How did it all start?

[CervixSampler]

This is the question my lovely, totally baffled mum asked me today. I was talking to her about the poetry book containing poems from mumsnetters here (will shamelessly post a link) and why those poems have come about.

I can't remember how it all started. Were we boiling frogs? I came onto the boards around the time Posie Parker was putting up her billboard and have been a regular ever since. I can't remember any single event that triggered my awareness but this board and Posie were a huge eye opener.

When did women's rights become up for grabs? When did things get out of hand? I know things have always been problematic but when did it all explode?
Shameless book plug;

Under the Duvet of Darkness Volume Two Lurking Merkins: Poems written by angry women for angry women because WOMEN WON'T WHEESHT: 2 amzn.eu/d/3ucEKB7

@RoyalCorgi
If you want to know who's pushing it look at who has been around the longest trying everything they can to get what they want. Never taking no for an answer.

There have been transexuals for a very long time, but just one or two here and there getting on with their lives, e.g Caroline Cossey. The recent rights conflicts between women and TRAs is very loud and febrile, but it's not them. They are just a stepping stone, being used to break down boundaries.

You need to look much further back to the P.I.E trying to sleight of hand paedophile rights as being the same as gay rights in the 70s. NAMBLA etc.... It's paedophiles, men who want to have sex with children pushing any cause they can use as camoflague to break down the boundaries, becuase once you've broken down a few boundaries it's easier to push at the remaining boundaries.

Fascinating topic. My head is full of the word we're not allowed to mention here because I've just read The Running Grave and on the back of that listened to this BBC podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001kvf7, which I would recommend.

I understand JKR delivered her manuscript to her publisher very early this year and the podcast was released in April, following not far off two years' worth of research from the presenter and producer. I imagine JKR had done a lot of research too, which would account for the notable similarities between what they were both describing - fictional in TRG, factual in AVBC. Classic techniques of abuse, control and manipulation, I suppose. Human psychology is fascinating but frightening at times.

I was particularly struck by how important it was in both organisations to cut the members off from their families and convince them that their families are toxic and only wish them harm. One of the ways they did that was to wind the family members up and provoke them into an outburst or drastic action, but to a completely brainwashed person this just seems like confirming what their leaders have told them will happen, and it's counter-productive.

Rang a few bells.

Denton's?

Two Amazing Aussies have already done the work for us.

Make a cup of tea and have a sit down and listen to their research.

There are 2 episodes. This is the first.

Gender ideology and id politics are international movements, and communism is an international movement as well. Looking just at the UK isn't going to really tell you why these ideas, which seem so crazy on the face of it, have gained a foothold in the UK or anywhere else.

And there are plenty of Marxists in the UK who are neomarxists anyway.

You can find statements from different parties on their websires. Off the top of my head, the main American communist groups, all of the communist parties in Canada, and the ones in both Australia and NZ are pro-gender ideology.

I think it's the case in a lot of European versions as well but I can't point to where you'd find it.

Tbh I don't really understand your objection to the idea that it's a leftist movement mainly, given that it's taken hold on the left in every country where it has appeared. As has identity politics more generally.

My (male, 50 year old) gay friend is very cross about this. He is such a mild-mannered guy who put up with a fair amount of homophobic abuse growing up in the 80s. He knows how shit it was as a young gay man in a small town and what life was like for gay men (and women) before anti-discrimination legislation was passed, and still is in many places.

He is very much a "LGB without the T" person because of the current narrative.

Thanks for that link, @AlisonDonut. This is part 2. Will be catching up with that tomorrow.

Im not sure that its happened because of bonkers ideology seeping out of universities. I think that explain some of the acceptance among the university educated. But i dont think it explains how the laws were introduced before anyone was talking about it.

It wasn't the acceptance but the fact that young inexperience students just bought into what they were told. And by virtue of being educated these people were more likely to be the ones that then moved into positions of power and influence eg politics and the media eg the editor of the Guardian saying "queer politics influences everything I do".

