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 manage a restaurant and we have half a dozen student summer staff at the moment. They were all taking about what bollocks ‘non-binary’ is the other day. It really cheered me up as I thought they’d be prime candidates for wokery but they all have their heads screwed on. One at Falmouth, one at South Bank, one at London Met so artsy/woke environments.

My partner and I have been trying to raise attention about the incursion of men who say they're women into women's and lesbian groups and organisations for more than a decade. We thought once more people knew what was going on the whole things would be sorted out quickly. Hollow laughter. We are also Remainers and had to deal with that. Then we had all the stress of Covid. We sometimes wonder if it's all sent us mad and we wake up every morning feeling like the only sane people on the planet because we must be insane by now? But MN and Resisters and LGB Alliance suggests we are still functioning well enough.

The only good thing is that we turn out to be a damn sight more resilient than anticipated.

I hear this, OP. An old friend of mine, rather serious and right on, shared that Owen Jones video last week with a dramatic statement about how evil Glinner is, and he'd share his Substack so people could see but he didn't want to get done for hate speech!

I wanted to say 'oh, don't be so bloody ridiculous'. It's unbelievable so much is at stake just to do so. Another just started a big job at an LGBTQ+ org. The fall out would have been too much so I stayed quiet.

I'd consider a real life conversation with these friends, but walking into such a loaded situation online would have been a disaster.

It's clearly a lot easier to "like" something on social media without actually having to engage your brain in critical thought. It reminds me of chain letters in the 80s at school; a teacher in assembley had to tell us that you didn't actually have to unthinkingly forward them to ten friends.

Dutifully chanting "trans women are women" translates for most people as "I am a kind person who doesn't want anyone to feel left out". Once you've advertised yourself as this kind person, it's hard to have to question what you've signed up to actually means.

They can't back down. Once they have lent their support to an ideology that is encouraging children to make irreversible changes to their bodies, they have to go on believing they've made the right choice because the alternative, to admit they were wrong but the damage has already been done, is so horrific.

This is a middle class issue OP. My workplace gets ever more TWAW and ultrawoke, and so do my friends. My working class family, on the other hand, think it’s all risible bollocks. Many of us in professional jobs are surrounded with a particular demographic and it’s easy to forget the majority of the country doesn’t drink the koolaid. Hoping as the lunacy filters down, more people will say bugger this for a game of soldiers.

I have a friend who I have always seen eye to eye with on pretty much everything - politics, feminism, Brexit, parenting, social issues, etc. She’s an intelligent liberal-minded person. But we can’t even have a civilised discussion on this topic. She informed me a few weeks ago that ‘transphobia IS misogyny’.

It’s so bizarre - as I say she’s a very bright individual - that it often makes me question whether I’m the one who’s wrong.

I was told that trans people are at very high risk of murder because of attitudes like mine.

Do people even think before coming out with stuff like this?

Women who want privacy, dignity and safety when undressed are responsible for men murdering trans people?

Feminists arguing for women's rights are responsible for men murdering trans people?

People who want sport to be fair and safe for women and girls are responsible for men murdering trans people?

@RoseAndGeranium

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.

The irony of Fox Killer's position is that he is someone who fervently believes 52% of the adult population have made a very bad decision against the established 'norm', based on misinformation spread by sinister operators on the internet, and that that bad decision must not be irreversible, and that Britain needs a second referendum in which he assumes it will change its mind. Teenagers making irreversible decisions about their entire future life informed by stuff they've picked up from the internet though - that's fine, and the adults trying to put in place checks and balances must be stopped!

It is really weird how people behave on this subject. I had a massive argument with my sister over it and we've not properly spoken since. I honestly don't know how to.
The whole argument consisted of:
Me: my argument is 'A'
Her: Oh my god, how can you say 'B'
Me: No, I'm saying 'A'
Her: 'C' is a horrible thing to say.
The thing is, I've known her all her life. She's not a stupid person and she's deeply compassionate. It's like this weird disconnect with reality and I see it over and over again, on here and on twitter and elsewhere.
There are all these women clearly and matter of factly saying 'A' and immediately being condemned for believing 'B'.
How do you even start to have a discussion when the other person doesn't hear a word you're saying and puts words in your mouth instead?

