Trans Rights: There's little point in arguing facts. This is not about facts.

[BiPsychle]

My background is in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic theory, and while, granted, to every person with a hammer, every problem is a nail, I do believe that there's a psychoanalytic approach to the trans rights debate that explains the level of energy in perceived attacks against the TR movement, and the need to mobilise to silence any question that they are right and their opponents are wrong. And when you see it this way, you begin to understand why arguing facts is pointless and doesn't work - why no matter what logic is brought into the debate, the resistance remains, and in fact increases, along with a certain sense of hysteria.

I work regularly with clients who are in problematic relationships with others. I note often that these relationships are defined by a dynamic that is so powerful that it runs the risk of destroying everything else - namely, a "fight to the death". But a fight about what? And against what?

The fight, in one form or another, is typically an existential fight where the party is 'hooked into' their perceived opponent: they believe they are fighting for their very existence; they need a hook to hang this on to; and one of the strongest and most destructive hooks is envy.

From a psychoanalytic perspective, there are many men out there who envy women to the point of hatred. At its most extreme - and there is nothing more extreme than a dysfunctional relationship with woman, i.e. "mother" - the envy goes so deep that, theoretically, there is an unconscious desire to 'consume' the other. In this case, for someone to consume "woman". The theory goes that by becoming her, she no longer exists, the protagonist takes her place, vengeance is exacted, and pain assuaged.

In other words, this is theoretically an unconscious drive to take womanhood and motherhood over, and to have a new ruler in her place. To obliterate anything to do with woman by overlaying something that looks like her, but is a facsimile of her. This might explain why there is so much new language around reproduction and menstruation - the one thing where a man may feel that he is shut out.

I understand that to many people this is foreign. But I've lived, eaten, and breathed the world of the unconscious for years, and it has offered an enlightening perspective on several radical movements going on right now (each with a different, but linked, explanation). And I thought I'd offer it here, because I'm not political, but I am deeply interested in the motivations of a person's psyche, and well versed in subtexts that operate therein.

So: facts are irrelevant. This isn't factual. It is emotional and psychological ... and for the most part unconscious, which means it is very hard to get to, because you are attacking a person's deeply entrenched defences - and those defences are there for good reason: to hold back childhood pain and devastation. I write this final sentence as a reason, and not an excuse, for what's happening. Because another piece of the puzzle here is a prevailing inability to take responsibility for one's past, and therefore one's present actions.

Individually and collectively, we are reaping what our forebears sowed.

Sorry about the endless questions, BiPsychle, but how did Jung think about community and cognitive barriers between groups? He wrote at a time when people believed that different nationalities had quite distinct psychologies.
I‘m still not sure I get his view on religious collectives. And ritual can be deep and meaningful to some and purely performative to others. Lack of religious observance is no longer sanctioned by mainstream society. So the still large numbers of people who turn up regularly must be getting something out of it.

I have really enjoyed reading this thread - I have been attracted to Jung's ideas for a long time as I am a "pattern seer" and the idea that the subconscious can manifest itself in a myriad of subtle ways.

I tend to be an observer in society unless I know with some material certainty my words or actions will have a (hopefully) positive impact.

I see the tug of war between the spiritual versus the material / rational world and am sad that the debate quickly becomes polarised if you go down your internal rabbit hole you can quickly be accused of delusion and denial of material facts, whereas a balance is perfectly possible.

In the context of the debate at hand, I too feel it is a combination of a power struggle with a heavy dose of fear of self analysis - also we live in a society yearning for a quick fix - if the majority doesn't allow the quick fix without a proper investigation, it quickly leads to a polarised shouting match - very dangerous when material facts become weapons to be tweaked and primed and subject to re-definition without proper consideration for the wider and long term impact.

On a personal level it encourages me to step further away from society - and in this physically distanced period dependent so much on technology for communication, often devoid of nuance, the risk of further societal fragmentation is much increased, and is being somewhat ignored.

I'm not sure what I'm even trying to say here, just trying to articulate my own feelings really...... but anyway, thanks to all for some very nutritious food for thought.

@dayoftheclownfish

Sorry about the endless questions, BiPsychle, but how did Jung think about community and cognitive barriers between groups? He wrote at a time when people believed that different nationalities had quite distinct psychologies. I‘m still not sure I get his view on religious collectives. And ritual can be deep and meaningful to some and purely performative to others. Lack of religious observance is no longer sanctioned by mainstream society. So the still large numbers of people who turn up regularly must be getting something out of it.

