Given how much the person I knew who worked for CARE liked to share debunked fake footage of Planned Parenthood, I suspect big bucks American funding behind them if not the other conservative Christian lobbying groups too.
I hope I'm wrong but I've got a really bad feeling about this. I'm currently watching a straight cis male pal my age who endorses Ash Regan sharing stuff from people who are known sexist and misogynist bullies (who I can't mention because M'learned friends) because they support her. He doesn't seem to realise that he's been radicalised to a point where he's actually dangerous to people who don't have his privilege - whose human rights wouldn't be safe under the people he will vote for.
I've never subscribed to the view that Scotland was much less racist or sexist than anywhere else in the UK (polling shows a little but not that much) - I've tended to put our better policies down a lot to most of our political leaders and parties holding the line on decent principled behaviour and rejecting winning votes by prejudice, and to our voting system meaning that if the two 'parties of government' both started to fail, you could more quickly replace one with something better because you could switch votes on the list without danger of 'the other lot getting in' so you could always punish at the polls a party that went bad on key values.
But I really fear now.
Nicola resigning has led to an atavistic eruption of stuff that we thought was left behind over 20 years ago. The nature of media coverage for the two socially conservative candidates means that it's shifting the Overton window making it seem socially acceptable for people to come out with Anti-LGBT stuff and old fashioned ethnic nationalist tropes again. It's giving that stuff oxygen and I think it's potentially setting us back years as a society.
I privately told him what I thought about Regan and how I felt about it but I'm a bit shocked to see the latest. Because of libel law and because these people are activists/campaigners rather MSPs etc. this stuff isn't as prominent as it should be - in both cases women who were bullied or creeped on spoke up but did so on Twitter and the papers didn't cover it, so I don't know if he genuinely doesn't know how bad these people are or knows and doesn't care.
@Louise it's also so weird to me that the SNP appears to be falling for what is at its core a colonialist ideology imported from England?? Like has there been no discussion in Scotland of the very different attitude taken in Ireland by Irish feminism, which rightly is very scornful of English people trying to import anti-trans feminism?
Tbh it has popped up in places you wouldn't expect even in England (an anarcho-feminist bookstore in Liverpool of all places for eg) and I think it's been difficult to get across how vital no-platforming is to preventing the spread, partly just due to libel laws. Certainly the Scottish prisoners issue has done a lot of damage and Sturgeon herself misstepped there - introducing the idea that you can tell who is 'really trans' is always going to be harmful for all trans and gender nonconforming people even if it wasn't intended that way.
There's been some discussion of how it's not a problem in Ireland on social media but we also do have a serious home-grown problem and certain people we can't mention would be seen as counting as 'home grown'. I cant fully go into that because of M'learned friends either, but take it from me there was a Scottish anti-trans 'feminist' faction who got the ear of very powerful people that goes back to 2015 and they quickly got the ear of MSPs, MPs and people with very high social capital and favourable coverage in the press.
They're in both the SNP and Labour (and of course there are also the fully right wing not-even-pretending-to-be-feminist transphobes in the Conservatives and far right) but oddly they seem to have got nowhere so far with the Lib Dems and the Scottish Greens did a good job of stopping them in their tracks and disciplining them out.
Yes Nicola got that wrong - the fact is that the GRR has nothing to do with which prison anyone goes in (as was said on the other thread where that discussion lives) - that's done by risk assessment and Nicola should have said that instead of going down the route she did.
Thinking about the current race, surveying party members is very hard and the only poll of members so far was done by Savanta for the Daily Telegraph. I dont know if Savanta told people this - but I certainly wouldn't have answered if I'd known it was for the Telegraph, so I think we don't really know the entire extent of things yet.
But there's no doubt to me there's been some impact on some older left wing folk. Despite the figure heads it's mostly the men that I've seen it in at first hand - people who prided themselves on their CND, anti-apartheid, anti-Iraq war etc etc. credentials yet cant see through this. They also tend to be the sort who are poor on sexism despite thinking they're really great because they will excuse or defend or exalt creepy men because they are important to 'The Cause' while rubbishing progressive women who've done more or better than their heroes, and they will happily sacrifice any group that isn't white straight men or women who support white straight men and their privilege as a 'distraction' from 'The Cause'
Hell mend them - if anyone other than Humza wins this I will be off to the Scottish Greens.
Louise: ...... if anyone other than Humza wins this I will be off to the Scottish Greens.
If I were you, Louise, I'd send off for your Green Party Application Form ASAP, because neither Forbes nor Yousaf is likely to pursue a progressive identity agenda. They both come from conservative religious backgrounds, and while neither will reverse existing legislation my guess is that neither will press the UK government very far over the Gender Recognition Bill/Act because it is a divisive, if not unpopular, measure with the SNP and Scottish electorate in general.
@Kwesi Yousaf has made his stance very clear, though. Do you think he's lying? I'm also puzzled by the comparison to Forbes - I don't think the average UK Muslim and especially the average young Muslim (I'm not aware of Yousaf belonging to any fundamentalist strand) is anywhere near as conservative as Forbes. Sadiq Khan is also a religious Muslim and has no problem with supporting LGBTQ+ rights. I don't see why you seem to think religious Muslims are incapable of the kind of progressive political work that religious Christian politicians do all the time (eg Joe Biden being a deeply religious Catholic and also committed to trans rights protections). Referring to protecting vulnerable people as 'a progressive identity agenda' is also not helpful when people use 'identity politics' as a pejorative term to suggest that some people's rights are worth sacrificing for political success.
@Louise interesting re the Scottish Lib Dems, I'm aware that (to their credit) the LDs in England have been consistently the most supportive party in terms of trans rights since Ed Davey became leader. I wasn't aware that it's seemingly a thing across the board, and I'm curious as to why. Are the LDs in Scotland as rural as they generally tend to be in England? Here they tend to be both rural and hyper-local, which explains perhaps why they might be not bothered about trans issues in terms of culture war stuff, but is an interesting aspect given how very supportive they are rather than just not hostile. It also doesn't seem to line up with where trans populations are high in England either except for maybe Oxford? Maybe there's a massive Lake District trans community I'm unaware of lol, but Brighton and Leeds are the big hubs outside of London.
