#btw i swear to god if someone assumes i'm saying homophobia no longer exists- no!

[wild-at-mind]

As of time of writing, Rishi Sunak is still refusing to apologise for the jibe at trans women in PMQ. (Apologise specifically to Brianna Ghey's parents, her mother at least being definetly present at the time.) What will the fallout for this be? This is only days after normally transphobic tabloids splashed the mugshots of Brianna's killers all over their front page with headlines like 'PURE EVIL'. It seemed the spectacle of 16 year old murderers overrode the fact that they normally don't care about trans people. Rishi's remark streamrolled one of the most important optics rules on most parts of the political spectrum- don't say things that upset the grieving family. On the other hand, Sunak was making a jibe that revealed the fact that most people currently in UK politics seem convinced that if they say 'trans women are women' it will not only prove catastrophic for their chance of being elected, it will also cause mobs of people to thrust stats at them supposedly proving that cis women will be in mortal danger. And that may happen! The statistical evidence isn't there at all, though, so I believe it would come to nothing if he rode it out. Anyway, it's the right thing to do. I believe that after a certain point, continually insisting trans women are not women makes you look deranged. I have a trans woman friend who told me she once asked a transphobic/gender critical aquaintance of ours during calm conversation 'how do you see me? What am I, if not a woman?' The aquaintance said 'you're a man dressed up.' Now, these gender critical people claim to be super duper pro GNC cis men (they aren't, because they are worried the GNC cis men might start IDing as trans, and they hate men anyway especially weird queer ones, so it's a non-starter.) But this person was essentially telling my friend 'you aren't what you have clearly demonstrated yourself to be'. It's often said that 'trans women are women' is an opinion, but in my eyes saying that trans women are not women is an opinion. This aquaintance was saying what she had been indocterinated to believe by her TERF online circles, and I don't think she's reachable (my friend is no longer trying, it was a one off conversation as far as I can tell). I've said this before but I maintain that politicians should stop dignifying the question of 'what is a woman? Define what a woman is!' because it's a question that is never asked in good faith. It's a gotcha, and you don't need to answer it and fall into whatever trap they are setting. You just need to put forth policies that support both cis women and trans women- showing support with your deeds and words. And Starmer should have a fucking backbone- Sunak isn't wrong there. If anything what Sunak did was very revealing because it shows he's used to being surrounded only by people who guffaw at the very idea that 'trans women are women' is something true in both theory and practice. Meanwhile trans people are becoming more visible and I truly believe within 20 years, both Sunak and Starmer will look like dinosaurs in much the same way as the homophobic politicians of yore were following a public zeitgeist that was quickly becoming outdated. It's a shame we never seem to learn from the past.

#uk politics #rishi sunak #keir starmer #transmisogyny #btw i don't know the stats on how many trans women there are in the country but 0.1 % seems on the low side #although technically it doesn't count the ones who have had bottom surgery i guess..??? #they don't like those trans women obvs but they know the scary power of the penis as a rhetorical device #btw i swear to god if someone assumes i'm saying homophobia no longer exists- no! #i'm saying the way it is publically acceptable in the political sphere (and all social spheres) to talk about gay people has changed a lot #it is no longer acceptable to express from a position of power that it is not good (or at least neutral) to be gay. #that is why homophobic evangelicals feel themselves super oppressed and marginilised- one of the many reasons #also note that cis gay people are being used as a chess piece in the trans kids argument- these poor kids are just gay! #gay is ok now as long as the foundations of gender can stay the same #they are still homophobic but it's just different. That's all i mean.