Young TRA women and their motivations

[LittleWhingingWoman]

So I don't understand where young women in particular left their lived understanding of men behind in favour of drinking the "Be Kind" potion.

Have they never experienced sexism? I'd find that hard to believe. Do they think if a man puts a skirt on he magically becomes a girl?
It's almost like they don't grasp what is going to happen to them. Do they think that TW are their allies?

It's incredibly bizarre.

" They won't think any more of you, only laugh behind your back"

That was a quote i read on here regarding this subject a while ago, i cannot remember the username, or I would credit them, it stuck with me ever since

Well, I guess they don't have their own sons and daughters yet - which really brought it into stark reality for me, around the time of the Spartacus threads.

@MangyInseam

I think at least some of it is a moralistic power trip. Certainly in our society there are and have been some women who seem to appoint themselves the arbiter of moral correctness and gain a lot of satisfaction in trying to impose that on other people, and exclude those who don't conform.

And they are often True Believers.

I agree with this. Power trip is a good description. Also, many of them have been to university where no debate is in full force and no one is allowed to ever be offended about anything so they haven't really thought critically about it.

A lot of people live completely running on obedience to authority. A doctor can't be wrong, the current medical consensus cannot be wrong, the government cannot be wrong. This has become a mainstream viewpoint and going against that is impossible for some people.

@MotherOfAllZipFiles

" They won't think any more of you, only laugh behind your back"

That was a quote i read on here regarding this subject a while ago, i cannot remember the username, or I would credit them, it stuck with me ever since

That does not make any sense.

Either they will 'not think any more of you' or 'they will laugh behind your back'.

Surely they cant do both.

@Musomama1

Because they haven't woken up to the level of sexism and mysogyny inherent in society.

I think most women only realise the extent as they mature.

I think this accounts for most of it.

I wonder what will happen when they wake up to the fact they have been exploited by a men's rights movement to act against their own interests. Will we see a particularly militant brand of feminism in 20 years time as their anger makes itself apparent.

I think there’s much more questioning and fluidity of sexuality amongst young people. I think that leads them to be more compassionate towards others who are questioning.

My daughter is an extremely intelligent, questioning young woman but thinks JK Rowling’s tweet on we used to have a word for people who menstruate is inherently transphobic. Sees it as excluding people, understands gender and sex as the same thing. She thinks everything is performance and nothing is linked to biology. Her non binary friends are trans (transitioning from binary to non binary) and all inherently vulnerable as a consequence. Lots of her friends, male and female, would fit into this definition including her first long term relationship. So, for her, trans includes lots of people who don’t quite fit in and face prejudice.

She thinks we’re both only reading from our own perspective, and she’s right. But for her there it’s also personal, so maybe she’s scared that my perspective means I would reject her if her questioning means she might decide she’s trans. It’s the only subject we’ve been totally unable to find any common ground. I think she’s naive but I also recognise that incredibly patronising of me! She thinks I’m bigoted and I think that’s unfair and unkind and doesn’t recognise me at all.

I’d love to find some way for us to find some middle ground but she’s so steeped in queer theory that I’m totally out of my depth discussing this but she is also coming from the perspective that I’m wrong so my experience and perspective are meaningless.

It's a combination of limited life experience, society grooming them, and lack of critical thinking skills/engagement.

In time, doubt will creep in for almost all.

Added to that is that they see everything as an extension of, or through the lens of, teenage identity politics - so middle aged TW are imagined by them to be just exactly like the “questioning” slightly depressed teens of their acquaintance. GC women are just like angry mums who won’t let them do exactly as they like. “Dysphoria” is mild existential angst and turmoil that they all experience, not serious mental illness. Trans rights are just like gay rights and everyone’s a little bit trans / bi / questioning so they’re applicable to everyone (apart from the bigoted older people who are just like racists). The main thing in life is feeling as “safe” as possible, which generally means “comfortable” ie. unchallenged and not required to do any hard thinking or think about any consequences for one’s own or others’ behaviour.

There’s also a fair dollop of that teenage belief that bending the truth is perfectly fine if you believe you’re in the right or doing something out of a righteous cause, so it’s fine to make up some things or eg. misrepresent others if you truly believe they’re wrong.

