How has the media conditioned people to 'be kind' re transgender debate?

[FriendofJoanne]

It definitely has; when I saw a friend a few months ago and shared the Sex Matters petition and said "but there are only 2 biological sexes" she said "but you can't say that any more".

I feel that we have absorbed the message that speaking against the trans rights movement is to be a bigot or transphobic but I'm looking for evidence of how this happened if anyone can help?

I've read the Shonagh Dillon paper (here if anyone hasn't read it) but that focuses on social media rather than mainstream. Does anyone know of anything which looks at mainstream media? Thanks

Yes, we can be mindful of the issues and also kind towards trans people at the same time

@MargotBamborough That was my personal view, not saying you must agree with me, and I am happy to listen to your view.

What do you mean by "being kind" though?

Exactly how far does our moral obligation to "be kind" extend?

Bullying and threats.

My late mother would have said ‘oh, bless the poor wee soul’ about such people, much in the way she would say with regards to a little old pensioner struggling along the road with heavy shopping bags. (Mum wasn’t condescending and would drop everything to go to help said little old lady - she used to say ‘offer help - that could be your granny/grandpa’).

However she was nobody’s fool - she had a massive stooshies back in the day with her bishop regarding mixed (race) marriages and gay rights. She would have no truck with the current trend.

Yes, we can be mindful of the issues and also kind towards trans people at the same time

How, when the "kindness" demanded is to agree TWAW in all circumstances?

@janeinthewild you've said you're happy to share womanhood, but the problem is there are many women who aren't happy to 'share' womanhood.

I get where you're coming from because I sort of feel the same but only towards transwomen who don't appear threatening or creepy and most likely are the transwomen who are attracted to men and would have been gay men if they hadn't transitioned. But they are in the minority. If you 'open the door' to womanhood you are opening it to all the men who want to claim it, and plenty of them want to claim it to get off on it sexually. This is what is called AGP.

I recommend you look up Skirt Go Spinny What is a Woman Wrong Answers only. It's hideous and shocking but if you say one man can be a woman then they all can.

My view is that if the word "woman" doesn't mean "adult humans of the female biological, aka childbearing, sex", it literally doesn't mean anything at all.

"Adult humans of the female biological sex except the ones who identify as men or non binary plus adult humans of the male biological sex who identify as women" is not a group of people with anything in common. It's not a group of people we need a word for, or which needs it's own toilets, prisons or sporting categories.

I don't understand why some people believe it makes sense to have a word for this completely non existent group of people, but that it is unnecessary/unkind/transphobic to have a word that means "adult humans of the female biological sex".

Thanks for the link @Helleofabore just reading it now - that's just what I was looking for. So chilling how carefully orchestrated this has been to appeal to the younger generation.

"The following narratives proved compelling to our base and persuadables"

Exactly this.

Even if you define "women" as "adult humans of the female biological sex except the ones who genuinely believe they identify as men or non binary plus adult humans of the male biological sex who genuinely believe they identify as women", you cannot legislate for that or base people's entitlement to use single sex spaces on that, because it is completely subjective.

You cannot have a women only space which includes genuine trans women who wouldn't harm a fly and also excludes male perverts who are just saying "I identify as a woman" so they can go in women's changing rooms and watch women getting changed. Tell us how you would write and enforce that rule. Both of them are male bodied people saying they identify as women and we have to take their word for it.

I feel like this thread is getting derailed/busy with an off topic conversation about the basics of why gender critical women have an issue with trans ideology.

@janeinthewild Obviously you can post whatever and wherever you like, but it might be better to let this thread discuss the issue that the poster set it up for. You can read: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me if you're interested in the basic gender critical position. You could also start your own thread asking your original question, but it might be worth looking back through the archive as there have been many, many similar threads in the past.

I am unable to share womanhood as it doesn't belong to me.

Fair point.

Back to the OP then. I have no idea how, or more importantly why the media has conditioned people to believe it is unkind and transphobic to state the obvious.

