Does anyone ever have a "are we the baddies"* moment?

[Menstrualcycledisplayteam]

• it's a Mitchell & Webb sketch, probably on Youtube.

I'm a bit disheartened this week, if I'm honest. I sometimes feel like this is a fight that we're just not going to win. Two main things recently, one personal, one geo-political I suppose.

On the geo-political level, I look across the Pond to the US, where the only people who are saying the same things as us are frigging Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene, neither of which are people that I associate my politics as being anywhere close to. There is just no bloody way that the Left, my home, will align with us now, given who our "allies" are in the States. They just can't, even those that agree with us will never position themselves as having the same concerns as Marjorie Q-Anon Parkland Taylor Bloody Greene.

The second is personal. I work for a large global organisation in a senior role. We had our Global Leadership "Away Day" a few weeks ago (on Teams, of course) and there was a presentation from some US colleagues on LGBTQ+, being able to bring your whole self to work, that kind of thing, from two gay colleagues, one lesbian one gay. So far, so good - absolutely the right thing for my organisation to be doing. Then they got onto pronouns and how everyone should start every meeting asking what pronouns attendees want to have used and encouraging everyone to put them in our email sign-offs. I'm never going to do that, but I can already see it happening around the organisation (particularly the US, but some of the easily led/want to be noticed over here will soon follow suit).

My husband won't listen to me talk about this sort of stuff anymore - he agrees with me, but says that it is basically like someone saying they "don't agree with all that Black Lives Matter stuff". My best friend works with young people and whilst I've tried to approach it with her very gently, including all of the stats about single sex spaces and how women and children's safety is negatively affected as a result, her reaction is that she gets all of that but she works with children every day who are tortured by their own bodies.

I know that our concerns are justified, I know that women's safety/opportunities are going to be negatively affected but - if I'm completely honest with myself - I just can't see how we're going to stop it. Julie Bindel has a tweet pinned to her feed which is basically that the misogyny at the moment is like a tidal wave and that's how it feels.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this really - certainly not to bring anyone down but there's no-one I can speak to about this in real life. How do you even go about discussing these things when, in my work at least, it would probably get me fired and everyone around me in my personal life has either bought into the nonsense hook line and sinker, or just doesn't want to hear it?

I looked who I was keeping political company

And the religious extremists, incels, MRAs, you're keeping company with now, they don't bother you?

The link is they (DUP) are, or were, mostly in the Free Presbyterian Church which was started by Ian Paisley Snr. He also founded the DUP.

There may be a little issue at the moment, though. They have fielded their first lesbian candidate, the newly-elected Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council representative Alison Bennington. Maybe she is suitably extra hardline about something else which compensates for this in the eyes of the party..

www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2019/05/20/news/schism-between-dup-and-free-presbyterian-church-over-gay-councillor-signals-politics-secular-direction-of-travel-1623228/

@ArabellaScott

Yes. I think it's healthy to question one's beliefs, to every so often check if things have shifted.

I will happily read other viewpoints/evidence/discuss in good faith, and would love to read a convincing argument to say that 'sex is a spectrum' or 'TWAW' or why women should give up our sex-based rights.

I'm not interested in 'winning' or being right. I'm interested in fairness, and protecting and helping women and children.

Totally agree.

Really?? We are continuing down the ‘nazi’ line of thought for people who are fighting to make sure there is no erosion of women’s and children’s rights by establishing the rights of another group.

There is only one reason to call women disagreeing with this ‘nazi’, ‘far right’ and bigot. To silence women and their voicing their need.

If you are resorting to that, maybe look at the groups aligned with also silencing women, threatening women with rape and death, threatening women’s livelihoods, and free speech. Oh and a few prominent people who have written in support of habits that are harmful for children and women that we cannot even mention here but are really well known. One even gets called the father of queer theory.

And of course women are not even remotely like nazis. What a horrific thing to perpetuate.

