What's going on with Genspect?

I had such high hopes for Lindsay, Pluckrose and Boghossian. Goddammit.

Helen Pluckrose is disingenuous and divisive. Someone who values faux-clever words over the real experiences and feelings of women and girls. This is not a good move.

'Helen Pluckrose is a political and cultural writer and commentator who highlights and opposes ideological capture in vital institutions. Helen. above all, just wants people to value evidence-based epistemology and the free exchange of ideas.'

That sounds fine, but then I've read some of her tweets which very much don't seem to be based in evidence whatsoever.

I don't know much about Pluckrose. What qualifications or expertise is she bringing to Genspect?

They can't not do safeguarding in an organisation that only exists because of other agencies abandoning safeguarding. They just can't.

What position will they decide to advocate for and how will they get there? And in what ways will that be better, if they don't focus on safeguarding? It cannot work.

An addition with influence who doesn't believe in ROGD or single sex spaces sounds like cuckooing. Which is what's happened to women's organisations (I won't include children's charities there as they have always had problems).

They're a busted flush. Great idea on paper but in reality it's not going to make things better.

I know Stella O’Malley says Genspect doesn’t need to centre safeguarding because they’re an advocacy organisation rather than a therapeutic organisation but I think I would disagree with that view because of the cohort of people on whose behalf they advocate. These people are vulnerable and have often been ill-served by other medical bodies and charities who let safeguarding fall by the wayside in service of ideology.

I mean, organisations like WPATH and Mermaids etc all ignore even basic safeguarding and look at the crazy shit that’s made it into their advocacy work and their standards of care. I think bearing safeguarding in mind would have mitigated the descent for some of these advocacy organisations.

So that’s why I’m not convinced Pluckrose is a good addition to the advisory board: she doesn’t believe in ROGD, she doesn’t believe in single-sex spaces/provisions for women, she doesn’t believe that AGP is a concern with regards to the safety of women and families. She really has a problem with GC feminism. Her public persona is very often abrasive and unpleasant. I can’t see what she brings to the table for Genspect.

They don't centre safeguarding. Looks to be a busted flush of a situation really.

Helen Pluckrose has been appointed to Genspect’s Advisory Board.

In my opinion, this is another duff move by Genspect, especially after the conference issues that happened before Xmas.

Tweet thread in response by Genevieve Gluck:

"Very disappointing. Pluckrose has a history of mocking women generally but also those who question her claims that feminism, eg radical feminism, is the source of gender identity ideology. GI was developed by sexologists and psychiatrists, but she appears to have a bias on this."

https://twitter.com/WomenReadWomen/status/1747457716535300513

There's a a fuck ton of unpacking to be done in many professions who will work with children.

Agreed!

Your follow-on thoughts from Dr Az's point about everything being deconstructed to be male or female make a lot of sense. By extension, if autistic children are looking for this certainty during the difficulties and hormonal changes that are faced (by everyone, including neurotypical children) during puberty, this is going to be even more heightened.

It feels like the dots are mostly all there for the professionals to join up but they are all too siloed from each other to achieve this. Worse still the organisations that would be close enough to autistic children to lead the way are all captured by the idea that gender identity is a truth.

The additional problem for me is that many people, including many professionals and educators, cannot themselves separate out the sexist binary labels as he described doing with groups of clients.

There's a a fuck ton of unpacking to be done in many professions who will work with children.

No I don't think they are getting it for the reasons you outline @BonfireLady

I've not finished watching the whole thing but I found where he started talking about the binary way of thinking, labelling and organising- this is a very common autistic trait that comes from an early "deficit" from want of a better word.

Put simply, it's harder for some autistic children to flexibly transfer details across categories. (The simplest level would be how much dogs vary and how to tell the difference between a dog and a cat. It can result in favouring certain things eg a particular restaurant and a particular item off the menu because it's predictable. Knowing that a Mac Donald's can look one way in one town but another way in a different town, with the same menu, may have to be explicitly taught.)

Skilled educators (speech and language specialists would be key here) need to be aware of this, and usually are in send settings designed for autistic learners.

But more academically able autistic students may not be in those settings and may develop frameworks to interpret the world without anyone realising, which with sex / gender stereotypes, can very easily lead to the binary thinking he describes.

Which is WHY it's SO important to be challenging gender stereotypes from a young age; neurotypical children also do this anyway, schemas, categories and frameworks develop naturally from very early on and rely on gentle adult support to develop in nuanced ways that aren't too binary. It has to be age appropriate too. But it can be harder for those with specific language difficulties and autism.

And then you've the internet confirming everything. I was once part of a synesthesia group on facebook and some were obsessed with gendering objects and numbers etc. it was clearly very gender stereotype driven.

They are therapists not conference specialists.

They are too nice to say 'take your fetish wear out of my conference'.

They work in the arena so someone says 'here's a book on something to do with your arena' and they bang it on their website and give the author a free ticket to the conference.

What they need is to hire someone more experienced in conferences who isn't scared to say that there is a dress code. Giving out free tickets to anyone other than speakers or in exchange for assistance is to be honest, bad in itself.

This is what I think they are failing to grasp.
I have no doubt that Dr Az, Stella O'Malley and others have lots of experience in the psychology of gender identity. But I'm not convinced that they have fully grasped the impact of autism on all of this. Dr Az's chapter on autism in his recent book missed the impact of autism on girls entirely (e.g. sensory issues with breast development and periods, general preference for practical "boys' clothes" amongst other things) and I think that they are all failing boys too WRT the nuances relating to sexuality and autism. Male sexuality is innate but that doesn't mean outside influences can't have an impact.

