Invasion of the body snatchers

[RadandMad]

I've had a horrible week. At work someone in my office I've known and liked for years started commenting to a nodding colleague about how Graham Linehan is clearly mentally ill, and going on about how bigots and transphobes like JKR and anyone who agrees with her have set feminism back years. A couple of days later a friend announced that following a conversation with her son - as if teenage boys are now the authority on what a woman is - she now agrees trans are the most vulnerable people in the society and women's spaces aren't really that important compared to their suffering.

I feel like one of the remaining sane humans surrounded by a sea of people who have been infected by some kind of terrible mind virus. I can't deal with it. It's really really getting me down.

I’ve been lurking on here for ages. I tried to talk to a group of friends about safe spaces for women and was told I was transphobic and “You think all trans people are rapists” .Nope. I just want safe spaces and female sport being kept for females. There isn’t a day I wake up and don’t think the whole world has gone mad.

Me too. I’ve distanced myself from some of my oldest friends because they’re so vociferous and abrasive about trans rights. I could never talk about it at work — very woke organisation. The idea that we have to invoke legal protection of a philosophical belief if we want to say publicly that biological sex is real and immutable makes me feel like I’m losing my mind, honestly.

It's so mind bending, isn't it? I sometimes feel almost physically disoriented, like I've woken up in a world that just doesn't make sense to me any more.

With some of them, I wonder if it's bled over from Brexit and election shock, especially given how vociferous #FBPE hero Fox Killer is on the issue? It's like they need another cause to cling on to now, and they've chosen this.

Yup. The other thing I find extremely disorienting about it is the level of vitriol and bad faith in any attempt at debate. I managed not to fall out with anyone over Brexit, and had plenty of really interesting, fruitful conversations with Leave voters in spite of being strongly Remain, but this is on another level.

Oh interesting idea @IvyTwines2 ! So it’s part of a continuum of polarisation? Maybe. People picking sides and clinging to what feels like ideological certainty.

I have one friend I'm afraid to talk to about any of these topics. She's a former athlete and a doctor and she thinks people are being mean to Caster Semenya. But in better news, a group of friends I thought would be full on twaw were incredibly thoughtful when the subject came up (not raised by me) and I was able to throw in a few nuggets which got a couple of them investigating afterwards. There is hope

@RoseAndGeranium

Yup. The other thing I find extremely disorienting about it is the level of vitriol and bad faith in any attempt at debate. I managed not to fall out with anyone over Brexit, and had plenty of really interesting, fruitful conversations with Leave voters in spite of being strongly Remain, but this is on another level.

Yes, so often they say, like my woke friend, that they want to learn, but they never want to learn what those so-called awful transphobes actually think. They only seem to want to learn the stuff that will bring them more into lockstep with their peers. It's all so disingenuous, and yes, entirely in bad faith.

@Pucarbuile

I have one friend I'm afraid to talk to about any of these topics. She's a former athlete and a doctor and she thinks people are being mean to Caster Semenya. But in better news, a group of friends I thought would be full on twaw were incredibly thoughtful when the subject came up (not raised by me) and I was able to throw in a few nuggets which got a couple of them investigating afterwards. There is hope

Yes, my workplace is increasingly woke, and increasingly unbearable. But my friend's daughter works in a manual job and says many of the young people she speaks to are having none of this gender BS.

It's surprising sometimes who seems to just accept the whole thing without much fuss, and who does. The people I know who question everything have done so with this too, but other than that, I've found that the people who think of themselves as skeptical and modern are pretty gullible.

Interestingly though, the "question everything" people often are seen as regressive in their views by the modern-types, even apart from this issue.

I kind of feel the same OP. Had a nice evening with friends tonight. They're quite political, we talked about Brexit, NHS, govt corruption and state of education. But when I mentioned women's rights, e.g. male bodies in female sport, I got told it was niche and what was I worrying about when there are far bigger things in the world I should be worrying about (actually they did include in this how the CPS treat rape etc, so not too misogynistic a point).
Then I was told that trans people are at very high risk of murder because of attitudes like mine. When i said this was provably untrue in the UK and most of the world, I was told to 'shut up you're being transphobic'.

What the fuck is 'niche' about women's rights and not wanting male bodies in women's spaces??

Charley - I think for some people, sports is always going to be seen as not that serious. They essentially see it as recreation.

@Charley50

I kind of feel the same OP. Had a nice evening with friends tonight. They're quite political, we talked about Brexit, NHS, govt corruption and state of education. But when I mentioned women's rights, e.g. male bodies in female sport, I got told it was niche and what was I worrying about when there are far bigger things in the world I should be worrying about (actually they did include in this how the CPS treat rape etc, so not too misogynistic a point). Then I was told that trans people are at very high risk of murder because of attitudes like mine. When i said this was provably untrue in the UK and most of the world, I was told to 'shut up you're being transphobic'.

What the fuck is 'niche' about women's rights and not wanting male bodies in women's spaces??

Interesting about that need to call you a transphobe when you corrected the flawed statistics they offered. That may be because the trans movement has been extraordinarily effective in framing the minority it represents (which obviously needs to be safe and not discriminated at employment or in education) as the most oppressed minority ever. It is hard to say anything critical about the most oppressed minority ever, even when the goals of the trans activists will make the lives of the most oppressed minority (women) harder if not in other ways then by utter erasure of all terms for people of the female sex.