I think this might do a better job of explaining religion than I can, @dayoftheclownfish

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_interpretation_of_religion

I think what many people get out of religion nowadays is not so much religious experience as a feeling of community and belonging, and a moral framework.

As to how Jung felt about community and cognitive barriers between groups, I'm not sure. I'm not a theoretical expert, so he may well have written about this (he wrote extensively about a lot of things) - but one central tenet is the idea of "individuation", which is the drive to separate from the group ... so he was more individually orientated than inter-group-dynamic orientated, if you see what I mean.

@Antibles

I quite agree with your title OP.

This is definitely not about the truth. It's about power. The power men want over women and the anger some men feel when they don't have it.

Sure, I can well imagine they are subsconsciously angry at their mothers or similar figures for having had power over them in the past.

They are angry at women for withholding sex from them if they (men) feel entitled to it. I'm sure many men's utopia is a world in which they could fuck any woman any time anywhere should they so choose so are pretty much permanently frustrated in that respect.

They are angry that women have 100% certainty that they (women) are the biological parent of a baby. I don't think they're especially envious of women for being women per se, merely this reproductive advantage. On the other hand, they do have unpleasant means at their disposal of stripping women of their reproductive autonomy and forcing them to carry their (the man's) baby - rape and all the societal controls we see.

I think some of them are screwed up with a sexual fetish about the accountrements of femininity. It's an easy fetish to imprint on their imprintable brains because they are surounded by it but society mostly forbids them from going there. Perhaps they are angry about that too.

I don't think they want to be us. They just want to punish us for not letting them have complete and utter control over us.

I think there is an ambivalence at the heart of misogynistic behaviour - of both wanting to control and to become. We may have to therefore agree to disagree!

@OldQueen1969

I have really enjoyed reading this thread - I have been attracted to Jung's ideas for a long time as I am a "pattern seer" and the idea that the subconscious can manifest itself in a myriad of subtle ways.

I tend to be an observer in society unless I know with some material certainty my words or actions will have a (hopefully) positive impact.

I see the tug of war between the spiritual versus the material / rational world and am sad that the debate quickly becomes polarised if you go down your internal rabbit hole you can quickly be accused of delusion and denial of material facts, whereas a balance is perfectly possible.

In the context of the debate at hand, I too feel it is a combination of a power struggle with a heavy dose of fear of self analysis - also we live in a society yearning for a quick fix - if the majority doesn't allow the quick fix without a proper investigation, it quickly leads to a polarised shouting match - very dangerous when material facts become weapons to be tweaked and primed and subject to re-definition without proper consideration for the wider and long term impact.

On a personal level it encourages me to step further away from society - and in this physically distanced period dependent so much on technology for communication, often devoid of nuance, the risk of further societal fragmentation is much increased, and is being somewhat ignored.

I'm not sure what I'm even trying to say here, just trying to articulate my own feelings really...... but anyway, thanks to all for some very nutritious food for thought.

Thank you for weighing in. I relate to much of what you have written, and I, too, have stepped away from a lot of what society has to offer ... because a lot of what it offers is nothing that I want or need.

Thank you for that reference BiPsychle.

@lionheart

Thank you for that reference BiPsychle.

You're welcome! I think, on reading it a second time, that it is too quick to suggest that Jung wants to reduce all religious symbolism to personal symbolism (i.e. the Book of Job is just a way of explaining personal development). One of the words bandied about a lot with Jungians is the idea of "mystery" - and I think that's key. There is a part of all this that will defy, and will continue to defy, all our attempts to explain it. And that's as it should be.

@lionheart

Thank you for that reference BiPsychle.

Ah! Sorry! I thought you were referring to the link I posted about religious experience and not that book :) This thread is moving quickly!

Well. It was moving quickly until I pointed out that it was moving quickly.

You were overtaken by news of a head rolling in Labour 🎉.

I’m going to come back to this thread - have some reading to do in the meantime. Thanks OP for starting it. It’s nice to step away from the daily craziness once in a while...
PS: community may be the reason why people return to religion but that does not preclude ensuing religious/transcendental experience

Thank you, very interesting thread.

