What kind of big tent?
Nick Robinson interviews Iain Anderson on Political Thinking, under the subtitle
How will the new chair of Stonewall approach the heated debate around gender politics?
We know the answer of course. With the complete indifference to the concerns of women that Stonewall has been demonstrating all along.
They start by talking about Stonewall, and Anderson cites “the LGBTQ+ community” – so right at the beginning we know we’re not going to get clarity, because there is no such community and there can’t be such a community, because they are at cross-purposes. The T is not the same as the LGB and they don’t belong together because the T is destructive of human rights, especially women’s rights, while the LGB is not.
Nick Robinson does at least mention the issue, which makes a nice change. At 3:47 he says “What’s fascinating about that is the suggestion that there is an LGBTQ+ community, there are people who dispute that, who were founders of Stonewall for example, and the suggestion that this is a repeat of what happened” – but then he says let’s come back to that, and changes direction. He points out that Anderson sat with Laura Kuensberg on the Beeb and said he wanted a conversation, he wanted a big tent, “and a day later you seemed to pack up your tent and say you didn’t want a conversation with anybody who disagreed with you, why did you change your mind?”
Not quite true, he says. “I’m interested in a conversation with anybody that wants to help support and lift up LGBTQ+ people.” So there we are again, as always, back at the same stupid dead end. If you “lift up” T people you drop LG people and women.
Anderson burbles about people “hitting Twitter” instead of sitting down to have a real conversation, and Robinson calls his bluff and asks “Would you meet with JK Rowling, would you meet with organizations like Women’s Place, would you meet with people who think they’re standing up for women’s rights, or are they not part of the quotes ‘real conversation’?” Robinson comes back with “people who want to lift up LGBTQ+ people” – so round and round we go forever, would you meet with feminist women, would meet with people who want to liftuplgbitq+people repeat infinity. If you look at the polling, Anderson says unctuously, most people, the vast majority of people, want to see LGBTQ+ people lifted up. FINE, but that’s NOT THE ISSUE.
That’s chapter one.
TBF, the way Republicans want to legalize conversion therapy (and perhaps other issues) , they may generate a sense of LGBTQ+ community.,
What’s with all the “lifting up?” Have the T fallen down and can’t get up? Or do they want to be venerated above all others? Centering is no longer enough; they require elevation.. Their “sacred” status means they are supposed to be above it all. They aspire to Empyrean heights, but can’t be bothered to climb. They want to be carried like royalty on a sedan chair, with everyone else vying for the honour of bearing them on their shoulders.
No thanks.
It’s a rhetorical dodge. It’s some words that he can retreat to and hide behind when someone asks him a question that he doesn’t want to answer.
It sounds good, but means nothing, and that’s a feature, not a bug. Because the words mean nothing, there is no way to analyze his statement or argue against it.
He wants to meet with people that already agree with him. So, no, but evasively stated. They’re always so coy when they are actually given a direct question from a fairly neutral person, because they know that their position is not popular unless it is masked.