Can anyone provide some insight - feeling really confused?

[PaulHollywoodsLowHangingFruit]

I have some questions that I have been seeking answers to. When I have tried to talk to people about their sense of things people shut down or whiffle on about accepting difference.

I do accept the unique individuality of human experience so one of the things that is bothering me is why is there is a need to assign people according to gender stereotypes?

My sense is that gender is a social construct and that the biological reality of living in a woman's body is how I know I am a woman. I have no other sense of being innately female as I realise these ideas I have internalised growing up in society.

Some of my questions that seem to confound others is why the academic woman who identified with another race/culture was cancelled if we are basing identity on how we feel? Why is she not afforded the same standard?

Why can't we choose any other protected characteristic and be accepted according to what we feels relates to us- so age, disability etc and demand that our sense of reality is truth?

If someone is anorexic - should we accept for them that their reality of feeling fat is their truth and withdraw treatment? How about alternative realities when others are suffering from mental disorders?

I volunteer as a listener and we are now being asked to note the gender/sex of the caller without asking them. Surely under current thinking you are in danger of making transphobic assumptions? If this is changed to asking everyone I feel we could be pressuring people to identify when it may not be their belief?

In a society where I am tolerant about others religious beliefs when they are sexist, homophobic because I accept difference - why is my reality that I don't believe in innate gender ideology not also afforded the same respect?

If I have a spiritual belief that I am an old soul for example and maybe have been here before, should I not be able to access the privileges afforded to those who are older in our society?

I am now in a position where some people are happy to touch on this subject but will not put anything in writing as they are scared of the repercussions. Others have started using their preferred pronouns in emails. Why can't people just be themselves and treat everyone else as a valued individual without resorting to this pigeon-holing? It is so reductive and about a million miles removed from the feminism I was exposed to as a child in the 1970s- which was centred around dissolving gender binaries.

I am currently studying and we had a gender, sex and sexuality component of our course. Given that we are supposed to be open to the unique views and perspectives of everyone- my views caused noticeable discomfort in the room as they did not fit with the over-reaching dogma.

I also raised an issue with sharing toilets as I was not consulted with how I felt about this. My space. As someone who has been subjected to various sexual assaults throughout the course of my life owing to my biology- I feel marginalised.

There seems no attempt at compromise and I just feel angry and confused at what I feel are mixed messages.

Where has all this come from and who benefits?

Apologies for the huge message - I am trying to sort out my sense of things and struggling.

I feel this is the only safe space left to explore this and really grateful it exists.

people shut down or whiffle

Yes. Interesting, that, isn't it? That sets off alarm bells to anyone paying attention.

Where has all this come from and who benefits?

Where it's come from is complicated. Who benefits? The powerful and ill-intentioned, as in any authoritarian/totalitarian set-up. The weak and powerless get crushed beneath the wheels.

Whether we've ended up in this space by accident or design isn't that important - we more need to recognise where we are and get out. I'm concerned about this on a much broader scope than just women's rights - the woke stuff is dangerous across the board.

Take a deep breath, and start reading the "break it down for me" thread if you haven't already.

Or maybe something to listen to: "A podcast to explain?"

Hi OP, I understand - it's like a minefield trying to get your head around it. There seems to be a lack of transparency and openness, and any debate or discussion is heavily moderated. That alone should set off alarm bells.

The pp has linked a great thread - 'break it down for me'. It was something I read when I first started to realise that so much of this didn't make sense, and I felt like I was being compelled to agree with and believe something that I didn't.

You don't seem confused at all OP. You've set out a clear description of the current order of things.

For a long time I approached this assuming that there were pieces missing from the puzzle, and that when I found them this current moment would prove to be coherent and sensible. And that hopefully I could 'understand' and find myself on the 'right' side of the fence on this. Because it's horribly novel experience holding such vilified beliefs. I've searched high and low for these missing pieces - they do not exist. The search has only deepened my conviction that this is patriarchy repackaged, and once I understood that the dots began to join themselves.

I'm currently studying too and it appears feminism has been removed from the course.

Who does this benefit? Indeed.

Yeah, your thinking seems pretty sound, OP. I agree with you.

WRT where it comes from ... I think probably a combination of things, a far from perfect storm. Post humanism? Queer theory? Liberalism running into identity politics.

There are theories - one could say that it suits certain factions to have feminism taken apart like this. If we can't name sex as a thing anymore, we can't name sexism. Personally I think at least some of it is a kind of extreme capitalist-driven idea that one can buy whatever one wants.

thefederalist.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/

Worth remembering, perhaps, that for a long time it was verboten to ask these questions.

'NO DEBATE' was a driving factor in campaigns from Stonewall.

