To be valid.

[FloralBunting]

Some of the jargon around Genderism and the wider woke worldview is ripe for mockery, and I don't think there's much wrong with that, but it's not the most useful response.

One of the terms which interests me, because of it's ubiquitous nature, is 'valid'. Lots of people talk about being validated, via their identity claims, and the basic demand to say TWAW, TMAM, etc. is a flashpoint from the genderist perspective because by not agreeing, we do not 'validate' the identity, which is accorded a power akin to an act of genocide.

I've been trying to unpick what is going on here, in the hopes of some sort of understanding. What is a a person desiring when they want to be 'valid', and 'validated' in their identity?

In terms of bare etymology, valid springs from strong, so there is a follow through here of someone's ideas about themselves being 'made strong' by the validation they receive.

But I think even most adherents to these ideas will eventually acknowledge that if you need external support for something you claim is inherent within you, then you're not really strengthening anything, you're just putting in flimsy scaffolding, dependent on others.

I'm beginning to pick up that there is something else going on with this plaintive cry 'I am valid!' What I'm seeing is a group of people who are so crippled with insecurities they doubt their worth as human beings. People who are looking at a big, frightening world and shouting "I mean something!"

In essence, I'm seeing this particular bit of the jargon as a very specific part of the religious impulse that underpins so much of the Genderist, Identity-focused movement. When you see people repeating that phrase "You are valid", they are offering each other the same sort of comfort more traditional religious believers offer when they say "God loves you, you are not forgotten, you matter."

I suspect this is why the simple, logical discussions about the material reality of sex don't really cut any ice - you are trying to talk to a different part of the human psyche with a scientific argument. Genderist ideas arise from a different place. They may co-opt a few science-lite ideas, like a Creationist from Answers in Genesis might quote a few scientific journals, but the heart of these ideas is philosophical - it's a search for meaning and personal truth.

Which is probably why, as tempting as mockery may be, it's ultimately counterproductive in actually pulling people away from the damaging ideas at the heart of Genderism that have such devastating real life consequences.

So a young woman who rejects the prevailing culture of what it means to be 'a woman' and demands that, as an Non Binary person, she be acknowledged as 'valid', with attendant pronouns, is doing more than just being a bit controlling. She's trying to assert that she matters.

It's an existential, religious cry, not a statement about material reality. We're all, both genderists and those of us who reject gender, making category errors when we don't grasp this, which is why so many of us are talking past each other.

I think it is a demand that people agree that they are worthy of respect and obedience because, for whatever reasons, they are incapable of validating themselves.

"Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay."

By way of everyone has faith in something I mean, even in themselves, in others, in material reality, in whatever it is that informs them that there is no god.

I don't have "faith in material reality"- material reality exists. I don't know what you mean by faith in myself or others. Do you mean expecting that some who should care for you/stand by you will do so? If so faith seems an odd and impractical way of achieving that.

The absence of a god is simply that. I don't need to be informed gods don't exist any more than I need to be informed ghosts, unicorns or fairies exist.

Clearly many other people do get something out of metaphysics and religion. I don't.

This is a good example of the difference between people that have this propensity and those that don't, really. I've heard religious believers say that 'everyone has a god-shaped hole' and if you have the religious impulse, I think it is probably hard to conceive that others don't. And conversely those who don't have it can't see why you would think that way.

Obviously though, there are other factors here than this idea of religious impulse alone. I just think it's one possible mechanism whereby this idea of 'validation' has been focused.

What I picked up from florals post, and I think it's right, is that you can't argue based on facts for someone for whom the topic is emotional

Everyone has faith in something

The dictionary definition of 'valid' is a sound basis in reason or fact. It is interesting that so much of this thread has been a discussion of faith. Faith is not in the realm of 'reason or fact.' It is in not rooted in external reality. It is subjective. Open to myriad interpretations. It is not falsifiable, in the words of the inimitable Professor Karl Popper. 'Valid' in its modern iteration seems to be a word used to give some spurious legitimacy or scientific rigour to things which possess neither. Is it 'valid' to feel one can magically transform into the opposite sex? Is it 'valid' to believe that there are a multiplicity of 'genders?' Isn't the use of 'valid' to describe things which are ephemeral, subjective, just another example of the Orwellian deconstruction of language which has become a recurrent theme in the 21st century?

