And then there's the unexpected real-world tendency for American and Canadian women's hockey players to marry each other (Meghan Duggan and Gillian Apps, Caroline Ouellette and Julie Chu – it's not a lot but it's weird that it happened twice).
Grubbly-Plank is a she.
There is a way that scene could have been written to demonstrate genuine concern on her part, but that would have required more tact and actual concern for Holly. Instead, we see her brusquely calling Holly out, insulting her, and explaining herself in an extremely demeaning fashion.
That very "concern" is itself transphobic and her doubling down after being proven wrong shows well enough that G-P is more interested in maintaining her bigotry then Holly's safety and always was.
I... Wasn't defending? I was sharing my initial read of what her actions looked like to me. Once people pointed out her behaviour I reread and agree with them.
Nobody has been. The discussion has pretty much solely been about (a) whether she's being intentionally transphobic or acting this way due to being a bad teacher who doesn't like being proven wrong, and (b) the amount of vehemence people reacted to her with. Whether G-P's response itself was transphobic hasn't really been in question at any point.
Honestly a good rule of thumb is if someone behaves in a transphobic/racist/bigoted manner and you find yourself going "Well actually it could just be general spite/ignorance" you need to stop and reassess what brought you to that situation because it is not somewhere you should be. It is utterly a distinction without a difference and absolutely nothing can be gained from repeatedly hammering on, "well maybe they were really..." I completely understand you mean well here and are just trying to clarify what's "really" going on in the scene, but that is not what it comes across as and no amount of trying to clarify and explain will make it come across as a valid line of questioning. More importantly it does not in any way, shape, or form matter. What matters is behavior, whether G-P is "really" transphobic, "just old fashioned," or simply hates people with brown hair and has decided to take it out on Holly in this way is completely irrelevant to the outcome of how she behaves, which is absolutely transphobic.
What causes me to wonder that is pretty much that I try to keep an open mind about things; in this case I can see something that could explain her actions other than conscious transphobia, and seeing as people are frequently ignorant and/or stupid rather than outright malicious I can't dismiss that possibility on about two sentences of evidence. As for whether it matters, to the results of her actions I agree that no, it does not. She did something transphobic, and why she did it doesn't affect the harm it caused. On that front it is truly irrelevant. When it comes to G-P's character, however, there the distinction does matter (at least to me) because motivations are important. If someone does something because they've got a terrible personality then it means something different about them than if they do it because they hate trans people.
I understand and respect that frame of mind to a degree, but also find it both somewhat out of touch to voice, and that it tends to come worryingly close to JAQing off far too often. Also keep in mind that some things simply aren't nuanced.
The first thing is part of why I've been repeatedly emphasising that 'yes, this is transphobic', yeah. As for the second, I'm aware that things aren't always nuanced, but until I know for certain that a specific situation or attitude or whatever isn't it doesn't feel right just assuming it's not.
Have you considered the environment that always and immediately asking that kind of question fosters for others though as evidenced by the significant push back you've gotten here for even voicing the question? Not every question or curiosity is a valid track to pursue. There's a reason that JAQing off in a thread will get someone infracted and the only real difference is that pretty much everyone here believes that you're asking your questions in good faith.
Worse; it effectively validates their beliefs; both in their eyes, and those of the general public. When someone standing up and arguing for something like transphobia, racism, fascism or the like is tolerated, that sends the signal that it's considered a reasonable position worthy of discussion.
And not doing so means that they drive everyone else out, turning what used to be your space into their echo chamber. History demonstrates that all refusing to condemn them does is let them turn all of society into their echo chamber, with everyone else silenced, driven out or killed.
That isn't what happened. What happened is that she got proven wrong, got mad about it, refused to aplogise or restore the house points despite the unicorns unequivocally showing her to be wrong, looked for opportunities to punish Holly further and ignored opportunities to punish other hateful bigoted shitheads. Ergo, the clear and unavoidable takeaway is, and should be, G-P is a hateful bigoted shithead. Straining and stressing to find any possible excuse for 'maybe she's not a bigot, just mis/uninformed' is ignoring the text to try and create an alternate narrative for reasons I cannot comprehend. She literally was informed, by no less than what she views(viewed?) as an unfailing arbiter of "the sacred feminine aura", that she was wrong. People who can be brought around acknowledge a mistake, try to change and be better. Bigots double down. No one can read the text and reasonably think G-P did anything other than double down. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if G-P claimed one of them 'bewitched' the unicorn or something, so that she doesn't have to admit she's wrong.In a world where G-P isn't festering trash said:
Correction: Three, at least. Jayna Hefford and Kathleen Kauth. In all cases it's national Olympic players, and in at least two of those cases the brides played with the same jersey number.I mean, I wouldn't call twice a lot. It's not even a pattern tbh.
If there was some sort of statistically significant bias towards American and Canadian women's hockey players to marrying each through, I would quite possibly die from laughter.
Now, this is the kind of content I'm here for.
This seems to be a core assumption to your argument (and if it's not, I apologize for misunderstanding.) But unless your definition of a "bigot" is broader than mine, I have to contest this. The idea that only prejudiced people double down when proven wrong about something, and that people who aren't bigoted at heart are guaranteed to show signs of acknowledging their mistake quickly, just doesn't make sense quickly. And if I understand what NSMS is saying here:
I for one am perfectly happy with this place "echoing" that it's ok to be trans, gay, not-white, or even that *gasp* Jews don't secretly run the world while feasting on the blood of Christians.
Well, yeah, kinda?
Truth here. Heck, I'm more than willing to admit I've been a Bigot in the past... I've said and thought unfair things about people because of social prejudices I bought into... I'm probably still a bigot in ways I haven't eat learned are harmful... The trick is to ALWAYS try to learn and improve...
Come now! If you can't depend on antisemitic conspiracy theories for logic and reasoned thought what can you?
Voldemort is too competent to be Trump.