Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[theprestige]

you are assuming every male that goes trans is dodgy, I disagree.

females that go trans? are they all tarred with the same brush

It's not the males that are dodgy, it's the trans-affirmation paradigm and the resulting policies that are dodgy.

There is a refusal to consider the problem of AGP masquerading as gender dysphoria, refusal to try to screen for it, refusal to try to exclude it from trans-access policies.

How are women supposed to have any faith or comfort in their safe spaces, under these conditions? When they'll be persecuted (and, sooner or later, prosecuted) for even questioning a transwoman's bona fides in a battered women's shelter?

I'm not an abusive male. Should I be allowed into a women's shelter, under the "don't tar all males with the same brush" clause?

You say you're not a trans-activist, but you sure do seem to stall out on every difficult question like a trans-activist. You're quick to question whether Rolfe is doing it right, but you won't even try to do it at all.

 

[theprestige]

Yeah I agree it's vastly different perspectives. I do think one perspective is unfair.

Which one do you think is unfair, and why?

 

[theprestige]

And I think that to counter every example of bad behaviour perpetrated by males with "but what about the women who do that?" when there aren't any women who do that, is perverse.

What actual, on the ground, practical threat are transmen posing to men? If there is one, and men aren't able to deal with it, let's address that. Constantly claiming women are doing things they quite clearly aren't doing is getting boring.

p0lka seems to be going for some perfect philosophical balance between males and females. The two sexes aren't actually balanced in the way necessary to achieve that goal.

 

[p0lka]

And I think that to counter every example of bad behaviour perpetrated by males with "but what about the women who do that?" when there aren't any women who do that, is perverse.

Females, not women.

What actual, on the ground, practical threat are transmen posing to men? If there is one, and men aren't able to deal with it, let's address that. Constantly claiming women are doing things they quite clearly aren't doing is getting boring.

Maybe transmen are suffering from autoandrosphilia? So presumably it would be the same practical threat as the transwoman version.

 

[Rolfe]

p0lka seems to be going for some perfect philosophical balance between males and females. The two sexes aren't actually balanced in the way necessary to achieve that goal.

I don't think he appreciates (or is prepared to acknowledge) that there are differences between the sexes, and that giving exactly the same "rights" to everyone is a bit like that cartoon of equality where everyone gets the same size of box to stand on and only the tall person can actually see the game.

Women do unpleasant things too, but they're different things. I note all that rubbish about women flaunting vaginas (dripping ones!) in the changing room didn't switch to some analogy about women flaunting breasts, which does happen.

Every time a male-pattern behaviour that women don't want shoved in their faces or brought into their private spaces is mentioned, it's "But what about the women who do that? Why do you only want to exclude the men who do that?" Because this isn't a zero-sum game. Women can't flaunt their penises to embarrass shy girls trying to get changed. Womein don't do the things we're complaining about men doing.

The old "so you want to exclude lesbians too then" trope is the same. No we don't. What we want to exclude are male bodies and lesbians don't have male bodies. Lesbians also don't come on to women in changing rooms, and if anyone did we'd deal with her. Men in our spaces are threatening per se in a way that women are not threatening.

 

[Rolfe]

Females, not women.

Maybe transmen are suffering from autoandrosphilia? So presumably it would be the same practical threat as the transwoman version.

Female human beings are women. You don't get to rewrite the dictionary to suit your argument.

Your second sentence makes no sense at all. I've already pointed out that autoandrophilia is a hypothetical condition that hasn't been shown to actually happen. Transmen do not behave as you are implying. This is not a zero-sum game where each side has the same faults.

If you want to find fault on the part of females, please look for something that's actually happening, something men are genuinely concerned about. Not made-up bollocks. (And yes I did that on purpose.)

 

[shuttlt]

I don't think he appreciates (or is prepared to acknowledge) that there are differences between the sexes, and that giving exactly the same "rights" to everyone is a bit like that cartoon of equality where everyone gets the same size of box to stand on and only the tall person can actually see the game.

That whole way of looking at it is fundamentally conservative though, in the Burkean sense. It is axiomatic in the liberal-progressive worldview that if one is able to conceive of some model of a perfect world, then that would be achievable if only everybody agreed to go along with it.

