"Labour MP opposed to gay adoption receives knighthood!" was the gist of a gaggle of stories that did the rounds yesterday. As the Pink News points out, the honourable member for Bolton North East, David Crausby, has consistently opposed moves to equalise and normalise gay relationships. The repeal of Section 28 found him in the no lobby, as did moves to allow gay couples to adopt, and equal marriage. Jeremy Corbyn, who has consistently opposed homophobia throughout his career, gave the nod to grant Crausby a knighthood in the New Year's honours. This has left a number of comrades scratching their heads - what the hell is going on? As I've had to remind people time and again on this blog, politics is about interests. Ideas come second. Given the gulf between Crausby and Corbyn on LGBT matters, you can bet that, again, it was the latter that came first. But for what, and why? Are we talking favours rendered to the leadership? It doesn't appear so. While he's never marked himself out in the same way our Mike Gapeses, Jess Phillipses, and Jamie Reeds have as prominent anti-Jeremy people, he's hardly a loyal enforcer either. In 2015, Crausby backed Andy Burnham, and in 2016 he added his support to the PLP's attempt to no confidence and depose the leader. It also can't be put down to a long and glorious period in the parliamentary trenches with Jeremy. He was favour of deploying troops in Afghanistan, for example, but was opposed to the Iraq War. Mainly, his rebellious voting record (which could hardly be described as inveterate) is focused on gay rights and reproductive medicine as its key themes. Which is what you'd expect as Crausby is a Catholic and follows the church's lead on these matters. Could it, instead, be something more banal? I fear this may well be the case. This May, Crausby will be marking 20 years in the Commons. Time servers typically get some sort of recognition for all their hard work, etc. etc. I don't know if he'd quietly lobbied for a knighthood (some are shameless enough to do so, some cause trouble if none are forthcoming), but such honours are dished out regularly. Someone comes up with the names and off they go to the leader's office for rubber stamping - it's just yet another responsibility that comes with the job. I suspect it wasn't given a thought as Jeremy signed it off. That is not good enough. As the same Pink News article notes, a Tory and a LibDem also received honours despite having less-than-stellar attitudes towards LGBT rights. Unfortunately, while it shouldn't exist there is a de facto hierarchy of oppression in British culture, and that's reflected in its institutions. Racism is the massive no-no, but for a variety of reasons sexism and homophobia aren't perceived or treated with the same degree of seriousness. And this, unfortunately, is underlined by no less a figure than Jeremy Corbyn passing over the problems this particular knighthood raises.
The most surprising thing about the Keith Vaz sex scandal is that it took so long to come out. When I was a bag carrier, the Westminster grapevine even extended as far out as Stoke-on-Trent. And one such rumour that persisted, albeit without any details and, conveniently, no proof at all was that some unspecified scandal was attached to Keith Vaz's person. Three years later, out it comes. And so the first question I find myself asking is why didn't it surface sooner? Why now? The second point is prurience, or the sadistic pleasure our press has in raking over the sex lives of anyone in the public eye. Just because you're famous and/or powerful doesn't mean the rest of the world has a right to know what those people get up to in private. Leaving aside public interest for a moment, it's worth noting this is a forced outing. Using someone's hitherto hidden sexuality as a weapon is pretty shitty behaviour, and for what reason? The only justification for such a thing is where a public figure is persecuting LGBT people or sermonising on sexual morality while hypocritically indulging their heart's desire privately. You can criticise Keith Vaz for the many political positions he's taken over the years, but fanning the flames of homophobic bigotry isn't one of them. Indeed, in 2013 he supported equal marriage when it was put to the House. It wouldn't matter if it was a one-off, but these revelations turn up the day after Bishop Nicholas Chamberlain was forced to come out after threats of tabloid exposure. Again, mayhaps there was justification if he curdled fire and brimstone against "the gays" from his pulpit, but he did nothing of the sort. I both cases it's the joy of exposing someone's sex life to public scrutiny on the flimsy pretext of shifting a few more papers. Yet, is there a genuine public interest case here beyond snigger-snigger tittle tattle? You might argue there's a conflict of interest. After all, as chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee overseeing laws on prostitution and drugs, being caught on tape soliciting and discussing controlled substances can't be portrayed any other way. And yet the practices of our mighty democracy are riddled with conflicts of interest that never attract as much interest. Conservative members, who just so happen to have holdings in private health, voting for the transformation of the NHS into taxpayer-bankrolled market. Or members from all sides with one, two, many tenants to their name voting down minimum standards for private rented accommodation. Keith Vaz's position on liberalising prostitution and having a softer line on drugs may or may not be related to his peccadilloes, but his is hardly the most egregious example of public and private life coming into tension with one another. There is, just about, a public interest, but the fact heavy media rotation has focused on it so much when other issues of greater import don't warrant that interest is yet another pointer at our rotten politics.
Some sketchy thoughts about the murder of 50 clubbers at Pulse in Orlando. 1. It does not matter how tragic or bloody the event, there will always be people sick enough to try and score points off it. On this occasion, fast out of the gate was Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who thought it appropriate to gloat over the bullet riddled bodies of the victims. Remember, this man is supposed to be a Christian. Joining him in callous indifference and cynicism comes ex-diplomat Michael Oren. On Israel's Channel 10 this afternoon he suggested Donald Trump would be wise to exploit the murder on account of the gunman being Muslim. Lastly, it's not above the utter bams to make their own play. Each case involves total dehumanisation. Social media simultaneously bridges and enforces social distance. An appalling crime is just another item on the feed/news cycle and is to be annexed for crass position taking. The human dimension, the suffering, the grief for those left to mourn are secondary images inessential to the political meanings constructed around the act of violence. 2. The gunman Omar Mateen was a Muslim. He was not on any watch list, nor was there any indication he was a radical Islamist or, for that matter, particularly devout. Before Mateen went on his murderous rampage he apparently called emergency services and pledged allegiance to IS. With these circumstances, it's understandable the authorities are responding to it as an act of terror. Yet as Alishba points out, homophobia is a problem in Muslim communities - a point that's often impolitic for outsiders and to mention. According to Mateen's Dad, it was witnessing two men kiss that sent Mateen into a murderous fury. This is worth bearing in mind as this act is unpicked and made sense of. When these sorts of crimes are committed by Islamists, previous experiences in the West fall into the pattern of indiscriminate slaughter (London, Madrid, Paris, Brussels) or specifically targeted military personnel, such as the murder of Lee Rigby, or the 2009 killing of 13 people by Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood. This attack is more suggestive of last year's massacre by husband and wife pair Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino which saw the killing of 14 of Farook's work colleagues, and the Syndey cafe siege: that is murders in which Islam is a flag of convenience for motives steeped in vengeance and narcissism. Or, in this case, plain old bigotry. We should find out in coming days. 3. Cue another round of American soul searching and hand-wringing about gun control. Obama will make his usual pleas, as he does every three to six months, and the GOP will blame the club goers for not taking their weapons with them. The right wingin', bitter clingin', proud clingers of their guns - as Sarah Palin likes to call this increasingly unhinged constituency - are happy to see the death of 50 gay clubbers here, a packed cinema there, and classrooms full of kids as so much collateral for their inalienable rights. The truth is that easy access to arms is only one part of the problem. There is something deeply sick with American society. No other advanced society suffers these sorts of shootings with anything approaching this level of regularity. It cannot be explained by the size of the population - per capita they're way above similarly developed countries. Nor do other states with large gun ownership, such as Canada where over a quarter of adults own one, have the same rates of violence. That leaves something exceptional about American culture. The constant reinforcement of individual gratification and sovereignty, even as the realities of free market fundamentalism trample all over it. The absence of mass, collectivist-inspired politics, the glorification of violence, the way American media and culture splits people into competing constituencies with little emphasis on integration. From afar it appears the nearest an advanced society is to a Randian nightmare, a dysfunctional dystopia where the war of all against all too often explodes into bloody outrages.
