Trans: the new ideology of the ruling class (article)

Plus why do they always choose somewhat feminine -ish and heavily made up TW for these videos rather than a hulking, bearded bloke wearing jeans (no less likely to be a TW are they?)

Because they persistently conflate feminine with female.

This comes out all the time when they claim that gender critical feminists want to police access to toilets on the basis of how feminine someone is, which could have consequences for e.g. butch lesbians.

Please.

I couldn't care less how feminine someone is, because I don't define men and women according to stereotypes of masculinity and femininity the way they do. As far as I am concerned there is absolutely nothing biologically male people can do to make themselves feminine enough to use women's spaces, because they will never be female, and the relevant criterion for being a woman is female, not feminine. And there is almost nothing female people can do to reject femininity and embrace masculinity enough to make it inappropriate for them to use women's spaces.

I say almost nothing, because I think it is easier for some trans men to pass as men than it is for trans women to pass as women. I can conceive of the possibility that a trans man who is tall and muscular and has taken testosterone to grow facial hair and deepen their voice might pass as a man, and in that situation I think firstly they probably wouldn't want to be in women's spaces, and secondly if they genuinely do look male then their presence in women's spaces might be as distressing to women as the presence of an actual man. In most cases, however, it will still be obvious to all of us that the person is biologically female.

'Be kind' is the epitome of middle-class sensibilities.

'Fuck off' is more honest and, ironically, more kind in the long term.

Some cracking thoughtful posts on this thread. Too many to quote! Food for thought.

@MargotBamborough I often find myself nodding along so much to your posts that sometimes I think you are me!

i'M nOt DoInG tHe WoRk FoR yOu! 🙃

I think this is actually quite a working class trait as well, calling a spade a spade.

Whether due to their level of education or, if well-educated, still being in touch with ordinary people, I feel that working class people are less afraid to make simple statements such as "women don't have penises".

They know that the people around them by and large agree that women don't have penises and won't think any less of them for saying it, and they don't much care for the opinions of people who can't explain why they think some women have penises without descending into incomprehensible waffle.

When you look at middle class people - and I realise that the middle class is so big as to be almost a meaningless term these days, but let's say university educated people working in professions - there's a lot more insecurity there. They like to think of themselves as being above working class people when in reality they might not be any financially better off, especially these days. They attach an awful lot of social capital to things like having a university degree and a fancy job title and for them it's much harder to say, "I don't understand what the hell you are talking about."

I think there's a part of them thinking, "There are some very well educated academics and politicians and people in positions of authority saying women can have penises and even though I'm a bit hazy on how all this gender stuff works I'm sure it's true, and trans people are after all the most marginalised so I can afford to be magnanimous, and overall I'd better just take their word for the fact that some women have penises. After all, it doesn't really matter, does it? We're all people."

It's a combination of their own insecurity in not wanting to be the one who stands up and admits that they don't have a clue what any of this gender stuff means, and the security of knowing that they'll almost certainly never end up in prison or in a women's refuge so they don't give any thought to the consequences of all this for women who are in those places.

Unwillingness to admit when you don't understand and relative privilege shielding you from the consequences of your lack of understanding are a disastrous combination.

I also think it's a way for middle class and upper middle class younger (usually) people to stake a claim on some of the cultural capital that is perceived to be reserved for marginalised groups.

Self identifying as "queer" is the easiest route into that, with none of the public shaming that comes from doing what Rachel Dolezal did. Arguably self id mental health is fast catching up, although as a person with a recent diagnosis I have mixed feelings on that!

"Educate yourself on what a woman is"
"Ok, what's a woman?"
"Not telling, that's a bigoted question"

In the new Cormoran Strike book, which I started reading last night, JKR quotes George Orwell:

"Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them."

Seems pertinent here.

I think it should always have been at least partly about social class. It's fine for middle class and wealthy people to take away womens safe spaces when they know that the likelihood of them or their daughter/sister/mother/ going to prison , being made homeless, escaping an abusive relationship etc is remote compared to people from marginalised groups. And if it did happen, they have the money to mitigate against it. I doubt Daniel Radcliffes daughter will be anywhere near a council swimming pool.

I don't know if this by Roisin Michaux has been shared here previously?

"You meet more perverts when your poor"
https://4w.pub/author/roisin/

I agree with PP's analysis re Brexit. Even at the time, as a remainer, I found the mischaracterisation of the working class as inherently racist just horrible.

I'm over educated and ashamed to admit it took me longer to realise that class was part of genderism too.

My working class dad with very little formal education can only speak plainly about his views on gender ideology. To characterise him as anti LGBTQ etc because of this is ridiculous. He's had several gay friends since before I was born. He's highly intelligent. He's just not been educated into mincing his words.

