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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Restoring Sanity Takes Time - Helen Joyce

693 replies

RethinkingLife · 02/03/2024 10:16

A bracing read. I am still in a state of some despair about how long this will take. As several people have observed, in the last 10 days, the BBC (in common with other media) disseminated unscientific propaganda that male galactorrhea is better than mother’s milk, repeatedly called a deeply disturbed killer a woman while disdaining to acknowledge the alternate reality as a cat, and has publicly reprimanded Justin Webb for plain speaking that was probably helpful to many listeners.

What will it take to bring bigoted employers to heel? Part of the answer is time. During the past decade, the trans lobby has been stunningly successful in selling false analogies to HR departments: that separate toilets for men and women are like racial segregation; and that insisting people can change sex is “gay rights 2.0”.
Lazy, power-hungry HR managers and staff working in “EDI” (equality, diversity and inclusion) pronounce that the arc of the moral universe is bending towards denying sexual dimorphism, and relish imposing their will on others.
…
Imagine you’re an HR professional belatedly wondering if you’ve got the wrong end of the stick on the whole sex-gender thing. You might turn to A Practical Guide to Transgender Law by two barristers, Nicola Newbegin and transwoman Robin Moira White.
But that might not save you from serious missteps. The first edition, published before the binding Forstater judgment, enthusiastically endorsed the faulty lower court ruling. The second grudgingly acknowledged that yes, gender-critical beliefs were protected, but claimed that “manifesting” them — letting others know you held them — wasn’t.
Even before the recent string of judgments to the contrary, that was obvious nonsense. The law about freedom of belief expressly includes “manifestation”. And anyway, it takes but a moment’s thought to realise that the law can’t possibly concern beliefs that are never manifested, since it can’t reach inside the privacy of our heads.
…
At bottom, the mindset of the narcissistic identitarians joining in workplace witch-hunts is that of the Crusaders, who made converts at the point of a sword. They do not respect other people’s sovereign consciences, nor accept that their belief system is just one among many. And like the Crusaders, they need to be consigned to history.

https://thecritic.co.uk/restoring-sanity-takes-time/

Adding in a good read about the Meade and Phoenix rulings:

Restoring sanity takes time | Helen Joyce | The Critic Magazine

This article is taken from the March 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. It’s nearly five years since I met Maya…

https://thecritic.co.uk/restoring-sanity-takes-time

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MrsOvertonsWindow · 03/03/2024 14:58

UtopiaPlanitia · 03/03/2024 14:15

Helen has made another excellent point about youth culture online: it’s a Lord of the Flies world/culture created by young people interacting without any adult supervision. This creates the perfect environment for harmful subcultures to develop and for children/adolescents to be taken advantage of by predatory adult men who develop controlling and inappropriate relationships with vulnerable young people.

In my experience, LiveJournal and FanFiction[dot]Net were the very early days of fanfic becoming interested in/enmeshed with gender identity theory and politics, and then Tumblr and now (in certain fandoms) AO3 attached rocket boosters to that development.

I’m extremely keen on free speech and freedom of association, I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of censorship too, but I’m beginning to think that governments need to legislate to make it so that children and teenagers shouldn’t be allowed unsupervised online access as there’s too much that can go wrong by allowing young minds access to so much stuff that’s harmful. The best and the worst of humanity’s thinking is online and it can mess with adult minds so it’s definitely not suitable or safe for children and adolescents.

Humanity has had ubiquitous internet access for around 15-20 years now and the internet is a place that bleeds into everyday life in both good and bad ways but, to date, society hasn’t done very much that’s effective in trying to protect children from seeing and reading harmful things online. If we don’t tackle this issue, it definitely will take a long time to correct the harms that have bled from the online world into wider society. I like to think the internet can be like Pandora’s box: full of awful things but there’s also hope that comes from people discussing and banding together to fight the danger.

What a wise post.
It's as if we've handed over children to the worst people in the world to influence child development. An environment full of adults seeking to groom children sexually, a wild west where anyone can claim to be anybody and working out how dangerous they are takes knowledge, insight and an adult maturity to evaluate and navigate.

