The future of gender ideology

[PeachyDaisy]

Is anyone else feeling really pessimistic about the future of women’s sex-based rights?

I know the UK has been doing better than many other countries in pushing back against gender ideology (although there is still a long way to go), but it feels like much of the rest of the Western world has already been captured by it, both culturally and legally.

Looking 50 years into the future, I honestly worry that most Western countries will have moved to self-ID, with only a few exceptions remaining. Hopefully the UK is able to stand firm, but I’m not even confident of that especially if all of the western world has fallen.

I know the gender ideology movement is never going to disappear. It will continue to control universities, many industries, and parts of society. There will also always be a significant number of people who either support, or simply don’t see a problem with, males accessing women’s spaces if they identify as women.

I wonder if others feel the same — that this is a temporary cultural moment that will eventually shift, or whether these changes are likely to become permanent.

God, you have been driving me mad for days. Will you please put a bloody hyphen in there. It should be 'feminist-identifying transphobes'.

Quite right.

I think Mash is trying to create a catchphrase.

Could just call us all FIT for short? It would save on typing and the maddening lack of hyphen.

It’s a Reddit phrase.

Ah, makes sense.

'Nuff said.

Oh AimsAndObjectives, don't get me started on the absence of hyphen😡
I blame onscreen keys, where the hyphen is often 'hidden' and it looks like Mash and others can't be bothered locating it..

So they nicked the format of the phrase we use to describe trans-identifying males and appropriated it for themselves?

Surely not.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Quite right - I’ve been wondering who the feminist is that has taken it upon herself to go about identifying transphobes. Not really in our remit, is it?

.

I strongly believe it’s linked to population control!

We know from the YouGov surveys that support for trans ideology is steadily dwindling as people wake up to the reality; of women's sports, associations, awards, changing rooms, etc. And Sandie Peggie, Darlington nurses. Everybody knows. Everybody knows you can't change your sex and that TWAW is a polite lie in woke society.

All my good friends get it. They're not as invested in the cause as I am, and I don't expect them to be. But they know it's all woo, wank and bollocks.

I also see on Facebook a huge lot of pushback, hundreds of comments, for example on local Green Party councillor announcements about how they're standing up for trans, or local paper's posts about a trans protest, - and there is a lot of open contempt.

And then you have special poster boys such as Matt Rattley, the Oxford lecturer who has a beard and wears a rubber prosthetic 'breastplate', at least a G-cup in size, to work, - doing the rounds on social media.

Underpinning all this is the law, the SCJ in For Women Scotland, and the steady stream of court cases forcing compliance with the law.

I don't think there's any chance the Equality Act will be amended. Even MPs who pretend to support the cause know it would be electoral suicide (albeit it hasn't yet dawned on US Democrats).

There's also the hard fact of no men in women's Olympic sports. And this is high visibility, and even the be-kinders can't argue that biological men should be allowed to compete against biological women.

Lastly, the detransitioner court claims have only just started, will soon be legion, for the amputations, the lifelong disabilities, infertility, loss of sexual function, incontinence, chronic pain, osteoporosis, loss of mobility, etc etc.

If I'm going to be honest I do have moments where I wonder if I am transphobic. Before getting interested in this debate I would engage with trans people without thinking anything about it, now If I see a trans person I'm immediately a little more bit more guarded, tense and just generally want to avoid them. I don't know, it might be transphobia or just heightened awareness.

God, really? They're a bit rubbish at this aren't they.

Well, you can know. Ask yourself what it is you're trying to avoid. Is it the person themselves? Is it the conflict between your GC understanding of the issues around trans people in general, and your desire to be kind and polite to this person in particular (for example, internal conflict around whether or not to use opposite-sex pronouns for them, even if only in your head)? Is it the fear that they'll demand more than just opposite-sex pronouns somehow? Something else? Only you can know, but you can know.

Its healthy to examine one's motives.

