The new religion

[xxyzz]

So many things coming together over the last few days have brought home how much gender identitarianism is truly a religious movement. (I could call gender identitarianism transactivism, or trans rights activism, though that would give the misleading impression that this whole business is led by trans people or in any advances trans rights, neither of which I think is remotely true.)

The Amnesty Ireland case this week - twitter.com/JinnysJoe/status/1329847671063015424 - has made clear the religious nature of every aspect of the attack on women's rights. In a country where organised religion still holds huge power, blasphemy laws which have only been repealed over the last couple of years live on in the desire to cast out women who blaspheme against the gender identity religion from the community of the righteous. These women may not be heard, for by their words, they are now sinners. "No debate" is no more than a modern formulation of "Thou shalt not blaspheme". Even the term 'trans' itself, tied to the idea of a soul magically transforming matter, reflects transubstantiation, the seen-to-be-literal changing of bread and wine into the body of Christ.

Janice Turner's great Twitter thread today, being discussed elsewhere - twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1331606970252599298 - refers to true believers compelling women to agree that "science is erased by magical thinking", with threats of violence if they refuse. She talks about believers in biology being "hounded" if they refuse to agree with the "quasi religious concepts" of gender identity over biology. Like nearly all religions, as Janice points out, this religion is patriarchal and virulently misogynistic. I could add homophobic to that list too; many of the 35+ staff members who resigned from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) - www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51806962 - did so citing concerns over transition being used as gay conversion therapy by homophobic parents.

As Suzanne Moore points in her fabulous long piece today - unherd.com/thepost/suzanne-moore-i-felt-absolutely-betrayed/ - while the new gender religion (like most religions) demands that women "be kind", adherents to this new religion have shown no reciprocal kindness towards women and our "fears and concerns". Instead, women who dare to speak out in favour of biology, science, women's rights, have been branded as witches and threatened with the kind of ritual attacks ("Die in a grease fire", anyone?) previously reserved for witches.

TRAs often wonder why the UK has so many T**fs .Seeing what has been happening in Ireland this week, seeing the way gender identitarianism has overtaken the US left so thoroughly, has overtaken Spain last week - twitter.com/ALLIANCELGB/status/1329500723734843402 - I am beginning to wonder if what has left British women particularly impervious to the siren call of this new religion has been our lack of religiosity as a country. Iran is another religious country where transition is actively encouraged, even as homosexuality is forbidden and women's rights even to show their own hair are curtailed. It would certainly be interesting to see how far adherence to organised religion maps directly to organised gender identitarianism aka transactivism.

It would be great to hear others' thoughts on how gender identitarianism functions as religion, maps to religion and draws on religion.

Also, given its religious nature, how to tackle it: my experience would suggest that faith-based views cannot be demolished by rational argument, as they were never based on the purely rational in the first place.

Thoughts?

It would certainly be interesting to see how far adherence to organised religion maps directly to organised gender identitarianism aka transactivism.

That’s a really interesting idea. Initially I thought that doesn’t really hold for Scandinavia, but on closer inspection I think it actually does.
Within Scandinavia Norway has traditionally had stronger religious ties. (I think something to do with more smaller communities living in harshish conditions along the fiords, compared with Denmark and Sweden, but don’t quote me on that.)

Norway has just introduced totalitarian hate-speech laws, effectively banning feminism (of the old fashioned womancentred variety). Sweden has put the brakes on transitioning of children, and Denmark is floundering about a bit behind everyone else. Danish feminists are looking to the UK for inspiration, and like the UK, Denmark doesn’t have a very strong tradition of religiosity.

@xxyzz

It would be great to hear others' thoughts on how gender identitarianism functions as religion, maps to religion and draws on religion.

Also, given its religious nature, how to tackle it: my experience would suggest that faith-based views cannot be demolished by rational argument, as they were never based on the purely rational in the first place.

Thoughts?

Interesting points. I'm not sure how to tackle ideas which share something with religion, though I know someone who has had success with fundamentalists by knowing the Bible better and by using their own holy book to argue back at them. But that presupposes that those being argued with are willing to argue and don't use some statement like 'the devil can quote the Bible' in response.

What I have seen on Twitter is that trans activists don't allow any debate at all, but even if they did it seems that most are not actually terribly well educated about the theories underlying their own activism. Mostly I see mantras (trans women are women, trans men are men, nonbinary are nonbinary, #nodebate) and references to the high rates of suffering among transgender women, including incorrect statistical data and so on.

I agree that faith-based views are difficult to change. The only cases I know of resulted from major catastrophic events in the lives of believers, combined with lack of help from their religious organizations.

Similarities to a cult (as pointed out): "no debate," persecuting blasphemers, anger against women, science erased by magical thinking. Actually it goes even further: any inconvenient material reality is erased and unspeakable.

