BY GARY MCGHEE
“Shot by both sides, on the run, to the outside of everything, they must have come, to a secret understanding…”
(Shot By Both Sides – Howard Devoto/Pete Shelley 1978)
I have never joined a political party and never bought wholly into any ideology. I mainly subscribe to the Groucho Marx view that I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member. I’m preternaturally disposed towards being individualistic and not going along with anything if I think it’s nonsense, just because it’s the consensus. I was raised as an only child and was once told by a job interviewer that I wasn’t a team player, which I took, naturally, as a compliment. This is a lonely place to be however, but to quote Ayn Rand:
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
That’s as good a starting point as any. A true individual is someone who can stand alone, who has developed the ability to step back, see the reality of what’s going on and walk away. Regardless of the consequences. The upshot of buying into something that you don’t believe and know isn’t true is psychologically more damaging as Vaclav Havel famously had it:
“We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.” (Vaclav Havel regarding the consequences of Communist rule).
Which brings me to disturbing developments in the febrile world of sexual politics and where to position myself in relation to it. I have been very critical of the capture of the Left by Gender Ideology, and of The Left in general in terms of its wholesale adoption of Identity politics. Their apparent reluctance to critique the ludicrous proliferation of acronyms and genders and the (mis)use of gender pronouns, combined with wholesale support of the Trans lobby agenda, which advocates the idea that Trans people don’t have the same rights everybody else has, and are the most oppressed minority, even though most of them are biological men who have all the advantages and rights that men have. Intersectional ideology is the opposite of what it claims to be and is exclusionary, divisive, and unsustainable because it tries to lump together very disparate groups who have little in common, other than that they are not ‘straight’ and lay claim to ‘Queer’ identities, when in fact most of them are straight and seek to colonise and reframe Gay politics in a way that is anti-homosexual; to ‘Trans the Gay away’.
This is exemplified by the Stonewall organisation which once pioneered support for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people but has now become a racket, which seeks to blackmail organisations in the public and private spheres into adhering to its definitions and viewpoints, or else they don’t get an approval rating. Perniciously the term ‘same-sex attracted’ has been reframed as ‘same-gender attracted’, which has the aim of erasing the ‘Homosexual’ and ‘Gay’ from public and academic discourse. It negates the fundamental importance of biological sex in any discussion of sexuality and replaces it with the abstract, social construct subjectivities of gender. Sex is real, concrete, objective and universal in nature. Gender is not.
One of the consequences of this has been the way these developments have fed a rejuvenation of the Anti-homosexual elements of the Right-Wing. This is a phenomenon that is happening here and across Europe as a reaction to Woke politics and represents a backlash against it. Here in Britain Conservatives must always be reminded that they are Johnny-come-lately’s when it comes to Gay Rights, and any claim they have of supporting Gay people should be put in the context of Section 28, the early response to the AIDS crisis, and Thatcher making this speech…
“Children are being taught they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life.” — Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, October 9, 1987. Conservative Party Conference. Blackpool, United. Kingdom.
This attitude is particularly galling when you consider that leading Tory figures and MP’s within her own government were Gay, albeit mainly closeted. I remember a time when most Tories were against equalising the Age of consent for homosexuals and actively sought to associate male homosexuality with pederasty as Thatcher did. (Some of the leading advocates of Trans and Marxist Intersectional Ideology have also been reinforcing this with their agenda. Yes, Peter Tatchell and Nancy Kelly, I’m leering at you.) A deeper irony to all this is that the incidence of child abuse in society is more prevalent within the family network and perpetrated on girls by straight males. The Right would do well to acknowledge and remember that. I don’t buy the Right rewriting our history anymore than I do with it being done by the Trans Lobby and the intersectional Left.
The support of Gay Rights of Right-wingers has always tended to be skin deep. Expedient to the current climate of opinion. Contingent upon events rather than a deeply held conviction of what is right. Sexual minorities are always expendable when the political tide shifts and economic conditions worsen. The anti-homosexual Right has never accepted equality for Gay people, and never will, and seek to perpetuate the idea that there must never be any level-playing field between Gay and Straight relationships. We are inferiorised, othered, and rightly so, they say, despite what we contribute and achieve. Despite the content of our characters. Ordinary gay people getting on with our lives and loves in integrated ways in society, those of us who appreciate the importance of stable families, and fathers who support their children and grandchildren, are perniciously and falsely lumped in with the ‘Queers’, Marxists, Post-Modernists, and those who want to undermine civil society and social history.
The Right need to fully appreciate that many of us do not seek to undermine the Family.