Does anyone happen to know the tendency of Islam that Yousaf comes from? (Eg. Sunni, Shia, Ismaili etc)
In Calgary(named for some sorta Scottish place), Mayor Naheed Nenshi was an Ismaili Muslim, with absolutely zero taint(that I know of) to any type of social conservatism, being a Harvard-trained technocrat who regularly attended Pride and spoke out against racism quite openly.
Though I don't know how popular Nenshi was among Ismailis, much less Muslims generally. I'm guessing he did okay with the former, as in my limited interaction with that community I've found them generally liberal in outlook.
Just saw on wiki that, as with Nenshi, Yousaf's family were part of the South Asian diaspora that left British Africa in the decades after de-colonization. Not sure if that indicates anything about which branch of Islam Yousaf follows.
Assuming that using terms that sound like the old 'gay lobby/gay agenda' stuff is an attempt to cast aspersions on whether candidates stand for human rights for all - including LGBT+ folk and women's rights
@Louise interesting re the Scottish Lib Dems, I'm aware that (to their credit) the LDs in England have been consistently the most supportive party in terms of trans rights since Ed Davey became leader. I wasn't aware that it's seemingly a thing across the board, and I'm curious as to why. Are the LDs in Scotland as rural as they generally tend to be in England? Here they tend to be both rural and hyper-local, which explains perhaps why they might be not bothered about trans issues in terms of culture war stuff, but is an interesting aspect given how very supportive they are rather than just not hostile. It also doesn't seem to line up with where trans populations are high in England either except for maybe Oxford? Maybe there's a massive Lake District trans community I'm unaware of lol, but Brighton and Leeds are the big hubs outside of London.
I honestly don't know and was pleasantly surprised because I didn't rate their current Scottish leader very much. But yes they have a rural and hyper-local vote here - the strongholds were Orkney and Shetland and St Andrews and there used to be mainland Highland areas where they had a traditional vote linked to land reform. If Orkney or Shetland ever vote other than Lib Dem - it's a sign of the apocalypse!
Just saw on wiki that, as with Nenshi, Yousaf's family were part of the South Asian diaspora that left British Africa in the decades after de-colonization. Not sure if that indicates anything about which branch of Islam Yousaf follows.
It doesn't particularly indicate anything, although it is interesting that South Asians who came to the UK via Africa are seemingly the most represented group amongst South Asians in UK politics. The UK Prime Minister and the two most recent Home Secretaries have, I believe, been from this background and the PM as a religious Hindu has been the most religious of all three as far as I'm aware.
As Louise has pointed out many times, Theresa May had no problem with the GRC reform bill and she is well-known for being a genuinely religious Anglican and clergy daughter. Given her political track record I would be very surprised if May was part of the liberal strand within the Church of England! It seems clear to me that there are assumptions being made about a Muslim politician that would never be made about a white Christian politician.
Louise, having watched the recent debate on STV between the three candidates, I have to admit I seem to have got it wrong about Yousaf's likely approach to LGBTQ issues and. his predicted response to the Gender Recognition Bill/Act, so I guess you can delay your application to join the Greens. He clearly values, in sharp contrast to his female rivals, the SNP pact with the Greens in which identity issues loom large.
Louise, having watched the recent debate on STV between the three candidates, I have to admit I seem to have got it wrong about Yousaf's likely approach to LGBTQ issues and. his predicted response to the Gender Recognition Bill/Act, so I guess you can delay your application to join the Greens. He clearly values, in sharp contrast to his female rivals, the SNP pact with the Greens in which identity issues loom large.
Or possibly, just possibly, he actually believes that the law shouldn't be imposing religious positions on people.
KarlLB: Or possibly, just possibly, he actually believes that the law shouldn't be imposing religious positions on people.
....and the point is?
That, contrary to your apparent beliefs earlier in this thread, it is not only unpopular reactionary views that can be grounded in principle rather than political expediency.
Arethosemyfeet: That, contrary to your apparent beliefs earlier in this thread, it is not only unpopular reactionary views that can be grounded in principle rather than political expediency.
Questions as to sincerity or not are very difficult to answer. I must confess I tend to regard any statement by an active politician with scepticism unless it is to their political disadvantage. The questions that come to my mind are "Why is he/she saying this?", "Why is he/she saying this now?" "To whom are these remarks being directed?" The specific question I was addressing was whether or not Yousaf was likely to press on with defending the gender recognition legislation for whatever reason. It seems pretty clear that the answer is "yes", whereas its also pretty clear his opponents take a contrary view; and that being the case my advice to Louise was mistaken. Louise was correct.
@Kwesi the point I think is that you seem to be emphasising the fact that his opponents are female as if it diminishes his position. In reality, many women agree with Yousaf and many men agree with Forbes and with whoever the TERF is (sorry I forget their name) - and it doesn't take a genius to work out that many who might find TERF arguments persuasive don't agree with Forbes that unmarried parents are wrong and sinful.
It's also disingenuous to act as if 'identity issues' are something invented by Yousaf and his allies here. Trans rights only became a big deal because transphobes decided to make it one! The GRC reform bill was a completely uncontroversial bill that the English Tories - led by a personally religious woman - were perfectly happy to pass before the religious right chose trans rights as their new moral panic.
There are anti-feminist women or women who have racist or reactionary ideas of what their rights are and they're very valuable to anti-women interests for that reason -they act as a shield for male power and they profit themselves from being rewarded for being 'one of the good ones' and they don't get the force of the right wing attack machine because they're valued correctly as assets to that movement. The system often benefits women who uphold sexist power structures and severely punishes those who fight against that.
Everyone remembers the suffragettes but few recall the women who fought against votes for women like Kitty Duchess of Atholl who having campaigned against women in politics then went on to became Scotland's first female MP as a Unionist (they didn't call themselves the Conservatives in Scotland till the 1960s if I recall correctly).
It's no accident that firsts like this often come from the right which can call its misogynist attack dogs off its own standard bearers when it suits and puff them instead. Before she stuffed everything up by saying the quiet part out loud Kate Forbes was getting remarkably positive coverage from all kinds of right wing media which normally oppose the SNP and which were typically venomous about progressive women.
