Why are appeasers afraid of being unkind?

[JellySlice]

People seem to think it is unkind to deny someone something they want.

Surely it is more unkind to promise them something they can never have?

Surely it is more unkind to perpetuate lies about them?

Also - just trying to be, well, nice.

I have a transman friend on FB. This person & their husband are lovely people - not seen much of them IRL in recent years, but good guys, y'know? Used to run into them a lot 10 years ago as a young heterosexual couple.

Friend has recently a) posted a few times about how appalled they are at J K Rowling being a 'terf' (big HP fan, writes lots of slash stuff), & b) has recently had top surgery. Which they seem happy about, but have found difficult.

I'm happy to take on the Woke Bros. Happy to take them on when they're calling me a bigot or whatever.

But every time I post something GC, I'm a bit aware of my nice FB friend who just desperately wants to be a gay bloke. & has a perfectly lovely dh who obviously loved them as a woman & still loves them as a trans bloke. I just don't want to upset these people. They are nice. They aren't invading anyone's spaces.

So there's that.

& increasingly I'm thinking 'you know what, fuck it, this is much much more important' - but I'm am old goth. I know loads of people who are variously identified & I just don't want to be...mean.

That holds me back far more than worrying about the 'well I'm a cis male & you are CLEARLY a bigot, you uppity female you' bores. They don't worry me at all.

I think the vast majority of women are “live and let live” and they really aren’t fussed about what people want to do with their own identities and bodies.

Unfortunately the problem is that is not enough for the trans activists who want to completely redefine what it is to be a woman and to have access to spaces that have been defined by sex up to now.

So I think Purple that so many find themselves where you are, happy to support reasonable individuals (although maybe always finding it sad that they could not accept their body). Yet we just cannot let others push this ideology to extremes. Of course the narrative then becomes we are the meanies.

That’s where we all struggle! No one wants to be seen as the meanie, but we just have to stick to reality and the truth. The truth is that people forcing women to accept a new reality, removing all our boundaries and those of our children and also the language we use are in the wrong. Anybody with half a brain should know that if a whole cross section of women are majorly pisses off something is wrong.

No, I agree, Ada, but it's just so damn awkward when it's people you know & like.

I've got at least 3 transwomen on FB, too. Again - goth circles. Nice people.

Not the ones who are coming after me wanting my head on a stick for posting GC stuff. That's exclusively shouty 'cis males'.

It's all about shouty blokes.

I agree it’s compliance based in fear (understandable) plus for some women it’s mixed in with the cool girl validation they get for picking the guy’s team on this one.

The few ‘TW are my sisters’ posting women that I know IRL have always stuck out for me as being very seeking of male approval. This issue iseems like the latest expression of that rneed.

Funny, I’ve never seen their TW mates message them back with all the pastel hearts and ‘love and solidarity with cis women who are my sisters’..

I've recently joined a so called feminist group on Facebook. They constantly chant gobbledygook like

Trans women are women!
Trans women have female bodies!
Trans women belong in female spaces!
Trans women have periods!

Anybody who questions this is immediately attacked and blocked. It seems really important to get screenshots. Many of the women there advocate violence to terfs, it's really disturbing. Most of it is led by one young trans person who is particularly vile.

Today they are discussing how to lure terfs to their group then expose them. Very very worrying.

It was interesting that Miranda in her discussion with Fionn mentioned the ethical appeal from a faith perspective and how it seems the C of E have drunk the cool-aid and so are not much help here.

I am not C of E, but am Christian and in terms of theology the first thing that comes to mind is relationships should be based on love, so luring someone to join you only to mock them and shame them is obviously unethical from a Christian perspective. I imagine many atheists would agree with that. Also both men and women are made in the image and likeness of God and we are embodied; so our mind and body are one, they cannot be separated. It's the philosophy that the mind and body are separate that leads to ideas that the mind is pure and the body bad which often seems a simplistic version of trans ideology.

Female socialisation. Someone mentioned the other day that during Posie Parker's TV interview she only smiled when she wanted to. This is something I've been aware of for a long time that I need to work on.

I smile with interviewers, doctors, petrol station attendants - bloody anyone. I don't give a shiny shite that you're frustrated I can't find my shell points card fast enough - but I'll make a self-deprecating joke and raise a smile or two. Diffuse a "situation" - get everyone in the queue to forgive me.

I smile with interviewers, doctors, petrol station attendants - bloody anyone. I don't give a shiny shite that you're frustrated I can't find my shell points card fast enough - but I'll make a self-deprecating joke and raise a smile or two.
I know so many women like that. We all think they are "nice" so I guess it works. It's a lot of effort for you though.
Unkindness: it moves the goalposts. Instead of "them" arguing that today is Thursday (it isn't), they emphasise how hurt they will be if you don't believe it's Thursday today. So we think "I don't suppose it matters much if I agree that it's Thursday, obviously I won't write it on my paperwork but I'll agree with them to keep them happy."
Why be unkind about something that doesn't affect me?
Why point out the truth to someone who will be hurt by it?
Why make a big deal out of what day it is?
Because it's not bloody Thursday. And the dripdripdrip leads to full-on gaslighting.

