The Twitterspehere and Transgender behaviour

[Kettlepotblackagain]

Just pondering to myself for the past few days. I came off Facebook a year or so ago, and although I liked Twitter, I came off that too as I wanted to spend less time on my phone as I found myself addicted. But I’ve dipped in and out of it as I know that it is where a lot of the proposals to the GRA are discussed and articles are shared etc.

I wondered how much you might think social media - particularly Twitter - has enabled these Trans attitudes to flourish. I think many trans people have spent their lives isolated, and now they have their own community as such, where they can say and do as they like and they have had so much support - but that now their demands are becoming reality, and people are objecting, they are forgetting that the real world isn’t Twitter. I just wonder because of the nature of social media and how it provides an alternative reality, how much you think that may have shaped this #nodebate narrative, because it has totally distorted the reality of the situation.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that white male privilege and misogynist attitudes are the root of the behaviour, but I really feel that Twitter has given these people false hope and now they are outraged that the real world doesn’t work in the same way... yes it’s provided a platform and a place for like minded people to meet - but I mean more than that, the distortion of the situation, it’s enabled it to seem like every other person is trans - that this is a major phenomenon - when in reality it’s a minute number.

I just don’t teally understand how this, out of all the problems in the world, has become so huge - yes male power and privilege, but how much has Twitter enabled it to happen?

You could say exactly the same about Mumsnet and GC feminism. I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen posters say 'I was a live and let live kind of woman until Mumsnet made me realise the threat of trans people'

But as you point out re Twitter

it’s enabled it to seem like every other person is trans - that this is a major phenomenon - when in reality it’s a minute number.

I agree with you that Twitter gives the impression that a tiny number of trans activists actually represent the voice of trans people. I think a lot of people on here think they do.

Social media has its own set of problems because it can easily become an echo chamber. I think any kind of social isolation can cause these issues.

My concern is more about spreading false information re: scientific research and trans orgs are notorious for this. The big lie is that men are somehow women.

It's like we live in some alternate fantasy land. There are no other psychological disorders where we're supposed to engage in the delusion instead of correcting it. We don't affirm anorexics who think they're overweight but we're supposed to pretend men are women?!

I see the results of this all over social media and especially where women are talking about the assaults on their sex based rights. If you've perused any of the threads here, you'll see a constant denial of reality by transactivists.

For the last couple days, Twitter has been sanctioning transactivists who engage in violent hate speech with 'punch a TERF' so instead of stopping this behaviour, they're engaging in it more.

I didn't grow up with social media. Many times I feel grateful that I didn't. I can only imagine what sorts of things I might've been sucked into.

Once I had researched and honed my arguments, I went onto Twitter to debate with TRA only to find myself blocked by most before I had barely started to debate.

And so it becomes two echo chambers: one for the GC women and the other for the TRA and very little overlap for debate.

Where there IS a bit of debate, the GRA report just about everything the GCW post, and get them banned for X days. Meanwhile the GRA freely indulge in name-calling and abuse against the GCW with impunity.

I was myself called a lot of horrible hateful names, and all my reports were ignored, then I got banned for referring to one crossdresser as "Mr".

I suspect, from lurking and reading many posts and discussions across a wide variety of social media, is that many (not all) of those posting more extreme TRA views on Twitter have less access to a real life network of friends and family in whatever structure that may look like, than those on places like Mumsnet.

A lot of those who are on Mumsnet signed up to the site for a very wide variety of reasons, and are accidentally bumping into this discussion.

I think as the discussion has grown, those TRAs with the 'false hope' you mention on Twitter are becoming increasingly angry that their perception of real life views may not align with their world view. Hence the aggression, demands, and abuse.

The Twiter TRA army and other TRA voices then arrive in other social media spaces like here on Mumsnet to try to correct the world view of others - but it seems not to be going the right way for them in general.

What these behaviours have done, unfortunately for them, is grow others' concerns and highlighted what's going on, in real time discussions on threads.

In general, they don't seem to understand their audience here. Many Mumsnet users use this space not because they're not connected to a social space outside the internet, but because they are.

But they like to connect to an anonymous audience to check their thinking, find out others' opinions, be it on wedding etiquette, sleep routines, MILs, disinfectant choices, or what the definition of 'woman' means and how that might challenge female rights.

Advice to TRAs here - read the room!

There are trans people on Twitter who post things very different from what the trans activists say. Who support the feminist position. Who are opposed to self ID.

You hardly ever hear about them anywhere though.

Odd that.

There are trans people on Twitter who post things very different from what the trans activists say. Who support the feminist position. Who are opposed to self ID.

^You hardly ever hear about them anywhere though.*

I get the impression many of them suffer similar pile-ons as GC women & quietly retreat. I have stepped away from Twitter because its nuttier than a bar of Cadbury’s whole nut.

