• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Rolfe said:
Oh, I know. Groups of people. But this is far more extensive. Healthcare. Universities. Sport. Government. Policing. The criminal justice system. Schools. Pretty much every sizeable business you can name.

All more or less at once. With almost all dissenting voices frightened into silence. It's astonishing.
Click to expand...

This aspect is really the only interesting one of this whole discussion for me. How the majority of people in all these institutions have silently gone along with what is - to any sane person - abject, unscientific nonsense. I'm sure also they know that it is, but the fears of job loss and being perceived as bigoted are apparently extraordinarily strong.

If it wasn't for the fact that we're living in weird times (social media, etc), I would have imagined it would have long gone the way of McCarthyism, recovered memories, and the Satanic panic of the 80's by now, but all bets are off apparently.

I'm just glad I retired years ago and I'm not in the position where I have to make a stand.
 
theprestige said:
They are also founded on a coherent theory of humanity and human rights. Trans rights activism is not.
Click to expand...
Tracking the history of these kinds of ideas is really interesting. Some of the people who came up with them and pushed them explicitly wanted to crash the cultures they were injecting them into, to create chaos out of which their utopia could be built. How coherent they are really depends whose version of them you are talking about, and what the purpose of the idea was. Mostly the idea was to generate and guide social change, rather than an attempt to describe reality. Again, Horkheimer's original paper on The Critical Theory is quite clear on this.
 
Ron Obvious said:
This aspect is really the only interesting one of this whole discussion for me. How the majority of people in all these institutions have silently gone along with what is - to any sane person - abject, unscientific nonsense. I'm sure also they know that it is, but the fears of job loss and being perceived as bigoted are apparently extraordinarily strong.

If it wasn't for the fact that we're living in weird times (social media, etc), I would have imagined it would have long gone the way of McCarthyism, recovered memories, and the Satanic panic of the 80's by now, but all bets are off apparently.

I'm just glad I retired years ago and I'm not in the position where I have to make a stand.
Click to expand...


I sense two underlying mindsets that are contributing to it. One is a masculine one, in which men (including, of course, the speaker) know best and will lay down the rules, and women are silly hysterical little idiots who should shut up and do what they're told. Which, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, is to prioritise what men want. (You don't have to look too hard to find that in this thread.)

The other is a feminine one, and I've seen it described as internalised misogyny. Women who have so completely assimilated the indoctrination that they should prioritise what men want because that's what women do, and will scold their less indoctrinated sisters to "be kind" to the "incredibly marginalised" male narcissist who is insisting on the right to get undressed in front of her. (There's some of that in the thread also.)

But that really doesn't provide a full explanation for what's going on.
 
Rolfe said:
I sense two underlying mindsets that are contributing to it. One is a masculine one, in which men (including, of course, the speaker) know best and will lay down the rules, and women are silly hysterical little idiots who should shut up and do what they're told. Which, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, is to prioritise what men want. (You don't have to look too hard to find that in this thread.)

The other is a feminine one, and I've seen it described as internalised misogyny. Women who have so completely assimilated the indoctrination that they should prioritise what men want because that's what women do, and will scold their less indoctrinated sisters to "be kind" to the "incredibly marginalised" male narcissist who is insisting on the right to get undressed in front of her. (There's some of that in the thread also.)

But that really doesn't provide a full explanation for what's going on.
Click to expand...
Seriously Rolfe, this view makes no sense whatsoever to me. You think women are introducing mentally confused men into female spaces because of internalised misogyny? These women see trans-women as men? They see them as men subconsciously? How does their misogyny work?

These men are gaining power and privilege and sympathy that they would never have got under the label "men" by claiming to be women. In schools you get status and attention by claiming to be trans. The patriarchy doesn't explain everything. If you are a white man in the progressive world, you are the bottom of the heap, a bad guy who is responsible for all the worlds ills and should eternally go to the back of the queue. All you have to do is put on some eyeliner and your are special and wonderful and can collect oppression points like all the cool kids.
 
I don't see in what way what you said contradicts what I said.

There is a certain demographic of women (there is a tendency to refer to them as "handmaidens") who attempt to curry favour with men by always centering men in whatever way men want to be centered. These women take the side of the men who are putting on eyeliner to be special and wonderful and collect oppression points, doling out oppression points by the handful. They scold women who voice the desire to retain single-sex spaces for not being inclusive, and for failing to pander to these people who have all the oppression points.

They do it because they're hard-wired to centre men in their behaviour. They may think that "TWAW" but whether they realise it or not they are very well aware that TWAM. The deferential way they treat the TW demographic (as opposed to the scolding and hectoring they dole out to actual women) tells you all you need to know on that score.
 
