A string of new and unusual terms
Harry Lambert at the New Statesman starts his piece on Helen Joyce’s book with an observation:
When the Labour government introduced the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, few involved in its implementation expected that 17 years later Britain’s leading medical journal, the Lancet, would refer to women as “bodies with vaginas” in an effort to be gender inclusive.
That phrase is the latest in a string of new and unusual terms (“people who menstruate”, “birthing people”, “bleeders”) used to describe women. This change in language is the product of a rapid shift in Western culture towards the idea that biological reality is a social construct.
Yes but what else? There’s another piece to this puzzle.
The what else is that it’s women this is done to. It’s not men. It’s women who get erased, and it’s not men. No “bodies with penises” on the cover of the Lancet. No much-admired man’s words altered by the ACLU. No talk of “people” needing vasectomies on National Public Radio.
This is all so blindingly obvious, and yet…
I know so many good decent people who (1) just don’t see this at all, and (2) when it’s pointed out to them, they say ‘so what?’, and (3) when you begin to discuss the ‘so what?’ they become defensive, deny the issues could possibly exist in practice and then become angry at me/us when confronted with evidence of the issue occurring. On top of that, people who were friends and colleagues don’t just ignore and shun you, they fairly often become active enemies seeking to tear you down because you’re a transphobe – all without providing anyone evidence of said transphobia. I know plenty of people who have peaked, but are too terrified to say anything for fear of the consequences.
I really admire the people who are prepared to speak publicly on this issue under their own names.
As another example:
There’s a comic book series that now has a television adaptation, called Y: The Last Man. I haven’t read/watched either, so I only know the summaries I’ve read, but I gather the premise is that some mysterious phenomenon wipes out every mammal on the planet with a Y chromosome, except for the protagonist and his pet monkey.
Apparently the television series actually clarifies that trans women were wiped out, too, while trans men continue to exist. I think the show is generally not seen as controversial, even though the title presumably “ought” to be “Y: The Last Body With a Penis.”
Wait a year or two. Then see.
While I think there’s misogyny involved, sure, I really don’t think that’s the root cause. Men are less likely to be wearing “Be Kind” t-shirts, but they’re still vulnerable. The nature of the claim doesn’t allow compromise, and there’s a lot of momentum driven by people who are very, very sure of themselves. Young men are already starting to complain about being seen as bigots because they don’t want to date transwomen (or transmen, if gay.)
Because their status as a social and political group is firm, they’re less likely to worry about being “erased” by the inclusion of women in “men,” or the loss of the ability to name themselves. There’s less at stake.
Well, it’s been this way as long as it’s been such a radioactive issue, so I don’t offhand see why another year or two would make any difference.
I don’t think it’s just misogyny though. Misogyny-adjacent, but not necessarily the thing itself. I think men are raised to feel pretty entitled, especially in relation to women. I think they’re raised to expect to be able to lay down the law, especially to women, while women are raised to be, at least, hesitant about doing that. That’s not specifically misogyny so much as it’s age-old sexist habits and assumptions. I find many activist trans women to be extremely aggressive, in a way that women can’t really carry off, if only because we can’t back it up with a punch.
“….people who were friends and colleagues don’t just ignore and shun you, they fairly often become active enemies seeking to tear you down because you’re a transphobe – all without providing anyone evidence of said transphobia. I know plenty of people who have peaked, but are too terrified to say anything for fear of the consequences.”
I suspect part of the popularity of trans ideology isn’t that people sincerely believe in it, but that this ideology provides an excuse to get rivals and enemies ostracised and fired. Calling someone-especially a woman- a “transphobe” is akin to calling someone a Communist sympathiser in 1950s America.
Also, has anyone here seen this? The UK Labour Party just passed a motion about “conversion therapy”, that will in fact criminalise any medical professional who doesn’t use the “affirmation only” method.
https://twitter.com/BluskyeAllison/status/1442904887629549568
This is horrifying. If this passes, UK Doctors who don’t dress children and teenagers up as the opposite sex and feed them puberty blockers will go to jail.