In the context of the debate at hand, I too feel it is a combination of a power struggle with a heavy dose of fear of self analysis

I think this may be related to the generational divide which some have noted, in the early 2000s. A distinction of that group is rarely having to be alone with themselves.

Thank you BiPsychle - such a good read - so many informed wise women on here. Lots to ponder on at a time when the conflicts seem overwhelming (to me).
And a great user name

@truthisarevolutionaryact

Thank you BiPsychle - such a good read - so many informed wise women on here. Lots to ponder on at a time when the conflicts seem overwhelming (to me). And a great user name

I'm glad I started it! And thanks re: the name. I came up with it on the spur of the moment last night. I wanted to name change for this because there's a lot of personal info linked to my other name.

'They are not comfortable bed-fellows, @lionheart.'

Back in the day when I started to read and teach postmodernism I used to joke about that people would find it quite tricky to march under an 'Equal Rights for the Polymorphously Perverse' banner.

Now we have LGB (TQIA+)

But I also have a strong memory of listening to Helene Cixous answer the inevitable question about her theories and 'biological essentialism.'

She just laughed and asked the questioner how they could possibly deny the existence of the (female) body they were in when they sat in the room and spoke those words.

This is a really interesting thread and I think both RedToothBrush and the OP are correct and it’s the cultural climate that Red describes that has enabled and empowered the psychological drives that BiPyschle describes.

BiPsychle, do you have any insights on the girls caught up in the phenomenon that has been (controversially!) described as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, and the associated social contagion aspects?

I have noticed that the few professionals willing to speak about this and explore it rather than affirm are mostly Jungian - I wonder why that is (and don’t have enough knowledge to theorise)?

Whatever it is that causes middle aged heterosexual men to transition it does not seem to me to be the same thing that motivates girls between say, 11 and 22 to transition.
This is the first generation of girls who are being taught, in school, on kids TV and online, that becoming a woman is optional, rather than inevitable.
As someone who wasn’t comfortable with using the term ‘woman’ to describe myself until I was past 30 (it seemed too grand, too grown up, not applicable, despite me becoming a mother aged 23!) I wonder if the ability to opt out had been there, I would’ve been tempted to take it? Perhaps not ‘trans man’ but ‘NB’ at least?

I would appreciate your thoughts on it - the posters here mostly have two concerns, One, preserving women’s single sex spaces and services (and recording data accurately so that there is material evidence of the need for those spaces and services to exist) which is the battle ground your OP addresses, and Two, preventing children, most of whom are natal girls, from being permanently damaged by a political ideology driven by the sexual envy of middle aged men.

We can campaign for the first of these while largely avoiding direct arguments with those seeking to colonise womanhood and instead speaking to each other and those in power in governments and orgs worldwide - we don’t need to trouble their unconscious emotions with facts as long as the law does that for us...

But how do we address our second concern? I know there are multiple professionals inside and outside the gender medicine system who agree that something has gone badly wrong, and Keira Bell’s upcoming judicial review should help to rebalance this somewhat - but individual children don’t have time to wait for adults to wake up other adults.

Girls are being damaged now, more and more detransitioner videos (FtMtF) are appearing on YouTube all the time. How can we stand against the cult in our day to day interactions with girls and adolescent women? These girls are our daughters. Can we metaphorically inoculate them in some way?
I suspect that the answer should be as simple as ‘woman = adult human female’, and it means no more, and no less than that, but that’s where we once again lock horns with the middle aged heterosexual male transitioners who absolutely will not accept that definition (here comes that envious rage again).

Perhaps this is a separate thread, I’m not sure!

@DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong

This is a really interesting thread and I think both RedToothBrush and the OP are correct and it’s the cultural climate that Red describes that has enabled and empowered the psychological drives that BiPyschle describes.

BiPsychle, do you have any insights on the girls caught up in the phenomenon that has been (controversially!) described as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, and the associated social contagion aspects?

I have noticed that the few professionals willing to speak about this and explore it rather than affirm are mostly Jungian - I wonder why that is (and don’t have enough knowledge to theorise)?