Rolfe said:
I don't see in what way what you said contradicts what I said.

There is a certain demographic of women (there is a tendency to refer to them as "handmaidens") who attempt to curry favour with men by always centering men in whatever way men want to be centered. These women take the side of the men who are putting on eyeliner to be special and wonderful and collect oppression points, doling out oppression points by the handful. They scold women who voice the desire to retain single-sex spaces for not being inclusive, and for failing to pander to these people who have all the oppression points.
Click to expand...
I just find it profoundly unlikely that women who buy all this trans-nonsense are doing it to curry favour with men. Are women who are in favour of rights and so on for gay men also motivated by some desire to please men? There is a general tendency for women to be more on the left, more keen on inclusion and so on.... I don't see why one needs to introduce the patriarchy into this to explain why they want to do exactly the same thing they always want to do, but for trans-women.

Rolfe said:
They do it because they're hard-wired to centre men in their behaviour. They may think that "TWAW" but whether they realise it or not they are very well aware that TWAM. The deferential way they treat the TW demographic (as opposed to the scolding and hectoring they dole out to actual women) tells you all you need to know on that score.
Click to expand...
I don't think one needs to go further than being more on the left, more into inclusion and caring. Maybe you'll disagree with this, and maybe not...but I've certainly seen it argued than public morality is kind of enforced by women. I know it's a silly fictional example, but it's in my head because I read it not long ago and it's what floated up first. Think the handmaids tale, yes there are men around providing muscle, but it is mostly the women watching the other women, telling on the other women.... This stuff is pushed in HR departments, they are the cultural commissars of this.... look at the sex distribution of HR departments. Once public morality gets infected, once virtue signalling requires you to believe this stuff... I think you'll just get a lot of women enforcing it out of competitive moral signalling.

If we still agree, and you think this is basically the same as what you said... then I would be very grateful for any reading recommendations on your notion of the patriarchy.
 
Last edited:
shuttlt said:
I just find it profoundly unlikely that women who buy all this trans-nonsense are doing it to curry favour with men. Are women who are in favour of rights and so on for gay men also motivated by some desire to please men? There is a general tendency for women to be more on the left, more keen on inclusion and so on.... I don't see why one needs to introduce the patriarchy into this to explain why they want to do exactly the same thing they always want to do, but for trans-women.


I don't think one needs to go further than being more on the left, more into inclusion and caring. Maybe you'll disagree with this, and maybe not...but I've certainly seen it argued than public morality is kind of enforced by women. I know it's a silly fictional example, but it's in my head because I read it not long ago and it's what floated up first. Think the handmaids tale, yes there are men around providing muscle, but it is mostly the women watching the other women, telling on the other women.... This stuff is pushed in HR departments, they are the cultural commissars of this.... look at the sex distribution of HR departments. Once public morality gets infected, once virtue signalling requires you to believe this stuff... I think you'll just get a lot of women enforcing it out of competitive moral signalling.

If we still agree, and you think this is basically the same as what you said... then I would be very grateful for any reading recommendations on your notion of the patriarchy.
Click to expand...
It all seems to centre on the cult of "It's Not Fair!" closely followed by "Something Must Be Done!"

Not really sure this is still on topic, perhaps a new thread should be set up to examine the overarching reasons behind the blind rush from logic to feelings.
 
Lplus said:
It all seems to centre on the cult of "It's Not Fair!" closely followed by "Something Must Be Done!"

Not really sure this is still on topic, perhaps a new thread should be set up to examine the overarching reasons behind the blind rush from logic to feelings.
Click to expand...
It's Not Fair!
 
Rolfe said:
They do it because they're hard-wired to centre men in their behaviour.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's that simple. That seems like too pat an explanation.

It seems more likely that this is connected to a general hostility to traditionalism. And that's also very much connected to class, not simply sex. It's a bit like the trust fund kids who wear Che Guevara t-shirts, completely unaware that they'd be lined up against a wall and a bullet put in their heads if Che actually had his way.

Because honestly, who suffers if men are put in women's prisons, for example? Not well-educated women from respectable families. It doesn't take internalized misogyny to not identify with someone of another class just because they're the same sex, men do that all the time too.
 
shuttlt said:
I just find it profoundly unlikely that women who buy all this trans-nonsense are doing it to curry favour with men. Are women who are in favour of rights and so on for gay men also motivated by some desire to please men? There is a general tendency for women to be more on the left, more keen on inclusion and so on.... I don't see why one needs to introduce the patriarchy into this to explain why they want to do exactly the same thing they always want to do, but for trans-women.

