I don't want to be a TERF

[PullUpTheTERF]

Please help.

I've NC'd for this because, well, obviously. I assure you I am a regular poster on many forums on MN, including Feminism.

Bit of back story; I am a loud and proud leftie feminist, massively pro gay rights, I am known in my circle of friends (I've been told) as being a champion for minorities, I've been to 12 gay prides and counting.

Being on this forum (since way back when it was FWR) has exposed me to gender criticism and TERF idealogies.

And I wish it hadn't.

I find myself agreeing with some (please note - not all) posters who have explained the, seemingly many, issues with the trans movement.

I'll nod along to certain comments and then hate myself for doing so.

I feel like I could never say any of this in public.

I really don't want to start a bun fight.

I'd really like to hear from some pro trans people specifically with some counter arguments.

I worry about going against gender stereotypes being labelled and parcelled as Trans.
My DS wanted a pink phone and my DMIL said he might want to transition when he's older. It infuriated me.
The thought of children having medical interventions really concerns me. I worry that someone can just say what they are and then they are that (but this doesn't extend to race, just sex)
I worry about female prisons and women only spaces being encroached. Can't believe I just said the word encroached.

But then I hear 'Being my true self' and 'Cis genders don't understand' and 'trapped in the wrong body's stuff and I feel awful.

I know if some of my friends knew about this they'd probably think I was a bigot.

I don't want to have these opinions anymore.
It puts me in the same camp as Trump FFS.

I hope this post is taken in the light it is intended.

The British National Formulary lists the side effects Abdominal pain; acne; anaphylaxis; asthma; breast tenderness (males and females); changes in blood pressure; changes in breast size; changes in scalp and body hair; depression; headache; hypersensitivity reactions; local reactions at injection site; mood changes; paraesthesia; pruritus; rash; urticaria; visual disturbances; weight changes; withdrawal bleeding. Leuprorelin is the generic drug name. Lupron is one of its brand names.

How can anyone say that giving Lupron to children is completely safe? The reality is that we don't know, because it hasn't been studied.

Has anyone else had a go at reading up on Post Modernism/Queer Theory/Judith Butler?

A lot of it is impenetrable Philosophy jargon but the emphasis on reality being shaped by language and truth and reality being subjective explains why so many current and former Arts and Humanities students, who have been marinated in this for the last three decades, see no problem with TRA ideology.

I was an art student in the 80's/90's so I have had to deal with this before, it actually makes far more sense when applied to art criticism than it does to biology, but again those in the cultural sphere have been primed by it to accept TRA ideology.

Combined with Moral Relativism it becomes impossible to objectively say what is right or wrong, scientific fact, truth or fiction.

The disruption this causes to society is to be welcomed as encouraging personal freedom of expression, in fact as revolutions don't work, according to Post Modernism, disruption, as both a means and an end in itself, is to be welcomed, apparently it doesn't matter who gets trampled on in the melee.

You can't argue with it without sounding like a throwback to their ears, someone using (bad) science like 20th century eugenicists did to justify oppression.

I recommend reading Martha Nussbaum's critique of Judith Butler.

Sorry if I de-railed a bit, got interrupted by a visitor and the thread had moved on by the time I posted.

Combined with Moral Relativism it becomes impossible to objectively say what is right or wrong, scientific fact, truth or fiction.

Why does it?

I haven’t read it. But I don’t understand how facts can become fiction.

The proponents of the ideology skew language to suit themselves. But it doesn’t change the facts. Saying a penis is a female organ is just a mechanism to pressure lesbians. No one actually believes it.

I wasn't on lupron, I was on zoladex, but it's in the same category of drugs. I was stunned when I realised this is what people meant when they referred to "puberty blockers". It's like calling a total hysterectomy a "pregnancy blocker", I guess.

Most concerning for me is that there are significant number of women like me who have been on these drugs and have textbook hypothyroidism symptoms but normal TSH levels so no possibility of a diagnosis. When I did some research I discovered there's a condition called central hypothyroidism which is a fault with the pituitary gland (coincidence?) rather than the thyroid itself. The actual levels of thyroxine fall but the body isn't telling the thyroid to produce more. Had more in depth private blood tests and my results tally with this but no doctor will take it seriously.

I've found a couple of studies that connect gnrh analogs to thyroid disorders but there's little information as no one is paying any attention. Side effects aren't being reported. Women are being ignored.

It's a ticking time bomb honestly.

I agree with you, @wigglybeezer - and I'd also add that this is the first generation of adults brought up with the internet. They are used to having online avatars and being characters in RPGs and the like. The self disembodied doesn't seem nonsensical to them.

Some people see this as a reaction to modern secular societies - we're replacing religion with some kind of socio-political metaphysics.

The big problem is that this is all fine for academia and sitting around navel-gazing and contemplating the meaning of life. It's fine for campus politics and passionate kids in a period of identity formation. But you can't govern a country or make public policy based on 65 million equally valid subjective "realities". That way lies chaos. And these dopey neo-religionists just can't see it.

I personally don't think it changes the facts, but anyone who's understanding of the world is heavily influenced by Postmodernist thought doesn't think that there is such a thing as an objective fact, some of them really do believe that a penis can be a female organ, that's what makes them so difficult to reason with.

simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

I'm probably explaining this badly, rusty at this sort of thing.

