'Educate yourself'

[PopstarPoppy]

Further to a post I have just read, one of the things that makes me angriest in the gender debate is when adherents of gender ideology tell people who disagree with them to 'educate' themselves. I have even faced this in the workplace. Coming from people whose position has no scientific basis or credibility, it's insulting and blinkered, but it's also chilling. It's like we're living in 1984, where wrongthink exists and should be punished.

We're not denying scientifically proven facts, like climate change or the earth is flat, we're arguing against an ideology. Nobody should be told to 'educate themselves' because they disagree with a position that is nothing more than an opinion. It's just another way to shut down a debate that the gender ideologues know they can't win through reasoned, logical discussion.

Yup... "Go educate yourself" is the last dying gasp of someone who doesn't know what they are talking about and has nowhere to turn.

I think Matina Navratilova's response is perfect.

I love this phrase! I wonder how many of us are here after being told to "educate ourselves" 🤭

When told that "It's not MY job to educate you" after asking a simple question I educated myself and found myself here, it also means that when that individual now quotes pseudo facts and hallucinated figures I know exactly where on the GLP website they found them 🙈

Entirely possible, but I've seen your other posts, and I believe there is another agenda at work here.

If you genuinely want to understand what women are dealing with, then you'll stick around, listen, read, and yes, do your own research. Take a leaf out of SingleSexSpacesInSchools's book.

I won't be responding to you again.

They are arguing amongst themselves over on Reddit about who is the most oppressed. A transwoman is complaining that they have it worse than transmen and the best line I have seen in ages comes from that thread:

'White middle class trans women who are sad they lost their male privilege need to stop dominating these spaces.'

It seems like they are having to educate themselves in the reality of life.

I’ve lost count of the amount of ideology supporters I’ve seen on tv or online who start by saying: I don’t know much on the subject but…
before launching into a huge tirade

What is so hilarious about that statement is that it’s educating myself that led me to the GC position I now hold. Before then I was very much “it doesn’t take much to be kind!”

I’m educating myself right now.

Hmmm, you've got "managing to sound like a reasonable guy while still mansplaining" down to a T, don't you?

@BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth thanks for the schooling

Given the way you replied to me on another thread, I’ll repeat what I said to you on the other thread.

you need to look internally and get clued up on consent.

I asked you to stop doing something I considered creepy, and you kept doing it because (my paraphrase) I didn’t shut up and go away and kept calling you out.

As to educate myself, I have. That’s why I object to men in women’s single sex spaces.

Especially irritating when, despite taking the opposing position, you are pretty confident you could actually argue for their side better than they can!

I think there's also an assumption of "you don't know how it feels". Whereas actually many of us know exactly what it is to feel unhappy in our sexed body and with our societally-imposes gender role and still don't think that's a good reason to adopt some nonsensical ideology, however faddish it might be.

Very true, they all resort to having no arguments. Though I am a climate sceptic in the sense that I think the 'catastrophe now!' narrative is built on hysteria, my arguments to support scepticism are historical and scientific, and my position is that climate change is a natural phenomenon, driven by the sun and the earth's own systems and that we are not wholly to blame for the current changes, which are somewhat speeded up but not unnatural. We are in an interglacial period and an ice age is overdue. The signs of an ice age pending are warming, which allows the ice fields of the poles to melt, thus cooling the oceans, which leads to cooling of the land masses and global cooling, so global warming is an indicator that our particular inter-glacial period is on the wane and we had better start adjusting.
Edited for a Freudian slip.

Educating myself was what turned me from my previous "Be Kind" stance to a fully-fledged TERF.

The phrase thought terminating cliche was absolutely a light bulb moment for me.

It shows up the authoritarian nature. It shows up the superiority and smugness that somehow these are enlightened people who know better and you should know your place.

It's a phrase that is there to almost intimidate a lot of people either because they haven't the ability to compete with university educated types, the time to invest in educating themselves or they haven't got the confidence to adequately challenge people like this who dominate conversations.

Once you realise it's a façade to stop debate and conversation on the topic it really has the reverse effect and opens it up.

To be fair, I first heard 'educate yourself' being used by POC asking white people to educate themselves instead of constantly pestering POC to do the leg work for them, and I have some sympathy with their pov. Similarly with MyShyCat who, IMHO, would benefit from reading more of the threads here before engaging.

However, it is clear that with GI 'educate yourself' means read the same old books written by men who say they are women and a couple of dodgy research papers and... that's it, unless you want to wade through some ultimately irrelevant Judith Butler. Genderism is a castle built on sand, and they know it.

Where as I agree with you, I'm not having it, it's suppose to get warmer, Global Warming, I can't be having with the cold. No, no, no, 😭

My standard reply - I have had a great education thanks, especially in Biology.

https://archive.org/details/thoughtreformpsy0000lift

Available to read on the archive!

It's fine to suggest people may benefit from listening, learning, researching, applying critical thinking. We should all keep open minds about things as much as is reasonable.

This isn't always what is meant by 'educate yourself!'

It's sometimes used as dismissal by people who can't actually make, or even understand, the arguments themselves.

I've had it snapped at me when someone has painted himself into a corner in an argument. Basically it was a verbal flounce.

Argh cannot be bothered with that old chestnut.

I'm fiercely protective of women's rights because I educated myself, largely through listening to and watching the dross emanating from some trans activists, it was eye opening to put it mildly. And quite damaging in many ways, it's been a very grim and harsh education.

I also often inquire if I explain women's rights and 'educate' them for an hour or so, will they leave passionately GC?

Oddly they don't think education works any more when I put it like that. Stupid and lazy term not thought through.

I think it depends on context. If it is a space where a minority or oppressed group is speaking, then 'educate yourself' can be a reasonable request to a would-be ally.

If it is a lazy and ill-informed colleague, it just means 'read the same crap that I read on facebook and agree with me'.

For people who can't understand the arguments (or understand them and know that they are rubbish) it is definitely a verbal flounce, as you say.

It is our repeat visitors here that interest me, though. Especially the ones who profess to be feminists / trans-allies / working in a caring profession / well-qualified / trans parents. They have gone out of their way to visit a thread where predominantly GC women are speaking and yet, rather than convert us with their words of wisdom, they mess around and then flounce with some version of educate yourself / I'm not doing your work for you / I don't respond to gender criticals' demands. They make it crystal clear to me that there are no sound arguments for GI. Without them, I might still be looking for answers.

Educate yourself = I am unable to come up with any logical arguments to refute your position so I want to shut down the debate in case you make me look stupid.

I really like this.

A variation on educate yourself is the virtuous trans ally telling you that we "cis" hoi polloi can't possibly expect to understand transness and so we must just "listen to trans people" ("uncritically and without questioning" being understood.) Any attempt, however sympathetic, to figure out how and why trans identities develop, is apparently lese majeste.

This 'educate yourself' stuff reminds me of the person who posted on facebook about it being Transawareness day.

I am now very much more aware of Trans issues - but I strongly suspect not in the way she wanted me to be aware.

I fully agree with you. However I get the impression that only uneducated people use the phrase “educate yourself.” It is commonly used on the “Family Lowdown”
forum where the level of debate is not very sophisticated.

Anyone who has a proper degree from a decent university is surely more likely to engage in a respectful discussion, because they have the ability to do so and because they aren’t threatened by an opposing view?