Guest post: What’s in it for the captured and subservient institutions?
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Historians will.
…knowingly pushing Genderist (or other generally divisive) policies, ideology, and rhetoric prioritizes support for those things over victory.
The bolded part is the part I don’t get, and is the core ingredient of the dictum I’ve noted here on a number of occasions: “Every organization that embraces trans ideology turns to shit.” How is it that these institutions (or at least some sufficiently powerful, decision-making fraction of them) have been able to so completely delude themselves that genderism is in any way progressive, and are willing to maintain that belief in light of the manifest harms to women, children, lesbians and gays, (whom one would expect to be the normal beneficiaries of progressive attention)?
They can’t not know that these harms are happening. Depending on their degree of support for the trans “rights” that are causing these harms, they have to discount, downplay, or ignore them. They also now have a vested interest in getting others to do the same, whether it be through (mis)information, or actual enforcement. This deliberate institutional suppression and disregard for the injury and distress caused by their support of trans “rights” will often run counter to the organization’s original mandate and reason for being. It inevitably results in a bewildering, Kafkaesque “opposite world” of inherently contradictory and antithetical consequences for the “allies’” own operations. We end up with self-censoring news media failing to report fully and honestly about gender issues; prison systems offering incarcerated male sexual predators more female victims. Health systems eroding the clarity and accuracy of communications by removing the word “women” from bulletins nominally meant to alert women of health risks; sports federations forcing women and girls to play alongside and against men, thereby risking injury and disability; rape crisis centers refusing to offer exclusively female care or spaces; organizations originally established to win and protect the rights of gays and lesbians which have dropped same-sex attraction in favour of enforcing a homophobic same gender attraction based agenda. All of these end points are perverse inversions of the original, normal functions of these bodies. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. TWAW.
Again, I return to my real question. I can almost see what the gender zealots within these bodies and agencies get in return for essentially destroying the credibility and reputation of the organizations they’ve shackled to the cause of trans “rights”: woke cookies and the happy glow of militant self- righteousness in fighting for a Good Cause. I imagine that people have betrayed more for much less than that. But what’s in it for the captured and subservient institutions themselves? What’s the payoff? Why do they let this happen in the first place? Why do they let it continue, once the price being paid (by both the institutions and the innocent victims they’re supposed to ignore) becomes clearer? How far will sunk cost fallacy take you away from what you’re supposed to be doing before you finally admit the costs are truly sunk? How does an organization benefit from having its purpose turned around 180 degrees to make it go backwards? Who outside of trans activism (and the trans medico-pharmaceutical industrial complex), actually benefits from associating themselves with this cause?
What’s in it for the captured and subservient institutions and businesses, particularly those organizations which violate their very purpose in order to promote trans “liberation?” Where’s the benefit?
I’ve seen a lot of good answers to this, but the one I keep coming back to focuses on the word “captured.” They really believe it. Enough people at the top, in influential positions, or throughout the organization really do believe it. A broad, tolerant, scientific view of what makes someone a man or woman isn’t limited to their reproductive system. TWAW; TMAM. And once we slip the new facts into the equation, the question disappears because all the former negative outcomes become an ill-informed or hostile resistance which of course this institution ought to help overcome.
It’s like religion. Why would loving parents refuse to allow their child a life-saving blood transfusion? Because they know not doing so will cause their child more pain in the long run. The Spiritual world is not only real, but the reality which matters. They aren’t monsters who adopted the religion to excuse child abuse. They’re normal people in the grip of a monstrous ideology that distorts interpretation.
Thus, the National Organization for Women (Non-Men) is fighting for ALL women, especially those being discriminated against because of their gender identity. The businesses fight discrimination too — because it’s the right thing to do and history will vindicate it and profits will reflect that. If someone who was completely ignorant about the fact that “transgender woman” means “man” — instead thought it meant “woman who doesn’t meet arbitrary beauty standards of what a proper woman should look like” — were faced with the question of benefits, they’d be confused. Isn’t it obvious? It’s the new civil rights issue. Do better.
I don’t think it’s particularly hard to understand why the captured institutions seem act so captured. Trans ideology is appealing and hits all the right buttons if you’re not a shallow, hateful person who looks deeper than what’s on the glittery surface. The really hard part I think is what the hell to do about it at this point. Reality will out and all, but the wheels of the gods turn slowly.
You mean if you’re not a shallow, hateful person who fails to look deeper, right?
If they really do believe it, we have a new question, which is “how”?
It’s not as if it’s an easy thing to believe.
No, that part was meant to be sarcastic. I should have used quotes and written “ Trans ideology is appealing and hits all the right buttons if you’re not a ‘shallow, hateful person’ who looks deeper than what’s on the glittery surface.”
I think it IS an easy thing to believe — under the right conditions. It may take a certain amount of shallowness, but I don’t think it takes hate. There are so many little slippery slopes to fall down. Being trans is like being gender nonconforming. Being trans is like being gay. Being trans is like being intersex. Being trans is like having a physical disability.
Kids who are trans are in pain. All trans people are in agony. Sometimes we hide our true selves from other people when we acquiesce. Sometimes things are more complicated than they seem. The arc of human history is towards inclusion and acceptance. The arc of scientific understanding is to overset established ideas. Changing your mind when the authorities are all in agreement is wise. Changing your mind when faced with a need for kindness and compassion is good.
And of course, let’s not forget that looking to see what rightwing conservative religious people believe and then believing the opposite is a good rule of thumb when it comes to avoiding error. Couple all that with the results of those experiments where subjects in a group of stooges who were all identifying line B as longer than line A not only did the same but actually seemed to believethat a 5 inch line A was shorter than a 4.25 inch line B — and you’ve got a recipe for disaster: an easy mistake to make.
But the little slippery slopes don’t get us to “this man is literally a woman.” They get us to places like “we ought to get on board to be supportive” and the like, but not to the actual belief that sex is not a fact but a decision.