Do you ever wonder, what else have I been horribly wrong on all this time?

[JaneorEleven]

Do you ever wonder, what else have I been horribly wrong on all this time? If I was SO wrong on those that are GC, what else have I been wrong on?

All my life I’ve been solidly left leaning, and pretty much agreed with most points on the left. I’ve described myself as an old fashioned socialist, love the idea of the NHS, a safety net for lower income people and unemployed, social and economic equality, disability rights, rights for women all tied up with feminism including being pro-choice, LGB and the TQ etc rights, you name it, I supported it.

I had previously been very sympathetic to Trans issues, and had a friend who transitioned, and I supported this person as best I could. But after some time of researching and I guess educating myself for lack of a better expression, I did a complete uturn on this, and found myself agreeing with many wise GC women. It was a bell I couldn’t unring. And Mumsnet played a large part in this.

I’m British now living in the US, and find myself busy Terfing USA. I’ve listened to NPR for years, nodding along, but now almost daily, they have a segment that infuriates me with regards to Trans issues. Could be anything from “trans kids” not getting their meds, to prisons, to bathrooms, schools, and they support it all. Female reporters who I held in high esteem, interviewing and fawning over transwomen, platforming them and letting them hold court without challenging them.

These past few weeks, I’ve started to question myself. How could I have been so wrong on this? I thought GC peeps, or Terfs, were full of hate and lacked patience and understanding.

Which leads me to ask, on what else have I been so badly wrong? Anyone else think like this? Now I don’t think I’m a closet right winger, but is it possible I’ve allowed the left to lead me up the garden path on other issues too?

I've resigned myself to having to identify as right wing.But the he more I think about it I begin to think: I'm not right wing just a small c conservative.

In that I want to conserve all the liberal values I previously believed in.

I want to conserve the assumption there are in reality 2 sexes and we don't need to debate this we just know it.

I want to conserve the idea of free speech is fundamental to a tolerant culture.

I want to conserve the idea that children should be protected by adults and free from the influence of adult sexuality.

I want to conserve the idea that every adult has the right to live their life as they wish without discrimination for any immutable characteristic. But that no one is more valued than another.

These are beliefs that have remained consistent with me but seem to have moved me to having to align with the right.

Conservatism is about conserving what you value. Constant 'progress' which involves ditching your values isn't ethical or moral.

This pretty much sums up my journey too.

Even then, most people will just think "oh, they're ignorant / have lied about this one issue", turn the newspaper page to another story and assume that the next story is accurately reported.

This might be where I have really felt like I changed my thinking.

Politically, I am what you might call a communitarian, so I am very used to having views that don't map on to the right or left, and reading and considering ideas that originate from both. SO in that sense I've never been politically tribal.

But I did have much more faith in some media sources. Not that they were perfect, but that they were committed to good journalistic ethics and gave as best they could true facts.

That's been totally blown away. Having seen my national broadcaster deliberately subvert information on this issue, I became more skeptical and came to see a few other issues where they were shaping a very political narrative, suppressing facts, and so on. It's incredibly sad to me because their content was something I really valued, not just in news but culturally. Now I think we might be better off to simply dismantle them. There are other commercial media I similarly now see as pushing an agenda.

FWIW, I don't think it's just chance that GI is mainly found on the left. It's part of id politics, and that has come from the left.

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Torunette's post is really important as it shows there is a way forward from the tribal politics that make open discussion and nuanced decision making so hard to achieve.

I think the reason why the 'left' has got so caught up in transgender politics is that they drew parallels with racism and homophobia but underplayed the impact of discrimination against women. People born after the Sex Discrimination Act was enacted rarely know what a difference it made, for example, in outlawing different rates of pay for the same job. Once the worst examples of employment discrimination were outlawed, women's progress was mainly measured in terms of career progression in the workplace or entry into higher education, but topics like domestic violence or unpaid care never got the same attention. This meant that the idea of women being a group that experienced discrimination was under recognised.

I also think we have got caught up in gesture politics so pronouns and convoluted descriptors avoiding the word 'women' are seen as more important than asking more fundamental questions about why we have seen such a rise in gender dysphoria.

