I find the entries on Reality's Last Stand to be refreshingly common sense. The idiocy of the transgender movement and their claims/demands will be rejected by the vast majority of Americans. As a pediatrician, I am especially worried about all the young boys and girls who are caught in the web of peer and social pressure to consider gender fluidity, to their long-term harm.
Not only the children who get cloaked in the gender flag are at risk. Sons and daughters of parents who suddenly start taking hormones and signing up for surgeries are not allowed to feel their grief and anxiety. Siblings of these "identifying" youngsters feel abandoned and put upon by the demands they call their brother a sister. The family is under siege.
That's so true. Families are "forbidden" from acknowledging anything that happened before the magical transition, lest the person who is now his/her authentic self punish them by estrangement. Photos may not be displayed, nor the "deadname" spoken. If an incorrect pronoun slips out, apologies won't be heard over the resultant shouting and sobbing. Our family tried, but we were not perfect enough for our holy trans child. I'm angry, worried, and sad in equal measures. The worst thing is knowing that any efforts go get him out of the cult will probably just push him further in.
Prayer is what I do against this insanity of false idols. It is an evil plot of hatred, sterilization, butchery and brain reducing drugs, poison to developing young bodies . Hitler did the same to Jewish children; his sick medical associates loved to experiment on them, especially if they were twins! Imperfect German children for disposed of like garbage all the while lying to German parents. Leben's Bourne was created as Hitler bred men and women like cattle to create the perfect Aryan race and you know what happened to Hitler. No good came of it and I can already see the Transgender Ideology imploding into itself with detransitioners' stories, lawsuits, angry parents and a dwindling population ( puberty blockers were once used to sterilize rapists and paedophiles).
Alright, comments about comparing this movement of physicians to Nazi Doctors aside, chemical castration (that thing you keep mentioning about puberty blockers and sex offenders) is prescribed to convicted felons on parole in only 10 out of 50 states in the US. The same drug that the court systems use in these states is the same drug prescribed to women who undergo hormone therapy for issues with menstruation and men who have oversized prostates -- that's because it's a hormone suppressant.
If you have an issue with your country using puberty blockers to suppress libidos in sex offenders, than take it up with Alabama, California, Florida, Iowa, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, Wisconsin and Montana.
Dear George, As a pediatrician, would you be willing to comment on why/how it is that so many formerly top tier medical institutions (such as Boston Children’s, the one I have personally experienced) are not only going along with this but are actually promoting it as an exciting positive addition to their services? Thank you for any insights you might have. Tara Aders
I have retired but having worked in academic children's hospitals my whole career over 40 years, I have lamented how woke these institutions and their leaders have become. Pediatrics has celebrated the specialty of adolescent medicine and have often elevated the independence of the adolescent over against the parents, especially in sexual matters with a little help from progressive judges. I think that this is how the thinking goes: this sincere 12 year old patient with female organs confesses to the physician (often with the parents outside the exam room) that she/he really feels that a masculine identity is the true identity. The pediatrician immediately affirms the sincerity and the distress of the young person (good) and indicates that as physician, the pediatrician will play the role of advocate for the child. The gender clinic has a policy of affirmation and psychological support (good) for such patients. Now the clinic has an array of medical, surgical and psychological support for this young patient. Patient, non-judgmental listening with no affirmation of any "permanent" gender decision is NOT offered. The entire agenda, per American Academy of Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology Society, is to affirm the young child's initial feelings and she/he enters a curriculum, the goal of which is full transition to the CHOSEN gender identity. It is all sincere and has the aroma and feel of a courageous act by troubled patient and heroic pediatricians over against the harsh, judgmental perspectives of the corrupt paternalistic, counter-revolutionary establishment. This approach ignores the anecdotes and data that shows a health percentage of these 12 year olds will regret their "decision" and eventually detransition. The mushrooming of these numbers out of proportion to historic incidence in the midst of a troubled era of mental health for young people should have led wise pediatricians to take a much less intrusive and affirming role.
Tara, there was a post about why pediatricians are selling out, many of them, just in the last week or two. I don't recall the name but it would be worth looking back at the titles. I hope this helps. It was a long, detailed, complex article, well worth reading due to the complexity of the answer.
Absolutely on target Penny. Gender ideology hurts trans people who suffer and deserve wholistic interventions to get to the root of their discomfort. I appreciate you sharing that your son has neurological issues- that’s a very thought provoking reveal. We need more scientific research and data in this area. All the best to you and your son.
What science and data are you missing? All of the science accepted about this is out, published and reviewed.
Y’all do not accept any science if it means that you would have to challenge and adapt your perspective of this ever-changing world.
Science is not traditional or stagnant; it exists as a mode of thinking employed by those who seek to discover more about this world.
Y’all, however, want to stay uneducated, unchanged, and cry for people who do not want your pity or biological definitions. We are each more than our genitals.
You sound like you have been through a lot, Penny. You are a wonderful mother and it sounds like you have a wonderful son. All the best to you both. <3
We are referring here to the biological reality that all humans, even those with Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs) (formerly referred to by doctors as "intersex" conditions) are either biologically (genetically) male or female.
Or, more concisely stated, that all humans are either male or female.
