This is why so many women voted Trump

[BabyLlamaZen]

I’m not saying it’s right, I’m not saying it’s worth the horrors of the Trump administration (and what other women’s rights will be abolished). However, I can also empathise. Books like this are everywhere in baby sections of bookshops in USA. My american friend is naturally more conservative than myself although hated Trump and didn’t vote for him previously (she abstained and then she went Biden although she says she seriously regrets) and this time she voted Trump. She said this stuff is now everywhere and it’s constant. She also showed me a baby’s ABC book which included B for bisexual (and literally then described it as people who are sexually attracted to either gender). For babies.

Nah, the majority of people who voted Trump did so because he made them feel good about the future by promising a load of shit, the vast majority of which he won’t/can’t do.

He’s a great salesman fronting a party that doesn’t give a shit about normal Americans. Harris/Biden were poor sellers fronting a party that also doesn’t give much of a shit about normal Americans. Yes, there’s other stuff like the perceived wokery, and some white men not wanting to vote for a black woman.

But above all Trump/the Republicans won because Trump is a charismatic bullshitter and that’s what the country wanted to hear. Being immediately an imaginary 20% better off under the Republicans won the day over perhaps being actually 5% better off in a couple of years under the Democrats.

We were talking about women with DSDs.

(Also, puberty blockers have nothing to do with castration; and do not “remove” sexual function or fertility.

Cross sex hormones have only been available to adolescents around the age of 16, and under stringent assessment / informed consent. They also do not cause “castration” or “remove” sexual function or fertility. Long term use of CSH can cause infertility. )

Puberty blockers, used to block puberty at a time when it is supposed to occur, followed by cross sex hormones renders boys infertile and sexually dysfunctional.

Even the blockers alone, previously touted as “reversible” cause testicular atrophy and cellular changes, as per that Mayo study.

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1776112773279134031?s=46&t=QsLZWw4AAriTG0o1SOp6SQ

I think there are a lot of people on mumsnet who really don’t understand this area of healthcare.

There are lots of people whose bodies do not fit “gender critical” understandings of sex , who are not trans. These people have variations in sex development; their treatment pathway on the nhs is not the same as the trans pathway. While the medications may be similar - the assessment process/ criteria is completely different.

Puberty blockers, used to block puberty at a time when it is supposed to occur, followed by cross sex hormones renders boys infertile

puberty blockers do not cause infertility.

long term use of CSH can sometimes cause infertility.

There are side effects of any medication- and there are always legitimate questions about long term use - but…
PBs have been used for decades; the evidence overwhelmingly suggests they are safe and their effects are entirely temporary (endogenous puberty will set in when ceasing the medication). They are prescribed to children with precocious puberty and children with DSDs with no contention.

It’s tiring having to refute anti scientific nonsense.

tell me about it .

PBs have been used for decades; the evidence overwhelmingly suggests they are safe and their effects are entirely temporary (endogenous puberty will set in when ceasing the medication)

nope. There’s no evidence at all that says that PBs used at a time when puberty is supposed to occur are safe and reversible. None at all.

Shocking, isn’t it?

There absolutely is a culture war, and it has been amplified and prodded carefully - at various angles - by Russia and China. To deny it is silly.

Yes, those examples you provided occurred. But out of the world’s population, the occurrence of such issues is not as significant as the news and social media would have you believe. This is where manipulation comes into the picture. These particular examples were amplified by bots well beyond the normal news cycle, again and again.

Did you read the article, or at least some of it?

puberty blockers do not cause infertility.

They 100% cause infertility. Crazy that we are still here debating this.

How does a male blocked at Tanner stage 2 develop sperm?

There is one side wanting to debate the laws and medicine.

There is another side claiming to do so is a culture war.

These particular examples were amplified by bots well beyond the normal news cycle, again and again.

The story of the rape of a girl in Loudoun was not amplified by bots. There was understandable outrage that it happened. Same with all the other stories. To deny this is as equally wacky. Lia Thomas made international news because his inclusion was to egregious to everyone.

What you call “amplified by bots” is the reality of how much of a reaction these events happening brings in people.

It is a false comparator to compare the use of puberty blockers for precocious puberty where is used to delay puberty for a set time and being used to halt puberty before then administering cross sex hormones.

However, we do see this attempt regularly as a way to legitimise the use for modification of a child’s body to fit their philosophical belief.

So the moral injury evoked in many by Lia Thomas competing against woman was <checks notes> actually because of China?

