Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Andrea Long Chu on Judith Butler's new book

66 replies

ArabellaScott · 12/03/2024 12:48

'Everyone should have the right to change sex'

https://archive.is/N7Rg1

ALC with an interesting, lengthy article. Very readable. Underneath it all, it seems to me to be roughly the more eloquent version of the fantastically insane Action for Trans Health Manifesto -

https://edinburghath.tumblr.com/post/163521055802/trans-health-manifesto/amp?__twitter_impression=true

'We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history.'

ALC

Edinburgh Action for Trans Health — TRANS HEALTH MANIFESTO

https://edinburghath.tumblr.com/post/163521055802/trans-health-manifesto/amp?__twitter_impression=true

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
UtopiaPlanitia · 16/03/2024 17:53

nepeta · 16/03/2024 17:45

Taibbi has an oddly misogynistic past (when he wrote from Russia). He is left-wing in terms of economic commentary, but I have never been able to figure out if his views on women have changed or if his critique of GI theory might have more in common with some right-wing commentators.

The old problem of two different fronts against the GI ideology, with almost diametrically opposite goals. One wants 'woman' to refer to female sex in order to rule over it, the other wants 'woman' to refer to female sex in order to fight those domination attempts.

Show quote history

Oh god, I somehow forgot about Taibbi’s past behaviour - things suddenly become a bit more comprehensible.

You make some good points there on that particular intersection of views regarding women.

nepeta · 16/03/2024 17:45

UtopiaPlanitia · 16/03/2024 17:22

Excellent writing by Taibbi!!!

But why, I wonder, when he seems to have finally become peaked enough to write such a compelling critique of Chu (and GI theory in general), is Taibbi still doing the pronoun nonsense for Chu? I find it mystifying 🤷‍♀️

Show quote history

Taibbi has an oddly misogynistic past (when he wrote from Russia). He is left-wing in terms of economic commentary, but I have never been able to figure out if his views on women have changed or if his critique of GI theory might have more in common with some right-wing commentators.

The old problem of two different fronts against the GI ideology, with almost diametrically opposite goals. One wants 'woman' to refer to female sex in order to rule over it, the other wants 'woman' to refer to female sex in order to fight those domination attempts.

UtopiaPlanitia · 16/03/2024 17:22

NecessaryScene · 14/03/2024 06:35

Brutal takedown by Matt Taibbi (anti-establishment lefty in the Glenn Greenwald, Bari Weiss orbit, recently worked on the Twitter Files):

https://www.racket.news/p/the-dumbest-cover-story-ever

(I hadn't registered it was a cover story! OMG...)

Paywalled, but someone posted the full text on Ovarit. Here's an excerpt:

Am I comparing pedophile writing to trans advocacy? I am, a little! The “kids… have a right to the hazards of their own free will” idea in Chu’s essay and the NAMBLA-endorsed “children’s liberation” concept aren’t exactly miles apart, but that’s not even the point.

No serious person bothers reading past the headlines of NAMBLA essays because we know no matter how flowery the rhetoric, the endgame is a stranger jonesing to bugger your 13-year-old. As anyone who’s raised children knows, leaving kids to “the hazards of their own free will” is a completely unworkable concept, apart from its outrageousness and moral insanity. The editors of New York should have reached the “Sorry, that’s just fucking stupid” stage one paragraph in. The American intellectual mainstream is now so infected by cowardice before academic shibboleths that it kowtows to ideas the average kindergarten teacher would flunk without a thought.

Excellent writing by Taibbi!!!

But why, I wonder, when he seems to have finally become peaked enough to write such a compelling critique of Chu (and GI theory in general), is Taibbi still doing the pronoun nonsense for Chu? I find it mystifying 🤷‍♀️

Original poster
ArabellaScott · 16/03/2024 13:24

'the concept of gender is incredibly weak. It’s clear now that the stakes of placing our hopes on gender identity were very, very high. And it has failed us'

https://nymag.com/newsletter/2024/03/the-critics-march-15-2024.html

Operation Let Them Speak continues.

https://nymag.com/newsletter/2024/03/the-critics-march-15-2024.html

OP posts:
OP posts:
FriedGold32 · 14/03/2024 12:12

I appreciate Chu's honesty tbh. He's prepared to say publicly what other TRAs obviously believe but try and claim they don't.

Original poster
ArabellaScott · 14/03/2024 07:29

negeme · 14/03/2024 00:10

I read it.

Not sure about 'lucid'. In fact, there are so many (deliberate) equivocations, particularly on 'sex' and 'gender', it reads more as a poem than an argument. Perhaps 'vague' or 'deranged'? 'Imperspicuous'? 'Opaque'?

