But whose dignity?
Screechy Monkey alerted us to a piece by Matt Yglesias on trans issues. It’s far from the usual disdain and hatred for all who don’t obey all The Imperatives, but it is more cheery about the whole subject than I think is quite justified. He starts from a column by Jamelle Bouie that emphasizes dignity.
Bouie skillfully elevates these controversies out of the weeds and into the level of principle — “in the democratic ideal, we meet one another in the public sphere as political and social equals, imbued with dignity and entitled to the same rights and privileges” — and argues persuasively for a politics of dignity. He notes that while we best know Frederick Douglass as an anti-slavery activist and advocate for racial equality, he was a broad-minded and forward-thinking visionary who fought for a range of causes that he saw as linked by the quest for human dignity. This loops back to a call for solidarity:
The denial of dignity to one segment of the political community, then, threatens the dignity of all. This was true for Douglass and his time — it inspired his support for women’s suffrage and his opposition to the Chinese Exclusion Act — and it is true for us and ours as well. To deny equal respect and dignity to any part of the citizenry is to place the entire country on the road to tiered citizenship and limited rights, to liberty for some and hierarchy for the rest.
Equal respect is one thing, and equal dignity is another. It sounds like a good and progressive idea, but it gives me pause. I certainly don’t want to run around depriving people of dignity that they have, but on the other hand I’m not sure I’m required to ignore the fact that people have abandoned dignity. This is part of the problem – it’s why the trans issue is different from its predecessors. The trans ideology rejects dignity. In other words it’s hard to nod along to passionate defenses of the dignity of trans people when so many trans people make such silly absurd claims. You know? This is one of the stumbling blocks after all – the whole game of let’s pretend, the dressing up, the endless photos, the bizarro-world truth claims. None of that is really anyone else’s business on its own, but when it’s shoved at us…it’s made our business.
There’s also the fact that trans women can be a massive threat to the dignity of women, and way too many have no qualms about that whatever. Way too many of them rejoice at it. So, given the current circumstances, I’m not convinced that the rest of us are the problem when it comes to the dignity of trans people.
I would add, with a gesture at Judith Shklar, that decent people are on guard against the politics of cruelty. Cruelty can be tempting and it can be fun, but even the worst of us know that cruelty is wrong. So there are always people seeking a higher justification for their cruelty, a reason that being an asshole is actually a high-minded undertaking serving some crucial purpose. And today’s backlash to trans rights clearly involves people doing this — bullies and wannabe bullies being jerks for sport.
But some trans activists are cruel, especially to women. The backlash no doubt involves some people being cruel, but at the core it’s about the damage to women’s rights, and the harms and risks to children and adolescents. It’s very much not clear that all the cruelty comes from people who resist trans ideology, and none of it comes from the ideologues themselves.
Yglesias acknowledges some of that (with nervous caution), but he also skips briskly over the thornier issues.
The vast majority of trans adults are, after all, not competitive athletes or otherwise implicated in these edge-case questions. They want what they are entitled to, which is to be treated with dignity and respect and to be allowed to live their lives as they see fit.
But wait. What does “living their lives” mean? If it means being forcibly “included” in everything women do or have, whether women consent or not, then I disagree that they’re “entitled” to do so. Living their lives as they see fit in private, of course, but when they’re in public and shoving women aside with threats and disregard of our dignity, then no. Yglesias waves at that point from very far away, but he doesn’t really engage with it.
That line absolutely leaped out at me, in its absurdity. Plenty of people “see fit” to live their lives in ways that are dangerous to others, or dangerously illegal to themselves and society. The drunk who wants to feed his habit and drive home from the bar every night, intoxicated. The abusive husband who wants to live as the master of his house and wife. The Russian tyrant who wants to absorb a free country into his antiquated vision of a great empire. The list goes on. There’s no reason why we must accommodate the desires of people like that to injure and abuse us.
