Listened to the podcast this week. I do enjoy elements of it, or I wouldn’t listen.
But Louise and Aoife are just plain aggressive at times. The reason people like me occasionally write stuff on Tattle is because there is no point disagreeing with any aspect of what they say to their faces, because you will be shut down.
Case in point: Their discussion of the news story this week that Paul Murphy TD is raising his child gender-neutral, and will refer to the male child (Juniper) as they/them. Aoife snarled that “people should get fucking lives” and was clearly just completely disdainful of anyone who had an opinion on this that was in any way different to hers.
Now, the only reason I know Paul Murphy is raising his child this way is because he broadcast it to the world via the Irish Times. Clearly, he is the one who is inviting discussion. And yes I do think it’s ridiculous, but not because I don’t think little boys should wear dresses, like pink things, have long hair, anything like that. I fully believe in breaking down social conditioning around gender norms. I just don’t agree that the way to do that is to pretend biological sex doesn’t exist. The child is a helpless little baby boy. That is factual, FFS. You can break down gender stereotypes without denying the reality of a newborn baby.
It would be like a black couple having a baby and saying “this child has no race, because we don’t think they should be limited in life by being black.” And then refused to refer to their own baby as black. Surely most people would agree that creates some weird shame about the child being black, rather than being proud of that fact, embracing it, while also working to dismantle racial issues along with non-black allies across the community.
It’s just completely bizarre and attention-seeking. But Louise and Aoife aren’t interested in any kind of nuanced discussion of the way he’s choosing to do this. And acting like anyone who expresses the remotest negative opinion on this is a sad loser. He’s the one who ran to the bloody paper with it, I don’t give a shite how he raises his child, but I think he’s a fool.