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

But knowing that people can't change sex isn't advanced science. It's something that children normally understand quite early in their childhood. If they think otherwise, they must be being taught that in school, because surely they wouldn't believe something they saw on TikTok over what they were taught in biology lessons (or would they...?). Why is this happening? The teachers must know that changing sex isn't possible, so why are they teaching children something they know isn't true?

I said way back in the thread that identity politics is all Marxist. It's leaders say so explicitly.

Can you post a link to what they've said? Are you talking about the Labour party here or more far left parties which don't have a hope of getting into power here?

If you look at that link I posted earlier about the Deptford People's Project you'll see what the clash is between the traditional working class Labour voters and the new SJW types with their pomo queer theory nonsense who identify as oppressed if someone uses the wrong pronouns for them.

“They used weird pronouns and called themselves ‘they,'” Mcdonagh said. She didn’t think this “rich kid’s trend” would affect her work so didn’t concern herself too much. “We were too busy trying to keep people fed, off the street, and out of prison.”

It's worth reading the whole thing.

As an academic exercise, what you're saying might all make sense, but on the ground, this is not what most people think of as left wing. The people who are most oppressed and marginalised by transgender ideology are the poor and disadvantaged. Most people who think of themselves as left wing and vote Labour want to help those people. They don't want them to suffer even more because pampered middle class people who identify as oppressed believe that they should be pampered even more at the expense of people who are genuinely marginalised.

Queer theory (and its activist practice) has nothing to do with Marxism. The "liberalisation" of sexual norms has been adopted by people of all or no political affiliation. (This article gives some of the background but would say it is a bit biased by TRA ideas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory)

Many Marxist reject queer theory as it is on one level bourgeois individualism at its most extreme.

Equally many "conservatives" reject it because it challenges social norms. But many who are politically Conservative have been happy to push for queer values within their party.

The fact that some left groups have seen that they can utilise the popular version of queer theory (self identity) doesn't mean it is socialist. This is just political oppotunism.

The issue still remains, why as an idea has it been able to capture so many? Is it that it appeals on personal level, or is it that as a theory it has piggy backed of the gay liberation sucess.

And at which point did it become clear that MRAs saw that the TRA platform was a really good position for them to further their attack on women's rights.

As a minority cult interest from over 50 years ago it has managed to infiltrate a large part of (western) societies.

A question for all the posters here who think that gender ideology all comes from Marxism. How do millionaires/billionaires like Jennifer Pritzker and Martine Rothblatt fit into your theory?

The teachers must know that changing sex isn't possible, so why are they teaching children something they know isn't true?

Because queer theory has been taught in universities from 80s onwards.

How do millionaires/billionaires like Jennifer Pritzker and Martine Rothblatt fit into your theory?

Exactly, just as some leftist and soft conservatives have adopted it, it is just coopted by those who can use it for their benefit, whether to recruit people to your political cause, or to get them hooked on your expensive products.

.
And to repeat myself, why has this theory about "fluid" identites and personal disrupters been so popular. Is it that in the west we are in fact so conforming and dumbed into submission by consurmerism being are reason to live, that this is the only (individualistic) act of rebellion.

For me there's a few related things going on.
1 Guilt. Guilt is practically a marketing strategy in current times. Make people feel guilty over attributes they can't change e.g. skin colour, sex, sexulality. Straight white men am I rite??
2 Trying to be a good person. Social media encourages judgement. People go to extreme lengths to be judged as being a good person or living an inspiring lifestyle to impress their followers. e.g. "influencers" Virtue signalling is all about displaying your social credentials to makes sure everyone knows you are a good person. e.g. the difference between an anonymous donation to help a good cause for no personal return, versus making sure everyone knows how much you donated and to such a worthy on trend cause, more to boost your own profile/social credit than actually giving a fuck about the cause.
3 One way to deal with any guilt arising from innate attributes you can't change, or weath which you can change, is to engage in 2 above. 2 is the cure to 1.
4 One thing that really gets my goat and annoys me is companies that go to enormous lengths to avoid paying taxes, and then make a big public fuss about how virtuous they are for donating to some on trend cause. Just pay your effing taxes and let the elected representatives of the people decide how best to spend it. But that's not showy and public, so no one really wants to do that. Avoid taxes and expect loud cheers for a few scraps thrown to the peasants is the way it's done.

