What's going on with Genspect?

[MalagaNights]

I've seen Stella O'Malley tweet about being unfairly attacked.
I've seen a weird exchange from James Lindsay about feminists trying to take down Genspect.

But I can't work out what's happened or who is fighting with who.

Any ideas?

I'm really hoping that the different "GC leaning" people who are (currently still 😔) arguing it out on Twitter can pull together and see the value in understanding that there is a shared goal here: safeguarding children and vulnerable young people from the harms that come from gender identity belief.

Posting a timely clip from someone who does a great job of doing exactly this (and by extension, love* him or loathe him, Matt Walsh achieves it too):

https://x.com/NotScottNewgent/status/1724472846687117517?t=QIdEnmfY8JnIyphoHDmiEg&s=09

*I can't imagine that there is much love for Matt Walsh on a feminist board. Understandably so! But I have seen plenty of respect for some of the things he has done to raise awareness on the topic of gender identity.

They haven't done in the last 7/8 years or so that I've been following this on Twitter so I don't personally hold out much hope. But what I will say is that there have been several of these tru-trans and GC alliances and they always go this way. They have always crashed and burned because of TRAs prioritising things which are unpalatable to feminists.

Watching KJK’s live on YouTube yesterday she also said she doesn’t personally believe that gender is a social construct.

(I have no idea if this is what KJK meant - )

It depends what you describe as "gender" as there are certainly biological links to some stereotypes. For example, women's clothes have to be physically different to fit - obviously protective gear too. The problem is that it's become commercialised via fashion and so moves beyond practicality and into cultural / fashionable stereotyping.

The brain changes that occur during pregnancy that gear the mother to protect her child will have some sort of recognised function that can be stereotyped (the change's apparently last up to two years) but again this means that stereotype evolves culturally further than this to lead to inhibiting women's lives beyond motherhood. Via children's toys, books, expectations.

Consumerism and tv/ online media has completely destroyed our ability to discern what's biologically relevant and what's being culturally sold to us.

I haven't seen the clip but I personally don't use the word gender at all because I don't have a need for it.

I'm not sure if I would consider myself GC, sex realist, feminist or all of the above (where "sex realist" refers to the belief that is protected in law that sex is immutable). I'd say I'm pretty new to feminism, only having really thought about it in recent years when I realised how much the world was stacked towards the way that so many men see women's value through the lens of how attractive they consider the women to be.

These are the two different positions from what I can tell - screenshot below. I'm in the second group.

Your breakdown of the sex-based stereotypes and their origins helps to add an extra layer as to how cultural norms evolve and how these might be linked to biology. The hormone changes around pregnancy and how this influences behaviour is a great one - starting with "nesting" just prior to the birth.

He wasn't insisting any rules be changed. He wasn't even asking for any rules to be changed.

And it's not his responsibility to provide you with a reason for his clothing choice that you deem acceptable. "This is what I feel like wearing, so piss off and mind your own business" is reason enough.

'this is what gets me off, look at me'.

The rules have changed.

We weren't previously expected to accept men in dresses at work.
Now we are.

@BonfireLady@MalagaNights I dunno if this info will help or further confuse 😁 but as part of my undergraduate degree I studied Feminist Political Theory (this was decades before it got renamed as Women’s Studies and then queered into Gender Studies) and we always used the terms ’sex-based stereotypes’. However, in books from the US they often used ‘gender-based stereotypes’ because Americans often substitute what they see as the more polite word ‘gender’ for the word ‘sex’.

I think this is where the term ‘gender’ got mutated from (sex-based) stereotypes to this newer phenomenon of 'gender as a cultural-construct'.

Gender is basically the sex-based stereotypes (and rules of behaviour) a given culture associates with either men or women, and various schools of Feminist Theory have evolved with their own critiques of how to tackle the resulting disadvantage/discrimination that affects women.

I could suggest an interesting, easy to comprehend textbook used on one of my Uni courses if you feel like looking it up:

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315003221/feminist-thought-rosemarie-tong

This edition is more recent than the one I studied but it still contains info on the major schools of feminist theory.

It wasn't a conference aimed at children or at any particular vulnerable group

But it was a conference that encouraged the attendance of some very vulnerable people including children, and adults who had been abused, and people similar to their abusers. The conference didn't have an "adults only" warning, and it didn't have a set of rules for expected behaviour.

I've been at conferences around sexuality that have similar issues and they manage things by being explicit about what is expected/allowed where. Some kinds of "dressing up" might be allowed at a particular workshop or at an evening social, but not in the general areas, and there will be warning. Some items would be restricted to identifiable areas, and child-safe areas are identified.

If you're going to mix people with very different needs and wishes then you have to think it through and let people know what they're likely to encounter and what behaviour and limits are expected, ideally ahead of time and not on the hoof.

Aargh wrong thread

Thank you for the info.

