When Identity Politics Goes Mad

If you watch Dave Rubin's interview with Douglas Murray, you will see at the end how they both express opposition to identity politics despite both being gay men.

Hopefully this will shine a little light on why that is:

A petition started by gay and bisexual men and women is calling for LGBTI news websites like Gay Star News as well as organizations such as GLAAD to stop representing the transgender community.

Spoiler! We’re not going to do that.

So far, 620 people have joined the campaign because they believe the fight for trans equality is ‘ultimately regressive and actually hostile to the goals of women and gay men’.

[...]

‘The appropriation and re-writing of gay and lesbian history and culture, most notably attempting to re-cast the majority gay white men who participated in the Stonewall riots as transgender,’ the petition also claims, ignoring how many of the people at Stonewall were either a trans woman, gender-fluid or a drag queen. About a third was white, a third black and a third Hispanic, according to eyewitness reports.

‘Most troubling, by persuading parents and health professionals to diagnose children as young as four as transgender, despite considerable research that shows that more than 90% of children who express “gender dysphoria” at a young age grow out of it by adolescence and, in most cases, grow up to be well-adjusted gay men and women; ideologically, it runs counter to traditional LGB and feminist philosophy – whereas feminists and gay men/women advocate for expanding and re-defining gender concepts, the trans movement is regressive, insisting upon re-asserting and codifying classic gender concepts of what is masculine and what is feminine.’

Needless to say, I'm incredibly disappointed with whoever signed this petition, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Many of you would be aware that I do have some skepticism towards identity politics from this diary, which was not very popular, although that could have been because I inserted comments from Kossacks AJayne and rserven, which I've since learnt is inappropriate, and they both have my apologies. And I do not object to all identity politics, just when it goes too far. The 'kinship' Dave Rubin mentions is a much better idea.

I would like to offer a comment on their objections to the Left's view of gender. We should stop saying it's a social construct. It's not. It's in-built, biological and psychological. We should not start getting so relativistic that whatever you say goes. That's what wackos like Rachel Dolezal do. (Of course, I am not saying that that sentiment applies to transgender people.)

But this example demonstrates why we cannot view our politics solely in terms of our identity. When we do, we become selfish, viewing all political goals that we personally disagree with as a full-frontal assault on who we are. To the people who support this petition: transgender people having equal rights is not an attack on you. Your abandoning of them, motivated by your identity politics, is shameful. And of course, this is not targeted at LGB people, just anyone who supports such a stupid proposal.