Seems pretty clear. If it looks and walks and quacks like a cult, it's a cult. Which leaves the question of how to tackle a mass delusion which came riding to the rescue of patriarchy just when it seemed all was lost.

No idea. You can't use reason, as OP says. They wouldn't recognize reason if it bit them. We don't have power. What else is there?

I suppose one could try to start a countervailing story, one that dreams the world where we could all live our lives in peace. (Technical problem: I don't know any messiahs. Do you?) But it seems to me that people aren't really interested in beautiful dreams right now anyway. They'd rather have something that feeds their fears.

I am beginning to wonder if what has left British women particularly impervious to the siren call of this new religion has been our lack of religiosity as a country

I have wondered the same thing. I've also thought that there is something different about the UK (especially from the US) in terms of our irreverence to political ideologies as a whole. We're not a country that draws big political rallies and marches. We don't glorify our politicians. For the most part we're pretty cynical and apathetic to it all, especially when it involves being told "what to think".

The reality is that most normal people in the UK will not subscribe to gender wang (as demonstrated by a cursory look at the comments under any related Daily Mail article). It really is a subset of people who are actively preaching this.

To add to the commentary about the UK, I think the problems in the new gender ideology became more noticed in the UK earlier because of the concrete plans to change the GRA, and that was discussed and written about.

My hope is that UK is just ahead in terms of time and that some needed resistance to the most extreme demands will be created elsewhere, too. In a way the wizard had to come out from behind the curtain in the UK while he is still managing things from the back of the stage in other countries.

In other words general knowledge about what the rights are the trans activists demand (including the right to alter language without any democratic consultations) is really scarce in other countries, and most people think that transgender means only someone who has struggled for decades, has had extensive surgery, suffers greatly from gender dysphoria, and that being kind towards that group exacts no costs elsewhere and threatens no rights of others.

They have no idea how wide the tent now is or what the bundle of trans rights demands actually contains. But as long as men are not at all threatened by being turned into ejaculators and penis-havers we are not going to see the kind of resistance that would be needed. That's probably exactly why men have been left undisturbed.

Cults usually make a lot of money for someone ditto a lot of religions. Follow the money often works. However we have also seen mainstream religions infiltrated and hijacked by those with political agendas sometimes of an extremist terrorist nature. I’m wondering if the whole TRa is a movement designed to attack women’s rights and possibly even gay peoples rights ( transition being more acceptable in some communities than being gay) using the Trojan horse of a supposed liberal cause. The no debate smacks of political religious oppressive regimes and religion being adopted for terrorist purposes. The TRaliban

Arthur Miller's play 'The Crucible' has dropped into my head lots of times, regarding this ideology, so I'm really interested in this thread. The fact that it was an imperative to get this stuff in law but under the radar, says there are two strands. The one which is political and associated with critical race theory, enabling the other which is emotional and aligned to religion. With both strands it becomes difficult to know how this will be tackled.

In terms of the law, we now have some sunlight, so we are very watchful and our media and politicians are looking more carefully (because in its pure forms CRT is destructive). The emotional quasi religious strand might become more and more bizarre and eventually burn itself out.

If these two things happen, we will see some sense immerge but how this will affect women's rights is another matter. Will we become stronger?

I'm quite deliberately not posting in FWR much these days, but this is definitely my area, and I've posted a lot about over the past couple of years. This is a thread from earlier this year that might be helpful.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3881259-To-be-valid?pg=1

I have been becoming more and more aware that the small but vocal TRA groups increasing resembe a Trojan horse as they infiltrate area after area. They may well be unaware of how they are being used, of course - it's highly likely - but it will be the patriarchy in some form that steps out of the shadows to reap the benefits.

One issue about the comparison between gender-believers and religion regards respect owed or denied.

We owe respect to all people, even those whose beliefs differ from ours. But we are not under the same obligation to respect those different beliefs. However, some religious people try often successfully to conflate the two in the public conscience. A similar move is common with gender-believers; usually this is what underlies 'no debate'.

For instance, The Charlie Hebdo cartoons affair was spun as showing lack of respect for Muslims (wrong), as opposed to what it actually was a lack of respect for Islamic beliefs (perfectly fine).

Likewise, long ago with Monty Python and Christianity. We can show respect for Christians whilst mocking their beliefs.

We can respect those who hold the (foolish, contradictory) belief that a man can become a woman, just as we can respect those who hold the (foolish, contradictory) belief that a human can live after death. It does not follow we should respect either belief: a man obviously cannot be a woman; a dead person obviously cannot be alive.

Can you be a religious believer and gender critical? Of course. But if you are, please do not demand respect for your religious beliefs. Doing so plays into the hands of the no-debaters.

