some parallels

[Manfreglory]

I've been teasing out this idea, that transphobia and xenophobia have much in common.

• both rest on 'you're not from here; your culture is different; you can't know what it is to have grown up 'over here'/had period pains/gone through labour.

• both reject difference or change in favour of sameness or stasis. 'You look and talk and think differently/you underwent a journey to get here/I can't fully relate to you'.

• both rest not just on culture but on biology: 'Your genes are different than mine/your genotype for phenotype A, B or C aren't identical to mine'.

• both are territorial: 'i sweated blood as a member of this sex/to make it in this society - who are you to come here and demand a seat at the table'?

• both are suspicious of the reasons for transformation. 'You just want the perks of being female; you just want to look up our skirts in the toilet; you just migrated here from Guatemala for financial stability.'

• both demonize, aggressively overstating the chance that the person has or will commit a crime. (Migrants: no need to give examples, just read the news. Trans people: 'you just want access to 'our spaces'' (i.e. the spaces where women/cis women enjoy their privacy from all men, cis or trans) so you can assault us'.

• both minimize or even deny, the need for the transition: 'No child is born trans/those parents were homophobic as the kid was just gay/trans women are men with their dicks lopped off/people should stay in their home country and migration is too dangerous'.

• both hysterically fear that the trans person/migrant will corrupt innocents: 'they will indoctrinate children in school/they will spread religious fundamentalism'.

Gender critical women: ask yourself if you've been radicalized into the new right.

The penis thread was the same OP??

Well in that case, I think Manfreglory deserves to be carried shoulder-high through a crowd of cheering MNers.
The penis thread morphed into something that defied description - politics, curry in the 1950s,mangoes, fox mating, gonad-based recipes, it had everything!

Now Manfreglory has given us, inter alia, the opportunity to enjoy the Thing of Beauty which is Boiledbeetle's interpretive dance.

You clearly have a gift, OP😁

They are the same user name.

It is true though that these threads do deliver a very wide range of side benefits. Not sure it ever makes any reader feel the shame that I believe is the intention. But the side benefits are vast, surprising and just keep coming - the real MN experience.

@Manfreglory to exactly the same extent, you and old-fashioned sexists have the same amount in common. You both want the word "woman" to be synonymous with a framework of stereotypes of thinking, feeling and acting which we have been fighting against for centuries and no we are not going to stop because you tell us to, because we have the right to our own freedoms.

You want to use the word "woman" to mean "person who accepts and identifies with feminine stereotypes, regardless of sex" and we want to use the word "woman" to mean "person of the female sex, regardless of to what extent they accept and identify with feminine stereotypes" (or hopefully completely reject them as the outmoded bollocks they are).

These two uses for the same word are incompatible. They cannot be reconciled or negotiated between. You have the absolute right to use the word according to your own preferences within your own bubble of believers when it doesn't affect non-believers. You do not have the right to force your beliefs on others.

The law of the land upholds the second definition in circumstances where it actually matters. When it actually matters (which for 99% of 99% of days it will not) and there are rational and valid reasons to divide people according to sex, those reasons do not hold, are not valid, and are not fulfilled by dividing people according to gender identity instead, so if a situation could be reasonably set up with division by gender identity it is by definition not actually legitimate to be dividing people at all and the situation should be fully mixed.

We do not hate or fear trans people. We do not gatekeep womanhood as if it was membership of a group/club/citizenry. Membership is not in anyone's power to give or withold. Your analogy is a basic syllogistic fallacy as it requires the initial assumption that womanhood is something that can be acquired in the same way as citizenship, therefore requiring us to capitulate to your opinion as a premise for the argument, which is never going to get you anywhere.

Oh that takes me back! My mother used to say things like 'syllogistic fallacy' when she was cross.

Brilliant post @RareGoalsVerge .

𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔏𝔬, 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔠𝔬𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔲𝔱 𝔰𝔥𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔰 𝔟𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔠𝔩𝔬𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬𝔤𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯, 𝔤𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔫𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔫𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔯. 𝔅𝔬𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔡 𝔅𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔩𝔢 𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔷𝔬𝔫, 𝔤𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔣 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔶 𝔱𝔢𝔵𝔱 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔳𝔢 𝔡𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔞𝔴𝔢, 𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔞𝔤𝔢 𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔰𝔢𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔰.

I love the font diversity we're seeing!

An example from Reddit:

I'm asking around right now, but I looked up his past lineage, and the man was not only white, but he was English and his ancestors lived in New York and Pennsylvania back in the 1600s of America.
So now, I'm trying to figure out, how in the FUCK does a white English guy end up on a reservation and managing to convince his whole family he's full-blooded Wyandotte?