On the actual body snatcher topic: I have talked with some feminists who are very woke and the reasons they have given for their stance are two:

First, they believe that women's rights have already been completely won.

Second, they don't want to attack a minority in pain. Those were the reasons for one medical piece erasing 'women' in the treatment of abortion clinic patients and for turning endometriosis into an illness which can affect men, women, and nonbinary people.

Of course it can if we replace sex with identity, but both abortions and endometriosis are relevant for only biologically female people (barring some extremely unlikely exceptions).

The general impression I have is that most people think trans women have had surgery and believe that all the activism is on behalf of that tiny group. In general it is not known that nonbinary people can have no body modifications at all and that the vast majority of trans women retain their male genitals.

Sorry, last reference to 'a minority' should be 'a majority'. It's partly not being a numerical minority that makes some argue that women's rights are unnecessary.

Yes, my friend seems to have swallowed that most vulnerable group ever nonsense. Somehow I don't think she meant the swathes of young girls caught up in this appalling social contagion - people are never worried about the actual vulnerable females.

None of my close friends believe TWAW, but we're mostly 50-something mothers. One said some vague stuff along the live and let live lines, but she's very into complementary medicine and so objected about medicalising children.

Working in the voluntary sector however is a nightmare, with lots of younger pronoun people, mostly younger women, heterosexual, well-educated, can't see the issues. It's depressing.

@SmokedDuck

Interestingly though, the "question everything" people often are seen as regressive in their views by the modern-types, even apart from this issue.

"...Don’t let me catch any of you at any time loving anything without asking questions. Question everything-even what I’m saying now. Especially, perhaps, what I say. Question every one in authority; and see that you get sensible answers to your questions. Then, if the answers are sensible, obey the orders without protest.

Question your government’s policy, question the arms race, question the Kingsport slums, and the economies over feeding school children, and the rule that makes women have to renounce their jobs on marriage, and why the derelict areas still are derelict.

This is a great country, and we are proud of it, and it means much that is most lovable. But questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence. Vow as much love to your country as you like; serve to the death if that is necessary… .But, I implore you, do not forget to question. Lead on, girls.”

Winifrid Holtby - South Riding

@SmokedDuck

Charley - I think for some people, sports is always going to be seen as not that serious. They essentially see it as recreation.

Yes, that's what the neighbour said, although he is a massive football fan. Said it's no biggie. (Also didn't see a problem with sexism when I reminded him that the FA banned females from using their grounds to play football for decades - no biggie). I did start to talk about men in women's prisons, and the vulnerable girls I know in danger of medically transitioning, but he just kept saying it's niche and only affected a tiny number of women, so it doesn't matter. It's so frustrating.

I've been trying to have this conversation with a friend of mine for years, and everytime I think I'm getting somewhere he throws in some variant of, "Yes, but that never happens/trans people are the most oppressed."
And it's getting to the point where I'm thinking, either you don't believe me, or you don't care, and either way, you're an asshole.

I sometimes wonder if the people who instantly accuse others of transphobia are overcompensating for the fact that deep down they actually are transphobic but don't want to admit it. It's visceral that's why they can't face a rational discussion. Mouthing platitudes provides a more secure cover.

I try to have the stats to hand - the huge, ski-jump graph of girls seeking transition. Ask them what do they think has suddenly happened to girls and not boys to make this happen? And do they think this is a good thing, progressive? Have they listened the accounts of detransitioners? Ask them if they know what happens to gays in Iran, and think about the parallels with the attitudes to homosexuality, which they openly talk about, of some of the Western families who have obtained early transition for their male children. Ask them if they've seen online and in the workplace or universities what happens to women who speak up about women's rights and safe spaces or voice concerns about puberty blockers. Ask them why they think so many of those pelting women with death and rape threats have anime girl avatars, and why, if they identify as female and seek the haven of the women's toilets, rape with a penis is the threat they regularly reach for? Ask them why they think sex segregated spaces were brought in in the first place, and what proportion of those currently under the expanded trans umbrella have functioning penises and are sexually attracted to women? And so on....

If their response is to 'unfriend' you, they're not friends worth having.

Sometimes you can try to out-woke them. Nod along enthusiastically and give more examples of dreadfully ‘oppressed’ people who are trans-racial, trans-disabled, trans-species. Fervently champion these people’s rights - poor Rachel Dolezal, etc etc, poor trans-disabled athletes being banned from the Paralympics, etc.

It’s hard to keep a straight face but if you can do a passionate, earnest and outraged voice you can even get people apologising to you for their ‘transphobia’ against these other marginalised groups. This just shows the complete lunacy of some of the more recent Gender Ideology stuff. If people are who they say they are, there must be no exceptions. Wrongthink is everywhere. You can never be pure enough.

My mother's friends are now waking up to this - they thought we were talking about people like April Ashley or Jan Morris or Hayley from Coronation Street. We're not. They're now seeing grandchildren and their schoolfriends in groups saying they want mastectomies, or fighting moves to make their workplace toilets mixed sex, and noticing the everyday changes erasing women in the language.