What things might be banned in the future? Lighthearted! Sort of...

[BlueFly42]

I saw a couple of posts on social media that got me thinking.

1. On Twitter, in relation to the SH court document, someone tried to argue that misgendering should never be illegal because people make mistakes, thought police, etc. This was deemed not a reasonable argument with the analogy of dangerous driving given (as in, misgendering causes harm and death through dysphoria so must be punishable even if accidental).

1. On reddit I saw a discussion about women where a transwoman was saying her dysphoria was triggered seeing women out and about. To be fair, the post didn't get that much support.

Anyway, like I said, it got me thinking about what other dysphoria inducing things might be banned in our brave new world. Perhaps the following set of rules might be appropriate, as a starting point:

• Women must cover their bodies and faces when leaving the home
• Menstruating women must be segregated and blocked from participating in normal life
• Pre pubescent girls breasts should be mutilated to prevent development
• We could consider a system whereby all women must have a male "guardian" to ensure that they're staying in line

I then felt not so lighthearted as I realised that these things already happen to women in our world.

I know that this is stupid and hypothetical scare mongering. I don't believe it could happen in the UK. But I didn't belive thought crime would ever be a thing in the UK either and remember telling my DH he was overreacting about roll backs of freedoms because "the UK isn't like that"... We are ignorant if we belive we are inherently "better than" the societies that practice the above.

What other things can we think of to create our dysphoria free utopia?

Hell, you might have noticed my account's new. I just came to MN because it's very easy as someone not here, to get the feeling MN is full of "stark raving mad" transphobes.

M'kay

Well, I hope you stick around and read some of what's actually written here. What a lot of TRAs fail to take into account is that they actually have to share space on this planet with a lot of other people and where their desires, wants, needs, and rights come into conflict with those of other people there has to be a debate, there has to be a conversation. You cannot simply play oppression top trumps and shut everyone else down.

If the fact that Mumsnet is basically the only place currently allowing this conversation has turned it into a bit of an echo chamber and allowed opinions to become more polarised, maybe it's time to reconsider the #NoDebate position.

emily

You sound very young

I don't believe tha call someone by the correct pronoun is the same as calling a bliack person the N word...at all

I also think its the thin end of the wedge even though I usually have no problem using peoples preferences when it comes to he/she

Emily will be busy with A Level revision, Barracker

Alevel?

Ds2 is revising for GCSE...so A level might be a stretch

Actually i don't trust him as far as i can throw him so i need to make sure he isnt logged on to mumsnet

Emily

There is no scientific or grammatical reason to call a black person 'the N word'. It's just not a very good analogy.

Saying that, I don't have a problem with using people's preferred pronouns as long as those pronouns are he/she and not something ridiculous and made up, and as long as said person isn't trying to do away with women's rights, inciting violence towards women, or wishing for women to die in a fire.

If it’s A Level Biology I pity whoever marks the papers.

Emily if the problem in summer isn't how women dress and it's the individuals dysphoria why is misgendering different? I genuinely don't get it.

A transwoman would never want all women to hide their faces and clothes. There isn't a born-man in the world who would want to hide themselves and those who are specifically into acting feminine seem to want the world to see them.

Yes Hollow, I don't think this would actually happen (though would not be 100% shocked). It just struck me as interesting how one source of dysphoria is on the way to being criminalised and then shortly after reading that I came across a post about women themselves being a source of dysphoria!

The mind can't help but wander...

The practise of affirming gender dysmorphia leads to an ever increasing number of people on lifelong medication and suffering from increasingly complex mental health issues leading to increasingly poor physical health and increasing suicide rates

That is specially for Emily

It just struck me as interesting how one source of dysphoria is on the way to being criminalised and then shortly after reading that I came across a post about women themselves being a source of dysphoria!

Best stay indoors and STFU then.

Hang on a minute, has this been the game plan all along???

emily

It is not akin to racial slurs at all. a slur is a non-neutral description.

If I say ‘Sarah is a black woman’ I am being neutral, correct and descriptive. If I say ‘Sarah is a n***’ I am using a slur.

If I say ‘person x is a man’ I am being correct and descriptive. I do not believe that person is actually a woman. They are NOT a woman. I can prove, scientifically, that they are not a woman. Why should I say they are a woman? Politeness? Ok well then that’s my choice. Should I be compelled to say something I know to be untrue in pain if legal penalty?

The correct analogy for making misgendering illegal is blasphemy. Or compelled speech. It’s the difference between not being allowed to say that all members of the spaghetti monster church are infidels who must be killed, and making someone worship His Noodliness on pain of death.

Do you not understand the difference? It is irrelevant if it hurts peoples feelings. To create a blasphemy law and to compel speech is to live in a theocracy or a totalitarian state. Have a think about a few of the charming countries that have these laws and whether you’d like to live there.

How will it end?

Well either:

1. we shut our eyes and let this through, and wake up in ten years with no legal or reproductive rights, and with an entire generation of gay and non conforming kids neutered, no free speech, no ability to organise freely or speak freely. No free internet usage, blasphemy laws, etc

Or

1. The public realises what’s going on and just how unpleasant the proclivities of some of those pushing this issue are, and there’s a massive pushback.

And say what you like about America, but they do at least have a constitution which guarantees far more personal liberty than we have. We need that.

don't misgender by accident.
I use the correct pronouns for sex deliberately because sex matters and the right not to be compelled to lie matters.
There's zero malice in my decision.

My position exactly. Where I cannot and where I choose to be polite I will avoid pronouns completely. I'm never going to pretend I think a male person is a woman.

Emily appears not to have understood this.

I think by far the easiest comparison for misgendering is using racial slurs.

No, it really isn't.

emily on the subject of compelled speech.

Read ‘the Gulag Archipelago’ by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Compelled speech has, throughout history, been an early warning of dark times ahead. We cannot rule by fear of hurt feeling, but by truth and law.

hipsterfun the similarities between MRA and TRA logic just gets clearer and clearer the more I think about it! I don't think it's a deliberate or conscious outcome anyone is hoping for but it's not hard to see how it could happen.

Bowlofbabelfish I'll check out that book even if Emily doesn't. The free speech angle is really interesting and also accessible to those who don't care about women. I hope society pulls itself together before we reach your scenario 1. I guess we all just have to keep talking and writing and taking action.

( Back to OPs dystopian near future)).

Poor people ( migrants) will be forced to give their babies away. No comment as to who they'll have to give them to. This example is in Spain but...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/14/spanish-party-says-pregnant-migrants-can-delay-repatriation/amp/

jamrollyolly now that is dystopian! The world is a very scary place.

While we wait for Emily to return...

As PPs suggest there will be more surrogacy or forced adoptions as the inferior trans children become adults and want to start families. There will also be a fall in the population so globally we will be living more within the resources of the planet...there, it's kind of positive, kind of...