A certain candidate has (and I have to look over my shoulder for the lawyers so apologies for not naming names) reached out to or been backed by at least four noted abusive male sexists who are a stain on Scottish politics yet wants people to think she's a feminist because of her anti-trans rights views. Progress for women and women's rights would be, in my opinion, as safe with this candidate and her pals in power as John Major's proverbial 'pet hamster in the presence of a hungry python'
It's someone from a Free Church background writing about Kate Forbes, religion in poltics and the Free Kirk
I had known about historic racism in the Free Kirk that was challenged by Frederick Douglass but had no idea there was still a problem with prominent figures having made racist comments about Humza Yousaf
I had known about historic racism in the Free Kirk that was challenged by Frederick Douglass
Wow. I didn't know about that aspect of Douglass' campaigns. Thanks for the info.
In fact, I know very little about Douglass beyond what he looked like, and that he was a Black Freeman abolitionist. I've owned a couple of his books, and think I currently have an anthology of American lit with some of his writings.
It's someone from a Free Church background writing about Kate Forbes, religion in poltics and the Free Kirk
I had known about historic racism in the Free Kirk that was challenged by Frederick Douglass but had no idea there was still a problem with prominent figures having made racist comments about Humza Yousaf
Yeah, I was familiar with the reactionary theology and the viciousness of attacks on the Kirk and its ministers but hadn't realised the extent to which that spilled over into being a poundshop Westborough Baptist Church in the public sphere.
It's enlightening but unfortunately not surprising, from my background in Reformed churches in England. The Frederick Douglass connection is very interesting.
Speaking of Reformed churches, I became a Christian in a conservative evangelical Anglican church opposed to women's ordination (along the lines of St Helen's Bishopsgate or All Souls Langham Place, but in Sussex) and it was very much the case that prominent anti-OoW women in the church were some of the most strenuously opposed to women's ordination, and very much occupied with reaping the social power and benefits that position gave them within those circles. I see Forbes as occupying the same kind of position, or at least she would have done more successfully if she hadn't said the quiet parts out loud. But then again, people on Mumsnet were praising Trump after he banned trans people from the US military so I think a lot of people invested in reactionary anti-feminist and anti-equality movements have just abandoned any kind of mask now.
I think this is key. I have trouble getting some men to understand that this isn't feminism but the opposite - these are anti-feminists who're rowing in behind the patriarchy and who have figured out they can be helped by it in their ambitions and not attacked by it, through telling conservative men what they want to hear. It allows the sexist blokes to falsely absolve themselves from misogyny by pointing out how much they love Reactionary Woman and how high up she is in their movement so they can't possibly be prejudiced against women.
Yes, as a white person I don't feel qualified to talk about the specific people involved with regards to this but it's clear that the current TERF movement is as exceptionally white as the historical second-wave feminism, and this is key to their comfort with snuggling up to open white supremacists. Their class solidarity is with other white people, not women as a whole. The really disgusting reactions against cis intersex Black athletes shows that it's about protecting the status and power of white women who are Like Them. I'm not aware of womanist movements having the same issues but ofc that's not to say they don't exist.
Likewise the UK government has the least white cabinet its ever had, and one of the most outspokenly and most mask-off racist cabinets since at least the Civil Rights era.
It allows the sexist blokes to falsely absolve themselves from misogyny by pointing out how much they love Reactionary Woman and how high up she is in their movement so they can't possibly be prejudiced against women.
I like to call it The Fiesty Grandma School Of Pseudo Feminism. "You think this is a patriarchal culture? Ha! You should see how headstrong and outspoken the women are when the family gets together."
I've heard it applied by apologists for both western and non-western societies. Closer to the Free Kirks, I think it was the Southern Baptists in the USA who passed a highly anti-feminist statement/policy some time in the 90s, with one of the members getting quoted in the press as saying that "Those men have some of the toughest wives you've ever seen."
I see Kate Forbes is now on record as having not voted for the anti-smacking Bill because she had 'concerns' about it and wanted to support 'parents and families'. She's really collecting the set
I see Kate Forbes is now on record as having not voted for the anti-smacking Bill because she had 'concerns' about it and wanted to support 'parents and families'. She's really collecting the set
It's like she wants to make "tartan tory" a fact rather than just a slur. No point to independence if people like her are in charge. Has anyone dared ask her for an opinion about sexual consent in marriage? Contraception?
I see Kate Forbes is now on record as having not voted for the anti-smacking Bill because she had 'concerns' about it and wanted to support 'parents and families'. She's really collecting the set
It's like she wants to make "tartan tory" a fact rather than just a slur. No point to independence if people like her are in charge. Has anyone dared ask her for an opinion about sexual consent in marriage? Contraception?
It's like she wants to make "tartan tory" a fact rather than just a slur. No point to independence if people like her are in charge.
Agreed. I think it's also interesting how conservative positions are normalised among people who are normally very much not of that political persuasion.
Like most if not all UK political parties, the SNP membership skews male and older - if you look at polling the big watershed for small 'c' conservative views is about 55 and this is an STV election where Ash Regan's second preferences can transfer to Forbes, so I have a really bad feeling about this.
As I said above, a male friend exactly on that watershed who I'd never seen social conservative stuff from before suddenly started defending it and backing Regan. He'd been reading some of the very online ultra nationalist sexists who backed her and seemingly being attracted by the hard-line nationalism, started finding reasons to play down or support the anti-trans positions they and she took.
Because of the way libel laws work here, he had no idea that his online heroes were known for bullying and creeping on women in the Yes movement and hadn't been paying the same attention to that that I do. (If he'd had more women in his social media feeds and paid attention to what they said he might not have missed that)
It's anecdata but it really worries me - a chunk of this selectorate could well be reconciled to regressive positions because two prominent SNP women are the face putting them forward, so they don't recognise the threat in the way they would if it was Ann Widdecombe or Suella Braverman. It's almost a kind of a political immune system failure.
And of course some of them will be intentional sexists or anti LGBT and just not care or be pleased with what they are saying.
There's definitely a Specific Type of Bloke that gets into ~defending women online too, and tbh in England this is often flowing the other way into churches rather than the way you might expect. Churches who would previously not take a party line and who wouldn't consider themselves conservative as such are now just repeating TERF talking points, as if they cared about feminism in any way before.
There's definitely a Specific Type of Bloke that gets into ~defending women online too, and tbh in England this is often flowing the other way into churches rather than the way you might expect.
The men I used to see on-line who were big TERF apologists weren't religious. They posited as feminists themselves, and at least one of them had deep roots in the anti-pornography movement, another tendency that started out in churches, got taken up by certain feminists, and then kinda made its way back into the churches, with conservative clergy then professing newfound concern about violence against women.