The other thing about Twitter is that it is very much multinational. Posters may well not be in the UK.

It's like we live in some alternate fantasy land. There are no other psychological disorders where we're supposed to engage in the delusion instead of correcting it. We don't affirm anorexics who think they're overweight but we're supposed to pretend men are women?!

Absolutely.

Why? Why this particularly issue? This is why I am wondering if Twitter is the medium that has bought all the aspects of the perfect storm together. This Post-modern, post factual, post truth, individualist society that seems to say every perception, every interpretation, every opinion, every ‘feeling’ is valid, no matter what the evidence, fact, objective truth. Twitter is the enabler, the perfect platform to have your views aired no matter how they deluded they are but the way this has absolutely exploded and become a reality that we now have to deal with, even though it is, in fact, a delusion, is extraordinary.

I wondered how much you might think social media, particularly Twitter, has enabled these Trans attitudes to flourish.

Social contagion used to happen through word of mouth as well as radio and newspapers. Then it increased dramatically through television infotainment.
Now social contagion has increased even more dramatically through personal media. All this because it is our nature, human nature, to take people at their word, while we have been conditioned to take men at their word and question women. Bit of a mess we made, eh?.

Lots of general posters on Mumsnet aren't from the UK Gibber. This isn't an exclusive UK forum either.

Not sure of your point?

Wherever these posters are from, TRAs who arrive here, seemingly not familiar with Mumsnet traditions, they still don't seem to quite read this room - a room which is multinational.

As other posters have pointed out recently, what I love about Mumsnet is that the format allows a conversation, where readers can go back and check what others have said, whether counterpoints/challenges are correct.

And that it's populated by a huge, diverse, interested and interesting range of people, not all mums, not all female, not all UK-based.

And that it's run by females.

Maybe that's why it doesn't behave like Twitter!

"There are trans people on Twitter who post things very different from what the trans activists say."

Of course. Trans groups comprise both men and women for one thing.

"It's like we live in some alternate fantasy land. There are no other psychological disorders where we're supposed to engage in the delusion instead of correcting it. We don't affirm anorexics who think they're overweight but we're supposed to pretend men are women?"

The better comparison is same sex marriage. Those who object do so because for them marriage is by definition between one man and one woman. We have the same issue here with people taking a narrow view of sex based on what the term meant to previous generations.

So the comparison between affirming that trans women are women is with affirming that same sex couples can marry.

Gobbet, I don’t trally think there is much point responding to you but anyway - sex marriage is just that. Same SEX. There’s is no alternative reality, no delusional feeling. It is two people with the same sex getting married. Marriage is a social construct. It is not a biological fact. What marriage is can indeed be open to interpretation. Sex cannot. It is fact. It is not open to interpretation if someone has a vagina or penis.

Crappy sausage fingers - Gibber I mean. Always happens when I am writing in a fury.

I think as the discussion has grown, those TRAs with the 'false hope' you mention on Twitter are becoming increasingly angry that their perception of real life views may not align with their world view. Hence the aggression, demands, and abuse.

The Twiter TRA army and other TRA voices then arrive in other social media spaces like here on Mumsnet to try to correct the world view of others - but it seems not to be going the right way for them in general.

What these behaviours have done, unfortunately for them, is grow others' concerns and highlighted what's going on, in real time discussions on threads.

I think this is an excellent summation of what's happening. Most TRAs don't seem to talk to anyone outside a very limited social circle, and thus don't have their assumptions regularly reality tested at all. Usually nobody disagrees, so from their perspective why would anyone? And then they temporarily venture out of the bubble and encounter resistance from all kinds of different angles. Blaming it on a small group of uncooperative women is the natural next step for someone who's already resentful towards women, and easier than thinking about all the other people who may not believe what they do.

*I think as the discussion has grown, those TRAs with the 'false hope' you mention on Twitter are becoming increasingly angry that their perception of real life views may not align with their world view. Hence the aggression, demands, and abuse.

The Twiter TRA army and other TRA voices then arrive in other social media spaces like here on Mumsnet to try to correct the world view of others - but it seems not to be going the right way for them in general.

What these behaviours have done, unfortunately for them, is grow others' concerns and highlighted what's going on, in real time discussions on threads.

I think this is an excellent summation of what's happening. Most TRAs don't seem to talk to anyone outside a very limited social circle, and thus don't have their assumptions regularly reality tested at all. Usually nobody disagrees, so from their perspective why would anyone? And then they temporarily venture out of the bubble and encounter resistance from all kinds of different angles. Blaming it on a small group of uncooperative women is the natural next step for someone who's already resentful towards women, and easier than thinking about all the other people who may not believe what they do*

Agree with all this.

