Why has the trans lobby been so successful?

[feesh]

. Have been following the discussions on here over the last few months.

I never really identified with feminism before, so it’s been quite eye opening.

The thing I don’t understand is why the trans campaign has been SO successful. We have barely acheived gay rights, yet the trans lobby has had massive gains in only a few short months of campaigning. They have had victories that other campaigns can only dream of.

Part of the reason for me dwelling on this is that I’ve been working in conservation and environmental management for years and we have barely made any headway into changing hearts and minds, yet the realities of what we are facing with environmental destruction are even scarier than the erosion of women’s rights, but nobody ever seems to get outraged about it (apart from the plastics issue, about which I think the tide is finally turning).

Who is behind the trans lobby? Where does all this power and money come from?

I don’t want children sleepwalked into like changing surgical interventions, and I accept the arguments some men pose a danger women and thus female facilities and refuges should remain so. I’m also strong on free speech so I’d be against the likes of no platforming the likes of Germaine Greer and others.

I may not always agree with feminists but I 110% support your right to congregate and express yourselves.

diddle: The idea of the "oppressed trans" was marketed brilliantly.

Indeed it was, and still is. The 'most oppressed in the history of mankind™' still does the rounds, and well-meaning people fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Nobody much seems to have looked around, seen all the successful trans (Jenner, Cox, Rothblatt) and seen the ones now taking the places for women (Madigan), and realised it is snakeoil.

Marketing campaign, huge success.

Laundry: I only found out about the clash between the rights being demanded by TRAs and women's rights fairly recently and can see that it's been a long and ongoing battle over the years but it looks like it has been effectively suppressed because it's been cleverly concealed as a fringe issue (as a battle between RadFems and TRAs). The only way the TRAs will succeed is if they can continue to control the narrative that way.

Yes, and controlling the narrative has been their main success. In some ways, radfems have been on the back foot, but that was mainly to 1) everyone having a kneejerk reaction that we are 'too out there' (yet more smear campaigns against us) and 2) everyone being a sucker for a good sob story. When I say 'good', I actually mean, cleverly crafted. See above comment on marketing.

Thanks for the , much appreciated after all these years in 'the wastelands'. LOL

Yes their controlling the narrative has been very successful.

If journalists in the mainstream media were better quality, they would have spotted that re-defining the meanings of basic words and therefore reality, without any discussion or consultation with the majority of the people, is profoundly authoritarian and undemocratic.

On that basis alone, there should have been some rumblings of dissent from them. The fact that there hasn't been, shows how paltry the ability of an average journalist is. And of course, that is why these lunatics have been able to control the narrative: because in spite of the presence of a few women, BME people and working class people in the mainstream media, the stranglehold mediocre white men with an extremely narrow worldview have on it is so complete, that this ludicrous proposition: that men can be women simply because they feel they are, has taken hold.

It's partly because our media is so shit, to be frank.

everyone being a sucker for a good sob story. When I say 'good', I actually mean, cleverly crafted. See above comment on marketing.

The celebrafication of politics meets xfactor story making.

I am not sure why the trans lobby has been so fast and successful. Much more so than the gay rights, women's rights and the civil rights movements. There does seem to be an extraordinarily large amount of money and power backing it that the others just didn't have. Who indeed stands to gain financially and politically from it?

The timing that it coincides with 100 years of women's rights to vote and "me too" is interesting.

I think that for many of the young trans activists and their supporters this is their anti Vietnam war/anti Falklands war/anti fascist/anti racist/anti poll tax/ anti section 28/gay rights movement/road protests, etc, equivalent. The difference is that while many of us were involved in some or all of the above protests, which were all fights for good and just reasons, that we read about extensively, educated ourselves about what they were, who they affected and understood exactly what we were fighting against, todays young appear to have latched onto the latest movement without any critical thinking or understanding.

We were all about educating people why the issues we opposed were wrong, who they hurt and why we had to work together to try to stop or change them. We understood what we were doing. We made fanzines, flyers, posters, people wrote music and poetry about them etc. We were creative, intelligent and informed. We saw the bigger picture and that what we stood for was only the side of good.

I don't think many of the young TRAs and their supporters have thought further than trans rights matter. Which they very much do. So do womans and girls rights. Unfortunately they either are too young to grasp the far reaching implications on womans and girls rights and safety or they are too selfish to care as they are convinced that they are the only ones that are right.

The young have always tried to be different from the previous generations. Hippies, punks, new romantics, goths, grebos, grunge, piercings, tattoos, body modification etc. It was all about being different from our parents generation, being more interesting, more extreme and for many of todays trans activists and their supporters it is today's "scene". Defining yourself as trans, non-binery, gender neutral etc is to many I suspect the latest cool, right on thing to be part of. Frighteningly for some caught up in this movement, who come to believe that they are trans when in fact they are gender non-conforming, and/or gay, and/or non masculine boys and/or non feminine girls etc, this movement is incredibly dangerous and they may make irreversible, life changing changes to their bodies that they would have never previously made. The others will grow up, mature and get on with the rest of their lives as we did when we took out our more extreme piercings, cut out our dreads and toned down our clothes. (Oddly enough I observe the current need to put themselves in boxes neatly labelled when we were fighting against being labelled as anything at all.)

