Malc, you're missing the turning point. You seem to be ignoring the fact that this woman made comments about what the musician should do. If she said "I don't understand this", one could probably get away with turning a blind eye. But she went beyond that. She said she was attractive as a man, as if it had any bearing on the situation whatsoever (which it doesn't). As storygirl pointed out, she's treating it as if it's a cosmetic procedure (N.B. Facial Feminisation Surgery is completely optional, but those who transition to female often opt for it in order to improve their ability to pass, therefore it's a safety device of sorts) that's not necessary for them to do. Her comment is ignorant of what GID is, how it manifests itself and how it's alleviated, yet she feels that she can make these comments about what the person in question should or shouldn't do.

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Thats a very interesting point, I hadnt really considered, Mail comments are meant to be discrete entities, without debate.

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OK. I just don't think that for that I'd cast her into the outer darkness for all eternity. It's life, it's approximate, it's got rough edges.

No-one has said that.

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Yes they have. Me. Just now.

Well, yes, that's a given.

We've not suggested burning her at a pyre, simply pointed out the ignorance contained within her statement(s).

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But we can call them out when they choose to comment on the subject in a way that is ill-thought-out and reinforces harmful stereotypes. Honestly, to expect that Jo might be able to think beyond "he doesn't need gender surgery, he looks nice as a bloke" is not setting the bar too high. It's not setting the bar at all.

That's not casting Jo into the darkness. It's calling her out on her lazy thinking, and on the sense of entitlement that allows her to write simplistic nonsense in the comments below an article that is, naturally, bound to be read by transgender people.

+1

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My argument was that you had included her comment, which strikes me as pretty mild, in with examples of quite nasty fuckwittery. My point is that you can be more discriminating. Point out her failings, yes, but I think you are both reading things into it (like a sense of privilege, like thinking that it's cosmetic surgery) that her post doesn't support.

And is there a larger point, that we are spending all our time objecting to fuckwits without being able to get them to read what we have written, which is fun up to a point but won't change anything.

In the end the comments are just the tail of an unwashed and rolled-in-shit dog, which is the editorial and comment that provokes it. You clock it, it colours your opinions, you move on to what you might be able to change with a slightly clearer idea of what you are up against.

Calculate what proportion of the readership of Mail Online actually bothers to make a comment - vanishingly tiny. How representative are they? That is an important question.

the comments didn't seem as if they'd been lumped in together to me, ezinra made a seperate remark about jo's than about the others.
i don't see the point of setting a bar of "must be at least this fuckwitted to warrent remarking on" on each comment section. jo's comment may have been less problematic than others made, but it was still ignorant and worth critisising in it's own right.

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Sometimes, too, the mainstream ones are more damaging. The nasty fuckwits are easy to pull apart, and they're probably the kind of people who would be ranting without effect to the bartender or the shopkeeper if they didn't have the Mail. One of the reasons I chose to flag up Jo's comment is that it felt to me like a particularly lazy assembling of a number of themes that are common to the Mail's spin on transgender stories: a focus on the surface; an astonishingly literal (mis)interpretation of the cliché about "not feeling comfortable in one's body"; and a lack of awareness that what she was saying might not be helpful, might not be as progressive as she hoped.

I agree, Malcolm, that the comments are the tail of a shitty dog. I'd point out, though, that it's not just about changing misguided attitudes, it's also about building up your own defences against them. Dacre's drip is effective, it influences many people we know and even some people we love (including ourselves?). We have to steel ourselves against that. I think that by mocking the likes of Jo, I'm creating space for myself to react in a more level-headed and less emotional way when a real-life person expresses a similar attitude. I'm prepared for it, I've seen it before, I know what I don't like about it — and, crucially, I can see where it comes from. I can locate it as being an opinion the person has picked up casually from the media, rather than evidence of inherent bigotry or other nastiness. This is important, because otherwise I don't think I could live in the world. I'm a juicy target for bullies, and I've learned not to expect support from well-meaning people who haven't thought their opinions through. Not only does posting here, as you say, give me a clearer idea of what I'm up against, it also provides support and solidarity — at the expense of Jo, perhaps, but so be it.

I've sent Him a text. I'll give it a few days.

Is david suggesting my womb is in my brain?

"What really makes us male or female is in the brain"

And this person is female in the brain, and therefore is female. Right?

Oh FFS.
He had a real roll going on there and you had to go and bring logic into it.

Now he'll have to start all over again.

Just because Jenna is better looking and more feminine than Davids wife.

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