The Christian Right, combining their anti trans activism with axing women's right to reproductive healthcare and curtailing the right to abortion. Actual NeoNazis. MRAs and Incels.

Those groups believe males and females naturally have fixed and separate social and family roles, and that unless everyone sticks to them society suffers. (The fact that individual women and men often suffer within those roles is of little concern to them).

Gender critical people believe social and family roles are a function of culture and should be challenged, made flexible and not defined by biology except where they are a direct result of biology (eg childbirth and breastfeeding). But GC people also recognise that the long history of forcing men and women into fixed and separate roles has created a power difference between males and females so here and now females do, and in the case of reproductive rights and support probably always will, need additional rights and protections.

Both groups reject trans ideology but for entirely different and opposing reasons.

They are not on the same side. They are a million miles from the same side. The only people who could ever perceive them as being on the same side are people who make no effort to think beyond slogans and soundbites because TWAW #Nodebate.

I'm not interested in 'winning' or being right. I'm interested in fairness, and protecting and helping women and children.

Very much agree.

Catching up on the the thread.

As a lifelong lefty feminist it's been an interesting experience to have views that are totally at odds with labour libdems etc.

Yes I do step back regularly and think am I missing something. And each time I come up with the answer no I'm not.

If women are sharing GC stuff from sources we would have not given the time of day to before. It's because no one in the left is saying anything.

Instead it's no debate, woman is a feeling in a man's head, open up the prisons etc.

Thing is that saying they're right wing Christian bots etc doesn't land as it's just so ludicrous.

Yes it bothers me that a large part of the pushback seems to be from people who I suspect want to keep people in strict gender roles based on their sex. Which is what feminists have always fought against.

The trans activist view seems to support the boxes, but say people can pick. And the boxes are all there are.

Also bad.

The constant reference to USA stuff is unhelpful as well.

Here the recognising of sex does not come in a bundle with not protecting gay people etc. It's totally separate.

Anyway yes it's all very interesting. And no, we're not 'baddies'.

That Mitchell and Webb sketch is v funny btw

the vast majority of GC talking points were one-dimensional hateful stereotyping, that the scientific consensus did not agree with my position

Can you be a lot more specific? Because all of this sounds quite stirring at a brief glance, but there's not actually any specific detail in it.

What stereotypes are gc feminists supporting?

What science supports TWAW, or whatever the position is that you are apparently supporting?

@Regularsizedrudy

You are the baddies. You’re going to realise one day you’re on the wrong side of history.

Sure we are

Have caught up.

On the Nazis thing.

The reason it persists (in presumably certain parts of the world, those who were not involved presumably don't have it as such a major thing?) is that the message is. Ordinary people can do terrible things.

A warning from history. This must never happen again.

But it has, and the world has been pretty rubbish.

The two that spring to mind are the hutus and tutsis, and srebrenica.

Oh and recently the treatment (torture rape murder) of the Uighurs in China. What happened with the Rohingya in Burma.

Genocide. Mass rape murder torture. Now.

Not as coldly organised as the Nazis but genocide all the same.

So we haven't learnt from history.

And people should not bandy these words around. It devalues the horror. Then and now.

Agree with the poster upthread who said that they always come back to the fact that humans simply cannot change sex.

'the vast majority of GC talking points were one-dimensional hateful stereotyping, that the scientific consensus did not agree with my position'

And the idea that woman, female. Girls. The half of the population oppressed for as long as we know, all over the world. The half still subject to subtle or overt discrimination and oppression.

Are a feeling. Nothing to do with our physical reality. Our bodies. Nope. We're. What? A feeling. Nothing more.

All of the 3.5 billion or so women and girls. In all their differences. Their upbringing, their social status. The dangers and opportunities they face. We face.

