The well-meaning ignorance of the masses

[ShotsFired]

I recently had a weird conversation and it made me realise that people just aren't aware of anything beyond the surface. They really aren't.

'Jenny' and I were chitchatting and the topic turned to Posie's billboards. I googled a pic of it for Jenny (she was completely unaware of them even though she is a perfectly news-aware, intelligent woman) and she agreed with my position that nobody can ever change their biological sex and no way should these posters be removed. We also briefly discussed the harm that gender stereotypes do, and how they are so pointless. But that is where the rational wheels came off.

Jenny has a son aged about 15. In his school year alone, there are ~6 girls who are saying they are now boys.

But Jenny has absolutely no awareness of the issue beyond saying these girls "need the right medical/surgical help". There is no questioning of why suddenly it has happened or what is causing it, no wonder about why it is only the girls, absolutely no "hang on a minute, this doesn't seem right", just unconditional support for the breast binding and hormones and surgery.

I tried to explain the idea of ROGD and social contagion and asking why etc. There was an interesting discussion but it just went back to "but we must support them to change sex", which was completely contradictory to her earlier, quite genuine agreement about the billboard.

It's very scary that people are so keen to be nice and supportive that they are trampling over any critical faculties they would normally apply to such a drastic change. As I said, Jenny is intelligent and we discuss issues like Brexit critically and with informed insight. But it was just like there was a complete ignorance of any awareness (not even agreement, just knowing) about what might cause teenage girls to behave en-masse like this, and the repercussions of it.

I felt very despondent that all the parents are blindly following the quite probably transient demands of impressionable, vulnerable, still-growing teenage girls, when their job is to keep them safe from bad decisions and irreversible choices.

I know, I find that too. That people who have a medical background (even ignoring the loathsome Harrop) will also not have looked beyond the surface. Nor can people think things through - if we accept that men can become women, and be nice about it, then one day we will all be faced with an obvious leery bloke in the showers who is pretending to be a woman. People seem so naive and think men wouldn't do that. I have no idea what rock they've been living under for years, but they clearly haven't met the same men I have.

I honestly think Stonewall is both the cause and symptom of the problem here.

It's spreading messages and people are just accepting them.

Which to me means that many people don't necessarily believe the other messages either, they just go along with things to be correct and "on the right side of history".

That's a depressing thought and a half, I honestly thought society was being more accepting, not just learning to shut up and obey the "right" authority.

If six girls had anoerexia, would she think that they should be assured they're overweight and need to diet?

Nor can people think things through - if we accept that men can become women, and be nice about it, then one day we will all be faced with an obvious leery bloke in the showers who is pretending to be a woman

The frustrating thing with this argument is the slightly condescending "of course all the exceptions will be dealt with" generalisation. That there will be no male prisoners in female jails, that there will be no pervs in the changing rooms, that their elderly mum won't have intimate care undertaken by a big bloke pretending to be a woman etc.

The fact that self id will mean all men are allowed and we can't pick and choose, is frittered away in naive assumptions that someone will obviously sort it out so there is no problem at all.

The issue now is that the adult males with no dysphoria say it isn't a mental health issue, so these kids are being doubly fucked over by not getting help for the underlying causes that everyone pretends no longer exist, whilst simultaneously being encouraged into a lifetime of drugs, surgery and infertility by those same adults who are more than happy to keep themselves fully intact.

Unfortunately, most people don't care when things don't affect them directly.

Juells If six girls had anoerexia, would she think that they should be assured they're overweight and need to diet?

No, I firmly think she would see that as a totally different issue. It was that blind acceptance which was so frustrating. The sheer lack of thought beyond the soundbite and the indifference to it as well. Just did not see it as a thing that needed to be thought about, because those girls need that surgery to be happy.

(Her son's best friend is one of the girls, incidentally. Jenny saw her for the first time since she announced it and accidentally deadnamed her by saying "hello Clare" to an enraged reaction. The son pulled her away and hissed at her that "everyone has to be pretend she's a boy now" so the son/fellow pupils know something is iffy, but all are going along with the pretence to avoid repercussions)

Certainly a failure of the media and the mediating class. If the BBC was reporting sensibly - There's a huge rise in girls identifying as boys - some groups say this is because social acceptance now means they feel free to be themselves; some groups say this is a social contagion similar to anorexia or self harm. Breast binders have the following side effects - should schools be allowing them? - then your sensible friend would have a kind of unconscious permission to interrogate it herself.

People respond with critical thought when problems are brought to their attention by entities they trust. Otherwise, they accept things.

Lack of balanced media coverage is key here. People assume (understandably ) that if ROGD was really a thing it would be discussed -especially on the bbc.

I also think that the move away from calling transgenderism a mental illness says more about the stigma around mental health than anything else.
It drives me nuts that I know people who are quick to share 'mental health awareness ' stuff on social media and show how much empathy they have, but say that trans isn't a mental illness and it's derogatory to say it is.

I agree, bluetits. It’s a massive failure of joined-up thinking.

I get the feeling that critical thinking is effectively discouraged now and has been for some time.

People are generally either :
a) too comfortable to bother as their needs are met and they're kept distracted enough by take aways, ipads and celebrity love island etc ("bread and circuses")

or b) too busy struggling to keep a roof over their heads, feed their kids, deal with health issues etc

Either way, the effect is that thinking deeply about social and political issues doesn't get a look in.
Add to that the incredibly seductive virtual world we have now to give people a way of avoiding real life issues.

It's a result of economic forces- deliberate or not depends on how paranoid you are.

bluetitsaretits it's also due to the rise of the internet in my opinion. People just parrot views they've read online. Granted, we always had TV to give us ideas, but we didn't have that with us 24/7. People had a lot more downtime with no stimuli to think about things deeply and come up with their own thoughts/ideas. Add in MP3 players and everyone on headphones and that's even less time to formulate their thoughts.

It's frightening how few people see the bigger picture (in anything) and therefore fail to join the dots. Each situation taken in isolation.

Micaela64 you're right, the Internet has had a massive effect. It is so immersive and effective at manipulating people's mindset.

Your point about lack of downtime is very relevant too -no time to think.

This is particularly important with respect to child development -there is a widely held view that experiencing boredom is really important for developing cognitive skills and learning to think creatively and independently. I also believe there's a connection with learning to 'self soothe' or just being able to cope without constant external input of some kind.

Few people seem to manage to just sit still and do nothing -nearly everyone on a bus or train has earphones in now. Nobody just being 'in the moment'.

Lots of talk about the benefits of 'mindfulness' on mental health, but it is no longer part of our everyday lives.