I long for a politician that is knowledgeable and confident on their chosen stance, such that they can talk about it without mindless blather and without the fucking pivot.
The thing is,up to about 10 years ago a “trans woman” was only regarded as someone who was undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery. Many people had no problem calling a person who had completed a MTF SRS an “adult human female”. But then the gender madness took hold, and we had the grotesque spectacle of Darren Agee Merager, a person with male gentalia, demanding and receiving the right to access a space reserved for natal women. That’s why supporters of gender self-identification like Ed Davey can’t say “adult human female” anymore, because we now have male-bodied people like Merager demanding to be treated as female despite being male-bodied.
I wonder has the UK finally reaching a tipping point? People seem to be annoyed with Davey’s remarks, plus there’s a lot of public sympathy for Rosie Duffield.
That’s why can’t say “adult human female” anymore, because we have male-bodied people like Merager demanding to be treated as female despite being male-bodied.
I disagree there. In the circles I move in, ‘woman’ and ‘adult human female’ are interchangeable terms. But I do regret the fact that I cannot say ‘I’m feeling very gay tonight’ without raising a snigger. That word has been commandeered by the homosexual community, and in consequence dropped like a hot brick by the heterosexuals. Like it or not, its modern sexual connotations have trumped its humour ones.
For most, sexuality is an either/or situation. Though I did once hear a most memorable speech by a lesbian that was a denunciation of “fuckng bisexuals” and all that they stood for. ;-)
Mostly Cloudy @ 2, I’m not sure we know that ten years ago (or twenty or fifty) many people had no problem calling a person who had completed a MTF SRS an “adult human female”. I’m not sure we can know that. We have no way to know how much is compliance and how much is really having no problem.
“We have no way to know how much is compliance and how much is really having no problem.”
Compliance; yes, in modern social groupings and workplaces there are harsh punishments for “misgendering”, “deadnaming” and not using the correct gender-related terminology. This gender-related terminology consists of a complex, often counter-intuitive set of rules, with anger arising towards anyone who even accidentally violates these rules.
For instance, woe betide you if you say that a newborn baby girl is “Born female” instead of “Assigned female at birth”.
I suspect this is part of the reason the ideology such terminology embodies might be popular – it gives people in competitive environments a chance to do down their rivals and enemies by accusing them of being “TERFs” and “transphobes”.
I think there was a problem with that. Everyone I knew believed someone who had undergone sex reassignment surgery was still a man. They might have played along, or humored the individual, but most people were aware that humans do not change sex, and that the surgery didn’t actually make them a female. They did not have female organs, they could not menstruate or bear children, they did not have chromosomal features of a woman, and I think it is an overstatement to say that most people were okay saying they were adult human females. In fact, I think most people I knew thought they were delusional and needed help.
I don’t think there’s any recent shifting in public opinion, it’s just a question of salience.
Ask the average person what they think about “trans rights,” and they’ll tell you that they think that it’s nobody else’s business how a consenting adult wants to dress or present themselves, or what they want to do to themselves medically or surgically, that we shouldn’t discriminate against people in housing and employment based on whether they “present” according to the conventions of their biological sex, and that we should be polite and call people by the names and pronouns they ask us to, within reason.
With the possible exception of the last item, I think those are fairly uncontroversial positions here. Certainly I agree with them.
Now, if you tell people that they’re transphobic if they don’t support teenage transition/puberty blockers, and trans women competing in women’s sports, invading women’s spaces, scorning lesbians who don’t want to have sex with penises, etc…. well, that’s a different kettle of fish.
But most people have no idea that these are really the issues being debated.
Blimey, who left the Terf in charge of the BBC Politics twitter account? Has that not been deleted and a grovelling apology been issued yet? The times, they are a-changin’.
I think there was a problem with that. Everyone I knew believed someone who had undergone sex reassignment surgery was still a man. They might have played along, or humored the individual, but most people were aware that humans do not change sex, and that the surgery didn’t actually make them a female.
