Feminist Current: I supported Trans ideology until I couldn't any more

I have seen this before with some academic types - intelligent and book smart but a complete lack of critical reasoning or independent thought.
I think it is very brave that this clinical psych with a PHD no less has had the humility to catalogue her about face re TRA... however I am astounded that she was ever taken in by it in the first place, to the extent that she admits she did not research the basic tenets of her activism but instead chose to mindlessly repeat mantras such as TWAW whilst dismissing those who attempted to draw her attention to the ideology’s inconsistencies and just plain wrongness.

I've posted a comment saying that she was in fact the bigot all along. I wonder if she will accept it.

HeyDuggeesCakeBadge
Being a student is such a time of upheaval. Actual cults figuring out they can target young people this way is... interesting to compare with transactivism. University students will likely go on to have influential careers, too, so if you indoctrinate teach them early... I think about the silencing atmosphere reported in universities on the trans topic, pressure from students to conform to the mantra transwomen are women, reports from parents on how their children completely change when they adopt a new gender identity (plus if the family doesn't play along they'll get completely cut off) and how many crowdfunders I've seen for transition procedures....

just saw this on Twitter & came here to start a thread on it, but see it's already been done!

I just saw it on reddit and wondered was i brave enough to start a thread

Very interesting article

It's an interesting article. It's always good to think about what kinds of things make people change their minds, or prevent them.

I think there are going to be a variety of reasons people believe the TWAW argument. For many it seems to me they just go along with whatever their group thinks, be they progressives, conservatives, or something else. They have never really spent time thinking carefully about what is being said, they just repeat catch phrases and surface arguments that sound right.

A lot of the ideas you hear are really borrowed one way or another from civil rights, or marriage equality, or other kinds of rights movements. In a lot of cases, they don't even make sense when applied to a different set of ideas, or sometimes they were always catch phrases without much substance. But either way, lots of people believe them in the original context and so now they are just repeated about this new idea as if they are obvious accepted truths.

Terms like bigot and racist have become almost like calling a person a heretic, it seems to turn off the brain for a lot of people. People who want to manipulate others use this, maybe sometimes unconsciously.

But the science thing is more complicated than it seems I suspect. To me it seems obviously unfounded, but I think it doesn't to many. They see articles in Scientific American or National Geographic, or know health professionals that treat people who are trans. So - they figure people like that know more about the science. Which seems like it should be true, yk?

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

I’ve never been full blown trans ally, went from hmm, probably shouldn’t be mean if this doesn’t affect me to ‘wow this is misogynistic bollocks’ about three years ago.

Seeing intelligent educated people having such massive blind spots, makes me wonder what my own blind spots are.

Just realised it is heresy - sorry!!

That's absolutely nuts heresay but o can totally see that! I completely changed in my first year at uni - I was young, naive and suffering terrible mental health I would have been such an easy target and I was really militant in my leftie beliefs at that time - I still am, albeit a less shouty and willing to listen to others and accept difference of opinion.

Excellent article. It takes courage to change your mind publicly.

I agree on the cult points.

This article on cults targeting students from 2001 seems to me so similar to transactivism - it's eerie.
www.theguardian.com/education/2001/nov/06/highereducation.students

Are you young, of above average intelligence, from an economically advantaged background, well educated and idealistic? If you answered yes to the above, you may well be a student. But you also fit the bill for recruitment into a cult.

"To define a cult we use five characteristics, the most important of which is the use of mind-control techniques to recruit people," says Ian Howorth of the Cult Information Centre. "Although cults recruit people of all ages, students - who are intelligent and often intellectually or spiritually curious - are prime targets."

...

Ian Howorth says that when the average person is recruited into a cult, they undergo a drastic personality change. "With new students, it may take longer for family and friends to notice and fully understand the change. Parents may put the change down to leaving home and meeting a new crowd, and by the time they have realised what has happened, it's too late."

For those recruited into some groups, targeting others and "fund-raising" for the cause can become a full-time activity. Reports of students being asked to apply for personal loans with banks or loan sharks are not uncommon.

I agree with MagicMix.

I'm an atheist so I just don't 'buy' the idea of souls, or genders, or anything much except bodies & personalities.

Also, being one of those gothy/alternative types I've been around trans people forever, since waaaay before we were expected to believe that so-and-so who likes wearing a LBD, eyeliner, fishnets & New Rocks to go dancing on a Friday night is in fact a woman rather than a bloke who likes wearing etc etc.