It's kind of awful seeing all of this though, which source, which news do you actually trust? For me it's basically none, I don't know what is true anymore. The Israel issue is a good example, its so much more nuanced than I ever imagined, the war in Ukraine, what is true and what is propoganda . Its very tempting just to give up caring tbh.

First, thanks to everyone for the most riveting thread on this board for months.

I have also always thought Thatcher's quote misinterpreted, I have always interpreted it as meaning there is no such thing as society in the sense of a holistic entity capable of intentional actions and of carrying blame. Only people and the institutions we create can do that. How people choose to act, whether through private charity or collective and co-operative political action, she doesn't really get into, though obviously, being Thatcher, she prefers the former. But you can be a trades unionist, a co-operativist, a social democrat, a liberal, a believer in "friendly societies" and her dictum still works.

Well, actually, she does get into it. I overstated the case....

This is a bit of a derail, but we could really do with initiatives like these in our area.

There's so much talent and energy and life just locked up on some of our estates. They are like prisons somehow where the bars are made of years of psychological conditioning. Or maybe islands.

They very much are legacies of industrialisation and the attitudes that prevailed towards the working class back then. Politicians talk about aspirations, but it isn't that. It's something else and I can never quite put my finger on it, despite having lived it myself.

I get most of my news from podcasts now. I think it's much easier to work things out when you can spend two hours listening to someone who's an expert on a particular topic, going in depth into various aspects of the situation. Also when you listen to them in deep conversation, you can tell when people have intellectual humility and are just seeking the truth.

I have always interpreted it as meaning there is no such thing as society in the sense of a holistic entity capable of intentional actions and of carrying blame. Only people and the institutions we create can do that.

Yes, that's my understanding of it - I thought she was actually trying to humanise society by explaining it not as a faceless all-powerful mysterious entity, but as a simple network of people, family groups, etc.

Almost sounds a bit anarchist, in fact.

They very much are legacies of industrialisation and the attitudes that prevailed towards the working class back then. Politicians talk about aspirations, but it isn't that. It's something else and I can never quite put my finger on it, despite having lived it myself.

I think there are lots of things informing that - town planning, welfare state, capitalist economics, culture, counter culture, health provision, etc.

Poverty compounded over generations becomes far more than the sum of its parts, imo.

It's kind of awful seeing all of this though, which source, which news do you actually trust? For me it's basically none, I don't know what is true anymore.
I found it most striking when the likes of Radio 4's Today or PM programme's Anchor talked about a subject on which I was knowledgeable and you realised that they hadn't a clue. You start to think, "if they got that wrong, what else are they getting wrong?"
To be fair, we long ago went past the idea of 'renaissance man', where one person can know everything there is to know. Life is too complex these days.

The problem is politicians who feel the need to pretend that they do have answers to everything. Who have to stir up the 'Them v. Us' because how else do you get differentiation between parties and hence votes?

The biggest issue is that those with knowledge have no desire to share it today for fear of being cancelled. The ‘experts’ which will speak to the media are so often hacks and opportunists, not experts.

As for the NW and level of deprivation, it’s very much needed that the investment is made to those communities. Much of the breakthrough technology in the NW was from the brains of lower middle class and working class children who broke through the barriers. Grammar schools were a very valuable ticket.

In the 80’s and 90’s there was a real sense of community. We saw others struggling. My mother would quietly pay for another mothers shopping when she saw she others struggling and would tell the cashier, please keep scanning. That doesn’t happen today. Using food banks is depressing and leaves people feeling less than. I often heard adults tell each other ‘it will be ok, you are doing all the right things, keep going’. I never hear that today. It’s no wonder so many struggle with depression.

This is one of the best threads ever.

Another thought is that my eyes were opened by the findings of Operation Bullfinch in Oxford
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-5146751

Did they never consider women would fight back, at all?

I firmly believe they didn't look at it from a woman's perspective in the slightest, @ArabellaScott. It didn't occur to them that we'd have any reason to object. We're just Support Humans, after all.
#BeKind etc

I've questioned a lot of things over the years. I've done a 180 on surrogacy, I did dabble briefly with thought experiments whether TWAW and voluntarily used the term Cis, until I'd had an even longer think and ended up fully and completely GC.

