Why is it that the trans issue is the only one where people are cancelled if they disagree with it?

[TFImBackIn]

I was thinking today how there are people who vote differently to me, who are carnivores or vegan, who believe in capital punishment, who believe in unregulated drugs, who do or don't believe in climate change, who follow different religions, who think nobody has ever landed on the moon and so on, but it's possible to have a discussion about it - even if that ends pretty briefly in "We'll have to agree to disagree on that" - and it doesn't end in someone being cancelled.

The trans debate is the only one - as far as I can see - that's not allowed to be debated. I've not heard of people disowning their families over any of the above topics. If someone disagrees with someone else on those topics - and a million others - nobody says they're being violent and they're afraid of them and need to get away from them and be safe.

What Rachel Dolezal told everyone she was black and people discovered she wasn't - and worse when she wanted to represent black women and their struggle - then black women everywhere were allowed to say she was wrong and that their struggle and lived experience wasn't hers. There was no argument at all - maybe Rachel muttered a bit about it but everyone felt free to ridicule her for taking that on.

How come, then, when a fifty-year old Philip Bunce - "Call me Pippa or Pips" - was ranked number 32 in Top 100 Women in Business, women weren't allowed to say that was unfair and that our struggle and lived experience wasn't his?

What is it about this particular issue that makes people want to silence us, when other topics can be freely discussed?

Not only do I agree we should care about both but I have been active in fighting gender ideology for 12 years. And anti-Semitism since Oct 7th 2023.

I also agree we don’t need to have a competition which it’s why it’s unfortunate OP chose to start a thread asking why GC views are the only ones that get you cancelled, and then when I pointed out it’s not and referred to what is happening to Jews, she retorted that what is happening to Jews is not nearly as bad or the same and what is happening to GC women is much worse. This is factually incorrect. So I corrected it. I wonder why you have not attacked OP for creating a competition? It’s literally there in her OP.

Bizarrely, I am now finding that GC women are attacking me for pointing out reality when people are saying things that are not true. The irony of this is not lost on me. I trust it is not lost on you.

When I cancelled my TV licences I didn't do any of those, it might be you need a dictionary that's younger than 400 years.

Attacks on Jews seems to be by the same people as attacks on GC individuals but there does seem to be more spite behind it which is not surprising given the weekly hate marches the government has allowed, and the Iranian funding supporting them.

The response by Labour to the UK united march (I forget what it was officially called) also shows that this attitude goes to the top of government.

People fell out badly over Brexit, the Scottish independence vote. Plenty of people refuse to speak to Reform voters. It's not just trans ideology and Israel.

Most men just want to live quietly but that doesn't mean we let all men into women's and girls' toilets, changing rooms, rape centres, support groups, hospital wards etc. That's the entire point.

Sex realist people don't think that all trans people are evil or violent, we don't hate them at all, but we believe that maintaining the hard-won single sex protections that women and girls need against men in general means that men who say they are women should not be allowed in women's spaces. The hatred comes from the TRAs, not the sex realists. We are just trying to protect women and girls.

When you set it out like that, is it not a little bit strange that this only seems to go in one direction? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Reformers refusing to speak to Green Party voters, for example.

Plenty of men have been cancelled for saying things about women in the workforce etc, sometimes even things which are backed by science but contradict social etiquette.

Can you give an example of these ‘backed by science’ things?

Well, the first example that springs to mind was Larry Summers being cancelled about two decades ago for enraging feminists by stating that the different levels of representation in STEM subjects may be partly down to innate biological differences.

I can't be arsed to paraphrase it as I need to go to bed so here's what Google AI says:

Summers hypothesized that even if average mathematical abilities were identical, a higher variance (or wider spread) in the male population would result in more men at the absolute highest extremes of ability. This idea, known as the Variability Hypothesis, is supported by extensive research demonstrating that male test scores often show greater variance than female test scores. This mathematically accounts for a higher proportion of men at the extreme "tails" of the distribution, which are the levels generally required for tenured positions at top-tier research.

And of course if we look to the most egalitarian counties like the Nordic nations we find that gender differences become even more pronounced the greater the equality of opportunity.

Why do YOU think I have "not attacked the OP for creating a competition"? Perhaps I don't really think she has created one?

There is no mystery or nefarious purpose on my side here. Perhaps you are trying to find one?I agree with the OP that there IS something weird and specific about the attacks on GC women, and that the degree of cancelling, hatred directed at women and the kneejerk reactions are wildly disproportionate to what is actually said. There is something very particular going on with the way this ideology is being imposed and disseminated specifically and the deranged attacks, rhetoric and defamation which is going on and being targeted at anyone who does not fall into line.

Meanwhile, there is also something very particular going on with anti-Jew hate, which is very similar to the hate we saw in the 1930s.For a lot of us, I'm sad to say, we've only just realised what it actually is.It is not linked with the anti-feminist rhetoric, except its advocates are mostly on the same side and promoting it as part of their righteous omnicause.

Nevertheless, if you are claiming "it is worse" then you DO appear to be suggesting that they are not of equal concern. They are different. They are also both happening. They both matter. We are allowed to care about both without being lectured, thanks.

I didn't make an argument to the contrary two things can be true at once.

Why does that difference in STEM qualification achievements __disappear when girls are educated in single sex environments?

These issues are being imposed top-down. They are not grass-roots concerns. The activists are useful, and often hired, idiots. It is the same with assisted dying legislation - hugely well funded lobby groups but privately funded, not grass roots funding, suddenly pressing for it simultaneously in numerous countries.

This.
And to a lesser extent, some of these jokers do the whole Palestine thing a PP mentioned as well. Absolute clowns!

