Promoting the unnecessary prioritisation
Some Victorian Greens are not entirely ecstatic about the new and more sweeping definitions of “transphobia.”
A newly expanded definition of transphobia is threatening to reopen divisions within the Victorian Greens after a senior member accused the party’s leadership of stifling free speech with its revamped code of conduct.
Others have welcomed the updated policy, which was passed by the party’s state council late last week, arguing the Greens now have the strongest anti-discrimination safeguards of any political party in Victoria for transgender members.
But not the strongest anti-discrimination safeguards for women or feminists or people who understand what words mean.
The Victorian Greens now define transphobia as the vilification of trans people; intentionally misgendering people individually or as a group; denying that non-binary genders exist; or “promoting the unnecessary prioritisation of sex characteristics above gender”.
Aka questioning the fanatical doctrine that “sex characteristics” don’t determine who is a woman and who is a man.
The party’s new rules also state that “advocating for unnecessary restrictions on transition care” and “asking leading questions that cover for doing one of the above” can constitute transphobia.
And who will decide when those conditions have been met? Why, the fanatics, of course. The people who are guaranteed to find sin where sin is expected, and never to err on the side of thinking people are allowed to know who is a woman and who isn’t.
A member of the Victorian Greens, who holds a senior position and was speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss internal party matters, said the new code of conduct went too far.
“The old code already prohibited vilification, harassment and misgendering,” the party member said. “Now you won’t even be able to ask questions about or propose changes to our policy without threat of expulsion. One way or another, this will split us.”
The member went on to accuse MPs – including Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam – of trying to “cleanse the party of dissent”.
“They’re not interested in freedom of expression, facts or science. They’ve declared war on half the membership.”
And on women. That’s how this crusade works – the punishment always lands mostly on women.
However, another Greens member – also speaking on the condition of anonymity – stressed the expanded definition of transphobia was about giving the party the appropriate tools to grapple with important issues, rather than predetermine an outcome.
The member added that in the past, trans-exclusionary feminists – who often prefer to be called gender-critical feminists – have used official Greens meetings to question, among other things, whether men can give birth. Some party members find these sorts of questions offensive because, in their view, it presupposes that trans men are not men.
Which, of course, they’re not; that’s what “trans men” means. They may be butch; they may even be more butch than most men (though that’s hard to pull off without the requisite body type); but they’re not men.
Greens LGBTQ spokesperson Gabrielle de Vietri said the new code of conduct would protect serious debate while ensuring unsubstantiated questions aren’t weaponised against gender-diverse people.
“Respectful debate which is grounded in evidence is crucial to policy development and will always be welcome in the Greens,” she said.
“Leading questions, on the other hand, are a highly effective tactic that bigots can use to fearmonger and mislead people about complicated issues.”
And of course it’s the zealots who will decide which questions are “leading” and which are permitted. Fewer but better Greens.
They have no idea what “gender-critical” means, other than it rejects the claims of trans ideology, apparently.
But “transmen” have indeed given birth, and there are a great many issues attached to that fact. Women getting inadequate pregnancy care at hospitals because the medical staff assumes the claim “I’m a man” is correct; unknown consequences to the fetus developing in an environment with artificially raised testosterone levels; recording the mother as “father” in the birth records; many others. But let’s just ignore all that because it’s impolite to note that a woman is actually a woman. Stand these activists against each other, the “trans men are men” on one side and “not only women can give birth” on the other, and let them fight it out.
Men can be women and women can be men. The rivers are flowing clear, the Amazon is expanding, and artic ice now creates a land bridge between Russia and Alaska. World average CO2 levels have declined to pre 17C levels, god is in his heaven and all is well.
The fight is now over.
Which has fuck all to do with reducing the human environmental footprint, or slowing and reversing the loss of biodiversity. For a party that would normally rely on science to make its points, this is a disaster. They’ve just handed their climate-change denying, business-as-usual opponents a club with which they will be beaten come election time. The unquestioned adoption of trans “rights” runs counter to its reason for being. And, ironically, it has been argued that the lens of feminism brings an important perspective to environmental thought, as some formulations of it see much in common between the the patriarchal political and economic forces that lead to the subjugation, subordination, and exploitation of women, and the subjugation, subordination and exploitation of the Earth. One of the proponents of this approach was the late Australian environmental philosopher Val Plumwood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Plumwood
The other as background, the self as foreground? Gee, what does the description of that standpoint remind you of?
They’re against predetermined outcomes; they just don’t want people reaching the wrong predetermined outcome. Their new policy forbidding Doubt, Questioning, and Facts will ensure that.
Trans ideology has found not just a suitable host to parasitize, it’s found a willing and eager one. It might look like the Green Party, but it’s now the Trans Party. It’s like a big, fat Green caterpillar has offered itself up to an ichneumon wasp, whose ravenous but crafty young will consume it from the inside out, being careful to leave its vital organs sufficiently functional for the otherwise hollowed out husk to remain alive long enough to sustain the growing brood of wasps, who will, once mature, finally eat their way out of the now dead and useless host in order to move on, mate, and start the process anew with the next hapless caterpillar.
YNnB, your analogy to the wasp is perfect. They did it to the LGB, and they’re doing it to left-wing political parties all over the world; few are fighting back.
And anyway, why? What do they need ‘trans’ anti-discrimination rules for? Where is the evidence that people who claim to be of the opposite sex to which they belong are being discriminated against? Oh, there’s plenty of evidence that other people, particularly women and girls, are being discriminated against in favour of cult members, but where are examples of discrimination going the other way?
The Green Party hasn’t really been “green” for a long time, at least not in the US. In 2008, when I read their platform, they had the first mention of anything green at the number 10 position, and social justice issues as the first nine – and, of course, overturning our current system of capitalism, which might end up having the desired effect on the environment, but it also might create so much disaster it would increase the problem. I’m no fan of capitalism (or communism, either) because both are so destructive. But if we ever do upturn it, we’d better be damn sure we’ve got something prepared to take its place, and I can’t imagine what that might look like other than some older form of economy, like feudalism.
It doesn’t surprise me the Greens were overtaken by trans; they were taken over by woo a long time ago.