Extremism

I hope you like my graphic. It looks all busy and current, suggesting a position on the latest furore over pronouns, platforming, being 'kind' and whether Debbie Hayton should be considered an ally, fifth columnist, or just at all, ever. In, or with, any respect.

But I've no answers. Not really. I'm an annoying trans-Switzerland here, a 'good people on both sides' fence-sitter, and, like a shit relationship therapist way out her depth, I think everyone has made very good and valid points.

Instead of all that feminism business, I'd first like to regale you with what a good person I am, and the dilemmas I have deftly wrangled:

At the age of 13, I became vegan. No, I'm not from a poncey, middle class background - the opposite. It was considered stupid, attention seeking and the piss was constantly ripped out of me.

It was also rare then, and hard to find anything apart from crisps, chips or fruit outside the house. I continued without a slip up when homeless, when recovering from raves or festival benders - through all manner of tricky times.

This dedication was rooted in extreme and visceral distress over animal cruelty. It overwhelmed me, and I had intrusive thoughts that hounded me. 

This will be risible to some, but for all who are not malignant psychopaths, I bet you've met at least one animal you care for. As a way to illustrate my mentally, I'd like you to think of that animal, and imagine you had to take them to the vet for euthanasia.

But on arrival you realise you can't bear it. The vet says that's fine, you say your goodbyes and leave them to (you assume) a lethal dose of painkiller in a quiet room.

Instead, though, the nurse carries them out the back and loads Bella or George into a lorry, stacked with other animals, to be driven for hours to a stinking, noisy factory to die alongside hundreds or thousands of others. Think about how they sense fear. How well they hear and smell. The animals trying to escape. Because they do, desperately.  The death, piss, guts and blood. The noises of bolt guns, hauling onto meat hooks, the refrigerators whirring up, the mechanised slaughter machines.

They see, hear, and smell, it all.

The abattoir workers hate it, learning to dissociate quickly, and sometimes they unleash their frustration on the condemned animals with sickening violence. They have high rates of addiction and suicide and often leave with PTSD. They're busy - dispatching 100 million animals a month in the UK, per 2020 stats.  

Imagine that's the fate awaiting every vet-euthanised pet, every XXL bully or stray not claimed within 7 days.

That's what was on my mind, constantly. It does not bode well for good mental fortitude and it was, is, a kind of self-imposed mental torture - although it doesn't feel self-imposed, it feels very much involuntary. I still think of it too much. Too much because, what can I do? If I gave it conscious, deliberate thought I'd go mad. It's hard enough walking through the supermarket, or smelling fried chicken on the street. Chickens who, from the conveyor belts of hatchery to slaughter, lived about six weeks.

The reaction of a depressingly large number of people to the unfathomable news  someone is vegan, is goading. For these special wankers, meeting a vegan is like chucking a brick in a washing machine on full spin. It drops a polo in their little fizzy-pop minds. 'Not even milk, or eggs?' they shriek 'I couldn't manage without a bacon sandwich'. Oh well then, fuck you, c*nt, I thought as I tried not to take the bait. 

It was difficult to hold my tongue when meat eaters cried over ailing pets sometimes. I consoled myself by focusing on the fact they cared about one animal, at least, but I'd wish that care stretched further.

That's the thing - the people who don't think, who do things we hate; they are liabilities, traitors, collaborators, but don't always know it. They won't listen or change when they know it's the right thing to do. And we have to live with their defensive guilt and the awareness of their consequences, consequences they desperately cling to ignorance of.

People can be unconscionably selfish, wilfully ignorant and dumb. Walking, talking, wide-eyed fucking morons. I can't change it. 

Probably some of them do care, they just can't break out of their illogical and selfish conditioning, their lazy greed. Or... I don't know. Maybe, assumptions like these can a be a mistake.

Life is hard and complicated. People make their choices based on stuff we sometimes can't imagine - even when these changes we want them to make are so obvious and easy to do. Shouting them down would make me a stereotypical 'angry vegan'. No one listens to them. You can point things out, but people do what they want. 

I boycott companies involved in or benefiting from animal cruelty. I know my pauper's funds make no difference, but it's wrong and I will not be complicit. Be part of the problem or part of the solution, innit.

As such, I have never eaten at Macdonald's, or Burger King, or any of the big chains. Fuck their veggie burgers. Macdonald's - I honestly don't know where to start on the harm they've done to people, animals and the environment, but the McLibel case against feminist legend Helen Steel and single dad Dave Morris should alert you. 

