"Men menstruate. Some have even given birth. Women with penises and prominent larynxes walk the streets and use the ladies’ restroom." - NYT

[ShootsFruitAndLeaves]

I thought this was a joke

www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/trans-gender-language-trump.html

It turns out not to be.

It's by
' Devin Michelle Bunten'

No prizes for guessing what 'Michelle' used to be.

That is because the person who gives birth has legal responsibility for the baby, and the simple word for ‘the person who gives birth’ is mother.

It’s amazing that it has never

Oops ! Occurred to anyone that it would be better if words like ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ could be used to refer to sex, not gender. oh wait it has - us!

@Michelleoftheresistance

It never seems to dawn that the more you obsessively and aggressively ram this stuff down people's throats, the more they are likely to lose all patience and tell you to fuck off.

I have to agree. I always thought of myself as a trans ally, but the more I read the more angry and frustrated I become at the erasure of my womanhood.

mobile.twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1275719009795821574

Jane Clare Jones thread on this article.

A good read, but a frustrating read - why isn't this obvious to everyone?

Particularly good on how easy it is to remove trans rights if you follow post modern genderist ideology to its logical conclusion.

“Stop using “male” and “female” to refer to men and women. In fact, stop using sex-based words to refer to people at all.”

Nope, not gonna. No matter how much you scream about it.

The NYT seems determined to become America's Guardian, a paper once seen as credible that's now committed itself to defending complete fucking nonsense.

Isn’t part of the reason for all this rubbish just to wear people down, so in the end they just give up out of frustration. By people, I mean Joe/Jo Bloggs.

I actually agree with half of this. The last line for example:

"Rooting our social possibilities in our bodies is an abandonment of our humanity in favor of mere anatomy."

Surely this is women's lived experience throughout the ages? Being defined by our bodies, and our childbearing ability?

The idea that it's women standing in the way of trans people's self-actualisation is an extremely impressive extension of humanity's ongoing misogyny if you ask me.

The problem is the the body is a fact. I can't get away from it. No amount of argument or verbal definition has ever convinced any organism to be anything other than what it is. A biological entity with one purpose: to reproduce itself.

I think this is one of those issues like gun law where our common language makes things more confusing.

Americans fail to comprehend that there really is no religious right in the UK and that gender reassignment has been a protected characteristic in UK law for 10 years.

Bari Weiss, a NYT journalist, has written about the internal war being waged between the 'old guard' who come from a 'libertarian' paradigm and the 'new guard' who are the product of a 'liberal' education, but don't subscribe to any tenets of classic liberalism. Its editor was forced to resign for printing an op ed piece by Tom Cotton. There is only one viewpoint, dissent is problematic. I used to read the NYT. It is sad to see its current trajectory.

Surely this is women's lived experience throughout the ages? Being defined by our bodies, and our childbearing ability?

But the thing that frees us from childbearing is not raised consciousnesses, it is access to birth control and legislation e.g. until 1990s a man could legally enforce his 'conjugal rights'.

Only if you completely alter the dictionary definition of 'woman' and the understanding of thousands of years solely because it personally suits you to do so, and then scream hatred and bigotry at anyone saying they'll stick to reality

One of the most striking features of the 21st century Robespierre faction is its determination to redefine the meaning of words. To create a landscape in which language isn't a form of communication at all, but a tripwire to blow people up. The ultimate expression of this attack on language is to subvert its most fundamental meanings by making claims which are so preposterous, it would be comical. Except none of this is funny at all.

There is only one viewpoint, dissent is problematic.

I think on this topic it's less that the NYT has a particular line, and more that they don't care. The opinion pieces they publish don't stand up to any kind of scrutiny. To an extent the same is true in the UK. Men who would spend hours scrutinising a US/UK trade deal view this as a niche issue that doesn't concern them.

I think on this topic it's less that the NYT has a particular line, and more that they don't care

I am not sure I agree. Particularly if what Bari Weiss says about its internal battle is accurate. Some of its columnists were very critical of its response to the Cotton debacle. Its response suggests its trajectory.

@Moltenpink

With all the fuss over men who menstruate, I haven’t seen any campaigning to put sanitary disposal in men’s public toilets. Has there been any?

They put free period products and bins in the male toilets at Dundee University and had to take them out soon after as the men just used them as toys and messed around with them.

