When will we wake from this nightmare?

History does not have a right or wrong side. To believe it does it to believe it is some kind of ongoing process with a desired and fixed end point which is teleology, AKA bad historical methodology.

If we lose the ability to clearly define women and girls as a group and to exclude men from those spaces where there presence is a threat to our safety we lose everything. We simply can't afford to let TRAs get what they want. Needs of 50% of the population versus potential hurt feelings of less than 1%? The 50% win.

And that's before you even take into account the people for whom all this is simply a misogynistic power play.

If anything, postmodernism is to blame for the ideology of transgenderism, patriarchy is just a willing beneficiary.

@deepwatersolo
"By teaching people with penises that women have no boundaries and, therefore, their safe spaces, scholarships and whatever else they fought for are up for grabs for anyone with a penis (and a dress), maybe?"

Who exactly are these patriarchal teachers and how long have they been teaching this alleged doctrine?

we have a powerful and influential worldwide movement whose aim is to totally subjugate women. And I am scared

I'm afraid too. We have to keep on.

There's an assumption that the nightmare will end at some point. Notes from history: it might not.

That is exactly, why I find the phrase 'on the wrong side of history' so pointless. If history goes down the handmaid's tale, people who support the complete subordination of women are literally on the right side of history.

I know. I find it terrifying that they have so much power and influence across the world. And that the movement is driven by such hatred of women. It feels like the destruction of women is the primary goal of their activism.

Basically we have a powerful and influential worldwide movement whose aim is to totally subjugate women.

And I am scared.

There's an assumption that the nightmare will end at some point. Notes from history: it might not.

(Is the patriarchy to blame for the rise of the transgender movement, if so, how?)

Oh, and by selling to men the idea that being a woman means all those silly stereotypes patriarchy invented to crush and mock women.

Is the patriarchy to blame for the rise of the transgender movement, if so, how?

By teaching people with penises that women have no boundaries and, therefore, their safe spaces, scholarships and whatever else they fought for are up for grabs for anyone with a penis (and a dress), maybe?

The tide is supposedly turned - except while there are flurries on the surface, the TRA policy kraken still glides under the radar, getting places on influential committees, taking over the BBC, whose editorial muse now flies under the Stonewall banner, and chipping away at Tavi caution. In four years the language of the TRA has become the norm. I don't know when we will wake up. It seems so far away.

What, you haven't heard of the great radical feminist Simone de Foucault?

Please do not minimize the great achievements of the father of (not just modern) feminism, Michel Foucault. We all know he hopped into a time machine to tell Simone de Beauvoir what to write, and then, after travelling back to the future, corrected the shortcomings of her theory, solving the problems of feminism. (Apparently she did not listen properly, when he first told her what to write).

(If you don't believe me, it is all in that one thread from 2 weeks back.)

Is the patriarchy to blame for the rise of the transgender movement, if so, how?

"Sharks sometimes eat people, and that's why knitting is a health hazard. Take that, feminists!"

What, you haven't heard of the great radical feminist Simone de Foucault?

So political lesbians, and feminists in general, withdraw their support of the LGB cause upon the inclusion of the T's in the late 80s?

So none of what I've described has happened because of semantics?

It's not semantics to point out the glaring inconsistencies and inaccuracies in your argument. You are conflating completely different things leading to statements that have no coherent logic.

What, you haven't heard of the great radical feminist Simone de Foucault?

As far as I'm aware radfems have never promoted the T, and it was only added to the LGB in the last ten years or so.

That Dawkins article is about postmodernism, not radical feminism - you do realise that is a completely different and unrelated thing?

(I know, I know, Bunbury would not approve of my offering this person my chips. Will stop now.)

It's cute how you think that the T was rolled in with the LGB in the 60s and 70s (when political lesbianism started). Did you think people were doing "activism" via hashtag back then too?

So none of what I've described has happened because of semantics?

Great. Problem solved.

You clearly have no idea what a radfem is.