I only pray that they have not left the devastation that we are fighting against where women and girls rights have been destroyed and genuine trans people have become the perceived enemy.

Added to this movement are MRAs and incels who seem to have realised that this is a legitimate way for them to attack the thing they hate the most. Women. One thing that this movement has definitely brought to light is just how many men really, deep down seem to despise us.

I think that for many of the young trans activists and their supporters this is their anti Vietnam war/anti Falklands war/anti fascist/anti racist/anti poll tax/ anti section 28/gay rights movement/road protests, etc, equivalent. The difference is that while many of us were involved in some or all of the above protests, which were all fights for good and just reasons, that we read about extensively, educated ourselves about what they were, who they affected and understood exactly what we were fighting against, todays young appear to have latched onto the latest movement without any critical thinking or understanding.

critical thinking?? serious??

Like critically thinking big pharma is pushing the trans narrative, despite cross-sex hormones being off-licence and making it trickier to get hold of through pharma channels?

Or millions of people throughout history and all cultures, shared a gender spectrum, but suddenly some quack called Blanchard wrote something decades ago that almost no-one accepts except transphobes, and has never been accepted within a medical setting as a valid discussion of trans people.

Or how the critical thinkers don't accept the Equality Act as it is written, when mumsnetters have a better explanation.

Or how trans kids coming out, is ROGD, did you expect all trans people to figure themselves out in the uterus?

Critical thinking like saying trans women are rich and entitled, when every single study points to the vast majority of them being marginalised and living in poverty, and trans poc suffering the burden most.

Or like MRA's and incels universally hating trans people as much as trans exclusionary rad-fems, but equating them as the same thing.

Or like the way people try to say 10's of millions of trans people worldwide all act like, and are responsible for individual examples of some wrong'uns, but claim the world 'te#f and cis' is dehumanizing, whilst not accepting blame for some of the worst cis monsters in human history.

Like the way it is positioned that those who treat trans kids day in and day out, don't know whats best for them, when those who spend hours abusing trans women online are supposedly better placed for a balanced appraisal of treatment of kids?

Or like when DV shelters and refuges explicitly support and have supported trans women, supposedly don't understand the issues.

If I ever see any critical thinking in these threads, I for one, will be speechless with shock.

Wotcha, Crisp! Having a good Bank Holiday?

I think the trans lobby has been so successful so quickly because middle class white males support it, and because some of them - being middle class white males an' all - have inordinate amounts of money.

I don’t want children sleepwalked into like changing surgical interventions, and I accept the arguments some men pose a danger women and thus female facilities and refuges should remain so. I’m also strong on free speech so I’d be against the likes of no platforming the likes of Germaine Greer and others.

I may not always agree with feminists but I 110% support your right to congregate and express yourselves.

Fair dos.

langcleg, not bat at all, bit hot for me to be honest, hope you've enjoyed your bank holiday too!!

now, give over middle class white men support trans rights? Whilst I'm sure it is true to a point if they are decent people, equally the majority of middle class white men do not!

Any survey about trans rights put trans acceptance firmly in the majority of women, and MINORITY of men, almost like its quite misogynistic to reduce people to genitals and reproductive capability, above all else.... wouldn't you agree?

This is a really interesting thread with some very good points. I've only just cottoned on to this debate in the last 12 months or so on here and twitter and it genuinely scares me. Not just the scope and potential for damage cause but also the sheer hatred and insidous and underhand nature of smoe activists and their allies.
It feels like we're regressing as a society, it seems it's no longer acceptable for a boy to have feminine traits and vice versa, that they have to be compartmentalised in these small boxes. Why is that?
With anything like this I say follow the money, who gets to benefit from all this confusion?
I also thing the language used is hugely influential, transexuals, transvestites and cross dressers are all completely different, but are now all grouped together with disenter being ostracised, Why is that?
On twitter you get a lot of mainly middle class educated men in their 20s trotting out the line trans women are women, womanhood is an identity and such like and expecting us to accept that, what do they hope to gain from that?
It's a very complex issue, there are many aspects I support. I think everyone has the right to security, safety and to be free from discrimination. I don't think that self ID helps anyone and I feel that there needs to be an honest conversation about that, but mostly I am scared about the potential damage to children and young people.

One thing I think that needs to be dismantled is the objectification of women. When reducing women to objects society assigns them a value based on how feminine (read young, hot and accommodating to a fault), as much as I wouldn’t like that for myself I can see how many men might resent this value, but don’t really see the attendant lack of freedom and humanity that goes along with it.

