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?

Not just gaming though, the echolalia can come from tv/ film too. Or even nature.

Which is from what I've observed is where autistic children who act out being animals to the extreme that is outwith normal peer social behaviour (now called identifying as) occurs.

It's also a common normal occurrence among pre schoolers and early years children - mimicking people and animals in play, but neurotypical children grow out of it as they become more socially aware of the peers and social norms.

This is what I think they are failing to grasp.
I have no doubt that Dr Az, Stella O'Malley and others have lots of experience in the psychology of gender identity. But I'm not convinced that they have fully grasped the impact of autism on all of this. Dr Az's chapter on autism in his recent book missed the impact of autism on girls entirely (e.g. sensory issues with breast development and periods, general preference for practical "boys' clothes" amongst other things) and I think that they are all failing boys too WRT the nuances relating to sexuality and autism. Male sexuality is innate but that doesn't mean outside influences can't have an impact.

Put simply, where online interactions, the changes in girls' bodies/the emergence of sexuality in boys collide, it's a recipe for autistic teenagers to conclude that "because I am not this, I am that".

This quote was said in the House of Lords (link below, approx 3 mins 15 secs) in relation to girls but I think it will apply equally to boys who are attributing an interpretation of why they are feeling turned on to conclude that they must be girls after all i.e. they think that's what being a girl is.

https://twitter.com/FamEdTrust/status/1732765323814715795?t=32ymnvp_IuyYEMnLnkkfeQ&s=19

They are therapists not conference specialists.

They are too nice to say 'take your fetish wear out of my conference'.

They work in the arena so someone says 'here's a book on something to do with your arena' and they bang it on their website and give the author a free ticket to the conference.

What they need is to hire someone more experienced in conferences who isn't scared to say that there is a dress code. Giving out free tickets to anyone other than speakers or in exchange for assistance is to be honest, bad in itself.

No I don't think they are getting it for the reasons you outline @BonfireLady

I've not finished watching the whole thing but I found where he started talking about the binary way of thinking, labelling and organising- this is a very common autistic trait that comes from an early "deficit" from want of a better word.

Put simply, it's harder for some autistic children to flexibly transfer details across categories. (The simplest level would be how much dogs vary and how to tell the difference between a dog and a cat. It can result in favouring certain things eg a particular restaurant and a particular item off the menu because it's predictable. Knowing that a Mac Donald's can look one way in one town but another way in a different town, with the same menu, may have to be explicitly taught.)

Skilled educators (speech and language specialists would be key here) need to be aware of this, and usually are in send settings designed for autistic learners.

But more academically able autistic students may not be in those settings and may develop frameworks to interpret the world without anyone realising, which with sex / gender stereotypes, can very easily lead to the binary thinking he describes.

Which is WHY it's SO important to be challenging gender stereotypes from a young age; neurotypical children also do this anyway, schemas, categories and frameworks develop naturally from very early on and rely on gentle adult support to develop in nuanced ways that aren't too binary. It has to be age appropriate too. But it can be harder for those with specific language difficulties and autism.

And then you've the internet confirming everything. I was once part of a synesthesia group on facebook and some were obsessed with gendering objects and numbers etc. it was clearly very gender stereotype driven.

The additional problem for me is that many people, including many professionals and educators, cannot themselves separate out the sexist binary labels as he described doing with groups of clients.

There's a a fuck ton of unpacking to be done in many professions who will work with children.

There's a a fuck ton of unpacking to be done in many professions who will work with children.

Agreed!

Your follow-on thoughts from Dr Az's point about everything being deconstructed to be male or female make a lot of sense. By extension, if autistic children are looking for this certainty during the difficulties and hormonal changes that are faced (by everyone, including neurotypical children) during puberty, this is going to be even more heightened.

It feels like the dots are mostly all there for the professionals to join up but they are all too siloed from each other to achieve this. Worse still the organisations that would be close enough to autistic children to lead the way are all captured by the idea that gender identity is a truth.

Helen Pluckrose has been appointed to Genspect’s Advisory Board.

In my opinion, this is another duff move by Genspect, especially after the conference issues that happened before Xmas.

Tweet thread in response by Genevieve Gluck:

"Very disappointing. Pluckrose has a history of mocking women generally but also those who question her claims that feminism, eg radical feminism, is the source of gender identity ideology. GI was developed by sexologists and psychiatrists, but she appears to have a bias on this."

https://twitter.com/WomenReadWomen/status/1747457716535300513

They don't centre safeguarding. Looks to be a busted flush of a situation really.

