Why? What is the endgame for TRAs

[Brefugee]

I keep wondering why this is all happening now. What was the actual trigger point of people like Nicola Sturgeon becoming so adamant that the rights of Trans people have to be promoted and fought for at this time?

Why is it desireable that GRCs be obtainable so quickly? Does it all go back to Foucault and his post-modernist cronies? What is it that Sturgeon and Trudeau and other governments who are falling over themselves to push a trans-agenda up to? what is in it for them?

To be clear: I'm not rabidly anti-trans and up to now it hasn't really impinged on my life in any other way (I did know two transwomen way back but have lost touch. I do know a couple of young transmen and they seem fine but i don't know them well). I am painfully aware, of course, that other people's lives are being hugely impacted by this (seemingly?) sudden surge in transwomen and am very keen, as a 2nd wave feminist, that women are protected and allowed to live their lives and achieve their full potential in any way they can/want to. (so I'm not TWAW - i'm in favour of either fully proper unisex spaces or 3rd spaces)

I just don't get why. Why now? Why Canada? Why Scotland? Why anywhere?

True radicals, of both the second and third wave, seek to overthrow the entire system of patriarchal domination so that safe spaces are no longer necessary.

Well, if they do, they're living in a pipe dream.

But in any case, I've never seriously seen such ideas espoused in any texts of the second- or third-wave I've ever read - okay so there were some rumblings about all-female communes and everyone becoming a lesbian and nice, nostalgic fantasies like Fairbairns's Benefits, but these were hardly serious or intended as a society-wide proposition. Well, unless you include Valerie Solanas.

The third-wave is pretty much as insipid as they come, centring the likes of Buffy, Ally McBeal (Ugh), and men in a wishy-washy mode of concession that has little I could see to do with feminism at all. It's just women buttering up to regressive feminine stereotypes and batting their eyelashes endearingly at men, nodding and agreeing with everything they demand. The patriarchy must be laughing at these so-called 'liberal' feminists.

The fourth wave made a more serious point, namely how quickly society - other women as well as men - jumped to tell women to shut up when we dared talk about our sexual violation at the hands of men. If anything, that just confirmed how mired and enmeshed in we really are under male physical dominance and patriarchal oppression. I'd naively hoped it would spell even a glimmer of change. It hasn't. Society is still protecting male abusers, turning the other way, and pretending it isn't happening.

If you seriously believe 'a new and more enlightened generation' in the early 2000s are the answer to this thousands-of-years old, never-ending conundrum, you're living in more than in a pipe dream. It defies logic altogether that so many of the women in this generation are so hellbent on throwing other women under this bus (more aptly, steamroller) along with you. Of course, they'd like to crack on it's the whole generation. I work with students of 18-21, and can assure you it isn't. A great many of today's young people have a lot more common sense.

Your safe-for-all utopia resides nowhere outside cuckoo land.

*to increase of as above

Excellent post TheClogLady. You are so right. People with 'final salary' private/civil service pensions (mainly those aged 60 plus) do not want or need to 'smash capitalism'.
But the young they always know better lol.
I have even switched my voting allegiance from left to right, as I have too much to lose on several issues: perpetual destabilising referenda on Scottish Independence, wanting to leave an inheritance for my adult children, attack on womens' existing sex-based rights, constant undermining of free speech/cancel culture (NB Scottish hate crime law can get you at your own dinner table conversation whereas 'an Englishman's home is his castle'), child safeguarding medical scandals and finally I need capitalism to function to pay my private pension and maintain the value of my house.
It may sound selfish put like that but the left-wing parties didn't have to completely push my vote away with the 'gender identity ideology' stuff. They just chose to do so (TWAW says the Labour Party/SNP/LibDems) and made it easier for me to make the switch for financial stability reasons.

It’s easy to convince yourself that there are no differences between men and women when you are young, but it becomes increasingly difficult to continue believing that when you have to deal with periods/contraception/abortion/invasive fertility treatments/pregnancy/miscarriage/childbirth/breastfeeding/birth injuries/endometriosis etc and getting sidelined into the mummy track at work, when your male peers don’t.

