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 get what you are saying but Blanchard didn't talk to AGPs and then put faux cutesy photos of them on his social media. It trivialises the harm they have caused to women and children. Harm to trans widows, to women like prisoners and patients and refuge users who have had their single sex spaces ripped away because AGPs managed to influence policy. I don't want AGPs to be given legitimacy in a debate that should centre women's needs. Even if they're saying "I'm a massive pervert, you need to do everything to keep me and people like me away from women and children."

Even then I would expect that to happen with appropriate safeguarding, as per SSA.

I don't know this guy. I don't know if his book is a genuine attempt to help understanding or his fetish being played out on a wider stage.

The point is, we're so beaten down that we've set our bar too low. "Look, some men are AGPs therefore we need to rethink GRA2005 and reinforce boundaries around single sex spaces." No! GRA2005 is terrible legislation. Women deserve single sex spaces, not just because perverts, because we want them! We don't need to delve into men's many and varied paraphilia to assert our rights.

I think the issue here for me is that queer theory has so ingrained the 'rights' of individuals that we are unable to ask for 'decencies' in our everyday life.

So a conference you could feasibly request 'business attire' but then that will demonise those that turn up in jeans and t-shirt. Because who needs to be in a suit to do business right? And I'm in that jeans and t-shirt group. But I'd wear a suit jacket if a conference called for it.

But if you are hosting a conference where children will be present, and you are swimming in a sea of men who have paraphilias [who you know are a risk as you have said this in your own statement] then you cannot mix the two. Having detranitioners who are vulnerable in one corner making friendship bracelets whilst big old AGPs are performing their fetish in another, means you have to either do the 'support vulnerable people' bit or the 'investigate men with fetishes' bit.

Genspect, who I genuinely think are trying to do the right thing to navigate this, need to really understand forced teaming, coersion and dupers delight. And build that into attendance at future conferences. They really do! If AGPs are turning up, which they will do as they force their way into every space because that's part of the fetish, they need to manage that and not alienate the people that have been on their side.

As for Benjamin Boyce, well I fucking knew it. That's all I can say on that.

I listened to Jane Clare Jones on Benjamin Boyce where he talked about a woman in her yoga kit passing him in street “dressed sexy” or similar. JCJ explained with the patience of a saint that it wasn’t sexy clothing, it was functional clothing. He only seemed to get the issue with street/sexual harassment when she described her experience aged 12. Let’s just say I think less of him now. Same old, same old.

He makes the argument that there’s an equivalent female condition to AGP - AAP - which I’d never heard before.

That's a claim often made by AGPs, but they never provide any evidence to back it up. Probably because it's not true.

Agree @AlisonDonut. I think that's mostly what Safe Schools Alliance were saying.

"Faux cutesy photo" is rather over-egging that picture.

One of the things that first made me GC - way back in the mists of time, before KJK was an activist and well before Maya was fired for thinking women exist as a sex category - was my horror at the lockstep absolutism that was developing under the guise of "kindness" and "inclusivity." If you thought that crossdressing and generally playing around with gender expression was no big deal, suddenly you also had to sign up to this demented new idea that sex is a social construct and actually clothing choices ARE the sex category. Except when it comes to children, when medicalising their misery was the only acceptable option and "just clothes" suddenly not a whole gender identity at all. I rejected that batshit absolutism, and I still do.

So I am not impressed to see there are people in the GC movement who expect us all to have the same mindset on everything and if we don't, we are causing "literal harm" to a a whole new vulnerable group. I resisted that emotional manipulation the first time around, and I'm resisting it now. No thank you, indeed.

It's all very well to say this but the point is how would anyone enforce it?

We used to enforce this through the social norms, but once you decide social norms are restrictive and everyone should be able to dress to express their true selves, it's very difficult to then say: but not you, because we don't like what you think about and how it makes you feel.

Do people actually think Genspect should have banned him or told him how to dress?
I agree they probably shouldn't have tweeted him.

I wonder why any men need to dress in women's clothes tbh? Like that bloke at Disney wearing the women's uniform. Why? Because he wants to.
Why does he want to though? Why is transgressing social norms by wearing certain clothing so important? Because we seem to now believe clothes are some essential expression of self and it's your right to express yourself and restrictions on this self expression are harmful.

Because we've bought into the idea that in all situations you should be able to express yourself freely, because not wearing non conforming clothes is damaging to the self which should be free to express itself even at work and school.

I'm actually fine with reasonable sex based dress codes at work and school. I don't think not being able to wear a skirt in some situations should be viewed as harmful to anyone.

But it's very difficult to enforce the rules of free expression for everyone at all times but then try to remove that from a few individuals whose motivation you don't like.

I think it's far too easy to criticise Genspect without thinking through the complexity and pragmatic reality of managing this.
But tweeting the photo was a big mistake, if only because now that's what everyone is talking about instead of their work.

