The moral panic card
Andy Lewis aka Le canard noir is doing a letters-debate thing with Embrace the void aka Aaron Rabinowitz. The latter defines some terms at the outset:
The other important term here is moral panic, which I’ve discussed in a few places but just briefly refers to a substantial overreaction to a small or nonexistent problem.
Mm. It’s a small or nonexistent problem – the fact that we (women) are being told we have to redefine ourselves in a way that entails including men as women on demand. If a man tells us he’s a woman we have to agree, or at least comply; if we refuse, punishment is swift. To us that is not a small problem.
Often the problem is treated as an existential threat to some part of civilization, and often there’s a special emphasis on harms to women and children.
I find that extremely snide. He probably didn’t mean it that way, but then that’s the problem, isn’t it. He’s hinting that it’s a sentimental slushy ploy to emphasize the harms to women and children, which requires ignoring the fact that the harms to women and children are worse and that that’s because adult men have a lot of genuine advantages over women and children. Yes, we women are yipping about it a lot but that’s because it’s kneecapping our ongoing struggle to be treated as fully equal human beings along with men. Excuuuuuse us for objecting.
The other way it’s snide is that it implies there’s nothing real to object to, it’s just “oh won’t somebody please think of the [designated victims]??” Easy for him, but he’s not as easily beaten up as a woman is.
So, I’m not optimistic about this exchange.
To him it’s a small problem; possibly because he has a bucket of bullshit where his brain ought to be.
“Thank you for defining ‘moral panic’ in those terms. In doing so you have made clear that this does not qualify as one, as it is no small thing when 50% of the population loses the right to define or even name itself. Pillock.”
I read through the first four letters. I hold little hope for a reasonable debate.
Andy Lewis is trying to present data and analyses that are straightforward and mere examples, and Aaron Rabinovitz is microscopically examining the claims, as if he won’t even think about the issues unless he is fully convinced the data are accurate. Meanwhile Rabinovitz asks, “If you agree with me that the trans rights movement is not an attack on women, lesbians, children, or civilization as we know it…” Um, no. That’s a lot to handwave away, and you don’t get to do it, especially if you demand minute details from Lewis. It seems that Rabinovitz is primarily trying to get Lewis to agree that this issue involves a moral panic, rather than looking the actual concerns being raised.
If there’s a moral panic here, it’s on the side that keeps claiming they are being murdered at abnormal rates and using terms like “trans genocide.”
I note that Andy Lewis has cited the steep rise in referrals to paediatric gender clinics, and Rabinowitz, not altogether unreasonably, has taken issue with his citation and and demanded actual figures. The Tavistock GIDS has periodically published referral statistics. The most recent figures are here: https://gids.nhs.uk/number-referrals. In 2010/2011 there were 138 referrals. In 2020/2021 there were 2383: actually a decrease from the three previous years, but still a very considerable increase on the first figure. 1512 of the children referred in that year were girls, as against 704 boys.
The figures for earlier years are not broken down by sex. However, an earlier set of statistics, covering the years 2009/2010 to 2015/2016, partly fills the gap: https://tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/documents/408/gids-service-statistics.pdf. In 2009/2010 there were 56 male children referred as against 40 who were female. By 2011/2012 there were 118 girls and 88 boys, and by 2015/2016 there were 929 girls to 490 boys: a total of 1419.
Between 2009/2010 and 2020/2021 the numbers of referrals have increased from 96 to 2383: a rise that certainly requires more explanation than this glib (and presumptuous) comment from Rabinowitz: ‘I think we can at least somewhat agree that the likely causes here are a mix of increased social acceptance and increased legal support for gender affirming care’. I do not know what he means by ‘increased legal support for gender affirming care’. It doesn’t seem to relate to anything that has been happening in the UK.
Lewis: ‘ There are also sincere voices in this debate from the right (both for and against), but also opportunistic ones who relish the perceived idiocy of the left and highlight it to the public. When left-leaning media declines to give a voice to the liberal left and allows right-leaning media to shout loudly, it creates the mirage of this being “right wing”. ‘
This will definitely affect American swing voters. It’s a bit of a self-own on the part of the left to reflexively support even the most obvious inequities perpetuated by calling transwomen women, such as sports. They can see it, but are afraid to call out the Emperor, while dutifully adding he/him/his to their signature files at work. Keep your head down and no one will call you out, and in the meantime Tucker Carlson and the Spectator are happy to feature stories about the harm this causes women, as if Tucker really cares. (No shade towards Kara Dansky, here, She’s doing the right thing, in my opinion, but it’s not really my call anyway.)
I’m currenlty awating appeal on Twitter for saying “Transwomen aren’t women, they are men.”: I deleted the other tweet that was, I admit, a nasty retort, But if they deny my apeal for that tweet, I can live without Twitter, and with 193 followers, GC twitter will survive without me chiming in.
Andy Lewis in Letter 5 turns the discussion around and brings up the moral panic on the trans activist side, as mentioned in #4 here. Excellent letter.
I’m just watchful to make sure Andy nails down the reason that skeptics need to gender critical in a way that Rabinowitz can’t wiggle out of, or sidetrack. The moral panic issue, I think, is an “argument from consquences” sidetrack and even though Andy succesfully illustrates the point, we who have been ridiculed for being anti-science, need to know what “The Science” is beyond a muddling of DSD’s and secondary sex traits.
I want to know that is scientific about “Transwomen are Women.” Definitions that can and have been used in testing the hypotheses that confirm gender theory. If we are going to say science provides the reason to move TW into W spaces, I think women deserve more than a “shut up, it’s science, Bigot” explanation.