A Plague On Both Houses

 A recent conference here in NZ brought the gender critical feminist (GCF) vs trans rights activists (TRA) stuff back to the forefront of my political consciousness. I’d been a tad distracted by such minor issues as Israel's war on Palestine, the implications of the clearest statement yet of a China-Russia axis in opposition to the US, possible global war and definite global warming, species extinctions, mass pollution, etc etc.

Yes, I know, how dare I expand my political focus to include such things?

Also in the NZ news today, a Palestinian family want to bring four orphaned Gazan children here.  Most of the replies under the story were ... well, suffice it say, the wanton, ugly selfishness of some people never fails to amaze. I think I’ve seen the worst and then the fuckers outdo themselves. 

On X-marks-the-plot a young person who has bought into the gender identity orthodoxy posted a rather silly comment and was piled on by anti-trans accounts with a ferocity and illiberality that matches anything TRAs and allies dished out to GCFs before the political tide started to turn.

And that was on top of the depressing sight of people who claim to be feminists or allies – but whose narrow focus means they never were or are no longer feminist in any politically or critically meaningful sense of the word – lining up to try to give a feminist they disagree with on that one issue, a virtual kicking.

It’s even more depressing because it’s about an alliance with, and in defence of a right wing fundamentalist Christian man who is opposed to pretty much everything feminists ought to stand for. Even on the single issue of gender identity, his start point and what he wants to achieve are radically different from a feminist start point or what any feminist should want to achieve. 

I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything more foolish, this week anyway, than a lesbian defending a patriarchal-family promoting, right wing Christian as being a solid ally to women because he’s nice to her, and they’re in agreement on this one issue – an issue which is so vital we have to put all manner of wider rights at risk by entering into such alliances.

If the religious and secular right wing do gain enough political traction to roll back all those formal rights ... most of which Neo-lib compliant governments doled out as a distraction from their dismantling of working class collectives and hard won rights .. well, she says blithely, we’ll deal with that if it happens.

I want to grab her by the scruff and say, who do you think will be left to deal with it? Exactly how are you going to build a coalition of feminists and allies to defend the rights that you just put in jeopardy because you decided this single issue was so all-important that you allied with the enemies of women’s and gay rights?

Increasingly I can’t stomach those on BOTH extremes of the gender identity divide who :

1. engage in or foment abusive and often ad hominem pile-ons against anyone who disagrees with them; (especially vile are those who do so from behind a veil of anonymity);

2. worry about the ill-effects of puberty blockers on the tiny minority of kids who go on them but who are silent on all other forms of paediatric iatrogenic harm, not to mention the impact on kids of exposure to environmental pollutants etc;

3. obsess about the dangers posed to kids from sexual predators (real and imagined) but have nothing to say about the multiplicity of fatal harms done to millions of small children annually as a direct result of economic exploitation;

4. focus on trans athletes in women’s sports but have never been involved in sport or expressed an opinion about the impact of rampant commercialism on sport generally, or the grossly disproportionate status, funding and remuneration in women’s sport;

5. fret about “trans women “ / “trans identifying males” having access to women-only public facilities but are silent on or even collude with the rise of a religious-secular right that could push women back into the domestic sphere;

6. shout about “trans women “ / “trans identifying males” being incarcerated in women’s prisons but have nothing to say about NZ’s appalling incarceration rate which is second in the OECD to the USA, and which disproportionately impacts Māori & working class people and most especially Māori women. Those who also align with, or who ineffectively oppose political parties with policies that will increase those rates, get bonus points for hypocrisy and opportunism.

If you listen to the “White Left” it’s all the fault of the evil TERFs, that coven of convenient witches who can be dragged to the virtual stake for a now ritual immolation.

If you listen to the “Coalition of the Anti-Woke” or the “Once Were Feminists” brigade, and it’s all the fault of TRAs and the Woke who need to be dragged to the virtual stake for the ritual immolation.

The truth lies somewhere in between these two increasingly noisome extremes and it is the duty of all people of common sense and good judgement to join me in saying, "A plague on both your poxy houses".