Tagged: FUCK

Fuck off, Bob Jones: and advertisers? Be warned

Bob Jones has produced another disgusting “opinion piece”, and the New Zealand Herald has once again been disgusting enough to publish it.

I completely understand that a lot of people don’t have the spoons for taking on yet another awful triggery misogynist piece of shit produced by an awful misogynist piece of shit.  On this occasion, I do.  Hence this post.

The URL of the article is: http:// http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11143714

A precis of the article for those who do not wish to feed the Herald’s amoral clickbait campaign:

  • This one time, Bob Jones was in Viet Nam, and he noticed that women can’t drive
  • Then he badgered Hutt City Council to not install traffic lights all over the place
  • Now there are roundabouts and women can’t use them and even women he knows agree with him
  • Anyway, he once bought a totally awesome penis substitute car and he drove totally awesomely but bitches complained ’cause they ain’t shit
  • So he laughed at the Police letter he received and told them (CONTENT NOTE: and here’s where I quote the awful violent bit)

I replied, first pointing out that passing is not illegal and adding that while normally I don’t condone police violence, this was an exception and they would be doing God’s work by going to the complainants’ homes, beating the crap out of them and burning their houses down.

  • Then he interpreted the automatic form letter he received in response as agreement.
  • Finally, he makes a hilarious joke about how Saudi Arabia shouldn’t let women drive because lol, bitches can’t drive.

Dovil has also provided a write-up, fed through a What Bob’s Really Thinking translator. Di W has challenged Bob to a parallel park-off.  Rachel Rayner has a nice little template for you to complain to the editor – before you complain to the Press Council.

And I’ve been tweeting companies whose ads appear on the article.  These include:

  • ASB Bank – no response
  • Jetstar – no response
  • iHeartRadio – who, to their credit, acknowledged the tweet, but stated they can’t control where their ads end up.  I say: demand a better contract.
  • Accor Hotels – no response
  • Nissan – no response – but so ironic
  • RealMe – the new government login service.  I can’t tell if this account is genuine so tweeted NZ Post instead.

Companies which don’t have Twitter accounts I can easily locate are:

  • Sovereign Insurance
  • State Insurance

… which is a pity, because I’d love to know if either of them would cover my house in the circumstances of the Police burning it down to punish me for driving too cautiously to suit Sir Bob.

The problem, once again, is less Bob Jones being a hateful piece of shit, and more that The Herald will obviously continue to publish schlock to match their page size as long as it generates pageviews and sells advertising.

I don’t expect this story to be the final nail in the coffin.  I don’t expect to change the world overnight.  But I know that pressuring advertisers can get results (admittedly, with a well-run social media campaign and a few tens-of-thousands of activists).  So I’m going to do what I can.

ETA

The hashtag is #boycottbobjones, and more advertisers are being tweeted:

I henceforth dub myself Lady Taboo

So, before we get into the meat of this story, here’s apparently what it takes to get a paid gig in the Herald:

  1. Quote the New York Times
  2. Quote the Huffington Post responding to the New York Times
  3. Make some Shelley Bridgeman-esque comments which show you don’t understand the concepts being discussed
  4. Quote Jezebel responding to the New York Times
  5. Name-drop Charlie Brooker and Caitlin Moran to establish cool cred

Really?  At least John Armstrong has to look like he’s working.

But the matter at hand is of course the overblown, overplayed, overhyped issue of Ladies Swearing.  We have to say “ladies”, not “women”, because it emphasises the terrible naughtiness of the bad words.

And that’s only the start of the bingo.  One quote says “I may get my bra-burning card revoked for this”, which is secret code for “look at me, boys, I’m not one of those feminists” but actually, to anyone who knows basic feminist history, just makes you look like a snivelling tryhard.  Author Rebecca Kamm nails #3 with this musing:

First of all, isn’t swearing odd? We open our gobs and emit an ultimately arbitrary sound – it should be harmless. Yet what comes out can feel like a slap in the face, splashing dark paint over all the other innocent words.

Shit!  The sounds we make with our mouths have meaning assigned to them by others?  Meanings which are actually arbitrary?  This is amazing!  I’m going to call this brand-new concept speech.

But that’s okay, it just proves Rebecca is totally above all that societal stuff, which is why she’s qualified to tell us that actually swearing is gross, but real feminists understand that it’s gross no matter who is doing it.

