What broader issues has the trans (lack of) debate opened your eyes to?

thenightsky I think sometimes it takes years/decades of hindsight to pick apart the good and the bad of progress. Undoubtedly the advent of easily available contraception in the form of the pill has had huge benefits but it hasn't been without it's downsides. As with anything they're are people (men) looking to exploit to their advantage.

It could be argued that the current gender movement has some of its roots from good progressive ideas. Which is why more conservative leaning sorts have this attitude of you reap what you sow towards feminists. As with 60s progressiveness though it's ended up being exploited, twisted and used against women.

OvaHere My mum was in her 30s in the 1960s and, as a little girl, I remember her saying something along the lines of 'this will all end up worse for women in the long run'.

Great point about the parallels with 60s/70s free love and cults. A good deal of the impetus behind second wave feminism for women was realising that while there were civil rights revolutions around class and race and sexuality, they as women were still expected to make the tea, have the babies and put out when required. And they thought, fuck that. It's interesting and inspiring to see a new wave of actual grassroots feminism emerge out of this current madness. It's a hope I cling to.

At which point the people responsible for the backlash will just shrug and head back underground, because they don't care about anyone but themselves.

Yes, I'm seeing a lot of parallels with the free love moment, the most extreme version of which were the communes that encouraged polyamory and tried to make out that children belonged to everyone in the community rather than their parents (especially their mothers). Wild Wild Country on Netflix is quite an interesting documentary on that.

The backlash to those extremities and the dark side of the sexual revolution was pretty brutal, and that's the other thing that's pissed me off so much this whole mess. Women's rights and Gay & lesbian rights have come so far over the last few decades, but the recent TRA/lib fem/commercial sex/kink faction of the past 5 years have made such a toxic version of them that I can see a backlash brewing again.

That's the problem with the whole "wrong side of history" narrative. History is only steady line on a graph when change is slow & incremental and the whole of society can adjust for them (as for women's rights and gay & lesbian rights). When you push too fast for a massive revolution (completely ending the material reality of reproduction, insisting that people self-gaslight to be "kind") it turns into a pendulum. I don't want to see the gains we've made lost in the backlash, and I'm tired of being made out to be some sort of bigot for it.

I agree with so much of this. For me, also it's a revelation at how narcissistic a lot of people are. The endless soul-searching "essays" on whether they should identify as non-binary or whether they will ever truly feel what it is to be cis (which is always equated with being boring, passive and accepting of the most ridiculous stereotypes). Just accepting that sex is a binary and all the rest is personality would set them free!

I'm sure I read somewhere that the 60s free love movement had similarities. As in the preferred narrative wasn't quite how it was and a lot of people, mostly women & girls, were actually quite exploited as a result.

I was too, Singasonga. Did not anticipate that turning into this at all.

Yes, Prodigal Kittens. I was one of those people in the 90s who explored kink, and was all "let's talk about sex" as a result of the HIV epidemic and the push for gay rights, and have been genuinely aware of how society has historically shamed and repressed women's sexual interest while tolerating or outright indulging men's. I believed (and still do) that there is genuinely "a lid for every pot," and as long as no-one's being hurt or exploited, and everyone is a mature adult, then most sexual activities are okay as long as you're not blabbing away about them to people who've not shown an interest.

Somewhere, the right for every pot to find its lid has turned into this insane sexual free-for-all where no-one is allowed to have boundaries or show disinterest. (Oh, they can declare themselves asexual to try and escape it, as long as they don't kink shame.) It's horrifying.

I wish I'd never found out about furries, adult babies, or DDLG (don't look it up unless you want to feel like punching things, revel in your lack of knowledge). The idea that all fetishes are equal is, bluntly, hogwash. "Don't yuck someone else's yum?" Nope, sorry, there are certain things for which I absolutely am judging you (which could easily be avoided by not telling the whole world all about it).

I don't know how to describe the sort of behavior that's flourished due to the mainstreaming of porn in terms of people oversharing and trying to push their fetishes in entirely inappropriate contexts. Sexual incontinence? I'm not arguing for a return to never talking about sex, but surely there's a balance that can be struck between that and posting about your fetish 50 times a day on Tumblr or Twitter, with photos, and then getting into screaming arguments with anyone who's all "um, this is a book group and we were talking about Mansfield Park?" because how dare those people try to shame you (by politely requesting that you cease the kinkspamming).

Have to add that as a parent I have a big stake in this. I try to do as much as I can to counter the negative influences but it's hard.

I work with young people. I agree with you. I also think that social media is lagely to blame tbf.

