The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity

[Ingenieur]

An interesting article in The Atlantic today, and a sign the tide might be turning in the USA.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrats-dishonest-gender-conversation-2024-election/680604/

Most voters think that biological sex is real, and that it matters in law and policy. Instructing them to believe otherwise, and not to ask any questions, is a doomed strategy. By shedding their most extreme positions, the Democrats will be better placed to defend transgender Americans who want to live their lives in peace.

Baby steps

You are ineffective at making your point. Can you get to it please?

And no, feminism isn't leaning right, that's tosh because it is impossible for it to be a right-wing position.

Women's rights and child safeguarding are not "right wing" just because the Democrats don't support them

This^^

I completely agree with this point.

However, this issue seems to hit so many policies - single sex sport, single sex space, self diagnosis for invasive procedures, rights of teachers and institutions over parents rights, employment rules, and on and on.

Not to mention fundamental democracy, the whole idea of "nothing about us without us", the human right of freedom of belief and the right of women to associate freely, the role and influence of unelected lobby groups or "equality providers" (who in the UK tried changing the law on the ground without parliamentary oversight or scrutiny), and the rights of women and girls to say no to men. Plus it's raised concerns about charity sector and who oversees that and what happens if entryists take over with a particular agenda. Regulatory, academia and media capture and what this means for us all has been huge and shocking with this, it has been far reaching and that is the same in the US.

There have also been major issues concerning the supposed political values and principles of all of the main parties (and the unions) versus what is happening in practice, people being excluded from parties they've donated to for years, unions siding with employers and middle class zealots, and the contribution to the rise in the number of people feeling politically homeless. Plus governance around, say, equality and performative rather than functioning DEI, and the efficacy of employment law for everybody.

Anyone who says this is "just a tiny issue affecting a small number of people" is an idiot. This toxic ideology has poisoned everything it's touched, because it is prioritised constantly. It's opened my eyes to SO much regarding the failures of our institutions and our democratic rights. NEVER take anything for granted, never be complacent. If you had to fight for it, there'll be someone itching to take it away again, and the supposedly "tiny vulnerable" male-led TRA movement has managed to do an enormous deal of damage in a great many areas in less than a decade.

If anything, you’re trying to get me to shut up.

I haven’t told anyone else to stop talking or that what they’re doing is useless. Thanks.

The honest conversation would be to admit that this isn't an important priority in most folks lives.

🙄 Not the Democrats.

Sure. Troll farms exist.

So does traditional media still and so does human interaction.

Your posts have been constantly dismissive about the very nature of how this overall issue has spread and how under the overall issue is numerous aspects that interconnect. It has been explained to you repeatedly over at least two threads that these issues are impacting on people’s everyday lives. And that people are talking about the impacts with others.

No one doubts there are troll farms. No one.

But you seem unable to understand that it is unlikely that there are parents of any child under probably 20 years old who hasn’t directly had a conversation about this topic. In my own teen’s group of friends, out of 7 of them, 5 all declared a trans identity. In my own group of friends, I have a growing number of them with children who have declared trans identities. And we discuss this in group get togethers including the school’s reactions. And the schools changing toilets and away every accomodation policies to suit. And scouting and girl guiding groups, not just schools. No bots needed. And this is not a left wing/right wing issue.

You seem unable to understand the lasting impact that any woman going into a store now to try on clothes and finding any male in there feels. I have a close friend who was photographed as she left a cubicle by a male who identitied as a female. I have had many other friends tell me they no longer try on clothes because they don’t feel secure in store changing areas due to first hand experience. No bots needed. And this is not a left wing/right wing issue.

You seem unable to understand just how widely sport impacts families and how male inclusion in sport directly impacts families. And that women who never thought they would ever protest are out there protesting at sporting events or in front of organisations making decisions to allow male people into sport. I regularly host women only social events, nothing to do with feminist groups, and after each Olympics the topic of discussion has been about watching the national TV channel news and the Olympic events and understanding there were male athletes competing as female athletes. No bots needed. And this is not a left wing/right wing issue.

Then despite some poster’s declarations that no one can tell, women can tell. And now many can tell you their direct personal experience of finding a male in their toilets if they are active and travelling widely. They can tell you how they felt uncomfortable if you let them tell you without judgement. And this is not a left wing/right wing issue.

Then in those same discussions they will tell you about how, again on the national news channels they are listening to or watching they have heard about the women in prison with male people being put there, or the male rapist / murderer that has just gone through court and the news has called that person a woman.And this is not a left wing/right wing issue.

Or that a distinctly male looking and sounding person won an award meant for a woman the other day and was being celebrated. Or they read about them in the printed magazine at the hairdreasers, doctors surgery, dentist surgery where ever those print mags still exist. And they don’t think any of it is progressive. Again no bots needed. And this is not a left wing/right wing issue.

