Jolyon jumps the shark - is trans a cult?

[CantDealwithChristmas]

Jolyon 'fox killer' Maugham has been on one for 6 days straight now. It all started with Streeting's PBs ban and ratcheted up when JoMo sent Streeting a list of 25 questions which Streeting ignored - and on a Sunday too. As of yesterday JoMo, a KC (though Guido Fawkes reported his licence expired in May), was encouraging people to break the law by accessing banned PB drugs from abroad. As of today he has well and truly jumped the shark with the below, horrible post on X.

My question to this board is why do TRAs feel the need to ratchet up the emotional temperature of the debate so high? Why do they so quickly devolve the conversation to death and suicide? It's an ugly strain that runs right through all TRA talking points. I personally think TRA is an eschatological cult and the focus on death is a intrinsic part of that. Others may think it's all about emotional blackmail.

Either way, please use this thread to discuss JoMo, Streeting's unaccounably cruel ignoring of him, and TRA emotional hysteria / threats in general at this crucial time just after the PB ban was announced.

EDIT - could not upload the screenshot of JoMo's post but it reads as follows:

"And don't underestimate the political tail of Wes Streeting's decision. His colleagues will slowly be coming to terms with him locking them into a future of bereaved parents tipping ashes outside Number 10 and a revival of mass die-ins wherever they go."

No way - neither of them would know how Parliament works ("Select Committee" let alone be able to name Wes Streeting). I suspect that JM wrote it himself. Mind you, it is so funny I wonder if JKR sent it 😀

Oh you absolutely know it’ll be Montecito’s most oppressed inhabitant. Never one to miss a grift.

@OldCrone @Catsmere @theilltemperedclavecinist thankyou that makes sense 👍

Nah, he is pretty stupid.

There is a Twix account @ Unity_MoT with some interesting observations re the accuracy of the 30+ tweets (and JM/trans statistics generally). You also get this, in response to JM taking on the Putins etc:

"TBF, I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when the KGB tries to explain Jolly Foxbatterer to Vlad the Defenestrator, if only to find how to say ‘You fucking what???’ in Russian, but Maugham's descent into delusions of global importance are beyond the scope of this thread and more a matter for a competent psychiatrist."

Libby Purves in the Times today:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/2f8a4fd5-28e5-43f5-8959-d710a10accfe?shareToken=d99097b9913c6b75ee87db02f3235d96

Absolutely agree. The successful strategy of those pushing for GI was to a) team it with LGB and especially to b) propagate the suicide claims. That’s why JM’s claims are so damaging and despicable.

The strategy worked such that my intelligent, ethical and decent colleagues who advocate for social justice more generally are the ones who have firmly supported the cause. They likely (hopefully) don’t actually believe TWAW, but support TW/TM to the point of believing that TW ought to be considered as women ie having access to DV refuge.

What’s clear is none of these colleagues have DC at risk from GI and/or have not heard about the many instances of ‘it couldn’t happen’ that get recorded in these threads. Until reading JKR’s essay, I too assumed that when we spoke about TW, we were talking about someone who had fully transitioned including surgery a la Jan Morris.

No wonder ‘no debate’ and no reporting thanks to the BBC’s capture was so important because the increasing cases of men with a fetish or predatory males exploiting the loophole would - and hopefully will - give the intelligent and ethical people pause for thought.

Brilliantly written, and of course Libby carries considerable moral authority on the subject too. I can imagine it must be particularly painful for her to see the bullshit suicide claims.

People are complex and multifaceted. It is overly simplistic to suggest all those who are committed to trans rights and believe TWAW are not decent, intelligent or ethical.

The world isn't made up of goodies and baddies and those who are either 'with us' or 'against us'.

I often wonder how people can go from admiring someone like Julie Bindel for her life long work supporting women to thinking of her as an evil bigot because she doesn't believe TWAW.

It is in this vein that I challenge those with GC views not to dismiss those claiming TWAW who have positive feminist track records in other areas.

No way - neither of them would know how Parliament works ("Select Committee" let alone be able to name Wes Streeting). I suspect that JM wrote it himself. Mind you, it is so funny I wonder if JKR sent it.

That's true. The person who wrote it is also someone who uses the phrase "public justice advocacy" which is the sort of phrase only a lawyer or politician would use. So I'm guessing someone like Ruth Hunt, Helena Kennedy or Harriet Harman. Or, as you say, JM himself.

And yet you’ve only got to glance at the wailing binfire that is the Transgender Reddit to see repeated references to “the Tavistock 16”.

It seems to be gaining totemic cult status, like the Birmingham Six.

People are complex and multifaceted. It is overly simplistic to suggest all those who are committed to trans rights and believe TWAW are not decent, intelligent or ethical.

I hear you, but I disagree.

I do believe there is an intellectual or a moral difference between those who happily mouth TWAW and those who questioned it, often at great reputational damage to themselves (or worse - people have lost jobs and still are losing them).

Either TRA sympathisers truly believed TWAW, in which case their intellect simply isn't as advanced as those who understand the importance of empirical evidence and scientific enquiry, and favour that over blind faith systems.

Or, TRA sympathisers don't believe TWAW but still said it to get ahead, be fashionable or from fear of cancellation. In which case then I'm afraid their moral code simply isn't as strong as those who, at best, were brave enough to either openly question it, or, at least, kept their heads down and refused to mouth the platitudes.

I know that sounds snobbish and morally superior and I'm not thinking of myself per se (I'm fortunate enough to work in have a social environment where I could be open about desisting and not suffer consequences) but frankly people like Kathleen Stock, JKR, Linehan, Hele Joyce are in my view either intellectually and morally superior to the Emma Watsons, Laurie Pennys, Owen Joneses, Dawn Butlers and Joanne Harrises. Or potentially both.

