What causes women to become trans activists?

[TheChampagneGalop]

I mean the type of activists that appeared to disrupt the recent meeting about gender in London.

From what I've read about this incident in Speaker's corner there were more women than men protesting and harassing women trying to go to that meeting.
I watched the video and the male violence was of course disturbing and alarming (and criminal!), but the mindless mantra chants from the women about terfs also disturbed me.

I spotted this the other day on a discussion going on in Emma Watson' feminist book club, the Shared Shelf (on Goodreads) It's from a thread recording feminists' achievements.

The world has gone mad.

ReanimatedSGB

Well according to the other thread, that's still the definition of a fetish. If you can't enjoy sex without it.

Really effective marketing.

The campaigns have, from my observation, used an idea that only clever, more "woke" and "better" people can understand the issues. Who wouldn't want to be considered those?

There has been a deliberate separation in their marketing labelling some thoughts "old/traditional" ideology, and others "new/progressive".

The creation of "victims" to identify, and project on to, but also crucially to feel superior to. It positions the recipient of the message "above" the transperson, in terms of social hierarchy. The recipient gets to feel better about themselves, because they are less vulnerable than the person they are "helping". It flatters the recipient of the message.

It has been sold, for want of a better word, in a very similar way to recent political and religious ideological campaigns.

I think sex means more than PIV or partner sex in this context though. I think it's more like a compulsion. So if you can't masturbate or get aroused without imagining a scenario in which you are in a ltr with your dream man that would be comparable.

The thing that is really awful about the whole thing is that the "truscum" real transsexuals are facing the backlash. We have been accepting them as women as a courtesy for a long time. An honour system as someone mentioned above. However this has led to a situation where we have given an inch and another and another until we are now being told to "suck on my girl dick" by trans lesbians.

Yes, obviously my primary concern is how all of this affects female people, but of course I am worried about how it is all impacting on transsexual people too. These transactivists make out they are helping people like this, when in reality what they are doing is creating backlash against them, and threatening them and silencing them in exactly the same way.

This is why I don't understand how so many accept this current trans-agenda. Honestly. Women have for ever allowed transwomen entry to female spaces in an honour system. The only people these laws that TAs are pushing for will help are dodgy people with ulterior motives for wanting into female spaces, not genuine trans people who have been able to use these spaces anyway before all of this bollocks. And all that the current way of doing things (silencing, female penis, 'transphobia!!!1111' is doing, is creating problems for those 'genuine trans people' as its forcing people to take a hardline view on the topic, no grey areas allowed. And most rational people believe in biology, so the only view we can take when pushed to be all black and white, is that males are males, period. Even after surgeries and such. now personally I have always thought that way, but I was fine with referring to those who genuinely experience dysphoria and such as she and so on. But now, I feel I HAVE to take a view that excludes any leeway for certain people. And it feels so fucking wrong. But due to these ridiculous TAs, there is no other option.

Oh it doesn't affect how I treat people in real life. Just I have a bit of a disconnect when talking about it all online...as I have to take a polarized view that isn't necessarily how I think, if that makes sense?

Obviously when you know people in real life it does muddy your views a bit, as the transwomen I do know are nothing like the ones I know exist in large numbers.

And there are stories like this put about by an NUS trans activist on twitter, to paint the TERFs as evil perverts who eat babies and cast spells on your cows to make their milk dry up.
But I suppose it could be credible to some people.
twitter.com/ladleye/status/908863653742563328

Fairyflaps

I was actually cringing for that man. And I don't say that very often.

Tortoise, me too. I've got some trans mates and have known loads of trans/crossdressing/gender non-conforming people throughout adulthood. Most of them are lovely (and the ones who are not lovely are not aggressive blinkered self-righteous tosspots like those you see online - they're just people and some are boring/snarky/attention-seekers or whatever).

I've also known some radical feminists who are nasty individuals. But what it keeps coming back to, for me, is whether this 'fight' between radfems and transactivists is being manipulated by other interests, and for what purpose. For instance, the way some people online keep implying that the deaths of some transpeople are down to feminists when they are referring to murders of transwomen committed by cismen.