Added to which, and I cant find the threadson this, but some have been mentioned up thread, running parallel to this were groups who effectively lobbied, and in most instances, not for people with genuine gender dysphoria, but to use that to be a platform to argue for this concept of personal choice.

Most laws are introduced for issues most of us aren't aware of, but there probably aren't that many that were introduced primarily because a small group so effectively lobbied for their view point. And because most of this lobbying was going on behind closed doors, those who would be impacted on, ie women, were not there to provide another viewpoint.

And obviously introducing a trans character into a popular soap wasn't because audiences were clamouring for it, was because a product of the queer grooming was able to use a position of influence to propogate their view point.

And back in the 80s, let me tell you many many women, especially those who were teaching or attending women's studies were only too aware that this was part of the male back lash against women's liberation. What I think most feminists at that time never thought that the more academic concept of gender rather than sex in a teaching environment, would then become a lived reality for some people. In the 80s the very tiny trans community were in fact more associated with the (cant use the p word) but those arguing that sex between adults and children is okay.

In fact Stonewall was quite late to the development, but as said up thread, not being as relevant as a campaign they once were, they opportunistically added the T without anyone being consulted as to whether self identifying as a "gender" had anything to do with people who are same sex attracted.

But in fact, whether intentional or not, Stonewall adopting the trans agenda gave trans issues a credibility it hadn't previously had, because of the credibility of the campaign for gay and lesbian rights. So many people just sort of went, oh well if it is part of that we should support, not knowing that the trajectory was to use trans rights to undermine women's (sex based) rights.

It started much earlier than people think. There may have been people who wanted to or attempted to change sex before then, but the surgical and chemical means were not available.

I was at University in the very early 1970’s.The father of a friend was a very high profile MTF , he wrote a ( rather disturbing) book about it. The book was a great success, everyone who thought of themself as progressive claimed to love it, if you didn’t you were just a blue rinse old bigot ( yes , even then).

I didn’t love it. I saw what my friend’s home life was like.

I also knew , through some gay fellow undergraduates, a very famous MTF with a name which was taken from a month of the year. In fact, this person attempted to gatecrash my twenty first birthday party, which I did not allow because I found the idea of a late thirties individual with no connection to the University hanging around nineteen year old boys ( legally minors in that period) a bit…….off.

Finally an acquaintance transitioned MTF in the early eighties ‘an early adopter’ I suppose. None of these people were even marginally like women in their social or public behaviour. They were all aggressively assertive about their female identities.Their rage and hatred against women was bubbling away and plainly discernable.

I never met or heard of any woman who wanted to ‘be’ or ‘become’ a man. Plenty of ‘butch’ girls, as they defined themselves, though.

Perhaps I was unlucky, and there were actually lots of other people transitioning away merrily to the benefit of all around them. That was my experience, though.

My feeling is that lots of people in middle class and academic circles wanted to be seen and indeed praised as ‘broad minded’, which was becoming more and more difficult as discrimination against same sex attracted people was diminishing in society. And of course, most of them didn’t have to pay for it on a personal level, unlike the families and partners of the ‘pioneers’.

I agree that it's taken hold in left of centre parties more than stongly right wing parties. But it's the centre left which seems to be totally in thrall to this ideology, like the Labour Party in the UK. It seems less clear that more strongly leftist parties like the communists are as universally in favour (I didn't know that about the other English-speaking countries).

Apart from the British communists, in one discussion about other countries, the Greek communists were mentioned as also being opposed to this ideology. I can't remember what was said about other countries, but I remembered that part of the discussion because a Greek poster went into some detail about what had been said in their parliament.

If you read that excerpt from the statement by the British communists that I posted earlier it becomes obvious that anyone who cares about women and disadvantaged minorities would be against transgender ideology.

I object to it being framed as a leftist movement because it isn't, for the reasons given by the communists. The left normally claims to care about disadvantaged people. How can they claim this when they are, for example, saying that disabled women should accept a male carer (when they have specified that they want a female carer) if he identifies as a woman?

