‘I was having a much better time as a girl in that parallel life’

[ferretface]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/09/lucy-sante-i-heard-her-call-my-name-a-memoir-of-transition-extract

Of course you were having a much better time as a girl in that parallel life because you have absolutely no fucking clue what it's like to be a woman.

Lovely coverage for IWD from the Guardian slow hand clap I wonder if they've deliberately selected that headline to be provocative?

This article is The Guardian/Observer's ritual obeisance to their TRA staff because they've dared to publish a Hannah Barnes piece on the WPATH scandal. Whenever they're forced to cover news which is in any way critical of gender ideology I immediately assume there is going to be an OTT pro-trans piece for 'balance' and here it is.

If I am going to a store or a bank and there are multiple clerks or tellers, I will pick the youngest one because I know they’ll be nice

Creepy and gross

wanted to see myself as a woman in the act of love
Yeah bet he did 🤮

so Lucy didn’t know how to behave in bed as a man - but did manage to father a son. Right

Yep, so predictable.

If I am going to a store or a bank and there are multiple clerks or tellers, I pick the youngest one because I know they’ll be intimidated.

There you go Luc/ Lucy, fixed it for you.

[...] my lifelong desire to be a woman. It was, first of all, impossible.

The only reasonable part in this whole sexist claptrap of a piece.

Over the years I consumed an impressive amount of material on transgender matters, from clinical studies to personal accounts to journalistic exposés to porn.

So, yet another man who wanked his way into a 'female gender identity'.

A story that will be very familiar to Trans widows and those of us who have read their experiences.

“…wanted to see myself as a woman in the act of love…”

There’s a name for that isn’t there? 🤔 No, silly me, it doesn’t exist.

This is both sideism which plagues modern media. It's not journalism. It's opinionism.

Journalism is about reporting reality and holding power to account.

Opinionism is cheaper and good for generating clicks.

The Guardian's commitment to opinionism has long been known. It's why Little OJ STILL has a job against the mountain of evidence of his appalling behaviour.

Disagree. Whether we like it or not, people like Lucy exist, and have a right to share their stories. It's up to us what we make of the stories, and it's up to the media to provide balance between different views.

I mean, I don't think wanging on about feeling electric shocks to your crotch on seeing yourself as a woman is necessarily going to be a big persuasive argument, but, you know, Lucy does Lucy, you do you, I do me.

....isn't there a name for this....??? 🤔

You can do that, but you don't call it journalism and you don't have to do one piece for every piece of actual journalism.

Actual journalism should be given the weight it deserves. This is a massive medical scandal. Should that be equal to what Lucy says. If you care about Lucy and people like Lucy you still should be putting the medical scandal front and central and with shit loads more column inches.

I disagree with your disagreeing in that there needs to be ‘balance’ between these different views. Why not some degree of journalistic ethics in realising the more Luc/Lucy’s stories are celebrated, fawned over and lauded, the more we are going to see children and young people thinking they’re trans too?

Even in this story, the bigger issue is that Lucy does not seem to be doing Lucy. You may do you. I may do me or Red does Red, but there are a lot of extremely suggestible people out there being persuaded to do something that they’re really not. We know this from the many detransitioners.

Lucy talks of being influenced by a bloody app. Never mind the thousands of online influencers trying to … influence! (Or sell books). And succeeding. Most of the young people I know flirting with being trans were / are highly highly suggestible and very much easily influenced. Sometimes also carrying trauma.

Is there not some degree of thought to be given to safeguarding them? Why review this particular book? Out of the thousand possible books to review and why include it in the digital edition? There is a ton of evidence that the more a claim is repeated, the more it’s believed even if it is patently untrue.

I know there is lots of focus on porn's impact. But I don't think we are even at the start of understanding the impact of technology more generally. Its interesting (and a bit scary) how literally/uncritically the very well educated writer views the apps choices

This ^^ 💯times

Then later writes

'When I uploaded my first picture to FaceApp I felt liquid and melting in the core of my body. Now I feel a column of fire'.

I bet you do mate! I bet you do!

Such drama.

OK, balance was DEFINITELY the wrong word to use in my previous post. I don't mean balance as in "We've got an environmental scientist on to talk about climate change so here's a bloke with a 4x4 for balance". I suppose I mean that these people have a right to airtime (though maybe not quite as much as some of them think). We have protested about our voices being drowned out - I think that is getting much better now - but I don't think the answer is that the "other side" should lose their voice, either.

I mean, if they did, Operation Let Them Speak wouldn't be working as well as it is....

Fair enough Squeaky but from where I’m standing (HE explicitly being ‘queered’, workshops, pro noun badges, anonymous reporting, fetish societies, captured union, misrepresenting the pc’s etc) rest assured that far from the other side’s voices being being silenced, they’re still shouting from the rooftops and getting louder. Meanwhile, the GC side daren’t even whisper for fear of retribution.

Imaginary parallel lives are almost always happier, because they aren't real.

Adults are supposed to understand this. The ones who go running off after these imaginary scenarios, whatever that scenario is, are almost always emotionally immature.

Of course it happens all the time but it is weird that the writer here doesn't see the parallel.

I think it's bonkers that a journalist didn't pick up on it!

Even if you feature the opinions of someone that doesn't stop you reflecting on those opinions rather than just republishing them unfiltered or verbatim.

How can anyone think that someone who says their parallel life is happier is mentally ok and emotionally mature enough to change gender?!

This! We're going backwards.

Ikr! Daydreaming about a better life as a different version of yourself is pretty common!

Literally nobody imagines themselves less happy for fun, do they?

Sure, use the daydream as a prompt to wear dresses/ lose weight/ grow your hair / learn Spanish whatever.

But, that huge mansion with pools and a helipad you imagined yourself living in, or that career as a professional ballet dancer and the unicorn you rode to work..... Not everything we daydream can translate to reality.

The whole 'is it raining outside' for a journalist applies. They might hear four different opinions but their job is to assess those opinions - person one is sat in a car and has their eyes closed, person two is a liar and likes to live in a self confessed fantasy world, person three is outside the building in the street and person four is 600 miles away in a different country. The journalist is told by 1, 2 and 4 that it's not raining and person 3 tells them it is raining.

Should the journalist publish all four opinions uncritically and with equal weighing?

Urgh, vomit

I haven't heard of this but it's brilliant.

Sadly person 3 is a woman who believes in reality....