Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

The only person who gets called Mummy’s Precious Pretty Princess in my household isn’t actually a person at all, she’s an abandoned lurcher who was rescued from under a derelict caravan!

As if that would be something people fighting against enforced gender stereotypes would ever say and this is where I get suspicious that someone, purportedly intelligent, well educated and well read would apparently swallow something so ludicrous and believe it.

That was always my feeling. There was no new ground being covered and yet the suggestion was that something new and remarkable ( for mumsnet discussions) was going on. I personally think all that was new was that spooky was not shouting abuse and overtly calling everyone transphobic, or reporting posts for deletion - which was certainly a first.

I think lots of subscribers to gendr identity theory really do believe that it is they who are subverting stereotypes - and they've never really come across much in the way of the history of feminism before.

And there is also something about disembodiment; being detached from bodily and earthly reality - either through conscious choice, through evasion, or through the digital cultural environment wher people live on-line and have avatars and son on.

So the body is seen as, Mary Harrington would say, nothing but a "meat suit" with a 'true self' trapped inside it.

I am a mother whose daughter made it obvious from a very early age (think kicking and screaming, not explaining) that she didn’t want to wear dresses.

As a mother, I stood up for that daughter against anyone who tried to insist that not wearing a dress to certain events was disrespectful or inappropriate.

I had to work with my daughter through the tricky discussion about sometimes having to put up with things that left us uncomfortable but it didn’t change who we are when faced (at eight years old, when reasoning was possible) with the fact that she went to a school where girls had to wear pinafores.

The suggestion that those of us who are critical of gender might have tried to reinforce those stereotypes is bizarre. I too would be interested to understand where these false arguments come from. These misconceptions are not uncommon.

I once read a Judith Butler “take down” of the “gender critical” position (for once it was comprehensible) and realised very quickly that she had completely misunderstood our position and was breaking down her own straw man ideas.

I’m fairly sure that, if I had exhorted my daughter to wear dresses, or expressed distress or discomfort when she rejected femininity, I probably would have ended up with a daughter who resented me and perhaps also her own womanhood, and perhaps instead of a happy and confident butch lesbian daughter, I might have had an unhappy and resentful transman instead.

Don’t you see, Spooky, that the thought pattern is back to front? The women who can’t accept their male child is feminine or their daughter doesn’t want to wear dresses and tries to force their child to conform; they are the ones who can end up with children who transition. The parental rejection (at an age when the child is too young to process what it means) causes the gender dysphoria, in my opinion.

And that’s why I don’t really believe in the concept of “gender identity” as some kind of ethereal concept that nevertheless, really exists. I think “gender identity” is the rationalisation of the painful feelings formed when a developing child’s personality and understanding of the world was formed within a framework where a part of their personality was not acceptable to their parents; where they rationalized that, in a child’s way, with a child’s understanding that God (or nature) must have made a mistake and put their brain in the wrong sex of body, because that was less painful than the truthful realization that their parent was unable to love them as they were, because of their preconceived ideas about how a boy (and it most often was boys in the past) should be.

I once read a Judith Butler “take down” of the “gender critical” position (for once it was comprehensible) and realised very quickly that she had completely misunderstood our position and was breaking down her own straw man ideas.

Judith Butler has received public protests against (forgot pronoun, is she a they/them now?) [pronoun] speaking appearances by conservative/traditional Christians (possibly Catholics, forgot that detail too) in South American countries.

I believe she full-well knows the difference between her terfy objectors and her religious objectors but it’s convenient to her narrative to pretend all critique of her word salad is coming from religiously motivated conservatives, rather than feminists/left wingers/fellow university professors.

I have enjoyed this thread. That's all.

I believe that if gender identity, as a belief system, had been introduced as a separate and additional way of categorising people but only for those who believe in it we could have sorted this much earlier. Rather than appropriate 'woman' for new purposes, new terms could have been created for those who wish to be seen as specifically identifying with the gender stereotypes associated with femininity and so on.

