It's grimly fascinating to see people who would protest loudly if anyone dared victim-blame an assaulted woman for dressing the wrong way, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, effectively doing the same to the mainly older women who organised and attended the Auckland "Let Women Speak" rally.
It’s almost as riveting as someone feverishly likening those chaotic scenes to the ANZACs "keeping Nazism from our shores”. Or equating the righteousness of those advancing the ideology of gender identity to that of the anti-apartheid movement in New Zealand in the 1980s when protesters faced down both police and angry rugby fans in brutal battles which divided the country. (1)
The politicking of some of the loose groupings that make up the broad left in the Neo-liberal era, owes too much to virtual and real life cosplaying and on-line attitudinising. When such people declare that "Nazis must be opposed", which of course they must, what seems to escape some of them is that the sentiment is widely accepted, even among most of the moderate right.
It's so self evident and uncontroversial that most people are surprised when it is voiced so fervently and indiscriminately. Many people are even more surprised when they're told that a group of women from a wide range of socio-economic, personal, and political backgrounds who want to talk publicly about sex-based rights, are Nazis.
Some people's surprise tips into incredulity when they're told that the empirical proof of all these women being Nazis rests on their "leader" having been photographed with, and having accepted various forms of comparatively small scale tactical or financial support from people on the secular or religious far right.
Most recently, the image of twenty black clad crypto-fascists in Melbourne giving Nazi salutes at the Let Women Speak rally, has been cited as further proof that the organisers and attendees at the LWS rally are Nazis.
Like a swarm of wasps, the Melbourne crypto-fascists were attracted to the LWS rally possibly because the opponents of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker, had declared her to be a Nazi. Equally likely, given the crypto-fascists seem to hate her almost as much as the "paedo freaks" they claim to be opposing, is the possibility that the wasps were coat-tailing the rally to stage a recruitment photo opp, and the media and Victoria police duly obliged them.
We now all know that Posie Parker expresses very strong opinions in opposition to transgenderism, a political ideology that currently preoccupies the left of neo-liberalism almost to the exclusion (and to the detriment) of all the other massive issues confronting us here in New Zealand, and globally.
What people may not know or choose to ignore is that the moment she formed a group to oppose what she sees as a threat to women's sex-based rights, the label of TERF was slapped on her.
People may also not know or choose to ignore the fact that TERF was already equated with Nazi, and the angry toddler corollary had already been written that as it’s okay, even a moral obligation, to punch Nazis, it’s okay to punch TERFs like her and her supporters, even if they're older women or left wingers or lesbians.
After Melbourne, some people amused themselves by putting up Twitter polls asking, "is it OK to punch a Nazi?"
People who've probably never physically encountered a real Nazi, let alone punched one or faced down large numbers of them, all cried, "Yes".
Punching is all well and good when it's actual Nazis, but the optics change when the chief "Nazi" is a diminutive, middle aged mum of four, and her supporters are mainly middle aged and older women, and include lesbians and Māori and Pasifika women.
Even if she is a calculated far right winger (as opposed to an angry woman who had made some unwise political and tactical decisions) does that mean everyone drawn to her as a figurehead, is a literal Nazi?
How many credibility gaps does that sort of claim result in – gaps in which the real Nazis can hide?
Like the term feminazi, coined in the 1990s, the labelling of TERFs as Nazis serves to demonise the wide range of arguments and claims which counter those of transgenderism's primary platform of gender self-identification.
What trans advocates and allies fail to acknowledge is that this indiscriminate labelling has the side effect of diluting both the historical and the contemporary reality of Nazi ideology and its outcomes.
There is a huge risk in the rise of the far right globally, and here in NZ; we have seen the tragic outcomes of that in Christchurch, but is this sort of indiscriminate labelling of women as Nazis really the best way to counter that rise?
Labels not only serve to corral and to brand a person or a group, they often obscure hugely complex realities, reducing them to the political and intellectual equivalent of sound-bites.
In the politics of appearance, this reduction of complex issues to slogans and mantras is almost always accompanied by hyperbolic rhetoric, and catastrophising.
Trans rights activists and allies claim that Posie Parker is a Nazi who wants literally to exterminate all trans people who are the most marginalised, disadvantaged, vulnerable, at risk minority of all.
