Wokeism

[Emil El Zapato]

The point is that this particular "routine aspect" as you call it is deliberately being shoved down everyone's throat as if nothing else exists anymore, and as if everyone will from now on be expected to also become gay/trans/whatever. Even perfectly heterosexual children are now starting to wonder about their gender identity due to the issue now being everywhere you look.

That's not art, that's mind-fuckery. And that is the neuroticism of it all. It's a minority trying to push its own neuroticism onto the majority because they need the unconditional approval and praise of the whole goddamn world — forcibly if they have to — as a substitute for their lacking self-acceptance.

The same is true with regard to the woman who was sent to jail over here for having slapped her son upside the head. Somehow the Wokemons™ feel that children are holy creatures that can do no wrong, even though there are plenty of brats out there who turn out to be completely antisocial pricks by the time they reach adolescence, and who will continue to be completely antisocial pricks as adults, all because nobody put the little fuckers in their place when they were still little — and I'm not saying that this needs to be done through physical violence or some other form of abuse, but a line has to be drawn.

The couple that lived upstairs from me before the current tenants had such a little brat. I'm not sure of his age — I think he was about 4 or 5 years old — and he would throw tantrums like you've never seen or heard before whenever he didn't get what he wanted. He would scream, bang the walls and doors with his fists and stomp his feet all over the place. And they let him, so it never occurred to him to stop doing that whenever he felt like it.

I myself have worked with children of various ages, as well as with teenagers, and I have seen what a lack of proper parenting does. Hell, there regularly are stories in the news of atrocities committed by very young teenagers, such as — not too long ago — an adult woman who was jogging through the park and who was tricked by a 13-year-old boy supposedly needing help, and then she was jumped by other boys of roughly the same age and gang-raped.

A few years ago — but still only a few years — there was the story of a group of adolescents and one or two people in their early twenties who had been bullying a mentally challenged teenager, getting him drunk and/or high, even forcing him to masturbate while they were filming it all with their smartphones, and then throwing him into the ice-cold river, where he drowned as they walked away all giddy.

Or what about a gang comprised only of teenage girls — aged 13 to 15 — who beat the shit out of several other girls of their school at the bus stop or at the station, and who even went so far as to attack and injure a male adult. And all of it filmed on smartphones and published on social media. Just like that bunch of teenage guys who drugged a teenage girl at a party and gang-raped her while she was out, all also filmed with a smartphone and published on social media.

But hey, you can't touch them, because they are children and children are sacred. Little monsters turning into snowflakes when it suits them, and into fully-blown sociopaths when the authorities aren't looking.

That's what industrialized upbringing does. They all want to have children because "babies are cute", and "the biological clock is ticking", but when push comes to shove, once those babies aren't babies anymore, they lose interest and they drop them off at a daycare center. The daycare center isn't going to raise the children "because it's not our responsibility", and the school isn't either, "because it's not our responsibility". And the parents don't, because they're too busy with their work, their extracurricular activities, and then the boob tube before bedtime. Rinse and repeat.

But a woman slaps her son upside the head and is convicted to a couple of years in prison on the charges of child abuse, "so as to set an example". Yeah, right, some example. But of what? The decay of our moral compass? Of our common sense? Of our deductive reasoning? Of our social awareness?

It is said — quite brainlessly — that children are the future. But what kind of future?

All it is, in my opinion, is just a new 'cover' for mentally ill people. One could argue that so many 'kids' commit mass murder because there are so many guns... . Women/girls have always gotten away with murder...because they 'had' to do it in fear for their lives. Well, that cover is off, now we should move toward a better, more informed measure of justice.

[Aragorn]

All it is, in my opinion, is just a new 'cover' for mentally ill people. One could argue that so many 'kids' commit mass murder because there are so many guns... .

Not over here there aren't.

Women/girls have always gotten away with murder...because they 'had' to do it in fear for their lives.

Not over here either.

[Catsquotl]

now we should move toward a better, more informed measure of justice.

As long as I get to decide where to get the better information to inform my justice. Everything will be just fine...
Oh wait..

[Emil El Zapato]

As long as I get to decide where to get the better information to inform my justice. Everything will be just fine...
Oh wait..