Femicide in Mexico.
The deaths globally due to unsafe abortion.
Rape, DV, murder. Everywhere.
Getting by in a world that is built by men for men.
The markets of ISIS where they buy and sell kidnapped women. Sex slave market.
The daily harassment all over the world to a greater or lesser degree.
FGM
The failure of police around the world to investigate etc sex offences reported by women and girls
And on and on and on

Women and girls are still controlled through overt or less overt means by society. We are judged harshly. Our contributions are not recognised. Our value is in our looks/ youth / compliance with patriarchy. Globally we do most of the work for the least reward.

And so on and so on.

We are in this situation due to our biology. I can't see how anyone can deny that.

The various ideas currently seem to be

Women unless they adopt a trans identity are happy in their social role
The social role is all there is
Biological differences between men and women are irrelevant.
So the root of our oppression- being the ones who are assumed to have the capacity to bear children and must therefore be controlled so men can be sure of paternity - and also put a whole bunch of other shit on us. Is. Non existent.
If women are cut, raped, married young. Raped. Cat called. That is our choice.
Because woman/ girl is nothing more than something in your head.
We are born to this treatment and we accept it and welcome it.

.. I think that's about it?

Nope, not ever have I thought I was a baddie on this issue.
Not once. Not for a moment.

I reflect everytime I find new information , but remain consistently sure I am a goodie. I wish no harm on anyone and every policy I want makes women and children safer. If you are in the same boat you need to question the motivation of someone trying to make you feel bad about that.

I think you are just worried because some horrible people agree with you. So? Who cares?
If you have ever said for example "those who rape children should go to prison and serve long sentences" I guarantee the worst violent racists will agree with you. Again , so fucking what?

No, we’re not the baddies, and the current situation won’t last. Something really horrible is going to happen, something so awful that mainstream media won’t be able to sweep it under the carpet.
Some male person will have the opportunity to do something so incredibly horrendous that it’s all going to become very difficult to defend and the backlash will be nasty. This movement will reap what its sown.

Great post NiceGerbil. It’s also ridiculous that this movement wants to erase sex and say that only “gender identity” matters, yet uses sex categories as at least two of the things that trans people apparently want to be. And then in some case involves surgery and hormones to attempt to mimic these sex categories.

If being trans involved choosing a “gender identity” (like we all do, but feeling the need to give it a name) then fine. There is no reason why it has to involve sex or bodies. Everyone could keep their same sex spaces, attraction, sports and dating agencies etc. and trans people could have their own beliefs about themselves. The fact that TRAs want to abolish sex and yet ensure men can have unfettered access to women in all their previously same sex space is beyond suspect. It’s also remarkable how there’s very little on Twitter, in the media, on academic campuses etc about how trans men must get everything they demand. Hmmmmmmm.

No, I'm not a 'baddie' and I don't care which side of history I am on or who shares my views - people can come to the same conclusion for different reasons or through different routes.

I know that our concerns are justified, I know that women's safety/opportunities are going to be negatively affected but - if I'm completely honest with myself - I just can't see how we're going to stop it. Julie Bindel has a tweet pinned to her feed which is basically that the misogyny at the moment is like a tidal wave and that's how it feels.*

How do you even go about discussing these things when, in my work at least, it would probably get me fired and everyone around me in my personal life has either bought into the nonsense hook line and sinker, or just doesn't want to hear it?

I'd say there is a lot in this, and thanks for sharing. You talk about the future tense of womens safety/opportunities will be negatively effected. From what I can see trans peeps have been around in modern life for fifty years in larger numbers, and there are only the isolated incidents catalogued on deliberate threads on here that incite a feeling that "trans" is a bigger problem then it really is. Honestly, I still struggle to see the issue and am a fan of "hold the person offending responsible" not a class of people due to their presentation/identity. That smacks too much of a bad history of segregation and discrimination.

I actually have come to believe it's positive - as it smashes gender stereptype norms keeping us all down. Why is is the alt right is supporting this so much? Is it to protect women, or is is to protect the patriachy and system of control that the left have a strength in challenging?

