Anyone else worried Trump’s advocacy of gender-critical views taints and discredits them?

But a lot of genuinely very intelligent people claim to believe this. So where does that leave them?

The problem is that many is the US may have voted for Trump on their feelings on this one issue and it's opened up a whole world of shit. Life is more nuanced than just focusing on one issue. Quite frankly I think he's just a misogynist arsehole rather than an advocate for feminism.

But plenty of people all over the world vote on single issues. That's how the Green party (ecology party way back then) started. In fact i remember one of Thatcher's brilliant moves was to say before the 79 election that of course the aims of the ecology party are also aims of the tories. Some not-quite-single-issue voters may have switched their vote because of things like that.

I think fundamentally it is a credibility issue.

I always end up quoting Sall Grover on this. She said something like, "If you say that a woman can have a penis, I am not going to believe anything you say. Because if you will lie about something so basic, I assume you will lie about everything."

This issue has made me question everything I previously thought about politics. Like, I used to have a long held belief that the Liberal Democrats were sensible centrists and I usually voted for them. Now this issue has opened my eyes to the fact that they're absolute lunatics and that the only reason this isn't more widely understood is because they get so little media exposure.

I am absolutely certain that people who support self ID and "gender affirming care" are absolutely, completely, catastrophically wrong. And if you're someone who I usually agree with about most things, it's going to make me start to question all those other things as well. Before, if I thought you were an intelligent person and an all round good egg whose views were generally sensible and aligned with my own, and you expressed an opinion about something I didn't know much about (the conflict in the middle east, for example), I would probably assume that yours was a sensible take and it would influence my own opinion going forward.

Now, if you say TWAW, I am going to assume that you might be equally wrong about other things too.

How does this link to your point about abortion? Well, my own views on abortion haven't changed, but when for example Miriam Cates was talking about whether the 24 week limit in the UK is really appropriate, where once upon a time I would have dismissed her as a right wing politician with strong religious beliefs who wanted to restrict women's reproductive rights, now I would actually listen to what she has to say and form a view on that. Because I know that she has been spot on about other women's rights issues, so I can no longer write her off as someone with nothing useful to say.

I think intelligence does come into it very much. As previously mentioned, education ≠ intelligence so people educated far beyond their level of intelligence will grab on to any ridiculous nonsense if they feel it shores up their precarious status.

Read my post again.

I said “a start might be to stop blaming the Left/leftists/Democrats for everything the Right does”. This means if things go wrong within the Trump admin, why blame the Left? Of course the Democrats are to blame for whatever has gone wrong within their own party.

I’m concerned the fact Trump is an advocate of gender-critical views taints and discredits them in the eyes of thinking people.

No. But he does taint and discredit such views in the eyes of unthinking people.

The short-of-thinking people run simple algorithms in their head:
"Trump is bad. Trump is GC, ergo GC is bad."

That is if they think at all, and don't just go along with the crowd in parroting slogans unquestioningly.

I agree. And it makes people seem untrustworthy. If they can lie so blatantly about self evident reality they are lying about everything. And that’s the reason I believe it was an issue for the Democrats’ electability and still is. So yes it is their fault and the ball is in their court. Gender identity ideology is not convincing to the electorate.

from the disappearing websites about US Veterans who aren't white men, i think we can safely assume the Diversity he is against here is possibly inclusion of non-white minorities. There is a fixed idea among the MAGA-pickup-truck-with-gunrack-driving voters that DEI means giving any job to the first non-white man that applies, and not what it really involves.

That DEI these days seems to apply only to TQ+ and not, say, disabilities or age is just a side-issue in Trump's eyes, i think.

It's dumb to go along with something you know to be untrue. It's even more dumb to be too cowardly to question it. Stupidity is not the preserve of the uneducated. Educated people work hard at being dumb sometimes.

No.

The British sex realists are overwhelmingly on the left.

Anyone who fails to see this, is just as dumb as people who go along with pretending that people can magically change sex because they say so.

I don't think it's a question of intelligence though.

Nobody, regardless of their level of intelligence, believes that men can become women.

But because the idea that we should pretend we believe this has come from liberal/academic circles, intelligent people are somewhat paradoxically more likely to take part in the pretence. They attach a high value to their intelligence and want to align themselves with other intellectuals. They fear being called stupid and ignorant above all else.

Whereas people who aren't particularly booksmart don't particularly care about impressing those sorts of people (and probably couldn't impress those sort of people whatever they did). If you know you're going to be written off as stupid and ignorant whatever you do, you have no incentive to pretend to believe something that isn't true for fear of being called stupid and ignorant.

