Are we a cult?

[CyclingSam]

I keep reading that sex realists, of which I am one, are a cult. Perhaps a genderist could be so kind as to explain what a cult is, and why we qualify. Sometimes one of us calls them a cult too. Who has a better case, hmmm?

Exactly - I've been on FWR for more than 15 years - I didn't post for ages, had my arse handed to me a couple of times when I dipped my toe in, learned some stuff, picked up the lingo, changed my mind about some things, but not others, robustly challenged in response occasionally, kept to my own moral code as well as the guidelines...

You don't just leap into a long-running forum and expect it to bend to accommodate you - and honestly, compared to the low-carb and spinning forums I've frequented over time, I find the women here to be quite accommodating.

Unlike most cultists, adherents to the cult of Tunnocks will talk openly and willingly to dissenters. Even before the curse of coeliac, I hated Tunnocks, yet I remain tolerated on this board.

'quite accommodating'
I like that, that'll do me as a 'describe yourself in two words or less'😁
T shirt please, size M

One thing that is quite consistent though is how many posters feel justified in censuring and / or censoring feminists and women’s rights campaigners who they don’t feel behave in the way the posters feel appropriate (while those women post within the published guidelines). There seems to be a need to control how female people react to suit those poster’s personal set of standards.

@SodThisHeadache indeed,clarity and communication is key. Hospice UK had guidance/ info documents with a case study of a TW admitted to hospice …she was called “Dad” by her adult daughter but they complained about issues with misgendering by staff, (which is fully valid imo but explains why some staff may have been confused) . But they also complained about their medical treatment as the person was being given a “second best” medication with greater side effects that is given to women rather than the “ first choice” medication with fewer side effects that can only be used by men. So there is that anachronism of staff needing to treat them as a woman but also to treat them as a man. Caring for human beings is incredibly important ( I believe we all have a soul but I doubt it’s a gendered one) and hospices aim to treat everybody with care and dignity but sex is important and I get fed up with accusations of transphobia for knowing this very basic fact of life.

An argument that works equally well to answer the question of "Is GC a cult".

*Side-eyes the usual suspects that we tolerate despite their obvious exclamations that up is down"

@Helleofabore However, in saying that, I have noticed plenty of new usernames who are reacting to posts. New people are reading.

Yes, I have noticed this. It is one of the reasons I stick around, having long ago given up on coming across a decent explanation from a feminist perspective on why we should accept the genderwang, which was my initial reason for visitng FWR.

My favourites are the posters that explode onto the board with sweeping generalisations about ‘you lot’ coupled with rudeness and evident disdain for other posters from their very first post and then complain when people are mean to them (which they (by which of course I mean me) often are because

1. I’m only human
2. MN is for fun and I have to be unremittingly nice to dicks at work, but not here)

To be honest, I can totally understand why girls want to be boys. It's when you hit adolescence that you begin to realise just how different life is for men and women. As a general rule, boys aren't sexually harassed, sent dick picks or have unrealistic beauty standards pushed at them from all quarters. That's not to say ther isn't some pressure on boys too but it's not to the extent that it is pushed onto girls. Boys don't have to contend with periods, impractical uniforms, the constant low level threat of sexual violence, the expectations around hair and makeup or the expectations to be pretty, nice, accommodating and helpful.

As a teenager I remember having a presentation at school by the army. Now this wasn't in the UK and it was quite a few years ago now. Most of my school were not expected to go to university so the army presented an opportunity for careers and apprenticeships. The recruiter was keen to promote the army as a place of opportunity for women. He admitted some roles were barred to women, the explanation being that these were front line roles and women (at that point anyway) were not sent to any potential front. Yet the list of barred roles was at least 2/3 of the available options. Because I am female I was not allowed to drive a tank, become a mechanic, an engineer, a weapons expert, the list went on an on. I coulnted them up as he went and pointed out at the end that girls could become signallers, cooks, and secretaries. So nothing new or surprising there. I always resented my younger brother who did join the army being allowed to drive tanks then having his post army career degree subsidised by the armed forces.