Lasty there are always some exceptions.
If you really believe in those people just try taking all their excess money off them, and see how that goes for you.

I've no idea what your post has to do with Jennifer Pritzker and Martine Rothblatt @lechiffre55 .

And what does this mean?
If you really believe in those people just try taking all their excess money off them, and see how that goes for you.

Just popping back to say I haven't had to mental energy to digest all this properly but I have a day off on Friday and am going to read it thoroughly. Then I'll see what to tell mum. I'll be giving her my copy of Under the Duvet of Darkness 2 on Sunday to read. That might help. Or not(!) but her granddaughters poems are in there (as are mine) along with many brilliant poems about all this nonsense. I'm starting to feel like my nana when she used to say she was glad she was on her way out. I'm only in my 40s though.

Some of these questions seem bizarre to me.

The fact that some people believe in gender ideology without being Marxist does not mean that its genesis isn't from the social/political left. Think how that would work with describing the origins of other social movements. You can't just interchange individuals, who have all kinds of complex, sometimes self-serving, and often incongruous political reasons for the ideas they have embraced, for an explanation of the history of a certain ideology.

The OPs question has two or perhaps three main elements. Where the ideological ideas that underpin these ideologies come from and what they say. (The identarian left, universities, mainly. A kind of elite.) Who was actually specifically pushing this stuff politically, their strategy, and why (some true believers but also people with their own nefarious and self serving agendas, through things like the Denton documents, influencing the civil service, etc.) And then, why has the public accepted this to the degree they have, when not long ago people would think it's batshit and rejected it out of hand? (Because many of the ideas they have been taught to accept by popular political and social culture seem to support that way of thinking. Because institutions they trust seem to be behind it.)

But knowing that people can't change sex isn't advanced science. It's something that children normally understand quite early in their childhood. If they think otherwise, they must be being taught that in school, because surely they wouldn't believe something they saw on TikTok over what they were taught in biology lessons (or would they...?). Why is this happening? The teachers must know that changing sex isn't possible, so why are they teaching children something they know isn't true?

Isn't it advanced science?

There are scientists who say it is.

People now are completely used to the idea that something they think they know to be true, which they see before them, is not in fact the case. Or for science to seemingly reverse itself. It is happening all around in the headlines every day. Particularly in medicine.

When a reputable science magazine, and the medical authorities, seem to be telling them that sex isn't immutable, or that it is complicated, it seems no weirder than black holes or quantum theory.

People learn that gravity is when things fall down when they are little kids, What they learn later is rather different, more abstract, not in line with what they see in front of them.

Everyone knows humans can't change sex.

There wouldn't be headlines about womb transplants potentially making it possible for males (trans or otherwise) to give birth in the future if we already thought sex change is possible. We know the sex who gives birth.

What people believe is that surgery, drugs and behaviour can allow people to pass as the opposite sex.

The attempt to change the definition of woman away from female, and the definition of sex away from gametes, is an attemp to keep a perceived vulnerable group happy. People are allowing this because they know sex is so obvious and fundamental they dont think it needs a name.

Politicians only see women and girls in terms of their vulnerablility - thats what they make laws around. If they think a subgroup of men become vulnerable because they pass as women, they include them.

They just come unstuck when they have to say 'people with a cervix'. It exposes that they have removed the name for a whole class of people. That why politicians say we shouldn't say only women and girls have cervixes because it exposes their short sightedness.

Politicians only see women and girls in terms of their vulnerablility - thats what they make laws around. If they think a subgroup of men become vulnerable because they pass as women, they include them.

This is a really good point.

Queer theory (and its activist practice) has nothing to do with Marxism.

Exactly. Queer Theory came out of academia, from departments which study aspects of sex and gender (gay and lesbian studies, women's studies). This paper gives a short history of its origins. It also describes, but doesn't explain, its rapid growth and subsequent domination of the areas it originated from.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8980528_The_Normalization_of_Queer_Theory

Queer theory isn't inherently left wing or right wing - left/right politics don't really come into it. Even if most academics who teach and study queer theory are left wing, this doesn't make the theory left wing.