Not in the mood for a proper post tonight, so thought I'd share this short film from the folks at My Genderation. It's a lighthearted look at some of the issues, with varying degrees of seriousness, that affect trans people. A recommended watch.
Another day, another row about a lefty notable getting "no-platformed" by the yoof. On this occasion, it's Peter Tatchell who's come under fire. Fran Cowling of the NUS's LGBT caucus has issued an ultimatum to organisers of a debate around radical queer politics at Canterbury Christ Church University saying she will not attend if Peter is speaking. Apparently he has made racist and transphobic comments in the past, and is beyond the pale because he protested against an attempt to bar Germaine Greer from a feminist meeting at Cardiff University. Time to throw down some notes. 1. While Peter has acquired national treasure status, as an activist and courageous human being he has shown time and again a willingness to put himself and his safety on the line for the liberation of LGBT people. So when a little known NUS rep makes claims that go beyond fair criticism and are borderline libellous, you can understand why a fair few people are incredulous. 2. Germaine Greer remains the country's best known feminist thinker, and she has several controversial opinions that arguably contradict the thrust of her politics. Scrapping the right to anonymity for rape survivors is one, and being a card carrying LibDem throughout the period of the Coalition government is another. Her views about trans people are well known and are out of step with the growing momentum behind trans acceptance. By showing solidarity with her when she was targeted for disinvitation (she wasn't no-platformed) by a campaign led by Cardiff union's women's officer, Peter could have been perceived as being 'soft' on transphobic matters. 3. No platforming operates according to a certain logic. It is necessarily censorious, but is not simply so. As longtime readers know, no platforming is a tactic that emerged in the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s, though the term only came into common currency during the 70s. To 'no platform' meant taking direct action, often violent, to prevent fascist organisations from running marches, holding meetings and rallies, and to deny them any public platform at all. This wasn't because they were nasty, it's because it was part of a life and death struggle for political space. Where that fight was won by the brown shirts and black shirts, the hell of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany tells you what exactly was at stake. To reiterate, no platforming was something that was enforced by the martial power of communist, radical, and labour movement forces. It was an expression of working class confidence and power and not the state or some other institution denying fascists meeting rooms. 4. What has been happening in our universities, be it Germaine Greer, Peter Tatchell, or Maryam Namazie somewhat falls short of no platforming classically conceived. But times change. Come the 1990s and 2000s, the tactic had been transformed into a principle, mainly by the SWP who were the chief "inspiration" behind the Anti-Nazi League and then Unite Against Fascism. Unlike Red Action and Anti-Fascist Action, who still physically confronted and violently assaulted fascists well into the 90s, direct confrontation was the exception rather than the rule for the SWP. Activities were centered around making fascists into political untouchables - debate with them was to be avoided as that granted them legitimacy. Likewise mainstream politicians, especially of the labour movement, were called on to refuse to share platforms with them, be it at hustings events or election counts. It also meant protesting outside venues where fascists, such as the BNP, had been given a platform by a third party. That "classic" Question Time episode with Nick Griffin being a case in point. 5. There are a whole lot of other things going on with the attempts to no platform established activists, not least generational dynamics. But sticking with the logic of no platforming, it does make a contribution. As activism and politics is a key marker of personal commitment and identity - at least among those who care about such things - a logic of by their friends shall ye know them comes into play. It's not a matter of so-called virtue signalling, which is an invention of the right to explain away why people opposed to them sometimes hold radical views, but rather a concern that debating, in this case, someone with imputed transphobic views somehow grants those prejudices a legitimacy they shouldn't have. Hence the best way to stick up for trans people and other minorities is to not give naysaying voices any credence - especially when they tend to have the mass media at their disposal, anyway.
