Be Kind 2.0 and the "Persuasive TRA"

[BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth]

This is a spinoff from another thread so as not to derail the original.

I thought it would be helpful to have a separate thread to discuss, and document, a phenomenon I have been seeing more regularly recently: the Persuasive TRA.

It occurred to me, after a few posters noted that the recent U-turns by a couple of politicians, and the wheedling TRA responses to the EHRC guidance, were akin to an abuser changing tactics and also asking us to "help" them in the new single-sex regime, that the whole thing is starting to pan out exactly as an abusive relationship often does. When is the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship? Normally, when she is leaving.

Well, women are leaving the abusive relationship with non-reality that men forced upon us some 15 years ago, and I would argue that now might be our most dangerous/difficult moment.

This is what I posted on the other thread:

I'm starting to see a bit more of what I am calling (in my own head) "Persuasive TRA." Now that they have lost everything that they bullied women for, some activists seem to be changing tack. Women must now fix the situation that TRAs have found themselves in. It seems to pivot on a sort of Be Kind 2.0.

I think women who have been in the game long enough will see through it, but we should be watchful. Stonewall is pivoting, activists are pivoting, and they will be preying on women's socialized kindness: watch for the destination and be on your guard.

I have read several posters on different threads appealing to everyone (women) to help calm trans-identified people's (men's) fears about what this new reality will look like, what it will mean for them (the men) now that they can't just do whatever they want anymore. What about the men's toilets? Are they safe? Where will they go? (Who will fix this problem?)

Well, apparently it is a problem that women can fix, if they just take a moment to think about it. Trans-identified men will be unsafe in the men's, so women need to join the fight to give these men something of their own.

Notice the pivot? The pleading? If you just... If you weren't so.... It can be different if you just... Sound familiar? To any woman who is in, or has escaped from, an abusive relationship, this will be all too familiar.

This is Be Kind 2.0. It's very similar to the original, except that instead of being forced to enjoy our abuse, we are being asked to fix it. And the "Persuasive TRAs" seem to be mobilizing, from what I have seen.

It won't start in the middle (with the women); it will start at the top (infiltrating government, think tanks, charities, etc.) and the bottom (schools). But they will use women to get this moving. Why not? It worked so well last time. And I believe that organizations like Stonewall will be leading the charge: the campaign can be something like Safe Spaces for Trans+ : All of Us Together.

If anyone else has seen this in action, it might be useful to keep a record of it here.

I imagine this thread will eventually be taken over by activists, but, until then, I would be interested in your thoughts.

I think JKR's comment that "It's perfectly acceptable for a grown man in a bikini" says it all

More beautiful examples today on the “sex and gender discussions” thread.

Is that the 'but you're only talking about sex and gender issues, here...on the sex and gender board!!' arse?

Denton's playbook

As we start to see things shift, once it sinks in that the law and guidance about services actually supports single-sex spaces, women's rights to services and spaces of their own, and our right to say "no," I thought it would be useful to have this close at hand:

James Kirkup's Spectator article about Denton's playbook, from Dec 2019:

(with thanks to @Ereshkigalangcleg for reposting the article on another thread)

The document that reveals the remarkable tactics of trans lobbyists | The Spectator

Starting with the final paragraph from his article:

I’m going to conclude with an observation I’ve made here before, but which I think bears repeating in the context of that report and the things it might tell people about other aspects of the trans issue: no policy made in the shadows can survive in sunlight.

I know many of you will already be familiar with Denton's, but I don't recall ever having read this article before. And many of you will still be unaware of the deliberate tactics employed to get gender ideology embedded into our societies. It's an easy read and points out the tactics clearly.

There will be activists right now working behind the scenes, "in the shadows," to salvage something of what they have built, in order to shift to something new while we are busy restructuring society along lines of reality. This is why we watch Stonewall and their partners, why we need to keep an eye on Compass (links to Andy Burnham through Neal Lawson (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/22/whos-who-in-andy-burnhams-team/

(https://www.compassonline.org.uk/)
and why what has happened at Amnesty UK is so important.

Let's bear in mind that Denton's playbook could have been used for any number of desired goals, and it could be used again.

