Supporting men who break stereotypes.

[lurker33]

I've said this on another thread, but I'd like to explore it a bit further...

In my opinion the only thing that differentiates boys from girls are their primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Girls can do anything boys can do, and boys can do anything girls can do, barring those things that are required to procreate.

The only thing holding people back are societal expectations. We need to be challenging these, not reinforcing them with this gender identity nonsense.

A man wearing a dress and wearing makeup however should be applauded for being courageous and breaking stereotypes.

If a man dresses and acts 'like a woman' and calls himself 'a woman' then he is a parody of a woman (in the ironic sense) because the only way he can do this is to perform deeply flawed stereotypes.

Men in dresses and make up insisting on being recognised as women is therefore exactly the same as blackface and is deeply insulting to women.

Why is it ok to insult women with the lie that men are woman, but not ok to tell the truth and say men can never become women?

As a result I cannot support the GRC or self ID. These are red herrings and should be repealed and rejected.

AngryAttackKittens

Exactly. And I’d like to think in the future if we PMd again (not just yourself but any member) then it would be friendly.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that one set of opinions does not automatically make someone your arch nemesis though sometimes it can seem that way... And GC and Trans people are able to be not just civil to each other but also kind.

Would happily have wine, gin or cake with any of you. Preferably gin at the moment for me though. The weight loss is going well.

I agree SilverDoe. I am also quite sensitive and sometimes when you’re on the receiving end of stuff it can feel a bit personal but I keep telling myself it’s just the internet and that everyone has the same right to discuss their views, including me.

I don’t want to derail the thread and make it about me and I was genuinely interested in the points of view on the thread
You already did.
I don't usually read anything Nat says. I will extend the same courtesy to you.

Chocolate for me! And tea, am trying (unsuccessfully) to cut down on coffee.

AngryAttackKittens One of my DD lives a long way a way from me and she sometimes sends me little parcels. I got one this week. Included was caramel coffee by Kenco. I used to drink Douwe Egberts caramel but the Kenco one is luverly. My caffeine intake has shot up

This guys, is norming.

If I could persuade myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour I wouldn't need the coffee, but alas. I will admit to preferring the obnoxiously hipster fancy stuff.

I'm going to bed, according to Picasso I'm turning normal. Night all.

spontaneousgiventime I actually laughed reading that about the cutting down on the walls of text.. I’m glad that you have noticed - I have been trying! And also glad you do not hate me. Nor do I hate you. If anything you have thickened my skin here to not be so knee jerk all the time.. so thank you. also Goodnight!

SilverDoe You are most welcome. I will say though that I am probably (from assuming?) one of the youngest posters on here. And I think that often plays to my disadvantage. I also waffle a lot.. possibly one reason why thebewilderness skips over my posts. Lol

AngryAttackKittens - I think at this point coffee is the only thing that keeps my heart beating. There is too much blood in my caffeine system!

Anyway.. I have Parkrun in the morning.. should have been asleep by now. Sleep well everyone!

Not normal spontaneousgiventime, norming

Norming
As the team moves out of the Storming phase they will enter the Norming phase. This tends to be a move towards harmonious working practices with teams agreeing on the rules and values by which they operate.

In the ideal situation teams begin to trust themselves during this phase as they accept the vital contribution of each member to the team. Team leaders can take a step back from the team at this stage as individual members take greater responsibility.

The risk during the Norming stage is that the team becomes complacent and loses either their creative edge or the drive that brought them to this phase.

www.teambuilding.co.uk/theory/Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing.html

Oh bloody well good for you bewilderness, your highness

And I will extend the same to you then. NatLuc is right, I have the right to talk here as much as anyone else. For you to choose not to engage with me sounds like a blessing based on the way you talk to me.

NatLuc is it rude to ask how old you are? I’m 24 and haven’t engaged in feminist boards as much as I should have. I’m trying to be a bit more critical as I lost a BFF when she became a very outspoken person and said she was feminist, but there was a lot of confused and muddled ideas when I actually asked her about it and it didn’t make much sense. As I was saying on another thread today, I think she found an echo chamber of TRA type people around her and gained a lot of pseudo progressive ideas that lacked any type of critical thinking. I’m very much for acceptance and tolerance as far as it can be achieved, but the amount of contradictory bollocks she came up with really changed my own outlook.

