Financial Times article - US liberal over-reach on gender identity risks benefiting Trump

[OvaHere]

www.ft.com/content/065210f0-87f2-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2

Quote from the article

Joe Biden, the Democratic frontrunner, this week said his first presidential action would be to pass a law incorporating LGBTQ rights into the 1960s civil rights law that ended segregation. Among other features, it would allow self-identified transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports. It is the kind of meddling that irks parents, since competitors with male bodies tend to beat their daughters on the athletics track. Yet it is a stance Democrats feel obliged to support for fear of being called transphobic. When the leading candidate says it is a priority, others are sure to follow.

If you Google the article & click on it in search results, you can get past the paywall.

I saw it linked on Twitter, it let me straight through to the article even though I don't have a subscription.

twitter.com/NotableDesister/status/1136693930433613824

Liberal overreach is a good phrase. At Christmas a Chicago school teacher claimed things like TG bathroom issues of the sort they had had in their Catholic school (school, parents and child were happy with a separate provision, a trans activist group brought in lawyers to force entry to the girls changing room) was what caused people to vote Trump. But it was not something that could be talked about.

We are relatively lucky here, in that the overreach has caused people to leave the Labour Party and switch subscriptions from the Guardian to the Times, though Farage’s success suggests that mainstream parties here have a problem. Politicians need to respond to voters concerns, otherwise others will offer the people a voice. Presumably why politics has turned so weird.

I heard Piers Morgan asking Trump about the ban on trans in the military. He talked about the amount of drugs that they had to take and that this in itself broke many military rules about drug taking. He also alluded to the medical cost of transitioning - presumably the military get this paid for by the State if they are serving.

I haven’t read the article linked to but it does seem like a lot of women who would describe themselves as socially liberal on here now feel ‘politically homeless’ as the leftist parties have all sold them out in favour of male sexual rights and validation.. so that does make me think that ‘liberal overreach’ is a thing. Good intentions which have been cynically coopted by self interested groups to the detriment of others.

For some women the reaction might be to move towards right wing parties. But for many women we just remain stuck in a holding pattern waiting for even just one of the left wing parties to get their shit together and to start being genuinely progressive in a way that benefits women and children as well as men so we can support that party.

That’s why I find it such an offensive smear when the wokesters start trying to say gender critical feminists are all well in with the far right now or whatever crap they are spouting.

I think I'm beginning to understand how Trump came about. I consider myself left of centre but no way would I vote for a party that was pushing this agenda. What the f@ck is wrong with the left? Identity politics is destroying it

chattylion thank you for vocalising so well how I feel at the moment about politics.

That's a very interesting article and spot on I think. I despise Trump but the transgender issue is one where I actually do find myself in partial agreement with him. I consider myself centre-left but so many liberals are completely blind to the damage they are doing to women's rights, it's dismaying.

For some women the reaction might be to move towards right wing parties.

Chatty, the problem does not just affect women. One obvious example is the liberal Jewish community. But most important in political terms are the white working class, whether in northern Britain and the southern USA. So easy for Trump to promise job, or for Brexit to be offered as the answer to everything.

Perhaps at the root of the problem is the fact that many people are politically liberal but socially conservative, especially when that is defined as wanting safeguards for the vulnerable.

The democrats and Labour seem to have confused liberal with a form of extreme libertarianism. People do not want people like Lily Madigan, Edward Lord, or Sarah Brown, to name but three, to represent us, not because of their political views, but because they do not align with our social values. Not because we are “transphobic” but because normal liberal people care about women prisoners, women in Holbeck, and confused teenagers.

°The drive for more transgender-friendly schools can be life-changing for children who feel trapped in the wrong bodies^
I just wish the journalist didn't promote this myth. Children aren't trapped in wrong bodies.

Otherwise, interesting article. Liberal overreach is a good phrase. You can see how it's come about though, WRT trans issues, any dissenting voices are demonised with foul abusive terms and threats. The liberal left need to grow a backbone.

The comments are interesting reading none agreeing with the Democrat proposal, (well bar one person slinging odd one liner replies to people) concurring instead with this:

[from the comments]
"readers will recognise the gap between what parents say in private and their reluctance to speak out in public"

Bye bye freedom of speech

and comments like this

Tsk. There seem to be an awful lot of un-woke commentators. Time they were re-educated

Show the American public isn't buying it. I thought this comment in particular echoed an issue we have brought up here:

"I must have missed the extensive public dialogue and debate on this issue that occurred before obama issued this edict; the careful consideration given to the rights of the vast majority of men and women who might be uncomfortable with bathroom sharing arrangement; and the solemn respect for the democratic process with citizens expressing their views on the issue through their duly elected representatives ... Oh, wait a minute, there were none of these things, it was just a leftist social justice warrior "cram down" on an issue they know the electorate is not ready to embrace."