Put simply, where online interactions, the changes in girls' bodies/the emergence of sexuality in boys collide, it's a recipe for autistic teenagers to conclude that "because I am not this, I am that".

This quote was said in the House of Lords (link below, approx 3 mins 15 secs) in relation to girls but I think it will apply equally to boys who are attributing an interpretation of why they are feeling turned on to conclude that they must be girls after all i.e. they think that's what being a girl is.

https://twitter.com/FamEdTrust/status/1732765323814715795?t=32ymnvp_IuyYEMnLnkkfeQ&s=19

Not just gaming though, the echolalia can come from tv/ film too. Or even nature.

Which is from what I've observed is where autistic children who act out being animals to the extreme that is outwith normal peer social behaviour (now called identifying as) occurs.

It's also a common normal occurrence among pre schoolers and early years children - mimicking people and animals in play, but neurotypical children grow out of it as they become more socially aware of the peers and social norms.

Re gaming and autism, it's my experience that for some children for whom real life social interaction is challenging, gaming is more accessible, and to a point predictable, more structured and repetitive, which is helpful for them . All elements that are easier to access than real life.

Echolalia is a common autistic trait; I've taught some children who live out the games they play and use phrases etc.

There is another thread with this conversation on it. Apologies that I'm repeating myself a little from my comment on that thread.

I may need to listen to that part of the interview again to make sure I have the same take on it as I did the first time @UtopiaPlanitia I did like the bit about the fetish being performed in public - definitely not the response BB was expecting by the look on his face. But the question that followed was even more interesting IMO.

When BB asked about whether anyone with a perversion could be helped and I found the answer "you can't change anyone's sexuality" quite dismissive and lacking in any depth when it comes to helping adolescent and young adult males.

The majority of vocal and active TRAs seem to be the Malaga Airport type, including several that are relatively young (early 20s to mid 20s). They arguably represent a larger group than those males where they have "transed away the gay". I suspect that a number of them are autistic, given 48% of Tavistock referrals are autistic, and that this has an impact on how they interpret their emerging sexuality in early adolescence. Many autistic boys will be relatively isolated IRL and will be doing their socialising online. The line between seeing themselves as a woman online and IRL may easily get blurred if they game as females, like many do. The "skins" (as they are called in the gaming world) for females are generally much more interesting to look at. Unsurprisingly, the female characters in these games, like Fortnite, are very idealised in their body shape. If I understood this part of the conversation correctly, according to Dr Az "perversion" seems to be innate, as a sexuality. He's the psychology expert, not me, but I'm not sure he's fully looking at the impact of autism and external influences like gaming and anime on this specific cohort.

I would like to hope that an adolescent boy who is being pulled in this direction, through his own sexual fantasy and confusion about the difference between online and IRL, could be helped to see that this is not a healthy approach to follow. Hopefully early intervention through therapy could stop a full-blown development in to Malaga Airport. This would have been a more full answer to BB's question. I can well imagine that there is a point of no return, when this fetish is fully baked in. But there surely must be a stage where someone could be helped and course-corrected.

During this interview Boyce asks Dr Az about the Genspect Debacle and Az tells him that the Trans shield allows men to carry out a fetish in public. Boyce tries to get Az to define the difference between a person’s sexuality and a perversion (I don’t think Boyce gets the answer he seems to want).

It’s very interesting to hear Az state the facts, plainly.

There is no treatment if they already understand their behaviour is wrong and choose to do it anyway. Maybe being in a good relationship and turning back time so they had better parents. Treatment only works on those who want it/ have no insight themselves, much like therapy.

Where did I say everyone agrees with it?

BonfireLady said she didn't think ANYONE had mentioned removing genitalia as a solution. I simply pointed out that someone had.

I agree that WPATH's cavalier attitude towards surgery on children is abominable. I also agree that the vast majority of gender critical people would naturally oppose it and be horrified by it. To see someone circle round to the same attitude from the GC perspectives just because it's justified in their mind by their visceral hatred of male perverts, is equally horrifying.

@OldCrone Both positions are lacking in evidence. Are you agreeing with me that this is the case?

Yes.

Thanks for that @Boomboom22 can I ask why is there such intense focus on paedophilia/autogynephilia/xyz when actually the focus, it seems, should be on power and sadism? It doesn't make sense at all.

Also surely the most effective treatment would be if these men were (+voluntarily) chemically castrated plus had treatment for their sadism and power ?

Yes! Thanks for this Bonfirelady!

Thanks for the link to that article @BonfireLady 👍

A timely new article from Michael Bailey yesterday. It's about detransition in general but here's a quote on this specific issue:

An additional complication is distinguishing between natal males with autogynephilic gender dysphoria and natal males whose gender dysphoria results from ROGD, as we have described it. To family members and friends, autogynephilic gender dysphoria may appear sudden, because the autogynephilic person has probably neither appeared gender nonconforming nor discussed sexual fantasies with them.

And..

Autogynephilic gender dysphoria is indicated if a natal male admits being sexually aroused by cross-dressing or by the idea of having the body of a woman. ROGD is indicated for a natal female if childhood-onset gender dysphoria is absent, a rapid adolescent or young adult onset is evident. (The application of ROGD to natal males is more problematic, due to the possibility that males with apparently rapid onset have autogynephilia.) Additionally, evidence of social influences (e.g., experience with peers or social media advocating transgender identification) is more consistent with ROGD than either of the other two types.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02716-1

This makes sense, thank you.
I was reading what @ArthurbellaScott said and couldn't quite understand it. This brings everything together and goes back to previous explanations about narcissism being linked to paraphilias: the need to satiate the urge to have control and power.