Writer Naomi Klein says she doesn’t understand gender critical feminism

[PotteringPondering]

Canadian writer Naomi Klein was interviewed at the Royal Festival Hall this evening by the BBC’s Samira Ahmed, about her new book, Doppelgänger.

Most of the evening was about the book, in which Klein (a left-wing activist) reflects on being confused with writer Naomi Wolf (who now sides with the right and conspiracy theorists). This was fascinating.

At the end, a questioner in the audience asked her how ‘so-called feminists’ can be anti-trans. Klein speculated that it’s white women being seduced by the far right.

Samira Ahmed pointed out that the UK narrative is different, and one of the main legal cases here involved a black lesbian. Klein said she didn’t understand that kind of feminism.

I was shocked that such an articulate thinker, who’s spent years at the cutting edge of cultural issues, could say she simply doesn’t understand why any feminist would question gender ideology. Seriously?

Yes, healthcare for humans is accepted as good. Thanks for pointing that out.

Anyway.....!

You are right science is helpful. And science works through rigorous investigation and challenge. Which you appear to be avoiding by plonking down a claim and then leaving the thread without discussing it.

I would invite you to come back the thread and explain what you think the implications of the pubmed article are to the GI/ GC debate. Because from my perspective it changes nothing. So what do you think and why?

If the Left are gonna carry on with the us and them narrative, now expanded to say that they're enlightened and the rest of us are thugs, then this divide will never heal, indeed will widen.

Tbh, despite being a Right voter, I've always classed myself as a pretty centrist type, wishy washy liberal, typical humanist, kumbuya boring individual looking at both sides.

However the trans poison that has both highlighted the intransigence of the modern managerial Left, and revealed the movement as a project to impose cultural mores on society that would never get mass appeal or win an election if put explicitly to any Western electorate, has absolutely fuelled the populist Alt Right.

The days of populations slavishly accepting the news fed to them by the likes of the BBC, Independent, Guardian, Sky, ITV, CNN, NYT, WaPo etc are over, and it's single issue triggers that motivate many voters, from ULEZ, to JSO/CZero, to Brexit, to ID politics/BLM/TRA.

If Klein really thinks the world is, or should be, as it was in the 90s re political polarities and what's acceptable/unacceptable, she's sadly naive.

And I'm tickled by the fact that someone who used populist language when it suited her (poor versus elites etc) is now allergic to this when it's not her side anymore.

And most of all that she bows at the altar of Big Pharma re teen medicalisation, with nary a hint of self doubt. Ditto throwing women to the wolves.

I remember when discussion boards first started and people would come on and plop one or two posts with the sole purpose of derailing discussion.

Anyway, we agree healthcare is good, we disagree that sex doesn't exist. Onwards.

They may have "left the discussion" with their fondly-imagined mic-drop "fact" but TRSOH are definitely still here and Shit Hot on the Report button

I would invite you to come back the thread and explain what you think...

I dunno, I think we're OK tbh

Well you may be but I think genuine and good faith discussion is important.

Its disappointing, but unsurprising, that this poster appears to fit the 'no debate' stance of the typical Gender ideologist. Which always makes it look like they know they cannot debate. I doubt that poster has an opinion on what that article actually means for this debate. They just have a vague hopeful belief that it means they have 'won' but they aren't sure why or how...

masculinization of the brain

Is this when the brain literally grows a penis?

This attitude that feminists in the U.K. are all white women being seduced by the right is practically gospel in the USA. Was on holiday and the American husband of one of my friends began explaining to me how U.K. feminism worked (he had never been to the U.K. , but why did that matter?) silly me, I thought I was engaged in grassroots feminist campaigning for women’s rights , but in fact U.K. feminism is “white feminism”. Which means that my concerns, and the concerns of U.K. feminism, only help white women. I asked him to explain what he meant by this, and all the examples he gave were from the USA.

he then told me that U.K. feminism has been infiltrated by the American right, and that these women are slowly being indoctrinated into fascism. I tried to tell him that when I meet up with the women’s rights network no one seems to have been indoctrinated, but that didn’t matter… he had read it online somewhere.

the reality is that Americans simply cannot conceive of something happening in the world that doesn’t involve America in some way. Race is the all important divider in American society, and so of course it must also be true for the U.K. criticism of trans stuff comes from the right , so U.K. women must be useful dupes of the Republican Party. This is why it’s very difficult to speak to people from the USA about these issues.

Don't you mean FACT.

he then told me that U.K. feminism has been infiltrated by the American right, and that these women are slowly being indoctrinated into fascism

As I said upthread, its narrative is really fucking insulting and misogynistic. How can he not see that he is being a sexist fucktard who things women, probably particularly feminist women, are all a bit thick and easily influenced. Fuck off! I form my own opinions based proper evidence and reason.. If you think I am wrong, come and have a conversation with me. If you can present a good case I will reconsider my opinion. Will you do the same?

Amen to this. I have close family in the US and this is a huge issue for me; they are primed to regard anything I say about the topic with suspicion and to imagine that I have, very sadly, been 'radicalised' and/or somehow become a standard Karen stereotype (depending on which generation you ask).

It's as if they've forgotten who I am and what I have always been like. It gets me down.

So interesting. Chilling, but fascinating.

