Women's rights general conversations - Thread 4

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 3.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

She also pointed to research by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, an American charity, which claimed the gender-critical movement “advanced a genocidal agenda through tactics that include laundering fascist ideas as apolitical ‘philosophies’”,

So dense that light bends around them.

Policing what people can and can't read sounds pretty right-wing to me. It's disappointing (and worrying) to hear academics talk like that. Genocide? What lunacy is this?

But hey, maybe it's nothing more than them taking an opportunity to demonstrate that they're on TRSOH.

Amazon are selling Victoria Smith's book Hags for 99p today (Saturday 13th).

What research? I read the Lemkin Institute statement and it wasn't based on any research, just the opinions of whoever the author is. And, indeed, I wrote to them and advocated that they actually do some research on this question.

They wrote this:

“Genocidal ideologies are ideologies that deny or seek to erase the existence of a specific group because of the supposed threat it poses to the holders of the ideology. The gender critical movement simultaneously denies that transgender identity is real and seeks to eradicate it completely from society. “

But this is what the gender identity movement — the current theoretical framework transgender activists use — is trying to do to the female sex!

The existence of the female sex class is seen as a threat to those whose ideological beliefs define ‘woman’ as a person who feels like a woman, irrespective of the sex of that person’s body.

The gender identity movement simultaneously denies that gender based on one’s biological sex is real for anyone, and seeks to eradicate the embodied definition of ‘woman’ completely from all language we use, thereby linguistically erasing the gender definitions of all people whose gender experience is an embodied one.

I think it helps if one starts from the mindset that TRSOHers know they're Good People - after all, they pledge allegiance to the Bundle of Good Beliefs, right? - and that being the case, anything they do must be a Good Action which is furthering the Side of Goodness. If these actions happens to include telling outright lies, attacking/threatening/silencing Bad People, burning books, DARVO, nevertheless these are for the Greater Good of the Right Side of History.

From Winterborne's Times story:

Lawford-Smith, an associate professor in political philosophy at Melbourne University, hit back, saying: “Obviously, almost none of what Eugenia says is true”. She described her comments as the “familiar sort of ludicrous hyperbole coming from trans activists”.

I like the cut of her jib!

Kucinghitam · Today 05:48

If these actions happens to include telling outright lies, attacking/threatening/silencing Bad People, burning books, DARVO, nevertheless these are for the Greater Good...

You've reminded me of a disagreement between 14 year old me and my evangelical RE teacher.

He was a young Earth creationist, who told us that there were human footprints alongside dinosaur footprints, in Texas. As it happened, I'd read a National Geographic about it, with interviews from the men who'd carved the fake human prints.

Some had done it out of the same religious "conviction" and some had done it to mulct tourists.

He got pretty angry and said that it was a better thing to tell a "kind lie" to save a child's soul from damnation.

Exactly that energy @SinnerBoy! I first encountered the phenomenon back when the Internet was all fields, and part of being on TRSOH was defending the facts of Darwinian evolution and biological reality, against the YEC lot. The YECs made an art of Gish galloping, whataboutery and "lies for Jesus."

Now that Darwinian evolution and biological reality have been ejected from the Bundle of Good Beliefs, it's notable to me how TRSOH have eagerly and non-ironically adopted the tactics of the YECs, including the pious fraud.

Thanks for the heads up!

Ditto!

Was going to put this on the SFW Australia tour thread but it's full, so

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/13/neo-nazis-clash-with-police-and-counter-protesters-at-anti-immigration-rally-in-melbourne

The only reason I'm bothering is because of this bit, if anyone knows how to complain to the Guardian (and can be arsed) please do. And ask them if there are no conflicts between women's rights and trans privileges right, why do they always call women's rights talks 'anti-trans'?

Well that was unexpected. Man announcing the Eurovision Austrian jury vote added a call for equal pay for women.

I read the Lemkin piece too and I am really disappointed that they are conflating the views of Michael Knowles with gender critical ideas. One could argue that he was talking in good faith because there is a radical element to transgenderism and while I doubt they want to wipe out individuals who identify as trans, it's dodgy language. The gender critical movement, if in fact there is a movement, is not transphobic and going back to faith, it is a bad faith move to pretend otherwise.