We can all agree (I hope) that genitalia and chromosomes exist. At a fundamentally biological level, on the scale of DNA, yes, we can agree that there are those who have ova and those have testes, and sometimes there are those who have both. These definitions weigh in heavily for gendered roles, like you've stated in your other reply to me, due to patriarchy.
However, this is where the paradox of realities comes in. Just because I may have ova or testes, my experiences and internalized emotions about my life differ from yours, regardless of the sexual organs you possess. This makes my reality different than yours as you have not undergone the exact same experiences as I did, and even if you had, you may have processed the accompanying emotions differently than I because you too have a idiosyncratic filter of which has shaped your world perspective.
Again, I have to state: I am here to antagonize those who would like to deny others reality/experience/emotional processes. This thread is riddled with fear and confusion and I'd like to engage in discourse with those who believe that a male, a human born with a penis and testes, is a man by all implications of that word.
1. Yes, you are here to antagonize. Not appreciated. It's trolling.
2. If you were interested in understanding or finding common ground, or debating, even, you would read gender-critical books and websites. So run along and go read those. We don't exist on this thread or elsewhere to waste our time educating you because you haven't bothered to do any basic gender-critical reading.
3. Here's a head start:
Woman - adult human female*
Female - of or pertaining to the sex that produces ova*
Male - of or pertaining to the sex that produces sperm*
* Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and other well-known dictionaries
Your internal experience and emotions about your life are irrelevant to whether you are male or female, man or woman.
Please subscribe to and read the sex-role critical (gender-critical) websites listed at the end of this substack.
We do not exist to repeat to you what has already been written ad nauseum on this subject. Please do your own thorough reading before raising elementary topics.
Ok, so this is really funny and kind of strange that you are not aware: Substack is not an informative outlet, it's a blog. And "repeating to you what has already been written" is exactly what each and every one of you do. You come here, to this blog, to lament about your indignation.
This is evident because you have used the dictionary to define what a woman is, but I know you have a large enough brain to discern that it takes much more than ova to be a woman and much more than sperm to be a man.
The way that you talk about people denies their identity, almost in a way that equates us to cattle; this one has utters so it's a heifer and this one has balls so it's a steer. Do you wish to be equated to cattle? Do you like minimizing your own identity to what is between your legs and under your shirt?
"Sex-role" critical sites, aka institutions and groups of close-minded and scared individuals, are peddling traditionalist perspectives. Y'all go through so much trouble just to say that you're unwilling to challenge your own understanding of the world and learn to value individuals for more than their inherent sex organs.
I wouldn't be here if y'all could have the awareness that there are people who are different than you for all sorts of reasons you may not be able to empathize with. If you could just be aware enough to say out loud "I am fearful of transgender people in my community and what emotions I might feel around them," then I wouldn't be here.
Plenty of people who identify as the opposite sex do not have a neurological order. O don't know why you believe they do. Some do, but many don't. I don't even believe those on the Autism spectrum have their opposite-sex identity caused by their ASD. From what I understand, the ASD helps make this inaccurate perception stick, but doesn't cause it. Exposure and being inundated with cross-sex-role ideology plants the seeds as with other people, and the ASD makes the ideas stick.
Anyone, please correct me of I'm wrong about this.
So, all we can offer our fellow human beings is doubt for their experiences because they don't align with how you see things, B. Danielle? Just because you agree with the standards of your gender expectations doesn't mean we all do. There are three prescribed patterns of perception that you can have when it comes to gender and you fit into "traditional;" those who want to stay in the status quo and not change. Then there are those who are egalitarian and transitional; those who believe that roles on any level (work or family roles) are not divided by gender, but instead to be shared.
Please correct me if I've misunderstood you, but it sounds like you are conflating sex with gender. A person can acknowledge the biological reality of their sex without having to agree with the misogynist belief that there is a sex role for each sex which prevents us from each being whole and equal human beings.
One caveat is that there is no way anyone can completely reject the patriarchal sex roles during their life time, unfortunately, because we are socialized into these roles from birth, onward. That socialization significantly affects the layout of neuropathways in our brains by age 5, resulting in "gendered" (stereptyped) thoughts and behaviors, to varying extents, among all of us. However, all this is due to the effects of socialization: to nurture, not nature.
It has taken at least 5,000 years of patriarchy to develop these sexist stereotypes or "roles." It will probably take at least that long, another 5,000 years, for each of us and society to reject and unpack them all, but clearly, it is an important, worthwhile project for each of us to undertake, questioning and chipping away at the sex roles or sex stereotypes over the course of our lives and future millenia.
Ok, thanks. I am not sure then which words you were disagreeing with on terms of definitions from the commenter you initially replied to here. Care to clarify, please? I'd like to understand you.
One salient issue that the general public overlooks is that there are different types of transgender person.
1) There is probably some small number of people out there who genuinely have the medical condition gender dysphoria. My feeling is that it is a tiny number of the so-called trans population. These people are mentally ill and need sympathy, proper medical care, and perhaps most importantly, not to be encouraged in their delusions. The men who have this often want to quietly pass as women and are homosexuals (i.e., they are attracted to men).