I haven't told my grandma yet, but my mom's response was hilarious. "Ancestry just tells you what you want to hear, it's inaccurate, if it was accurate I could use it for a DNA test to prove I'm Native American for free college." (She thought she was 1/4th her whole life).

And just to add on to the hilarity, turns out great-grandma was half Jewish. So my racist grandma (yes, she's racist despite thinking she's 50% native) is a quarter Ashkenazi Jew.

I know there's a lot of white people who go "I'm 1/164th Cherokee princess", and my grandpa does that too, but we legitimately just thought that grandma was half Native American and her dad was Wyandotte because he lived on the reservation? Me and my cousin are currently trying to figure out how in the world does this even happen??? LMAO

This is a transcript of a podcast on the subject
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1082622851/native-american-communities-concerned-about-self-identification-wannabes

The following gives you a favour of the content:

The number of people who identify as Native American on the U.S. Census has soared in recent years, which raises a lot of concerns in Native communities about people falsely claiming Native identity.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The number of people who identify as Native American on the U.S. Census has soared in recent years by 86% from 2010 to 2020. That is a much bigger jump than can be explained by birth rates alone. It's totally clear that a lot of people who are claiming Native status now did not before, which raises concerns in Native communities about why people are doing this and what it means for their own identities. Sam Yellowhorse Kesler from NPR's Code Switch podcast explains

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/white-lies-indigenous-scholars-respond-to-elizabeth-warrens-claims-to-native-ancestry/

This is an article on the whole social thing and how Elizabeth Warren got embroiled in this.

The subject has a long history. Firstly you now have people claiming they are native American when they have a teeny bit of DNA - but no current cultural ties or understanding as so many generations have passed.

Or you have these long standing family myths - sometimes driven by historical injustices.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act

The Dawes Act forced the tribes to adhere to ideas of ownership of land and hold land rights. This allowed some 'surplus land' to be sold directly to white settlers (and effectively robbed native Americans because they couldnt navigate the system nor easily challenge it's legality). However you also get numerous white men deciding to falsely claim native American ancestry to falsely claim some of these land rights. This was enabled by the corruption and racism of those who granted the land rights.

You then get a few generations down the line family histories which seek to erase the unpleasant parts of this by having various family myths that sanitise this reality for present day generations.

So let's talk about parallels with xenophobia and some historic patterns and examples of where there's a much darker story which we, in the UK, tend to have much less knowledge of as it's not British history.

There are historic examples of pretending to take another identity in order to appropriate the rights of a vulnerable minority group by white males.

There are historic examples of xenophobia forcing families to adopt alternative identities in order to avoid prejudice and improve their own social status whilst then adopting xenophobic attitudes of their own.

AND IT STILL GOING ON TODAY.

But why let some actual general knowledge get in the way of a good scold on MN.

Beautiful👏

To briefly lower the tone, the need to do this has been haunting me since referring to "Haulage and Tooting" as a pair.

I was thinking a sophist argument, I've been reading about it but my research says that a sophist is a person who reasons with clever but deceptive or intellectually dishonest arguments. So far I've seen plenty of deceptiveness and dishonesties but nothing clever or intellectual, so I haven't been able to use it.

RareGoalsVerge post is a Good Argument. 😁

I don't care about your calling me a racist. I do care about women being locked up in prison with men who claim to be women or vulnerable women in hospital wards alongside men who claim to be women. It is uncomfortable and traumatising for them.

I also care about sportswoman losing awards and prizes to people with the advantages of a male body who think they're women.

When sex matters, it matters.

Yes!!!

Except your point is, I think, that the OP’s comparison is false but your comparison between OP and sexists is an accurate one.

Oh bless you OP, that made me laugh out loud!

The contorted lengths you lot need to go to to try and create defenses reveals the baseless mess of your argument.

And it’s about men, not trans people. It’s about men not being in women’s spaces for well evidenced and rational reasons.

You would need to create an argument that men can literally be women. And your post shows that you can’t do that.

Trying to claim that saying men can’t be women is a bit like not liking immigrants has to be the weakest argument yet. And a clear sign of how none of your other arguments have worked.

Or maybe I should reflect on my grandmother and her family.

Her father was Irish and there seems to be a long story about how and why he and his wife both left Ireland. They both moved to the US and Belgium before ending up in England.

