Lionel Shriver, the Spectator: It's completely rational for girls to want to be boys.

[Malahaha]

Has this been posted yet? It's brilliant. It's behind a paywall. Hope it's OK to quote the article in full. If so, let me know and I'll do so. Don't want to risk a ban.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/its-completely-rational-for-girls-to-want-to-be-boys?fbclid=IwAR2W7rwf7GeH9Xjf40q0bwUoO1r81SgbfqbzjTZ4uCow9sED2m1YMrSO9EU

Think whole article quotes get deleted

OK, I won't do it then. Maybe a few random quotes, such as:

Male puberty presents its challenges. The voice cracking. The hairs sprouting (though pubic hair on boys isn’t considered gross; for girls these days, alas, anything follicular down there is horrifying). The acne — which girls get, too. Most of all, that wilful fifth limb, which grows in size and insistence and seems to have a mind of its own. Its scheming to make babies you probably don’t want yet must exert a terrible tyranny.

But puberty for girls is much more drastic, and thus more apt to induce a sensation of being trapped in an organism that is out of control and has nothing to do with you. May we start with periods? At that first spot of red in my knickers, my mother chimed cheerfully: ‘You’re a woman now, dear!’ But this obligatory jolly hockey sticks routine unhelpfully disguised the horrific imposition that this age-old ‘transition’ levied on the rest of my reproductive life.

She goes on to list and expand on the various ways girls' bodies can be unpleasant in puberty, such as period pains, growing breasts, etc.

I just clicked on the link in the OP and it says it's the first of two free articles I can see as a guest, so non-subscribers should be able to read it.

Very good article

You can Register with The Spectator to read a certain number of articles a month for free without a subscription, just requires name and email address. The same is true for the Times, Telegraph, Economist and others. A Registration with the Times also enables you to Comment if you wish.

And if you use incognito tabs the article count, doesn't.

Just saying.

Sounds similar to an essay she wrote in 2016.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/gender-good-for-nothing

"Our preoccupation with gender identity is a cultural step backwards. For me, the self transcends sex"

She is an interesting and witty writer:

"We are told that a trans woman may have been born a man, but “feels like” a woman. I do not mean to be perverse here, but I have no idea what it “feels like” to be a woman—and I am one. My having happened to be born female has always seemed a biological accident, mere luck (or lack thereof) of the genetic draw. Honestly, being female “feels like” it has nothing to do with me. I respect that some people may feel alienated from their bodies (as I age, I’m as alienated as could be; the “real me” does not have arthritic knees), and I realise I am getting myself into trouble here. ..."

"I may have been born in North Carolina, but I feel like someone born in New York. I may have a father who was a seminary president, but I feel like the daughter of a coal miner. Can I expect my fellows to jolly along with this idea of myself, and inquire after my father the New York coal miner?..."

"Men are often under-aware of the restrictions their sex places on them, because those restrictions are fewer. Men are still in control, in case you haven’t noticed...."

Thanks for sharing.

It is such a relief to read things like this in the mainstream

The Diary piece by Andrew Sullivan is also very interesting. I have the paper copy of this week’s edition so I don’t have a link, but here’s a quote:
“I miss lesbians. It is true that most homosexual men don’t have too many integrated in our lives, but most of us have a few. And we need them...I used to marvel at lesbians’ capacity to subvert what it means to be a woman...I miss lesbians these days because so many are now becoming men...now under the influence of queer theory and peer pressure, the tomboy is being told that whatever obstacles she may encounter, they can be resolved through male hormones...the social justice revolution has space for...dozens of pronouns, but not so much leeway for women who love women and not men.”

@StandUpStraight

The Diary piece by Andrew Sullivan is also very interesting. I have the paper copy of this week’s edition so I don’t have a link, but here’s a quote: “I miss lesbians. It is true that most homosexual men don’t have too many integrated in our lives, but most of us have a few. And we need them...I used to marvel at lesbians’ capacity to subvert what it means to be a woman...I miss lesbians these days because so many are now becoming men...now under the influence of queer theory and peer pressure, the tomboy is being told that whatever obstacles she may encounter, they can be resolved through male hormones...the social justice revolution has space for...dozens of pronouns, but not so much leeway for women who love women and not men.”