So my position was always 'some people like to present as the opposite sex. Cool. Only a real meanie would object to that'

Then various friends started up with TWAW & I thought 'well...no, I don't believe that; at best it could be a legal fiction, but it's probably kind to play along.'

THEN lots of shouty AWA started doing their thing, & the same friends were cheerleading all that - & I discovered that I wasn't on board with any of it, all of a sudden.

Except blokes in fishnets & eyeliner. Still quite a fan of that!

In fact, I just remembered that when a man I know 'came out' as a woman I looked up a lot of articles online about how to gaslight myself better because I just could NOT see him as a woman. It was easier to believe it when it was theoretical, but when it was a person I actually knew it got a lot harder. Like, Bob, a woman? Really???

The most convincing thing trans ideologues have is the existence of apparently 'trans' kids.

Really? It was the notion of 'trans kids' that peak transed me. I watched the Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best documentary a couple of years ago, to try to understand how kids could be 'trans'. I spent an hour shouting 'that's child abuse' at the TV, and ended up convinced that 'transgender' kids were clearly ones who didn't conform to stereotypes, aided by parents who wanted their moment in the spotlight.

Perhaps it is more to do with tacking the T onto the LGB?

Absolutely. This was their masterstroke in my opinion.

Nobody around me thought that you could change sex.

Well, neither did I if someone had pushed me on that point. I just wasn't thinking about it in those terms, if you can understand that. It is very hard to explain.

Magic interesting perspective - thank you.

Perhaps it is more to do with tacking the T onto the LGB?

I suspect many people who are strong supporters of LGB rights felt an automatic pull to the T without necessarily realising the circumstances are very different.

Similarly, the conflict with women's rights is not acknowledged publicly but internally rationalised

Again, no this isn't exactly it from my experience anyway. It's just that if you can believe TWAW, the conflict doesn't exist. You can easily see that this is the way they think about it - they say this explicitly. If you believe in gender souls, it's easy to believe that TWAW. If you notice that you don't have a gender soul, it's easy enough to believe that the reason for that is because you are 'cis' and you just don't notice it.

That’s probably difference magicmix

Nobody around me thought that you could change sex.

Either in my family or social life

We ar3 just ordinary people with no thoughts of having identity.

It IS a cult.

www.grunge.com/47584/cults-trick-believing/

Someone posted this the other day. So much of this applies to trans ideology.

Rather, they rationalise the lie on the basis that the end justifies the means.

For me it wasn't exactly this. It was more that I felt an enormous amount of pressure to believe it. Everyone around me believed it (and as far as I know most of them still do). It was part and parcel of being a progressive, good person in my mind. I was unaware that the criticism was coming from feminists until I heard about the no-platforming of Germaine Greer. I fully bought into the equation of transphobia with homophobia and I thought that the reason I had these doubts meant that I was a transphobe. So I pushed the thoughts deep down. I really really wanted to believe and if you want to believe something you usually can to a certain extent. I was never a full-on batter for the TRA agenda, but I would definitely have described myself as a supporter and said some very embarrassing things on occasion.

Exactly Lang. It's a shame it took her so long and it meant that she was horrible to women on twitter, she got there in the end.

I think it's great she's written this.

I almost fell off my chair when she peaked!

Very interesting that it all started with the Streisand Effect of Wax My Balls.

I was definitely taken in by TRAs until I peaked transed about 2 years ago.

I knew a few MTF and they had full reassignment surgeries. I thought the discussion was around them and I thought how mean all the hard core rad fems were to get so worked up by transsexuals in their spaces. I hadn't realised the full extent of the ideology as you don't know what you don't know.

I quite happily shared my spaces with transwomen, not anymore.

Interesting.

I've always wondered how people who robustly defend the notion that TWAW and TMAM are able to override their internal logic to do so.

Reading that article it sounds like they don't.

Rather, they rationalise the lie on the basis that the end justifies the means.

Similarly, the conflict with women's rights is not acknowledged publicly but internally rationalised as a price worth paying to support and protect a what they perceive through relentless PR/SM/propaganda are a highly marginalised and ill treated group.

For me it circles back to a previous thread on here asking what equal rights do the trans community not already have?

The response was predictably, none. What they do demand is rights in excess of everyone else, which is arguably the mark of a highly narcissistic and dangerous movement.