UNLESS THEY’RE A COOL, CLEVER PERSON LIKE CHARLIE BROOKER OR CAITLIN MORAN OF COURSE.

I mean, I’m not even going there with Caitlin Moran, and will instead refer you to this most excellent parody Twitter account.

But that last little bit there?  Pretty much sums up my fucking problem with hand-wringing pearl-clutching discussions of swearing.

It’s classist.  It assumes that swearing is something low, dirty, uneducated people do because they don’t know how to express themselves like Proper Gentlefolk.  (See also:  similar “all I’m saying is I don’t like it” criticisms of non-standard forms of English.  Especially those used predominantly by people of colour.)

Oh, but if you’re a clever person, if you’re somebody which has been handed a Cool Edgy Clever Celebrity licence, then saying fuck is totally edgy and radical and thought-provoking and it makes you kind of sexy and dangerous.  Because people already know that you’re not a dirty uneducated poor person, so your swearing is ironic.

My swearing is not ironic.  I swear because it adds emphasis.  (In some contexts, I swear because Mythbusters totally proved it increases pain tolerance.)  I swear because I like playing around with words.  I definitely swear because it challenges people’s preconceptions about me as a middle-class, varsity-educated white girl from a Good Family.

And I also swear because I’m a fucking New Zealander, and swearing is pretty part-and-parcel of our particular brand of English, and because the people who most often write about how uncouth and vulgar Those Young People are getting are in fucking denial.  I’m sorry, people, the Toyota “bugger” ad came out fourteen fucking years ago.  No one complained about the “where the bloody hell are you” ad in 2006 because it was dirty, they complained because it was fucking naff (and would have had far better rhythm if they dropped the “bloody”).

Of course, I’d probably swear a lot less if we didn’t have a mainstream media containing items like the Herald, happily publishing columns like this one (and don’t start me on Shelley Bridgeman) which … honestly, I still don’t actually know what Kamm’s point was, or why it couldn’t have been conveyed far more clearly in a tweet.

Court of Appeal on comedian sex offender: not entirely good news

So, finally, the comedian who sexually assaulted a child but was initially discharged because  he’s so funny then re-sentenced because that’s not actually a fucking excuse will finally actually serve his sentence.  Which is only eight months’ home detention anyway.

Here’s the latest problem (because this story is just packed full of delicious, angry-making problems):

Judge Cunningham decided not to sentence Comedian Z (as referred to by the courts) because it would damage his career.  (My thoughts on this argument remain the same: Sexually assaulting a kid SHOULD FUCKING WELL AFFECT YOUR CAREER.)

Judge Perkins decided this argument was bunkum not because sexually assaulting a child SHOULD FUCKING WELL AFFECT YOUR CAREER but because:

[he] considered that, to a significant extent, the adverse consequences had already been suffered and would not be significantly exacerbated by the refusal of a discharge

And this is what the Court of Appeal has agreed with in choosing to enforce the frankly pathetic sentence.

Not because sexually assaulting a four-year-old is fucking awful.  Not because changing your story about sexually assaulting a four-year-old – “oh I don’t remember what happened” but “oh I thought she was my adult partner” – is fucking digusting.

Nope, it’s okay for this guy to serve eight fucking months‘ home detention because his career’s already been shot to hell – AS IT FUCKING SHOULD BE – so a sentence can’t make it worse.

Which leaves only the fucking terrifying conclusion that if his career hadn’t already been ruined by his sexual assault of a child … the Court of Appeal would entertain the idea he should be let off.  Their argument is literally that his career can’t be ruined any worse by a custodial sentence, so he should serve a sentence.

For, let me just remind you one last time, sexually assaulting a four-year-old.

Our fucking justice system, ladies and gentlemen.  If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the Angry Dome.

My male role models made me the scary, cussing feminist I am today

Since I’ve been linked to from the Herald a few times now, I feel oddly compelled to let you know up front that this one gets sweary, people.  I make no apologies.

Louisa Wall and Colin Craig appeared on Q&A to discuss the marriage equality / adoption equality issue.*

Colin Craig’s statements were, happily, entirely illustrative of his bullshit, unjustifiable stance on the topics (his refusal to answer the question “do you respect members of the gay community who want this” especially so):

SHANE     Colin Craig, do you support one law for all?

MR CRAIG     I support equal rights and privileges for all New Zealanders.

SHANE     One law for all, though?