I think that somehow Twitter thinks it’s reflecting reality and the general discourse of the public, for example when it blocks and bans people for being transphobic,
that is reflecting a real issue that is ‘out there’ - when it has, in fact, created the distorted delusions it is calling reality through the way it’s platform operates, which is this mind- fucked way, is now creeping into actual reality.

So the comparison between affirming that trans women are women is with affirming that same sex couples can marry.

Same sex marriage extends a civil right to all that they ought to have had all along.
No one has ever had a civil right to be obeyed. Legal right to obedience, yes, and traditional right to obedience, but never a civil right to obedience.
Civil rights are the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.
What you are trying to create is a class of people who must be affirmed in their identity whatever it happens to b on any given day.
That is as illiberal and unequal as a hierarchy built on royal birth.

There is a clear correlation between young people announcing they are trans and an increase in time spent on social media.

Twitter is particularly toxic.

Blaming it on a small group of uncooperative women is the natural next step for someone who's already resentful towards women, and easier than thinking about all the other people who may not believe what they do.

YY. It's a bit of a coping mechanism imo.

I never meet anyone in real like who thinks humans can change sex or that we should start calling a male she because he says so. I've chatted to loads of people about it, particularly men at my work who have no reason to pretend to agree with me (they often don't on other feminist issues). They're all pretty forthright as men are allowed to be without ever being called bigots or meanies - "what a load of old bollocks"

I think the internet in general has greatly contributed to mass social underdevelopment. It is easier than ever to select your ideal social circle and weed out the people and opinions you don't like. Think about every time a new political football starts getting kicked around and your Facebook friends say something like, "So glad X is being talked about now - it lets me know who I need to unfriend!"

The internet just makes it really really easy to not engage with conflicting viewpoints, at all, which means that you get less practice explaining, examining, and defending your political/ideological stances. You build a bubble for yourself, acclimate to the bubble, and then you get a big shock when you have to interact with someone outside the bubble. Your ideas about those who are not in the bubble gets warped, too, because propoganda and speculation tends to get passed around without examination in these contained communities. This is true of basically any group a human can belong to, certainly all the ones I can think of.

I find I respect people who have thought hard about something but still disagree with me a lot more than I respect someone who agrees with me but has not done the tiniest bit of legwork in finding out WHY they hold the position they do. If a thing is true, then it will not be harmed by questioning and examination. It isn't fun having to defend things you are passionate about, especially high-stakes things like civil rights, but it is the mental equivalent of eating your vegetables. It's good for you, and helps you keep from being completely full of shit.

I could talk about this subject forever, because it fascinates and horrifies me that humans seem to be losing our ability to communicate and solve disagreements effectively. If you can't be bothered to talk to people who disagree with you, then you will never change anyone's mind. And those people don't go away when you dismiss or insult or out-muscle them, they just become angrier.

The whole I'm unfriending anyone who doesn't agree with me on this issue thing seems so childish and petulant, especially when it's a preemptive strike, ie. the person declares it and then waits for the expected "naw hon I totes agree with you" affirmations to come in.

Totally agree with you, lydia.

The whole I'm unfriending anyone who doesn't agree with me on this issue thing seems so childish and petulant,

I think it is often about "signalling" a person's "virtuous" or acceptable views, and thus demonstrating that you're worthy of membership in a particular social group. And so also about policing who is allowed to belong to the group and be treated in a welcoming manner, and who isn't.

If a group is too open, then the benefits of being part of it diminish. You lose that rewarding sense of belonging, of being special, of being supported and understood.

Slight tangent but I wonder what effect Twitter has on politicians, organisations etc. Twitter is one of the main ways that people can directly and easily connect with a politician. It also is used by organisations as a way of connecting with customers.

When Bath Spa University wouldn't allow James Caspian to do his research on detransitioning, they cited fear of the response on social media. Politicians and organisations (e.g. universities, shops with changing rooms which do or do not allow you to 'self-identify' your gender, venues hosting events by Women's Place UK etc) all receive a loud response on Twitter about these issues.

Then I think about how the Twitter response is manipulated by those with tech knowledge, those working in this sector and those with too much time on their hands, all the transactivists bombarding people and organisations via multiple accounts (transactivists were openly admitting to ringing David Davies' office multiple times using different voices - how much easy is that to do on Twitter?). Plus gender critical people are being banned from Twitter.

This all massively distorts the voice that politicians and organisations hear on these issues. Nevermind the fact that the people posting on Twitter about these issues (on both sides) are a very small minority of the UK population (and who knows how many of them are UK-based anyway?).

With social media being relatively new, I wonder to what extent politicians and organisations have to got to grips with these limitations or how much they just rely on it as a way of taking the temperature of public opinion.