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

Like I said upthread, they're still at stage 1 - denial.

Maybe they’ll manage the interpretative dance stage by 2028?

The fact we are making jokes like this, makes a point in its own right in terms of how the Democrats are perceived.

No bots needed.

Just letters doing things like...

... congratulating someone for twelve months of offensive cosplay.

Flirts, can you explain what you mean by the red line please.
Are you now saying that the Democratic Party members and those setting policy have been manipulated by bots and troll farms? And less from political activism and lobby groups over a long period of time such as we have seen Stonewall and the like doing?

It's not either or. I'm not saying "it was bots not lobbyists all along", I'm saying there are many intersecting drivers that got us to here and one of them was bad actor manipulation by parties who don't really care about GI either way at all.

I'm saying all the humans involved in all of those groups - the politicians, the activists, the lobbyists, the voters (and the Republicans, and us) have been exposed to manipulative content that has influenced how they see the issue and more importantly, how they see their opposition (and themselves!) and that lead to a divisive political climate where the Democrats, probably correctly, believed that many of their voters see Trans Rights as a core value and more importantly, that there was no point in engaging with "the other side" because they were not reasonable on the topic.

And this stuf is self-sustaining. Once you have pushed people to pick a tribe and make it part of their identify (not GI, just self image), they will fight for that identity.

Did bots/bad actors create Stonewall? No. Did they come up with #NoDebate? No. Did they jump for joy and start creating and spreading #NoDebate memes? Undoubtably.

If the Dems were 'caught out by bots' then this doesn't explain why they've been completely and utterly close minded to even the vaguest suggestion that they've got the policy catastrophically wrong and there's been any harms done at all.

If the Dems have been caught out by bots it's because they didn't want to consider even the merest possibly of a problem.

Being close minded isn't consistent with liberal values. It's a dereliction of duty when in power and it's a fundamental lapse in understanding how accountability in a democracy is enabled.

Are the Dems saying they had no opportunity to sit down and talk to other groups with concerns to allay fears?

Like really?

The whole point is they went down the route of 'no debate' then doubled down every single time they've been challenged because they have been so close minded and tone deaf.

They had the opportunity to deal with this and to address material reality, which any fool knows wasn't ever going to go away on this subject.

They have allowed this to get to a critical level where people make jokes about touchy feeling, vacant performance art type policies over substantive meaty policy that gets to grips with difficult and sometimes controversial subjects because they 'didn't want to upset anyone'. Except the 'bad guys' who essentially simply the people that don't vote for them.

This vilification of anyone who didn't vote the same way as Dems has been pretty much been taken up by the majority of people I've come across who state they are Democrats. It's not a bot thing - this part of it has been a full on identity thing pushed from the top of Democratic party strategy.

Ok. Thanks

So what do you see as artificially manipulative content created for the purpose to create division vs content being produced by people who are simply uninformed that people believe is true and spread (but are genuine opinions) - either self published, social media or biased traditional media?

I think this seems to be a potential point of misunderstanding.

And then, what do you see as artificial political manipulation on social media by the platform owner's biases (such as Facebook) vs 'bot' activity or troll farms creating content with the explicit purpose of dividing opinion?

Also, while group think is certainly potentially influenced by fake news, is there danger is overstating 'bot' manipulation vs group think and group confirmation biases in new source dissemination? And as posters keep pointing out, a political party needs to listen to all the voices of their electorate to understand the issues, and this should be to remove the influence of entrenchment of those views.

And this cycles around to the degree of information gained from 'bot' manipulation vs the information within the electorate that now is coming from direct experience and conversations.

Again, it seems that there is a great deal being rolled into 'bot' manipulation and I am interested in working out whether this is me missing something because I have come at this from a marcomms view.

So what do you see as artificially manipulative content created for the purpose to create division vs content being produced by people who are simply uninformed that people believe is true and spread (but are genuine opinions) - either self published, social media or biased traditional media?