I think another factor in the success of the success of GI was the pushing of transphobia. This served to demonise anyone who even just went 'erm' and quash any doubts in the friends and families of the gender questioning person. It was 'internal transphobia' if a child had doubts about drugs and surgery. It was shamelessly weaponised by selfish men to try to bring their wives and families on board with their kink.

Absolutely. Remember how this issue was first brought to public attention with Stonewall's slogan projected on buildings: "Transwomen are women. No debate."

Looking back that's a very creepy and to my mind, heavily facist-coded strategy. People were explicitly being told to shut up and go along with a brand new, false reality which the vast majority of citizens stringly disagreed with once they finally found out what it meant.

Looking back that's a very creepy and to my mind, heavily facist-coded strategy. People were explicitly being told to shut up and go along with a brand new, false reality which the vast majority of citizens stringly disagreed with once they finally found out what it meant.

It was a deliberate power trip, to my mind. We all know how much these people enjoy flaunting their control.

@CantDealwithChristmas

I do believe there is an intellectual or a moral difference between those who happily mouth TWAW and those who questioned it...

Sir Isaac Newton wasted a lot of time on weird eschatalogical religious theories when he could have been doing (more) physics research. I don't think he was immoral or stupid.

I'm as bewildered as anyone, but have to accept that for some reason humans have a tendency to believe fervently in made up unprovable things.

We never got rid of previous religions, just turned them into something voluntary, relatively harmless, and subject to impartial law. We'll have to do the same again.

I hear that and you're right. But the fervour of the sudden belief in TWAW, its cruelty to those who resisted or desisted and the frankly dodgy nature of some of its biggest proponents, as well as the fact that it never had a settled philosophy or theology (the belief tenets kept changing as more facts were brought to light) make it more of a cult than a religion.

I don't think Newton ever wanted to harm kids or destroy the livelihoods of people who didn't share his esoteric interests.

Newton wasn't trying to force through far reaching legislative and lanugage change based on his esoteric interests. He wasn't seeking to damage anyone else's rights or safety.

That is a crucial difference, for me.

I think I would just say that people who are already vulnerable for whatever reason are most susceptible to cults. That's how I class the poor kids who got sucked in.

but the powerful and non-vulnerable people who acted as a gauleiters of the TRA movement? I don't know what to make of them, so the best excuse I can bestow is that they weren't smart enough to understand what was at stake.

At worst, they WERE smart enough but lied when they said TWAW...so it's a moral failing...which is far, far wose than a failure to understand.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

George Orwell, 1984

Absolutely, although I do wish she hadn’t proffered up Jan bloody Morris as a totem. People really need to pay more attention to how badly treated his wife and children were. Thankfully the comments address this.

I feel as though there ought to be a Doctorate in this somewhere. Don't forget that Christianity began as a cult, then was spread by colonialism. Only a hundred years before Newton, people were being burnt at the stake for minor theological differences. In a way I hope this thing is just a cult, because then it might just burn itself out.

Edited to remove joke too tasteless even for me.

Hmmm I would take some issue with your characterisation of early Christianity because, of course, the Constantinian conversion set it as a state religion way before it began to be 'exported'...I would also point out that early Christianity allowed for a LOT of differences in theology and beliefs eg you had the Gnostics, Nestorians, Monophysitists...plus there was a great deal of synchretism with pagan beliefs eg Artemis of Ephesus and Marian belief...but it wasn't until the Council of Nicaea that the beliefs were codified so we're tlaking 5 centuries of epistemoligical and social development.

TRA felt much more like some shadowy thing suddenly imposed.

I think it's also worth adding that paleochristianity placed a heck of a lot of emphasis on BEING in the community, helping the poor, refusing to judge others for their beliefs...all tenets of faith now...TRA punishes unbelievers severely.

I really do think more parallels with cults and facist governments than any of the abrahamic religions imho.

Well, yes: exactly why an academic 'compare and contrast' would be interesting. One could also compare with unsuccessful state-imposed ideologies like Lysenkoism.

I have no doubt that in decades to come, the strange history of the years 2016 - 2023 will be minutely studied and also placed in their proper socio-economic context (globalisation and resultant fall in western living standards, the rise of China, the pernicious effect of social media, and global lockdowns).

I believe that all of the above events in parentheses led to a feeling of fear and alienation especially amongst younger people, and this led (as it has always led in history) to many people adopting apocalyptic and eschatological belief systems. Of which trans is one.

As a oldster I hope I'm still around to read some of these books and papers because the judgement of historians is gonna be....fascinating.

I also hope to live long enough to see LOJ finally admit that he's always been on the Wrong Side of History. But I don't hold my breath!)

I also hope to live long enough to see LOJ finally admit that he's always been on the Wrong Side of History

If that were to happen it would be excused as, "For the right reasons that render the actual rights side of history as morally wrong so I, LOJ, can claim technical rightness and consistency."

See I think it'll be something more like
"I was fighting on the right side all along but I had to pretend I was on the wrong side because I was in fact a double agent doing indispenable work for GC women. Yes - I am the pound shop Severus Snape. Did someone say Harry Potter? I've always thought Prime Minister Rowling was a stand-up woman with a strong moral backbone. In fact I'm hoping for a consultancy gig at the Home Office. It's just that I've been so broke since the Guardian went under and I need to pay my mortgage. The Prime Minister won't return my calls but I'm sure it's just cos she's very busy. Honest!"