Pattern recognition ils also normal and sensible, especially when risk assessing.

Also consider how the accusation of 'transphobia' is used.

If living in London provides a Petri dish for social contagion, then I can definitely see adults in the room now. The progress flags are all but gone, bearded men in charity shop frocks are lesser seen, teenagers are moving onto other obsessions (“trans” heading for landfill with goths and deely boppers).

Do you know, I wondered whether i was imagining the decreasing number of blue and green haired girls around? Both my kids went to a progressive independent school without uniform and where dyeing hair was fine, so even my own son had blue hair for a term when he was 8 or 9. I took the view that if I was not fussed and let him, he’d get it out of his system (which he did).

Of course, being that type of school, it was very captured by the time covid/lockdown happened and 70% of my DD’s classmates ID’s as LGBTQI+ (pan, demi, ace etc were all in the mix from 13/14). I rolled my eyes at it, thinking it - and DD’s belief she was trans - would pass as quickly as my own orange mowhawk and emo phases has passed. In hindsight it is one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t pull her out immediately.

My DS’s year group, 3 years younger [currently 18], was a different kettle of fish. One of his female [and yes, autistic] friends ID’d vehemently as trans at 13, but had dropped it by 17. In PSHE there were apparently near riots as many of the class mocked and guffawed when outside providers tried to deliver their resources, and they couldn’t ‘manage’ the classes - though the same cohort were kind and accepting of the [transitory] trans friend as she went through that phase [LOL see what I did there].

This. I thought for years that being born in the wrong body is a thing. The recent trans wars have at least put this ludicrous trope in the spotlight. It’d be interesting to ask some teenagers if they think it’s possible to be born in the wrong body. Perhaps this post should be in AIBU

I did years ago.

Now I'm confident enough that it's just cult like bullshit so I don't care what mud they throw at me. It's nonsense. Abusive and coercive nonsense at times. I'm done with that.

One of the things that really got to me for a long time was this sense of guilt and a sense of shame that somehow I could have done things differently. I'm now free of that and understand the tactics used to try and control.

It's like watching Louis Theroux trying to make a documentary about Scientologists here at times. (On iPlayer. Worth a watch). And I know TRAs are utterly batshit and very dubious population control methods which involve deliberate intimidation and tactics designed to try and break free will. I see how easy it is to get sucked in and unless you are in a position where it's still a child you can have influence over, in many cases there's not a lot you can do but logic and ask questions and hope in time those niggling doubts in the back of heads, do eventually wake up. It's about getting people to think and not sit back and be able to stay in the safety of thought terminating cliches. Every comment we make questioning matters - this is how you deprogram cult members. It is not an easy or quick process and that's important to recognise.

In terms of the comparison with Scientology, even this thread is a good example with a bunch of them standing around shouting insults at us occasionally to try and bully. Note we are not posting on Reddit, it's Activists deliberately coming here not the other way round. You note with religious groups like Jehovah's witnesses (who are not classed as a cult but many leavers regardless it as due to many using social control to stop others leaving) that one of their expectations is also to preach in a way that's compulsory and part of the lifestyle too.

Personally at this point the TRAs here are like mosquitoes buzzing around really noisily when you are trying to go to sleep. They even seem to come out more at night (can't think why...) They are largely just a nuisance which can be solved quite easily with a deet net or plain English and a very basic understanding of human reproduction.

The term "Squirrel Busters" primarily refers to a controversial team of enforcers deployed by the Church of Scientology.

In Scientology terminology, a "squirrel" is a derogatory term for a heretic or someone who has defected from the official church.

Theroux's documentary follows this and the intimidation of Marty Rathburn as the "Squirrel Busters" conducted a high-profile, intense intimidation and surveillance campaign against him.