I'm at work so can't do a proper trawl, but for now the MIT review I linked earlier has examples, as does the report that Eyes posted.

I'll try and find more later tonight.

Going back to this line from a pp

Stoking up division creates a no-win position and that is inherently destablising.

I don't believe we do have the opposite which is a win position, if there is one what is it?

So far men have challenged year on year and gender ideology has grown until women started saying no

I don't get why the division argument is that relevant. It's divisive because women are expected to roll over and they won't

How does a politician resolve that?

If the Dems were 'caught out by bots' then this doesn't explain why they've been completely and utterly close minded to even the vaguest suggestion that they've got the policy catastrophically wrong and there's been any harms done at all.

If the Dems have been caught out by bots it's because they didn't want to consider even the merest possibly of a problem.

Being close minded isn't consistent with liberal values. It's a dereliction of duty when in power and it's a fundamental lapse in understanding how accountability in a democracy is enabled.

This.

It is like the discussions around the dossier that John Pesutto’s team created regarding Kellie Jay Keen and their position on censuring Moira Deeming’s speeches regarding the situation facing women and children. During the court sessions these positions did not seem to be well informed at all, and the dossier was full of falsehoods.

And media and social media posters amplified this and ignored anything to the contrary, and this made the case difficult to follow if you didn't know what was going on. So there are those types of bad actors to contend with as well.

It's divisive because women are expected to roll over and they won't

Exactly. This is at the heart of it.

The Democratic Party promoted policies to do with gender for what they thought was an electoral advantage. They were wrong, and their rivals used many different forms of communication (including automated Internet sources) to bring these policies and their consequences to the attention of undecided voters, who then ticked the relevant box.
That’s it, really.

yes.

This is my point too! Has anything that even remotely has had some type of amplification on line been categorised as 'bot' and 'troll' influence.

This seems to be an incredibly clumsy approach if this is so because it can then be said that everything is 'bot' influenced.

If the Democrats (who have been in power for the last four years) really thought that bots were such a big fucking issue, why did they not have a policy to deal with bots?

Bots and bot farms have been part of the public conversation since Brexit in 2016 and Trump's first election.

So between 2016 and 2024, the Dems have sat on their hands going 'La la la bots are bad but we are going to do fuck all about tackling foreign bots even though we've been in power for the last four of these years, even though we think they are a fundamental threat to democracy and everything we value'.

Isn't that a bit well, negligent?

Or did they realise that actually doing something about the bots wasn't fundamentally possible because even if you dealt with the Russian element of outside interference, you'd still have a whole bunch of Americans exercising their free speech and actually there's a whole pile of those Americans who are frankly battshittery crazy and have battshittery crazy ideas. Without the need for fucking bots. Cos they are American. And they've totally lost trust in government institutions.

Like RFK and vaccines. And Gaetz and well, the law.

The more I think about this, the more 'but the bots' argument winds me up at this point. It's not as if the US isn't full of its own army of living breathing nutcases, is it? (With apologies to all the Americans who are sane and stuck in the middle despairing at the absolute state of both sides of the political coin).

And go as far as arguing that the Dems have been more than fine with bots until the point that Elon Musk decided to buy twitter, have an editorial policy that they disagreed with and decided that we wasn't going to donate to the Dems anymore and was going to flip Republican. Because 'The Bots' and more importantly 'The Gatekeepers' were serving the Dems own self interest just fine, up until this point.

I just feel they've been totally asleep at the wheel with their head firmly wedged up their own backside.

At what point did any of them go, when insisting we call men women, "hmmm don't we think we are all getting a bit 1984 here"? I mean they are supposed to well educated people, and not one of them is familiar with Arendt or Orwell. Not one?

This leaves us with either having to believe in The Great Bot Army Of The Evil Foreign Superpowers or we are left with the rather unpleasant impression of the Democrats as an utterly busted flush, full of incompetence, shortsightedness, totally out of touch with reality, who have totally forgotten the very essence and principles of due diligence, ethical practice and principles of democracy.