Many of us think that the TQ++ must be dropped from the LGB. Decades of work in creating understanding through education and respect being undone by a Trans Lobby and the Identity politics of the Left that is pushing the envelope way too far and has the anti-homosexuals of the Right salivating with their mantras of ‘I told you so’s’ and ‘see what happens when you grant homosexuals rights’ etc. The groundwork for Cameron’s support of Gay Marriage and Civil Partnerships was the result of years of tireless work by Gay and Lesbian activists over many years, and it was the Blair government that pursued Equality before the Law and implemented the equalising of the age of consent.
Conversely, to all those insidious Woke blackmailers and opportunists who say in relation to the anti-homo Right ‘they’re coming for Gays next’, I say, so what else is new? The Gender Ideologues, the Queer lobby and the Conservatives who are quiet when it comes to challenging their own anti-homo Right are making it worse for all of us. The former is providing the ammunition for the latter to throw at us. They are the problem.
So, what does this mean for homosexual men, moving forward? (I won’t speak for lesbians or bisexuals, that’s for them to do.) Well, first and foremost in my opinion we must hold fast onto the fact that we are men. We must embrace our masculinity and not let the feminisation of homosexuality from the Left and the Right hold sway. ‘Homosexual’ is a word we need to reclaim, and on our own terms as men who love other men. It is unequivocal and clear in its meaning. Left Feminists (especially white middle-class women) and the Patriarchs are both implicated in undermining this. Both seem to think they can define what we are and put us into their boxes.
We must protect our male cultures, our right to have our own spaces, which means a reassertion of homo male only spaces. Our bars, clubs and saunas have been colonised by straights calling themselves ‘queer’ and women pretending to be Gay men, and we need to take them back. Our political and support organisations need to be focused on our perspectives and needs, and not diluted and subsumed by ideologies that seek to erase us. Our sex industries and hook-up sites need to be developed and defined by us, not by virtue-signalling Intersectional Gay men or the censorious feminists that they pander to. The Trans takeover is particularly apparent here, with the imposition of Trans interlopers into sites that used to cater exclusively to us and for sound and important reasons to do with Gay autonomy and self-determination. Then there’s the ‘straight’ men making a buck out of playing the idiot, gullible ‘faggot’ and getting them to part with their money on the basis that there is anything special about ‘straight’ cock. We need to take all this and more back into our own hands, so to speak.
So, a plague on BOTH the Left and Right houses. Both are trying to swallow-up and spit us out in their own ideological interests. Both are not to be given any credence. It is worth reiterating that Right-wingers who are not anti-homosexual or are Gay themselves are conspicuously unable or unwilling to effectively challenge their own on this and The Left are too subsumed by Critical theories, which means that they are unable to think clearly, see what’s happening, step back. The undermining of attitudes to Gay people just becomes collateral damage to both. We are thrown under a bus. Public opinion is heading in the direction of being more disapproving of homosexual ‘lifestyles’, and no wonder. The conflation of the LGB with the TQ++ is pivotal in this. It is vital that people realise that being homosexual has nothing to do with being Trans and that we have little if anything in common. Now, whenever I hear LGBTQ being used, which is now chillingly ubiquitous, I assume that this person/organisation is unthinking at best, and/or malicious in their intent. Certainly not allies to homosexuals in any true sense. Those on the Right would do well to consider that by using this acronym they are playing into the Left/Marxist playbook. Doing what they do, using their language and strategies.
Also pivotal is the ghastly spectacle of ‘Pride’, with its exclusionary diktats and Trans takeover, whilst exemplifying the ugliest, fetishist, narcissistic, and misogynistic elements of a supposed ‘gay culture’. It no longer has any currency or utility except for being part of the ammunition that gets thrown at us. The overkill that is Pride Month and the promotion of the insidious ‘Progress’ flag is apposite. Who asked for these things, who endorsed such ridiculousness? The organisations and companies behind it do not represent us or our interests. On the contrary, they are making false assumptions about our needs and imposing an ideology on us that many of us didn’t ask for and don’t endorse.
It’s time for homosexual men to cut through all this nonsense we’ve been lumbered with and reassert our autonomy and the need for self-determination. There’s a debate for us to have about the language we use to describe ourselves, that is ‘Gay’ or ‘Homosexual,’ or both. I use the term anti-homosexual, rather than homophobic, because I don’t assume that they fear us, I assume that they want to attack us and the progress we have made in gaining freedom from persecution. These are not the same. The word homophobia is also part of the lexicon of the Left and we must therefore question its utility and motive in the current context of the anti-homosexuals of the Intersectional Left.
Gary McGhee is a semi-retired screenwriter, loving the outdoor life with his partner in the Norfolk countryside. Gary was ‘red-pilled’ before it became fashionable, and believes in liberty, freedom, modernism, and defying herd-mentalities.