That MUST be part of the formula.

[Emil El Zapato]

Hey Aragorn,

I know you will find this distasteful but the reason I'm posting it is because it hits on what I consider the "real" crux of the biscuit on these issues. In my opinion, when all the crossfire is eliminated it distills to the issue at hand. Note the article's mention of 'infighting' among characters, vested interests (both personal and social), writers, etc. Takei, for example, has his right to his opinion about Sulu's sexual orientation and I see why he would decry Sulu's 'change' because it obviates a body of work that he 'prides' himself on, but he didn't write the character, he merely played it. So his influence is rightfully limited to his ownership of it.

I'm not advocating that all complaints are valid, I'm just suggesting that the 'framework' of needs and wants is vast and that in the pursuit of egalitarianism some painful concessions 'should' be acknowledged and allowed in the interest of 'balance'.

The Sad History of LGBTQ Representation on Star Trek. The infighting for gay representation, representation demoted to innuendo and Roddenberry’s Promise.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sta...tar-trek%3famp

Please read this article before continuing it is a very brief account of LGBTQ issues in Star Trek.

Finally, in 2017 we got to meet Paul Stamitz and Hugh Culber. However, the first openly gay characters in Star Trek came 50 years too late and 26 years after Gene Roddenberry made a promise to include a gay character in TNG but died before the show's conclusion.

What is not written in this article is the massive amount of infighting that happened among writers, actors, producers, and network execs which ended up making Star Trek one of the last popular franchises to “get with the times”. Many actors including Jonathon Frakes, Andrew Robinson, and Terry Farrell all fought to have their characters' sexuality be more than ambiguous. Robinson even claimed long ago that he was playing Garak as a sexually fluid character with a gay attraction to an attractive young doctor Bashir. Terry Farrell on the other hand had the first same-sex kiss, but is seen as more of a transgender icon than a gay icon. She is a young woman who was in a sense formerly a man and she is adjusting to learning to be a new person.

The article also fails to mention Seven of Nine: The gay character that never was. Seven’s story is a parallel to many gay stories including my own. She is in a sense forced out of her Borg closet when she is turned back into a human. She is then treated with mistrust, aggression, discomfort, and scorn, all things that she is already feeling about herself. She is different and people treat her differently.

However, with the help of an older female mentor (Janeway), Seven begins to find herself and begins her journey of discovering who she really is. Many of us in the gay community know the feeling. Seven of mine’s sexuality was also ambiguous for many years with many fans hoping for her to be a lesbian. An error that was finally corrected in Picard.

Many, many writers, producers, and fans supported gay representation notably Gerrold and Taylor. However, some writers reported that Berman was vehemently homophobic and wanted nothing to do with an LGBTQ story. Others claim that they felt allegory was more appropriate or that the network execs were responsible, some producers and writers, notably Gerrold walked away from Trek because it would not represent us.

Discovery era Trek has a lot of LGBTQ representation but I am more interested in discussing how you feel about LGBTQ representation or lack thereof in TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT Star Trek. Please share your thoughts and opinions related to my thoughts, the article, and sexuality/gender in Trek.

[Aragorn]

Hey Aragorn,

I know you will find this distasteful [...

Yes, on a personal note, I do — an explanation follows below. And as the administrator of this forum, I can only shake my head over your tenacity at manifesting and advocating your textbook Wokemon™ programming.

...] but the reason I'm posting it is because it hits on what I consider the "real" crux of the biscuit on these issues. In my opinion, when all the crossfire is eliminated it distills to the issue at hand. Note the article's mention of 'infighting' among characters, vested interests (both personal and social), writers, etc. Takei, for example, has his right to his opinion about Sulu's sexual orientation and I see why he would decry Sulu's 'change' because it obviates a body of work that he 'prides' himself on, but he didn't write the character, he merely played it. So his influence is rightfully limited to his ownership of it.

I don't think it had anything to do with "a body of work that he prided himself on", as much as that it would have had to do with his neutral (and in my view correct) opinion that the continuity of the show and its character development were forcibly broken for political reasons by turning Hikaru Sulu into a homosexual, instead of introducing an additional character who could then be scripted as being gay.