That would not have been without problems, but it would not have been an open attempt to colonise the Country of Women, to redefine its language, its laws (sexed spaces and awards) its basis for citizenship (no longer birth) or what history it is allowed to teach (the transing of the famous female role models in history).

I agree NotHavingIt, and I have no idea what all the fawning over Spooky was in aid of, nothing was really answered and anything even slightly difficult was resolutely ignored because the poster posting it didn't meet the required nice standard.

Thanking someone for not shouting abuse or calling people transphobic is a pretty low bar to set, so I am afraid I don't see anything 'ground breaking' in this discussion with someone on board with Gender Ideology.

I did learn one new thing - a TW is just a woman in different body. I am sure that will be a great comfort to those women in prison with TW sex offenders.

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

Can't see references to Judith Butler go by without sharing this brilliant article.

Mind you, I agree it is a low bar, but I am willing to thank posters for not posting in the usual style of name calling that we see. And for hanging in there.

But no, I found it rather dissonant to read posts saying this was covering new ground. But then, I guess it has been a while since we have had a thread that didn’t have all the posters who disagreed feminists flouncing within pages.

However, I still very concerned if people can’t take information and evaluate it without it having to be stated in a particular tone. If this is really true, that seems to be a weak excuse to not do the research. Maybe I misinterpreted posting style. Happy to be corrected.

The issue is that the purpose of a legal fiction was because there were a group who wanted to live the fiction of being a woman. Not a third party solution.

There has never been nor is there any desire of trans women to do anything but colonise womanhood.

If they can not colonise womanhood it has no purpose or usefulness to them. See Bewilderness's rules:
5. Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

We have so many posters who frequently talk about 'compromise' and 'third spaces' who miss the point that this defeats the objective for many TRAs.

As Datun has said before, a bathroom without women is just a bathroom. A woman's bathroom needs women in it to be useful because it's all about the validation / passing undetected and getting a kick out of that / not passing but not being challenged because women are too fearful in a power trip / the women are there to have a wank about.

If you put in a third space this group wouldnt want to use it because they have no use for it. It's just a bathroom.

Once you recognise that the 'compromise solution' doesn't address the desires of this TRA group, you realise that 'women can't do enough' and that 'complete power' over women and to use them as accessories without their consent is the goal it becomes impossible to unsee.

And having seen it, this idea of 'respect for the other side' or encouraging 'respectful debate' is grooming women to be kind and not object no matter how uncomfortable they feel. Once you've convinced them that their discomfort is acceptable because they are 'uber privileged' you can convince these women to act against their own interests and well being. They still feel uncomfortable but don't necessarily understand why they feel like that and feel unable to challenge it 'because of their privilege'.

Again that conversation about consent pops up and the conversation about socialised expectations and pressures on women to 'be kind'.

It runs through everything. The whole thing is misogynistic to its core.

At that point when you recognise this, it becomes hard to encourage 'being kind' to those who walk amongst us.

This is the heart of issue for me. Nothing is given in good faith. Therefore how can you have a good faith argument to find the 'compromise'. All of these ideas are totally fallacies suggested by people who assume that everyone has the desire to resolve matters fairly.

If your purpose is instead to gain dominance and control how women respond, it's got fuck all to do with sex OR gender. It's about misgyonistic opportunity to use women to serve male interests. Misogynistic goals aren't in women's interests.

Even the half hearted 'but what about transmen' miss the point about how they are useful and there to serve the interests of the males only.

Even the research on transition, which lumps teenage girls into the same group as late transitioning men, is deeply troubled as it's about serving the males and doesn't record separate outcomes by sex. When you do that negative outcomes for the females 'disappear from the record'

Unpicking it, it's hard to come to alternative explanations to one which isn't to simply say its a MRA issue. Not a TRA / sex / gender issue. A full blown MRA issue.

If you come to that conclusion, what's the point of trying to have a debate in good faith?

If you come to that conclusion, what's the point of trying to have a debate in good faith?

Because while I agree with the underlying misogynistic motivations of pushing for 'gender' over 'sex', there are plenty of well-meaning but perhaps uninformed or confused 'allies' who may benefit from clarity and explanations.