2) The second group comprises massive numbers of depressed and heavily online teenage girls who are terrified by bodily changes occurring during puberty and are being assured by the trans movement that they are in fact “trans men”. Who knows why? White guilt might be one thing; this is an easy way to slot oneself into the victim group as opposed to being a blonde Becky in the oppressor group. Perhaps the scale and scope of the online pornography they’ve encountered online since they were children has scared them off wanting to be women.
3) The third group is the political ringleader group: the autogynephiles. These are men who remain nerdishly masculine in their hobbies and interests, often self-describe as lesbian, etc. They display no feminine traits at all, except that they are turned on by the idea of being women.
All these groups have different motivations and nothing really in common apart from being mentally ill. It’s time we stopped considering them all the same thing if we want to put an end to this.
Also what teen doesn’t hate their body? What child facing uncomfortable feelings about themselves wouldn’t be taken in if respected adults say they can fix it?
As a teen, I was never comfortable in my own skin but I made the best of it; I was told that I was on my way to adulthood, like going over a rough bridge. I dressed and acted quirky trying to find a right style or behaviour. I also did some things that did not make me popular in the adult sector. When I finally reached the age of consent at 19, I had my first drink, a Tom Collins to celebrate, frightening and exhilarating at the same time. These trans kids will never get to experience proper childhood or teen hood or have to figure out what they want to be or if they ever want to have children; the puberty blockers once used to sterilize rapists and paedophiles. Doing puberty the old-fashioned way is the only way as was decent counselling on raging hormones and body changes.
In fact, some may never experience ordinary sex with orgasm. While this is not the ultimate disaster, this is a loss of a gift that normal humans have. Many, if not most, of those in the trannie train have never experienced normal sex. They are trading away their normal functioning for this delusional illusion.
In a different forum you’d be vilified for this opinion. Not to mention that you’d be told it wasn’t opinion at all, but wrong and evil. This is where we are.
Nah, I can do it in this forum, too: this post is wrong. Evil? Nah, it's not eloquent enough. Even villains are empathetic. That is literally what makes them villains; they understand the world but don't agree. That's empathy. This rubbish? It's just rubbish.
Your theory about group 2 is borne out by the three female detransitioners, Grace, Helena and Cat, in the new documentary, Detransition Diaries. Trailers for it can be viewed free on Center for Bioethics and Culture Network YouTube channel. Another documentary with both male and female regretters is due out at the end of next month at Affirmation Generation YT channel.
The "sexologist" psychologists tried, and succeeded I guess, in "normalizing" sexual fetishes instead of seeking the trauma/abuse origins of unhealthy sexual expression.
Why does your taxonomy matter when the goal is to right the legal ship and erase the insane legal status of 'transgender'? Motivations for adopting this ideology are irrelevant to its eradication. It is dangerous bunk.
I disagree. I think understanding why people are falling prey to this poison, and who is most responsible for advancing it (the AGPs) helps in creating effective strategies to combat it. The young teen girls who are drugging and carving themselves up to escape being (white) females in our society will need a different kind of help/response to draw them away from it than the confused gay kids (and/or ASD kids) who don't understand why they feel out of step, and certainly different than the misogynistic fetishists and sexual perverts leading the charge, looking for access. Knowledge is power. And figuring out how to isolate the people causing the chaos brings us closer to the goal of restoring the necessary legal boundaries that protect people from this harm.
That's gratifying to hear—thank you! I do have a free blog you're welcome to subscribe to. ;-) I'm nowhere near as prolific as many people on Substack and my writing isn't wholly focused on gender ideology, but my most recent piece, published earlier this month, is on the topic if you want to check it out: https://leahrose.substack.com/p/our-lying-eyes
I understand why the taxonomy might matter for those helping the individual victims of this pernicious ideology.
I completely disagree that AGPs are most responsible for advancing transgender ideology and enshrining it into law.
Transgender ideology is objectively, realistically, absolute nonsense and no taxonomy of its victims/proponents is needed to combat it. To combat it on a legal/political level, it is necessary to follow the money and expose the corruption and profiteering that has given 'transgender' legal status. Do you really think a ragtag bunch of porn-addled AGPs could have got this far? "Transgender" is about profiteering.
I think I see your point re: legal/political level. The AGPs are clearing a path in society by being the activist front putting pressure on our institutions and helping to push the narrative. But yes, the big money behind the movement is where the real battle line is. I think we need the hearts and minds of people to defeat the deep pockets, and the best way to get that is to expose who the real victims of this ideology are, which include the teen girls and young gay/ASD kids, women, and children, and by showing up the misogynist perve front for who they really are, because right now they are protected by the media/tech giants.
Personally, I am more likely to believe it’s possible humans suddenly appeared 6 or 10 thousand years ago, and one dude rose from the dead a little over 2,000 years ago, than I am to believe that any and every dude born with male genitals and a male body can somehow “feel” or “believe” their way into being a woman or that it is just and moral to tell my 11yo daughter to strip naked in a pool locker room in front of mentally disturbed man that “feels” like he is “really” a woman.
