Councillor Homophobe
More homophobia from the LibDems:
She’s a councillor in Faversham (Kent).
She doesn’t welcome conversation with the peasants who replied to her “Absolutely not” though.
Boo lesbians and gays, hooray for men in womanface. How did we get here?
In a conversation with people who supported trans identities I was told that, when it comes to understanding and discussing trans identities, I needed to shut up and listen to trans people. They had first hand knowledge and I simply lacked the capacity to critique them. It was arrogant to think otherwise. They were the experts.
I disagreed. Yes, trans people had the authority to describe how they felt, but they were too close and emotionally involved to be able to analyze and critique the concept. It was better to come at the claims from an objective viewpoint. It was less likely to be biased.
They were absolutely shocked.
So was I. They were Skeptics.
The entire doctrine is filled with elements which disarm the ability to criticize it.
Ya that’s the thing. I try to take note of what trans people say about the intensity of the feelings, but I still also maintain that feelings aren’t just automatically a guide to reality, including the reality of what the feelings mean. Maybe they don’t mean anything. Lots of feelings don’t, including some that seem to. They can’t mean that people just are what they say they feel like, no matter what that is, because the absurdity is obvious. “I feel like a solar system, and you can’t gainsay my feeling.”
If this sort of misguided acceptance were extended to other mistaken beliefs, we’d be protesting for people with phantom limb syndrome, or those who claim to be Napoleon. There are any number of such strong “feelings”, which, if ithey were to be indulged as enthusiastically as “trans” claims are, would be disastrous for the people claiming them. Hearing voices inside your head telling you to injure yourself or others? Belief that you are grossly overweight when you are in fact dangerously emaciated? Belief that your injuries and illnesses require prayer rather than medical attention? The tragedy is that “listening to trans people” can result in irreversible mutilation, loss of sexual function, sterility, and lifelong medical dependency. These are disastrous results. How is it that these “feelings” are given not only a pass, but are enthusiastically supported, and defended with bullying, threats, intimidation and emotional blackmail?
To quote iknklast from the “coverture” thread, “because penis.”
How much of this movement is driven by AGP males? I’d be willing to bet that if the trans “movement” was being pushed by TiFs only, it would have gotten precisely nowhere.* Were it not for the wants and desires of a few men, we wouldn’t be in the midst of this conflict at all. The wants and desires of a few women claiming to be men would have been given the same attention and respect as the dignity, health, and safety of all other women and girls, which is to say none. TiFs are a convenient means of diluting and confusing the definition of “woman” so that it can be applied to men, but no similar demand to redefine “man” is being established alongside the erasure of women; it would be a non-starter. TiFs are only as useful to trans “rights” to the extent that they can help tear down women’s boundaries, to the extent that they are useful to men colonizing “woman.” If TiFs were a threat to male power at all, they would be stopped in their tracks. Rather than undermining patriarchy, they are working for it. They are useful idiots.
TiFs are never going to be allowed to take away anything that belongs to men, and they are never going to be the sort of actual or potential physical threat to men the way TiMs will always be to women. Elliot Page will never be a force for men to reckon with in the way that women have had to deal with Fallon Fox. I don’t anticipate self-ID resulting in lots of female sexual predators forcing their way into male-only spaces to assault men, or female inmates suddenly declaring themselves to be men in order to facilitate removal to men’s prisons. “Inclusion” is a one way street, and only women get thrown under the buses running on it. It is the erasure of “woman” that is the point of the operation. Men get to remain men; women are fated to be whatever men decide they are.
*Is there a female equivalent of autogynophilia? Are there women who get off on the idea of being men? Cetainly there is a sad logic for women and girls to try to escape their lot under patriarchy, but is there a female version of the fetishization of it found in AGP males? I don’t know.
Good one.
YNnB? #3
I strongly suspect pretty much all of it. As I keep saying, I think the main reasons TIFs (or even the traditional “effeminate gay man” type of TIMs) get any attention at all from the TRAs are:
• To keep up a minimal appearance of consistency.
• To serve as a Trojan horse for the AGP agenda.
If “sissies” and “tomboys” were in charge of contemporary trans activism, it would probably rank very low on my list of concerns, but that’s not the trans rights movement we have now. What we do have is for all relevant intents an purposes a men’s rights movement very much like “incels”. It’s hardly an accident that, for the most part, the people complaining about “transphobia” and “TERFs” are also the ones complaining about “whorephobia” (by which they really mean “pimp-phobia” and “john-phobia”) and “SWERFs”*, and the guys shouting “trans women are women” are also the ones shouting “sex work is real work” and “blow jobs are real jobs”. It’s entirely driven by an out of control level of male sexual entitlement, a rapey disregard for women’s boundaries, and a psychopathic determination to take whatever they want and destroy anyone who gets in their way.
