Can we find a good historical analogy to the trans debate

[StillTryingHard]

The problem as I see it is that here we have two opposing factions that each see each other as the victim.

We (me) see biological women as the victim - that we have been the victim of male privilege & supremacy politically financially and physically for millennia and still are in many (most) countries

Trans identifiers see themselves as a sexual minority who are being devised access to spaces.

All the analogies I come up with side with the people who want to gain access to denied spaces. Rosa Parks, suffragettes etc

Is there a sufficient historical analogy that can show even though we want self identifying trans folk to keep out of women's geographical political economic ring fenced spaces - that this does not make us the oppressors.

I fall into the terf camp btw. But I have these arguments in my head

The colonisation/Wild West analogy has traction, I think.

Also; albeit less colourful, a few things strike me:

• fetishised femininity from a male gaze perspective
• dominating the conversation
• seeking to silence others with abuse, and even threats of violence
• deprioritisation of issues related to female sex biology (reproductive rights, rape culture)

These are the characteristics of misogynistic patriarchy - not women.

I am perfectly aware of the history of eugenics but you seem to have glossed over the reasons why it was repudiated in order to focus on blaming women for what men did. Odd that.

The words matter and so do the deeds. Men are rewriting laws to give themselves unfettered access to women. Women saying no to men having unfettered access to women is oppressing them? Pull the other one. It has bells on.

@Melamin Me too. Just been revisiting Raising Steam and the Grags' actions really remind me of what is happening here - unreasonable, attacking their own, hating everyone else, and violence violence violence.

Lots of great comparisons here and food for thought. I'm very struck by the multiple personality one in terms of how we did not see pushes to have legal rights instated for all of the personalities - you didn't see people campaigning for multiple passports etc. Or perhaps the push for that was there, but in the prehistoric time before twitter and before people apparently gave up on critical thought, it didn't get the traction?

I've made the point before about the role of the refugee and the colonist. Women never had problems with men refugeeing out of toxic masculinity (transexuals in old money). It was when the new wave of colonists arrived (transactivists) that women started to object. Because it is OK to object to being colonised!

craigey, mate, you're so out of your depth here, you're embarrassing yourself. I'm cringing for you. Look at all the well thought through, historically informed analogies above your silly post of "completely wrong, but". Do you really not see how lacking in depth and conviction your point is?

Craigey makes me think of the old cliche about not getting into a battle of wits with an unarmed person. It's like kicking a puppy really, or would be if in this case the puppy didn't have the ability to vote and thus fuck things up for other people.

Like sophocles I'm also very struck by the multiple disorder analogy. It's so close to the non-binary gender - and also instances where eventually one of the non-dominant personalities actually became dominant through therapy and although the person was cured of the multiple personality syndrome it was by allowing a different personality to be 'her'

Surely this is like gender dysphoria- where confusion over gender becomes one gender but a different one to the one you had originally.

I do think that in 20 years we will look back in horror at the surgery we performed (on children particularly) in the name of gender transitioning

Oh yes - and thanks craigey ... #nodebate eh?

I don’t have enough historical knowledge to say but the twisting of the meaning of everyday language, with the proscription or mandating of language and behaviour, the chilling effect on open discussion, the law, and the clash of rights reminds me of dystopian fiction. The Crucible, 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale. (And the Tiger who Came to Tea, which I would also put in that category!)

Everyone like a good car crash story in which you can believe. Everything is Hollywoodised in which you cast the underdog rallying against the odds of the oppresser. Its a simple story which everything is now shoehorned into in pursuit of clicks. People want to believe in the hero as a black and white one dimensional character because we've be taught the story over and over again about how it always ends up with a happy ending. Its always about winners and losers and never about what happens five years down the line when the drama and the attention is all over.

Im not sure that you need to look at from a historical angle and make comparisons that way. You can look at it from this contemporary angle about what sells a story and what makes it big on your screens and how we look to real life to replicate that as preferential to reality.

Why is it that so many kids aspire to be footballers or pop stars rather than the doctors, teacher and lawyers that they might once have held up as role models?

Thank you for this thread, I've been trying to think of examples too, especially because I'd love to think we'll have something more like balance in a few years where of course transpeople are protected (including proper care and counselling), but crucially so will women and the very definition of "women".

The MPD one gives me the most hope, because it's not going to take long for some or many people to grow up and be furious about being made sterile, because they didn't conform to gender or sexual stereotypes when young.

I think it has elements of racial science in the sense that it involves formulating a false premise, then misinterpreting scientific data in order to prove that premise, and as a consequence justify the oppression of an entire class of people.

The Victorians invented the concept of race, then used pseudo-science to legitimise it as a way to justify the colonisation of Africa and the enslavement of its people. Now we have the concept of ladybrain, and pseudo-science being used to legitimise that concept as a justification of the colonisation of 'woman' and the subsequent removal of rights from women as a class.

The Civil War also had elements of pseudo science.

Both sides had astrologists which was a highly respected science at the time whilst it was simultaneously privately laughed and treated with suspicion as being the work of charlatans often by their own side.

Their importance to the leaders of both sides was not in 'telling the truth' nor 'predicting the future'. It was in how it affected the moral of the general public and how it could influence which side people supported.

In other words: propaganda.

Where ever you see propaganda being used extensively, you will see historic parallels.

Science as a tool for propaganda purposes is a reoccurring theme.

Often these scientists do it purely for their own gain and status. And will flip sides if they are personally at risk of losing that somehow.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lilly
This fella is the one I know about in relation to the Civil War.

He tried to place himself as both the friend of the King and of Oliver Cromwell during his lifetime in order to save his own neck.

It is also telling that there is an upsurge in willingness to believe in conspiracy theories at the moment too.

Er, why was craigys post deleted?

It wasn't offensive or abusive. It was argumentative and silly but if we deleted all of those...

History is not really my strong point, but the Highland Clearances kept coming to mind when I was reading this thread.

IronGirder Ptraci and Dios from Pyramids? Yes, I misspelled my name..

Sophocles probably because craigy has been on a number of threads in the last few days and to my knowledge has already been banned twice.

It reminds me very much colonialism and cultural appropriation. Cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by the dominant culture. Often against the wishes of the original culture. The culture loses its depth and significance, like dream catchers being pretty and ignoring their cultural symbolism but just using them to sell a romantacised view of native Americans to the world. Very much reminds me of womanhood being about feminity, it's so much more than that but is simplified to being about symbols and removes those symbols from lived depth and experience.

CraigyRicherererer that's like saying that America and South Africa had black presidents so therefore black people have not been victims of white supramacy. The oppressed do have occasional leaders. Always have, always will. Women ruled in some ancient societies, Egypt yes, others are debateable, they were not leaders because they were female, they were leaders because they adopted male characteristics. Also they did not continue to lead, the role of women got worse, not better. They didn't rule in medieval Europe. Talking about the supposed good old days before oppression is meaningless and sounds like you are trying to brush it off.

Not what I was looking for, but take a look at this...
thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/trans-people-trauma-and-dissociative-identities/

Still can't find it. What I was looking for was a particular subgroup of transgender people who identify as "multiples". I did also find this though...
4thwavenow.com/tag/transgender-dissociation/

May & Thatcher are not leaders because they adopted male characteristics.
They are 'leaders' because they adopted the current dog eat dog, winners/losers, hierarchical mode of politics. Those aren't male characteristics, they are political ones; and violence doesn't represent strength.