Go, and sin no more
Another shunning achieved! Break out the parsnip champagne!
The University of British Columbia is barred from marching in the Vancouver Pride Parade after allowing a controversial figure to speak on campus earlier this summer.
Andrea Arnot, executive director of the Vancouver Pride Society, says all entries to the parade have to meet specific requirements — judged on a point system— to be allowed to participate.
“We reject applications every year,” Arnot said.
Any guesses on what the “controversial” refers to?
UBC fell below the required number of points by allowing Jenn Smith, who has been labelled by critics as transphobic, to host an event on campus in June that criticizes B.C.’s sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum (SOGI).
Someone criticized a curriculum. The horror.
Vancouver Pride issued a statement.
Representatives from VPS and UBC Administration met on July 3, 2019 to discuss the June 23 event and UBCs plans to move forward. UBC began by letting us know they were concerned about the potential impact on students and faculty who may be denied the opportunity to partake in Pride.
We have encouraged UBC to revise the policy after consultation both with LGBTQAI2S+ communities on campus and a professional agency. We have also suggested that UBC make a statement which takes responsibility for any harm done to the campus community and outlines a way forward.
We are hopeful that UBC will create changes in policy and practice to support their entire campus community. Until then, UBC will not be able to participate as an institution at our events. We welcome LGBTQAI2S+ UBC students and faculty to our events.
We are making this decision transparent to hold UBC accountable.
They do love their little bit of power, don’t they.
LGBTQAI2S+? I guess the + is so they don’t have to hyphenate it?
Maybe they should change it to T+. Or maybe “gender ideology accepting”, since that seems to be the key criterion.
I totally get that not everyone comes from the same background as me or has the same personalities, experiences, or temperaments. But how do so many people find it so appealing to proclaim their own fragility? When did strength stop being appealing? When did “I can’t handle this!” start to sound so exciting?
At some point, no one will be attending Pride events. Many of them are observably in decline.
Anyone using anything beyond LGBT is impossible to take seriously, and adding the T is a stretch (I blame TCBY; the four letters just look right)
And who holds VPS accountable for attempting to dictate academic curricula?
Sackbut
I think + is for everyone else (except heterosexual people) that they may not have hit with the previous letters. But since the previous letter have already hit every sexuality combination (lesbian/gay, bi- and a-sexual), and already includes a catch-all category (queer), the people left over are basically a bunch of
hipster nitwitsprecious and unique vulnerable identities afraid of being invisibilised. For those people, the previous letters are just, like, so mainstream.And so wokeism leads to increasing granularity, categorising people with increasingly fine boundaries, gradually atomising itself.
re: identities
I’ve always liked the Quiltbag umbrella term. It allows for the ever-expanding fractal identities, and the term carries the concept of many different individual things potentially coming together to make something that is a whole in itself, but the individual components can still be seen. That strikes me as a healthy metaphor.
Labels… *sigh*. This is a conversation I have had many times with my 22 year old daughter, who is rather more woke than me. Labels are important, especially to young people who feel lost and excluded because there is no one else like them in their culture and/or peer group. To that young person, finding that there is an actual name for what they are is a huge validation – and young, unhappy, confused, isolated people do need that validation.
The problem is, as always, reification. The label is usually an artificial term, placing boundaries round something that is really a point on a continuum. Unfortunately, people are strongly prone to believing that those boundaries represent something real and objective. When that happens, the label becomes a trap. No longer just “This describes what I feel, and I share this feeling with these people,” but more “This is what I am, and because of that, I know I cannot be that other thing as well, because that lies outside the boundaries of the thing that describes me.”
Of course, this applies to identities that are rooted outside the physical – ace (arguably), aro, demi etc.
re: the adoption of fragility
I don’t get this either. I’m 50, and for most of my life strength has been something to aim for. I grew up as a member of he English working class, which in itself is a strong non-physical identity (USAians may not experience this, but take it from me, in England class is a major part of your identity). I grew up in a female culture where women considered themselves superior to men in all senses but the physical. The joke was: Q. What do you call a woman who wants to be equal to a man? A. Unambitious. Men were frequently regarded as immature boys (which, of course, meant that many of them were happy to play that role). Women were the ones who held the family together, who took on all the responsibilities of feeding and clothing everyone, of stretching the “housekeeping” to do it, despite many of them working part or full time themselves. The very idea that you might need some sort of validation for who you were would have been considered ridiculous. You looked after your own, and if you wanted something you damned well got off your arse and worked out how to get it. You developed a thick skin, especially towards male attitudes because, growing up, you were cat called and/or harrased on an almost daily basis from about 11 years onward. Now, that is certainly not how it should be (and it does seem to be a little better now, looking at my daughter’s experience), but the idea that you might be deeply hurt by a name (or pronoun) that somebody called you? Your Mother, Grandmothers, Aunts and friends would tell you to bloody well get up and stop making a fuss. One if the most insulting things you could say about a woman was that she was “precious” – dainty, ladylike, feeble. Proper women were tough. They’d have had no time whatsoever, for some man (and they would certainly see a trans woman as a man) poncing about in women’s clothes and talking about feminine essence. Feminine was not a large part of their lives or self image.
Or because they manage to convince themselves that there is no one else like them – the need to be a snowflake these days is strong, but the need to be an ‘outsider’ has always been strong in youth.
