Statement from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[Immunetypegoblin]

www.chimamanda.com/, published yesterday.

She is angry. One can understand why. One to watch I think.

Have just had an argument with a younger friend about this. She's about 32 and thinks saying "transwomen are transwomen" is the same as saying " transwomen are cunts". Her words. She doesn't agree that gender critical women can argue for transwomen to be safe and well while still not agreeing that they have the same experiences as women. I tried to argue Eddie Izzard's case; chap moves in and out of womenhood as easily as he changes his dress, while the rest of us have to walk the streets fearing we will be raped or assaulted. But she is not having it. I find it hard to understand.

I don't think there is much to understand Mare, in terms of logic anyway.

I think the word that I want to use is banned, but the only thing to understand is that your friend has bought into a system of belief that tolerates neither questioning nor any deviation from the core tenets. It's very frustrating as there is so much to be gained from discussion.

Curious isn't it, the absolute refusal to see any holes in the argument.

I've been trying understand it too, @MareofBeasttown.

I've been making a list of possible reasons, but I still feel I'm missing something, like some kind of social media social contagion explanation.

So far I've got,

Fear
A prize
And a fanatical dedication to the trope

(With thanks to the Pythons)

Trans women are not only welcome [in a menopause group! called “Hot Girls!”], they are cherished — we have all learned from their stories and world class ability to accessorise.

Words fail.

Stories about what? Their personal experiences of menopause? What kind of accessory knowledge solves menopause issues?

What a lot of patronising drivel, I find that downright offensive to the TW involved. No woman would talk about another woman's 'amazing ability to accessorise' as the best they had to offer, that's flat out head patting.

I think it's an intellectual house of cards. Once you deviate a bit it makes it hard to maintain the whole. Which is fundamentally why a middle ground is unachievable.

I think a lot of it is because of the narrative that a TW is a real, essential, somehow "true" woman, suffering even more than most women because of being trapped in the "wrong body" (much as this phrase is being questioned, I think it's still how a lot of well-meaning people see it). To think this you have to push aside thinking about a definition of women and instead just think that a TW is a woman just like yourself in some inner sense, who can be helped by being welcomed by you, and having any concerns or questions would be just mean.

A few years ago when it was taking off as a big, there were several BBC articles about children who were identifying as the opposite sex and transitioning at school etc - some really young. There was a narrative that e.g. male child didn't just "want to be a girl", they explained to their parents that they were a girl and the implication was that we all needed to grasp this important fact.

It was partly this that set me thinking about how a boy could possibly KNOW they were a girl and what these things really mean. And of course I think what the child really means is that they must be a girl because their feelings and tastes don't fit with what they are told a boy is meant to be, especially if adults are affirming being trans as a solution.

But if you just take "I'm really a girl" as the truth, it becomes this tenet of trans identity that cannot be questioned because the person themself knows best right? Even though when you think about it with a clear head, a TW literally cannot know how being a biological woman feels - as many TW themselves describe.

oopsI meant a big thing

Have just had an argument with a younger friend about this. She's about 32 and thinks saying "transwomen are transwomen" is the same as saying " transwomen are cunts". Her words

With people like that, I point out that saying TW are TW is acknowledging their unique journey. I ask why the -handmaiden- other woman is erasing the TW’s past and being so patronising. TW are TW is affirming their uniqueness.. I tend to keep away from the GC arguments, at least initially, because that makes them even more entrenched and less likely to listen.

As shown with the ‘accessorize’ comment about TW in a menopause group, many TWAW chanters are actually extremely patronising about trans people, which is nasty and rather nauseating IMO.

Also I think a lot of women are very scared to go down that path in the slightest in case it means they are a t*rf / feminist, and thereby not nice, kind and inclusive.

(Not at all related but why does the ‘strike through’ feature not work for me or many others. Am I doing something wrong?)

You need two dashes each side of the word

(Though even then I've had it not work before)

Yes, if I voiced these views in public I would be cancelled or called a TERF, as happened to Maya Forstater. Am so tired of women having to be inclusive and make space for everyone.

I am sure that there are transpeople who do support Adichie. It is just that their voices are possibly drowned by all the machete wielders and rape threateners.

Not read the thread.

What a powerful essay! Puts you off ever being in the public eye!

@MareofBeasttown

Have just had an argument with a younger friend about this. She's about 32 and thinks saying "transwomen are transwomen" is the same as saying " transwomen are cunts". Her words. She doesn't agree that gender critical women can argue for transwomen to be safe and well while still not agreeing that they have the same experiences as women. I tried to argue Eddie Izzard's case; chap moves in and out of womenhood as easily as he changes his dress, while the rest of us have to walk the streets fearing we will be raped or assaulted. But she is not having it. I find it hard to understand.

This might be helpful, Mare...

old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/o1ddq9/i_hope_i_can_be_accepted_here/

Behold, a whole thread full of transwomen - on Reddit of all places! - acknowledging that transwomen have different experiences than female women.