@Inauthentic I'm just reading that link and trying to find anything more illuminating by the same author.

I am really struck by the binary she is setting up between gender identity either being 'a volitional choice' or originating in brain structure. That's quite extreme, but I do see that it aims to place sexual identity in the same place as sexual orientation, as in your post. I can't yet see much evidence that she is presenting on the neuroscience end of that binary. I can see though that she states there is no evidence indicating any impact of post birth experiences or culture on gender identity.

That excludes any consideration of, say, why trans identity has become so disproportionate among looked-after children and among children with parents who are sex offenders. Why trans identity is not associated positively with variations of sexual development. Why many cultures create a group of male people who are either gay or a threat to a male led hierarchy and name them as a type of women, whereas a much smaller number create a group of women who are not owned by men and are named as being men. Why countries with conservative sexual cultures have tended to legislate for gender identity recognition earlier than for same sex marriage. Etc etc.

Im my view sexual identity and in particular gender identity are not the same as sexual orientation and are even more heavily influenced by culture and psychology. That will only be stated by academic authorities if they study the possibility.

'indoctrinated into fascism'

Would that include a standing ovation for an actual nazi, do you think?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66908958

Good to hear I wasn't the only person on this thread who was at the event. Completely agree about her use of 'us' and 'them', making assumptions about the views of everybody in the audience – that was telling.

I hope my short summary of her response to the feminism question sounds accurate to you.

Did Naomi Kleenex mention that Naomi Wolf (who i do think has developed some form of mental illness) is a white woman deep into conspiracy theories but also immaculately TWAW?

The thing is, she'd not necessarily correct about this being a white, right wing thing in the US either.

There is less of a left of the kind you see in the UK, but a lot of the people who are now considered right wing in terms of the culture wars are really more classical liberals.

And the idea that it is "white" is just completely false, and frankly I think it must require a pretty healthy dose of self-delusion and willful blindness to believe that among the American public only white people have more culturally conservative viewpoints.

@PotteringPondering (obviously (I hope) I meant to right “us versus them” not “us baby them” 🙈 )
yes, your summary of Klein’s response was accurate. What struck me more was her potted phrase along the lines of “my rights are very broad and there is room to accommodate others” or something like that, followed by “I don’t believe trans people having rights takes rights away from me” (I wrote down that phrase so am pretty sure it is accurate.)Her response made me think she really doesn’t understand the feminist perspective on this issue and/or lives blissfully insulated from trans-encroachment/erosion of women’s spaces.

While I agreed with much of what she said about “conspiracy culture”, ultimately, I didn’t understand the “doppelgänger” analogy, especially as she drew it out in the final reading. And I also thought her concluding comment along the lines of the “Judeo Christian white patriarchy” was very odd — but perhaps that is a topic for a different forum.

I thought that was interesting too.

But I also feel that JCJ maybe has her own blind spot here. It seems like she wants to see this all as some kind of trick from the alt-right that really has nothing to do, inherently, with any kind of leftist politics.

But to me, what's gone wrong with the left now looks an awful lot like what's gone wrong on the left before. I think she's really underestimating the degree to which this ideology has been embraced because it seems to fit in with established elements of the leftist analysis.

Health care for transgender people and youth is mainstream medical care supported by every major medical association and leading world health authority

When people say this they almost always mean "health care" to be "gender affirming care". ie. puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, double mastectomies, sterilisation or some combination thereof of these four things. They seldom include deep exploratory therapy, treating mental health issues, trauma, anxiety, depression, tricky home lives, safeguarding vulnerable children in settings such as in care or unhoused, or supporting neurodiversity.

Gender affirming care for minors is increasingly NOT being supported by medical associations and health authorities, as countries discover that the evidence base is flimsy at best and non-existent at worst. Finland, Sweden, NZ, Oz, France and now the UK, early adopters of the Dutch protocol and gender affirming models, are now rolling back these treatments as the evidence that they work is just not forthcoming, even after years of treatment. See here for references: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p382

the reality is that Americans simply cannot conceive of something happening in the world that doesn’t involve America in some way. Race is the all important divider in American society, and so of course it must also be true for the U.K. criticism of trans stuff comes from the right , so U.K. women must be useful dupes of the Republican Party. This is why it’s very difficult to speak to people from the USA about these issues.

You're absolutely right, weebisom. They really can't conceive of the left-wing feminist tradition that exists in the UK, or the fact that, as mentioned earlier, many of the high-profile people speaking out against gender ideology in the UK are black women like Allison Bailey, Sonya Douglas and Lucy Masoud.

Having said that, these people are also incapable of looking critically at their own situation in the US. "White feminism" is presumed to be bad, but why? Gender ideologues are almost all white themselves, so why is it OK for them to be white, but not for feminists? Neither do they seem to have noticed that even in the US, some of the opposition to gender ideology is coming from Black and Muslim women. The woman who protested about the predatory male in the Wii Spa case was, in fact, black. They ignore any fact that is inconvenient in order to pursue their insane narrative that anyone who disagrees with them must be evil, and evil means white and Republican.

I've just noted that autocorrect has changed Klein to Kleenex on my post above. How bloody embarrassing and absolutely not deliberate.

I get this impression from JCJ too.