MR CRAIG     Yeah, I don’t like that phrase, but equal rights and privileges for New Zealanders.

SHANE     So why do you support one law for heterosexuals and one law for homosexuals?

MR CRAIG     Well, look, I agree with civil unions. … What we’re talking about here is who has the right to use and define the word “marriage”, and I believe there’s a status quo. We’ve got generation after generation, marriage has been between and a woman, and that is what I believe the New Zealanders want. They’ve got cultural investment in this, historical investment in this, religious investment in this.

So Colin basically thinks New Zealanders should have equal rights and privileges, except for the heteros who get exclusive domain of the word “marriage”.  Which is apparently simultaneously a minor, piffling matter, but also vitally important to our cultural identity.  (And remember, it’s those scary queer people who want “special” rights!)

One hates to invoke anecdata, but you know?  I can’t think of a single married couple I know who thought “shit yeah, getting a bit of paper that The Gays can’t get really shows how strong our relationship is!”

Also:

MR CRAIG     The only difference here is the word “marriage”. I mean, we’re not talking about an issue of equality across other things.

Colin Craig, you are a fucking liar.  Or a complete, ignorant numpty.  Possibly both.  I’m going with both.

A Civil Union is not recognised in the same way as a marriage out of New Zealand. If you wish to be legally recognised as Civil Unions partners in another country, you would have to apply in the country you wish to live in, if they have this law.

…

Civil Union partners do not at present have the right to adopt a child

Bonus objectifying language from Colin for the win:

There are a number of homosexuals who take a different view.

I imagine him pronouncing it the way Mr Gormsby does.

But here’s the bit I wanted to address specifically:

MR CRAIG     OK, I support the existing law. … Now, I actually think – and it’s my opinion – I actually think there are difference between a man and a woman. I actually think that when we get to choose the environment in which a child grows up, to have both a male and female role model, a mum and a dad is the ideal, and therefore I do support that restriction.

And please pardon the unladylike nature of the next sentence:

FUCK YOU, COLIN CRAIG.  ON BEHALF OF ALL THE MEN WHO STOOD AS MALE ROLE MODELS FOR ME IN MY CHILDHOOD, FUCK.  YOU.

It’s obvious enough that Colin Craig is talking absolute shit when he equates “having a male and female role model” with “a mum and dad” – and that’s even if we pass by the wonderfully archaic gender essentialism, the indignant “well I actually think boys and girls are different” defence.

But fuck, this fucks me right off.

Y’see, folks, the man responsible for ejaculating in my mother’s vague direction at an optimal ovulation point wanted sweet fuck all to do with me (probably also the fault of gay people undermining the Sanctity Of The Family or something).  So he fucked off.

Now, apparently this spells immediate Becoming Another Child Abuse / Teen Pregnancy / Drug Use Statistic for the infant Queen of Thorns – after all, no dad, no Male Role Model to keep her straight and narrow, straight being the most important bit.

(Of course, infant Queen of Thorns having been assigned gender “female” at birth probably means Male Role Models Aren’t As Important For Her or something, but bear with me.)

Patriarchal wankoffs like Colin Craig want to pretend that my upbringing, sans one out of two gamete-donors, must have been immediately disadvantaged, a permanent stain on my psyche.  My mother remaining single is, after all, only marginally better than my mother taking up with another woman, which must have scarred me irreparably.

But hang on.

Who are those guys over there?

Why look, it’s my grandfather, who among other things imbued me with a love of science fiction and an allergy to terrible puns.  It’s my uncle, who has exactly my sense of humour.  My stepdad, whose strict regimen of Culturally Important Experiences (largely involving classic films and NZ music of the 70s) allow me to make obscure references no one else my age gets to this day.  And all the other men in our extended family and community who each stood as another example of What Men Are Like and How Men May Act and who, bygiving a shit about my welfare and growth, did a fuckload more for me than Mr Sperm Donor Fuckhead did before he vanished from my life.

Basically, male role models?  I had fucking plenty.  And most of them were pretty kickass, and, sorry, Colin, most of them made significant contributions to the sweary, ranty, righteous, fuck-you-I-won’t-do-what-you-tell-me personality you see before you today.

The idea that my mother, in some parallel universe, hooking up with a woman at any point after my arrival (and, tragically, having some kind of deep and committed relationship!!!!) would somehow have denied me these important relationships is complete.  Fucking.  Bullshit.

