Let’s talk about Steve Hofmeyr and Angie Oeh

The irrelevant Angie Oeh fired a shot at Steve Hofmeyr via TikTok and dismally failed to convince me that she should be the spokesperson for the LGBTIQ+ community in South Africa.

Brought to my attention thanks to incoming search terms to this wonderful blog and MambaOnline, I watched both videos in order to understand what the two are on about.

I don’t always share Steve Hofmeyr’s points of view, and I think he will respect that in his own way, but in this case I actually do think that he has a few good points to consider. Let’s inspect the two positions.

Let’s talk about Steve Hofmeyr and his position

The first part of his response that spoke to me is where he states that he cares about his 5 year old daughter and whether she has the emotional intelligence to understand the things that Angie oeh and co are fighting for. He uses the example of a small girl having to share a bathroom with biological boys. He then goes on to say that he has a problem with biological men who are now transgender and demand to compete against biological women as unfair.

I fucking agree with him.

Where Angie oeh is taking a very emotional position on the matter, Steve Hofmeyr comes to the table with a more realistic approach. I have met him before when I was very young and even back then he struck me as a very passionate man when talking about something close to his heart that he believes in. He does come across as aggressive in most of the videos that has dropped him into shit the last couple of years. But that needs to be considered on a case to case basis.

In this case we are seeing a very mature and calm response to a very serious matter. Maybe in 20 odd years Angie oeh might achieve the same level of zen, but one can only hope. To be honest I do not think she will ever reach the same level of celeb to be considered for an opinion in 20 years.

But I am going off topic now…

I have two children who are more knowledgable about these issues than I am because these are issues in their lifetime that affect and build the world around them. They do a lot of reading on the matter and get exposed to it from the social channels they follow where people like Angie oeh post their videos to fight for their rights to paaarty!

They are not exposed to people like Steve Hofmeyr who comes from the position of a father and has more life experience due to his age. It is sad, but that is the truth. Your level of exposure to the opinions to the matter is going to influence and determine your level of bias.

Sports

I can understand Steve’s position as a father and agree with it. I can also understand the position he has about the sports part.

When I was in primary school some boys reached puberty sooner than others. I was one of those and my body was stronger and I had more strength than most of my classmates. I was also taller.

Due to this I performed exceptionally well in athletics and rugby… until they caught up with me in high school and then we had an even playing field. I had to work much harder to achieve the same level of performance. They became better and I had to accept it.

So keeping that in mind within my gender, I can totally understand how a woman must feel if a biological man now comes and demands that he/she/them/they want to compete with them. There are biological differences and chemical make-ups that we simply can not ignore. No matter how emotional or passionate you get about it.

The problem in my view are parent telling their kids they can achieve anything in life. That is stupid. You can’t achieve anything if there are physical limits that cannot be defied. A barrier is one thing, a limit is a line in the same and on the other side there is a cliff.

Who speaks for you?

As a straight white male in South Africa Steve Hofmeyr does not speak for me. As a LGBTIQ+ community member in South Africa Angie oeh should not be speaking for you.

The question you should be asking is who do I listen to?

There are two sides to the story here and two passionate people who believe in their view. There is a middle ground, yes. But in order to find that middle ground the kid with the tattoos needs to stop her bitching and moaning and be prepared to listen. That is not going to happen.

Angie oeh… I would like to tell you to fucking grow up. But because of my own experience up to 43 I accept that growing up takes time and I should not expect of you to understand this right now. It also means that because you apply anger towards the topic nobody will listen to your actual message.

Steve wins this round because it is a logical approach in a calm manner and he communicated his concerns and position. I don’t always agree with him, but in this cause I do.