The frustrating thing about the way GC feminists are framed is that we hate trans people. Don't be so daft - as if we don't know some and love them and care about their safety and security in our everyday lives! I maintain it's hard to have children between the ages of 12 and 28 and for at least one of their mates to be trans-identifying.

We don't hate - or even dislike or distrust - this young people. We merely don't accept their self-descriptions as true, and we maintain sex-based safeguarding measure for the safety, comfort and dignity of all.

In the 80’s and 90’s there was a real sense of community. We saw others struggling. My mother would quietly pay for another mothers shopping when she saw she others struggling and would tell the cashier, please keep scanning. That doesn’t happen today. Using food banks is depressing and leaves people feeling less than. I often heard adults tell each other ‘it will be ok, you are doing all the right things, keep going’. I never hear that today. It’s no wonder so many struggle with depression.

Yesterday I spent 20 minutes with neighbours and passersby forming an impromptu local support group for a bloke who'd got stuck up on the roof. Various people came out to hold his feet, call the fire brigade, hold the ladder, crack bad jokes to reassure him, cast about for cushioning material in case he slipped, etc, etc. In the co-op, people leave the wee money off vouchers at the till for the next person to use. Someone just called me to say I'd left my purse in the shop and she didn't want me to worry where it was.

People are innately helpful, I don't think we can actually stop ourselves from being helpful. Pandemic notwithstanding.

As for food banks - when I was hungry in the 90s I went hungry. That was it. There was no such thing as a food bank!

I think it’s interesting how it’s seen as a good thing to encourage “social mobility” as if helping the brightest kids to escape poverty and sink estates is some kind of solution. Yes it is for them individually, but it also kind of affirms that those sink estates and poverty levels are natural and inevitable. They’re not - we should be working towards everyone being able to have an ok and safe and happy life even if they are at the lower end of the pay range.

I agree with you Bat but the problem I’ve noticed is that once you leave the estate you are painted as getting too big for your boots and are pulled down. It shouldn’t be that way. I was told multiple times that I was overreaching because I didn’t accept my future as a housewife. Nope, I was fulfilling my potential and I moved abroad to accomplish this. Freed from the social expectations of an upper middle class family, I’ve got myself a nice career.

I have also always thought Thatcher's quote misinterpreted, I have always interpreted it as meaning there is no such thing as society in the sense of a holistic entity capable of intentional actions and of carrying blame. Only people and the institutions we create can do that. How people choose to act, whether through private charity or collective and co-operative political action, she doesn't really get into, though obviously, being Thatcher, she prefers the former. But you can be a trades unionist, a co-operativist, a social democrat, a liberal, a believer in "friendly societies" and her dictum still works.

I also think that part of what she was getting at is that if you ask something of society, you aren't asking it of some nameless, abstract entity, like prayers for good rain or abundant food.

You are asking it of other people, who have to step up in one way or another to provide their work, time, etc. I suspect her sense that the state providing too much is not positive is because she felt that people tended to forget that there were actual people doing the providing, and also perhaps that it diminished people's sense of immediate responsibility towards their neighbours.

I watched about 80% of the Heard Depp trial live. Both very damaged people but I largely agreed with the jury based on the evidence shown & the witnesses. Most of the main stream media seemed to have watched an entirely different trial.

This makes me wonder what other situations/stories have we had "fliltered" reporting of?

Okay that Thatcher quote has blown my mind. I never heard the full quote before, but always had it represented to me as a repudiation of society, saying that we are just individuals, every woman for herself sort of thing.

Reading the quote in context, it seems she's saying the opposite of that.

Fucking hell. I think being on the left for most of my life must have really twisted my brain.

@Wauden
your bbc link is broken. Could you find it and share again please? 🙏🏼

The 2nd Heard/Depp trial was shocking. Basically he didn’t get the outcome he wanted the first time and the 2nd trial was about restoration of his image at any cost. I’m no fan of Heard but I believe her and the relationship as a whole was very dysfunctional. He held so much more power than her. She will probably never work in Hollywood again and he will go back to be the lovable pirate.

The media assault here was shocking. The reels shown were clearly made by and for PR spin for Depp. Why it was allowed is beyond me.