So basically what we understand as validation in modern terms is someone believing something (faith) and expecting others to believe it too (or at least pretend they do) so the first person can call it valid/true?

I can’t really think of another scenario where someone believes something but expects others(non-believers) to provide the corroboration to strengthen their viewpoint

BovaryX, oh undoubtedly it's another language twist, yes. That's why it interested me, because so many of the lever words used in this movement are functioning on a completely different level than what the word means which is why we so often end up getting very frustrated, and those who are part of the movement react so strongly.

Rumbas I think it works that way because they don't realize they're operating out of this faith/emotional basis. Once you see that and have any maturity, you understand that you can't expect that corroboration from others. But because of this category error, where they layer it with cod science, it's set up as a materialist rights battle.

I can’t really think of another scenario where someone believes something but expects others(non-believers) to provide the corroboration to strengthen their viewpoint

How about every theocracy since recorded history?

It's no coincidence that the majority of true democracies separate religion and government.

How about every theocracy since recorded history

Precisely.

Jelly, I guess I was thinking on a personal level in a free society... but when you put it that way

.I've heard religious believers say that 'everyone has a god-shaped hole' and if you have the religious impulse, I think it is probably hard to conceive that others don't. And conversely those who don't have it can't see why you would think that way

I can imagine that there might be some sort of genetic marker for faith and that some people have it and others don't. Possibly similar to getting pleasure from music and not getting anything out of music. I'm happy to accept the god- shaped hole gene exists and is a dominant gene for some whereas for me it's 2 recessive genes.

I can’t really think of another scenario where someone believes something but expects others(non-believers) to provide the corroboration to strengthen their viewpoint

Um, most religions until relatively recently in Europe and still in any country which imposes religious law into state law.

Yes, obviously state-backed religions expect this kind of compelled adherence. But no proponent of identity ideas will even go near the idea that this is a faith based belief. That's why it has the leverage in the halls of power. In a liberal secular democracy, any open attempt by a faith group to get their belief system any kind of compulsion over others in society is rightly pushed well back.

It's precisely because this is presented as something different that it gains the foothold.

But no proponent of identity ideas will even go near the idea that this is a faith based belief

Yet there are so many features which are similar. A set orthodoxy which requires compliance. Articles of faith. Martyrs. Trans remembrance day? And of course heretics. The penalty for 21st century heresy is career annihilation.

Oh, I know. Spent the last couple of years here talking about the specific aspects of the movement which are identical to fundamentalist religion. Even ended up deleted for doing so at one point.

The reason there is an objection to highlighting the religious aspects, and the language that is used to leverage this, is precisely because once it's clearly seen that this is a faith/emotion based set of beliefs, rather than an objective reality, the privileges being sought become obvious over-reaches.

Deeply religious people, and I don't mean just spiritual people, but the sort of people who actually, wholeheartedly, practice all the rituals of their religion, often do not see their religion as faith or belief, but as incontrovertible fact.

In religion, a woman can achieve some status by becoming a nun; in genderism they declare themselves to be non binary or trans. Both systems demand that women renounce womanhood, and both systems are hierarchies.

JellySlice, very true. But no secular state accords them greater credence because of that. This is the distinction here - the shell game of being a fundamentalist religion without acknowledging it, and managing to convince government officials that it is not simply a fundamentalist religion seeking privileges.

I still maintain it's one of the strongest planks of our case, in a secular state with freedom of religion. Everyone may believe and practice their faith, whatever it may be, in accordance with their conscience. They are not permitted to impose it on others, receive special privileges that trample over the material rights of others, and they may not subject their children to abuse under the faith's auspices.

Genderism is not based in anything other than assertions of faith. It is, in fact, counter to material fact. It should receive no more consideration in law than the claims of any other faith.

My view on this is that I think everyone feels that the world doesn't view them in the way that they would like to be viewed.

For some people with chronically low self esteem, gender ideology provides a useful mechanism by which to bully other people into complying with one's view of oneself.

