Why are TRAs now framing concerns about the safety and dignity of women and girls as a culture war?

[WandaWomblesaurus]

Hearing this a lot now - focusing on trans "is a culture war to obscure focusing on the other bad things that the Tories do."

Can we understand the logic of this? The parroting of this statement I'm starting to hear from several female friends who really should know better.

Ask them to explain what they mean.

Because people lack nuance and long for a comic book view with “baddies” and “goodies”. It is more work if people won’t neatly group into “right thinkers” and “wrong thinkers”. Surprise surprise people hold a range of views, some of which you won’t agree with.

Anticipating reply bingo from them

"focusing on a small group of people who just want to pee"

"Bad tories, amazing snp"

"Trans children are dying everywhere"

"U R transphobic"

"So you suddenly care about sport?"

"JKR is a billionaire evil white cis"

Are you in Scotland, by any chance? 😅

Irritating as it is, you have to come to terms with the realisation that people haven't actually thought this through and have a convincing argument, they just have a series of soundbites that they reckon are unanswerable.

The "logic" is simply:

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

The "culture war" deflection is a variant of "not a big deal." They've been using it for a while; they tend to cycle through different strategies for deflecting and diminishing the issue. Don't give yourself a headache trying to make it make sense.

I'm still unclear on what a 'culture war' is or what it actually means.

So far, it seems to be a thought-stopping cliche, which translates to 'we shouldn't be talking about this'.

Not forgetting 'something something moral panic something'.

Remember what Sturgeon said, while trying to push self-ID through:

Women’s concerns are “not valid”.

Well, imagine telling a man their concerns are “not valid”. It wouldn’t happen. Women have been sidelined, brushed off and ignored for too long. And now, people who were previously “live and let live, what’s all the fuss about?” are starting to wake up.

https://unherd.com/2023/07/our-culture-war-is-not-a-distraction/

This is a group that believe if you ignore the bits of reality you don't like, make up your own version, and then shout, cry and hit anyone who doesn't enable you that reality has actually changed to what you want it to be.

Looking for logic and rationality is a whole lot of energy and time you'll never get back.

It is coming from the US where the left push their ideology, and when the right fights back they pretend "the right are engaging in a culture war because they don't have real policies".

I always wonder what the real policies are. And why the left are allowed to have their way on these "culture war" topics, but when the right say something on those topics it is just a distraction.

Transgender people being ‘the most marginalised in society’ is a fine example of a moral panic.

Culturally, women have always been repressed by men.

Men are currently trying to remove rights from women and therefore women are fighting back. So in a way, it is a culture war.

If your culture is mysogyny and homophobia then I agree it's a culture war.

They can fuck off. They had a chance to bring women on board and they fucked it up.

Yes, it's like, if this stuff isn't important, then you stop pushing it in the first place.

Then the Tory Party can't use it as a "distraction" can they?

Let's be generous and imagine there is some truth to this. That is, the Tory Party do want to exploit the issue for cynical reasons.

But that tells you nothing about whether it's an important issue or not. It can be both true that (1) the Tories will use anything to try to stay in power, and (2) it's an important issue (multiple issues really) that people have reasonable concerns about, and which would deserve to be addressed by sensible political parties.

It's also worth mentioning that it's progressives that have started this "culture war", not the conservative side.

And if you do put forward a radical new concept of "rights" where people can identify as something else, then it deserves scrutiny, it deserves the attention of politicians and to be a matter of public debate.

Why don't they call it an 'issue of competing rights'?

That's what the spokesperson for Stonewall admitted it was to Beth Rigby the other day.

Which means it's about taking rights away from women and girls. Easily understood then.

Progressivism now is mainly expressed on what some call "cultural" issues. Which is to say, not mainly economic, and often not even really policy as such.

And these same progressives have a tendency, in a discussion about the validity of their views on these topics, to simply take their correctness as unassailable and obvious truth. They see them as self-evident. They don't really discuss the ideas at all.

Therefore, anyone who is taking an opposing perspective is being disingenuous and must have an agenda. That's the war bit.