TERFs crash London Pride

[Myriad]

So, we substitute what is said to be a partisan account of the affair with another account which is purely the transwoman's narrative.

This out today. No doubt this is another unacceptable source. However, I post the link for those who haven't wholly swallowed the trans-activist movement's narrative to look at.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/06...ender-101-local-library/#.W2hz8UBBM-Q.twitter

I don't know about the source (not familiar with it), but the wording and phrasing is propagandistic.

He [Jillian, the transwoman speaker] admitted only that he is still attracted to women, a characteristic common to autogynephiliacs.

And a characteristic also common to straight men, some gay men, gay women, and many straight women. The article does not discuss autogynephilia at all. So why was this even mentioned?

And why "admitted?"

The intended implication: a transwoman being attracted to women is shameful or threatening; and the speaker is an autogynephiliac.

Compare with e.g. "He admitted he still enjoys video games, a characteristic common to serial killers."

 

[Rolfe]

Oh, what the hell, have another one.

https://medium.com/@sue.donym1984/i...opic-astroturf-and-based-on-junk-d08eb6aa1a4b

This is becoming interesting simply as a study in how the trans agenda has succeeded in infiltrating the thinking of people I really hadn't expected to be affected to this extent. Which is what that article is addressing of course.

Now I've been of the opinion that this is a nine-day-wonder. It's so self-evidently bananas that society is going to give itself a shake and wonder just what it's been smoking. Then laugh in an embarrassed sort of way and move on, hopefully with a better basis for accommodating the genuine problems thrown up by trans people in sex-binary situations. And I still probably think that.

But there are many women who are genuinely afraid that we've all been asleep while our hard-fought-for rights have been all-but completely erased, and that there's a real danger of losing them entirely. Given the amount of money that's being thrown at this campaign, and the remarkably deep penetration into common discourse, I'm becoming slightly concerned they might have a point.

 

[Elagabalus]

Oh, what the hell, have another one.

https://medium.com/@sue.donym1984/i...opic-astroturf-and-based-on-junk-d08eb6aa1a4b

This is becoming interesting simply as a study in how the trans agenda has succeeded in infiltrating the thinking of people I really hadn't expected to be affected to this extent. Which is what that article is addressing of course.

Now I've been of the opinion that this is a nine-day-wonder. It's so self-evidently bananas that society is going to give itself a shake and wonder just what it's been smoking. Then laugh in an embarrassed sort of way and move on, hopefully with a better basis for accommodating the genuine problems thrown up by trans people in sex-binary situations. And I still probably think that.

But there are many women who are genuinely afraid that we've all been asleep while our hard-fought-for rights have been all-but completely erased, and that there's a real danger of losing them entirely. Given the amount of money that's being thrown at this campaign, and the remarkably deep penetration into common discourse, I'm becoming slightly concerned they might have a point.

An article written by Sue Donym?

 

[luchog]

Oh, what the hell, have another one.

https://medium.com/@sue.donym1984/i...opic-astroturf-and-based-on-junk-d08eb6aa1a4b

If that's the best you can come up with, then I have to just sit back and laugh at this nonsense, despite the fact that it's fueling the further violent marginalization of transpeople.

An editorial by an anonymous person who doesn't even have the intellectual courage to openly stand behind their words, spewing the same long-debunked Religious Right lies, unfalsifiable pseudo-science, unsupported anecdotes, and statistics cherry picked out of context (if not outright fabricated), and asserting personal-opinions-as-facts with all the intellectual rigor of Creationist or homeopath woo; then goes on to dismiss the murders of transpeople as "insignificant".

I mean seriously, this is her byline:

Sue Donym is a concerned citizen living in Northern California.

I would like to thank my collaborators without whom this never would have been finished. They have requested to be credited as Dr Slinky Dink and Rev Donna Quixote. I would also like to credit the numerous others who provided feedback, read the various drafts of this piece, and put up with me talking about it.

