Continuously willing to discuss in good faith: part 3

[BonfireLady]

Continuation of thread: part 3. Hope those tagged below don't mind.

@catiette and @arabellascott, you both mentioned possibly starting a continuation of the thread so please forgive my keenness! I couldn't see anything when I started writing this so I thought I'd kick it off.

I watched the video that @spookyfbi shared, then read the transcript excerpts (thank you @helleofabore) and comments.

Long post alert! But I wanted to share my thoughts in full. Although I feel very embarrassed sharing this on an FWR board (I am fully prepared to get shot! 😂), I want to do so because I think it helps illustrate how an opinion can be formed. In order to explain myself, I'm going to frame it with some excuses context:

As I said in the previous thread, my daughter had told me she thought she was transgender and asked her dad and me for puberty blockers so that she could explore everything. To support her, I unturned every single stone I could find on the subject of gender identity in autistic girls (there's not a lot of info so I had to piece it together). By now, I had read on the NHS website that the effects of puberty blockers and brain development were unknown so that was a hard no. We weren't going to let her do that to her body but we were still open minded that one day she may be our son and we knew we would love her just the same.

I immersed myself in everything I could find relating to gender identity. Science papers, news articles, Benjamin Boyce detransitioner interviews, a therapy book on gender dysphoria etc etc. I also spoke with people from the LGBT+ community so that I could get an all round view. I've said on previous posts that I still value these conversations.

I didn't come here as it was nowhere near my radar. I also didn't read the Daily Mail or Telegraph as I had been brought up on the Guardian and frankly, they were evil publications in my head. And as for Glinner...... No way. I'm not on Twitter but I'd seen some copies of his Tweets in the Guardian and Independent and I didn't want that kind of input. I couldn't imagine how anyone like him could help me find information that could help my daughter. I just thought he was a nasty rude man who enjoyed taking the piss out of marginalised people.

(Suffice to say I have since I overturned everything I've just said in the last paragraph 🤦‍♀️).

Even though I had done soooooooooooooooo much research in to autism and gender identity in children, it never occurred to me that JKR's infamous Wombund Tweet had any connection to my daughter's situation. She just sounded a bit ranty to me and I couldn't see what was so important about declaring yourself to be a woman. I was aware that people were calling her transphobic but that made me even more certain that she was just a nutjob (sorry JKR 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️) because gender identity (as I saw it from my research) had nothing to do with her status as being a woman. I thought "of course you are. And?" and moved on. I eventually read her essays, because it kept coming up in the press and I concluded that she had written nothing transphobic (in fact she said she stood by transgender people so I was pretty baffled as to why people were so angry) and so I ignored her again.

Then... along came Isla Bryson and the Nicola Sturgeon. I slowly started joining the dots and lurking on here to inform myself. By now I was already reading the Daily Mail when it had articles about gender identity and children but still no Glinner. I felt that he was a massive step too far. I balanced out my guilt at reading the Mail by also reading Pink News. I was still very targeted in what I read about. If it didn't help me to directly help my daughter, I skipped past it.

So what has this got to do with the Mica video from the end of the last thread? I'm sad to say that there is a time when I would have believed pretty much all of it if it hadn't been for my shift in focus thanks to Isla Bryson, Nicola Sturgeon and (retrospectively) JKR.

In fact, I'll go further. I would have been really hooked from the start of the video because I find the suffragettes fascinating. I know a fair bit about the story and I always make sure I vote because of what they did to secure that right. I didn't know anything about Sylvia Pankhurst though, so that bit was so interesting. By this point in the video I would have been hungry for more. I know we've come a long way in equality of the sexes but we're not there yet. I would have seen it as a really interesting immersion in to lots of facts about what I could be a part of to change the world for the good of women. I'm not stupid. I have good critical thinking skills (if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to support my daughter as I have done) but it would have appealed to the militant side of me. I'd have probably skipped or filtered out the weird bits in the middle with the guest (?) speaker (Caelen?) as I found them difficult to follow. But I'd have tuned back in again for all the bits about why today's feminists were the equivalent of the suffragettes in (how it is described as) their exclusion of everyone who didn't meet their standards of a "real woman". I would have assumed everyone on this board and everyone at the LWS events were just bigoted women who couldn't stop talking about the word woman. I'd have conceded that JKR did have a good point that "people who menstruate" sounded wrong, I would have seen it as an odd obsession to be talking about women's rights and the "erasure of the word woman". Sorry
everyone 😬😬😬 Obviously I never did assume that because I came here first, just to be clear!! 😬😬😬😬
I'm just imagining what could have been, if I saw this video at a different stage in my exploration of gender identity. I think I'd have been as disinterested in all the things on this board as I was about JKR's Tweet: just a passing nod while I got on with my life. Worse than that, there's probably a chance that I'd have just found everyone very ranty. I'm not sure if I'd have tried to join in or just dismissed anything you were all talking about. I have no idea because I was so disinterested in the subject of women's rights (I thought we had our rights so all was good) that I'd have filtered out anything important that was being said.

