Why do people believe TWAW?

[hurdigurdi]

I’ve been making a list (because I like lists) but also have been trying my hardest to see the other side of the argument, as I think that’s the best way to see if an argument stands up. I have to admit it’s extremely hard to do because after you have peaked, it is very difficult to imagine being unpeaked.

Anyhow, here is my list of reasons people MAY believe TWAW (or indeed TMAM) and feel free to correct or add to it:

Why do people think TWAW?
“Be kind” and “live and let live” mentality
Group think & lack of critical thinking
Brainwashing
Fear of being cancelled/shamed/confronted/assaulted/losing job or career
Lack of knowledge of basic biology, sexual reproduction and DSDs
Ignorance of the physical differences between men and women (height, strength, lung capacity, heart size, arm span, foot and hand size, pelvis shape and function, sex organs, gait, Adam’s apple etc)
Have never met a detrans person or heard their story
Have never seen the harm gender ‘affirming’ surgery has done (botched neovagina, phalloplasty, mastectomy)
Does not know the risks and effects of taking opposite sex hormones on the body long term
Have never been assaulted by a male or a TIM
Have never competed against a male or a TIM in sports
Have never been in prison with a TIM
Internalised homophobia
Feelings of inadequacy as a man
Autism
Over consumption of porn
Inability to admit being wrong
Have facilitated the transing of a child (and therefore almost impossible to admit any harm has been caused)
Trauma or loss (especially of a mother or intimate partner)

Why isn’t there as much focus on transmen are men?

Because the modern trans movement is motivated by misogyny: the men who pretend to be women are men who hate and envy women so much they have to eclipse them. In order to obliterate and erase women, they have to make “woman” into a feeling rather than material reality.

It’s an uncomfortable fact but “transwomen” are vastly over-represented in sex offender statistics when compared to the actual number of transwomen in the UK, both in terms of offences against women and offences against children. It’s probably because “transwomen” pose a proportionally greater risk even than men that the focus is on them. For every harmless Brianna Ghey type there are the sexual predators. I have no problem sharing spaces or whatever with transmen because they pose very little risk to me, so no need to mention them so much.

For the week that I agreed TWAW* I had been through the thought process that Woman and Female are different, Woman was a cultural and and ongoing process. Shades of bastardised de Beauvoir, I know.

If Woman meant a reaction and response to external gender stereotypes and expectations, and was further reinforced (or undermined) by society’s reaction to that individual - whether because it approved or disapproved of the gender presentation - I could get myself to a position of Transwomen Are Women.

However, the moment the sophistry ceased, the whole thing fell apart. It was blatantly male entitlement colonising our spaces, words, rights, and dignity. All because they didn’t want what masculinity looked like.

The answer was to challenge masculinity, it seemed to me, not wear femininity and pretend that was being a woman.

*yes, honestly - I started with HELL no, and tried to talk myself around as clearly all the lovely people I admired seemed to be able to believe it. It took a few months and I got there eventually, but could only hold that brittle opinion for around a week before it shattered on the rocks of material reality and my need for women to own language to describe ourselves.

Last night I watched the young Democratic Party member of congress Jonah Wheeler have a discussion session with his constituents after his speech. And a man used the false suicide for children as a weapon to try to guilt Jonah. It was concerning to see how many people applauded in agreement.

https://x.com/jamiewhistle/status/1904665428246352015?s=

at 10.45 minutes in

I thought this video showed Jonah to be a bright light if he can remain so calm with all these people, some who he has known for a long time it seems, reacting angrily towards him.

I don’t understand, and let’s take my be kind academic friend as an example, how she can virtue signal AND watch violent men threatening women at the same time. Is she blind to it? Doesn’t know it exists? Sticks her head in the sand?

They find thinking (on any subject) difficult, so they outsource their decision-making and opinion-forming to the advertising industry. They have brains full of clichés, one more is no problem.

Indeed.

It shouldn't be uncomfortable to occasionally agree with people who hold deplorable views on a range of issues. It should be normal and unremarkable. Because you should assess a fact or opinion on its merits, not on the merits of one (or several) of its holders.

James I/VI and Hitler both thought smoking was unhealthy, Mao thought flies spread disease, Trump thinks humans can't change sex, Putin thinks Judo is a good way to keep fit. Stalin liked cats. I expect all of them also believe that you get wet if you go out in the rain.

I am perfectly comfortable loathing all these people as individuals, and disagreeing with many or even most of their policies and actions, but agreeing with them on a few limited points.

I'm confident in my own ability to think, rather than relying on others to do it for me and present me with an approved bundle of correct thoughts.

Obviously if she believes that women can be violent too, and that any male who says they are a woman is a woman then she will either have constructed a blind spot to defend them in saying they are women and she will defend her position or she sees them as righteous in their violent reactions to horrific bigots, or will dismiss crimes as ‘a few bad apples’.

