compulsions behind trans identity: they do what they do because they want to sexually objectify their own bodies. To be classed as “dolls” is near-orgasmic to them. They couldn’t be happier. In fact, I’ll bet you a lot of money it was a fetishistic straight man who came up with the slogan.
Notice how it’s all about the men, though. Trans-identifying females aren’t “dolls” in need of “protection” — that’s a trope reserved for femme gay men. In fact many girls and women who identify as “trans men” do so in an attempt to escape from objectification. The (heterosexual) “male gaze” is a spotlight that some men are deeply compelled to seek, and that some women are deeply, instinctually compelled to stay the hell away from.
I keep planning to write a big piece about how straight male norms are at the root of all of the variant pathways towards trans identification, among men and women alike. I just might treat myself to a big ol’ bottle of Chablis and write it up in response to this stupid “protect the dolls” meme…
I’ve been wondering – are ‘dolls’ those mythical ‘trans’ creatures which look exactly like tiny, pretty, and vulnerable young women? The ones who only exist in the minds of those duped by the cult? If so, what do they call the cross-dressing blokes who actually exist? Trolls?
Arty, please do that very thing.
Tigger, the ones you’re talking about are called “bricks.” I’m not kidding, it’s in the Telegraph’s coverage. https://archive.ph/7cHuo
Apparently, “protect the dolls” is transphobic because it excludes everyone who doesn’t “pass.” You can’t make this shit up!
Sumi, if it excludes everyone who doesn’t pass then the ones it includes must be a vanishingly small group indeed.
Oof, have they written the children’s book yet? The Brick Who Dreamed She Was a Doll
Sumi, that’s pretty hilarious!
Dolls are fake female people.
Bricks aren’t even human.
Reminds me of the phrase ‘Built like a brick shit house’, which is used to describe huge, hulking, blokes – which, strangely enough, describes the men in all the news about male boundary-crossing over the last couple of years.
“Brick” as a term for people has a remarkable variety of meanings.
Calling someone a “brick” could mean that they are reliable and trustworthy. Or it could mean that they are somewhat stupid. Or that they do not readily show emotions. Or, as you say, that they are sturdily built.
Disambiguation can be perplexing. I’ve been called a brick before, and I’m still not quite certain why. I think it’s the last on the list.
One thing I know, it’s not because I dress up like a woman.
Seconded. I’ll spring for the Chablis if you do.
Let’s pretend for a moment that “the dolls” actually do need “protection.” Who or what do they need protection from? Male violence, implicitly. What is the protection being offered? Female spaces. And here we have the usual trans bait and switch. Instead of suggesting we tackle the issue of male-on-male violence directly, “dolls” are being told to hide behind women, and use them as human shields. Because male violence is taken as a given, a force of nature that can’t be changed, the target of “activism” becomes breaking down women’s resistance to male violation, colonization, and invasion of female only spaces, with the added bonus of these TiM’s “validation” as “women.”
This strategy of appropriation avoids the hard work of confronting and changing male behaviour, and places the burden of “protection” on women alone, with any resistance to “being kind” branded as monstrous and hateful. It also bypasses the (apparently) embarrassing admission that they are in fact male. Claiming the safety they deserve within the male spaces where they belong means embracing the fact of their own maleness, and denying their delusional, ersatz “womanhood”. Fuck that shit. Trans activism will simply declare a perpetual State of Emergency requiring permanent occupation of female spaces, rather than make men accept men in dresses and lipstick in male spaces. They will also claim female space over any proffered “third spaces” that denies them “validation.” Why fight your corner when you can steal someone else’s?
The use of “brick house” as a compliment referring to shapely or strongly-built women apparently stems from the 1977 song “Brick House” by the Commodores. They apparently modified it from the existing expression “built like a brick shithouse”, again in reference to women. I had heard the phrase used to refer to women (“Brick House Betty”, etc.) before I heard the phrase with “shithouse”, and I wasn’t aware until very recently that anyone applied it to men.
I find the thought of wearing aTshirt that says “Protect The Bricks” entertaining, but isn’t the point of being a brick that you don’t need protection?
Also see Jerhro Tull circa 1972.