Every time a male-pattern behaviour that women don't want shoved in their faces or brought into their private spaces is mentioned, it's "But what about the women who do that? Why do you only want to exclude the men who do that?" Because this isn't a zero-sum game. Women can't flaunt their penises to embarrass shy girls trying to get changed. Womein don't do the things we're complaining about men doing.

No indeed. Men and women are different and male and female sexuality is different. Isn't there a joke about you know a lesbian is going on a second date because she has brought a bunch of suitcases with her. Meanwhile, gay men go cottaging. Is there any lesbian cottaging scene?

Extending that slightly further and going off on a huge tangent..... I'm reading the Iliad at the moment. All the kings and heroes behave like 12 year old boys competing with one another in the schoolyard. With the women it's strange, there is a combination of them seeming to be only mildly put out (with maybe a bit of eye rolling) by being kidnapped and handed out as rewards for valour, and yet you see them manipulating the men and having a very different type of agency. It's really good once you get past the repetitive descriptions of exactly where, in relation to the nipple, the spear penetrated somebody, who their father was and how their armour was stripped off their body.

It's weird how a 3000 year old story from another culture manages to capture things that feel real and true about men and women.... given that it's all socially defined and nowhere in the story is there a definition of what men and women or manly and womanly are.

 

[Rolfe]

I read The Iliad for a reading group meeting in January. We also covered "The Silence of the Girls" which was great, and another couple of spin-offs ("The Somg of Achilles" and "A Thousand Ships") which weren't. Also an updated work by Christopher Logue based on the Iliad called War Music.

There was a lot that was interesting there, as you say. (Including Sarpeidon getting a serious leg wound and being back on the battlefield to be killed four days later and where did all that iron come from?)

I thoroughly recommend "The Silence of the Girls", I completely bought it as an account of it all from the point of view of Briseis.

Everybody has been able to tell men from women since the human race first realised there was a cool way to chip flints. As a reductio ad absurdum, I'm inclined to think this mess is all because people stopped sniggering at men who put on dresses and lipstick. Come back "The Lumberjack Song", we miss you.

 

[shuttlt]

Thanks Rolfe. Incidentally, I moved away from this forum a few years ago and have found returning painful each time I dipped my toe back in. This discussion feels like it has something of the old forum about it. I wish more threads were like this.

 

[Rolfe]

I know what you mean. People have moved on to twitter, but you can't go into anything in any depth in that format.

Edited by jimbob: 

please discuss Forum Management topics in the Forum Management section

 

[Elaedith]

Let's rephrase the male brain/female brain thing then. Autism is much more commonly diagnosed in males vs females with the reverse being true of cluster-b personality disorder. There certainly are studies that claim a link between autism and these conditions, but it's too much work to try and unpick it all so I'm not just throwing a random study at you. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. It probably wasn't an important point anyway.

Cluster B is a group of personality disorders. Narcissistic and anti-social are diagnosed more in males and histrionic and borderline in females. It isn't entirely clear why.

 

[Rolfe]

One of the problems with the stampede to trans every child who ever picked the wrong toy or the wrong colour of lunchbox is that professionals don't look at the psychiatry and psychology of the patient as a whole. Now they seem to feel the're forbidden from doing that. Many if not most of the recent detransitioners have spoken about their eating disorders or anxiety or autiem spectrum and so on not being considered at all, just "here's the hormones you want, next please."

 

[shuttlt]

One of the problems with the stampede to trans every child who ever picked the wrong toy or the wrong colour of lunchbox is that professionals don't look at the psychiatry and psychology of the patient as a whole. Now they seem to feel the're forbidden from doing that. Many if not most of the recent detransitioners have spoken about their eating disorders or anxiety or autiem spectrum and so on not being considered at all, just "here's the hormones you want, next please."

I have a relative who used to work in child mental health. The service practically got turned into the gender transition department. It was a huge growth area, and with that came budgets and power. Management structures and organizational power have been built on this. Speaking out about it is attacking the revenue stream that the organisation depends on.

 

[Rolfe]

What is being done to children right now will never be forgiven. Schools telling kids too young to understand that sex is immutable that everyone can choose whether to be a boy or a girl, that it's special and brave to choose to be the sex you aren't and you'll get a lot of attention and praise if you do that, and nobody will be allowed to say anything to you that you don't like.