The gender activists are now trying to de-stigmatize literal pedophilia. It’s pretty clear a lot of kids get harmed when they are sexualized, used as props for the sexual fantasies of grown men playing dress up, sterilized, genitally mutilated, or sexually abused as kids. Who does it harm for one to believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis?
While I am not a believer in new Earth Theory, I hold more respect for those who hold those beliefs than I do gender ideology activists. I’d also argue the average New Earth theory believer has a far better grip on objective truth/ reality than the average gender activists.
This is a very interesting point of view.... I tend to agree with you in the sense that the ideologues are far more out of touch with reality than most people with whom I've ever come in contact.
I come in contact with both groups everyday (and everyone in between). My observation isn’t as much theoretical as informed by actual experience.
A “progressive” sitting member of congress goes to the same club my family and I do. She has a strong following and donor base there. She’s been a member for decades.
A bunch of teenage boys put up a Trump 2024 banner at the pool 4th of July at the same club (it didn’t stay up long, but the over the top reactions from the old wokies in the adult pool were hysterical while it was up). There is no mono-ideological belief, in either direction or intensity, in my day to day life.
My kids go to one of the top private schools in NC, which also happens to be a conservative Christian school and they have friends’ whose families’ believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. At the same time, we have (mostly former) family friends who have “let,” after a great deal of encouragement from their social media obsessed mothers/ parents, one of their kids “transition” genders in response to “sudden onset gender dysphoria.” I only know one child who transitioned very young, and that too seemed to have more to do with mommy’s obsession with gender norms and trendy social ideas than her then 6 year olds’ concern about not fitting some “typical boy” mold no one can really define.
The Christians that believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible tend to be very successful. For example several of them are successful physicians who never advocated the Covid hype directed at kids or young adults and all openly expressed their concerns for vaccinating kids by using actual data to support their positions. Nearly all are history buffs that know human societal written history far better than the rest of my “well educated” peers. Plainly speaking, in literally every other aspect of life these creationist believers are very well informed with a great deal of intellectual curiosity.
All of them whom I have asked, which is only 5 (so not many), have actually read The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as part of that intellectual curiosity. Ironically they can parrot off Darwinist talking points better than those who view Darwin’s theory as settled fact. I enjoy debating them because while there are a lot of holes in Darwin’s theory, observationally I land on that we did evolve in the sense that life forms change over time and develop new forms of life, there are demonstrable examples of survival of the fittest so in some cases I think that drove evolution, and I believe the Earth is likely older than 4.54billion years. I don’t know that I buy that evolution was driven fully by survival of the fittest, I land that we don’t yet know many of the driving forces, but the replicated evidence I see is that the process of life forms evolving actually happened. I am humble enough to acknowledge this is just an informed belief, and I could be wrong.
The creationists more broadly are also the first to show up in person or open their checkbooks to actually help someone else in need.
On the other side, the pro-gender ideology people I know personally tend to be very emotionally immature. They have the same number of degrees, but tend to be less successful. They don’t have a lot of intellectual curiosity but they will fill their yards with the “we believe” and proudly post them to social media. They will go show up at the fun protest in summer 2020, but I have yet to see them sacrifice time or treasure with my family to actually help a person who needs help. When pressed about their ideas and conclusions they are easily flustered, quick to anger, and frequently rely on insults and faux senses of morally superiority to convince themselves they are “right.” Absent that they end conversations at the first push back on their ideological convictions. They all, and I’ve asked them all, genuinely believe “it’s different this time” wether that refers to child genital mutilation, the cause of our current inflationary issues in the economy, or othering the unvaccinated. They are untethered from basic cause and effect in life but love oversimplified semantics gymnastics so long as there is no questioning of their word salads.
The creationists make me want to be a better person and live up to the example they do often set even if I disagree with them about some material aspects of pre-history. The gender ideologists serve as regular reminders of the type of person I never want to let myself become. I understand that my personal circle doesn’t necessarily extrapolate to the whole of the population, but the macro evidence I see daily indicates it’s not a terrible barometer. 🤷♀️
Interestingly, I agree with everything that you've said including your assessments of the various groups of people with whom you deal. I have had precisely the same experiences and come to the same conclusions.
Regarding your points on evolution, I don't know if you have read this essay on my Substack:
Great article. I think I probably lean more towards there being a lot we don’t rather than simple random chance, though I don’t know what it is. Your students would benefit from an honest perspective like this. Too many are taught to accept an argument with zero intellectual curiosity.
Excellent article. In the absence of ranked choice voting, though a life-long democrat, I will be voting Republican. My liberal friends chide me for being a single issue voter -well if that is what I am, fine - I don't want to live in a world that performs medical experiments on children.
I hear you. I've never considered voting Republican in my life, but there's no way my beloved Democratic party will get its common sense back before the next election cycle. Maybe it won't matter how we vote, because the party will probably have lost the rest of its Hispanic and blue-collar voters by then. Sensible people who see through this nonsense.
Imo you are making a big mistake to vote Republican. The very same instinct that tells you it is wrong to experiment on children should be screaming at you about the many inhumane and blasphemous behaviors and future plans of the Trumpocracy.
