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)

I did once ask my younger very woke cousin this question and she kind of shrugged and said 'people can be whatever they want' so my conclusion is lack of critical thinking skills

I think also that we are increasingly conditioned - primarily by politicians - to conflate ‘declaration’ and ‘reality’.

In a world where a politician can declare ‘I can end that war overnight’ and NOT be pilloried by everyone (from fellow politicians to media to every member of the public both nationally and internationally) for making an obviously untrue statement, it seems to me entirely unsurprising that someone can declare ‘I am a woman’ and get away with it.

In the case of a certain type of so-called liberal man, I believe, at best, it's because they've itnernalised this idea that "live and let live" is the best way to do things and that obviously any discomfort the rest of us feel is ourproblem to deal with.

But truthfully, I actually think it's a whole bunch of misogyny. I don't think lots of men are TWAW because they believe it. Rather, because they realised it's a brilliant opportunity to talk about how awful women are because WE don't believe it and won't stand for it.

Overall, I think for a lot of people on this, they haven't botherd to do the actual work. BIL being a classic example. He's absorbed this sort of Hollywood idea of transwomen being men who have fought for YEARS to become women. Who have been through the hormones and the surgeries. who have had to come out ot their families and been rejected, even as they go about doing good for the world. And who, crucially, 100% pass.

He simply does not believe that the many many many many transwomen the rest of us see in real life or in the media or on social media every day exist - the ones who use being a woman to go into women's spaces, the ones who don't even bother to try and pass but get upset because they're referred to as a man when they're wearing a dress but still have a heard, the ones who simper and giggle and act like the most awful parody of women. He truly believes these are the tiny tiny minority of a group that is already a tiny tiny minority.

He has, reluctantly, come to concede that "perhaps" in sport it's not appropriate. He was recently SHOCKED to discover that if data isn't collected correctly, EVERYONE suffers in cases such as medical situations, including trans people.

He, like many many others, simply hasn't given it any thought and has jumped on the bandwagon of "be kind" and "live and let live" and because he's got no idea of how male privilege works, he simply can't conceive of women's fears.

If you aren’t obsessed with material reality it’s not surprising that you believe in fairies.

A lack of critical thinking skills we see almost universally in public life, in our media, on social media, on every subject. If nobody models critical thinking skills, how are young people meant to learn them?

This.

Kids are horribly indoctrinated at school, often by school, but also by the other kids & what they’ve picked up on the internet. As almost everyone has said, most kids don’t believe TW are literally women, but I’ve come across some pretty strange arguments:

• if you don’t agree then you’re siding with Trump and he’s a rapist
• there is academic research which shows TW have female brains (no ref)
• but he/she might commit suicide if you don’t agree
• but he might beat me up if I don’t agree
• even if I’m uncomfortable it’s up to me to get over that (😱)
• Popular teacher gets cross if you don’t agree
• i sort of agree with you (GC), but everyone else says you’re wrong

If the children get challenged at home to think a bit more carefully, then this isn’t necessarily terrible, but obviously many don’t….

This.

And also a lack of basic scientific understanding. It is really worrying how few people actually understand d what differentiates men and women in biological terms.

To add to my post above. I have started bookmarking incidents on social media or in the news when I come across them. I'm waiting for the next time BIL says somethign to me like, "well, tell me who all these predators are" then I'm going to bombard him.

Of course, it probably won't work. he tends to delete my posts every time he puts up something about TWAW on social media and I respond... he just deletes. hahaha. Terrified of pushback.

The left wing do not all believe trans women are women. Plenty of people in the Labour Party don't and the Communist Party (surely left wing!) definitely doesn't.

There certainly is an aspect of giving womanhood as some
kind of reward for all the hard work a male person has done to ‘become’ a female person.

So, you still regularly see people posting : if they have had the surgery they deserve respect.

And when you ask what has changed. And specifically what changed as soon as that surgery happened, their argument cycles around to ‘be kind’.

It all hinges on how the people making declarations of ‘well if they have the surgery’ see themselves. As many and the OP has said, it has so much more to do with how that person wishes to see themselves than it does on what they actually believe.

Once you see it you cannot unsee it.

Exactly what I was going to say. I see it among my friends - sortof "I've got to think twaw or otherwise I won't be accepted".
To which I say "well I don't think it and I'm always accepted by men* and usually by women".

