The Productive Pessimist

  Is it possible to believe we need to move away from "State-identified" inclusion, whilst remaining fundamentally committed to ensuring everyone is supported to pursue their personal definitions of success? I happen to think so. It often comes as a surprise to people "how left-wing" I am (although, in 2002, I was described by a Politics and Philosophy lecturer as "slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun"... my politics haven't changed all that much in the intervening 24 years...) Currently, there is a lot of noise being made about how "white working class boys" have been "abandoned and forgotten by decades of so-called inclusion" - with all the attendant free rein to racists and other bigots that you might expect such an announcement to generate, and groups who've been milking the funding cash cows of "supporting women and girls!" for the past 5yrs having very public fits of pique about how "their" funding i...

  We enter Pride Month at a time when global LGBTQIA+ rights are under direct, immediate attack, including in developed Western countries - which has not been the case, on a systemic level, for many years.  For some younger LGBTQIA+ Western people, they have never in their lifetime   known a situation where, systemically, at a legal level, they have not had  rights as a default position. It feels frightening - even when you have  lived through being LGBTQIA+ without rights, or without the level of rights younger Western people have been able to assume were "just naturally there." It actually is  frightening. It is terrifying when your government directly positions itself in opposition to your ability to safely exist as yourself in the world. And LGBTQIA+ people have to exist in the world. Including non-passing trans people. Including very butch Sapphic women, and very femme gay men. Including people who are visibly intersex. Including polyamorous people who...