Two nights ago I was watching a TV Game show (Hard Quiz). I am certain one of the 4 contestants (Rach) was a TIM. The Adam’s Apple bob bob bob along was the clue.
Maybe I was wrong.
But either way, I didn’t care because that contestant wasn’t there because of their gender, but because they passed the audition. That contestant played the game and didn’t use it as a platform to proselytise or claim special status. I was also disappointed when Rach was eliminated early as I had backed Rach to make the final round.
The homophobic, misogynist cult of TRAs and MRAs is doing all the damage to trans people that they claim is being done by GC women and men.
Trans people exist, and they deserve to live their lives without bias or prejudice, and yes, with dignity. The only obstacle to them doing this is from people like Idiart Wannabee, Hatey Montgomery, Owned Jones, Sham Smith, et al.
James – yeah. I think people think it implies “private” – as in “live their private lives as they see fit.” But it doesn’t.
I won’t presume to speak for Yglesias, but to me, treating trans people with dignity means:
1) Calling them by their preferred name and pronouns (Within reason. Let’s not get into silly hypotheticals about someone demanding to be called “Your Worshipfulness”)
2) Not discriminating in employment, housing, etc. — setting aside the question of how to address jobs, housing, or government services that are intended to be for a particular sex, I’m speaking of situations where a cis man or a cis woman would be acceptable
3) Allowing mentally competent adults to make decisions about their own bodies, and not deeming trans identity to be a de facto sign of incompetence
This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, of course. But I don’t include things like “never disagree with the concepts of gender identity or trans identity,” “supporting maximal self-ID for all legal purposes,” “allow trans women in women’s sports or women-only spaces,” “shun everyone who I call a transphobe,” etc.
I’m well aware that (1) and possibly (3) put me in the minority here; I’m not sure about (2). Which is fine, I’m not complaining or trying to chastise you all, just offering a perspective.
I am baffled by Matty Iglesias and Jamelle Bouie and Aaron Rupar and Ken White who just don’t see the conflict for women trying to live their lives with dignity. They see it as a conservative vs liberal issue, and so of course they take the liberal side. No consideration for women at all. No consideration about the wisdom of enabling children to undergo irreversible surgery.
Musing on Screechy @ 5 – Is that really treating them with dignity though? That’s part of the stumbling block for me. In other contexts it definitely wouldn’t be. Adults don’t want their fantasies or games of pretend humored that way, should they have such fantasies or games. Adults don’t make special counter-intuitive name and pronoun requests (let alone demands). It would feel like the opposite of dignity to do so. “My name is Queen Elizabeth.” “My name is Bugs Bunny.” “My name is W. C. Fields.” “My name is Madonna.” That sort of thing is seen as either delusional or extremely childish…except when it’s magic gender. It’s strange that magic gender has carved out this one exception, and it’s even stranger to call that “dignity.” It’s more like indulgence or pampering, on the grounds that the person indulged is just that fragile.
I mean, I know the rules are different for trans people, of course, and we’re supposed to see calling them by their preferred name and pronouns as an exception to the unstated rule that we don’t do that with adults, but…………I still don’t get how the rules changed so fast and completely and without room for dissent.
Ophelia,
But that’s just it. You’re coming at this from the perspective of “I know what’s correct and not correct, and your views are not correct, and so I am going to repeatedly point that out to you personally because that’s what I think is kind.” Telling someone that they are delusional is not respectful, and it’s not treating them with dignity. It may, in certain circumstances, depending on the nature of the alleged delusion and your relationship to them, be appropriate, because dignity isn’t always the supreme value.
I think that religious people are incorrect. I think the ones who think that God is speaking to them are delusional. And I have no issue with someone writing a book or op-ed or other statement expressing that view, and if a religious person really wants to press me on the point, I will say that yeah, I think you’re delusional, if you must know. But it would never occur to me to respond to someone saying “God bless you,” with a lecture on how they’re delusional and there is no god — that’s the kind of absurd thing that Gnu Atheists got accused of supporting but none that I knew of actually endorsed.
