Guest post: The “just leave those little people over there alone” argument
Originally a comment by Artymorty on Bro can’t understand.
I despise the “just leave those little people over there alone” argument. It says that people with gender dysphoria are a tiny insignificant minority who aren’t worth examining further, which is not a model of tolerance, it’s a model of profound ignorance. It says, “I don’t care if the surgeries work or not, I just want to put those people out of my mind as much as possible. So I’ll just assume the surgeries are hunky-dory, because it’s the easiest way for me to get out of having to think about or care about those unusual genderbender people.”
“I don’t care if many of the people in the trans movement might be victims, caught up in a cult, being exploited, some of whom were targeted since early childhood, many of whom will end up severely disabled, quite a few of whom will commit suicide. It’s too incomprehensible for me to care. It’s a small number of people way off somewhere else, far from me and mine, so why do people make such a fuss?”
And with this guy, it’s worse than “I don’t care.” It’s “I can’t understand.” He can’t even fathom what unsavoury business might be going on under the shroud he’s thrown over “transgender.”
Well, of course every single crook, charlatan, and predator is going to adopt the label “transgender” if everyone else is making a big show out of how incomprehensible, mysterious, and magical the trans people are. Isn’t that what every messed up person always wanted? An invincibility shield, or an invisibility cloak?
I think all those comic book movies the culture is marinating in have gotten to everyone’s heads. They’re treating “transgender” like a superhero costume. As if trans-identifying people are special superhumans, the fucking X-Men.
And of course, super villains are taking note and dressing the part.
Put me in the “I no longer care” camp, this is natural selection imposing its will on the stupid. I do understand well why other people do, especially post cancellation but I’m not sure I should be all that interested in this small minority if they’re not in my space. Really the “it’s just a small number” is the only one of their arguments that is even mildly persuasive.
I shan’t be indulging their bullshit any time soon but it’s hard to be constantly stroking out over it. America First takes up so much more headspace.
BKiSA, it is much easier not to ‘stroke out about it’ if you are male. It is women who are being told to give up their rights to the ‘small minority’. No, they are not in your space, they are in mine…and Ophelia’s…and tigger’s…and other women who are no longer able to be safe or to have privacy.
Women don’t have the luxury or the privilege of shutting out the TiMs in favor of other issues; we have to consider this one on top of all the others we have to think about. Saying it is natural selection is bogus. I am a scientist, and I know how natural selection works. This is cultural, not natural. It is an imposition by a small minority on everyone else, and it is not being passed down through the genes or the other means of natural selection.
If you are only able to care when they are in your space, you might need to get a compassion transfusion. I care about a lot of things where no one is in my space. In this issue, they happen to be in my space. My school implemented a policy of not being allowed to say to a male bodied person, no matter how large, how bearded, or how predatory, that they were in the wrong bathroom when they were in the women’s. I had to deal with that for nearly a decade before I retired. Sexual assault is a real thing, and large men are being put into women’s prisons, many of the men sexual predators in jail for sexual crimes. Fully intact males are claiming to be females and waving their penises around in bathrooms with young girls; you might think this isn’t so big a deal, but when there is no other options for the girls but to accept the males, when there are no changing rooms or bathrooms available where men are not allowed, they are forced to accept what in any other situation would be regarded as sexual assault.
It must be nice to have the luxury and the privilege to be able to say with the entitled portion of society that they are not ‘in my space’ and wash your hands of it. Fine. Don’t care. Don’t give a damn. But don’t come in and lecture the rest of us who do care, the rest of us who give a damn. If you have a real argument about why we shouldn’t care, present it. But don’t come in and wave your entitlement in our faces. We’re already having to deal with that from the TiMs and their allies.
BKiSA and iknklast: I propose one of those “compromises” people are so keen on.
Those “little people over there” can both feel free to sterilize themselves (let natural selection take its course, inasmuch as ignorant narcissism is genetic) and stay out of my space (as an adult human female who is ignorant of neither reality nor statistics).
