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

I wish I was a bot.

If I identify as a bot can I piss about on MN all day and not bother with the piles of cleaning, laundry, Christmas prep, birthday party prep, school stuff, club stuff, cooking, school runs, paid work etc?

I'd particularly like to identify out of cleaning the shower which is long overdue.

I know quite a few homeschooling families and genderism in schools has often been one of many reasons (which are usually quite complex and specific to their child) contributing to their decision to homeschool.

If only the money spent on promoting genderism and paying for the dangerous rubbish groups like No Outsiders have produced had been spent on support for SEND, state schools would be in a much better place.

Yes. It's men.

I don't think that any men - however lovely, however they identify - should be in women's single sex spaces. If you disagree, please explain why.

Now onto the predatory men. Do you understand that claiming a trans identity is how predatory men get into single sex spaces reserved for women? Trans is the golden ticket for predators and abusers and men with fetishes. There is no gatekeeping at all regarding this golden ticket - a trans identity is impossible to verify or observe and therefore cannot be challenged. Therefore any man at all is able to enter women's SSS. Including all the predators.
Why is it so important to you for men who claim to be women to be allowed into women's single sex spaces that it doesn't matter that you open the door to predators and abusers as well?

I understand Flirts. However, how many more times can the spread of information, the discussions and conversations so many of us are having in real life be dismissed by that poster as ‘bot amplification’ and shaped by troll farms?

And yes, I understand they are discussing at macro level. However, again, that is dismissing the effort so many women have made to get the information out there and in front of media. Not bots. Women.

And I also fail to think that many people only rely on algorithms for their information sources. So this claim of the degree of bot influence doesn’t stack up if you have the depth of knowledge of the movement as you and many of us do have.

Either way , as someone having those conversations I can reasonably draw the conclusion that I am performing the role of a bot.

I think that all the bot talk brings out the reminders of just how far we have come as a movement, and how far entrenched this ideological thinking is. So, while it is a deflection in part it is good that we can also see just how bonkers some of the continued denial on this thread is too.

Oh yes, people can't seriously have come to their own conclusions that the Democrats are batshit for believing women can have a penis, must be all the bots!

Absolutely eresh!

Great suggestion.
You're right - there are countless schools who have looked at the trans nonsense and gone "not in our school thank you". They've prioritised the emotional wellbeing of children and subtly seen off the queer theory adult groups desperate to access children. Given the capture of the unions, the DfE & politicians, that's no mean feat.

There's been a range of negative influences on children with emerging evidence of how Covid, social media etc has impacted on their mental health. But I've no doubt that adults in schools upending reality and grooming children to believe that their bodies can be wrong and a sex change is a positive solution, enforcing reality denying pronouns etc has been catastrophic for so many vulnerable children. Along with eroding all children's confidence in the adult authority of teachers openly lying about reality.

Isn't it much more likely that the bots and troll farms are targeting the websites where you can post stuff anonymously, particularly where the kids hang out. Places like reddit, instagram and facebook. Which we all know are absolutely overflowing with transphobic bigotry...oh wait! 😁

If bots and trollfarms have been behind anything it's more likely to be in embedding this nonsense. Which seems to be rife over much of the content consumed by children. Dissenting voices in such places are not tolerated. Gender ideology has been spread in the virtual world. The pushback has come from seeing the effects of that in the real world. Lia Thomas may have been created from what William saw or read on the Internet. The reaction against him was from seeing him, in the flesh.

I think the bots have been far more on the side of entrenchment of gender ideology on social media etc. AI is really bad on it and very misogynistic in general (I assume mostly men training it).

The unquestioning dismissal of JKR as 'transphobic' across internet media for example. This was repeated without question across 100s of AI generated news stories when she was raising pretty reasonable points whilst also expressing support for trans people in her original essay. After having algorithms push 100s of JKR evil stories on me, and having read HP thinking 'huh, it seems weird, I thought she was a lovely person', when I got round reading her essay I knew for sure it was all fake (as well as quite often, factually wrong).

It was real life where I first woke up to what is dangerous nonsense in schools and, apart from here (kudos to MN) it was the real world where change has happened. Social media is lagging behind what real people feel on this in my experience.

Yeah DDs scepticism of teachers is pretty high now. They have to earn respect.

She had a science teacher who said JKR's views were 'problematic' so I told her she was right to be sceptical of everything that teacher said thereafter.

Respect is earned not owed.

I think the fact that dissenting voices are not allowed online on genderism has fueled the vote for Trump. It's not that voters care about trans issues per se, it's that they care that reasonable opinions are not being allowed. Rightly or wrongly, they think the Democrats are pro silencing.

