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?

True intersex people with different chromosomes are 1 in 100,000 people. 0.2% of people. Some studies included people with XX or XY in their sample. A study that found 1.7% are intersex had 88% participants with No chromosomes at abnormality.

I would like to add that this research took me a few hours as I got distracted by life and I swear at the start and at the end some websites were words differently.

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.

Thanks for explaining this so clearly, Wellies. I’m seeing this in some friends who would never be deliberately misogynistic.

I think that is an excellent insight. I have a friend who fits into that category.

@Ofcourseshecan @Britinme
What made me see this so clearly is that the one person I know of who is a proper TRA in London (who thinks people like me are fascists) got punched in the face when he defended some women from an aggressive man. I really do think that many believe they are genuinely kind, progressive and supportive of women and that TWAW is a part of this!

Some really thought provoking posts here - I’m inspired to read a couple more chapters of invisible women today.

Something Matt Walsh said is actually a really good counter argument to that in my eyes, badly paraphrased from memory but here goes! -

"As as TW or indeed a TRA, I am more woman than any of you unthinking cis women. I've had to think, consider, work through my beliefs and emotions to get to where I am, and that gives me the absolute right and self knowledge to state that I am a woman - compared to you cis women who can't even explain why you think you're a woman. I've thought about it a lot and I KNOW I am, You haven't thought about it all. So I am clearly more woman than you REGARDLESS of my chromosomes/appearance (etc etc)"

That's precisely the point. You've thought about it at all.
No one has to "tell" you you're a woman or a man when you are one. It's not something you have to "work through", "think" or "consider" It's either your reality or it's not. It's not something you think about, it's something you navigate.
Females don't generally think about the fact they're female really well... ever, and most certainly not in the same way as trans woman would.
Instead we think about things that are as a result of our femaleness or that are a consequence of their femaleness.
Ie menstruating, pregnancy, contraception, objectification, harassment, the list goes on

I think what this shows is your TRA friend likes confrontational situations and the adrenaline shot of this. These men were not showing up for the women’s rights and the long hard slogging work of this, until it involved masked macho posturing, and screaming aggressive confrontation against an ‘enemy’.

For other people, however, I would agree that people have a ‘ I am open minded, kind and progressive and TWAW ticks those boxes’ . I certainly have friends like this. However, these are not my genuinely most open minded, critical thinking friends, but more the ones who pay the guardian to tell them what to think. I cannot really forgive the complete absence of critical enquiry that is needed to believe TWAW and the implications of this in real life. I can’t really respect prioritizing one’s self identity as a progressive over thinking for oneself.

Poor chap, and good on him for defending women.

Did he just swallow the cognitive dissonance of a 'good' person behaving badly? or decide this wasn't a genuine trans person? or change his views on the goodness of the trans cause?

The person who punched him wasn't trans, just an ordinary man!

@wombridgewalkabout Sorry, I should have been clearer - I'm not sure if he actually attends events shouting at women, more that he is very obsessed with the ideology and is certainly in a social bubble of people who are obsessed with their gender identities and the righteousness of the cause. It's a friend's son so I don't know too many details but as a family they are lovely gentle people. I really do think he is the sort of person who would not look for confrontation and just try to diffuse the situation and make sure the women were safe - but in this case got punched in the process.

I was talking to my sister today about all of this. She looks at a lot more videos and writing by people who believe in gender ideology than I do in order to understand their perspective. They really do believe all this stuff is a force for good and for a better society and that gender critical ideas are about oppressing people (and they totally misunderstand the gender critical view point!)

I think it helps to understand that no one is taking their position thinking that they are wrong and that they just want to impose their rules from a selfish perspective. Most of the ordinary people (ie; not the ones making money from it) who believe in gender ideology genuinely think this is the kind thing to do and that opposing it causes real harm. To argue against GI without triggering the fear response I think you have to acknowledge this and appeal to their sense of kindness and fairness by gently making them question things for themselves and see a different perspective. My DH argued with me for ages about this but it was only when I questioned fairness in sport myself, that I began to change my view.

So far, everyone I've spoken to about this has agreed with me, but if I do come up against a different view I am going to try to be restrained and ask questions rather than rant! (Which is what I feel like doing!)

They really do believe all this stuff is a force for good and for a better society and that gender critical ideas are about oppressing people (and they totally misunderstand the gender critical view point!)