Thanks for the recommendation- it’s here for anyone else who wants a look www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-joy-of-a-cancelled-christmas

Oh my goodness. The Spectator was decried as a far right magazine at one time but now liberals who have been no platformed, expelled or even sacked for wrong speak and political incorrectness are flocking to write articles for them.

Thanks, @Malahaha and @Abitofalark for sharing both articles/essays. She's pretty much spot on. I'd love to sit down with some trans women and ask them what feeling like/being a woman is to them because there is something bizarre about it and it does seem to be a very stereotypical notion of "femininity".

I look at someone like Catlin Jenner - as she noted - and on the outside I see something that is like a parody of what a woman is. I'm not criticising what goes on inside her mind because I can't and don't know what that is and blah, but outwardly, she's just another ageing Hollywood woman who's had too much cosmetic surgery. And then I look at the actor, Billy Porter, a gay man who wears whatever the fuck he wants, turning up to the Oscars in a glorious tuxedo with a corset and what can only be described as a crinoline, and think that's what it means to be someone who is happy to not conform to gender norms and has no fucks to give when it comes to wearing what he wants.

The Spectator was decried as a far right magazine at one time

Isn’t this an example of the way current debates have been framed to remove nuance and construct simple narratives of opposition?

Being on the far right of politics used to imply white supremacism and the embrace of fascism, not simply being socially conservative.

While right wing governments in countries like the UK, USA and Australia have moved to a kind of brutal capitalism, it’s a mistake to allow the current trends to redefine language. We should be able to talk about the ways left and right wings of politics are failing us, without resorting to hyperbole.

The reduction of everything to a kind of hysterical extremism is a feature of identity politics, and a deliberate one. Disagreement us framed as literal violence, which gives an excuse to shut conversations down.

For a movement which trumpets gender-fluidity and the irrelevance of biological sex; their insistence on strict binaries, whether in gender stereotypes; behaviours or language is disturbing.

Lionel Shriver us controversial for her very rational take on writing and cultural appropriation. I’m not surprised she understands so clearly the toxic forces driving girls to try and escape their femaleness.

I am starting to see identity politics as a deliberate effort to fracture any sense of community in society. By dividing us into smaller and smaller groups, focused only on granular signifiers of identity, capitalism can drive a great wedge through any kind of communal activity. If we only identify with people just like us (under a banner of some made-up attribute), then we’ve pretty much abandoned any attempt to improve the world for everyone.

I think that’s why feminism is under attack - it embraces half the world’s population on the basis of reality, and insist upon the right to agitate for women’s rights as a collective.

I wanted to be a boy because they were allowed more risk-taking fun than girls. And more importantly, they would become men, doing interesting outdoor work instead of boring indoor drudgery. Also, men were valued for what they did, and had a lot more freedom of action because they weren’t targeted for harassment.

It is perfectly rational to want a better life.

Between my childhood and now, women’s liberation led to several decades of improvements. We’ve been pushed a long way backwards in the past few years, but we’re pushing forwards again now.

Lionel Shriver also has a really good piece in the Times today about the awfulness of Trump and the risk to Biden of going woke. She doesn’t mention the trans debate but she says clearly that identity politics is a dead end for anyone trying genuinely to unite a country and make improvements in people’s lives.

I really appreciate her thinking.

Share Token here

Maybe she is mellowing. Her piece about Brexit being sabotaged by the Irish - or in her words ' a scummy potato residue' - has not enhanced her reputation on this side of the water. A welcome contribution to the trans debate nonetheless.

She’s a very good writer and can be very funny:

Breasts: they arrive whether or not you asked for them, like an amuse-bouche.

I could never understand her stance on Brexit, but it does seem to undermine rationality in some people in a very surprising way.

She's a contrarian and I disagree with her on a lot of things. I love her writing, however, and I'm always interested to listen to her/read her even when I want to tell her to stop being such an arse.