And I love my mum, but the idea that she was somehow my Only Possible Female Role Model is likewise bullshit.  (Especially given the dominance of women in New Zealand teaching and early childhood education.)

The idea that in some pseudo-1950s Golden Age, I would have automatically been better off either (a) being raised by parents forced to marry following my conception or (b) being taken from my mother and raised by a complete different grab-bag of people … is complete.  Fucking.  Bullshit.

And let’s be honest here, when people start talking about “traditional family values” or “returning to a better time”, that’s what they mean.  Oh, they will protest, no, we just meant the good parts of a fantasy past where all marriages were completely permanently perfect and all pregnancies completely safe and wanted.  But ain’t it just like fundy fuckstains to pretend that their utopia is completely unproblematic?

Children are not raised in a vacuum, in which emotional or psychological development can only be performed by Female Parental Unit A and Male Parental Unit B.  And it is fucking insulting to all the people out there who do play roles in the lives of children who they don’t even own – because that’s what this is about at its core, classic, ancient, patriarchal “rraaaa!  My bloodline must be propagated to prove my virility!  Behold the children I claim to show the power of my wang!  Rrraaa!” – to act like if you don’t get called Mummy or Daddy you may as well go home.

If I could take my childhood over again I would not change one fucking thing, Colin. Because I fail to see what Mr Deadbeat Fuckhead could have done to make me any more awesome than I am today.

~

In my heart of hearts, I’m deeply hoping for a “maybe he would’ve given you a damn good spanking and turned you into more of a lady!” response.  Please don’t disappoint me.

No more Ms Nice Blogger: the War on Gay Teens

A Rolling Stone article from February has been doing the rounds – and should carry many big, clear trigger warnings for suicide, self-harm, homophobia, and hate speech (reported).  This post on its contents likewise.

It’s entitled “One Town’s War on Gay Teens“, and it was a bit of an eye-opener to me.

It certainly wasn’t a revelation to me that there are truly hateful people in this world, that bullies get away with horrific abuse, that people are honestly so afraid of pointing out that there are a lot of self-proclaimed Christians in this world whom Jesus would absolutely tear strips off that they let them get away with encoding prejudice and bigotry into our society and schools and communities.

The revelation was this:  I really haven’t taken my gloves off with these people, and I need to.

Despite being a shrieking swearing ranty bitchy PMS-ing monster truck of feminist blogging, I do moderate myself (you may pause to snort, if you will.)  I do refrain from Jesus-would-slap-the-shit-out-of-you comments like the above.  I do have this niggling little part of my brain that says there’s a line I shouldn’t cross, a line about faith and how people define their own, a line between pointing out the hypocrisy and horrific consequences without pointing too hard at the person behind them.  Just as I’ve always objected to cheap shots about Gerry Brownlee’s weight or Cameron Slater’s mental health, I’ve felt that telling a person that it’s not their belief system that’s evil, it’s actually them, was … cheap.  Dirty.  Unbecoming.  Something like that.

And then I read that Rolling Stone article.  And while yes, like I’ve said, it wasn’t a surprise to me that fundy wankers have attempted to eradicate the existence of homosexuality from their communities (perhaps I should say, the communities burdened with their residence) and it wasn’t a surprise to me that this had caused some kids to take their own lives, something broke in my brain.  Something clicked together.  Something aligned, possibly the stars, and I realised in that moment a sad, terrible, huge, but ultimately truthy truth:

You fuckers are just, simply, fucking evil and if there is a Hell it will be too fucking good for you.

You shat on these kids.

You didn’t even tell them they, personally, were evil – you didn’t have to.  You just removed any option they had of figuring out the world for themselves, because in your heads “choice” is just fine and dandy as long as the choices presented are all fundy-Christian-approved ones.

You let them get beaten up and harassed, and you threatened the adults in the best position to protect them with the loss of their job, maybe their career, if they dared to stop it.

You demonised the people who actually understand what compassion means and could have saved these kids.

In the wake of the suicides, the fundy asshats blame gay rights groups for the suicides.  Because apparently telling kids that their feelings were valid “locked them” into a “lifestyle” etc etc.

Not, “telling kids their feelings were invalid and letting bullies attack them at their most vulnerable with no reprieve or protection from authority figures.”  Not, “denying children even the acknowledgement of homosexuality by letting them know there was a policy outlawing acknowledgement of homosexuality.”