Another notable aspect of this particular guy's rhetoric was that he was an enthusiastic defender of Muslim headwear for women, which he explicitly defended as feminist, on the grounds that it deterred men from sexualizing women. I personally have no problem with women choosing to wear headscarves etc, but his analysis of it as being a positive force for equality seemed a little desperate.
@stetson I think you misread my comments. I didn't say that men online who are big TERF apologists are religious. I said the opposite in fact - that the religious opposition to trans rights isn't making an impact but the secular arguments associated with TERFs are making their way into churches. I agree that it's often tied into the anti-pornography movement in the way you say. In fact CARE (who I've mentioned before) teamed up with anti-porn feminists campaigning against 50 Shades of Gray being shown in cinemas.
Another notable aspect of this particular guy's rhetoric was that he was an enthusiastic defender of Muslim headwear for women, which he explicitly defended as feminist, on the grounds that it deterred men from sexualizing women. I personally have no problem with women choosing to wear headscarves etc, but his analysis of it as being a positive force for equality seemed a little desperate.
I think there are probably situations where it's true, but not necessarily in all situations. I can imagine that in a workplace that has traditionally had male staff except for receptionists who are (coincidentally ) young, pretty, and dress to accentuate that, a hijabi in any role would be a challenge to the chauvinist culture.
Yeah, I knew what you were saying, and I was agreeing with you. Sorry if my wording didn't make a smooth segue into concurrence.
I agree that it's often tied into the anti-pornography movement in the way you say. In fact CARE (who I've mentioned before) teamed up with anti-porn feminists campaigning against 50 Shades of Gray being shown in cinemas.
Yeah, the people I'm thinking of(who were associated with a prominent Canadian feminist site) were also campaigning against 50SOG. I won't get too far into critiquing their analysis(I do think think they were sincere feminists and thus prob'ly shouldn't be lambasted in Epiphanies), except to say that they seemed to be underestimating the extent to which the franchise's popularity was woman-driven.
(Personal bias: I am a dude, and had no interest in those books or films, only watching the latter because of limited access to English language media. Wouldn't care to watch any of them again.)
Another notable aspect of this particular guy's rhetoric was that he was an enthusiastic defender of Muslim headwear for women, which he explicitly defended as feminist, on the grounds that it deterred men from sexualizing women. I personally have no problem with women choosing to wear headscarves etc, but his analysis of it as being a positive force for equality seemed a little desperate.
I think there are probably situations where it's true, but not necessarily in all situations. I can imagine that in a workplace that has traditionally had male staff except for receptionists who are (coincidentally ) young, pretty, and dress to accentuate that, a hijabi in any role would be a challenge to the chauvinist culture.
Sure. In a situation like that, where the boss is exploiting women's bodies for commercial gain, wearing less-revealing clothing could be viewed as an act of resistance.
And it could go in the other direction as well. If a boss is ordering female staff to wear "modest" clothes because his conservative customers think women in short-skirts are untrustworthy, then wearing short-skirts could also be viewed as an act of resistance.
But I don't think the Muslims I've debated with, or for that matter their "male feminist" allies, would like the second argument.
Yeah, I knew what you were saying, and I was agreeing with you. Sorry if my wording didn't make a smooth segue into concurrence.
I agree that it's often tied into the anti-pornography movement in the way you say. In fact CARE (who I've mentioned before) teamed up with anti-porn feminists campaigning against 50 Shades of Gray being shown in cinemas.
Yeah, the people I'm thinking of(who were associated with a prominent Canadian feminist site) were also campaigning against 50SOG. I won't get too far into critiquing their analysis(I do think think they were sincere feminists and thus prob'ly shouldn't be lambasted in Epiphanies), except to say that they seemed to be underestimating the extent to which the franchise's popularity was woman-driven.
(Personal bias: I am a dude, and had no interest in those books or films, only watching the latter because of limited access to English language media. Wouldn't care to watch any of them again.)
By the way, may I ask the full name of CARE?
CARE stands for Christian Action, Research & Education.
Many TERFs are sincere feminists, it doesn't make them less open to criticism. Anti-porn movements are strongly linked to anti-trans and conversion therapy movements - often the people offering 'porn addiction'* treatment are also the same people offering conversion therapy. It's not a coincidence that many of the same people behind current anti-trans campaigning also successfully campaigned for extremely restrictive laws on what (unsimulated) sex acts can be shown on film in the UK, which disproportionately penalises indie porn showing sex between non-cishet people and also does nothing to combat exploitation in the mainstream porn industry, which is mostly run by cishet men.
Trans women in particular are disproportionately involved in sex work and the adult entertainment industry due to often lacking in traditional employment opportunities, so often targeting porn is also targeting trans women anyway. You can also see it in the pearl-clutching over leather scenes amongst LGBTQ+ communities. 50 Shades is well worth criticising both in terms of quality and for misrepresenting BDSM best practice, but not because it's somehow pornographic.
*'Porn addiction' is overwhelmingly simply an evangelical opposition to all adult entertainment and is not actually recognised as being a real addiction by psychiatrists. This is distinct from sex addiction.
It's not a coincidence that many of the same people behind current anti-trans campaigning also successfully campaigned for extremely restrictive laws on what (unsimulated) sex acts can be shown on film in the UK, which disproportionately penalises indie porn showing sex between non-cishet people and also does nothing to combat exploitation in the mainstream porn industry, which is mostly run by cishet men.
The earlier feminist anti-drag movement, such as it was, sorta constituted a thematic link between the left-wing antiporn movement and the left-wing anti-trans movement. There were alot of somewhat muted debates in the 1970s and 1980s about allegedly degrading portrayals in drag performances at gay bars, community events etc(*).
Thanks for the note on the British anti-porn-film crusade. For a similar Canadian story, but more focused on courts and books, see "R. v. Butler" and "Little Sisters Bookstore".
(*) And, yes, I realize that many drag performers are only "trans" in the sartorial sense, and usually only for the duration of a paid performance.
No, drag performances are wholly separate to being trans because cross-dressing isn't related to being trans. There are trans men who are drag queens for instance (and no I don't mean drag kings, a trans man who had been on HRT and had top surgery came second in a recent series of RuPaul's Drag Race) and they aren't somehow temporarily detransitioning when performing. Transphobia may be (incorrectly) part of anti-drag campaigns currently, and some drag performers are trans, but drag and transness are only distantly related via mutual queerness.