The issue still remains, why as an idea has it been able to capture so many?

This is the really important unanswered question. Why have so many people been taken in by something which is so clearly insane?

Identity politics is Marxist. Queer theory is a tool of id ol, because it is a revolutionary tool that challenges what they claim is the the established power structure. Queer people function as the proletariat, whereas heteronormativity and cis-normativity are like the capitalist and bourgeoisie classes which need to be extinguished by any means, including violence. This all leads to the destruction of the biologically, naturally defined family, which is a major goal in Marxism.

Classical Marxism puts more emphasis on material reality, so it looks to free women from biology through technology like artificial wombs and birth control. But when identity replaces class language becomes the way to change reality, and that also has been a huge push on the political left for decades, as well as in 20th century philosophy generally.

This kind of structure is extremely appealing to those on the left, it fits right in with their other ways of thinking about the world. People who accept this kind of lens are basically primed to find the whole ideology not only plausible but a great tool for advancing the cause.

What it doesn't fit in with is any real conservative way of thinking. Most conservatives who buy into this, indeed most regular people, have accepted the medical theory of trans. That is, "sex" is not a simple biological category but one with many complex parts; and that "trans people" is something concrete and a medical condition akin to being intersex, though poorly understood.There are a few who will defend it on more libertarian grounds, but they tend to be less enthusiastic and see limits in how they think that can work.

There are scientists who say it is.

Scientists? Or people who identify as scientists. Links, please, to the peer reviewed research in respected journals which say that there are more than two human sexes and/or that sex can be changed.

When a reputable science magazine

I'm guessing Scientific American, which was mentioned earlier. That's a popular science magazine, which should be giving correct information (albeit somewhat simplified for non scientists), but seems to have been captured by gender idealogues. So I agree that the misinformation is probably coming from sources like this, but this doesn't give any credence to your assertion about scientists in general.

Here's an actual eminent scientist on whether or not sex can be changed.

The fact that some people believe in gender ideology without being Marxist does not mean that its genesis isn't from the social/political left.

But you haven't posted any evidence that it is. You seem to think that just repeating unevidenced assertions will somehow make it true.

The OPs question has two or perhaps three main elements. Where the ideological ideas that underpin these ideologies come from and what they say. (The identarian left, universities, mainly. A kind of elite.)

Yes, they come from universities. What seems like a leap is your assertion that Queer Theory sprang directly from Marxism. It seems to have come out of postmodernism and gender studies in its various forms. Or are you saying that postmodernism and gender studies came directly from Marxism?

Reading this it seems that perhaps we were at cross purposes.

Identity politics is Marxist. Queer theory is a tool of id ol, because it is a revolutionary tool that challenges what they claim is the the established power structure.

So you're not suggesting that queer theory is a Marxist ideology, but that some left wing groups are using queer theory as a tool? So queer theory itself is not inherently Marxist. Is that right? If so, that's something we can agree on.

What it doesn't fit in with is any real conservative way of thinking. Most conservatives who buy into this, indeed most regular people, have accepted the medical theory of trans. That is, "sex" is not a simple biological category but one with many complex parts; and that "trans people" is something concrete and a medical condition akin to being intersex, though poorly understood.There are a few who will defend it on more libertarian grounds, but they tend to be less enthusiastic and see limits in how they think that can work.

Some of the people who are powerful players in the transgenderism movement, and have been for a long time, are incredibly wealthy people like Jennifer Pritzker and Martine Rothblatt

You're ignoring the damage that the medicalisation of trans is also doing.
Your apparent bias against anything left wing is leading you to focus on identity politics and ignore the harm done by this idea that we can transcend our physical bodies and become physically whatever we want to be.

That's not what someone understands when voting for the Labour Party today sure.

But lefties certainly have advocated for dismantling the economic system, private private, destroying religion, and have been against the family.

(I don't know the details of how far Marxists are actually against the family, but I think they viewed the private property and inheritance aspects of the family as upholding capitalism.)

I would also mention BLM wanting to "defund the police".

That's not what someone understands when voting for the Labour Party today sure.

So it's not 'normal left-wing' then.

