The Republican War on Transgender People, Drag Queens, and Queerness in General

[maxi]

there are many examples of TERFs actively embracing the right, numerous of which I've mentioned in this thread, so no, the example of clicking like on a tweet is not "revealing". the links of various key GC figures to the Heritage Foundation and other far-right American organizations, their willingness to work with RW evangelicals in the UK, etc, as well as the RW astroturfing of things like LGB Alliance and Gays Against Groomers. it feels pointless to list them all out for a 3rd or 4th time since yall will just ignore them again, but I can.

I could go through all those but it's another thing I don't want to get bogged down in. I don't like seeing anyone misrepresented but Im not ultimately here to defend other people, I'm saying what I think. This is again another way of avoiding the main arguments and just mudslinging using guilt by association

 

[maxi]

oh I guess I should specifically address minors, since that's supposedly the main concern

Kathleen Stock is on record (ofc on Unherd, where else) about child beauty pageants. Alrite, I'll rephrase from "totally silent" to "overwhelmingly focused on trans people to an absurdly disproportionate level". Go to the Twitter of Stock, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, etc or indeed JK Rowling - they're all almost exclusively trans-related. like, almost 100%. very, very little if anything about beauty pageants or equal pay or any of the other thousand issues related to feminism they could be talking about.

I already went through all this. Some people focus on one issue and there's nothing wrong with that, and doesn't mean they think other things aren't important. Look it's obvious this is the most contentious area where they get the most aggressive responses, so there's a lot more to keep responding to, especially on somewhere like twitter.

it's kind of like how I am interested in loads of things but I have to keep writing all this stuff on here because you keep replying. other issues aren't as contentious so there's less discourse.

whenever they discuss puberty blockers, surgery, etc, it is as a part of their greater hyperfixation on trans people. keep in mind that at least most (I can't say all for certain, but it's very common) GC ppl are against not only medical transition but social transition, including pronoun use. there is an entire GC cottage industry of literature devoted to convincing parents not to listen to their children - I mentioned Bayswater which was linked in that mumsnet post, which itself links to FAQs at anti-trans sites like 4thWaveNow and Transgender Trend. it is inevitably framed as a fad or phase, and the advice is inevitably to do everything possible to stop them from transitioning.

they don't have a fixation on trans people. they're concerned with women's and children's rights and how these things are impacted by activism, not with trans people themselves.

let's just leave aside most of the so-called GC people, for a second. just take kathleen stock - she gets criticised by other feminists for being too moderate. she's happy with pronoun use. she doesn't claim to represent feminists and doesn't describe herself as a radical feminist. What's your beef with her? I would reckon my views most closely align with hers, and from what I've seen she's not ever said or done anything remotely transphobic.

 

[maxi]

this is the logical outcome of your ideas and the people embracing your ideas who you choose not call out because you care more about your nonsensical ideas that trans people are somehow a threat to women

and in that context I guess I don't really give any kind of a fuck if TERFs show up in this thread about that vicious assault to derail it with TERF nonsense and get offended when I tell them they're bigots etc

I made an attempt to calm things down and not personalise and argue in good faith but OK it's clear you're not really interested in doing that.

 

[maxi]

but basically it would be good if you could stop criticising all these feminists and others for their associations for a second and start responding to their actual arguments.

I haven't seen you do that much yet. like the stuff I was going through with mr tea for example about self-ID and women's only spaces. e.g. whether a women's only rape crisis center should be allowed not to accept men who identify as women. put the ad hominem stuff to one side at least for a bit

 

[maxi]

there's also the passive embracing of allyship. they do not say "completely different things". obviously they differ on issues like reproductive rights and gay marriage (in most cases, anyway, LGB Alliance has said some wild shit there), but on trans issues - gender-affirming care for minors, gender-affirming care in general, bathrooms, self-recognition, the medicalization of transness, "biological reality", etc - they are basically in lockstep with the RW. the chuds and tradbros on social media may express it more vulgarly (tho as I've mentioned before, TERF rhetoric is often surprisingly crude) but it's the exact same ideology. none of that is controversial to anyone outside of GC ppl, btw.

anyone who was critical of any of those things would then be defined as GC. so that's just a tautology. there are loads of people who wouldn't dare say a word because of the response they'll get. look at what happened to roisin murphy the other day.

it's the sanctimonious bullying and intimidation, coming from a regressive authoritarian standpoint, that's one of the worst aspects of this movement. makes it all the more important for anyone on the left to challenge it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

just take kathleen stock - she gets criticised by other feminists for being too moderate. she's happy with pronoun use. she doesn't claim to represent feminists and doesn't describe herself as a radical feminist. What's your beef with her? I would reckon my views most closely align with hers, and from what I've seen she's not ever said or done anything remotely transphobic.