Are you overthinking?

I'm sorry but I don't get your argument at all.

Enlighten me.

Why exactly are the Political Right responsible for political Left including the Democratic Party, responsible for the left's policy setting on gender rights which is completely batshit and at odds with reality?

Why aren't the Democratic Party responsible for their own failure to have a sensible conversation about why women's rights, gay rights, concerns about children, concerns about over medicalisation without proper unbiased scientific research, concern about autistic people and concerns about vulnerable people with a history of trauma were thrown out the window and declared bigoted?

Why isn't it the fault of the Democratic Party being out of step with the public, given that a political party in a democratic society is supposed to reflect and represent the people?

How is it Trump's fault and the Republican Party's fault that the Democratic Party made political decisions all by themselves which have turned into a total disaster area?

This is what is known as an unforced error of judgement by the left. They did it all from their own free will.

All Trump and Co have done is capitalise on massive political and medical scandal that has harmed a hell of a lot of people, particularly women.

That's what political parties and the public are supposed to do - hold parties responsible when they made stupid mistakes and abuse their position of power.

Genuinely why it is never the fault of the Democrats on this subject? Why is it all the Big Bad Evil Villains fault. Seriously it's like it's become a real life parody of super hero films.

But look at those women, they are hardcore republicans who want the same things as he does, in the main.

And as we know, some women would vote for a woman over a man just because.

Your metaphors are slightly unusual, Messina. It's customary for people to shame women for their opinions or views by claiming that they are 'getting into bed' with someone inappropriate. The implications are twofold: a) that the woman targeted is unchaste/sexually active/adulterous, and;
b) that she could only have that opinion/view because she's having sex with a man who also holds it.

I'm intrigued that you've crossed it over with Little Red Riding Hood. Likening Trump to the wolf truly adds an extra dimension to the reflexive attempt in discussions of sexually shaming women with different viewpoints.

I think I could have done without reading it just before lunch though. <-- not envy

The problem is that the over 35 who are in power and stated TWAW, either uncritically believe and say anything, or have been convinced its true. So much so its probably difficult for them to admit they were conned.

Do we need any of those people in politics and decision making?

So people who are lamenting the loss of those politicians, and are saying that US voters should disregard this issue are missing a key point - trans is a good proxy for identifying the brave who will not compromise the truth, even if its career damaging.

I’m super worried about friends who have started to support Trump because of this. Some have even become more skeptical of abortion access because they think that if Trump was right about TRA, maybe he is also right about curtailing abortion. If only the Left would bloody wake up. The irony of ‘woke’ is that it has sent the political Left in the US and other western countries into a zombie like state while sex realists and those cautioning against absolute cultural relativity on the Left are screaming at it to for the love of god snap back to reality and basic morality. At least the UK has seemingly found a more measured way to slowly crawl back from the gender abyss, without destroying women’s and LGB rights along with it. Thanks, ultimately, largely to the bravery, profile and money of JKR who has been there on the Left supporting vital legal actions that slowly broke the spell. I hope Trump doesn’t go further in undermining abortion in the US and around the world but with JD Vance and Mr breeder Musk whispering sweet nothings in his ear, I fear women, having been recently rescued from the TWAW frying pan, are about to find ourselves being nicely toasted in the pro natalist, anti abortion fire pit. We really should have worked harder on that plan to create our own country…

you mean in the same way that because Hitler was a vegetarian we all look askance at vegans?

in a word: no.

I see!

It’s quite uncomfortable being a sex-realist and essentially “of the left” when so many of my lefty compatriots have taken leave of their senses on gender, and so many sex-realists with whom I have common cause have voted to put a dangerous misogynistic fool in the White House.

Yep.

It's amazing how 'thinking people' can believe the most utter rot!😞

That applies to plenty of people here too, sad to say. You reluctant Trump supporter you!

The problem is that many is the US may have voted for Trump on their feelings on this one issue and it's opened up a whole world of shit. Life is more nuanced than just focusing on one issue. Quite frankly I think he's just a misogynist arsehole rather than an advocate for feminism.

This is the usual from their playbook of whip people up into a frenzy by proclaiming it's the 'woke left'/migrants (insert appropriate other here), create a polarising issue to divide and conquer by sitting back and enjoying the power whilst we fight amongst ourselves, not looking up to realise we deserve better people in charge.

Or ... even Donald Trump isn't stupid enough or up his own arse enough to think a man could ever become a woman (or vice versa). He's nearly 80 years old. I genuinely believe anyone over 35 who says TWAW is just a grifting liar.