The Journal of Gender Studies presents:

(Re)producing sex/gender normativities: LGB alliance, political whiteness and heteroactivism

Do pause to drink it all in before moving on to the abstract. It’s so…how shall I say…predictable. Formulaic. Conformist.

The author is Helen Clarke of Oxford Brookes University. We are told:

Helen’s research explores how decolonial feminism can be used to create alternative practices of solidarity, tackling trans-hostility in cis lesbian communities. She is involved in various feminist projects, working at creating more inclusive and supportive activist environments for all women, non-binary folk and gender diverse people.

Weird, isn’t it, claiming to be a feminist who specializes in feminism while she deletes women from feminism.

So, the abstract:

LGB Alliance, as a prime example of gender-critical feminism, argues that the ‘sex-based’ rights of those who are ‘same-sex attracted’ are threatened by the inclusion of trans individuals, and trans lesbians especially. In seeking to exclude trans women from gay/queer spaces by presenting them as a threat to (cis) lesbians, LGB Alliance can be understood as deploying strategies of heteroactivism and political whiteness. Sex/gender normativity is discursively framed through specific configurations of gender, race and class, including visual codes determined by biological and cultural standards that are, ultimately, a product of colonial/racial science. Trans lesbians, gay men and bisexuals whose bodies are not regarded as sex/gender normative, who are perceived as queering the male/female binary, and who are understood as falsely and dangerously claiming a label of homosexuality, are subjected to suspicion and surveillance, their bodies rendered inferior and denied social and cultural recognition. Although LGB Alliance claims its advocacy is intended to support and advance the interests of the (cis) lesbian, gay and bisexual community, the article argues that the organization can be read as (re)producing and engaging in harmful discourses related to heteronormativity, racism and classism, and which, overall, seek the restriction and limitation of broader LGBTQ+ equalities.

Scare quotes on “sex-based” and “same-sex attracted” – so we are meant to think those are mistake-words in some way. In what way? In the way that if you don’t scare-quote them and hold them at arm’s length you must be a terf and therefore evil. This is the new “feminism.” In other words she lets us know from the outset that by feminism she means trans “activism.” She means feminism is not for or by or about women, but instead for men who pretend to be women.

Then the bit about seeking to exclude men from lesbian spaces “by presenting them as a threat to (cis) lesbians” – as if male lesbians are the only real lesbians, and the female kind are a stupid parenthetical wannabe subgroup. Then accusing them of “deploying strategies of heteroactivism and political whiteness.” How are the strategies “of heteroactivism”? How is it heteroactivist to understand that lesbians are women and men are not women and therefore not lesbians? And how does the “political whiteness” get in there? As anything other than a brainless taunt and an insidery wink to equally brainless colleagues?

Then we learn that knowing which sex is which is a product of colonial/racial science. Cue a wave from Judith Butler. Then she accuses the LGB Alliance of “engaging in harmful discourses related to heteronormativity, racism and classism.”

It’s so formulaic and predictable it’s hard to see what the point is, other than adding “an article” to the resumé.

Tom Nichols at the Atlantic is eloquent on Trump’s NATO lunacy.

Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the presumptive Republican nominee, said earlier today that he would side with Russia against NATO and encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to brutalize our allies…

Trump issued this unhinged threat while telling one of his “sir” stories, a rhetorical device in which some unnamed interlocutor shows Trump great deference while humbly seeking his advice.

And we all recognize the pattern. We’re all familiar with the childish boasting, the infinite sea of conceit, the relentless focus on precious self at the expense of any other concern.

Trump’s feelings about NATO are well-known. He is gripped by the stubbornly ignorant belief, even after four years in office, that NATO is some sort of protection racket, in which our European allies come to Washington like quivering shopkeepers and make an offering to the local mob boss from their weekly receipts. NATO funding doesn’t work that way, of course…

But leave aside (if we must) Trump’s record as a serial liar who lives in a world of his own fantasies. Trump’s comments today are a lot more dangerous than most of his unsettling puffery, and Americans should refuse to let this statement pass as if it were just another distasteful lump in the rancid stew Trump regularly serves up to his faithful.

Instead, we should concentrate on the more terrifying problem, a reality that exists independent of Trump’s imaginary “sir” conversations: The leader of one of America’s two major political parties has just signaled to the Kremlin that if elected, he would not only refuse to defend Europe, but he would gladly support Vladimir Putin during World War III and even encourage him to do as he pleases to America’s allies.