Secondly - the bit about getting fired if you air gender critical views. Don't you think that should also indicate that you may be out of step with mainstream thinking? The alt right love to say: oh this and that have been captured; silenced if you will - while across the whole mainstream media! Actually I think its most people outside of echo chambers with an attitude of "live and let live". Doesn't impact me - actually it may do so in a positive way by creating fairness for all.

I'm not attacking your questions by any means - I find it quite refreshing. No doubt I will get some things thrown at me or scone recipes for daring to go against the grain.

But really.....perhaps some gender criticals need to have some different gender critical thoughts over what they are really out to preserve? I want for my daughters equal opportunity, not sub servience to an antiquated gender control system with jobs for the boys first.

That said, I still have some concerns around the physicality of sport, but am waiting to see how this all evolves. The sports authorities seem best placed to review ranges of ability and physicality and make some rules.

I'm quite happy to ascribe positive motivations to a lot of those advocating TWAW. I genuinely believe that most of them believe they are being kind and inclusive.

I really wish that we got the same kind of respect in the other direction and an acknowledgement that we aren't opposing TWAW out of bigotry against transwomen but out of a (correct) belief that the disadvantages women face arise because of their sex, rather than their gender.

For me the most interesting and shocking part of this whole debate is that it has become impossible to mention purely the risk factor to women from actual men in single sex spaces, whilst making it clear you do believe TWAW and don't think the trans people themselves are a threat, without being cancelled. So what they are basically saying is women are bigoted just for wanting to discuss the parts of these policies that effect them.

I hink (hope) there will eventually be a wider backlash against this lack of nuance, and utter social exile of people who are broadly well intentioned, but just happened to discuss something others find unpalatable. I think the general public is becoming increasingly impatient with that culture.

It will definitely come as a shock to these people to discover they were actually on the wrong side of history, though, as the inclusive left have rarely been the baddies up until now!

Secondly - the bit about getting fired if you air gender critical views. Don't you think that should also indicate that you may be out of step with mainstream thinking

Saying someone can’t change their sex is not out of step with mainstream thinking

How is saying that boys who like dresses, pink and sparkles are really girls because only girls like them smashing gender stereotypes?

I ask myself this question a lot and am constantly questioning what I believe on this stuff. From what I can tell this is the strongest argument on the other side:

From what I can see trans peeps have been around in modern life for fifty years in larger numbers, and there are only the isolated incidents

The GC argument is very much the "thin end of the wedge" argument. The difficulty is that none of us know how fat the wedge really is. Perhaps GC feminists are making a big fuss over something that ends up being a passing phase? Or perhaps this is the beginning of a major reversal of women's rights. None of us know the answer to that.

My conclusion is that neither side are "the right side of history" but that this debate is healthy, timely and necessary. I think the "right answer" will be a compromise that prioritises the safety and dignity of women and transwomen. Essentially a boring set of compromises based on the level of risk involved (e.g. prisons = high therefore we must maintain sex segregation).

At a more philosophical level I am concerned that the majority of people seem to somehow think gender is innate. Whether it be the conservative "women are homemakers" people or the woke "I was born with a gender identity" people. However, it is so stupid and nonsensical that my hope is that it will eventually fall apart.

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

Secondly - the bit about getting fired if you air gender critical views. Don't you think that should also indicate that you may be out of step with mainstream thinking

Saying someone can’t change their sex is not out of step with mainstream thinking

If you’re getting fired for holding an opinion (ANY opinion) then you’re definitely not the one on the wrong side of history!

If you’re afraid to tell the truth about something that everybody knows to be true, you’re not the one on the wrong side of history!

Honestly the young, woke, intolerant extremists are going to have to experience the dark side of their own beast before they learn.

Many of us have seen it before. They have not. They don’t have a clue.

Honestly, I still struggle to see the issue

Because sex really matters in many ways, and women are a disadvantaged class. Males commit most violent and sexually violent crime. Women are not second class citizens, our privacy, dignity and boundaries should matter equally as much as male feelings.

But there are lots of people who "struggle to see the issue". Don't kid yourself it makes you more progressive and enlightened.