The most damaging aspect to the left is how the unquestioned and complete acceptance of gender ideologies hampers the legitimacy of organizations which otherwise champion and prioritize progressive agendas. But if these groups can be so out of touch with reality on this one issue, what's to say that their legitimacy on other causes is sound?
Transgender people have a right to live with dignity and respect. Adult transgender individuals should have access to gender affirming treatment, under the guidance of well-qualified physical and mental health professionals. But the complete re-organization of society to validate a non-falsifiable, Cartesian dualism is obviously ludicrous, and will ultimately harm the progressive cause.
Ariel I understand what you’re saying. At first I was very uncomfortable to find myself in the company of right-wing people on the Trans issue. As it began taking up more of the public’s bandwidth, I started wondering if the timing of it has to do with splitting progressive voters for the midterms.
So I will vote straight Dem despite what I see as misguided wokeness on the part of many progressives. My hope is that as more comes out about and by de-transitioners, they will come out if their trance.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. The world has gone far too insane. I see no evidence of Democrats backing off the destructive work agenda, and I believe they should be held accountable for the immense harm they are causing the next generation from failing public schools to harmful and largely useless demands for school closures to sexuslizing and confusing young kids with gender ideology. I won’t join it. I’m straight Republican ticket this time around. I don’t know how I’ll vote in 10 years, but who is in charge and more importantly their actual policies make a huge difference. The current Democrat policies result in lots of harm to lots of people. I’m voting based on outcomes and the outcomes I see resulting from the policies of the last 2 years are lots and lots of needless suffering. 🤷♀️
Ok, but look at what the GOP-chosen Supreme Court has just done to women's rights, bodies, and lives; and to overpopulation? Amidst the world's ever-worsening energy resource depletion crisis that has already resulted in at least 3 U.S. wars for control of oil; and amidst the consequences of climate change? These are catastrophic issues that are returning American women to reproductive slavery, and the climate crisis already having caused millions to die from oil wars and extreme weather, and this crisis is only getting started. And the U.S. is leading the way in causing the climate crisis, with our massive over-consumption of fossil fuels and other resources per capita. Over-consumption that the GOP just wants to double down on and profit from.
And please know, I'm completely with you on being sickened and horrified at the child sexual poisoning and mutilation that the Democrats are unconscionably and spinelessly championing and aggressively facilitating legislatively and judicially.
The best argument I've read for remaining a Democrat instead of registering as an independent is that it is the best way to have leverage over Dem politicians, to say, "I'm absolutely a Democrat, and I'm well versed in and appalled by the Democatic Party's position on this issue, for these reasons...."
However, I'm also not a mother, let alone a mom of a child swept up by this cult; I don't know if your child or a relative of yours is.
I respect that some will disagree with me, but I need to be able to sleep at night, and the thought of Democrats right now maintaining control keeps me up at night. I respect differences of opinion, but I am passionate and unashamed of where I stand on this and voting this fall.
I care about this issue because I would have been destroyed by this. I was convinced I should have been a boy until I was at least 8 or 9. I would have eaten this crap up and no way my parents could have stopped me. My mom actually left the Democrat party after 52 years of loyalty following Biden's "day 1" executive orders because she broke down and realized it would have been me and she and my dad could not have stopped me in today's environment. My first-grade teacher thought I was a boy for the first week of school after all. Imagine if she stuck with that when I told her "I'm a little girl?"
In reality I am just free spirited, hate pink, and thought barbies were dumb. Sports, girls' sports, is where I found myself and my confidence. I marred a pretty boy college soccer player, and he is my best friend. I love my life now. I had a right to grow up and live this life. I will not stand by and let the opportunities I have had to be myself be taken from little girls like me today.
My kids are my world and I need to justify to them in 20 years, with the benefit of hindsight, why I make the decisions I do every day - from sending them to private school to rejecting kiddie covid "vaccines" to how I vote. I tell them all the time that outcomes matter far more than intentions, if something is going to work it will actually work, complaining about a problem without offering a solution is called whining, and doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity. The least I can do in my daily pursuit of being the best mom I can, which is imperfect because I am human but that doesn't excuse trying, is to have my actions match my words.
I was a teenager when Bush II became president and will never supported a war monger president. But we have a war monger now. We only fight over foreign resources when our own are restricted by our own government. I was an outdoor adventure guide in undergrad. I did Outward Bound in high school. I am an environmentalist, and there are ways to harness energy that are environmentally responsible. Nothing is more ecologically destructive and poverty inducing (poverty is terrible for the environment by the way), than this pro-scarcity environment destroying not actually "green" crap being pushed by Democrats. It is terrible for animals, nature, the climate, and people alike. The math ensures it can't actually work to make everyone, or even half the US, drive electric cars. The minerals and infrastructure simply can't magically appear in 3 or 5 or even 10 years.
