What do people think?

[TheTamingOfTheresa]

I’m in support of JK but came across this video dissecting her views. I’d be interested in what MN thinks

"We're trying to protect women's rights, including cis women's rights.*

Mm, but if "woman" means a person in possession of a feminine gender essence, then this reads:

We're trying to protect feminine people's rights, including female feminine people's.

And fuck all those non-feminine female unpeople, presumably.

I have terrible menopausal insomnia tonight so I gave the video another go.

Unfortunately I am finding Jamie's arms very distracting. You know those funny videos where one person uses their hands wrapped through to gesticulate while the main person speaks and had their hands hidden? Well, that's what Jamie's hand and arm movements look like to me.

They really can't get their heads round the idea that gender identity is a belief system that most other people do not believe in. More than that, many people find it actively offensive in its sexist homophobic underpinnings.

Yes Shaaba, JKR did say biological sex is real and yes she did not go on to say gender identity is real too and yes that means she sees transmen as women and, yes by that logic transwomen continue to be excluded from the umbrella term (wtf) "women". Yes. That's it. You believe in the supremacy of the religion of gender identity. Other people don't.

Ach, I've got to the end. What a lot of arse. How deep are their heads in the sand that they think there is zero evidence of males saying they are trans to get access to abuse and attack women? How can they not know what has actually happened already? One of them is supposedly studying it for a doctorate! Academia has lowered its standards it seems. Or more likely Jamie's studies are treated like a theological argument.

My mum sends me similar videos about why Dawkins is awful, Jesus is my saviour, that no true Christian leader ever abused a child (and saying they did is very hurtful to believers, leads to the devil thriving and drives people to atheism which is the worst thing ever).

Excellent ending too. JKR has fallen into a GC echo chamber and they think she should do some research. Oh and then they call her a bigot just before signing off with "much love." Darvo and projection. They think JKR must have not understood them if she persists in disagreeing with them. The arrogance of them.

On the plus side they are definitely not lesbians with internalised homophobia and misogyny because Jamie is actually a real boy so they are straight and everything is awesome or would be if everyone else just got on with fully accepting their beliefs about what makes Jamie not a woman and them not lesbians.

Oh and if people might feel hurt by your opinions then you should not have those opinions. Except if you share S&J's opinions in which case go ahead and loudly demand people accept the label cis even if they say it makes them feel hurt and offended. What was the dictionary definition of bigot again?

How can they not know what has actually happened already? One of them is supposedly studying it for a doctorate! Academia has lowered its standards it seems.

That's what gets me too. Jamie is studying all this for PhD level and has said nothing (that I've seen so far) that hasn't been extensively debated on Mumsnet at a far higher level and in most cases thoroughly debunked. This video really is a Janet-and-John level of discussion, which quite surprised me - I was expecting a much more robust and thought-provoking defence of trans ideology.

At halfway through I am left thinking 'is this really the best the TRAs can come up with? Is this the creme de la creme of the other side's discourse? Our laws and language are being changed on the basis of this?

Jamie and Shaaba actually seem like a very nice, genuine couple. I wish them well. However, they do have a strong YouTube presence and have influence over thousands of susceptible teenagers. What they say matters, and needs to be challenged. (Esp this video, which was all over Twitter at one point.)

Also, TorkTorkBam it is interesting that you comment on Jamie's hands. There's an interview somewhere with Jamie and Jamie's brother (biological male). It is quite fascinating to observe the differences in stature and body language between the two of them.

Thank you for that post Edgeofacoin, I completely agree with everything you say.

Regarding the video with Jamie's biological brother, it's obvious why transmen often get mistaken for extremely camp gay men and I wonder how safe they are in male only spaces.

In terms of Kenneth Zucker, he studied gender dysphoria in adolescents for decades.

Wikipedia:

...he became an international authority on gender dysphoria in children (GDC) and adolescents.[3] In 2007, Zucker was chosen to be a member of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Gender Identity, Gender Variance, and Intersex Conditions, and in 2008 he was named chair of the American Psychiatric Association workgroup on "Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders" for the 2012 edition of the DSM-5. He previously served on workgroups for the DSM-IV and the DSM-IV-TR.[4]

He did not subscribe to the affirmation only approach, and advocated helping children realign with their sex.

He was targeted on this basis, iirc, and eventually fired. He was subsequently exonerated, apologised to and given a substantial financial settlement.

Wow, Datun.

That certainly puts things in a different light.