That's effectively on the level of Tumblr blogs. In fact, it's exactly on the level of Tumblr blogs, because Medium.com is not a news site, it's a blog site, and any idiot with a computer can create a blog there and spew any sort of nonsense they want. Do you also link to neo-nazi blogs to get "accurate" info on race relations? We already know you're happy to get your LGTBQ information from Religious Right propaganda outlets; just as the writer of this particular blog did for the overwhelming majority of of her anti-trans screed.

And the conspiracy theories expand to a level of nutjobbery beyond even what even the Religious Right typically manage. Apparently according to this anonymous person, the "trans movement" is a conspiracy by Big Pharma to sell hormone treatments, and all the mainstream newsmedia are all being controlled by transactivists exclusively for the purpose of oppressing women and forcing more people to become trans. I kid you not. If you want a good laugh, go and read the entire thing; it's ever bit as hilarious as a Stormfront article on economics and Jews.

Oh, and she also does the ever popular Gish Gallop, filling the article with links to other unsupported assertions, irrelevant and unrelated information, and some that actually refute her assertions rather than support them.

You can go into the article and replace every instance of "trans" with "gay and lesbian", and about 80% of it could have come from Focus on the Family or any number of other anti-LGBT religious groups. In fact, it's so word-for-word, I'd strongly suspect the author of being a Religious Right agent provocateur if I was as prone to paranoid conspiracy monitoring as this person demonstrates themselves to be.

I don't think I'm going to bother engaging any more on this, since I'm not really interested in any more anonymous blogs and Religious Right propaganda. If you ever come up with any verifiable facts reported in reputable news sources, then I might consider you and your position anything other than frothing bigotry.

 

[Rolfe]

Says someone posting as "Luchog". That'll be what's on your driving licence then?

I'm barely a quarter of the way through that article. It's got a lot of very interesting statistics. But because the author is using an obviously made-up name, someone with an obviously made-up name isn't going to read it.

OK then. Argumentum ad hominem is alive and well, it seems. And the trans-critical voices around here are pretty much all left-wing atheists. Members of the Labour party, many of them actual activists. The woman who was assaulted by the trans-identifying man in Hyde Park last year is a card-carrying s"k"eptic, and ironically it was wondering "what's one of the anti-homoeopathy illuminati doing in the middle of that fracas?" that first drew me into the debate.

But never mind, carry on fulminating against the "religious right" as much as you like. Even though, from some of what I hear, the religious nutjobs are more likely to favour their sons, at least, becoming trans, as "that way she can get married in church". Better a trans daughter than a gay son for them, apparently.

ETA: Goodness, look what I just got to in that article.

One name that comes up frequently and will continue to do so is Col. Jennifer Natalya Pritzker, a trans lesbian, who transitioned in August 2013. Heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, Pritzker funds both transgender and far-right causes through their Tawani Foundation. Notably, Pritzker donated millions of dollars to the Gender And Sex Development Program, a transgender youth clinic in Chicago launched in 2013, by providing the money used to start the program. The Gender And Sex Development Program is run by one Robert Garofalo, who will be mentioned later on. Pritzker also provides funding to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), and has also donated to GLAAD, among other large LGBTQI+ organizations.Apart from their transgender donations, Pritzker is extremely right-wing. Alternating their occupation between ‘Retired’ and ‘Tawani Enterprises Inc’ on FEC returns, Pritzker donated hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, to the Republican Party and its candidates in 2016, including state parties and the ‘National Draft Ben Carson For President Committee’.

So right-wing is bad, is it?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Man: Human adult male.

What's your definition of the word 'woman'?

You forgot to explain why should I care

 

[Lithrael]

It’s not unusual to see well-off right wingers expend some of their resources and influence on a traditionally more leftist cause if they gain empathy to that particular cause after it impacts themselves or family.

 

[Arcade22]

But there are many women who are genuinely afraid that we've all been asleep while our hard-fought-for rights have been all-but completely erased, and that there's a real danger of losing them entirely.

