Strip away what now?
We keep bumping into the black box issue. It is, of course, one of the core problems with this ridiculous ideology/mooovement – pinning down wtf it’s about, what it expects, what in hell it’s talking about. What, exactly, do you mean by “trans rights”? What do you mean by “equality”? How do you know any of the claims you make are true or reasonable or compatible with other people’s rights? Where do you get all this?
Case in point:
What, exactly, are these “trans rights” that people are stripping away?
Until we’re informed, I suppose we have to assume it’s the usual nonsense about being “affirmed” as what they are not. But that’s not a right. I know I’ve said that several billion times, but it doesn’t get said enough by other people. There is no such thing as a right to be “affirmed” as X with X being “whatever you say you are.” I don’t have any right to say I’m a tree or a piano or a bag of tortilla chips and force everyone else to affirm what I say. That’s not a right; it bears no resemblance to a right.
Maybe he means also, or instead, the rights that would flow from that affirmation? The right to be hired for jobs that only women can do, the right to go into places that are reserved for women, the right to enter contests for women, the right to compete against women in swimming and volleyball and cycling and above all boxing.
But that putative right would depend on the authenticity of the first right, the right to be “affirmed” as the sex you’re not, and that is not a right.
It’s odd that so many people pretend it is a right. Maybe we just haven’t talked about it enough yet. How is it a right for men to force everyone to agree that they’re women? (It applies with the sexes reversed too of course, but the violations of real rights are much less glaring and grotesque when it’s women claiming to be men.) Seriously: how is that a right? Please explain.
There’s been plenty of talking, but those who believe that this is a right aren’t listening. They’ve been busy screaming “NO DEBATE!” , trying to silence those who have been trying to talk, and scaring off those who might dare listen. It’s as if hearing the words breaks the spell and makes the magic go away. The faithful get rewarded for their zeal in denouncing heretics, submerging any doubts or questions they themselves might have by attacking those who don’t believe at all.
The only avenue I can see that would get people past the huge underlying category error is through “being kind” to a friend or family member who’s fallen for the delusion. At that point there’s a personal stake, and I could see how one might throw over reason and reality in favour of loyalty and love, in the belief that this would be the best way to support the friend or loved one. The other avenues to this stance all come across as pious, unthinking agreement, cynical self-interested opportunism, or a desperate attempt to avoid unpleasant blowback from zealots and their “allies.” Certainly the ability to brush off, dismiss, and shut down discussion of the actual harms inflicted by this ideology on women and children speaks to a willing, callous, blindness on the part of those defending it. How many other rights movements rely on the combination of dishonesty, intimidation, and cruelty exhibited by the trans “rights” brigade?
The no debate position allows everyone in this collection of variously pious, cynical, and frightened people to carry on as if they were one big happy “community” without having to explain or justify their positions (to themselves, each other, or the world at large), as one would normally expect of a movement which has sought and achieved such wide-ranging changes to the law and other institutions under their influence. Having won this ground, however unjustly and illegitimately, they can portray any rollback as an “erosion” of trans “rights.” And if they can, they will try to do so without having to be accountable for any of it, by playing “the most victimized, beleaguered minority ever” card. Again.
We really don’t even have a right to be affirmed as what we are. People have the freedom to see us through their own eyes, and to those who believe women are feminine and domestic, they have the right to view me as less than a woman. What they don’t have a right to do is take away my rights as a woman; they are entitled to their own opinion, but that’s it.
I feel like I spend every weekend writing “Be specific!” as feedback for dozens of students… maybe should just yell that back at the “No debate!” brigade :-P
Um … What? By protected, what precisely the fuck do you mean? Protected as in the general protections for freedom of conscience? Because in that sense, homophobia is already protected. Protected as in special protections over and above other beliefs? I’m not sure if any beliefs ought to be privileged in such fashion. If any even merit consideration, they’re those that are crucial to the continued existence of the State, and I don’t think you’re going to be making a compelling case for Genderism in that context.
Nullius, I am sure he is referring to the ruling in the Maya Forstater case, which said that gender-critical views are a “protected philosophical belief”.
I don’t know about the UK, but in the US, homophobia is protected as a belief. ‘Sincere’ religious beliefs are protected by our courts, because of the constitution (though who gets to decide if it’s sincere is still up for debate). What is not protected are actions; mass murders in gay nightclubs are not a protected action, though apparently refusing to make a wedding cake is (I’m ambivalent about that one; since it’s a private business, the decision was probably right, even if abhorrent in the result).
@Nullius
Yes, “protected” as in, your employer can’t fire you for expressing your belief.