Remember that, and Nestlès' baby milk scandal, worker's rights abuses, land clearances, wholesale draining and polluting of water tables etc - all of it - when you next fancy a McBastard King Coca-Cola Nandos'. Or do you not support women and children?

Because, while people say animal agriculture is a fringe issue, it really isn't. It's terrible for the planet, wastes masses of water and is the main reason for soy production (over 90% is for livestock feed). Soy farming uses insane quantities of pesticide and has been linked to leukaemia in south and central American children. Since 2012, 400 square miles of rainforest have been destroyed to grow soy in one Brazilian state alone. 

The intensive farming required to feed billions of people animal products daily - a weird, wildly excessive expectation of modern society - uses incredible quantities of antibiotics which make resistance a far more pressing concern. 

Oh, abattoir workers have really high rates of domestic violence too. 

The impact is massive, making me laugh bitterly at delusional troons like No7Sammy play the yokel farmurr with this sort of shite:

Shotgun Sam was informed cows and sheep eat grass alone. By the same person who said he was a woman. He believed both of these embarrassing lies.

There used to be a woman in town who charged people to have photos taken with her pet fantail pigeons. Their white tail feathers were dyed with vegetable colour.

On a local Facebook page, people went apeshit. They reported her to the RSPCA, accused her of cruelty based on spurious bullshit that they developed and extrapolated upon on the spot. 

I was quickly irritated, especially knowing how people normally are to pigeons, but lost my shit when it transpired the two most enraged of the dipshits had seen her when leaving KFC. I ripped the piss out of them til comments were closed, then, like a ninja, snuck back in to edit comments, adding more insults and derision. I had few drinks and a self-rightous ball.

Tragical Centrists; The Vegetarians

Because eggs and dairy don't have to result in the slaughter of animals, doesn't mean that's reality. This is capitalism, and unless it's from an Ahimsa herd, that dairy product comes with an assurance the cow was impregnated at what some know as 'the rape rack', typically for four of her first five years before being sent to slaughter when her reproductive system slows. At the age of five. 

Yes, even organic.

Cows live 15 to 20 years naturally, and they carry their calves for ten months. They're smart. The calf remains with its mother for 12 hours, to be dragged off for either bottle feeding in pens or slaughter. 

"What I eat is my business" said the bastard

Why the 12 hours? So mum gets to make memories? Is it important those wobbly legged babies are licked clean when someone sticks a captured bolt gun to their head? Ah, no. It probably helps to trigger her milk and clear her ducts.

Over the days the cows give birth and have their calves taken, the mothers bellow so loud it keeps neighbours awake. They call day and night. Cows, like many animals, will risk their lives for their young. There's plenty of film of mothers trying to hide or defend their calves, or attempting, naively, to meekly follow behind til she's pushed back. Look, if you want to destroy whatever peace of mind you have. It's harrowing. 

So, the allegedly 'kind' position of being vegetarian involves, and normally increases, consumption of the products of two horrible industries. 

As a vegan, I detested vegetarians being used as spokespeople for us, much more committed and consistent people, who are derided as extreme. 

Worse, some are such tap-dancing, jazz-handing shit-for-brains, they eat fish.

What's that about? Don't ever confuse me with those fuckwits.

I mean, talk about 'holding the line' - how can you advocate for animals when you're force-teamed with people who think fish are fucking vegetables? Or minerals, maybe, who knows what they think?

Vegetarians obscure harsh realities. If I was a bovine born on a British farm, I'd pay for it to be beef. Both involve cruelty, but dairy is significantly more unusual. 

The whole thing is shit, and it made my teens extremely lonely. 

I fixated on the grim lives of animals, deprivated of natural behaviours; space; sunlight. Beaks, tusks and tails cut off, nads crushed, killed while trying to escape and in numbers so huge, some are still alive when processed. Some try to swim out of scalding tanks. I burnt with rage. How the fuck was I to like people - become friends, even - when they not only were ambivalent, but they fucking well financially supported it, consumed it in front of me?

Nah.

Actually, I had loads of friends, almost none were vegan or vegetarian. I may have influenced people, maybe not. I hope so. I just realised if I started thinking like that, or constantly brought it up, I'd be alone.

I thought about that recently when a friend, who cares about animals, complained about activists playing abattoir sounds in her city centre. Her kid is autistic so already sensitive to noise. He loves animals, and it broke him.

These recordings are sometimes from the people who protest the arrival of new animals at abattoir. The noises of frightened animals are easily audible outside.

Notoriously, the loudest are pigs, who are killed at a rate of 1,000 an hour in an average UK slaughterhouse. Pigs who die screaming. 

