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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32468 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Nicola Sturgeon says time is right to resign as Scotland's first minister

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that she is resigning as Scotland's first minister after more than eight years in the role.

Ms Sturgeon said her decision was not a reaction to short-term pressures, but came from "a deeper and longer-term assessment".

According to her, this was a decision long in the making and not a response to current events.

Personally, I think they had something to do with it (even if just in a "straw that broke the camel's back). She suffered twin defeats of having the UK government strike down her self-ID bill on the grounds that it'd violate equal rights protections and somehow ending up looking reasonable (usually "nationalists" will oppose such a thing on principle, at least that is my experience with Quebec*), in part due to the possibility of the other disaster: a male rapist suddenly identifying as a woman and trying to get into a female prison.

AKA that thing we were told would never happen.

For many, this was a bridge too far and the backlash was intense. While she and her team did try to mitigate the damage by pointing out that he was still being assessed, it didn't seem to comfort (for me: even the need for a risk assessment is silly) Sturgeon herself was grilled and tied herself in knots trying to tread some middle ground between her ideological commitments and mollifying people who thought the whole thing was a bridge too far (attempts by SNP boosters to dodge the question by saying "this person is a rapist" apparently didn't work)

To me this highlights two things: the hollowness of a nationalism based on "we're more progressive than you" as opposed to the good old blood and soil stuff that is apparently verboten now that everyone wants to plug themselves into some larger cosmopolitan, neoliberal bloc or to ingratiate themselves to American companies and culture (e.g. Ireland).

Everyone can understand "we're a distinct nation with a particular history that converged with but is not identical to the greater state's". Basing nationalism on progressive policy is silly because it's both incoherent (said policy is inimical to nationalism) and is liable to overreach because being progressive is an ever shifting target.

Second point: the fact that trans activists were right. Their greatest successes come when they can roll the elites into believing their cause is just an inevitable extension of existing rights and they can bypass the public. As Joyce put it:

All this explains the speed. When you want new laws, you can focus on lobbying, rather than the painstaking business of building broad-based coalitions. And when those laws will take away other people’s rights, it is not only unnecessary to build public awareness – it is imperative to keep the public in the dark. This stealthy approach has been central to transactivism for quite some time.

In a speech in 2013, Masen Davis, then the executive director of the American Transgender Law Center, told supporters that ‘we have largely achieved our successes by flying under the radar . . . We do a lot really quietly. We have made some of our biggest gains that nobody has noticed. We are very quiet and thoughtful about what we do, because we want to make sure we have the win more than we want to have the publicity.’

The result is predictable. Even as one country after another introduces gender self-ID, very few voters know this is happening, let alone support it.

A poll in Scotland in 2020 suggests that even young women, the demographic keenest on gender self-ID, become cooler when reminded of the practical implications.

Joyce, Helen. Trans: Gender Identity and the New Battle for Women's Rights (p. 227).

Well, the public is like an elephant. They'll mostly follow the rider's instructions. Until you alarm them. Took a while but it eventually happened. Sturgeon had the easiest job in politics: just keep running and blame the UK. That's all she had to do. And she somehow bungled that. This topic is toxic for everyone.

* There is an argument that Sturgeon's real sin here was not triggering overt action from the UK - in fact, that might have been seen as helpful for raising nationalist sentiment- but picking a case so absurd that it made it palatable. That is the real failure of a nationalist politician here, and perhaps why she's gone.

I was just coming in to post about this, because I read about it on CNN:

Nicola Sturgeon unexpectedly quits as first minister of Scotland amid swirl of political setbacks, citing ‘brutality’ of public life

The sum total of CNN's reporting on trans issues:

“First, though I know it will be tempting to see it as such, this decision is not a reaction to short-term pressures,” said Sturgeon, who has been facing increasing tensions with the UK government in London over Scottish independence, as well as Westminster’s decision to block a Scottish law intended to allow trans people in Scotland to change their legal gender without a medical diagnosis.

No mention of putting male rapists in female prisons. It strikes me as an excellent example of the news media spinning stories to deliberately create a false narrative. I'm a little surprised BBC went so far as to actually say:

Ms Sturgeon insisted her resignation was not in response to the "latest period of pressure", which has included controversies over gender reforms, trans prisoners and the strategy on independence.

"Trans prisoners." Yes indeed! Pray tell, what are they in prison for? And what sort of prison was Sturgeon aiming to put them into? Even with BBC's slightly-more-informative take, we do not get the actual story about the actual controversy that has, apparently, sunk Sturgeon at last. The topic is not merely "toxic for everyone," news reporters seem to be genuinely allergic to it.

In fairness, "Scottish government toppled by man in dress" is somewhat of a dog bites man story after the last thousand years. There's only so many times you can run what's fundamentally the same article.

In a few years we will assume that any comment this clever must have been written by an AI.

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