How do we provide a face-saving way back to reality for the politicians / public figures who are currently transactivism's minions?

[WhereYouLeftIt]

I feel the tide is turning. Mainstream media are running articles on the current craziness and not just repeating verbatim whatever guff they are handed. Corporations and government departments are starting to distance themselves from Stonewall, and there have been some wins in the courts.

Sunlight is being allowed into the room, and the pigeons are coming home to roost.

But - many have publicly painted themselves into the TWAW corner. Very publicly. And if we're ever going to get them out of there, some, particularly the politicians, are going to need a face-saving way to get out of that corner, their political careers depend on it. And whilst I don't give a stuff for their careers, them saving face and stepping away from their current position will take far fewer years than replacing them with new and unbeholden politicians.

I really don't believe that many of them are True Believers Of The Faith (those who are we can probably do nothing about), just people trying to do a pressured job where time constraints have led them to take as fact the opinions presented to them by lobbyists.

So - what will make these people step out of that corner? What would make that look like a possible, even attractive, path? Carrot? Stick? Even shinier cause to espouse?

I wonder if the NICE review of paediatric transition will provide such an opportunity.

I'd like to think so, particularly as it's adopted such an open process and has an outstanding Chair.

However, NICE is currently mired in controversy for delaying the publication of the ME/CFS revised guidelines.

In short, it's thought the ME/CFS guidelines were due to be substantially revised in response to the evidence review that reconsidered the PACE trials (the source of the evidence for GET and subsequently heavily contested for the validity of the methodology and outcomes). The Royal Colleges have (allegedly) refused to implement the revised guidelines and want to stay with the previous deprecated evidence review.

There is now to be an additional event that NICE has never used before - a roundtable process. There's no clarity on who will chair it, the terms of reference, who will be there, and what the output of this would be.

I'd like to think this is a one off but it could be a sign that NICE is being subject to political pressure. I'm apprehensive that this might happen for other issues that involve political and social controversy.

@CorrBlimeyGG

The tide is turning OP. Just not in the direction you want it to. Literally the first response to you conflates transwomen with sex offenders. How would any rational person think that acceptable?

is that not part and parcel of the GC thing?

No it isnt.
Gaps in safeguarding (such as sacred castes) give access to predators and will be used by them; which puts vulnerable people at risk.

I'm remembering the case of a celebrity who tweeted his support of JKR, then was told off for doing so by his teenage 'activist' daughters, and went quiet on the issue. For some adults I think the line "we didn't know the rabbit holes our children were falling into online, the strangers they were meeting through fandoms, the way they were being coached, the escape buttons organisations gave them to hide their online activities etc." is an honest way for some of them to come out of this.

A louder conversation about the phenomenal amounts of money being made by Big Pharma and the surgery industry out of these young people may also be a way out for those who like to think of themselves as on the Left, and more scrutiny about the role that money plays in political lobbying and policy making.

Interesting question, OP. I think it’s helpful to show people you believe in their good intentions. Make it clear their support for TWAW was understandable when less was known about it. But it’s reasonable to change your mind when new facts come to light.

Eg “Back when people thought T was part of the LGB cause, of course they wanted to support it. It must have seemed the only fair thing to do. Then we started seeing the problems: self-ID giving all men (trans or not) the right of access to all women’s spaces. Now a lot of crimes and problems have been reported” — useful to have plenty of examples handy — “we’re starting to see it’s not as we first thought …”

Literally the first response to you conflates transwomen with sex offenders.

I didn’t see the first response before it was deleted. But the proportion of sex offenders among TW in prison is much higher than among male prisoners. And self-ID also allows any male sex predator to call himself trans in order to access women and children.

I think there is a way out, and its developing fast.

History gives us an example of when a 'cancel culture' ended, with one single overreach.

The current environment is often compared with McCarthyism in the 1950s with Senator Joseph McCarthy's pursuit of communists throughout the media and in American institutions. It was only when he pursued a U.S. Army dentist who had been promoted to the rank of major that he ran into serious opposition, and within a year 'McCarthyism' was gone. He overreached and his movement came unstuck. Colleagues and associates disowned him and the Senate undid the laws he had introduced in a matter of years.