‘I don’t think being trans is inherently misogynistic’

It is the ideology that is misogynistic, its believers posit that people can somehow be wholly or partly the opposite sex. The common reasons they give for this are either:

1. That they are born with the opposite sex brain in their body. This is sexist pseudo science nonsense.

1. That they have some kind of essence or spirt of the opposite sex residing in their body. Again this is sexist, as it cannot be based on anything more than an affinity towards stereotypes associated with the opposite sex.

1. They claim they have always felt like the opposite sex, so must actually be the opposite sex. How would anyone know what it is like to be the opposite sex, as they are not the opposite sex, so again it can only be based on an affinity towards stereotypes associated with the opposite sex.

1. They they claim that not being a masculine man means they are somehow less of a man, or not being a feminine woman means they are less of a woman. This is the essence of sexism that feminists have been fighting against for decades.

Moreover, they often actually give examples of stereotypical behaviours, interests etc, they feel an affinity towards, which they believe indicates they are the opposite sex, or less of their own sex. The only thing that differs is how they describe their affinity towards stereotypes. It is insulting to women, particularly feminist women, as we do not believe that an affinity towards stereotypes defines ones sex, we believe our biology defines our sex, that the rest is just personality. There are some people that have dysphoria, but not liking your body can result from many things, it is not rational to believe it is a result of being the opposite sex stuck in the wrong body. The ideology itself is sexist, regardless of what individual believers motives may be.

SilverDoe

Bewilderness is like a fine wine. Best savoured slowly to appreciate the full body and maturity in the glass.

Artemis

Thank you, that was really eye opening. Do you think that there could be a dissonance between the ideology you have listed (which makes perfect sense) and people who subscribe to it? In blunt terms, what should transgender people do then? It must be hard to be genuinely dysphoric and to also know that people reject what you identify as, as a result of that dysphoria. But I do think that appropriation of women’s problems is even worse than the appropriate of stereotypically female characteristics. I don’t know how many trans people feel that they inherit women’s problems and the discrimination they face though, that post I read could be just one tiny minority. I’m so sorry, I’ve just written that an I’m so tired I can’t remember what the point was and it seems completely irrelevant now!

I agree that it’s a shame that Gender dysphoria is so taboo to talk about and is seen as so offensive to trans people to suggest that there might be better solutions than to identify as the opposite sex. I do sympathise, because as much as I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a disconnect between my sense of sense and my biological sex, maybe they have no idea what it’s like to not have that disconnect. But I wonder how many trans people are dysphoric vs how many aren’t, why would you be trans if you weren’t? I need to understand better I think

SilverDoe

Can I suggest you read a trans persons blog who is as virulently gender critical as is humanly possible?

Most of us have read Miranda, and heard him speak. And met him, he comes to meetings. This is an honest voice.

mirandayardley.com/en/

Thanks very much for the link Picasso :) I will read it in the morning, am so incredibly sleepy now 🌙

Thank you Artemis7. You have eloquently said what I have been trying to say, very badly apparently.

IMO
If a man says he is a woman and he acts or dresses in a certain way to prove this, he is excluding some women from his definition (of woman) that don't act or dress in that way. Can you see how arrogant that is?

Do we really want to tell our children (girls) that in order to be a woman they have to act or dress in a certain way? The same for boys?

This is why gender theory is so regressive.

I'm sorry that people have gender dysphoria, but throwing our children under the bus to alleviate their condition is really not on.

It’s weird OP, I agree with pretty much everyone else on this thread apart from you.

I think there is an element of, overstating the impact trans people (who are quite a small minority’s) have on children. If someone apparently excludes you from their definition of woman, so what! They don’t define what woman means, because it’s not up for debate what a woman is.

When it becomes a debate of what a woman is, I completely understand why people are resistant to the idea of being trans. But your posts in particular do not seem to have the same divide between all trans and TRA that I was picking up on earlier in the thread.

So while I agree with both about anyone debating that they can become a woman is wrong, and I agree with you that gender theory is regressive and damaging, your OP comes across as placing a lot of emphasis on trans people being responsible for this. Surely someone who feels like to be themselves they need to change their gender is as much a victim of gender stereotypes as straight men and women are?

