Identicide

[InterestingUsernameTBC]

Just bringing this term to people's attention.

Introduced to me through this thread from Mr Menno:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1665312289019265029.html

From Wikipedia:

Identicide[1][2][3] is the deliberate, systematic and targeted destruction of the places, symbols, objects, including ideas, values and aesthetica, and other cultural property that represent the identity of a people, with the intent to erase the cultural narrative and memory of that people, demoralize a population, absorb it into another cultural/political verity, or to rid an area of that people altogether.

Indeed feels familiar

Great thread from Mr Menno, and the 'identicide' framing is very apt for what we are seeing in relation to the push to change our understanding and sense of womanhood.
Thanks for this OP.

And I agree that the 'what is trans' is a useful question to be challenging with.

Agree , what is trans ? Definitely is the question that should be asked .
I and everyone I know understands what a women is and we don't have to question it.

He's right. Continual and intensified pushback is what's needed. More lobbying. More education, more publicity.

Alternatively, everyone should identify as trans 😂 It might be easier and quicker, actually! Only trouble is, we'd all have to put up with people taking the piss out of us. Sorry, I mean invalidating, bigotry and literal violence.

Argh.

Yes. I'd like politicians (or anyone prioritising GI) to be asked more than that question.
When they wobble with 'What is a woman?' Keep asking, say; " well, ok, if that's too difficult for you, then what is a man?, What is gender identity exactly? What is trans? What do you understand as included in that umbrella? Is it something you do or something you are? Can it change? What is non- binary? What is the opposite? Can you describe these things without using stereotypes? Is it fluid or fixed? How do we know? Is identity generally stable or fixed? How do we legislate based on the potentially instable?
Just keep asking.

I think at this point it would be useful to go broader than the "What is a woman?" question. Maybe this keeps it in a women vs trans argument, and broader questions will help people understand that this about a larger attempt to radically shift a cultural paradigm.

They'll absolutely claim that terfs practise this of course.

The DARVO is strong with that lot.

I have issues using it in this context though.

Yes. And didn’t “how are you defining trans?” leave a couple of parliamentary committee chairs floundering? I think its first use was Kemi Badenoch dealing with a committee chair’s question which had been framed so as to make her look discriminatory for wanting teen girls to be able to have single-sex, no-males-present, in overnight accommodation on school residential trips. And I think there may have been another one fairly recently.

An excellent question for politicians as we head towards the next general election. I predict a glut of transphobic answers and a lot of tantrums.

Must get popcorn.

Seriously though, this could help. As a nation we need politicians to deal with the serious economic consequences we are all facing right now. We need to stop pretending that humans can change sex. Most adults already know this. Let’s stop with no debate and ask these questions.

Do you mean in the context of a receptionist randomly announcing they are trans when selling an entrance ticket to a customer?

I can see your point, and that’s what Menno’s friend must have thought too, as he dragged him away. But I guess Menno could point out that it wasn’t him who started that topic of conversation, it was the receptionist.

Not only womanhood is being attacked. However you feel about the legacy of empire, the classical music cannon, the history of a country etc we are currently in a time when many are trying to tear down post-enlightenment ideas and European culture - by exactly the means that TRAs are using against us.

Yes, @Grammarnut. Using the very same phrases, no less.

Interesting. It's the definition of the group 'women' that is being changed, and the majority of its current members are not allowed any say in that change.

Even though the new definitions are either sexist or meaningless in the sense that they can't be empirically observed or based on unfalsifiable beliefs about some abstract inner feeling.

Even though the new definition will make fighting sex-based oppression extremely difficult and much less likely to succeed.

Even then we are the ones who are bigots, to protest any of this.

DARVO indeed.