@EyeofOrion
"But out of the world’s population, the occurrence of such issues is not as significant as the news and social media would have you believe. This is where manipulation comes into the picture."
I think you're making the same mistake as the poster above who claimed that people who want evidence based medicine for gender-questioning young people don't care about said young people. If you use that in an argument with an interlocutor who very much does care about said young people (and in many cases here, has a child in that position) you immediately lose them.
You seem confident that I don't really feel sick at the thought of having to change in and out of a competition swim-suit infront of a male person. I've only been convinced I feel that way by - what? The subliminal messages that played in the background when I read a story online about Lia Thomas?
I'm not as strong as many of the women here, and if it becomes normal for male people to be present in women's changing rooms I'll just withdraw from public life that little bit more. For me, changing infront of a male person with a trans identity is no different from when I was having a shower at a campsite in central Australia and I realised a peeping tom was watching me through a high window. I froze, and when I'd stopped disociating I went back to my tent, and didn't look another person in the face until I'd left that campsite.
Yes, I'm making this all about me. But you're making claims about how someone like me comes to feel the way I do, why some things seem important to me that don't seem important to you. And you're way off. So, if you want to be more convincing, don't try to tell women that their fear is actually just something the Russians convinced them they feel.

On a less solipsistic front, it's occurred to me in the last few days that this misattribution may be happening in relation to accusation of racism, too.
Obviously spurred by the swing towards Trump among black and latina/o voters.
I've been listening to The Rest Is History series of podcasts on 1968. Reflecting on the way that Martin Luther King Jnr really distinguished between the racism of the south and the racism of the north.
I think of the (northern U.S.) women who attend those dinners organised by Robin DiAngelo, carrying out thorough moral inventories together and weeping about their deep, unshifting racism. Compare that with a white southerner who is accused of being secretly, even unwittingly, racist who can do the same internal inventory and say, nope, no racism here. There's no longer a commitment to racial segregation, or any feeling that segregation is a good way to organise society, and that is as deep as the racism ever went in the south.
I may be wrong, these are just musings I've had. And I don't think I've ever read a 21st century discussion of northern vs. southern racism in the U.S.A. (as King understood the distinction). If anyone has any recommendations I'd appreciate it.

Im not sure you’re quite understanding what I’m getting at.

I’m not denying people are outraged by certain events, and may then go on to discuss them on SM. That is natural.

However, what we saw was a massive network of bots retweeting stories - true or false - about these events, amplifying their reach. These bot farms are financed by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. They help right-wing causes. You can stick your fingers in your ears and say “la la la”, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

However, what we saw was a massive network of bots retweeting stories - true or false - about these events, amplifying their reach. These bot farms are financed by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. They help right-wing causes

Not believing that people can change sex isn’t right-wing although I agree it’s the left that are pretending that people can.

There’d be nothing to amplify if the left hadn’t gone literally insane on this issue.

Which specific instances have been bot-amplified? The Loudoun county rape story was broken by the Daily Wire, Lia Thomas was everywhere, Riley Gaines (definitely not Chinese) is all over the other boys in girls’ sport. The Wii spa debacle was in the Guardian to start with, until they realised the naked dude with the erection was a sexual predator.

😅😅 Yes, don't you know? It had nothing to do with his male physical attributes giving him a massive performance advantage over natal females and everything to do with Xi Jinping. If China hadn't got involved, none of us would have known the difference.

I’m not certain exactly what you’re saying here, but when I say “the occurrence of such issues is not as significant as the news and social media would have you believe”, I’m not suggesting the events themselves were insignificant - particularly to the people involved. I’m saying on a population basis, they are statistically tiny.

This isn’t about things that happen to us on a personal level. This has been exerted at population-level.

I’m saying on a population basis, they are statistically tiny

Theyre not if they’re on TV, like Lia Thomas. And when people are seeing that and think, “Fuck, that’s a man!” then one person has peaked millions. Then they pay more attention

This is a version of : It never happens. And if it does happen it happens so infrequently and is so inconsequential that b one would notice if it wasn’t for China

Again, these kinds of stories are AMPLIFIED by bots. There’s a starting point, then it explodes on SM - helped by bots.

You mean, rather than just on TV, like Lia Thomas?

It isn’t ONE single event that makes a difference - except if bots retweet it billions of times.

There are other athletes you aren’t even aware of (not many though). They just haven’t been publicised and amplified like Thomas has.

You’re almost there!

Not sure what you mean here.

I agree with the point you’re making. Trump = loss of abortion access + jokes about sexual assault + civil rape case. Harris = mutilation of children in name of gender ideology + males in female jails and female sports. Pick your poison. I can see why many women voted Trump. I think this was a bigger factor than the left-wing media admit.