I was at a party last night

[BrokenToy]

With lots of people I either don’t know or have only met once (old friends of Dh, and they live hundreds of miles away from us, we travelled up to the party).

No topic was taboo, except one. We had fabulous tipsy conversations about politics covering the strikes, Brexit, Johnson. Allsorts of topics. Many differing views and a very intelligent cohort. (We did talk about other stuff as well, it was a fun party)

However, several times across different conversations with different people, the trans thing came up and EVERY SINGLE TIME the person I was talking with said oh I’m not not getting into that/I’ll be in trouble if I say what I think/don’t get me started I’ll never stop and it’ll offend somebody.

Every single person had the same views as I do (that the whole thing is nonsense) but hardly anyone would get into any sort of meaningful conversation. I didn’t keep bringing it up or anything, it sort of naturally flowed into conversations but it was striking that as soon as it was mentioned the topic was blocked.

’No debate’ really has had the intended effect, even among a bunch of educated professionals in their late 40s/50s. It was quite chilling really.

I can’t talk about it at home as I have two very woke young adult kids. DH and I discuss it obviously. But it was interesting to me that people who will happily and animatedly tell you why they disagree with you on the strikes, or rant about Boris, or any other hot topic, will not discuss trans issues or women’s rights. It’s completely taboo.

Preference falsification in action, sadly.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

No such restrictions in my circle and we're from all political persuasions and none. At a recent event I was talking to someone new to me ( and much younger) about similar issues & she mentioned an acquaintance was a member of the communist party and a dyed-red twaw-ter but added swiftly 'but I'm not'. I said 'me neither, but I wouldn't care if you were. I'd still like to hear what you think about xyz'.
I'm in despair at the current levels of self-cancellation and self-censorship on this and so many other things.

It’s also clear that they agree with you. Nobody who thinks TWAW would be afraid of saying so at a middle class party. It’s a daft belief but it’s ‘inclusive’ and fashionable.

Preference falsification would explain a lot but I have to wonder EmbarrassingHadrosaurus whether people are legitimately fearful that someone may quote them outside their circle of friends, that comments may get posted of FB.

I think it's because a lot of basically good and intelligent people don't really know what they think.

I work with mostly professional women. They're only recently starting to "get" the implications, mostly due to news stories around women's sport, but they still believe in inclusivity and that people should have the right to live as they choose. They're more likely to have empathy for the man "trapped in the wrong body" than for women fearful of losing female spaces, although they can see that argument too.

We've also been Stonewalled for years so it needs a switch in what you've been taught is right/wrong.

I doubt that even the most committed believer in trans ideology actually believes that transwoman are female and transmen are malemand this is why it is so important to stop any debate as they can't argue something which is so demonstrably false.

Yes I've found this with a couple of friends recently who used the phrase 'born in the wrong body' although umming and ahhing about the consequences of losing sex based rights.

It depresses me a bit. But unless you are naturally outraged by trans people (I certainly wasn't), it actually takes a bit of time, effort and critical thinking to understand the debate and it's implications, even if you are 'intelligent'. Plus people naturally want to and be seen to 'be kind', it's more attractive than saying 'no, stop it'.

I think that that is generally the case, but probably not here. The responses of the people at the party indicate terfy leanings.

It’s also clear that they agree with you. Nobody who thinks TWAW would be afraid of saying so at a middle class party. It’s a daft belief but it’s ‘inclusive’ and fashionable.

Very true.

I should think so. I wonder if people have absorbed the chilling effect of social media cancellations and even job losses. Perhaps so much so that they have decided it's safer to edit themselves in all settings and contexts.

This is how alienation from colleagues, friends, and people we should trust happens and its impact ripples out. It's why writers like Hannah Arendt described loneliness and distrust as among the precursors in the progress towards totalitarianism.

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

I think religion is another thing people shy away from discussing. I have religious friends (Muslim, Catholic and C of E) and I am an atheist. I would love to ask some specific questions and challenge them on X or Y but I don't. I just know somehow not to go there.