They were living in Belgium in 1914 and were forced to leave in a rush. We always understood it was because of the war. Upon closer examination, it looks like they both were about to lose their jobs as a shotgun marriage will testify to.

He then signed up to the war - there was no work for Irishmen due to prejudices. They possibly could have returned to Ireland but both seem to have come from abusive homes. In taking a job with the British Army my great grandfather could never return to Ireland. He lied about his age to have a better chance to be accepted.

So after the war my grandmother was born. One of 13. Her father was injured in the war and that didn't help his work prospects. He was a causal labourer on the docks - he again lied about his age further to get work at the docks. By the time of his death he was some 15 years younger than his biological age. (That was fun, finding his birth certificate).

Anyway my grandmother was an insufferable snob who was desperately ashamed and wanted to escape the prejudices of being Irish and growing up three to a bed. This was made worse by jealousy of the lifestyle of her cousin in Canada and America who sent letters and photos. She planned to marry one of them except he eventually told her to bog off. She pretended to be very middle class to compete as a result. She ended up being an awful racist embolden by having married well and then lived abroad due to my grandfathers job in the air force.

She was in sheltered accommodation in her 80s and 90s. Her friends all thought she was widowed cos that's what she told them. She wouldn't admit that she was divorced because of the shame of it.

So her friends knew her as an middle class English woman who was widowed rather than the reality of a very working class daughter of an immigrant who was divorced.

She actually did manage to identify out of her oppression in many respects.

But it didn't stop who she was and the attitudes she had - she did a lot of projection and DARVO. My mum didn't speak to her for 30 odd years as a result of some of it.

It's fascinating discovering the reality and the sheer effort people go to, to hide the truth in order to try and improve their life, escape the past and prejudices, this sense of inadequacy and shame, the effect of jealousy and competitiveness and the lies they tell along the way to themselves and others.

Identity is something I find a bit of a weasel word for all these reasons. It's often something to hide behind as a veneer of the truth rather than it being intrinsic to someone. Some times it's meaningful. Other times it's a total load of bollocks. It can very much be a costume you put on as part of a performance to the world.

Other things - like being female and being short, you simply can't change because of material reality.

It's a shame we still don't seem to have figured out the difference between which is material reality and what is a persona we choose.

(and yes I know her parents moving to England in 1914 technically doesn't make them immigrants at all, but that's still the perception she grew up with).

Ditto there would have been no problem returning to Ireland after the war, lots of men joined the army. But good example of how people move round, and construct narratives. How old were the in-need-of-hasty-marriage pair?

I suspect my grandparents may have married because she was pregnant by his brother who had just been killed at Gallipoli, and it kept it all (and the brother's specialised trade equipment) in the family.

On Ancestry DNA I now have matches linked to 15 of my 2G grandparents, so I no longer have to worry over the baffling vagaries of their ethnicity calculator. Each new update is a source of wonder. Will I unaccountably turn out to be 8% Swedish? Will my mother still have the unfeasibly large 10% chunk of Welsh that she has so rudely refused to pass on to me?

I can't help wondering if their updates are led by customer complaints, on the lines of "My grandma says we're pure Irish, do how come you're telling me I'm 50% English?" I abandoned the messageboards long ago. There's so much subconscious low-level racism, along with zero understanding of history.

What in 1918? To Wexford?!

Really?

Totally. Ca 200,000 Irishmen fought in WW1, most of them returned after the war, many of them fought on the Irish side in the War of Independence.

See the demob paragraph here

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_and_World_War_I#Demobilisation_and_post_war_experience

The genealogy subreddits are wild. There's a slightly cruel but not inaccurate stereotype of the clueless American saying "I'm 4% Portuguese, can I claim this ethnicity?" like they're collecting Pokemon.

It gets more annoying when Americans yanksplain other countries' history to people from that country. I learned not to post because my DNA says I'm mostly Scottish and Manx (north of Ireland endogamy being a thing), which makes me a "recent immigrant" and "not Irish" according to Americans with tenuous Irish ancestry. Some ethnicities are definitely more fashionable than others.

I'm also partly Romani, though I don't self-describe as Roma because I didn't grow up in the community or in touch with its traditions. In some ways I think that's analogous to Native American ancestry because in real life the Roma community is socially marginal and faces plenty of prejudice and discrimination and also there are quite a few white women pretending to have Romani ancestry because it's a bit exotic.

