Thank you for the link, NecessaryScene:
defaultfriend.substack.com/p/suicide-by-kiwi-farms
Focusing on that article: don't know if it's relevant, but here goes anyway. That substack article very much reminded me of the following from a seminal article, Pronouns are Rohypnol, which I understand appeared first on Mumsnet FWR, got deleted fairly quickly by our external monitors and supervisors, but was then reinstated again due to obvious misunderstanding, apparently.
Anyway, Fair Play For Women published it very shortly afterwards. Here's that link to the complete post: fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/
Reading the aforementioned substack link put me very much in mind of this passage in "Pronouns are Rohypnol":
"2) The cost of HEARING or READING preferred pronouns from others:
"Try this next experiment. For a week, re-translate all the transgender articles and comments you find, back to sex-based pronouns, nouns and original names. Rewrite them back to the blunt truth and then read them again. Doing this exercise solely in your mind will do just fine, but editing on a screen is better.
"Convert female pronouns back to male; use surnames instead of first names, and convert terms like transwoman back to just ‘man’.
"Better yet, if you know the original name of the subject, use it, be it David, or Rhys, or Ashton, or Jonathan.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, yes? It shouldn’t matter. No-one else will be hurt or affected by this private experiment. It’s entirely between you, and your own resilient mind.
"(Try not to get banned from anywhere during this experiment)
"Read your translated version again.
"If those small acts of preferred pronoun and compliance are truly meaningless concessions, (although, see above banning potential for contradictory evidence of import) given as a courtesy to others at no cost to you or to other women, then this private exercise will change nothing, cost nothing, affect no-one. You’ll walk away thinking, yep, as I thought, fuss about nothing.
"Example article extract, corrected to male offender pronouns:
" He was placed by Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court on a three-year community payback order at the end of January.
"In February last year, he filmed a girl over a cubicle partition with h mobile phone and a month later he shoved another girl back into a cubicle, grabbed her face and ordered her to remove her trousers."
"After all, nothing should change, should it, simply with the alteration of pronouns and names? You already know the actual sex of the subject you’re reading about. Pronouns, male or female, add no incremental information. How can they in any way alter your perception, or influence you when you already know all the facts? They’re an irrelevance, the easiest concession to make. Not worth consideration, inconsequential. Right?
"Cognitively, you should be immune to the effects of such linguistic cross-dressing. Pronouns are irrelevant, so you concede them easily, because they have no power to influence you, since you already see clearly. Yes?
"[And you can confess here, it’s OK. You may already think that the minority of women who refuse to comply with pronouns are just awkward buggers, who can’t think strategically, don’t know when to let it go, probably are extremists. Do themselves no favours, damage their own ‘cause’, even. Unreasonable.]
"But try the experiment. Translate pronouns and references back to male. Insert ‘dead-names’ or use surnames. (No-one will know but you) Read it a second time. And be honest with yourself.
"Do you feel differently, on reading it this way?
"Do you react differently?
"How’s your anxiety?
"Are you angrier?
"Do you feel more scared?
"Is your sense of injustice alerted?
"What level have your natural defences armed to?
"You may discover that, despite yourself, you have a viscerally different reaction to what is before your eyes.
"Same story, same players, same core knowledge.
"Different pronouns, different reaction."
Just a thought.