Also: how far educational standards have fallen. I'm not being unkind - I was misguided and often wrong when I was young but I've never seen anything like the ignorance and stupidity of this generation. I think the internet carries a lot of the blame - the poor attention span, the urge to communicate in bite-sized punchlines for likes and approval rather than putting forth complex arguments, the endless chatter surrounding them so they never have quiet time alone in their heads. Their aggression and nastiness when confronted with different opinions. The willingness to cancel, ban, ruin careers. The endless parade of self-diagnosed disabilities, illnesses and conditions.

And wtf is the bizarre cult of Judith Butler? How has one charlatan academic, who never was a feminist, centred in what were once feminist / women's studies courses? I don't get it. She appeared around the time I was a student and that kind of thinking was definitely creeping in - I think we were bored of tired old angry 70s feminism, it was our mums basically - but we still had some grasp of material reality. We did not think prostitution was a job like any other and which should be legalised, or that men could become women.

I don't want to be some harrumphing old git, complaining about the young. (please no-one wheel out the probably misattributed Socrates quote!) I know they aren't all like this. But unless something very big happens to their thinking, I am really scared of the day when this generation is in charge.

How people think that women’s rights are a joke - but if a male asks for/takes the same rights, people fall over themselves.

How little people care about women's rights really. It was like looking into a terrifying chasm.

Porn. Obviously I was aware of the inherent issues with porn before but fairly naive as to the new wave the internet has brought about. Furries, adult babies, anime etc... how much of a crossover there is with the TRA movement and how much young people are being groomed by this type of stuff, often in plain sight. How it leads to disordered thinking and a loss of a grasp on reality. Very disturbing and eye opening.

It's made me realise that left and right are two wings of the same patriarchal bird
Should've realised a lot sooner, really, but the breadth and depth of the Left's misogyny problem came as a shock

Beautifully put.

I always thought the story of the Emperor's new clothes was ridiculous.

Not so much anymore.

How some people, not huge amounts but enough to cause trouble, can believe something so utterly, blatantly impossible to such a fanatical degree that they will literally attack people, physically, to protect themselves from hearing tha truth. I know there are religious fanatics, but nobody can prove there isn’t a god, even if the idea of there being one seems so completely impossible to lots of us, but believing that people can change sex is not just imaginary friend teratory, it’s blatant delusion.

That a small number of fanatics can influence every aspect of society no matter how fucking mental their beliefs.

That there are some very clever calculating people out there, a lot it would seem, who will bend almost anything to their nefarious purposes.

And how apathetic most of the public are, even when having utter delusion forced upon them and being forced to act as if it were true.

That’s quite a big realisation, and now I’m inclined to view anything in the MSM with a suspicious eye. I’m also ready to accept that even the most bonkers conspiracy theory has a grain of truth buried in it somewhere.

RoyalCorgi - yes it has revealed so much including things that Feminism could campaign on going forward.

“I've been shocked to the core how easy it is to persuade large numbers of apparently rational adults to parrot something that they know cannot possibly be true, because they want to go along with the crowd and not be unpopular.”

Yes this. How are intelligent people going around talking about ‘sex assigned at birth”? EVERYONE knows this is nonsense. I can’t get my head round it.

This has been such an interesting thread. It would be good if someone could turn it into a list or even an article.

That most people don't really have strong political or ethical beliefs and will just sort of go along with whatever the current trend is without asking too many questions.

Yes that was a shock to me. Especially when they then act as if they are incredibly moral.

That people will flat out lie and claim to believe things that they know not to be true if they think it benefits them to do so. Obviously I always knew some people would, but the sheer number who have has surprised me.

That the right actually does support freedom of speech in a way the left doesn't. This was probably the most challenging realization for me on a personal level, as a lifelong leftist, the fact that the authoritarian left has decisively won the battle for control over leftist groups and organizations, leaving those of us who're left and anti authoritarian without any clear political home.

That many people are so horrified by gender non conformity in children that they will do literally anything to make it go away, no matter what the cost is to the kids, even if those kids are their own.

The weaknesses of lefty media. It was the Cologne article that was the final straw for me in terms of The Guardian, but really the underlying causes are the same ones that lead to them covering trans issues so poorly.

How common personality disorders are at a population level, and how easily even a small number of people with those disorders can wreak havoc when given a tool that can be used to manipulate people.

That most people don't really have strong political or ethical beliefs and will just sort of go along with whatever the current trend is without asking too many questions.

The rampant misogyny unfortunately was not a surprise, as I figured that one out as a small child.

Any rights for which women have fought, including the vote and not being 'owned by' a man, were granted by men.

YY. And we're not allowed to forget it.