I don't think one needs to go further than being more on the left, more into inclusion and caring. Maybe you'll disagree with this, and maybe not...but I've certainly seen it argued than public morality is kind of enforced by women. I know it's a silly fictional example, but it's in my head because I read it not long ago and it's what floated up first. Think the handmaids tale, yes there are men around providing muscle, but it is mostly the women watching the other women, telling on the other women.... This stuff is pushed in HR departments, they are the cultural commissars of this.... look at the sex distribution of HR departments. Once public morality gets infected, once virtue signalling requires you to believe this stuff... I think you'll just get a lot of women enforcing it out of competitive moral signalling.

If we still agree, and you think this is basically the same as what you said... then I would be very grateful for any reading recommendations on your notion of the patriarchy.
Click to expand...


I never even used the word patriarchy. I have no idea what you are referring to there. I said that women are socialised to centre men, to pander to men's desires and comfort, and to herd their sisters into doing the same, and that this takes better in some than in others.

They're not consciously saying to themselves, these people are male so I will pander to their every whim and scold any woman who won't join me. They're socialised to see that as "virtuous" behaviour.

Other than that, I'm not disagreeing with you.
 
Misogyny has always been a system that women participate in upholding as well as men. They are rewarded if they do, like men are. Conversely both men and women who rebel against it have been historically penalised.
 
Rolfe said:
I never even used the word patriarchy. I have no idea what you are referring to there. I said that women are socialised to centre men, to pander to men's desires and comfort, and to herd their sisters into doing the same, and that this takes better in some than in others.

They're not consciously saying to themselves, these people are male so I will pander to their every whim and scold any woman who won't join me. They're socialised to see that as "virtuous" behaviour.
Click to expand...
I don't know. It just seems like they do this in all sorts of circumstances where it doesn't involve putting men over women. I don't see why there needs to be a special explanation for the times when that is the case. There are plenty of times when women actively attack men. Men have been cancelled by wokescold women as well. If I jumped on my white horse and threw a transwomen out of the ladies bathroom, their brains wouldn't be short circuited about which man they wanted to support.

Rolfe said:
Other than that, I'm not disagreeing with you.
Click to expand...
It's one of the genuine pleasures of the forum that there is still common ground to be found.
 
It doesn't mention any part of the trans universe as far as I recall. One would need to make the mental leap of viewing the female-minimising strand of TRA as simply another manifestation of misogyny. (Which of course is not a leap its adherents will agree with)
 
Last edited:
Francesca R said:
It doesn't mention any part of the trans universe as far as I recall. One would need to make the mental leap of viewing the female-minimising strand of TRA as simply another manifestation of misogyny. (Which of course is not a leap its adherents will agree with)
Click to expand...
It will probably be more work than one book to view it through feminist eyes. I'll read it anyway, baby steps.
 
Lplus said:
It all seems to centre on the cult of "It's Not Fair!" closely followed by "Something Must Be Done!"

Not really sure this is still on topic, perhaps a new thread should be set up to examine the overarching reasons behind the blind rush from logic to feelings.
Click to expand...
Got my vote. :thumbsup: :)

Somewhat apropos of which, a passage from an article at Quillette by US/UK philosopher/lawyer Elizabeth Finne:

The primacy of subjectivity is by no means limited to politics. It now permeates the framework through which we have traditionally mediated our competing narratives. Journalism, academia, science, and law are all affected. In short, any institution that exists to accommodate competing perspectives is being undermined by a new paradigm that privileges the subjective ‘lived experience.’ And, in the process, the meta-values which have traditionally enabled us to transcend our differing subjective experiences suffer. Foundational principles such as audi alteram partem (listen to the other side), the presumption of innocence, proportionality, empiricism, and even the rule of law now must bow before the sovereignty of the subjective.
Click to expand...

https://archive.ph/3sdwg

My own Medium article which quotes and discusses how that has led to the "ideological capture" of Wikipedia - or at least of too many gender ideologues there:

https://medium.com/@steersmann/wikipedias-lysenkoism-410901a22da2

But another relevant passage therefrom:

As Carl Sagan put it in his The Demon-Haunted World, when we are “unable to distinguish between what feels good and what is true” then we will inevitably “slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness”.
Click to expand...

"feelinz" before facts - no wonder so much of the public discourse and policies therefrom are such ***********.

But a modus operandum that more than a few here seem to subscribe to ...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Recommended book list

shuttlt said:
Added to my Amazon list, I will try.
Click to expand...
Speaking of which, it might be nice to have a recommended book list for all things trans and/or terfy.

Here are a few recommends from me:

I've also read Debra Soh and Abigail Shrier, but do not really recommend them.

Interested to see whether the pro-TWAW folks have any books in mind. :)
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom