"Tipping point" - What will it look like? (Trigger warning for suicide)

[WitchyWitcherson]

Inspired by a poster on the Henning Wehn post regarding a "tipping point" (and the feeling that we're perpetually creeping closer, but never seem to get there), what do you think the tipping point for the demise of gender ideology will be and look like?

On the positive side, I think there will be a mass sigh of relief that we can finally talk about this publicly without fear, that being Gender Critical will be recognised as rational thought, that young people identifying as trans will get proper help and support. I hope for sex segregated spaces and a sensible approach to people identifying as trans; with their own individual needs met across the board (from their own sports categories to bathrooms).

On the negative side, akin to dying cults, I fear that the vulnerable members of the trans community will will truly believe that life isn't worth living any more, and that activists will use their deaths as a tactic to keep their ideology alive.

The false links that TRAs have already put out there between people "not being able to live their best lives" (i.e. being denied any therapy that isn't affirmative) and suicide have already been put out there dressed as facts; "TERFs" are "literally killing trans people" with our words etc. etc. I think this is dangerous and something we need to look out for when we do reach the tipping point - how do we support these vulnerable people?

Has anyone had any similar thoughts about what a tipping point will look like? I'm hoping in many ways for a quiet fade-out with a minimal number of casualties along the way, but when legislation starts to change, that might cause things to snowball.

It will have to be when Starmer stands next to Rosie Duffeld and apologises for her treatment by the misogynists in his party.

Or the BBC correctly identifies trans identified men. And does a documentary about how TRAs have bent the law and infiltrated organisations.

I don't think that will happen!

As for a BBC documentary - maybe in 10 years minimum??

It's just too hard to say isn't it. When a really big piece of news comes out, we think, this is it!! Then we hear other things that set us back. It's all so bloody exhausting.

The worry is that the dying beast will take as many down with them as possible and that WILL include our kids.

I think this is dangerous and something we need to look out for when we do reach the tipping point - how do we support these vulnerable people?

If the likes of Stonewall, Press for Change and their equivalents had handled things differently from the start, third spaces would have been in place for years, women’s sports teams etc would have been protected while ensuring that transwomen were welcome in male / open category sport & this wouldn’t be happening now.

The BBC had that excellent podcast series about Stonewall but that seems to have been it.

It will be the same as in any abusive relationship.

Your abuser may threaten to harm themselves if you don't stay with them. But it is not your job to sacrifice yourself and give them whatever they want at the time regardless of consequences to you in a fruitless attempt to keep them happy enough to keep themselves safe. Not to mention, many have learned that threats like this work very well to keep other people in line, whether or not there is any real intent to harm.

At the end of the day, that is the responsibility of themselves, or of mental health professionals if the need is real and serious. And the best thing you can do is walk away and hand that responsibility back to the person. And if need be call the police to let them know that x person is in acute danger and leave it with the professionals.

I do say that as the ex of an abuser who frequently pulled that card on me, with cutting (look what you made me do), and escalated so long as I was holding the other end of the rope. Once I walked away and handed that responsibility back, suddenly they started using the MH services they'd been rejecting (mostly at me, look, I'm so upset with whatever it is you haven't fixed in the past five minutes that I'm not going to my appointment) for months.

So much of this is about poor boundaries. Those who will not respect other people's boundaries. And those too afraid to put up healthy boundaries and not be vaccuumed into enabling.

I don't think there will be one tipping point; rather an accumulation of events along with the passage of time. I've always estimated it would take a couple of decades to fully unravel - given the extent of generational and institutional capture. Things will move and unravel at different speeds. As we've seen, for example, professional and international sport is becoming one area in which definitive action, based on dawning realisation and public rejection, is drawing its boundaries more tightly; whereas gender identity is still being pushed in schools by activist teachers.

One of the main issues I think is that when matters become realised and manifested in law then it can take a lot longer - which, for me, is the problem with the Labour party and its commitment to Self ID. That in itself will encourage even more people to develop and adopt trans identities, which will in its turn embed trans ideology even more firmly.

