Tolerating a stream
The student inquisitors had Kevin Price in their sights a month ago:
Cambridge University Liberal Association (CULA) released a statement last Sunday (27/09) condemning the “shocking and pervasive” transphobia among leading members of the Cambridge Labour Party, including prominent councillors.
“Liberal”! Ha!
The statement accuses the Cambridge Labour Party, who currently control Cambridge City Council, of “tolerating a stream of transphobia by leading members of its council group.”
CULA particularly highlights that the Labour Party have failed “to take action against former Cambridge Deputy Leader, Councillor Kevin Price, who has been regularly retweeting anti-trans content for at least six months.”
Except of course the content is not “anti-trans,” it’s pro-truth.
Price has retweeted accounts which call trans people “fetishists” and describe the phrase ‘transwomen are women’ as a “mindless cult statement.”
That’s because it is. Trans women are in fact men, men who say they “feel like” women or “identify as” women. That’s what the label “trans women” means. It is both mindless and cultish to insist that they are also women, literally women, women in fact as well as fantasy.
Similarly to Price’s endorsing of transphobic tweets, Labour councillor Carina O’Reilly in June tweeted the following: “‘Woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain.”
And? It’s the truth, after all. The word “woman” is not any of those things.
A CULA press release also outlined that Price has liked tweets promoting a crowdfunder created by former Cambridge Labour councillor, Ann Sinnott, “which seeks to challenge the right of trans women to access women’s spaces and services.” The crowdfunder, at the time of publication, has raised over £40,000.
And? Women need women-only spaces, and trans women should not try to force women to share those spaces.
CULA condemned “the failure of the Labour group to stand with the trans community”, commenting that “transphobia in Cambridge Labour appears to be rife – permeating every level of the group.”
CULA emphasised that “no action has been taken by the Labour group towards Price or O’Reilly, the former of whom, until recently, occupied a top leadership role before deciding to step down…CULA call on Cambridge Labour to suspend these councillors for their hateful statements which attack the safety of their constituents.”
Liberal! Ha!
It’s transphobic and evil not to sack the people they demand sacked.
What’s illiberal about that?
I think they’ve moved on from feelings and identity, and have gone straight to saying they “are” women. Simpler, and saves time.
They have, yes, but the feeling like/identifying as = the explanatory model. Mostly though we’re not supposed to need any explanatory model. How dare we.
I thought it was only God who could get away with saying ‘I am who I am’ without further explanation.
Maybe the trans people are adherents of The Gospel According to Gloria Gaynor*:
I am what I am
I am my own special creation
So come take a look
Give me the hook or the ovation
It’s my world that I want to have a little pride in
My world, and it’s not a place I have to hide in
Life’s not worth a damn till you can say
“I am what I am”
I am what I am
I don’t want praise, I don’t want pity
I bang my own drum
Some think it’s noise, I think it’s pretty
And so what if I love each sparkle and each bangle?
Why not try to see things from a different angle?
Your life is a sham till you can shout out
“I am what I am”
I am what I am
And what I am needs no excuses
I deal my own deck
Sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces
It’s one life and there’s no return and no deposit
One life so it’s time to open up your closet
Life’s not worth a damn till you can shout out
“I am what I am”
* they tend to hum the line in bold.