Also it was a Conservative government under I think Cameron who passed the movie laws, but I don't think a Labour government would have done anything different. The laws weren't debated in Parliament or anything.
No, drag performances are wholly separate to being trans because cross-dressing isn't related to being trans. There are trans men who are drag queens for instance (and no I don't mean drag kings, a trans man who had been on HRT and had top surgery came second in a recent series of RuPaul's Drag Race) and they aren't somehow temporarily detransitioning when performing. Transphobia may be (incorrectly) part of anti-drag campaigns currently, and some drag performers are trans, but drag and transness are only distantly related via mutual queerness.
Yeah, just to clarify, I meant that in the minds of the campaigners who went from being anti-drag to being anti-trans, the causes were probably linked. The "mutual queerness" is something that reactionaries would pick up on as well, and it would be amplified by the superficial similarities between being a drag performer and being a trans person.
How relevant is all this recent stuff to the topic?
As I said in my previous comments, the people responsible for whipping up anti-trans feeling in the name of feminism are also the same people behind anti-porn and anti-drag campaigns, complete with Evangelical backup.
Edited to add that viewing transness as a sexual fetish - particularly seeing trans women as simply men with a fetish - is fundamental to how this transphobia is formed and disseminated. That's why it's linked to things like porn, and why drag shows are being viewed as an extension of that.
I think @Kwesi meant how relevant is this to the Scottish National Party in particular. And I'd say it's pretty relevant, assuming that the anti-trans faction of that party is ideologically microcosmic of the overall anti-trans movement.
But, okay, the conversation should maybe not drift too far from the specific situation of the SNP. And I have no hard evidence that anti-trans SNPers are the same as anti-trans people generally, beyond an educated guess.
Not posting as host but as shipmate - two of the candidates, the two female ones who come from different factions in the party* are anti-trans politicians and even the one for whom it's coming from religious reasons also uses the secular language dog whistle of 'sex based rights' and both represent themselves as feminist or people who should be acceptable to feminist voters, so what these claims to 'feminism' are is quite important, at least to me. Part of the press attack on the SNP which has led to and influenced the leadership election has involved labelling people with all sorts of identities as trans people so understanding differences has been really useful.
*which I'd describe as (1) traditional economic and social conservatives and (2) populist bigot Alba-style 'indy' fundamentalists (the kind of people who'd turn us into something like Poland or Hungary if they could get away with it). Kate Forbes is more like an old style pro-section 28 Tory like Annabelle Goldie and Ash Regan - a pound shop Alex Salmond.
which I'd describe as (1) traditional economic and social conservatives and (2) populist bigot Alba-style 'indy' fundamentalists (the kind of people who'd turn us into something like Poland or Hungary if they could get away with it). Kate Forbes is more like an old style pro-section 28 Tory like Annabelle Goldie and Ash Regan - a pound shop Alex Salmond.
So, basically, the anti-trans views of Camp 1 would flow from a religious worldview, whereas those of Camp 2 would flow from a nationalist one(ie. "This is Scotland, we don't go for that sorta thing here")?
OR...
As far as Camp 2 goes, might it just be the case that they ARE jingoistic nationalists of the Orban-style, but it just happens that a few of them also hold anti-trans views, and one or two of them have become prominent in the leadership race, hence giving them a platform for those views(*)?
(*) This second explanation seems more in line with what others have argued on either this thread or the purgatorial one, ie. anti-trans positions aren't hardwired into the SNP, just that the internal dynamics of the leadership race have pushed those issues to the fore.
As far as Camp 2 goes, might it just be the case that they ARE jingoistic nationalists of the Orban-style, but it just happens that a few of them also hold anti-trans views, and one or two of them have become prominent in the leadership race, hence giving them a platform for those views(*)?
(*) This second explanation seems more in line with what others have argued on either this thread or the purgatorial one, ie. anti-trans positions aren't hardwired into the SNP, just that the internal dynamics of the leadership race have pushed those issues to the fore.
Yes it's incredibly weird. These latter people who mostly went to Alba but left a tiny rump in the SNP, are jingoistic nationalists - embarassing everyone by going on about stuff from the medieval wars of independence and having fantasies about modern UDI (Unilateral declaration of independence) but a couple of years back they picked on trans people rather than anyone else as the group they wanted to scapegoat in a populist way. ( You might expect right-leaning Scottish ethnonationalists to scapegoat English people but no!)
This co-incided with Alex Salmond - mumble mumble mumble - looks round for lawyers - being accused of various things against women of which he was acquitted. He wasn't a known supporter of anti-trans policies before this but one of his big supporters - and only big name female supporter - was extremely obsessed with it, framing her prejudice towards trans people as feminism. It then seemed like every dodgy man in Scottish nationalist politics ( and a handful of conservative women) 'discovered' that trans people were the enemy and decided they themselves were 'feminists' because they were vigilant against an imagined trans people menace to women, to the point where the phrase 'defender of women' has become a joke to me. As soon as anyone says they are 'defending women' or defending 'women's sex based rights' I look for how many creepy men and obvious dangers to women they hang out with and rarely have to look far!
Yes apologies for getting into the weeds of wider transphobia origins/common factions rather than SNP specific transphobia. The weird way some in the SNP have made it a nationalistic issue - in a very different way to say a 'God, guns, and (no) gays' kind of way that people familiar with US Republicans might expect - is quite difficult for non-Scots to understand. English nationalists who get into it are more like the US equivalent generally.
Yes it's incredibly weird. These latter people who mostly went to Alba but left a tiny rump in the SNP, are jingoistic nationalists - embarassing everyone by going on about stuff from the medieval wars of independence and having fantasies about modern UDI (Unilateral declaration of independence) but a couple of years back they picked on trans people rather than anyone else as the group they wanted to scapegoat in a populist way. ( You might expect right-leaning Scottish ethnonationalists to scapegoat English people but no!)
There used to be a subset of the anti-American nationalist left in Canada who'd go on about the violence inflicted upon the Loyalists after the Revolutionary War, and how "we" burned the White House in 1812(*), and so on and so forth.
