In defence of privilege...

I am a white, middle-class, English speaking, cisgendered, homosexual male from a fairly well-off British family. I have never experienced any abuse, neglectful or otherwise, I grew up in a loving family who raised me well and neither spoiled nor deprived me, and any troubles or difficulties I may have with mental or physical disorders [officially] remain either unrealised or undiagnosed.

And if it were not for one word in that previous paragraph I would never dream of writing a post like this. As it is, I am already unsure of the effect this post would have if it were to be read by certain individuals I know, but I suppose that is why I am posting it in a fairly unofficial manner.

As it is, I have decided to write in defence of privilege. A friend of mine recently posted this tumblr to Facebook, and I recommend it to anyone who might want to know my opinions on a wide variety of questions that privileged people often ask.

The thing is that privilege is a difficult concept for me, because it is something that everyone experiences, everyone is a victim of, and yet so few people seem to know it exists. There is the obvious classist privilege that many people will be familiar with, and the sexist privilege that some insist is a thing of the past (or has been reversed, and that men are now victims of female-enforced privilege), or the similarly denied racist privilege. Beyond these types of privilege are cisgendered privilege, heterosexist privilege, ableist privilege, and symptomatically related prejudices such as biphobia, transphobia, ableism. Of course, this is just scratching the surface, as there is literally any kind of privilege that you can conceive.

Now, I'm not saying that privileged arguments are defendable. "But how do you know you're gay/lesbian/bi/trans?", "But surely polyamory is just cheating?", "I don't believe in bisexuality - you either are or you aren't. Make up your mind." and, "What do you mean, you're neither male nor female? Surely you have to be one or the other?" are statements or questions borne of ignorance and little else. I'm not talking about when people ask innocent questions to learn or avoid offending (for example, asking someone's pronoun - especially if they identify as a non-binary gender); rather I'm talking about people who have never experienced discrimination of a particular kind, and therefore decide that it does not exist.

I'm not denying that these people exist. I have fielded questions such as, "Is homophobia even a thing anymore?", "Do we really need an LGBT Society in a university where equality has pretty much been achieved?" and the infamous prefix, "I'm not being homophobic, but...", and so it would be a lie to argue that there does not exist an offensive privilege system out there.

But Fuck Yeah, Privilege Denying Dude (FYPDD) just got be a bit riled up. Now, I know I'm on the privileged end of the spectrum for pretty much everything except discrimination against gay males, but the way this tumblr deals with privilege is basically saying, "Any cisgendered heterosexual male with no history of mental issues is essentially a bad person and can never understand or empathise with the struggles of a marginalised person."

Some may jump to its defence and say that it is simply using generalisations and isolated examples to make a point about a very real problem, and I would agree with that, but that doesn't change the fact that there are many people I know, both within and without the real world, who cry 'privilege' at the drop of a hat.

It's the same principle that makes someone who responds to an argument about tuition fees with, "Are you a mother? Then you couldn't possibly understand." Yes, you bring an essential point of view to a conversation, but as soon as that starts to become your default response, the whole point of the communication is lost.

My main point of contention for this argument is this post, which has the line in the description;

This is the reason why I just don’t trust privileged allies of anything, especially if they wear their ally status on their sleeves. They usually make it all about them, how enlightened they are, and how wonderful they are “helping” marginalized people, then get upset when they’re not appreciated and insult the people they claim they’re allied to.

See, that post to me just highlights a fundamental problem with this approach to privilege. Yes, fighting constantly just to have your identity and beliefs acknowledged and accepted is tiring, and no one can be expected to do that all of the time. And yes, there are many people out there who are cruel and willing to capitalise on the struggles of marginalised individuals in order to make them look good.

But not trusting privileged allies of anything? I'm a male feminist - does the first part negate the second? I have friends who are trans and bi, and I will - and have - defend(ed) their identities when they have been questioned, to the best of my abilities. If I've ever argued a misunderstood or misinterpreted point, it has been an honest mistake, I apologise unreservedly for misrepresenting them and I will point out that in all probability there was alcohol involved at the time.