That is what my memory, unreliable though it undoubtedly is (how would I know?) tells me. People were, for the most part, sympathetic toward trans people (read: transvestites and transexuals), recognised that they were a genuinely marginalised community (there was a fair amount of actual transphobia back in the 80s and 70s, which is as log ago as I can remember) and wanted to accommodate them as much as practically possible.
But I don’t know of anyone who believed that ‘sex change operations’ as they were called then actually did change sex. I’m sure there were some, but it was definitely not widespread.
Screechy:
Ask the average person what they think about “trans rights,” and they’ll tell you that [snip]
As we know, what ‘trans’ means has changed in sneaky ways by sneaky means. And gender identity extremists continue to deliberately obscure the truth. For instance, they’re forever linking to the first half of Helen Staniland’s survey (and others with similar results) which shows that there’s no great public outrage at trans people entering spaces consistent with what they claim their gender identity to be.
But they carefully don’t link to the second half, which shows that when the public is asked specifically about people with penises in women’s spaces, they don’t like the idea very much at all.
It’s a monumentally successful episode of gaslighting and grooming an entire population. It’s not surprising that prominent people don’t want to admit they were fooled, but they’ll have to eventually. Unless they are Owen Fucking Jones. Or Joylon Bellending Maugham.
Ask the average person what they think about “trans rights,” and they’ll tell you that they think that it’s nobody else’s business how a consenting adult wants to dress or present themselves, or what they want to do to themselves medically or surgically, that we shouldn’t discriminate against people in housing and employment based on whether they “present” according to the conventions of their biological sex, and that we should be polite and call people by the names and pronouns they ask us to, within reason.
Let’s call this “trans rights 1”
Now, if you tell people that they’re transphobic if they don’t support teenage transition/puberty blockers, and trans women competing in women’s sports, invading women’s spaces, scorning lesbians who don’t want to have sex with penises, etc…. well, that’s a different kettle of fish.
Let’s call this “trans rights 2”
But most people have no idea that these are really the issues being debated.
And this is the point of “no debate.” The disentangling of this conflation and confusion is why trans activists are so desperate to avoid discussion of trans “rights” in public fora. TAs hope to fool everyone who isn’t paying close attention that opposition to “trans rights” is to version 1, rather than 2, and that the women and men in opposition are, therefore, evil monsters whose real intent is trans genocide.
Mostly people didn’t even have to have an opinion on whether a trans woman was actually a woman or not. As Screechy says, salience. They were a rarity and we weren’t going to have to interact with them so we didn’t have to decide anything.
I long for a politician that is knowledgeable and confident on their chosen stance, such that they can talk about it without mindless blather and without the fucking pivot.
The thing is,up to about 10 years ago a “trans woman” was only regarded as someone who was undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery. Many people had no problem calling a person who had completed a MTF SRS an “adult human female”. But then the gender madness took hold, and we had the grotesque spectacle of Darren Agee Merager, a person with male gentalia, demanding and receiving the right to access a space reserved for natal women. That’s why supporters of gender self-identification like Ed Davey can’t say “adult human female” anymore, because we now have male-bodied people like Merager demanding to be treated as female despite being male-bodied.
I wonder has the UK finally reaching a tipping point? People seem to be annoyed with Davey’s remarks, plus there’s a lot of public sympathy for Rosie Duffield.
MC @# 2:
I disagree there. In the circles I move in, ‘woman’ and ‘adult human female’ are interchangeable terms. But I do regret the fact that I cannot say ‘I’m feeling very gay tonight’ without raising a snigger. That word has been commandeered by the homosexual community, and in consequence dropped like a hot brick by the heterosexuals. Like it or not, its modern sexual connotations have trumped its humour ones.
For most, sexuality is an either/or situation. Though I did once hear a most memorable speech by a lesbian that was a denunciation of “fuckng bisexuals” and all that they stood for. ;-)
Mostly Cloudy @ 2, I’m not sure we know that ten years ago (or twenty or fifty) many people had no problem calling a person who had completed a MTF SRS an “adult human female”. I’m not sure we can know that. We have no way to know how much is compliance and how much is really having no problem.