An example I’m stealing from the Yglesias comments section: let’s say Catholic Charlie believes that no divorces are valid (whether you’re Catholic or not). That’s fine, that’s Charlie’s view, and he’s got a right to it, and there’s no reason in principle why divorced and remarried people couldn’t be on good terms with him notwithstanding their difference on that point, because they respect each other’s differing views without in any way showing a lack of confidence in their own. But if Charlie corrects Sam every time he refers to his current wife as “my wife” and says “no, she’s your mistress who you’re committing adultery with, your wife is (Sam’s ex),” then I’d say Charlie is being a dick and not respecting Sam and his wife.
And honestly, when you refer to people like Montgomery by their birth sex, you’re not doing it out of respect for their dignity, or kindness, or a desire to help them wake up from a delusion, are you? I would find that difficult to believe.
I mean, as I recall, a few years ago you and most of the commenters here used people’s preferred pronouns as a courtesy. You reversed your position because you said that you felt that it was conceding some important rhetorical or philosophical ground.
Screechy, no I’m not – I’m not coming at this from the perspective of correcting people – I’m coming at it from the perspective of not wanting to be ordered to play along with other people’s fantasies about themselves. I certainly wouldn’t want to get into it face to face…but I also wouldn’t want to be expected to go along with the let’s pretend face to face. I’d rather avoid the whole thing.
You seem to see it as an imposition not to use the specialty pronouns? But what about the imposition of ordering people to use specialty pronouns? Why are non-believers the ones who have to defer?
When I refer to people like Montgomery by their birth sex I’m not doing it out of kindness in particular, no, but I’m also not doing it in hopes of bothering them. (I have zero reason to think Montgomery reads what I write.) I’m doing it in Montgomery’s case mostly because he’s a man who noisily hates women so no, I’m not going to play his game.
Where does “You’re coming at this from the perspective of “I know what’s correct and not correct, and your views are not correct, and so I am going to repeatedly point that out to you personally because that’s what I think is kind.”” even come from? I’m not talking about personal conversations, I’m talking about public discourse. I’m really not going to point out to Monty that Monty’s views are incorrect – I don’t chat with him. I think I did a few times ages ago, but that was because he used to comment on my column at The Freethinker, so I would reply.
Screechy, I don’t want to be kind anymore. It’s a one way street. While I’m politely calling Katy Montgomerie she and her, KM’s Twitter feed is full of abuse of women.
In Scotland, there was a massive argument about whether a rapist should be placed in a women’s prison. That’s where using pronouns have got us.
Trans rights are allowing men with AGP to over-ride the safety and dignity of women. That’s a long way from using feminine pronouns for a gender non- conforming man to be kind, where we started.
Young girls are having double mastectomies and taking drugs that have irreversible effects on their bodies. That’s not freeing anyone.
There’s a massive conflict. Women’s rights and safety are being over-ridden but Ophelia calls KM a man and that’s the problem?
Holy cow, whence comes this fragility?
I’ve stood at a podium at a conference after giving a professional presentation and listened to strangers at the microphones set up in the aisles tell me that “you’re out of your damned mind”, and yet I somehow managed to continue to live without withering into a pile of self-pity at their lack of respect for my dignity. If someone telling you that you’re delusional affects your feelings of dignity and self-worth, maybe it’s because you need to work on yourself, not because of their supposed disrespect.
I’ve been watching the whole brouhaha over the NYTimes article on gender medicine for kids, the letter signed by other journalists, even SCIENCE journalists, and now the backlash to the reasonable letter from the editor in response (basically, “we’re going to keep doing journalism, thanks.” And rightfully so.) I have unfollowed so many people because of this because it is just too much to bear, people I like but for this one gigantic blind spot. They cannot see the homophobia and misogyny at the heart of this movement. Or don’t want to because they, generally liberal people, cannot even accidentally be on the same side as a conservative on any issue. So they double down.