You trapped teenagers in a world where they could not even examine their feelings, much less acknowledge them, much less talk about them with anyone because you created a culture which made saying “I think I like people of my own gender” basically the equivalent of “I come from Mars and have acid for blood” and you fucking dare to say that homosexuality gave them no fucking options?

You actually think bullying is okay.

Michele Bachmann has a great point when she says bullying is wrong.

It’s only slightly ruined by the fact she said it to cover her ass after arguing that shutting down bullying was basically the end of free speech (ironic!) and would inevitably lead to “boys [being] girls”.

Because bullying isn’t wrong, apparently.  Well, it is, it’s just that beating up a small, quiet guy for not being sufficiently manly isn’t really bullying, and constantly harassing a girl for wearing baggy sweatshirts isn’t either.  They’re just basic social correction, bringing the deviants back into line so nothing threatens the established hetero social order.  And those schoolyard bullies learnt it from you.

Let me tell you, people:  Jesus was all about eliminating people’s differences and trampling on their individuality.  Fo sho.

You are utter fucking hypocrites.

For people who think sex is a robotic process which married hetero cis couples should only ever engage in for the purposes of bring more little schoolyard thugs into the world, you are seriously fucking obsessed with sex, and “deviant” forms of it in particular.

Labelling Gay Straight Alliance clubs as “sex clubs”?  I’d say “are you fucking high” but let’s remember:  you’re not honest people.  You’re not sincere.  You’re half-driven to distraction by a lifetime of denying basic sexual urges, half-making shit up to scare the people who aren’t as evil as you but also aren’t particularly political, particularly engaged with broader social issues, who are susceptible to the bullshit you spin because you’re a Pillar of the Community.

You are, in fact, fucking evil.

You are entirely willing to destroy people’s lives if it maintains the dominance of your belief system.  You will do whatever it takes to keep other people, other ideas, other ways of living in the shadows and bullying teens to the point of suicide is pretty much just hunky-fucking dory to you.

I do not believe that fundy shitstains actually think gayness is a choice.  I do not believe they think it’s a genetic mutation.  I think they do not care.  It’s a threat to their natural order, so say and do whatever it takes to get rid of it, right?

Demonise teenagers.  Pretend to be acting in their best interests when you say “oh, but they’re so confused at that age” with one Jesus-shaped sock puppet but scream “they’re evil and trying to destroy us!” with the other.  Play on your fucked-up narrow-minded cultural paranoia, primed through decades of Yellow Peril and Red Peril and War on Terror, and turn it against your children because you’d actually prefer to see them dead than gay and at peace with themselves.

Fuck drawing lines in the sand with you cretins.  There is blood on your hands.  Your “faith” and behaviour bears absolutely zero relationship to the shit Jesus actually preached (gayness and abortion: not actually his favourite topics.)

But do you even have the faith you claim?  I’m in serious doubt here.  If you’d been born in any other country or time, would you just be the same hateful, demonic little fucks, waving whatever religion of convenience, whatever writings of whatever prophet, you could find to justify your self-centred bigotry?

You are fucking evil.  And I’m pretty much decided right here right now that it is my life’s goal to fucking destroy you.

~A note to you other fuckers out there~

If you have read that Rolling Stone article, and you side with those people, and it offends you that I feel entirely justified in labelling those “Christians” as absolutely unmitigatedly evil people?  You can go fuck yourself, because kids are dead and your buddies over there caused it.

Achievement unlocked!

My last post was #400 for Ideologically Impure.  Post #1 was made on April 26, 2008, which seems like a lifetime ago, and I expressed the wistful hope that people might one day read it.

Well, even accounting for the sheer volume of porn-related search terms I get hits from (the lesson being to not be so unladylike, and especially not entitle a post “Fuck you and the horse you rode in one“*) I think it’s safe to say I’ve got readers.  I’ve even had trolls!  Hatemail!  Guest posts on other, far bigger blogs which generated fantastic numbers of comments about how men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses want to smash the patriarchy.

I think it’s been a success so far.  So thanks for stopping by!  I ain’t going anywhere.

~

*Still mad, by the way, ALAC.

Save us from Wellywank

I’m with David Farrar on this one, to my obvious horror:  vote for the Wellington “blown away” sign.

There’s any number of obvious issues around the fact that it’s the better of the two non-Wellysuck signs in terms of tactical voting, the most obvious being of course that an explicitly Maori symbol doesn’t go down well with the middle-class white punters whose sensibilities are so offended by the Wellycrap sign.

