I fucking despair

He’s probably not bothered no.

Is it worth showing him this weightlifter?

twitter.com/realkatiejow/status/1232898091583295488

There was a thread collating trans women in sports but I can’t find it.

OP sorry if I missed it

Does he know that trans often just means self ID? Is he imagining a lot of medical change?

Also porn has fuelled a lot of this movement - and i think a lot of 'straight' men would have trouble admitting they've been masturbating to a man with fake boobs!

A younger male I knew referred to a lady boy as a woman with a penis but in reality it’s a man with fake boobs. It took some explaining for it to sink in

With quite a lot of men,It think they accept TWAW precisely because they themselves are men and they don't see TW as part of their group. TW aren't masculine enough and their view of manhood isn't big enough to incorporate a very feminine presenting male as a man.

And if someone isn't a man, they must be a woman. QED, job done, TWAW.

My DP was like this - he's worked with several TW and said he'd never want to see them in a male prison, they'd be targeted. It would be cruel not to use their new name or say She/her, if at risk of aggression the womens toilets are a reasonable refuge and you can hardly go into the men's changing room to try dresses on, can you?

It took MONTHS of hammering on about this and pulling up examples and data for him to finally see what we're on about.

Some women will be sufficiently strong enough to be firefighters. Most won't be.

Actually, if you read Invisible Woman, what you start to realise is that the reason most women are not strong enough to be firefighters is because as a profession the norms have been designed based on male bodies. If the norm for firefighter equipment had been to develop them to be smaller, lighter etc, then in fact the problem would never arise that women struggle. It's a common theme.

I think a lot of the TWAW people, women especially, come from a mindset in which they want to be open and inclusive. And so their thinking is that if that "poor natal-man feels so strongly that he wants to become a woman, dress as a woman, take hormones, undergo surgery etc then frankly, the least we can do is welcome him into our spaces." And furthermore, this thinking is also predicated on the assumption that trans women are good people who understand that things might be difficult and confusing.

But the problem is that as we've learnt, the above type of trans women is actually rare. And that self ID allows predators and liars to access women's spaces. And that trans woman, the "good" ones or the liars, simply want to gain control.

The woman I know who have the thinking above, are often surprised to hear about how many trans women are taking part competitively in women's sport. And even MORe surprised when they realise that so many of these trans women haven't even bothered with more than the most basic of physical or hormone changes? Their first response is "what about Semenya?" but that's an entirely different situation and I think it's a pity that she's dragged into the trans women in sports debate.

bellinisurge "out of the mouths of babes*........

I think that there are definitely true believers in TWAW. The ones with no except for... whatsoever are very extreme, I grant you, but they do exist. But even the ones who allow for exceptions are more common than you might think.

However, I do think that's often through a number of factors like 'be kind' socialization, and other forms of tribalism. Some will undoubtedly hinge on individuals being gullible, stupid, selfish, etc. but I don't think it is a belief that comes naturally, I do think you need to have the neo-religious mechanisms to help you.

As an example, I think Lisa Nandy and Alice Roberts are probably true believers in Genderism, for different reasons. Nandy has adopted a 'be nice' motivation, which has been ably assisted by meeting specific cult members and her own self image of what she deems 'integrity'. She can't allow herself to listen to her misgivings, but I bet they exist.

Roberts is a successful woman in a male dominated sphere, who has carved out a telegenic niche for herself, and, I rather suspect, doesn't like other women very much. Her adherence to the religion has a pretty strong streak of ladder pulling and a certain glee in using her authority to scorn others.

They have their own reasons for TWAW, but they do believe it.

Your daughter - more sense than all the Labour leadership contenders put together!

Interesting conversation with my 12 year old this morning. She was talking about Animal Farm which they did at school and how it was boring and irrelevant . I said that it had lots of relevance to the trans debate whereby you start off wanting to be helpful and inclusive and anti-prejudice but that good kind idea is exploited and turned against you. And you are in the wrong for pointing out the truth.
I explained about transwomen wanting to compete against women in sport. "Well, that's mad", she said "I bet some men will say they are women just to get a good place or win in a competition. I couldn't box against a bloke or something ". And then I moved on to talking about toilets and prisons. " Well that's mad" she said again. Then I told her about JK Rowling's tweet to which she said "Well, obviously ". And then I told her about the trolling responses and she was amazed.
I told her that expressing the views she has in public might well be controversial so to be careful. "but it's biology ", she said.
So don't despair completely, op.