They put free period products and bins in the male toilets at Dundee University and had to take them out soon after as the men just used them as toys and messed around with them

Where are the adults while this idiocy is going on? It's beyond parody.

Was in NYC last year and all of the ‘womens’ public toilets, including in playgrounds, had big signs on them warning people not to challenge trans users (presumably anyone self-ID-ing as female or just preferring to use those facilities).

" Was in NYC last year and all of the ‘womens’ public toilets, including in playgrounds, had big signs on them warning people not to challenge trans users (presumably anyone self-ID-ing as female or just preferring to use those facilities). "

Its such a dereliction of duty. They should be providing additional safe gender neutral toilets. But a sign is cheap.

its determination to redefine the meaning of words

We've had a generation or more of postmodernism ideology and thinking being disseminated in academic institutions and forming the basis of other types of ideology like queer theory. Those who have been indoctrinated in this style of analysis are gradually moving into all sorts of senior and influential positions, whether law, public policy, education, journalism etc as the previous generation move out. And so we are seeing this approach becoming more popular and prevalent in all sorts of areas of the establishment.

It is ordinary people who will face the consequences of the establishment endorsing and pushing these sorts of trendy, academic ideas that don't translate well in the real world.

Men menstruate. Some have even given birth. Women with penises and prominent larynxes walk the streets and use the ladies’ restroom.

Let me fix that for you. What you really meant was.

Men men. Men. Penis.

We've had a generation or more of postmodernism ideology and thinking being disseminated in academic institutions and forming the basis of other types of ideology like queer theory. Those who have been indoctrinated in this style of analysis are gradually moving into all sorts of senior and influential positions, whether law, public policy, education, journalism etc as the previous generation move out. And so we are seeing this approach becoming more popular and prevalent in all sorts of areas of the establishment

Nonny

I absolutely agree with this. The Robespierre faction is the product of decades of Judith Butler et al. According to one Californian Professor, the ratio of 'liberal' to Conservative academics used to be three to two in the 1960s. Now it's 48 to one. This illiberal ideology and its acolytes dominates the landscape. Their belief system is based on cancel culture, #no debate, baseless accusations and tautological slogans chanted with puritan zeal. Their Manichean certainties brook no dissent.

Yes, it's extremely concerning, BovaryX. Very little plurality of thought in academic institutions. These sort of crackpot ideas could have been safely ignored while they were contained in the ivory towers of academic navel gazing. But such ideologies are now being disseminated widely across all sorts of areas as they are viewed as trendy by those who will rarely be confronted with the ramifications of such nonsense. Easy to pontificate about 'well what is a woman, really.....' when you aren't a female prisoner or woman suffering from trauma and you find a man identifying as a woman in your cell block or your rape crisis centre.

@merrymouse

Surely this is women's lived experience throughout the ages? Being defined by our bodies, and our childbearing ability?

But the thing that frees us from childbearing is not raised consciousnesses, it is access to birth control and legislation e.g. until 1990s a man could legally enforce his 'conjugal rights'.

Yes, and furthermore addressing structural sexism through legislation - e.g. accepting that producing the future generation is in society as a whole's interests, so women (the only people who can carry and birth children) should be entitled to maternity leave to compensate them for taking this hit to their career prospects for the sake of society as a whole.

Honestly, this libertarian identity politics "each penis-haver is an island entire unto himself" crap is really going to come back to bite the current generation of women when they have children and realise that not only is the system still stacked against them, but they have embraced legislative change which now means giving birth to a child is entirely a "person's" individual choice (in a social vacuum, divorced from biological reality or any acceptance that it is only women who can do this) and that therefore there are no checks and balances in employment law any more to protect women.

@Dozer

Was in NYC last year and all of the ‘womens’ public toilets, including in playgrounds, had big signs on them warning people not to challenge trans users (presumably anyone self-ID-ing as female or just preferring to use those facilities).

I believe NYC has local city-wide laws making "misgendering" an offence.

That'll be an interesting test case when someone finally takes it to the Supreme Court.

Men menstruate. Some have even given birth. Women with penises...

Janice Raymond predicted these demands back in the 1970s, but I don't think even she could have imagined that the press would one day be so complicit in pushing the trans agenda.

The Robespierre faction
Very apt!