Ah, Germaine Greer. When we last visited what she had become a couple of years ago, it was on the occasion of some ill-judged remarks about rape. That in mind, what are we to make of attempts to no platform her from giving a talk at Cardiff University because of her transphobic view of trans people, and transwomen in particular? Is it merely another sorry symptom of the censorious spectre stalking the student body up and down the country? Yes, but it's always more complex than that. Part of the problem is Greer is now hopelessly out of step with where contemporary feminism is at. What is sad about Greer's trajectory is her morphing into an objectionable human being. It's frustrating as well. Her work has charted the positioning of, for want of a better phrase, 'hegemonic femininity' for almost 50 years. Her analysis has proved cutting, witty, and hugely influential. From the passive, reserved womanhood of 50s/60s to the girl-powered independent woman, as femininity has changed she uncovered the oppressions, unfreedoms, hypocrisies, and damages that have remained the constant lot for women generally. This isn't to say she denies things haven't changed and for the better, but all the same women continue to face uphill battles in all walks of life. Greer shows a sensitivity to the nuance of how women are positioned and policed and argues that shifting gender relations requires relentless struggle, of feminism permanently revolting against received practice and power. Apart from Aboriginal issues in her native Australia, that is pretty much the limit of her analytical acuity. It's as if her feminist work is boxed away in her mind. When that box is open she understands the full complexity of the gendered domination of women. When closed, she articulates all the sensitivity of a brick. And this is typically the case when she's not looking at issues in which gender does not predominate. For example, commenting on the closure of SSI in Redcar and the government's indifference to the collapsing steel industry on 22nd October's edition of Question Time, she noted "we" had benefited from globalisation, so we "shouldn't moan" when we get caught by an ill wind. Exactly the sort of thing you'd expect a Tory MP to say in a rare honest moment. And then there are those comments about transwomen. Her recent "clarifications" are a mite less stridently worded than previouscomments, but the thrust is the same. Transwomen are "parodies" that aren't even genuine about transitioning: "No so-called sex-change has ever begged for a uterus-and-ovaries transplant; if uterus-and-ovaries transplants were made mandatory for wannabe women they would disappear overnight." Transwomen cannot ever be women because they've never lived with "a big, hairy, smelly vagina" either. And lastly, transphobia doesn't really exist. Ah, for want of a mirror. If she was so moved, it only takes an internet connection and 30 seconds to find evidence of appalling crimes inflicted against transwomen, how they too find themselves injured and murdered by, overwhelmingly, men. I suspect, however, Greer knows all this. She just doesn't care. Women are xx and men are forever xy. This is the root of some of the animus Greer has inspired. It's not just the crass terms in which she vents her transphobia, but rather the philosophical assumptions behind it. During the 80s and 90s, feminism in the academy was very interested in subject and agency. What is 'woman'? What should woman do to overcome her oppression? For the activists of feminism's second wave in the 60s and 70s, the question was unproblematic. There was no question. The revolutionary subject was women-in-general. The enemy was not men-in-general, but patriarchy, that set of diffuse but pernicious social relations that cast the genders in an asymmetrical relationship. It was the feminism of black women that started upsetting this picture. While gender was a key axis of oppression and power, black women's experience of being-female was also conditioned by their race. Mainstream feminism won important victories, but it did not speak to the complex oppression endured by women feeling the sharp end of racism too. The second wave with its valorisation of universal sisterhood unconsciously spoke to women who were mostly white, and mostly middle class. Soon similar criticisms followed in black feminism's wake, drawing attention to class, sexuality, disability, nationality. Some tried articulating essentialist redoubts that attempted to hold onto woman as a collective subject, but it proved untenable, philosophically speaking. Feminism tried thinking through the impasse. On the one hand, there was postfeminism and its claims that women's struggles were largely obsolete. All that was needed was a mopping up operation of episodic alliances around occasional hot button issues. The bulk of postmodern feminism tried reconciling itself to many different feminisms for many different (female) subject positions through a radicalised pragmatism, of seeking out momentary alliances between groups of women around common objectives - an orientation not a million miles away from those for whom feminism was obsolete. Meanwhile, interesting things were happening in the academy. Judith Butler's work revolutionised the understanding of gender by emphasising the performative - not just the individual acts of men and women, but the repetition of meanings by institutions and juridico-medical discourses over time to the point where these categories appear natural. This was also true of the gender and sex distinction. This is routine to the point of banality - sex is the anatomical difference between female and male bodies, gender the cultural constructions cohering about this basic difference. This binarism, however, is entirely cultural or, as she puts it, discursive. Biologically, while most infant bodies present as if they fall into one of two sexes, there is actually a continuum. As far as Butler was concerned, sexing the body was a discursive, not a pre-discursive (or, if you prefer, a social as opposed to pre-social) accomplishment. Biological sex is retrospective, not a natural given. Politically, it meant any attempt to hang essential female qualities on the female body reproduces the binarism at the root of patriarchal power relations. In other words, biological essentialism ("smelly vaginas") of the Greer sort naturalises gender and sex, and despite itself provides patriarchy ideological cover. The problem with this position, however, is it can neglect the materiality of women's bodies. As gender is performed by institutions and discourses, and through the presentation of the self in the everyday, the classifying of bodies has material consequences. Or, rather, because bodies are gendered from the moment a child's sex is known in utero, it's born into the world with the full weight of of that legacy, that history. Bodies are disciplined, inscribed, conditioned. Each individual is thrust into a perilous social world of gendered negotiation. Accepting prescribed performances is a case of constant project management that for many, both women and men, can be fraught and anxious. And for those who deviate, either because their body types are a distance from the norm, or because they reject their received gender script (trans people, non-binary, genderqueers), they are - depending on the culture - at the mercy of social sanction. Women therefore are positioned, performed, and policed not because nature ordains it, but because deeply embedded social practices code certain bodies as female, and that coding comes with baggage. Doesn't this just reproduce a specificity of women's experience common to all women? Isn't this just a roundabout way of bringing essentialism back in and therefore providing grounds for rejecting transwomen as women? Not necessarily. What's also missing from Butler's performative account and its supplementing by the materialisation of this on physical bodies is a notion of interest. Or, rather, who benefits? Society is neither racket nor machine, a front for conspiratorial elites or automaton that blindly and autonomously reproduces sex/gender and gendered inequality. It's a fusion of both. What, historically has benefited from the subordination of women? Men-in-general have, but so has capital accumulation. So it has also benefited from the reconfiguration of femininity since the 1960s, empowering women as consumers and active participants in labour markets. Lesbian, gay, and bi people are enjoying the freedom growing acceptance is bringing, and so is capital. Lastly, as the movement for trans freedom gathers speed, so too will new opportunities open for capital. To abstract the changing performativity and materialisation of gendered practices from the prevailing socio-economic system is a glaring oversight. However, that does not mean the struggle for equality or, if you prefer, liberation along these lines is hopeless because they do not directly confront capital. Through difference, identity can be established. As the oppression of older modes of performativity are washed away, as the oppressed become more variegated, so the oppressor is homogenised and the possibility of a united project of liberation becomes greater. This is where the new third/fourth wave of feminism is currently at. It's getting on with the business of causing trouble while marrying the activism of the second wave to the sophisticated anti-essentialism of 1990s theorising. Hence why, in general, it is open and, for the most part, absolutely welcoming of transwomen. It recognises that the diversity of women, whether cis or trans, is a strength. And ultimately why it's so impatient with the likes of Germaine Greer. If a commitment to inclusivity is the watchword of contemporary feminism, small wonder it has no time for those who actively work against it - even if that involves women who played a key role in getting the feminist movement off the ground in the first place.