saying Kathleen Stock has never said or done anything remotely transphobic is such a wild statement flying in the face of so much evidence that it's hard to even fathom

600+ of her fellow philosophers signed an open letter after she received an OBE specifically complaining about her transphobia

"Trans people are already deeply marginalized in society, facing well-documented discrimination, ranging from government policy to physical violence. Discourse like that Stock is producing and amplifying contributes to these harms, serving to restrict trans people’s access to life-saving medical treatments, encourage the harassment of gender-non-conforming people, and otherwise reinforce the patriarchal status quo. We are dismayed that the British government has chosen to honour her for this harmful rhetoric."

she is a trustee of the LGB Alliance, whose entire raison d'etre is excluding trans people. it's literally in the name.

her recent Twitter feed includes: why transphobic graffiti isn't actually transphobic, Roisin Murphy, the predictable GC backlash against the latest study showing that HRT improves mental health, complaining that saying so is "propaganda for the pharmaceutical industry", a promo for the exact book (When Kids Say They're Trans) I mentioned above, various Rosie Duffield nonsense, etc. it's ~80/20 trans/non-trans posts.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I could go through all those but it's another thing I don't want to get bogged down in

refute it if you can, otherwise complaining about it

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

responding to their actual arguments

I have. every single one someone has made here. multiple times over. it is tiring to have to answer the same things again and again.

evidence that self-recognition in a dozen countries for decade (varying by country) has not lead to any rise in sexual assault

I can dig back thru if necessary to find more, and all the other instances in this thread where I've directly answered points

and yes, of course trans women should be able to go to women's rape crisis centers if they've been victims of sexual assault

and, you or may not know this, but cis women are more likely than cis men to support trans rights across the board on every issue

 

[maxi]

she is a trustee of the LGB Alliance, whose entire raison d'etre is excluding trans people. it's literally in the name.

makes sense that there would be groups focused on gay and lesbian issues without bringing trans into it. that's not "excluding" in some of kind of malevolent sense. there could be another group just focused on lesbians, and that wouldn't mean they were "excluding" gay men. different groups of people have different concerns so why should all organisations always be focused on multiple groups as one.

 

[maxi]

evidence that self-recognition in a dozen countries for decade (varying by country) has not lead to any rise in sexual assault

self recognition in what sense? the attempt to introduce self-ID as policy is relatively new in the UK so we might be talking about different things. are you just referring to passing transwomen using bathrooms for years with little problem? not disputing that and that's not the issue. also it's not just about sexual assault, went over that a few pages ago. and the nature of safeguarding measures means it's protecting against worst case scenarios, not most likely scenarios, more detail a few pages ago as well, you would've seen that probably

and yes, of course trans women should be able to go to women's rape crisis centers if they've been victims of sexual assault

well that's a real issue and point of contention isn't it? women in those centers have good reason not to want to be around any males. whether trans identified or otherwise. don't you think that's fair enough? there's a reason sex-based spaces exist in the first place. to essentially make them unisex and accuse anyone who even questions it of bigotry doesn't seem right to me

 

[maxi]

there was some talk of "lived experience" a few pages ago. I don't get why women's lived experiences don't seem to matter as much. women in prisons for example. or victims of abuse in crisis centers. or the growing numbers of detransitioners for that matter. they're treated as apostates and get some of the worst online abuse of all, which is saying a lot.

 

[maxi]

saying Kathleen Stock has never said or done anything remotely transphobic is such a wild statement flying in the face of so much evidence that it's hard to even fathom

for you I guess. we're coming at this from such different standpoints and assumptions that it's hard to find any common ground to even begin any kind of reasonable discussion on. maybe we can agree on that

 

[maxi]

it seems that anyone who challenges or even raises questions about anything you say is, by definition, transphobic. you'd think there'd be some concern about watering down the term so much to where it's meaningless. that's not gonna bode well for the future I reckon. like what's happened with "antisemitism"

 

[maxi]

with the trans activists (not trans people, again I prob have to keep stressing this...) it's all about respecting the way people identify themselves right? so using pronouns, chosen names, referring to a transwoman as a woman, etc etc.

and yet they're happy to call women (or men) who reject the "cis" label with that. who gives a fuck how they want to identify themselves - they're "cis". a nonsensical term from obscure academia that's just been imposed by force

 

[droid]

makes sense that there would be groups focused on gay and lesbian issues without brining trans into it. that's not "excluding" in some of kind of malevolent sense. there could be another group just focused on lesbians, and that wouldn't mean they were "excluding" gay men. different groups of people have different concerns so why should all organisations always be focused on multiple groups as one.