“We have no way to know how much is compliance and how much is really having no problem.”
Compliance; yes, in modern social groupings and workplaces there are harsh punishments for “misgendering”, “deadnaming” and not using the correct gender-related terminology. This gender-related terminology consists of a complex, often counter-intuitive set of rules, with anger arising towards anyone who even accidentally violates these rules.
For instance, woe betide you if you say that a newborn baby girl is “Born female” instead of “Assigned female at birth”.
I suspect this is part of the reason the ideology such terminology embodies might be popular – it gives people in competitive environments a chance to do down their rivals and enemies by accusing them of being “TERFs” and “transphobes”.
I think there was a problem with that. Everyone I knew believed someone who had undergone sex reassignment surgery was still a man. They might have played along, or humored the individual, but most people were aware that humans do not change sex, and that the surgery didn’t actually make them a female. They did not have female organs, they could not menstruate or bear children, they did not have chromosomal features of a woman, and I think it is an overstatement to say that most people were okay saying they were adult human females. In fact, I think most people I knew thought they were delusional and needed help.
I don’t think there’s any recent shifting in public opinion, it’s just a question of salience.
Ask the average person what they think about “trans rights,” and they’ll tell you that they think that it’s nobody else’s business how a consenting adult wants to dress or present themselves, or what they want to do to themselves medically or surgically, that we shouldn’t discriminate against people in housing and employment based on whether they “present” according to the conventions of their biological sex, and that we should be polite and call people by the names and pronouns they ask us to, within reason.
With the possible exception of the last item, I think those are fairly uncontroversial positions here. Certainly I agree with them.
Now, if you tell people that they’re transphobic if they don’t support teenage transition/puberty blockers, and trans women competing in women’s sports, invading women’s spaces, scorning lesbians who don’t want to have sex with penises, etc…. well, that’s a different kettle of fish.
But most people have no idea that these are really the issues being debated.
Blimey, who left the Terf in charge of the BBC Politics twitter account? Has that not been deleted and a grovelling apology been issued yet? The times, they are a-changin’.
iknklast:
That is what my memory, unreliable though it undoubtedly is (how would I know?) tells me. People were, for the most part, sympathetic toward trans people (read: transvestites and transexuals), recognised that they were a genuinely marginalised community (there was a fair amount of actual transphobia back in the 80s and 70s, which is as log ago as I can remember) and wanted to accommodate them as much as practically possible.
But I don’t know of anyone who believed that ‘sex change operations’ as they were called then actually did change sex. I’m sure there were some, but it was definitely not widespread.
Screechy:
As we know, what ‘trans’ means has changed in sneaky ways by sneaky means. And gender identity extremists continue to deliberately obscure the truth. For instance, they’re forever linking to the first half of Helen Staniland’s survey (and others with similar results) which shows that there’s no great public outrage at trans people entering spaces consistent with what they claim their gender identity to be.
But they carefully don’t link to the second half, which shows that when the public is asked specifically about people with penises in women’s spaces, they don’t like the idea very much at all.
It’s a monumentally successful episode of gaslighting and grooming an entire population. It’s not surprising that prominent people don’t want to admit they were fooled, but they’ll have to eventually. Unless they are Owen Fucking Jones. Or Joylon Bellending Maugham.
Let’s call this “trans rights 1”
Let’s call this “trans rights 2”
And this is the point of “no debate.” The disentangling of this conflation and confusion is why trans activists are so desperate to avoid discussion of trans “rights” in public fora. TAs hope to fool everyone who isn’t paying close attention that opposition to “trans rights” is to version 1, rather than 2, and that the women and men in opposition are, therefore, evil monsters whose real intent is trans genocide.
Mostly people didn’t even have to have an opinion on whether a trans woman was actually a woman or not. As Screechy says, salience. They were a rarity and we weren’t going to have to interact with them so we didn’t have to decide anything.