They also had a nasty tendency toward social conservatism, claiming(prior to the rise of the US Religious Right) that things like gay-rights and abortion rights were an example of the nefarious influence of American individualism encroaching upon Canada(see George Grant's Lament For A Nation and English), and that Canadian feminists need to stop fighting with men, and unite to battle the USA.
They've mostly disappeared from polite discourse, since anglophiliac left-toryism doesn't really jive with newfound awareness of Canada's own role as a colonialist power, much of it rationalized in its day as a defense against American encroachment.
(*) Yes, claiming credit for actions of the British military, at a time when that military was still helping to suppress slave uprisings in the Caribbean.
Comments
I've never subscribed to the view that Scotland was much less racist or sexist than anywhere else in the UK (polling shows a little but not that much) - I've tended to put our better policies down a lot to most of our political leaders and parties holding the line on decent principled behaviour and rejecting winning votes by prejudice, and to our voting system meaning that if the two 'parties of government' both started to fail, you could more quickly replace one with something better because you could switch votes on the list without danger of 'the other lot getting in' so you could always punish at the polls a party that went bad on key values.
But I really fear now.
Nicola resigning has led to an atavistic eruption of stuff that we thought was left behind over 20 years ago. The nature of media coverage for the two socially conservative candidates means that it's shifting the Overton window making it seem socially acceptable for people to come out with Anti-LGBT stuff and old fashioned ethnic nationalist tropes again. It's giving that stuff oxygen and I think it's potentially setting us back years as a society.
Have you been able to reason with your friend at all?
Tbh it has popped up in places you wouldn't expect even in England (an anarcho-feminist bookstore in Liverpool of all places for eg) and I think it's been difficult to get across how vital no-platforming is to preventing the spread, partly just due to libel laws. Certainly the Scottish prisoners issue has done a lot of damage and Sturgeon herself misstepped there - introducing the idea that you can tell who is 'really trans' is always going to be harmful for all trans and gender nonconforming people even if it wasn't intended that way.
They're in both the SNP and Labour (and of course there are also the fully right wing not-even-pretending-to-be-feminist transphobes in the Conservatives and far right) but oddly they seem to have got nowhere so far with the Lib Dems and the Scottish Greens did a good job of stopping them in their tracks and disciplining them out.
Yes Nicola got that wrong - the fact is that the GRR has nothing to do with which prison anyone goes in (as was said on the other thread where that discussion lives) - that's done by risk assessment and Nicola should have said that instead of going down the route she did.
Thinking about the current race, surveying party members is very hard and the only poll of members so far was done by Savanta for the Daily Telegraph. I dont know if Savanta told people this - but I certainly wouldn't have answered if I'd known it was for the Telegraph, so I think we don't really know the entire extent of things yet.
But there's no doubt to me there's been some impact on some older left wing folk. Despite the figure heads it's mostly the men that I've seen it in at first hand - people who prided themselves on their CND, anti-apartheid, anti-Iraq war etc etc. credentials yet cant see through this. They also tend to be the sort who are poor on sexism despite thinking they're really great because they will excuse or defend or exalt creepy men because they are important to 'The Cause' while rubbishing progressive women who've done more or better than their heroes, and they will happily sacrifice any group that isn't white straight men or women who support white straight men and their privilege as a 'distraction' from 'The Cause'
Hell mend them - if anyone other than Humza wins this I will be off to the Scottish Greens.
If I were you, Louise, I'd send off for your Green Party Application Form ASAP, because neither Forbes nor Yousaf is likely to pursue a progressive identity agenda. They both come from conservative religious backgrounds, and while neither will reverse existing legislation my guess is that neither will press the UK government very far over the Gender Recognition Bill/Act because it is a divisive, if not unpopular, measure with the SNP and Scottish electorate in general.
@Louise interesting re the Scottish Lib Dems, I'm aware that (to their credit) the LDs in England have been consistently the most supportive party in terms of trans rights since Ed Davey became leader. I wasn't aware that it's seemingly a thing across the board, and I'm curious as to why. Are the LDs in Scotland as rural as they generally tend to be in England? Here they tend to be both rural and hyper-local, which explains perhaps why they might be not bothered about trans issues in terms of culture war stuff, but is an interesting aspect given how very supportive they are rather than just not hostile. It also doesn't seem to line up with where trans populations are high in England either except for maybe Oxford? Maybe there's a massive Lake District trans community I'm unaware of lol, but Brighton and Leeds are the big hubs outside of London.
In Calgary(named for some sorta Scottish place), Mayor Naheed Nenshi was an Ismaili Muslim, with absolutely zero taint(that I know of) to any type of social conservatism, being a Harvard-trained technocrat who regularly attended Pride and spoke out against racism quite openly.
Though I don't know how popular Nenshi was among Ismailis, much less Muslims generally. I'm guessing he did okay with the former, as in my limited interaction with that community I've found them generally liberal in outlook.
https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1632685846674526208
https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1632090901882208259
https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1631338443782475776
https://twitter.com/conor_matchett/status/1632399296313057285
If folk are going to discuss Scottish politics it might help to check fairly easily accessible sources where candidates put forward their views.
I honestly don't know and was pleasantly surprised because I didn't rate their current Scottish leader very much. But yes they have a rural and hyper-local vote here - the strongholds were Orkney and Shetland and St Andrews and there used to be mainland Highland areas where they had a traditional vote linked to land reform. If Orkney or Shetland ever vote other than Lib Dem - it's a sign of the apocalypse!
It doesn't particularly indicate anything, although it is interesting that South Asians who came to the UK via Africa are seemingly the most represented group amongst South Asians in UK politics. The UK Prime Minister and the two most recent Home Secretaries have, I believe, been from this background and the PM as a religious Hindu has been the most religious of all three as far as I'm aware.
As Louise has pointed out many times, Theresa May had no problem with the GRC reform bill and she is well-known for being a genuinely religious Anglican and clergy daughter. Given her political track record I would be very surprised if May was part of the liberal strand within the Church of England! It seems clear to me that there are assumptions being made about a Muslim politician that would never be made about a white Christian politician.
Or possibly, just possibly, he actually believes that the law shouldn't be imposing religious positions on people.
That, contrary to your apparent beliefs earlier in this thread, it is not only unpopular reactionary views that can be grounded in principle rather than political expediency.