Yep @Waitwhat23

Some AI classics on other threads today. Wonder if AI is learning how to deliberately manipulate people.

And they always say they're not using AI. It's too hot, and there posts are soooo boring, round and round we go. It's actually starting to look like desperation on their part. GOOD. Let the desperation begin.

"their posts" - obviously. It's too hot. 😎

I know 🔥

The latest EHRC guidance pivot: the guidance doesn't mean what it actually says (especially with regard to toilets)

[The argument] seem to be suggesting that we need case law to establish that males do not have the right to access services for females on an individual basis.
'This is bollocks.' (thanks to @nutmeg7)

It is the latest pivot to try to dismiss the guidance: 'but wait, the EA2010 has to be challenged for toilet usage before any male person should be expected to respect female people’s needs to single sex spaces!’ after all the rhetoric such as ‘it is not against the law because it is not a ‘crime’’ style statements.' (thanks to @Helleofabore )

I have a very long report which acts as a risk assessment and equality impact assessment for changing single sex toilet blocks into enclosed universal toilets. Conclusion:don’t do it.

Periodic Summary 4 - The Persuasive TRA
(summaries 1-3 upthread)

The False Equivalence: crime is being reported simply because the perpetrator is trans-identified (and not "cis"); therefore, it's the person, not the crime, that's the story here

The Other False Equivalence: reporting on said trans-identified perpetrator (see above) tarnishes ALL trans-identified people; therefore we must condemn all "cis" women and take away all their freedoms, if ONE "cis" woman commits a crime.

The Trojan Horse Feminism (thanks to @Heggettypeg ): "inclusive feminism" is the new "feminism" and includes trans-identified men in women's experiences, history, and achievements

The Reframing of Complaint ("authentic acceptance" and "it's respect, not compliance"): reframing language compliance as "respectful" and "proof" that women don't care about men in their spaces

The One Where They Wear Our Symptoms: the attempt to diminish our experiences (e.g. menopause)

The One Where It's Too Expensive (to alter all the toilets, etc.)

The One Where They Deflect: there are more important issues (than trans-identifying men in women's spaces)

The "Anti-Rights" Fiasco: shifting from the catch-all "anti-trans" to the equally undefinable catch-all "anti-rights"

The One Where "Lived Experience" Equals Reality (or Using Forstater): and the reality of sex is a religious belief

The Faux Concern (or Squirreling): look at all the other issues women should be fighting for

The Class One: attacking reality-believing women as of "a certain class"

The One Where Sex Doesn't Matter: removing sexual "labels" (or sexual identity) completely as they make life difficult for trans people to "enjoy themselves"

The Righteous Prosecution: being taken to court just proves they are right

The One Where Bailey Uses Motte: the use of the defensible claim to bolster the controversial claim

The One Where The Guidance Doesn't Mean Anything (or, "we can do what we want until someone complains")

Also worth mentioning that “anti rights” is a catch all for all “bad” movements anywhere, which has the effect of drawing all these movements together and thereby smearing gender critical organisations by default as also: anti abortion, homophobic, misogynistic, anti environment and racist.

I did actually see an attempt on Reddit earlier by a TRA to argue that no one including Amnesty was claiming the GC orgs were those other things, “anti trans” was bad enough so people had got the wrong end of the stick. Apart from all the times they have claimed that, and the entire focus of the report on shadowy interrelated networks and secret funding from the US.

i think some of the TRAs realise the overreach and are trying to put the brakes on a bit. Not many though!

Analysis of tactics -1

I'll start by quoting some of what @Helleofabore said last week, I think (with profound thanks, because I was really struggling to come up with a way to start this):

"As each argument loses its linguistic moral loading power, that argument needs to be replaced.

If the argument has been so over used and the reader / listener has considered it and found the argument not accurate at all, then the speaker / writer has to make much more effort to convince those readers / listeners that what they say is true.

Each ridiculous, but necessary, move is an attempt at emotional manipulation, of course, because this is all the activists have."

