To think that "wokeism" is for the privileged few?

[Mooscow]

Wokeism and identity politics seems rife at the moment in the UK. But Canada and the US seem even worse. There is this massive push to avoid the possibility of ever offending anyone, ever. For example, I work for a North American company and we've just been given a long list of words never to use. This includes "female", "blind", "deaf", "blacklist", "homeless", "rule of thumb" and it goes on and on and on. So you can't say things like "turn a blind eye" or "tone deaf" etc. any more in case it offends a blind or deaf person. Really?!

I've just read an article in the FT (sorry can't share) that says the US has only sent 111million out of its pledge to send 1 billion vaccines to poorer countries. The US has 2 and a half times the amount of vaccines it needs for itself and Canada has ordered 8 times what it needs.

I know that vaccines and wokeism has little in common but it just struck me how so much effort is put into this new purity culture whilst at the same time demonstrating utter selfishness and lack of compassion for anyone else.

It's also like the push to remove the word women from healthcare such as cervical screening in case a transman, as a "cervix haver" 🤮 is offended at being grouped with women, while 40% of women (especially those without English as a first language and those in lower socio-economic groups) don't even know what a cervix is. But screw them, let's let them get cervical cancer while we pat ourselves on the back and virtue signal at making sure we don't offend by telling the truth the tiny, tiny proportion of trans people.

I wonder if the whole work/identity politics stuff is based in the fact that privileged people can effortlessly virtue signal to feel better about themselves whilst remaining selfish, uncaring and apathetic towards people who are actually in need or vulnerable. AIBU?

[quote FOJN]I'm back, just reporting more transphobic posts. Hoping that Mumsnet zap this whole hateful thread but anyway.

Hmm 6 posts deleted on this thread, 3 of them yours but thanks for revealing your real agenda.

Anyway this is what purity culture looks like to me. Most decent human beings want equality and social justice but we'd rather it wasn't achieved through tyranny.

[/quote] Thank you, @FOJN.

I have re-read the relevant posts, and I can not grasp where transwomen's existence was denied.

Trying to work out the issue is making me feel like I'm trying to do a cryptic crossword, and I'd appreciate some help here.

Denying the reality of transitioned bodies @334bu. A transwoman will probably have a prostate, but with breasts added and penis removed you can't call her male-bodied.

This makes no sense.

Try Karl Popper for the paradox of tolerance. When you're arguing against the right of people to exist, they (and their supporters) don't have to be tolerant of that view.

And 'prejudice against conservatives' is generally shorthand for 'assumes that someone voting for regressive policies that harm women and children and leave the poor paying for the rich may not be a very nice person to know'.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

I have re-read the relevant posts, and I can not grasp where transwomen's existence was denied.

Trying to work out the issue is making me feel like I'm trying to do a cryptic crossword, and I'd appreciate some help here.

There weren't. At no point did anyone say "transwomen do not exist".

@DameFanny

"Of course transmen can get pregnant as they have a female reproductive system and they should be included in anything to do with their female bodies"

"Transwomen are the ones with male bodies not transmen."

Denying the reality of transitioned bodies @334bu. A transwoman will probably have a prostate, but with breasts added and penis removed you can't call her male-bodied.

Likewise a transman with top and bottom surgery can't be described as female-bodied.

So no matter what a trans person has gone through or is going through, no matter how they present and how long they've presented, they should announce their assigned at birth sex to any questioner and stay in a discrete group separate from male or female?

But you're not denying their existence?

First of all.

Technicality: over 85% of transwomen do not pursue genital surgery. The rate of complications are high.

Your phrasing suggests that transwomen are only transwomen if they have surgery. Would you tell someone with gender dysphoria who was on the waiting list that you wouldn't count them as trans until they'd had it?

Transmen also do not (typically) have neophalluses. The outcomes there are even worse. One technique, for example, involves removing flesh and skin from your arm, to craft and graft a neophallus. The transman Scott Newgent had this procedure, with resulting damage to arm function.

Here is some of what Scott has had to say about it.

extract

Transgenderism isn’t a vague feeling, or a distaste for stereotypical roles. It’s a serious internal condition that causes you to want to become the opposite sex. Medical transition, such as the kind I went through, can enhance an illusion that helps some gender dysphoric individuals navigate the world with more comfort. It did for me, and it was the right path for me to choose.

I wasn’t “born in the wrong body.” I was born female. But I didn’t like it. So I changed my appearance, at significant monetary, psychological, and physical cost, with plastic surgery and hormones. My sex never changed, though. Only my appearance changed.

Anyone going through this is in store for a brutal process. Yet we now have thousands of naïve parents walking their children into gender-treatment centers, often based on Internet-peddled narratives that present the transition experience through a gauzy rainbow lens. Many transition therapies are still in an experimental phase—as you will learn if you become sick during or after these treatments.

During my own transition, I had seven surgeries. I also had a massive pulmonary embolism, a helicopter life-flight ride, an emergency ambulance ride, a stress-induced heart attack, sepsis, a 17-month recurring infection due to using the wrong skin during a (failed) phalloplasty, 16 rounds of antibiotics, three weeks of daily IV antibiotics, the loss of all my hair, (only partially successful) arm reconstructive surgery, permanent lung and heart damage, a cut bladder, insomnia-induced hallucinations—oh and frequent loss of consciousness due to pain from the hair on the inside of my urethra. All this led to a form of PTSD that made me a prisoner in my apartment for a year. Between me and my insurance company, medical expenses exceeded $900,000.

