Guilty Feminist on Triggernometry

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-59672739.amp

How many male bus drivers are 5ft?

I think her analogy works in male prisons. It doesn't matter how your cell mate presents - the prisons authorities ensure that every inmate is male.

Just as the bus company would ensure every driver has a driving licence, regardless of their outfit.

But it can only work in womens prisons if the authorities ensure only women are sent there. At the moment, the prison authorities are letting real clowns in as well as women and women who identify as clowns.

This is so key. She never made clear whether it was a bus driver who dressed as a clown, or a clown who started driving a bus.

If it was the former then I think one might say "so, a clown outfit doesn't make a bus driver a clown, he's still a bus driver, is that what you're saying? Do you also agree that he'd be a better bus driver if he took the silly clothes and massive shoes off?"

If it were the latter then the question is "are you sure you're happy having clowns drive buses?

Her argument seems to be either "a change of clothes doesn't change who you are, but respect everyone even if they wear silly or gender non-conforming outfits", or it is "a clown becomes a bus driver when he sits in the drivers seat, and you're a bigot if you want trained bus drivers and not clowns who identify as bus drivers"?

[kicks self for trying to make it make sense]

She seems to think that when you see a clown driving a bus you are bigoted to assume something bad is going on. You are bigoted for assuming that the person in clown clothes might not be a bus driver, or a bus driver dressed as a clown might not have the best judgement compared to a normal bus driver in normal bus driver clothes. But this bigotry disappears over time - humans get used to things, and after a few years we'll all accept that when we get on a bus the driver might have a red nose and size 48 shoes in a matching colour. Presumbably she thinks some people are just irredeemable bigots who will never accept they bus driver in a clown outfit.

So the bus is society, and the clown outfit is women's clothing on a man. Applying the same logic you would be bigoted to see the man in women's clothes and assume that he was no longer a man, or that men in dresses are showing bad judgement. And that the vast majority of people will get used to men in dresses in time, and only the real hardcore extremist bigots will judge.

It seems to me the analogy could only work if it is about gender non-conformity or transvestites, and that she has failed to even come up with a analogy that relates to trans people at all, let alone proves that they've changed sex or that their gender identity should give opposite sex rights.

If what I have written is nonsense I blame Deborah for giving me nothing coherent to work with.

I think I can help DFW on the bus driver thing.

The important difference between me and a bus driver, is not our clothes, but the fact that I am neither trained nor licensed to drive a bus.

TRA used to use same sex marriage in a similar way - at one point it was unthinkable that women could marry, now it doesnt shock anyone.

But they couldnt contine to use that, because it doesnt fit any single sex based scenarios. Same sex marriage isnt about safeguarding risks. The rights afforded to married couples doesnt change any other protect characteristic.

I think she was trying to come up with something else about normalising trans and acceptance, but didnt quite get it right. And i dont think she ever will, because TRA want people to change the PC of sex by declaring their PC of GR.

Theres no other scenario where this happens.

Interesting point about seeing everything in terms of aesthetics.

Yes, it was quite satisfying to see her bring in identity politics and to try to frame the conversation as two powerful white men criticising an oppressed little woman (despite her being white too - why would you bring race into it if you think all the people involved are white?), only for it to transpire that by her own standards of privilege, she’s actually a middle classed white women scolding two immigrants, each with traumatic family histories from oppressive regimes. It was such a terrible look for her.

And then, instead of having the self-awareness and sensitivity to acknowledge their backgrounds and back off of her argument, she still tries to twist it to make out “oh, that must be where your bias comes from then, interesting”, as if she’s Sigmund fucking Freud. What happened to “be kind”, Deborah?

It was such a perfect of example of how people promoting gender woo (and others with similarly batshit ideas) are happy to utilise identity politics when it suits them, but only in as far as it supports their own argument, otherwise they don’t give two shits about others’ oppression (a la transwomen throwing transmen and lesbians under the bus re toilets).

OK - have found the transcript on apple podcasts.

The clowns driving buses idea relates to gender non-conformity.

She talks about this at length, and then the host says

"We seem to be confusing gender non-conformity... with claiming that you are the opposite sex. These are completely separate things".

Then she talks about indigenous populations, still not explaining how that relates to sex, but this triggers a talk about genoicde, and then they start talking about race.

They then get back to gender and start talking about puberty blockers. Host brings up Tavistock. She acknowledges some malpractice, but doesn't really have anything to say, because the Cass report can't be ignored, but isn't useful to her argument.

They start talking about Wokeism... and I can no longer be bothered to read the rest.

Oh, like when beards came back into fashion. Yes, that's totally the same thing 🙄😆

Yes, i think she was trying to say that at the moment, trans people are seen as different because our minds are wired to expect a woman to be a female person.

Once we get used to women being male and female, the male women wont seem unusual or different.

The clown driving a bus stops being a clown and becomes a bus driver dressed as a clown.

The bus-driver-in-clown-costume is a wrong-headed attempt to claim that objections to change exist solely at the level of aesthetics. So, for those who have not watched the interview, the notion is that, if you got on a bus, and the bus driver was in a clown costume, you would find it weird, and perhaps uncanny; eventually, however, you would get used to all bus drivers dressing as clowns, and would no longer notice the fact.

