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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Dawkins describes trans ID as a meme

247 replies

nythbran2 · 02/10/2024 07:36

Very surprised he didn't say this year's earlier (or did I miss it?). Still an unpleasant man though. www.thetimes.com/article/3f4adf27-3fb8-463a-9c1c-3a90ba605b2f?shareToken=0f280c08e52b86d1cd6b0cd7a3a7b3ba

OP posts:
borntobequiet · 02/10/2024 15:34

Oh no the left hand/right hand binary! What about those born ambidextrous?

It’s a terrible analogy. Everyone ((bar unfortunate circumstances) has two hands, but everyone has only one sex (bar ambiguities because of DSDs, which nowadays can be clearly resolved). People can use both hands (of course), but generally have a preference for one or the other, predominantly the right hand, for reasons that are probably related to genetics (handedness is weakly heritable), or may be developmental. This has resulted in societal pressure for conformity, partly for practical reasons, but which resulted in some children being treated very badly. A desire to be of the opposite sex is nothing like a preference for the use of one hand or the other, and the idea of gender identity is just that - an idea, and a very ill-defined one.

The use of a graph representing left-handedness to draw an analogy with trans identity is exactly the sort of disingenuous argument deployed by genderists. What they want people to think is that more people are expressing trans identities now because previously they were prevented from doing so, in the same way that left handed children were prevented from using that hand to write with. The only similarity is in the shape of the graph. Lots of graphs look like that. It does not mean that there are similarities in the underlying circumstances that generate the graphs.

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 15:35

Ooh it's like TRA bingo today - I see DJ has trotted out the old 'it's not my job to do the work for you'

But then almost immediately after that, required sources from other posters!

You can see the effort required to slap down and rebuff all reasonable questions and appeal to "science" as proof, without being willing to apply rational scientific or logical thought themselves.

SerendipityJane · 02/10/2024 15:37

Oh no the left hand/right hand binary! What about those born ambidextrous?
It’s a terrible analogy.

It is, but at that point of the thread I had given up trying to make any sense of anything.

AstonScrapingsNameChange · 02/10/2024 15:48

The argument that its not social contagion, rather that there have always been lots of secretly trans people and it's only now that they are free to come out and be their true selves doesn't bear up to scrutiny.

If this were true, why weren't swathes of those historic trans people dying by suicide for no discernable reason, as we are told will happen if trans people aren't allowed to be their true selves, let alone affirmed?

Both those things cannot be true at the same time.

Also, how can it be true that trans people are the most oppressed and marginalised group ever, if it's also true that society is so much more accepting now that they are choosing to come out in droves?

Either society is accepting, or it's not. It can't be both.

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 15:49

The more I think about it, the more I think left-handedness is a much closer analogy to gayness which only serves to show how unlike trans identity they both are.

It's innate
You have a natural tendency towards one, the other or both
Non-typical handedness/sexuality around 5-10% and somewhat more likely in males
Was suppressed/punished/subject to "conversion", now less so
Doesn't require anyone else to alter their beliefs about reality, just refrain from persecuting you

SerendipityJane · 02/10/2024 16:04

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 15:49

The more I think about it, the more I think left-handedness is a much closer analogy to gayness which only serves to show how unlike trans identity they both are.

It's innate
You have a natural tendency towards one, the other or both
Non-typical handedness/sexuality around 5-10% and somewhat more likely in males
Was suppressed/punished/subject to "conversion", now less so
Doesn't require anyone else to alter their beliefs about reality, just refrain from persecuting you

Well if were are to continue that creaking comparison, right handed people who lose their right hand "become" left handed overnight.

Heterosexual people in single sex communities (e.g. prison) "become" homosexual.

However as we all know, sex isn't about sex. It's about power.

alittleprivacy · 02/10/2024 16:13

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 15:49

The more I think about it, the more I think left-handedness is a much closer analogy to gayness which only serves to show how unlike trans identity they both are.

It's innate
You have a natural tendency towards one, the other or both
Non-typical handedness/sexuality around 5-10% and somewhat more likely in males
Was suppressed/punished/subject to "conversion", now less so
Doesn't require anyone else to alter their beliefs about reality, just refrain from persecuting you

Most realistic estimates of homosexuality occurring in males are somewhere between 2 and 3%, even including bisexuality, it doesn't go much higher than that.

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 16:42

Fair points, I was just pondering really, I do think lefthandedness is much more like homosexuality than it is like transness.

However as we all know, sex isn't about sex. It's about power.

I don't agree with this but I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic (no shade just not sure). It can be about both or either IMO.

SerendipityJane · 02/10/2024 16:47

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 16:42

Fair points, I was just pondering really, I do think lefthandedness is much more like homosexuality than it is like transness.

However as we all know, sex isn't about sex. It's about power.

I don't agree with this but I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic (no shade just not sure). It can be about both or either IMO.

“Everything in the world is about sex — except sex. Sex is about power.” (Oscar Wilde)

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 16:51

Oh I didn't recognise the quote! But it's a thing that's often said about rape, and I've begun to question it recently.

Bannedontherun · 02/10/2024 16:56

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 16:51

Oh I didn't recognise the quote! But it's a thing that's often said about rape, and I've begun to question it recently.

Rape is not about sexual gratification, it is about the power of the male perp over his victim. End of.

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 17:06

Rape is not about sexual gratification, it is about the power of the male perp over his victim. End of.

Yes that. I'm not sure it's that simple. I think some instances of rape do involve men getting sexual gratification and that that is a motive.

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 17:07

I don't think "End of" is helpful - how can you be so certain? It can discussed can't it?