My take would be that the current out of control levels of gender stereotyping aimed at young people are leading to many of those young people identifying as trans when in reality they're just gender non-conforming, and would be fine if the gender straitjackets they're being socialized into loosened up a bit. The huge jump in the number of teenage girls identifying as trans is also linked to the increasing violence and degradation that porn culture is introducing into their sex lives, imo.

So, although I'd say that a lot of trans activists are reinforcing gender norms in harmful and regressive ways, in terms of why so many young people are IDing as trans I'm reading that as more symptom than cause. The societal ideals of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman are so narrow that people are looking for ways to make sense of the fact that they don't fit into them and don't want to either.

Morning Lurker33

I'm sorry that people have gender dysphoria, but throwing our children under the bus to alleviate their condition is really not on.

If you are really honest with yourself, are you truly throwing your children under a bus? How is the fact some arbitrary transgender people are wearing clothes they feel comfortable in having any effect on your children? As far as kids are concerned it's a grown up wearing some clothes, why would they care?

My DD is around trans people fairly often and it's never been an issue.

I'm not convinced you genuinely feel as strongly about this issue as you are making out as you haven't mentioned any RL scenarios where you have come across trans people

My transgender friend babysat for my DD the other day. If I remember rightly she was wearing jeans and a fleece. If you listen to @NatLuc you will understand being transgender isn't about the clothes or the makeup. If you can try and shift your mindset to the fact it's an integral part of a person, the same as being gay, then it may help you to understand it better.

@NatLuc good to get a bit of gossip, hope the new relationship is going well! Keep us updated.

Who then is pushing the gender theory narrative if not trans people or those that purport to speak for them?

lurker I honestly think what you said was fine.

Silver Doe the activist followers of this ideology actually are defining what a woman means in law, even though they are a small group, they have backing from very well funded and powerful sources. Activist groups are going into schools and teaching kids this ideology; that they can become (or are really) the opposite sex, that girls should accept boys into their spaces if they say they are girls. If they were a small and powerless group then no one would be paying them any attention, and we would be able to ignore them, but that is not the case. Transgender Trend website is good to learn about what is happening in schools to young people.

For those that have dysphoria the root causes need to be identified and addressed, but activists do not what those root causes addressed, instead they want people to legitimise the dysphoria and pretend people can actually be suck in the wrong body etc. Plus not all people who call themselves trans have dysphoria.

Also many heterosexual men are involved in this ideology and call themselves ‘lesbian women’, look up the cotton celling, to see how bad it has gotten. I think it is revolting that a heterosexual man is supposed to be considered a lesbian woman, because he says he is, regardless of how he dresses. Once these sorts of men would have been laughed out of the room, now these men are being taken seriously, all because of how much of a foothold this ideology has gotten. Not all those that call themselves trans are like this, but these men are not a tiny minority, by any means.

I honestly think you are underestimating how much financial and political backing this ideology has, the people who advocate this ideology are very powerful, because of how much financial and political support they have.

All forums are like that though, that dynamic isn't unique to this one.

Well, quite. And this forum is also subject to inimical brigading from people who have ill intentions and not the slightest desire to be part of the community a lot more than most.

I am gobshite to the point of it being a vice rather than a virtue. But I managed to join here without much fuss. Why? I observed for a while first. I didn't dictate to anybody before I'd said hi, posted a little bit of fairly neutral stuff to get my name recognised and good faith established. Once that was done, I became my natural gobshite self and this was accepted as an argument on topic not an attempt to undermine the community. Now, as would be quite normal, there are some FWR members who like me and others who, well, don't like me much. But this is normal and not destabilising to the community.

None of this is difficult or rocket science. It's only the same as moving into a new neighbourhood, starting a new job or finding a new local pub.

@Artemis7 that's just not true. There has been one proposal put to parliament by a transgender organisation and it was rejected.

The Government has stated the Equality Act is not up for review.

There is nothing being submitted to parliament by a transgender organisation that threatens women. Share a link if you know differently? I asked this on another thread and got a load of abuse but nobody was able to share a link.