Transgender ideology is about the supremacy of the wants of privileged people over the needs of disadvantaged people. There is nothing left wing about it. I find it utterly bizarre that left wing parties have bought into this.

It started much earlier than people think. There may have been people who wanted to or attempted to change sex before then, but the surgical and chemical means were not available.

I think as the end of your posts suggests among the middle class some people were able to undergo trans surgery (the earliest were supposedly in Germany in 1900).

But the big difference, and this persisted until after WWII are those who had "gender dysphoria" ie being alienated by your physical body.

The later belief system fostered by queer theory, that individual choice is the ultimate disrupter of oppressive social sysems, of gender "identity" has a very different root to those actually experiencing dysphoria.

It wasn't the acceptance but the fact that young inexperience students just bought into what they were told. And by virtue of being educated these people were more likely to be the ones that then moved into positions of power and influence eg politics and the media eg the editor of the Guardian saying "queer politics influences everything I do".

I know the 1997 election brought in lots of new MPs, but were they inflenced by queer politics?

What's unusual is that the GRA was introduced with absolutely no fanfare, but civil partnerships was. Wouldnt politicians so invested in queer theory promote both equally?

"...and the media eg the editor of the Guardian saying "queer politics influences everything I do".

Which editor of the Guardian was that, please?

Transgender ideology is about the supremacy of the wants of privileged people over the needs of disadvantaged people. There is nothing left wing about it. I find it utterly bizarre that left wing parties have bought into this.

Its an elite movement at heart. If this was just working class sub culture there wouldn't be a GRA.

Its why its supported by those on the left and the right - the elite are across the political spectrum.

I think you are assuming that anyone on the left would agree about who is really disadvantaged, and what makes a "class" designation real. And that latter question is really key to understanding how traditional marxism is differernt than the new marxism.

Basically everyone who isn't a sociopath wants to help disadvantaged people, including those on the political right. But there are differences in how they think disadvantage works, and what is the best solution to it, on balance.

It's also not the case that either the left or right has only one school of thought on these kinds of questions. That is, there are different kinds of leftism. I don't think this just comes down to being more or less extreme. The Labour Party centrist types seem to have really bought into the id politics game, but then so have the Momentum people. And the Ash Sarkar's of the world.

I think you could make an argument that the center left, and the corporate world, have largely adopted this stuff for less ideological reasons. The corporate world for totally brazen reasons around advertising. Many middle class types because it allows them to feel morally safe - in a previous era they'd be in the Temperance movement or going to films in church basements about Christianizing jungle tribes and personal hygiene. And this stuff doesn't ask them to give up anything really hard either. Although that kind of moralism is typically something people really believe, it's not cynical like the corprate side. It lacks real self reflection though.

But the people that really believe that we need to break down all institutions, destroy whiteness, that discrimination is the only way to alleviate discrimination, that heteronomativity was invented and families are unnatural and should be abolished and has nothing to do with anything concrete like reproductive roles, that being cis is being a slave to biology - that stuff is not a right wing or conservative program, it's entirely of the left. And yes, they think this is helping "the disadvantaged" because the way to do that is smash everything.

I would also argue that the kind of thing you see in places like Iran is also different, it's essentially the same thing you see in cultures with a third gender role. It's origins and thought processes are quite different than what we are seeing now in the west. Which isn't to say it's a good approach, but it's socially a very different way of thinking.

Which editor of the Guardian was that, please?

Katharine Viner - it was in an interview some time ago, so I went to check she is still the editor and she is!

I am sure somewhere I have a link to the article but probably archived away in some sub folder I thought would be useful but never check!

And we may not know the names, but just look at the hold the trans narrative has at the BBC, C4 and so on.

Was just going to say this! This is where it all started. Shy, harmless people who just want to be left alone to live their lives.

Not the Danny La Rues etc just quiet "normal"'women. Worked on me, for a couple for decades!