If the inhabitants of these fair islands get the politicians they deserve, can the same be said about the professional commentariat? I feel moved to ask because Brendan O'Neill, the faux ra-ra-revolutionary turned tedious troll has indecently exposed his idiocy, or his cynicism depending on how you see these things. Let's step back away from things for a moment and consider the object of O'Neill's ire, the newly-named Caitlyn Jenner. Quite apart from her politics, which are iffy; and the privilege wealth has brought her, which is considerable; many millions who've tracked the press rumours and followed her from celebrity (ex-)husband and Kardashian hanger on to coming out as someone undergoing a transition from one gender to another will have been touched. Not a few are likely to have been educated and forced to confront their own misunderstandings and, in some cases, prejudices. Nor should the personal courage of Jenner be underestimated either. Imagine the mental strain of living your entire adult life - Jenner is 65 - feeling at odds with your body, and then risking your relationships with family and friends, as well as general shunning, to come out as someone who wishes to change their gender. It's a bloody terrifying prospect. In my view, anyone who takes that step deserves commendation and support through what can be, and often is, an unimaginably difficult time. And that includes someone like Caitlyn Jenner. O'Neill's 'Call Me Caitlyn, Or Else', which is supposedly aimed at a progressive audience, tries so hard to drape itself in the tradition of leftist cultural critique, but fails spectacularly. Ostensibly a criticism of the celebrity grown up around Jenner and, understandably, some of the sharp defences of her, what O'Neill betrays is a snobbish semi-Nietzschean disdain for the herd. Not for one moment does he consider that some people really do find her story genuinely life affirming for all kinds of reasons, nor that Jenner's coming out represents a blow struck for trans-acceptance when this is a community of people on the receiving end of bigotry and violence. I'm supposing the notion of solidarity went into the shredder along with his many unsold copies of Living Marxism. No, this is a spiteful piece that basically objects to a) the existence of trans people, and b) the very idea they should have a political voice. The things some former socialists will say for a couple of hundred quid. Now, O'Neill can't be a congenitally stupid man. Getting a regular paid writing gig these days requires a bit of nous and some familiarity with the hot button issues of the day. And as someone who is plugged into the media for a living, I have to assume O'Neill isn't ignorant of some facts around trans issues. That, for instance, the incidence of mental illness is much higher among trans people than the general population. That hate crimes against trans people are on the rise. And that in the USA, seven trans women were murdered in the first month-and-a-half of this year, all of whom were not white. O'Neill cannot but know this, and yet still turned in a piece of sophistry that punches downwards. There are many names for doing such a thing, but "progressive" isn't one of them.
Before sitting down to watch the new Doctor Who with Peter Capaldi, there are two things reasons to be optimistically cheerful about. Mr Malcolm Tucker has said no to flirtatious banter with his co-stars. Second, Jenna Coleman might exit at Christmas. This is no reflection on Coleman, she's only playing a part after all. Unfortunately, Clara is a highly problematic: an object that exists solely as a story line, from the get-go she was a wise-cracking, ass-kicking, bum-pinching get-up-and-go-girl; a walking, talking female sonic screw-driver whose sole reason for being was to get the Doctor out of a pickle or two. How can you develop a character after that? Take a deep breath (see what I did there?), the opener of reboot series eight was something of a minor triumph. Not Steven Moffat's greatest work, but probably the best introduction to a new Doctor we've seen. Your Ecclestons, your Tenants, your Smiths, they set a consistent tone that's ran like an annoying thread through seven series and sundry specials: a tendency to overact. Did CapaldiDoc succumb to the same temptation? Having a Scottish Doctor cutting a serious, troubled, and (seemingly) more ruthless jib demands can only work if a clean break is made with Smith's hipster Doctor. The new Doctor lapses into a temporary breakdown and runs around London at night, lamenting over a dinosaur barbecue and scrabbling in bins for clothes. Sanity seemingly returns when he meets back up with Clara to do battle with the automatons slicing 'n' dicing their way through Victorian London for their own dark purposes. As the Doctor struggles to rebalance himself, Clara is conflicted about the transformation. You'd be a mite perturbed if your closest friend had a full person transplant too. In conversation with Madame Vastra she lets rip about how she's not a distraction for the Doctor, that she's a proper person and not a pretty face that turned his head. Could this be anything other than Moffat answering his critics via Clara? There was also a curious meditation on relationships throughout the episode. Whovians know Vastra and Jenny are married. Fair enough, viewers new to the show won't necessarily know that. Yet this was repeatedly emphasised with monotonous regularity. Why? Is Moffat fishing for plaudits for putting a lesbian relationship front and centre in the BBC's flagship kids' show? To portray their marriage well, he might want to be more subtle than every five minutes having a big great megaphone screaming YES THEY ARE LESBIANS DEAL WITH IT. Less is more, Steven. Then there is the Doctor and Clara. Again, as per the break with the previous are-they/aren't-they boyf/girlf flirty tedium of Smith/Coleman, a necessary line had to be drawn under it. And, actually, I think this was handled fairly well. Surprisingly given the tone of the pervious series, it turns out Clara wasn't the one who harboured The-Doctor-is-my-boyfriend fantasies, it was the other way round. The impossible girl was the object of an impossible crush. The other key relationship was that we have with ourselves. The Doctor is confused and is trying to get his bearings as a new person in relation to his predecessors. It's something we as the audience will be doing for a long time to come too. But the monster of the week was a smart choice in this regard too. As the Doctor builds on multiple personalities, the android from the 51st century was approaching personhood by supplementing circuitry and mechanics with bits of people. As they float above London under an inflatable bag of skin, the Doctor lectures the automaton on how his consumption of human parts has transformed him into something beyond the parameters of his programming. The cycles of replacement have so changed him that the essential android, the original before he made like a Kwik-Fit fitter with body parts, no longer exists. This is to the point he cannot tell what was original and what has since been learned and incorporated into his personality. Allegory much. Then there is the closing scene. After getting impaled atop Westminster's Clock Tower (did he jump? Did the Doctor push him?), the android wakes up in a garden. After spending the episode prattling on about the 'promised land', a woman informs him he's made it to heaven. With a sinister overtone she introduces herself as the Doctor's "girlfriend". So we have moved from a companion/Doctor relationship in which we'd been led to believe was suffused with unrequited love on Clara's part to having that upended to a new woman whose love for the Doctor is not so much unrequited as downright stalkery and co-dependent. Just as the new Doctor promised an improvement in the portrayal of women, for inspiration Moffat's new villain channels Fatal Attraction. We'll have to see how this plays out, but going on past form I fear the new season will be scarred by sexism. Again.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the fire of radical politics burns fiercest when fuelled by the polemic of other radicals. Nowhere is this truer than the ruinous, ceaseless battle between transwomen and activists who've come to be known (pejoratively) as trans-exclusionary radical feminists. I'm not going to get too much into that fight. There's little point my mansplaining matters to readers, especially as there's plenty of stuff outthere already. I agree with Caroline Criado-Perez, 'cis' is not a neutral term merely meaning "not-trans". Bound up in trans discourse with something called 'cis-privilege', Caroline is right to ask what this "privilege" means in practice for non-trans women. The privilege of being accepted as a woman means taking all the crap women deal with. She notes that some kind of rarefied gender identity is not core to her personal identity as a feeling, thinking human being, but we live in a society where her body emits signs that constitute her as a woman in the eyes of other women and men, and all that that entails. Likewise, me being 'a man' is not central to my sense of self either. Other things are. Yet the difference between Caroline and I is the fact my wiry, gawky frame has been coded male since birth and I am accepted as a man in all of my daily interactions. The fact gender identity doesn't impinge on my personal identity is a consequence of gender privilege, of being a member of the dominant gender. Caroline's contributions on the debate are especially useful because she places the materiality of the lived, social body at the centre of her approach to the relationship between feminism and transpolitics. It's a reminder that gender is not a free-roaming PoMo signifier that slips and slides all over the place. Yet it's not transwomen who need reminding about the materiality of gender. As Juliet Jacques notes, transitioning and living as a woman is difficult precisely because of the weight hanging on gender. Harassment, violence, discrimination, the struggle to access medical services, these are the risks undertaken when changing gender. It is a fraught, stressful experience. Committing to the change takes guts. Ultimately, it's this materiality that is the root of the so-called TERF wars. For radical feminists who have a problem with transwomen, allowing them to access women-only feminist spaces risks the dilution of bringing out cis women's experience of gendered oppression. It might make some women who've suffered at the hands of male violence feel uncomfortable. There is also the notion that transwomen are acting as agents of patriarchal social relations. For example, the hegemonic femininity radical feminism kicks against is an object the ideology of passing works towards. Radical feminism contests it. Transitioning valorises it. Far from contesting gender, transwomen confirm it and thereby strengthen the patriarchy. For transwomen, for a section of feminism to join in with all the avalanche of crap, to have ostensibly progressive people question their right to exist - and worse - is intolerable. Hence the violence of online exchanges, of the prevalence of 'TERF scum' as an insult, and its escalation into encompassing mainstream feminists, like Caroline, and Sarah Ditum, who do ask serious questions about gender. The TERF wars are not about bloody-mindedness. It is a product of material experience, of how two sets of women live, theorise and politicise gender. The issues, however, are not insurmountable.