During these 17 months of agony, I couldn’t get a urologist to help me. They didn’t feel comfortable taking me on as a patient—since the phalloplasty, like much of the transition process, is experimental. “Could you go back to the original surgeon?” they suggested.

quillette.com/2020/10/06/forget-what-gender-activists-tell-you-heres-what-medical-transition-looks-like/

Are you saying that transmen will not be treated by you as men unless they have phalloplasties? Are you planning to go around, checking people's underwear to see if they count as trans to you?

Secondly, when you refer to "top surgery" for transmen, I presume you are referring to bilateral (i.e. double) mastectomies.

Have you thought about how harmful your phrasing was there to the masses of women out there who have had mastectomies for breast cancer? They're still female!

They don't stop being female because they've had mastectomies for breast cancer, or any other organ removed for a gynaecological cancer.

Thirdly, trans people are male or female. We're not suggesting putting them in a discrete group and unsexing them. That seems to be your idea, if I read you right.

Trying to work out the issue is making me feel like I'm trying to do a cryptic crossword, and I'd appreciate some help here.

Happy to help. Women are being hateful and othering a group of people we don't believe exist and we're asking for a conversation about our rights conflicting with a figment of our imagination. I'm feel certain that if logic takes a day off that will make perfect sense.

If still in doubt I'd suggest consulting Bunbury who always has pearls of wisdom for situations like this.

Have we got to literal violence yet or shall I come back later?

My apologies for any offence caused with my references to intersex. No, I haven't studied this area.

That's more than apparent.

@DameFanny

Try Karl Popper for the paradox of tolerance. When you're arguing against the right of people to exist, they (and their supporters) don't have to be tolerant of that view.

And 'prejudice against conservatives' is generally shorthand for 'assumes that someone voting for regressive policies that harm women and children and leave the poor paying for the rich may not be a very nice person to know'.

Who has argued against the right of people to exist? Can you spell this out for me, please, because you're accusing people of saying horrible things but I cannot see any evidence they've actually said anything of the sort, anywhere.

Denying the reality of transitioned bodies @334bu. A transwoman will probably have a prostate, but with breasts added and penis removed you can't call her male-bodied.

Likewise a transman with top and bottom surgery can't be described as female-bodied.

So no matter what a trans person has gone through or is going through, no matter how they present and how long they've presented, they should announce their assigned at birth sex to any questioner and stay in a discrete group separate from male or female?

But you're not denying their existence?

Oh, right. This is your argument?

A transman is female. A transwoman is male. Again, this is not insulting or contentious and it's 100% not 'denying their existence', that's a rather strange assertion to make. It's stating their sex.

We can differentiate between sex and gender, yes?

So a transman feels that they have a male gender. Okay. Their sex remains female, and always will do. That will be important for things like health records, it can't be erased and we can't pretend they are literally male.

Apparently, pointing out biology equals denying the existence of trans people which equals hate speech. I've never seen that anywhere other than this thread and I've been on MN for years.

For sure, Alfonso. I think it's quite tone deaf to the transpeople I've heard and spoken to who are quite clear - sometimes painfully clear - on what sex they are, whatever their gender. If sex didn't matter/exist then why would anybody need to transition?

.

I'd call it transphobic to deny people their unique histories and experiences as transwomen and transmen, tbh. It's literally erasing it.

Also very dangerous for their health.

Also incredibly insulting to every man who has suffered genital surgery and every woman who has undergone a mastectomy.

I try to be economical with my valuable time and try not to engage with those who have little to contribute in terms of original ideas.

The woke just parrot predictable dogma learnt in their echo chambers which is no use to anyone (and can be actually harmful to the majority in the UK)

You used hate speech when you denied The existence of transwomen

Denied the existence of transwomen? 😲 That's terrible. Of course transwomen exist. If they didn't, then nobody would be discussing transwomen would they. Can you copy and paste where that was said. I can't find it.

And in relation to word usage, I will use any word I want unless I am forbidden by law to do so.

It must be a nightmare to work for a company like you describe OP

I think it reasonable to discuss with Prostate Scotland the importance of using NHS Scotland’s style guide.

And they will say it turns men off and is confusing and it's necessary to present a clear message to encourage men to access medical attention etc. As it is for women, but no one gives a fuck about that.

I've had a double mastectomy for breast cancer. Does that make my body male? Or perhaps half male, half female?

Of course it doesn't. You can take any cell out of my body and it will be female, no matter what hormones or surgery I have.

I wonder if the whole work/identity politics stuff is based in the fact that privileged people can effortlessly virtue signal to feel better about themselves whilst remaining selfish, uncaring and apathetic towards people who are actually in need or vulnerable

Very astute I think OP.

It’s a damn sight easier to sound off on social media about how much you care about “marginalised communities” than it is to actually help vulnerable people.

It really is.

There's a two-fold payoff: (1) feeling smug for paying lip service and (2) an opportunity to sneer at other people for not paying lip service.

Both of which we've seen on this thread!

It is denying trans men to claim they are biologically male. If they were male, they would not be trans. They would not desire cosmetic double mastectomies and painful genetic surgeries. They would not be risking their health with high doses of anabolic steroids so they could attempt to gain a somewhat male-like appearance with facial hair, etc. And for trans women, the same holds, at least for the small percentage who modify their appearance, take medication, have surgery, or alter themselves in any way other than claiming a new gender identity. To be trans does not mean and cannot mean literally become the other sex. That is why gender identity is what you FEEL. It's a social construct, meaning that it is not a PHYSICAL construct.