Questions as to sincerity or not are very difficult to answer. I must confess I tend to regard any statement by an active politician with scepticism unless it is to their political disadvantage. The questions that come to my mind are "Why is he/she saying this?", "Why is he/she saying this now?" "To whom are these remarks being directed?" The specific question I was addressing was whether or not Yousaf was likely to press on with defending the gender recognition legislation for whatever reason. It seems pretty clear that the answer is "yes", whereas its also pretty clear his opponents take a contrary view; and that being the case my advice to Louise was mistaken. Louise was correct.
It's also disingenuous to act as if 'identity issues' are something invented by Yousaf and his allies here. Trans rights only became a big deal because transphobes decided to make it one! The GRC reform bill was a completely uncontroversial bill that the English Tories - led by a personally religious woman - were perfectly happy to pass before the religious right chose trans rights as their new moral panic.
Everyone remembers the suffragettes but few recall the women who fought against votes for women like Kitty Duchess of Atholl who having campaigned against women in politics then went on to became Scotland's first female MP as a Unionist (they didn't call themselves the Conservatives in Scotland till the 1960s if I recall correctly).
It's no accident that firsts like this often come from the right which can call its misogynist attack dogs off its own standard bearers when it suits and puff them instead. Before she stuffed everything up by saying the quiet part out loud Kate Forbes was getting remarkably positive coverage from all kinds of right wing media which normally oppose the SNP and which were typically venomous about progressive women.
A certain candidate has (and I have to look over my shoulder for the lawyers so apologies for not naming names) reached out to or been backed by at least four noted abusive male sexists who are a stain on Scottish politics yet wants people to think she's a feminist because of her anti-trans rights views. Progress for women and women's rights would be, in my opinion, as safe with this candidate and her pals in power as John Major's proverbial 'pet hamster in the presence of a hungry python'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n06/fraser-macdonald/in-time-of-schism
It's someone from a Free Church background writing about Kate Forbes, religion in poltics and the Free Kirk
I had known about historic racism in the Free Kirk that was challenged by Frederick Douglass but had no idea there was still a problem with prominent figures having made racist comments about Humza Yousaf
Wow. I didn't know about that aspect of Douglass' campaigns. Thanks for the info.
Yeah, I was familiar with the reactionary theology and the viciousness of attacks on the Kirk and its ministers but hadn't realised the extent to which that spilled over into being a poundshop Westborough Baptist Church in the public sphere.
Speaking of Reformed churches, I became a Christian in a conservative evangelical Anglican church opposed to women's ordination (along the lines of St Helen's Bishopsgate or All Souls Langham Place, but in Sussex) and it was very much the case that prominent anti-OoW women in the church were some of the most strenuously opposed to women's ordination, and very much occupied with reaping the social power and benefits that position gave them within those circles. I see Forbes as occupying the same kind of position, or at least she would have done more successfully if she hadn't said the quiet parts out loud. But then again, people on Mumsnet were praising Trump after he banned trans people from the US military so I think a lot of people invested in reactionary anti-feminist and anti-equality movements have just abandoned any kind of mask now.
Likewise the UK government has the least white cabinet its ever had, and one of the most outspokenly and most mask-off racist cabinets since at least the Civil Rights era.
I like to call it The Fiesty Grandma School Of Pseudo Feminism. "You think this is a patriarchal culture? Ha! You should see how headstrong and outspoken the women are when the family gets together."
I've heard it applied by apologists for both western and non-western societies. Closer to the Free Kirks, I think it was the Southern Baptists in the USA who passed a highly anti-feminist statement/policy some time in the 90s, with one of the members getting quoted in the press as saying that "Those men have some of the toughest wives you've ever seen."
It's like she wants to make "tartan tory" a fact rather than just a slur. No point to independence if people like her are in charge. Has anyone dared ask her for an opinion about sexual consent in marriage? Contraception?
What's her church's position on those?
Agreed. I think it's also interesting how conservative positions are normalised among people who are normally very much not of that political persuasion.
Like most if not all UK political parties, the SNP membership skews male and older - if you look at polling the big watershed for small 'c' conservative views is about 55 and this is an STV election where Ash Regan's second preferences can transfer to Forbes, so I have a really bad feeling about this.
As I said above, a male friend exactly on that watershed who I'd never seen social conservative stuff from before suddenly started defending it and backing Regan. He'd been reading some of the very online ultra nationalist sexists who backed her and seemingly being attracted by the hard-line nationalism, started finding reasons to play down or support the anti-trans positions they and she took.
Because of the way libel laws work here, he had no idea that his online heroes were known for bullying and creeping on women in the Yes movement and hadn't been paying the same attention to that that I do. (If he'd had more women in his social media feeds and paid attention to what they said he might not have missed that)
It's anecdata but it really worries me - a chunk of this selectorate could well be reconciled to regressive positions because two prominent SNP women are the face putting them forward, so they don't recognise the threat in the way they would if it was Ann Widdecombe or Suella Braverman. It's almost a kind of a political immune system failure.
And of course some of them will be intentional sexists or anti LGBT and just not care or be pleased with what they are saying.
The men I used to see on-line who were big TERF apologists weren't religious. They posited as feminists themselves, and at least one of them had deep roots in the anti-pornography movement, another tendency that started out in churches, got taken up by certain feminists, and then kinda made its way back into the churches, with conservative clergy then professing newfound concern about violence against women.
Another notable aspect of this particular guy's rhetoric was that he was an enthusiastic defender of Muslim headwear for women, which he explicitly defended as feminist, on the grounds that it deterred men from sexualizing women. I personally have no problem with women choosing to wear headscarves etc, but his analysis of it as being a positive force for equality seemed a little desperate.
I think there are probably situations where it's true, but not necessarily in all situations. I can imagine that in a workplace that has traditionally had male staff except for receptionists who are (coincidentally
Yeah, I knew what you were saying, and I was agreeing with you. Sorry if my wording didn't make a smooth segue into concurrence.
Yeah, the people I'm thinking of(who were associated with a prominent Canadian feminist site) were also campaigning against 50SOG. I won't get too far into critiquing their analysis(I do think think they were sincere feminists and thus prob'ly shouldn't be lambasted in Epiphanies), except to say that they seemed to be underestimating the extent to which the franchise's popularity was woman-driven.
(Personal bias: I am a dude, and had no interest in those books or films, only watching the latter because of limited access to English language media. Wouldn't care to watch any of them again.)
By the way, may I ask the full name of CARE?