Burning wood is the most destructive to the environment - wanna guess how Germans are going to heath their homes this winter or how much wood burning goes up when clean natural gas is restricted or how much poverty drives wood burning? Coal is the second worse, and coal burning has been increasing since Biden took office and started restricting natural gas production pushing up both US and global coal consumption. Then comes oil which has seen 80% plus reductions in emissions over the last 30 years with emissions capturing technologies required in every car and SUV on the road as well as plants. Natural gas is very clean, and the US has enough reserves to power the US and Europe for 1,000 years - a full transition to nuclear and hydrogen is probably 50-70 years off at most. No one serious about the environment rejects nuclear in favor of short lived, inefficient, and ecologically destructive windmills and solar panels and batteries everywhere that have sort useful lives. But Democrats right now passed an "inflation reduction act" that will bankrupt nuclear by heavily subsidizing alternatives up front and waiting to fund nuclear to a lower yet competitive level down the road. Michael Shallenberger has a great substack if you would liek to learn some details.
I am no longer a Democrat. I gave my first political donation to Obama in 2007 a couple years out of grad school. I voted for Ralph Nader when I turned 18 in 2000 and then a bunch of Democrats but not anymore, at least not right now. As I said, I make no commitment for a decade from now. My kids and their future and the society they will enter means way too much to me to be distracted by false narratives or those supporting child genital mutilation calling me names or feigning moral superiority when they have zero morality at the moment.
Democrats have stopped caring if their policies work and they have stopped caring who they hurt. My husband has an aunt and first cousins still in Cuba and far more family here that has escaped. The far left is a dark path that leads to poverty, misery, and suffering. I am turning back now before it's too late.
I will not align myself or my identity with people who think semantics gymnastics matter more than outcomes or who call parents who oppose the sexualization of their 5-year old's domestic terrorist (along with all those questioning school closures, vaccine mandates, open borders, and anything else the far left just doesn't like). My kids are protected because we can afford private school, club sports, 2 homes, international travel (even unvaccinated throughout Covid) and a very nice life. The least I can do in gratitude for this life I've built is look out for the kids who aren't so lucky and who were locked up in solitary confinement for a year and are having nonsense gender ideology shoved down their throats by holding those doing the harm accountable.
I also disagree on SCOTUS. I don't think SCOTUS did anything to my body. They didn't restrict a single abortion procedure. All SCOTUS did was return the abortion issue to the states. Over time the reasonable polices like those of Western Europe will most likely win out. A large majority oppose all out bans on abortion. A large majority oppose abortion on demand until the moment of birth. We may have more outliers than western Europe, but most likely we will broadly end up with policies that mimic European abortion policies that mostly ban elective abortions between 10 and 15 weeks which is where the culture is and has been for decades. I am no more interested in living in a society that has so dehumanized babies that they think nothing of having a living, feeling human ripped apart limb by limb or burned alive in saline while that human being can feel every excruciating moment of the barbaric procedure than I do a country that gives the sperm of a rapist more rights to the reproductive capacity of a woman than she has over it herself. Plus, the way the Democrats are going, I don't trust them not to mandate the abortion of wanted babies in the name of a "climate change" emergency in 10 years. They have moved so far out of the mainstream so fast I do not trust them to stop themselves. I don't trust the party of vaccine mandates to ensure my right to my body any more than I do a politician trying to outlaw the morning after pill. Both are insane to me.
Sorry for the book - it's my attempt at other's avoiding inaccurate assumptions.
Would you please explain the "non-falsifissue? part, and give some examples regarding this issie? I keep reading this "non-falsifiable" term in this debate, and don't know own what sorts of pro-"trans" arguments it is referring to.
Also, I completely agree with you about our now having to choose between voting progressive for other issues, i.e. abortion rights, vs.this sex-role madness that's 5earing the left apart. Or stands to.
By non-falsifiable, I mean it is not possible to prove or disprove someone's purported gender identity. If you say you "feel" like the opposite sex there is no way to evaluate the validity or strength of that feeling, it is completely subjective. A claim that is impossible to prove or disprove can only be taken on faith.
There's nothing inherently with believing in gender identity, as long as we can accept that these kinds of religious beliefs have no place influencing policy in a secular society.
Sigh. I tried to explain to a 30-something that gender ideology was going off the deep end. Response was that most of this was not happening at all, but “science” says puberty blockers help people.
it seems almost impossible to get anyone on the Left side of the aisle to even admit the possible negative consequences of any part of their agenda (esp since they will mostly even deny it's their agenda)—gender studies for small children, racialization of everything, open the prisons, open the borders etc—they just know in their pure kind hearts that these are the "right" positions all Good People must have.
The modern Left seems to be in the grip of an epidemic of moral narcissism combined with a cult-like level of conformity and discomfort w dissent—they cannot be reasoned with because they believe they have already found the One Holy Truth we should all live by.
Clever Pseudonym: You nailed it! "The modern Left seems to be in the grip of an epidemic of moral narcissism combined with a cult-like level of comformity and discomfort w dissent - they cannot be reasoned with..." Very well put.
As a lifelong Democrat whose friends are almost all progressives, I've watched in a mixture of amazement, disbelief, and horror as so many of my friends seem to have turned into mindless pod people in recent years. I used to love to debate the intricacies of public policy with these friends, almost all of whom are well educated. But these days I keep my mouth shut most of the time.
I have now joined the ranks of the politically homeless, as I am by no means a Republican. But, I've chosen to vote Republican recently, mainly to send a message to the Dems that they need to reverse course. Still hoping this will happen - and things like this substack do give me hope.