Katharine Viner wasn't in a position of influence when the GRA was passed, though. She's definitely influential now, and reflect the current media acceptance of trans ideology, but would she have been a TRA in 2004?

I dont think MPs were lobbied by queer theory graduates in the early 2000s.

I dont think MPs were lobbied by queer theory graduates in the early 2000s.

No, they were lobbied by groups like Press for Change and Gendered Intelligence.

is it a part of PIE and that movement from the 80s?

Katharine Viner wasn't in a position of influence when the GRA was passed, though.

I never said she was. It may have been muddled but I was talking about those who attend university from the 80s on, of which she would have been one, were more than likely to move to positions of influence. Not just politics but the media. eg a random trans character turning up in whichever soap it was at a time that 99.9% of the population would never have even thought of such a person. But as part of the using platforms, whether the media or politics, as a journalist and then editor obviously her politics would influence what she wrote and who she hired.

The GRA was really the Trojan Horse of legislation that was introduced for a different reason, although related. At the time same sex couples could not marry. And one of the motives for the GRA was to let same sex couples get married by having one of the pair be able to get a GRC to say they were the opposite sex. Which became irrelevant for the purpose of marriage as same sex couples can now get married.

But even if taken as face value as this being the main motive for getting a GRC, it then opened the flood gates for the ever expanding trend of gender self identity.

Nadia Almada won Big Brother in 2004, the year the GRA became law. Seems too much of a coincidence not to have at least an element of social engineering.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2004/aug/22/features.review17

Transgender groups, representing 5000 people in the UK alone, have also been quick to praise Nadia. 'She's gone her own way about being accepted as a woman,' says Leanne Fuller of The Gender Trust, the UK charity for transgender people. 'She has taken the public eye not in a form of sympathy but in a form of empathy.' Christine Bond, author and lobbyist for transgender group, Press for Change, agrees: 'Nadia's most valuable contribution was that she's put a face and personality to people's stereotyped ideas about transsexual people. Her big personality means that people focused on Nadia as a person without considering her medical history.'

However, Bond does sound a note of caution. After a 12-year battle, the British transgender community won major legal rights this year, including the right to marry and change their birth certificates and passports, but this won't necessarily heal all wounds. 'Nadia has shown herself to be very vulnerable,' says Bond. 'She will need some time to digest this experience. She would have expected until quite late in the day that people would reject her because that unfortunately is the received experience of all transgender people.' Indeed, Nadia tells me that she never expected to win. 'I'd created barriers in my own mind that people would not give me a second chance or second glance because of my past. Coming from where I came from, after what I'd been through, I expected the worst; I was prepared for the worst. I was so happy to be proved wrong.'

This was one of the threads I remember that looks backwards in time.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

Given that it was shortly after this thread was created that Lang Cleg was targeted by the transactivists who monitor Mumsnet, to the point where she was removed, this is probably a very significant thread indeed.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3541908-Regulatory-capture

"I think you are assuming that anyone on the left would agree about who is really disadvantaged, and what makes a "class" designation real. And that latter question is really key to understanding how traditional marxism is differernt than the new marxism."

This is actually politically illiterate. You've decided to completely redefine what Marxism, right, and left mean so you can push a "right is good" narrative, but passages like the above make it clear that you're talking about elites oppressing ordinary people. That is not what leftists, or Marx, was writing in favour of.

The right - conservatism - was about institutions, business, the church, the monarch, and tradition.

The left is about the workers, the people not born into money and into institutional power.

What you are describing is powerful groups cloaking themselves in the language of the left and the marginalised, but actually standing up for Big Pharma, men's rights over women's rights, pedophiles over children's safety, and for institutions to quietly adopt trans rights rather than debating those policies and their impacts in public.

This is authoritarianism. Trying to squeeze it in a left/right box is a fool's errand and it makes it easier to swallow whatever politician who promises to "save" us from the bad guys. It also means you miss out on the c-word because you're too busy trying to shore up the right wing U.K. party who introduced all this here. No thank you to that, either.