Seriously: I think you two are actually in agreement, just sort of talking past each other. BKiSA you seem to just be referring solely to the self-mutilation involved, while iknklast you are considering the broader picture of the legalities around self-identification beyond individuals having surgery and other modifications that allow them to “pass” as the sex they are not. Please correct me if I’m wrong!
While iknklast is correct that I am without compassion, when I say I don’t care that’s all I mean. If the trans genocide was a real thing I’d be copacetic.
My voting record is entirely consistent with not indulging the trannies and will continue to be so (and really, what else is there?) but there are oh so many things to worry about in this world and only so much emotional bandwidth, especially if you want to feel ok.
Thank you, iknklast.
I do understand the need for disengagement from matters which do not directly affect me, and over which I have no control, in order to maintain some peace of mind; but then I don’t go wading into a discussion about those matters, between people who are affected and care deeply, to announce that I can’t bring myself to care.
It’s not the tiny number of adults with dysphoria, attempting the impossible by any means, who are the major problem we’re dealing with here. It’s the much larger group of adults who are imposing a cult of unreality on all of society, on pain of ostracism, death and rape threats, cancelling from gigs, loss of employment, harassment by the police, etc., if anyone dares to complain. It’s the predatory men, especially sex offenders, who are taking advantage of the lack of interest in the cult of unreality by those as yet unaffected to invade women’s spaces and take their careers, opportunities, privacy, dignity, and peace of mind. It’s the fact that most media and even political parties and police forces are now regularly lying about the sex of people in the news, particularly offenders, making it impossible to trust anything we read. Most of all, it’s the rapists who are continuing to rape after conviction because they are being incarcerated with women; the adult male predators masturbating in front of girls in their own changing rooms before cheating at their sports and stealing their medals; adult male voyeurs in rape counselling sessions; boys terrifying, assaulting, and raping girls in the toilets at school; and children being brainwashed into believing that they absolutely need to allow adults to poison and mutilate them in service to the cult, or they’ll die (specifically, that they’ll kill themselves).
There are plenty of men who can easily ignore the cruelty, until something happens a bit closer to home. Perhaps a man gets violent because you ‘misgendered’ him, and when the police are called, they side with him and arrest you for hate crime. If you are a gay man, you might be tricked into becoming a victim of sexual assault by deception, by a woman pretending to be male. Or it might simply be the basic matter of being unable to state obvious facts without the rampant mobs, supported by weight of the law, coming down on you with their full might.
Enjoy the temporary luxury of being able to avoid caring. It won’t last long.
So no lecturing and I certainly validate your feelings, just emotional apathy.
They do enjoy trotting out the ‘they’re so outnumbered!’ line whenever it suits them to present trans people as oppressed, but note the rapidity with which they do a 180 when given conversation demands it. Whenever they feel the need to present trans people as too ubiquitous to be dismissed from political consideration or similar, suddenly they’re all ‘trans people are as numerous as redheads! You’d never ignore redheads, would you?’ and ‘trans people are in all walks of society!’ and ‘you’ve probably walked by many trans people and never even noticed!’ and ‘trans people were widely known in historical times and cultures!’
A posture for every rhetorical requirement.
#5
Are any cases of that known?
@Athel,
A woman impersonating a man tried to have sex with me at a darkened leather bar in Berlin once. She was definitely trying to conceal her sex while aggressively trying to engage in sex with me. I was very bothered by it. And the apps like Grindr are flooded with women pretending to be gay men now. The apps encourage it: you’re not allowed to acknowledge anyone’s sex anymore; it’s an instant lifetime ban if you ever mention biological sex.
So there are definitely lots of attempts by women to have sex with gay men without revealing that they’re female. For the most part, it’s obvious that they’re women, if not by their pictures online, then definitely once you get up close with them in person. So they get rebuffed by all but the bisexuals, plus a brand new cohort of straight men who linger on gay dating apps, pretending to be gay in order to lure the women pretending to be gay men. (Everyone’s pretending to be us these days!)
But add alcohol and dim lighting to the mix and surely a few gay men are getting fooled. I doubt that I was the first or the last man that woman at the bar in Berlin went after.