I'm not influenced by online influencers. I make my own mind up. But there's a good chance that the suffragette bit combined with the modern fight for women's rights bit would have helped me form exactly the type of opinion that the video was created for.

Interestingly, as far as the video goes, the bit about the "sterilisation of kids" was such a tiny throwaway comment that it may as well not have been there. If I didn't know better (thanks to my obsessive research in this area I know lots on this subject!!) I'd have assumed it was a conspiracy theory, rather than the sad medical scandal that I believe is currently unfolding in most western countries.

In other words, I'd have been the perfect candidate for being convinced that the women on this board were bigots. Sorry again to all. Obviously I don't think that now at all!

Also, a final sorry goes to Glinner. I eventually started reading his substack when a friend (at the time the only GC person I knew, in real life or online) sent me a 3 part story that had been published by Glinner which was written by a mum who helped her gender incongruous daughter navigate everything. I still think he's blunt in his style but I also think what he's doing to help raise awareness is amazing.

Sorry for the length of post.

No, but I'm an atheist...

Are you sure you are not being more than a little disingenuous with that question? ?

Of course how we refer to people is a matter of negotiation between invested parties, and those nearest and dearest; not something to be assumed or automatically expected of everyone. As you suggest, the way we approach a relationship or a communication tends very much to depend on the nature of the relationship involved and the context we are in.

Actually, I'm not going to step away just yet (I need to stop reading and get on with my day but I can't tear myself away!)..

To me it's much deeper than this. If someone holds a core belief (belief in God, belief in gender identity), having lots of people poke away at that core belief must be a complete head mash.

I'm not sure anyone should have to "face what they believe may be wrong and need to re-evaluate". For some people (not saying Spooky because I haven't asked and nor will I), that core belief of gender identity will remain important.

I think stepping away (not running away) will achieve some headspace to process a massive onslaught of information. From my point of view, this thread isn't about converting someone from a belief in gender identity to a belief that gender identity isn't important. I'd imagine most questions that have been posted aren't trying to do that either but I can easily see that it could feel that way because it's about a core belief.

I think even if you weren't, like many of us you'd probably be mature enough to be able to cope with the fact that not everyone shares your faith.

Obviously if someone was coming into your pace of prayer and wilfully desecrating it - you might feel and respond quite differently.

The problem is, though, if you uuse the above analogy i can imagine that some trans activists may say you are wilfully desecrating their reality and denying their existence - and that is because so much of the trans identity tends to be based on an incredible fragility, which is threatened by everything that is not totally affirmative.

That we can only ask questions in a certain tone of voice for fear that the other person is too fragile to cope with anything other than motherly spoon feeding and delicately phrased sentences.

Ps sorry I could have clarified that better.

Facing facts (statistics, science papers the fact that people on this board aren't all bigots etc) and re-evaluating is important.

But IMO that still needs headspace because it's still likely to feel like someone is being asked to re-evaluate their core belief, even if that's not the intention.

I had a brief fling with an evangelical christian church in my early 20s. The experience of having being 'born again' was very real and deeply meaningful to me; and very healing.

The problem was the whole baggage of a church and other believers came with it. When people become involved in groups which are bound together by some sort of religious or political faith or ideology - the group dynamics tend to take over from the actual and direct experience of God and the relationship with God through Jesus Christ ( in the case of a Christian).

People end up behaving according to peer pressure, or the expectations of those senior, more influential or more powerful than them - and this is when group conformity and group-think starts to come into play. you are discouragedd from forming friendships or even close associations with those who are outside of that group - and you end up feeling that you have to view them in a certain way, pray for them, and hope that one day they will be saved too.

Well I'm not intending it to be disingenuous. So in that respect, yes I'm sure. Religion is my "go to" personal comparison when I want to make sure I'm being respectful when it's not my own personal belief.

Of course how we refer to people is a matter of negotiation between invested parties, and those nearest and dearest; not something to be assumed or automatically expected of everyone. As you suggest, the way we approach a relationship or a communication tends very much to depend on the nature of the relationship involved and the context we are in.

Agreed. This is exactly why I think about how I can be respectful towards someone else's belief when I'm communicating.

This is quite true, I think. Which is why so often when we try to discuss those sincere but unexamined beliefs they don't stand up to scrutiny.

It's common for people to 'outsource' their thinking, people are often credulous, and listen to self proclaimed experts.

