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.

LetsSplashMummy I think you're right, yes. The disembodied nature of the internet, with it's built in mechanisms for reinventing yourself in ways that are unconnected to material reality, is fertile ground.

There's often a very keen interest in gaming among adherents, too.

Roz, unfortunately, I have to pick my words carefully - I tend to use neo-religion, quasi-religion, and refer to the movement as relying on religious impulses because when I was using the word cult, I was repeatedly targeted by monitors to get my posts deleted, and MNHQ deemed cult and some of that terminology too inflammatory.

So while I don't disagree with your point that this is not a religion in the same sense as some other belief systems, it is similar to Scientology type belief systems, but I am restrained from using terms which would make that much clearer. So no, not lost the plot, ta.

A fascinating thread.

If I can offer a perspective from a trans woman who usually sees the words 'valid' and 'validation' used in the context as some form of accusation from gender-critical individuals that in being recognised in and allowed to live consistently with my affirmed gender I, and those like me are 'seeking validation'. I can only really speak for myself. I'm not. I'm just living my life in the way that seems best to me. And the plethora of motives ascribed to trans individuals on these threads makes me laugh out loud from time to time. At other times I am profoundly sad by the fear that appears to come from either misunderstanding trans individuals or ascribing us all with the malign motives of a very few. That's and awful place to live for those that do. Sure, there are plenty of bad people in the world but if you live in fear of them every day, it would be a poor life.

I see also that religion is thought to be important to some as a source of moral guidance. Well, I respect that choice. But an upbringing in a loving conventional Christian home in a west country village that involved churchgoing every Sunday morning did not prevent my rejecting religion aged 10 as incompatible with a scientific belief system which has sustained me ever since and never given me any difficulty in establishing moral values without an outside influence. I suppose that belief system leads me to respect evidence-based decisions and given me a respect for those who challenge accepted norms in a respectful way. And deal with real problems in a proportionate way.

Stay well and safe.

Glad to have amused you Robin. Sorry that you have read this thread assuming fear on the part of those discussing it - we were mostly talking about why people who adhere to your movement's beliefs often use specific terms and what they are asking for when they talk about being being valid. Most of us were viewing this from a lens of compassion towards the people who struggle with identity issues.

FWIW, I'm am not afraid of you, and I don't wish you ill. I just don't agree that your self perception should give you privileges that override material reality, and therefore negatively impact other people, particularly women.

But let's not make this personal to you. I'd hate to see an interesting thread diverted. I'm sure you wouldn't want that.

FloralBunting - loving your posts. Very thought provoking.

Perhaps it’s easier for atheists to read religion and think of it as a generic term than it is for those with specific religious beliefs.

There have always been careerists in religions. It was the vehicle for non-first born sons in titled families to gain wealth and privilege while avoiding soldier duty. I don’t know much about career nuns. Though retiring from the world with their own resources and sometimes an abbess position was an option for wealthy women either to hide from conflict or it was done to them by their male relatives.

I think all belief systems have zealots, believers, power structures, rules, enforcers, punishment and judgement. It’s how they work. Ex-communication was feared by all, even a ruling monarch could be crippled politically by it. Deals were made between church and state to avoid it. Consanguinity rules were used to gain the church money for allowing marriages and then could be used to backtrack and annul marriages that were no longer suiting. This rule is absolute except where it suits us was always in play.

Beliefs have been harnessed to further political or personal agendas forever. Contraception for example. The inquisition, ex-communication of scientists, the “witch” purges. Terrorism. Religious wars. I don’t think it’s, random pick, anti-Christianity to know that it has been harnessed for a wide variety of purposes.

So critically looking at an ideology in the same way as you can use a framework to look at a religion is useful.

I distinctly remember a day when I was seven years old, that my friends suddenly progressed from all declaring "my painting is the best" to "yours is the best/yours is much better than mine/oh, no, mine is not the best, yours is, really"
It seemed to happen overnight, this change from 'the world revolves around me' to 'other people exist and are just as important, and I need to consider myself in relation to them'

In that instance, it was seven year old girls learning to be (falsely!) modest about achievements and eschewing competitiveness for kindness and consideration of others. And that's a whole other discussion.

