Oh go weaponize yourself
NPR should be better than this.
“Detransition narratives” they say – but I bet they don’t talk about “transition narratives.” I bet their internal editor would tell them “that’s transphobic!!!” before they even finished typing it. Detransition is a fairy tale, but transition is glorious and healthy and never fails to make everything perfect.
In short, NPR has decided that trying to “change sex” is a good and wise thing to do, and that being skeptical of that view is evil and forbidden. Why? Why has NPR decided that?
Also note the “weaponized against trans people” bit. It’s not “weaponized against arm-having people” to say that amputating your arms for no reason would not be a good idea. It’s not “weaponizing” against anyone to point out that humans can’t change sex, and that trying to change the obvious physical markers of sex is probably futile and quite likely to cause problems.
Also detransition doesn’t “belong to” anyone, and the people who have experience of it aren’t trans any more, so why should they be shoved aside by people who think detransition is a “weapon”?
There is so much dishonest manipulative language in this movement that it should be obvious to onlookers that it’s not the broad sunlit path to happiness it’s cracked up to be.
Reclaim the narrative from whom? Such rubbish.
From people who have detransitioned, of course. What would they know about it?!?!
Right, let’s not have doctors, or relatives of trans people, or anyone with a shred of common sense have any say either. The mighty Trans Cult should have a monopoly on all narratives. Reclaim your omniscience, trans people! :P
This from an old friend who has gone rogue:
Much like, I assume, parents whose 8-year-olds hang out with strange men, whose 10-year-olds are smoking, whose 12-year-olds are having sex, whose 14-year-olds are trying Meth, whose 16-year-olds are getting tattoos. You know, just like parents who care about their children’s wellbeing.
That’s what I like about “free thinkers” like grumpy PZ; they think that the name of a publisher tells them the content of a book. Thought is free, getting out of your comfort zone is hard.
Comment #11 on the post that Roj refers to is a classic bit of WMD Kitty – never knowingly level-headed at the best of times, that one*. This is a response to what I would consider a fair comment about how kids change their minds about things all the time, and that safeguarding them against irreversible surgery until they’re 18 could prevent youngsters from making decisions they later regret.
* on WHTM a couple of years ago, WMD declared that breastfeeding was child abuse and should be illegal. No idea why because no reason was given.
Seems like the trans cult bosses are getting a little worried that some detransitioners might spill the beans on the behavior of some of the TIMs towards some of the TIFs. So best keep the detrans kiddies in the cult in some way, where they can be kept quiet.
Also saw an article today with one TIM having decided that all the scientific arguments for trans nonsense (like what? Trans ideology is as fact free as it gets.) are not going to win the fight for TIMs getting their every wish instantly granted. Seemed like a realization that the science is against the trans cult completely. So guess we will see more “most oppwessed evah” tales coming from the cult now.
“Reclaim”? So, somehow considering oneself to be trans, however briefly, even in childhood, renders your thoughts somehow attributable and usable by the trans ideology that hurt you, in perpetuity ever after?
So powerless, these poor oppressed trans. They even get to steal the thoughts of their victims, even after their escape.
Arcadia, you don’t even have to have been trans at any point in your life for TAs to own your every deed, they are forever trying to trans figures from history. I noticed the other day that someone was transing Florence Nightingale, insisting that she – sorry, he – insisted on male pronouns. No source was given.
I don’t see why we can’t pull the same trick. Let’s trans Hitler: after all, he used to play with dolls when he was a little girl [CITATION NOT REQUIRED].
When challenging the idea that people could be transgender was made to be claiming that these people who think they’re trans don’t exist, it takes a lot of chutzpah for them to have denied the very existence of detransitioners.
Now that a tidal wave is coming of (especially female) detransitioners, they have the audacity to say that “detransition BELONGS to trans people. It’s OURS.”
It’s like Arcadia said above: “They even get to steal the thoughts of their victims, even after their escape.”
NPR (and other institutions) going along with this mania will continue as they try to justify the sunk costs of their integrity, until they have been completely and utterly humiliated by their adherence to this anti-science, anti-common sense drivel.
latsot, that would explain a lot, actually. I mean, history is relentlessly negative about the achievements of the first openly lesbian trans leader of a nation, and of course suicide is a known risk for trans people confronting societal transphobia. That Hitler made a point of consigning so many transphobes to the gas chambers has obviously been misread by history, driven by a transphobic narrative.