Well when you put it like that…

Trump’s spokespeople will likely try to clean up his remarks by saying he was merely playing hardball with recalcitrant European freeloaders. But anyone who’s watched Trump and his servile fascination with Putin long enough knows the truth: Donald Trump would make the United States a friend to the Kremlin and an enemy to NATO. Putin knows it, and after today, so should every American.

We’re doomed.

Ya gotta pay your bills (unless you’re Trump of course):

Donald Trump has said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that fails to pay its bills as part of the Western military alliance.

At a rally on Saturday, he said he had once told a leader he would not protect a nation behind on its payments, and would “encourage” the aggressors to “do whatever the hell they want”.

This is money we’re talking about. Money is all that matters. Not alliances, not resistance, not peace; just money.

Addressing crowds during the rally in South Carolina, Mr Trump said he had made his comments about Russia during a meeting of leaders of Nato countries. He recalled that the leader of a “big country” had presented a hypothetical situation in which he was not meeting his financial obligations within Nato and had come under attack from Moscow.

Mr Trump said the leader had asked if the US would come to his country’s aid in that scenario, which prompted him to issue a rebuke. “I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’… ‘No I would not protect you, in fact I would encourage them to do whatever they want. You gotta pay.'”

It’s the landlord school of strategy. You gotta pay or you gotta get out…unless you’re Trump, in which case you can refuse to pay your workers and contractors.

Look at this smug creep:

“There shouldn’t be this tension between trans women’s rights and non-trans women’s rights. I think a lot of that has been stirred up to drive division and devise [?] hate. Most of the time I’ve been – I transitioned ten years ago and – you know – [little laugh, or snicker] I’ve always felt comfortable using the bathroom and I’ve never been challenged -“

As if the only possible issue were how he feels while using the women’s bathroom. “I force myself on women and I’ve never been challenged.”

Nice hairdo though.

Meet the Zioterfs.

I bet at least half of Hamas is trans women.

There’s a big internecine war over The Pronoun Issue at the moment. I’m staying out of it, partly because it’s too volatile and partly because I see what the “It’s ok to be polite/kind to individuals” side means.

But. If someone grabbed me by the throat and insisted on knowing what I think about it, I would say I continue to think we shouldn’t use luxury pronouns for anyone.

(I’m so ancient I remember gay friends calling each other “she” in a jokey camp way. See also: Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. An innocent time.)

Here’s why I continue to think that: it’s because the luxury pronouns nudge us into thinking of the luxury people just the way they want us to think. They trick us. That’s how language works. The effect isn’t nullifed just because we know that men aren’t women; the nudging goes on at a level outside our conscious control.

That’s why such a point is made of the luxury pronoun use. It’s not (only) because trans people like to hear it, it’s because it manipulates how all of us think.

If women and men were treated as equals it wouldn’t matter, but they’re not, so it does.

The Daily Mail tells us:

The NHS has axed a programme backed by Stonewall which told hospitals to stop using the words ‘woman’ and ‘mother’. Health service bosses have ended funding for the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme after the Mail revealed how it rewarded trusts for dropping ‘gendered language’.

As if it were a good idea for hospitals to drop gendered language. Sure, in hospitals, nobody knows what sex is.

As many as 77 NHS trusts across England had signed up to be graded by Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation, which back trans rights, on how inclusive they were towards patients and staff. They gained points for referring to women in maternity wards as ‘clients’, renaming female health clinics ‘colposcopy clinics’ and asking patients what their pronouns are.

One briefing showed that staff were branded ‘transphobic’ if they questioned the NHS’s focus on gender identity.

And being “transphobic” is worse than, say, not knowing what sex a patient is.

The Times has a long flattering piece on celebrity archaeologist and “trans ally” Alice Roberts. There’s an interesting moment where…

She says she chooses her words carefully, and it is not long before she is doing so again. We have been talking about men’s and women’s brains and whether there are fundamental intellectual differences between them. Ten years ago, she made a Horizon documentary with Michael Mosley called Is Your Brain Male or Female?. “And the answer is very simply, no. You cannot separate the brain from the culture that it is immersed in from the moment the baby is born, and even before. Your brain is going to develop in a way that is responding to that culture.”