Exactly. Gender ideology isn't rooted in reality and facts, so it can't be defended using logical argument. So they silence opponents of their beliefs.

I just want to make it clear that my post about Dana Rivers’ victims wasn’t a gotcha, I was just responding to a post saying Charlie Kirk was the only broadly GC person killed by a TRA. Not true. It doesn’t diminish from Jewish people facing violence and hatred, as they clearly do.

I'm not sure if I totally agree with your premise, OP.

I think in general gay rights issues in recent years can be considered cancel worthy. If a celebrity or public person came out and said he opposed same sex marriage, for example, I think you'd see a similar response.

And for a while saying the wrong things about race seemed to result in quite significant backlash, though that's died down a lot.

But I think with these examples, there are probably fewer people who think those things, and most people don't feel compelled to share it publicly - I can think of a few devout Catholics in the public eye I suspect might have fairly conservative views on marriage, but they keep their politics on it quiet.

But people tend to feel they need to speak up about trans issues because of the serious problems attached to it with regards to kids, or women's rights, or because they think the treatments are medically harmful.

@TFImBackIn You should watch Speechless on BBC iPlayer right now. It is a documentary that covers this, looking at how extremely loud and angry voices in academia have resulted in reasonable discussions being disallowed or cancelled, sometimes with physical violence and always with threats. The first part of the documentary looked mostly at universities in America and how this activist mindset and the students ruling over the institutions becoming more and more prevalent, the second half explored things further and delved into the mindset of trans activists and cancelling academics who disagreed and also the worst part of the documentary (in my opinion), was seeing students in America celebrating the 7th October (which sickened me to the core) and the threat to Jewish students and wider implications of that. It's all connected. It's the same thing, all these angry people that shout and shout and threaten and cancel and bully. Horrible. It was an eye opening documentary for sure.

Likewise Tarquin attending court to commit perjury when trying to get Glinner convicted for damaging his phone.

I have to take issue with force-teaming the assisted dying movement with the trans movement.

I don't know about your country, but I suspect it is the same as in mine: it was not a recent top-down campaign funded by shadowy figures, it was started years ago by relatives and friends of people who had suffered unbearably at the inevitable ends of their precious lives, fearing prosecution for helping them, in some cases being charged and appearing in court, lobbying for years and years for a change in the law.

All of this motivated by their own personal experiences, which they bravely shared with the media, agreeing to relive the most heartbreaking and traumatic experiences of their loved ones, so other wouldn't have to go through the same thing.

As I say, it may be different where you come from, but what I am familiar with is very much a grass-roots movement, started by grieving family and friends. Just because it has had media exposure recently doesn't mean that it has appeared overnight - maybe you weren't aware of it before now, but it has existed for years, unfunded, unpublicised, but there.

Disagree with the campaign by all means, that is 100% your right and many people do; but please don't misrepresent and disrespect campaigners by calling them 'useful, often hired idiots'.

They are as sincere in their beliefs as you are in yours, and their beliefs are as worthy of respect in a democratic society as yours.

I really take issue with this. It's not gender critical women who are threatening trans people with rape, decapitation and murder, nor are we masking up and disrupting trans gatherings. Trans people haven't been hounded out of their jobs, verbally abused or intimidated either. Far from being a marginalized group they are amongst the most pampered people on the planet, who already have all the rights and protections they need. However, that's clearly not enough and they won't be happy until they can access our single sex spaces, appropriate the language that we use to describe the female body and it's functions and consign us to being a subset of our own sex.
In common with most GC women I have no issue with trans people presenting however they want, but I will not agree that it's possible to change sex and I don't want trans identifying men in single sex spaces or women's sport in precisely the same way that I don't want any men in womens' spaces and sports. Happily, the tide is finally beginning to turn as people wake up to the nonsense that has blighted many womens' lives for the last decade and it's not a moment too soon!

MarieDeGournay
it was not a recent top-down campaign funded by shadowy figures, it was started years ago by relatives and friends of people who had suffered unbearably at the inevitable ends of their precious lives

This. Anyone whose parent was starved to death in a hospital which used the "Liverpool Care Pathway" clumsily for end of life "care" is likely to have quite strong feelings about the subject, too. A mere five or ten days of fear and pain with neither food nor water is five or ten days too many for any stroke patient to be subjected to. (I accept that the idea behind this treatment was fine and dandy, but the execution was too often very poor indeed.)

Well, boys are disruptive and girls often play dumb when they want to impress boys. Do you have a link I can read because Google is telling me the opposite?

Single-sex schools and unexpected STEM outcomes

“Boys in all-boys’ schools do better on the general math test than boys in co-ed schools. They’re also more likely to take the science-focused math test,” Park says. But, test scores for girls do not improve in all-girls’ schools. Rather, the outcomes are similar to those seen in co-ed schools.

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/features/single-sex-schools-and-unexpected-stem-outcomespenntoday.upenn.edu/features/single-sex-schools-and-unexpected-stem-outcomes

Girls in Single-Sex Schools Face Major STEM Access Gap

The 2025 I Wish Survey has found that more than half of girls in single-sex schools see limited subject choice as a barrier to pursuing STEM.

irishtechnews.ie/girls-in-single-sex-schools-face-stem-access-gap/amp/

I think if we take politics out of it, an obvious transwomen is probs going to face more negative responses in things like job interviews. I don't have any data to back this up but most men see them as weirdos. And honestly a lot of them seem to fit the cap.

I don't mean that in a nasty way, though it's obv not the most positive comment. It's just that I've never encountered a transwoman that isn't hugely self involved and gender obsessed.

By contrast I've met a fair few gay blokes that are pretty matter of fact about it, but literally every transwoman I've ever met places their trans identity front and centre.