Some believe TWAW.

Some are trying to be kind.

Some men and women deep down feel women’s sport is inferior to men’s anyway. So they don’t really care.

I was half listening to the BBC Women's Hour on Radio 4 yesterday and was depressed to hear a glowing endorsement of astrology via a guest astrologer who spent a long time promoting pseudoscience

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084rnk

When the guest astrologer was asked why so many people are turning to astrology she replied that it was partly due to mindfulness as mindfulness makes people "open" to all kinds of ideas that they might not be open to without the mindfulness. It was the only thing she said that wasn't completely deluded IMO

The New Thought movement has a lot to answer for

Another aspect of the New Thought movement is something called Nonviolent Communication

Because, just as you can transform your life through the power of positive thinking, thoughts and words are violent and thus a new form of communication is needed to stop the hurty words.

Running late, more to follow soon

No straight man believes it.

a very clever woman highlights problems with the New Thought Movement

There is another massive reason why so many apparently sane people believe that TWAW

The New Thought Movement / The Secret / The Law of Attraction / Positive Thinking

A new and dangerous philosophy has spread like a virus and is now a global pandemic

People who follow this philosophy believe

You can become whatever you want to be just using the power of your mind, thus if you want to be a millionaire the only thing that is stopping you is your negative thoughts. If you believe you are a millionaire, really and truly believe it, you will be a millionaire.

If you are morbidly obese you should be proud and happy and not worry about adverse health effects. Any adverse health effects are because of negative thoughts and wrong thinking, not because of your obesity.

If you struggle to understand why you stole, cheated, abused people and ruined your life, you were probably sexually abused as a child. If you can’t remember being abused it is because the abuse was so traumatic that you couldn’t bear to remember it. All you need to do is to imagine what might have happened and the memories will come. The memories are real because you wouldn’t have done bad things unless you were abused. If you think you might have been abused you really were.

If you have cancer or some other serious illness it is not due to genetics, diet, lifestyle or other factors, it is because of negative thoughts and wrong thinking.

If you are a man but want to be a woman you are a woman. You really are. An authentic woman at that.

Central to the new thought movement are concepts of clean and dirty, outside and inside, clearing blockages, detoxes and transformation.

Just as vulnerable people tormented by internal racism may attempt to heal their feelings of inner badness by using dangerous skin whitening creams, others may attempt to detox and to expel badness from the body through gender reassignment surgery. Others may submit to yoni massage / genital de-armouring or sexual abuse from a predatory guru in order to rid their reproductive organs of invisible psychic parasites.

Also see quackery, mindfulness, MLM scams, LGATs, ostritch position

And yes, some women will do things for reasons like their own benefit or male approval. But that doesn't tell us none of them believe TWAW. There are women who believe far weirder things than that.

No one believes TWAW is true.

Yeah, yeah they do. Some have no boundaries on that, others might say they are a different kind of woman which means there should be limits around things like sports. They tend to believe that we now know that women refers to gender, not sex. It's not most people but there are a good number of progressives that think that way.

What are you on about? It's not a "justification" to say that some women will do anything for male approval. It's just a fact. Just like some women will put their own personal advancement over the good of womankind as a whole. I'm not "excusing" that position in the slightest. Actually I'm disgusted by women who do this as, however much easier it might make life to toe the line, it's always a betrayal.
I'm not quite sure why you're trying to make it a contentious point tbh.

That's because there are a lot of women who will do anything to get male approval

Really? No women believe this, they just act like they do because they either have been told to be nice or want male approval?

I hate to break it to you, but women are capable of having differences of opinion that have nothing to do with men, and there are about the same variety of bright vs dim women as there are men

I agree Goosefoot I find it really odd that so many justifcations are found for a woman doing something stupid, or cruel or bad or selfish. There's always some excuse. It's sexist in its own way not to acknowledge women are as capable of being stupid, cruel, selfish dim etc all on their own accord.

I think parents who have encouraged or at least accepted their child’s transition believe it, on some level.

I can sympathize. In their position I wouldn’t want to re-examine my beliefs once it was too late either.

No one believes TWAW is true.
The "except when" always comes out in the end.

I'd add: they think it's true.

They see issues in terms of tribal identity.

Also, let's not forget the sunken cost fallacy.

It takes an awful lot for someone to admit they were wrong.