@Kucinghitam is spot on with the thinking of TRSOH people. More and more I have to remind myself that they truly believe what they read, hear, say. They're generally not bastards, they're just wrong and a lot of them will one day, when the tide turns, pretend that they never believed it at all. My own personal "cognitive dissonance" (although that is the wrong phrase) is developing more understanding and empathy for the misguided but decent TRSOH types, whilst becoming ever angrier with the radicals. It's quite hard when you are being personally verbally attacked and called a fascist (or fascist adjacent, which is sort of amusing), to hold onto understanding.

I'm so thankful for this small safe place to not only speak freely but to learn more.

The Sunday Times has printed this letter

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inclusive-language-is-misogyny-in-disguise-kr8068xz2

I don't know if you can have share tokens for letters, but if you can I'd love to read it.

There are three letters under that heading. Unlike articles, there's no copyright issue with publicly printed letters so I think it's OK to paste them here:

Hadley Freeman spoke to doctors concerned that the word “woman” had been deleted from some NHS website pages about women’s health (“Welcome to the doctors’ resistance”, Comment, last week). Curious, I checked out the site’s section on ovarian cancer. Sure enough, there is no mention of women or even females on the first page; only a note that “anyone with ovaries” can get ovarian cancer. If you click through to page 3, this is eventually spelt out as “women, trans men, non-binary people and intersex people with ovaries”.
I then looked at the section on prostate cancer. By contrast, this acknowledges on the first page that it is a disease of the male reproductive system. Men are mentioned repeatedly on that page and throughout the following pages. Trans women, who also have a prostate gland, are never mentioned.
Why is there no need to talk about “anyone with a prostate” in discussing prostate cancer? Why don’t men need to be inclusive? The whole thing is simply misogyny.
Rebecca Chandler-Wilde, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

Captured college
Freeman writes that the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) rebuked its members for questioning the statement that biological sex was “socially contrived”. She goes on to report that the RCP has received a gold award from the destructive organisation Stonewall. This makes me proud to say I am not a member of the RCP.

Having qualified as a doctor in England but trained as a psychiatrist in the US, I remain a distinguished life member of the American Psychiatric Organisation. However, this is having its own internal conflicts over gender ideology.

Those of us who have worked in clinical practice throughout our careers in psychotherapy have been aware for a long time that the public, and those in authority, are being badly misled by highly prejudiced, ideologically driven, non-scientific sources.
Joseph Berger, psychiatrist, Netanya, Israel

Medics’ intervention
I was heartened by Freeman’s piece about the medical professionals group the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG). It’s good to see this thorny subject tackled with compassion and heart.

Like CAN-SG, we are concerned about the culture of fear created by spurious accusations of transphobia. The fact is, the medicalised approach to gender care is not working. It is time to consider alternatives. This group can bring experience and integrity to a sector in crisis. We’re lucky to have it.
Alasdair Gunn, vice-director, Genspect, Tipperary

Nice!

I’ve developed a proper parasocial friendship with Alasdair Gunn (aka ‘Angus Fox’) of Genspect. His writing on the mothers of new wave of teen boys ‘coming out’ as trans (largely autistic, hugely socially awkward, gamers and weebs) is very supportive be moving. His announcement re: having a terminal illness (hence dropping the nom de plume) made me bawl
my eyes out.

There are a few men working in and/or writing about this subject area who I suspect had really excellent relationships with their mothers - Alasdair is one of them, Brendan O’Neill another.

Makes a good contrast to the intrinsic mother -hating present in trans ideology.

Thank you @Britinme

@CryptoFascistMadameCholet Oh no!

Don'tknow if this has been previously posted. It's a fascinating view of Bulterian feminism. Bottom line: she advocates (according to this author) a sly, sardonic, knowing undermining of norms (including rape and oppresssion) as the best way forward. Yes, completely see that. Fucking not.

Got a link there for us, angelico?

Doh!

https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody

That has been discussed (at the old place) on a few occasions and is 24 years old - but it's always worth a reread. I would say that article and Rebecca Reilly-Cooper's Gender is not a Spectrum probably have probably attained the status of old standards in this debate 😉

Well, as you know, there's a lot of repetition of old ignorances at the old place.

This is the other one for the old standards playlist you mentioned, in case anyone fancies a listen.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison

There was someone in TOP who claimed to understand what Butler was talking about, IIRC. Sadly for us he kept his knowledge to himself.