Woke

by Titania McGrath

  As far as I’m concerned, you’re not entitled to call yourself a feminist if you haven’t been out marching for rights you already have while dressed as a massive cunt.

  But many activists criticised the march, pointing out that it focused largely on cisgender white women. ‘What about African-American women with penises?’ they cried. ‘Why is no one going around with a black cock on their head?’

  Katherine Nolan, the designer of the pussy-hat, withdrew the knitting pattern when she realised how offensive it was. ‘I’m deleting the pattern I posted,’ she said in a fittingly contrite statement. ‘I am really sorry for upsetting people. I’ve read, listened and learned and while it was not intentional it was thoughtless. I will make some hats with yellow roses instead.’

  The phrase ‘too little too late’ springs to mind. And has Nolan ever considered how triggering a yellow rose might be to anyone who has ever been raped by a florist?

  I voted for Jeremy Corbyn reluctantly, because as an intersectionalist I would have preferred a black lesbian in the role. But there’s always the possibility that Corbyn might transition at a later date, or that Diane Abbott might assume the Labour Party leadership and develop a taste for flange.

  Corbyn has been dogged by accusations that his party is an ti-Semitic, which I don’t believe for one second. I’ve always loved Jews. I admire their caustic wit, their financial acumen and their cunning. And I have no doubt that Corbyn feels the same way.

  Like all leftists, there is no place for anti-Semitism in my life. I’m quite partial to the occasional bagel. I enjoy the songs of Barbra Streisand. I’ve even read that silly Anne Frank novel about a girl who gets stuck in a cupboard.

  The British media have always mistrusted Corbyn, possibly because he doesn’t seem to brush his hair very often. But it’s simply untrue to suggest that he is a terrorist sympathiser. He stands accused of laying a wreath at the graves of Palestinian terrorists (if such a thing exists) who had murdered Israeli citizens, and then lying about it in a subsequent interview. But if somebody asked me to remember every single wreath I’ve ever laid I’m sure I’d struggle too.

  Corbyn is woke as fuck, the unassailable rodeo cowboy riding bareback on the sturdy heifer of justice. He’s pro BAME, pro LGBTQIA+, pro Islam, pro Irish republicanism, pro abortion, and respects women so much that he has called for them to have their own carriages on trains so that they can be protected from the terror that comes with male proximity. When Corbyn appeared at an event in Loughborough, white audience members were charged £10 more than ethnic minorities to hear him speak. The only thing that could have made the event more inclusive would have been to provide free rice and peas.

  Labour is ‘for the many, not the few’, according to their current party slogan. The cover of their magazine at the 2018 party conference said it all, composed as it was of cartoons of various modern families. There were Asians, blacks, hijabis, a cripple, an interracial lesbian couple with their mixed-race child, a female construction worker, and even a ginger. Labour have moved on from all that tiresome ‘class consciousness’ that characterised the movement in the early to mid-twentieth century, and they are now the true bastions of identity politics.

  The real reason why the media loathe Corbyn is that he represents a threat to the establishment. Socialism has been an unqualified success wherever it has been implemented. In Venezuela, at the time of writing, a 2.4-kg chicken is currently worth a whopping 14,600,000 bolivars.

  So much for socialism making people poorer.

  Ode to a Homeless

  Capitalism took your home,

  Stole your rooves to erect its shrines of avarice,

  Tossed you gutterly into vagabondish slums

  Like a buckstopped empress roughly licked.

  Your blankets were purloined by a filofaxed terrorist

  With a rusty corkscrew for a phallus,

  Spinfucking his way into semi-pregnant souls

  As a goatish spatula of ire, ever stirring.

  Neoliberalism is a hairy sandwich

  Half-nibbled by a cobbler’s second arse,

  An elongated musk that drenches the reasty air

  Like curdled tofu from a grumpy fridge.

  But the masses shall ascend,

  A thousand armour-plated Lily Allens,

  To batterslap the sharpsuited toothtwisters

  As they gallivant on a shit-smudged trampoline of fear.

  Meghan

  She markled her way

  into the heart of a beige changeling.

  Sinuous in Givenchy fatigues,

  She writhes,

  deadly,

  A crispy buglocked fetterwitch in white.

  Commoners swarm,

  yielding their throats,

  Limbless lice in a shrill soufflé

  As she clings

  Limpet-like

  To a ginger scrotum, royally.

  You ain’t no goddam feminist.

  A foxtrotting mule of heteronormativity

  Beckons the Beckhams to a champagne-sucking scumfest.

  It was the owl that shrieked,

  ‘Hewitt, to woo.’

  That’s the fatal bellman, bitch.

  I Am Womxn

  My front hole is tethered to the past,

  A fraying ligature of blubbering lust

  Cordtightened into a gilded ghoul

  Who suckles the jostling buggertrain of lies,

  For I am womxn.

  I have crowdfunded my right to scream,

  Stampeding gently on a three-backed beast

  I howl at the universe through a miasma

  Of upskirting scatterqueens on plump stilts.

  Yes, I am womxn.

  Drowned in my own ink,

  A meaty pirouette of hangdog pickpocketry.