I assume you don;t really mean that young women don't have to deal with periods, contraception and abortion. And the average age of becoming a mother in the UK is around 30, well within the age demographic seen to be most supportive of trans inclusion so I don't thonk your conclusion holds, many of the most trans supportive women are already mothers.

I suspect the age demographic is more down to how likely it is someone has a trans friend or relative . The older gender critical people seem fond of going on about fetishtistic middle aged men and this seems to be the image that comes to mind when they think a trans person - a late transitioning trans woman, who maybe doesn't pass that well. For younger people it's their best mate, or little brother, or a kid at school.

In addition there are more pressing concerns facing younger generations - like if there is going to be a habitable world for their children to grow up in or if they will ever be able to afford a secure home or have a decent job. And these concerns are not going to go away as they age and the impact of climate change starts to bite. It's likely many will look back with some nostalgia on the days the biggest thing some people had to worry about were trans people as the ice caps start to melt and hundreds of millions of people begin to die or be displaced.

Brava @TheClogLady .

The feminists weren’t paedophiles.

You do skirt around these discussions Livvy. It is almost like you understand that there are issues.

I think anyone attempting to continue the ‘but you are all old and the next generation are more understanding’ misses a few points.

That there is already a growing number of young women speaking up. Just look at the tiktokkers who are pushing back on Dylan. Those young women have climbed a mountain and are starting to amplify their voices from the top of that mountain. (One thing to thank Dylan for)

That there is little doubt that the generation 18-28 are now being recognised as being the least tolerant in society, despite them believing they are the most tolerant. So, this is the generation that will certainly not tolerant of the groups who enforced ‘no debate’ which has the meant their peers have been experimented on.

They are not going to be tolerant as they realise that they have been told the lies such as ‘the trans rights movement in 2022 was just like Section 28!’ and the lies that have mounted up.

Those posters also seem to have a very noticeable over confidence that studies of the very near future will support their view. Already we have seen that the world’s sports organisations have made politically motivated decisions based on sociological premises and not physiological sciences. Those decisions have been rolled back slowly and the studies coming out only support the retention of pubertal advantages. None the other way around that are credible at this time. I doubt that will change.

Then there are the detransitioners and their truths about diagnosis and treatment. There already are so many people (even those still transitioned) discussing their negative side effects. Of puberty blockers, the cross sex hormones and the surgeries.

These stories are rapidly growing in number.

And finally, that as they gain more of the experience of the realities of being female, they process the experiences they didn’t quite fully understand or fully appreciate, those women who posters using ‘you will die out’ rationale rely on will realise those negative impacts where one group’s rights conflict with the rights and protections for all females.

What posters using ‘your views are dying out’ cannot admit, is that many of us on this board would have been right there in the thick of believing that gender should be priortised over sex every time in that ‘age group’. Yet, here we are.

And I don’t believe that the world for women and girls has improved dramatically over the past 20 years. So I all I see when posters use that very lazy trope is a poster with no experience as a female or one who is heavily invested in their political stance.

I think some posters using the ‘the next generation gets it’ argument are so heavily invested that they cannot think critically about this issue. Others just want to continue to scold women who don’t agree with them.

suspect the age demographic is more down to how likely it is someone has a trans friend or relative . The older gender critical people seem fond of going on about fetishtistic middle aged men and this seems to be the image that comes to mind when they think a trans person - a late transitioning trans woman, who maybe doesn't pass that well. For younger people it's their best mate, or little brother, or a kid at school.

Don’t be daft Livvy, 30 is not a ‘young woman’ - a young woman is 18/19/20.

Still dealing with periods, yes, perhaps abortion, but not yet discriminated against in the work place.

Who do you think GAVE BIRTH to the ‘little brother’ and the ‘kid at school’?

