‘Demure and mindful’ - oh great.

[LunaNorth]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm23zye08j4o

So this trend. I’m bridling at the ‘demure and mindful’ bullshit being promoted by someone who is performing femininity.

Demure and mindful women seldom make history. Here we go again, being sent back into our boxes by men.

Do you not think that the idea of being able to choose to identify as whichever sex you prefer is a sign of unbelievable privilege? What would you say to a woman in Afghanistan right now? Or Iran? Do you have any empathy for anyone outside your circle of friends?

I'm another who doesn't identify as a woman. I am a woman due to that pesky biology

Here is how the language of ‘identifying as a woman/girl’ leads to harm

“Denying Women Human Rights
Under the Taliban, women and girls were discriminated against in many ways, for the 'crime' of identifying as a girl.”

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history

This is Amnesty international. This language is victim blaming. The women and girls are not ‘identifying’ as anything. They ARE women and girls. They cannot identify out of their horrific situation.

They are not ‘identifying’, they are living their material reality which is defined by established and well proven science. Not by philosophical belief.

Male people cannot become women by making a declaration or by any treatment or any extreme body modification. It just is not materially possible, regardless of a law that allows them to create a fiction of their sex category.

Only people who aren't women need to "identify" as one.

I am not anti-trans in the slightest, more than happy for transwomen to be transwomen but they are not women and there is nothing wrong with that.

No-one is bullying you here they are asking questions and for some clarity from you.

Can you not see how nonsensical this identifying as is? And indeed how dangerous it can be?

I do appreciate that the pain of the cognitive dissonance you'll be experiencing due to being asked to explain your poorly reasoned beliefs probably feels like bullying.

it isn't though

That's appalling Helle and to think Amnesty International were once a respected organisation.

Calling someone else’s views nonsense @GailBlancheViola is exactly what I mean when I say there is anti trans bullying on here. Saying someone’s beliefs are nonsense is not an invitation to sensible reasoned debate.

The identity of the person who started this trend is not so relevant. The original TikTok trend was a series of videos each one contradicting the one before, with the catchy funny catchphrase very demure, very mindful. It was playful and if anything played on the impossibility of societal expectations for women and the fact we are often not very demure or mindful. I found it pretty funny but throwaway.

Oh my goodness I recognise you from a previous thread (‘pain of cognitive dissonance’ is the giveaway- is it a phrase you read in a self help book?!). Again, the way you just poo poo others opinions by attempting to belittle is no invitation to sensible engagement.

I do appreciate that the pain of the cognitive dissonance you'll be experiencing due to being asked to explain your poorly reasoned beliefs probably feels like bullying.

Cognitive dissonance is never comfortable. Personally I think the bullying is when people try to force their poorly reasoned beliefs on other people, to their detriment. And throw around abuse, slurs and sneering comments.

Do any of you actually know what cognitive dissonance actually is?!

I'd love to engage with you but you seem unable to

can you give some of the characteristics that make you sure Jools from the article is a woman? you are being quite rude to me and have used insulting names about others because we don't share your beliefs, so you must have really thought this through. this should be easy

@ElleWoods15 if these males are identifying as women, then what exactly are they identifying with? Please explain.

No.

yes

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time

for example, you know full well that a woman is adult human female, but for some reason you also want to believe that some men are women

it seems to be making you unbelievably tetchy

Could you please explain how it is not incredibly offensive to say people can be whatever sex they choose, when there are millions of women suffering, right now, because of their sex. Would you say these things to them? Do they even exist to you?

Sorry @wincarwoo, I was asking that of the people who’ve been bleating on about it but don’t appear to understand what it actually is.

’The pain of cognitive dissonance’ is a phrase trotted out repeatedly around here by certain people who refuse to accept anyone can be supportive of trans people.

There have been plenty of encouragement to engage, we are asking questions and discussing how identities that don’t reflect material reality don’t change that material reality.

If questions cannot be answered with an answer that is clear, coherent and non-circular, surely that makes someone wonder why? But I guess that by now, most of us are poster questions for readers to consider to help coalesce their own thoughts about this.

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326738

Trying to convince themselves of the truth of an absurd worldview that they know doesn't make any sense by repeating meaningless thought terminating cliches is one way of dealing with it.

Using circular definitions make the definition a nonsense.

If your view is just a belief, a tenet of faith like religion just say so.

If questions cannot be answered with an answer that is clear, coherent and non-circular, surely that makes someone wonder why?

You'd think. "What's a woman?" "Someone who identifies as a woman, obvs"

It’s not offensive at all. Trans women “identify” as women, that’s not the same as being women.

Then are not female. They have bodies designed around the production of sperm. It is utterly biologically ignorant to pretend this is not a thing.

If they feel better dressing in “women’s” clothes and growing their hair long and wearing make up, fine by me. But at the point they tell me they are actually women, I find it extremely offensive, arrogant and ignorant, and totally lacking insight.

They know nothing of growing up as a girl and woman. They have not experienced the workplace discrimination, and how it feels to be the smaller and weaker sex out in the world. They are ignorant of women’s reality, but expect that I will go along with their pronouncement that they are also a woman. Just like me. Except nothing like me.

What can they possibly know about being a woman except what they imagine it to be?