I can see why they do it, that's the thing. If this was stray cats and dogs being put down, screaming, and no one cared, I wonder how long it'd take you before you try force people to look and listen? Sometimes non-animal rights people do it - in fact I'm still traumatised from a clip I saw five years ago of a cowering dog being blow-torched in the face at the Yulin festival. I had a row with the friend who shared it. 

Elwood's dog meat farm

She eats meat. Of course the torture makes a difference here, but, I asked, if the dog came Red Tractor assured, would it be OK? She was furious. I don't understand how you can be that upset either way when your position is so incoherent - pigs outperform dogs in many measures of cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, memory, recognition of themselves and others. It makes no sense and is laughably inconsistent, but, I guess... we are.

It's one of the philosophical debates in animal rights, and it's easy to get dissociated from people and 'normal' perspectives. A tunnel vision can set in. We forget that culture plays a massive part of our reasoning.

There are well-developed, consistent arguments I doubt you could dismantle logically, and I bet you'd think they sound insane if you've never given it thought. It's easy to forget people are emotionally led, and fallible. Stressed, tired, with a million other (misplaced) priorities and worries. There is no difference between a pig, cow, sheep, chicken, horse or dog that makes a solitary shred of difference in their fear, pain or overall suffering. None. Stop fooling yourself.

The Civil War

I just watched an interview with Stella O'Malley on YouTube, and I think she made some valuable points which have been buried in outrage. The conversation doesn't seem to move. It's an endless, uncharitable recitation of what we don't agree on.

The comments, as ever, interested me. Particularly that Kelly-Jay Keen was being laid into. I've a lot of admiration for Kelly-Jay Keen's bravery and clarity. But I don't think she's shy on laying into people herself. Do we have one standard, or not?

I've thought before that we can be pretty ruthless in hammering points. 

For example, writing on Facebook "I have nothing against that X, but she is not a woman and should not be in women's sports" can be brave, if a portion of your friends are morons. And having several replies consisting of the solitary word, 'he', can do more harm than good. Helpful as me shouting about the evils of animal agriculture as you eat dinner. No one likes being corrected.

I think guessing at people's motivations is often misleading, or done out of seizing the narrative rather than understanding. 

Stella has done a huge amount to give parents another resource away from 'Trans the Gay Away' freaks. Coming from a position where she's cast as not even offering that 'respect' would probably not help her.

I might ask why is everyone is so angry, if I wanted to be eviscerated by rightfully livid women who've suffered huge injustices at this insane, spiteful, entitled ideology. The thing is, many of us have. I have. And when someone insists you're not understanding something that's been repeated ad nauseam, it's patronising as fuck.

I thought the same over the Janice Turner furore; she's been amazing, brave and clear, and she even upset friend of the blog, the bog-blubbing Belcher. But then she went and spoiled it all by calling Debbie Hayton by she and her, topping it off by suggesting some women were 'extremists'. Thus, we got a rush of people referring to themselves as commoners, peasants, outraging the respectable commentariat. It got a bit silly. Calling me an extremist did little to pacify me, either, but I do see a couple of individuals as gleefully bellicose and the idea that's necessarily a stand of principle is not convincing to me. 

I don't like it when the (often extremely unpleasant) types at 'The Real GC Left' criticise Posie Parker for sharing a park with someone who's estranged dead stepmother once voted Tory, and I think the lesson that constant shit-flicking is unhelpful could be shared.

"It sounds ridiculous!" some reacted to her followup - "writing 'Hayton is under no illusions she is female' - do you not understand how ridiculous that sounds?" 

From my seat today, I wonder if that's a bad thing. It may not lead the reader to take Turner seriously, I don't know, but considering the widely held belief that 'misgendering' is cruelty, it puts a spotline on that contradiction. One you won't see anywhere else. 

Among the many friends I've clashed with over my gender critical stance, I noticed that a trans identified person open to the conversation is an asset.

It took me a long time to get with sex-based pronouns. I was scared of upsetting less than I was so used to mentally applying them on the basis of what I thought people wanted. As we know, this is socialised into us under the guise of kindness, not making a fuss. I think people have recently been dogpiled over it, and that works strongly against us.

The beauty of Barra Kerr's essay for me was that it's something you could do privately, in your own head, before committing. And, she was exactly right. It plants a seed. Planting seeds night seem a waste of time, but itself how genuine change is affected.

For people who are conflicted, or scared, there's strong appeal to the idea we just do a little self edit, to see if it works.

I also feel, when someone uses euphemisms / female pronouns for men, they rarely need it pointing out they're wrong. They made a choice to do so. Other people are difficult - how do you stop them from being so blind?