People are angry about legislation riding roughshod over their opinions and feelings and angry about the lack of consultation with the public at large. Getting this legislation in by stealth has benefited the trans community in some ways but it may also be their undoing in terms of public feeling - people don't like a majority opinion being ignored in legislation. We see the same anger here.

I'm fairly certain that the transing of children/toilet debate wasn't solely responsible for Trump (lack of employment in outlying small American towns, the electorate not being listened to and general distrust of politicians, those wanting to overturn Roe V Wade will have contributed amongst other issues) but I do see that "liberal overreach" will have an effect. Look at how the left leaning women here (and I think that is actually the majority of women here - not all but most) are feeling about the authoritarian stance of the left and how disenfranchised we feel. I can see a kneejerk reaction resulting in a vote for Trump (especially when people thought he wouldn't get in). It seems dissatisfaction plus protest votes gave them the Orange Misogynist as a president.

There are many other thoughtful comments below that article about brain maturity in children, freedom of speech, sport and bullying of children all of which intimate that people aren't necessarily acting out of any prejudice but out of concern for what is happening in their country.

This was a really interesting article thanks for posting it Ova, I think it gives a name to what has been going on in left politics and what is now destroying it - unfortunately. Unfortunate because I don't want right wing or Tory policies affecting women and children in poverty either (for example), so there is that rock and a hard place many critical thinking liberal to left people are experiencing.

Joe Biden you say? The well-known respecter of women's boundaries?

Pfft tell a lie, further down there are some detractors including a notable telling off about trans in sports by someone identifying as trans (spoiler: totally ignores any advantages a male body has over female other than testosterone - i.e. the usual BS)

This makes a lot of sense, especially when you remember Hillary won the popular vote but didn't get the electoral college, and when you look at some of the crucial swing states it was a small but crucial proportion of Democrat voters staying home or voting independent (rather than voting Trump) which seem to have swung things.

I suspect that most politically liberal voters are also socially liberal on most issues too (gay marriage for eg) - just that we can recognise a Trojan horse when we see one. Trans rights at the expense of women's masquerade as a socially liberal movement, but I think many people see the underlying misogynistic and even homophobic aspects.

Which is a shame, because I think many of us would have continued to accept the GRA for all its flaws as a reasonable compromise, so long as sex based exemptions under the Equalities Act were maintained. But we are deeply worried by TRAs riding roughshod over these exemptions, particularly for women's prisons, refuges and sports. And (not surprisingly given freedom of speech and thought is central to most forms of political liberalism) we baulk at coerced speech and punishment for wrongthink.

The fact that a lot of this went through under Obama with no real public consultation, and the same kind of thing elsewhere too, also give credibility to claims by the far right that there is some kind of conspiracy going on. You can't run a healthy democracy that way now matter how behind the times you think the general population are.

I heard Piers Morgan asking Trump about the ban on trans in the military. He talked about the amount of drugs that they had to take and that this in itself broke many military rules about drug taking. He also alluded to the medical cost of transitioning - presumably the military get this paid for by the State if they are serving.

This is interesting because I rarely hear it talked about, but as someone from a military background and military family, I have wondered about it. People are regularly not accepted into the military or released simply because they have health issues which require regular medication, and that is an administrative burden in case of some kind of war or conflict. You can't send a soldier into a situation where they might not be able to access necessary medication and they don't want soldiers with permanent restrictions on what they can do.
I don't see being trans in the military as a social problem, but it could be a logistical one if they insist on a right to be medicated, and I don't think I've ever seen that discussed in the media.

With regard to liberal vs conservative social beliefs:

You can see where the left has gone astray on this I think, and its largely through the acceptance of identity politics. Which was, in my view, originally done with good intentions. I think it started, without people realising it, in the US with certain elements of the civil rights. Somehow many people missed that the civil rights movement was essentially a form of class based activism, and instead the identity element was embraced. There have been a lot of poor outcomes from this and i think its actually made the race situation begin to become worse in the US after an initial period of improvement. And the other rights movements have followed on in the same vein.

It's only been when we see one that seems to go right off the rails that we can look back and see that there have been method problems all along that have brought us to this situation. And part of it is the narrative of progress.