It’s fear. I had a very nice, intellectual, candid talk with a group of friends about the trans issue. I was firm but polite in my position (trans women aren’t women , but they are still trans so are a protected minority; don’t agree with trans children being medicalised; women need female only spaces etc). A SIGNIFICANT time later , months and months, someone at that party has decided I said the wrong thing and turned a few people against me saying I’m a “transphobe”. She has also cancelled the friendship saying I’m a bigot. It’s not pleasant and so people want to avoid that kind of shit so they have to test the waters to ensure everyone there is a safe person to talk to.

A SIGNIFICANT time later , months and months, someone at that party has decided I said the wrong thing and turned a few people against me

Depending on whether people have school-age children or other young relatives who are caught up in this, directly or indirectly, I wonder if older adults throwing (even lifelong) friends to the wolves is interpreted as a power move and an unassailable marker of allyship.

It’s definitely fear. I’ve never known anything like it about any other subject.

I agree it’s the same as discussing religion, it is a religion really. People don’t want to say anything heretical.

I know they say you shouldn’t discuss religion, politics or sex at parties but we covered all three over the course of the evening with no bother. This was the only topic that people refused to talk about.

It's like discussing religion during the time of Henry VIII.

I agree with it being fear. Those who are educated on the subject obviously know the biological right and wrong here but they also know the consequences from the 'be kind' and woke crowds. I've had a few conversations at work about this with people mostly skirting around the issue until enough dancing has been done that we both know we're on the same page.

Yes - like signalling you’re a Catholic with a nod and a raised eyebrow!

Though recently tbh I find I literally only have to mention “gender identity stuff” to any women I know over 40, and she immediately rolls her eyes and goes into a satisfying rant about how ridiculous it all is, and then we have an enjoyable time terfing away for a while 👍

It is fear. Yet I think there are cracks appearing in the dam, it is starting to break.

I went to a recording of QI. This topic very nearly came up and all, all of the edgy, funny, well-known people on the panel refused to talk about it. Explicitly said they wouldn’t go there. If even comedians can’t speak about it, then I'm not surprised people at a party can’t.

Really interesting to hear that the effects of preference falsification are known to be that significant and it’s not just my imagination.

Re the party, there’s no way I’d have commented on any of those subjects at a party. In general I no longer discuss politics full stop but if I need a rant I only ever do that with mum and sister.

I simply cannot be bothered with the amount of arguments that often come with this. Some people enjoy political arguments or lively discussions. I’m not one of them.

That said, I discreetly and quietly mentioned a terfy thing to a hobby group friend when we were faced with mixed loos at an event. She said nothing at the time but within a week I had mysteriously fallen off the hobby group email.

After making discreet enquiries, it did all track back to that comment. They are all apparently pissed off at what I said but I do wonder if some are just outright lying. But then they would have got in touch privately? I don’t know.

In this context, could the phrase 'I'll be in trouble if I say what I think' be a kind of code for - "I'm GC, are you?" so if you had responded with 'me too', then would the conversation have opened up?

I’m quite vocally GC, there was no ambiguity from me. But there seemed to be a real ‘we don’t talk about Bruno’ about the topic and whenever it came up it got shied away from in a really obvious way.

Why wouldn't you talk about it in front of your woke adult kids, OP? Mine were like that, so I said what I thought and stuck to my guns. It was pretty heated for a while, but I didn't back down and doggedly repeated my perspective/evidence, and now they agree with me. Peaked all three of them.

Because it’s too much conflict. DS is home from Uni and I don’t want to spend my time arguing with him and DD is…well I have a whole nother thread about her right now. I’d rather not spend precious time rowing with them. They know my thoughts and feelings in the whole thing. I do bring it up but not that often now.

she mentioned an acquaintance was a member of the communist party and a dyed-red twaw-ter

That's strange, because the party line of the British Communist Party is gender critical. My DH is a member, and the issue was debated at their last conference last year - firmly GC.