I'm not advocating that all complaints are valid, I'm just suggesting that the 'framework' of needs and wants is vast and that in the pursuit of egalitarianism some painful concessions 'should' be acknowledged and allowed in the interest of 'balance'.

Fine, if you're going to drag egalitarianism into this, percent-wise, how many gay people are there among the world's population? And what are the odds that every Starfleet ship would feature an LGBTQ+ representation like the one currently manifesting in all recent incarnations and spin-offs of Star Trek and other sci-fi series?

Look — and I really don't like talking about this — I do happen to have a couple of friends who are gay, and I'll always treat them with respect, but that is more than I can say from the gay community itself toward the fact that I'm a heterosexual. Because as a heterosexual male — and I certainly don't think I would be that attractive, or else I would have had far more success among the ladies in my time — I have been "accosted" by several homosexual males on more occasions than I care to remember — which, sadly enough, due to my eidetic memory, I do remember all too well — and on several occasions, this "accosting" was then also accompanied by what I consider inappropriate physical contact.

So in spite of my respectful demeanor towards LGBTQ+ people and even my willingness to defend them against haters and/or people who would physically or otherwise harm them, I do happen to have a dog in this fight, and this dog's name is PTSD. So what about that aspect then? What about my rights as a heterosexual male? "Mustn't talk about that! Mustn't stigmatize the LGBTQ+ people! They're sacred, just like the little brats that terrorize their parents, siblings, classmates, teachers and whoever else with their temper tantrums!"

That said — and again, with all due respect for LGBTQ+ people — as an autistic individual, I am often regarded and treated as "ill" or "abnormal", but can anyone please explain to me what would be "normal" about a sexual orientation that is completely inverse to the natural requirements of procreation?

I really fail to see why this procreationally challenged minority should be over-represented in just about every (recent enough) TV show.

The Sad History of LGBTQ Representation on Star Trek. The infighting for gay representation, representation demoted to innuendo and Roddenberry’s Promise.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sta...tar-trek%3famp

Please read this article before continuing it is a very brief account of LGBTQ issues in Star Trek.

Finally, in 2017 we got to meet Paul Stamitz and Hugh Culber. However, the first openly gay characters in Star Trek came 50 years too late and 26 years after Gene Roddenberry made a promise to include a gay character in TNG but died before the show's conclusion.

There was an episode on TNG in which Riker falls in love with a member of an asexual species who secretly identifies as a female and had to hide "her" sexuality from the rest of "her" people, because it was illegal on "her" world to engage in sexual/romantic relationships.

Ultimately, Riker and Worf secretly beam down to the planet — because interfering in the internal affairs of any non-Federation civilization is against Starfleet regulations — in order to persuade "her" to leave with Riker and elope to the Enterprise, but by the time they get to "her", it's already too late, because the authorities of "her" world had arrested "her" and forcibly submitted "her" to a medical procedure — presumably some kind of brain surgery — that excised "her" ability to feel any sexual/romantic attraction, and it is then "she herself" who coldly sends Riker and Worf away.

What is not written in this article is the massive amount of infighting that happened among writers, actors, producers, and network execs which ended up making Star Trek one of the last popular franchises to “get with the times”. Many actors including Jonathon Frakes, Andrew Robinson, and Terry Farrell all fought to have their characters' sexuality be more than ambiguous. Robinson even claimed long ago that he was playing Garak as a sexually fluid character with a gay attraction to an attractive young doctor Bashir.

I do not know whether Andrew Robinson really meant to portray Garak as gay, but he himself has stated that he initially played Garak as an omnisexual character, and omnisexuals are not necessarily gay in terms of which gender they are attracted to — it is not the same thing as bisexuality.

An omnisexual is someone who simply doesn't care about the gender of the person they are accosting, because they only seek sexual gratification. It is essentially masturbation with the help of somebody else's body, similar to "prison homosexuality" and to the fact that nearly all women in the porn industry engage in sex with people of both genders, even though they're not actually bisexual. (Yes, I've known a few women who have been active in the porn industry. They were working as waitresses at a café-restaurant where I occasionally had lunch/dinner in those days.)

