How gender believers sabotage conversation and debate so their views won’t be challenged

[TerfLady]

Hi there!

I tried to make the title as non-inflammatory as possible but I don’t think that’s fully possible with this topic but I saw a user on another thread make some really insightful observations that I couldn’t ignore about how woke people tend to shut down conversations and debates so they don’t have to have to challenge their own views and I thought it was really interesting!

If you want to get into this thread you might want to strap in because I’m going to get a tad long winded here. Sorry in advance. I thought about doing a TLDR but I don’t tuning it would work for this thread.

If you want to see the comment @Helleofabore replied to @cherryyoga on page 23 talking about her experience being a reformed liberal if you click on this link and how they handled arguments. Sorry I hope you both don’t mind me tagging you.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4794270-genuinely-willing-to-discuss-in-good-faith?page=23&reply=125778813

Anyways CherryYoga discussed in bullet points how she was conditioned to handle arguments in the following ways:

-Assume their privilege
-Name call and denounce
-Removed the context (This is the part where they sabotage the conversation/debate so it can’t happen
-Stonewall (anyone whose ever tried to debate a woke liberal I think has experienced being blocked. It’s actually meme worthy at this point.)

Now she goes into this list a lot deeper so I recommend you read her comment because it would take a lot of space here!

I find this pattern extremely familiar and interesting. If we know this pattern it definitely looks from the outside like they just don’t want to talk to you once they discover that you have an opinion they don’t like. Yet there were several people like this expressing their frustration that they could not have a conversation while knowingly or unknowingly sabotaging the conversation. Why is that?

Because you might not know that I’m also an ex liberal and I did exactly word for word what CherryYoga described and I’m now on the other side scratching my head. I remember the frustration thinking the “alt right” just didn’t care. Feeling defeated and thinking conversation just wasn’t possible and then coming out on the other side asking myself why I ever thought that. 😧🧐

The conversation was only impossible because I made it impossible because I couldn’t accept their ideas because I saw them as an attack on vulnerable people. But it turns out that was far from the truth.

I wonder if there are other reformed woke people that wanted to share their experiences if they had arguments or debated this way? Is there a way we can reach them gently without surrendering our values?

Or is it better to just save our breath for the people that are ready to listen?

What are good strategies for poking holes in their “argument” strategies if we feel we must debate them?

Heya, I actually had an idea for a thread spurred on by the "Genuinely willing" thread I was thinking of posting, but wasn't sure how it'd go down - I'd really love some feedback on it?

The goal of the thread would be to try and rationalise TRA's points of view to make sense, and maybe even find some kind of middle ground or compromise that would work for all groups.
If no one from that side wants to talk in good faith and argue their points and explain why it makes sense to them, maybe we should try?
Then maybe they'll feel encouraged to come into the thread and try and actually help us understand parts that we're maybe not?

As an example, I've been trying desperately hard to look into the most recent Contrapoints video, and it strikes me that both sides are wilfully misinterpreting eachother's meaning.

Contra will say it's phobia to say men can't become women, but won't acknowledge that when people say this they're referring to sex, not gender.

GC people will say that woman is the same thing as female, even though when TRA's say this, they do not mean sex, they mean gender.

So stemming from that, how would I define what a woman is if I accept that woman is gender not sex?

I guess in that scenario I would define what a woman is, in like.. Jordan Peterson terms.
So studies and psychology etc, things that are proven to be true regardless of culture, and are more exacerbated the more egalitarian the culture.
Although it boils down to personality traits, Peterson also says that these studies hold true no matter where you conduct them, so to me that would suggest that gender is at the very least a thing.
Because Peterson will also go on to say how of course there's overlap and you'll get females with more masculine personality traits, and males with more feminine personality traits.

I think that’s rape interesting and I see your point. Honestly it’s hard to say how it will go down on mumsnet even I know that my thread could go great or blow up completely. I say take a crack at it but be ready if it doesn’t go well.

that would suggest that gender is at the very least a thing.

I personally would not deny that sex-based trends are a thing - quite the contrary. They're very real. And you could define "gender" as some sort of measurement of sex-correlated things.