But lefties certainly have advocated for dismantling the economic system, private private, destroying religion, and have been against the family.

Some extreme left wing groups may have done this. But again, that's not what most people think the Labour Party stands for.

Extreme right-wingers come out with some fairly batshit stuff, too, but again that's not what most Tory voters think they're voting for.

I really don't understand what point you're trying to make.

@OldCrone

This article shows the clash between traditional Labour-voting working class women and the queer theorist students who self-identify as left wing.

Which looks like a clash between some people of different class. I don't think this tells us if anyone is a real left-winger or not. Perhaps both sides are "left wing", but just incompatible versions of left-wing.

As far as the posh students not really caring about the working class... yeah, see Animal Farm.

That seems like a well known issue of the political left that the people above, claiming to represent the people below, may not actually be so pure and full of virtue.

Which looks like a clash between some people of different class. I don't think this tells us if anyone is a real left-winger or not. Perhaps both sides are "left wing", but just incompatible versions of left-wing.

What do you think "left wing" means?

Just to get back on topic, this gives a bit of history about the current trans movement.

https://womenspeakscotland.com/2021/06/23/the-trans-umbrella-is-older-than-you-think/

And this was posted recently on another thread (I can't remember the name of the poster or which thread).

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

It's a review of Janice Raymond's book "The Transsexual Empire" from 1979 which predicted a lot of the discussions we're still having now. For example:

The transsexual male is indistinguishable from other males, save by his desire to be a woman. ("He is a woman trapped in a man's body” is the standard rhetorical form of this claim.) If such a desire qualifies as a disease, transforming the desiring agent into a “transsexual,” then the old person who wants to be young is a “transchronological,” the poor person who wants to be rich is a “transeconomical,” and so on. Such hypothetical claims and the requests for “therapy” based on them (together with our cognitive and medical responses to them) frame, in my opinion, the proper background against which our contemporary beliefs and practices concerning “transsexualism” and transsexual “therapy” ought to be viewed.

If you want to read the whole book, there's a link to a free pdf here:

https://janiceraymond.com/the-transsexual-empire/

This is the 1994 edition, and she comments in the introduction that since the original publication of the book, Johns Hopkins, the first hospital in the US to carry out "transsexual surgery", had stopped doing these operations since there was no long-term benefit compared to individuals who didn't have the surgery. If that was known then, how have we got to where we are now?

@OldCrone

So it's not 'normal left-wing' then.

I said fairly normal left-wing, as in it's within the tradition.

If you think it's not "Labour Party", or it's a bit extreme, that's fine, but it can still be left-wing. Whereas, you were saying something wasn't either left or right.

Well firstly, I don't think I can give a strict and complete definition here, which can tell you in all cases what does or doesn't qualify.

But as a general guiding idea, I would say:

Economically critical of capitalism, so wanting regulation and mitigation at least, (e.g. welfare safety net), and possibly the outright rejection of capitalism on the harder left.

Although I would qualify this that there may be fairly little difference between the mainstream left and mainstream right today, with the right-wing just liking the "free market" more.

Socially it can be about various policies that are claimed to aim at equality, helping the disadvantaged, fighting injustice, liberation, humanitarian progress, or fighting for "rights". Could also include environmentalism perhaps.

If lefties disagree on something, it's not like you have constitutional principles that can always provide an answer as to what is or isn't, "authentic left-wing politics".

@IwantToRetire

Queer theory (and its activist practice) has nothing to do with Marxism. The "liberalisation" of sexual norms has been adopted by people of all or no political affiliation. (This article gives some of the background but would say it is a bit biased by TRA ideas en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory)

That article says it's a type of "critical theory" and then apparently critical theory was tied up with Marxism?

Wikipedia entry on critical theory says:

"While critical theorists have often been called Marxist intellectuals, their tendency to denounce some Marxist concepts and to combine Marxian analysis with other sociological and philosophical traditions has resulted in accusations of..."

So it's not clear from Wikipedia that it has, "nothing to do with Marxism".

Anyway, even ignoring whether it's "Marxist" or "Marxist inspired", why wouldn't critical theory be a left-wing approach? (You may not personally deny that, I don't know.)