As you've written before, people who subscribe to gender identity ideology mostly reject the idea it's a religion (or an ideology) - to them it's simply The Truth, where The Truth is not necessarily what's literally, materially true, but rather what is true in a kind of higher, Platonic way. They often find the notion that it is a religion offensive.
So with that in mind, why do you think Bambie Thug chose to use religious imagery and why do you think this got a positive reception?
Was the religious imagery used more with ideas of authority and anti-authoritarianism in mind? I think that subconsciously, for many of these people religion is understood in quite a narrow sense as Christianity, specifically Catholicism, and moreover the Catholicism of Ireland when it was synonymous with the cultural establishment. Paganism is its opposite, rather than another iteration of it. To mock Catholic symbols and celebrate pagan ones is to say "We reject the oppressive, authoritarian establishment, we embrace what is wild and free and anarchic - and magic".
It's not surprising that magic appeals because the very essence of magic is that it's the unexplained, and the unexplained can be anything and mean anything. If gender identity was really an innate, measurable thing, I don't think it would hold the fascination it does. It would be one more fact that would exist whether the person it applied to liked it or not. The attraction of gender identity is that the person gets to choose which one applies to them. In the same way as a monster seen is never as frightening as the monster unseen, gender identity is enchanting because nobody is entirely sure what it is.
I think that's what Bambie Thug's performance is signalling - magic and anti-authoritarianism. (That I see gender identity ideology as authoritarian doesn't change that).
As you've written before, people who subscribe to gender identity ideology mostly reject the idea it's a religion (or an ideology) - to them it's simply The Truth, where The Truth is not necessarily what's literally, materially true, but rather what is true in a kind of higher, Platonic way. They often find the notion that it is a religion offensive.
So with that in mind, why do you think Bambie Thug chose to use religious imagery and why do you think this got a positive reception?
Was the religious imagery used more with ideas of authority and anti-authoritarianism in mind? I think that subconsciously, for many of these people religion is understood in quite a narrow sense as Christianity, specifically Catholicism, and moreover the Catholicism of Ireland when it was synonymous with the cultural establishment. Paganism is its opposite, rather than another iteration of it. To mock Catholic symbols and celebrate pagan ones is to say "We reject the oppressive, authoritarian establishment, we embrace what is wild and free and anarchic - and magic".
It's not surprising that magic appeals because the very essence of magic is that it's the unexplained, and the unexplained can be anything and mean anything. If gender identity was really an innate, measurable thing, I don't think it would hold the fascination it does. It would be one more fact that would exist whether the person it applied to liked it or not. The attraction of gender identity is that the person gets to choose which one applies to them. In the same way as a monster seen is never as frightening as the monster unseen, gender identity is enchanting because nobody is entirely sure what it is.
I think that's what Bambie Thug's performance is signalling - magic and anti-authoritarianism. (That I see gender identity ideology as authoritarian doesn't change that).