But these people are fighting fascists, don’t you see?! And when you’re doing that, you’re heroic and brave! Call someone a fascist and all bets are off. Whenever there is a high level of vilification and demonisation of a group, that should be a sign that truth and objective reality is probably getting lost (this applies to pretty much any topic).

The problem is, sometimes violence is the only alternative to something that is wrong. To take the most obvious example, if no one had fought the Nazis me and my entire family would never have existed. But to me the bar has to be seriously high: it has to be a case of “kill or be killed”. This is why people trot out the false death statistics for trans people - they have to make this a genuine existential struggle to justify the violence and hatred they feel.

I think about it a lot, it’s fascinating how “X = its mutually exclusive opposite, no questions allowed” has become something so many people will either agree to, or are prepared to say they do. Some of that is clearly just fear and needing to hold down a job and I do understand that. But there are some more things that I think are going on.

The forced teaming with same-sex sexuality was hugely successful. Lefty, progressive people and increasingly people in general understand that being gay is something you can’t help or change, it doesn’t harm anyone else, it’s not immoral (some religious beliefs aside, but those beliefs shouldn’t and typically don’t impact policy), and it’s right to accept people for who/what they are in this case. If you’re gay, you just are and you shouldn’t be discriminated against for it. The idea that being trans is part of this and deserving of the exact same response has created a confusion where the thing that people can’t help and that is their “true self” is actually being the opposite sex - rather than having gender dysphoria or feeling a need to enact opposite sex stereotypes or have surgery. That’s bizarre when you think about it but the “it’s exactly like being gay” message is pushed very strongly and anyone with doubts is told they’re just an old-school bigot and the same type of person who opposed gay rights (even though many GC people ARE gay and fought for gay rights).

Another thing is that people are actually very willing to believe in supernatural essences, souls, magical inexplicable things - I’m not being sneery, it’s human nature, it applies to me too though I’m a very rational person, I can be superstitious or scared of the dark and so on. Most humans are religious and/or superstitious, experience beliefs that make no sense or have no evidence. It doesn’t make sense that a man “is” a woman but if the idea that you’re a bigot if you don’t agree is pushed hard enough, people will often allow for the idea that a TW just “is” a woman in some mystical or deeply internal sense that they don’t understand, but can accept.

Plus there’s been a lot of false pushing of the idea that hormones and surgery somehow effect a 100% physical transformation. Including in mainstream media. I was always uncomfortable with the TW being in the women’s prison in Orange is the new Black, and with the fact that the backstory was about wearing “sexy” women’s underwear - I remember thinking “but that’s not what makes me a woman” - though it took time to formulate my thoughts as the whole thing took off. But very clearly, that character was presented as having been turned into a woman and it was all fabulous - and that idea has been replicated all over the place. It doesn’t reflect the reality of what the vast, vast majority of TW now look like, behave like or have as genitals.

On top of all this there’s also massive confusion, lots of people as shown by polling thing a TW is a female who wants to be male. So saying TWAW would mean something like “trans-identifying females are still women” (basically a sex-realist or GC view) or “trans-identifying females may be trans but they still deserve sex-based rights as women”. But then others understand that TWAW means “males are women” and you have a chorus of people going along with what are essentially opposing ideas without realising it.

There’s also cognitive dissonance - a lot of lefty wokebro types don’t really think trans people have changed sex at all, but they think they think that. It takes some kind of mental tripwire or trap for them to reveal that they actually think TW are men and TM are women. One example is the “men have a cervix” row that blew up a year or two ago. The idea that men have a cervix is meant to be inclusive Iif trans men (females who have a cervix but want to be called men). It’s the same as saying that men can get pregnant etc. But various woke MPs started banging on about TW having a cervix and so did TW India Willoughby. Showing quite clearly that they took “men” to be about TW. These are the people would insist until the cows come home that TWAW. But they also know it’s not true.

What does she say if you ask her to explain what she means by TWAW and how this change of sex happens for some men?

If she really thinks she's being kind but bites your head off for asking, you know your answer - she doesn't really believe it but has fallen prey to that c-word we're not allowed to mention.

They don’t actually believe it.

I remember a very funny or frustrating thread many years ago by a man adamant that he would help bridge the gap between this insurmountable gulf of opinion he had seen occur on Twitter rows.

He was firmly of the view TWAW and that we were just being unkind. But I do believe he was arguing in good faith and he was replying. It took nearly 40 pages to crack. Turns out he wouldn’t date a TW. Because there is a difference. Ie. They aren’t women 😂

He did apologise in the end.

You're missing the option, "I don't care what other people do because I don't have some weird obsession with random strangers' genitals."

I'd pick that one.

