Helen Joyce/Helen Staniland "Trans Elimination" video

[momentsinthewind]

I've just seen a video on YouTube with HJ and HS and HJ is saying that we need to return to a sane world and everyone who has transitioned is damaged and will need special accommodation (detransition treatment?) in the future.

I'm GC and have many concerns about safe spaces and sport etc, but this just seems to be going too far.

I found it quite upsetting if I'm honest.

Who you calling Stupid ;o)

Also the way to improve their "prospects for dating and finding a partner if that's what they want" is by tackling transphobia.

If trans people weren't treated as modern day lepers (as so many Mumsnet posters clearly believe they should be) they would find it easier to date.

As it is they are spat on for doing their job: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-61745903

And receive threats of violence for the crime of participating in sport: www.lbc.co.uk/news/trans-cyclist-threatened-with-kneecapping-after-boriss-gender-sports-comments/

People on this site would be better off tackling the root causes of such transphobia instead of pretending all trans people are a "huge problem to a sane world" as Joyce does.

Perhaps transwomen shouldn’t cheat their way into women’s sport.

Well, you say that... But how else are they going to get there?

*Also the way to improve their "prospects for dating and finding a partner if that's what they want" is by tackling transphobia.

If trans people weren't treated as modern day lepers (as so many Mumsnet posters clearly believe they should be) they would find it easier to date.*

Sorry but this is nonsense.

The major problem that trans people face when dating is that (assuming they haven't had surgery) their external presentation doesn't match their biological sex.

Most people are exclusively attracted to one sex. Heterosexual women want to date men who look like men and have penises, not men who look like men but have vaginas or women who look like women but have penises.

Most trans women are heterosexual males who want to date lesbians. Lesbians don't do penises.

And even if the person has had surgery, what they have is at best a Frankenstein-ish approximation of what the opposite sex actually has. It doesn't work in the same way for sexual purposes, and quite obviously it doesn't work at all for reproductive purposes (and most people do want kids).

No amount of "tackling transphobia" is going to resolve this problem, and if your teenager is contemplating transitioning, they need to understand that even if five years from now we live in a magical rainbow striped world where everyone is fully accepting of trans people and everyone uses their pronouns and welcomes them into whatever toilets and sporting categories they like, they are still going to struggle massively to date and find partners.

Also the way to improve their "prospects for dating and finding a partner if that's what they want" is by tackling transphobia.

If someone thinks that it is transphobia that so dramatically reduces the dating pool for trans people, they probably should consider other people’s sexual boundaries a bit more. Why should any person be pressured to date another person who presents as the opposite sex?

To some people who are heavily invested because it is their child who is trans, it obviously would be a ‘phobic’ response. But it really is as simple as posters say. Most people are sexually attracted to one sex. Finding out your date has female developed breasts and a penis will only suit a very small amount of people.

Finding out your prospective sexual partner has a vagina constructed from a penis or from other body parts and is in no way the muscled, self lubricating female vagina you are expecting is going to cause a significant number of males to reject that person as a sexual partner.

The same with a female with a phalloplasty.

Any person telling others it is transphobic to reject a sexual partner who they don’t want to have sex with for any reason is abhorrent.

And if someone is telling a vulnerable child or teenager that it is transphobia that will be reducing their dating pool is creating major problems for that child or teen.

If anyone is telling a child or a teen that their bodies will be ‘just like the opposite sex’ needs to look at how theIr own behaviour contributes to the future distress of that child or teen.

If males and females are not finding trans people sexually attractive now, it is not transphobia, it is human sexual attraction towards a particular sexed body type. And it won’t change in the future.

That is not transphobic. And to say it is, seems rather all too coercive to me.

But how else are they going to get there?

I know! Poor little things, it’s such a dilemma for them, isn’t it?

If males and females are not finding trans people sexually attractive now, it is not transphobia, it is human sexual attraction towards a particular sexed body type. And it won’t change in the future.

I've been wondering, too, about issues such as authenticity and stability and baggage. I know that after a first few forays into dating and relationships (when I dated, for example, someone who was bi-polar for a roller coaster year or two) that I didn't want someone who'd bring loads of drama or neediness or dependency into my life. That I wanted someone who was straightforward and uncomplicated. No games, no ulterior motives, no narcissism, no abusive or crazily chaotic backgrounds.

Any person telling others it is transphobic to reject a sexual partner who they don’t want to have sex with for any reason is abhorrent.

Seriously, the way 'problematising the nature of desire' is going, we're going to end up with the same disconnect between sex and desire as there is between sex and reproduction.

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526612534/?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4333319-Review-of-The-Right-to-Sex

Yes Pluvia, there will be an element of that too.

Seeing just how focused the young trans people in my life are about their fragile mental health, plus the constant talk of ‘safeness’ does make me wonder about that aspect.

