Thought Terminating Cliches

[AspieAndProud]

‘Transwomen are women,’ ‘born in the wrong body,’ ‘better to have a daughter than a dead son’ and ‘literal violence’ appear to be perfect examples of thought terminating cliches, a concept used in the study of ‘thought reform’ (what most of us would call ‘brain washing’). Their purpose is to end a discussion before it actually begins.

A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to end cognitive dissonance (discomfort experienced when one simultaneously holds two or more conflicting cognitions, e.g. ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions). Though the phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating.

The term was popularized by Robert Jay Lifton in his 1956 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Lifton said, “The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_cliché

Anybody think of other common examples?

I’ll add another: ‘You are denying my existence’.

Live and let live?

'Just need to pee'

'We are more than just our genitals'

'Quietly getting on with our lives'

'Wrong side of history'

'Just want to become/be accepted for who we are'

But I love him/her.

You're denying my right to exist.

You're denying my reality.

It is what it is.

Trans rights are human rights

But it is what it is is actually useful

'Suffer more violence than any other group'

'Are more marginalised than any other group'

'Suffer more discrimination than any other group'

Trans exclusionary radical feminist

Yes, ‘terf’ is definitely one.

Better a trans daughter than a dead son.

‘It’s just a simple administrative change’

‘Assigned sex at birth’

Women want to annihilate trans people

Sex is a spectrum

Decades ago I read a poem about a woman whose speech was described as being dispensed from her mouth, with sentences tightly wrapped as if from a vending machine.

It was in a collection with Louis Macneice and I can't find it but that image as stuck with me for decades - I remember thinking that because the phrases were pre-loaded, it wasn't possible to have a conversation with the subject of the poem. Not that I knew it then, but it would have been likely an early Eliza/AI test.

‘The clock struck thirteen’, to throw some Orwell in the mix

This is where calling someone a name: 'transphobe', 'tory', 't*rf' means the conversation is over and the person no longer has to listen to anything you have to say.

Trans women are women.

Trans women have already had the right to access women's spaces since 2010

You can exclude trans women as long as it's a proportionate means to a legitimate aim.

‘Transphobe!’

‘Hate speech isn’t free speech!’

‘Stop silencing me!’

Bigot