The parents of the murdered children Molly Russell, Beck Bednar, Kayleigh Hayward have experienced the impact of online grooming on their children. We all need to be talking and tackling the ability of dangerous adults to use the online world to target children in a myriad of ways.

UtopiaPlanitia · 03/03/2024 14:15

Helen has made another excellent point about youth culture online: it’s a Lord of the Flies world/culture created by young people interacting without any adult supervision. This creates the perfect environment for harmful subcultures to develop and for children/adolescents to be taken advantage of by predatory adult men who develop controlling and inappropriate relationships with vulnerable young people.

In my experience, LiveJournal and FanFiction[dot]Net were the very early days of fanfic becoming interested in/enmeshed with gender identity theory and politics, and then Tumblr and now (in certain fandoms) AO3 attached rocket boosters to that development.

I’m extremely keen on free speech and freedom of association, I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of censorship too, but I’m beginning to think that governments need to legislate to make it so that children and teenagers shouldn’t be allowed unsupervised online access as there’s too much that can go wrong by allowing young minds access to so much stuff that’s harmful. The best and the worst of humanity’s thinking is online and it can mess with adult minds so it’s definitely not suitable or safe for children and adolescents.

Humanity has had ubiquitous internet access for around 15-20 years now and the internet is a place that bleeds into everyday life in both good and bad ways but, to date, society hasn’t done very much that’s effective in trying to protect children from seeing and reading harmful things online. If we don’t tackle this issue, it definitely will take a long time to correct the harms that have bled from the online world into wider society. I like to think the internet can be like Pandora’s box: full of awful things but there’s also hope that comes from people discussing and banding together to fight the danger.

Girlontherailreplacementbusservice · 03/03/2024 13:54

And whose to say this bloke isn't a woman? I mean all it takes is self declaration, right?

Don't forget it is not even a declaration for life you can 'modes' that you switch between whenever the paycheck mood suits you.
Nor is it presentation so they haven't exposed this guy as not Trans because he wasn't wearing lippy/heels/a frock.

lifeturnsonadime · 03/03/2024 13:40

So yet another thread where men's rights activists have derailed from the actual point!

So I agree that it will take years to roll back on the harms done to women.

I do think though that there will be a tipping point and society will think what the fuck have we collectively done to women and kids that some changes will happen before 10 years are up.

Especially when things they say will never happen keep on happening and women keep being harmed as a result, like that paedophile up in Durham who was convicted this week for his 'activities' in women's single sex spaces. The more men who use the 'I'm a woman' line on arrest the more glaringly obvious it is. And whose to say this bloke isn't a woman? I mean all it takes is self declaration, right?

Betweenthe2 · 03/03/2024 12:29

PrimalLass · 03/03/2024 09:18

No Helen Joyce is not into it. She's writing about it.

This makes infinity more sense

Brefugee · 03/03/2024 09:55

all the pearl clutching about people reading slash fiction. I'm glad i'm out of the fanfic game (as a reader and writer) if it's all as bad as it seems it is these days (I wasn't in the HP genre though)

How about if it was just a simple m/m romance/sexy novel? would that be ok? (i know a few people who write actual published books in that genre, they started with fanfic, one i know of started on the original slash paring pre-internet)

I have been on a train with a man next to me watching porn on his phone. With earphones thank goodness, but whenever he shifted position i got a glimpse. Another was watching on his laptop (not the same journey) again headphones but angled so i could see it. I asked him to stop, and the chap opposite me actually reached over and closed the machine when he heard what i said. I had a quick chat with him about privacy filters that stick on screens.

On neither occasion did i a) take a photo or b) zoom in or c) post about it on twitter naming names. It is pathetic, tbh.

DadJoke's selective quotations are typical of TRAs. All fur coat and no knickers.

GwenogJones · 03/03/2024 09:47

What’s funny is if it had been a transgender person reading slash fiction on the train, the po-faced kink shaming moral outrage would have been a sight to see.

