Is this an about-face from The Guardian?

Thank you MNers. This thread is a perfect example of why I joined mumsnet despite being a childless millennial type. The level and depth of discussion here is brilliant. The fact we can even discuss it all is amazing.

So they've manufactured some and are busy doing what the bourgeois classes always are busy with - capturing resources for themselves.

This.

Yes, and once they've convinced themselves they are the most oppressed of all the oppressed, they won't need to spend any time worrying about real oppression. Plus ca change ...

Sometimes I do wonder if the "hierarchy of intersectionality," as I interpret it now, has meant that those from more privileged backgrounds find a way to make themselves part of a marginalized group by engaging in trans ideology and declaring themselves to be non-binary

Of course they are. Oppression is the only thing money and nepotism can't buy. So they've manufactured some and are busy doing what the bourgeois classes always are busy with - capturing resources for themselves.

Also how many of these organisations have hired digital PR people to run their social media. So handing over a key channel to very young, inexperienced people. This is what did for Ocado.

Looking at the list of Stonewall supporters, I doubt the Cabinet Secretary has any idea what GCHQ have signed up to. I doubt GCHQ do either. But they've got a cool dude in diversity and another cool dude doing their Twitter and those two are causing all kinds of problems for a very serious, dusty organisation.

To see this in action, check out the fact that the Committee for Standards in Public Life have retweeted something from Aimee Challoner . Now the tweet itself is unexceptional. But the Committee clearly has no effing idea who Aimee Challoner is, what massive damage they've done to standards in public life or how ludicrous it makes them look to retweet anything from this facile idiot. The clerk to the committee probably won't know this has even happened. They'll be an old school functionary. But they'll have someone else running the social media and in the gap, mayhem happens.

From way back on the first page: *LostinEdinburgh: Too late for me. Once I'm scunnered, that's it."

Me too (but I have to ask are you channeling the thoughts of my late DM? She was an Edinburgh woman and would have said just this!)

But - "trans women and other women"? Seriously? Fuck right off with that one. And no, I haven't forgotten Cologne. And will not forget Cologne.

Having said that, at this point I'm not their target audience. If this editorial gives just a handful of their readers "permission" to think again about the "transwomen are women" mantra, it will have done something.

But like others on this thread I'm terrified that this is the last minute sop to a pretence of even-handedness on what's actually a done deal. (And I also want to know which member of the Cabinet it is - please James Kirkup, let us know...)

Great post heresy. I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Vote Leave's Dominic Cummings and his one time close political ally talk about how you can't bring widespread change about from within.

You gave to burn the house down and start over to completely restructure society and institutions.

In our history, this has been done following the consequences of war. After a long period of peace, you've got this massive institutionalisation going on. And huge political instability.

There's also a huge generational clash / class divide forming in that context that is interesting.

Don't get me wrong. I hate Cummings and Gove. But I worry about the point they make and whether they gave a point.

If they do, then we are perhaps overdue 'a burning down phase' whatever that may entail and whatever can grow out of that.

The problems over sexism and racism etc have been identified as institutionalised issues. But we've got these competing notions of what comes next and how those institionalised issues are dealt with. Hence the culture war and lots of prattling about 'progressiveness' which means fuck all but the next new fashionable ideology. Its not necessarily liberal.

Again. I'm rambling. So I'll shut up.

Heresy I saw this yesterday and found it thought provoking

It's very difficult to be part of a large organisation and fit this box of 'the troublemaker'.

You end up with an institutionalised culture of compliance however unwittingly, against which people feel free to talk without consequence.

It's much much harder to encourage and foster a culture in which people work together but also have this diversity of opinion and this freedom of conscious.

Its a facet of hierarchical power. You are taught to respect the authority of your superior.

When this fear becomes pervasive across society and across institutions you start to get problems. Power is about checks and balanced. Counter weights form the stability and freedom of democracy.

Stonewall has power over various key organisations. Yet no one is balancing the power of Stonewall. Normally it would be the press that fulfilled this role as a check.

No one can challenge the institutional power of Stonewall from within either. The culture is dominated by a like minded group and those faces that don't fit, have been driven out.

Equally the BBC has particular problems in this area.

And there is a problem which has developed across the entire media, which has led to this term 'liberal elite'. The fragility of the balance across classes has fractured.

That's why we've had the referendum vote in no small part. The counter weight.

Theres now something of a power vacuum going on, so we are getting this resonance effect across issues that fall along certain social fractures. Which threatens democracy completely.

Yet more fascinating posts.

Going into schools was about finding human shields for this BS. It’s easy to see through Jacinta Brooks but a sad teenage girl who is in distress about her body? Much harder to say no to

This is my greatest fear and what I'd love us to really tackle. I don't want to divert this thread but this is such a serious issue as this is where the harm is happening now

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3328210-Follow-the-money-who-is-funding-the-US-transborg

For those of you relatively new to the discussion and wanting to explore the Big Pharma angle, this may be helpful.