*The similarity of the acronyms is, of course, also hardly an accident.
On a semi-related note, there was recently a guest post about having a “theory of mind”, being able to put ourselves in our opponents shoes, adopting their perspective, understanding their way of thinking even if we don’t agree with it etc. We on the GC side like to emphasize arguments like “if you don’t fit the established stereotypes of what a real ‘man’ is supposed to be like, it doesn’t make you less of a man, it just means the stereotypes are wrong. A boy who likes dolls and dresses can go on doing so without having to become a girl, and there’s nothing wrong with that!” etc. I have even made the same argument myself.
As much as I still sympathize with the sentiment, I’m increasingly inclined to see it as a failure to apply the appropriate theory of mind on our part. It might be a compelling argument if we were dealing with the old “girly boy” type of “transsexuals”, but not when dealing with porn-crazed straight men who want to be their own jerk-off fantasies. As I keep saying, the last thing those guys can be accused of is displaying too little toxic masculinity, too little aggression, not enough raging entitlement, insufficient need for dominance, or, for that matter, being too nurturing, caring, sensitive, selfless etc. If the most toxic stereotypes of masculinity apply to anyone, then surly they apply to these guys. They’re like the guy shouting “Who the fuck are you looking at, asshole?!” to random strangers on the street just to give himself a pretext for beating the crap out of somebody.
YNNB #3 wrote:
Or, more often, we’d be endorsing the self-validating personal testimonies of psychics, alternative medicine advocates, and people who have experienced God.
Bjarte Foshaug #6 wrote:
I’ll apply the theory of mind to the TRA view of the butch transbians:
“Exactly: their existence is irrefutable evidence that Gender Identity has no connection to sexist stereotypes. Clearly there must be a biological substrate in the brain which causes us to identify — or NOT identify— with our sex, because if it was just effeminate gay boys being influenced by repetitions of “you’re such a girl!” then butch transbians wouldn’t exist. But they do! Your belief system cannot account for them! (And oh, btw AGP is transphobe propaganda)”
Well, that’s probably more credit to my memory than to my robust Theory of Mind. And not much credit either, since they tended to beat it like a dead horse.
But, Bjarte, those men are not those whom we attempt to persuade. Whether a rapey AGP male would find an argument cogent is rather irrelevant. Surely the relevant mind to model is the one that has been taken in by the AGP TRA’s rhetoric.
It’s actually much worse than this. It’s not just a matter of celebration and valourization. It’s also about recruitment. How many other disorders or delusions are promulgated by the power of state institutions and backed up by the force of law? The idea that you’ve been “born in the wrong body” is not just introduced to a wider audience than it would have othewise. It is promoted to children and teens who might not have considered this until it was offered, or thrust upon them, as the answer to all their adolescent anxiety and discomfort. “The answer is you’re trans. What was the question?” It’s suggested that accepting this “condition” is somehow courageous and signifies a particularly unique individuality and specialness. Instead of being boring gays and lesbians, you’re something even better. How many insecure kids can resist the siren song of personal specialness, sacredness, and importance promised by the happily-ever-after tales presented by the love-bombing agents of trans siblinghood? “We know the real you better than anyone, and you’re brave and stunning!
Along with the glittery rainbow, however, comes the threat of societal hatred and persecution, which instills suspicion towards doubting outsiders, including parents, driving new devotees further into the arms of their “loving” recruiters. Exploration of the difficulties and problems being experienced that suggest causes or solutions which are “non-trans” in nature are branded as hateful, bigoted “conversion therapy.” Suicidal ideation is presented as a handy tool to access the demanded “life-saving treatment.”
Scientology can only dream of this level of power and influence. The tide seems to be turning in the UK, but it’s going to take a long time for things to turn around in North America. In the meantime, many innocents will suffer horrible pyschological and physical trauma. Those who are medically “transed,” and those who are punished for questioning or resisting genderist ideology will pay the price. But until it costs lawsuits and money, nothing will be done. That is perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of this.
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YNNB #3 wrote:
Stephen Whittle, academic lawyer and co-founder of the UK pressure group Press for Change, has been a major figure in steering and promoting the transgender rights movement since about 1992, when Press for Change was founded. Reportedly, Whittle had a role in helping to draft the UK’s Gender Recognition Act, passed in 2004. From 2007 to 2009 Whittle was President of WPATH. Whittle, who is married to a woman, was a member of the Manchester Lesbian Collective before coming out as a ‘trans man’ — so no, not AGP. I met Whittle once, years ago – a person of great charm and conviction. And, as I have come to see since, a person who has done great damage to the social and political position of women. Whittle is currently promoting the cause of permitting ‘trans women’ to destroy women’s sport: see twitter stream.