For many late transitioners this aligns with the traditional mid life crisis. So instead of getting a sports car, or a younger woman to make the world feel that they are as important as they think they are, they use gender ideology to bring everyone into line- "stunning and brave".

So forcing people to validate you via emotional blackmail, public shaming or ultimately by statute, is forcing them to agree with you sense of self and boost your ego.

(Sorry pressed post too soon).

Tinsel, from your experience, do you think the midlife MTF transitioner truly believes that they are/have always been in the “wrong body” or is it a way of rebranding something that has always been a fantasy/fetish into a more wholesome/sympathy inducing situation?

I wonder to what degree some people who don’t even have ‘faith’ in a gendered soul, propagate the myth to achieve the life they want to live while staring down anyone who might have reservations or question it. (Not that it’s wrong for people to seek to live freely if it doesn’t hurt others, but many push for much more than this). It begs the question that for all the talk of TWAW and TMAM, what proportion of people going along with it, are true believers of the genderology?

This is a brilliant thread. One area I think has had an effect, is the increase in what people see as a peer group, now there is the internet.

People used to have a sense of themselves based partly on how they fitted in with their peer group "I'm clever, I'm sporty, I'm tall, I'm a Harry potter fan, I like Heavy Metal...."

Now they have the whole world to compare themselves against. So someone who is fairly sporty, and 20 years ago would have seen themselves that way as a fairly defining characteristic, now sees people on Instagram living at yoga retreats or running ultra marathons, they dismiss the idea that they are sporty. This can end up applying to most of your characteristics, when compared to the whole world - nobody feels there is anything that really defines them, nothing to base your sense of self on, nothing that builds your self esteem. Therefore they have signed up to something internal, which can't be directly compared or seen, something they can believe makes them special.

I wonder to what degree some people who don’t even have ‘faith’ in a gendered soul, propagate the myth to achieve the life they want to live while staring down anyone who might have reservations or question it. (Not that it’s wrong for people to seek to live freely if it doesn’t hurt others, but many push for much more than this). It begs the question that for all the talk of TWAW and TMAM, what proportion of people going along with it, are true believers of the genderology?

That's an excellent point. There are a number of late transitioning males in the public eye who I strongly suspect are not true believers, but rather see the movement as a vehicle for them to achieve their particular aims.
Rather like I suspect there are careerists in the RC church, for example, who have chosen the church for the prestige (and in the most awful cases, the opportunities to abuse without consequence) who clearly do not possess the religious gene, and any fear of eternal consequences.

I think PP have very reasonably suggested that the demand for validation comes from at least two different starting points - the self esteem, fragile place, and the rather more sinister controlling place.

It's an existential, religious cry, not a statement about material reality. We're all, both genderists and those of us who reject gender, making category errors when we don't grasp this, which is why so many of us are talking past each other.

Sorry i saw this and had to come in here; yes existentialist sort of but religious? Your getting belief and dogma mixed up with religion. Trans ideology is a very shallow belief system that relies on been very authoritarian in order to survive - a belief system that relies on being authoritarian - unquestionable belief in anything/anyone. It doesn't have to be religious and there are plenty of non religious examples of this. It is this which gives trans ideology both it's strength and it's weakness; it's pretty amazing how quickly apparently reasonably intelligent people have adopted unquestionably it's tenants. And that is an issue in itself. Trans ideology has features more akin to a Cult than religion.

You have lost the plot if you keep on referring Trans ideology back to religion - all your doing is showing how you don't understand the nature of belief, which is not the same thing, and religion.

Trans ideology is a wholly secular ideology that has evolved from secular and anti religious ideas/philosophies. On another thread it has been pointed out how No Outsiders has used Islamophobia to get funding via Prevent as a anti terrorist resource - have a think about that for a moment and what that means for anyone opposing Trans ideology. Pretty slick move by Stonewall et al; equate any opposition to their ideology as religious extremism, make sure peoples minds are being bought to focus on Muslims with a dash of far right thrown in for added measure and the knee jerk reaction is to align yourself with them as champions of secularism and human rights.

This is ultimately a mistake on their part to have done this as of course most people who oppose Trans ideology are neither Muslims or the far right, or even religious.