It all fits!
It strikes me that trans activists wanting to own ex-trans narratives is yet another similarity with religion. I remember when I was a kid the most cogent thing some Christians could say about atheists was “Whether you’re on the road to God, or the road away from God, it’s still God’s road,” or some such. I had never been on such a road, having been born and raised as an atheist. My road didn’t go to, or away from, any god at all.
Trans activists want to own ex-trans narratives in the same way as Christians want to own ex-Christian narratives: whether they’re on the road to trans or the road away from trans, it’s still trans’ road.
Very few detransitioners (or ex-trans people, as some would have it) do so because of religion. There may actually be more people who are transitioned because of religion than the other way around. Most people who leave the trans cult (and by golly should own their own damn roads) do so because transing is a terrible way to address juvenile emotional trauma.
Also, to paraphrase another commenter at PZ’s, detransitioning doesn’t mean they’re not trans because there are people who retransition. Sounds like a parallel to cult members recapturing escapees.
latsot, it wasn’t just Adolf, Herman Goering’s first name was a clear euphamisn for ‘shemale’, and Hess had their preferred pronoun as their surname.
Regnery IS a pit. Being published there, next to D’Souza and co. does put a pall on your book.
https://www.regnery.com/books/bestsellers/
JtD, that’s part of the narrative. If you make your opponent into one that no reputable press will touch, because reasons, then you end up with the shitty bedfellows. And everyone can claim that the mere fact of your book having been published by [x] is proof it is bogus and hateful. No need to address the book at all.
I don’t know if that’s what happened, but it does happen all the time. Sort of like what happened to Ayaan Hirsi-Ali. When the more liberal institutions put a star on her forehead, she had to turn to conservative institutions. In the long term, that meant the things she wrote had to be in line with what they (her new employers) believe. Oh, sure, now that she’s escaped, she could go to work for McDonald’s or WalMart…but why should she have to?
Of course, with publishing there is one other option when no one will touch you – self-publish. But then your book will be dismissed as self-published, unworthy, and vanity.
TRAs: “When kids are consistent, insistent, and persistent that they’re not the same sex as their body — and diagnosed by qualified professionals— trust them. They know who they are. They don’t change their mind.”
GCF: “But here are some people who were consistent, insistent, and persistent as kids, diagnosed by qualified professionals — and they did change their minds. That undermines the idea that there’s an unmistakable gender identity people can’t be wrong about.”
O NOES! TRANSPHOBES ARE WEAPONIZING DETRANSITIONERS AGAINST US!
New TRA: “Detransitioners only add support to gender identity, in that they fit right where we’d expect them to.”
It’s like Christians using atheists as evidence that God exists, because believers and nonbelievers is more powerful proof than if everyone believed.
Sastra, another thing we see:
TRA: You must accept my experience of who I am!
GCF: Here is my experience as a woman.
TRA: Die in a grease fire, TERF!
I think you guys have missed possibly the strongest parallel between religion and trans theory of them all. Religious people absolutely love the No True Scotsman argument for people that were faithful believers that lost their faith and became atheists/nones: their faith was clearly not genuine! True faith can falter but never be lost, therefore all those people that claim to have been former christians were actually not. They may have thought themselves christian, but their faith was not deep… or they are just lying about their journey.
(Cue Matt Dillahunty apoplexy)
The motivation behind this tactic is clear. If people that are genuine believers can fall out of their faith, then this gives the lie to the claim that genuine faith can’t be lost. Which in turn suggests that a person’s self-knowledge might be incorrect, and their confidence in that knowledge misplaced. An obvious threat to those merchants of divine revelation.
And so we have the campaign to discredit detransitioners. The narrative of perfect self-knowledge must be protected. And so:
TRA: You must accept my experience of what it is like to be trans. I know who I am and identities do not waver.
Detransitioner: Here is my experience as a trans person. I too was certain, I even had irreversible surgery… but I was wrong.
TRA: Your trans-ness was not genui- I mean, RECANT! SHUT UP, TRANSPHOBE!