Reverse the terms
It’s almost as if they can’t make their case without lying and failing to define terms. Meredith Farkas at American Libraries Magazine:
In February, the controversial Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) booked a room at Seattle Public Library (SPL) for a public event. WoLF denies the existence of transgender individuals and portrays trans women as dangers to cis women.
One: anything can be called “controversial.” Farkas’s article is “controversial.” Feminism is “controversial.” Libraries are “controversial.” Two, WoLF does not “deny the existence of transgender individuals.” It denies that trans people can literally change their sex. Three, trans women are men, so of course they are potentially dangers to women. Four, there is no such thing as “cis” women, there are only women.
That’s just the first paragraph. It’s striking how feeble it is, and how heavily it relies on these infinitely-repeated untruths and fictitious labels to try to form an argument.
I take issue with the notion that libraries are ensuring all voices are heard when they let hate groups speak. Hate speech considered in a vacuum might look merely offensive, but when viewed in a historical context, that speech is inextricably linked with physical violence. Young men marching with torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us” are intentionally evoking the Holocaust, just as a burning cross on a lawn is meant to evoke lynching. These actions are designed to silence those targeted.
There is considerable truth in that. I do think the torches and chants were meant to invoke the Holocaust and to scare the bejeezus out of Jews and descendants of slaves and probably women too. But that very application makes it grotesquely wrong and malicious as applied to feminists arguing that only women can be women. There were no torches, no chants of “Jews will not replace us,” no crosses burning on lawns. Saying that men cannot literally become women is not any kind of hate speech and is in no way linked to violence.
Megan Boler, in her 2000 article “All Speech Is Not Free: The Ethics of ‘Affirmative Action Pedagogy,’” argues that we must apply “historicized ethics” to issues around free speech, recognizing the power imbalances in our society and the fact that “all persons do not have equal protection under the law.” In a world where marginalized people are less safe expressing themselves and their words are given less weight, the equality implied in the marketplace of ideas doesn’t exist. By being neutral, libraries are tacitly giving the privileged power to speak and allowing marginalized individuals to be silenced.
Oh look at what she’s assuming here – that men are the marginalized people who are less safe expressing themselves and whose words are given less weight. Women are the oppressor, the dominant class, the privileged, in her world, while men who say they are women are the oppressed, the subordinate, the marginalized. She apparently doesn’t even notice the absurdity.
The rest of her piece relies on that switch of places, so it’s simply nonsensical.
H/t southwest88
And the idea that the trans activists and TiMs don’t feel safe expressing themselves is belied by the sheer number of shouting marches, tweets, articles, blog posts, and denunciations that they make at the top of their voice. And the fact that they are not being deplatformed, cancelled, or threatened by the GC feminists.
It’s like a story I wrote one time in which a woman addicted to cough medicine kept shouting that she had laryngitis…they are addicted to attention, and are shouting constantly about how they don’t feel safe saying anything, even while shutting down the group that historically has not had a voice, and fought for centuries to gain that voice, only to see it snatched away by the same group that has always denied them the voice, but now the members of the privileged group are claiming to be members of the oppressed group – and more oppressed not only than women, but everyone.
@iknklast: Would you say that it’s a variant of Munchausen syndrome, then?
TRAs are just MRAs in skirts.
The person who wrote this should reread it, carefully. Trans women are transgender individuals.
Gay people often explain that they’re gay due to biological factors. They’re “born that way,” probably due to a combination of genetics, hormones, and other factors affecting the brain. Imagine though that there was a group of people who thought there was nothing wrong with being gay — it wasn’t a problem at all — but believed that it was largely a choice, and was more a matter of social and personal issues and preferences than something someone was “born with.” People can and did change their sexual orientation.
Would gay people insist that their existence was being denied? That they were erased and dehumanized?
They might worry that any studies these people used to back up their choice-explanation could be appropriated by conservatives who did NOT think there was “nothing wrong with being gay’ and used for conversion therapy. But would they therefore insist there was no difference between the groups? And connect both of them to violence, because only being born gay could conceivably made it okay?
I don’t think so.
I wonder about that too. There is considerable tension around the issue, partly because it does have implications for what “trans” means and partly because it harks back to the homophobia of the 70s and 80s. In fact now I think of it I saw a Twitter exchange just yesterday between a couple of lesbians in which one reminded the other of the relevance of “political lesbians.” The friend who was reminded agreed about the relevance. If I understand it correctly, “born this way” matters because of conversion therapy and generations of unhappy marriages and pressure to conform and so on.