Shamelessly ripped from here. Raises some interesting questions for carriers of "Israelis stop killing Palestinians, Palestinians stop killing queers" placards. thepeoplesrecord: Eight questions Palestinian queers are tired of hearing July 25, 2014 You might think that the main goal of a group of queer activists in Palestine like us in Al-Qaws should be the seemingly endless task of dismantling sexual and gender hierarchy in one’s own society. It is. But you might think otherwise, judging from the repetitive questions we get during our lectures and events, or from inquiries we receive from media and other international organizations. We intend to end this once and for all. Educating people about their own privilege is not our burden. But before we announce our formal retirement from this task, here are the eight most frequent questions we get, and their definitive answers. 1. Doesn’t Israel provide Palestinian queers with a safe haven? Of course it does: the apartheid wall has sparkly pink doors lining it, ready to admit those who strike a fabulous pose. In fact, Israel built the wall to keep Palestinian homophobes out and to protect Palestinian queers who seek refuge in it. But seriously: “Israel” creates refugees; it does not shelter refugees. There has never been a case of a Palestinian — a descendant of a family or families who were forcibly displaced, sometimes massacred, often thrown in jail without charge — magically transcending the living legacy of this history to find him or herself granted asylum in “Israel” — the state that committed these atrocities. If some people manage to cross the wall and end up in Tel Aviv, they are considered “illegal.” They end up working and living in horrible conditions, trying to avoid being arrested. 2. Aren’t all Palestinians homophobic? Are all Americans homophobic? Of course not. Unfortunately, Western representations of Palestinians, particularly lesbian, gay, transgender or queer Palestinians, tend to ignore diversity in Palestinian society. That being said, Palestinians are living under a decades-long military occupation. The occupation amplifies the diverse forms of oppression that are experienced in every society. However, homophobia is not the way we contextualize our struggle. This is a notion comes from specific type of activism in the global north. How can we single out homophobia from a complex oppressive system (patriarchy) that oppresses women, and gender non-conforming people? 3. How do you deal with your main enemy, Islam? Oh, we have a main enemy now? If we had to single out a main enemy that would be occupation, not religion — Islam or otherwise. More fundamentalist forms of religion are presently enjoying a global resurgence, including in many Western societies. We don’t view religion as our main exceptional challenge. Still, increased religious sentiment, regardless of which religion, almost always creates obstacles for those interested in promoting respect for gender and sexual diversity. Palestinian nationalism has a long history of respect for secularism. This provides a set of cultural values useful in advocating for LGBTQ Palestinians. Furthermore, religion is often an important part of Palestinian LGBTQ people’s identities. We respect all of our communities’ identities and make space for diversity. 4. Are there any out Palestinians? I’m glad you asked that question. We have great Palestinian gay carpenters who build such amazing closets for queers with all the Western comforts you can dream of — we never want to leave. Once again the notion of coming out — or the politics of visibility — is a strategy that has been adopted by some LGBT activists in the global north, due to specific circumstances. Imposing this strategy on the rest of the world, without understanding context, is a colonial project. Ask us instead what social change strategies apply to our context, and whether the notion of coming out even makes sense. 5. Why are there no Israelis in al-Qaws? Colonialism is not about bad people being mean to others (“bad” Israelis don’t steal queer Palestinians’ lunch money). Being super “good” doesn’t magically dissolve systems of oppression. Our organization works within Palestinian society, across borders imposed by the occupation. The challenges that LGBTQ Israelis face are nothing like the ones faced by Palestinians. We are talking about two different societies with different cultures and histories; the fact that they are currently occupying our land doesn’t make us one society. Moreover, being queer does not eliminate the power dynamic between the colonized and colonizer despite the best of intentions. We resist the “global, pink, happy, gay family” sentiment. Palestinian-only organizing is essential to decolonizing and improving Palestinian society. 6. I saw this film about gay Palestinians (Invisible Men/Bubble/Out In The Dark, etc.) and I feel I learned a lot about your struggle You mean the films that were made by privileged Israeli or Jewish filmmakers portraying white Israelis as saviors and Palestinians as victims that needed saving? These films strip the voice and agency of Palestinian queers, portraying them as victims that need saving from their own society. Moreover, these films rely on racist tropes of Arab men as volatile and dangerous. These films are simply pinkwashing propaganda, funded by the Israeli government, with a poignant oppressed/oppressor love story the glitter on top. If you want to learn about the reality of our community and our struggle, try listening to what queer Palestinians have to say, at the Al-Qaws or Palestinian Queers for BDS websites. 7. Isn’t fighting for gay rights a more pressing issue than pinkwashing? Mainstream LGBT groups in the North would have us believe that queers live in a separate world, only connected to their societies as victims of homophobia. But you cannot have queer liberation while apartheid, patriarchy, capitalism and other oppressions exist. It’s important to target the connections of these oppressive forces. Furthermore, pinkwashing is a strategy used by the Brand Israel campaign to garner the support of queers in other parts of the world. It is simply an attempt to make the Zionist project more appealing to queer people. This is another iteration of a familiar and toxic colonial fantasy — that the colonizer can provide something important and necessary that the colonized cannot possibly provide for themselves. Pinkwashing strips away our voices, history and agency, telling the world that Israel knows what is best for us. By targeting pinkwashing we are reclaiming our agency, history, voices and bodies, telling the world what we want and how to support us. 8. Why do you use terms from “the West” like LGBT or queer to describe your struggle? How do you answer that critique? Though we have occasionally been branded as tokenized, complicit with Israel, naïve and Westernized (by those based in the West), our activists bring decades of experience and on-the-ground analysis of cultural imperialism and Orientalism. This has provided the raw material for many an itinerant academic. However, the work of those in the Ivory Tower is rarely, if ever, accountable to those working in the field nor does it acknowledge its power (derived from the same colonial economy) on activists. We are accountable to our local communities and the values developed over years of organizing. Language is a strategy, but it does not eclipse the totality of who we are and what we do. The words that have gained global currency — LGBTQ — are used with great caution in our grassroots movements. Simply because such words emerged from a particular context and political moment does not mean they carry that same political content when deployed in our context. The language that we use is always revisited and expanded through our work. Language catalyzes discussions and pushes us to think more critically, but no word whether in English or Arabic can do the work. Only a movement can. Ghaith Hilal is a queer Palestinian activist from the West Bank who has been part of Al-Qaws leadership since 2007. System Amoebae adds There is a hell of a lot to learn here, for activists around the world. Not just about Palestine, but about how everyone approaches particular oppressions. This critique of activism in the global north should be used to examine how we should focus on root causes: patriarchy and capitalism (and different types of apartheid where applicable) — remembering that CAPITALISM is a crucial part of that. Expanding the concept of patriarchy out from how it’s typically come to be used (men holding power over women) and linking it with capitalism in its broader sense is important as well. Overcoming our Western, identity-based conceit should be high up on our list of ‘things to do’ as activists of any kind.