Similarly, something I've struggled to understand for a long time was how women in the U.S. could support Trump after seeing that awful 'grab em by the pussy' video. And not just support him, but claim that anyone criticising him was fake news.
Now, I'm seeing people on the left do the exact same thing with trans issues.
If it comes from their'own' side, they just can't seem to take in the most horrible misogyny right in front of them, and they'll have this furious knee jerk reaction to anyone who even tries to discuss it.
It's Trumpism for the left.

Imagine telling a girl in Afghanistan right now that a trans woman in England is more oppressed than her? Or a girl in Sudan who is having to undergo FGM that a trans woman is more oppressed than her? Or that a young girl being forced to marry a man twice her age that a trans woman is more oppressed than her.

There was a recent news story in BBC about a 14 yr old dying in child birth. Recent as in a few days ago recent.

So yes. No one is more oppressed than trans women. Women rights have been won! Nothing to see here ladies.

The irony of Fox Killer's position is that he is someone who fervently believes 52% of the adult population have made a very bad decision against the established 'norm', based on misinformation spread by sinister operators on the internet, and that that bad decision must not be irreversible, and that Britain needs a second referendum in which he assumes it will change its mind.

It wasn't "52% of the adult population". It was just over 37%, with nearly 35% voting the other way. You can't make any assumptions about the 28% who didn't vote. So what you mean is "52% of the people who voted".

Apologies for the derail.

@OldCrone

The irony of Fox Killer's position is that he is someone who fervently believes 52% of the adult population have made a very bad decision against the established 'norm', based on misinformation spread by sinister operators on the internet, and that that bad decision must not be irreversible, and that Britain needs a second referendum in which he assumes it will change its mind.

It wasn't "52% of the adult population". It was just over 37%, with nearly 35% voting the other way. You can't make any assumptions about the 28% who didn't vote. So what you mean is "52% of the people who voted".

Apologies for the derail.

Yes, 52% of those who voted. My point was that they were all adults, over 18, some with many decades of life experience. Many of those on the Remain side think Leave voters were nevertheless sheep easily led by internet misinformation. How can these same (mostly middle class, supposedly well educated) FBPE activists utterly disregard those same influences, influences which they think played such a role in Brexit, when they are acting on the minds of teenagers who have very little life experience and spend far more of their waking hours online? (There's another thread on here today about a certain fishy organisation winning an award for influencing the world's leading search engine Google in their favour!)

@OldTurtleNewShell

It is really weird how people behave on this subject. I had a massive argument with my sister over it and we've not properly spoken since. I honestly don't know how to. The whole argument consisted of: Me: my argument is 'A' Her: Oh my god, how can you say 'B' Me: No, I'm saying 'A' Her: 'C' is a horrible thing to say. The thing is, I've known her all her life. She's not a stupid person and she's deeply compassionate. It's like this weird disconnect with reality and I see it over and over again, on here and on twitter and elsewhere. There are all these women clearly and matter of factly saying 'A' and immediately being condemned for believing 'B'. How do you even start to have a discussion when the other person doesn't hear a word you're saying and puts words in your mouth instead?

Yes! It’s incredibly frustrating! But - this is deliberate. In the absence of genuine arguments or a coherent ideology, GI people have spread a false idea of what it means to be gender critical. Now we’re winning, they’re doing it even more. The object is to stop people listening to us - because if they do, they realise ‘the emperor has no clothes’.

It’s the manipulation of language. They hope that the mere mention of being GC will be enough to ensure we’re ostracised and treated as evil. I sometimes try to do it in reverse to them, but the problem is they’re so primed to jump to the wrong conclusions, to leap to thought-terminating mantras, and not to actually listen and debate, it’s hard to get through to them.

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?

Most people have no idea this is happening. They don't follow or hear from daft lumps on Twitter, and they do feel genuinely sorry for the implausible 'woman' in the skirt and too much makeup, so they overcompensate.