Terry Farrell on the other hand had the first same-sex kiss, but is seen as more of a transgender icon than a gay icon. She is a young woman who was in a sense formerly a man and she is adjusting to learning to be a new person.

There was an episode — or possibly two successive episodes; I don't remember — on DS9 in which Terry Farrell's character Jadzia Dax encounters another Trill woman whose symbiont had in its previous host been the (female) lover of Curzon Dax, the previous (and male) host of the Dax symbiont that Jadzia was now merged with. Trill law forbids all contact between the new hosts of symbionts who had been partnered up romantically while merged with their previous hosts. Nevertheless, the encounter between Jadzia and the other woman was completely unintended. This encounter then led to a few implicitly lesbian scenes, and I even seem to remember a kissing scene between them, but I don't remember the details all too well anymore — it was after all close to 20 years ago that the series aired here.

Furthermore, in the mirror-universe episodes of DS9, the mirror station's Intendant — the evil counterpart of Kira Nerys — is played by Nana Visitor as another omnisexual character, who — according to the mirror-universe counterpart of Odo — has fallen in love with the normal-universe Kira Nerys. Nana Visitor, the actress who played both versions of Kira Nerys, stated that the Indendant was not actually in love with her counterpart from the main universe, but rather with herself, because she was an unadulterated narcissist.

Also in the mirror universe, Ezri Dax's counterpart is simply called Ezri, because unlike in the main universe, she was not selected for being merged with a symbiont, and in this mirror universe, she is a lesbian, as is the mirror-universe counterpart of Leeta, one of the Bajoran Dabo girls at Quark's place in the main universe (and later also the girlfriend and then wife of Quark's brother Rom).

All of the above was written and performed in a natural way, and was statistically quite plausible in terms of the potential or probability for such situations to be encountered by space-faring explorers. The Deep Space 9 space station was itself even a central hub where many different species and cultures would either reside, find a temporary stay, or pass through, and especially so due to the station's location near the Bajoran wormhole that led to the Gamma Quadrant.

The article also fails to mention Seven of Nine: The gay character that never was. Seven’s story is a parallel to many gay stories including my own. She is in a sense forced out of her Borg closet when she is turned back into a human. She is then treated with mistrust, aggression, discomfort, and scorn, all things that she is already feeling about herself. She is different and people treat her differently.

However, with the help of an older female mentor (Janeway), Seven begins to find herself and begins her journey of discovering who she really is. Many of us in the gay community know the feeling. Seven of mine’s sexuality was also ambiguous for many years with many fans hoping for her to be a lesbian. An error that was finally corrected in Picard.

No, her sexuality was most certainly never ambiguous. As the matter of fact, on board Voyager, she had secret fantasies about being in a romantic relationship with Chakotay, and she had even created a holodeck program to simulate the two of them having a romantic life together, free of her Borg implants.

The author of that article is projecting his own experiences onto the character. And let's be fair, the reason why lesbians liked Seven of Nine so much had nothing to do with her alleged journey toward self-discovery, but all the more with the fact that Jeri Ryan, the actress who played Annika/Seven, is a sex symbol, not in the very least because the producers of VOY had her walking around in a catsuit that highlighted her substantial feminine curves all the time. And for a woman in her 50s, she's still looking damn hot even today.

Many, many writers, producers, and fans supported gay representation notably Gerrold and Taylor. However, some writers reported that Berman was vehemently homophobic and wanted nothing to do with an LGBTQ story. Others claim that they felt allegory was more appropriate or that the network execs were responsible, some producers and writers, notably Gerrold walked away from Trek because it would not represent us.

Discovery era Trek has a lot of LGBTQ representation but I am more interested in discussing how you feel about LGBTQ representation or lack thereof in TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT Star Trek. Please share your thoughts and opinions related to my thoughts, the article, and sexuality/gender in Trek.

Yes, so, even if Rick Berman really was/is homophobic, what I'm reading here has nothing to do with egalitarianism or equal rights, but with a neurotic drive to have LGBTQ+ characters represented on-screen in series like Star Trek and others beyond their proportional representation in the real world. It's just being worded in such a way as to make the LGBTQ+ community appear in a victim role.

