Transgender Activists Question The Movement's Confrontational Approach

[ArabellaScott]

😶

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/us/politics/transgender-activists-rights.html

New York Times.

comments are illuminating. Preference falsification, anyone?

https://archive.ph/QKrr9

'Fewer Americans today than two years ago say they support some of the rights that L.G.B.T.Q. activists have pushed for, like allowing children to undergo gender transition treatment, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. And multiple recent polls have found that a considerable majority of Americans believe advocacy for transgender rights has gone “too far.”'

Would it be possible to screenshot some of the comments? I can't open the top link and the archive link does not include them. Many thanks if you can

Top five comments by recommends:

'I am a UC Berkeley graduate, blue dyed Democrat who has voted for Democrats my entire life. Having grown up in the Bay Area and lived in San Francisco I’ve had both gay and straight friends and always supported equality laws such as same sex marriage. The transgender issue is a much more complex issue. I personally do not believe for instance that biological males who identify as females should compete in women’s sports. Nor should they compete in women’s pageants. Frankly the whole discussion is ludicrous but I’m not allowed to say that because it makes me a “transphobe.” So now anytime I see an article pushing for transgender rights I skip it because I’m tired of the conversation and focus on the “rights” of less than .01% of the population who suffer from identity issues. Again I say this as a Democrat. So if you wonder why transgender rights are having trouble gaining traction with the public, I’m just one person who’s already had enough.'

'You lose support when anyone asking basic questions is categorized as transphobic.'

'The presumption of this article and of those quoted in it is that "everyone else is wrong and they just need to work on the tactics of convincing everyone else why they are wrong." I found no introspection as to whether the movement itself is wrongheaded and that maybe, perhaps, biological sex is a real thing and can't be changed, and that we should be encouraging non-conforming kids to accept themselves rather than to capitulate to external pressures about what their gender should look like or become transgender. The transgender movement has almost nothing in common with the movement for homosexual rights, yet the article presents them as if they are analogous.'

'I have voted blue in many elections. The pendulum has gone way too far here. When your daughter and her team is playing soccer against a biological male and that person is clearly benefitting from discordant biology on the field, I have a problem with that. Democrats have become the party of pronouns over people.'

'This reckoning has been a long time coming. The pronoun madness, drag story time, bathroom wars, cis name calling and general overreach of the trans community has done irreparable harm to the LGB community and just general sanity.'

Scrolling down further, and every comment I'm seeing could have come off of FWR posts.

'It’s simple. Not medical transitioning for children (the same way we say no tattoos) and respect biological females’ rights in sports and safe spaces.'

TRAs are the very definition of “Hoist with his own petard”.

It is really unfortunate because when this movement started there was a really protective feeling beginning to develop around people who suffered from gender dysphoria as there absolutely should be but getting into bed with the boundary busting fethisists and other narcissists who just can’t hear the word no has done them all in together. 10 years from now the creepy boundary pushers will have found another cause to trample over us all.

To quote what someone on TwiX said in response to Amnesty's disgraceful submission to the Supreme Court

"Why is legal gender recognition a human right but legal sex recognition is not?"

TRAs have burned through so much goodwill over the years (and this goes way back to the 1970s, see Janice Raymond and Germaine Greer for example), to the detriment of the rights of huge swathes of people including women, gay people and children.

'The presumption of this article and of those quoted in it is that "everyone else is wrong and they just need to work on the tactics of convincing everyone else why they are wrong."

This really reminded me of something Keir Starmer said at one point (about the Scotland GRR issue, I believe?)- suggesting not that it was wrong, but that labour just need to 'bring people along with us' on it.

In interviews, some activists stressed that it was important to see the big picture: The L.G.B.T.Q. movement is working through a difficult pivot, trying to apply lessons from the same-sex marriage campaign to the newer fight for transgender equality.

They're already relied on that analogy far too long. They're not the same thing and the "movement" can't hide that forever. Gay marriage didn't involve children and it didn't stamp on anyone else's toes.

Hmm. Not sure that this will catch on. Threats, bullying, intimidation and emotional incontinence appear to be the modus operandi of so many trans activists. Along with a spectacular denial of the rights of others - especially women - to have boundaries.

Still - we'll see.

TRA were always going to reach a tipping point. Not because of their approach, but because of their fundamental demand - that everyone has a part to play in their fantasy.

They can imagine that the problem is that some TRA were too loud, too aggressive or demand inclusion too quickly. But really its because they wanted us all to read from their script. It was never going to be enough that some people respected their pronouns. The end point was always they are the sex they want to be and all that that entails.