The LGB alliance is not some gay advocacy organisation that just happens to not 'bring trans into it'. It was specifically set up to oppose trans rights, as was clear from their opening declaration, summarised neatly by the telegraph "Lesbians face 'extinction' as transgenderism becomes pervasive, campaigners warn". it is simply a fact that they are an explicitly anti-trans organisation, exclusionary by design and malevolent by intent, as demonstrated by pretty much every single thing they have done since.

You have spoken much of 'good faith' in this thread. I cannot help but think that by continually ignoring such blindingly obvious facts, that you are either deliberately trolling or are just catastrophically ignorant of the realities around this issue.

 

[maxi]

The LGB alliance is not some gay advocacy organisation that just happens to not 'bring trans into it'. It was specifically set up to oppose trans rights, as was clear from their opening declaration, summarised neatly by the telegraph "Lesbians face 'extinction' as transgenderism becomes pervasive, campaigners warn". it is simply a fact that they are an explicitly anti-trans organisation, exclusionary by design and malevolent by intent, as demonstrated by pretty much every single thing they have done since.

You have spoken much of 'good faith' in this thread. I cannot help but think that by continually ignoring such blindingly obvious facts, that you are either deliberately trolling or are just catastrophically ignorant of the realities around this issue.

yeah they've obviously been set up in reaction against trans activism, and against the grouping together of groups with different interests. but I don't think they are "anti-trans" or oppose trans rights. the things that are described as trans rights, e.g. unfettered access to women's spaces, women's sports etc aren't a right.

Im not trolling or ignorant, or ignoring "blindingly obvious facts". we just have a very different conception of what the facts are

 

[droid]

I'm sorry, you said that they weren't 'exclusionary in a malevolent sense' when the entire focus of their campaign has been to oppose trans rights, from opposing Scotland's GRA to opposing the inclusion of trans people in conversion therapy bans, to opposing the treatment of gender dysphoria in children, to their explicit identification of trans rights as a threat that will lead to the "extinction" of lesbians.

But yes. I agree that if you cant see that an organisation which is an almost cartoonish example of astroturfing and was specifically set up to oppose trans rights, claims trans people are an existential threat and campaigns almost solely on trans issues is anti trans - then we do have very different conceptions on what the facts are, or indeed what constitutes a fact.

 

[Mr. Tea]

there was some talk of "lived experience" a few pages ago. I don't get why women's lived experiences don't seem to matter as much. women in prisons for example. or victims of abuse in crisis centers. or the growing numbers of detransitioners for that matter. they're treated as apostates and get some of the worst online abuse of all, which is saying a lot.

Mate, the other day you said:

it affects people I care about too but I don't bring that in as a manipulative tactic you self-righteous sentimental prat.

Could you enlarge on this? I can think of a handful of scenarios where it probably does make sense to prioritize biological sex over self-identified gender, but probably the only fairly commonplace one is competitive sports. Do you really have a girlfriend, a sister, or other female friends or relatives who play sports at a high level and feel they've unfairly lost out to competitors who are trans? It surely can't be the spectre of hordes of trans women just lining up to assault cis women, because that's a myth that Padraig has already debunked.

If, as I suspect, it comes down mainly to cis women feeling "uncomfortable" around trans women, then the question that almost asks itself is why that should be considered any more reasonable than homophobes feeling "uncomfortable" around gay people, or racists feeling "uncomfortable" around people who look different from themselves.

And the fraction of trans people who detransition is tiny, isn't it? Of course it's shitty if some of them are getting abuse, but where's your concern for all the other trans people who get abuse anyway? It just looks like disingenuous concern-trolling to fixate on, and politicise, the tiny number of people who change their minds, while ignoring the vast majority who feel far better about themselves as a result of a transition.

 

[DannyL]

makes sense that there would be groups focused on gay and lesbian issues without bringing trans into it. that's not "excluding" in some of kind of malevolent sense. there could be another group just focused on lesbians, and that wouldn't mean they were "excluding" gay men. different groups of people have different concerns so why should all organisations always be focused on multiple groups as one.

But when literally every other group in the world use the acronym LGBT the exclusion stands out and strikes one as absolutely deliberate. This is such a disingenuous claim.

 

[DannyL]

Ah Droid has already said that better than me.