It’s all well and good to treat people as they want to be treated, but what they want is impossible. They real way to give all of these folks dignity is to treat their various mental comorbidities appropriately and not simply tell them what they want to hear.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to change this.
(shrug) Then you won’t complain if people call you a transphobe and an asshole, right? (I am not calling you that, to be clear.) You’re not fragile, so everything is fair game and there are no standards of behavior?
I thought immediately of that Ontario shop teacher who insisis on “expressing” his “gender identity” by wearing massive, prosthetic breasts to work, forcing the students nominally under his care (and everyone else in the school) to participate in his fetish. I’ll bet he insists on using the women’s washroom, too. Who’s being the cruel asshole here? Who’s the bully? Who’s being oppressed?
It is shocking that he has both the school board and the teacher’s union on his side, enforcing his “right” to continue this misogynistic performance that victimizes everyone subjected to it. It’s not “right wing” or “bigoted” or “bullying” to resist and oppose this degraded and degrading behaviour. How quickly would he have been sacked if he had come to school dressed as an over-the-top, racist, caricatured version of a Black, Chinese, or East Asian person? He wouldn’t have lasted until lunchtime. But put on a pair of huge, pornified tits with erect nipples and you’re golden. Because, clearly, offensive lampooning of women is just fine. “Whose dignity ?” indeed.
This man is sick and needs to be taken out of the classroom and kept away from minors. He should be dismissed by the school board. If the board gets taken to court to explain and defend its actions, it would be money well spent, particularly if it set a precedent that would prevent other predatory men from doing the same. Make no mistake. This is predatory behaviour. You don’t have to touch anyone to harm them. He is forcing himself on minors who are legally bound to be in his class, and doing so just as surely as if he were a flasher exposing himself. He’s turned his students into props in his fantasy. Teachers don’t get to do that. Ever. Their first duty is to their students, not to getting their sick kicks. If someone can’t see the harm in what this teacher is doing, then they have no business being on a school board, in a classroom, or in a teachers’ union.
I’m not going to call him by his preferred pronouns. He doesn’t get to tell me, or anyone else how we are to recieve his gift of grotesquery. He doesn’t get to make me or anyone else lie to satisfy his fetish. Having willfully violated the dignity of those he has forced and continues to force to publicly participate in his kink, he has no right to demand dignity and respect from anyone until he stops this sick charade.
Pronouns are Rohypnol https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/
Screechy @ 13 – Yes there are standards of behavior. Is one of them that I have to call Katy Montgomerie “she” on my blog? Not face to face, not at a dinner party, but here?
Let me try again to clarify where this is going off the rails. Screechy @ 7:
I’m not doing that.
I’m not Charlie correcting Sam. I’m Charlie having a view about divorce, I’m not Charlie who “corrects Sam every time he refers to his current wife as “my wife” and says “no, she’s your mistress who you’re committing adultery with.” I’m Charlie talking about divorce on his blog, NOT Charlie getting up in Sam’s face. I don’t know how much more clearly I can say this.
Complain? Sure, I’ll complain, because I dislike living around such miserable, petty whiners. I won’t claim that it affects my sense of dignity. People call me both things all the time. Fuck’em. Their fragility is not my problem.
But what’s happening is a lot more than mere conversational pedantry. But it does start with language. News reports “respecting pronouns” make it look like there’s a sharp rise in women committing sex crimes, simply because the stories refere to male offenders as “she.” That’s hiding the truth. That’s taking a side in a political debate while passing it off as neutrality, hidden in a style guide and “respect.” Humans can’t change sex, and pretending they can will not lead to anywhere good. Using preferred pronouns is at the heart of that lie, that distortion, that indoctrination. It’s not where this ends, but where it begins. It’s not a matter of “politeness” or “dignity,” for an oppressed minority, it’s an assertion of male power, privilege, and entitlement. It’s putting men into women’s prisons; it’s dismantling female only spaces, dating apps, lesbian festivals, to women’s single-sex rape shelters. But of course it’s actually much worse to mention that these things are being done to women than it is to actually do them.
