“Sex is a result of colonialism”

[SmugglersHaunt]

Just saw an old friend I’ve not seen in a long time. We were talking about this and that then got on to trans issues. She said that binary sex is a concept that comes from colonial times and racial oppression etc. I actually couldn’t argue as it was so nuts. Apparently I’m akin to a QAnon person for believing in biological sex. She basically said I’ve been radicalised.

Apparently men won’t ‘dress up as women’ to enter women’s spaces, as ‘they can more easily ‘dress up as a policeman’ to abuse women. Everything I said was shouted down. Cases like Karen White etc are apparently not true.

I’m (probably stupidly) shocked. I have read a lot of this shite over the years, but to hear it from someone who I‘ve known for a long time was bewildering. I honestly can’t understand how anyone goes along with this. Not sure why I’m posting this but just want to vent I guess.

This is possibly the dumbest of all the dumb claims that have come with all this - I mean ffs. You have to be seriously in denial to really convince yourself no one thought there were two sexes until white people took over their land. Apart from anything else, how on earth did this apparently terribly erroneous idea supposedly arise among white colonisers in the first place and why?

There are almost countless ancient creation myths from Africa, Asia, the americas in which the first man and the first woman emerge from an egg or climb down from the sky or get born from a god’s fingernails or whatever, and go on to populate the world (so we know male and female are their actual sexes, not “gender identities”). Where would these stories have come from then, before colonisers got there? Also does non-white colonisation count? When the ancient Zhou dynasty expanded their territory and took over the shang, did everyone suddenly start incorrectly “believing” in sex? If not it’s just white people, not colonisation, that has this special power? How… colonial to think that.

it’s desperate bollocks. The things people will believe and spout because they’re desperate to be on the moral high ground and are stupid enough to lap up whatever belief someone tells them puts them there. Not because they care about reality, or even trans people. Just because they are scared to think critically and risk being called bigoted.

And yes, traditional “extra” genders don’t prove that no one believed sex existed. They show a relatively sophisticated (as apposed to persecution) way of dealing with gay and GNC (or sometimes possibly those with DSDs) people, who indeed have always existed, by reclassifying and sidelining them so as to preserve strict sex-based gender roles for everyone else. White western societies has similar social solutions such as religious communities to sideline such people, with a different purported aim but served a similar function. These things are all about not following the normal stereotyped route for your sex, but having a separate place to be. In other words they rely on sex to exist as concepts.

I've got an masters degree in Religion and have studied at cultures and religions from across history and place. I can absolutely say with absolutely certainty that religions and cultures across the world and for millennia know full well what sex people are and it forms the basis for how societies and Religions are structured. Its utter Western colonisation of other cultures to re-interpret their longstanding cultures through the lens of the recent western inventions of queer theory or gender ideology. Unbelievable arrogance.

Really good thread.

Anyone else get this at the bottom of it?

Suzanne's basic premise is that Colonialism relied on understanding the difference between sexes as they knew exactly who to enslave for reproductive purposes. Black women in the states were used as collateral. Sex traffickers still do know exactly which sex to target. Surrogacy industry does too.

Scientists in the 1800s studied black women specifically, saying they were anatomically different (stronger). They put them on show in zoos and raped them. Darwin and others surmised black people to be closer to the apes. All incredibly sexist and racist.

Trans ideology uses black women in the same way in order to justify male invasion of womanhood. They use tropes like "trans women, black women, all women!" They liken males to black women.

Scientists are messing with and preoccupied with eugenics and genitalia in the medical transition industry, as they did in the past. They sanction rape "genitals don't matter!"

In the first video she talks a lot about how the medical industry in the US makes enormous amounts of money from women's bodies. Through birth (it costs), placentas make them huge amounts of money, surrogacy and also the industry built around child social care.

Biological sex definitely exists and males use and abuse female bodies as they always have.

But Aristotle thought there was only one sex - women are defective men, who should be given less food and have a tendency to scold, but who nevertheless have the right to be happy, as this benefits the community - according to a sociology textbook I was reading last week. Aristotle may have noticed differences between male and female, and may also have noticed that the differences were related to reproduction (he specifically refers to "copulation" in relation to propagation a number of times). However, this distinction is not sex, which was not invented until the mid 18th century.

Sex is something else. What, precisely, we don't know, but we do know that it is socially constructed. It might have someting to do with heteronormative power structures, which clearly also didn't exist before the 18th century.

Sex is something else. What, precisely, we don't know, but we do know that it is socially constructed. It might have someting to do with heteronormative power structures, which clearly also didn't exist before the 18th century.

Bs.

Nope. Definitely Brown ( think Middle East) . Anyway, definitely not WAS (P) .

honestly, do you think they ever listen to themselves?

Utter BS. I was being sarcastic.

I would actually say this to ex friend - and then block them.

What an idiot.

I'm sorry you had to deal with this cultish mad talk. It's like talking to a broken A.I.

Thanks all - some really helpful things in there. The more I think about what she said, the more mad it sounds. Other gems were that there are more than two sexes, you can change sex etc etc. There are actually fewer trans people than there were years ago (???) When I argued back she just said ‘that’s not trueI’, you’ve been reading lies’ etc.