I don't think that being "genuinely afraid" somehow makes up for them being highly unhinged and unreasonable.

 

[Aber]

On topic, I don’t understand where the idea is coming from that people need no more than assert they’re transgender to get full gender privileges across the board.

In the UK:

The story began in January 2016, when the new Commons equalities select committee – chaired by the Conservatives’ former equalities secretary Maria Miller – made its Westminster debut with a report it didn’t expect to be enormously controversial, on reforms to the law governing gender recognition.

The 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) lets adults officially register a change to the gender assigned at birth. They don’t necessarily have to undergo surgery, but must provide psychiatric assessments and proof of living for two years in the gender they wish to be officially recognised, a process activists see as intrusive and overly medicalised. Miller’s committee broadly agreed, recommending instead a system of self-identification where changing gender was as simple as signing a form. Similar arrangements now exist in Portugal, Ireland, Malta, Belgium, Norway and Denmark, and activists insist there is no evidence of anyone abusing them for sinister purposes, although the numbers involved are relatively small so far (it is estimated up to 1% of Britons may be trans, although there are no official statistics). An Irish government review of how the system is working there, due this autumn, is hotly awaited.

Shifting to self-identification doesn’t, by itself, automatically mean trans women being treated in all circumstances as if they had been born female. Irish trans women may, for example, still be jailed in male prisons.
But crucially, the Miller committee’s report also backed the curbing of exemptions in the 2010 Equalities Act, which currently allow trans people to be barred from certain jobs and services if necessary to protect other users – the loophole covering sensitive areas such as women’s refuges

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/10/the-gender-recognition-act-is-controversial-can-a-path-to-common-ground-be-found

Equalities Act rights are where there will be most consequences, eg under UK employment legislation awards in sexual discrimination cases for women are uncapped, while those for men are capped, to reflect current inequalities in pay. If gender is simply a matter of signing a form, then this approach will need to be rethought.

 

[Darat]

...snip....

Equalities Act rights are where there will be most consequences, eg under UK employment legislation awards in sexual discrimination cases for women are uncapped, while those for men are capped, to reflect current inequalities in pay. If gender is simply a matter of signing a form, then this approach will need to be rethought.

I agree many such areas need to be rethought as it were, but that is regardless of the matter of trans-people's gender/sex. It is not unusual that when changes start to happen in one area it throws a spotlight onto other areas and has a cascade effect.

 

[Lithrael]

Agree that a lot of things will need to be rethought. And interesting article! But it still sounds like 'all you have to do is check a box' is not actually de riguer in the UK but rather something a committee report said looked like it would work well if implemented. It's the US where I'm at that I hear talk radio constantly asserting that that's how it already is in all the schools, complaining that people can just pick different genders every day and everyone has to bend over backwards to accommodate them or get fired because those crazy liberals. Which sounds like completely made-up crap to me.

I'm not really equipped or educated on the situation in other countries/cultures, I know the whole thing is very different in some places in east Asia where there is a pretty big trans culture and again in some Muslim countries where there seems to be more explicit pressure to be trans rather than homosexual. I'm really just talking about USA/Canada/UK for the most part.

 

[caveman1917]

People who claim transwomen are women are notorious for never giving a definition of the word woman (it's not up for debate, apparently)..

It's because they know full well that it would immediately become clear they're just talking about reinforcing sexism and patriarchy once they actually define their terms. Basically the same reason that the Intelligent Design crowd tries their best to never give a definition of that "Intelligent Designer" lest it immediately become clear they're just talking about reinforcing religious education in lieu of scientific education.

Personally I just give them 15 crackpot points every time they refuse to define their terms (number 14 on the list, but I increased it from 10 points to 15 points because they're not just inventing new terms but redefining - or rather undefining - existing ones).

ETA: I ask once. If they don't give a definition, I ask again. If by the second time they don't give a definition they just go into the loony bin as far as I see it.