Yes! It’s incredibly frustrating! But - this is deliberate.
I don't think it is. Some of the time, absolutely, but not always.
As mentioned, the person I was arguing with above was my sister. We've always had a habit of discussing politics, feminism, everything. I know her too well to believe it was deliberate. She genuinely believed it and she was genuinely upset that I 'believed' what she thought I did even as I struggled to explain that I didn't.
I've got a feeling this is one of the banned words on here so hopefully I won't get deleted, but I think that a lot of it is down to a very cultish way of thinking.
I grew up (outside the UK) in a fundamentalist Christian town and arguing with her felt like having an argument with the religious fundamentalists of our youth. With them, it didn't matter what I actually said or how respectful I was about it, anything other than full deference to the church was seen as letting the devil in.
This feels like the same kind of thinking. Compassion and tolerance are what's preached, but it's blind faith and the fear of heresy that people actually live by.

You’re right Turtle, it does all seem to have an evangelical fervour to it.

@MoreRainThanAnyYet

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?

Most people have no idea this is happening. They don't follow or hear from daft lumps on Twitter, and they do feel genuinely sorry for the implausible 'woman' in the skirt and too much makeup, so they overcompensate.

And those who do try to highlight this to the non-social-media using mainstream adult population get shut down: look at what happened to Amanda Craig with Mslexia when she signed the Sunday Times letter condemning the 'RIP JKR' death threats. Young women in the same arts field ganged up on her: that's what really gets me (though of course professional jealousy of JKR plays a big role in this).

I spoke to a couple of friends about this recently. One of them had been recently peaked by Laurel Hubbard. The other one said "what JK Rowling said was awful, she's a TERF" which just means she hadn't read what JKR had written. Latter friend works in a very woke environment and when I said that the danger of self ID was, for example, men being able to go in to women's refuges she said "oh that would never happen"! Basically, she's just had a nice middle-class education and lives in a little bubble and doesn't realize how utterly evil some men are.

I keep going back and forth on whether to send her more information because I know she isn't stupid but I don't want to annoy her so that she shuts down. I am trying to take it slow and steady and let her find out for herself.

This view may be in the minority, but as a Christian I feel social moral injustice seems to increase where lines between right and wrong are blurred and deconstructed over time. Everyone has a different take on what is right and wrong. Different groups voice their rights to practice whatever they want, have their agenda politically and socially accepted (usually goes hand in hand with being taught in schools) and legislated for. This in turn is viewed as progressive and social norms are set. Dodgy practices can then have free run, like women being forced to share women only spaces with men, and once this is legislated for it is hard to go back. Such legislation enables a very small minority to have their rights upheld (eg trans access to women only spaces) vs women who make up half the population of the country (who have their safe spaces eroded). Just doesn’t seem right. And what’s next? I was shocked to learn of the political movement in France to abolish the age of consent - completely - to legalise sex with infants and children of ANY age, to make sex with children entirely legal, which is just horrifying. It seems that even thinking in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ has fallen so much out of favour, that those of us who believe some practices are just morally wrong are demonised and labelled as ‘extreme’ or phobic. In fact, my faith supports my belief in the equality and intrinsic value of all people, and has shaped how I see and treat people (which I try to do so fairly and with compassion).

Isn't it the other way round, Jelly? France didn't have an age of consent as such, but they voted one in as recently as this year?

Hi MoreRain, it’s a good point - having looked into it further it seems the french age of consent had been an ongoing debate for many years, there is an age of consent at 15 but not fully protective for minors below that age where it can be ‘proven’ consent for sex had been given. annoyingly I’ve lost the link for the specific article I read which outlined the philosophy a French man was arguing the case ‘for’ sex with minors ( which included infants) basically pro child abuse, and that the legal age of consent should be removed.

(Sorry if off OP topic) www.verdict.co.uk/suggested-france-change-age-consent-13/
Seems to be against the backdrop of a couple of recent cases in France where grown men were acquitted of rape of 11 yr old girls

“The discussion in France comes after two cases in recent weeks, where French courts failed to prosecute men for rape after having sex with 11 year-old girls, because there was no proof of coercion.

In one of the cases, prosecutors said there had been “no violence, no coercion, no threat and no surprise” to constitute a rape charge and therefore ruled the 11 year old had consented.”

@Imnobody4

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.

Yes, it's interesting how a deep dive into the Twitter feeds of the most vocal male supporters often reveals references to 'trannies'.