Since women have refused to allow their rights to be taken away without at least an attempt at debate, the fallacies and inconsistencies (and some of the very dubious histories of some people connected to these campaigns) have become ever more glaringly obvious.

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/01/03/considering-rapid-rise-trans-ideology-academia-follow-money/

"Who benefits?" is a question which is nearly always the most important one, in any difficulty. And it's hard to find any answer, in this case. I suspect if we manage ever to locate it, a lot of people will be very angry indeed, and a lot of others will deny that it is the case, because it will cast doubt upon the validity of their "truth".

Yes, a number of individuals gain, and an even greater number of individuals lose, in the present climate of opinion; I don't mean individuals, I mean the beneficiaries behind them. At the moment my money is on the people who sell drugs, and the people who gain by experimental surgery on human beings.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists

I've searched high and low for these missing pieces - they do not exist.

Well said. Yes, OP, I really doubt you're missing anything. At least not in favour of their view.

one could say that it suits certain factions to have feminism taken apart like this.

Not just feminism. The whole of the left.

Popped this onto another thread, but it's more relevant here. JCJ on top form (as ever)

Last night I could hardly sleep because of how angry this pernicious bullshit makes me.

People coming along, all dressed up in the language of 'intersectionality' and representational justice, completely destroying the analysis of material exploitation, and being richly rewarded for their trouble, by institutional and corporate power, while they all slap themselves on the back for being so fucking progressive and good and caring.

It makes me want to fucking scream.

You’re not wrong OP. All I can say is that gender identity is a relatively new concept and society hasn’t really implemented it in the best way. It is purely based on gender roles and stereotypes- which change depending on your country and the times.

Things will change in next generations as people realise that gender identities are so fluid, that essentially there is only individual identity instead of the ever increasing hundreds of gender identities.

Specifically, you asked
I volunteer as a listener and we are now being asked to note the gender/sex of the caller without asking them.

This you should take up with your management that you feel uncomfortable having to assume a person’s gender or sex over the phone. I agree it would lead to mistakes that could harm the caller and would definitely make whatever data they are collecting useless for any real analysis. Try and get them to allow you to either drop collecting guesses on sex/gender or allow you to ask the caller to tell you if they would like to (give them a prefer not to say option).

Not just feminism. The whole of the left.

Yep.

Thank-you so much for sharing your sense of things and for the helpful links- going to delve in now.

Diary - that is exactly it!

PlanDeRaccordement

"You’re not wrong OP. All I can say is that gender identity is a relatively new concept and society hasn’t really implemented it in the best way. It is purely based on gender roles and stereotypes- which change depending on your country and the times."

100% nailed it.
We should be getting away from all kinds of stereotypes, letting people do what they want (within reason of course) without putting labels on themselves, which involves pigeonholing.
I am a bloke who loves sport, cars, aircraft, but also likes cooking, baking bread and classic art and music.
I don't feel the need to create a new category where I can place myself, I am quite content just being a bloke.

Also ask yourself who might benefit in ways other than financial from the imposition of an ideology that weakens safeguarding, erodes boundaries and controls speech.

Is that not glaringly obvious, Three?

@andyoldlabour

I think so too. I’m pretty gender nonconforming, but that doesn’t make me into a man. I’m still a woman. Gender stereotypes do so much harm and the gender identity movement isn’t an improvement, its literally just adding new stereotypes and labelling them.

It might be obvious, Asking, but I get the impression that 'Big Pharma' is more often named.

That's because naming who it also is gets the post removed, and quite possibly a warning.

there were pieces missing from the puzzle, and that when I found them this current moment would prove to be coherent and sensible.

This is kind of what I feel, I do get though that there are bits from different opinions that don't go together.
I keep going back to "gender is a spectrum", trying to figure out, that even if it were true, how it would explain/be useful for their argument. Take Caitlyn Jenner for example, CJ has fathered six children, how would that land on the spectrum? What would that mean? How would it explain anything?

You can go down endless rabbit holes trying to twist yourself into believing it all. The many aspects of it all seem rather infinite and nebulous - children being kept pre-pubescent, males in women's prisons, changing of birth certificates, the inability to define 'living as a woman', sacred castes - and then all the fuzz about male brains, female brains, sex as a spectrum, animals who have both gametes, sex is a construct, gender is an innate indefinable feeling that must be prioritised above all.

I could be talked into nodding along with some of it given the right arguments (that I rarely ever see articulated, btw) - and as long as it didn't end up yet again being about toilets - but I cannot get away from the fact that
women are oppressed due to their biological sex. In so many ways. This cannot be overlooked or overwritten in law.