Prospect Magazine: Kathleen Stock v Robin Moira White

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Great discussion.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/gender-wars-two-opposing-perspectives-on-the-trans-and-womens-rights-debate

Gender wars: two opposing perspectives on the trans and women’s rights debate
A lawyer and philosopher respond to seven propositions—ranging from single-sex spaces to puberty blockers for children

@Helleofabore

Ahhhh. So I wasn’t remembering wrong. At the time they had not publicly transitioned but was transitioned in private. I remember that quite clearly.

Have no idea who it was. But yes, that person was very proud to have run after 3 school girls who asked the question of why he was there and why he was filming.

I figured once I couldn’t find it that they received so much flack they took it down. It was abhorrent. Really totally narcissistic. The victimhood they claimed was sick. Who the fuck videos schoolgirls in the toilets in the very first instance? And then to put them all over YouTube?

If I ever saw those girls, I would thank them though. Brave girls.

I recall one famous person who is sometimes in 'boy mode' and sometimes 'girl mode' (their terms), who had a story very like this, but I don't recall filming being involved.

Ach, sorry, I read before refreshing the page. I see OldCrone has linked to the story.

'I think that was the first time I was overtly intimidated because of my sexuality.'

Interesting quote and word choice.

Yeah. This wasn’t Izzard at all. It was a young male with dark hair. And if I remember correctly, they weren’t famous (unless it was YouTube famous.).

However, had it been an option for me not to have endured male puberty

Endured is an interesting choice of word and again tone deaf as to what a female puberty entails. It's reminiscent of the poster who came here once to berate us all about how awful we were talking about painful periods, miscarriages, horrendous birth experiences and health issues unique to female biology because we were reducing their TW friend to tears because they'd give anything to have those experiences and we don't know how lucky we are to have them. Doesn't need saying that said poster was a man.

@Helleofabore

Yeah. This wasn’t Izzard at all. It was a young male with dark hair. And if I remember correctly, they weren’t famous (unless it was YouTube famous.).

I'm really sorry, Helleofabore, I was thinking of Izzard, so my memory didn't back you up after all. I don't for a moment doubt your memory, though, because it seems like a thing men are proud of doing. (And when I was young we were told to scream and hit or kick any man who came into our public lavatories hard between the legs, or spray hair-spray in their eyes if we had any, and run like hell. Hi mi; autres temps, autres moeurs.)

Oh well. it will have no doubt been long deleted anyway. It was actually one of the first videos I saw linked to from MN.

@VestofAbsurdity

However, had it been an option for me not to have endured male puberty

Endured is an interesting choice of word and again tone deaf as to what a female puberty entails. It's reminiscent of the poster who came here once to berate us all about how awful we were talking about painful periods, miscarriages, horrendous birth experiences and health issues unique to female biology because we were reducing their TW friend to tears because they'd give anything to have those experiences and we don't know how lucky we are to have them. Doesn't need saying that said poster was a man.

Well damn. Fetishising the suffering of those less fortunate than yourself has got to be the most awful, callous attitude I can imagine.

It was truly unbelievable ArabellaScott hence I've never forgotten it and it was a good few years ago now in the very early days of realising just what this gender ideology is really all about and who it is for.

I'm puzzled as to the reasoning behind berating us for addressing a claim made by an opponent in a debate. Any claim made about large numbers of people can and should be challenged. It's not much of a debate otherwise.

Now I tend to stick to the impersonal points, such as the low quality study referred to by RMW. Not because I don't have strong feelings about the particular claims about passing. I do. But because I am hypervigilant and have long since learned that I perceive even those males as male who may otherwise pass, at least at first sight.

So I will pretty much try to ignore all claims about passing from someone who has gone through a male puberty because it's just a hard no from me. And mostly I don't feel like explaining what hypervigilance is, let alone how I come by that particular trait.

Also, what I'm concerned about is not how well someone passes, but how perception is here treated as universally uniform. There's a reason why we have that saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Because perception is wholly subjective. I may hope to be perceived as capable, polite and smart, but I cannot force that perception onto anyone. At best I can hope to be judged by my actions and by my words, but at worst I may say and do exactly the opposite of what any given individual considers to be capable, polite and smart.

There's no way I would ever argue that my view must be the right one because people perceive me to have a particular characteristic. For starters, I have no way of knowing how everyone perceives me. And I have no way of knowing if those who tell me how they perceive tell me the truth or say what they think I want to hear or what will hurt me most. And then I cannot know if I define that quality in the same way as everyone whose perception I have relied on. Last but not least, even if people perceive me in the way I hope, that has no bearing on the validity of my argument unless the entire discourse is wholly limited to arguing about how I'm perceived.

Which this debate is not, given that it is about the political implications of the doctrine of gender identity. Which go way beyond how one individual member of society may be perceived by another.

4w.pub/children-suffered-health-problems-after-puberty-blockers-sweden/

I find it truly difficult to understand why an intelligent person like Robin can actively advocate for the use of puberty blockers on very young children.

Might it be simple ignorance, 334bu?

I mean, looking at it entirely from the point of view of someone who wishes they'd not gone through puberty but cannot have any idea what would actually have happened if they had not, something which prevents puberty is an unalloyed Good Thing, and (if that person happens not to know about the potential damage that thing might do) would advocate the thing they think wonderful.

Possibly, but adult wishful thinking is harming a lot of very young people.

On the issue of passing, I'd like to know why this is seen as so important to trans people. Why is other people's perception of them so important to them? What motivation can there be to 'pass' other than to deceive others that they are something they are not?

I don't know Crone. I think most people are perfectly happy to accept trans people as they are. It only ever becomes a problem when the impossible is asked. Or in fact demanded.