Belated second sketchy contribution on intersectionality. I recommend looking at Identity Politics and Intersectionality first. 1. Intersectional thinking, informed in general by some kind of identity politics/new social movement theory accepts, in the abstract, that gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, etc. are constituted by and through social relations. These relations are also relationships characterised at greater and lesser degrees by domination, discrimination, subordination, oppression, inequality, and silencing. 2. While acknowledging it in theory, the relational character of oppression tends to recognition in the breach than in the observance. Intersectionality is too often identified with the breakdown of attempts to think through the ways multiple oppressions work together, when its promise lies in overcoming their compartmentalisation. Intersectionality is not about an inverted hierarchy of oppression, scoring points for having it worse than others, or privilege checking as a precondition of solidarity. 3. The compartmentalisation of oppressed social locations is neither a matter of faulty theory or misinterpretation, but an effect of how the social relations constituting these positions work. It is an outcome, condensed theoretically, of experience. One cannot help but notice, for example, that the UK's new, post-Twitter generation of prominent feminist voices tend to be white, alumnus of top universities, reside in London and have solidly middle class backgrounds. The problem of which "we" these feminists speak of and for finds itself replayed 30 years after bell hooks diagnosed the problem in the seminal Ain't I A Woman?. But it's more than a question of who gets more CIF slots and retweets. It's a symptom of an underlying political economy of oppression, of being disadvantaged in some circumstances and benefiting from advantage in others. It is the latter that tends to generate axes of tension, making axes of solidarity based on shared characteristics difficult. 4. There are theoretically possible routes out of the impasse. The first of these is intersubjectivity. Sloppy, pathologised forms of identity politics valorises the unique qualities of one's subject position. No straight white man can hope to understand what it's like being a gay black guy. An impassable gulf separates able-bodied from disabled feminists. This, of course, is utter nonsense that fetishises oppression instead of challenging it. We are thinking, feeling, empathising creatures. Human beings are not cold appendages of interests, arrived at schematically. Social divisions do not prevent the more privileged and advantageous from sympathising, solidarising and allying with the oppressed - the history of each and every radical social movement tells us that. Likewise the reverse is true - our capacity for empathy is tugged on to shore up support for the arrangements ruling over us. The millions who grieved for Princess Diana. The millions who identify with celebrities. On and on it goes. 5. Intersubjectivity is a necessary condition for overcoming the pathologisation of identity politics, but is not sufficient. Taken in isolation it has its own dangers. In short, it can amount to an over-theorised notion of simply being nice and respectful or, as Bill and Ted might put it, being excellent to each other. In so doing it reduces sexism, racism etc. to matters of ignorance or individual nastiness. Questions of power are not relevant, they are pushed out of the picture. 6. The other is to give up on coordinated intersectional politics entirely. Just stick to ploughing your own identity furrow and let others get on with theirs. Laissez faire will sort things out, one hopes. Or dust off a master category and subsume everything to that by treating other differences as secondary. In both cases, this is a recipe for less efficacy and more pathology. 7. Perhaps understandably, intersectional thinking has tended to overlook class. Like gender, like ethnicity, like sexuality, like disability, class is a dynamic social relationship systematically reproduced across capitalist societies that is absolutely essential to its reproduction. 8. Too much received sociological commentary reduces class to status or, worse, occupational category. While important and vital to social critique and intersectional politics, an understanding of class as a relation, as a process takes us into capitalism's guts. And what we find there is a simple, banal truth that intersectional politics has forgotten. The overwhelming majority of people have to work for a living. 9. Basic Marxism. In advanced capitalist societies, there are those who own significant quantities of capital and those who do not. The people that do, whether by direct employment or through various intermediaries invest their capital to make a profit, from which they derive an income. The source of profits derives from the labour of others. Capital, collectively, employs a propertyless mass of people (the proletariat) to produce commodities. It doesn't matter whether they're material or "immaterial", the point is the full value of what is produced is not returned to the producer. They have signed up for X quantity of hours in return for a wage or salary. The value realised by the sale of commodities accrues to the employer. Hence this difference - surplus value - is abstract and hidden, and yet can be discerned from the social behaviour of employers and employees. They act as if surplus value is as tangible and real as the sturdy wooden desk my computer rests on. 10. This is where the notion of material interest comes into play. Capital in general is a blind social process. To perpetuate itself (and the owners who depend on it for income) it has to constantly seek new ways of generating greater and greater profits. Seeking markets is one element of this - after all, if no one buys your goods you won't make your money back, let alone see any profit. Where individual capitals exert direct control is in the production process, where it faces the irresistible impetus to drive costs down. Typically this has been via an intensification of the labour process, where the application of technology makes employees more productive - at the cost of little or no extra wages, or by lengthening the working day or reining in pay and benefits. From this standpoint workers are reduced to inputs, to figures winking on a monitor. They are a resource to be managed, or an inconvenience to whittle away. It's not so much a case of Marxism and socialism reducing human beings to proletarians, it's a matter of theory describing a real, concrete process. 11. From the standpoint of capital then, workers are only a means to an end. People are employed to make money. Capital buys labour power for a set number of hours, and that's it. As long as management's right to manage is sacrosanct in its workplaces, it mostly doesn't care what its workers do in their own time. Likewise, despite the best efforts of the media, education, and institutional dictates, we sell our labour power because we have to, not because we want to. And in this relationship, working people too have definite sets of interests. These aren't the result of a thought experiment; struggling around and asserting these interests have had concrete impacts on each and every capitalist society. There's the obvious - capital has an interest in depressing wages, labour has an interest in raising them; capital has an interest in lengthening the working day, labour has an interest in stopping this encroachment on free time. Capital wants its workers subordinated completely to the needs of the business, labour wants the business to fit round their lives. Capital wants to treat its employees like cogs, labour demands to be treated like human beings. This is the stuff of class struggle. 