I think when it comes to suicide, there are two groups: the narcissists who threaten it to get what they want and the genuinely vulnerable people who are having to cope with a belief system that tells them that they will be happy if they have this medication/surgery and meet unrealistic goals of becoming indistinguishable from the opposite sex.
The first group is going to shout louder and louder, but I expect that things will become easier for the second as it begins to be clearer that they can be themselves without surgery or conforming to trans stereotyping.

I don't think we are anywhere near unfortunately. A few minor victories but look at what is happening in Scotland and the changes in the law proposed for England.

I hope you are right! My worry is the first group will be encouraging the second into doing it so they can fuel their agenda. As with Frood's previous abuser, the first group is the group that threaten and threaten until you drop the rope.

It's the second I worry about when we do drop the rope. Not saying we shouldn't drop the rope, we just need to make sure something is in place to support those who are vulnerable to this ideology's hyperbolic rhetoric about suicide risk for trans people.

I think for the general public, there has been a series of tipping points - Lia Thomas, Isla Bryson and so on. To a large extent, I think the vast majority of ordinary people think this ideology is nonsense. They might not think it's particularly important, though, and for many it might just be something they roll their eyes at rather than something that will cause them to go on a march or change their vote or sign a petition about.

The reason this is proving so difficult to challenge is the ideological capture of the BBC, the NHS, the universities etc. Those organisations are so heavily invested in this (sometimes literally, in the sense of being on a Stonewall-approved list) that they can't just suddenly change tack. If they're going to change, they need something pretty dramatic to happen - either an outright rebellion by their own staff (which I think won't happen because people are too scared) or, more likely, an event that causes them to face the consequences of their own actions. In the case of the NHS, that might be a death caused by wrongly classifying a male as a female, or it might be a lawsuit resulting from a patient who's been sexually assaulted by a man.

But it's going to be a hard fight. The fact that doctors are blithely ignoring the government-initiated Cass Review and prescribing even more puberty blockers than before shows just how difficult it's going to be.

@RoyalCorgi I agree, more people are becoming aware of what's going on and perhaps paying more attention.

It's sad that it's likely going to take a big event for the captured orgs to change their tune, hopefully it's not one that's too catastrophic like a death! I've noticed the very occasional gender critical article on the Guardian - maybe it'll trickle through very slowly.

Yes, let's hope it's not a death. One possibility is that it could simply be litigation from de-transitioners - I saw somewhere that in the US there are now 11 de-transitioners undertaking lawsuits. That should make the NHS worried.

I fear that the vulnerable members of the trans community will will truly believe that life isn't worth living any more, and that activists will use their deaths as a tactic to keep their ideology alive.

Sorry but I really don't see a future where any gender critical outcomes or solutions (eg third spaces or better mental health support for gender confusion) could lead to transpeople thinking "life is not worth living".

What ever makes you think an overall acceptance of GC views would lead to that?

Most trans people when asked agree that male bodied people shouldn't complete with women in sports, or eg be housed in women's prisons or shelters if workable third spaces were an option.

Most trans people agree that children should be left alone to develop first.

If the tiny tiny minority of aggressive and vocal TRAs- who have been making huge strides so far, can't handle a failed attempt to obliterate women's rights, they will probably indeed have a huge hissy fit, but are unlikely to all top themselves.

Trans suicides are tragic and awful, but are rarely linked to anything gender critical people have said or done. It's usually transition regret or other mental health issues post-transition.

But that would never have happened because the people pushing the ideology and agenda have always had access to unconsenting women and children as the goal - not third spaces.

If it was really about the safety of vulnerable people, we'd have had third spaces by now and women would have fought for this.

It's not about that, and it never was. Those who are vulnerable are being used as a tool to push an anti-women and children agenda.

I think it's when the progressives who simply bolted the gender stuff onto the set of beliefs they're supposed to hold, find that when they're preaching to their teenage children they're met with derision because the trans stuff is now so cringe.

