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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The de-radicalization of an anti-trans activist

153 replies

malloo · 19/11/2021 07:20

rabble.ca/lgbtiq/the-de-radicalization-of-an-anti-trans-activist/

This is interesting, some hints and tips for anyone looking for a route out of being part of extremist gender critical hate groups Grin. Worth reading the whole thing but below are a few excerpts.

This nascent anti-trans movement is known as “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism” (or “TERF”) to its opponents and some neutral observers. To its proponents, however, the movement is more commonly described as “gender critical feminism”: a euphemistic rebranding of trans-exclusionary politics that tries to pass it off as something more respectable and enlightened than it is.For my part, I will use “gender critical” here to emphasize that, no matter what name it goes by, the movement is transphobic to its core.

Already, gender critical feminism has its apostates: people who initially participated in anti-trans activism, sometimes intensively, but have since desisted.

These “ex-gender criticals” are rarely profiled. De-transitioners (people who begin but later stop gender transitioning, sometimes becoming anti-trans activists themselves) figure much more prominently in the media discourse on transgender rights.

(So-called gender criticals themselves are to thank for this. They like to bandy de-transitioners around as proof that trans people’s experiences of their gender is not “real”; that trans-affirming medical care is too easy to access; and, that people can, in the end, be rescued from “transgenderism.”)

The relative absence of ex-gender criticals from the public consciousness does a disservice to trans people and our allies.

Trans-inclusive feminists have much to learn from the experiences of ex-GCers. For one thing, the trans-exclusionary movement is not nearly as solid as it might appear from the outside. It is possible for even hardcore members to join the cause of trans inclusion.

.........

The making of a transphobe
It was the fallout from trans woman Jessica Yaniv’s unsuccessful campaign to force aestheticians to wax her genitalia that set Alicia Hendley on the path to radicalization.

She still considered herself a trans ally in January 2019 when she connected with Morgane Oger, then the vice president of the B.C. New Democratic Party. Allegations were circulating that Yaniv had engaged in predatory behaviour online: in at least one instance, targeting a twelve-year-old girl for sexual harassment. Hendley, a sexual assault survivor herself, was concerned.

Oger suggested she try to identify some of Yaniv’s other alleged victims. So Hendley reached out to Irish transphobe Graham Linehan.

True, she and the gender criticals on Twitter had not gotten along in the past. “I saw them as transphobic and bigoted,” Hendley explained to me. “The GCers disliked me, and I disliked them. A lot of insults were tossed about.”

But the gender criticals were the ones talking about Yaniv the most — to their mind, Yaniv’s behaviour confirmed their worst fears about trans women to be true. Surely, then, a gender critical as prominent as Linehan could connect Hendley with the right people.

The road to hatred isn’t necessarily paved with hatred. It wasn’t for Hendley, whose descent into the bowels of anti-trans activism was as much a trauma response as anything else.

Linehan referred her to others in the gender-critical movement, and Hendley quickly found common ground.

The GCers speculated that Yaniv might not be a trans woman at all, just a man abusing gender self-identification to prey on vulnerable (cis) women and girls. Hendley found this possibility terrifying.

Perhaps the man who assaulted her could do this, too. Perhaps he could do this to victimize her daughter.

Radicalization is a highly personal and individual process. That is one of the reasons it is so difficult to combat. But it often flows from the unsatisfied needs that lead people to seek fulfillment in extremist movements and ideologies in the first place. There could be a need to heal from some earlier trauma, for example, and to feel safe from further victimization.

The transphobic, erroneous claim that permitting gender self-identification exposes women and girls to male violence stoked Hendley’s fears. Joining the gender criticals in their crusade against the rights of trans women in turn gave her a way to resolve them.
.........
Pandemic school closures meant Hendley’s children were at home much more than before. Her focus turned to providing them with the all-day supervision and care they required. Protecting “sex-based rights” began to seem less urgent.

She picked up a new hobby, learning German, and found she would rather spend her free time on that.
.....
“We were one group-think,” Hendley explained to me. “An echo chamber, a hive mind, with our mission to be ‘protecting the sex-based rights of girls and women’ (that meant cis).”

It’s wrong — and more than a little counterproductive — to assume that the people who join, or even found, hate groups do so because they lack intelligence. Hendley herself holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Windsor.
.......
Rather than argue ad nauseum that trans exclusion is anti-feminist and contrary to Canadian values, trans women and our allies ought, instead, to mobilize ex-GCers like Hendley to combat transphobic hate. Whatever such people have done in the past, they are in a unique position now to pull others out of the gender-critical movement. That makes them invaluable allies.