Bravo, Bruce Lesnick, for identifying so many of the clear ramifications and dangers of "gender ideology." There are also the ex-wives and ex-husbands, the traumatized sons and daughters of, who are verbally abused, often publicly, and erased as mother or father. Later, the likelihood of wrong sex hormones causing osteoporosis, dementia, cardiac conditions and other ill health put the families in caregiver positions for narcissistic, demanding individuals. Here's a link to my description of female erasure, an experience originating in the early 1990s as my then husband started cross-dressing.
I remember reading a sad, heartfelt essay from Buck Angel (a woman who identifies as a man) about the pain she is in after decades of heavy testosterone use. Buck never had "bottom surgery", but now her vagina has atrophied from the many years of male sex hormones, and it causes chronic, excruciating pain. Buck has been very vocal about wanting young women who think they identify as men to learn from her experiences.
I'm glad to hear that B Angel does speak out against the T for young women. However, she also appeared on Howard Stern and performed a vulgar sexual act publicly. At one time, she also advocated for pornography creation as an alternative to getting a college degree. She plays into the celebrity aspect of this too much for my taste, often also repeating the old mantra, "for some of us . . it was the right choice.' As she ages, perhaps she'll get it. I can just imagine the pain the public display on Howard Stern must have caused. I will always favor detransitioners' voices over those who say they don't regret. Angel has a lot of followers--I figure there's some trepidation with challenging someone like this. Unfortunately, she was a big influencer in California back in the day, when lesbians started down the T path.
Thank you for this interesting article. You are correct about the ambiguous use of words and the fundamental confusion about discrete sexes. I pointed out some of the misunderstandings from a biological point of view in the essay” “If Aneuploidies = Sexes, Then Two-Headed Turtles Aren’t Turtles.”
I also agree with you that the demeaning tone of the ideologues toward women is reprehensible, and I appreciate you pointing this out, yet again. It is a very important issue that bears repeating.
Your straightforward warning, “it’s time to wake up!” Should be a call to every thinking person. Thank you for this thoughtful essay, Frederick.
The jargon of these people is confusing. Is a "trans-woman" a biological female who thinks she's a male or a biological male that thinks he's a female? I'm befuddled until you get this stuff into practice, and NO, a male convict who thinks he's a female shouldn't be housed with female prisoners.
That's intentional on the part of trans activists. The idea is to continually muddy the ideological conversation until finally, the confused average person gives up and says "Fine, he's a woman, then."
I simply call them "men who identify as women" and "women who identify as men". No need to use jargon that was designed to trick and confuse.
A bully requires someone else to tell a lie to make themselves feel better. That’s exactly what “trans” activists are.
A woman is an adult human female. A female is a living organism that produces ova. While any biological system can occasionally have deformities, in the case of reproductive physical deformities in mammals, it is a deformity of one of the two sexes - male or female - not some deformity that magically invents a spectrum between the sexes. There is no reproductive organ deformity that produces something between an ova and a sperm.
A dude born with the organs to produce sperm, even if deformed, will never ever ever be any kind of actual woman. Those who insist otherwise are bullies. No amount of your endless trolling JSD will change reality, and no amount of your ridiculous bullying will make men with mental delusions a “women.”
You can wrote whatever silliness you want, you still lose because you don’t have reality on your side, and no amount of word salad semantics gymnastics will make lies become actual truth.
Yikes on bikes. Whatever reality you live in, you can keep.
You obviously do not comprehend that we all live within our own realities that were created by the experiences we endure and the internalization that happens after said experiences. You would not be who you are today, NCmom, without the droll experiences you have endured and the empty reflections you have made about them.
You, dear NCmom, are an umempathetic drone. You rob others of creating their own realities because their experiences do not match your own.
No we don’t all live “within our own reality.” If I shoot you, you still die even if you’ve told yourself you identify lead bullets as fluffy stuffed animals. We all live in the one reality that actually exist, and no amount of pontificating changes that. Beliefs to the contrary are delusions.
I live in the exact same reality as you. You don’t get to pick and choose reality. You aren’t a God and no matter how much you hate it, you don’t get to pick a reality like choosing a flavor of coffee.
You can call me whatever names you want. It doesn’t change reality. Men can’t believe their way to being women and I won’t be bullied into pretending otherwise because mentally disturbed people really really really wish their delusions to be true.
You aren’t enlightened. You aren’t intelligent. You’re gullible and promoting child genital mutilation. Yikes on bikes that is the factual reality you live in no matter how many lies you tell yourself.
Ooooook, got it: you're a very, very literal person. A very limited, literal person.
Yes, if you shoot me with bullets, I will die because I am organic, regardless of what I believe bullets to be comprised of. However, I can still marry a rollercoaster or a train station, as others have, regardless of what you believe a matrimonial arrangement is in your version of reality.
We have a shared reality, yes, where we can agree on things like which side of the road to drive on and what a post office is and how old someone needs to be to buy beer, etc; however, your life has been different than mine, from the very start to this moment right now. You have endured experiences that I have not, and if we have a shared experience, I imagine that you have internalized the experience differently than me. And that is what makes our realities different; not even artists agree on what color the sky is.