The more I educate myself the more I think it is all a load of nonsense.

I think this is a fairly common experience. Martina Navratilova said the same.

I remember JCJ writing that when all this started, she wondered if she was missing something. Surely it couldn't possibly be as bonkers as it seemed? But when she looked into it, yes, it really was that bonkers. I went through exactly that process. And as soon as these people are expected to explain their beliefs publicly - as in eg the Allison Bailey tribunal - it becomes quite evident that this is an incoherent ideology, and the people who advocate it are unable to offer any rational or consistent account of what it entails.

I also think that the reason middle-class, educated people are susceptible to falling for trans ideology is not just tribalism, though that's part of it. It's that all the complicated explanations about gender and sex and so on sound clever and sophisticated, and if you parrot them, you can kid yourself that you are so much smarter than the dimwits who think there are only two sexes, and that humans can't change sex.

Well yes.

But its still a way of closing conversation by intimidation.

I've come to the conclusion thats a religion (its definitely an ideology).

And once seen though that lens it can't be unseen.

It may be middle claass academia that have originated wokery - but most of its advocates and allies have no clue about its theoretical origins. They are just the foot soldiers who repeat the slogans and mantras and don't question the concepts or edicts at all. In that sense they too are like the uneducated working classes.

I don't think the 'ruling class' in this context relates so much to traditional social hierarchies - but to the new social and cultural elite which dominates the mainstream zeitgeist and decides what is now desired practice or policy.

I have educated myself.

The more I educate myself the more I think it is all a load of nonsense.

Because I think it's part of it.

One of the phrases commonly used to defend the ideology is indeed "educate yourself".

It's not a coincidence.

It's deliberately designed to exclude a certain part of the population from the conversation.

Then you have the word salad. Again elitism.

And the fact it's very much being driven from Universities. And celebrity/media culture.

It's hard to argue it's NOT elitist when you start to break it down.

Women who are most affected negatively come from outside this circle and are socially and economically lower down the peaking order.

Billy Bragg, witch finder general of the trans ideology Twitter division. 😁

Really good article from Brendan.

I think in practice, trans activism is a men's rights movement but I think the free pass was built by the so called 'new elite' who use their positions within established institutions to tinker with the language in official documents, to build policies within the dynamics of their progressive values, and captured within the media to build a self congratulatory feedback loop.

Together, in a multitude of small ways, they stitch together a top-down approval for the dismantling of a sex class.

But also, if you think of this in terms of a new ruling class, a powerful elite who wine and dine and dance with those in the highest positions of authority, who the police always believe, for whom all funding and services revolve around in a highly unequal way, who have powers under law to control and oppress, who openly demand respect, subservience, service, others knowing their place and accepting their lesser lot?

This is a massive stretch - trans is not a new ruling class. This is just about men exercising their power to oppress women, as they have done for years. Same old, same old.

Men have been the sex class with the most power for hundreds and thousands of years, and that hasn't changed.

Well, as I said, I was on one side of the Brexit debate and I'm on the other side of the trans debate, precisely because there were sane arguments for remaining in the EU whereas I don't think there are sane arguments in favour of gender identity theory.

When you look at how complex the EU is and all the different things it does which most people have no idea about and all the insane levels of bureaucracy involved, it seems almost unfair to expect a regular person to be able to make an informed opinion about it. We are talking about economic and social policy at a level which is beyond the comprehension of most people and it was almost impossible to, for example, warn about the potential impact of leaving the EU on the Good Friday Agreement in a way that didn't come across as batshit scaremongering to the average person, even though that ended up being precisely what fucked everything up in the end.

But the question of what a woman is shouldn't be complicated. Our shared understanding of what a woman is and what a man is goes right back to the very beginning of human civilisation. There is a lot of talk of being inclusive, but if you are going to redefine words as basic as "woman" and "man", without either the consent or the understanding of 99% of the population, you are being the opposite of inclusive.

Put simply, if the vast majority of people don't understand what it is you believe a woman is, it's because they are right and you are wrong. Not because you are clever and they are a stupid, uneducated, working class bigot.

I was listening to PM last night and they had an item about Trump's strong poll showing in the US. They were asking if the Democrats might be thinking about ditching Biden as their candidate for the 2024 election but the conclusion, I think, was it's a bit late for that now. The Primaries will start in a few months and the election is 14 months away. I can hardly believe the US would go back to Trump and yet Biden and the Democrats are quite frightening in their own way, not least because of their wholesale uncritical support for gender ideology and all it entails, even though it's resulting in troubled children and teenagers having unevidenced irreversible hormone treatment and surgery in place of counselling, therapy and other mental health interventions.