I didn't want someone who'd bring loads of drama or neediness or dependency into my life. That I wanted someone who was straightforward and uncomplicated. No games, no ulterior motives, no narcissism, no abusive or crazily chaotic backgrounds.

Quite.

It's also my preference in colleagues. I do not need someone's life story when they introduce themselves (and pronouns) in a meeting. I do not need a history of the land on which the building on which they work stands…

Very much.

And here we seem to have some adults who are inadvertently teaching young people that it is transphobic if people don’t find them attractive or want to have sex with a trans person. It is deeply, deeply concerning to think a parent would say this to their child - like that child has any right to expect sex from anyone else and that others ‘should’ find the decisions they have made attractive. And if not, it is phobic.

Sometimes I worry I may be over-egging matters in my own thoughts about dangers to children from trans ideology. Do people really think it appropriate to mess with kids' minds by telling them obvious untruths and encouraging them (through their carers) to alter their bodily development by drugs and even surgery, based on such nonsenses? Surely that's just an urban myth? Surely it's not at all prevalent? It's only the internet, after all. Surely?

-- But then I look around and see how these dangers are, in fact, all too real. Mainstream media, my children's workplaces, even trade unions, my grand children's schools, universities ... Being paranoid is no guarantee they're not out to get you. It never was.

And when I read posts such as those here by Hearach15, I see a bit more about what's going on. This poster clearly thinks she's arguing from a standpoint of good sense and moral probity, whilst in reality she lacks understanding at a basic level. Talking about Helen Joyce's writings, as here, serves to emphasise the point. Sure, much of Hearach15's schtick is based on fairly basic prejudices; but also, it is plain to see, she genuinely fails to understand much of what Joyce says.

Someone earlier reminded us "there's no arguing with stupid". True enough. But, then, Hearach15 has a vote - as do others of her ilk. And influence.

What to do, then? As a young person, many years ago, I thought education might be key. Teach people to think? - Didn't work.

So, what? How do we achieve reasonable and sensible outcomes in a democracy peopled, as ours seems to be, with so many people of such limited cognitive skills?

-- No, the answer is not to turn our backs on democracy. But what, then? Any answers?

No, the answer is not to turn our backs on democracy. But what, then? Any answers?

Sometimes, it's genuinely difficult to differentiate failures of comprehension from unwitting disinformation/misinformation to the use of it in the ways outlined in Frankfurt's On Bullshit or active use of disinformation/misinformation.

Both in lying and in telling the truth people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are. These guide them as they endeavor to describe the world correctly or to describe it deceitfully. For this reason, telling lies does not tend to unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. Through excessive indulgence in the latter activity, which involves making assertions without paying attention to anything except what it suits one to say, a person’s normal habit of attending to the way things are may become attenuated or lost. Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the respond of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. [pp 59-61]

www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf

It is disturbing. Hannah Arendt discusses the power of alienating people from trusting each other and institutions as part of loneliness and the origins of totalitarianism. Good overview in this essay.

"Totalitarianism destroys man’s ability to think, while turning each in his lonely isolation against all others"

Totalitarian movements use ideology to isolate individuals. Isolate means ‘to cause a person to be or remain alone or apart from others’. Arendt spends the first part of ‘Ideology and Terror’ breaking down the ‘recipes of ideologies’ into their basic ingredients to show how this is done:

ideologies are divorced from the world of lived experience, and foreclose the possibility of new experience;
ideologies are concerned with controlling and predicting the tide of history;
ideologies do not explain what is, they explain what becomes;
ideologies rely on logical procedures in thinking that are divorced from reality;
ideological thinking insists upon a ‘truer reality’, that is concealed behind the world of perceptible things.
The way we think about the world affects the relationships we have with others and ourselves. By injecting a secret meaning into every event and experience, ideological movements are forced to change reality in accordance with their claims once they come to power. And this means that one can no longer trust the reality of one’s own lived experiences in the world. Instead, one is taught to distrust oneself and others, and to always rely upon the ideology of the movement, which must be right.

aeon.co/essays/for-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-is-rooted-in-loneliness

You cannot argue a zealot out of their beliefs.

All you can do is work with those with a duty to be impartial on reinforcing boundaries that should never have been allowed to be breached in the first place - and were largely breached through good intentions, good will and lack of quality safeguarding which involves thinking, engaging the brain and asking the difficult questions/thinking with a suspicious mind so that you are not complicit in someone else's agenda.

And those boundaries should be:

• extremist belief systems have no place in the workplace or any public office: these things happen in people's private lives and do not come to work
• there are no groups to which standard expectations, rules and boundaries do not apply
• all values are equally applied: there are no groups who will ever be granted more and better than others, or less and worse than others.
• there are no situations or belief systems that equal an exemption from standard safeguarding practice and systems for any child
• Reality exists, and facts and evidence create policy and law, and this requires simple and accessible shared meaning between every citizen.

