Speaking of bereft of standards
Define the rights you’re talking about, OJ.
If this piece were a proper piece of journalism – the counter-factual subjunctive exists for a reason. (Of course, the piece is a proper piece of journalism, but OJ is claiming it isn’t, but doing it badly, because he doesn’t write well.)
But the substantive point here is that the LGB Alliance is not “anti-trans rights” and that OJ is smuggling the claim in by not spelling out what trans rights are. Nobody wants to take human rights away from trans people. What new rights, specific to trans people, does Owen Jones think there are? On what grounds does he think they are rights? Has he given any thought to questions about the effects of such rights on other people’s rights? Especially women’s rights? All that matters, but OJ never discusses it.
At least he didn’t use the present tense. That’s what you get in sports “journalism” all the time. The day after a game, you’ll read things like, “If he makes that catch, it’s a first down and a whole different ballgame.”
Because they refuse to explain what ‘trans’ rights actually are, their claims about them can run the gamut from ‘rights aren’t pie, trans rights don’t remove women’s rights’ to ‘women aren’t allowed to talk about their rights, because that’s against trans rights’ without a single one of them batting an eyelid at the contradiction. Or at any other of the myriad contradictions.
Nullius, ugh, yes, the overuse of present-tense narration. I can take it in small doses, and probably use it myself, but when it just replaces the past tense altogether I start throwing things. Dave Davies on Fresh Air does it, and infects the people he’s interviewing with it, and I just can’t listen to him any more.
tigger – yes EXACTLY.
On International Tense Day, we can be schooled on how to properly use people’s
preferredmandatory personalized tenses.Trans Rights are supposed to include “the right to be recognized and treated like your true sex.” It presumes that what sex you are is more a matter of internal mental certainty than biology.
And it implies that there’s a long, pre-existing history of cultures refusing to recognize what sex people were in order to oppress them.
Which is ironic, since female oppression comes from the fact that male authorities never, ever thought that recognizing women as women made them their equals.
Giving “Trans Rights” increasingly seems to mean “Catering to their every whim. Speech policing. Doxxing and destroying the careers and lives of those who are not fervid believers” Can we finally acknowledge that yes, we may be AGAINST TRANS RIGHTS for the currently popular definition of such rights?
I’m kind of in that space, Brian. It seems to me that people who want to criticize the tactics of transactivists spend more time in disclaimer that they are “not transphobic, but… ”
To transactivists, this will not shield anyone. It can be turned against them because it sounds like “I’m not a racist, but,” or else they will ignore it. I think it’s important to make the point without trying to deflect the impact of what you are about to write, or to soften it. I’ve gotten past the point where I care if anyone says I’m transphobic, since they don’t acknowledge their misogyny nor homophobia in placing primary concern of trans identifiers over all else.
TiMs and TiFs shouldn’t be denied access to rental or housing, or dinner, or wedding cakes, etc. But we shouldn’t have to say that in order to make the point that women have the right to privacy and safety in places designated originally for that purpose. Men don’t have the right as TiMs to demand attention on lesbian dating sights, or to be able to shut down lesbian bars for not accommodating them. But, I shouldn’t have to state the “civil rights” thing first, because then it seems to 3rd parties that your making the same “special rights” arguments that conservatives make against gay marriage.