For crying out loud, people, just be human instead of obsessing about your sexual orientation and/or your confusion about your gender identity. There are people who struggle every day to put food on the table, there are people who have to live with debilitating diseases, the climate is all fucked up because of decades of unadulterated and unbridled human greed, and there's a potential new world war hanging over all of our heads. Is the projecting of your inability to live with whatever makes you a little different onto the rest of the world really the best you can do?

[Emil El Zapato]

hmmm, ok...I didn't start this thread. If it comes to this, it would have been better to just ask me to delete the earlier posts...it would have been a more straightforward message and saved some time.

[Wind]

For crying out loud, people, just be human instead of obsessing about your sexual orientation and/or your confusion about your gender identity.

Now why did you have to drag common sense into this discussion?


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WID6w4_gtwo

[Fred Steeves]

Might we have our very own daytime soap developing here?

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives"

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98T3PVaRrHU

[modwiz]

Might we have our very own daytime soap developing here?

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives"

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98T3PVaRrHU

Sponsored by Pepto-Bismol.

[Diabolical Boids]

Now why did you have to drag common sense into this discussion?


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WID6w4_gtwo

Most gays are human about it. They just wanted equality. At one point their characters' orientation was implied in movies, which made them a little mysterious. Are they? Aren't they? It wasn't obvious which is where the rumor of under representation came about. A minority of wokesters and a minority of gays didn't want equal, they wanted special. Hence forcing gay and trans characterization into mainstream movies because there are of too little a minority to get the sort of attention on off label channels. They know they are riding the coat tails with their failure to bring out about gay sci fi. It's a niche audience.

What can you do with it though. Orientation isn't a talent or a special power. No movie ever ended with "Oh thank god he was straight or the hobbits would have died." Or "Good thing he was gay otherwise he couldn't have defeated the Klingons." So they are just there to make a statement and insist they are special.

They can't use the biology route, since they are not biologically different and if they were you'd think they would potray that in movies and use it as a plot device. Like Spoke who could fool a Romulan ship into thinking he was Romulan with his genetics. It's just orientation.

There's no purpose to it.

Gay characters can't be portrayed as anything less than perfect, they can't be the villain any more than black people can. So they are just doing reverse segregation making sure black people and gays don't get meaty roles.

That's way different though than saying Gay actors can't be in a movie which I think is what some may want to twist that into. Which is absurd, half of Hollywood is gay, and has been since filming began there.

Might we have our very own daytime soap developing here?

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives"

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98T3PVaRrHU

Oooooo. Good idea. A play, a daytime soap opera. Everyone pick a role and we'll see if orientation matters THAT much.

[Emil El Zapato]

I reluctantly accede that that was a good post, Boids. It's closer anyway.

I pick A. As he was the only Hispanic (Mexican) actor to ever appear in American soaps prior to the movement. Very good actor.

I'm thinking bad guys minorities outnumber good guys 10 to 1...that's just a shot in the dark. I also see people smoking cigarettes in movies constantly and it makes me want to smoke. It's even worse if I smell cigarette smoke.



Is this a good place to write: Viva César Chávez

[Emil El Zapato]

Just doing a little research and what I noticed is that most pioneers of the Gay/Lesbian movement are dead. So the current screechers are just that, screechers that most likely don't even know what they are offended by. It's the nature of most efforts to improve life's conditions that the quality of leaders becomes diluted and things suffer. And then there is the right that will do absolutely anything to undermine anything that smacks of improving human rights.

I didn't even know what to think about this one:

Human Rights Watch:

Forced Marriage (Section III)
Compulsory heterosexuality, the pressure to marry men, and coercive marriage practices were the most frequently reported abuses experienced by LBQ+ interviewees, including in Canada, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malawi, Mexico, Poland, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Ukraine. There is an immediate need to develop laws, policies, and protocols that explicitly protect LBQ+ people from forced marriage or coercive marriage practices. Interviewees reported abuses including forced marriage as a conversion practice; punishment from family for failure to conform to heteronormative markers of adulthood; psychological abuse and humiliation as coercive tactics; the infantilization of unmarried or divorced LBQ+ women; and violence against the partners of LBQ+ women married to men.