My best friend, who is otherwise an intelligent woman, said she thought it was unkind to refer to trans women as male people. But they are male people. How can it be unkind to discuss biological sex using scientifically accurate language?

It's neither of those things.

As a woman, I embrace the idea of others sharing womanhood with me

But they can't can they Jane? They can share dresses and nail varnish, grow their hair long etc. i.e. do some aesthetic stuff to imitate women, but they can never share womanhood because they are not and never will be women. They have never had, nor will ever have, the experiences that women have. It is not unkind to say that. It is truthful and we so-called transphobes are simply refusing to collude in the lie that trans activists are trying to force us to collude in. It's never going to happen.

Yes, was just my view and I can respect others' different opinions

This. It's been a long term goal by lobbyists.

I think according to Matt Walsh, even Fox News have blacklisted him for being transphobic. He still got on a few times with Tucker Carlson however.

Shouldn't everyone be kind to everyone...
Surely that's not rocket science

Why not start your own thread instead of using this one for your personal intentions which are different to the ops?

OP, have you seen this blog post on the weaponisation of kindness? It doesn't directly answer your question, but contains relevant thoughts.

https://www.flaneurnotes.com/post/on-weaponising-kindness

I was more wondering how it has seeped into the collective conscious - I know it has, and I know that social learning theory is involved. I wondered if there was any research anyone has done into this or if there is a website (similar to terf is a slur) where the pro trans be kind etc headlines are gathered.

There's research and articles showing how 'anti-trans' the media is but I can't any demonstrating how society has been indoctrinated to #Be Kind!

https://xtramagazine.com/power/transphobia-britain-terf-uk-media-193828

https://medium.com/@mimmymum/transphobia-how-the-trans-hostile-media-coverage-began-in-the-uk-429dc76bf0ac

https://cass.lancs.ac.uk/representing-trans-people-in-the-uk-press-a-follow-up-study-professor-paul-baker/

https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=g7pPBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA211&dq=bad+wigs+and+screaming+mimis&ots=Q5gjpRAykQ&sig=IVzCvL5Z-SBlz-kgGHd9wivTxgs#v=onepage&q=bad%20wigs%20and%20screaming%20mimis&f=false

https://transmediawatch.org/approaches-to-avoid

Trans Media Watch chaired by Jane Fae, have been micromanaging every word the media publish for a long time now.

Much of this is okay but as we know the extremes of referring to rapists as she has brought this approach into serious disrepute.

But it's what you mean by that.

You shouldn't call someone overweight "fatty" in the street, because that's unkind.

But it's not "unkind" to be critical of their lifestyle depending on the context. Like a doctor isn't being "kind" to tell the overweight person that it's a great thing and a healthy lifestyle.

You cannot change sex, so no-one is doing that. Changing reality is not acceptable especially when it impinges on children who are then confused. Everyone is of equal worth, so don't go round saying there are more than two sexes, for there are not. One of those sexes is female, women, and we get fed up with men using our spaces, places and faces.

I think it is part of a wider lack of contextual thinking that has disproportionately benefited trans rights, rather than completely planned by TRAs.

For example, we as a society used to be able to discuss issues at a population level, without people taking things personally. Having social media and everything recorded means the line between a discussion point and a personal attack has become blurred. There is a difference between talking about healthy diets for children and going up to kids eating sweets and shouting in their faces that they are disgusting and going to die early. This context has been lost and the concerned medic is now lumped in with the school bully.

Similarly, the cancer research adverts that wanted to raise awareness that obesity was associated with cancer risk, were accused of being fat shaming, because a few obese people were upset by them. People can no longer see a wider point without putting themselves in the middle of it. I think being dysphoric might exacerbate that trait, in the way that anorexic people are more affected by thin celebrities etc.

The trans rights movement capitalised on this by always making the issues personal, always have India W arguing "would I scare you in a toilet? - sad face" rather than allowing anyone to discuss things rationally. The media forced the experts to insult people to their faces or back down, a horrible position to be in as you can't win, but it might make for better telly.