💯

Indeed
It would appear that Genspect has been groomed

"I think the issue here for me is that queer theory has so ingrained the 'rights' of individuals that we are unable to ask for 'decencies' in our everyday life."

Exactly @AlisonDonut .

But I also think GC feminists have advocated for abolishing gender norms in clothing, which has given men a green light to perform femininity in public regardless their motivation, and it's very hard to organise rules that allow some men to do this and not others.

Maybe gendered clothing rules had some utility??

I just think some rules around clothing in some situations are necessary for all the reasons we're now discovering.

It’s not that women get aroused putting on bras and nice dresses, which I’ve seen AGP’s claim. It’s that some women are attracted to the idea of themselves as men. He seems to have uncovered some anecdotal evidence to back it up.

By this logic, we should ban footwear and even socks immediately because there are foot fetishists who get off on them.

Ban the behaviour - the obvious trampling of boundaries for sexual gratification - not the fetish object. The letter means we'll be playing whack-a-mole forever banning everything from shoes to photocopiers in the name of "enforcing social norms."

Are they really or are they actually atracted to being listened to and not described as shrill/ignored/whatever?

I saw James Lindsay yesterday being told by thousands of women what the issue was. Yet a man explains it the same way and he says 'You've got a point there'.

I mean, fucking hell James.

Well, I've certainly discovered that for some people skirts and heels = nice girl for some anti-genderists just as much as they do for some pro-genderists. They're just quibbling over the detail of who gets to wear them and therefore be a girl.

You obviously can't ban foorwear but you can agree in advance that a man kneeling down and licking womens' footwear in the middle of a conference should be removed for performing a fetish in public.

https://naturalselections.bio/p/the-public-fetish?utm_campaign=post

Good article here from Heather Heyer on her experience of Phil at the conference.

I have to say that this morning, seeing who James Lindsay [who co-wrote 'How To Have Impossible Conversations] has blocked on Twixxer is making me chuckle.

Yesterday he threatened KJK and now of course, he blocked her. Because conversations about men with fetishes are far too impossible right James?

But that would mean men can wear women's clothes as long as they don't visibly get erections, wank off in the toilet or touch women??

Or? Men can wear women's clothes as long as we don't know that you feel sexy doing it?

So we have a rule about how we feel about what you tell us you feel, rather than how you actually behave in those clothes?

I just keep coming back to: why do we think any men need or want to wear women's clothes to work?
Why do they need to?

Broadly agreed social norms, or uniform, for public spaces was a good thing. Those norms could change over time through public consent. But the new idea that social norms, including gender norms should just be abolished, and that clothing expression at all times is basically a human right, was always going to embolden exhibitionists.
Especially narcissistic men.

James Lindsay has lost the plot!!??

I'm not understanding his position or his strategy?

But it's interesting to watch!

James blamed women for creating gender ideology (somehow)

He was completely channeling the rules of misogyny

I can't find the tweet/quote from Lindsay about how clothes/fetish was the McGuffin and women pointing out this fetishist were 'missing the point'.

He's correct, partly.

The point is not the frock.

The point is manipulation.

The point is coercion.

The point is non-consensuality.

So, I'm not suggesting anyone is banned or clothing codes are introduced.

But I'd suggest that anyone working with fetishists who are self confessedly aroused by wearing so-called 'women's clothing' (he could have worn a pair of women's cut chinos, or jeans and a nice top; he chose something eye catchingly over the top in its female codedness. Why was that?) who then attend an event wearing this fetish gear, should be very well aware of how he is using, manipulating, and abusing everyone at the conference. I'd expect that level of insight.

They should be communicating this 'performance' to the audience. Be aware that any response will be thrilling. They should be aware that many women will no longer feel safe or able to attend.

This article is spot on imo.

Her summary point in particular convinced me:

The indirect effects of a man—even a good man—walking around in stereotypically female dress, in an era when other men who do this expect to be allowed in to female only spaces, to be treated as if they are women—are negative. I suppose that this is too bad for Illy, and others like him, that they should be expected to curtail their behavior because of other bad actors. But it is far worse if he does not curtail his behavior in public, far worse for the 50% of the population who are now on high alert at all times, protecting ourselves and our children against the compulsions of a few.

Yes, the end point is that this is a man who has successfully hit upon a way to source a massive narc supply of attention.

I can't understand why professionals working in the field aren't very well aware of it, or more to the point, why they don't appear to have sympathy for the effect his narcissism and manipulation will have on women.

'Phil alluded to being adept at performance art and circus acrobatics. He’s putting on a good show, I’d say'

No shit.

Women need to learn about personality disorders. And how fetishism and paraphilia are deeply intertwined with them.

I'm not a professional but the dynamic here is loud and clear:

Some men get off on attention, even/especially negative attention
some men get off on disgust
some men get off on fooling people
some men get off on carrying on 'in plain sight'

Almost all of these aspects of fetish have one common factor:

non consensuality.