States should produce national action plans to end forced and coerced marriage practices that explicitly include an intersectional approach to the elimination of all forms of conversion practices, and collaborate with local and national LBQ+ organizations and unregistered collectives at each stage of conceptualization, drafting, and implementation. Governments should ensure that violent intimidation and retribution against people for refusal to marry are punishable under law and that survivors have access to adequate, gender- and SOGIE-sensitive legal, medical, and psycho-social services. Finally, states should end discriminatory divorce laws, which make it significantly easier for men to divorce their wives than for women to divorce their husbands and thus harm LBQ+ women who wish to leave their husbands without fear of retribution, violence, or losing custody of their children.

[Aragorn]

Just doing a little research and what I noticed is that most pioneers of the Gay/Lesbian movement are dead. So the current screechers are just that, screechers that most likely don't even know what they are offended by. It's the nature of most efforts to improve life's conditions that the quality of leaders becomes diluted and things suffer. And then there is the right that will do absolutely anything to undermine anything that smacks of improving human rights.

I didn't even know what to think about this one:

Human Rights Watch:

Forced Marriage (Section III)
Compulsory heterosexuality, the pressure to marry men, and coercive marriage practices were the most frequently reported abuses experienced by LBQ+ interviewees, including in Canada, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malawi, Mexico, Poland, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Ukraine. There is an immediate need to develop laws, policies, and protocols that explicitly protect LBQ+ people from forced marriage or coercive marriage practices. Interviewees reported abuses including forced marriage as a conversion practice; punishment from family for failure to conform to heteronormative markers of adulthood; psychological abuse and humiliation as coercive tactics; the infantilization of unmarried or divorced LBQ+ women; and violence against the partners of LBQ+ women married to men.

States should produce national action plans to end forced and coerced marriage practices that explicitly include an intersectional approach to the elimination of all forms of conversion practices, and collaborate with local and national LBQ+ organizations and unregistered collectives at each stage of conceptualization, drafting, and implementation. Governments should ensure that violent intimidation and retribution against people for refusal to marry are punishable under law and that survivors have access to adequate, gender- and SOGIE-sensitive legal, medical, and psycho-social services. Finally, states should end discriminatory divorce laws, which make it significantly easier for men to divorce their wives than for women to divorce their husbands and thus harm LBQ+ women who wish to leave their husbands without fear of retribution, violence, or losing custody of their children.

Here's the thing... Europe — and especially Belgium — is about as Woke™ and Inclusive™ as it gets. Petra De Sutter, the Vice-Premier of the Belgian Federal Government, is a transgender, even, and although I will not comment on said person's abilities — from what I've read, they've made some very sensible improvements, but on the other hand, they've also made several bad moves — the fact that they are Federal Vice-Premier is still an ostensible manifestation of Wokeism™, because Petra De Sutter is of the Green Party, and no one of the Green Party would ever have been considered for a role as Vice-Premier before. Socialists, Christian-democrats and Keynesian-liberals, yes, but never a greenie — their party is just too small for such a role.

However, Belgium is a federal state with two politically very different cultures — among three regional governments and three community governments — namely the Flemish political climate and the francophone political climate. The francophone political climate is unitarian — they seek to hold Belgium together as a single nation, although the far-right elements within said culture would have it exclusively be a francophone nation again, just as it was up until 1960, notwithstanding the fact that 2/3 of the Belgian population is Dutch-speaking — but here in the Flanders, the Flemish-nationalists rule, with one Flemish-nationalist party (N-VA) seeking to reform Belgium into a confederation, and the other one (VB) seeking to secede the Flanders from Belgium as an independent nation.

This last party is also the one farthest to the right, and they have already been convicted over racism in the past. Some of their subsidiary organizations have ties with the KKK in the USA and with neo-Nazi groups in Germany, and up until the early 1980s, they even had their own private militia, of whom I could positively identify certain members, because one of them — a high-ranking one, known in their midst as the General — owned a local car dealership and garage in the village where I grew up.