Because even the most left wing people I know are discussing their concerns with people when they feel they will not be judged negatively for it. They have not moved towards the right politically at all. This issue is defying the political divide.

Your continued posts have ignored that by now there are very few women and men who haven’t seen what has been happening without any need for the bots you have claimed to be amplifying reach. And then during the election cycles in various countries, there is no need for bots to raise the awareness, those everyday people are there seeing the speeches from candidates, they are seeing the political debates.

You seem to exist in a world where you believe that everyone is existing on line. I live in a world where many people I know don’t even have social media at all. I have IT friends who actively shun social media. I have other friends who simply don’t bother with social media or anything online much at all. They all end up with similar opinions on this topic.

So Sure there are troll farms. But you have doubled down on multiple threads now and never fully explained your thinking, in fact you make snide remarks when people indicate they cannot see your thinking beyond repetitive claims of ‘bots!’. And you seem to lack the ability to understand that this topic is now so widely impacting on society that people are talking about it and concerned about it because they are experiencing it themselves. No internet amplification involved in many of my real life friend’s cases.

I hand out leaflets and have had a huge range of conversations about it in the middle of shopping areas. I don’t believe I have had one conversation with someone who has not directly seen the impact for themselves yet. Honestly, no troll farms needed to amplify the issue. It is everyday people navigating the issues and now talking about it.

So why do you think people who only listen to PBS or other national news carriers, only read the traditional papers but still have come to the same conclusions because of their personal
interactions have been influenced by bots? Or is it possible that by now, such a large portion of society have directly seen the impacts themselves and feel that there are issues to be addressed?

For your troll farm assertions to be effective, there would not have to be the breadth and depth of impact on people’s everyday lives. They would not be having this discussion at the school gate, around the BBQ, across the fence and at work or with family. Sure there may be some troll farm amplification, but the degree of it that you claim is being rejected because people are having these conversations in real life and with people directly impacted.

@Snowypeaks
"You remind me of the apologists in the last years of apartheid South Africa wailing about Communist influences. I'm sure there were plenty of Communists around, but the black majority didn't need Communists to tell them that they didn't have the vote."
OH MY GOODNESS YES!!!

“That’s why feminism, in part, is leaning further right - because along with feminist causes, troll farms pick on a number of right-wing issues. Left-wing troll farms are rarer.”

Feminism is not ‘leaning further right’. The issue around women’s rights and using female people as resources to be exploited is very much still tied to left wing principles.

What has happened is that this is one wide ranging issue that impacts women and children of all political beliefs. Therefore there are discussions being had across the political aisle, but mostly separately. The decision by the left wing parties to not allow open discussion and to move to protect female and children’s safeguarding needs has, however, meant that left wing voters are not voting at all.

Well said.

Why is it impossible for feminism to be right wing?

As an example, are you saying that it wasn't anyone on Trump's team who came up with the ad highlighting Harris' support for tax-payer funded breast implants for male prisoners?
Was it Russian intel that it would swing voters in his favour?
Or was it bot farms that convinced Harris to make a video saying what she did?
Or bots that made the video? Then why didn't anyone on the Democrat side call it out?
And what does "feminism is leaning right" mean? "Feminism" isn't a person. It's a historical movement that includes everything from women's suffrage to Solanas' attempt on Andy Warhol's life as a kind of protest-performance-art.

I've suspected for years that it is the right wing that has sponsored the 'trans takeover" as a long game. Why? Because Western countries were quite happily tootling along with a mostly live and let live vibe. A direct attempt to harden people's views would have failed. Instead the left was encouraged to push the pendulum all the way to the extreme which inevitably means a pushback will follow.

Sadly now the pendulum is swinging the other way and it will continue this trajectory. But it's lazy liberal 'leftist' voices who are to blame for their lack of critical thinking. Too many people bathed in complacency and the warm glow of virtue signalling instead of nipping the nonsense in the bud. Of course people have pushed back against it.

@Sheri99 Why is it impossible for feminism to be right wing?

You need to define what you mean by right wing.

Feminism in its true sense, whereby it centres only females and their needs/ rights based on their biological makeup, up is by proxy left leaning as it's about social liberation specifically for women.

It's anti patriarchal.

I have had actual real life conversations with politically left women. I have been told that TWAW to my face, that women and girls do not need same-sex care as same-gender care is fine, that female sports are not an issue because the person in question 'doesn't care about sport' and that same-gender toilets/changing rooms etc are fine. There was an admission that same-gender toilets are more piss covered, but that this was fine and no-one should mind about such a minor thing. I think the phrase 'trans panic' was also thrown in for good measure.