It's telling that @TransParentlyAnnoyed mentions her tran's child's brothers and how she emulated them. If I was her I would be looking at myself and wondering if I treated my boys differently than my daughter. Did I give them more freedom? Did I have different expectations about their behaviour? Did I subconsciously try to force my daughter into a female role/clothes/expectations? Is this trans identity a rejection of parental and societal expectations? If so, it's sad that the "cure" may end up as more painfil than the cause. We as parents and a society should push back about how we allow girls to be treated.

It's certainly something I consciously asked myself when raising my own daughter. I actively tried to deprogramme my own instictive responses around these issues and give her the sorts of opportunities and expectations I was denied. This is the core basis of my feminism.

Ooo thanks Magpie. Does the fact they’re double headed mean we have to fight with them while twirling them round and dancing around like that chap in Star Wars with the double headed light sabre? [looks dubiously at feet]

It's not clear why gender non conforming women are better off with provision organised around gender rather than sex.

I like this list of questions to test if you’re in a cult. Can’t remember where I got it from.

1. Are you capable of entertaining doubt or are you coming from a position of uncertainty
2. Can you articulate the evidence you would need to see to change your position or is the evidence unfalsifiable
3. Can you articulate your opponents perspective in a way that they recognise or are you straw-manning
4. Are you attacking ideas or the people who hold them
5. Are you willing to cut off close relationships with people who disagree with you particularly over relatively small points of contention
6. Are you willing to use extraordinary means against people who disagree with you (eg violence, threats of violence, celebrating misfortune and tragedy)

To be honest, I can totally understand why girls want to be boys. It's when you hit adolescence that you begin to realise just how different life is for men and women.

This.

Always very noticeable that transgenderism is where males run towards womanhood, and where females run away.

I am a trans pragmatist and advocate for trans pragmatism.

I agree that sex is fixed and immutable
I have no experience of gender, except that I am a woman with a personality

However I also acknowledge that some people for whatever reason feel deeply uncomfortable in their birth sex and navigate life more easily if they attempt to change the outside - clothing, hairstyle - into those more commonly understood as of the opposite sex in mainstream European society.

I don't think it especially matters why a person might do this, and I don't think it's always fetishistic. All I know is that my adult child is immensely more functional in their chosen form. I think the very strong intersection with autism is not taken into account enough on some of FWR who talk about transpeople as a homogenous group of perverted ill intentioned men based on social media posts of bad apples. Most trans people are if anything rather gentle and vulnerable people in my experience.

I think children should not be facilitated to transition and I don't think it should be actively taught in school, except to say that a few people are transgender and in the community they should be treated kindly like everyone else.

Those who love that person who has decided to transition then often attempt to use chosen names and pronouns because they want that person to feel accepted and loved.

Where things gets muddy is when such a person wants to opt into the rights and privileges of their new gender, or get very angry and/or upset when others recognise their transness and may use a pronoun that the person considers incorrect.

I understand why a trans woman would not want to use the gents toilet when out and about. They have specifically rejected being male.
However, they also need to be realistic that they differ from born women and have no right to those spaces.

Privacy and dignity for ALL is needed and posts on FWR often does not perceive this or care about it.

I think a pragmatic transperson acknowledges their past life, acknowledges that they occupy a liminal position, avoids inserting themselves into spaces that are specifically of their acquired gender, and seeks out a way to live authentically as a TRANS woman or man, using gender mixed or dedicated spaces where it makes a difference (eg my daughter attends trans swimming for dignity reasons, but could happily attend mixed cycling sessions as gender is less of an issue). I think so much of the issue arises from this mistaken notion that the only successful transperson is one who can travel through life unrecognised as their original sex. So much harm arises from this thought - the desire to "trans" children, the desire to access "women only" spaces, the anger and distress at 'misgendering', the wish for falsified papers such as birth certificate. Just acknowledge being trans and that this is ok.

I must admit I had the same thought. Let me give you an earworm...

Does anyone remember when MN introduced rules to make us play more nicely with TRA?