All of it is being completely brainwashed by a teenage ideology that takes time, experience and gradual exposure to real life to disintegrate.

I am sad that they just won’t critically analyse the ideas they’re presented with - there’s a real desire to follow along with authoritarian thinking at the moment, which you just didn’t see in youth culture ten or fifteen years ago. I do fear that they will find their experience confusing and alienating as they mature - how will the young women understand their experiences of sexism when they are so programmed to imagine men as vulnerable victims, and themselves as entitled “cishet Karens”? Will they develop any empathy for old and actually vulnerable or ill people at any stage?

@georgarina

They're told it's the right way to think and don't question it because that would be wrong. Disdain and hateful names are given to those who do question, and it's perceived that the only ones against it are 'privileged white Karens.' Women's equality isn't on-trend so it's not seen as a priority - there's more focus on entitled women needing to be kind. Also, statements such as "hormones remove all physical differences" are treated as fact.

In my experience from being at uni not too long ago and having TRA student siblings.

I also think this reflects the way kids are taught in school before university. Social justice issues are taught in a way that really doesn't delve into different thinking about them or root them very strongly in traditions of human rights or civil liberties or anything like that.

They aren't used to thinking through what they are taught about these issues or challenging or even elucidating the assumptions involved in them, be it sexism, racism, homophobia, or anything else, and are profoundly uncomfortable with doing so.

@nightwakingmoon

Added to that is that they see everything as an extension of, or through the lens of, teenage identity politics - so middle aged TW are imagined by them to be just exactly like the “questioning” slightly depressed teens of their acquaintance. GC women are just like angry mums who won’t let them do exactly as they like. “Dysphoria” is mild existential angst and turmoil that they all experience, not serious mental illness. Trans rights are just like gay rights and everyone’s a little bit trans / bi / questioning so they’re applicable to everyone (apart from the bigoted older people who are just like racists). The main thing in life is feeling as “safe” as possible, which generally means “comfortable” ie. unchallenged and not required to do any hard thinking or think about any consequences for one’s own or others’ behaviour.

There’s also a fair dollop of that teenage belief that bending the truth is perfectly fine if you believe you’re in the right or doing something out of a righteous cause, so it’s fine to make up some things or eg. misrepresent others if you truly believe they’re wrong.

All of it is being completely brainwashed by a teenage ideology that takes time, experience and gradual exposure to real life to disintegrate.

I am sad that they just won’t critically analyse the ideas they’re presented with - there’s a real desire to follow along with authoritarian thinking at the moment, which you just didn’t see in youth culture ten or fifteen years ago. I do fear that they will find their experience confusing and alienating as they mature - how will the young women understand their experiences of sexism when they are so programmed to imagine men as vulnerable victims, and themselves as entitled “cishet Karens”? Will they develop any empathy for old and actually vulnerable or ill people at any stage?

This is actually quite a scary situation. Education ought to be taking teenagers out of this kind of thing. While it might seem just foolish on the face of it, this kind of behaviour in adults is hugely anti-social and manipulative and justifies all kinds of evil.

Because trans activists have lied about what we say. They have successfully portrayed this as 'good people vs those who hate trans people'.
They don't read what we say. They have no idea what our arguments are; that our arguments are about male behaviour.

So basically they've been lied to, and a culture has deliberately been created where you get rewarded for believing those lies and and devastatingly punished for looking into things for themselves and forming their own opinions.

Gotta give it to Stonewall et al, they've played an absolute blinder of a strategy.

Thank god the grown ups are entering the room at last, the young women will thank us when they're older

I do fear that they will find their experience confusing and alienating as they mature - how will the young women understand their experiences of sexism when they are so programmed to imagine men as vulnerable victims, and themselves as entitled “cishet Karens”?

There's a lot of this right now. There have been a few posts on Reddit recently by women whose rapists have transitioned, and who feel conflicted in their right to feel violated/uncomfortable.

It does seem to be undoing a lot of work in terms of women's ability to stand up for themselves and assert their boundaries.