That's OK, in a way. It's probably intentional. There is a sort of neatness to the prose, it's true. Not really appropriate to try to argue with vagary or discuss opacity, though, hmm?

[One other thing btw. I don't think the Butlerian-poststructural-bollocks branch of the tra brigade has ever agreed with the, erh, more popular out-on-the-street-in-green-and-blue-hair bunch of believers about 'gender identity'. Just another glitch in the total ideology which pops into the light when the shades are drawn back.]

Show quote history

Yes, lucid isn't the right word ... it seems lucid, the words flow well (imo). Fluid?

Yes I suppose its poetic!

And as discussed, utterly raving.

OP posts:
Original poster
ArabellaScott · 14/03/2024 07:25

😁

Thanks. Highly enjoyable. I didnt realise it was a cover, either. Or that ALC was inspired by Valerie Solanis, that's absolutely batshit.

The through-lines connecting all the inanities of the modern left are a belief that history started ten minutes ago and the demand that people believe the unbelievable. The trans issue seems to occupy a central place in the new mythos because a) it’s a place where upscale white dudes can reinvent themselves as victims of oppression, and b) it demands a rejection of biological fact that doubles nicely as a test of faith.

Yep. Those who would have us believe absurdities ....

OP posts:
NecessaryScene · 14/03/2024 06:35

Brutal takedown by Matt Taibbi (anti-establishment lefty in the Glenn Greenwald, Bari Weiss orbit, recently worked on the Twitter Files):

https://www.racket.news/p/the-dumbest-cover-story-ever

(I hadn't registered it was a cover story! OMG...)

Paywalled, but someone posted the full text on Ovarit. Here's an excerpt:

Am I comparing pedophile writing to trans advocacy? I am, a little! The “kids… have a right to the hazards of their own free will” idea in Chu’s essay and the NAMBLA-endorsed “children’s liberation” concept aren’t exactly miles apart, but that’s not even the point.

No serious person bothers reading past the headlines of NAMBLA essays because we know no matter how flowery the rhetoric, the endgame is a stranger jonesing to bugger your 13-year-old. As anyone who’s raised children knows, leaving kids to “the hazards of their own free will” is a completely unworkable concept, apart from its outrageousness and moral insanity. The editors of New York should have reached the “Sorry, that’s just fucking stupid” stage one paragraph in. The American intellectual mainstream is now so infected by cowardice before academic shibboleths that it kowtows to ideas the average kindergarten teacher would flunk without a thought.

The Dumbest Cover Story Ever

New York Magazine's "Freedom of Sex" is the ultimate example of the lunatic nihilism that's consumed America's intellectual class

https://www.racket.news/p/the-dumbest-cover-story-ever

mirax · 14/03/2024 05:03

It seems that ALC used his article to tweet (and then delete) a call for funds to aid a friend who is suffering from complications due to sex change surgery.
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1767574814019965066?s=20

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1767574814019965066?s=20

negeme · 14/03/2024 00:10

ArabellaScott · 12/03/2024 13:17

The article is useful reading -

  1. it offers a lucid, if basically utterly irrational, argument, which makes a pleasant change
  2. it confronts several weakness of 'genderism' head on. The benefit of this is that the only place for these arguments to go is from vague and muddled to 'outright batshit' - takes the arguments to their logical, absurd, conclusions. ('everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care')
  3. it offers a rough idea of where the US is at the moment (around one half of states appear to have banned children from transitioning, according to this article)
  4. It offers a couple of points worth considering about wrt 'gender critical' feminism
  5. It illuminates that many if not most people who have given the subject a little thought are not in favour of children being allowed to change sex - here Chu lambasts 'liberals' who are clinging to old fashioned ideas like a risk/benefit analysis or consideration of potential iatrogenic harms.

I read it.

Not sure about 'lucid'. In fact, there are so many (deliberate) equivocations, particularly on 'sex' and 'gender', it reads more as a poem than an argument. Perhaps 'vague' or 'deranged'? 'Imperspicuous'? 'Opaque'?

That's OK, in a way. It's probably intentional. There is a sort of neatness to the prose, it's true. Not really appropriate to try to argue with vagary or discuss opacity, though, hmm?

[One other thing btw. I don't think the Butlerian-poststructural-bollocks branch of the tra brigade has ever agreed with the, erh, more popular out-on-the-street-in-green-and-blue-hair bunch of believers about 'gender identity'. Just another glitch in the total ideology which pops into the light when the shades are drawn back.]

EmpressaurusOfTheScathingTinsel · 13/03/2024 22:00

There’s nothing in ALC’s repulsive description of women that suggests they should enjoy sex or have any active part in it. Just receptacles. Presumably ALC is excited by this idea.