Bannedontherun · 02/10/2024 17:23

what Terry I can be very certain because i have worked in sexual and domestic violence services for natal women since 1991, and worked across agencies, on the CPS serious crime panel, Set up MARAC’s, steered development of specialist SV services, worked directly with women, ran consultations. Is that enough, I could give you more.

your throw away statement is deeply offensive to victims and those who have supported a victim with no basis in reality.

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 17:34

So for example when a woman is penetrated by her partner while she's asleep - it's not in any way motivated by sexual gratification? Or when predators groom children to get access to them and rape them? It's never, ever because men want gratification?

I apologise for being offensive and I'm not trying to be. But I am starting to question this. Your answer doesn't explain why this act of sexual violence is not in any way related to sex.

I'm not saying it isn't about power - obviously that's a major factor. And I'm absolutely not saying it's "about sex" for the victim. But sex is involved, and it doesn't have to be for a man to exercise his power.

I'm genuinely not trying to have a fight. This was discussed on another thread a few weeks back and it was a calm and reasonable discussion. Can you explain why it is such a bad thing to question?

LostInScience · 02/10/2024 17:35

I would invite everybody to overlap the graph of handiness (four time increase over 50 years) to the graph of referrals to the GIDS (approximately forty times increase over 10 years for girls). Do the graphs look the same? Has trans acceptance spread like wildfire over the course of 10 years? Or should we look at other factors to explain this massive increase?

TempestTost · 02/10/2024 17:41

Beowulfa · 02/10/2024 10:51

He invented the term "meme" ffs (a unit of cultural selection). It quite literally is his specialism.

It's isn't actually, it's not biological.

People who study those kinds of ideas in communications are a totally different specialty. They tend to see Dawkins in much the same way trained philosophers and theologians do - as an amateur who comments without bothering to read any of the basic literature.

SerendipityJane · 02/10/2024 17:43

Handedness is determined in the foetus in the womb.

TempestTost · 02/10/2024 17:56

Bannedontherun · 02/10/2024 16:56

Rape is not about sexual gratification, it is about the power of the male perp over his victim. End of.

That seems quite unlikely. Why would you think that?

TheKeatingFive · 02/10/2024 18:54

Rape doesn't have to be about just one thing, though does it?

I'm sure power AND sexual gratification come into it for many men

Abhannmor · 02/10/2024 19:37

' If you'll excuse me , I'm just going to take a dump.' Oscar Wilde.

Bannedontherun · 02/10/2024 19:54

The most common form of rape occurs in a personal intimate relationship, and is A common feature in domestic violence is the very epitome of assertions of power and control, as is the rapes that occur.

raping a sleeping victim is the most sure way to assert power.

the next most common is a rapist who is known to the victim, (used to be called date rape or acquaintance rape). The rapist does not concern themselves with consent.

The least common is stranger rape.

Lack of consent is the key feature in rape, rapist are not driven by sexual desire, for the target, of violence, they are driven by attitudes to mostly women that they can have power over them, where that may not exist in their wider lives.

Or some other twisted attitude towards women in general.

Rapists do not fancy or desire their victim, they get off (ejaculate) because they have taken power from another.

It is not an actual expression of sexual desire. Nor is it an act of sexual expression.

If the victim is not reciprocal or fights, the more thrilling it becomes. The thrill and gratification is the motive and the cause of satisfaction.

Sure some have. Fantasies about rape, in a sexual way. This is not the same thing.

Rape is the worst violation that can happen apart from murder.

The logical conclusion for those questioning this well established and accepted principal, lead us to the idea that women can prevent rape by compliance, dressing less proactively and staying in or be chaperoned.

I cannot believe that people still harbour such appalling and regressive views.

.

newtlover · 02/10/2024 21:57

all of that is true, doubtless, but ejaculation is a sexual response isn't it

MrsWhattery · 02/10/2024 22:07

Bannedontherun But why is it such a terrible suggestion that the man gets sexual gratification? Why does that suggest women are responsible for avoiding rape? To me it doesn't suggest that in the slightest. Saying that the man gets sexual gratification is not the same thing as saying that the victim did something wrong or "attracted" him somehow.

I know a woman who was raped by her first boyfriend when she tried to back out of sex for the first time because she was nervous. He thought he was about to get sex and basically ignored her saying no. He wanted sex, he took it. That doesn't mean for a second that it is NOT about power - of course it is, by definition. But I fail to see how or why you feel we must see it as entirely separate from sex or else we're "regressive".

You say "they get off (ejaculate) because they have taken power from another." and "The thrill and gratification is the motive and the cause of satisfaction."

OK but... then he's getting a thrill right, you're saying that yourself? The sexual gratification is from the act of coercion and power - so it is about sex. Not sex as a shared thing, obviously. But about men getting off.

No one is saying the motive is attraction, love, the woman's history, skirt length or any such thing. But surely a sexual experience, for the man, is happening and that is something men seek out - for example when paedophiles groom children, or men get women drunk or spike their drinks to rape them, or men use their power to get sex from women who want to get ahead in their industry. If it was only power they wanted, they don't need to do the sex part, do they? They already have the power and could exert it in various ways.

I honestly think this is important - that we recognise that power and sex are closely related for many men. I don't see why that can't be discussed in a feminist way, a non-woman-blaming way. I am totally willing to have it explained to me and to change my mind but your posts aren't really making it clear what the issue is.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 02/10/2024 22:19

TheKeatingFive · 02/10/2024 18:54

Rape doesn't have to be about just one thing, though does it?

I'm sure power AND sexual gratification come into it for many men

I agree.