Compelling others to repeat your lies is a well-established interrogation technique that is designed to break the spirit of those being interrogated. It's also a means to assert dominance over subordinates.

Cialdini and various social psychologists argue that when individuals can be coerced into abandoning their integrity by being compelled to repeat untruths they can then be bound to the coercive force by a need for consistency, mixed with shame and complicity.

Jacob T. Levy's piece about Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Politics highlighted this:
[The] great analysts of truth and speech under totalitarianism—George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel—can help us recognize this kind of lie for what it is. Sometimes—often—a leader with authoritarian tendencies will lie in order to make others repeat his lie both as a way to demonstrate and strengthen his power over them.

Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them. It’s something that was endemic to totalitarianism.

It's a very uneven kindness isn't it?
It isn't kind to hound lesbians on social media and to talk about how scared you are of then because they were mid level miffed you wanted them to say they liked sex with people who could impregnate them.

Logic gaps: we are told not to play along with delusions in dementia patients. But we should do with trans. We don't encourage anorexics to diet to be "their most authentic self", but we encourage social transition. We don't accept body integrity dysphoria as a legitimate reason to remove someone's legs, but we accept being gender non conforming as sufficient reason to remove their breasts and genitals. Trans doesn't need a dysphoria diagnosis to exist, it is not a medical issue, except it is and we need to pay more towards medical and surgical procedures. Gender is a spectrum except some people aren't on it. Sex is a spectrum except when being on one side of it isn't good enough so the other binary option is commandeered. Trans women don't have to look like women but they are more feminine than women and better at it than women, which they also are. Trans men are men, they mainly want to hang out with lesbians and in lesbian spaces but they are definitely men who should be excluded but won't be because they need the support of the community. The lesbian community not the men's community. Children know their own mind and can change their whole life and their body irreversibly but can't be criticised for doing so because they're only children. Identifying as the opposite sex isn't offensive even if the performance is way off the mark, unlike identifying as almost anything else which is either a: acting or b: rude regardless of the personal experience the individual has. We do not own our sex, but we do own our ethnicity, and our class and can call out those who attempt to appropriate either, no matter how well intended or well performed the appropriation is. Most people agree with TRAs but can't be allowed to comment freely in consultations, online or at work in case of hate speech.
Have I missed any?

I’m not generally perceived as a kind person. I don’t particularly try and disarm and appease people by being very smiley and extra unthreatening. I don’t try and hide my feelings when I think someone is an idiot or is trying to lie their way out of something. I’m aware that a lot of people are intimidated by me, and I’ll use that when it’s useful to me. And you know what? As a woman, all of that has hurt me at least as much as it has helped me. People who don’t like me use it against me. People who do like me tell me I’m my own worst enemy and life would be so much easier if I just “played the game” a bit. And I can see they’re right. But I can also see, over and over again, men who make me look soft and appeasing stroll through life without a word of criticism. I get called a cold ballbreaker, and they get called strong and confident leaders. I’m not surprised so many women shy away from that.

Where men are concerned, I think it’s far simpler- it just doesn’t cost them anything to be the “good guys” in this. It’s like virtue-signalling that you wouldn’t wear real fur when you can’t buy it in the UK anyway. There’s no sacrifice.

As a woman, all of that has hurt me at least as much as it has helped me. People who don’t like me use it against me. People who do like me tell me I’m my own worst enemy and life would be so much easier if I just “played the game” a bit. And I can see they’re right. But I can also see, over and over again, men who make me look soft and appeasing stroll through life without a word of criticism.
I have this exact problem. It sucks.

Turph - your fine summary puts me in mind of Thomas Szasz 1979: Male and Female He Created Them (h/t to whoever mentioned this a while ago)

IN the old days, when I was a medical student, if a man wanted to have his penis amputated, my psychology professors said that he suffered from schizophrenia, locked him up in an asylum and threw away the key. Now that I am a professor. my colleagues in psychiatry say that he is a “transsexual,” my colleagues in urology refashion his penis into a perineal cavity they call a vagina, and Time magazine puts him on its cover and calls him “her.” Anyone who doubts that this is progress is considered to be ignorant of the discoveries of modern psychiatric sexology, and a political reactionary, a sexual bigot, or something equally unflattering.
Like much of the medical-psychiatric mendacity characteristic of our day, the official definition “transsexualism” as a disease comes down to the strategic abuse of language — epitomized by confusing and equating biological phenomena with social roles (in the present case, chromosomal sexual identity with acting as a man or a woman). Although there are connections between these concepts and facts, neither one “causes'.’ or “determines” the other.