I've been deleted before for using the c word as a comparator, but I do think it's an interesting parallel. The things that make a thing c like are actually quite common within groups and therefore movements - fundamentally a tendency to 'other' anyone outside of the group, which of course we see in extreme form in the way 'heretics' and 'non believers' are cast out, vilified and threatened with annihilation. Apostates, in the form of detransitioners, are also often targets for extreme anger.

Usually there are charismatic leaders, however, and I can't really see any ...

Arabella, I think the charismatic leader aspect is diffused via youtube/tumblr social conditioning influencing myself.

I'm hugely interested in religious apologetics and see the parallels between that and gender apologetics as being so strikingly obvious that it blows my mind how others can't see it. The way TRA accuse people of hating transpeople and denying their existence because they want to reinforce "cis privaledge" (huge laugh), really reminds me of Christians accusing atheists of hating/being mad at God because they want to keep sinning. There's a phrase that prominent Atheist speaker Matt Dilahunty often uses which is "theists, we don't hate you, we just think you're wrong" and this basically sums up the GC position if you swap theist for TRAs.

The insistence of saying "gender" instead of "sex" to deny the reality of human sexual dimorphism also sounds the same to me as religious apologists who insist on saying "kinds" instead of "species" in order to deny evolution.

There are soooo many more, but I'll come back with them later when I have more time.

Yes I've been pondering this for a while - but what's really worrying is that it's not just a religion or a cult, but one that's trying to take over state law. Usually, at least in free democratic societies, non-believers and people of different religions can co-exist, and respect each other while not sharing each other's beliefs. So I can be an atheist who has two christian friends and a muslim friend, and that doesn't upset anyone. Even if someone is a member of a cult and gets cut off from outsiders, they don't usually think everyone else has to believe the same as them. And you don't generally try to have rational arguments with people about religion, because it's accepted that it's not about evidence and so rational argument isn't really relevant.

Trans ideology is like a cult religion that thinks it should be believed by everyone and also get to decide the law. On the basis of beliefs that are not based on evidence or material reality, and are not provable.

I strongly believe that the reason it has been able to affect laws and policies, is because of the way the status of "trans", which used to mean transexual, has been attached to the fight for LBG rights, which are a totally different thing. Everyone modern, sensible and fair-minded these days generally agrees that you shouldn't be persecuted for being LGB, and it's enshrined in law totally reasonable. Being non-straight is just a preference and lifestyle, not a belief involving souls and demanding the reduction of others' rights.

But the extreme trans agenda has used that affiliation - which was always IMO inappropriate and shouldn't have existed - to bully people into thinking that denying a transactivist demand is akin to being a homophobic bully - and the trans lobby pushed that false parallel at every opportunity.

So people who haven't thought it through and/or who want to be inclusive and nice (or just to make sure they appear inclusive and nice) are likely to think it's the same kind of issue. When it's actually a very different thing with a whole range of dangerous implications.

Could be, Floral.

I've started to think the differences between male and female is such a fundamental crux to our existence that that is why this particular topic is so fascinating/reactive/touchy/febrile/excitatory.

Our species reproduces via sexual dimorphism. 'Gender' ideology is apparently trying to get round or past or beyond this very basic fact. I suppose it's akin to flat earthers, or gravity denial or something. It's such an incontrovertible fact that some people can't resist trying to argue it. I also see traces of a sort of group ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) in this - a collective denial of basic reality. The more wildly removed from reality the beliefs that are required, the stronger one identifies with the movement and so tribalism is reinforced, bonded and validated.

Underneath that, of course, is some enormous cognitive dissonance, perhaps why the extreme statements about punching/killing women who disagree - defensive, hysterical fear of the truth.

But this is maybe not relevant to your point, OP.

Yep, definitely functions as a religion.

I'm inclined to look at things from a psychological perspective, and genderism functions exactly as other faiths do. Both on a personal and a societal level. (In fairness feminism frequently operates in this way too; all ideologies do.).

Trans = god's chosen. T*rf = the devil incarnate. That's how the world looks to the genderist mind.

Reading with interest cos I could write a bloody dissertation on this!

The phrase 'religious intolerance' has come to me a lot in the past few weeks. There is an inability to tolerate agnostics or atheists. There will be no living alongside, no mutual respect, no acceptance that one believes this and another believes that, and that the two can live alongside each other without this being a cause for conflict and resentment.

And the fact I'm writing and re writing this to try and avoid being deleted or crossing the line of how I'm allowed to speak, shows the severity and the extent of this intolerance to dissent to the One Faith.

This was an interesting watch in the more general terms of how Liberalism has replaced religion in Western Society.