One of the problems with this is when people claim they have special expertise - if we know we dont have this expertise then it can be quite hard to assess the quality or veracity of someone else's claims.

When someone's claiming 'lived experience' of something that is indefinable- say 'gender identity' and we personally don't have that experience, it seems rational to assume they have specialist knowledge.

It's possible to come at most things from a feminist point of view and a non-feminist or even anti-feminist point of view. You can be anti-porn from a feminist point of view (most porn is men exploiting and misrepresenting women and women's sexuality for men's pleasure) or from an anti-feminist point of view (women shouldn't want to have sex or enjoy sex and shouldn't ever be shown as having or enjoying sex).

I am happy to think of myself as "gender critical feminist". That leaves room for feminists (I know several) who really do believe in some of kind of inner gender identity and who do see this as a solution to some of the problems of a sexist society (I think it only makes matters worse but never mind). It also leaves room for a kind of "gender critical" person who takes the label (or has the label stuck on them by others) without taking a feminist approach at all, a person who sees no difference between sex and gender roles because they believe women have vaginas and naturally hairless legs (etc) and if they don't have naturally hairless legs then they'd better shave them, and if anyone's not comfortable with the roles society assigns to men and women well too bad.

It's annoying to have non-feminist or even anti-feminist views being called "gender critical" but it's not something I'm going to lose sleep over either.

My experinece of falling out with my previous Christian faith ( even though the symbols and emotional consequences remain meaningful in many ways) came as a result of the inherent cognitive dissonance involved when being with my circle of friends, who were all buddhists, meditators, 'New Age'y' type people.

It becomes impossible to maintain a certain stance when you realise that the people around you are not inherently backslidden, deluded or in thrall to the ego. The sense of separation, superiority or 'difference' that is required to maintain that position cannot hold for long.

Such faith based/cult-like structures tend to collapse under stress, which is why they are so assiduously guarded.

I'm not sure anyone should have to "face what they believe may be wrong and need to re-evaluate". For some people (not saying Spooky because I haven't asked and nor will I), that core belief of gender identity will remain important.

The problem is that the people that are fighting for us all to live in this alternative universe think that they are the ones that think the sky is important and that we are all just wittering on about different hues of blue. They post videos that we actually watch whilst skimming over things we post.

For example in the last thread I posted about David Reimer.

Spooky's only comment was that the reason that he was in the situation he was in, was because of a botched circumcision. And then stopped.

The reason he was in the situation was because after that, the doctor who had professed to be able to do something about it, operated on him, got his parents to call him a girl and never tell him about the operation, used to get him and his brother to perform sex acts on each other and he lived a life of misery. All this was hidden and the 'transition' was lauded as groundbreaking and was used as a model for going forward and by the time David realised that his case was already in the medical establishment, and being used as a success, he came out and told everyone and then he later committed suicide. And STILL the medics didn't backtrack on this evidence of success. His life was completely ruined. And his brother's.

I mean, he couldn't run away could he?

This is why the comparison works so well for me.

I'm also really happy for people who get that strength from their belief that your referred to from your early days of your "brief fling". It sounds uplifting and (as you have said) healing. In some ways I'm jealous that I don't experience that with my every day atheist life.

For me, the parallels with everything you've said about religion and with gender identity as a belief are huge.

There are some people who take religion to an extreme... The c*lts who control speech and thought on everything. There are some people who take gender identity to an extreme..

Grrrr typos...
*that you referred to from your early days

Personally the phrase 'gender critical' irritates me. I don't generally seek to position myself or align myself or lable myself as anything in particular unless there's good reason.

What reasons are there to use this phrase? How does it benefit anyone?

Quick note to the MNHQ moderaters before I step away (I really do have to go now as I have plans that go all the way through today and tonight so I won't be back):

I'm aware that I'm sailing very close to the edge of the guidelines on what will be deleted. I don't intend any offence with what I have written and I hope that I've stayed on the right side of the line. If anything does need deleting (hopefully not 🤞🤞) I'll be asking for feedback so that I can still make the points I'd like to say but within the guidelines. Thanks.

I’m with you BonfireLady on your stance re personally disbelieving in gender identity, but respecting others’ right to believe, just as an atheist can be respectful towards a Christian. I share your views but I must admit I do struggle with preferred pronouns, so I’m guessing I’d be painted as transphobic for that.

It feels like I’m lying to myself if I call a TW she or a TM he. It’s really jarring so I try to skirt around it to avoid bluntly misgendering, although rapists don’t get the same courtesy.

I dislike the fact that in order to keep trans people happy, I have to play along. They can’t just be themselves and enjoy being themselves, they need other people to validate them or it doesn’t work. That’s why TW want to enter women’s single-sex spaces, sports and award categories. Other people have to be a prop to validate the TW’s identity, which brings us back to the desert island scenario.

