Continuation of Polypostwonder thread

So you have never seen a doctor? Ever? Because they would certainly need to know. You’ve never used women’s single sex facilities? Because the service providers and other users would also need to know.

Everything was done to him. Everything was assumed, or imposed on him. Nothing at all was driven by him. He did nuffink.

Another layering effect is when a male poster claims the word female applies to him and then writes some kind of justification as to why.

Then makes a claim to be the ‘first woman’ to do something in their workplace. Or was put into a role representing women. And claims that this is right and progressive.

Because he didn’t ask to be the first woman to achieve something or to be put into a role representing women. It was ‘done to’ him. Because the people offering the opportunity ‘understood’ him to be female so that makes it all good.

That is again part of the deception layering. And of a male person never once taking responsibility for their decision to not correct anyone’s perceptions or anyone’s political act (getting the role because the organisation knew full well that it was a male person they were appointing to that role) while reaping the benefits of that perception or political action.

Some of those male people taking the acclaim for being the first woman in their organisation to be in a certain role, will justify it by saying that they ‘forged the way’ and opened the door for ‘other’ women so that is a great achievement. This is not just claimed by some male posters on FWR but also people like Levine who claimed to be the highest ranking ‘woman’.

All that layering to distract from the harm that a female person did not achieve that accomplishment. It was just another man.

It’s not even unspoken. It’s just not said every time and you have to dig for it.

Sorry Imdunfer

Many of us have been around this cycle with this poster for months.

“PPW - I agree with you men should not be in women's spaces (spoken) but I'm not a man I'm a woman (unspoken)”

This is exactly the discussion since February.

Yes.

I never thought of that but it’s 30/40 years of perfecting believable lies, isnt it.

I agree that it is deliberate and it is abusive.

Because this is a person who has got away so long with deliberately obfuscating the material reality of their sex category snd has spent decades linguistically justifying it.

It reminds me of discussion with my ex who would turn me into knots trying to get him to understand - but he never really wanted to understand, hr wanted to make me frustrated and angry and then he had “won”.

why does he do that by Lundy Bancroft changed my life.

once you “see” it you will never un see it.

And this is a man who said he didn’t have anything in the way of sex development until he started on female hormones as a teen which is clearly nonsense.

This is a man who has proudly stated they support me in my quest for single sex female spaces to mean that. And then twisted every bloody word I’ve said to try to make out they’re included in that womens space.

That space im legally entitled to.

that space that the supreme court has CLARIFIED the law on. (Note - not changed. Clarified).

he is a man. Legally. And in some circumstances, that matters. It’s unfortunate that Poly finds that so difficult to deal with, but actions have consequences. As I’ve said. I made a decision at 15 that I didn’t fully understand the consequences of. People do. All the time. Every day. Polys not unique in that.

(And that applies even if he is the trans woman that passes 100% of the time that he thinks he is)

Even the language he uses to describe the hormones he takes is dishonest.

Certainly there's no point plodding on, anyway. I'd meant to check out for just this reason yesterday, yet here I bloody well am again, still procrastinating! Gah! I think I'm here less out of interest in the thread than a horror of paperwork now 😩. Go and work, Catiette!

I agree as well.

He knows EXACTLY what he’s doing - it is deliberate so he doesn’t ever have to answer à straight question and it’s abusive.

I do know what you mean.

I mean, I can run with woman-as-cultural-construct. I don't find it convincing in the absolutist sense in which PPW is using it, but there's truth to it in other ways.

I can discuss the challenges of balancing rights, including the possibility of supporting PPW as "woman" in some contexts and to a certain degree.

I acknowledge PPW's challenges and circumstances.

I can do all of that.

But as long as all this is met with ridiculous responses like the denial of sexual reproduction, and tthe dismissal of the possibility of my having the slightest atom of a right to name and distinguish myself as distinct from PPW in language and law...

...It does start to feel a bit unsettling.

I fully agree with Rhino, he knows what he's doing and it is abusive.