Parents being told they must go along with a confused child or adolescent's belief that they are the opposite sex on pain of being accused of child abuse. Children being given powerful drugs that will not only sterilise them but prevent them from feeling any sexual arousal as adults. That will damage their skeletal growth leading to stunting and pathological fractures, and make them medical patients (consumers of expensive medical services) for life. That will increase their chances of cancer, stroke and heart disease. Children being sold the idea that they really can have the body of the opposite sex, and then being sold risky esperimental surgery that will mutilate their healthy bodies.

All in the name of hailing the stunning and brave transkids, so that the AGP men who "transitioned" in middle age after having all the male advantage there is in they career paths, whose bodies and brains matured properly with normal puberty, and who have no intention at all of being castrated or having their penis removed, can feel validated. Because if little children are trans, then what I have is not a fetish or a paraphilia.

Boys were castrated up to the 19th century (I believe) to provide the voices the public wanted to hear on the opera stage. That was rightly stopped. Now boys are being castrated to provide the "aw isn't she adorable" fodder for the trans lobby. That needs stopping too, and the sooner the better.

ETA: Here is the link to the video about the 11 year old girl who decided she wanted to be a boy and was put on puberty blockers. Four years later she was in constant pain with growth abnormalities in her spine. The hospital has now reported itself to the regulator in respect of her case and about a dozen others, amid a climate of medical authorities beginning to wake up and ask, what are we doing here. There is no indication that Leo has stopped wanting to be a boy. She was apparently hesitant to begin with, but four years of drugs and being referred to as "he" has baked in the belief. Unfortunately the puberty blockers stopped her growing, so she is significantly shorter than the height she would have naturally reached. This is not going to help if she decides to present as a man in adulthood.

https://www.svtplay.se/video/333585...nvestigate-trans-children-avsnitt-1?info=visa

 

[shuttlt]

All in the name of hailing the stunning and brave transkids, so that the AGP men who "transitioned" in middle age after having all the male advantage there is in they career paths, whose bodies and brains matured properly with normal puberty, and who have no intention at all of being castrated or having their penis removed, can feel validated.

This is where I disagree with you. It isn't just this. Another part of it is you have the idea of liberation, and liberation movements deeply ingrained in our culture as a "good" and the "right side of history". Where once Richard the Lionheart might have been held up as the model of heroism, now it's Rosa Parks.

The thing is, there is no line built in to this process of liberation where it stops. You have attempts to normalise paedophilia going right back to the beginning. They don't fail because they are against the principles of the movement, they fail because there is too much conservative resistance. The internal logic of liberation, when followed to its end, leads to a rather extreme place.

I think part of what we are seeing is that journey towards liberation having been established as a universal and assumed good, and opposition to it established as a universal and assumed evil, to the point where the train has jumped the tracks.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not going to disagree with you on that, I think that is an aspect of it too. But the desire of the middle-aged AGPs to promote transing of children, and why, is hardly a secret. It's one of the things driving this, although as you so rightly say, a lot of the people doing the pushing don't themselves have this motivation.

 

[shuttlt]

I'm not going to disagree with you on that, I think that is an aspect of it too. But the desire of the middle-aged AGPs to promote transing of children, and why, is hardly a secret. It's one of the things driving this, although as you so rightly say, a lot of the people doing the pushing don't themselves have this motivation.

One final idea since we are in such heated agreement, that you might not have come across as I see it getting discussed in dissident right wing circles.

There is a theory going around that links global corporate capitalism with these left wing liberation struggles. If you've ever read any globalism 101 books, what you get is a lot of talk about smoothing out barriers to trade - legal, cultural, whatever.... Traditionally defined groups like "woman" with their non-materialistically defined properties form a sort of barrier to trade. Obviously women are used to market products, and are marketed to.... but nonetheless, "woman" is a category that existed before the global market. Womanhood isn't something you can buy your way in to.

There is something about what we are seeing, and I think what you are describing with AGP, that reduces everything down to some kind of cosplay where your identity is something that you can purchase, and that is made real by Facebook. Identity is almost a disposable product and we are all atomized consumers. The commodification of sex and gender.