  My breasts are syphilitic hoglets,

  Delicate cross-eyed hymns of cheese.

  See, I am womxn.

  Genocide is orgasm made flesh,

  This sneering glut of gnarled delinquency.

  An onyx ashtray for a heart,

  My bric-a-brac joy stubbed out in cold ashes.

  Lo, I am womxn.

  In the tepid dreams of a slutshamed goat

  I am fingered by a god called Choice,

  A beardless embryo serenading

  Through the dim grey secrets of the night. I am womxn.

  Dead Fairies and Front Holes

  ‘Woman’ and ‘man’ are figures of male speech. Gender – no less than sexuality – is an irreducible fiction.

  David M. Halperin

  We should give all newborn babies numbers rather than names until they are ready to determine their own gender identity.

  This is an idea that I have floated through various mediums: political pamphlets, slam poetry, interpretative dance, shaman pottery and an online petition entitled ‘Some babies are trans: get over it’.

  One sign that a baby is uncomfortable in its own body is if it is crying on a regular basis. If, say, you have given it a male name and dressed it in blue, it may well be that its tears are an indicator of gender dysmorphia. If the crying persists after a month or so, you should seriously consider hormone blockers.

  It’s never too early to implement such procedures, even if the person in question is still a foetus. I would advise all pregnant mothers to be vigilant. If they can feel their unborn child kicking, this is probably because it is attempting to signal a desire to transition.

  There are some who have the audacity to suggest that transitional medication for a child is a form of abuse. These people would sooner an individual grow up in the wrong body than administer a few harmless injections to thwart the tyranny of nature. Who’s the real abuser here?

  I mention all of this because enlightened society now realises that gender is fluid, the outdated categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ being dictatorial taxonomies assigned randomly at birth. Some ‘experts’ still maintain that there are only two sexes. The idea that knowledge is more i
mportant than feelings is everything that is wrong with the field of modern science.

  To put it simply, we are all transgender; it’s simply a matter of extent. I am sick of people disputing my point of view on this issue and will no longer tolerate it. ‘Debate’ in such circumstances amounts to a form of mass murder, because it involves a denial of the existence of trans bodies. It’s like J. M. Barrie says in Peter Pan: ‘Every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies,” there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.’

  Yet we are all forced to comply with the stale old dichotomy of male and female every time we fill out an application form for a new job, complete a survey or even apply for a bank account. There are a few major companies who are doing their best to coax our society into the twenty-first century. HSBC, for instance, is currently offering the choice of ten gender-neutral titles for its customers: Mx, Ind, M, Misc, Mre, Msr, Myr, Pr, Sai and Ser. There are still more titles I would like to see represented, including (but not limited to): Mg, Mrg, Qx, Ug, Ct, Fk, Wk, Bs, Pnky and Prky.

  Facebook has also updated its policies on gender, now offering its users in excess of seventy different options. So instead of ticking the box for ‘male’ or ‘female’ or ‘other’, you can select from a whole host of identities such as ‘demiman’, ‘demiwoman’, ‘polygender’, ‘multigender’, ‘genderqueer’, ‘transmasculine’ or ‘two-spirit’. But the fact that the number of gender options is only in double digits reveals just how much more work still needs to be done.

  ‘Ah well,’ the detractors cry, ‘some people claim to be Napoleon; should we indulge them as well?’ To which I always reply: yes. If someone identifies as Napoleon, they are Napoleon. I could elaborate on this principle, but I resent the idea that I should enact that labour in order to satisfy the demands of reactionaries.

  I find it disgusting that the principle of self-identification is so roundly mocked by tabloid chauvinists. Rod Liddle, for instance, wrote a sneering article for the Sunday Times entitled ‘I’m identifying as a young, black, trans chihuahua, and the truth can go whistle’. I cannot condemn him enough for his dismissive and unfeeling stance.

  Unless he’s being serious, in which case I offer him my warmest congratulations.

  One of my favourite new terms is ‘otherkin’; a person who identifies as non-human. By this I don’t mean those who do not obviously resemble the archetypal human form, such as Barry Manilow or Janet Street-Porter, but rather those who know deep in their souls that they are beyond the scope of mere homo sapiens.

  In order to be truly woke, one must also be ready to adopt a range of differently gendered pronouns, which can vary from individual to individual. The traditional pronouns of ‘she’ and ‘he’ are deployed so thoughtlessly, and involve a shocking degree of prejudice. Note, for instance, that historians tend to refer to King Henry VIII as a ‘he’. But why? Do they ever stop to think that Henry might have preferred a nonconformist pronoun? There is nothing particularly male about having a huge beard, broad shoulders and a massive cock. My friend Belinda is hung like a shire stallion. That doesn’t make her any less feminine.

  It takes very little effort to learn someone’s pronouns, or to announce your own. Many universities across the UK issue badges during freshers’ week for this very purpose, so you can immediately see when it is appropriate to use she/her/her, he/him/his, they/them/their, xe/xem/xyr, ne/nym/nis, ne/nem/nir, ae/aer/aers, ve/ver/vis, ey/em/eir, fae/faer/faers, shey/shem/sheir, per/per/pers, tey/ter/tem, ze/hir/hir, zhe/zhim/zhers or zie/zim/zir. What could be simpler than that?

