Hi Jason,
Just after your response to my last email, I heard Tim Winton in a Conversations on ABC Radio National and was reminded of his elegant books and made me think I saw an echo of Winton in your “Thoughts on a Frog" story. As a fellow Aussie, I hope you don’t mind that comparison!
On your latest, “Pride and Prejudice” (above), I have some thoughts.
I was reminded of a chat with a gay colleague of mine, Jeff, way back in 1993, in Shanghai. Over drinks in the Long Bar, he told me something that's stuck in my mind. Jeff was born and bought up in Australia, drawn to study Chinese and now working for me, in the Austrade Shanghai office (I was the boss of Austrade East Asia). He said that in Australia — where by then homosexuality was fully legal, tolerance of LGB promoted — it was more difficult to be gay than it was in China, where it was illegal. In China, in Shanghai, despite the fact that it was not legal, all was free and easy, no hassle at all. Whereas one could still face bigotry from the average aussie.
Coincidentally, today’s Post has a piece making something like the same point. “China’s LGBT Community...”.
I don’t mean at to suggest that it’s better for the LBGTQ community to live where their activities are illegal. I’m pretty sure it’s not at all nice for LGBTQ folks in Russia, let alone in Uganda or most of the Middle East. But there is that, at least here in much of Asia, where non-conforming sexual proclivities are not necessarily legal, but are very much tolerated. I think Hong Kong is like that. We have no same sex marriage, but LGBTQ is very much tolerated. My experience from running two companies here, with over 300 staff, many LGBTQ.
Which brings me to this in your piece above:
"As right-wing driven, Christian fundamentalist influenced bigotry and associated violence towards LGBTQ people makes a repulsive global comeback -- and Hong Kong is not immune to such prejudices -- a return to the shadowy, shamed half-world of yesterday for LGBTQ people seems frighteningly possible at some future point.”
1. You seem to be talking about the world (“... a repulsive global comeback...”). But I reckon the globe needs dividing up. There’s the US, where battle lines over sex and gender are most clearly drawn and most fiercely fought. That extends to fellow travellers, like Australia, NZ and the UK. In short, the Anglosphere. Things are very different even in Europe, let alone in Russia, Africa or the Middle East.
Focussing now on the US:
2. The “right-wing driven, Christian fundamentalist... ” is surely there. The Southern Baptists, for example, are pretty much bat-shit crazy with their “Homosexuals will go to Hell” placards and the rest of their lunacy. But I’m not sure they’re any more active than they’ve always been. Maybe; just not seen it.
There’s the likes of Matt Walsh and his “What is a Woman?” doco. Matt is very religious but his documentary doesn’t mention religion. It’s a fine documentary which raises challenging and urgent questions. I would not count it as “repulsive”.
What I’ve seen is that tensions between the broader community and the LGBTQ community is now concentrated on the T in that acronym. (To the extent that even the LGB side of it have problems with the T side of it). And that breaks down into three main areas:
(a) Women fighting for women’s spaces. This includes the likes of J.K. Rowling, Julie Bindel, Kelly-Jay Kean, Abigail Shrier, Amala Ekpunobi, Helen Joyce, and many others -- collectively the “Gender Critical” community. They want women -- that is, biological women -- to have safe spaces in bathrooms, changing rooms and prisons, not to be occupied by trans women, especially pre-operative, with “twig and berries” intact. J.K.Rowling has become a favourite hate target of the Trans Radical Activists, TRA, but her statement is on the Trans issue is clear, cogent, empathetic and powerful (how many TRA have read it?!). There are options for trans women
(b) Women fighting for women’s only sports. The likes of Paula Scanlan and Riley Gaines. Riley swam against the trans woman Lia Thomas, who won, as a newly-minted woman, races in the elite college women’s league by lengths of the swimming pool. This is happening all over sports now and will cause more mayhem and heartache for women if not stopped. There are options for trans athletes.
(c) Stopping “gender affirming care” for children. A wide constituency, left and right, and polling as majorities of most people. Aim to stop drugs and major operations on children on the basis of “gender affirming care”. Hormones and operations leave transitioning minors forever sterile and forever reliant on drugs. These procedures are now banned in countries like the Britain, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Yet in America they proceed apace. Biden stated, at a recent Pride event, that failure to allow medicalisation of children is akin to murder. The opposite is the case. Hormone treatment and operations that sterilise young children is not good paediatric care. There are options for children with dysphoria.
All this may be debated by people of good will. What ought not happen is that it be labelled “hate speech” or “transphobia”, for simply wanting to talk about it. Yet that’s what’s happening on the MSM and on social media. The hate for it is coming all one way (at least as it seems to me): it’s coming from the Trans Radical Activist community to anyone who disagrees with them, the “Gender Critical” group. And it’s not nice. Indeed it’s horrid; vicious, nasty and murderous. Have a look at some of it on Tik Tok. It’s crazy.
I have seen nothing similar on the other side: from Gender Critical people to the Trans community. If you know if it, let me know and direct me to it. But as far as I can see, sitting here in my eyrie in Hong Kong, the hate is all one way. I do make sure that I look at stuff on both sides, left and right, in the MSM and on social media.
We also shouldn’t forget that there has been a huge amount of progress, at least in the US and the Anglosphere, for the LGBTQ community.
In my own lifetime it’s gone from being all homosexuals are in the closet, to being out and Proud. From homosexuality being illegal to open and widespread gay marriage. From “don’t ask don’t tell” in the Army to “do who you do; do tell”. The Pride Flag now flies above the Stars and Stripes at the White House! Only a dozen years ago, the New Yorker noted that transgender people could be fired just for being trans, and that they weren’t allowed in the armed forces; now they are front and centre in military recruitment ads! Biden boasts of transgender heads in his government. There has been huge progress.
On the other side, it’s most certainly hyperbole that people who challenge the Trans narrative are “harming” the trans community; that they are responsible for “genocide”. The data show that trans people are murdered at lower rates than the general community. There is no difference in suicide rates between those who have undergone transition, vs those who have not. Those are the data.
Please do challenge me on and this if you so feel. If there are indeed “repulsive” movements out there, I’d like to know about them, and I’d commit to counter them, in any way I can.
ADDED: Biden’s Pride bash on the South Lawn. Much misinformation. But I’ll leave it for now.