But unfortunately for the TRA argument:

(a) The vast majority of males professing to have "female gender" clearly exhibit incredibly male traits. They clearly don't have a real "female gender"! If you imagine any binomial distribution of anything with "male" and "female" humps, "transwomen's" distribution looks like the male one. No hidden factor is required to explain anomalous atypical sexed behaviour because there is no anomalous typical sexed behaviour.

(b) It makes no sense and is not practical to segregate anything on personality traits. Segregating things based on someone's own perception of their own personality traits is at least more practical, because you don't have to make an assessment, but makes even less sense. People are not good judges of their own personality!

And we've largely outlawed sex discrimination, and where it remains - the permitted exceptions - I believe it can be justified.

TRAs need to not only justify removing the permitted sex discrimination, they have to (a) justify gender (personality) discrimination, and (b) explain why that would be effective/useful if we simply accept someone's word on their own "gender" (personality).

Can you clarify what you are saying. I am not sure I follow your meaning . I read the comments on your link and I am still no clearer. I am not sure I understand what you mean by reformed liberal. Thanks :)

Or is it better to just save our breath for the people that are ready to listen?

Online, there are always people listening (lurking). Online it is always worth making the same old arguments again and again, calmly and logically.

My Mum had Alzheimer’s and whenever I spoke to her on the phone it would be:

Her: Question?”

Me: Answer answer reply explain joke answer reply.”

Her: “Same question?”

Me: “Answer reply explain.”

Her: “Same question?”

Me: “Answer reply.”

Her: “Same question?”

Me: “YES!”

It can get like that online.

@SpicyMoth GC people will say that woman is the same thing as female, even though when TRA's say this, they do not mean sex, they mean gender.

I don't think I'm wilfully misunderstanding this. I know what is meant by sex and gender but TRAs deliberately muddle them up. For example, I understand that what is recorded on your birth certificate is your sex. In all the self ID discussions, TRAs talk about changing your 'gender' on your birth certificate. So here they are using the word 'gender' to mean 'biological sex'. However, if challenged, they will also say 'Trans people aren't stupid, they are only too well aware of their biological sex because it doesn't match with their gender'. So they use 'gender' to mean an 'identity' to win one argument but gender to mean 'sex' to win a different argument.

@TerfLady I have tried to examine my thoughts from when I was very much TWAW and I used to have arguments with my GC husband about this! I think shutting down arguments is at least in part a fear response. I think there is a tendency (which I have now recognised in myself) to start with an opinion ; e.g. I am a very open minded person who believes in personal freedom, kindness and progressive values. We then attach a view on an issue to this: Believing TWAW is all about personal freedom, kindness and progressive values. I therefore believe TWAW.

I think that when I felt the tiniest inkling that there might be a problem with this view, it really challenged my belief in my open minded thinking! If I see a problem with TWAW, does this mean I am not kind and progressive? So it's easy then to panic and fit an argument to shore up my view of myself - twisting facts, not acknowledging reality, doubling down on emphasising what I want to think - everyone should be kind and there must be some underlying certainty if a man says he's a woman, and thinking of the most vulnerable examples to pin my compassion on!

'Peaking' really is such a definite thing - it's that moment when you stop panicking and see things clearly. But it's quite a shock. It is like stepping into an alternative reality and realising how easily we can deceive ourselves if we really really want something unreal to be true!

How about occupation OP?

Does the transwomen population match the female population? You could look at IT as a choice for example.

The goal of the thread would be to try and rationalise TRA's points of view to make sense, and maybe even find some kind of middle ground or compromise that would work for all groups.
If no one from that side wants to talk in good faith and argue their points and explain why it makes sense to them, maybe we should try?

I've seen this called 'steelmanning' (opposite of strawmanning).

It's a good exercise - take the point of view 'other side' and argue it as well and as thoroughly as you can. Either you discover they do have a point and change your own mind, or it reveals the holes in the argument where you just can't make their point.

Just fyi I AM reading your responses and will get back to you to answer your questions but I just drove my mother to the hospital for a bad tooth so it might be a bit. There are some really good replies here and I can’t wait to get to the thick of it once my mother is looked after. 😊

You were assigned a woman gender at birth and the fact that you feel no discomfort at being a woman is proof of everyone having a gender identity and proof there is no incongruity in people that have a gender identity that matches their sex.