Literally no one here but you and the other TRAs care if someone (anyone) is reading fanfiction and for what that purpose. No one here has a problem with fanfic.
I write slash fanfiction Dadjoke for Harry Potter. So do plenty of other MNers. Clutch your pearls about that, because you are the only one pretending to do so. You are talking about something you know absolutely nothing about and your pretence that fanfic is something niche or weird or shameful when it is now pretty mainstream is just silly.

PrimalLass · 03/03/2024 09:18

No Helen Joyce is not into it. She's writing about it.

Betweenthe2 · 03/03/2024 01:34

I'm sorry what? Harry Potter erotica is a thing? And Helen Joyce is into it? Have I misunderstood????

LilyBartsHatShop · 03/03/2024 01:20

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 23:26

No. She was talking in general about Harry Potter erotica and said it was arousing. This was Harry Potter erotica, but I concede I don’t know enough about the specifics of her kink to be sure.

I'm just glad the good Lord gave us two hands, so one can reach for the smelling salts while the other is clutching our pearls.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/03/2024 23:54

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 23:45

It’s a quote from Helen Joyce in her article suggesting that Harry Potter slash fiction is turning girls (not young men) trans.

What’s funny is if it had been a transgender person reading slash fiction on the train, the po-faced kink shaming moral outrage would have been a sight to see.

https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-29/

Stalking's a predominantly male crime. Few if any women bother to check on written material men are reading on their phones
Creepy men however are salivating at the thought of a woman reading something they think women should not he allowed to access....

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 23:45

OldCrone · 02/03/2024 20:28

Is that a quote there in italics? Where is it from? Who wrote it?

It’s a quote from Helen Joyce in her article suggesting that Harry Potter slash fiction is turning girls (not young men) trans.

What’s funny is if it had been a transgender person reading slash fiction on the train, the po-faced kink shaming moral outrage would have been a sight to see.

https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-29/

Joyce activated, issue 29

Recent years have seen the formerly niche genre of fanfic explode in popularity. Much is pretty hardcore—and a surprising amount features couplings between two men who are straight in the source material. I think this may be part of what is fuelling tr...

https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-29/

ILikeDungs · 02/03/2024 23:41

WelcomeMarch · 02/03/2024 23:35

Reread the bit you quoted, DadJoke. She is saying it produces an unpleasant state of 'arousal and disgust' in the young people she's writing about.

Don't bother explaining, he knows.

It's just his little dad joke.

WelcomeMarch · 02/03/2024 23:35

Reread the bit you quoted, DadJoke. She is saying it produces an unpleasant state of 'arousal and disgust' in the young people she's writing about.

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 23:26

PrimalLass · 02/03/2024 19:24

I have no idea if it was the text she found arousing

So you just lied then.

No. She was talking in general about Harry Potter erotica and said it was arousing. This was Harry Potter erotica, but I concede I don’t know enough about the specifics of her kink to be sure.

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 02/03/2024 22:41

JanesLittleGirl · 02/03/2024 22:32

I await your prognostications with bated breath.

We may have to discuss the actual subject of the thread while we wait. Terrible, eh?

Anyway, it was a good piece. I particularly liked the concise summation of Shane Andrews.

WelcomeMarch · 02/03/2024 22:37

Oh god, you chump, DadJoke.
'It inspires a mixture of disgust and arousal—a powerful and particularly unpleasant emotional state' in the young men of her previous sentence.

She's not saying she was aroused by it herself.

JanesLittleGirl · 02/03/2024 22:32

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 18:57

I have no idea if it was the text she found arousing, but based on what she said, it’s probably something very similar. I mean, she’s still reading it two years later, so she must be preparing a treatise in it.

And when I say “have sex” I mean “fuck”. With all the porn tropes of slapping, spitting, reaming, choking; the same gut-churning emphasis on the volume of ejaculate and other bodily secretions; the same very young women portrayed as cock-hungry collections of holes to be not just penetrated but “rammed” and “destroyed”; the same miserable, degrading, joyless, loveless stuff that has taken up residence in far too many young men’s heads via online porn, and that growing numbers of young women report is destroying their love lives. It inspires a mixture of disgust and arousal—a powerful and particularly unpleasant emotional state

Will get back to those who asked about discrimination in the workplace on Monday.