Adichie: I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people. That I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general.
Emezi: I trust that there are other people who will pick up machetes

The thing I struggle to understand is how anyone can read the actual words said by the different people in this particular conflict and think its the person who called for people to pick up machetes who is somehow being wronged instead of the woman who has repeatedly and politely said she supports the rights of all diverse people.
The world has gone nuts.

More on CNA:

CNA spoken word is enthralling as written

Wow - I'm trying not to comment on Caitlin Moran neutral take on this story, but CNA's essay has made the Daily Mail:

Columnist for The Times, Caitlin Moran, said: 'So glad everyone's talking about this - an absolute powerhouse of a piece by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the furious conditions of debate on social media, and how terrified people are of getting things wrong.'

Former Guardian journalist Suzanne Moore wrote: 'She takes no prisoners. She doesn't even need to. She is just asking YOU to think. Yes think.'

Namibian lawyer Monica Geingos said: 'I hope Chimamanda ignores whatever backlash will be unleashed in the next few days. I hope this was as cathartic for her to write as it was for some of us to read.'

And Scottish historian Niall Ferguson added: 'A remarkable commentary by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the perils of teaching the current generation of students, which appears to apply from Nigeria to California.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9696317/Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie-launches-blistering-attack-woke-social-media-amid-row-novelist.html

@Beamur

I think it's an intellectual house of cards. Once you deviate a bit it makes it hard to maintain the whole. Which is fundamentally why a middle ground is unachievable.

They can't allow any chink of light, any cracks in their certainty, because this isn't like a bad haircut you can grow out, a drunken tattoo you can have removed, hey, we made a mistake, but let's move on. They've allowed and actively cheered on irreversible body changes to a generation of teenagers and young people, silenced concerned and cautious voices and the accounts of detransitioners, and if they've been wrong about that, how can they live with the guilt?

@OldTurtleNewShell

Adichie: I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people. That I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general. Emezi: I trust that there are other people who will pick up machetes

The thing I struggle to understand is how anyone can read the actual words said by the different people in this particular conflict and think its the person who called for people to pick up machetes who is somehow being wronged instead of the woman who has repeatedly and politely said she supports the rights of all diverse people.
The world has gone nuts.

Me too. Emezi's maniacal crescendo of illogic where she claims that Adichie hates transpeople and wants them dead is such a wormhole unfounded on any evidence. Why do people choose to believe this? Why do even highly intelligent people choose to rail against JKR's piece without having read it? I've lost count of how many people have told me how wicked JK is and then admitted they haven't read her sane and balanced and loving piece about trans people. The same is now happening to Adichie. I feel like stepping into the Twitter storm and saying something. But I am cowardly because I work with some trans people who I adore and I just couldn't face the irrational hatred and assumption of betrayal if they discovered I had spoken out. I just don't trust they would see the actual words instead of the ones pre-written by woke hate speech.

Why do even highly intelligent people choose to rail against JKR's piece without having read it? I've lost count of how many people have told me how wicked JK is and then admitted they haven't read her sane and balanced and loving piece about trans people.

The past four or five years of involvement in gender-critical feminism has led me to one obvious conclusion: lots of people are very stupid. Even people you previously thought were clever are often stupid. People you imagined were capable of critical thought follow the crowd, just as much as the sort of people who voted Trump or who think Bill Gates has put a chip in the Covid vaccine. The only difference is the crowd being followed: what's fashionable amongst the supposedly educated middle-class is different from what's fashionable amongst the uneducated and unskilled.

On the plus side, I now have a much greater affection and admiration for the people who have shown themselves to be sane, intelligent and courageous - the JK Rowlings and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies of the world.

I posted this (slightly rewritten) on another thread but fits here as well I think...

I think many liberal/progressive people hear this "poor trans people suffering in the wrong body, living a lie" narrative, and superficially it seems very close to other oppressed groups who fight against the social role/stereotype imposed on them by society so they instinctively feel it's something they as good people should support.

Tag-teaming LGB has created such strong associations with "the right side of history" that they don't consider it worthy of challenge. The assumption is that the arguments in favour of LBG acceptance and rights were fair so the arguments for whatever TRAs are demanding must be as well. They aren't looking at the details.

So it never occurs to them to ask "hang on, how does this idea that a man can born in a woman's body and vice versa fit with the general acceptance that saying men and women are born with different types of personality is regressive sexism? Where exactly is this mannyness or womanyness coming from?" Or "has anyone actually proved that trans women's social role and behaviour is close enough to female people's to justify lumping them together legally, statistically and socially?"

It can be helpful to ask someone who is passionate that the experience of TW is identical to female people, whether the experience of female people is identical to TW.

You tend to get shocked outrage that you would dismiss or appropriate the unique experience that only someone who is a TW could possibly understand or speak about. At which point you can point out the extreme differing standards they hold and how very sex based and prejudiced against female people they are.