*Unfortunately.

Because it makes them feel good about themselves

Because if you unpick it, you end up having to think about why men who are pretending to be women won't accept a third space and insist it's communal female changing rooms or nothing, and then you have to accept certain very frightening truths about men that I think a lot of women aren't willing to face.

Because it allows you to bully other people without repercussions and lots of people quite enjoy bullying, even if they'd never admit it.

Because they are getting all their information online, where it is selected by algorithms, and they only see info that supports that belief. They mistakenly believe everyone else is seeing what they're seeing, when that's not true. Even google returns different hits for different people searching for the same thing.

In publishing: because there is a deep and spiteful envy of JKR, especially in children's publishing.

TBH anyone who believes it is stupid or lying.

FWIW the 'sex is complicated' argument is untrue. Sex is not complicated. IMO we need to push back every time this is said by not trying to fit an argument to it, but by simply saying no it isn't.

Because everyone knows they're actually women, and as we know, women don't matter.

Yes I think fear to challenge masculinity should go on the list.

We don't ask men to be more understanding. To ensure transwomen are safe in male spaces, we ask women to take the risk and move over.
We don't try to make it acceptable that a TW darts player can compete in the male category while dressing however they please.

Why not? Because of some of the reasons other posters have outlined about the need for females to submit to the superior man from of woman.

There is something about womens more "equal" status in society at play here too.

I've still not fully formed these thoughts so bear with me. The intellectually lazy are vulnerable to this - Its about women are "equal" to men now, equal must mean THE SAME, therefore women are the same as men. If women are the same as men they are as strong as men, they aren't vulnerable to men etc. This is a shortcut to TWAW, women and men are equal = same, therefore only a sexist bigot would object to men being women.

The "women are equal now" thinkers find "womens rights" to be redundant - after all we are all the same now.

Bonkers.

I don't for one second think anyone actually believes TWAW. But for all the reasons you have listed people will pretend they do believe.

Gender ideology destroys everythign it touches - its makes liars out of all its cult members.

To add to your list - TR ambulance chasing off the back of gay rights created a massive & very successful shortcut for TRA's. Fear in genpop that not agreeing TWAW is the same as being anti-gay.

@MattCauthon the Glinner substack does a very good job of collating these on a weekly basis if you want more to peak you (and hopefully him)

I would also say, as a follow-up
to my points about declaration / assertion and lack of challenge / critical thinking above, that I believe that these underlying issues have widespread and damaging consequences way beyond the TWAW debate, and that it is crucial that as society we address the root causes rather than focusing all efforts on this one particular outcome.

Yes. What people refer to as ‘equality’ isn’t what actually brings women equality. For that you need equitable solutions.

For equality, substitute ‘equality of opportunity’. That was the aim. And that requires equity to be applied.

Blunt equality is a lazy argument.

I think the human capacity for believing impossible things is wide ranging. Angels dancing on pinheads, the divine right of kings, the doctrine of transubstantiation, astrology, ghosts, the shape of the earth, snake oil salesmen, dragons, fairies - the list is long. Interestingly many propagated by religions, which until the Internet God took over had a pretty good monopoly on brainwashing the gullible.

I can see why thinking people can change sex has been added , especially since it comes with the threats of being bullied out of your job, called mean, being ostracised by your school mates, threatened with rape etc etc

Well, she can disagree... but

“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

100% agree with this

Because they've expanded their definition of women to include biological males who want to be women. By this new definition they are correct in their belief.

Sorry, I don’t believe that’s the case. I know the Labour Women’s Declaration have been trying to get some common sense back into Labour.
If what you wrote is the case why don’t the Labour government clarify their policies and postions on sex, single sex spaces and stop the indoctrination in schools? Why are so many unions captured?

I think the benefits of youth and not having experienced motherhood/aging/menopause is another.

At 20 I don't know if I'd have been a Terf. I genuinely thought society was more equal because at school, university etc there weren't many disadvantages to being a woman.

In the world of work in more entry level positions I probably believed the same.

Aging and motherhood shone a great massive light on the massive inequality that still exists. I have definitely become more feminist as I've got older because I didn't see it as a younger woman.

Now I see my male colleagues treated like heros for doing a school run while any child related absence is a black mark for my female colleagues. Men at 50 plus being at the peak of their careers, women overlooked as over the hill etc.