Bringing back the analogy with race: “passing” of course is borrowed from the practice of African-Americans “passing” for white under the legacy of the Jim Crow laws - popularised by Nella Larsen’s rather tragic novel. As a term it has a long and contentious political history, and was viewed as a highly pejorative practice in the mid-twentieth-century and onwards in African-American communities, because of its connotations of “betraying” your race by seeking to “pass” as the oppressor class (thought of as contentious but understandable up until the thirties; after that viewed extremely negatively by people of colour). (Same in the gay community when it was sometimes used, later in the 80s and 90s, to mean “passing” as straight.)

It’s extremely telling that it has been adopted as part of trans discourse. Something that was regarded as both lying, and an offensive political betrayal of one’s true self, in the context of racial politics, got turned into something to aspire to in gender ideology. And the oppressor/oppressed dynamic got reversed too, so that women become reimagined as the oppressor who you aspire to pretend to be, so successfully that no-one can tell.

Now there’s all sorts of wrong mixed up in this, but the inversion and colonising and trampling all over terms specific to a traumatic history of racial politics is not just cheeky but genuinely quite offensive. Given the history of “passing” racially in America, using it as a gleeful fun way of pretending women are the oppressors of men is pretty vile, if we’re talking about vileness. And then the deliberate repetitive move of pretending that gender issues are just like race except it’s women who are the powerful mean oppressors is frankly mendacious and nasty.

But somehow, as always, the faux progressives don’t notice some kinds of cultural colonisation and cultural appropriation they’re doing themselves 🤷‍♀️

Just catching up.

PLEASE NOTE
that threads that mention EI tend to vanish incredibly quickly.
So would be an idea to not post further around that topic.
It's a long thread shame if goes.

El?

When it comes to puberty blockers / hormones being available to children.

It's not unusual and seems to be a relatively recent addition to the current set of things that are said a lot.

I have noticed that there's a definite trend in those who transitioned in middle age - 40+ generally and only seen it from people with a shared gender identity.

To state a longing, a wish, a certainty, a long held regret, for having been able to access puberty blockers before puberty got going, and then hormones to go through the right puberty for them.

Not being able to do that is essentially a cruelty that results in all sorts of avoidable, terrible things and essentially negatively b impacts the whole rest of a person's life.

If you are way past the age where it could have been done, it's easy to say.
It's a fantasy about how it would have been, it's not possible, I can see why it would be said, believed.
How it would actually have planned out is unknown.
It's a what if X decades ago, my life would have been so much better.

It’s extremely telling that it has been adopted as part of trans discourse.
In what way?
Something that was regarded as both lying, and an offensive political betrayal of one’s true self, in the context of racial politics, got turned into something to aspire to in gender ideology. And the oppressor/oppressed dynamic got reversed too, so that women become reimagined as the oppressor who you aspire to pretend to be, so successfully that no-one can tell
You think that women can never be the oppressor, like what, can never do no wrong?
Because, woman?
Was with you all the way up to this.
You acknowledge Jim Crow (it seems) but can't seem to see anything else outside that.

Just to be clear I said El? Not eh?

Eddie I

No NotMe

'You think that women can never be the oppressor, like what, can never do no wrong?
Because, woman?'

Please tell us the country/ies now or in the past, where men as a group were oppressed by women as a group.

I can't think of anywhere but maybe you have more info?

Groups oppress groups. Based on a characteristic that differs between the groups.

I'm not sure what the women can't do no wrong has to do with anything tbh. Because you know, it's blindingly obvious that they can and do and always have. White women and white men oppressed black people in South Africa. For example.
Why do you think anyone in their right mind would think what you said? Women are people too and have as full a range of... Everything.. As men. Sexist to think anything else.

Just had a quick squiz at RMW bio. Quick history, varied and interesting background.

Born 1963

Say blockers age 13 and then hormones. Idea would look totally female when out and about etc. So from 1976 ish.

First job iirc manager railways , poss engineer?
Think science degree impy
At some point must have trained qualified lawyer
Presumably practiced law for some time.
Before called to bar 1995.

I am happy to say that the probability of following that path if perceived as young woman/ then woman is realistically pretty much nil.

I don't know when looking back whether the idea of a totally different life is what appeals or not.

The point is it's fantasy. Things were v different for girls born then. I was born 70s and it was v different in 80s even to now.

Has RMW considered realistically what things they have now, would never have come to be?

That's aside from all the impacts of no puberty, lifelong medical needs, possible impacts due to medication etc.

Just joined and loving the articles and comments. Thank you. Guess you can see from my user name where I stand. :(

KimikosNightmare Oh fgs. Firstly "those men" are likely to be women.

Eh? After several re-readings, I think either
i) you are saying that it is likely on a balance of probabilities that any random male member of the judiciary identifies as trans, which seems implausible, or;
ii) you have read my reference to "those mensitting and hearing the cases"as a claim that all members of the UK judiciaries are male, rather than me specifying that I thought people were discussing the effects of subconscious sexist preconceptions held by a subset of the judiciary - the male subset. I thought it was already being discussed that the make-up of the judiciary is not what it could be?

It's a lot a little insulting that you reached that conclusion, but okay.

And that really isn't how a court or tribunal works but carry on belittling, well I suppose everyone involved.

Goodness. It's not like people get a judicial appointment and they are then suddenly turned into fully trained Vulcans, losing every single subconscious bias they have, and switching to operating on pure, untrammeled logic. If it were, there wouldn't have been quite as much concern, over the last 20-30 years, about the structural issues that led to lack of diversity in the judiciary.