I await your prognostications with bated breath.

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 02/03/2024 22:27

And as the TRAs have pointed out. HP fan fiction not likely to be consumer by those questioning their gender! Has a bit of a disconnect I think with those in that community again due to the stance of the author, which many on here will applaud, and her body of work.

Well this is bollocks. It was a trans-identifying friend who introduced me to Harry Potter fanfiction when I was 17. Most of it is written by TRAs now, they just put disclaimers at the top about how they hate JK.

The fanfiction in question has now been taken down by the author who didn't like the attention, but before she did, she clarified that she supported the trans community.

Seeing as the trans activist on twitter linked to it, I had a look. It was a standard Draco/Hermione fall in lust, before discovering their deeper emotions and falling in love plot, ending in Happily Ever After, with Draco and Hermione's wedding in the final chapter. It was set in sixth year or an alternate seventh year.

The grammar was entirely typical for ffnet, which is to say it was terrible. Mid-sentence tense changes and total ignorance of how to punctuate dialogue were the least of it.

Sex scenes were typical for a teenage writer trying to compensate for personal inexperience by reflecting crudeness from whatever she'd been reading elsewhere.

Helen Joyce is a writer and journalist of skill and erudition. She wasn't reading it for personal entertainment, because no-one of her literary calibre could; the grammar was that bad. I would have skipped over that fic when I was 17, and I had considerably lower standards then!

The quote DadJoke keeps posting on various threads is from Joyce's last article two years ago, so it will not relate to the fic the trans activist claimed to have seen her reading, because it wasn't that flipping long. It was only 23 short chapters long. You think she reads that slowly?

For comparison, I have today read a 40 chapter fic set in post-series 7 Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Writer for that was also a TRA, incidentally.

OldCrone · 02/03/2024 21:25

Thanks @PrimalLass. I found some links here.
https://sex-matters.org/posts/press-releases/statement-on-helen-joyce-and-fanfic/

PrimalLass · 02/03/2024 21:19

Helen Joyce wrote it a few years ago. She's researching this subject now - presumably for a larger project.

OldCrone · 02/03/2024 20:28

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 18:57

I have no idea if it was the text she found arousing, but based on what she said, it’s probably something very similar. I mean, she’s still reading it two years later, so she must be preparing a treatise in it.

And when I say “have sex” I mean “fuck”. With all the porn tropes of slapping, spitting, reaming, choking; the same gut-churning emphasis on the volume of ejaculate and other bodily secretions; the same very young women portrayed as cock-hungry collections of holes to be not just penetrated but “rammed” and “destroyed”; the same miserable, degrading, joyless, loveless stuff that has taken up residence in far too many young men’s heads via online porn, and that growing numbers of young women report is destroying their love lives. It inspires a mixture of disgust and arousal—a powerful and particularly unpleasant emotional state

Will get back to those who asked about discrimination in the workplace on Monday.

Is that a quote there in italics? Where is it from? Who wrote it?

thatsthewayitis · 02/03/2024 20:09

A few months back a female detransitioner posted on Twitter that GC women were still talking about young lesbians transitioning. She said things had changed and it's now young straight girls who want to become gay boys, influenced by fanfiction.
I read and love HP fanfiction but only m/f or f/f because I'm a lesbian. The mainstream f/f are great. Really nice portrayals of women and relationships. It's sad these young girls delude themselves. Gay men love pen*s and they don't want women...
( I can always tell the male written f/f fics crude porn, no feelings or character development)

EdithStourton · 02/03/2024 19:48

I think some posters here are confusing 'research' with 'leisure'. You can find yourself reading horrible stuff because you're researching a topic. If it's in the public domain, you're allowed to, no matter how hideous it is. You can read it on the bloody train: nobody was going to be able to see what HJ was reading without behaving like a Stasi-esque creep.

So can we return to the topic of the thread from yet another fucking tiresome derail by our resident TRAs, who are resorting to ad hominem attacks rather than discussing the points raised in the article?

PrimalLass · 02/03/2024 19:24

I have no idea if it was the text she found arousing

So you just lied then.

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