This is what I can’t respect. The internet exists. Books exists. It’s not hard to find and read GC views for yourself. There is no excuse for misunderstanding our views. You can only be doing this if you only read propaganda against us, rather than what we actually say. And there is a long and terrible history of what happens when you only read propaganda against a group of people. There’s no excuse for it. Anyone who just listens to the propaganda is in that long line of people throughout history of doing terrible things as they only read the propaganda.

And there is a long and terrible history of what happens when you only read propaganda against a group of people. There’s no excuse for it. Anyone who just listens to the propaganda is in that long line of people throughout history of doing terrible things as they only read the propaganda.

I don't disagree with your point, but that is exactly what TRA's say of people with GC views.

I agree when it comes to those of us over a certain age, but I think the generation in their 20s have been taught this and are being manipulated in a targeted way! I think it's hard to comprehend what it must be like as a young person in some communities with liberal parents, who has been taught to 'be kind', heard in sex ed that they have a gender identity, all their entertainment is full of sparkly inclusive rainbows, they are constantly reading that trans people are under attack, politicians fall over themselves to support inclusion for trans people, some of their friends are suffering mental health issues and this is all labelled as being trans. I remember being insanely passionate about my 'cause' (animal welfare) in my late teens and unquestioningly haranguing my parents for eating meat.

I totally agree though that there is no excuse though for those of the slightly older generation, in management, politics, the media, education, health care, the police, law etc. with positions of responsibility who unthinkingly accepted this without thinking or reading, or researching or having the courage to stand up for the truth. The young TRAs are making a lot of noise but they are not the ones who have allowed this to stealthily seep into every area of our society. It has to be the case that it is never too late to admit that you are wrong and stand up for women's rights. (Here's looking at you Keir Starmer!)

Bravo 👏 👏👏

I saw a 12-minute street interview between a rainbow-haired masked person who was rattling off cliches and a woman who initially pretended to be neutral but clearly wasn’t. It just reminded me of Brexit arguments where Leavers recited quasi-intellectual stuff they’d overheard and thought sounded clever. No understanding, just using the words.

I don’t know what it’s like in the UK but here in the USA there’s a lot of brainwashing that happens in universities and a long history of conservatives ignoring mental health, being overtly racist and homophobic, and telling people to just deal with their bad feelings and suck it up and please hear me out when I say there was a perfect storm of events in the united states in my opinion that created this toxic culture.

I know it seems kind of stupid but in my young adult mind as a naive 19 year old I thought universities were the pinnacle of intelligence and thought that “well if these scholars subscribe to this then it must be real!”

And I was still pretty open to ideas from both IS political parties but well I’m not sure if in the early 2010’s if conversations were just really stupid or if the panels I visited were just really bad. But when I was still a political fence sitter I visited conservative panels and they were still debating things like if they should be able to say the N word without consequences, if women should be able to take birth control and go to work and calling gay men the F word. They were really REALLY offensive! If I tried to speak up and say I didn’t agree that they would complain about how sensitive and coddled these damn millennials are now a days.

So I admit I did shut down and stop listening to them. It was hard not to!

And the conservative internet was worse! Saying things like women and girls who were raped probably deserved it or wanted it. It was horrible and disgusting. I couldn’t get behind it in a million years.

I really got it in my head that anyone who disagreed were probably just like these assholes.
And now I’m seeing more conservatives with level heads these days. They are far more down to earth and argue calmly and don’t call those who ask questions or disagree things like snowflakes and libtards.

But I’m just trying to put you in my shoes and how my perspective was shaped because this is what I went through when I signed up to be a liberal and why I went so hard off course. And you’re right I had no excuse when I shut down my mind. But I was just really convinced that the world was a horrible place full of people that only cared about themselves and their needs and liberalism and identity politics seemed like the saviour from that for awhile.

I should have investigated more. I should have read more books. I should have asked more questions but I didn’t because I was conditioned to shut down. It felt too painful and vulnerable to open up.

The brainwashing was real. I was conditioned to “read between the lines” as they called it. Anything that could be construed as prejudiced was taken to extremes and read as to fully define that person as someone who wants certain groups of people to suffer or even die. And that kind of life and thinking is very… VERY hard to live with which is why they have so many mental health problems. They really truly believe the world is out to get them.