And then you get unnecessary spite like a report in a local paper of a transwoman who killed herself in a 'sex game' - it's not clear whether it was accident or suicide, but it's hard to see how the whole history of her transition is relevant to the story, but the paper went into allllll the detail.
And then there was Lucy Meadows, who the Daily Mail went after until she killed herself (Littlejohn outed her as trans and the Mail went and pestered parents at the school to say how disgusting it was that this pervert was near children.)

So you will get people who see discrimination and bullying of transpeople and want to support them - and, if you're young-ish and involved in progressive politics, you've usually had to 'support' at least one nasty individual or action that seems a bit disproportionate to the offence and you just go along with it...

Yes, SGB, I too frequently think "who is this benefiting? And how many of the nutters online are in fact agents provocateurs?" Because the obviously people who are laughing at the chaos and entrenching of views are right wing men. They get to shove women firmly back in the sex-stereotype prison, with the liberal left cheering them on, while simultaneously fomenting a backlash against genuine trans and cross-dressing folks, most of whom are perfectly nice people who just want to lead a quiet life.

The whole thing is a divide-and-conquer wet dream for right wing men who would like to roll back women's rights and hate anyone who isn't heterosexual and monogamous (except of course themselves when they fancy a bit of extramarital action with whoever takes their fancy), and simultaneously a wonderful opportunity to that subspecies of lefty dude-bro who secretly hates women's rights and has suddenly been handed a stick to beat women with while maintaining their virtuous lefty credentials.

Regarding the Daily Fail article, I think it was relevant to describe the person who accidentally killed herself as a Transwoman, because these things do matter. For example, the official stats look like this year there has been a spike in middle age women being convicted of horrible sexual crimes, yet it isn't women, these were women who have transitioned from men.

How can help be targeted to the correct people, if the relevant info is guff? Also, given her photos it would have been major gas lighting to call the victim a woman.

The massive elephant and why this was in the paper at all, is that for some, crossdressing and other fetish behaviours are an escalation of porn use. Reg porn leads to gonzo which leads to specialist. Except not just one special thing. Crossdressing with a desire for cuckolding with B, water play and so on. Check out the message boards of your local fetish scene if you don't believe me.

Obvious caveat, this isn't ALL trans people, not a homogenous blob etc, but yes this is a thing.

So it's unfortunate that this was reported at all, but it would be wrong to report it incorrectly.

I'm involved in the fetish scene. It's not just transpeople who move through various kinks - th thing is most people who get into kinky stuff (cis or trans) find what they like, find consenting partners to do it with, and don't hurt themselves or anyone else.

Mind you, I also don't think that an accidental death like that is actually news in the sense of needing pictures and a lurid article, at all. It isn't anyone's business apart from the family and friends.

Reanimated, sorry I didn't mean to suggest that it was.

My experience has been that crossdressing developed after porn escalation and growing through other unrelated kinks. it was just another boundary to explore. I think there is often a view that someone is into a particular fetish because it is innate, that's their thing. But in my experience it can be that, or it can function like drugs, needing another novelty to get the same high as before.

Agree it probably shouldn't be in the news, but that isn't what the daily mail is.

From what I've read of this particular fetish, AGP, it's heavily linked to porn addiction.

Almost all the personal narratives talk about an escalation in porn years and a compulsion that is all but impossible to ignore.

Use, not years.

A lot of 'personal narratives' about sex are.... not exactly hard science. Sometimes it's a matter of telling the listener what the listener wants to hear - or the person recording the story twists it to suit their own agenda.
Again, there isn't anything inherently wrong with having a fetish/elaborate erotic fantasy life, no matter how unusual or impossible that fetish might seem. It's how you actually behave to other people that matters.

ReanimatedSGB

I'm not disagreeing. And I'm sure there are loads of fetishes that I couldn't care less about.

AGP is inherently misogynistic. So I care about this one.

Just read the whole thread. It's a great discussion, so many interesting perspectives.