In the current climate, I reckon the overreach is happening right now, driven by Stonewalls definition of homosexuality as being same-gender attraction, rather than the legal and accepted definition of same-sex attraction. And although it seems lesbians don't count, and women's objection are apparently insufficient to bring the edifice crashing-down on its own, the TRA's now attacking the gay male community are bringing a new, and hugely influential element into the fray, but not on their side. And they can't stop, because refuting even one tenet of transgenderism means challenging the entire creed, and it's a dogma that doesn't encourage introspection or revision.

That overreach is likely to increase, almost daily, because it appears many TRA's have determined that homosexual = transphobic.

As the conflict escalates, I reckon a lot of academics, politicians, media professionals and what not, are going to find that there is now suddenly an exit route available. They can disown the transgender cause; not to help women and 'TERFs' of course, because they couldn't bear, in many cases, to be seen to do that (there misogyny will remain in place) but rather because they couldn't bear to be associated with homophobia.

Not wanting to be seen as a homophobe will be the way out for many who currently claim to be trans-allies.

They can disown the transgender cause; not to help women and 'TERFs' of course, because they couldn't bear, in many cases, to be seen to do that (there misogyny will remain in place) but rather because they couldn't bear to be associated with homophobia.

Given how long it's taken women accused of witchcraft to earn their apology, I think you are right.

I think disowning the homophobia, and also the racism could provide a bridge. Less than 14 hours ago, we had a white transwoman, Jane Fae (who has been platformed on TV, on liberal feminist websites, and in newsprint) making fun of a GC woman for her 'fake tan'. She's mixed-race: it's her natural skin colour.

@IvyTwines2

I'm remembering the case of a celebrity who tweeted his support of JKR, then was told off for doing so by his teenage 'activist' daughters, and went quiet on the issue. For some adults I think the line "we didn't know the rabbit holes our children were falling into online, the strangers they were meeting through fandoms, the way they were being coached, the escape buttons organisations gave them to hide their online activities etc." is an honest way for some of them to come out of this.

A louder conversation about the phenomenal amounts of money being made by Big Pharma and the surgery industry out of these young people may also be a way out for those who like to think of themselves as on the Left, and more scrutiny about the role that money plays in political lobbying and policy making.

Jonathan Ross has actually said some things supportive of the GC side since then, though. But he's probably a rarity.

I could believe some well meaning people at the beginning of this debate, championing what they felt was inclusive, could now have seen reality and changed their minds and just gone quiet. But those who continue to push an anti woman agenda in the face of all the evidence of harm against women and girls, who have seen the threatening and silencing of women and who are still OK with it? I think they will just outright deny it. When the public become aware of what TRA's are actually demanding and the tide turns0, even in the face of evidence, screenshots and archived posts, I think those who have aligned themselves with an anti-woman ideology will simply deny their previous comments or say that they were 'misunderstood'. I mean, DARVO is so fundamental to TRA's arguments that it will simply be adapted into a form of gaslighting - 'you just imagined it, you misunderstood, you're deliberately misrepresenting what I said'.

@secular111 very good point - you may be right.

Something I think would be really powerful would be to stop using gender to refer to sex. So broadcasters, politicians government & public sector documents use the correct language. Every single time.

Occasionally they could try using the word woman too.

If only we could reclaim the language, I genuinely believe people themselves will start quietly reversing.

That's such a good point Cuck00soup The mangling of language and the deliberate removal of sex based language - especially in relation to women, allows people to hide behind word salad while shouting meaningless mantras - #TWAW, #bekind

I would predict that essentially feminism and anti-racism will be sacrificed by politicians. There will be a backlash against any kind of 'identity politics' or class analysis, which will include any discussion of women's needs and any discussion of racism - we've already had a report saying there isn't any racism in the UK!! To get out of talking about gender, they'll refuse to talk about sex.

One possibility is that the people who don't see the writing on the wall will just become more and more irrelevant. I think that's a real possibility with political types, outside a few cities and university towns, idpolitics is becoming a losing perspective among regular people.