The sole survivor of a plane crash on a desert island, a TW, is going to run out of make-up, their clothing will soon be in rags, there is no ladies’ toilet (they’ll need to dig a hole), no hormone treatment, no social media and no one is there to say she/her.

That TW is then going to be focused on survival at all costs. Physical strength will be of paramount importance and I have no doubt the TW will capitalise fully on the advantage that male puberty will have provided them. Identity, how they feel inside, will matter not one jot when they’re fighting for survival every day.

I’m not sure that TWAW is the core belief. I think “Live and let live” is the core belief, and twaw is plugged into it like a tick.

I got to were spooky said they were stepping back and haven’t read from there. I will catch up later as my baby is siring from nap. I just really wanted to thank you @SpookyFBI
for you comments at the start of this thread about categories. It made me think in ways I hadn’t considered and I’m grateful to you for discussing.

So I’m thinking terms keep being muddied so we should summarise/define so we are harder to misunderstand??

So in future I need to not be saying “men are not women” I need to say “men can wear dresses but are not women. Woman can wear trousers but are not men. Gender is not sex. gender stereotypes can and should be challenged but biological sex is irrefutable”

@SpookyFBI on males getting sexually aroused from cross-dressing, reading the "Egg In Real Life" reddit at https://reddit.com/r/egg_irl is quite revealing - it's a forum for people who have recently decided they are trans, mostly male, posting about their experiences. One recurring theme is the "euphoria boner", which is the erection these males get from wearing women's clothing.

Here are some examples:

https://old.reddit.com/r/egg_irl/comments/126lm2w/egg_irl/

https://old.reddit.com/r/egg_irl/comments/w3u9lw/egg_irl/

https://old.reddit.com/r/egg_irl/comments/11jdg9m/egg_irl/

Yes.

@SpookyFBI
I originally came at this in a similar way to you, I didn't understand the subject matter too well.

I really became involved when my 5 year old insisted on wearing feminine clothes (and I think because of other children at nursery he got confused and start saying he was a girl), long long story there.

The group's i joined were very insistent, to the point of demanding I start affirming his "choice of gender"

But why, why was it so important, why couldn't a boy in pink, "strawberry mbeilkshake" colours be a boy.

Surely if he is transgender he will still be as an adult, why the push now?

It seemed wrong. And so this is where I currently am. I can tell you every "my child is transgender" account starts with hair or toys.

It's all stereotypes.

It may seem rational (although I have tried and failed to see how), but it surely isn't rational to assume they have knowledge.

There is no such thing as gender identity. (Though of course some people may think there is.)

One cannot have lived experience of something that doesn't exist. (Although some people may think they do.)

So it is not true that some people have had lived experience of gender identity.

And you can't know something that is not true. (Although, indeed, you may think you do.)

So it is not rational to assume they have specialist knowledge.

[Btw, there is a sense in which it isn't false that there is such a thing as gender identity, at least the way things stand with what 'gender identity' means. That's because 'gender identity' (the phrase) doesn't make sense, and in order to say that such-and-such is false, we need 'such-and-such' to make sense - to mean something -, which as things stand, 'there is such a thing as gender identity' doesn't. In this sense, 'there is such a thing as gender identity', we might say (I do say) isn't even false; it's just nonsense.]

Am I wrong? What does 'gender identity' mean, if so?

They say that, but have you ever seen it explained properly otherwise?

I think that the support groups quickly pivoted from using stereotypes when they realised it was such a weak premise for diagnosing someone as trans. I remember when they realized and try to change the narrative.

So, without stereotypes, they have nothing. But if you have seen a convincing explanation other than stereotypes, please do post it.

NotHavingIt· Today 09:36
SinnerBoy · Today 09:25

I think even if you weren't, like many of us you'd probably be mature enough to be able to cope with the fact that not everyone shares your faith.

Obviously if someone was coming into your pace of prayer and wilfully desecrating it - you might feel and respond quite differently.

Well, quite - to both points.

If, on the other hand, a street preacher, or door knocker decide to harangue me and threaten me with Hellfire, uninvited, I'd feel free to walk away, or tell them to bugger off.

[Btw, there is a sense in which it isn't false that there is such a thing as gender identity, at least the way things stand with what 'gender identity' means. That's because 'gender identity' (the phrase)doesn't make sense, and in order to say that such-and-such isfalse, we need 'such-and-such' to make sense - tomean something -, which as things stand, 'there is such a thing as gender identity' doesn't. In this sense, 'there is such a thing as gender identity', we might say (Ido say)isn't even false; it's just nonsense.]

I've always said this about "god". The thing is obviously a nonsense thing.