It's proof. No-one has to prove gender identity because the matches prove it.

We have proof of something existing via it's lack of manifestation in the majority.

You can't deny it exists because you are happy as the gender assigned you at birth. Your body is irrelevant. You are happy being "woman". Which is the feeling of being a woman, not having a female body.

It's amazing how people whose genders are feelings are doing all these caring things!

Apologies OP I feel I may have accidently derailed a tad, it was not my intention! I just thought maybe it could be relevant and helpful in the face of the conversation sabotage you mentioned that I 100% agree that there is.

@Wellies54 I would definitely agree with you there, I didn't want to clog up OP's thread by hijacking it with my ideas or more examples but I genuinely would really like to try and find a way to argue how exactly what you said works from their perspective, or if it truly is entirely contradictory.
If so many people are following along with it then there must be something we're missing however convoluted it may seem to us. And even if we're not missing something, we may be able to come up with a more digestible way to argue our points so that we're not immediately written off as bad faith participants using "dog whistles".

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn That's exactly what I meant, couldn't remember the name for the life of me, so I just described it as best I could ahahah :') Thank you! <3

Genius!

* trigger warning * religion. No offence intended. I'm hoping this isn't so controversial it gets deleted 😬

I'm going to turn these words in to a commentary on (a) god to see how it reads.

**

God gave you life. Without god you are just a collection of cells with no soul. Your soul is the essence of you. It's how you feel, it's your memories, your desires and fears. You can't see it, even if you look inside your body and it is not made of biological parts.

It's proof. Noone has to prove god exists because you know you have a soul.

We have proof of god existing because everyone has a soul.

You can't deny god exists because you have no other way of explaining your soul.

**

I used to be agnostic (now an atheist) and it was the conundrum of how I got my "inner soul" (I've still never found an answer in science) that held me in this limbo for so long. Now I'm comfortably an atheist without a decent answer to that.

There will be many people who believe in (a) god for whom this may make sense. I was brought up in the Christian religion and this was one of the things I learned. However, I would never say to a Christian that I am right and they are wrong. I can believe what I believe, they can believe what they believe. If anyone starts setting laws and policies that are linked solely to their religious beliefs however, I could well take a stance against this. Likewise laws and policies that are underpinned by a belief in gender identity.

Eh?

@AlecTrevelyan006

That's a reasonable description of gender identity from the University of Twitter.

I should have also said that if your feeling is that you are a woman, your body is therefore female.

The argument that you don't feel like a woman is defeated by the congruence proof. You don't feel it because you are not incongruous, thereby proving you have a matching gender identity.

There's actually an even simpler version. If you say you are a woman, you are identifying as a woman, proving that woman is a gender identity not a sex.

Am I missing the point here? I was hoping to describe gender identity in the way it's done to shut down argument.

In circles, basically.

@Hepwo

I think what you wrote was great. Very much in the steel-manning spirit.

What I wrote was an attempt to do the same for another belief - a belief in a god. Ultimately, if someone believes something and they hear someone deny it, they will dig in. All the logical argument in the world won't necessarily shift that position.

My own take on gender identity (beyond the original gender dysphoria that predominantly impacted incredibly small numbers of young boys historically - not the demographic we see today) is that it is simply that: a belief. I have no desire to convert anyone to my own belief that gender identity doesn't exist. Nor do I want to do that for religion.

However, I vehemently oppose and will stand up against any laws and policies that are underpinned by a belief in gender identity where these laws/policies impact on other people's rights. Also where it draws in vulnerable people who feel compelled to modify their body to support their belief.

Alright I’m going to try to reply to everyone in one go.

@NecessaryScene I agree I think seeing trans women do and say very masculine phrases and actions and very distinctly bossing me around in a way that a rude big brother does is one thing that slowly chipped away at me. Particularly when I was pregnant or the awkwardness around period conversations.

The libs of tiktok worthy comments online from known trans women threatening to punch cis women or rape them with their lady dicks really did me in there.