Whatever it is that causes middle aged heterosexual men to transition it does not seem to me to be the same thing that motivates girls between say, 11 and 22 to transition.
This is the first generation of girls who are being taught, in school, on kids TV and online, that becoming a woman is optional, rather than inevitable.
As someone who wasn’t comfortable with using the term ‘woman’ to describe myself until I was past 30 (it seemed too grand, too grown up, not applicable, despite me becoming a mother aged 23!) I wonder if the ability to opt out had been there, I would’ve been tempted to take it? Perhaps not ‘trans man’ but ‘NB’ at least?

I would appreciate your thoughts on it - the posters here mostly have two concerns, One, preserving women’s single sex spaces and services (and recording data accurately so that there is material evidence of the need for those spaces and services to exist) which is the battle ground your OP addresses, and Two, preventing children, most of whom are natal girls, from being permanently damaged by a political ideology driven by the sexual envy of middle aged men.

We can campaign for the first of these while largely avoiding direct arguments with those seeking to colonise womanhood and instead speaking to each other and those in power in governments and orgs worldwide - we don’t need to trouble their unconscious emotions with facts as long as the law does that for us...

But how do we address our second concern? I know there are multiple professionals inside and outside the gender medicine system who agree that something has gone badly wrong, and Keira Bell’s upcoming judicial review should help to rebalance this somewhat - but individual children don’t have time to wait for adults to wake up other adults.

Girls are being damaged now, more and more detransitioner videos (FtMtF) are appearing on YouTube all the time. How can we stand against the cult in our day to day interactions with girls and adolescent women? These girls are our daughters. Can we metaphorically inoculate them in some way?
I suspect that the answer should be as simple as ‘woman = adult human female’, and it means no more, and no less than that, but that’s where we once again lock horns with the middle aged heterosexual male transitioners who absolutely will not accept that definition (here comes that envious rage again).

Perhaps this is a separate thread, I’m not sure!

I just wanted you to know that I'm pondering your questions and will write more when I've grappled with them more :) It is interesting that it is Jungians who are most vocal about this - though I'm not sure whether it's because of the subject matter (and there are compelling reasons to support this), and/or whether it's because the main Jungian goal of "individuation" (i.e. breaking from the crowd) means that they are able to stand apart enough from the currents of mass consciousness and their inherent complexes to form their own opinions, and be forthright in expressing them.

But more later!

@TheProdigalKittensReturn

My specific point would be, OK, so you're a kid who feels like a misfit. You don't like the stuff your peers like and you go looking for something in terms of music or books or whatever that speaks to you in a "this is it, I've found my people" kind of way. What is there, other than gender crap? Up until a generation ago there was always something. I don't think it's just being older that makes it seem like a wasteland now, if there was anything that suited the angsty tweens and teenagers of the present my niece wouldn't be working her way through 80s and 90s goth culture.

I think this is why ‘Queer’ is such a popular term amongst today’s misfit adolescents - it describes both the internal feeling of being a misfit (formerly played out in punk/goth/emo/skateboard cultures) and allows them to be part of the LGBT without actually being same-sex attracted (or transitioning, in the case of NBs who just change their pronouns). There seems to be lots of crossover with comic book/nerd culture too - something that is completely unrecognisable to me from my observations of the gay scene in the 90s (I was the only straight woman working on a gay magazine title at one point - I was the diversity hire 😂) The ‘queer’ scene of 2020 is terribly boring compared to say, Michael & Gerlinde Costiff’s/Leigh Bowery’s Kinky Gerlinky nights.

i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/4aga9m/7-of-leigh-bowerys-most-iconic-looks

I wonder if the lack of youth subculture is related to two connected things, the increasing costs of property and the way music moved online - the dirty gigs at the bottom of the music industry, the transit van tours of the 60s to 90s are largely gone. The neighbourhoods were gentrified and the venues turned into flats.
Those were the places were a misfit could find a tribe.

@DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong

I've been doing some thinking about this, and it's such a complex issue, with so many differing opinions, that I can only throw out a few of my own, which are by no means "authoritative" on the issue in any training or academic sense.