Ophelia #5 wrote:
That’s my understanding as well. But that’s more of a public relations strategy than a necessary condition for acceptance, in that the argument “same sex relations cause no harm” relies on the fact that same sex relations cause no harm — and that’s the real moral argument. If pedophiles are “born that way” it doesn’t make pedophelia acceptable; it causes harm. The Naturalistic Fallacy is a fallacy.
I do not know, but suspect gays and lesbians wouldn’t condemn a group which sincerely supported an explanation which others combined with homophobia and misused.
Well it’s a separate argument though. It’s not specifically about whether same-sex attraction is harmless or not, but about the sub-issue of whether or not people should or can be persuaded out of it. One could think it’s harmless but also think it’s better avoided.
Of course, the clearer it becomes that it is harmless the less sense it makes to say “Yes but your life will be miserable, it’s much better to do what Most People do.”
‘the equality implied in the marketplace of ideas ‘ writes Farkas without a blink or hint of demurral. I wish we could get rid of this pernicious metaphor, meme, and article of faith which is so ubiquitous nowadays that nobody seems to stop to consider it and see how it obscures reality, even in the case of real marketplaces. Real marketplaces, as one can see from merely looking around, are neither equal or equalising (despite Adam Smith), and metaphorical ones certainly are not. It is as though ideas existed shorn of any implications, in particular political ones, in some ideal space full of sweetness and light, wherein that wonderful machine, the intellect of man (mostly), may rationally choose between them. They don’t, and human beings do not choose rationally.
At FreeThoughtBlogs today, there is a post that not too subtly suggests lynching Graham Linehan. The poster uses the word “hang”, and says it would be “illegal and immoral”, but makes their point quite clear with allusions to Monty Python. Here is the link to the post: https://freethoughtblogs.com/atg/2020/05/07/should-we-hang-graham-linehan-a-defence-of-free-inquiry/
Not subtly at all, given that the title spells it out!
Ugh. Those people.
“Imagine though that there was a group of people who thought there was nothing wrong with being gay — it wasn’t a problem at all — but believed that it was largely a choice, and was more a matter of social and personal issues and preferences than something someone was “born with.” People can and did change their sexual orientation.”
Gay activist Martin Duberman is one such person. He has written cogently about problems (strategic and otherwise) with the “born this way” narrative, a narrative that was apparently not common in the early days of the gay rights movement, (According to his 2018 book.)
It is unfortunate that he didn’t apply the same logic in his treatment of trans issues.
“if everybody hanged everybody else just for launching obsessive, unhinged, and sadistic social media tirades that lasted for several years”
Ugh.
Remember when words meant things? Those were the days.
Seems the author of the “hang Linehan” is another TIM. And on a jihad against Linehan on Twitter. Got to give the unhinged narcissist men their due — they hang on to their petty grievances like rabid pit-bulls. Always a wonder that they can’t see how real women see their male socialized behavior? Ah, but that is right, they plan on dominating us. Their plans may just blow up in their faces someday.
@Ben
#12
What is the consequent of that antecedent?
On a related note, did anyone else see numerous pharyngulites shout “PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY/YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS YOUR OWN PROBLEM – DEAL WITH IT” in response to the suggestion vets may be triggered by the call to prayer being broadcast in Mississauga during the pandemic?
That coming from the crowd that insists “misgendering” is a human rights violation sure cracked me up. Veterans need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they’re triggered but trans people are coddled and affirmed endlessly for their extreme reactions to people correctly IDing their sex. The lack of self-awareness…
I don’t know whether the people trying to get the call to prayer cancelled are sincere in their concern for veterans or if veterans triggered by the call to prayer even exist. I, personally, hate hearing it but it’s not an affront to me. That said I don’t have PTSD. I do know I read some hypocritical bullshizz though and it made me laugh.
So I’m sure the guy asking if it’s morally OK to hang Linehan would be perfectly cool with Linehan asking if it would be morally OK if he shot him in self defense, right?
southwest @ 13 – yes – “Siobhan” – he found the time to heap some shit on me when he debuted his blog. Doesn’t seem like a very interesting thinker.
