So what happened to “Love is love” and “Love wins?” If the biggest problem a couple has in the future is a Vidal Sassoon bill, than the future is indeed bright. 🧔👳♂️🌌
Well, that’s not showing an actual couple. It’s showing Justin Trudeau (the leader of the Liberal Party and current Prime Minister of Canada), and Jagmeet Singh (the leader of the NDP party). They are, in fact, two cisgender men in heterosexual marriages, and while Singh is Sikh, Trudeau is Roman Catholic.
There is nothing wrong with ‘love is love’, but what will be questioned is if that is what is really being said here. Much of LGBTQ terminology is a double-edged sword. Terms we use to describe ourselves without shame are also spit back at us laced with derision, hatred and mockery. The problem isn’t the words; it’s the sentiment.
That poster resembles incredibly closely how far-right conservatives would attempt to mock Trudeau and Singh who, despite considerable differences in policy positions, are often lumped together as progressive, sjw, snowflakes who are ruining Canada by selling it out to every group right-wing nutbags dismiss, hate, scape goat and fear: immigrants (especially refugees), Muslims, LGBTQ people, indigenous people, women, atheists etc.
Portraying Trudeau as a Muslim or Singh as his trans-feminine lover is something those conservatives would see as a mockery and denigration of both of them. They already use the type of imagery and language in the poster to make those sorts of ‘jokes’ While I doubt either would be insulted by being identified as Muslim or trans, the ill-intent would still carry through.
For someone well-meaning, it’s inadvisable to misgender people, to misconstrue their relationships, to assign them to a religious affiliation they don’t hold, to make what feels like a thinly veiled dick joke about trans people (though it’s generally rude for anyone), or to overwrite actual queer narratives with goofily photoshopped* recreations with two cis (probably het) men. Maybe if you were friends with them, that might be the type of humour you share. In reality, the scenario described by the text is one where the two people involved would take an unimaginable amount of shit for it. This isn’t something that invites them into the mirth with consideration for their personhood and experiences and love; it’s a cheap mockery making them the punchline in a conversation they’re cut out of.
Love is love? But that picture is all blatantly fake. So what is that saying?
*Given the time to prepare, the real Jagmeet Singh probably could have made that look come together way better. Certainly his mom taught him to tie his hair up way better than that.
To be clear, I’m not getting on your case with assumptions your intentions are bad. I’m just saying, as someone intimately aware of the landscape this image is playing in, that’s how it will most likely be viewed. I figured you might want to know that. It would probably have an effect the opposite of what is desired.
TheEncogitationer 4 years, 3 months ago.