I can't touch on every point/tactic made previously, so I'll just aim for an overview. Over the course of this project, I have noticed the following:

Some tactics seem to have been dumped completely:

• Be Kind
• No Debate
• The Persuasive "TERF": sowing doubt [possibly TRAs who posit GC views when it's just natter, but also work to undermine good news stories]

Some tactics have stayed the course and intensified:

• emotional blackmail
• DARVO
• The One Where They Deflect: there are more important issues (than trans-identifying men in women's spaces)
• The Who Cares? "Transgender people have spent years transitioning: why stop now?"

Some tactics have grown or been reborn as larger or slightly more developed versions of the original:

• The It's Unworkable and It's Segregation tactics (especially relating to the EHRC guidance and the EA) seems to have merged into two others: The One Where The Guidance Doesn't Mean Anything (or, "we can do what we want until someone complains") and The One Where It's Too Expensive (to alter all the toilets, etc.)
• No Debate seems to have morphed into Word Salad, and is becoming If you can't baffle them with 'trans' science, bore them with complete bullshit
• Piggybacking, Appropriation, and Wearing Our History have become a monster (sorry!) and now includes Wearing our Arguments, Wearing our (female) Symptoms, Wearing our Experiences (past, present, and future), and Wearing our Achievements.
• Rapist Gender and Criminal Gender have morphed into Hoax Gender, and one poster yesterday actually admitted to me that "No, I can't look inside someone's head and tell you whether they're genuinely transgender or lying. Neither can you."
• Is/Ought seems to have been dropped for now, in favor of The One About Common vs. Expectation: "Typical (common) behaviours to a sex isn't the same as stereotypical (expectations) behaviours"

Some tactics are purely reactive and threatening:

• The Threat: "people can be angry and upset and take action with violence and take lives"
• The Other Threat: Women, don't prosecute, it's unsafe and you will be cancelled.
• The Rapid Onset Women with Alopecia, Cancer Survivors and Butch Lesbians Concern (or Rapid Onset Everyday-looking Women Concern) tactic: women who look "like men" will be challenged in women's toilets and changing rooms

We also don't seem to have the same "caliber" of activists posting on FWR anymore, although, who can tell? Their arguments are less "beat them to death with faux science and incorrect law" and more "it just is because I say so and you're all bigots."

• The Pretend You Just Don't Notice [a man in your female single-sexed space]
• The NATWALT: "I’ve met trans women and they respect women’s rights"
• The Lie: EIAs show that the "men’s is not 💯 safe for transgender women" [what EIAs?]
• The Other Lie: "Transgender women have won" [this one is especially desperate]

The quality of debate (such as it has ever been) has really plummeted. "It's my experience" seems to be the quality of the evidence, as well.

I think "Persuasive TRA" came and went very quickly. Pleading, bargaining, bartering seem to have dropped off a cliff, and the activists are back to bludgeoning us with incomprehensible word salad, threats, and dodgy "evidence."

From the Five Stages of Grief (equally-applicable to the breakdown of an abusive relationship, some might argue), we have gone from denial, to anger, to bargaining (and Peak Persuasive TRA), back to denial and anger.

I believe persuasion/blackmail will rear its ugly head intermittently before we ever reach depression:

• The Poor Menz: "Transgender women on medication will be threatened with violence going in the men’s spaces"
• The Emotional Blackmail: Fighting for women's single-sex toilets will be bad for disabled people [disabled toilets will be "used as third and fourth spaces.
• The guilt-tripping women into not complaining tactic (especially relating to the EHRC guidance and the EA)

And some tactics have been "sleepers" in the background, waiting in the wings until needed:

• It's All A Right-Wing Plot goes hand-in-hand with "anti-trans" becoming "anti-rights "
• Trojan Horse Feminism "inclusive feminism" is the new "feminism"

Other trends to watch out for:

• The Difference of Opinion (or The Infighting) "Trans" is different but valid OR "Trans" is a male with a female soul
• [so, which is it?]
• The One Where "Lived Experience" Equals Reality (or Using Forstater): and the reality of sex is a religious belief
• The One Where The Guidance Doesn't Mean Anything (or, "we can do what we want until someone complains")

And, with that, I think we have come full circle. I don't think, as many of you also don't think, that this was ever actually about "trans rights." It's just a convenient hook from which to hang all the other "grievances" out there, support men's "wants" activists, and embolden every other destabilizing force that was looking for an "in."