She put me in mind of that Trump advisor Kimberley something who coined the phrase ‘alternative facts’.

That video is very interesting Warrior thank you.

I’m usually pretty much a hard boiled cynic, but every time a white man uses racial slurs to justify his womanhood or a white woman nods along with outrageously racist statements to back a TRA my jaw hangs open.

I grew up in the 80s- racism was everywhere, as a generation I think we’ve had to work to unpick racist ideas from everything we’ve ever learned. And many people have tried and have been relatively successful. I hope so anyway.

But hearing things like the TRA quotes in that vid, makes me wonder how much racism is still going strong in younger, Lib Fem circles. Are they so blinded by their new cause they can’t hear the racist tropes? Or does the racism resonate with their own racist ideas? There’s some uncomfortable shit going on right there.

Your friend is a wilfully blind idiot, OP.

Most of this discussion, interesting though it is, is beside the point. Binary biological sex isn't a 'concept' invented by people. It's a biological reality, evolved millions of years ago and exhibited by many organisms. Humans, in common with all mammals, cannot "change sex". There is no "third sex".

As to her saying "Cases like Karen White etc are apparently not true." - she's simply burying her head in the sand. Denying evidence that's clear and unambiguous. It's analogous to those members of religious groups who deny and cover up or excuse crimes committed by their people because they think they're right, that their cause is more important than inconvenient truths.

Thank god Just! I genuinely can't tell anymore.

that is exactly the shite TRAs come out with all the time.

Most of this discussion, interesting though it is, is beside the point. Binary biological sex isn't a 'concept' invented by people. It's a biological reality, evolved millions of years ago and exhibited by many organisms. Humans, in common with all mammals, cannot "change sex". There is no "third sex"

Quite. Sex relates to sexual reproduction. Its not a social construct. Its the means to reproduce the species.

We know exactly what sex is. See above. Someone may have read something in a sociology book which makes them think they shouldn't know what it is. But they do. And so has every person and nearly every species.

Other gems were that there are more than two sexes, you can change sex etc etc.

Appropriating differences of sexual development, which are mostly chromosomal conditions. Some babies with these don't survive. Some people have physical and / or learning difficulties. Many are infertile.

In the U.K. the non invasive prenatal test is a blood test that can be done from as early as 10 weeks pregnant iirc, and it's now on the nhs. It tests for all these conditions and others as many are serious conditions. It used pieces of the foetus's dna which are in the mother's blood.

NIPT tests also determine which sex the baby is and would thus know immediately if the baby is later born with a dsd based on the chromosome test and/ or if there's been an issue with the sry gene.

So the assertions quoted above are abelist, racist and misogynistic.

One of my heroes, Bertrand Russell, used to say that the greatest threat to civilization has always been extremism. He used the word 'fanaticism'. There is a certain type of person who is drawn to extremes. They like the idea of antagonising people and smashing things up. The cause doesn't matter. Often, they couldn't care less about the stuff they claim to believe.

We've had all sorts of extremists over the centuries: religious extremists, nationalist extremists, communist extremists, free market extremists. It can take numerous forms. Today, we have woke extremism. Nine times out of ten, these people couldn't care less about the stuff they claim to believe. Their real motives are totally different. It's about power, control, money, etc. In some cases, they just want to show off and get attention.

And as the two-sex reproductive process evolved before humans, how can it be a social construct exactly? Wolves, deer etc can tell from sniffing urine if it came from a male or female of their species and behave differently depending on which it is. (Among millions of other animal examples of course) The reason they react differently to the different sexes is to enable survival and reproduction- unsurprisingly as that’s what sex evolved for.

the stupidest thing is I think this idea has arisen in order to “prove” that it’s fine for a man to decide to be a woman as there’s no real difference anyway. But they don’t agree that it’s ok to identify as a different race, and that literally is a social construct. Even so, it still matters because when some groups persecute others, they need protection and to be able to organise on the basis of the reason for their oppression. The same applies to transness - the ultimate social construct. So even if sex was a social construct, it’s still ok to have sex- based rights, according to this ideology itself.

Extremism + authoritarianism = a fucking disaster.

I don't think your friend is an extremist though OP. Doesn't understand any of it but thinks she does.

Merrily repeating random incomprehensible snippets just like Ai bots do, that sort of makes sense for a bit and then unravels with some critical analysis.

So even if sex was a social construct, it’s still ok to have sex- based rights, according to this ideology itself.

Absolutely but it doesn't suit the menz though and it all has to suit the menz.

It’s like Covid conspiracies - the world is a nutty place right now.

Hopefully she’ll come to her senses, give her space (lots!) till then.

people like your friend remind me of the Paul Whitehouse Fast Show character who spouts second hand opinions in the pub then looks like a knob when challenged.

@JoonT really good post btw, and absolutely epitomises the assertions by a transman described on this thread:

“You don’t get to decide whether you’re transphobic or not and you don’t get to decide you’re an ally” www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4725575-you-dont-get-to-decide-whether-youre-transphobic-or-not-and-you-dont-get-to-decide-youre-an-ally

Third genders are a result of historical homophobia, with many cultures believing that effeminate men cannot be classified as "real" men and therefore have to sit in another category.

Essentially their existence is due to bigotry that pre-dates any colonialism.