Non Binary Niece Syndrome

[UtopiaPlanitia]

I think this article provides a very interesting insight into some of the social and class-based reasons why a lot of women refuse to join the fight to protect women's rights from genderism.

https://peaked.substack.com/p/non-binary-niece-syndrome

Róisín also wrote one of my favourite articles relating to the class-based, institutional lack of understanding and support for the gender critical movement:

https://4w.pub/you-meet-more-perverts-when-poor/

Lurker here. I was enjoying reading this thread and the articles. It makes a lot of sense and I've seen it all take place in real life to friends' kids etc.

I'm commenting now as it's a shame the bat signal has been sent out and this thread is no longer sensible.

It's repugnant though that the normal experimentation with identity that teenagers do (particularly teenage girls) is so permanent when it's this stuff, causing lasting medical harm. And yet is brushed off as "oh it's just teenagers discovering their identity". Yeah. Ok then. I see it as akin to affirming anorexia. That was the big contagion in my day, at school, honestly it was weird if you weren't starving yourself. My mum went crazy when she found me trying to hide food and deliberately not eating lunch. She came down on me hard and I stopped. The fact that grown adults are actively encouraging this particular social contagion is why it has spread so much sadly.

And that global medical expert consensus is not positive for trans.

The context is 'non binary' who don't all necessarily consider themselves as 'trans' that's why the population is impossible to gauge. It's a very wide ranging term that's not the cohort medicalising.

I think the coming trend is chronic illness. I have to be careful here, because if you're critical of spoonie culture or online sickfluencers, that's like saying Beetlejuice three times, and the chronic illness community can be extremely energetic when they feel they need to correct someone.

So, to get my disclaimers out of the way: yes, I know invisible disabilities exist; yes, I know chronic illnesses often have comorbities (know that from personal experience); yes, I think it's likely that chronic illnesses in women and girls have not been taken as seriously as they should.

But.

There's a definite trend in online spoonie/sickfluencer culture of encouraging girls - and it really is girls and young women - to embrace their illness as an identity, with a lot of shaming of those who want to get better. Parental affirmation isn't as obvious or extreme as with gender identity, but it's there.

And there's definitely an overlap in a certain type of extremely online girl:

• Possibly ASD/ADHD, maybe with a diagnosis, but those without a diagnosis aren't very shy about self-diagnosing and identifying as vaguely "neurodivergent"
• Very likely a baroque sexual/gender idenity, it may be "demisexual enby" or similar
• A whole laundry list of chronic illnesses, allergies and intolerances, often with vague diagonistic criteria, often explicitly self-diagnosed ("I think I may have condition x"), sometimes speculating on whether they might have DSDs
• Probably a history of EDs or self-harming

You can find discussions in certain trans/queer subreddits where older members of the community are scratching their heads and saying "what's with all the young queer AFABs using walking sticks these days?"

I don't know what we do about the Tumblr girls, except I hope they have someone who can be an adult. The parallel with EDs is very obvious, except no parents were affirming that.

Rly? Most western countries have access in some form including the UK post Cass as most major medical associations support gender affirming care.

I know you have a real bee in your bonnet about rich women, and middle class women, and women in general, but surely even you can see that the GC movement is in no way 'mostly middle class and upper class'?

Indeed.

See any thread on here asking when women were first sexualised by men and the shocking number who are under ten, often in school uniform, walking to school.

Cut to today, and see Teen Vogue explaining to their readers how to have anal sex, and urging them that if they find it uncomfortable, just use more lube. Despite it being completely illegal for almost all their readers.

Add then their teachers telling the girls that they are small minded bigots if they don't offer their vulnerable bodies to boys to validate them. despite a girl a day being raped in school.

And, of course, TRAs everywhere, desperate to minimise it all, pretending that this is all completely normal female development.

No feminist would blame girls for wanting to disguise their sex, given the porn soaked environment of today's culture.

I saw this play out this summer at an extended family do. In the 80s and 90s us young one thoroughly had the piss taken for interesting lifestyle choices. In a broadly supportive, but challenging way that many Irish people will recognise. The next generation has a few trans kids, and I've never seen my family so on edge to "be kind". The kids mothers have been at war on social media too, so everyone tiptoed round them and left early. Sadly it supported the "everyone's so transphobic" narrative, when reality was everyone has terrified of causing a fight. And my family are not one to stay away from a robust debate on anything.

So thankful for this board. That was an insightful read.

What a fantastic article from a writer that I hadn’t encountered previously. Thank you OP. I too had to Google the meaning of a couple of words. I followed links to other articles she has written which are equally good so signed up as a subscriber.

That was a brilliant read, thank you. This is my favourite paragraph:

Perhaps as a consolation, after seeing the look of terror on my face, she offered: “…but when I see trans women dressed up in slutty clothes? I don’t like that.” This brief interjection to tell me that she’s not fond of the fishnet gooners felt like talking to someone with Alzheimer’s who has a fleeting lucid moment: she was back for a second. But just as quicky she disappeared once again.

I completely recognise that fleeting moment of lucidity, both in people with dementia and people who have a momentary understanding of what I've talking about. Its' enormously frustrating to see that bright flicker of understanding just as suddenly go dark again.

@OpheliaWitchoftheWoods
superbly written - it fundamentally comes down to standing up for those who are less able to do so - the over-simplistic rhetoric on here that anyone can choose at any time to not have to deal with scenarios that you illustrate so well completely ignores the realities and the pressures of real life - and the fact that so many women already find themselves without that inner strength to fight as needed...