Recruiting ex-GCers requires, of course, knowing that these Formers exist in the first place.

“I will forever be cognizant of the harm I caused,” she told me recently, “by initiating the creation of caWsbar (not to mention my subsequent involvement). That’s on me, and no one else.”

But it is not too late for her — or any of the increasing number of ex-GCers out there — to make amends.

OP posts:
BettyFilous · 19/11/2021 14:39

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

If I were writing an article to showcase the errors of GC thinking, I’m not sure I’d start with Yaniv. It’s like making a case for lapsed Catholics to rejoin the Church, and starting with the Inquisition.
Trojan GC article designed to bring a few more over to the GC camp?
allmywhat · 19/11/2021 15:38

Ok I only got about 50% of the way through, but it seems like she didn’t even change her mind. Reads like she’s a difficult person who fell out with the rest of her group and stopped participating. What an odd, poorly written article.

MarshmallowSwede · 19/11/2021 15:49

So the argument is that I’d women only spent more time at home looking after children and cooking then we wouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about being gender critical?

Sounds like men’s rights activists.. expect they are in dresses.

WarriorN · 19/11/2021 17:49

@malloo

drum123 Malloo, I'm assuming you don't agree with the premise of the article? You haven't made that clear 😊

No I definitely don't! Sorry, I thought it would be obvious Blush

Thank god; I was rustling up a rather sharp take down that I'm actually far to knackered to do Grin

LonginesPrime · 19/11/2021 17:56

"We were one group-think,” Hendley explained to me. “An echo chamber, a hive mind, with our mission to be ‘protecting the sex-based rights of girls and women’ (that meant cis).”

Just to clarify for anyone who doesn't read the article - when Hendley says this, she's referring to herself and her five initial followers, so basically she formed a little clique and whipped up (whatever it is that she refers to as) anti-trans sentiment among them herself.

"I recall spending an inordinate amount of time combing the internet for information…that would bolster [caWsbar’s] viewpoint,” Hendley recently wrote me.
"I would ignore all of the information that did NOT fit our core belief of the primacy of sex-based rights for (cis) girls and women (and most information I came across didn’t support our views.”

Surely this undermines Hendley's credibility regardless of her viewpoint? How can she be a clinical psychologist and not recognise bias? And how can she retain any academic credibility when she publicly admits this?

merrymouse · 19/11/2021 18:10

She picked up a new hobby, learning German, and found she would rather spend her free time on that.

And this made her comfortable with Yaniv’s exploitation of the law to attack women because…?

The story doesn’t make sense.

merrymouse · 19/11/2021 18:17

@WorkingItOutAsIGo

I think it’s mostly because she went back to being a good little woman at home, none of this bothering her pretty head with these things.

I had forgotten about Yaniv. Great to be reminded! Not sure this is the gotcha the author thinks!

Woman can’t think for herself and is led astray by a man, but then finds solace in domesticity and confinement and realises that thinking is harmful.

It’s a story as old as time. Ask the Taliban.

LonginesPrime · 19/11/2021 18:29

She's saying she was radicalised, but her story seems to be that she started a women's rights organisation, she created a transphobic echo chamber with a hive-mind, she got sidetracked with caring responsibilities and new hobbies, she failed to show leadership in decision-making, she failed to prepare adequate and well-researched briefing papers and she quit after criticism from the people who were inspired to follow her.

She makes out that she was captured by a powerful cult-like ideology, but the article says that she created her own dodgy ideology based on her own shoddy, biased research and then lost interest in it and walked away.

2319inprogress · 19/11/2021 18:37

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

If I were writing an article to showcase the errors of GC thinking, I’m not sure I’d start with Yaniv. It’s like making a case for lapsed Catholics to rejoin the Church, and starting with the Inquisition.
🤣🤣🤣 indeed

Kinder, Kuche, Kirche came to my mind

JellySaurus · 19/11/2021 19:30

Radicalization is a highly personal and individual process. That is one of the reasons it is so difficult to combat. But it often flows from the unsatisfied needs that lead people to seek fulfillment in extremist movements and ideologies in the first place. There could be a need to heal from some earlier trauma, for example, and to feel safe from further victimization.

Someone remind me of the stats on ASD and sexual trauma in girls referred to GIDS?

Artichokeleaves · 19/11/2021 20:10

Not wanting some female people to lose access to essential resources to make male people happier and give them more choice really is not an extremist movement.

Major Tom is waaaaaay out of touch now.

