{"id":467,"date":"2016-02-22T07:07:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T07:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/?p=467"},"modified":"2016-02-22T07:07:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T07:07:46","slug":"467","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/2016\/02\/22\/467\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Nugent, Smears, and Transphobia."},"content":{"rendered":"

I am writing this on my phone so please excuse any spelling, grammatical, and formatting \u00a0errors as my uncoordinated fingers fight with my shitty touch screen phone.<\/p>\n

Nugent is, again, embroiled in a debate where his name is being smeared. It seems to be the go to tactic nowadays and we have seen it with Maryam Namazie being labelled Islamophobic \u00a0and Peter Tatchell being called a racist. It\u2019s not a new tactic but it\u2019s one that is growing rapidly among the left. But Nugent is well capable of taking care of himself so I won\u2019t discuss that here.<\/p>\n

The claims made about Michael are patently ridiculous but I do think he mischaracterised transphobic comments\u00a0in his comments section.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot_2016-02-21-22-31-44-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So Micheal believes Cindy is merely discussing the idea that cis men might abuse laws intended for trans people in order to assault women in their spaces. Firstly, this doesn\u2019t mean that this is transphobic. It is possible that this is simply dog whistling. The idea of women being assaulted by men thanks to laws enacted to protect the rights of trans people is a well known right wing trope<\/a>. They use this fear, \u00a0an utter invention, in order to deny trans women access to women\u2019s spaces and even to try to eliminate trans women\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

If a person raises these concerns and wants to find a solution that protects both women and trans women then I don\u2019t see a problem. Is that what Cindy is doing? I don\u2019t know, I am not a mind reader but nobody who knows who Cathy Brennan is and cares about trans people would ever link to her favourably. The manner in which Cindy discusses trans issues just reaks of TERFism. In my opinion, Cindy\u2019s comments about cis men entering women\u2019s spaces amounts to nothing but dog whistling transphobia.<\/p>\n

We see the same tactic being used against marriage equality. The story of two gay men adopting and abusing a young child is often cited. They feign concern for child safety and tighter controls on adoption laws but their objective is to ban LGBT people for marrying or adoption. So you can quite easily replace Cindy’s concern for women with anti marriage equality concern for child welfare: it’s not what they actually care about.<\/p>\n

This is further solidified by her others comments which are directed at trans women and not just deceitful cis men as Michael mistakenly thinks.<\/p>\n

\ufffc\"Screenshot_2016-02-21-22-13-48-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The above comment is about trans women, not cis men. Cindy is clearly referring to trans women who haven\u2019t surgically transitioned yet. And insinuates that they will leering at women and girls. This is, again, the hateful \u201ctransexuals will assault women\u201d \u00a0trope. Sure, \u00a0Cindy does mention cis men who may intend on abusing the laws but much of it is about \u201cbe-penised\u201d trans women.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot_2016-02-21-22-17-55-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Again this comment is about trans women, not cis men. As you can see in the parenthesis Cindy distinguishes the deceitful cis men from the rest of the comment. So the rest of the comment is clearly referencing trans women. In fact, \u201cor in some cases\u201d suggests the deceitful cis men are a minority of those that commit the rapes which Cindy mentions. Also saying \u201cbased on nothing but \u2018feelz’\u201d denigrates trans people and their indentity.<\/p>\n

Again, this was on my phone so I apologize for any errors or if my thought process was a bit scattered. But the TL;DR is Cindy was clearly referencing trans women when talking about women being attacked. This is a well known hate trope. And in the instances where she wasn\u2019t taking about trans women, it appears to be nothing but dog whistling.<\/p>\n

And as grand as it is for me to ponder whether or not Cindy and others \u00a0are dog whistling, or if she is referring to trans women or cis men in this or that paragraph, I doubt it\u2019s fun for trans people who have to put up with this constantly. And have laws enacted to erase their indentity \u00a0based on these lies.<\/p>\n

Now I don\u2019t think Michael is a transphobe, supporting transphobia, materially or otherwise. Or is dog whistling or any other of the ridiculous labels thrown about. He is a good person who has been an LGBT advocate for over 30 years and I just think he is mistaken in mischaracterising Cindy\u2019s comments. And 30 years of advocacy shouldn\u2019t be whitewashed because somebody is mistaken. The left needs to stop tearing itself apart by attacking anyone who appears the slightest bit impure. If you think a person is wrong it doesn\u2019t mean they are Hitler incarnate.<\/p>\n

However, I can confirm, Michael, is an actual Leeds fan and for that there is no redemption<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am writing this on my phone so please excuse any spelling, grammatical, and formatting \u00a0errors as my uncoordinated fingers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}