But the left, represented as a class analysis method, has always had a tendency to a certain kind of social conservatism that isn't really that compatible with progressivism. This is true for example in GC feminism, but also true in working class communities generally. The reason being that social conservatism of that type comes out of a class analysis (academic, or practical in the case of working class people) of social structures. It's actually totally logical that people who use class analysis of politics or economics would also use it in looking at social structures and movements.

As traditional left parties moved to the centre or near right on economics, they have actually gone very libertarian, to the extreme, on social questions, and many people don't even understand that there can be a class analysis of social questions.

No wonder they have alienated serious leftists, and also the whole of the working classes who actually are materially affected by the devolvement to a libertarian social realm.

Thanks. That seems to accord with what I instinctively feel has happened though I lack the language.

My own nostalgia is for the Victorian social welfafe movements where Oxford grads would build model housing, Octavia Hill campaigned for just about everything and thousands of schools parks and hospitals were created. I was never a leftie but still want us to pull together to create opportunities for the disadvantaged. Why have we, and especially the Labour party stopped caring.

Gosh.

Why is this suddenly 'news'

It's been known since the 2016 Trump Campaign. I've mentioned it numerous times on here since.

Talk about slow to the party.

The news is that it's being acknowledged in the wider media. It's being put under the noses of the general public.

In fact, here's the same story but from a very different source, with a very different focus and presentation:

www.thesun.co.uk/news/9232812/labour-left-working-class-voters/

It's Rod Liddle in The Sun.

especially when that is defined as wanting safeguards for the vulnerable

I mean, this is how far queer theory has gone. Understanding the stages of child development is now regarded as a socially conservative position. Fucking terrifying.

I read the article and are reading through the comments. Most are GC but I get the impression they are written by "normal" people who have not gone very deeply into the subject, and simply giving their instinctive responses, not well thought out arguments. Like someone, on the topic of toilets, said "just make them all mixed sex, problem solved" and nobody seriously challenged it. Also, it's mostly men, I believe, commenting, which is good, but a few women telling it from the female PoV would have been better. I can't comment as I'm not a subscriber.

The commentators on FT articles seem to be well-heeled men who have a very high self-regard and feel free to comment authoritatively on any subject in the absence of any relevant knowledge.

Since I expect they're well-educated on the whole, their comments are less worth bothering with than those on Daily Mail articles.

But the left, represented as a class analysis method, has always had a tendency to a certain kind of social conservatism that isn't really that compatible with progressivism.

Yes, this is the Labour has "always been more Methodist than Marxist" point, which is historically true.

I would say is that the term "liberal overreach" is an awkward one because it confines any perception of the phenomenon to movements and resistance within the framework of the Overton Window. What this does is miss another important facet, which we are beginning to see in the UK, whereby ordinary people are starting to notice the political, social, financial and cultural opportunity cost of these liberal fixations in terms of the political realm and overall national governance.

To be blunt, this is the perception that the establishment greatly prioritises social justice or globalist issues over practical political matters that causes very acutely felt day-to-day stresses in people's lives: traffic congestion is a good example, as are viable school places or the availability of medical appointments.

And this perception does a lot of damage over time. After canvassing before and after the referendum, I strongly suspect it was also a key factor in the Brexit vote. There was definitely a strain in our area that people's reasons for voting for Brexit that came down to a demand for the political establishment to focus upon the practical political challenges within Britain itself: roads, congestion, housing, facilities, jobs, quality of life etc. And they processed that demand through voting for Britain to remove itself from a transnational political sphere, which, to them, allowed for political distraction and stood as an emblem of these liberal fixations.

A metaphor here would be that these Brexit voters were like angry tenants that wanted to lock their landlord in their flat so he would finally notice how the holes in the floorboards, the mould on the walls and the fact the boiler didn't work.

In this environment, any politician that even pays minor heed to practical challenges within the nation state itself is going to harvest votes, which goes some way to explain why pretty much no British political party has emerged as a front-runner post-Brexit, despite being handed the political opportunity of a lifetime.

PackingSoap

Thanks you so much for writing that, it's really expressed something that I've felt was true in a much clearer way than I have been able to manage in my own mind.

I've wondered about this focus on what you call the "liberal fixations". It can seem like a bit of a scam, yes, we have seen various rights movements or international justice movements have great success, but even if we fully support those particulars (and not everyone does) it seems to have happened over a period of overall loss of political and economic power for many, and also as we now know environmental destruction.

It begins to seem like all that was a sideshow.