NotTerfNorCis · 06/09/2022 08:13

Alicia is reviewing 'The Ink Black Heart' for ideological impurities. I'm curious to see what she finds: twitter.com/maggie_xer/status/1566027836552613889

So far, she has a problem with the Strike character, and the relationship between Strike and Robin, but she doesn't seem to have found anything ideologically troubling.

Truthlikeness · 06/09/2022 08:25

I genuinely can't think of any case I've come across of someone GC (who'd spent more than 5 minutes understanding the position) converting to the TRA position.

Compare this to the flood of heartfelt and articulate conversion stories in the other direction, particularly notable with the recent #younggcwomenunite testsimonials on Twitter.

NotTerfNorCis · 06/09/2022 08:37

In Alicia's case it was because some of her fellow GCers were too open to speaking to right-wingers. It seems to have been an emotional rather than a rational decision on her side. Confusing tactics with beliefs.

Of course, the vast majority of GCers would not be happy to share a platform with right-wingers. Maybe things are different in Canada, or maybe it was circles she moved in.

pattihews · 06/09/2022 08:58

It's a good demonstration of the way that some trans allies think — which is basically they don't. They react. They're incapable of rational explanation and analysis. As others have said, the article doesn't make sense.

BlackForestCake · 06/09/2022 09:03

Side issue, would Yaniv have been exposed without the fruit farm?

Rightsraptor · 06/09/2022 09:14

@NotTerfNorCis - is Alicia Maggie Tulliver? I had no idea. I'm amazed that she'd be reading it with a view to rooting out any 'transphobia' she may hope to find. It's just a bloody fictional story with loads of influences from the times we live in. Or it is if it's like the other 'Strike' books.

Bonkers.

I have the book sitting on my bookshelves, awaiting its turn to be read, preferably when the weather's crap and I can afford to light the fire. I may have to bring it forward now.

NecessaryScene · 06/09/2022 09:19

Side issue, would Yaniv have been exposed without the fruit farm?

KF was actually a bit late on Yaniv - initial coverage was through more fundamentally GC/feminist spaces like this and Reddit's r/GenderCritical. He was doing lawsuits, in open, and women responded.

Also a few young women popped up to write Medium(?) pieces about their encounters with him as girls. He had a whole dodgy history in the fan circles of some pop group.

Plus there was a load of grim stuff perfectly visible on Twitter or through Google searches.

Almost too easy for KF. But KF certainly became one of the main best places to collate it all, and they kept up the scrutiny - Yaniv being a top-tier lolcow.

If it happened again now, KF would be more crucial - you would no longer be allowed to discuss Yaniv on Reddit, for example - we were at the time.

Terfydactyl · 06/09/2022 09:20

Sometimes I am tempted to drop some new terms around here just to see how quickly it gets used as projection in an article

I really really want to do this, if you see some properly esoteric words in my posts it's either I'm doing this or the menopause has made me in that moment forget the more common words we use.

Terfydactyl · 06/09/2022 09:25

BlackForestCake · 06/09/2022 09:03

Side issue, would Yaniv have been exposed without the fruit farm?

He already was, although it's so long ago I forget where I heard about him first. Possibly he had a proving grounds before his single massive thread and now entire section that I cannot keep up with.

NecessaryScene · 06/09/2022 09:44

There was a period of a few months where the cases were known as being pending, but he was still anonymous as "JY". KF weren't interested until his actual name came out (and it wasn't someone on there who connected the dots), around November 2018.

Then it all exploded around July 2019, with Yaniv coming to wider Internet attention, and the thread then became a subforum on KF. I actually forget what the trigger to that was. Was it the actual tribunals taking place?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/09/2022 09:48

@goinglikeelsie, I think from the Post Millennial, on Twitter live tweeted from the court cases, which brought it to the attention of wider media.

twitter.com/goinglikeelsie/status/1152403630974046208?s=21&t=eHMUHVZGoo22oOjYmDU5hA

NotTerfNorCis · 06/09/2022 09:53

is Alicia Maggie Tulliver?

Yes, she links to her own articles on 'how to escape the GC cult'.

Re Ink Black Heart - I'm listening to it as an audiobook and really enjoying it. Rowling is obviously drawing on her experiences. It's about a female creative being stalked online and lied about. Nothing to do with politics, everything to do with jealousy, at least so far.

Hoppinggreen · 06/09/2022 09:58

I am currently learning German
I had no idea it was an antidote to my Terfiness

RocketPanda · 06/09/2022 10:26

How strange, I was only pondering about Yaniv and his mother the other day. Wondering which women he was targeting now, last I heard it was the fire service being forced to see him naked in the bath. Odious little man.

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