I find a lot of the history fascinating because you can see how people reinvented themselves. Emigrants making new lives for themselves on other continents, and marrying into other ethnic groups so many of my American relatives are now Sicilian. Bigamists (of both sexes!) marrying under false names and inventing false pasts. I have a whole line of ancestors who were stealth Catholics pretending to be Church of Ireland for generations and eventually just became CofI.

The lesson I take from all this is that ethnic inheritance is like our sexed bodies. We've got what we were born with and we can't change it. But it shouldn't hold us back and it doesn't determine our personalities or dreams or achievements.

Sorry to take this discussion in a different direction but anyone (or any ai) can do parallels. Here is one that compares the GLP to a banana. Crafted by chat gpt, with a fre prompts from me.

. Banana Peel Problem

Banana: Attractive on the outside, but the peel hides the mush.

GLP: Its branding is slick and values-driven, but critics argue that beneath the surface it overstates its impact, claiming “wins” even when the courts disagree or the result is more symbolic than substantive.

1. Easily Bruised

Banana: A small knock and it bruises.

GLP: Prone to public and judicial bruising. Judges have questioned whether it really has legal “standing” to bring certain cases, and its objects clause (so broad it covers almost anything) has been criticised as legally flimsy.

1. Overripe Appeal

Banana: Delicious at first, but quickly goes spotty and unappealing if not consumed in time.

GLP: Had a burst of relevance during Brexit and early Boris Johnson scandals, but some argue its effectiveness and public resonance are fading, as court losses stack up and donations risk drying.

1. Bunch vs. One Fruit

Banana: Works best in a bunch, not on its own.

GLP: Sometimes overplays its solo role in “holding power to account,” overshadowing the contributions of larger NGOs or established litigators like Liberty or ClientEarth, leading to accusations of ego-driven lawfare.

1. Slippery Peels

Banana: Slippery hazard when discarded.

GLP: Even when it “loses,” it spins the outcome as a moral victory to donors. Some critics say this risks misleading supporters into thinking their money has greater impact than it does.

1. Banana Republic Vibes

Banana: Historically linked with fragile governance and instability.

GLP: Critics suggest it sometimes undermines the perception of judicial neutrality by dragging the courts repeatedly into political questions, potentially politicising the judiciary and straining constitutional norms.

1. Banana Split

Banana: Can be delightful—but messy.

GLP: Internally, it has had high staff turnover and reports of tensions about strategy and leadership style, raising questions about sustainability and governance.

In short:

The critical banana parallel is that GLP can look bright and appealing, but it bruises easily, spoils quickly if overused, and sometimes leaves behind a slippery mess rather than real nourishment.

OMG...I am on a roll now..

That’s a sharp question. Let’s break it down:

Both “people who make stupid parallels to advance arguments” and “people who use ChatGPT to advance arguments” are trying to borrow authority from something outside themselves—but the quality and credibility of that authority can vary. Here are some parallels between the two:

Outsourced Thinking

Stupid parallels: They lean on a lazy analogy instead of reasoning things out.

ChatGPT users: They might rely on the model’s output rather than forming their own well-reasoned argument.

False Sense of Authority

Stupid parallels: Saying, “This is just like when X happened in history,” gives an illusion of wisdom, even if the comparison is shallow.

ChatGPT users: Quoting ChatGPT as if it’s an infallible source can sound authoritative, even though the model might be wrong.

Persuasion by Shortcut

Stupid parallels: Rather than engage in nuance, they jump to a comparison that seems convincing at first glance.

ChatGPT users: Rather than doing deep research, they might grab a slick answer from the model to sound convincing.

Risk of Over-Simplification

Stupid parallels: They flatten complex realities into a misleading analogy.

ChatGPT users: They might present a simplified summary that misses crucial context.

Variable Quality

Stupid parallels: Occasionally, even a “stupid” analogy accidentally illuminates something.

ChatGPT users: Sometimes the AI provides surprisingly insightful reasoning—but it depends heavily on how it’s prompted.

Responsibility Shifting

Stupid parallels: “Don’t blame me, blame the analogy—it speaks for itself.”

ChatGPT users: “Don’t blame me, that’s what ChatGPT said.”

So the big parallel is this: both approaches risk replacing genuine critical thought with an external crutch, which can either clarify or completely derail the argument depending on how carefully it’s done.

ChatGPT can make mistakes.

😂👏😂👏😂

There's an even thinner end - third person pronouns. Asking for affirmation that way seems so innocuous, but using "preferred" pronouns legitimises TWAW and TMAM, which in turn removes sex classes completely in favour of gender identity.

I imagine it makes using the loo quite difficult.