Burning Words

I really haven’t blogged much about the recent transphobia wars, because in all honesty, I don’t care to waste the effort. Trying to engage usefully with Witchy Woo, Debs or Heart, or one of their other followers on trans stuff is about as fruitful as trying to convince Peter LaBerbera that the gays aren’t trying to take over the world, or trying to convince Fred Nile that women really don’t belong in the kitchen. Some people are just fucking ignorant, and well, there’s better places to put that energy. Sometimes the particular bollocks being spouted deserves refuting, when it’s genuinely ignorant, but with the sort of blind hatred these people spout? I’ll pass, thanks.

Belledame pointed out pretty aptly a few days ago that with these people, the adage of “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” seems to be going in reverse. It’s kind of a good thing too, I think - I love that quite a few people have simply resorted to ignoring the bile and taking the piss towards it. There’s been some pretty funny stuff, too - belledame, Natalia, and others. There’s been a bunch of stuff that cracks me up whenever I read it.

But one of my most favourite posts of the year so far was Queen Emily’s “I’ve Got Theory, It Could Be Pandas” Go read. This prompted an entirely bizarre response from Polly Styrene. I just don’t get - well, among many things I just don’t get about these people - why they so can’t do humor. So Emily’s just done another awesome response, “The Panda Activist Checklist”. It’s one of the things I’ve appreciated about the response of people to this little outbreak of hate - this time, quite a few people have just resorted to taking the piss (in style, too) instead of arguing with the stupid until death do them part. The ignorance I can handle - but dealing with this blind hatred in the blogosphere gets pretty toxic after a while. And for that, I think sometimes hilarity is the perfect cure - certainly makes dealing with this stuff a lot less exhausting.