You don't trust privileged allies? Well, who the fuck are you to decide that the cause of the marginalised is one for only you to take? If ever there were a group that I would not expect to colour with the same brush, it's an anti-privilege group. I know a couple of trans people that I couldn't spend an hour talking to without wanting to kill someone, so does that make me a transphobe? How about the couple of bi guys that I think deserve a bit of a slap for being dickheads? Am I a biphobe now?

Go ahead and call me a privilege-denying dude arguing that any anti-cis, anti-het, anti-privilege is the same as marginalisation or some reverse discrimination. I realise that might be how it comes across. But what I'm trying to say - almost from a Devil's Advocate position (because I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the sentiments expressed in that tumblr) - is that privilege is a difficult concept. It exists, no doubt, and it should be tackled head on, and yes of course, this is your life. When people start spouting hateful comments about it, you have every right to get angry. Hell, I'll get angry for you, whether you like it or not.

And I know it's a bit saccharine, but this whole rant made me think of this PostSecret (which I had to spend a while finding after traipsing through the 2,000 odd I have on my computer):

Text: Be kind - for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

As I said, saccharine, but I often find that keeping that message in mind makes it a hell of a lot easier to let, "But if you haven't kissed a girl, then how can you know?" slide off your back. :)

Gayness is mandatory!

So I was recently directed to an article on the Daily Mail's website (I know, I shouldn't have had high hopes when I went in) that came with the title Gayness mandatory in schools: Gay victims of prejudice to become new McCarthyites, by the lovely Melanie Phillips. For those of you who don't know who she is, allow me to paraphrase a section of her autobiography; she is a twelve-winged harpy from the eighth circle of Hell, whose hobbies include bigotry, table tennis, drowning kittens in oil and making Jan Moir look like a hippy.*

*Note: I may have used some creative licence here. This is not actually true. I think.

Anyway, she has written this... curiosity on the Daily Mail website and, I'll be honest, it took me a few paragraphs to realise that the formatting of the page was entirely wrong for it to be the Daily Mash. I looked through a few other pages and found out that, no, this is apparently a serious website. With articles about what it claims are news.

If you ask me, of course, I think it's just an arena for bigoted, close-minded ignorami to vent their worthless, ill-informed opinions. Oh, and to talk about how awful a personality Katie Price is. So maybe they're not all bad...

Anywho, this particular article is a serious piece of "journalism" (and I use the term loosely, as it seems to be mostly an accumulation of ill-informed opinions and not-very-well-thought-out vitriol about the 'homosexual agenda').

It starts off talking about the government's plans to include non-sexual LGBT references in the National Curriculum. Egads! Run for the hills! The gays are getting into the schools! The article seems to think that these plans involve getting rid of science and replacing it with gay science. So, instead of learning about exo- and endothermic reactions, children will instead learn about just how much lube you need to stop the condom breaking. After all, that's the natural progression, isn't it?

I mean, it couldn't be anything as innocuous as using LGBT examples in lieu of cisgendered heterosexual ones? Roleplaying in Spanish lessons as Pablo asking Juan out for drinks rather than Maria? Looking at geographical distributions of LGBT communities? Studying interesting and valid phenomena such as animals that form homosexual relationships? Surely the homosexual agenda wouldn't just want schools to stop treating LGBT issues as taboo subjects? They must be hoping to shove their sexualities upon our children! Otherwise what's the point in hating them?!

The article then, of course, moves onto the recent cases of Peter and Hazelmary Bull (the couple who turned gay weekenders away from their B&B), and Dale McAlpine (the Christian street preacher charged with making abusive comments in Cumbria), lauding them as helpless victims of the insidious and evil Liberal Empire.

Admittedly, Dale McAlpine - as misguided and ignorant as his opinions may have been - was a victim of circumstance, and as much as I would love to lock up every homophobic bigot in the country, it's sadly not possible (plus, who would then write opinion columns for the Daily Mail?)

However, the Bulls are a different story. Their decision was deemed illegal and that's that. I'm not saying they're bad people, but in trying to run a business, there are certain standards and regulations that must be honoured. Simple as that. No need to bring Orwellian principles into this.