Thanks for all your contributions! Keep them coming!

Actually, I think for a lot of people (though obviously not the FWR resident pigeons) it genuinely still is about "support the poor sad men who hate their bodies so much they are driven to surgery / driven to pretend to be women".

For these people "TWAW" actually means "be polite and don't mention they are not women - it's not like they are going to want draw attention to themselves by trying to compete with women or act as representatives of women, and it's not like the authorities would do something ridiculous like let them compete in women's boxing, put them in woemn's prisons, or let them do mammary scans or anything!"

They simply haven't thought about the big picture, and what agreeing something in a man's mind makes him legitimately and objectively more like a woman is saying not just about trans people but about women.

So I think for these people, simply asking straight questions and sharing clear factual examples of the things they assume no one would seriously suggest or do actually being exactly what people are seriously suggesting and doing will over time allow them to move past #BeKind into #ActuallyNowIThinkAboutItProperlyThisIsNotAtAllFairOnWomen. After all, that's the journey most of us took as well.

I think even for many of the chess pigeons (oooo great name for a band!) it really is also still about trans people rather than straight up MRA, but they've got themselves so wound up by women saying no to them that they have lost sight of the argument and day to day it's now all just focused on Getting One Over Those Fucking Terfs.

And then of course some really are just MRAs who don't especially care about trans people but just love the idea that "men lost men-only spaces because of those psycho FemiNazis, how(se) delicious it is to see the same arguments being made against them" - totally failing, as MRAs are always fated to do by their limited perspective, to understand there are significiant differences in need and purpose between men-only golf clubs and women-only rape crisis centres.

"men lost men-only spaces because of those psycho FemiNazis, how(se) delicious it is to see the same arguments being made against them"

Even the men I know who would have been eligible to be members of a Men's Club in London (like the Army and Navy or the Athenaeum or Brooks's or the Carlton or the Oxford and Cambridge) wouldn't have paid for their memberships because they found them deadly dull; I can't think that admitting women got such clubs many extra members, because I expect women would feel just the same. And I doubt that the men being all cross because women were admitted to those were themselves members of them.

I suppose some women do want to play golf....

Lifting this wholesale from the "Anti-trans views classed as misinformation in government report" thread:

Sounds similar to the recent Amnesty report which did something similar. “Gender critical” was used to mean something wholly different from its current meaning, which is more or less sex realist. Pretending to defend women’s rights and debase gender critical groups by pretending we are anti-women may well be the next approach taken.
^^
Their word games and “queering” of everything makes fighting this ideology incredibly frustrating, but this pattern is happening over and over. As we begin to win, the goalposts and language change again. [my bold]

Thanks to @PriOn1

From the current Linehan thread, we have the doozy that is 'i would have hoped that one group facing discrimination would have solidarity with another'.

Or #bekind with a different frock on.

It's also forced teaming, and a no from me.

Akin to "The PR Problem: LGB people need to make the T look better" that was mooted a few weeks ago!

"Force teaming" is a good way to describe it.

This one wasn't even LGB (not that that's acceptable) it was women. All of them.

from the "Anti-trans views classed as misinformation" thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5556446-5556446-anti-trans-views-classed-as-misinformation-in-government-report?page=5

thanks to @UtopiaPlanitia [my bold]

No Debate 2.0 - the start?

• astroturf 'academic' reports that will act as support/justification for any government, or EU,
• to reduce the effectiveness of women seeking legal redress in the face of Genderist overreach
• provide cover for future measures to restrict speech online
• seek to undermine the credibility of women's and LGB groups by throwing mud and hoping enough of it will stick

It is so established now, and so many careers have been built on the back of it, that it's not surprising. They are not going to say, OK, women, you win, we'll keep quiet now. It's back on the attack!

To add to The One Where The Guidance Doesn't Mean Anything (or, "we can do what we want until someone complains"):

(À la Lambeth Council) "...condemned the draft code as “incoherent and self-contradictory, discriminatory, and impossible to implement in a reasonable and proportionate manner”.

Thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5558370-lambeth-council-to-challenge-new-discriminatory-guidelines-on-single-sex-spaces

Thanks to @IwantToRetire