Jolyon jumps the shark - is trans a cult?

This is such a good comment and yes it absolutely is an issue of datasets.

Empedocles believed everything was made of four elements and that's not becuse he was too stupid to know about atoms (although the idea of an atom was in fact posited by Arstotle). He was simply working with the dataset he had at the time.

Likewise the Victorian scientists who believed that the last thing a person saw before dying would be imprinted on their eyeballs like a negative. Again, working from the datasets available to them.

None of that has any bearing on a person's morality or intellect because they were literally making the best use they could of the data they had.

but in the case of TWAW...the data and science around human biology is well established, even before the science it was known that there are two sexes which differ in certain ways, this knowledge predates the evolution of homo sapients ffs....but they not only chose to ignore it, they chose to actively persecute anyone who dared to mention it.

To me, that has to come down to either an intellectual or a moral failing. No shade on anyone if its intellectual, we all have different styles and rates of learning and no moral judgement there (although I do wonder whether anyone stupid enough to believe in 72 genders should have a position of political power for example).

the moral failing...well that's worse and I DO judge it. Espousing a belief you know to be false, for career or social or monetary reasons, is pathetic at best and downright evil at worst.

See I think it'll be something more like
"I was fighting on the right side all along but I had to pretend I was on the wrong side because I was in fact a double agent doing indispenable work for GC women. Yes - I am the pound shop Severus Snape. Did someone say Harry Potter? I've always thought Prime Minister Rowling was a stand-up woman with a strong moral backbone. In fact I'm hoping for a consultancy gig at the Home Office. It's just that I've been so broke since the Guardian went under and I need to pay my mortgage. The Prime Minister won't return my calls but I'm sure it's just cos she's very busy. Honest!"

I have no doubt that in decades to come, the strange history of the years 2016 - 2023 will be minutely studied and also placed in their proper socio-economic context (globalisation and resultant fall in western living standards, the rise of China, the pernicious effect of social media, and global lockdowns).

I believe that all of the above events in parentheses led to a feeling of fear and alienation especially amongst younger people, and this led (as it has always led in history) to many people adopting apocalyptic and eschatological belief systems. Of which trans is one.

As a oldster I hope I'm still around to read some of these books and papers because the judgement of historians is gonna be....fascinating.

I also hope to live long enough to see LOJ finally admit that he's always been on the Wrong Side of History. But I don't hold my breath!)

Hmmm I would take some issue with your characterisation of early Christianity because, of course, the Constantinian conversion set it as a state religion way before it began to be 'exported'...I would also point out that early Christianity allowed for a LOT of differences in theology and beliefs eg you had the Gnostics, Nestorians, Monophysitists...plus there was a great deal of synchretism with pagan beliefs eg Artemis of Ephesus and Marian belief...but it wasn't until the Council of Nicaea that the beliefs were codified so we're tlaking 5 centuries of epistemoligical and social development.

TRA felt much more like some shadowy thing suddenly imposed.

I think it's also worth adding that paleochristianity placed a heck of a lot of emphasis on BEING in the community, helping the poor, refusing to judge others for their beliefs...all tenets of faith now...TRA punishes unbelievers severely.

I really do think more parallels with cults and facist governments than any of the abrahamic religions imho.

I hear that and you're right. But the fervour of the sudden belief in TWAW, its cruelty to those who resisted or desisted and the frankly dodgy nature of some of its biggest proponents, as well as the fact that it never had a settled philosophy or theology (the belief tenets kept changing as more facts were brought to light) make it more of a cult than a religion.

I don't think Newton ever wanted to harm kids or destroy the livelihoods of people who didn't share his esoteric interests.

Newton wasn't trying to force through far reaching legislative and lanugage change based on his esoteric interests. He wasn't seeking to damage anyone else's rights or safety.

That is a crucial difference, for me.

I think I would just say that people who are already vulnerable for whatever reason are most susceptible to cults. That's how I class the poor kids who got sucked in.

but the powerful and non-vulnerable people who acted as a gauleiters of the TRA movement? I don't know what to make of them, so the best excuse I can bestow is that they weren't smart enough to understand what was at stake.

At worst, they WERE smart enough but lied when they said TWAW...so it's a moral failing...which is far, far wose than a failure to understand.

Absolutely. Remember how this issue was first brought to public attention with Stonewall's slogan projected on buildings: "Transwomen are women. No debate."

Looking back that's a very creepy and to my mind, heavily facist-coded strategy. People were explicitly being told to shut up and go along with a brand new, false reality which the vast majority of citizens stringly disagreed with once they finally found out what it meant.

People are complex and multifaceted. It is overly simplistic to suggest all those who are committed to trans rights and believe TWAW are not decent, intelligent or ethical.

I hear you, but I disagree.

I do believe there is an intellectual or a moral difference between those who happily mouth TWAW and those who questioned it, often at great reputational damage to themselves (or worse - people have lost jobs and still are losing them).

Either TRA sympathisers truly believed TWAW, in which case their intellect simply isn't as advanced as those who understand the importance of empirical evidence and scientific enquiry, and favour that over blind faith systems.

Or, TRA sympathisers don't believe TWAW but still said it to get ahead, be fashionable or from fear of cancellation. In which case then I'm afraid their moral code simply isn't as strong as those who, at best, were brave enough to either openly question it, or, at least, kept their heads down and refused to mouth the platitudes.

I know that sounds snobbish and morally superior and I'm not thinking of myself per se (I'm fortunate enough to work in have a social environment where I could be open about desisting and not suffer consequences) but frankly people like Kathleen Stock, JKR, Linehan, Hele Joyce are in my view either intellectually and morally superior to the Emma Watsons, Laurie Pennys, Owen Joneses, Dawn Butlers and Joanne Harrises. Or potentially both.