Is the Trans Issue like Brexit?

[LaetitiaASD]

Brexit relied on being everything to as many people as possible. They never made any one specific promise, you could vote brexit if you hated immigration, or hated the alleged bureaucracy (it's not that big), of feared for an eu army, or turkey joining, or you wanted to wave a st george's cross or you hated political correctness etc etc.

TRAs are the same. They cannot actually specifically define what they believe or what they want. They rely 100% on vagueness and never actually saying anything concise and definitive.

Maybe this is obvious, but it just occurred to me.

I can't say that this seems a useful comparison to me. It's true that there are different reasons people thought a leave vote was a good idea, and various reasons people argue for gender ideology. But you could say that about 99% of issues.

One way they are similar is a tendency to demonize people who don't toe the liberal progressive line.

It feels like part of the same sort of new, horrible, toxic style of 'politics' where you have to be 100% on one side or the other and no grey area or middle ground of discussion is allowed. And I do wonder if the feeling of impotent anger from some very heavily Remain-campaigning male, middle aged blue tick accounts is now being redirected at women.

I agree it's equally, if not more toxic but nothing in the Brexit debate was based in scientific truth.

I drew this comparison the other day!

Totally different reasons though.

Mine were-

Not party political. In the parties there were strong views for/ against each side.

Ditto public. Across the board voters for certain parties did not have anywhere near a uniform position.

Issue was about something outside party politics. Feelings were due to many factors. And not at all really to do with political leanings.

This issue is the same. It's outside political leanings/ voting etc.

It's about women, across the board.

And those pushing it are mainly men. The women supporting are... Generally a distraction. If this hadn't been pushed by the groups it has been, I really can't imagine women would have come up with it and pushed it. And if they had. It wouldn't have got anywhere much as who listens to what women want?

There is certainly a great deal of prioritising feelings over facts in both cases.

@PickAChew

I agree it's equally, if not more toxic but nothing in the Brexit debate was based in scientific truth.

It wasn't about science. It was about many things- economics, views on society, views on the EU, etc

No science involved. I mean hard science. Eg sex existing.

Yes in the way that if you aren't on the "good" side (Remain/TWAW) you're labelled as vermin subjected to abuse up to and including death/rape threats.

Even as a Remain voter myself I'd rather be stuck in a lift with a Brexity blokey than a Remainer wokey. More chance of coming out in one piece.

@NandJ

Yes in the way that if you aren't on the "good" side (Remain/TWAW) you're labelled as vermin subjected to abuse up to and including death/rape threats.

Even as a Remain voter myself I'd rather be stuck in a lift with a Brexity blokey than a Remainer wokey. More chance of coming out in one piece.

Exactly this.

I don't think it's anything like Brexit.

There were very convincing arguments on both sides of the debate - the anti-democratic nature of the EU and the creeping encroachment of the CJEU for one thing, as well as the constant transfer of competencies from the individual member states to the EU to name a few of the more persuasive (to me) arguments on the Leave side. I voted Remain in the end, but I get sick of Leave voters being portrayed as ignorant, xenophobic thickos who were wholly driven by emotion. Some were, but most Remain voters I know couldn't tell you the first thing about how the EU worked either.

There aren't any convincing arguments on the pro-TRA side. It's purely led by emotion. They can't explain what makes an mtf transitioner a woman or an ftm transitioner a man. It's anti-science. Also, the EU as a concept is a political experiment. It doesn't depend on biological reality. If events had taken a different course (eg no Treaty of Rome in the fifties) the EU wouldn't even exist.

Also, we actually got a debate on Brexit! People were allowed to discuss the issue! So unlike this topic.

I don't see many (if any) parallels at all.

@LaetitiaASD

Not atall.

Trans people just want to accepted as the gender they are. Remember all foetus start off female in the womb.

They don’t want it be victimised.

All women want to be safe.

Brexit was a lie sold buy ignorant toffs to gullible people with a horrid hint of money racism and past glory of empire

[quote Cascascascas]@LaetitiaASD

Not atall.

Trans people just want to accepted as the gender they are. Remember all foetus start off female in the womb.

They don’t want it be victimised.

All women want to be safe.