Trans identified males are not women. Never have been, never will be. Indulging them in their delusion that they are is dangerous to women. See above. It has been pointed out over and over how gender self-ID is a green light to sexual predators, but this has always been brushed aside and branded a pretext to hate trans people. Trans activists have proven more than willing to accept a massive degree of collateral damage to women in order to satisfy their desires. Their attitude is “Suck it up, buttercup, we’ll see you in the loo, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it. We will punish you, and bully, you and shame you if you don’t comply. And just so you know we mean business, we don’t care if that means that it will be a lot easier for men to assault you, and rape you, and kill you. We want what we want. If that means over your dead bodies, so be it. We can live with that.”” Anyone who’s been reading Butterflies and Wheels knows that this is not hyperbole, or exaggeration. That attitude has been made blindingly clear to anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention to how this has been playing out. If trans activists want respect and dignity, then they should fucking well show some to women, rather than simply demanding it from them as their due. Until women’s legitimate concerns are given a fair, open and honest hearing, then trans activists have no right to demand anything at all, not even pronouns. Especially not pronouns. I refuse to play along. I refuse to lie for them. I will not prioritize males’ delusional desires over women’s health, safety, and yes, dignity. If that makes me a “transphobe” and an asshole, I can live with that.
But wouldn’t the analogy be more like us being Sam, being told by delusional Charlie what is and isn’t true? I know, you’re making the analogy of us being in their face (which we are not), but Charlie is attempting to impose his view on Sam, and insisting Sam agree and use the language of mistress rather than wife, all because of what Charlie believes. Sam is stating what is; the woman is his wife. Charlie is stating what he believes; the woman is his mistress.
Wife is a legal state, but has been larded with a lot of religious overtones that people think means their view is correct. Woman is a biological state, but has been larded with a lot of stereotypes and men who think they’re women; a lot of people accept the trans view as correct because they think it is kind, because they don’t want to be an asshole, because they want people to be happy…it doesn’t matter, they go along.
As they go along being kind, they normalize the idea that these men are women. They normalize the idea that it is possible to change sex. They normalize the idea that women’s sports, women’s prisons, women’s changing rooms, women’s shelters, and even women’s thoughts, must be colonized by these men who think they are women, because by now, everyone accepts them as women.
I treat my trans students with respect and dignity. I call them by the name they prefer; I try not to use pronouns, because I don’t want to refer to a single individual as “they”, and I don’t want to refer to an obvious man as “she”. I am a Biologist, teaching Biology. I cannot ignore biological truth so easily. But I don’t thrust my face into theirs saying “you are delusional”. That would be unprofessional and inappropriate. Plus I am in a power position in the classroom, and it would be a shitty thing to do.
But I see zero reason for doing that in any setting where you are not in a power position or needing to be a kind, decent professional. Referring to a man as a woman is adding to the delusion that it is possible to change sex, and it is normalizing something that is a threat to me and any other woman I care about.
It is always easy for men to lecture women to be nice. I have a lot of respect for Screechy, but I cannot agree with this position and I think Ophelia has often stated her reasons for not “being nice”. To me, this is no more than the nonsense fed to liberals about how we have to “understand” the conservative position. Why the fuck do I need to understand? When what that means isn’t really understand at all, but be sympathetic. I am not sympathetic, and I am tired of being nice. It has been demanded of me my entire (female) life, even as everyone else is allowed to be shitty to me, and to all the others of us being nice. I have taken off nice, just as I take off my shoes when I don’t need them.
I will not be part of turning over my rights, or those of any other woman, to the god awful trans men that want to violate the boundaries of women.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to go on a rant. Sometimes one has to vent.