12. The majority of women are dependent on a wage. The majority of men are dependent on a wage. The majority of white people are dependent on a wage. The majority of the global non-white majority are dependent on a wage. Straight people, gay people, bi-people, trans people, the majority of all these are dependent on a wage. Able or disabled; oppressed nationality, oppressor nationality, the one thing they have in common, the experience cutting through the sections and intersections is the experience of the capitalist workplace. Of their subordination to the demands and dictates of capital. You can see why, historically, class has been privileged by labour movements, social democratic parties, and communist parties. So, are we back to the beginning? Is class the lynchpin? 13. Yes. And no. Capital is constituted by struggle. When we sell our labour power, we get caught up in it. There is no escape. But this does not mean everything is "reducible" to class, at least not class narrowly defined in traditional terms. As wage labourers, as proletarians, there is a political economy to how we, as a variegated collection of human beings, reproduce ourselves as such. We reproduce our physical bodies through eating, resting and, yes, actually reproducing; and we reproduce ourselves as social beings in the many varied social contexts that mark our lives as gendered, raced, sexualised people. The former is a physical necessity, the latter is, theoretically, the realm of freedom. It is the space in which we can realise ourselves. We give up chunks of our lives not just to survive, but so we have the resources that allow us to follow our inclinations. 14. The political economy of wage labour, however, is not an idyllic place. The realm of freedom is, too much, a realm of privatised freedom, of seeking comfort in one's peccadilloes before heading back out to the daily grind. The realm of freedom is also potential freedom. Because, for too many people, it's the opposite. Reproducing oneself socially and culturally (and physically) is not a free-floating matter. It is under certain conditions, under the weight of history and convention, and through patterns of certain social institutions. This is the place of the family, the traditional bastion of gender roles, compulsory heterosexuality, and the rule of the father. It is the place of community, of what constitutes an insider and who is coded an outsider. It's the space of the environment, of whether you live in a nice place or a run down estate suffering the effects of crime and pollution. It's the dimension of social and cultural capital, of the networks and status you command - or don't. 15. This is the home, the wellspring of the oppressions addressed by identity politics and intersectionality. As vulgar class politics have treated human beings as wage earners who need to get over their divisions - a critique of the political economy of capital while forgetting/ignoring the political economy of wage labour, you might argue that intersectionality is an attempt to theorise and reconcile the divisions within the political economy of the latter while bracketing the political economy of capital. This is why both have floundered. The former emphasises the simple at the expense of the complex. The latter, the complex at the expense of the simple. The bulk of the proletariat is intersectional. The bulk of the intersectional is proletarian. 16. The separation of the two political economies is an analytical separation. While at work, you might spend your time thinking about the weekend. At the weekend, you might find yourself thinking about work. The values, ideas, prejudices that have taken root outside of the workplace can be and often are carried into the workplace. Capital too has proven adept at using these social divisions - gender, race, sexuality, religion, nationality and status - to help atomise workforces in its ceaseless hunger for more surplus value, more profit. Solidarity is harder to deliver across colour bars and sectarian division. 17. This is where intersectional and class politics, erm, intersect. Exploiting divisions among workers can reinforce divisions among workers. Throwing millions of women out of work after the first and second world wars for the returning men reinforced patriarchy, made them economically dependent on their husbands, and strengthened a strict gendered division of labour in work. Proletarian men benefited - they had their jobs, and, culturally speaking, they were entitled to keep a woman along the lines of the bourgeois home, with its male head and wife/mother. Capital obviously benefited. And women lost out. Privileging either, in this instance, skews the analysis and therefore the political response. Hence, while the two political economies are analytically separate, the struggles in each are tangled up with one another. 18. For those who doubt the salience of class politics, the fact labour movements are growing in the developing world, and have knocked about the advanced capitalist nations just shy of two centuries suggests that doubting is somewhat overstated. Their basic, most basic function, is to bring working people together to face their employers as a disciplined collective. It's far more difficult for capital to pursue its relentless race to the bottom in an organised workplace. Yet in postmodern/identity, and intersectional thinking, labour movements are generally neglected as agents of change. Partly, perhaps, they present as dull and plodding whereas new social movements and their antecedents are fresh, but also because labour movements were occasionally the villains of the piece. Colour bars, gender bars, excluding oppressed nationalities, labour movements at various times and in various places have not only enforced them, but initiated them. This is because then, as now, labour movements are movements of working people as you find them. 19. Yet labour movements have come a long way. They're not perfect. The legacy of gendered and racialised divisions of labour still mark certain sectors of it. Yet, in general terms, they have moved from being a brake on the intersectionality of the working class to facilitating it. What other movement is committed to attacking sexism, racism, homo and transphobia? What other movement throws together people from different faiths and none, actively seeks to recruit resident and immigrant workers, and addresses issues from the workplace to environment, health, economics and quality of life and actively works toward their progressive resolution? There is no other such movement. Except for the labour movement. 20. The solution to intersectionality's quandary, of the theoretical glue that can hold it together, is a fundamentally open socialist politics grounded in the mass, intersectional labour movement that already exists. Class politics, so theorised, also has to reflect the actual intersecting, nuanced practice of the labour movement as it is now. Basically, what's on the table is a merger that's long been established. It's time theory caught up with practice. Struggles around gender, ethnicity and sexuality, and class struggles are part and parcel of the same. Every permutation of identity, the working class is it. And if you look at the other end, when you ask "who benefits?" from intersecting oppression and class exploitation, time after time it's the same group of people - the 1%, the bourgeoisie, the establishment, the power elite, the ruling class. 21. The labour movement is a class movement. It is an intersectional movement. As such it represents a persistent threat to the rule of capital, and, in embryo, speaks of the possibility of a future beyond capitalism. It is a movement articulating the universal interests of the overwhelming majority of people. Get stuck in.