Which leads on quite nicely to my real problem with this article. That whole "homosexual agenda" business is annoying (as well as inaccurate, dangerous and ignorant of any type of bi or trans activism), but it doesn't get me nearly so much as this:

What was once an attempt to end unpleasant attitudes towards a small sexual minority has now become a kind of bigotry in reverse.

What? The actual? Fuck? Bigotry in reverse? So the LGBT community has, through telling children that it's OK to be gay and calling out homophobes when they make bigoted and discriminatory comments and decisions, managed to finally rise up to the point of superiority over the white, middle-class, cisgendered heterosexual males?

The LGBT community is now in a position of power, folks. You heard it from Melanie Phillips first. Might as well pack it all in now, unless you want to live in a godless, hedonistic country with mandatory gay bumsex. In fact, now, it's the cis-hets who have to live in fear of disownment, abuse, bullying, discrimination and attack because of their identities.

It's Cornish B&B owners who have to carefully plan out where they can go on holiday to make sure that their relationship won't get them turned away or attacked by locals.

It's Daily Mail columnists who have to hide who they are for their entire lives until they can summon up the courage to tell their parents, "I write for the Daily Mail" and immediately get kicked out onto the streets.

It's the little heterosexual kids sitting at home or school having to watch television shows, films, books and just general mainstream life where their identity isn't talked about or presented in a reasonable way, but rather is completely nonexistent.

Oh wait, that's not true? So the fact that gay-bashings still occur, that asexual and non-binary gender identities are constantly ignored in favour of a male/female dichotomy (which is also often misassigned to trans individuals), and the fact that social conventions still make articles like this acceptable are still sort of an issue?

Of course, for people such as the Bulls, George Orwell’s famous observation that some are more equal than others is all too painfully true. Indeed, the obsession with equality has now reached ludicrous, as well as oppressive, proportions.

Yes. Some are more equal than others. But you know what? The LGBT community getting a couple of B&B owners to let them have a room doesn't put us in the green. We're still at a disadvantage, and until people like Melanie Phillips are no longer given a platform for their racist, homophobic and bigoted opinions, there will never be the chance for any sort of real equality.

For those who are interested, this is the complaint I wrote to the PCC regarding this article:

Violation on the grounds of accuracy, part (i); the article deliberately misinterprets the ultimate and intended effects of the governmental plans to include non-sexual LGBT references in the UK curriculum (such as the use of gay characters in role-play situations in language-learning courses), using deliberately sensationalist language such as 'bombarded' and 'brainwash' to imply that LGBT references will replace any existing subject matter.

This is reinforced further by the article's claim, "what was once impermissible first becomes tolerated and then becomes mandatory" - a deliberately inflammatory statement that has no bearing in fact. These changes are not enforcing non-homosexual or non-cisgendered identities on students; rather, they are an attempt to make such issues non-threatening and accessible to children.

Furthermore, the article makes several unsubstantiated or irrelevant claims, such as referencing the DEFRA and Department for Transport's attempts to promote diversity and equal opportunities, tagging these onto the end with no link back to how these would adversely affect cisgendered heterosexuals (whom the article repeatedly lauds as the unsung victims of an increasingly liberal society).

Leading on from that last point, the article also makes several discriminatory remarks on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender. While no individual is explicitly identified and their orientations made the subject of pejorative statements, there are several statements made that suggest that LGBT inclusion and equality is discriminatory to non-LGBT individuals.

There are many comments, but this seems an appropriate example: "What was once an attempt to end ­unpleasant attitudes towards a small sexual minority has now become a kind of bigotry in reverse."

Now, while this sort of comment does not talk about an individual in a prejudiced way, the implications of such a statement are that the plights of individuals in civil rights movements throughout history are no worse than a privileged Daily Mail reader having to watch a gay couple kiss on primetime television, or a B&B owner having to conform to certain industry standards and regulations.

Not only is it grossly inaccurate, but it is also hugely offensive to those who have suffered and, importantly, still do suffer in the name of equality and civil rights. Statements such as these, which imply that LGBT equality has been achieved and that activism is now going the other way towards bigotry, is a subtle prejudiced offense at any individual who is victimised as a result of their identity.