Of course it's not but nobody wants to be on the wrong side of history

But this has the same critical and moral authority of a young man who, when being asked how he was going to vote before the Trump/ Clinton election, 'I'm gonna vote for Trump as I think he's gonna win and I don't wanna vote for a loser.'
Form your own sodding opinions, based on your own convictions and assessment of the evidence. That's the only moral duty you have.

And what sort of numpty do you need to be to think 'history' always ends up in right place morally? That's just thick! The people with power win, until they don't have power. Then the next powerful lot win. That's how it works!

I know three women who are into this stuff. One is an idiot and just desperate to be a cool girl. One is quite intelligent but far too kind for her own good. (Think doormat). The third clearly hasn't thought it through. She makes gender critical statements a lot which I find quite funny. In my experience most people do not think logically or critically. Most people want to fit in. That's just who we are as humans. Philosophy should be mandatory in schools in my opinion. We should teach people HOW to think as opposed to WHAT to think.

To be accepted by others in the cult. Not being in the cult risks your social life and even your job.

They think the only alternative to the Kardashian- ified version of womanhood they grew up with is gender theory.
They think we hate lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and ESPECIALLY gender non-conformity because the cult tells them so.
They particularly hate middle aged women because everyone does.
They're obviously wrong.

Sigh - case in point - I opened Tumblr just now and one of the younger women I follow had reposted this round robin post: (copied below verbatim). I mean just what do you say to this?!?!
Teenagers have always had daft ideas but these days social media just amplifies stupidity as a form of faux politics to the point of absurdity. Or it would be absurd if it wasn’t just so offensive and dangerously stupid.

“TDOV: Pregnancy is a Largely Invisible Battlefield

This Trans Day of Visibility I'd like it if people could verbally acknowledge that it's not being called a "pregnant person" that terfs find dehumanizing, it's being considered an equal to fertile trans men and enbies. Let's talk about how terfs see "the female sex" as their property and territory, and violently oppose men and enbies who need "feminine care" because they think we've "lost the right to medical care" for our "lack of loyalty" to them, for our otherness.

"Female Sex Traits" are only defined so because of cisnormative culture. Those sex traits don't have a gender, and the men and enbies who have those traits deserve medical care just as much as anyone else, so why are we excluded from "female" healthcare?
Because transphobes -specifically cis women transphobes- see our genitals as property of their gender. They think we "turned in" our right to medical care when we stopped pretending to be like them, but the genitals of trans men and afab enbies do not "belong" to cis women, and cis women shouldn't have a say in what medical care we should be allowed to access.

It's not that they think "people" dehumanizes women, it's that allowing men and enbies to not identify as women goes against the cisnormative culture that "protects" it's "women". Protection is what they call this kind of control, and cis women express it through territorial "defense" of "their spaces". "Their spaces" happens to include the maternity ward, the OBGYN, the menstrual products aisle... any place that could provide "feminine care" is a place men and enbies are now "invading" by having bodily needs that cis women have laid claim to.

It's not that they think "people" dehumanizes women, it's that a bearded man with a pregnant belly being allowed in the same spaces as them offends them.
They want us to be either forcefully converted or sterilized to "protect the sanctity of the female sex"
The definition of who is allowed to be pregnant, is allowed health insurance for pregnancy, can be publicly pregnant, is tightly controlled to keep the civil right to reproduction and parenthood tightly within the grasp of unqueer people, dangling above our heads.

When they say "protect" they mean "control", and children and uteruses are a resource of influence to them. That's why they always dogwhistle about "protecting the children" and "confused girls ruining their bodies"; they're talking about controlling their 'resources' and keeping the normative breeding culture chugging along. It's like they're trying to selectively breed queer people out by gatekeeping us from parenthood. A lot of them seem to think it's genetic and/or cultural, so that tracks, but even the ones that don't don't want any of the next generation to grow up thinking we deserve to exist.

Reproductive rights are a battlefield, and not just for unqueer women. Men and enbies have been suffering under these pressures for a while, and lack of visibility for our needs makes it even harder to fight back. Do us a favor and explicitly state who we are, what we need, and why "pregnant people" is important aside from flaccid statements of "aren't women people too".
Cis Women aren't the ones being targeted by this, talk about the Men and Enbies who are.”