And as KB commenters are quick to point out, it’s damn telling that there’s no “no fucking sign, thanks, you prats” option.

To continue my previous, pageview-exploding metaphor on the subject, Wellington Airport continues to be that tragic figure trying to convince you his moustache makes him look like George Clooney, only now he’s posting pictures on Facebook (probably with the help of a long-suffering teenager who’s hoping for a car for Christmas) of that awful ‘stache styled in three different ways and demanding you tell him which makes him look more like George Clooney.

None of the moustaches make you look like George Clooney. 

Lonely Planet already named Wellington the Coolest Little Capital in the world.  Not sure why a company so dependent on attracting tourism wants to fuck that up.

Te Mana follow up and continuing fail

So, first up: clarification on Te Mana’s non-existent policy on reproductive rights which is due to be released in the undefined future.

The fact that this finally got responded to when a dude asked the question?  Irony not escaping me.

The fact the answer is still surrounded by a bunch of Mana supporters whinging THERE ISN’T A POLICY, WHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP, YOU’RE HURTING THE MOVEMENT?  Is just … well, depressingly reminiscent about asking Labour about policy, to be honest.

But before they got there, there was this.  The awesomely waffley, refusing-to-take-sides, ever-so-slightly-whinging complaint that a moderator was expected to moderate shit and why couldn’t you all just get along.  Complete with insisting that no one could be moderated until the admin themselves had gone through the threads because they just hadn’t seen the whole huge flaming “whores/lezos/demon seed” thread going down on their own page.  Which .. is nicely reminiscent of every other instance of The Powers That Be in a given situation refusing to believe women’s experiences.

For bonus point, you get a bunch of people experiencing that wondrous 21st century epiphany that maybe posting abusive shit under your real name on Facebook on a public page isn’t such a good idea, and it’s so unfair for people to … accurately report a person’s statements via screenshot.

So this is still a big fail mark with me.  You cannot let queries go unanswered for a whole business day, especially when those queries are being answered abusively by people claiming the mana to represent your voice and state your stance.

You cannot respond to hateful shit like that by waffling about good faith and not descending into personal abuse without clearly acknowledging that one side of the argument turned to personal abuse against the other.  You just cannot play “both sides contributed” when one side said “what’s your policy” and the other said “shut up you sick lezos”.  It’s just fucking gutless at the very least.

And to any Mana-Facebook-likers out there who want to whinge about people criticising Mana’s use of social media, and how dare we use this issue to raise points about their management of social media?

You want to know what looks awesome to a mainstream media already spinning a story about Te Mana being radicals, scary, extremists, unfocused, useless?  Letting undecided voters get shat on on your Facebook page and not being willing to take a fucking stand on something as basic as “do not call people whores and accuse them of bad faith when they ask policy questions”.

Queer the Night: Can’t make this transphobic shit up

[Trigger warnings: transphobia, misgendering, tone argument, general shittiness and major Nice White Cis Feminist fail]

[On teh criticisms of pseudonymous posting and the big fucking issues with “real names” I recommend this post by Scarlet Sorceress.]

So.

Queer the Night was held this week in Wellington, and by all accounts was considered a success.

And I’m kinda glad that this means that my little rant right here is after the event and thus I can’t be accused of harshing nice baby activists’ squees with my meanie pseudonymous criticism.

Because … wow.  Gather round with some stiff damn drinks, kiddies, this is going to be rough, and in case you skipped the top, potentially very triggering.

The Hand Mirror hosted a guest post from the organisers.

Scarlet Sorceress pointed out in comments that there was a lot of talk about heterocentricity … but (shades of IDAHO, anyone?) ciscentricity wasn’t mentioned.

At which point a commenter claiming to be one of the QtN organisers decided to, um … well, fuck up as no up has ever previously been fucked:

Will you please give the organisers a break! Jesus…they are the least transphobic/homophobic/bigoted people on the planet,

Why am I reminded of Donald Trump?  Oh right, because “I’m the least” tops even “some of my best friends are” for massive incoming fail warning signs.

So they missed out an academic term for people’s views about binary gender, so frickin what??

I mean come on, they’re only organising a Queer the Night march!  They can’t be expected to have even the vaguest fucking understanding of pretty fucking basic terminology!!!  What do you mean, this is about people’s fucking identities, nah, it’s just about “views on binary gender”!  Not something people live every fucking day!