The church's reaction was predicted by Theroux, who said, "They have a habit of tailing, filming, questioning and investigating those who do stories on them." Within a couple of months of the start of filming, the film-makers found themselves under constant surveillance. The church mounted a campaign of harassment against the film-makers which drew "all kinds of stalker-ish emissaries and cranks out of the woodwork, not one of them doing much to reassure us that Scientology is in fact cuddly, socially progressive or misunderstood." They found themselves pursued "in broad daylight by mysterious cars with tinted windows". Occasionally they had face-to-face confrontations with camera-toting pursuers which they filmed in turn, so that "half the film consists of cameras pointing at other cameras, like an absurdist gunfight at dawn, with neither side willing to holster." They also received numerous letters from Scientology lawyers. Theroux found this behavior very strange: "They are behaving in a way that is so obviously pathological—you would think they would realize that other people would see that and think this is a religion of lunatics."

Sound familiar anyone?

I'm actually valuing Greta's contributions. It's not the usual tactic of TRAs to sound demure/butter wouldn't melt in their mouth/I'm just here to genuinely get GC takes within the space of a few posts total pivot to seething misogyny.
There's at least some fleshing out of the position.
But just as TRAs accuse GCs of conspiracies and bad faith arguments, gosh, the other side is drenched in it.
Trans individuals may very well be isolated individuals (aren't we all with our unique characteristics?), but to claim the whole movement politically is grass roots up, and GCs are organised RW interests pushing down in not so much preposterous as fantastical.
So, it was poor sad put upon trans individuals who pushed en masse for the cancel culture on this subject we've had for a decade plus? That was grass roots pressure, nothing to do with media, academia, big business co-opted by a single issue political movement?
Individual trans, apparently according to the TRA propaganda the most victimized individuals in society, mass suicide risk, found the strength of purpose to so "convince" universities to penalise GC narratives, media to refer to "her penis", first do no harm doctors to recommend medicalization of youth, sports authorities to permit non women to compete against women and downgrade their chances.
All of this was grass roots pressure from a minority (T) of a minority (LGBT) to literally turn the world on its axis?
And the GC movement is pure right wing conspiracy theory, a pure construct of Murdoch, Trump, Musk, Farage etc?
That if there had been no neo liberal right govts or transphobic media in the West since the days of Thatcher/Reagan/The Sun/The Mail/Trump/Musk's X, right now women across the West would be welcoming a new classification of women into their ranks, feminism would be celebrating them.
Black and white women, rich and poor women, heterosexual women and lesbians...and AFAB and AMAB women.
And the AMAB women would right now be at fight against male violence and patriarchal attitudes.
Yes, the sliding doors/parallel reality that Greta postulates.

Yes.

Activists: It's done, it's over, you've lost, women and children and gay rights are dead, nobody likes you, nobody agrees with you, there's nothing you can do, ner ner ner <checks Dentons playbook for more> no one will follow the law, the law doesn't matter, we are the Champions,

Also activists, on same thread: stop for the love of God, you're hurting children and causing literal violence and don't you understand, please stop wanting rights and writing to people and mentioning the law, and suggesting evil things such as other people are equal to trans people and have rights too <hyperactive tag team posting trying to silence women from.... what has to be effective and a real problem, or why bother?>

🤔

Also activists: women who have been traumatised should just get over it, NAMALT, they're going to rape you anyway, women of cultures and faiths not compatible with mixed sex spaces shouldn't be of those cultures and faiths and should stop immediately and be white indigenous atheist British like me 'better', homosexual people should stop their weird hateful fetish and 'learn to cope' with sex that enables people with trans identities instead of wanting sexually satisfying and enjoyable relationships, women shouldn't be allowed rape crisis services or refuges unless they can be with men and put those men first, girls should be taught that safeguarding is predicated on whether or not it makes a male with a gender identity sad and if so her feelings and needs are irrelevant, her job is to get her clothes off and keep her little mouth shut, safeguarding children is wrong for Reasons when it's inconvenient to adults with agendas, and you're all Right Wing extremists!

Unlike liberated, progressive, kind lefty me.