Hateful Conduct

Well, whaddya know. Before the ink has dried on my blog about Elon Musk, X restricts one of my posts for “Hateful Conduct”. But which post? There’s no shortage of candidates. Surprisingly, the post X did restrict wasn’t one of my worst; it was a response to a short exchange about the term ‘cis’. 

The post that started the exchange read, “We are not ‘cis male’ or ‘cis female’. We are simply male or female”, which is bang on and to which Elon himself responded, “The word ‘cis’ is a propaganda slur.” But another response read, “The term ‘cis’ is not intended as a slur but rather a descriptive term used to indicate someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth. It helps create clarity in discussions around gender identity, distinguishing between those who are cisgender and those who are transgender. While it's important to be sensitive to the context in which language is used, the term itself is not inherently derogatory”.

My view is that cis is a prefix that’s assigned by trans activists (all 0.000001% of the adult population) to normal males and females, to differentiate them from the trannies. Normal males and females have always been referred to as, simply and accurately, males and females and we want this to continue. But the trannies have decided to assign us a prefix, a prefix that we don’t want. They are mis-prefixing us. So why is that ok, but it’s hateful to mis-gender them? Score!

What I posted in the thread that X’s algorithm found so hateful was: “'Cis' is not a word. It's not a propaganda slur. It's not a social construct. It's an attempt at bullying.” How’s that hateful? I suppose the algorithm picked up on Cis, slur and bullying and shortcircuited. Meanwhile, back in the real world:

1. ‘Cis’ is not a word: I’m denying that a word exists, not a person or section of society. Not hateful.

2. ‘Cis’ is not a propaganda slur: I said that, because I wasn’t sure what Elon meant by it. That’s all. Not hateful

3. ‘Cis’ is not a social construct: A social construct is an idea or a category ‘tacitly agreed’ by a group, however defined, to help them make sense of their world. In this case, cis is not an idea or a category or invented. It’s an unnecessary and unwanted prefix. That’s all. Not hateful.

4. ‘Cis’ is an attempt at bullying: It is. The introduction of the term by the trannies is an attempt to dilute the scientific normalcy of males and females, to make us feel insecure, to destabilise society. That’s bullying. Claiming it’s bullying is not hateful.

So, I appealed the ruling, and a Yooman Beeng obviously picked it up and reinstated my post with full honours.

The whole episode got me thinking about how hateful are my musings really, semantics aside. After a lot of soul-searching, and re-reading some of my communiqués, I will admit to being offensive at times. Sometimes I’m blunt or brusque, but that’s not the same as offensive. It’s calling a shovel a shovel. Regardless, it’s not illegal to offend. And the people I do offend deserve to be offended. Any who don’t deserve to be offended whom I do offend, I offer an apology. But funny how some who are offended, or their apologists, are offensive in their critiques of my perceived offences. Glad I cleared that up.

People who respond to my musings can be lumped into three categories: 1. those who agree or mostly agree with wot I write and are supportive; 2. those who disagree quite a bit and enter into a respectful dialogue – they’re always fun and enlightening; and 3. those who disagree most of the time and let rip. The second category (those who disagree and enter into respectful dialogue) can be split further into two: those whose opposing views are valid and it’s a case of agree to differ, and those whose views are misguided.

An example of the latter cropped up on LinkedIn this week. I commented that a low-tax strategy was better for the economy than a high tax one. A lefty lady disagreed, very politely, and her arguments were easy to parry. For example, she said Truss/Kwarteng’s ‘trickle down’ budget crashed the economy. Politely, I asked how that could have happened when the measures were never implemented. The markets were spooked by Bank of England incompetence, and Truss’s poor communication was the proverbial straw. The lefty came back at me, saying no self-respecting economist supports trickle-down economics. I agreed, but then deftly pointed out that Truss/Kwarteng’s budget wasn’t trickle-down but supply-side. She tried again, this time using the water industry as an example to support her case. She thought she was on to a winner, believing that no one would dare to be seen to argue against someone arguing against the water industry. Ha! All I had to do was post a link from water.org.uk outlining the vast investment and water quality improvement (and low bills) since privatisation, and she went quiet. But at least she was respectful, and so was I. 😊

The third category of responders mentioned above – those who disagree and let rip – bring out the worst in me and I can be offensive when firing back. But they started it, she says oh so maturely. I remember one comparatively early blog where I’d said something like ‘they should be shot’. In the context of the whole piece and the actual paragraph, it was so obviously a throwaway one-liner and shouldn’t be taken literally, except it was by the let-rippers. Another blog had me commenting on a lady’s foreign accent. It was relevant because it was one of many hurdles I was facing regarding Mum’s medication that I was recounting in a humorous fashion. I so obviously wasn’t denigrating the lady’s foreignness. She was doing her job, and if that had been the only difficulty I’d faced that afternoon I wouldn’t have blogged about it but, as with Trussy, it was the proverbial straw. Categories 1 and 2 told me it was funny. Category 3 called me a racist.

Anyway, I’m waiting to be cancelled by all and sundry any time soon. Reform UK’s Lee Anderson MP – the ex-miner, ex-Labour, ex-Tory who calls a shovel a shovel – shared a Tweet he’d received that was an explicit death threat couched in beyond-offensive language. Apparently the “lunatic”, as Anderson referred to him, received a police caution, not two-three years that others get for less vile posts. (I wonder if X restricted that post as Hateful Conduct.)  Outraged, I liked and re-tweeted the very next post that appeared in my feed: a demand to free Tommy Robinson, who’s banged up for 18 months for contempt of court, a civil offence.

Yup, under two-tier Keir, Cack-handed Cooper, and Malicious Mahmood, Britain’s justice system is offensive to common sense and common decency.