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Original poster

Funded by the US religious far right...

162 replies

LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 11:07

My son has completely bought into the TRA agenda and firmly believes that UK based pro women organisations are funded by the US religious far right - which is the current metaphorical stick with which to beat his t*y mother - I should be careful of what I support apparently.

He's seen the accounts and the receipts online (apparently 🙄) although he couldn't find them to show me when he looked...

Is there anything irrefutable (preferably independent) i can show him to prove otherwise?

Thanks

OP posts:
xxyzz · 05/09/2020 14:49

@LateSummerGarden

I identified as heterosexual long before I had a boyfriend, so maybe he just hasnt had chance.

Quite. I dont know whether or not he's going to bring a man home next. Which is why I wouldnt argue against it. He sees it as being no different.

In that 'you can't prove a negative'. He can't prove someone isn't a woman in their head so he'll just accept that they are and feels the rest of society ought to treat them accordingly.

Does he therefore agree that everyone should be treated as whatever they identify with? Is he in favour of agreeing with anorexics that they are fat, 'to be kind'?

Or can he see that in some cases, the kindest thing to do is to point out someone else's delusion?

SerenityNowwwww · 05/09/2020 14:44

Sorry about the typos (my autocorrect hates me). Read it fast and maybe it makes sense.

SerenityNowwwww · 05/09/2020 14:44

Why would people fund things that are flawed? That’s his contra argument surely? And explain basic marketing principles to him - I know someone who works for an international business who are very very wokey (on paper). In reality (he says) they would back puppy drowning of it was popular and for them more business.

Human history is littered with people funding the wrong ‘uns.

Has he no pity for women and girls raped and murdered (I’m India in these cases): there was a case this week of a three year old girl raped and murdered over a family feud as ‘revenge’? The teenager girl raped and murdered in her way to register for exams, the baby girl found buried alive in a graveyard, the ‘missing’ girls worldwide aborted or murdered (even the UN acknowledge this). Ask him how this stacks up with his understanding of an oppressed and hard done by group in society. Ask him if this is the works he wants - actual matters of live and death that these girls and women have no power over because men are calling the shots.

Remind him that he is a man... let that hang with him.

Skyliner001 · 05/09/2020 14:32

Sounds like he's got utterly bogged down in a conspiracy theory. He definitely needs to evidence it.

SonEtLumiere · 05/09/2020 14:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 14:26

And it's a position that's easy to maintain from your bedroom in comfortable, leafy, middle class suburbia...

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Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 14:23

Ask him if he is one of those people who meet disagreement with death threats? Because I’m sure that’s not how he was brought up

No, of course it's not, but he is following the BLM and police related riots in the US currently and feels that they.are justified if they achieve a better outcome for Black people (regardless of who dies in the process) and that the suffragettes were no less violent and no one would consider those causes to be invalid. Oh, and TW wouldnt 'need' to threaten us with violence if we were just more open and reasonable. And the violent ones aren't representative of them all.

He just thinks women need time to catch up and we've spent too long being invested in our own interests. He knows and agrees that women's rights aren't where they should be but also that we won't achieve them if we focus on the issue of keeping some.women (TW) out and that we've been manipulated into focusing on this single issue which is going to prevent us from achieving equality.

Vermeil

You're so right. this is exactly right.

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Deliriumoftheendless · 05/09/2020 14:20

If it were actually true do you think the TRAs wouldn’t be tweeting about it constantly?

If it were true they would be rubbing the evidence in everyone’s faces.

If it were true screenshots proving it would be every TRA’s pinned tweet.

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 14:17

SerenityNowwwww

He's not saying I'm a Nazi, per se. He's saying the pro women movement is as deserving of as much respect as any other 'hate' movement all of whom can justify and reason their position on the basis of stereotypes beliefs; misrepresentation and smear campaigns.

He is aware of, and accepts the 'big pharma' issue but responds that that issue isn't restricted to the trans movement and isn't relevant in the lives of most trans people who 'just want to pee'.etc.

Show him the accounts - the lottery money, the money from government and tv telethon charity drives

That just validates it to him. Why would the gov and the lottery support movement if it were so fundamentally flawed?

OP posts:
Vermeil · 05/09/2020 14:15

Something I’ve noticed with most who have no vested interest but spout the dogma, is that it’s very much like medieval peasants and the church. They’re understanding of what they believe is actually very thin, but they listen to the high church elders and swallow their promise of a better world and a place in heaven if they accept without question. They don’t consider that those who preach to them might have a less than pure desire to accumulate power and wealth, and when you show the flock that the preachers have feet of clay, you knock their carefully constructed worldview off kilter, so they resist and dig in because it makes them deeply uncomfortable.
I have found one way to really blindside woke men, though. Point out the misogyny in their beliefs. They have no ready answer, as in order to defend themselves they have to deny your feelings and lived experience as a woman, and as people’s feelings and lived experiences are oh so bloody important to the chronically woke, it gives them the choice of either shutting the hell up and accepting that they might be wrong, or acting like the sort of blustering mansplainer gammon they actively despise. It’s proper steam emitting from the ears stuff if you’re clever about it. 😁

SerenityNowwwww · 05/09/2020 14:11

Prove the hate. Is it a one way street? Define hate - is it disagreeing to threatening with a painted baseball bat (they sell these online - and these arena sports equipment). Ask him if he is one of those people who meet disagreement with death threats? Because I’m sure that’s not how he was brought up. He is a fool of his argument is ‘you are a nazi’. Tell him to read his history on that.