Ophelia:
And today as well, from the same post:
Whatever that means. As far as I can see, nobody even mentioned you (or your acolytes).
wtf?
Your guess is as good as mine. It was in response to a comment by our old friend Silentbob, who doesn’t mention you either:
#18 latsot
Um, since when is “groomer” based on homophobia? I have seen the term groomer applied more to heterosexual dudes who are all too happy to back trans cult dogma if it means they might see it become more acceptable for non-related adults to have greater access to other people’s kids. Ah, yes but guys like Sioghna or whatever his moniker is are all appropriate using the legitimate grievances of other groups as a shield for the men in womanface.
And emotive stochastic libel? Isn’t that what the TIMs have been doing for years now with their silly claims of victim status and constant wishes that “somebody” would start punching, stabbing, raping, murdering, etc. the “terfs” ???
Ah, yes, but remember DARVO and it will always make the behavior of the worst of the TIMs and the worst of their supporters clear.
I think it was clear that the column was intended to be satire, but the example used made it a bad satire. Linehan’s unwelcome questions were presumably along the lines of “is self-identification sufficient for belonging to a sex class?” and not a version of “would it be a good idea to hang trans people?”
Equating those two questions might be a sort of satire, perhaps, but probably not intentional.
I think it’s more clear that the column was intended to be deniable. Haha I’m talking about hanging Graham Linehan but it’s satire haha. Having it both ways type of thing.
So Siobhan is being Schrodinger’s A$%^ole: the guy who says awful shit, and decides if he was “only kidding” depending on your reaction. Well, I guess if he can identify as one thing he is not (a woman) it is only a mild surprise to find him acting like something he is exactly.
southwest88@21:
*shrugs in blank incomprehension*
I can make no sense of any of it. My best guess is that it references some unknown smack-talk about B&W in previous posts. But who knows?
Sastra@22/Ophelia@23:
I’m not sure that it’s either bad satire or (quite) plausible deniability (although there’s certainly some JAQing off happening). It reads to me like a run-on argument from somewhere else, the “CHECKMATE, TERFS” that Siobhan wishes he’d said at the time, an outpouring of pent-up frustration that nobody was taking his arguments seriously. Or a festering tub of frothing lunacy, who can say?
Either way, it’s not a very good argument, partly because it assumes Linehan would object to the question or to its validity as a question. I don’t think he would. I think he’d welcome it because in spite of Siobhan and Silentbob’s false incredulity, it is an example of violent rhetoric, right there for all to see. Why on Earth ask that question, otherwise? If Siobhan is trying to make the point he claims he is, why choose the violent option with its association with lynching? Why not pick some obviously ridiculous way to impugn his character, instead? “Is it wrong to ask whether Graham Linehan eats puppies?” or whatever. The choice of ‘question’ was not arbitrary and nor are all possible questions equal. I suspect Linehan would be delighted with that.
More to the point I think is that those actions are intimidating only because they have a historical example of violence to point to; the actions would not be intimidating at all if not for that history. So chants of “Jews will not replace us” are intimidating because they reference the tide of anti-semitic violence, and in particular the holocaust; burning crosses on the lawn are similarly intimidating because they reference racist violence in general and lynchings in particular.
Yet with women’s groups arguing that trans women are not women, even if we pretend that this is motivated by hate… where is the history of violence against trans people to point to? There is no analogue of lynching or the Holocaust to point to, and even even the oft-claimed high general violence against trans people seems to be lacking evidence.
So, there is no real trend of anti-trans violence, general or specific, to call back to… but even if there was, where is the trend of women’s groups participating in what violence there is? This comparison fails on both fronts.
#23
Ophelia you are being unfair; Siobhan – and many of the commenters – are just asking questions.
Just asking the approved questions.
Ms. Benson @ #23 – I keep having the thought, “It’s the ironic Cultural Revolution.”
The author of the library piece, Ms. Farkas, has posted a response to a supporter’s comment. She considers criticisms “knee-jerk reactions”.
SilentBob has shown up, and is defaming WoLF as he makes some laughably fallacious TRA arguments.
Ew. Silentbob is getting to be kind of stalkery.
He certainly hasn’t learned how to think.
‘I’ll stalk within yer chamber.’ David Jones at the outset of ‘In Parenthesis’, after Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Bob doesn’t seem to be all that silent, though he manages insidiousness all right.