I know Stella O’Malley says Genspect doesn’t need to centre safeguarding because they’re an advocacy organisation rather than a therapeutic organisation but I think I would disagree with that view because of the cohort of people on whose behalf they advocate. These people are vulnerable and have often been ill-served by other medical bodies and charities who let safeguarding fall by the wayside in service of ideology.

I mean, organisations like WPATH and Mermaids etc all ignore even basic safeguarding and look at the crazy shit that’s made it into their advocacy work and their standards of care. I think bearing safeguarding in mind would have mitigated the descent for some of these advocacy organisations.

So that’s why I’m not convinced Pluckrose is a good addition to the advisory board: she doesn’t believe in ROGD, she doesn’t believe in single-sex spaces/provisions for women, she doesn’t believe that AGP is a concern with regards to the safety of women and families. She really has a problem with GC feminism. Her public persona is very often abrasive and unpleasant. I can’t see what she brings to the table for Genspect.

They can't not do safeguarding in an organisation that only exists because of other agencies abandoning safeguarding. They just can't.

What position will they decide to advocate for and how will they get there? And in what ways will that be better, if they don't focus on safeguarding? It cannot work.

An addition with influence who doesn't believe in ROGD or single sex spaces sounds like cuckooing. Which is what's happened to women's organisations (I won't include children's charities there as they have always had problems).

They're a busted flush. Great idea on paper but in reality it's not going to make things better.

I don't know much about Pluckrose. What qualifications or expertise is she bringing to Genspect?

'Helen Pluckrose is a political and cultural writer and commentator who highlights and opposes ideological capture in vital institutions. Helen. above all, just wants people to value evidence-based epistemology and the free exchange of ideas.'

That sounds fine, but then I've read some of her tweets which very much don't seem to be based in evidence whatsoever.

Helen Pluckrose is disingenuous and divisive. Someone who values faux-clever words over the real experiences and feelings of women and girls. This is not a good move.

I had such high hopes for Lindsay, Pluckrose and Boghossian. Goddammit.

I'm getting to the stage of believing that nobody who uses the word epistemology is a serious person.

True

I know what you mean. Lindsay has lost it; his behaviour towards women in particular is MRA behaviour on steroids.

Pluckrose doesn’t seem to think sexism exists and doesn’t think women exist as a sex class.

Boghossian has had multiple deep conversations with knowledgeable feminists and scientists in which he seems to be learning a lot but then he resets back to his libertarian ideas by the next interview and he’s back to being fine with the idea of 18 year olds being able to do whatever they want to their bodies because that’s the age the law allows for people to make adult decisions 🤷‍♀️

They have quite quickly become what they wanted to expose.

It’s so frustrating to watch it happening.

Boghossian is the most pleasant of the three, and initially comes across as the most open to new ideas. He talks to the widest range of people in his podcast (and he looks like he’s learning new things and he says frequently that Helen Joyce blew his mind with the discussion they had) but he seems to value Liberalism/Libertarianism more than society having a duty of care to the vulnerable and so his advocacy is centred on freedom of speech and association.

He seems more than happy to leave advocating for children’s and women’s safety to feminists; he agrees that children shouldn’t be medically transitioned and that AGP has a negative effect on women and families (and he interviews a fair number of people who agree with that position) but he leaves it at interviewing them; he doesn’t get involved.

With a Swiftian turn of phrase, Glinner has been known to phrase this as, "Getting high off huffing their own farts".

Where does it say they don’t do safeguarding @ResisterRex ? That seems like a pretty wild statement

If you RTFT, you'll see the discussions about safeguarding throughout.

It doesn't matter that they say they are advocacy rather than therapeutic, they need to understand safeguarding. One simple reason is that otherwise they will not be able to recognise when they've been infiltrated or deal with concerns when they are raised. They are signposting to anyone with an agenda they are easy pickings.

The more I read from Helen Pluckrose, the less I feel she’ll be useful to an organisation working in a difficult social space and advocating for vulnerable people.

Tweet from GenderReceipts:
'New Genspect appointee is sick of your moaning ladies, if an AGP wears a bra & knickers in front of you but isn’t erect you need to shut your mouths.'
https://twitter.com/GenderReceipts/status/1748711145299480730

I came across an interesting discussion of the Genspect approach to associations:

https://ovarit.com/o/GenderCritical/529371/the-agp-divide-what-s-it-all-about-and-on-which-side-do-the-podcasters-fall