Brexit was a lie sold buy ignorant toffs to gullible people with a horrid hint of money racism and past glory of empire[/quote]
We got a live one!

I'm not sure that it is helpful to draw the comparison because people get het up about Brexit so any argument would probably get derailed.

However, I can see a similarity in mission creep. A trading bloc (EEC) morphed into a wannabe-supranational organisation (EU) and the public weren't allowed a voice on it (all UK political parties were pro-Maastricht). For the trans issue, the legal recognition of adult transpeople (GRA2004) has morphed into a unregulated free-for-all (self-ID, applying to children, disregard of EA2010, etc). Again, the public weren't asked for their consent.

I think the only way that is like Brexit is that some on one side keeps issuing warnings about what will happen if we do it, and some on the other side ignore it and just make stuff up.

There is now a standard about the Cornish; the majority in the area voted for Brexit and now they have discovered that load of EU money has disappeared and they are unhappy. “No one told us!” Etc.

Personally I reckon all the female libfems/ handmaidens will be in a similar boat. “We were just being kind and bathing in our virtue signalling, no one told us we would be in mixed sex wards/ not be able to object to a male giving our mothers personal care/ have to take our little daughters into changing rooms with male genitalia.”

I hate the post Brexit mess we’re in. There is no going back. It means I’ll fight even harder for this.

@Cascascascas

Science.

Foetuses are male or female.

Actually they all start as a tadpole chicken alien type thing. With tails.

Take a vial of a pregnant women's blood at 11 weeks pregnant and you'll find the dna of her baby in her blood; it will be male or female. That's called a NIPT test.

It may show extremely rare chromosomal conditions such as xxy, still a male, but they're extremely rare.

It's unhelpful to analogise with brexit.

Beyond how spin works.

I agree there is no middle ground now.

However I think Brexit is a red herring in this discussion.

The culture wars have been stoked deliberately, they're very damaging, everyone has to play a part by refusing to go down that path.

The culture wars have been stoked deliberately, they're very damaging, everyone has to play a part by refusing to go down that path.

Absolutely this.

Triggernometry, Matthew Goodwin, perfect explanation of how this has damaged Labour.

Trying not to launch into the sex development of chickens here.

It's culture wars. The new political divide is about being open (trade is good, immigrants make a positive contribution, we benefit from mixing with other cultures) Vs closed (protect our culture and people from outside influences, defend ourselves against enemies etc).

Being open = recognising gender is a construct that often harms people, wanting freedom and self expression. Being closed = wanting to protect women from harm, recognising that sex and gender are real and have concrete implications that can't just be wished away.

Both sides have a point. We've lost the middle ground where we can discuss things with nuance and find compromise.

This is where I sound nuts - I think psy ops from the Russians underlies it all. Russia can't compete with the West militarily or economically any more but it can undermine us by fanning the flames of culture wars.

Russia takes pre-existing debates and funds groups on both sides of the argument to create division. They use bots to amplify social media on either side of the argument. They don't care about the actual facts of the debate, they just want to fuck with us and make us doubt and despair and argue with our grannies.

Russians put loads of money into brexit and I'm sure they're stoking this fire too.

Remember all foetus start off female in the womb.

No they don't. If a sperm with a Y chromosome fertilises the ovum then the foetus is male (XY) from conception. The fact that male sex organs don't develop until a certain point of gestation doesn't make the foetus female up to that point.

Remember all foetus start off female in the womb.

IF this is true, how does it explain transmen?

The divide and rule tactics are similar and the shut down of debate are similar and perhaps the baseline arguments of prejudice are similar (all brexiteers are racist, all GC are transphobic).

Remember all foetus start off female in the womb.

Sex is determined at conception depending on whether the egg is fertilised by an X-chromosome sperm or a Y-chromosome sperm.

If we are doing the basics of sexual reproduction... the foetus starts from an egg and a sperm. The egg is the large immobile gamete and by definition organisms producing these are female. The sperm is a small mobile gamete and production of small mobile gametes defines an organism as male. Hence sex is binary. There are no other gametes, no spectrum.

@WarriorN

How rude. I am doctor.
You are clearly arrogant.