RedToothBrush
Your post is so interesting.
The element of class in this, I think, is so important.
Sometimes I do wonder if the "hierarchy of intersectionality," as I interpret it now, has meant that those from more privileged backgrounds find a way to make themselves part of a marginalized group by engaging in trans ideology and declaring themselves to be non-binary.
I also think you may to need to have a certain amount of privilege to even get involved in this alternative gender business to begin with.

Going into schools was about finding human shields for this BS. It’s easy to see through Jacinta Brooks but a sad teenage girl who is in distress about her body? Much harder to say no to.

I'm not the biggest fan of Chomsky but manufacturing consent via faux progressive establishment liberalism is blindingly obvious when it comes to transactivism.

The Guardian and the BBC are more to blame, not less.

YY.

That was a fascinating essay Heresy!

heresyandwitchcraft Your post is really interesting, with plenty of food for thought.

The bit that's missing however, in my view, is why the simple premise that women and girls are going to be harmed is not having much of an impact. Have we been duped about how serious people are about treating women equally ? What message have transactivists been able to get across or what soft spot in the liberal belly have they gone after that we've missed ?

Misogyny, sexism, the in-group versus the out-group, and the need for community. Those ancient forces that can never be truly erased.

I think we all delude ourselves into thinking that irrationality, tyranny, and deep-seated hatreds are a thing of past generations. That we would never go along with spying on our neighbours for wrong-think if we lived in Ingsoc in 1984. We all think we're Winston, but many of us would probably be O'Brien.

This, I think, is the real danger of "leftism" or "progressivism," because by identifying as the moral superior, they have uncoupled themselves from the reality of the human psyche and facts on the ground. I honestly think every single person has an ideology. We all need a way to structure the world, we need some narratives to make sense of it, and therefore we all are biased with certain prejudices. Everyone also desperately wants to fit in. Instinctive patterns of behaviour do not just go away because you put a little rose emoji next to your Twitter handle and join Momentum. All "identifying as the good person" does is make you even more blind to things like misogyny and antisemitism in yourself.

So I think "identity politics" in claiming it is feminist, anti-racist, and anti-phobic is actually making a fertile ground for people to ignore the need to critically examine their own troublesome behaviours, because they can stick to certain "speech codes" and "intersectional thinking."

I believe trans activists demonstrate this effect in a microcosm - I don't think it's an accident that so many of the activists are trans women who display hostility to women. These individuals actually deny they were ever part of the oppressing class (their identity as men may be something they are ashamed of, and I think many "feminist men" wish to move away from ever being associated with "toxic masculinity"). They erase the past, and reject the reality of their male bodies and socialization. Then some trans women, by identifying as a woman, do the neat trick of putting themselves as the more "oppressed" person in the hierarchy. This gives them the license to abuse women in a way they never would if this conversation was about anything other than "trans rights" or they were still identifying as men. Some trans activists also put themselves in a situation where they are actually incredibly reliant on external validation of this declared identity, and the very existence of females will remind them that they can never be biological women. This creates a need to vehemently protect the gender identity - it is vulnerable. You also have to explain where it comes from, but now trans activism cannot even define terms in the sense of gender dysphoria or acknowledge biological sex - hence upholding the "I am what I say I am because I say so" mantra becomes paramount.

I also think this also explains why so many "woke bros" join in with hating on women, attacking "wrong thinking witches" is almost the only socially accepted abuse of women available on the left.

The other issue that's been raised is how the online world and social media seems to be driving the performative/labelling aspect of all of this, as well as potential social contagion when it comes to thinking you might be trans. You feel the need to be seen a certain way, and can now attain social plaudits measured in "likes" from the comfort of your own screen. I also think you can basically "shop around" with how you present yourself online in a completely new way, and decide your individual identity is going to be as __. You're not constrained by any physical reality, or the fact that other people can actually see you. In terms of TRAs, this would tie in with the notion that everyone has this innate gender identity which is personal to them. It's almost like an extreme individualism, which still relies on some form of outside approval. Making an avatar for yourself so that you can best play this game on social media. Because of the potential of being abused, you don't want to be too vulnerable or open with your thoughts, but you also don't want to be left out.

The problem I think we are seeing with women standing up to trans rights activism is that other people and physical reality can offer a different perspective than an individual person's conception of themselves. And in our society, we posit that every person's view is equally valid, including those who reject the notion of gender identity and go just by sex.

I think many commercial companies can see the potential for profit in all of this. As we have seen elsewhere with astroturfing, there likely are vested interests from TRAs, too. Lots of people can make money off of problematizing gender and sex - just look at the fact we have private medical practices, money thrown at LGBTQ+ organizations who now pretty much only focus on trans issues, scientific research funding into trans children and the rise of these "experts" who don't really seem to have qualifications.

