Adele Upsets The Genderless Brits...

[naomi24]

//Adele is accused of being 'anti-trans' after telling genderless BRITs she 'loves being a FEMALE artist' but legions of fans and PR experts praise her for 'standing up for women' during prime time slot on super-woke ITV//

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10493529/Adeles-snub-virtue-signalling-record-label-chiefs-woke-LA.html

Good for her. Oops! Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

[douglas9401]

Nah.

[jim360]

I don't see anything wrong with what Adele said, and I suspect that the overwhelming majority of people would be fine with it too. The mistake here seems to be to conflate the views of one or two morons with the views of an entire community. It is, for example, noteworthy that some of the loudest support for Adele, as expressed in the article, comes from a trans woman.

[royfromaus]

Two miffed twits now...a really slow burner this story.

https://twitter.com/tsvi/status/1491436260702887938

[jim360]

Indeed. As a rule, you can find a tweet expressing almost any view, no matter how stupid that view may be. Likewise, there are certain media outlets which seem to delight in finding these tweets, and then exhibiting them as some sort of representation of actual, commonly-held views among a particular community, which they are not. It's as well not to fall for the narrative being spun here, to give neither attention to the individual moron nor to the news articles reporting it.

[naomi24]

You can’t blame people for taking this sort of thing seriously, Jim. The death threats J K Rowling has received are no spin. They’re real.

[andy-hughes]

naomi - // You can’t blame people for taking this sort of thing seriously, Jim. //

You can't - but hopefully you can educate people that just because one person is an idiot, doesn't mean we all are.

[naomi24]

Perhaps the trans community should consider educating its supporters.

[andy-hughes]

naomi - // Perhaps the trans community should consider educating its supporters. //

It seems as though being in a minority these days means you are automatically expected to have your 'offence' antenna tuned to the 'unfeasibly sensitive' setting.

I remember when I was growing up, the gay community dealt with rampant homophobia with a combination of patience, and sharply honed wit.

Living with adversity on a daily basis did seem to imbue a lot of gay people with an appropriate level of self-awareness and self-respect, that has enabled them vastly to transform attitudes.

It cannot be good for any minority to attempt to educate people out of pointless ignorance and prejudice, if the default perception of the individuals involved is one of hyper self-obsession, and a deeply peevish need always to assume victimhood, and spit out vitriol at any and every perceived slight, however imaginary it may be.

[jim360]

// You can’t blame people for taking this sort of thing seriously, Jim. The death threats J K Rowling has received are no spin. They’re real. //

Indeed. But here, too, we should draw a line between people expressing weird, and wrong, opinions, and between those who are actively threatening others. When I said that such people should be ignored, I was of course referring only to the first group.

// Perhaps the trans community should consider educating its supporters. //

It's probably also a mistake to refer to the trans community as if it's a single group. But it's enough responsibility as it is to "educate" its detractors, of which there are many, without dealing with the internal extremists into the bargain.

Really, this is all just a reflection of the basic truth that, sadly, many humans are jerks, and there's no one subgroup of humanity free from this.

[naomi24]

You’re climbing up your own bottom, Jim. Suddenly ‘the entire community’ isn’t an entire community, and furthermore, with regard to violence I vividly recall you telling me that if I called a man dressed as a woman ‘he’ I would get a slap. Which bit of which community do you speak for?

[andy-hughes]

jim - // It's probably also a mistake to refer to the trans community as if it's a single group. //

What else could it be?

It is the 'trans community' that labels itself as such, again tying in with the need for people to see themselves as 'outside' and a 'persecuted minority', so they can flagellate themselves gleefully at how much the world despises them.

[jim360]

I mean a community in the sense of having a coherent world-view.

// with regard to violence I vividly recall you telling me that if I called a man dressed as a woman ‘he’ I would get a slap. //

People who can't distinguish colourful language from genuine threats should be taken out and shot.

[naomi24]

You didn’t improve on it, Jim.

[andy-hughes]

jim - // People who can't distinguish colourful language from genuine threats should be taken out and shot. //

Clearly you see naomi's perceived inability to differentiate between your unpleasant threatening tone, and 'colourful language' as entirely her fault, and nothing to do with you.

It is to do with you.

The responsibility to express yourself in language and terms conveying your meaning clearly, is entirely yours.

Expecting naomi to judge that you are using 'colourful language' and then threatening her for not doing so is an appalling case of bullying.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

[naomi24]

‘Colourful language’ it wasn’t. It was a serious discussion. I know backtracking is your usual route, Jim , but

[naomi24]

Sorry, rogue dog paw … but this has been raised before and the last time you excused it as a joke. It wasn’t.

[jim360]

There's nothing I've said in this thread that is threatening. It should be clear that my "taken out and shot" comment was deliberate hyperbole, and not at all meant seriously. I'm surprised that you've responded to it with some suggestion that I should be "ashamed of myself".

Humour doesn't always translate well in text, and I appreciate that -- and it's perhaps bold of me to assume that I'm being "humorous" anyway -- but at best it was a poor attempt at humour, rather than a cause for shame.

I can't vouch for my mood or intent when I wrote the "slap" comment, some years ago now, but then Naomi's also got the habit of reading the worst intentions into what I write, and then quoting them years later and repeatedly without context at every opportunity. Communication does indeed depend on the speaker; but also the listener, to perhaps a lesser extent. After all, as you (Andy) have already said, some people have their antennae attuned to the "unfeasibly sensitive" setting. This thread is literally discussing an example of a speaker being plain in their meaning, and a listener misconstruing it. It's a mistake to assume that such "unfeasibly sensitive" listeners, those with a victim mentality, are confined to minorities.

I'm not convinced then that I have anything to be ashamed of, and certainly not when the call to feel ashamed comes from people too quick to judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few, based on a article by a media outlet with a very clear and unfortunate agenda in this topic.

[jim360]

// the last time you excused it as a joke. It wasn’t. //

Well, if you perceived it as serious then I apologise. But how you perceived it, and how I meant it, are clearly different things.

[naomi24]

The point is that unpleasantness emanating from that community isn’t as rare as you claim, Jim. Of course you want to portray it in the best light, but don’t take people for fools. Most of us are not, we can all read, and there is a penchant within that community to behave aggressively. You only have to look at the men using women’s toilets argument or the male athletes taking part in women’s sports to see that.

[andy-hughes]

Jim - // I'm not convinced then that I have anything to be ashamed of, and certainly not when the call to feel ashamed comes from people too quick to judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few, based on a article by a media outlet with a very clear and unfortunate agenda in this topic. //

It doesn't come from 'people', it comes from me, and I am speaking entirely for myself.

And you are assuming that I am 'judging an entire group of people' because of media spin.

I think I know enough about media spin to be able to distinguish simple fact from journalistic embellishment.

But since you are determined to make your bad behaviour my fault for 'misunderstanding you', why not get the complete set - tell me I have no sense of humour as well.