Help me argue that What it Feels Like For a Girl doesn't prove terfs are wrong

[Pluvia]

I'm in a women's discussion group with a woman who is an expert in her field of medicine. She's worked for some years with the WHO and other major agencies and has only recently returned to the UK after about a decade working in Geneva, with stints in Ethiopia and elsewhere in the developing world. Her specialist field is a particular area of women's health. She knows what a woman is.

Sex realism/ the GC pov seems to have completely passed her by. She has no idea of the complexity or reality of the situation and thinks trans people are vulnerable souls who probably have some genetic or neurological predisposition that leaves them feeling that they are in the wrong bodies. She thinks Cass is unduly harsh. Although her life appears to be focussed around women's health, she seems blind to the feminist or women's rights issues inherent in GI.

She has no idea about sexual fetishes, AGP, attacks on women, the misogyny and homophobia that lies behind so much GI. She can't understand how someone like me, who appears to be so reasonable on so many other topics, can be so cruel when it comes to transpeople. I asked her to read Helen Joyce's Trans and she said she tried but couldn't bear the hatred that she experienced in the first few chapters. She has now sent me a link to What It Feels Like For a Girl. which, she says, will show me what I've misunderstood and why my attitude is so harsh.

I'm not going to watch WIFLFAG and give a misogynistic, homophobic gay man any oxygen. Any thoughts on what I can say that might get through to her? At what point with people like her does one just give up?

The difficulty with defining ‘trans’ is that there is no core meaning.

biologically no one can transition.
gender - you can’t transition either (as it is ephemeral, all you do is expand society’s understanding of gender as it applies to your sex)

so the word trans has no base in reality - it has to therefore be something of the mind and that makes it impossible to pin down…

• body dysmorphia - an illness of the mind
• sexual deviancy
• a power trip and desire to put down women
• uncertainty in how to react to hormones and societal pressures (often seen in autistic girls)
• pressure to conform to someone external’s ideals - seen in some children (perhaps more realistically re-phrased as child abuse)

there are many reasons behind someone’s belief that they are trans - each of which needs to be addressed individually - there is no one ‘trans’

No,we don't know.

Most people seem to have an idealised version in their mind of what a 'trans person' is supposed to be or look like...usually involving great suffering, a gentle, fragile nature and in need of everyone's affirmation and support. Totally 'harmless'.

The reality is often quite different..and this then leads to people saying " oh, but they are not really trans"

I recall seeing PL on a reality TV game show years ago ( can't recall which one now), but their 'femininity' was very staged and performative and they seemed incredibly controlling and narcisistic.

Exactly. The average person is going to think of Hailey Cropper from Coronation St (who was actually played by a woman), the Big Brother winner from years ago, Dylan Mulvaney, the actors who have been in films recently, the models, the children of celebrities....

The rise of 'trans' has certainly coinicided with the reported rise inn mental health issues and diagnoses in western populations. Everyone's feelings are supposed to be so fragile they must be centred at all times. Mental health issues and diagnoses have become just another ' identity'

Thank you and I agree with you

Well… everyone’s feelings except women’s.

Ah: No Debate in a new guise.

Male feelings are often given more weight and import than those of females.

Why 'transwomen' being disallowed from using womens spaces is portrayed as 'devastating', because their desire to use a space free of males is seen sympathetically, while women asking for spaces free of males is portrayed as "bigotry".

I think the PL dramatisation might give you more information to structure your argument. I have only watched the first episode but I think if it goes the way I think it will it doesn't shore up their arguments. I will have to watch the whole thing to be sure and to be honest I wasn't that impressed with the production for a number of reasons.

No, it's a sensible point.

You can't browbeat anyone or force a view on others. Discourse requires both sides to listen, attempt to understand, and offer reasoned counter arguments.

Otherwise, it's just an argument. Pointless.