I’m pretty sure we all agree that gender binary is fake & stupid and hurts trans and non trans people alike.

Fake and stupid.  Fake.  And.  Stupid.  Yeah, when I think of the gender binary I definitely reach for “fake and stupid”, not “manufactured” or “coercive” or “harmful”.

heteronormativity implicitly includes a prejudice to 2 binary genders.

Um, if that sentence ended with “to 2 binary genders fucking” you might have a point.  But it doesn’t, so you don’t, George, and maybe the fact that you’re arguing with a heterosexual trans woman who just kinda stated that she felt excluded by your language might have provided a clue on that one.

So why make a fuss over a bunch of ordinary people with the best of intentions missing out a specialised academic term…and worse, accuse them of being transphobic.

TRI

-FUCKING-

FECTA!

You see, George et al are just normal people.  Unlike the trans woman George is arguing with, one presumes?  And their intent is magical.  And accusing a person of being transphobic is like nearly as terribly as calling a white person a racist, don’t you know?

But if you though George was already investigating genetic modification for the purposes of finding yet another foot to fit in her mouth …

You want a safe space? Then stop bullying people and being an “internet tough guy” online

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND ALL OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE, GEORGE HAS FOUND ANOTHER FOOT.

But it’s all totally okay because hey, George is a woman who just always uses “guy” as a gender neutral term and “tough guy” is just a phrase, dude and tee hee see she can play the “don’t misgender me man, lol” game too, bless, and anyway stop alienating your allies by being such Nazis.

I seriously wish I was making this shit up.

You might think this kind of shit is something that The Hand Mirror team would want to put a lid on,feminist blog and all, multiple trans women pitching in in the comments  … but LudditeJourno reckons that actually none of the criticism counts as long as other trans folk turn up at the march and here’s what Julie had to say in closing at time of writing:

Acid Queen, you have been asked to stop commenting on this thread, looks to me like you are deliberately trying to inflame things, as you have done here before. ANY further comments from you on this thread will be deleted. You’ve said you have nothing further to say anyway so that shouldn’t be hard.
George & Kassie, it’s really useful to have the perspective of the main organizers in this discussion. It can’t have been easy to contribute here and I appreciate the effort. I will now be closing comments on this thread.

Yeah, thanks George, for being plainly fucking abusive towards trans women on The Hand Mirror, and thanks, Kassie, for not actually engaging with George’s shit but instead basically implying that you can’t be bothered identifying and educating yourself about transphobia unless the trans women hold your hand.  It’s been a nice insight into everyone involved.

ETA:  Octavia has a badass post up calling on The Hand Mirror to actually become a safe space for trans* people.

George Clooney metaphor: Wellywood abomination edition

The Wellywood sign is the equivalent of a guy in his late forties who spends a whole dinner party pointing out to every single person that he’s grown a ‘stache and his wife told him it makes him look a bit like George Clooney in The Men Who Stare At Goats.  And every time the object of his deluded bragging fails to hide their scorn, disbelief or nervous giggling, he fakes a laugh and says “Well a guy can try, can’t he?”

And then five minutes later you see him cornering the hostess to let her know how his wife totally thinks his stache makes him look a little like George Clooney.

He completely lacks the awareness to recognise that by trying to convince people he looks a bit like George Clooney he merely emphasises the massive lack of resemblance and focuses everyone’s attention on how much that moustache is a withered caterpillar-shaped symbol of his desperate need to pretend he’s not going through a midlife crisis.

And when not a single person at the dinner party can convincingly agree with him (and this being New Zealand one or two of the guys are probably just openly mocking him for being a tool with an ugly mo), he starts getting super-defensive and insisting it’s just a fucking joke and why can’t you wankers just lighten the fuck up?

And he will never, ever be able to admit that he isn’t George Clooney, isn’t even close, and no nubile young women are going to fuck him based on vaguely-similar facial hair, and that stache will stubbornly remain on his face making him look like a fucking twerp  for the rest of his life.

Thing is, he’s only making himself (and possibly his spouse and any children they had pre-stache) look like a twerp.  The Wellington Airport board,* which I’m totally sure has no demographic resemblance to white male douchewads with midlife crises, are making us all look like twerps.

~

*Because let’s be honest, who even fucking knew it was called Wild At Fucking Heart until this week?  I thought that was the name of one of the naff souvenir shops.