Oh god it's a jammidodger video. I watched a few of his in my never ending pursuit of trying to figure out what could possibly be going through people's heads when they say that TWAW but I'm afraid the only conclusion I came to is that 1) Jamie doesn't understand the GC position, 2) Jamie has no interest in actually finding out about the GC position, and 3) Jamie has filtered his entire world through the concept of gender for so long that to reject or even question the foundations of that belief would be utterly devastating to him. For this reason Jamie will only ever be able to reason through the prism of his own deeply entrenched biases, and his videos will never be able to effectively compel or pursuade me. He simply has too much to lose to ever give "the other side" honest consideration or analysis. In one of his videos he actually said "T**FS believe that transmen are all just confused lesbians seeking male privaledge, but when transwomen transition they give up their male privaledge. So which is it, are transpeople transitioning to get privaledge or not?" This was presented as if it were the ultimate proof that GC thinking is contradictory and illogical. At that point I decided that if that was the depth of thought and level of critical analysis he was capable of bringing to the discussion, the rest of his videos weren't worth bothering with.

edge

Here is the Wikipedia entry.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Zucker

I hadn't heard the dog food anecdote, but J&S saying he advocated giving dogfood to trans children just makes them look ridiculous.

@Thingybob, ive often noticed that transmen smile in a feminine way, i had not really thought about the difference in men and womens smiles but its there.

Listening to Jamie explaining the GC position and why it is wrong is like listening to a creationist explaining evolution and why it is wrong.

Listening to almost anything TRAs have to say is like listening to young earth creationists Tork. I've honestly never seen so many parallels from any other group. Even the way they insist on saying "gender" instead of "sex" when trying to disprove human sexual dimorphism, reminds me of the way creationists insist on saying "kinds" instead of "species" when trying to disprove evolution. I'd like to have a thread actually where we can just collate all the parallels as we think of them.

Makes you wonder who exactly is funding Jamie's (and Shaaba's) PhD...

This is from the school of "Kick me. Pick me" feminism where all discussion should be made with men's feelings front and center.

If JK Rowling is a monster for thinking "Woman" has anything to do with the people who menstruate, then the word cis woman is meaningless. It is not on the near side of woman, because there is no direction in which women exist.

Jamie has filtered his entire world through the concept of gender for so long that to reject or even question the foundations of that belief would be utterly devastating to him. For this reason Jamie will only ever be able to reason through the prism of his own deeply entrenched biases, and his videos will never be able to effectively compel or pursuade me. He simply has too much to lose to ever give "the other side" honest consideration or analysis.

GrabtharsHammer, this goes to the heart of the issue, doesn't it?

The hormones and surgery. The academic career. The YouTube channel and legions of fans. All of it is predicated on the premise that gender ideology is real.

If Jamie is wrong, Jamie loses everything.

Sorry, five minutes in and her awful patronising tone really grated on me. Btw no, I don’t accept the cis thing because transwomen are biological men.

@Lingfield01 this thread is 3 years old…

I second this. There’s nothing sweet or nice about gaslighting.

@SweetGrapes

26:40 Basing the definition of women on gender identity instead of on biological sex doesn't erase the experiences of cis-womenTHIS here , with bells and whistles seems to be the crux of the argument. She has accepted that women is based on gender identity not biological sex and thinks the switch doesn't matter.

Exactly. I don't have the kind of gender identity they posit that everyone must have, so their ideology would invalidate my being a woman. My gender identity as woman is embodied, based on living in a female body and how that affects me both directly and indirectly (e.g. sex discrimination I have experienced).

Calling me 'cis' tells me that my definition of myself is wrong, that I must pretend I have a floating abstract feminine soul to be regarded as a woman.

I refuse all of this. I refuse being redefined as 'cis', and I refuse being told that I am now to be 'feminine'. This is so sexist and retrogressive and authoritarian.

And ultimately terrible for feminism, because the oppression of women and girls worldwide is sex-based. It's NOT based on having high heels or short skirts or makeup, except only in the most trivial of terms when doing those things is coded as indicating someone is of the female sex.

The subjugation of female people is based on the reproductive and sexual assets female bodies contain, and the fact that those bodies, on average, are weaker than male bodies, so women have always found it harder to maintain their independence than men and to resist being ordered to have sex or to make babies or not, based on what their communities deem desirable.

There's something incredibly rude in the idea that a movement can force half of all humankind to alter its self-perception, to relinquish its words, spaces, awards etc., and that anyone who refuses to do this is then deemed to be a bigoted transphobe.

Ha! I read this, and wondered why EdgeOfACoin said she was new to this! That explains in. But as it’s an interesting discussion, I want to respond to this three year old comment:

”Since transpeople are viewed more negatively than LGB people, J&S wonder why people would want to transition rather than come out as LGB. Says this does not match the research.”

”Are trans teenagers viewed negatively? At the moment, it seems that trans teenagers are automatically affirmed, treated as special and given lots of support. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that teenage girls do not feel comfortable coming out as lesbians.”

Research on the general population, indicating that there is more transphobia than homophobia (assuming such research exists) is largely irrelevant to individuals. Individuals who grew up in deeply homophobic households (as at least one of these individuals obviously did, if one of them had parents who disapproved of the relationship until the other transitioned) are less likely to be swayed by public opinion than by their own upbringing and by their parents threats to disown them. In their personal worldview, homophobia easily outweighs transphobia.

If you are a lesbian, but have a high level of internalised homophobia, then transitioning might well seem like an easier path.