@themostspecialelfintheworkshop

The majority of women voters n the USA voted for the party that supports trans rights.

"I think the fact that dissenting voices are not allowed online on genderism"

Gender critical voices aren't 'allowed online'? Has anyone told X/Mumsnet/TikTok/Facebook - which are all completely awash with anti-trans/gender critical content?

How many people is it actually affecting? I hear ya when you are talk about safe women's spaces. But if a man is identifying as a woman simply ti access those spaces then its not a trans person you have issue with its predatory men.

Well this is only the 72 millionth time such a daft argument has been waved around on MN alone, and it has been dismantled many times. I don't know how anyone can seriously suggest that "its not a trans person you have issue with its predatory men" and not stop to think about what they're saying. Yes, it is predatory men. Who say they're trans. In fact they don't even have to now because organisations and companies are so terrified of not being progressive it's not even allowed to question or challenge a man in a woman's space - ideally he should be sucked up to.

Now imagine you're a predatory man who would like to harrass women or children, ranging from ogling and standing too close to full on assault. You've realised that all you have to do is say you're a woman - no surgery or certificate needed - and you're in. What might you do with this information do you think?

And now we have significant over-representation of sexual offending among transwomen prisoners. Yes that's right, if you're a male prinsoner who identifies as trans you're far more likely than most male prisoners to be a sexual offender.

Now have a little think about how that happened?

Notwithstanding that, you'll also have a good chance of being out in a fermale prison to continue offending because, see above.

Still wondering what the problem is?

As for *How many people is it actually affecting?" it's affecting every songle women who wants to be in a female space for safety and dignity. Even if she's fully TWAW and claims not to care, it's still very much increasing her chances of being harrassed and assaulted by a male.

I now actively avoid anything that is supposedly "women only" even though I love women-only group things, because I know it will attract males and they'll be welcomed.

@WhatterySquash I agree but it's not just about predatory men. The TW who insists on showering with girls at a sports club may be really trans (whatever the hell that means) but surprise, surprise looks exactly like a man naked. The girls don't want to share with males however they identify.

The majority of women voters n the USA

In this election, of the people who voted. Plenty of women voters in didn't actually vote, presumably as both options were awful. Good luck trying to spin this as a win for the Democrats.

Totally whether and you’re right to add that - I agree. No male should be there, men are not women however they feel about it and the whole think is utter bunk imo. I was just reacting to that particular popularly touted bit of illogical nonsense.

Women voters who voted for Harris voted on abortion.

The majority of women in swing states voted based on FEMALE rights.

Coughcough there are more than enough nasty trolls online who report posts for 'hate speech' when they are not. Simply because we aren't awash with anti-feminist/misogynist hate speech.

The Democrats lost some of their female vote compared to Biden

That can't be good for them

In fact however the numbers are relayed a clean sweep of swing state, senate and popular vote, not sure about the house, really isn't a cause for we did well

Mumsnet is an outlier in allowing women to talk about this, for which I'm very grateful. It hasn't come without cost for the site. Even here such talk has been regulated and anything transphobic, quite rightly, will be reported and removed. X, before Musk took over, did not permit any talk that was deemed remotely anti-trans no matter how anodyne. I'm not familiar with facebook, but I've read posts from women who claim they've been sanctioned there for not toeing the transline. Tiktok allows gender critical voices? Glad to hear it.

Yes. 12 million (from last election's numbers) Democrat voters didn't bother to vote this year. The choice was between voting for an abusive male who grabs women by the private parts, or a woman who wants to put males with cocks and balls in womens intimate safe single sex spaces and dismantle Title 9 and womens fair sport.

12 million Democrat voters chose not to vote at all.

That says it all.

It doesn't matter how the majority of women voted because everyone gets to vote not just women.

But when women swing to Trump or stay at home and men swing to Trump, you win an election.

Dems put enough women off to lose.

Okay, I’ll bite. Eye is quite right, there is a lot of manipulation by bot farms that’s steering the current discourse…however. Where they’re getting it wrong is in assuming that it’s mainly pushing the right. It’s pushing everybody. You don’t create discord just by egging on one side, you rile up both, and nobody is immune to bad actors promoting bad ideas. I’d even go so far as to suggest that in some ways, the current progressive left have fallen victim to it even harder than the right. Why else have utterly batshit ideas, that should have got no further than as chin stroking academic thought experiments, become this weird gospel of moral virtue? You don’t destroy progress by just emboldening the right, you have to also make the other side deeply unpalatable at the same time. It won’t work any other way.
To quote Voltaire-
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."

Yes I agree @ChequerToRed

He has said he expects to make redundant about 2000 government staff...but will offer them 2 years full pay...to give them time to find alternative employment.