 

[caveman1917]

Those arguments by luchog, Arcade22, et al regarding so-called comparisons between anti-patriarchy feminists and right-wing bigotry are nothing but the equivalent of fascists saying "anti-fascists are the real fascists!"

 

[pharphis]

are there pro-patriarchy feminists?

 

[JihadJane]

Lesbian erasure: A blue plaque celebrating lesbian pioneer, Ann Lister, shies away from using the word LESBIAN. Uses "Gender non-conforming" instead:

 

[JihadJane]

You forgot to explain why should I care

You should care what the word "woman" means, because you care about women.

 

[JihadJane]

I think it's extremely telling that much of Rolfe's and JihadJane's arguments and style of discourse is very similar to, if not the same as, the kind used by people with far-right anti-LGBT views. It wouldn't be surprising to hear the same kind of hateful diatribe coming from a religious zealot or far-right reactionary.

 

[Arcade22]

Those arguments by luchog, Arcade22, et al regarding so-called comparisons between anti-patriarchy feminists and right-wing bigotry are nothing but the equivalent of fascists saying "anti-fascists are the real fascists!"

Well in this case there seems to be more than just a superficial similarity, which is something that you didn't even bother to refute.

 

[luchog]

Well in this case there seems to be more than just a superficial similarity, which is something that you didn't even bother to refute.

Particularly since you can trace the source of nearly all of their rhetoric to various anti-LGBTQ Religious Right organizations going back to the 1970s.

 

[luchog]

Says someone posting as "Luchog". That'll be what's on your driving licence then?

I've provided actual news stories and in other thread links to actual medical articles. You and this latest blog post you're drooling over have provided links to conspiracy theories, unsupported assertions, Religious Right propaganda, and a whole lot of paranoid delusions.

And the trans-critical voices around here are pretty much all left-wing atheists.

Which makes it even more disturbing that they so frequently resort to Religious Right rhetoric, and why they feel the need to rebrand themselves.

Members of the Labour party, many of them actual activists. The woman who was assaulted by the trans-identifying man in Hyde Park last year is a card-carrying s"k"eptic, and ironically it was wondering "what's one of the anti-homoeopathy illuminati doing in the middle of that fracas?" that first drew me into the debate.

Amazing what you can prove if you refuse to provide verifiable evidence.

But never mind, carry on fulminating against the "religious right" as much as you like. Even though, from some of what I hear, the religious nutjobs are more likely to favour their sons, at least, becoming trans, as "that way she can get married in church". Better a trans daughter than a gay son for them, apparently.

As opposed to "all transpeople are evil monsters trying to destroy society and who should be sent to re-education camps to protect teh wimminiz"?

And if you hear that Religious Right people actually accept transwomen, you're not listening very clearly. I grew up in Religious Right churches, I'm far more familiar with them than you are, and that's so ridiculous as to be in the realm of Bigfoot and crystal healing. But by all means, don't let a thing like facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

ETA: Goodness, look what I just got to in that article.

Let's take a look at this one bit of conspiracy theorizing, retired US Army Col. Jennifer Pritzkel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Pritzkel

Let's see, a retired military philanthropist who inherited a bunch of money, and whose primary activity is funding citizen soldier initiatives and education; with a small sideline into transgender research. OMG she must be trying to create a transgender army to take over the world and turn us all transgender!!1!one!

So right-wing is bad, is it?

LOL! You do realize that not all transpeople are flaming leftists, right? You clearly don't consider transpeople fully human, but they are, and like all other humans they have political opinions that run the full spectrum from right to left and authoritarian to libertarian/anarchist.

Are you really so ignorant that you're not aware of conservative, right-wing LGBTs like the Log Cabin Republicans? Or gay neo-Nazis like Milo Yiannopoulos? Most of whom are as profoundly anti-trans as you are. I'm sure you'd get along famously.