The reason I don't use the word gender (I used to as a polite synonym for sex) is because I've realised that there is far more benefit in letting it go. It is well and truly owned by the people who believe that we all have a gender identity. It's possible to discuss and understand sexism, how sex-based stereotypes came to exist, how cultural norms associated with the sexes without ever needing the word "gender".

To explain my position as best I can: I don't contest the tenets of the belief. I have no interest in understanding how many genders there are because none of it means anything to me. There could be 100 plus by now. My interest is in helping to make sure it's not pushed as a compelled truth. It's the impacts of the belief that I challenge, rather than the details within the belief. Transwomen are welcome to believe that they are women but that means nothing to me because I don't hold a belief in gender identity. And I don't want laws, education or healthcare to pull this belief in as a truth. These should be based on observable facts (sex is observable, even to those who state that it was "assigned to" them at birth) and statistical patterns. I hold a belief that sex is immutable in the same way that I hold a belief that the world is round, not flat: I've seen plenty of evidence to suggest it's a truth. Ultimately it's recognised in law as a WORIAD belief that sex is immutable and that's what counts. A belief that we all have a gender identity is contestable in the same way as a belief in God, in reincarnation or in ghosts.

This is a really key point.

There were some transgender attendees who were (as far as could be observed) staying within the social contract that I'd imagine the majority would find acceptable. Not everyone would, but the majority within the context of the conference. If it were a conference about trans widows, that completely changes the equation.

Julia Malott is a good example. There are tweets out there in the wilds of the internet where Julia is talking about transwomen breastfeeding - so there are certainly some red flags. However, from what I've seen, Julia is currently contributing a net positive towards the goal of safeguarding children. Even now staying within the safeguarding rules of not using women's toilets and changing rooms (according to Julia, Julia stopped doing this 8 months ago). There are two possibilities here: 1) Julia genuinely wants to contribute towards safeguarding children in a positive way or 2) Julia is playing the long game very well.
Personally I'm glad that Julia is at the conference offering the insight that Julia brings. However, I rely on Genspect to set the right safeguarding measures for Julia to follow in both attending the conference and in how influencial Julia's voice is in shaping the framework. On balance, there is more to be gained from having Julia participate in discussion from within the Genspect circle than Julia being part of the WPATH crowd. Obviously Genspect needs to be watching out for all sorts of risk, including any double agents etc. So far, they don't seem to have this competence. But that doesn't mean they can't sort it. I'll be watching their comms with interest. They royally messed up here and need to demonstrate that they recognise that, either by direct apology (unlikely I suspect) or a clear delivery of how they will learn from this or both.

A thought that I've been really reflecting on from this thread is the risk that is posed by failing to safeguard against the risks that a person poses to those around them. To use the parallel of autism:

My daughter has a PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) style of response when she is highly anxious and is triggered. The PDA autism response comes from a fight or flight survival instinct - the person feels that whatever is being asked of them is going to cause them harm. Even something as basic as asking them to get their shoes on. When their anxiety is low, this response doesn't happen, so the main aim is to keep anxiety as low as possible through a variety of strategies. Some led by adults, some self-led. If things start to escalate, there are other strategies. But a key part of the PDA response is that it's performative. It's designed to get a reaction because what the person really wants is to gain back control in order to feel safe. Obviously the psychology behind the acronym is different (it's driven by sexual thrill, not survival) but the escalating dangers are sufficiently similar because they pose a real risk to others.

There is discussion and division amongst psychiatrists that PDA is either a completely separate type of autism or it's present in all autistic people, to a greater or lesser degree.

The reasonable adjustments that are accommodated at school in and around her lessons are there to lower her anxiety, not to accommodate dealing with her exploding (this is also managed of course, if needed). Society doesn't have to budge up and say "Oh, it's fine. She threw a chair but no worries". Instead she needs to learn strategies to help her understand the world and that this is not acceptable in society. Thankfully good progress is being made here. But if I had listened to the autism groups, helping her to build resilience and learn better strategies than throwing a chair is "ableist". The point at which I'd decided that the groups were of no use to me was where there was a discussion about prisoners and how people just needed to understand that many prisoners are autistic (OK... yes, agreed. That's helpful to understand how to both support and manage them).... and that's why we've got too many people in prison. Eh? WTAF?! So we should be giving people a gentle warning rather than a custodial sentence because they couldn't control themselves and society just has to budge up. No.

For me, having Phil at the conference and knowing the escalating risks of the acronym, this is a similar issue. In so far as it's pathway of escalating risk. If my daughter were to believe it was acceptable to throw chairs, what's going to come next when she feels out of control? If someone is allowed to perform their fetish, what next to get the next thrill? If Genspect is going to listen to all voices, they need to be completely on top of this.