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting basically I used to be a very woke very far left liberal. I still consider myself liberal (however that is up in the air as I am still shifting in my views gradually) but I would consider myself more center left these days. Basically I evolved my idea of what it means to be liberal and I grew as a person and I no longer shut people down when debating and I don’t agree with some of the views that they espouse that are more extreme (in my opinion) such as gender ideology and the idea that trans women are women. I am american by the way so some of my ideas are more american based.

@MavisMcMinty I never thought of it that way. You are right. There are always lurkers watching in the shadows and they are paying attention always. For that reason alone it’s good to try try and try again. I think the difference is before I was doing it because I felt guilted and pressured into it by my friends and I thought I had to say and do certain things to make up for my “privilege” like I owed society. But now I’m being more honest and I’m doing it for myself and speaking from my heart.

@Wellies54 I really love your comment because it is very well articulated what went through my mind. I remember feeling the very day thing when my ideas were challenged. The panic of “am I not kind?” and the fear of “If I’m wrong it’s going to be really embarrassing to come out about it because I’ve been arguing this with zealous for years.” 😂🫣😭I remember the moment I peaked and I was scared because I didn’t want to accept that I was a “Terf”. I felt straight up denial and wanted to hide in a closet. I was a closeted Terf for a year because all my friends were signed onto gender ideology and I felt so alienated.

@Hepwo let’s delve into that occupations. I think that considering honest trans women are likely to be more drawn to feminine occupations and transmen to masculine occupations. But I think that transmen who keep their organs will still experience medical misogyny which could hurt their careers the same as natal women and trans women will still benefit from the fact that they only need to sire children and not carry them so they will not feel that hit.

To your second comment. I think it is flawed that you are using my feelings of approval or disapproval of my sex as scientific evidence for gender.

My feelings as everyone’s feelings are subjective. However my OPINION on the matter is that I do believe in gender to a certain degree if that makes sense? However I don’t think laws need to be put in place to enforce that on EVERYONE anymore than I think laws should be put in place to enforce a religion on everyone. Because it is a belief system. I think it should be protected just like a belief system the same way christian’s and Jewish and muslims beliefs are protected.

I think that trans women and transmen have real struggles and real needs but I just don’t agree with how TRA’s are trying to enforce those needs because I think that they not only conflict with natal women’s needs but actually hurt and undermine trans people’s needs. I think that nonbinary people have muddied the water in a very problematic way that has also harmed both women and trans people.

I have an old friend who claims to be non binary. She was born female and asked for they/them pronouns and claims to have fully transitioned but literally wears hyper feminine clothing, ballet flats, dresses, full faced feminine styled make up and still uses her very feminine birth name. She even still cosplays as female anime characters in frilly dresses. Her lifestyle in my opinion seems dishonest. She is nonbinary but presents fully female? No medical transition or attempt to alter appearance or name? She considers herself trans and labels herself trans on social media.

I could do that. Can I be trans too and change nothing and then reap all the benefits?

To your third comment… I don’t really understand this one…?

@SpicyMoth no need to apologize. I don’t mind at all. Please feel free to share your views. I would love for you to share.

@BonfireLady you’ve articulated this very well.

What are good strategies for poking holes in their “argument” strategies if we feel we must debate them?

Assume their privilege
Correct their assumptions and point out that they made assumptions

-Name call and denounce
Point out the ad-hominem attacks and ignore denunciations

-Removed the context (This is the part where they sabotage the conversation/debate so it can’t happen
Keep repeating the context and making clear points, don't get side-tracked

-Stonewall (anyone whose ever tried to debate a woke liberal I think has experienced being blocked. It’s actually meme worthy at this point.)
When they flounce you know you have won, and more importantly any lurkers can see exactly what has just happened.

The existence of God doesn't require proof, it just needs faith. Faith is the magical version of belief. I happen to believe in God but I also know that that belief has no basis in real life.

Oh were you steelmanning? You really had me convinced. 😁 Maybe I should give that a shot sometime!

@Stillcountingbeans I love your strategy although I know these things take practice and real life experience.

