Guest post: But they won’t
Originally a comment by Arcadia on But they’re not.
we can’t have that debate, because there’s a genuine conversation to be had about the rights of transgender people and the protection of safe spaces and hard-fought rights for women.
Yeah. We could have that debate, if trans organisations would ever allow it (and to date they won’t, escalating to barricading, deplatforming, threatening and actual violence when it’s been tried).
But they won’t. And they won’t because once it’s suggested by them that the right of a woman to get changed without seeing a stranger’s dick ought to be *balanced* with the “right” of an adult to show his dick to an unwilling woman and children, most people wonder what the hell you’re smoking and want nothing to do with you.
The “rights” they want are fundamentally unpopular when explained in plain, ordinary language: such as falsified documents, to cheat at sports, to steal jobs, awards and places for other vulnerable groups, take their penises where no one wants them, and to lie about all of it with such obfuscating language that it’s quite impenetrable to the ordinary citizen. As well as to harass, charge, fine, arrest, fire etc anyone who complains that such a situation is untenable and unacceptable.
Excellently put. That is one of the most concise descriptions of trans “rights” I’ve ever read. It highlights the importance of clear, honest language, and how ill-served the public has been by media outlets that hide their undeclared ideological commitments behind trans-approved style guides that bury these truths in euphemism, preferred pronouns, and lies. Captured media feign neutrality but have taken a side, the side that is against women’s health, safety, and dignity, and for the mutilation and sterilization of children.
it’s shocking. This would have been impossible without redefined terms, jargon, and plain, unvarnished dishonesty. And having surrendered their responsibility to inform the public in an open, balanced way, they have the nerve to paint any and all opponents of trans extremism, and those who are women particularly, as right wing bigots out to get helpless “trans women” and “trans kids,” driving them out of public life and to suicide. Well if keeping men out of women’s washrooms and boys out of girl’s sports drives them to suicide, then that’s not really our problem. Using emotional blackmail to take what is not yours is a shitty way to do a shitty thing.
YNnB:
This reminds me of a cartoon I once saw of a robber in a bank holding a gun to his own head and yelling “give me all the money in here or else I’ll fire.!”
And a certain movie…
As I keep saying, as much as the woke crowd hate Trump, they absolutely love what he has done to factual discourse, respect for evidence and logic etc. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to them. For all their mutual antagonism, trumpists and woksters both want to live in a world where assertion, sound volume and endless repetitions have replaced facts and logic, and where the biggest bully, capable of mobilizing the largest mob – whether online or in meat space – gets to force their agenda down everybody else’s throats and destroy anyone who gets in their way.
Like so many others, I recently finished reading Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap (an annoying read at times, but definitely worth checking out). I am now reading Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay (enjoying it so far). It’s hardly surprising that identity politics should be such a good match for post-truth politics given it’s roots in postmodernism. Why bother with “facts” if there are no such things anyway, only the prevailing cultural “narrative” made to justify and uphold existing dominance hierarchies?
As I have said many times before, the point of post-truth discourse is not to make you believe anything, but to make you doubt everything. And as much as I hate to say so, it’s working.
Yeahbut my authentic self!
Cannot believe I left the “right” to medicate and cut children into simulacra of the opposite (or no) sex off the list! Mind you, I probably left dozens of things off that list, like the “right” to pretend that no one else’s rights matter.
@ Holms, thank you for that link, I’d never seen that before. It was brilliant.
@ James: I mean, what does it profit us if countless women and children are saved, if some identities are abandoned in the process? Surely, surely, a True Self is worth so much more than actual women and children?? /s