Refuse to discuss unless he has evidence that is actually sourced (and a tweet or meme ain’t it, buster).

Show him the sponsorship and supporters pages of ‘the other side’ on their websites. Show him the accounts - the lottery money, the money from government and tv telethon charity drives. If he is investing so much in this argument he needs to do his homework, because he won’t always be bullying his mammy on this.

Show him how big pharma makes money - is he that naive that he thinks they are producing such medication for the good of mankind - or just to make mega bucks?

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 14:10

mostlydrinkstea

He knows that really. But he also says that, in the vein of 'uniting in the face of a common enemy' we are each grateful.for the superficial.support of the other. Our combined hatred of trans people.has blinded each of us to this fact.

Apparently, women should realise that our enemy's enemy is not our friend.

So we like their money, they like the credibility offered to them by UK organisations. Or something. Neither of us care where thebsuppt comes from as long as we have it.

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Escapeplanning · 05/09/2020 14:08

No, because some positions are just so intolerable they're not deserving of a reasoned argument (because they're just wrong) and you can't argue with 'stupid'.

At the simplest level this is how he is describing the protected characteristic sex and the associated exemptions in the 2010 Equality Act.

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 14:06

I identified as heterosexual long before I had a boyfriend, so maybe he just hasnt had chance.

Quite. I dont know whether or not he's going to bring a man home next. Which is why I wouldnt argue against it. He sees it as being no different.

In that 'you can't prove a negative'. He can't prove someone isn't a woman in their head so he'll just accept that they are and feels the rest of society ought to treat them accordingly.

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ThatLibraryMiss · 05/09/2020 14:04

Thank you, @nepeta.

nepeta · 05/09/2020 14:03

@ThatLibraryMiss

Transitioned males have very low testosterone and there is no evidence to suggest they retain an advantage in women's sports - evidence that suggests otherwise is flawed.

I would really, really like to see the evidence against this, because it’s what my daughter trots out.

Some evidence on that

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31794605/
www.preprints.org/manuscript/202005.0226/v1

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 14:02

SerenityNowwwww

Likewise.

And on every issue other than this he is able to.

But he either says his responses are follow up justifications or he says would he really be expected to justify his position to neo-nazis or racists or homophobes? No, because some positions are just so intolerable they're not deserving of a reasoned argument (because they're just wrong) and you can't argue with 'stupid'.

Hate is hate.

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Deliriumoftheendless · 05/09/2020 14:00

He 'identifies' as bisexual and I can't prove that he isn't because he's never had a boyfriend.

I identified as heterosexual long before I had a boyfriend, so maybe he just hasnt had chance.

Although Bret Anderson tried that line in the 90s.

mostlydrinkstea · 05/09/2020 13:59

As a religious woman I can say that the US religious right are not funding UK feminist groups because it is the very opposite of what they believe. With three degrees which include one in politics and a postgrad theology one I could tell him this but the religious right would be quite clear that as a woman I have no place teaching men anything. Ah well.

ThatLibraryMiss · 05/09/2020 13:59

Transitioned males have very low testosterone and there is no evidence to suggest they retain an advantage in women's sports - evidence that suggests otherwise is flawed.

I would really, really like to see the evidence against this, because it’s what my daughter trots out.

SerenityNowwwww · 05/09/2020 13:58

We have always told DS that he needs to always have a follow up to any statement. So he can’t just say:

I’ve read xyz book
I don’t like xyz film
Xyz politician is good/bad
Gorillas and monkeys should have human rights (we watched spacechimps when he was little)
He’s a bad man, I don’t like him
My teacher hates me
I like xyz...

Because if life there is always the follow up ‘why, Why not, What makes you think that, where did you read this, have you followed the other sides argument...’

‘Just because, someone told me, shut up you bigot’ just won’t fly in our house I’m afraid.

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 13:56

Investigated. - added up
Can reveal - here is the total.

Haha, I investigate Sainsburys in a similar vein on a weekly basis...

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Escapeplanning · 05/09/2020 13:54

This is funny. She says this:

"I’ve investigated and can reveal they’ve raised over £280k!!! 😳"

Investigated. - added up
Can reveal - here is the total.

Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 13:52

Escapeplanning

Right...

Thanks for that. If he mentions it again, I'll just tell him I'm not interested unless he can provide sources.

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Original poster
LateSummerGarden · 05/09/2020 13:50

MoltenLasagne

Spot on. But he told me that bigots don't deserve respect and deserve all the hate that comes their/our way.

I would tell him that one day he'll grownup and feel embarrassed about the position he's taken on this but inthink that would just consolidate his position for evermore.

I'm trying to keep it as non blamey and non judgemental as possible sot hat he.doesn't feel he cant come back from it when he's grown up a bit.

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