Atwood at it again

[MondayYogurt]

In the Sunday Times. I bought a paper copy, sorry no link.

"You can believe all you like that trans people aren't people, but it happens not to be a fact."

I just...does she honestly think that this is the crux of the argument? Surely an author is supposed to use words precisely? She's either deliberately obfuscating the issue or, well, perhaps she's not as sharp as we've been lead to think.

There's another thread which I think has a link.

In the history of time who has ever said transpeople aren’t people?!

It’s the most intellectually dishonest movement I’ve ever come across.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4073464-The-Sunday-Times-StrawMaids-Tale

I know... It's embarrassing isn't it?

She really thinks other people are that stupid and/or mean.
Very sad and of course deeply patronizing.

I’m guessing she knows a trans person/ people in real life. And she sees them and treats them as the sex/ gender they transitioned to.

She increasingly comes across as a woman who lives with regrets.

I use people's preferred (female) pronouns, if I feel sisterhood with them, which unless they demonstrate awareness of issues like male gaze, mental load etc. I do not.

However I will also tell that young person experiencing gender dysphoria that that is what I believe they are, not a woman, and that they experience gender dysphoria because gender is an irrational concept, a patriarchal construct and a hindrance when exploring one's psyche and sense of identity.

But I have lost all respect for Attwood. Where signing the TWAW letter was ignorant, this is the discourse of one as blinkered as her own dystopian denizens!

Also if people insist on calling me cis or person who menstruates, etc, then they can forget their pronouns. Pronouns mean nothing anyway... in some languages everything has a gender pronoun or none, lol

Wtf is she saying there. What an idiot.

The comments under the online article are great. 😊

Interesting to see how she's manipulating the language of science to support unscientific ideas. Anyone can do that. It's not that hard to use write as if one's point of view is the only acceptable one:

'There's a difference between belief and fact. And you should not confuse the two. You can believe all you like that male-born people are women but it happens not to be a fact. It is not true that there are more than two gender boxes. So the only two questions to ask are: is it true and is it fair? If it's not true to say that male-born people are women and that there are more than two genders, then is it fair to allow men into women's spaces and to erase evidence of women's sex-based oppression?'

See what I did there? Not that impressive.

I'm truly impressed at how otherwise rational people can buy into the entirely unscientific idea of there being more than two sexes and that anyone can identify as any sex they please and we all have to just roll with it, regardless of women's lived experiences of abuse, rape, assault, voyeurism and exposure to the male gaze. It's even more impressive that an avowed feminist can tie themselves up in knots to advocate for this nonsense.

I just don't understand the claim that there can be more than two genders? Unless gender - which I take to be a group of customary beliefs and cultural practices and representations - is attached to sex - of which there are two - it's not gender, by definition.

You could say that gender in a particular culture was porous, or not highly divergent, or whatever. But unless it adheres to the poles of male and female to some extent, it's just fashion or different cultural expressions.

Unless gender - which I take to be a group of customary beliefs and cultural practices and representations - is attached to sex - of which there are two - it's not gender, by definition.

I tend to think of gender as sex roles and/or stereotypes, so I think we're in large agreement. Starting from there...

I'd say you can have more than two, because each sex can have more than one role. Genderists are often talking about Native American and other cultures, but stripped of all the Genderwoo, a number of them had three roles - effectively "normal men", "gay/GNC men" and "women".

Basically there was an extra box to stick non-conforming men in. There was certainly no decoupling from sex, just men could be forced into one of two boxes, rather than just one. A not-very-progressive view that gay men were not men. Lesbians weren't a thing, it seems.

Modern genderwoo is "keep the idea of boxes, but make them not sex-specific, and then confuse those non-sex-specific boxes with sex itself". And at that point, yes, why is it "gender" if you've decoupled it from sex? May as well be "caste" or "personality" or "Hogwarts house".

The GC position is "how about we don't have sex roles for general society, but still recognise sex where necessary."

Just read The Testaments. There is no way she believes in the gender bullshit. Like a PP said, she must have someone in her life who is trans.

What on earth is she actually on about? She just doesn't make any sense.

This is the trouble with so much of this movement; you can't argue with it because it's like trying to argue with week-old porridge.

@NecessaryScene1

Unless gender - which I take to be a group of customary beliefs and cultural practices and representations - is attached to sex - of which there are two - it's not gender, by definition.

I tend to think of gender as sex roles and/or stereotypes, so I think we're in large agreement. Starting from there...

I'd say you can have more than two, because each sex can have more than one role. Genderists are often talking about Native American and other cultures, but stripped of all the Genderwoo, a number of them had three roles - effectively "normal men", "gay/GNC men" and "women".

Basically there was an extra box to stick non-conforming men in. There was certainly no decoupling from sex, just men could be forced into one of two boxes, rather than just one. A not-very-progressive view that gay men were not men. Lesbians weren't a thing, it seems.

Modern genderwoo is "keep the idea of boxes, but make them not sex-specific, and then confuse those non-sex-specific boxes with sex itself". And at that point, yes, why is it "gender" if you've decoupled it from sex? May as well be "caste" or "personality" or "Hogwarts house".

The GC position is "how about we don't have sex roles for general society, but still recognise sex where necessary."

Yes, I would say though that the third box is not primary, it derives from the others.

So the gay or effeminate man has to be put in the "man-woman" box. Which typically means male sex, and possibly retaining certain male-coded privileges like sexual freedom, but applying some or many female coded customs. But it's still based around that male-female binary, or it wouldn't be a gender role.

It makes me re-think who the wives were in the handmaid's tail..

That's a great book review, mum of girls.

Thanks

Loving that review @Mumofgirlswholiketoplaywithmud!