Always check the wording
Again with the re-wording.
Doc Stock asked for examples of Stonewall doing its thing, which has made for a highly useful thread full of sources. One item gives us yet another lie about what the trans ideology is about:
Second paragraph under “We stand up for people”:
“We do draw a line with regard to questioning whether trans people deserve the same level of equality as any other group.”
NOBODY SAYS trans people don’t deserve the same level of equality as any other group. NOBODY. There is no campaign to Make Trans People Less Equal. That’s not the issue, that’s not what it’s about, that’s not what anyone says.
What does it tell us, that they do this so relentlessly?
It tells us that they can’t defend their actual demands, so they translate them into ones that sound familiar and reasonable.
Forcing everyone to play along with people’s fantasies about themselves has nothing whatsoever to do with equality. NOTHING. It also has nothing to do with human rights except when it cancels them for other people. If you think women have a right to exclude men in some circumstances then trans ideology cancels that right.
It’s very very very telling that Stonewall and others consistently do this, because it tells us they realize, on some level, that what they’re actually campaigning for is indefensible.
I don’t think that Stonewall and allies are necessarily aware that they’re rolling a controversy into a demand for human rights because I’ve seen that sort of thing happen with the religious too often.
“What’s wrong with public schools and government offices being allowed to acknowledge God?” they ask in genuine exasperation, blithely unaware that the existence of God isn’t a universal given we ought to assume as common ground in a civil society. “Can’t we speak the truth? What sort of police state is this, that would hamper us?”
“What’s wrong with public schools and government acknowledging the existence of women with bodies that were once thought to be male, or men with bodies once assigned female? Can’t we deal with the truth? Are we going to force trans people to deny who they know themselves to be?”
Same thing at work. The frustration isn’t performative because that’s what pig certainty in a comfortably enclosed pen does to people. They wallow in it.
I suppose that’s what I meant by “on some level.” I don’t think they necessarily do it with full awareness that it’s deceptive at best. There’s room for a lot of variation among a lot of people. They may for instance just think of “rights” or “equality” as shorthand for what they do mean.
Lots of people, probably most people, just don’t take much care with their word choice.
In any cult there are the leaders and the followers, the users and the used. The latter just believe what they’re told and if they’re told they’re special they believe it and if they’re told that they’re the target of genocide they believe that too, but in the special religious way in which it is compatible with all the facts and evidence being to the contrary. The former range from straightforward scam artists, like Peter Popoff, to true believers who’ve genuinely convinced themselves that what’s good for them is good for everyone (maybe Jim Jones is in this category since he was at least prepared to die with his followers). But in between there’s those who see themselves as leaders first and foremost and while they may have some aspects of the scam artists and the true believers their prime commitment is to climbing the greasy pole. They’re in effect corporate bullshit artists and they don’t so much believe as internalise the bullshit just to the extent that they can regurgitate it on command. Believing is someone else’s job. And it may be fascinating to try to pin them down on what they think but in the end it’s going to be an exercise in frustration.
Of course, once the struggle against the secular state was won (or at least delayed by court proceedings), there would be the infighting to determine exactly whose god would end up being acknowledge, because they’re all different. No redneck, Fundamentalist Bible thumper is going to allow Muslims or Hindus to promote their dieties on the county courthouse lawn, or in the grade school’s daily opening excersizes. Their gods aren’t THE God; the one and only Protestant Jesus one (not the Catholic Jesus one).
ISimilarly, ‘ve always wondered if transactivists would turn on “nonbinary identities” and other exotic, niche “identities” once their bolstering numbers were no longer needed. We’ve already seen how the T have already thrown LGB under the bus when it suits them. NBs are more expendable, and given the contradictions that their presence under the “trans umbrella” highlights,* they might be at risk of being thrown out at the T’s earliest convenience.
Not that the T is at all uncomfortable or inexperienced with handling levels of cognitive dissonance that would completely immobilize mere mortals.
Speaking of careless use of language….
This is wrong. I know you know this is wrong. There are a staggeringly high number of people who do want to Make Trans People Less Equal. DeSantis and his followers, for example, very blatantly want that outcome. And when you deny their existence, even accidentally, you give the TRAs ammo that they don’t need. All it takes his for someone to put that paragraph, unaltered, next to some Proud Boy rant, and presto, they get to claim that you’re covering for hate groups, or somesuch malarky.
And I know how you mean it. You’re talking about Gender Crit Feminists, and the doctors who’re speaking out, and so on. No one among those ranks is seeking to eliminate trans people, or make them second-class citizens, or looking to set up camps for them, etc. But when you use the absolutist “NOBODY”, then you end up saying something that is, at best, a misstatement, if not an outright lie.
And I know I probably bring this concern up way too often, but it’s largely because I know you’re better than that, and I don’t want you to get scorned and slandered because of a momentary slip.
Don’t tell me I know this is wrong. That’s telling me I’m lying. I’m not lying. I may of course be wrong, but I’m not saying something I know is false.
I don’t agree that “DeSantis and his followers, for example, very blatantly want that outcome.” No doubt they want bad things for trans people, but where does equality come into it? Where exactly is the campaign to Make Trans People Less Equal? What exactly does it say?
Lemme put it another way.
If my claim had been “Nobody hates trans people!!” then your correction would be entirely sensible.
But that wasn’t my claim. That’s because trans activism isn’t about equality and never has been. Partly it’s similar to LGB activism for respect and inclusion, and against hatred and contempt. “Equality” isn’t really the issue there either. But also partly trans activism is about bizarre new rights that aren’t really rights, and that has nothing at all to do with equality. If people who don’t have cancer started demanding cancer treatments that wouldn’t be about equality either.
I see you also wrote a longer response; I’ll direct my own response there, as it made me think. But that one doesn’t include this line, so I’m gonna respond to it here:
You know what? You’re right, and I apologize. While we disagree on the way certain words (in this case, ‘equality’) should be applied, I did NOT mean to suggest that when you were phrasing things this way that YOU were lying, and I apologize for letting that implication slip in. Semantics can be a real bear sometimes.
Thank you. Water under the bridge!