The problem is that this only works as an idea if change is only ever an aesthetic matter. Take, for instance, the two potential changes below:

• An Act of Parliament changes the name of the House of Commons to the Senate, and replaces all Members of Parliament with Senators. No other change to the electoral system occurs.
• An Act of Parliament abolishes democracy and allows a random dictator to rule by decress.

Now, the first is stupid, but also an aesthetic choice. One would eventually get used to it, and people yet to be born, and who would grow up with this, would find it entirely natural. Conversely, having a dictatorship would always have opponents, and people attempting to restore democracy. This is the difference between an aesthetic change and a substantial one.

The problem with DFW's arguments is that they are essentially treating every social issue as an aesthetic one (bus drivers dressing as clowns, men in long hair, orphans, whatever) regardless of whether or not they have meaningful substance.

(The question of seeing everything in aesthetic terms is a really interesting one, and explains a lot being what is wrong with modern supposedly progressive politics.)

EDIT @Merrymouse

Things change over time. Previously unusual things that slowly happen more and more eventually become normal.

Currently, if a bus driver dressed as a clown, you would notice it as it is unusual (my mind immediately went to that experiment where no-one noticed someone dressed as a gorilla walking by).

If bus drivers dressed as clown 30% of the time, you would begin to not notice it and then not notice it at all as it becomes normal (and therefore not of note).

I’ve just been listening to her on Davina MCall’s podcast - she’s a complete nutter.

I didn’t get to where she talks about trans stuff but had to check out of it and abandon the podcast - it was making me hyperventilate, just listening to her. She’s SO intense - and all over the shop. Made my head swim.

It’s no surprise she’s mad:
She thinks she spent her first ten days alone in a cot
She was adopted into a family that joined a cult and she was in it until she was 25

She’s very articulate and clearly intelligent…
But she’s a nutter.

Yes, I was wondering about this too...

Please could somebody play devil's advocate and try to explain the bus driver/clown argument.

Thank you.

As a woman who was adopted at birth, she's talking absolute shite.

Haven't watched/listened to the podcast. But the adoption analogy is just stupid. Being a parent is about your relationship to/with another person. Yes as a society we have accepted that there are different ways that relationship can be created. But it is not some inner feelings of identity. It would still be absurd for someone who didn't have a child to identify as a parent and try to use it to get legal rights such as maternity leave or claim a school place for their invisible child.

It was fun when it first started.

My “guilty feminist” trait is while I reject the beauty industry and pressure on women to remain young and attractive to men, I love nothing more than red carpet photos. I literally take time off the day after the Oscars and Met Gala to spending hours gawping at the beautiful people in their outlandish outfits.
Love it.
Am embarrassed by it.

When it was young women who want to be good feminists but would sell their souls for a Mulberry bag, it was light and funny.
Then it got all tedious and bandwagon-y.

Or 3. She genuinely holds a different opinion

I think it’s all anti-intellectual bollocks and doesn’t hold up to scrutiny but a remarkable number of bright people do actually accept it.

It’s not a good idea to write of all opponents as thick or pretending.

It’s interesting that she’s not promoting this podcast on her social media. The one with David Tennant is getting plenty of promo. Why could that be?

If we want to get right down to it, there is one thing that she spectacularly fails to get.

"Ordinary men and women" in the UK are interest in a decent job and a decent home, and hope for their kids. They might also want their country to feel more like it used to before mass immigration that they did not vote for, and politicians on all sides lied to them about. They do not want their 7 year old told lies like "everyone has a gender identity" and "humans can change sex". They either don't want men in dresses in women's spaces, or they don't give a fig about a tiny minority of weirdos (their feelings, not mine). They want someone to come along and explain how growth is going to be delivered, where the homes are coming from, and to stop banging on about minorities, not least from woke white MC people with no black friends (whilst they themselves have a black best mate who also thinks there's too much immigration).

She simply cannot accept that maybe the trigger guys understand their audience more than she does. Her position seems to be "there is a big divide between the woke left and the right, and if only more on the left can be big enough to speak to fascists and patiently explain why they are bigoted morons for refusing to buy into identity politics, then everyone will agree with me and we can win".

I would, genuinely, love to see her watch the whole thing back, and reflect long and hard. And then invite them on her podcast and ask them about they feelings and beliefs based on their lived experience. I'm surprised she didn't exmpode as she started to get her head around the idea that Francis and KK are not two goose-stepping english white nationalists, and that maybe their viewpoints are infinitely more inclusive of the variety of global views than hers are. And are more progressive and liberal

Yes, this. I have no idea what she thought she was claiming by saying that orphans were/are regarded and treated differently and the eimpact on her identity?

Same with the 'analogy' of women wearing trousers and men having long hair, or even worse, the clown bus driver, when she claimed that 'given enough time, we would not notice anymore'. She seems very confused about gender non-conformity and gender identity. Or does she really think that in a few generations humans will not be able to tell the sex of any other human? If that was teh case we'd be fucked as a species.

I watched the whole 2 1/2 hours. I thought she made some decent-ish points, but NOTHING worth a listen, let alone going out of your way for. But mainly she said nothing full stop, only in a very word salad way.

She never made any sort of argument, it was more a question of making points, good and bad, and expecting the listener to pull them together, build an argument out of them and convince themselves that the woke are right and men can be women off the back of it. Not going to happen.

From reading the youtube comments and two threads on here I get the impression that my take is incredibly charitable, and she should be thanking me for being one of her biggest cheerleaders.