But what struck me then, is that obviously, expecting others to validate me as the best comes at their own expense of agreeing that they are not the best. That was the social contract. I'm it, and you're not.
Many ideas only exist as comparisons between everyone. There is no 'best' without there also being a 'worst' usually and definitely there is no 'best' without there being a 'not best'. If I expected others to validate I was 'best' then I equally needed them to agree that they were 'not best'. That was the deal. I suddenly understood.
It was the first time I realised I had to consider others properly, and that I might choose, voluntarily, not elevate myself at their expense.

This revelation at seven years old, of considering how one's own perception bounces off others, and how what I claim I am can contradict or undermine what another person claims they are. We all exist in a constant state of comparison. Either to one another, or to a defined standard that already exists. Like woman. Female.

This realisation is such a strong memory that I recall exactly where I was in my school when it happened.

Anyway, I have a point, I think, so I'll make it.

When people are demanding 'validation' in their 'identities', they are behaving like the pre-seven year old me. "I make a claim about myself, and you MUST all agree, even though agreeing changes YOUR own status"

These are the people who want to revert to a childhood status where they alone matter, and other people can be forced to 'agree' at their own expense.

It's an attempt to force other people to pretend, a way of standing on others to elevate oneself.

"I am a woman, penis and all."
This is not valid. That claim is not valid. The identity as woman is not valid. Others will not validate your claim.

'Valid'. 'To validate'. It literally means to prove that something is based in truth or fact. It means: your claim was investigated, tested, measured against criteria and found to be factually true. It was a disprovable claim, but upon investigation, it was found to be true.

It's really important to persevere with INvalidating false claims made by people who demand to play by rules that apply only to them.

"No. Your identity isn't valid. Your claim is not valid."

I was thinking about defending women’s rights being considered an attack on something or someone else’s rights.

Repeal the 8th - was about women’s rights. It was not anti-roman catholic. But it was due to religious belief being inserted into politics and law that it existed in the first place.

I bet there are thousands of similar examples where campaigning for women’s rights or defending existing women’s rights have been reframed as an attack on the ideology or belief system that either ensured the rights were not there or wants to undermine them.

Someday Robin will have something to say that isn't all about Robin, but today clearly is not that day.

And yes, Barracker. If you were to look at Piaget's stages of childhood development the "validate me" people have gotten stuck at a stage that most people have progressed past by the age of 8 or so. It would be easier to be sympathetic if their childish egocentrism wasn't creating so many problems for the rest of us.

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 think it's not one thing. There's ample evidence of AGP's using gender ideology as a stick to beat people with, but there are non AGP's too. Blanchard said they were HSTS, but I think there's another category of very beta male with chronically low self confidence who may or may not be gay.

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.

It's funny you should mention this. I did Latin in school, and our Latin teacher had a bugbear about the modern use of the word "valid". He said it meant "strong" and that people used it wrongly to mean "legitimate". I now think of that every time I see the word.

Most often amongst trans activists you see it in the mantra: "Trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary identities are valid." It seems to me that if those things were true, you wouldn't need to say them. It's the fact that they're self-evidently not true that requires endless repetition to force people to accept the idea without thinking about it.

Well said as always Barraker.

I'm now thinking of something Lisa Muggeridge said:

"..their identity is the only thing they can see and they can only see you as a reflection or threat to it" - one can see how validation of a for-want-of-a-term-that-won't-get-me-deleted "fragile" identity becomes so important.

Nrtft yet working through it so sorry if already mentioned.

The thing where some people say to question me is to deny me my existence. Is this the same thing?
Because for all our discussion here and irl they still exist.

I first came across the term valid used in psychotherapy, where the therapist validates the clients' feelings/experiences in terms of the client/therapist relationship and the therapists positive regard for the client. The same also for the use of the word authentic which again is used in psychotherapy ( and philosophy) to denote a specific quality of being with the self and understanding of the self ( very very briefly). They are quite profound philosophies that are usually used in a very constrained and boundaried way in specific settings.

The demand that these ideas be selectively imposed on everyone else for the benefit of a very specific group of people is, to say the least, interesting and concerning.

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."

Religious people don't seem to agree about God's love.

Some people believe that God loves everyone, regardless. I think this idea underpins the concept of universal human rights - we all have certain inalienable rights, like a right to a fair trial, regardless of who we are or what we have done.

