Ooh they can walk

Apparently “queer” people have been denied access to the outdoors?

I’ll be darned. I could have sworn it was just for cis, straight, middle class “folk.” (What are “middle class folk” anyway? Is that similar to middle class peasants and middle class working stiffs?)

PN explains:

Ailish had personal reasons for setting up Queer Out Here. They grew up in the Yorkshire countryside where a love for the outdoors was practically mandatory. After university, and a period in which they stopped exploring the outdoors, Ailish “rediscovered it and found how beneficial it was for my mental health and wellbeing”.

But they were also keen to challenge what they see as a lack of equality around access to the outdoors.

A lack of equality around access to the outdoors…like, the doors are all locked from the outside? That can’t be right, we would have heard. Are there checkpoints between us and the outdoors at which “queer” people are told to turn around and go back? If there are why have I never seen them, let alone been asked to show my papers?

“I think a lot of people do feel that the outdoors is only for certain types of people,” Ailish says. “People think it’s for middle class, white, heteronormative families, or there’s there’s the really outdoorsy people who’ve got all of the gear, which can be really expensive.”

Nope, sorry, I don’t believe a word of that. Nobody thinks the outdoors is reserved for “heteronormative” families. Some people probably think it is reserved for people who like to go outside and get moving, but the word for that is “laziness,” not a lack of equality around access to the outdoors.

There’s also a “macho” side to the outdoors – plenty of people take on extreme challenges. The idea alone can be alienating for queer people.

Nope, I don’t believe that either. Yes, some people climb mountains, but what does that have to do with other people going for walks? Nothing. Not one thing. The fact that some people like to climb mountains can’t possibly be “alienating for queer people.” That’s a stupid, whiny, self-indulgent claim. It’s a dire symptom of Pink News’s need to fill its pages.

Among those who might not find that atmosphere particularly welcoming are trans and non-binary people. Ailish was thinking specifically about the trans and non-binary community when they set up Queer Out Here.

Why? Why would trans and non-binary people not find that “atmosphere” welcoming? What “atmosphere”? There is no “atmosphere,” there’s only a claim that the idea that some people take on challenges is “alienating.” Well it’s not. That’s a bogus claim.

This is how it all works, isn’t it – start with a childishly absurd unsupported claim and then weave a giant superstructure on top of it, and a wall of abuse and bullying all around it. Progress!

“We do have loads of trans and non-binary people that come on our walks, and that feels so powerful and empowering when we’re all walking together in a big group in the Peak District and in these rural areas where we don’t see groups of people that look like us all the time. There’s something that feels quite political and powerful about that.”

Except that’s not true, is it. The groups of people do look like all these loads of trans and non-binary people. The photos with the story make that very obvious – they all look like people out for a walk on a chilly day. They don’t have a special glow, or extra limbs, or rainbow bubble-wrap over their heads.

It gives too much away, this story. It reveals the pathetic truth that much of this nonsense is about young people who want to be Special, and are too dim or feeble to become Special by actually doing something. “Look at me, I went for a walk while Queer!!”

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