As a result, the Flemish and francophone parties don't see eye to eye, and so when it came down to forming a coalition for the federal government, the Flemish and francophone parties had to sit at the negotiating table together. And that didn't go too well, because alongside of the competition between the Flemish and francophone agendas, there was also the competition between the individual parties along their party-political ideals — the left versus the right and everything in between, on both sides of the language border.

So it was an ugly mess, and it took them 14 months to form a coalition. And meanwhile, the corona pandemic had struck. So the then-incumbent federal government was then given a special emergency mandate to prolong its activity while all of the political parties were negotiating on a new federal coalition. And ultimately, such a coalition was formed, and the Green Party had to be included, as well as its Walloon counterpart, Ecolo, because the francophone parties would not accept the Flemish-nationalist parties into the coalition. — N-VA has over the last decade repeatedly been scoring landslide victories here in the Flanders, albeit that VB is automatically excluded from the negotiations by all parties because of its unbridled racism and homophobia.

So, my point is that if it hadn't been for the fairly right-wing electoral victory here in the Flanders, the Green Party would probably never have been part of the coalition, and would then also most certainly never have been providing a Federal Vice-Premier. But it did, and then this Federal Vice-Premier just so happens to be a transgender person of whom nobody had ever heard before — seriously, nobody! And the public (i.e. state-sponsored) news network loves Petra De Sutter — they can't stop bringing them up, and with lots of very large photos too — because the state-sponsored news network is very Woke™ and employs many LGBTQ people.

But all of the above is just contextual background to the point I'm about to make, which is that with a Federal Vice-Premier who is a transgender — and from the Green Party to boot — and with Belgium allowing gay marriage and infant adoption by LGBTQ+ couples, what exactly is there to still warrant not only an annual Belgian Pride parade, but also many other and regional Gay Pride parades spread out across different dates for different cities? I'm not kidding, there's always some Gay Pride parade somewhere in this country, like almost every month. Antwerp Pride, Brussels Pride, you name it, plus a number of LBGTQ+-specific festivals — not to be a dick, but that is actually how the monkeypox virus began spreading here, because all five of the first registered cases were homosexual males who had attended one such festival.

So tell me, why, with all of Belgium's Wokeness™, and with Belgian legislation fully compliant with LGBTQ+ demands, do there need to still be such parades, and not only once but like a dozen times? What is the purpose? What else do they still want, with all of their demands for equal rights having been met?

Attention, that's what. As Diabolical Boids said, they want to feel special, and they want to be seen as special.

Belgium also has a substantial immigrant population, with many of them being Muslims. And they have mosques, Muslim schools, and an official nation-wide organization looking after the interests of the Muslim community in this country. But you don't see them organizing dozens of Muslim parades every year. In fact, they're not even organizing a single parade. Or what about the also quite substantial Jewish population? They've got synagogues, Jewish schools, a Jewish museum, and a nation-wide organization looking after their interests. You don't see them gathering for any Jewish parades either.

And that's my point.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's the thing... Europe — and especially Belgium — is about as Woke™ and Inclusive™ as it gets. Petra De Sutter, the Vice-Premier of the Belgian Federal Government, is a transgender, even, and although I will not comment on said person's abilities — from what I've read, they've made some very sensible improvements, but on the other hand, they've also made several bad moves — the fact that they are Federal Vice-Premier is still an ostensible manifestation of Wokeism™, because Petra De Sutter is of the Green Party, and no one of the Green Party would ever have been considered for a role as Vice-Premier before. Socialists, Christian-democrats and Keynesian-liberals, yes, but never a greenie — their party is just too small for such a role.

However, Belgium is a federal state with two politically very different cultures — among three regional governments and three community governments — namely the Flemish political climate and the francophone political climate. The francophone political climate is unitarian — they seek to hold Belgium together as a single nation, although the far-right elements within said culture would have it exclusively be a francophone nation again, just as it was up until 1960, notwithstanding the fact that 2/3 of the Belgian population is Dutch-speaking — but here in the Flanders, the Flemish-nationalists rule, with one Flemish-nationalist party (N-VA) seeking to reform Belgium into a confederation, and the other one (VB) seeking to secede the Flanders from Belgium as an independent nation.