And, actually, the word "complex" is key here, because I believe this phenomenon is exactly that: the Jungian definition of a complex, which Jung writes about as follows:

‘Everyone knows nowadays that people ‘have complexes’. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us. The existence of complexes throws serious doubt on the naïve assumption of the unity of consciousness, which is equated with ‘psyche’, and on the supremacy of the will. Every constellation of a complex postulates a disturbed state of consciousness …. The complex must therefore be a psychic factor which, in terms of energy, possesses a value that sometimes exceeds that of our conscious intentions … And in fact, an active complex puts us momentarily under a state of duress, of compulsive thinking and acting, for which under certain conditions the only appropriate term would be the judicial concept of diminished responsibility’ (CW 8, para 200).

And this particular complex is collective, and contagious in nature. If there is any personal susceptibility to defer to group thinking, then it's more likely to occur. So, to focus on girls and young women in this context - yes, I think the complex is different. And here I get really speculative, because I'm not an academic who has spent years researching this, nor am I an analyst who works with children. But maybe one or some (or none!) of these factors come into play:

A girl's body changes more perceptibly than a boy's - particularly with breast development. Breasts are sexualised in our society, and many girls have a deep-seated ambivalence towards them when they appear. It's not just the breasts themselves, but what they symbolise: sexual maturity. Add in a child's personal psycho-emotional experiences, and their family dynamics, and maybe there is a deep need to stop this process, or to stop identifying with "woman/mother", or to identify more closely with "man/father". Parent-parent, and parent-child, dynamics are key here - many of which will be unconscious and therefore sometimes heavily defended against or denied.

Add societal changes: the advent of porn, the easy access to porn by young people and their changing sexual attitudes and habits as a result, and growing up a girl must be downright confusing for some at best, and terrifying for some at worst.

But the thing about complexes - and I do think that this is complex-based or -related - is that they will evade easy explanation because they reside in and are driven by the unconscious (which is why asking a child if they "really want to transition" is pointless and irresponsible); and when it is collective, we are often too close into our current social material to fully get a grip on it - which is why they're potentially so dangerous and destructive.

As for how to help girls now - I don't know. That's my truthful answer. The best I can suggest is to try and deal with the root cause, which isn't about the girls at all - that is where the complex is manifesting. But that root cause is deep, entrenched, and, by its nature, will be defended to the hilt by its (primarily unconsciously driven, even "possessed") proponents/victims. Working with a personal complex in a single individual is challenging enough. Put group dynamics into play, and you are taking on a leviathan with a butter knife. Though I was thinking of one possibility yesterday ...

In therapy, there is the concept of "confrontation". It's tricky to do, and frankly my own experience of it as a "therapee" has been that it was too much, too quickly: it risks traumatising, because it is a direct shot of insight into a key element of the unconscious.

However, applying this approach, one of the ways perhaps to dismantle a collective complex is at the level of the unconscious: to find that one true shot that gets to the heart of the Death Star. That shot will be collective in nature; it will pertain to a collective element of the unconscious. It is designed to compromise the integrity of the structure, not of the individuals in it. It is that moment where this "possession" disintigrates - as it has done with many an ideology when those in power have been toppled. What that is specifically? Who knows? Maybe we don't find it by looking for it directly. Maybe we do what we can right now, which can feel so inadequate but which is perhaps far more powerful than we can know: working on our own unconscious material. Honestly, if I could get everyone who was even halfway willing or curious into therapy with a decent therapist, I would. This is personal work first, and that then affects the collective. Currently, I have no better suggestion.

Thank you!

I am going to bookmark your thread and keep thinking on all you have said.

Do you have any tips for parents in terms of finding a therapist who will work with a gender-distressed child? Affirmation only is rife and the fear of accusations of transphobia causes an invisible electric fence type effect.

Currently I recommend people look for Jungian therapists who specialise in adolescents - based purely on the few professionals that have put their heads over the parapet and anon posts from professionals such as yourself.

The few that actually advertise this work (such as Lisa Marchiano and Sasha Ayad) are overflowing with clients, especially if they offer Skype sessions worldwide. I know Marcus Evans (formerly a Tavistock Governor) has made recommendations via email.

It’s such a minefield. Parents are (rightly) scared of making things worse through contact with professionals.

Anyway, lots to ponder from your reply, thanks again (and thank you generally for coming to Mumsnet to share your insights).

Kinky Gerlinky alumni here! And yes, modern "queer" culture is dull as dishwater in comparison.

Eeee! I wonder if we met?

Probably! I do wonder sometimes where everyone ended up. Clearly not in TRA circles or they wouldn't all be so bloody boring.