I am not trying to propel Roberts back to a 2019 skirmish in the trans wars in which she tweeted that “biology is, quite simply, messier and more wonderful than some people like to believe” and advised doubters to “ask a clownfish” — a clownfish being a fish that starts life as male but becomes female. It does, however, strike me that if human female and male brains are the same, how can it ever be said that a baby possessing male genitalia was born into the wrong body.

There is quite a pause.

“I think that’s a very difficult philosophical question. It’s very difficult to pin it down, isn’t it? And we’ve had decades of feminism where we’ve been trying to get away from women being reduced to their genitalia. My own feeling is that you approach everybody as an individual.”

So respect an individual’s right to present as they wish?

“I think you would do that in normal society, wouldn’t you?”

First, the short one. Yes of course “you approach everybody as an individual” but that doesn’t require agnosticism on what sex the individual is. In fact in general agnosticism is not possible: we know what sex people are because we have our whole lives of knowing what sex people are to provide the clues. We may have been little agnostics as toddlers, but by the time we’re old enough to chat to the Times we can’t help knowing who is what sex.

Next, the longer one. Would you “do that in normal society”? That’s a general rule is it? So everyone is a blank slate and we all have to start from zero on every encounter? “Is this a human or a frog? Is this a living being or a rock? Is this a woman or a man?” Life is like that is it?

Give me a break.

And scientifically?

“Science can offer solutions to some questions and not to others. Science doesn’t necessarily tell us how to treat each other. We have to be very cautious if people are trying to use science in that way. I think there are big moral and ethical questions that exist almost separate to science.”

But that wasn’t the question. The question wasn’t “how should we treat each other?” but “how can it ever be said that a baby possessing male genitalia was born into the wrong body?”

Andrew Billen of The Times however finds her non-responsive response just the ticket.

I feel she has conceded exactly the ground necessary to foster a civilised truce in this particular culture battle. 

Nope.

I’m reading an Atlantic piece by Robert Draper from October 2022 and got distracted wondering about one claim near the beginning.

In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, “This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.”

The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasn’t protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and threatening violence against them.

But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Haven’s vile threats in the courtroom, the defendant—a devout Mormon who served meals to homeless people in downtown Salt Lake City—seemed unable to recognize those sentiments as his own…

…Haven, as it turned out, got his news from the conservative talk-radio-show hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh—and, of course, from the president he so admired, Donald Trump.

It was that. The setup is here’s a guy with enough compassion to help feed homeless people, yet he “so admired” Donald Trump. My curiosity about that got between me and the rest of the piece.

What is there to admire in Trump?

That’s a real question. It’s easy to think of lots of people who are bad but also have unmistakable good or at least attractive qualities. Trump is not one of those people, or at least, I get stuck when I try to figure out how anyone can see him as one. Know what I mean?

He’s certainly not the familiar charismatic baddy who seduces everyone with charm and wit and beauty. He’s also certainly not the ordinary mixed-bag baddy who is greedy but generous or cruel but brave or destructive but honest. If you had a lineup of good qualities and a lineup of bad ones, Trump’s qualities would all be in the bad column.

What is it that otherwise decent people admire in him? How can otherwise decent people admire him? It’s like a magic spectacles fairy tale or similar. What do they see that we can’t?

All I can come up with is a bastard child of Telling Truth to Power sort of thing. He’s blunt, he’s honest, he’s not afraid to insult the rich and powerful. He insults everyone, and that shows how truthy and authentic and incorruptible he is.

Mind you, he doesn’t insult Putin, but that’s because…um…er…

Any other explanations?

Following up on the last one, in which the BBC quoted “Cade Hatton, co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Greens group” talking about “the most vulnerable” by which of course he didn’t mean the W or the L or the G but rather the T. Is Cade Hatton among The Most Vulnerable xirself I wondered?

Cade has a page at LGBTQIA+ Greens. The complete written content of the page:

Cade is a disabled, queer, trans nerd who spends most of their time either playing video games or sewing.

They joined the GPEW at sixteen, over ten years ago.

They’re passionate about climate justice, LGBTIQA+ rights, and their dog Gizmo, and cat Booker.

If Cade really spends most of xir time playing video games and sewing I have to wonder about xir qualifications for the job.