I'm a big fan of debating but part of debating is understanding why the person in opposition holds their beliefs. You have to be open to reading/hearing their side of it, not just presupposing that you know more and therefore your opinion is right. I enjoy hearing a person's reasoning behind their argument. I usually learn something or at least learn why they hold their opinion.

I'm going to go no debate too but from the other side...

As a society, we've got ourselves into the mindset where we fetishise everyone's opinion and must treat it like it counts and has to be respected no matter what. We can't and shouldn't 'both sides' everything - I believe there was even a discussion about FGM on BBC news once where the broadcaster gave equal billing to someone speaking in favour of the practice. That's where it leads us. Watching the show gives what your friend says false validity, you shouldn't be expected to 'educate' yourself out of material truth.

Or of course you could just go back to her as if you've watched it and say omg, a dangerous convicted criminal going in women's toilets, I don't feel safe! There's always that lesson to be learned from the programme I suppose.

Grammarninja Absolutely. At an impasse, I think getting curious is very useful. why does this woman believe what she does? What does she actually believe? Active listening is a fantastic tool and can be so productive for everyone involved.

Long ago in the dim and distant past, journalists were told that if person A said it was raining, and person B said it was not, the journalist’s job was explicitly not to give them both equal time, but to stick their head out the effing window and look for themselves.

edit - spag

Im guessing You mean “you didn’t see a man being told not to go into the women’s toilets” by women?

Let’s talk about things as they really are and stick to facts, not cloud cuckoo land shall we.

This is the problem, this false language and denial of reality. Men cannot turn into women and therefore should not be in women’s spaces. The end.

Curiosity and question asking is so important. The less talking I'm doing in a debate with someone of a very different view, the better. Question asking is key. Socrates' Plato is a great example of discourse through posing questions and allowing a person to come to their own realisations.

maybe she needs to hold the officially sanctioned WHO line if she's to work with them in future

It is impossible to get someone to believe the truth if their job depends on them not believing it.

Yes I'm sorry I really didn't think my thought through properly!

I mean Plato's Socrates!!!

What actually was Lees' crime? They don't imprison teenagers lightly, it must have been something serious.

I'm going to be a hypocrite and say, maybe watch some of it. I haven't myself. But given your friend has asked to discuss it, maybe give it a go and see how far you get.

It is as I understand it a story of an abused teenager being groomed, going off the rails, turning to drugs and crime, maybe internalising homophobia. He has decided 'being a girl' is a solution to his issues. You're free to disagree with that.

But may be interesting discussions to have with your friend about how vulnerable does not necessarily mean not dangerous. Lees was clearly both. And how vulnerable youth may be vulnerable to an ideology that poses as an explanation for why they feel alienated and different.

I do find the idea that 'homophobic gay man' transitioners being more victim than a problem than 'straight cross dressers' odd. Its a difference for therapists to be concerned with, not women.

We know that the middle age transitioner retcons their past, are we sure men like Paris Lees don't too? His history has been wiped so no one can confirm or deny his account of his life.

But even if the typically homophobic homosexuality man has had a tough early start, why do women and girls have to be a part of their self determined therapy? Why does sympathy for child they may have been get manipulated by grown men they are now?

maybe she needs to hold the officially sanctioned WHO line if she's to work with them in future
It is impossible to get someone to believe the truth if their job depends on them not believing it.

Her current job doesn't require her to believe it, but she's still got maybe 15 years to go before retirement, so I guess is trying to keep her options open.

Well you could have pointed out that there's a woman in California who is suing the state because she was sexually abused by the man locked up with her in her cell.

I honestly despair of a society that doesn't think there's anything wrong with that. Basic moral and safeguarding principals thrown away to bow down to men's fantasies.

What the f happened to people?

@ChocolateGanache perhaps she should check out this, a very brave Irish journalist has investigated the situation with Ireland's female only prison ...

https://x.com/paddyjogorman/status/1692483994007253169?s=46&t=OKyRO4eweTteo5FEt_J1MQ