The GC position can also be broadly summed up as:

Live how you want
Be who you want and be happy
You're perfect as you are
The limits of anyone's rights are the boundaries of other people's rights and consent
Values such as kindness, inclusion, the right to name themselves, to have their own beliefs, should be things that are extended equally to all people instead of being owed by some to others with no reciprocation
Add new and more diverse/needed spaces to existing provision - as much as is wanted and needed.
Please do not forcibly take and redesignate female words, language, spaces, laws, these are needed for the half of the human race who are born female, and should be specific to them.
It is possible to live and let live.

As far as I can see - correct me please if I'm wrong, I'm always hoping to be wrong about this because it seems awful to me - this represents an intolerable position of hatred and hostility. It's like the Tudor restoration: except instead of every abbey being burned out, the inhabitants scattered, every item of value claimed and every building redesignated, it's every word, space, law or group that was for female people. And resisting this or even speaking up for female needs is regarded as an act of war.

I don't understand. I wish I did. The stress and distress of this is relentless and terrible.

It's also interesting how the right to be validated by everyone in your evidence-free beliefs has become central to trans ideology, so refusing to live and let live is actually a functional, active part of the process.

Long ago, MTF transsexuals like for example Jan Morris would probably not have (at least I don't think so) attempted to be part of every group set up for women or females, or tried to become representatives of women/females as a group, or demanded to play on women's sports teams or take women's literary prizes. Out of a basic understanding that while they wanted to be women and tried to "live as" a woman, and were even legally entitled to call themselves a woman, they did not share the same experiences and bodies as females, and trying to grab everything for themselves that was designated as being for women would be inappropriate and pushy.

I think this allowed for a kind of mutual respect whereby women could accept them as "honorary" women without having to believe that they were somehow as female as us in every sense.

Now, because such thinking is sacrilege, it's important to many MTFs to push into women's spaces as much as possible, even where they really have no reason to and it's not a good idea, like working at a rape crisis centre or being a woman's officer. And if they are not accepted in that, and ideally selected before and above biological women in order to prove that you validate them, there is hell to pay in the form of bullying, cancellation and violent threats.

I agree it's fucking depressing, stressful and bloody scary. I sometimes have to take a break from even thinking about it before I return to the fray. It's horrible experiencing that frustration and alarm when perfectly sensible people who just want to be nice can't see how awful and dangerous all this is, and you have to watch what you say everywhere.

But, I do think sense will prevail. Honestly. This will be exposed, it will become understood, irt will be consigned to history and ultimately it will serve sex-based rights, because it will clarify and strengthen them. The religious cultery of it ultimately helps with that process - it's so extreme, it will come to be seen for what it is.

Our species reproduces via sexual dimorphism. 'Gender' ideology is apparently trying to get round or past or beyond this very basic fact.

Its mainstream proponents are operating on the principle that "sex doesn't matter". There are certainly some proponents of genderist theory who are well aware that it does - how could it not, when our minds are moulded by our experiences? - but in my experience they usually fail to do the necessary material class analysis of the results - this ideology was founded to help males yet its widespread acceptance is causing far greater harm to females.

I think this does come down to cognitive dissonance and all our other psychological defence mechanisms. We're all inclined to ascribe a higher truth-value to our own perspective and ignore things that undermine our sense of self; not everyone is mindful of these basic human tendencies.

As to what's different about the UK, it's probably worth considering what's different about the US. Acceptance of religiosity in politicians is one big difference - fire and brimstone fervour is generally viewed as highly suspect over here. Seeing a holy war play out on home territory in living history is probably another major factor - 9/11 shocked the hell out of them but for us it was old (yet terrible) hat. Cultural identity plays a part too - we take pride in our capacity to take the piss out of ourselves better than anyone else.

I've just been watching Kellie-Jay's interview with Bret Weinstein, and they covered the religious aspect and other related things. Check that out.

Sexual dimorphism is physical reality, and it will always exist and keep mattering. So attempts to erase it and say it doesn't matter cannot erase it. Women will just organise on the basis of sex and campaign and fight again for sex-based rights.

You can organise on the basis of race, even though that is not at all binary in terms of physical differences, and on the basis other physical characteristics such as disabilities. Sex isn't going away, and we will organise on the basis of it. Not because of a need for identity to be validated, but for safety, equality and fairness.

Its mainstream proponents are operating on the principle that "sex doesn't matter" - yes, and there is a blurring here or overlap between some of the aims of feminism (or apparent aims). When feminism has sought equity it has often been seen as 'trying to erase sex difference' - equality of opportunity is easy to confuse with 'sameness'.

I guess this is why I see a lot of comments from more right wing quarters about, say, Suzanne Moore, saying 'you created this problem'. Feminism gets the blame for gender ideology, the two things are seen as entwined and dependent, by many.