In reaction, the Parkerites now shout back about the "mass mutilation of children", the imminent erasure of all women's sex-based rights, and the risks to women and children of persons with a penis being allowed into women-only spaces.
The clamour of the arguments and the inflamed rhetoric now being generated from behind dense barriers of moral certitude, means there is insufficient space or quiet in the middle ground for the sort of nuanced debates this issue needs. Nor can it be put into the context of the mass of other pressing issues facing us.
A basic political principle for me is, in order to see the bottom line of who benefits from a given action or issue, we always have to look up. That is never more essential than in this issue.
The truth is that far from all trans people being a hugely marginalised and disadvantaged group, some, maybe even a lot of trans people are well buffered by advantages accruing from their birth sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status etc. Here in NZ, trans people have full legal equality and considerable social acceptance. There are very few acts of reported violence against trans people for being trans, and so safe is NZ, trans people apply for asylum here.
Furthermore, trans rights and the positioning of them on the zenith of the political-moral high ground, are supported by the entirety of the corporate world and most of mainstream media, and by all the main political parties. Pretty much all the country’s governmental and non governmental organisations and institutions are fully supportive, and transgender activists have made incredible headway since the 1990s, in quietly creating a pro-trans legal and social environment. (2)
In this context, and the absence of a body of empirical proof, the argument that the anti LWS protest was in support of the most marginalised, at risk of violence, hated, discriminated against minority of all time illustrates the sad fact that hyperbolic rhetoric, sloganeering, and catastrophising now dominate the discourse around this and related issues.I do not deny the fact that trans people could easily become the first target of a far right and social conservative backlash.
The trick for trans allies is supporting in ways that don't provide fuel for such a backlash. A start point would be to stop behaving like sanctimonious jerks.
* * * *
This was the backcloth to a large number of people, high on a heady mix of adrenaline and moral certitude, heading out protest the Let Women Speak rally – to figuratively "punch some Nazis".
Among the crowds were some who were prepared to take that literally, and one man, hyped up on that heady mix of moral certitude, adrenaline and testosterone, punched a 72-year-old woman in the face three times because she was wearing a tee shirt that identified her as an attendee at the rally.
She’s the same age as me. Those punches could have killed her or caused brain damage, or cervical spinal injury – and that is not hyperbolic or catastrophising, it is medical, anatomical fact.
That cowardly attack and other footage of women being driven out of a public space in a violent manner, by people claiming to be defending trans people from violence, is now firmly embedded in far right agit prop, ie it's given ammunition to the actual or wanna-be fascists.
Even though it's been sanitised post hoc by the same media outlets which actively raised the political temperature and helped to foment the rage, I suspect considerable damage in the electoral middle ground has also been done. (3)
In contrast to the LWS protest, a rally and march down Queen Street, of forces which pose arguably a greater threat to the rainbow community, resulted in just a brief scuffle. There was no throwing liquids over Bishop Tamaki and his wife; no rushing into the massed ranks of big, tough men to throw punches.
No, that behaviour was reserved for the soft targets in Albert Park.
Maybe the protesters’ amygdalas had switched off and the adrenaline rush had subsided by the time they confronted the Destiny Church rally but what are the odds the brave social justice warrior who punched a pensioner in the head wouldn’t have dared to as much as say boo to the Bishop?
What many people outside the social media bubbles of self-reinforcing beliefs, will take away from this, is that "antifa" and the "woke left" pick on soft targets, eg older women. What will your average, middle of the road Kiwi take from the weirdo who thought it was a good idea to express support for trans people by tweeting that she “gets off on seeing fear in the eyes” of a small, middle aged woman being mobbed by angry, mainly male protesters?
Those who let your political knees jerk so violently that your remaining sense is being knocked out of your heads, and who decry the likes of me as nazi adjacent, may I suggest you climb down off your moral high horse and turn it out to pasture – the poor beast needs a rest.
Talk to women outside your political bubbles, face to face. Look into the eyes of the ordinary concerned women, lesbians and socialist feminists, and if you still want to reject everything we say and call us fascists, then clearly the traditional left in NZ has died of pernicious political anaemia, and with it, all hope of mass resistance to the real enemy.
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