The BBC on Shahrar Ali’s win:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

The court found the Green Party had improperly dismissed Dr Ali as a party spokesperson because it had failed to identify any misconduct.

Sigh. No. It didn’t dismiss him because it found no misconduct. Its dismissal of him was improper because it found no misconduct. Clarity in writing is important!

Dr Ali called the result a “landmark case”.

He called the result the latest in a “series of judgments” supporting gender critical beliefs, since the High Court ruled Maya Forstater’s belief people cannot change their biological sex was protected under the Equalities Act.

I know we’re stuck with it, but it really is maddeningly destructive that we’re trapped in this “belief that people cannot change sex” spiral. Of course people can’t change sex, nor can they change age, or species, or place of birth. Brute facts are just brute facts, however much we dislike them.

Responding to the judgement Cade Hatton, co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Greens group, said: “We must be able to rely on our most visible members – our spokespeople and elected representatives – to both hold up the ethos and the democratically chosen party policies that support the most vulnerable members of our society.”

And The Most Vulnerable=trans people, right? Not women, right?

Lefties (or people who think they’re lefties) cheering for theocracy. News flash: theocrats are not big fans of lefties. Theocracies are not socialist utopias.

Belief belief belief, but it’s not a “belief”; it’s reality.

Sure, it’s a “belief” in a silly narrow sense, but it’s not a “belief” in the sense of being tentative or contrary to fact. It’s not like a religious belief, because religious beliefs can be anything at all and are subject to no checks.

The BBC leans heavily on the b word:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

But “gender critical beliefs” aren’t beliefs as commonly understood. It’s not a “belief” to know that humans are not cats, it’s not a belief to know that turnips are not chainsaws, it’s not a belief to know that the Hawaiian islands are not in the Atlantic.

I know we have to talk about it that way now in order to defend our right to utter this “belief,” but it’s a crappy situation.

But the judgement upheld political parties’ right to dismiss spokespeople whose views differ from party policy.

…

The Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales’ executive, Jon Nott, said: We are pleased that the court has recognised that a democratic political party has the right to select those who speak for it on the basis that they can and will communicate and support party policy publicly.”

There again – it’s not a “view” and it’s not a “policy.” Trees are not horses; hammers are not marmalade; men are not women. Things are what they are and not something else.

Worthy of respect!

Just what the world needs: Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.

For much of it, Carlson sat in silence as Putin expounded his dubious historical theories about Ukraine, aired his grievances, and pushed MAGA talking points designed to appeal to Carlson’s core audience.

…

Putin has used these theories to justify his brutal invasion of Ukraine, where, according to the UN Human Rights Council, Russia has used mass killings, rape, and torture in an attempt to subjugate the country. Putin even published an essay on the theories just ahead of the invasion.

It matters because Putin is seeking to erode support for Ukraine among the GOP voters who form Carlson’s core audience, as congressional Republicans continue to block a $66 billion Ukraine aid bill.

Carlson seemed to lack the knowledge, or willingness, to offer even the most cursory pushback. 

Well you see Putin isn’t some disgusting crazed Marxist like Obama or Biden.

For instance, he allowed Putin to claim that the 2014 Maidan protests, in which Ukrainians took to the streets to demand freedom from Russian control, were a CIA plot. There is no evidence of this.

He also allowed Putin to claim, unchallenged, that Russia sought peace with Ukraine before launching the 2022 invasion. There is no evidence of this, with Russia illegally seizing swaths of Ukraine in 2014 and stoking conflict in the east of the country.

Putin was also able to state, unchallenged, that the invasion was a bid to “de-Nazify” the country, and not a campaign of revanchist conquest it is in reality.

Putin was given a two-hour platform to further undermine Republican support for Ukraine, and offer an alternative version of history in which the US and NATO are the true aggressors.

I guess because Carlson (like Trump) is not so much a Republican or a conservative as he is an agent of chaos-plus-profit. Smash everything and give me $$$.

More ugly behavior:

Ireland women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with Israel before their EuroBasket 2025 qualifier in Riga.

Israel player Dor Saar said on Wednesday that the Ireland team is “quite anti-Semitic”. Basketball Ireland said the comments were “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate”.

Ireland players also lined up for their anthem beside the team’s bench rather than the centre of the court before the game, which Israel won 87-57.

But it’s the Israel players who are being “inflammatory.” I see.