Other religious people believe that God's love is conditional and that people who don't fit particular criteria are condemned to Hell.

I do not believe that sex or gender impart value, so when I say that transwomen are not women, I'm not making a judgement about somebody's value as a human being. Sex is just a physical characteristic over which we have no control, like blood type. It has unavoidable consequences, so to access universal human rights women need particular services and protections e.g. access to contraception, however, I don't think a man who wears lipstick is less 'valid' than a woman who wears lipstick.

However, for a genderist, validation can only be found by acceptance within a group. Outside of the the group we have no value, so to say that a trans woman is not a woman is to cast them out.

Although some left wing people claim to support human rights, it's very clear that left wing politics can be very tribal in nature, so I don't think it's surprising that so many on the left feel comfortable with genderism, even though none of them seem to be able to explain what gender is.

Or is it just hyperbolic, coded language?
“Valid, denied existence, literal violence, hate crime” etc which really means... ‘you don’t see me as I see myself and that has upset me’.

Meanwhile women have spent generations fighting against the hyperbolic language of others used to define and patronise them “hysterical, flighty, hormonal, neurotic” (and worse) and now against the censoring of factual ‘?valid’ language such as uterus and woman.

It just all seems very upside down

It's just another example of genderist not really understanding the basics of social interaction and social contracts.

In reality, validation can only happen when someone genuinely believes what you're saying. It's not something that can be forced, coerced or demanded.

Perhaps it's that underlying it is a fear of being attacked as being illegitimate, counterfeit or invalid and so a domineering ideology has emerged that closes down debate or dissent.

Validation and legitimacy are often based on beliefs and not facts. Think about our currency, it used to be based on the gold standard but now it just has value because we collectively believe that it does.
If enough people believe something is true then it is hard to stop it being culturally adopted, it's just a numbers game and the ideas can gain legitimacy even if they are detrimental.

In reality, validation can only happen when someone genuinely believes what you're saying. It's not something that can be forced, coerced or demanded.

I think something else is validated for some people though, the need for and knowledge that they can control others. Power.

Absolutely right Eresh, as always it's also a power play.

God, thank you so much, FWR women. I love when I have a thought and start a thread on it here and all your brilliant perspectives come in and flesh it out properly. You're all fab.

One might almost say I felt validated. If I was feeling facetious.

Your identity as a good thread starter is valid Floral. You have been a good thread starter since you were born.

I don't have "faith in material reality"- material reality exists. I don't know what you mean by faith in myself or others.

No, it's an underlying assumption that it exists, and that it behaves in a certain way, that it is knowable, and so on. Modern scientific materialism is a philosophic position with assumptions and problems and a lens like any other. The fact that for many modern people it seems obvious and inarguable is not different than the idea of an underlying immaterial unity being obvious for people in another place in time.

Tat's what faith used in that sense means, the assumptions or grounds that determine how you interpret what you see of the world around you. Eve strong empiricism, positivism, has these assumptions.

I suspect an assumption of many believers in gender ideology is that their inner psychological experience is at the same time unique to themselves, completely internal without external causes, and also transparent to themselves. It requires an incredible lack of self-awareness for anyone to think that their own interior experience has that character, but it is fairly common for people to believe their psychological make-up and perception of material reality is objective, it's an idea that's widely encouraged in our culture.

But no secular state accords them greater credence because of that.

I realise that the discussion has moved on from this, but I think it is quite relevant to point out that 'we' do give certain ardent believers greater credence because of their beliefs. Vicars, priests, rabbis, faith leaders in general have an elevated standing across communities. They are often accorded a higher status even outside their faith communities, and this is recognised by government eg being given the same status as Chartered professionals when countersigning passport applications. A couple of generations ago this status was even higher: faith leaders and ardent believers were a 'sacred caste' - and we know where that leads. But the undertone remains to a greater or lesser extent, even in non-religious, pluralistic societies such as the UK.

I think it is a mistake to dismiss this undertone simply because one does not feel that having a strong faith makes a person any different to another person.

There's a word for this status or aura that people have because we accord it to them by virtue of some perceived quality, but I cannot for the life of me remember it. In trying to find it, however, I have remembered where your name comes from, Ereshkigal. Nice one!