I suppose I'm trying to understand not what motivates the TRA's, I think that's been covered on other threads, but how the language they use evolved and why it seems so effective at influencing their allies and silencing critics.

Thank you previous posters for articulating what i was thinking better than i managed to.

Pretentious pomo bullshit is usually expressed in really convoluted pretentious language and 'long words'. In fact whenever I have attempted to read it, I am struck by how shit the writing is and how it seems like the insane phenomena inside a psychotic persons mind. There is never logical clarity.
I've also noticed that artists with a shakey grip on reality ie completely fucking mad are strongly drawn towards it.
There is a big Emperor's New Clothes thing about pomo .... the emperor wears pomo clothes that only clever people can see - and so many people who don't want to admit that they don't understand it either, go along with this ridiculous charade - and only Radfems have the guts to call it out for the naked bullshit it is.

the emperor wears pomo clothes that only clever people can see - and so many people who don't want to admit that they don't understand it either, go along with this ridiculous charade -

Like art. I used to work in the art world, and I can’t tell you how it made me want to punch people.

The thing about cultural studies pomo bullshit is that it's smashing apart all semblance of meaning in the English language, just as physics shattered the atom. The paradox of defining postmodernism is that there's no substantive language left to describe what it is, as language has been reduced to this Humpty-Dumptyesque thing where the speaker can make any word mean whatever they choose it to mean. And so it disappears up its own arsehole, Ouroboros style.

Thereupon the world explodes into smithereens of meaningless words and alphabet soup spaghetti.

Well, perhaps the ideal solution is for them all to upload their consciousnesses into a virtual reality. Then they can either socially construct themselves into the mutually assured destruction of code annihilation, or live in a transhuman digital utopia.

Meanwhile the rest of us can just get on with the practicalities of life here on Planet Normal.

Datun, me too.

The paradox of defining postmodernism is that there's no substantive language left to describe what it is, as language has been reduced to this Humpty-Dumptyesque thing where the speaker can make any word mean whatever they choose it to mean. And so it disappears up its own arsehole, Ouroboros style.

you have poetically described the death-throws of sanity that we are witnessing

exactly langcleg

The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has a nice critique of Butler. To give you a flavour:
'obscurity creates an aura of importance. It also serves another related purpose. It bullies the reader into granting that, since one cannot figure out what is going on, there must be something significant going on, some complexity of thought, where in reality there are often familiar or even shopworn notions, addressed too simply and too casually to add any new dimension of understanding. When the bullied readers of Butler's books muster the daring to think thus, they will see that the ideas in these books are thin.'

Although she is writing before transactivism, she has a few caustic words on Butler's idea that gender is pure performance:
'Culture can shape and reshape some aspects of our bodily existence, but it does not shape all the aspects of it. ... This is an important fact also for feminism, since women's nutritional needs (and their special needs when pregnant or lactating) are an important feminist topic. Even where sex difference is concerned, it is surely too simple to write it all off as culture.'

faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Nussbaum-Butler-Critique-NR-2-99.pdf

Very apt quotes chromeyellow

Gay and lesbian people clash hugely with Trans women ideals. Being a feminist lesbian is very unfashionable right now.

Cromeyellow, I read that, Marta Nussbaum got a lot of flack for it I believe, predictably, but I thought it was very helpful in understanding Butler, who is very influential (although i do wonder how many of her readers make it to the end of her books).

The problem is that Trans women’s rights have been sold as progressive when infact its the opposite.

The problem is that Trans women’s rights have been sold as progressive when infact its the opposite.

An incredibly easy sell when it is wrapped up in obfuscating pretentious language that makes the buyer feel they are being very clever and modern when they do buy into it.

Labradoodliedoodoo I see it all over my twitter feed. I am sick to death of the abuse TIMs are throwing at lesbians because they don't want penis in their bedrooms even so called 'lady penis'. Its homophobic as fuck to call anyone transphobic for being exclusively same sex attracted. my rage on this is strong I cant stand it.

Actually seen a couple of gay men (not all of course) throw lesbians under the TRA bus calling them bigots and transphobic yet when I've challenged them if they would date a TIF I get blocked.

Actually seen a couple of gay men (not all of course) throw lesbians under the TRA bus calling them bigots and transphobic yet when I've challenged them if they would date a TIF I get blocked.

Yes, I have had this argument in real life actually with a fairly close friend. Caitlyn Jenner came up in convo and it progressed onto transwomen in general and he started going on about how many lesbians are transphobic and refuse to consider transwomen as partners. And that it must be incredibly distressing to be rejected sexually simply because you have a dick This guy who was berating lesbians is gay, so I simply turned it round and asked him if he would sleep with a transman, and if he would see it as 'just a vagina' which drew in actual SQUEALS of protest which culminated in him calling me homophobic. To which I replied that surely HE was homophobic for suggesting lesbians are wrong for being attracted to the same sex and why on earth was it ok for him to reject vagina but not for lesbians to reject dick. He could not argue the point as clearly its nonsensical. He ended of stropping off in tears and informing anyone who would listen of how homophobic I had became overnight. Which went against him too as obviously rather than just ignoring me and taking his word for it friends asked wtf had actually happened, and it turned out that they all agreed that the 'ladypenis' concept was just silly, and even to this day they will bring it up and tell him how fucking ridiculous his opinions are on the matter and that he is the most homophobic gay person they know by a mile. Silly man.