Anyone is allowed to believe any inanity they wish - they are not though allowed to impose it on everyone else... and for those who for any reason don't have the strength to fight the dishonest, deceit of pretending that men can be women - then there will be others who will continue to stand for them...

It's hard to remember now but I think my first peaking was Karen White back in 2018 and at that point I thought maybe it was a one-off and wouldn't happen again. Then came the 2019 General Election and I saw the Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson pushing 'TWAW!' and realised that people were actually taking this seriously.

My baptism of fire was the same as Datun's, producing a fully-formed, raging terf and I've never looked back.

Making assertions online doesn't make them reality.

'Gender affirming care' fortunately is increasingly being seen for what it really is - child or vulnerable adult abuse - a safeguarding scandal that is still yet to fully rock our nations, but which will... Physical, chemical and mental abuse of those who need their underlying vulnerabilities to be looked after, rather than having imposed deceptions supported / reinforced and made permanent.

The fundamental truth sitting at the heart of all of this is that we are all of us born either male or female - and that natal sex can not be changed. Whatever the claims / hopes /aspirations / desires / beliefs of anyone - this is an immutable truth - one which is obvious even to the average three year old.

So, anything which drives an alternative agenda has to come under suspicion - it can be wrapped in positive fluffy language such as 'affirming' and 'care' but that is there to simply disguise the brutal reality that there are people who are encouraging the confused and vulnerable to walk a path not necessarily of their own making - to physically wreck their bodies in the false belief that this is some magic resolution to the angst and confusion they feel - rather than helping them to understand what they are going through - to work with who they are, they are lead on a journey of misdirection, deceit and ultimately serious irreversible damage to mind and body...

gender is an externally imposed perspective or snapshot of societal stereotyping at that moment in time - this is a boy / this is a girl... to affirm an external perception can never be to understand the person from the inside and look after who they really are - in its very description it tells you that this is externally imposed and managed...

I think I would put this a bit differerntly. I don't think it's much to do with conservative norms, or liberal norms, or left or right wing norms.

I think it's overwhelmingly women who have been able, or inclined ,or willing, to be counter-cultural, critical, contrarian, even uncool.

Sometimes that might mean pushing back against conservative norms. These days though the dominant social norms are at least as often a sort of liberal/left progressivism, especially among the professional middle classes. I suppose you could say that is the "conservative" position in that group, but that starts to make using language clearly really tricky!

Yep, WellOrganisedWoman - we can all see when it turns up on a thread, again :)

There's a reason why there's a global medical expert consensus based on research & clinical experience & its not 'vibes'….

None of that is true. WPATH and a few self referential groups in a circle jerk of mostly meaningless studies, agai referencing one another and coming to conclusions based on half baked ideas, then shat out as fact

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast

Blimey, 2018 for Karen White? I've been at this for longer than I realised. I was talking about him at my sister in law's and she gave an epic beasting for being a "homophobe."

That was when I realised that seemingly intelligent people had lost all sense of perspective on the subject.

That was when I realised that seemingly intelligent people had lost all sense of perspective on the subject.

SinnerBoy, that's the strange thing about all this, it's like some people have had their minds interfered with, which I suppose they have, but I've heard some outrageous things said by people I previously thought sane. A woman I used to think of as okay, insisted to me that it was just fine for that fat middle aged man Laurel Hubbard to compete in weight lifting against young women because 'TWAW'. There was no way of convincing her how unfair that was. How have otherwise previously sane and intelligent people become so irrational?

Also, SinnerBoy, how were you a homophobe? I don't get it.

Interesting.

I was going to post something about what I see as the differences between the two forms of identity.

Version one - that aspect or those aspects of oneself that are a fundamental part of who you are and how you see yourself in the world. "I identify as a doctor - my career is not just a career, it's what I love to do". "I identify as British - my parents were both British, I was born in England, and I see my nationality as a key part of who I am." I can't see the harm in this - indeed having a strong sense of self is probably an objectively good thing - so long as you don't start forgetting that there is more to who you are than simply being British or being a doctor.

Version two - aspirational nonsense. "I identify as a woman even though I am an adult human male and adult human males are men". "I identify as a gay man even though I have the breasts and vagina I was born with".

But you mentioned a third version of identity, which (like version two) also seems incredibly dangerous. It is either a bit like version two (people aspiring to something they're not) but with the difference that the aspiration is to something unambiguously negative (illness). Or - and I am not sure which is worse - it is people with an illness seeking to identify as a suffering victim (and probably exagerating the illnesses affect on them), when they could choose to identify as a fighter who will beat the illness. It is surely more healthy to identify as a fighter than as a victim.

We've seen one of the reasons on this (and other threads).
Transactivists posting furious, contemptuous screeds of flat earthism at women for daring to speak about children and their mental health, facts, evidence and women's experiences.
You can understand why in the workplace, a friendship / social group, a family that type of behaviour is intimidating and threatening. The public embarrassment of deciding to point out lies, untruths, DARVO and misogyny in public is too much for many people. So they remain silent and the lies go unchallenged.

Just as Roisin exemplifies.

I'm sure there's more to it, but from the outside it looks partly like normal attention seeking, and partly like self victimisation in order to get the attention.

At one point if you said you were trans numerous trans organisations would be lining up to tell your school or college to bake you a cake, celebrate you, call you brave, and make everyone pussyfoot around you.

Now you're more likely to get an eye roll.

there has to be another way to be a victim, to shut down dissent, and make people treat you with kid gloves.

Cos she didn't know her phobes from one another.

(Autocarrot fail...)