I mean, when I recall the absolute horror that was the unsafe and understaffed postnatal ward (where I ended up with a birth emergency so traumatic when having DD, that the hospital immediately called their own on call psych team to assess me for PTSD); and when I read damning reports about the catastrophic state of maternity services in this country, including the unnecessary deaths of mothers and babies due to unsafe care…..well, I don’t know about you but I just want to make sure that first of all I “gatekeep” the maternity ward from the idea of a “bearded pregnant man”. Oh yeah, that’s definitely uppermost in my mind.

Rank stupidity and nonsense, and yet so many young people lap it up!!! Won’t somebody think of the oppressed men in all of this? And the enbies!!!!

Its frightening to see how badly queer theory has damaged normal human relationships and interactions.

MotherOfAllZipFiles said "They won't think any more of you, only laugh behind your back".

Ohnohedident said "That does not make any sense. Either 'they will not think any more of you' or 'they will laugh behind your back'.

I think you've misread it, Ohnohedident. It does make sense. People don't really think more of you if you parrot fashionable views, eg TWAW. They are laughing behind your back.

@nightwakingmoon

Added to that is that they see everything as an extension of, or through the lens of, teenage identity politics - so middle aged TW are imagined by them to be just exactly like the “questioning” slightly depressed teens of their acquaintance. GC women are just like angry mums who won’t let them do exactly as they like. “Dysphoria” is mild existential angst and turmoil that they all experience, not serious mental illness. Trans rights are just like gay rights and everyone’s a little bit trans / bi / questioning so they’re applicable to everyone (apart from the bigoted older people who are just like racists). The main thing in life is feeling as “safe” as possible, which generally means “comfortable” ie. unchallenged and not required to do any hard thinking or think about any consequences for one’s own or others’ behaviour.

There’s also a fair dollop of that teenage belief that bending the truth is perfectly fine if you believe you’re in the right or doing something out of a righteous cause, so it’s fine to make up some things or eg. misrepresent others if you truly believe they’re wrong.

All of it is being completely brainwashed by a teenage ideology that takes time, experience and gradual exposure to real life to disintegrate.

I am sad that they just won’t critically analyse the ideas they’re presented with - there’s a real desire to follow along with authoritarian thinking at the moment, which you just didn’t see in youth culture ten or fifteen years ago. I do fear that they will find their experience confusing and alienating as they mature - how will the young women understand their experiences of sexism when they are so programmed to imagine men as vulnerable victims, and themselves as entitled “cishet Karens”? Will they develop any empathy for old and actually vulnerable or ill people at any stage?

Good points.

I think we need to watch the we’re right they’re wrong narrative, it’s reductive and othering. Why do we think they should listen to us? Would you listen to anyone who thought you were stupid, naive, lacked critical thinking and all the other things people have said on this thread alone? From their perspective, the older generations represent everything that’s wrong in the world from climate change, to racism and homophobia. We’ve presided over a world where, in the UK, these youngsters will graduate with huge debt for an education we got for free, work into their 70s and pay a huge tax burden to support an aging population and a sick planet, with less job and housing security. We’re dismissive of their perspective and yet expect them to accept ours.

I’m genuinely fearful that the way we are heading will have the most devastating consequences for these youngsters but if we dismiss their views we risk being patronising and paternalistic. We need to find a way to use our wisdom and perspective to engage rather than polarise, to integrate rather than divide. They are young, idealistic and don’t have the life experience we have but they are the future and engaged youngsters are so much better than the alternative.

But what about the post I just copied from tumblr, @secretskillrelationships? There is nothing about it that’s actually true, and even in engaging with it the only possibility would be to point out everything that’s wrong with it. I don’t see anything to “engage” with; no points to concede, nothing to agree with.

It’s fact free topsy-turvy arrant nonsense. The writer of it clearly has zero knowledge of female reproductive experience, maternity wards, or any genuine feminism. So are we meant to go in all softly softly pretending that there’s a middle ground in order to catch our young women who are lapping it up?

We don’t do that to antivaxxers or flatearthers or people who believe the queen is a shapeshifting lizard. But somehow we are meant to say “oh yes yes, the evil ciswomen are gatekeeping maternity wards from the bearded men and enbies, you have a point?”