@JanesLittleGirl yes I’m also religious but my religion is very uncommon. I almost never bring it up. I believe that nature has a spirit. Although I wouldn’t enforce that on others. To some people a rock is just a rock and that’s their business. Lol

There really are so many contradictions in gender ideology and wilful misunderstandings (e.g. your gender is not biological and it's perfectly acceptable to be a woman with a penis but trans children immediately need medication to correct their bodies, evil Terfs want to force everyone into traditional gender stereotypical roles! etc. etc.)

But if your whole ideology is based on something which isn't true - that some men are women, that sex is a spectrum, that you can change your physical sex - once you lose a basis in reality, you really can make anything up to support your argument. If the basic premise doesn't make sense then your arguments to support it don't need to either!

In terms of discussion, I think it depends who you are talking to. There are people who are definitely pushing this for the benefits it brings them; pharmaceutical industry, predators, some media. They don't care; they're in it for themselves.

There are people who have got caught up in this; who work in gender clinics, have transitioned their children, celebrities who have nailed their colours to the trans ally mast, some people who have transitioned and are simply too invested / implicated / scared to think deeply about the issue from any other view point.

There are people caught up in the adrenaline rush of a 'social justice movement' who are getting a massive buzz out of feeling righteous and 'fighting' for a vulnerable minority, smashing the patriarchy and are in a social bubble where this is their cause, nobody disagrees and they love using their confidence, assertiveness and aggression to feel the power of shutting dissenters up! They are not open for reasoned discussion but enjoy talking about the subject and finding people to disagree with so there is hope that one person or one thought will burst the bubble for each individual and shock them into a different way of thinking - you can't stay fired up about something made up forever!

BUT there is a massive majority of people who are completely unaware of this and are amazed when they find out what is going on. Others are going along with it because they think it is progressive and have that fear, like I mentioned previously, that if they don't agree, they are the equivalent of homophobic or racist. But they probably feel like there is a compromise which hasn't been suggested yet and are open minded enough to see how illogical some of it is, such as to have men competing as women. in sport. Some are actually really fascinated to speak to someone who is passionately on the alternative side of the debate because they think it's really taboo! These are the type of people I am cautiously trying to talk to and I hope I'm just making people think a little bit, or at least think, well if my nice, quiet, not at all hateful friend, wellies, is saying this, maybe there is something in it!

Spot on! That is the argument that they make.

I think we can almost recreate them verbatim by now. And probably even post the studies (probably could create a credible defense of those studies too).

All with a straight face?

God gave you life. Without god you are just a collection of cells with no soul. Your soul is the essence of you. It's how you feel, it's your memories, your desires and fears. You can't see it, even if you look inside your body and it is not made of biological parts.
**
It's proof. Noone has to prove god exists because you know you have a soul.
**
We have proof of god existing because everyone has a soul.
**
You can't deny god exists because you have no other way of explaining your soul.

That may be a good description of how gender ideology works, but it’s cr*p theology. The first part is fairly reasonable (God created us, a human body without a soul is a corpse, ‘soul’ is spirit not flesh), but the second part includes some serious circular reasoning.

For example, ‘we have proof of god existing because everyone has a soul’. Nope. Even if we did prove that everyone has a soul, that proves nothing about the existence of anything like the Christian god. Pagans, who believed in lots of gods, also believed people had souls. Or you could argue that the ‘soul’ now discovered was a byproduct of organic life, a ‘life-force’, nothing to do with any god.

Etcetera. I’m a committed Christian - but my response to “You can't deny the Christian god exists because you have no other way of explaining your soul,” would be “You want other explanations for the soul? Hold my beer.”

Similarly, the idea that everyone has a gender identity ‘proves’ sod-all about gender dysphoria. If someone was assigned female at birth but has a male gender identity, you could argue that this gender identity would be more naturally expressed through the female body they already have. By, say rejecting marriage and children and becoming a nun. Or, in more modern times, being the single career woman. Joining the army. Anything that fits their ‘male gender identity’.

If having a different gender identity made you a different sex, you could also argue that you’d expect observable biological differences to match the gender identity difference. After all, those of us that do believe in souls can point to observable biological differences between the souled and non-souled body. One’s living and the other is dead, for a start.

A decent recreation of the argument commonly made. But if we're steelmanning, the point isn't to regurgitate the bad arguments; it's to do your level best to make a good one.