I remember arguing that 'slaughter' was a word used to sanitise and obfuscate what really happens - violent deaths. Murder. On an industrial scale. 'Free range' rides on the assumption that poultry will want to walk around without coverage from aerial predators. They won't. They'll stay in the 'barn'. 'Meat' would be ok, if you also use it when booking a funeral ('the meat will be dressed and prepared for an open casket') but you won't, because your distinction between a body, a corpse and meat is subjective.

Extremes

The industry around trans is now beginning to face more scrutiny in terms of animal exploitation. It's about time. 

Below are two images of the animal model stage of phalloplasty surgery. They are tiny because of their horrible and graphic nature. I couldn't see how to give a warning cover, so that was my solution. Still, I think you should look.

Vivisection, or experimenting on live animals, is grotesque. 

You'll hear plenty of apologism, that the majority is to develop life saving techniques. They used to send surgeons to war zones, or Northern Ireland or south central LA to hone their skills at operating on gunshot wounds or arterial bleeds. Now we send them to countries with lower animal welfare standards, and get soldiers to shoot pigs in vital organs so they can practice on them.

If you were one of the many who rightfully called out the phalloplasty practice on female mammals, I was there agreeing with you. But I also got upset you weren't interested in the other horrific animal research that people have screamed about for decades. 

Debbie Vincent, a trans identified male who was part of a group targeting staff at Huntington Life Sciences, desecrated a grave, stealing the ashes of an old woman, the mother of HSL's director, as part of a blackmail bid. People were horrified. I can fully understand though. I can see that when you're cognizant of the dogs, rabbits, monkeys etc being tortured and killed, that director deserves it all. And no, it wasn't attacking the old woman, she was dead, inciderated meat. Would you rather those animals have electrodes in their brains to aid smart phone technology or the director looks for another job?

Do you know why these labs use beagles? It's because they are forgiving, docile dogs. Someone in a white coat can put them through excruciatingpain and they still won'tbite when the technician enters the room to swab their wounds. 

They use monkeys and their babies in psychological experiments - will a baby, removed from her mother, forced to make a choice due to distance or automated shutters or even an electrified fence, choose comfort with a teddy bear fitted with an artificial pulse, and starve to death, or food? Comfort, it turns out. Apparently this was important research, but also they're totally different to us mentally, so it's ok. 

You should care about this. It's not a secret. Watch some videos. Really absorb what's happening, and then call it extremism.

My piety and conscientious objection ultimately became impossible. I was living on JSA and couldn't eat at friends houses. I was knackered all the time. I had to treat my dog for worms. I burnt out.

I knew people who refused to vaccinate their dogs, and saw a litter of puppies after catching parvovirus. They were all put to sleep. The owners talked lots about simply quarantining pups, but it's bollocks. Dogs are fundamentally sociable and prospective owners want to visit.

And then the worst bit - food. Some claim they own healthy, happy dogs on vegan diets, but 1) I just don't think it's fair, and 2) my dog had a bunch of food intolerances. Anything starchy and she came up with hives and thrush. Her arthritis got worse. It's all sewn up. 

When we protest or challenge a movement, theology or industry, it's because it's gained a foothold. We can be hamstrung by our purity, marginalise ourselves. 

In retrospect, I think I missed some things about my fellow humans that were right under my nose. And that is the easier, simpler, way is what most people will take up, and a wall of 'hardline' contributors make people feel intimidated, insulted, guilty.

In the end I also realised, vegetarians made it much easier to find vegan food, because most of the non-vegan ingredients were already knocked out, and it opened the door to conversation that started at the point that mindlessly munching on animals that had shit lives and traumatic deaths was not good. 

When a population have been systematically gaslit and mislead, and you need to get back on the path, out of the weeds and darkness, you can stand out of sight, on that path and shout. You'll probably get quickly frustrated as you're likely to be mis-heard. And because you have to shout, people think you're crazy even when you make perfect sense. 

Or, you can stand a bit closer, where they are more likely to see and hear you. Maybe, you can get really close, and they will begin to see the direction you came from.

I suspect we need as many people as possible to flatten the way back, because we want all of society to redirect. And society includes a lot of tossers. Lazy, selfish, myopic fools who won't move an inch without their gang, as well as decent, 'moderate', subjectively principled people. So shouting at the stepping stones beside them that they are wrong, and however many points of latitude off, and that we got lost in the first place by walking into the long grass, is maybe not helpful.

Stand where you stand. Have the conversations you need. But redirect your ire from those who are partway there, to those leading others away. I think we can make it back as long as the path is in sight. But some people will never meet you there.