What have you learned from the trans takeover

I learned that men really do not like women mobilising and they will go to great lengths to stop women talking.

George Orwell was prescient, do it to Julia is very now, isn't it.

I used to think I was liberal and open minded, but now I recognise how closed I was to hearing ideas I disagreed with.

I am now genuinely open to having my mind changed, and feel freer as a result. I will never again dismiss a person’s opinion until I have listened directly to what they say.

I also used to be proud of belonging to the psychotherapy profession, but I have learned that most of my profession have no interest in looking at the issues or even considering a wider perspective. I find it hard to understand how so many intelligent people can fall for this shit. So I’m pretty disillusioned really, and I think I was too naive before.

I feel more solid and confident in my own opinions and am less likely to be influenced by others. I have no fucks left to give.

I hear pp on being a "lazy lefty". I knew I couldn't go along with TWAW because it's clear to me that they aren't and it's also clear to me that pretending they are raises huge safeguarding problems for women and girls. I also can't go along with #nodebate because nothing is lazier than that. If your views can't stand being reflected on and having to push back against arguments you don't like, they're not solidly based and not worth holding. I have a dear friend who says she doesn't need to debate anything because she tests everything against her inner sense of her moral values. Honestly I don't see how that makes her different from the followers of any given religion, who presumably also hold views that align with their moral values.

I find myself listening to more views, for example not thinking every conservative or brexiteer is the devil incarnate.

Basically I think I've grown up a bit from being a lazy lefty as pp puts it.

It's only a small positive amid the absolute tide of pseudoscientific protoreligious gender bilge we've faced in the last few years, but I've learned to value the writing of female writers from outside my own political comfort zone. I'm talking about the likes of Mary Harrington, Ella Whelan and Louise Perry.

And generally I've learned to read analysis from a lot more women than I would have otherwise.

Surprisingly, that having a Minister for Women and Equalities is probably a bad idea.

Rather than embedding work on genuine inclusion into other departments, such as Housing, Transport and Employment, it created a career path for ambitious politicians in 'pushing the boundaries' outside the real world.

When I read in Harriet Harman's autobiography that in her post she literally invited pressure groups to pitch her their most extreme demands, it explained a lot. And I'm a fan of hers, or was. No pressure group should be dictating policy to ministers. Ever. There shouldn't be a department that separates something called Equality from reality.

what have you learned about
Your own political beliefs

I've learned that I can no longer vote for any party currently on the ballot sheet. I spoiled my last vote and may do so again.

@PriOn1 I’ve learned that Germaine Greer’s statement that “women fail to understand how much men hate them” is much more accurate than I wanted it to be.

Yes, +1 to this,

We need not to be afraid to say NO to outrageous demands for fear of upsetting someone or causing offence.

Oh, and nobody is calling me a Nazi 😁 I just mean all the warding off of any writer/thinker who isn't toeing the line and becomes increasingly vilified until they are declared eventually and inevitably labelled a Nazi.

The I am Spartacus threads started when posters were being kicked off the site all over the place for saying that men cannot become women. So a thread was stated, I am Spartacus, and poster after poster declared that men could not become women so that it became unfeasible to ban all the contributors.

But I had only used MN for the parenting and Christmas boards and it was just this thread coming up again and again that caught my attention.

I've had a quick Google and it was back in 2016.

That a political movement can rise like this by the conscienceless and moral-free exploiting people's trust, good will and basic good intentions, and that many and multiple agendas are being met inside the whole. And by people being useful idiots who fall easily to marketing and patter, and don't engage their brains.

That quite a lot of humans apparently really like a bit of religious zealotry and aren't that bothered what the religion happens to be if it lets them do the behaviours involved.

That as a society we are in a mess of sentimentalism, individualism, fantastic entitlement and selfishness, a belief that very wobbly boundaries are okay, I suppose, I dunno, (unless someone says no in a way that would require self denial, boundaries galore on that) and a lot of very bored young people with too much time on their hands, no sense of belonging or self, lacking for a healthy sense of community, in a time in history when the most effective way to get attention and celebration is to be very unhealthy and dependent, and not enough reality so that they are hooked on high emotional input and drama, whether being those in crisis or the rescuers of those in crisis. And I'm not sure how we come out of that.