To accommodate people who didnt prioritise women and girls, we had to control our language. We couldnt say identify, or even mention someone sex if wasnt relevant (tricky on a feminist forum discussing TRA). Meanwhile TRA could report posts on here from twitter. Anyone mentioning safeguarding was banned.

Even under those conditions men couldn't explain how they are women. So I dont think its the tone of this forum thats the problem for people with differing views. I thinks its trying to sell a dodgy ideology.

"Always very noticeable that transgenderism is where males run towards womanhood, and where females run away."

And it's always a fantasy version of womanhood. All the fun and none of the pain.

There was a hilarious Reddit post doing the rounds a while back. A young man complaining that after he declared his transness to his parents they were totally acceptiong. To the point where he suddenly found himself with way more household chores, a shorter curfew than his brothers and way less freedom. He was questioning whether he was, in fact, trans or if he just liked makeup and prancing around in heels. Well played those parents.

Many of us post on X, Substack, and other social media. Some even post on Kiwifarms.

The reason for not posting on Bluesky, Mastodon, or Reddit is that, far from our opinions being allowed to stand so that others can "own" us, we would be immediately site-banned by the hyperintolerant mods.

AWESOME! 😁

Oh, I listen. It's just that TRA answers are riddled with logic errors.

What????

You are dead to me!

I went for a job interview once, part of which involved going to one of their training days. You had to spend the day with a sign hanging round your neck, describing yourself in one sentence.

Mine said "Dazed, confused and generally buggered."

surprisingly I got the job!

I'm on a pure politics forum board where one of the people running it has announced he both fully supports the SC ruling designating single sex spaces, but also has a trans identifying child, female to male. No further details, but reading between the lines, purely social transition. So, an article requesting sympathy, expressing the family stress, and his negotiation with previously daughter, now son, as to how dad feels the SC ruling must be enforced fully.
So, in your trans pragmatic world, where are the red lines? This child very much passes as female. Does the trans pragmatism extend purely into accepting social gender roles, gender non confirming appearance and behaviors free of scorn and abuse, these individuals to more and more be addressed by their chosen pronouns.
But the red lines start to kick in at the door of the office & factory toilet/gym changing room & showers, and slam down re biological men in sport, prisons, refuges?
If that's the case, how does the trans person feel? People "accept" them in their chosen gender in the neutral space of the workfloor, on the street, in crowds etc.
But rigid enforcement kicks in the moment that toilet door is approached, that female sports event or prison cell or refuge place could be occupied by a male.
Are the majority of trans individuals, what you call gentle non aggressive individuals really ok with what effectively will be social acceptance of gender incongruity, but only in work/public space situations, not in any "specialist" spaces or categories?
Is that really a compromise that could ever have been worked out if the last decade of poisonous No Debate hadn't happened?
Or would even the gentlest, least confrontational trans person still expect their new rights to extend to their toilet, sport and prison space of choice?

I agree. (from the post you responded to)

What percentage of ardent, aggressive MNetters would ever dare to leave the reassuring echo-chamber and post their beliefs / start threads on other social media sites and see how they fare?

This statement alone shows who's living in a bubble. If you interact with the WWW world you couldn't but help noticing how much is being said by sex realists. The fact that it's all going on unnoticed by them is because they don't go outside their carefully managed cult sites, where they might encounter 'opinions' that are different to theirs.

It's just more mirroring, take what those you don't agree with say and fling it back at them, and claim to have scored a bullseye. Just more lies, unfortunately for them they're the only ones buying the lies now.

What percentage of ardent, aggressive MNetters would ever dare to leave the reassuring echo-chamber and post their beliefs / start threads on other social media sites and see how they fare?

Well, how about that.

This is just another hyperbole post that is more projection about the aggressive accusations than anything else.

Agressive says the person who then makes an aggressive negative and false generalisation that people are posting in an echo chamber (presumably the reference is that here on this board is an echo chamber). And with what seems to be, although it is inferred rather than explicit, that they will experience some never interaction that this poster seems to think they deserve.