It's more of a rhetorical question to be levelled precisely at anyone reading and wanting that clarity and explanation.

It's the single most important point to address.

After all those explanations, you STILL need to explicitly spell out why we are still at this point of being at loggerheads, why there is so much aggression towards GC ideas and why you can't compromise or have a good faith argument because of the fundamentally dishonest idea that it's about gender at all in the first place.

It's about why women cant ever do enough to satisfy the demands of genderists.

It's not about gender at all. It's about sex and biological dominance over women in a way that leaves them powerless to fight it or complete about it.

Spooky posted about Philosophy Tube which reveals a lot about why.

There's dozens of influencers saying stuff like:
They are not feminists.
They believe in gender roles
They are homophobic
They are too old to understand

Tube did a video in his man phase which was a guide to transphobes which was laughably simplistic.

He did a sort of problem and answer thing where he would start with:

"Your dad says.... And roll out something innocuous like smarten yourself up, cut your hair and get a job, I don't remember completely what.

But it was funny in it's dumbed down silliness. I thought no one could possibly take him seriously. He was describing a normal parent trying to launch a kid into the world and out of their smelly bedroom.

But I suppose I underestimated the youth and naivety of his audience and as some parents in this thread have explained Tubes stupidity is actually damaging and dangerous to very young people.

They will believe that it's transphobia and take him seriously.

You see young people on Twitter all the time repeating all this "you are not feminists, you don't believe in equality" stuff and it's so laughable it's hard to take it seriously but they have.

To an extent it no longer matters as the extraction process is well underway. (Not to dismiss the harm caused.)

It started for real after the GRA reform consultation when the analysis was published and they reported on how many organisation led responses were submitted and disregarded as being a product of this superficial but malign influencing.

So to an extent this board has become more of a notice board while the real world is managing the impact, albeit a bit too late. The old characters out there like Contra, desperately trying to come up with new reasons why we are all awful, are running out of ideas and credibility. The motte and bailey one churned out last month was limp indeed.

I think the university hothouse will drag on a bit longer as it's a sort of micro climate with few windows for fresh air to blow out the overheated childish flatulence of the Philosophy Tube type but my engagement with senior teams sees them rolling their eyes or ignoring it. It's just students, they can be obnoxious. As can a few of the staff.

And Raquel Rosario Sanchez has not been deflected, she is an acute observer and has masses of energy. Watch the Mess update streamed today.

I might send a clip to the Bristol VC.

I know - the misconception that anyone who doesn't agree doesn't understand is widespread though. I very examined this theory in minute detail for decades. It is based on very flawed premises and intersects with sexism and homophobia in ways that are severely detrimental to some very vulnerable people.

I think you have come a long way in a couple of days. Carry on thinking, read books I recommend

"Material girls" by Kathleen Stock, see what if anything she's saying you really actually disagree with one review said if you were looking for the half way point [between the two sides] you'd arrive to find Professor Stock was there and had already laid out a welcome blanket and a picnic.

If you're feeling even braver watch adult human female on the other thread (go on I dare you) come back with questions or tell us which bits didn't make any sense or seem unbelievable.

The consultation response for anyone that didn't see it at the time.
There are data files somewhere that explain a lot more.

Women and Equalities Committee inquiry
On 28 October 2020, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee launched an inquiry, Reform of the Gender Recognition Act. The Committee published its report on 21 December 2021.

committees.parliament.uk/publications/8329/documents/84728/default/

yeah that is not how it happened in my house lol

We did look at lesbian wedding photos and I told her she could wear a dress and doc martins or a tux and heels or they might both wear dresses or they might both wear suits, or whatever she liked. She could grow up into whatever kind of lesbian she wanted to but what she couldn't grow up into was a heterosexual man. I mean I could see why she'd want to if it was one of the available options. Better pay, better odds that the chick you like will like you back, trousers with pockets.