Children with gender Dysphoria aren’t hatched out of pods. My teen has around 51/300 trans identifying kids in her school year.

It’s being aware of ‘kids at school’ who think they are trans that has created all the Mum-and-Gran-Terves you spend all day finger wagging at on Mumsnet.

Hilarious that you think middleaged women only know middle age male transitioners, when we are the mothers of the current social contagion generation of gender distressed TikTok kids.

Based on my granddaughters & their friends (13 - 17 year olds) quite a few are pretty much sick of gender identity theology being preached at them.
Several of their peer group have transitioners in the family (& some detransitioners) & seem quite cynical about them.

suspect the age demographic is more down to how likely it is someone has a trans friend or relative

This is absolute bollocks again livvy and shows again your deep prejudices about those posting on this board and feminists who fight for sex to be prioritised over gender when it matters.

Do you understand how many people on this board have loved ones who are trans?

Do you understand how many teenage females are trans?

Your posts remind me very clearly of another poster who kept posting snide, derisory posts aimed at posters on this board like yours. They could not once acknowledge the teenage females caught up in this issue, it was like those trans people were invisible to them. They would also argue feminist theory while ignoring the needs of those trans people.

How surprising!

We need safe women only spaces because some men pose a danger to women.

I don't think for one minute this is just patriarchy at work, men exhibit more violent and dominant behaviours - it's inherent for some and the need for safe spaces would continue patriarchy or not.

That this is not blindingly obvious given the millennia if evidence on this beggars my belief. Only a few days ago some random bloke started following me in the dark.

Yes! I posted on another thread saying that I suspect the ‘teenage females identifying-as trans’ phenomena may already have passed the crescendo point and lost some of it’s appeal - younger siblings of genderteens are definitely side eyeing the whole thing!

My youngest is 14, she and her friends have had quite enough of the gender identity craze.

They see those claiming identities as seeking specialness and being rather high maintenance.

They do not want boys in the girls toilets or changing rooms. They do not want mixed sex spaces when they are attending to body functions and/or removing their clothes.

This ideology will definitely run its course if it isn’t backed up by authoritarian means.

It's good to see that teenage girls are getting wise to it.

My Y6 girl has realised that the 'non binary' child in her class is attention seeking and manipulative.

She would be that way no matter how she presents, but my girl has realised that she really doesn't like her that much.

Maybe said already but their end game is to erode and destroy any semblance of rights and reference women have all under the guise of inclusivity and tolerance. They are welcome to rights but they aren't going to take my rights away as a female woman.

If the link between biological sex and gender really could be broken (it can't be, though currently the TRAs are, indeed, trying to linguistically erase the female sex entirely, but only the female sex) then I think gender would become totally meaningless.

Why would we have named genders of people, recording those genders in lots of forms etc., when gender would be just at best some shared packages of personality traits? It would be a bit like being required to state if someone is an extrovert or an introvert in all sorts of contexts where this is unimportant.

My understanding of what feminism has tried to do with respect to gender norms, roles, and stereotypes is to weaken them to the maximum extent possible so that nown for example, women can be physicians and men can be nurses etc.

Right now this process of loosening gendered rules and roles is weakening, and this is largely because of the TRA movement which is working, in my opinion, to restate certain types of gendered expectations and to redefine women and men as feminine creatures and masculine creatures where sexist stereotypes can easily creep into the concepts.

But the feminist approach didn't deny that in some contexts biological sex does matter. This is true in health care, sports, and possibly in how to combat sexual and other types of violence. And no utopia would be one for women and girls if we pretended that there is no difference between the sexes in those areas.

If the end game is the elimination of women as socially active members of their democracies, that begs the question "Why?". Who benefits? It certainly won't be all men. All transwomen? Doubt it.