“The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.”

I'd say none of the above.

The words are carefully chosen to divert attention away from the writer's actual purpose. The intention is to tie questioners up in traps and loops, forcing them to look inward to find ways to express important concepts without tripping linguistic or emotional traps.

It's dishonest and abusive. Anyone who has been in a certain type of abusive relationship recognises it. Stealing power and agency through stealing the victim's ability to make themself heard.

Taz, it isn't you with the language. Much isn't possible to understand, because of techniques Helle outlines above and I mentioned earlier.

With so much deliberate/unconscious waffle, the main purpose stops being communication (like, sharing meaning and understanding). There's too much abstraction and avoidance.

I think it's defensive - and do sympathise. PPW's a minority, and sees themselves as fighting for their identity. In a sense, they are. As long as some facts don't support this, and evidence is subjective or assumed (eg. references to what "most women" think etc.), they can't afford directness. So trans ideology uses language to construct identities and moral authority which resist logic.

And that's cool - TERFs also use language to assert identity and moral right, too - like "man". The downside of that? It can be seen as "unkind" and provocative. The upside? There's an honesty to it that TRAs' arguments can't support.

But when PPW said earlier that some women want to "control" language or use it to control others, it was ironic. Because PPW's guilty of exactly the same, just in a subtler way. I'd say a more manipulative, dishonest way.

Annoyingly, though, this cynical avoidance of plain speaking is what our society favours. Indirect waffle feels less threatening and is such a useful path to power! Orwell's Politics and the English Language is so relevant right now...

• "A mass of... words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details."
• “Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”
• "As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract... prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning...”
• “Political language... is designed... to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
• "When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms...”

What really interests me is which of Orwell's options best describes PPW:

• “The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.”

Shedmistress and @Taztoy, I have to be fair and point out that PPW was quoting my snark from earlier back at me there 😅

Edit re-quoting to quoting

As I mentioned pages back, I think it is important for women to see the way these subjective realities are constructed, layer upon layer.

The confident repetition about the lack of testosterone throughout early life that apparently means that no one notices that this is a male person. It doesn’t stack up. There was testosterone exposure. There was male puberty even if there was few visible signs.

The likelihood of that male person not looking like a male child would have been very rare. Facial structure and genetics would have been in play from conception. Lowered testosterone doesn’t mean that a boy suddenly looks like a girl.

And this overly confident claim, usually accompanied by a derisive ‘I know more about my life than you’, that 100% of the testosterone produced in puberty was aromatised is just over confidence.

But apparently, we are to believe it.

It is the layering though. On this base then comes the deceptive half truths that support the built up subjective reality. Such as telling female people that the reason to take estrogen is because of a lack of ovaries. This is true but it is deceptive. It is a partial truth missing a vital bit of information. That the reason for no ovaries is that the person is male. Not only that, but is using estrogen to create extreme body modifications.

If it is being discussed as HRT, it is also a partial truth. Because that estrogen is not be ‘replaced’, it is a supplement. It is estrogen that the male person’s body is not formed to produce in such quantities at all. Whereas for female people those quantities may be replacing what should have been produced or what had been produced.

This layering is important for female people to see in action and to understand. There are many example of this type of layering that builds this constructed reality.

The male entitlement comes through loud and clear.

'no ifs ands or buts'

I have no words.

The TRA arguments are just outright dishonest.

They’ll with a straight face tell you that you can’t define what a woman is and then when you give them a clear definition (which they already knew) slide into saying that it doesn’t matter as you can’t police it anyway.

It us all, all based on them saying whatever they think will get them access to spaces reserved to women.

They do not want third spaces, it has nothing to do with them wanting access to a place to go to the toilet, or to get changed, or being able to play sports, it is always about the invasion of spaces where women are, it’s this invasion which “validates” their condition.

I will not play along any more than I would play along with a grown man telling me he was five years old and trying to argue that it was valid as relativity tells us that the flow of time is not constant for all observers.