You can be against parents crushing the spirit of children to fit narrowly defined gender norms

AND

be think that people trying to fix their bodies to fit their personality / feelings because they have the wrong sort of personality / feelings for their sex is in general an absolutely awful idea.

Other real world evidence that those still musing on the imponderable mystics and nebulous meaning of a man's life as a woman and vice versa, in a world where neither of those things exist, might want to consider is the massive number of photos of surgery in the public domain.

The surgeons are being named and shamed when their disgruntled customers complain online and post their pictures.

It's a shocking body of work and you just wonder how long they can continue.

It brings the esoteric thought exercises down to the actual blood and gore results of it all.

It’s not any one person. It’s just the fact that so often the things you say - or at least the parts that filter through - sound so similar to what the homophobes say about LGB people. I hear ‘they’re sterilising our children’ and recall the homophobes saying ‘they’re corrupting our children’. I hear ‘I didn’t consent to men in the women’s bathroom’ and recall the homophobes saying ‘I didn’t consent to seeing two men kissing on the park bench’. I hear ‘this is confusing children’ and I recall the homophobes saying ‘how do I explain gay marriage to my children?’ I hear ‘trans agenda’ and I recall the homophobes saying ‘gay agenda’. Really, how could I - how could any reasonable person - not make the connection and think ‘it’s just the same people, saying the same things’?

And then I see video footage of Posie Parker saying she’s not a feminist and she doesn’t support abortion rights (possibly taken out of context or possibly she is just a conservative who you don’t consider part of your movement) and after seeing what happened in the US, how could I not think ‘they’re coming after women’s rights too’?

How do LGB people go about sterilisng children?

It really sounds like you have never met anyone trans before last Tuesday.

They are men, there is a absolutely no reason they need to use women's facilities. They never have needed to. Ten years ago little Britain were making comedy about how ludicrous the idea it is but now, apparently we have to pretend it's obviously homophobes that want gay men to stay out the ladies. We could not just actually be fucking right, could we.

The philosophy tube generation/fans are all as stupid as he is.

I hear ‘I didn’t consent to men in the women’s bathroom’ and recall the homophobes saying ‘I didn’t consent to seeing two men kissing on the park bench’.

In what works are these two statements remotely similar?

Actually think about what you are typing instead of parotting other people.
Objecting to two homosexuals showing affection in a public place Vs objecting to men in woman's changing room.

None of you examples are similar at all but this is the worst. Can you really not see the difference?

I really don’t understand the whole tone framing of why people aren’t listening to these issues, but it’s entirely possible I’m missing something you all see as obvious. Perhaps someone can tell me where I’m going wrong.

The way I see it, a woman shouldn’t be able to engage in hate speech with no consequences just because she’s a woman. And ‘trans women are not women’ is seen as hate speech. And so a lot of people just stop listening after that, in the same way if a misogynist said ‘feminism is wrong. Also let’s talk about how suicide rates in men are higher because they’re socialised not to express their emotions’ I’m pretty sure a lot of people would tune out after the first point no matter how valid they might otherwise find the second point.’

so even if it’s phrased in the most polite, nice way possible ‘I’m excuse me, if it’s not too much trouble, trans women are not women, and if we’ve got the time, no rush of course, could we please talk about these issues?’ Would still be seen as transphobia, whereas a very aggressive ‘alright listen here you effing morons. Trans women are women but I’m effing pissed off that no one seems to be talking about these completely comparable issues. Why don’t you all pull your heads out of your arses and start doing something about it for once?’ Would probably actually be listened to. At least I would listen, and I wouldn’t be put off by the tone.

I suppose you could ask why then was I put off by tone earlier. It wasn’t really that the posts weren’t ‘nice’, just that by zeroing in on one comment I made, my perception was that the guts of what I was saying wasn’t being understood. That you were missing the point and just jumping to arguments you were used to making against other people. Perhaps that was just projection…

And to answer your previous question yes I'm a member of several facebook and other groups about gender diverse children. Yes I've got experience land yes I let my son wear feminine clothes.

There's nothing radical or new about it.