It’s probably tactically useful to respect the pronoun nonsense and perhaps it’s “rude” not to but unless you’re trying to win someone over, why bother?
This blog astonishes me with the complexity and thoughtfulness of its comments. I stumbled in here a long time ago through a link with another skeptics blog and have become captivated by the commentary. It has changed the way I think about the trans issue, and I tremble to think where I’m headed next.
I, too, have trans students: in one section, a young WOMAN (there, I’ve said it) claims to be non-binary and requests that I use “they” for her. I won’t. I avoid it. I address her as “you.”
In another section, a rather large young MAN (there, I’ve done it again) goes by a woman’s name, dresses in culturally “feminine” attire and contributes thoughtful commentary to the class.
These are sections of Creative Writing. I can’t wait to see their work.
Screechy is often right about things, but is utterly wrong about this.
The TRAs have shown that there’s no way to give them what they want in the way of dignity and respect in order to get the same back; they want to trample over boundaries, and as soon as one falls, they’re going for the next. (The order of the following may vary from place to place):
If we give in on fetishistic cross-dressing, they demand bespoke pronouns;
If we give in on pronouns, they demand that we cede to them all the other words which apply to our sex;
If we let them have our words, they demand access to our toilets;
If we give them access to our toilets, they demand inclusion in women’s shortlists;
If we give them inclusion on our shortlists, they demand that they win;
If we let them win, they demand inclusion in our sports teams;
If we let them have those, they demand inclusion in our sex-specific changing rooms, showers, rape crisis centres, prisons, health services, hospital wards, dating sites, and as sexual partners.
All of those have happened and continue to happen, often simultaneously.
They will never, ever stop, because they want to take us over completely, jealous because it is a fact that they can’t become the opposite sex, and they know it. They won’t stop even when every single woman has lost every shred of dignity and respect; they won’t stop until there are no women left.
We can’t let them continue their rampage; not if we want any semblance of polite society left. We should have stopped them right at the beginning, but too many people thought that it was more important to treat psychopathic delusional narcissistic men with dignity and respect than to protect half the human race from predators.
“I didn’t think that the leopards would eat my face”…
[…] a comment by tigger_the_wing on But whose […]
Using preferred names and pronouns, referring to TIMs as a kind of “women” (more specifically the “trans” kind as opposed to the “cis” [1] kind), reframing special privileges as “rights”, reframing forced obedience as “respect” or “dignity” etc. are the Trojan horse, the foot in the door, the thin end of the wedge, the seemingly (at the time) benign concession that gets the justification spiral going:
I think something like the above is not too untypical of how people get from a (misguided, but still) sincere desire to be “kind”, treat others with “dignity” and “respect” etc. to putting dangerous rapists in women’s jails and going out of their way to destroy anyone who objects.
1. Once again, either “trans women” relate to “cis women” the way baseball bats relate to fruit bats (i.e. not at all, it’s just a bad pun), or there is no justification for equating biological females with “cis women”.
2. Unless the point is to argue for the necessity of puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, “gender affirming” surgery etc. Then
Oceania has always been at war with East-Asiachanging one’s physical features into a bad simulation of the ones associated with the other (supposedly non-existent, or at least totally irrelevant) biological sex is so vitally important that anything other than automatic affirmation in advance is “hate”, “violence”, or even “murder”.3. Needless to say, no comparable demand for clearcutness or simplicity applies to “gender identity”: Circular definitions (or no definitions at all), equivocations (a.k.a. bad puns), word-magic, proof by assertion/loudness/endless repetition etc. Anything goes.
4. Since the thing that makes both “Linda” (she/her) and the apocryphal biological females “women”, cannot be physical traits, it has to be something “internal”, a way of thinking or feeling etc. best left unspecified. Hence calling someone a “woman” (whether “cis” or “trans”) is to make an implicit claim about what’s going on inside their heads. An exception can be made for a minority of “trans men” and “non binary” people as long as no one challenges the larger framework of “male” vs. “female”, “masculine” vs. “feminine” ways of thinking and feeling.