I am also in the USA, and @TerfLady 's post above is right on the money, IMHO. I also struggled with my instinctive understanding that gender ideology was very wrong, because I have always been left-leaning and progressive, and this is just about the only thing I have ever found to resonate with me that the right wing says, so I read as much as I could, and in fact only found myself confirmed in my intrinsic understanding. My closest friend here agrees with me that male-bodied people don't belong in women's prisons or women's sports, but her personal acquaintanceship with a couple of older transwomen through her husband's membership in AA and her knowledge of foster children of friends who claim to be trans persuades her that she really needs to be "kind". She refuses to discuss this with me and isn't prepared to do her own reading on the issue, but her image of herself is of a life-long lefty liberal, and I think she can't tolerate thinking of herself as somebody who agrees with anything the right wingers say.

Yes and I think this is where a growing number of americans are calling themselves politically homeless. But the young conservatives give me hope.

The older ones could have won me over if they had denounced the overt racists. If they didn’t focus so much on prejudiced slurs and offensive language. We already have freedom of speech it’s written in the damn constitution! You can go back to your farm and shout the N word to till the cows come home!! It doesn’t mean your neighbours have to love you!

And they could have won me over if they didn’t take me for granted for being a “sensitive coddled millennial” ffs!

They gave liberals SO much ammo to exploit young people with!

They focus so much on personal responsibility yet sweep so much under the rug by complaining about people having feelings. Well guess what feelings exist and they matter even if they ARE based on an illusion. So they should have confronted those feelings instead of shrugging them off. What a huge mistake that was!

This is off thread but I get sick and tired of being told that Brexiteers did not understand the arguments for remaining in the EU. We did, we just did not think them worth the candle of sovereignty and the problem of free movement lowering wages for people at the bottom of the employment ladder (levelling or lowering wages is the purpose of free movement btw), whilst being told that unions were powerful in the EU (not when workers' rights conflict with the right of establishment they aren't). Please don't equate pro-trans rhetoric with considered ideas about Eurosceptism. I love Europe, I just don't like - or trust - the EU which is full of politicians I cannot ever remove.

I think the point is that a lot of the vote leave people didn't understand the issues. You might have done, but I don't think you're in the majority.

However, we digress...

It was just a comparison, that’s all. Both issues are based on feelings, not facts. Like voting for the Tories in December 2019 - I asked my friend why on earth she’d trust Johnson to run the country when she wouldn’t trust him to mind her kids, feed her cats or water her plants - ”Aw, I LIKE him!” was her reply.

Feelings. Not facts.

Sadly it is not true that if you read about GC ideas as they are, whilst being a TRA, that you will understand. It is much more likely that the arguments will slide over your mind because you 'know' they are wrong. It is only when you get to the point of questioning yourself (Alex Byrne was my trigger, when I realised that I had imbibed 'sex is a spectrum' without even thinking about it) that you will understand.

"Sadly it is not true that if you read about GC ideas as they are, whilst being a TRA, that you will understand."

When you still believe media, when you believe that 'brilliant' and supposedly 'non-judgemental' person (as we saw on another thread) who you trust implicitly, when you still believe that those who are saying they are the 'vulnerable' ones it is awfully hard to break out of the habit of simply believing them.

I also think that some people use other social media platforms or read content that uses language that is emotionally manipulative, hyperbolic and full of cognitive distortions such as polarised language and concepts. Plus that is presenting misinformation as being fully evidenced and fact as we have seen repeated on this board quite often, when it is certainly not evidenced, it is often misrepresenting the truth or making bold and unfounded statements of fact based on very weak evidence. There is always a lot of that on FWR. Perhaps all that is then presented to some people as being that only transphobic, ignorant or hateful people would disagree with it.

Either way, some people become very used to that style of writing. They may or may not recognise the tactics that are used in that style of writing, but they have found it convincing and they use the phrases and the terminology plus the tactics in their own writing and explanations. Whether they intend to or not, that is the style they deliberately or not deliberately copy. We all do it to some extent but feminists rely on fact that they stands up to scrutiny.

Therefore, when some posters receive any pushback at all, they do fall back to believing that anyone who disagrees with anything they have said is transphobic, ignorant and hateful. Maybe it is a pre-conceived notion fed by reading people writing from a polarised persecutive. Not from reading people writing to seek to understand, to explore and to find solutions to areas where two groups rights conflict.

I agree with this completely
And this is what happens with propaganda.
people start to find the propaganda convincing and copy it. Anyone who questions or challenges the propaganda ( that which the activists are telling you to think ) is judged to be ‘the other’ or ‘the enemy’ and receives condemnation or worse if the people pushing the propaganda have enough power.

It certainly worked in Germany 90 years ago.