www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

I can very much relate to what you said Purple. Despite the media image some mnetters know and like lots of trans people. I'm not bothered by kink either (legal stuff obvs). I used to think it was all about live and let live, until I realised what the new breed of transgenderists actually want.
A lot of the reason I think the student population seem so TRA supporting is that it seems like a natural follow on from gay marriage or anti racism. They want to be seen as ultra progressive and even better if their mummies don't agree!
So some people are just earnestly wanting to be on the side of right. And some, I agree, are just old fashioned man-pleasers. Collaborators really.
Those women bother me the most because there's always going to be shouty men, but when women turn against their own it stings more.
I think I missed the female socialisation memo because I have been told my whole life how opinionated and bolshy I am (mostly by men..)
So in a way I'm not too bothered if I piss anyone off, as I cant be arsed with bullshit.
Besides, in the real world away from Twatter, once you break it down for them, noone really believes it.
I peaked DP so quick, and now every time I show him a tweet or something in support of "a man fighting to be a father to the child he gave birth to" he goes "babe" (yes that's how un woke he is) "Babe, give it a rest. NOONE believes this. If they say they do they're lying!"

I was raised like this. To the extent that everyone who walked the planet came before me. My dm made me give her stuff for everyone. She would buy others sweets and not me when she could only afford for other dc so they knew she was a great dm.

I grew up thinking I should put everyone before me. Then I snapped. Fuck that shit. Unfortunately it was the male dominant field I worked in that forced me to either act a different way, ie fiercely assertive, or never get a promotion, ever. I chose the latter.

I was then known as ‘the bitch’ ‘the man’ ‘the one who wears the trousers ‘ thereafter, mainly by women tbh.
It’s also corruption and generations of bullshit nurturing habits that hopefully will be unravelled as time goes on. I do think whatever personality type you have, if you’re shown to believe you have to put yourself last that’s going to head you in that direction.

arranfan that's a great link.
I forgot one: cis means we identify with the gender related to our sex but obviously gender and sex are not irrevocably linked plus gender is a spectrum except for that one bit that lines up with what used to be called the female sex, to allow the concept of cis to exist. And not all cis women are as feminine as some trans women but that's ok because despite looking different we can tell their gender and sex match up because we have helpfully assigned them the descriptor "cis". It's not something that can be freely chosen, obviously.

Oh, Arranfan, this hit me like a ton of bricks:

Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them. It’s something that was endemic to totalitarianism.

In this household we're mourning the loss of two good friends whom we thought were sister feminists but have gone over to the trans cult big-time. I'm not talking about merely going along with it, I'm talking about flag-waving and joining T groups. We will not say that TWAW, despite all attempts to get us to do so, and they are now openly ridiculing and belittling us. These are people who know that we are decent, non-hatey, thoughtful women.

It's an extraordinary situation where they feel triumphant and virtuous for supporting a lie and and we feel bereft and punished and tainted for sticking with science, biology, feminism and rational thinking. I keep imagining that this is how those who knew the truth and clung to it must have felt in Nazi, or in Russia under Stalin or in so many other places in the world where totalitarianism has insisted that unless you say black is white.

The pain of watching intelligent people whom we trusted and respected adopt a dangerous lie in order that they can feel good and virtuous and better than us is excruciating.

Sorry for the unfinished sentences and other errors above: the phone keeps ringing...

thatdamnwoman - have you seen the poem by Iris Child? (I introduced the [] edit for MN reasons.)

I am woman
you are man
we cannot change that, [XX]-I-am

you'd make me say that we're the same
I do not want to play that game

I will not say it (The whole poem is worth reading)

The pain of watching intelligent people whom we trusted and respected adopt a dangerous lie in order that they can feel good and virtuous and better than us is excruciating.
Yes I'm still not sure why the lie is so alluring. I know someone like this, who prides herself on her intelligence, who has drunk so much Kool-Aid she's sloshing. I honestly can't understand it.

In their case the lie isn't the thing thats alluring; its the chance to ally themselves with a more powerful movement and move up the perceived hierarchy thats alluring.

Turph, excellent couple of posts on all the internal contradictions in Genderism. That could do with bullet-pointing and putting in a thread of its own.

I'd only add "No one agrees with or listens to the tiny amount of irrelevant RadFems that post about this and it's very important to shut down any and every voice that raises concern because they are in danger of radicalizing everyone."

FloralBunting
Good one.
On a related note, the garage just rang. I told them what work I agreed to and what I wasn't prepared to pay for. They called me sir. I guess that makes me a man now? I don't identify as one but I've been (incorrectly) identified as one. Or was that a hate crime? Who pays £70 for an air filter anyway? Is that a womanly thing?