What Mike B (#21) said.
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Obviously I still have some disagreements with many of the points made here, but there is one part where I think things got off the rails a bit from some miscommunication that is largely my fault.
I was offering my explanation of what I think is meant by respecting the dignity of trans people, and I included the example of calling people what they want to be called. What I was trying to get at in my comment @7 was the “dinner party vs. blog post” distinction that Ophelia ended up making @15 and @16 — I agree that the standards are different for face-to-face (or a direct back-and-forth on Twitter, email, comments, etc.) vs. statements made to the world at large (even if by definition that means that some of the affected people may be part of your audience). Now, even in the latter context, I still personally choose to use people’s preferred names and pronouns, but I agree there’s a distinction between the two contexts and I’m not arguing that a different view is a offense to anyone’s dignity. (I’m not saying it isn’t, I haven’t really reached a view on that.)
The confusion was my fault for bringing up the specific example of Ophelia “misgendering” Montgomery — I was intending to just point out that I don’t think it’s motivated by a benevolent desire to help Montgomery overcome her “delusions,” but it ended up sounding like I was declaring how people should talk about public figures in a public setting, which was not my point.
Thanks Screechy, that does clarify.
No, you’re right, I’m not motivated by benevolence toward Montgomery.
On the other hand I decidedly do think that trans people in general, Monty included, are better off NOT being humored in their delusions. It’s not even the kind of consoling delusion that religion is if you don’t think about it too hard.
On the other hand I suppose the ones like Monty and Willoughby, who have made a lucrative career out of it, could say they’re doing nicely in material terms thanks to the trans train. But long haul?
I don’t know, maybe it’s just a delusion of mine that trying to enlist the whole world in one’s personal fantasy about the self doesn’t lead to long-term well-being.
Speaking of eternal dissatisfaction, there will always be people who will say “No,” who will not go along, who won’t validate them in their belief. They’ve got as much chance of succeeding at getting universal submission to their “requests” as ISIS had at establishing a worldwide Caliphate.
But maybe they like it that way. Massive but not total acceptance, so they get the best of both worlds – endless flattery plus outlets for aggression.
If it’s true, we’re giving them what they want, so that’s irritating.
I am a lesbian. I came out over five decades ago, in my mid-teens. I’ve lived through the rise of the lesbian and gay rights movement and the emergence of a public lesbian culture. And now I am watching, furious, as our culture is driven underground to escape the intrusions of deluded heterosexual males with a massive sense of entitlement. If you want to know more about this, listen to this speech by Joanna Cherry MP in the UK Parliament earlier this month.
Yglesias begins his post by citing an opinion piece by Janelle Boie. Boie talks glibly about ‘L.G.B.T.Q. people’ and ‘L.G.B.T.Q. rights’ as though there was a coherent group with a shared culture and political identity. There is not. There has been for some years a political alliance, initially promoted by activists who identified as transsexuals (to use the term then current) and LGB campaigners who feared that they were beginning to run out of causes.
One more point: Yglesias mentions the controversy over so-called ‘puberty-blocking’ drugs. The excellent Transgender Trend website has a thorough and well-referenced post on that subject.
This is part of the problem I’ve been discussing with friends for a while. Some people want the campaigns, the confrontations, the excitement of activism. They build their lives around it. Once they win, there is no cause for them anymore and they feel useless.
I think a lot of the outspoken trans activists have to move the goalposts. Once they kick the point after, the rush they get from activism deflates and they are empty. They don’t dare win. Since they have won on so much, they have to pretend they haven’t.
This is true. But also, not to be underestimated, is the need to keep the money flowing. The organisation Stonewall, in Britain, was set up in 1989 to campaign for the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. It was not until after the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act came into force in 2014 that it began to campaign on trans-related issues.