This last party is also the one farthest to the right, and they have already been convicted over racism in the past. Some of their subsidiary organizations have ties with the KKK in the USA and with neo-Nazi groups in Germany, and up until the early 1980s,, they even had their own private militia, of whom I could positively identify certain members, because one of them — a high-ranking one, known in their midst as the General — owned a local car dealership and garage in the village where I grew up.

As a result, the Flemish and francophone parties don't see eye to eye, and so when it came down to forming a coalition for the federal government, the Flemish and francophone parties had to sit at the negotiating table together. And that didn't go too well, because alongside of the competition between the Flemish and francophone agendas, there was also the competition between the individual parties along their party-political ideals — the left versus the right and everything in between, on both sides of the language border.

So it was an ugly mess, and it took them 14 months to form a coalition. And meanwhile, the corona pandemic had struck. So the then-incumbent federal government was then given a special emergency mandate to prolong its activity while all of the political parties were negotiating on a new federal coalition. And ultimately, such a coalition was formed, and the Green Party had to be included, as well as its Walloon counterpart, Ecolo, because the francophone parties would not accept the Flemish-nationalist parties into the coalition. — N-VA has over the last decade repeatedly been scoring landslide victories here in the Flanders, albeit that VB is automatically excluded from the negotiations by all parties because of its unbridled racism and homophobia.

So, my point is that if it hadn't been for the fairly right-wing electoral victory here in the Flanders, the Green Party would probably never have been part of the coalition, and would then also most certainly never have been providing a Federal Vice-Premier. But it did, and then this Federal Vice-Premier just so happens to be a transgender person of whom nobody had ever heard before — seriously, nobody! And the public (i.e. state-sponsored) news network loves Petra De Sutter — they can't stop bringing them up, and with lots of very large photos too — because the state-sponsored news network is very Woke™ and employs many LGBTQ people.

But all of the above is just contextual background to the point I'm about to make, which is that with a Federal Vice-Premier who is a transgender — and from the Green Party to boot — and with Belgium allowing gay marriage and infant adoption by LGBTQ+ couples, what exactly is there to still warrant not only an annual Belgian Pride parade, but also many other and regional Gay Pride parades spread out across different dates for different cities? I'm not kidding, there's always some Gay Pride parade somewhere in this country, like almost every month. Antwerp Pride, Brussels Pride, you name it, plus a number of LBGTQ+-specific festivals — not to be a dick, but that is actually how the monkeypox virus began spreading here, because all five of the first registered cases were homosexual males who had attended one such festival.

So tell me, why, with all of Belgium's Wokeness™, and with Belgian legislation fully compliant with LGBTQ+ demands, do there need to still be such parades, and not only once but like a dozen times? What is the purpose? What else do they still want, with all of their demands for equal rights having been met?

Attention, that's what. As Diabolical Boids said, they want to feel special, and they want to be seen as special.

Belgium also has a substantial immigrant population, with many of them being Muslims. And they have mosques, Muslim schools, and an official nation-wide organization looking after the interests of the Muslim community in this country. But you don't see them organizing dozens of Muslim parades every year. In fact, they're not even organizing a single parade. Or what about the also quite substantial Jewish population? They've got synagogues, Jewish schools, a Jewish museum, and a nation-wide organization looking after their interests. You don't see them gathering for any Jewish parades either.

And that's my point.

Well, I buy that...those things are for the uninitiated or just plain stupid. I always thought it laughable that Pride parades in the U.S. featured individuals prancing around in underwear wearing ridiculous costumes 'promoting freedom'(They must have borrowed that from Brazil). It's pretty analogous to the gun rights folks, all or nothing, and children are just collateral damage. Though tragic if they are white. As for the sexually diverse, it is woefully counterproductive but a good opportunity for its participants to 'hook up'. (THEY are notoriously polyamorous...new word for promiscuous).

You make an 'excellent' point on the Transgender dude...He wouldn't exist if not for the right's dysfunction. The right is and always has been their own worst enemy...much as the gay priders are.