Half of me thought well good luck with that mate. We're ahead of you!

And the other half thought, that's the diplomatic way to kick GRR into the long grass. Activists had years of covertly "bringing people along" further than most sane and knowledgeable people wanted to go and many people are already in reverse. "No debate" is over and so is assuming everyone is sensible and everything is just going to be fine.

Labour are going to be waiting a ve-e-e-ry long time.

Too little too late. Lives have been destroyed over this. I think it must have been a real shock to a lot of pp that Trump got back in again and this is part of the reckoning. This is what happens when pp live in an echo chamber, not the real world. I think they have burnt up much of the initial goodwill and so many pp are utterly sick of it. In America, the backlash against the BudLight ad campaign was indicative of how a lot of pp felt having this ideology pushed down their throats. Trump's ad campaign was successful for a reason. Nope, they've missed the boat now and I have no sympathy for them.

I applaud those comments all day long.

Labour ffs watch and learn before it's too late!

Thank you @ArabellaScott for those comments.
Reading the article this part jumped out at me:
'Mara Keisling, an activist who founded the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2002, remembered an adage she used 20 years ago about legislative priorities: “You can’t say ‘Don’t fire them’ until you can say ‘Don’t kill them’” — meaning that advocates should focus first on measures that reinforced the fundamental humanity of transgender people, such as hate-crime protections. Then, she said, you can push more effectively for laws about discrimination.'

It gives me insight into why TRAs and some trans people claim to fear that they are under threat of being denied existence. Its a very clever tactic as if you believe that (or act as though you do) its an 'at war' state of mind. Not permitting you to sympathise with other opinions or listen to them. And, as I think we all realise, if hate-crime protections prevent clear communication or open discussion then pushing for laws becomes easier. Is this part of the Denton's playbook?

My main impression from that article - as the comment Arabella posted says - was that they were more interested to pull back in order to push on more effectively, more slowly. They really need to properly reconsider the impacts of what they’re asking for, and what would, in fact, be fair and reasonable.

I think for some, control of other people, especially women, is the whole point (rather than the destination of “equality”).

Gosh the tiptoeing in that article. Just say words that people understand.

'The death and rape threats and physical violence to anyone that speaks out might have gone too far'.

The problem is that the type of people who issue rape and death threats have been enjoying getting away with their abuse of women and children too much to stop. That IS what the trans movement now is, and the majority don't like it.

It's clear those people don't just want to live their lives etc, what they want is to threaten women with impunity.

What all these discussions bring into focus for me is the fundamental fact that I no longer believe that “trans” is real. In my opinion, this entire movement is fighting for something that they haven’t actually established exists.

I don’t believe being “trans” is “just a normal state of being for some people” which is what they have been trying to push. I no longer even believe that transitioning is an appropriate treatment for anyone. I do believe that those damaged by this medical bubble will need protection, but that’s a very different problem.

So those who are still arguing it’s just the approach that was wrong are going to find themselves on rocky ground. They no longer only have to persuade people like me that this is a group whose rights have to be balanced against women’s rights.

Before they can do that, they will have to go right back to square one, define who it is that they believe needs protection, convince me that is a coherent group who can reasonably be considered to need protection and then persuade me that there is a good reason why this group should be allowed to have any negative impact on women’s rights.

Because we’ve had a lot of thinking time, we’re now aware there is an obvious third option for separate spaces, which hurts nobody. If they want to reject that very reasonable suggestion, they’re going to have to come up with something very persuasive indeed. And all that is because they pushed this model for so many years that many women are now well educated about what we stand to lose if we give any ground at all.

Good post.

I strongly agree with this. Confused, socially isolated teenagers need an entirely different response from AGP adult males. None of them can change sex, and, as PriOn1 says, no one has yet defined what ‘trans’ means, or what ‘woman’ or ‘man’ means in their vocabulary. This is a shockingly bad situation on which to base a social, legal and medical framework. No one really knows what those arguing for ‘trans rights’ are actually trying to achieve beyond generating huge medical profits and shafting women

100%

The stick hasn't worked! Where is the carrot?!

We don't want sticks or carrots in women's spaces.

Yes they're missing the point in the article.

People don't want what they're selling. The fact that they tried to sell it with violence is a separate issue. And just meant that more people didn't want it, for more reasons.

They can stop the violence, but people now know exactly what it is they're trying to sell.

And it sure as shit is not live and let live.