The friendly face of gender ideology is still misogyny
Behind the language of inclusion from the likes of Manivannan and Whittome lies a disregard for women
I was halfway through the interview, on the edge of my sofa, when the rage began to take hold. Here I was again, listening to another highly-manipulative, pretty young man, earnestly twisting reality in an attempt to woo otherwise intelligent people into believing his dangerous worldview.
Q Manivannan, the new trans/ non-binary-identifying Scottish Greens regional MSP for Edinburgh and Lothian East admits that, for him, ‘politics is still new.’
In an interview posted online last week, he made his oft-repeated claim to be ‘the thing the hateful despise.’ In contrast to these unnamed troglodytes, a ‘caring, joyous politics’ is more of Q’s ‘brand’, he enthused.
It’s true a sort of ‘free hugs on Tuesdays’ aura surrounds him. I imagine for many - if they’re not part of the group whose rights he wishes to obliterate - he comes across as adorable, energetic and friendly, a little manic, but cute. He might as well be a chinchilla.
Having encountered many a Manivannan in my lifetime, however, I’m afraid I’m immune to the charm. How often a pleasant demeanour in a man has hidden disdain for women; how regular the disappointment as the ‘feminist ally’ turned out to harbour woman-hating views.
It doesn’t exactly take long to reveal itself in self-described ‘progressive’ men nowadays, given gender-identity ideology is the most mescaline-trip-vibrant of misogyny.
Sure enough, halfway through the interview, Manivannan was asked about toilet provision in the Scottish Parliament. Should trans women (men who identify as women) use the ladies?
‘Absolutely they should,’ he said solemnly.
He lamented the ‘selective magnification of particular voices in that conversation,’ referring to women whose legal and moral right to single-sex spaces he would – presumably lovingly - overturn.
Yes, why ‘magnify’ the women these policies affect profoundly and negatively? What could they possibly have to say about such trifles as their rights? After all, he added, some nice ‘cis women’ don’t seem to mind ‘trans women’ (men) in their intimate spaces.
He is, unfortunately, correct on that. Young, naive women who identify as ‘cisgender’ are particularly prone to putting the demands of men above the rights their foremothers fought for. Luckily, their ingratitude and pitiful consent to dangerous absurdity is not transferable to the rest of us.
Let’s be clear: the reduction of this issue to toilets is a purposeful ruse; long been used to shame women, make them feel grubby, for demanding single-sex spaces of any sort. The ‘why are you obsessed with where people pee, yuck!’ crowd don’t tend to fare so well when their logic is used by male rapists demanding close access to vulnerable female prisoners.
‘Unspeakably cruel belief system’
Whether it’s a hospital ward, toilet, or domestic violence shelter under discussion, the genderist belief-system is anti-women, anti-feminist, and unspeakably cruel. Believers like Manivannan don’t support women having male-free access to any of these things should a man don a jaunty hair-bow and pinafore then demand inclusion.
It’s a gross injustice For Women Scotland had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court last April to reassert basic reality and reconfirm women’s sex-based rights. It’s a further boot to the face that resistance to the judgment continues to involve manipulative, politically-powerful figures like Manivannan using psychologically abusive guilt-shaming tactics against women who are – and have always been - legally and morally correct.
It’s a sad truth, but the global mania of genderism has caused such enormous harm the most stubborn cannot dare face the fact they’ve been wrong. They must therefore continue to muddy the waters with absurdities. They must insist this very simple issue is complex.
Arch-genderist, the young Labour MP Nadia Whittome – the more experienced female mirror of Q Manivannan at Westminster - is the embodiment of this, bringing ultra-genderism to her role at the Women and Equalities Committee last week.
Questioning the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Mary Ann Stephenson over the organisation’s long overdue guidance in response to last year’s Supreme Court ruling, Whittome displayed Olympian levels of blinkered idiocy.
How can we possibly ‘police’ people using the spaces and services of their sex, she asked, almost in disbelief such a thing should be demanded. How can anyone possibly tell who is male or female?
Stephenson answered with reference to something gender-identity enthusiasts admittedly devalue: by the powers of human perception and basic common sense.
Both Manivannan and Whittome are archetypes of the most insidious types of gender activist: the gentle, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly Manivannan-style ‘sensitive’ males, fluttering on about ‘care’ and ‘joy’ while robbing women of both their faculties and rights, meaning they guiltily nod along, agreeing not to be such meanies by centring their own needs.
And the young, Whittome-women, so zealously and confidently opposed to their own rights; so convinced by their own righteousness, they’re a sorry reminder that, at the time, some women equally vehemently opposed women’s suffrage.
The truth is, the only ‘unworkable’ thing about the EHRC’s guidance is the most entitled men in the world refuse to take women’s ‘NO’ for an answer. Some trans-identified males fear and loathing of women has been so intense it has led to credible death threats against women who say that word to them.
Manivannan and Whittome are far from the scariest trans activists, given the worst deploy such terroristic tactics. This includes – as Mary Ann Stephenson reminded the WEC – organising ‘p*** protests’ outside EHRC headquarters. Territorial p***ing. How very lady-like.
But Q Manivannan, unlike Nadia Whittome, is a man telling women to shut up; to give up their rights to any man who demands them.
Before genderism addled the world nobody needed told what this is. No poetic inclinations, befuddled Whittomist handmaidens, and appeals to ‘joy’ can hide it. It’s stark, uncaring misogyny.
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