I tend to think that celebrities will just go quiet

But I do think it helps to just accept people when they change their views, without bringing up old stuff.

Call me a pessimist, but it's going to take awful things happening isn't it? A raft of legal cases, the horrific realisation that quackery ruined the bodies of countless young people, not to mention their chances of having a family (something that won't dawn on them as important until they're in their 30s/40s). The erosion of safeguarding brought about by tacit approval of self identification, and previously single sex spaces being made unisex, will lead to an increasing number of cases like the WiSpa incident, Barbie Kardashian, Karen White etc Over time it won't be possible to say these are isolated incidents. Given what we know about male pattern offending and the increased likelihood of girls and women being assaulted in unisex spaces we'll see more incidents of voyeurism and indecent exposure. Then politicians will feel emboldened to call for the reintroduction of single sex spaces and protections for women and the wheel will come full circle. Because they existed for a reason in the first place ffs. Everyone knows it if they give it any thought, they just choose not to because it's not politically expedient.

Sorry I know that doesn't answer the question in a constructive way.

It's hard isn't it HeddaAga - it all feels so enraging and despairing. But the OP and is right - somehow as LobsterNapkin points out, we need to accept people's right to change their minds without keep pointing out "but you said"...

Having said that, there are some very influential people who I don't think I could keep quiet about.....

wrt the piece about the overlap with fraud/cons that I posted upthread, is there any notion of who the 'coolers' would be?

Are the coolers people in the 'You're all a bunch of transphobic bigots' state of mind at present but who would shift because of their concerns about:
– the irreversible medicalisation of children;
– the wretched state and access to CAMHS;
– the inherent homophobia as the logical endpoint;
– the impact on free speech?

In my opinion, facts aren't enough to make the politicians step back from the lobbying. The facts have always been there. And facts don't matter when you're captured.

But, I don't believe most of them are really captured, just unthinking and - well, maybe existing in an echo chamber of the lobbyists' making? Echo chambers restrict the facts that reach you and amplify misinformation to the point you believe it is fact. How do you gets someone to step outside the echo chamber - carrot or stick? And what form could those take?

Fear of pile-ons is a powerful thing, which TRAs have deployed to great effect. But to be fearful of it implies knowledge, IYSWIM? To modify your behaviour to avoid one, you have to be aware that those orchestrating a pile-on are willing to destroy people's careers. That's not something to encourage 'loyalty', is it? Again leading me back to 'they're not True Believers'.

You can probably see how I'm going around in circles with this?

So, they have facts. They just don't use them. What would make them do so?

I'm beginning to think the very blatant homophobia could provide that 'golden bridge' out of the corner they've got themselves into. And the racism. Whilst misogyny is built in with the bricks, and there is a lot of homophobia, blatant homophobia is still avoided. Could that be their way out? And racism - with Black Lives Matter I think that's a bridge for politicians too. They cannot be seen to be racist, or supporting racism.

There has to be a face-saving way for them to step away. Just like the government departments stepping away from Stonewall for financial reasons - there has to be something.

most people (the Jameela Jamils, the Stephen Kings, even the Laurie Pennys) will just .....go quiet. No climb down, but no more saying that they believe men can become women either

I suspect that Owen Jones won't be able to let it go and will find himself quietly sidelined in the way Graham Linnehan has now

in my slightly tinfoil hat view, the only explanation for the single minded pursuit of genderism by scottish politicians is that money has changed hands, or some sort of promise of power. therefore i don't think they're going to be able to go quiet easily. i think they will in the end though

The cautionary tale of Jo Swinson may give some MPs pause for thought come next election time.

"most people (the Jameela Jamils, the Stephen Kings, even the Laurie Pennys) will just .....go quiet. No climb down, but no more saying that they believe men can become women either"

Such people have the influence of celebrity, but they don't have power in the way politicians do. They cannot pass laws, politicians can. Politicians going quiet is not enough, especially if they have enacted laws already. Damage will need to be undone, so there has to be the environment to allow/encourage them to climb down without it being seen as a climb down (because then they won't climb down).