Bonfire, one of the things that puzzles me is that there are people in Genspect who work with children (for example Stella and Sasha work as adolescent therapists) and should have been trained in safeguarding procedures, so I’m confused as to why that training didn’t kick in when it came to organising the conference.

I’m honestly not trying to be unreasonable in my criticism of how things were handled but it seems such a glaring safeguarding error to allow that attendee’s behaviour (and to promote him) that I can’t understand how none of these professionals picked up on it.

@BonfireLady I'd put money on "playing the long game". TRAs overreached and the clever ones know that they need to row back for now.

This is very much a "give an inch" situation. We've seen it time and again. That's why so many of us react so viscerally to AGPs being given the time of day. Genspect are of course free to learn from AGPs, they can decide whether there is value in that particular course of action. But they don't have to do it at a mixed agenda conference, and they don't have to publish images of a man living his best fetish on their twitter account.

I'd put money on "playing the long game".

Some groups are outstanding at the long game.

In a conversation between Gluck and Glinner, it's obvious that it's a deliberate strategy because various organisations had previously been stopped by feminists, lesbians, women.

That's why there's been so much care to demonise women, marginalise and traduce us so that our voices are disdained and ignored. (Denton's playbook is very clear about this and it's been very successful.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1760s&v=mS8ZfFZ-Bc0

In another thread, zeldafighter cited this piece from 2014 that reinforces the tactic of cancelling and boycotting women.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2

Thomas Szasz's 1979 review in the NYT of Raymond's Transsexual Empire:

Miss Raymond has rightly seized on transsexualism as an emblem of modern society's unremitting — though increasingly concealed — antifeminism.…

Janice Raymond's analysis is bitterly correct. The very existence of the “transsexual empire” is evidence of the persistence of our deep‐seated religious and cultural prejudices against woman.

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

Interesting article about Genspect 'debacle' which seems to boil down to ‘it’s not Genspect or the men who created the problem, it’s all feminists’ fault for being nasty'. 🤷‍♀️

https://medium.com/@amykronenberg1/phil-illy-and-genspects-autogynephilia-problem-54fabf3fcc68

Oh, it's always our fault.

Personally I'm glad that Julia is at the conference offering the insight that Julia brings. However, I rely on Genspect to set the right safeguarding measures for Julia to follow in both attending the conference and in how influencial Julia's voice is in shaping the framework.

Remind me, isn't this basically how all the organisations got initially captured in the first place?

It is text book 'get in at the start' infiltration.

I'm not really making big political points or trying to argue who should be prioritised or even worrying about people deliberately undermining the rules - just saying that it's up to the conference organisers to set the rules of engagement and to say clearly what they are.

As far as I can tell Phil Illy and his outfit didn't pose an immediate safeguarding threat to participants, though I agree that indirectly there are many concerns that the organisers do need to think through. And safeguarding is a separate question from whether there is a net positive or negative effect.

Genspect might not be able to host a single conference that meets all these different needs. It's potentially a positive thing to host different events and different kinds of events with different attendees - a sign of how many people with many different backgrounds and perspectives are deeply enagaged in what Genspect have to offer. So Genspect need to consider what/who their main conference is for, and what the limits are.

Ironically if the main conferene is "for anyone and everyone" then the limits may actually have to be tighter and more conventional than an event with more limited attendance.

I'm not making any political points at all, other than I'm sick of having to play nicely to men who fetishise womanhood. Why do they fetishise it? Because of the power imbalance.

It's all about power. Always.

It's not solely about 'the long game', I'd suggest.

Which is more inviting to a boundary transgressor - a conference where they are welcome and accepted, or a conference where they cause scandal, upset and strife?

It is VERY hard for people to understand personality disorders because they don't follow the normal social rules or expected course of action. It is important to remember the word 'disorder' is there for a reason.

My suspicion is more than if they don't think Genspect would get anywhere they'd be nowhere near it. But they do, so that's where they will go next.

Yes they, AGPs.

God that article about Reddit forums & furries makes me want to identify as a prude.

I think I'm just sick of sex as an identity which is publically shared. I don't want to know. Don't involve me.

I want public and formal spaces to just be sex free. I want generic bland rules everyone conforms to when in public or work environments. Including dress codes.

Then in your personal time find your crowd, do your thing, in places where I can choose not to go.

I didn't use to be this prudish. I had quite a wild youth, but I didn't talk about it at work and I dressed appropriately and generically.

I don't want gimps on the high street for gay pride. I don't want men at work dressed in women's clothes talking about their journey to their true self. I don't want to know if you only want sex with people you are romantically attracted to. Partly because that's nearly everyone and partly because I don't care about you or your sex life.

I want standards and boundaries and privacy and modesty and courtesy and moderation and appropriateness.

I have become Mary Whitehouse and I don't care.

I identify as a prude. I want it to be recognised as a gender and I want the world to bow to my demands.