And that the left are completely fucked, they are batshit insane and with a lot of beliefs that historically lead to absolute disasters, and they're all either too thick to see it or don't care as the gravy train currently works for them and it won't be them who suffer when it all falls apart, which as a naturally centre left voter is really bloody depressing.

Oh and that women were really bloody kidding themselves that they'd achieved anything much since suffrage.

It's been a grim few years.

The Labour Party, for which I've always voted, is no friend to women, and nor is The Guardian, of which I am an ex-subscriber.
Some of the nicest men in my social circle believe they are entitled to tell women to be kind, shove over and let self-identified males into their spaces. I have trusted some of these people and I am horrified to discover what was lurking under the surface.
How a parent can become unrecognisable from the person they were before when one of their children identifies as transgender. And, conversely, how a parent's world can come apart when one of their children identifies as transgender and invalidates everything their parent believed about the childhood they had.
I am not "different from other women" because some of my roles in life have been gender-nonconforming. I'm just an ordinary woman who has done a few non-stereotypical things.

I’ve learnt that too many people are so desperate to be seen as better than others that they’ll spout any old tripe and blindly follow any cult that tells them they’re aligned with the chosen ones.

I’ve learned how easily a lot of rights and things I thought were important and stable within our society can be undermined by a small number of people with an understanding of hostile takeover techniques.

I’ve learned that Germaine Greer’s statement that “women fail to understand how much men hate them” is much more accurate than I wanted it to be. Lots of men despise women and fewer of them are hiding it as it becomes socially more acceptable.

And I’ve learned a great deal more about prison statistics and just how different male and female criminal patterns are.

The left hate women as much as the right does, but in a terrifying “soft power” way
Children don’t matter anymore apparently
The worst blokes in the world do though 🤗 and their pronouns must be respected even if they literally kill and rape
People will deny reality out of self preservation
How they create a false phallus 😱
What a youth movement with no interest in creating art looks like (beyond filthy anime fan art I suppose. But I’m thinking primarily of music)
My old alternative comedy hero Stewart Lee is a cock 😭
And Brendan O’Neill’s brand of contrarianism is actually vital in the defence of free speech
Lesbians can’t have anything to themselves

How easily older women, who know how significant their biology has been on their life experience, and who, crucially, understand safeguarding and want to protect children, can be demonised and dismissed.

And how easily young women can be convinced to disregard their own interests and to believe that men with beards are the real victims that need prioritising above all else.

And how many men mean us harm. So many men. I sometimes wish I could unlearn that one.

What was the I am Spartacus thread? I'm intrigued.
I'm interested to know, itrw, do friends, colleagues, call you Nazi to your face? Is the discourse different online?
Remember in the early days of online forums, how rude posters seemed? I'm convinced that carried back into real world interactions but not sure if that is just my perception.

the conservatives are not conservatives

labour are not for the working class
the lib Dems are not liberal
the snp are not nationalists and sinn feinn was at the coronation 🤷🏿‍♂️they really are all just about power

Surely what we observe is pluralism.

Power is shared amongst all parties as MPs are from all parties.

We don't want a single party system.

Events shock the system enough without political revolution engulfing if we had complete regime change every five years.

Change is gradual.

Look how awful the sudden change of COVID was.

We need representation of many stripes.

People are, on the whole, desperately stupid.
With special mention for middle class do gooders who should know better.

How most people have no moral center

We are monitored far more than I ever realised, and we know far less about our rights than we should.

Yes, also this.

YY, what LonginesPrime said

That the welfare and safety of children is no longer important.
That medical experimentation on children has suddenly become acceptable.
That children are now pawns in a battle to erode their boundaries and to sexualise them - and defending their rights to be children makes me a right wing Nazi bigot.