Fashion has boldly gone where no style has explored before. If 2014 will be remembered for anything lighthearted, it will be the side-saddle swimming trunks. Late to the comment party as per, this product - as modelled by self-styled 'Gay Kardashians', Bobby Norris and Harry Derbidge from TOWIE - manages the tricky task of undermining and reinforcing traditional notions of masculinity. That, and it has got people talking. Just how do they stay up? Capital has fully colonised women's bodies. Potions 'n' lotions, make up, hair removal, and so on, every conceivable facet of the female body has a mass market clustered around it. For men, on the other hand, its invasion by market forces is less pervasive, its commodification not as thorough. This isn't to say the commercialised male body beautiful does not exist. Creams, razors, smellies, hair loss treatments, these are hardly recent innovations. Ideal-typical masculinity is marketed, exploited. It plays football, wears the fashions, commits acts of hyperviolence, and fucks its way through porn flicks. The commodification, however, proceeds differently. Too often, women's bodies are marketed/positioned as passive objects, as foils for men's desires and egos, as - for want of a better phrase - service providers. Mother, whore, sidekick, or saint, the tropes are different but there is an identity of content, an undergirding theme. Not so with men. The man is the agent, not the object of desire. As with anything and everything social, this hegemonic conceit is challengeable and is challenged. The het gendering of desirable bodies carries on regardless, hence why make up, dedicated razors for legs, chests and pubes are, for men, at best niche products. When was the last time you saw something marketed as a 'masculine hygiene product'? Gay men's bodies problematise this persistent dichotomy. It's interesting. The hegemonic gay body has shifted from the so macho, moustachioed hunk of the Village People/Freddie Mercury archetype to the camp, coiffured, on trend fashionista of, well, TOWIE. That hasn't been the only switch. The gay body of yesteryear was a manly body pump-primed for sex. Recall the AIDS panic of 30 years ago, and the homophobic elision between licentious promiscuity and disease stirred up by sundry bigots. Now, it's almost as if sex has been written out. When Boy George quipped he preferred a cup of tea to a bonk, he unwittingly was a harbinger of the sexless gay guy to come. Of course, gay men have sex and always will. But the gay body for the popular (straight) audience has been desexualised or, to be more accurate, rendered bodies without desire. Mediatised gay bodies don't speak of sex, they speak of campery, frippery and immaculate self-presentation. Less queen, more Queen Mother. Less agent. More object. The bodies of Bobby and Harry have been positioned by the celebrity press as passive objects - there is little qualitative difference with the copious swimwear shoots of women's bodies crowding the sidebar of shame. And the photos invite us to ogle them, with a special stress on "the package". The side-saddle trunks reveal almost as much as they conceal. Is that a stray pube? Could that be the outline of his johnson? Bobby and Harry have therefore made a contribution to aesthetics of the pubis, a concern that's usually the preserve of women. Their "intervention" has crossed a gendered boundary: the media simply do not look at men in this way. With their smart tatts, designer shades, eyebrows to die for and skimpy underwear, Bobby and Harry have subverted the gendering of taste. While our TOWIE friends in collaboration with the media have invented a new way of seeing the male body, thereby undermining its agency vis a vis the passive, feminine other; they're strengthening its traditional positioning too. Bobby and Harry clearly look after themselves. No hint of flab, and there is tone and muscle definition. It speaks of self-discipline and working out. As gender-troubling the side-saddle trunks are, what kind of body could carry it off? A gay body, definitely. But not one with double D moobs and a beer baby. To queer masculinity as effectively as Bobby and Harry, you have to take a manly body - one that a great many "conventional" straight blokes wouldn't mind having - and stick it in a fancy jock strap. There we have it, a disturbance of gender norms that got millions talking. Bobby and Harry are unlikely gender queer heroes. Yet, at the moment of the transgression, as the fabric clings to their loins it reconfirms the hegemonic masculine hard body. It undermines and reasserts. Problematising the body depends on the body. The body depends on problematising the body. Who knew the side-saddle swimming trunks would expose this much?
Eurovision is merely the continuation of politics by other, musical means. Usually, the popular perception is of nepotistic voting, of kindred nation supporting kindred nation. Witness Greece and Cyprus, the Scandinavian countries, and so on. Another persistent trope is to read the blunt force trauma of geopolitics into the granting of points. Everyone east of the Vistula, for example, habitually votes Russia because Papa Putin will turn off the gas otherwise. Or so the argument goes. But last night something different happened. The blocs of old melted as gender and sexual politics came to the fore. Against the backdrop of Belarus and Russian protests, hostility at home, and homophobia from a fellow contestant, Austria's Conchita Wurst swept the board and lifted the Eurovision crown. Rise Like a Phoenix is a great song, and was the best on offer last night. But even had it not Conchita's victory would have been the most positive possible outcome, especially in light of the above (though it's worth noting Armenia's Aram MP3 later apologised for his remarks). There is a ugly homophobia abroad at the moment, particularly in Eastern Europe and Russia. Much like the new misogyny, I believe it's a reaction to the normalisation of same sex relationships and "non-traditional" ways of living. Except in the East, it is being seized upon and reinforced legislatively by bigoted, authoritarian politicians. You have to ask yourself why such people are obsessed with what goes on in others' bedrooms. Of course, Eurovision is no stranger to gay culture nor it to the contest. We all remember when Israel's Dana International struck a blow for trans acceptance way, way back in 1998. Her entry was accompanied by talk that it could spark civil war between secular/liberal and orthodox Israelis. I'm not entirely joking. Nor was last night the first time Eurovision has played host to a drag act. Verka Serduchka represented Ukraine back in 2007. It too caused protests, but ostensibly because Serduchka sent up middle-aged peasant women rather than saying anything about sexuality. However, that performance was more pantomime dame than anything else and so was deemed "safe". Wurst's revolutionary quality lies in being queer. Being queer as fuck. She's an arresting, nay stunning woman, who happens to also be a bearded man in a dress. No fake boobs. No bum padding. Her very figure takes gender boundaries and straddles them in defiance of the conventional rules of drag. Is she a man? Is he a woman? Wurst constantly keeps that question in play and stubbornly refuses to answer it, as if it doesn't matter. In so doing Wurst forces everyone ill at ease with the liquefaction of gender and sexuality to face up to their lingering discomforts and make a choice about what is and what isn't tolerable to them. Increasing numbers are taking the tolerant road, hence the signpost of history is definitely pointing in the direction of acceptance, to a destination where such questions matter no longer. The fact Wurst's presentation wasn't a barrier to her winning and, in fact, will have contributed toward that victory in a major way sends out a clear progressive message. For the 160m Europeans who tuned in, for those in Belarus, Russia and elsewhere who have to hide their sexuality and gender identities, it shows them a possible image of their own future, that the countries to the west are riding a cultural wave of acceptance that will eventually wash up on their shores too. As painful and frightening things are now, the bigotry Putin and co are egging on are the death spasms of moralities and norms on their way out. There is every chance that after last night, the distance between it and its final resting place has foreshortened. (NB 1. Co-author creds are due @catherinebuca - some of these ideas are hers). (NB 2. 'Conchita Wurst' means 'Vagina Sausage')