As for the class thing. In America, we do not have officially defined classes, but the class experience is similar, just more…unofficial. I grew up poor in a rich town, and believe me, the upper class will not let you forget your class inferiority. I suspect even the middle class received that…and everyone wanted to be middle class at that time. It was the ideal. You weren’t snobby elitists, but you also weren’t working class. You had proved yourself as a capable person worthy of living in the suburbs with two children, a dog, a cat, and a nice fenced yard.
Now, suggest anyone is middle class, and they get all huffy. My friends (almost all academics) will proudly announce that they come from WORKING CLASS STOCK (even though almost none of them did). The idea of being middle class is horrifying in a world where intellect and education are seen as suspect and bad. The middle class is now the “elitists” by our current vernacular, so definitely not the place to be. Elitist is no longer the status of the inherited wealthy; they look down on those of us who are middle class (especially academics) as elitists, and they’ve convinced everyone else to do the same, which is how millionaires and billionaires keep getting elected on a populist platform. They put on a yokel act (like Dubya) or just shout a lot (like Trump) and insult all the “eggheads”, and the label has stuck.
As for the +, I guess that covers those who’s gender is pizza.
Don’t ever refer to me as a QUILTBAG. I don’t know many people who like that. Those who do tend to be authoritarian “queers” of the kind we actual gay people don’t like. Word to the wise.
This shit is offensive and infantilizing and wrong.
But I will accept “gender pizza”, thank you.
QUEERBAG?
SQUEEBAG?
SQUEEZEBAG?
BAGOHAMBERDERS?
I love Steamshovelmama’s comment (except for the Quiltbag part–sorry, ‘mama.) Do we get to nominate guest posts?
Let’s see…I’ll have the nonbinary special, with ace and aro–and extra queer.
To go, please. Does that come with transmasc breadsticks?
Ben wrote
The behavior works and gets positively reinforced, so it continues.
If one is fragile, then that fragility must be overcome in order to succeed. If one does succeed, then one deserves extra praise. However, if one fails, then one is absolved of responsibility and also deserves praise for the attempt. God gets credit for the good; Satan, for the bad.
Additionally, declaring oneself or one’s group as fragile is a power acquisition device. Being fragile (or oppressed, marginalized, etc.) entails moral obligation on the part of everyone who is less fragile (or oppressed, marginalized, etc.) to provide unconditional aid, belief, and submission. So if one can make others see one as fragile (etc.) then one gains real social power over others—the majority of others, in fact.
Heh, sure, you get to nominate guest posts.
[…] a comment by Steamshovelmama on Go, and sin no […]
I am always suspicious of one who declares their fragility. I actually am quite fragile, and most people are not aware of it, because I stride through the world pretending to be a force to be reckoned with. As a result, people are less likely to mess with me. If I looked as fragile as I am, it would make me much more vulnerable, so I put on an act – armor, if you will – and it exhausts me. But I choose not to look fragile.
As a result, people are often shocked out of their wits when I have a meltdown (as happened a couple weeks ago when a dramaturg decided to cross out more than 1/4 of a play I wrote). Because I do not wear my fragility, I tuck it as far inside as it will go.
These people who proclaim their fragility are using it as a club to beat other people around the head with, and I don’t actually believe they are fragile. I think they are hitching their wagons to a woke star that doesn’t want to hurt anybody, and believes that all members of a minority are inherently fragile. So they play the fragile card to trump everyone else.
With apologies to Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke:
‘Coswe’retranswe’refragilelipstick-wearingmeninhoses.
Transphobes think the sight of us is simply quite atrocious.
We demand you shut up, we like getting up your noses,
Coswe’retranswe’refragilelipstick-wearingmeninhoses.
@AoS
Best thing I’ve read today. Gave me quite a chuckle, it did.
Not just “someone”: a man who is transgender, dresses and styles himself as a woman and uses a feminine name, yet asks that others refer to him as “him” and “he”, and not only does not outright identify as a “woman” but objects when others to refer to him as such.
Jenn is “transphobic” because no true Scotsman shutup that’s why.
Now I am aware of your dislike for the term, I will endeavour to remember not to. Although I’ve never heard an individual referred as “a quiltbag”. I know it as a group modifier – “quiltbag communities” kind of thing.
Which is interesting – I suspect there may be a regional/national difference here, because the “actual gay people” I personally know are fine with it. In fact, it was a friend who is a gay man in his fifties who first introduced it to me. I checked with my daughter who is far more involved with local lesbian and bi social groups, and the major LGBTWhatever client group she’s in contact with via her working for the NHS Umbrella sexual health services. She says she’s not aware of a dislike of the term, though she asked around and her generation (early twenties) seem to feel that the term itself is fine, but perhaps more common amongst people about ten years older than her – so early thirties. (This is the English Midlands.)
May I ask why you feel that way about it? I understand it’s not a term you and your peer group like, but I’d like to understand why you consider it in that light, if you’d be prepared to explain. As I said, round my neck of the woods (and according to Mags, on her corner of Tumblr) it doesn’t seem to be thought of in that way. I mean, chacun a son gout etc, but I would be genuinely interested in why you and your social grouping find it offensive? Obviously if you’d rather not discuss it, no worries. (serious question, not JAQing off)