Maybe ALC extends that to thinking that these children should also grow up to merely be receptacles.

maltravers · 13/03/2024 21:46

People like ALC seem very very invested in their own sexual expression (the blank, blank eye etc thing for example) but desperate that kids should have treatment that will leave them without the ability to enjoy sex themselves. Is this a lack of empathy or some kind of darker control? I don’t get it.

Original poster
ArabellaScott · 13/03/2024 12:38

Also this is presented as lofty theory. The real world, prosaic consequences of this are not even touched on lightly.

So yes, in theory, one can argue that every adult male has the moral right to castrate himself. That's a long running argument. Yet most people will see some flaws with it if they think about it for five minutes. Most people would suggest checks and balances, and understand that this kind of self harm is illegal in the UK for pretty good reason. Most people might consider what the physical, emotional consequences might be.

OP posts:
Original poster
ArabellaScott · 13/03/2024 12:36

Well. It's quite a long piece, for the internet. If one is seduced by what is relatively well composed prose - again, that's quite rare! - then one may be lulled into the argument. I can imagine that without thinking too hard about it, one could blandly accept the faux logic.

It is true that nobody asked to be born. Nobody 'consented' to be alive. The leap that's required to go from that assertion to 'therefore there can be no real consent to anything' or more importantly 'therefore consent is meaningless and unnecessary' can be glossed.

I read this with a basic knowledge of some of the other things ALC has said. And with my critical thinking head on.

Undergrads? Groomed in 'be kind' ideology? Are they going to question any of it, or are they going to accept it wholesale, given that any kind of questioning is 'literal violence' and verboten?

OP posts:
RoyalCorgi · 13/03/2024 12:30

Thanks for drawing our attention to this, Arabella - I feel it's a case of you read it so we don't have to. I liked your comment that it offers "a lucid, if basically utterly irrational, argument, which makes a pleasant change" - a change, presumably, from the usual "opaque, but utterly irrational argument".

When these people express themselves clearly, which they rarely do, it does make it much easier to see how utterly batshit it is. With Judith Butler, you have to spend a few hours working out what she means before concluding that it's probably batshit.

But when you read sentences such as "if children are too young to consent to puberty blockers, then they are definitely too young to consent to puberty, which is a drastic biological upheaval in its own right" then it immediately becomes evident how utterly nuts it is. Presumably even people who go along with this stuff - Evan Davis, say - might be brought up short when they read sentences like this.

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 13/03/2024 11:57

ArabellaScott · 12/03/2024 16:14

This was another startling assertion:

"if children are too young to consent to puberty blockers, then they are definitely too young to consent to puberty, which is a drastic biological upheaval in its own right."

Yes, I picked that one out. If I had to choose one word to describe the whole article, it would be: sophistry.

I didn’t consent to conception, birth, delicious food, ageing, illness or death either.

Has anyone else spotted the odd one out in this list, a quote from Butler? “… the basic rights to housing, food, non-toxic environments, unpayable debt, and health care.”

Ofcourseshecan · 12/03/2024 19:25

ArabellaScott · 12/03/2024 16:14

This was another startling assertion:

"if children are too young to consent to puberty blockers, then they are definitely too young to consent to puberty, which is a drastic biological upheaval in its own right."

Damn right it is. I’ve not only been put through puberty without my consent, I had years of period pains I never asked for, then believe if or not I was shoved through menopause! And don’t get me started on the unwanted effects of ageing.

Where do I put in my complaint?

Cattenberg · 12/03/2024 19:10

PickAChew · 12/03/2024 16:18

😵‍💫

Maybe supple breasts is a reference to ones so saggy you can tie them in a bow.

Show quote history

That was the song it brought to my mind too!

Barbadossunset · 12/03/2024 19:09

I mentioned on another thread - there’s a good article about this book in Unherd.

songaboutjam · 12/03/2024 19:07

WitchyWitcherson · 12/03/2024 17:16

'Everyone should have the right to change sex'

Totally agree - I also agree that everyone should have the right to turn into a cloud, the right to be made of wood and the right to walk on every one of Jupiter's moons.

"It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them!" Wink

GrumpyPanda · 12/03/2024 17:26

Well, bodily autonomy is really the only logical outcome he's got left. Gender identity is unconvincing, gender dysphoria is insulting as it's not an illness,.and he doesn't discuss the fetish aspect in this article despite admitting to it in his more infamous writings. That really leaves no other explanation for trans-ness except saying "because I can". And saying well women get nose and boob jobs too.

WitchyWitcherson · 12/03/2024 17:16

'Everyone should have the right to change sex'

Totally agree - I also agree that everyone should have the right to turn into a cloud, the right to be made of wood and the right to walk on every one of Jupiter's moons.

JanesLittleGirl · 12/03/2024 16:55

Is Andrea Long Chu meant to be a very poor pun?