And in almost every safeguarding disaster, the huge international ones like 'lobotomy is a really great idea', and 'lets ship children off to Canada and Australia', or the smaller national ones on individual cases, have the same roots.

• A starting point of good intentions and a desire to do good
• Strong moral beliefs that some got carried away with and the situation became a bit of a vehicle for their own virtue signalling
• People bumbling gently along not seeing the issues, not understanding the problems, telling everyone else its fine
• People being easily swayed by emotive anecdotes and convincing, persuasive people and losing all ability to be impartial or to realise when they are being manipulated
• People who didn't want to be That Person who said something or raised the alarm or risk being criticised or having to be the one who takes responsibility and all the flak, and often a fear of other adults in the situation who if you annoy them in any way tend to produce behaviour that is a very effective deterrent to questioning or thwarting them.

There are white papers from government spanning twenty years as to why, no matter how often safeguarding policy and training covers all this, the basic problems above don't change.

And those boundaries should be:

extremist belief systems have no place in the workplace or any public office: these things happen in people's private lives and do not come to work
there are no groups to which standard expectations, rules and boundaries do not apply

all values are equally applied: there are no groups who will ever be granted more and better than others, or less and worse than others.

there are no situations or belief systems that equal an exemption from standard safeguarding practice and systems for any child

Reality exists, and facts and evidence create policy and law, and this requires simple and accessible shared meaning between every citizen.

If only we had a Pinned Tweet function. I've copied and pasted it to my desktop for future reference.

You are absolutely right that beliefs and identity issues should be left outside the workplace. As one of the Quiet Bat People of the world (The Thick of It, anyone?) the 'bring your whole self to work' policy strikes me as a charter for all the bullies, narcissists and 'big personalities' of the world to dominate. It's happening in all walks of life, where being ordinary and authentic is being portrayed as dull and dressing up and pretending to be something you aren't (the adult babies and pups at Pride, the dildo-monkeys and drag queens performing to children in libraries) is celebrated. There need to be boundaries.

I never said dating as a trans person would be easy, I said it would be "easier" if transphobia did not exist.

How could it not be?

More to the point, people on this thread quite clearly do not like trans people so the concern about their dating lives is all crocodile tears.

Many trans people find very happy, fulfilling romantic relationships with people who accept them for who they are. If we tackled transphobia more would be able to do so. Now that is a worthy goal 😀

"Why should any person be pressured to date another person who presents as the opposite sex?"

This is a wilful mischaracterisation of debate and implies that those participating do not believe in the principle of consent in sexual relationships.

We are saying if there was less transphobia around more people would be interested in dating trans people of their own free will.

It might shock you, but there are quite a lot of people who are happy to date trans people at the moment - trans people are not all single you know.

And if there were less transphobes out there, there would be even more people dating trans people. Simple.

I agree, Pluvia. Artichoke's thoughtful contributions have been very helpful on these wider issues and bear greater reflection.

I never said dating as a trans person would be easy, I said it would be "easier" if transphobia did not exist.

Lesbians that don't want to have sex with people with penises, who say they are lesbians is not tranphobia.

Many trans people find very happy, fulfilling romantic relationships with people who accept them for who they are. If we tackled transphobia more would be able to do so. Now that is a worthy goal

why?

being in a romantic relationship isn't a human right. This seems bordering on InCel ideology to me

If we tackled transphobia more would be able to do so. Now that is a worthy goal

This posits that lack of sexual attraction to someone is a fault that should be corrected. It goes with the appalling 'learn to cope' (with unwanted, straight sex, as a duty towards a male who could not care less about your feelings or enjoyment or preferences) and 'overcome your genital prejudices' (Aka stop being homosexual and do what I say!)

This is insane. People who have so little respect for others and feel this entitled probably don't need to look much further as to why people are not queuing up to offer sex and relationships to them.

We are saying if there was less transphobia around more people would be interested in dating trans people of their own free will.

How are you defining transphobia? And what effect do you believe this has on who people are attracted to?

We are saying if there was less transphobia around more people would be interested in dating trans people of their own free will.

It might shock you, but there are quite a lot of people who are happy to date trans people at the moment - trans people are not all single you know.

And if there were less transphobes out there, there would be even more people dating trans people. Simple.

But sexual attraction has nothing to do with "transphobia".

I'm not interested in having sex with women. That doesn't make me homophobic, it makes me heterosexual.

The problem trans people are going to face is that they have the wrong kind of genitals. And, depending on the extent of their transition, they may well also be infertile.

No amount of raising awareness and "fighting transphobia" is going to meaningfully increase the number of people who are interested in dating trans people.