I can kind of see why the Evil Bot Army is an easier conclusion to come to terms with because it allows Dems to go 'its not our fault, we didn't do anything wrong, we didn't totally fuck up here'.

Unfortunately though even The Bot Army theory ultimately leads to the same place and same impression of the Dems.

And I think that's why I'm really angry. This has been so easy to forsee for quite a lot time now. Why didn't they? They supposedly aren't stupid, yet they all went along with it like bloody lemmings over a cliff with dissenting voices shouting alarms.

I wasn't talking about who "wins" gender politics.

My point is that having a nation that is very polarised makes it hard to get political consensus (or even just construction cooperation) and that destablises a country. It can't plan. It can't invest. Social cooperation falters at all levels.

I mean, this is literally what is happening in the US, and has been happening for at least a decade now.

And because all the political engergy is focussed inwards, it can't be promoting its interests and its allies globally, which is good for states who have opposing global interests.

Well you did say no win, so I countered with the opposite to that.

But you're not talking about gender ideology anymore?

Why is it on FWR in particular? I really don't see why women are being asked to be aware about this stuff on here.

There's loads of stuff destabilising countries rn. Why this thread and this topic?

Just trying to catch up with this thread and although obviously bots do exist, I think the more useful and important discussion is, exactly HOW did so many institutions, including the Democratic and Labour Parties get so completely bamboozled by this ideology? Which is crazy, not based in material reality, disadvantages half of the population, has physically damaged thousands of young people, and that they didn't think that people would see through it?

I know a lot of people dislike Matt Walsh, but his documentary, What is a Woman, was jaw dropping! We must NEVER let this dangerous idiocy happen again ( and yes I know it's not over...)

Epic!! I’m in awe of how well you expressed the feelings of frustration of a lot of us!

Agreed.

But the impact of state and religious manipulation of opinion via social media amplification (bots, algorithms etc) is highly likely still a factor in why everything has been labelled a culture war and "both sides". And is highly likely a contributing factor as to why the Democrats were too weak to enter the conversation. Their natural inclination to see disagreement as unkind and conservative (versus their bias towards "lived experience" and progression) is all part of the mix too. They weren't hearing the voices of real people because they didn't dare listen in amongst all the amplified noise.

They wouldn't listen if SM wasn't there. They don't listen if it is there.

I don't see why the focus on the latter is a factor for women

They wouldn't listen if SM wasn't there. They don't listen if it is there.

Probably so. But the stoking and amplification of fear by social media is a factor.

I don't see why the focus on the latter is a factor for women

The only focus on it is to say that a) it's part of why we have such "toxicity" and part of why it's framed as "both sides" and b) it's worth being aware of this. It's a factor for men and women equally, not specifically for women.

Edited for typo

Me too. Sometimes it's difficult to keep up, and to absorb the different arguments that people are presenting. But I think it could be nominated for a mumsnet Classics actually. It warrants re-reading.

Me too re enjoying the thread and also that I'll need to re-read (and catch up on some bits I may have missed).

It's interesting when I find myself not in full agreement with some of the people I respect on this board. But that's one of the reasons I find these conversations so helpful. Lots of food for thought.

(Obviously there's a flip point, where disagreement can feel like a pile-on but hopefully this doesn't happen too often to people. As I've said above, it's a horrible experience. Although I completely accept that it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between someone who is fishing for sympathetic, gullible people and someone who is trying to articulate a train of thought but can't quite get the words out - we're all here online anonymously, talking about contentiousness issues).

They aren’t listening at all. Seth Moulton, the house Democrat who publicly said he didn’t support boys in girls’ sport, has been vilified by other Democrats and his aide has resigned

thehill.com/homenews/house/4981767-moulton-aide-resigns-transgender-athletes/