I'm having an "are we the baddies" moment

[JakeyRolling]

Please talk me down.

Company has an internal newsletter/magazine which people can write for.

Colleague has written a piece about trans issues and it's like a bingo card - cis, terf, the trans suicide stat and the "intersex people are neither male or female" argument. Goes on to say we should let them pee in pieces (in womens spaces) because they're women and fear men as much as we do 🙄

Comments from other colleagues are full of praise for it.

I feel so out of step and wrong, despite knowing the arguments don't make sense.

It just feels like it would be easier to give in.

You can tell me not to be so fucking flaky any time

Trust me, that would be actively helpful!

I think the 'love' thing sounds a lot like 'Christian love'.

Which is fine, but agree that it's an odd thing for politicians to start saying. When did they say disabled people 'needed love' or 'deserved love'? Or older people, or any other group?

It's only when it comes to LGBT issues that they're saying this. It would otherwise be seen as patronising and inappropriate - which begs the question: why do they think is it not patronising and inappropriate to say this?

The issues have been presented on an emotive level, not a rational one. I expect it's an attempt - conscious or not - to meet an emotive argument on the same level. And to counter the idea of 'hate'.

Politics isn't about 'love' and 'hate' - at least, it shouldn't be. It should be about practical ways to help society function. Politicians aren't priests and have no business 'loving' or 'hating' any group, ever.

The trouble with opinion pieces is that they tend to polarise people. You are no more bad than the next person. We all have biases, opinions and perspectives which arise from our own understanding of our experiences.

This particular issue is tricky because it deals with conflicting needs. There are the mental health and discrimination challenges that arise out of an experience of feeling transgendered pitted against the particular challenges of being oppressed due to being born and raised as female in a paternalistic society.

It's ok to feel conflicted with this situation and no easy answers which would lead to everyone feeling happy. It's good to want to feel compassionate towards people who find life very difficult, however because we are dealing with conflicting needs there are very definite losers which is not fair or acceptable.

Is it right that natal females have no voice in terms regarding the definition of what it means to be a woman?

Two things:

1. asking yourself if you're one of the bad guys is very often a good thing. It stops you from following a particular line of thought into a morally indefensible place - or from thinking that because you're in the right,that you've got carte blanche to be horrible to those who disagree with you. At the same time, if you can honestly interrogate your own opinions, so to speak, and find them to be still defensible, it can give you a certain amount of strength. b) Existential beliefs - or the lack of them - aren't, very often, moral beliefs. Human beings are so used to people being put to death for the wrong beliefs that we forget that. What matters, morally speaking, is the ethical conclusions you draw as a consequence of those beliefs, and the way you manifest them. So - I don't believe that gender identity, in the way it's normally described, exists. That's an existential belief; it's morally neutral, like not believing in God. If I were to say "therefore no male person ought to be allowed to wear a dress" say, that would be a (very problematic) ethical conclusion, and if I were to shout abuse at transwomen in the street, that would be a culpable manifestation of my beliefs, and I could quite rightly be nicked for it. So - nobody can criticise you, morally, for not believing that something exists, and nor should you damn yourself for it.

I thought of this thread a couple of days ago, as I had one of these moments myself.

I was watching a series (The Kingdom, in case anyone is interested) where a devoted evangelical pastor was giving a full-on sermon, and preaching that GI was one of the places where 'satan could be found'.

Next day, a mad anti-vax flat earther was claiming that 'they are trying to convert our boys into girls!'.

Ouch.

I think the absolute definitive and permanent answer to this thread is KM from Stonewall's words at AB's court case yesterday. That pretty much set this to rest.

@Artichokeleaves - can you expand on this at all please? I've not had the spare time to follow what's been going on at the court case, much as I'd like to.

If you ever start wondering if you're on the wrong side, here's a typical spokesperson for the genderists, this morning:

If you have trauma about sharing spaces with 'males' go and see a fucking therapist instead of weaponising it against an entire class of innocent people and being pathetic at internet strangers.

twitter.com/joss_prior/status/1524690251750514688

That was in response to someone who said she didn't want a male nurse giving her intimate examinations because she'd been sexually assaulted, and was suffering from lasting trauma.

It isn’t hypothetical. I was at a health clinic and a trans nurse was to examine me. I requested another nurse. Trauma can cause anxiety to spike. For me that trauma is resurrected any time I’m being intimately touched by a person with male characteristics.

twitter.com/Chantrezzi/status/1524559285010661376

I'm appalled that words like "cis" and "terf" are used for an internal company newsletter/magazine.

Name and shame.

Wow, what a disgusting person Joss Prior is. Now there is someone who desperately needs to have an “Are we the baddies?” moment.

That just simply shows the kind of people they really are. They don't give a fuck about women. It's all about what makes men comfortable.

Reducing women’s sex based differences to ´vagina’ is deeply deeply misogynistic. The vagina is just the connecting tube between the internal sex organs and the external genitalia.
What about utereses and ovaries? Periods and pregnancy and childbirth and recovery from childbirth and maternity leave? What about breasts and breastfeeding? What about menarche and menopause? What about endometriosis and PCOS and fibroids and PMS and female infertility and female cancers and their screening programs. What about muscle and skeletal differences that mean that women are on average more flexible but less strong than men physically and shine in different sports or in women only competitions?

Oh and I forgot one. What about the fucking clitoris!

Having just read that twitter exchange with Prior, I am convinced that the group would should be having the ‘are we the baddies’ moments will probably never have them.

That exchange is typical though if that Twitter person.

If a man can become a woman then there is no way you can stop them competing in women's sports - how can you - they are women (but we all know that really they're not)

Yes exactly, that's what bugs me about the #bekind shit that is thrown at women all the time. WE are expected to examine our language, behaviour etc. and self censor in deference to other people's feelings, at the expense of our own.

But nowhere is this demanded of self proclaimed TRAs who spout the most offensive stuff regularly and it's just accepted as fine, because victimhood or some other nonsense.
It's such a clear example of the 'sacred caste' thing I read about on here a while ago. If you are in the special group (trans) you're behaviour is excused, lauded, praised etc. even if it's terrible, because you are one of the special ones. Ordinary scrutiny of behaviour and language is suspended or ignored.

Everyone else, especially women, just get shit on from a height. We are expected to be reasonable, sensible, considerate - even in the face of appealing language and threats being hurled at us and unreasonable demands.

**your
**appalling

We need an edit button

This actually stunning and brave young man should help convince you we are not the baddies.

Thanks bellini. What a brave young man, I am sad to hear his story but I hope whatever he chooses that he will be happy and can reconcile his past decisions.

What a sad video bellini. I hope the message is heard.

And no, I don't for a second think 'are we the baddies' any more. This is terrifying - utterly demonising (and libelling) KJK (and women by extension) and threatening violence at the same time. I see from Twitter it has been reported to police but I fear for anyone heading to this:

It's just so unnecessary. 95% of the time trans people can live exactly as they want, we won't stop them.
But now and again women need their own spaces and language, and kids always need to be safeguarded.

If only transpeople realised that middle of road leftish/ rightish women aren't their enemy. Its the extremes that'll end up hurting them, if this goes on, from a surfeit of love or hate at each end.

Absolutely! OP only fanatics never question their own beliefs. 👏 for having a brain capable of thinking.

What everyone else said re women’s prisons etc, also this re the destruction of calm reasoned debate in our schools… www.transgendertrend.com/transgender-ideology-in-schools/