Sure. In a situation like that, where the boss is exploiting women's bodies for commercial gain, wearing less-revealing clothing could be viewed as an act of resistance.
And it could go in the other direction as well. If a boss is ordering female staff to wear "modest" clothes because his conservative customers think women in short-skirts are untrustworthy, then wearing short-skirts could also be viewed as an act of resistance.
But I don't think the Muslims I've debated with, or for that matter their "male feminist" allies, would like the second argument.
CARE stands for Christian Action, Research & Education.
Many TERFs are sincere feminists, it doesn't make them less open to criticism. Anti-porn movements are strongly linked to anti-trans and conversion therapy movements - often the people offering 'porn addiction'* treatment are also the same people offering conversion therapy. It's not a coincidence that many of the same people behind current anti-trans campaigning also successfully campaigned for extremely restrictive laws on what (unsimulated) sex acts can be shown on film in the UK, which disproportionately penalises indie porn showing sex between non-cishet people and also does nothing to combat exploitation in the mainstream porn industry, which is mostly run by cishet men.
Trans women in particular are disproportionately involved in sex work and the adult entertainment industry due to often lacking in traditional employment opportunities, so often targeting porn is also targeting trans women anyway. You can also see it in the pearl-clutching over leather scenes amongst LGBTQ+ communities. 50 Shades is well worth criticising both in terms of quality and for misrepresenting BDSM best practice, but not because it's somehow pornographic.
*'Porn addiction' is overwhelmingly simply an evangelical opposition to all adult entertainment and is not actually recognised as being a real addiction by psychiatrists. This is distinct from sex addiction.
The earlier feminist anti-drag movement, such as it was, sorta constituted a thematic link between the left-wing antiporn movement and the left-wing anti-trans movement. There were alot of somewhat muted debates in the 1970s and 1980s about allegedly degrading portrayals in drag performances at gay bars, community events etc(*).
Thanks for the note on the British anti-porn-film crusade. For a similar Canadian story, but more focused on courts and books, see "R. v. Butler" and "Little Sisters Bookstore".
(*) And, yes, I realize that many drag performers are only "trans" in the sartorial sense, and usually only for the duration of a paid performance.
Also it was a Conservative government under I think Cameron who passed the movie laws, but I don't think a Labour government would have done anything different. The laws weren't debated in Parliament or anything.
Yeah, just to clarify, I meant that in the minds of the campaigners who went from being anti-drag to being anti-trans, the causes were probably linked. The "mutual queerness" is something that reactionaries would pick up on as well, and it would be amplified by the superficial similarities between being a drag performer and being a trans person.
As I said in my previous comments, the people responsible for whipping up anti-trans feeling in the name of feminism are also the same people behind anti-porn and anti-drag campaigns, complete with Evangelical backup.
Edited to add that viewing transness as a sexual fetish - particularly seeing trans women as simply men with a fetish - is fundamental to how this transphobia is formed and disseminated. That's why it's linked to things like porn, and why drag shows are being viewed as an extension of that.
I think @Kwesi meant how relevant is this to the Scottish National Party in particular. And I'd say it's pretty relevant, assuming that the anti-trans faction of that party is ideologically microcosmic of the overall anti-trans movement.
But, okay, the conversation should maybe not drift too far from the specific situation of the SNP. And I have no hard evidence that anti-trans SNPers are the same as anti-trans people generally, beyond an educated guess.
*which I'd describe as (1) traditional economic and social conservatives and (2) populist bigot Alba-style 'indy' fundamentalists (the kind of people who'd turn us into something like Poland or Hungary if they could get away with it). Kate Forbes is more like an old style pro-section 28 Tory like Annabelle Goldie and Ash Regan - a pound shop Alex Salmond.
So, basically, the anti-trans views of Camp 1 would flow from a religious worldview, whereas those of Camp 2 would flow from a nationalist one(ie. "This is Scotland, we don't go for that sorta thing here")?
OR...
As far as Camp 2 goes, might it just be the case that they ARE jingoistic nationalists of the Orban-style, but it just happens that a few of them also hold anti-trans views, and one or two of them have become prominent in the leadership race, hence giving them a platform for those views(*)?
(*) This second explanation seems more in line with what others have argued on either this thread or the purgatorial one, ie. anti-trans positions aren't hardwired into the SNP, just that the internal dynamics of the leadership race have pushed those issues to the fore.
Yes it's incredibly weird. These latter people who mostly went to Alba but left a tiny rump in the SNP, are jingoistic nationalists - embarassing everyone by going on about stuff from the medieval wars of independence and having fantasies about modern UDI (Unilateral declaration of independence) but a couple of years back they picked on trans people rather than anyone else as the group they wanted to scapegoat in a populist way. ( You might expect right-leaning Scottish ethnonationalists to scapegoat English people but no!)
This co-incided with Alex Salmond - mumble mumble mumble - looks round for lawyers - being accused of various things against women of which he was acquitted. He wasn't a known supporter of anti-trans policies before this but one of his big supporters - and only big name female supporter - was extremely obsessed with it, framing her prejudice towards trans people as feminism. It then seemed like every dodgy man in Scottish nationalist politics ( and a handful of conservative women) 'discovered' that trans people were the enemy and decided they themselves were 'feminists' because they were vigilant against an imagined trans people menace to women, to the point where the phrase 'defender of women' has become a joke to me. As soon as anyone says they are 'defending women' or defending 'women's sex based rights' I look for how many creepy men and obvious dangers to women they hang out with and rarely have to look far!
There used to be a subset of the anti-American nationalist left in Canada who'd go on about the violence inflicted upon the Loyalists after the Revolutionary War, and how "we" burned the White House in 1812(*), and so on and so forth.
They also had a nasty tendency toward social conservatism, claiming(prior to the rise of the US Religious Right) that things like gay-rights and abortion rights were an example of the nefarious influence of American individualism encroaching upon Canada(see George Grant's Lament For A Nation and English), and that Canadian feminists need to stop fighting with men, and unite to battle the USA.
They've mostly disappeared from polite discourse, since anglophiliac left-toryism doesn't really jive with newfound awareness of Canada's own role as a colonialist power, much of it rationalized in its day as a defense against American encroachment.
(*) Yes, claiming credit for actions of the British military, at a time when that military was still helping to suppress slave uprisings in the Caribbean.