I read a post on X recently from a woman in her early 30s who said that all her life she had been led to believe that women could do everything men can and that the problem is women being separated into silos for no good reason. She mainly based this on computer games and action movies, but also sporting events like the Olympics, where men and women compete separately and she never compared the times. It's an easy jump from that to believing that sex doesn't matter and you can be who you like.

"For the week that I agreed TWAW I had been through the thought process that Woman and Female are different, Woman was a cultural and and ongoing process. Shades of bastardised de Beauvoir, I know."

I think this what people are leaning on to make sense of it all. Female is the sex, women is the performance.

But that soon breakdown when they want to remove sex based rights for gender based ones. So changing rooms become performance based, not sex based. The argument being that violence is gender motivated not sex motivated.

Then we have to wonder why anyone is performing woman, if thats what is attracting the violence? Why are females not performing man and why are males performing woman.

Then the argument moves to it isnt a choice, its innate. That people perform women because we are born to do so? Those shoes exist because women are born to need them?

Any rationale as to why males have to perform woman, doesn't make much sense when applying the same rationale to females.

Wow, you have explained this so well. I can imagine her taking that position. I have a heightened sensitivity to violent and abusive men and am alert as well, whereas she does not.

I’m glad I started this thread, will be back later.

I don’t think anyone really thinks they are.

No one actually believes it!

It's a case of 'The Emperor's New Clothes'... this is why women who don't pretend to believe must be punished and silenced.

Thank you for your clear demonstration of the shaming accusations often used to dismiss people’s legitimate concerns.

However, readers will obviously note that in your introduction of genitals, it is you who has shown that you are obviously the one who has the weird obsession you accuse others of.

Thanks again.

In what other case would extremely high rates of serious mental illness in a population be taken as reason to accept everything they believe about themselves? Surely it should be the opposite - these people are highly mentally unstable and their self-perception simply can't be trusted!

I think some people genuinely do believe that transwomen have "female brains" (and mostly haven't bothered to ask why this should be relevant for sports and toilets, which are not segregated for brain-related reasons). If you're a sexist kind of person to start with then this sort of thinking is more natural.

Also an excessively positive view of the moral character of humanity: the belief that nobody would ever lie about this sort of thing. Also rooted in a kind of sexism: it's so humiliating to be a woman, why would anyone say they were if they weren't?

I think a lot of people don't really see this as distinct from the homosexuality issue and think they have to treat it in the same way. (This can also lead to kneejerk anti-trans positions on the right.) A lot of people were probably pretty homophobic 20-30 years ago and are now desperately trying to cover that up through over-the-top acceptance of everything LGBT: see also rainbow flags everywhere etc.

I think people dont want to believe the law can be wrong.

If the government has determined that TWAW, then to doubt that means to doubt the government. Especially if a left wing or liberal government imposed it.

I don't believe that they are but I wouldn't have and don't have any problem respecting how a friend, colleague or acquaintance wanted to be called or addressed.

That doesn't mean I believe transwomen should allowed in all single sex spaces or compete in women's sport though.

A lot of people were probably pretty homophobic 20-30 years ago and are now desperately trying to cover that up through over-the-top acceptance of everything LGBT: see also rainbow flags everywhere etc.

I think this is so true, and the “you’re just like the homophobes of 30 years ago” accusation is massive projection. It also ties in the fact that GI is homophobic and has strong elements of transing away the gay in kids and not allowing gay people to choose or organise a same-sex dating pool.

I think in many cases it’s because people have been convinced (or convinced themselves) that ‘woman’ is a social construct as opposed to a biological category.

If you can be persuaded to believe that ‘woman’ just means ‘feminine’, then really anyone can be a woman because anyone can have feminine qualities/attributes.

And that’s what makes the whole thing sexist and regressive.

I am a woman but I do not perform femininity. The one thing I have in common with ALL other women is that we are female.

I find that many believers have lost sight of the fact that humans are animals. If you compare the language to the language used for other animals, it all becomes much simpler:

woman/cow/duck/ewe/sow/bitch- are all names for the female of each species. Nothing to do with behaviours or preferences- just specific names for female animals. But I’ve noticed that a surprising number of people are offended by the idea of putting humans into the ‘animal’ category.

This is the PRIMARY reason.
It is a political movement.

The thinking goes:
To be left-wing or 'progressive' is by definition to be a good person, to be on the right side of history. If you are not left-wing on social issues, you are a bad person.
Gay rights is a progressive cause.
Trans rights are like gay rights, so must be a progressive cause.
Therefore, as a good person I MUST believe TWAW. So I must convince myself that I really believe this and never let myself question my beliefs.
These people are the 'true believers'.

The abusers, men's rights activists and misogynists have jumped on the bandwagon for their own advantage, but they don't actually believe TWAW.
They just believe that men have the right to take anything they want from women (privacy, sports, etc.) and women should not be allowed to object.

They think so little of women and have so little interest, care or understanding of women's lives and bodies that they can't see that it's colonisation.