As the gender wars rage different issues keep cropping up.
Current one is the Q in various LGBTQI+ variants.
Queer obviously used to be pejorative short-hand for Gay men, to the point it was effectively a slur, a mark of hate, phobia, negative discrimination. Not surprisingly Gay men still find it offensive – reminiscent of past violence – whether as the Queer in any formal take on Queer Theory (which is where we started this journey here) or in more careless language in media including social media. To some – users as well as hearers – it’s still that homophobic slur, best avoided under PC rules, unless your objective is to offend.
The problem, the reason it’s conflated into the alphabet soup beyond the LGB, is because it represents non-specific non-conformant (ie deviant) sexuality which may involve any number of gender and other role-play possibilities amongst the various fetishised acts. As JKR said, whatever you and consenting adults are OK with, that’s fine.
But fine between consenting adults doesn’t mean it’s fine in every social context, where we get into questions of appropriateness and safe-guarding. In fact, like the revealing sportswear story, the elephant in the room in so many of these debates has always been “modesty”, whether it’s bathing burkhas in extremely conservative societies or or skimpy bikini bottoms in beach volleyball or athletics, or even parading around naked in single-sex changing rooms. Modesty has its place, and how much sexual exposure is “too much irrelevant information” for the context is a matter of social agreement on appropriateness. The inappropriate sexualisation of irrelevant contexts. “Pride” marches – across the full LGBTQI+ spectrum – that expose minors to “Queer” sexual kinks, may be an expression of individual freedoms, but they are not (necessarily) appropriate, before we even get into wider questions of single-sex spaces.
Connected, contiguous and overlapping even, but distinct. #GoodFences
If we keep conflating all the issues into one set of rules all we will achieve is more conflict. Conflict where for some terms like TERF and Transphobia are the blunt weapons of choice (*). Madness. They call it madness.
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(*) Post Note – on the default labelling in the “new trans agenda” … see this articulate expression by @GothixTV (don’t know any more about her at this point):
I think some of her logic about “not liking” people is flawed, …
But the distinction between Trans and “the new Trans agenda” is spot on.
The default to labelling in every disagreement is also spot on.#GoodFences https://t.co/WRsxXaP457
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) July 29, 2021
Also Post Note: – the “safeguarding” angles. When section 28 was the current battle an issue was “not promoting” specific sexualities in an education of minors context – became see as homophobic. And the same is true in parallel in “not promoting” non-binary genders … whatever the political “agendas” the key aspect here always has to be the safeguarding, care for the individual, especially the individual minor – professional, well-informed as well as well-intentioned care, therapeutic as necessary. The gender wars, same as previous sexuality cases can too quickly get into the “too much information” promotion league. See recent Peter Tatchell (paedophilia) and Jack Guinness (queer history) cases – scary to say the least!