I'm not sure, I mean there are certainly some men who would love to see a return to women in a more subservient role.
As for transwomen, I think many of them see themselves as leaders of women, at the top of the hierarchy or something. There was an excerpt shared on here a few months ago that was from a book or document, from about the 70's about transsexuals, (I can't fully remember,sorry) but the gist of it was they were going to bravely lead, with women meekly following behind.
I think some transwomen really see themselves as speaking for women, being somehow 'better' women, while ignoring actual women - like Munroe speaking at the UN.

I think the book you are thinking of must be Transexual Empire, which talks about the dangers of the then transexual movement. Interesting read. Also interesting is Joanna Russ's The Female Man (though a little dated) - it's one of the books that Gays Against Gentrification demanded be banned in the Vancouver Women's Library row.

I think that many men who identify as women are delusional about the endgame. I don’t think that it is a conspiracy on their part, I think they just can’t see the logical conclusion of the changes they are forcing on society, they don’t want to see it. Ultimately it may not end up good for them, the transition from sex based society towards gender is great for them but it will go further than they want. There won’t be any women’s spaces or sports for them to identify into. The concept of non-binary/gender neutral/pretending sex is irrelevant will win in my opinion (if we don’t). Perhaps many of those currently identifying as women are enjoying the moment and not thinking long term. The ideology is being pushed by other players imo, money, business, transhumanism. Who will win, transhumanists, big corporations not only pharmaceutical companies but all industries where treating all employees the same ie no sex differences, no accounting for mothers in the workplace, humans as cogs in a machine those will be the ultimate winners.

In discussion with a friend (a man), something else arose. The removal of women from political life would change society radically. Even before the vote, women across the classes were influencing social change, such as abolition of slavery and child employment. There are thse to whom a liberal democracy is anathema. Remove women and harsher societies would develop. There was a woman on World Service last night who was politically active in the Philippines, but cannot be there now under Duterte, for example. And one who had worked with Orban and was shocked by what he became in power. Could the TWs and the TRAs be the useful idiots of the strong men? To be silenced with us when the revolution comes.
Didn't sleep well last night.

I very much believe the TRAs are useful idiots. They may be drunk on power now in diversity and inclusion roles but ultimately they won’t be the ones running the show if the drive for queer theory and gender identity ideology triumph. They aren’t playing the long game but others are. If those of us fighting for reality, freedom of thought, speech and belief, safeguarding, child protection and women’s rights don’t win this one the future regime will be bleak and dehumanising for the vast majority, not for the first time in human history let’s face it but modern technology will give it a new twist.

Just wanted to highlight this comment from @TheClogLady because it is literally my own experience:
"It’s easy to convince yourself that there are no differences between men and women when you are young, but it becomes increasingly difficult to continue believing that when you have to deal with periods/contraception/abortion/invasive fertility treatments/pregnancy/miscarriage/childbirth/breastfeeding/birth injuries/endometriosis etc and getting sidelined into the mummy track at work, when your male peers don’t."

I studied Feminist Literature at uni (The Handmaid's Tale 😀) and my working life was professional and office-based. I was easily equal or better than the men around me. Then, in my 30s, I had 2 miscarriages and my first child. I became a different person overnight! I was now second in importance in my own life. I devoted myself to raising my children, happily abandoning my career to be with them and keeping house for the breadwinner. Now they don't need me so much, I am astonished and angry at how little value anyone puts on what I sacrificed. Much more of a feminist again now - women are expected to raise children and utterly f*ed over when they do.

It's one reason why I struggle with accepting transwomen as women - they will never have to struggle with these biological constraints in the way that women do.

I don’t think that it is a conspiracy on their part, I think they just can’t see the logical conclusion of the changes they are forcing on society, they don’t want to see it. Ultimately it may not end up good for them, the transition from sex based society towards gender is great for them but it will go further than they want. There won’t be any women’s spaces or sports for them to identify into. The concept of non-binary/gender neutral/pretending sex is irrelevant will win in my opinion (if we don’t). Perhaps many of those currently identifying as women are enjoying the moment and not thinking long term.

YY, I think with cluster B types the need for constant power tripping in the moment probably trumps the long term picture.