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

I think some of it i.e. the slurs, has parallels with the fears about witches, persecution of women for suspected witchcraft, the witch-trials.

I'd also agree with colonialism.

IMO though, for the most part, I think this is unprecedented. I don't believe there has ever been a movement in history that seeks to erase an entire group of humans from existence. Correct me if I'm wrong, my history is not great :).

Chocolate - The holocaust was surely a sustained attempt?

boaty - you're right sorry. I meant in terms of changing language and erasing women from our own life experiences i.e. birth.

To my mind the closest analogy are the religious wars in Europe that preceded the enlightenment. Violence is certainly winding itself up in this situation, but what you essentially have is multiple groups that each want control of the gun in the room (I've the state) to enforce their paradigm on everyone else.

With the rise of identity politics and the oppression olympics it was inevitable that two groups would sooner or later come to blows as their respective interests were opposed. We live in a society where wether you like it or not if you can claim special victim status you can get extra protections, considerations and even in some cases resources. People follow incentives.

What we need is another mini-enlightenment where we all realise the folly of enforcing our will on the general population as it never ends well and reinforce our commitment to negotiate with one another to make our way through life with a rededication to the principles of individual liberty.

The way that the cultural revolution was top down in China is probably the closest analogy. Government re-education through laws and schooling of children.

Erasure and shifting definition boundaries is surprisingly common in history; the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda being one example. They were not ethic groups initially, but social classes, with quite a lot of movement between them. The Belgian colonising forces decided they were ethic groups, issued ID cards to cement your belonging, and with that social status. Years down the line that lead to a horrific genocidal civil war.

You can do a lot of sleight of hand oppression by way of definitions.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

Not so much related to the trans debate but I've been interested to read about obsolete mental illnesses. I think it's a helpful lens through which to view ROGD

www.everydayhealth.com/news/forgotten-mental-illnesses/

e.g

Drapetomania — In 1851 Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a Louisiana surgeon and psychologist categorised a new mental condition that caused African-American slaves to flee slavery.

“When sulky and dissatisfied without cause, the experience was decidedly in favor of whipping them out of it, as a preventive measure against absconding, or other bad conduct. It was called whipping the devil out of them,”

Also - Where are all the hysterical women? In the nineteenth century Freud made his career by writing about the condition whereby patients, mainly middle class women, were unable to function, collapsing into seizures, crippled with anxiety.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/25/hysteria-all-in-the-mind

In modern times anorexia has developed which had no historical precedent. I wonder if ROGD is the latest development of anorexia, the parallels are interesting.

Once they finally realized that our uterus did not wander around our body causing hysteria they decided it was all in our mind and invented the lobotomy.

So glad they fixed us. Who'd of thought all my problems could be solved with a double mastectomy and a full womb removal.