I wonder if just as you can't really say why a man can't become a women and use the women's changing rooms if he wants to within the frame of liberation, you can't really say why it is wrong in the frame of global corporate capitalism either. The two things are strangely compatible.

 

[Rolfe]

That's a very interesting perspective. There's also a point of view that this is being promoted as part of a push for "transhumanism", envisaging that people aren't defined by or confined to their bodies. I'm not sure how much of that I buy.

It's odd that opposition to the trans agenda is seen as coming from "the right" (at least in America) when much of the motivation seems to be profit-driven. Selling hormones, surgery, smaller items like chest binders and prosthetic penises is now a huge industry. The way surgery is being marketed to adolescents, especially girls, is pretty hair-raising.

 

[shuttlt]

That's a very interesting perspective. There's also a point of view that this is being promoted as part of a push for "transhumanism", envisaging that people aren't defined by or confined to their bodies. I'm not sure how much of that I buy.

I've heard that too. It's at the fringes of what I know about. It smells to me a bit like a revivified version of the eugenics Fabians used to be into in the late 19th/early 20th century.

It's odd that opposition to the trans agenda is seen as coming from "the right" (at least in America) when much of the motivation seems to be profit-driven. Selling hormones, surgery, smaller items like chest binders and prosthetic penises is now a huge industry. The way surgery is being marketed to adolescents, especially girls, is pretty hair-raising.

I think that really depends on what one means by "the right". There is a tendency to equate it with libertarianism and Milton Freedman economics, or alternatively as corporate neo-cons. The left in the US has, perhaps, been captured and co-opted by Wall Street. Maybe that happened to the right too?

A story you will get in fringy areas of the right is something like this.... Much of what we are seeing is baked into problems in the assumptions of liberalism. The French Revolution is the pure form of liberalism made flesh. "Let's build a society based on liberte, egalite, fraternite and worship on the altar of reason". One issue is that liberte and egalite are in tension with each other. There is a contradiction built into the assumptions.

The other issue is the one Burke goes on about. The Enlightenment project is, to some extent, the idea that the world can be remade in the light of, and founded on, reason. Burke effectively rejected the Enlightenment projects' utopia. Societies are evolved slowly over time and work for reasons we do not understand,. You can't derive them from axioms.

The claim on the reactionary right is that the rejection of the trans-activists demands and the wish to keep the old idea of what it means to be a woman is an an anti-liberal, anti-enlightenment act. It's right wing in the sense of being an appeal to conservativism.

You have to reject the idea that liberal heaven can be willed into existence. All this "teach men not to rape" nonsense, or thinking you can welcome conservative muslim immigrants and then teach their kids that homosexuality is great depends on the idea that some secular kingdom of God is at hand and will appear if we are only liberal enough. It's like some kind of modern millenarianism.

One youtuber I watch talks a lot about ghost dancing. As the native american world was coming to an end and they clearly couldn't physically oppose the invaders, they asked themselves why the Gods had abandoned them. Then one of them had a vision, of a new ceremony that would restore what had been lost and reunite the living with the dead. They just hadn't believed hard enough before. If they only believed, bullets could not harm them.

I wonder if there hasn't been some kind of a crisis of confidence that the liberal heaven, where everybody is cosmopolitan and diverse and whatever else, is actually achievable. The assumptions of the 90s are gone and they don't look like they are ever coming back. Maybe we just didn't believe in it with enough zeal and so the gods abandoned us? If we only do the things our secular religion tells us to with enough conviction, regardless of whether they make sense, or whether they produce the promised results.... maybe utopia will appear after all?

The idea that you have to build heaven against people's will, and that somehow having built it, a miracle will occur and the nature of people will change is an idea that you see in the people who set up the EU (the European Man), Marxists (Communist Man), and goes back at least to Rousseau. I wonder if that isn't also what is going on now. Woke utopia has to be forced, obviously it doesn't work now and causes problems, but that's because the miracle hasn't occurred yet. Not enough people are believing hard enough. No objection you raise matters because after the miracle occurs everything will be fine. In fact, by objecting you are part of the reason why the problems are occurring because you are delaying the miracle. To some degree being "woke" is just being the born again inhabitant of this world they are trying to will into being. If everybody was "woke" it would work.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not sure I followed all of that, but very interesting post, thank you.