Transexuals tend to be old school, and that was the term that was given to them and what they embrace. Plenty of younger generation post-op, with GRC, use the term trans gender nowadays, and some believe tran'sex'ual to the uninformed suggests it is an orientation of sorts.

Its strange to see some transphobes support 'some' tranSEXuals who for whatever reason seek to separate themselves from the wider umbrella, when they claim no one can actually change sex, and decry trans 'gender' people, when the term actually pedantically mirrors a position they state incessantly.

As ever it's about taking each position and argument in isolation to attempt to denigrate, but when you stand back and link the dots the anti-trans arguments get contradictory and make almost no sense.

Trans people say, there are trans people, gender non-conforming people, and cis people, and shades between, and everyone is entitled to explore their identity to make sense of it.

Transphobes say, no no NO! There is only male and female, and shades of male and female and nothing else.

It takes a very complex reality, not everyone can understand or relate to, and reduces it to a very simplified binary way of thinking that is peculiar to western cultures over the last few hundred years, and is a way of thinking enjoyed by those who can not handle complex realities or ideas.

We have barely acheived gay rights, yet the trans lobby has had massive gains in only a few short months of campaigning. They have had victories that other campaigns can only dream of

This is one of the most misleading posts on FWR ever.

Firstly there is no trans lobby, gay lobby or jewish lobby. To say otherwise is transphobic, homophobic or anti-semitic respectively.

In the UK the campaign for trans rights has been going on at least since Corbett v Corbett in 1971. Very little was achieved despite a lot of hard work until the turn of the century when there were a number of critical court cases. This led the government to introduce legislation to protect trans rights. The Equality Act in 2010 completed the basic framework for trans rights in the UK.

Very few people who were not trans or trans allies noticed as giving rights to trans people does not impact other people.

The government's proposed changes to the GRA are minor changes that will allow a few people who would not qualify today (e.g. intersex people, detransitioners, historic transistioners) to obtain rights and also make it easier for people who would qualify today but struggle with the quasi legal process.

And the changes will not allow men into women's spaces. You don't need a legal background to understand this. Just take a look at Ireland which introduced similar legislation in 2015.

However, with a rabid far right press campaigning against the changes to the GRA and echo chambers like FWR constantly repeating the same misleading information, this government is unlikely to change the GRA. Which means trans rights will remain where there were in 2010.

And the changes will not allow men into women's spaces.

You mean like Topshop, M&S, AWSL, Girlguides? The abolition of single sex spaces for women is already happening. Sex based exemptions are present in current law but not enforced in practice.

Bronners thank you for setting out the legal history- that’s really interesting.

You mean like Topshop, M&S, AWSL, Girlguides? The abolition of single sex spaces for women is already happening. Sex based exemptions are present in current law but not enforced in practice

There is no right in law for a man to access single sex spaces for women. People intending to, in the process of or who have under gone a process to reassign their gender do have a right to access single sex spaces subject to the sex based exemptions (and general judicial discretion).

If large retailers choose to allow men to access single sex spaces for women then this has nothing to do with the legal rights of transgender people.

There is no right in law for a man to access single sex spaces for women. People intending to, in the process of or who have under gone a process to reassign their gender do have a right to access single sex spaces subject to the sex based exemptions (and general judicial discretion).

But if people have a GRC and a re-isssued birth certificate, it is harder to keep them out using the sex based exemptions. There will be more of these with self-id, and some of them will not be good people.

If large retailers choose to allow men to access single sex spaces for women then this has nothing to do with the legal rights of transgender people.

But it still removes women's rights to women-only spaces because we have allowed a legal fiction that people can change sex.

crisp
Trans people say, there are trans people, gender non-conforming people, and cis people, and shades between, and everyone is entitled to explore their identity to make sense of it.

I would say there are gender non-conforming people and gender conforming people. Many (most?) people are somewhere in between. The term "cis" is offensive.

What is the difference between a gender non-conforming person and a trans person? Where do you draw the line?

everyone is entitled to explore their identity to make sense of it.

Absolutely they are. Great. Everyone should be entitled to express themselves any way they like within the bounds of the law and within the bounds of respect for others.

What everyone is not entitled to do is end sex segregation because it puts boundaries around their entitlement and their exploration of their personal identity. Someone's personal identity and expression of it does not matter more than everyone and everything else: that isn't something that should have to be explained to adults. To paraphrase: your right to swing your arms around ends at my nose.

And as 'transphobe' is one of the words that has long since lost all shared meaning, can I suggest replacing it with 'people who don't necessarily unquestioningly agree with trans ideology'? And not using the word 'cis' for obvious reasons.

Funny how back in the 70s and 80s men managed to be GNC without peeing in the women's toilets.

And the changes will not allow men into women's spaces. You don't need a legal background to understand this. Just take a look at Ireland....

You might want to look into the women's shelters that have been decimated by men being allowed into women's spaces. You don't need a journalistic background to research this. Just take a look at Canada.