Common decency would argue
Scotland’s LGBT community is frightened by the current anti-trans obsession screams the headline on a story by Josh Mennie.
I NEVER picked a “side” – I was born this way. Common decency would argue that a group of people put into the continuous, never-ending, daily cycle of defending their existence should not be simply classed as a “side”. For many of us, this “side” was never a choice. However, undermining LGBT+ rights and inclusion – the other side in the so-called debate – is a choice.
Born what way? Born “identifying as” the other sex? Nobody is born “identifying as” anything. Are there gender dysphoric infants? If so how does anyone know? How do the infants know? Infants don’t know their sex, or their “gender,” so how would they know they’re in the Wrong Body for their real sex?
Nobody puts any people in any never-ending cycle of “defending their existence” – that’s just the usual hyperbole that’s used to try to lash people into feeling ever more lachrymose sympathy for people who spend too much time thinking about themselves.
It never really was the gender debate, though. More like a misinformation war, targeting a particular sector of the LGBT+ community by divide-and-conquer tactics.
No, it’s the other way around. The T has nothing to do with the LG, and should never have been added on. Same-sex attraction and delusions about one’s own sex are completely different things.
Society is being stirred up by hate and discrimination toward a minority group. Looking back in history, every time a group has been demonised like this without challenge, it ends in absolute disaster. We have multiple historical examples of how people’s minds buy into irrational hate campaigns toward a minority grouping. Just open your history books – you won’t need to read very far.
He’s clearly never read very far in any book, because if he had he wouldn’t write so badly. It’s also clear that he knows nothing about history – “it ends in absolute disaster” is the kind of hand-waving you do when you haven’t read the homework assignment. “Can you be more specific?” “Really really bad disaster!”
This is real now. We are at a point in history where LGBT+ organisations, rape crises centres, and almost every organisation which uses trans inclusive language are being hounded to the extent it is impacting the work they do – and for what? Is it because they had the audacity to provide services to people daring to be trans? Trans people have existed for millennia. It shouldn’t be controversial anymore.
They’re not being hounded, and what it’s for is the preservation of women’s rights, including the right to avoid men when they need the rape crisis centre. That’s for what. Narcissistic twerps who think they think they think they’re in the wrong body are not a good reason to force women to share their spaces with men in the wake of sexual violence.
The argument that trans rights are eroding women’s rights is the mantra from people who cannot specify which rights would actually be eroded.
Oh yes we can. The right to women-only spaces and institutions. The right to have jobs and awards and prizes for women continue to be for women, not women and men who claim to be women – just women. The right to talk about women, and to read newspapers and magazines and books that continue to use the word “women” instead of the generic “people.” The right not to be erased from public discourse. The right not to be called “the birthing parent.” The right to have feminist organizations and institutions that are just for women. The right of women to focus on women’s issues instead of constantly being prodded to be more “inclusive” of male people. Rights of that kind. We know all too well what rights we mean.
We laugh as you do, bleed the same, cry as you will.
Yeah blah blah blah you once read a comic book version of The Merchant of Venice, go you. Nobody says you don’t, but that’s not the issue. The issue is your relentless attempts to colonize women and your refusal to take “no” for an answer. There’s a word for that.
Actually, I am willing to say they don’t bleed the same. Men don’t have periods. Any bleeding they do is different. And has never been demonized.
And “demonized without challenge” – seriously? Women are being dogpiled on Twitter, Facebook, wherever they go for merely thinking women are the only women. There is challenge to the GC Feminists – not just from trans activists, but from the media. Movie stars. Politicians. Friends. Family. GC feminists are the ones under siege, and we are largely without allies, except other GC feminists.
Why can’t they just stare at themselves in a pond, for chrissake?
“Laugh as you do” but “cry as you will”. That sounds like a threat of violence to me.
Am I the only one seeing the spirit of determinism in the “trans people have existed for millenia” vs. the “blank slateism” these people usually profess?
iknklast: They can’t just stare in a pond, because ponds are transphobic, always showing something that looks like their sex. That’s why they have to get everyone else to look in the pond and tell them they’re stunning and brave women.
Nullius, are you saying that in a pond they don’t pass?
Mike: The watery mirror doesn’t lie, unlike allies.
@3: What do you mean by “blank slateism”?
Don’t even joke about it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Merchant-Venice-Manga-Shakespeare-William/dp/0955816912
Oh I wasn’t joking, comic book versions go back decades.
GW @ 7 – Google can answer your question.
@BKiSA #3
I was going to say those are different people, but no, I think you have point. “Nature” and “nurture” each get used when convenient, despite “everything is nature” (“born this way”) and “everything is nurture” (blank slate, socially constructed) rhetoric being in conflict.
“That male people who claim to be women ARE women shouldn’t be controversial anymore. We’ve told you and told you and TOLD you. What more do you need?
(You’re on fire today, Ophelia.)
Great piece!
Aw shucks.
GC feminists don’t undermine lesbians and gay men, we rely on them! Many of us are L or G allies. I think trans activists have been most cruel towards lesbians who are called homophobic if they won’t do lady dicks (heard of same sex attraction, anyone)? The only reason to resist trans activists (apart from the fact that lots of them are violent misogynists) is because their attempts to pretend they are real women undermine the rights of the majority of the population (women) to safety, privacy and dignity, and will erase the whole concept of women. Fine and revolutionary if you want to undermine the whole of society, but not fair or right.