Maybe can Eye explain to me how Russian bot farms have influenced the above? To me the above position is anti-reality and frankly selfish. It essentially says 'I am fine with these things or don't care about them, but anyone who does mind is a bad person who should be ignored' with a little bit of men-who-say-they-are-women are more important than female people sprinkled on top.

It will also surprise no-one that the bad people referred to in the second paragraph are part of a 'worrying trend' of a rise in fascism. Honestly, do these people think that any British, American or other nationality who fought the actual Nazis, italian Fascists or Spanish Fascists back in the days of Hitler, Mussolini or Franco, thought that men became women if they spoke the magic words?

I don’t think feminism is leaning right or becoming more right-wing. What’s happened is that the mainstream left has become anti-feminist (aside from the libfem, male-pandering feminism lite that is promoted by transactivism and says “your feminism isn’t feminism unless it includes TW”). So feminists who care about dismantling the patriarchy and about the rights of females as a class are shoved out. I haven’t stopped being economically left-wing, and I’m still socially liberal within actual logical and reason. But thinking men can’t be women while mindblowingly obvious, isn’t welcome. So of course feminists are left on the same side of the fence, on this issue, as conservatives though generally for different reasons.

Calling everything you don’t like “right wing” in the hope it will shut up out of shame is childish and naive. And not an insult to anyone who actually is right wing, showing you don’t believe it yourself.

Thank you. A great post that highlights the massive challenge to democracy that proponents of this ideology pose.

Transactivism is authoritarian, openly dangerous to children's welfare, vitriolic and bullying to those standing up for women's rights and the social contract, while openly opposing freedom of speech / freedom of association from the outset. It's the very epitome of right wing totalitarianism.

It's so ironical to read feeble minded posts claiming that feminism is right wing by supporters of an ideology that practices such extreme anti democratic behaviour.

So what is your advice to women who do not agree with society drifting into genderism? What do you expect women to do with your warnings of bots and troll farms?

Well said 💪💐

As much as I sympathise with izimbra's own children's difficult journeys, that post was anything but sympathetic. Instead it simply demonstrated an irony that is finally getting exposed in mainstream news (in the US): the people who are demanding kindness are shutting down legitimate concerns in ways that are unkind and demonstrate talking over listening.

It’s becoming more and more the case that it actually is.

I am somewhat curious as to why, late last night we had a repeat of the 'its bots' and 'its not the highest priority according to this poll'. Is there a problem here, that we might actually be confronting an issue?

Are these people from trollfarms themselves?

Go out into the real world and this topic of conversation is coming up repeatedly. As are jokes about wokeness or eye rolling about it, that wasn't happening a couple of years ago.

Troll farms are not forcing your manager to send that email requesting your pronouns. Trollfarms do not stop the fact that this is impacting on people daily in a negative way.

It's smear smear undermine undermine.

That ship has sailed.

Meanwhile in the real world...

Out of interest, given your expertise in and concerns about online manipulation of the narrative what do you think about the efforts to take down Kiwifarms?

I'm not going to opine on the site itself, but reading the degree to which private individuals in technology companies are able to remove content from the web by controlling the infrastructure and payment rails was a big eye opener.

Cloudflare in particular is so ubiquitous now, and call me naive (I'm from the early days of the internet when mostly it was a collective effort that prized openness) but I was shocked how much un-overseen power they have to impose censorship simply by dint of where they sit in the stack.

Social media manipulation is one thing, this is outright supression being leveraged by individuals without any checks and balances.

Yes, I do apologise if I was in anyway dismissive of that PP’s personal story. I did intend to reference it and acknowledge it with compassion but once I started vomiting up my annoyance I forgot to circle back and do this. MH issues for the under 25’s is significant.

Every University Open Day I attend it is expressly discussed by tutors and administrators as being high on their priorities, that the tutors are having to upskill in awareness of the additional need for support this generation of students has, the way universities have invested heavily in pastoral care and counselling programmes. This has been hugely reassuring both as a parent and fellow student (I was offered immediate support after my accident and request to pause my PhD, the empathy and access to services was immediate and genuinely offered), but it also make me sad that this generation - being due to covid, lock downs, social media or a combination of all the above - are so vulnerable and fragile.

It is why the Dems (and potentially the Labour Govt) absolutely need to be talking about this and working to fix it. We have a whole generation who need help. After WW1 and the masses of losses due to Spanish flu, there was a similarly traumatised younger generation. It took decades for people to recover, and given the crash of ‘29 (?), the rise of Hitler and WW2 that followed in its wake I’d hope that as a global community we might come together, across the Left/Right divide, and try to fix this.

I know of one parent who actively changed her daughter's school in part due to the trans activism being so militant and all consuming.

She's actively told me this.

The idea that it's bots making this happen is laughable.