Sorry, I should be more clear. Outcomes I hope for are that we have third spaces and better mental health provision; long-term this will help.

If we see a sudden tipping point, which I don't think there will be, I believe that there are members of the trans-rights lobby who will claim that life isn't worth living for trans people because of "all the transphobia". I've already seen people talking about "the transphobic direction the UK is going".

I believe that, as PP have mentioned, there are the narcissistic types who will threaten suicide because "transphobia" and I believe there are vulnerable people who will believe that this transphobia exists and feel threatened by a fabricated "transphobic threat" and potentially end their life because of it. All of this would be due to the rhetoric perpetuated by TRAs, not caused by GC beliefs.

Thanks for the thread.

I also can see various tipping points. I've just seen in another thread that James Esses has settled against the UKCP and they have released a statement acknowledging the clinical validity of support for exploratory therapy rather than blind affirmation. This row back of institutional capture is a particular tipping point for me as a mental health professional.

On the subject of vulnerable people who have been misled by gender ideology, I agree that some may become more anxious and upset and their mental health may worsen, yes to the point of suicide potentially. I know one such person as a friend. They have been lied to and become convinced of ideas including conspiracy theories about trans genocide. I hope that real-world evidence will bring them out of this cult. But they live online with their new "community". I don't know. I'll be there for my friend. If they let me.

I think it will be slow, and it will not be single country phenomena, though will happen at different speeds in different places. And different institutions will have different challenges.

Lawsuits or other things like that may make a big impact on places like schools or the NHS. But I suspect also that more and more employees, and service users, will be speaking up on an individual basis too. And the more that happens, the more will speak out, and at a certain point it will be impossible to maintain their stance as an organization.

I also think that another big leap may happen when you see more doctors and scientists speak out. It was hugely bolstering to GI that publications like National Geographic or Scientific American, and the medical establishment in general, seemed to say this was all science based. There are a significant number for whom that solidified their view that GI is scientifically based.

Universities might have a tougher time. They are so immersed in identity politics. and they are facing other challenges at the same time, questions about their social purpose, credentialism, funding, intellectual freedom, etc. I think that we may see something of a collapse of the university system as it exists now.

I believe that, as PP have mentioned, there are the narcissistic types who will threaten suicide because "transphobia" and I believe there are vulnerable people who will believe that this transphobia exists and feel threatened by a fabricated "transphobic threat" and potentially end their life because of it. All of this would be due to the rhetoric perpetuated by TRAs, not caused by GC beliefs.

Yes, I do see where you're coming from but I see a different outcome.

Currently, as it stands, gender ideology with all it's myths and hyperbole has a stranglehold over vulnerable young people with rhetoric like "if you're trans there are evil terfs out there who want trans genocide" and "your parents will hate you if you're trans" (just take a cursory look at Mermaids' Forum for to find this rhetoric left to stand unquestioned by it's moderators, or any other place for adolescents discussing GI).

It's a paranoid, hopeless, fearful position to be in if you believe these things as a gender questioning child. It's no wonder suicide ideation is high for these young people.

If there were more freedom for GC views to have a voice, views like "wear whatever you want," "there's nothing wrong with your body the way it is" and "no one cares what consensual sex is being had between people" with the obvious line "you can't change reality unfortunately but people will still be respectful even if they don't believe you have changed sex" (etc etc). Then there's no fear.

^ I posted too soon...
I just think there would be less paranoia that the world is out to get you if you're trans.
There would be more agreement and balance.
A positive outcome leading to less suicide ideation than we have at present.

With all respect, after listening to R4 today interviewing someone about non binary cows in a Christmas panto, I don’t believe that we’re anywhere near a tipping point.

Wow, I can’t imagine me from ten years ago ever imagining the existence of such a sentence, or such a concept as non-binary pantomime cows 🤯🤯

Our society is truly strange at times 🤔

It will take a young girl being murdered by a male (larger, older) in a televised sporting event.