Climate change can’t be stopped, the male takeover of everything that belongs to women can’t be stopped, Trump can’t be stopped.

The Supreme Court seems poised to reject attempts to kick former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot.

A definitive ruling for Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, would largely end efforts in Colorado, Maine and elsewhere to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.

Conservative and liberal justices alike questioned during arguments Thursday whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again because of his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, ending with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

His “efforts to undo his loss” included several crimes, but we have to let him go ahead and destroy everything.

A whole year.

For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU’s climate service. World leaders promised in 2015 to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5C, which is seen as crucial to help avoid the most damaging impacts. This first year-long breach doesn’t break that landmark Paris agreement, but it does bring the world closer to doing so in the long-term.

Urgent action to cut carbon emissions can still slow warming, scientists say.

But urgent action is not happening and is not going to happen.

El Niño is part of the picture, but the picture remains grim anyway.

An end to El Niño conditions is expected in a few months, which could allow global temperatures to temporarily stabilise, and then fall slightly, probably back below the 1.5C threshold. But while human activities keep adding to the levels of warming gases in the atmosphere, temperatures will ultimately continue rising in the decades ahead.

And we know human activities keep adding to the levels of warming gases in the atmosphere because we are helpless to stop them. Democratic governments can’t and authoritarian governments don’t give a shit.

The knots get tighter and tighter.

Transgender Irish dancers can compete in categories that match their gender identity, An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) has decided. Irish dancing’s governing body made the ruling following legal advice and weeks of debate.

Late last year a teenage transgender girl based in the US qualified to compete in this year’s upcoming world championship. The success of the dancer, who is understood to have previously competed in a male category, prompted some complaints from parents and discussion within the world of Irish dancing.

I don’t know enough about Irish dancing to know if being male makes much of a difference in competitions, but even aside from that…what is the point of adding a sprinkling of males to the female category? Unless they doing it to annoy, because they know it teases.

In a memo to members this week CLRG chairperson Sandra Connick said that over the last number of weeks “there has been considerable internal and external discussion concerning the eligibility of transgender dancers to enter competitions that align with their gender identity”.

That is, “there has been considerable internal and external discussion concerning the eligibility of transgender dancers to enter competitions that align with their gender identity instead of their physical sex.” If they had to spell it out every time maybe it wouldn’t fool so many people.

“CLRG’s policy has always permitted dancers to compete according to their gender identity in line with its child protection policy, which states that CLRG does not discriminate against any child for any reason,” Ms Connick said.

When was it decided that it’s “discrimination against” people to know what sex they are and tp act on the knowledge?

Parkrun deletes everything.

Parkrun has abruptly removed all gender, course and age records from its websites after rejecting a campaign to compel transgender runners to record their sex at birth.

With backing from former Olympic athletes such as swimmer Sharron Davies and marathon runner Mara Yamauchi, groups including Women in Sport and the Policy Exchange have been urging Parkrun to stop allowing entrants to self-identify their gender, accusing event organisers of “sex discrimination”.

What kind of sex discrimination? The kind where you allow, indeed encourage, men to infiltrate women’s sports and thus ruin the sports for women. That kind.

The Policy Exchange found that at least three Parkrun female records were held by transgender women and campaigners said that by having publicised records for age, gender, number of wins and courses, Parkrun must follow governing bodies like UK Athletics by protecting a natal category for women and girls.

If you’re going to publicize results then you can’t fake them. It’s only fair.

Parkrun had refused, arguing that it was a community event and public health charity that was primarily about inclusion rather than competitive performance, with records only designed to add interest and widen participation.

Then why have races at all? Why not just have aimless wandering around, instead?

The move, however, will be deeply controversial with the many runners who find the data and competitive element to be a major incentive for participation. Parkrun performance also currently counts towards a competitive athlete’s grading on the Run Britain website.

“Numerous men losing their s— over parkrun deleting/hiding data is quite a revelation,” said Yamauchi following the changes. “I knew men care deeply about their own sports but this is really something. Shame so many of them have had NOTHING to say all these years while their fellow men have decimated women’s sports.”

The campaign group Fair Play For Women added: “Parkrun have been letting men hold female course records. Women complained saying it was unfair. Rather than resolve the issue Parkrun has removed EVERYONE’S records from its website.”

It’s fine to trash women’s sports, but HOW DARE YOU mess with men’s?