  One of the highlights of my year is International Pronoun Day on 17 October when, as the University of Wisconsin’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center puts it, we can all help to ‘transform society to celebrate people’s multiple, intersecting identities’. Of all the problems that the global community faces today, surely this has to take priority. I can envisage no better way to celebrate diversity than to shun those bigots who refuse to learn the correct terminology, to enforce the use of multiple neopronouns through robust hate speech laws, and to seek out dissenters and punish them without mercy. It’s what Mahatma Gandhi would have done if xe were alive today.

  I would rather be shot by a lone wolf terrorist than be misgendered.

  The criminalisation of non-woke language is just the beginning. The next step is to ensure that nobody’s feelings are ever hurt by the assumption of gender. To this end, many secondary schools in the UK are currently in the process of introducing gender-neutral uniforms and prohibiting girls from wearing typical ‘female’ clothing. For a trans person, the sight of a skirt is likely to trigger major anxiety. If we simply jettison all obvious appearances of traditional gender distinctions, then everyone will be happy. And if you’re one of those people who wouldn’t be content under such circumstances, then you probably don’t deserve happiness in the first place.

  Many trans people oppose these innovations, claiming that it is patronising for cis individuals such as myself to advocate on their behalf for special protections. This kind of internalised transphobia breaks my heart, and if anything simply proves the necessity to introduce such measures. I know what is best for the trans community, even if they don’t know it themselves.

  We need to rethink our entire approach to this subject, and the best way would be to introduce Gender Studies to the national curriculum. Children need to understand that vaginas, penises, ovaries, testes and fallopian tubes are all mere social constructs. It is essential that we teach them that the very concept of gender is a fabrication, but is simultaneously the most essential aspect of their self-identity.

  Calling out the misuse of language is a pivotal aspect of this struggle. A San Franciscan medical information service called Healthline recently published an ‘LGBTQIA safe sex guide’, which has embraced more appropriate terms for human genitalia. For instance, whenever a reference to what is conventionally known as a ‘vagina’ is required, the writers of the guide use the term ‘front hole’.

  The great thing about the phrase ‘front hole’ is not only that it’s inclusive, but it’s also much sexier than ‘vagina’. After all, ‘vagina’ is Latin for ‘sheath’.

  I am no man’s sheath.

  This wonderful move towards greater inclusivity inspired me to write my first full-length play, The Front Hole Monologues, which I performed at my local fringe theatre. Critics were unanimous in their praise. ‘Shockingly literal in its execution’, wrote the Lincoln Courier. ‘McGrath seems wholly oblivious to nuance or taste’, said the Stage. My favourite was th e review in TheatreBlogUK, which simply asked: ‘What the fuck did I just watch?’

  Islamofeminism

  Prophet Muhammad was not only a feminist for his time, but also an intersectional feminist who wanted to generate as much inclusivity as possible.

  Muslim Girl Magazine

  In order to achieve wokeness, one must treat Muslims with special sensitivity. This is essential given the increasingly vehement forms of prejudice they face due to damaging stereotypes in the media and popular culture, as well as legitimate grievances in Islamic communities, which have arisen as a direct corollary of Western depredations in international conflicts.

  Also, some of them have bombs.

  I am not for one moment trying to play down the terrible impact of terrorist atrocities. I despise ISIS. They’re the sort who give Islamic fundamentalism a bad name; a group so repugnant that the writers of the television drama Downton Abbey had to kill off the family dog, also called Isis, because the name had become tarnished. Personally, I find it more likely that ISIS changed their name to ISIL in case people started thinking they were fans of Downton Abbey.

  But here’s a thought. If a sufficient number of femnists were to join ISIS, we could turn it into a progressive social justice movement.

  Every time I hear about another act of jihadist terrorism my heart sinks because I know there’ll be a horrible Islamophobic backlash. Whatever their crimes, nothing tha
t ISIS have ever done comes close to the acts perpetrated by the European nations during the Crusades. Surely in the face of modern-day jihadism, we need to be focusing on the misdeeds of medieval Christians. Anything else would be sheer hypocrisy.

  And it’s not as though matters have improved over time. Remember when that Christian bakery in Belfast refused to make a cake for a gay customer with the message ‘Support Gay Marriage’? Westerners have to get their own house in order before they start criticising the more excessive behaviour of a few radical Islamists.

  According to the theory of intersectionality, Muslims occupy the very pinnacle of the victim hierarchy. This is largely a consequence of the fact that they have been scapegoated continuously ever since 9/11. The irony is that we can’t even be sure that Muslims were responsible. Those men could have been Quakers in disguise for all we know.

  Some right-wingers like to pretend that there is a contradiction between the tenets of Islam and fourth-wave feminism. But if they actually spent some time in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or any of the world’s other Islamic states, they would realise that attitudes towards women are extremely progressive. To prove it, later this year I’ll be organising a slut-walk through the centre of Karachi.

  If there’s really a problem with gender inequality in predominantly Muslim countries, how do you explain that there has never been a single successful conviction in a Sharia court for misogynistic hate crime?