Also, the underlying narcissism of some trans activists alongside their seeming need for total compliance cannot be underestimated. I think we are seeing the effect of highly-motivated autogynephilic males attempting to reach their goals of having everyone agree with them. It really could almost be seen as on par with establishing a new global company, like Apple, or something. There's a product (gender ideology) that is being sold to an international market. They need marketing, salespeople, and a steady stream of new products to keep people interested.

Once you start seeing modern transactivism with their doctrine of gender identity almost as a religious notion being proselytized by a handful of prophets, it's far easier to conceptualize. I don't doubt for a second that the people who hold trans ideology dear should be allowed to believe what they want to, and live freely. I just don't want to be legally forced to agree with all aspects of their dogma.

I think my main issue is that we are very vulnerable to these ideas being presented as facts, rather than faith-based principles, because we haven't been holding fast to basic liberal values or allowed people to properly scrutinize these claims. The culture of "leftism" has not helped.

And it's a global shift. Freedom of speech is being systematically eroded worldwide
Yes. It's frightening.

'I think one of the wide appeals of this whole issue, is that it allows all men to be openly misogynist. To call women bigots if and when we talk about female oppression. '

This. Anyone who saw Ben Cohen on the Politics Show this morning would be left in no doubt of how much he despises women. It is perfectly clear why Pink News has taken the pro trans line it has.

people from less privileged backgrounds can no longer get to do things they would once have had the chance to do.

I'm from the North. But relatively privileged. I went to a very good comp. Twenty years ago the door was largely closed even to people like me, because of the concentration of the news media in the SE and nepotism and the prevalence of internships.

This isn't new.

I'd say its improved in someways geographically, but the number of jobs in news media has also shrunk.

I'd say at least half the people on my university course had a close friend or relative in the business. Nearly all were from the South East with better off parents than mine, who could afford to do unpaid work. A substantial number were privately educated. I did feel like my face didn't fit. I wasn't 'sloany' enough. I wasn't prepared to show my cleavage enough. It was totally alien and super privileged even to me.

So i can't imagine what it would have been like to have been from a background that was genuinely less privileged.

A friend of mine who works at a large media company in a senior production role said the other week she doesn't think class exists in the UK anymore. She's ten years older, and this was based on her experience of coming from a working class background. She's leftier than left.

Jaws dropped and our circle of friends did rinse her for the comment. I didn't have to say anything personally thankfully, everyone else had it in hand. She is lovely but totally oblivious to reality and how privileged she is, even in our circle. She's wildly out of touch with reality.

I'm in no way surprised at Lisa Muggeridge' s reflections or her experience as a result. It mirrors perfectly my lived experience. Not only is Lisa working class, Lisa is an outsider even within that. I think it's true of all outsiders.

Outsiders are regarded as loose cannons and problematic. They don't say the right things. They challenge their superiors. They are as 'nice' and they don't just tow the line like good little girls and boys.

They are either utterly brilliant or a complete and utter liability.

And therein has ended their career progression in a politically correct world. The unwittingly institutionalised authoritarianism and self selection process has been damaging. Why take a risk on a person when recruiting when there is a glut of applicants? And even once you are in the job, it's easy to get your cards marked unless you tick the right boxes of behaviour.

Positive discrimination can actually be an issue within that too - its a tool in which compliance is measured by the institution. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem because it's often about this thing of being compliant which is valued higher than being critical within the culture.

I think positive discrimination has merit, but I also think it has had the effect of killing our understanding of the value of critical comment. On an institutional level this is a very bad thing.

Anyway. I'm rambling again so time to shut up.

I don't think it's just one thing. It's a perfect storm situation because it can service a variety of agendas, hence why it's gained traction so rapidly.

I think one of the wide appeals of this whole issue, is that it allows all men to be openly misogynist. To call women bigots if and when we talk about female oppression.

That appeals to a frightening proportion of men, and has allowed e.g the Labour left and Momentum to silence ‘uppity’ women.

I think it's a combination of a male sex rights movement (let's face it, thanks to the internet a heck of a lot of men have porn addled brains) and a middle class rights movement.

I think it's that and that capitalism is quite happy to go along with it because it simultaneously opens up loads of new market segments (including, but not limited to, pharma). The more we commercialise ourselves, the more capitalism likes it.

How anyone can see this as a progressive movement - even the human rights activity in the area is a right wing, libertarian, individual rights approach - is beyond me.

In all honesty, humans are really rubbish at maintaining the discipline needed for a large scale conspiracy of the scale we're fearing.

What seems to me much more likely is a combination of laziness and incompetence on a very large scale that has been taken full advantage of by very selfish people.

I think it's a combination of a male sex rights movement (let's face it, thanks to the internet a heck of a lot of men have porn addled brains) and a middle class rights movement. Notice how it seems to be taxi drivers, bouncers and receptionists who are getting sacked for using the wrong pronouns.