The jargon. I think to a certain age group the only acceptable way to say you're male or female now is that you're AMAB or AFAB. Yeah, the doc just assigns your gender at birth. It's totally random. Uh huh.
That's the way it is on several of the Reddit subs I participate in. Reddit skews younger, and a very large percentage of people of people stating their sex/gender in posts in these groups says "AFAB" or "AMAB" instead of "woman" or "man". It bugs me, but I can't comment on this usage (much), because Reddit will give you a lifetime ban if you do.
Good post and love your analogy. Never thought of ascribing this to subject of n=gender ideology but it is apt. I recently applied it to other related items:
A conservative might reply to the points made, quite rightly, in this article belie the fact that progressive thought and policy *always* shoots itself in the foot. The needs/wishes/desires of all the various minorities never perfectly interlock in some intersectual utopia. (Case in point: affirmative action.)
So, just to be our local little conservative for a moment: it is a hard pill to swallow, but the world is not fair, just, and reasonable. It will never be. We can make incremental, local improvements, but we will never succeed in banishing the limits that are given by both nature and society. Utopianism is what underlies leftist politics. However much I disagree with many on the American right, I just cannot sign on to any type of revolutionary socialism.
So yes, progressives are shooting themselves in the foot. Exactly. They've been at it for a long time.
“ 'Progressives' who yesterday chided others for not “following the science” on climate change have today thrown science out the window when it comes to gender ideology. ... they have abandoned any pretense of supporting free speech and civil liberties, supporting instead censorship of those who dare to say the emperor has no clothes."
This. I just don't understand how otherwise intelligent people embrace this fantasy-cult ideology.
You are so funny! Gender ideology is not based in science — it’s a societal perspective. Genitalia is only a small percentage of what is observed in gender ideology. I don’t believe you know what ideology is: it is a system of characteristic thinking formed on the basis of economic, political, theoretical, and/or social theory. It’s a mode of thinking, examining, researching, etc; something that you do not do on your own, obviously.
I find the entries on Reality's Last Stand to be refreshingly common sense. The idiocy of the transgender movement and their claims/demands will be rejected by the vast majority of Americans. As a pediatrician, I am especially worried about all the young boys and girls who are caught in the web of peer and social pressure to consider gender fluidity, to their long-term harm.
Not only the children who get cloaked in the gender flag are at risk. Sons and daughters of parents who suddenly start taking hormones and signing up for surgeries are not allowed to feel their grief and anxiety. Siblings of these "identifying" youngsters feel abandoned and put upon by the demands they call their brother a sister. The family is under siege.
That's so true. Families are "forbidden" from acknowledging anything that happened before the magical transition, lest the person who is now his/her authentic self punish them by estrangement. Photos may not be displayed, nor the "deadname" spoken. If an incorrect pronoun slips out, apologies won't be heard over the resultant shouting and sobbing. Our family tried, but we were not perfect enough for our holy trans child. I'm angry, worried, and sad in equal measures. The worst thing is knowing that any efforts go get him out of the cult will probably just push him further in.
Prayer is what I do against this insanity of false idols. It is an evil plot of hatred, sterilization, butchery and brain reducing drugs, poison to developing young bodies . Hitler did the same to Jewish children; his sick medical associates loved to experiment on them, especially if they were twins! Imperfect German children for disposed of like garbage all the while lying to German parents. Leben's Bourne was created as Hitler bred men and women like cattle to create the perfect Aryan race and you know what happened to Hitler. No good came of it and I can already see the Transgender Ideology imploding into itself with detransitioners' stories, lawsuits, angry parents and a dwindling population ( puberty blockers were once used to sterilize rapists and paedophiles).
Alright, comments about comparing this movement of physicians to Nazi Doctors aside, chemical castration (that thing you keep mentioning about puberty blockers and sex offenders) is prescribed to convicted felons on parole in only 10 out of 50 states in the US. The same drug that the court systems use in these states is the same drug prescribed to women who undergo hormone therapy for issues with menstruation and men who have oversized prostates -- that's because it's a hormone suppressant.
If you have an issue with your country using puberty blockers to suppress libidos in sex offenders, than take it up with Alabama, California, Florida, Iowa, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, Wisconsin and Montana.
Dear George, As a pediatrician, would you be willing to comment on why/how it is that so many formerly top tier medical institutions (such as Boston Children’s, the one I have personally experienced) are not only going along with this but are actually promoting it as an exciting positive addition to their services? Thank you for any insights you might have. Tara Aders
I have retired but having worked in academic children's hospitals my whole career over 40 years, I have lamented how woke these institutions and their leaders have become. Pediatrics has celebrated the specialty of adolescent medicine and have often elevated the independence of the adolescent over against the parents, especially in sexual matters with a little help from progressive judges. I think that this is how the thinking goes: this sincere 12 year old patient with female organs confesses to the physician (often with the parents outside the exam room) that she/he really feels that a masculine identity is the true identity. The pediatrician immediately affirms the sincerity and the distress of the young person (good) and indicates that as physician, the pediatrician will play the role of advocate for the child. The gender clinic has a policy of affirmation and psychological support (good) for such patients. Now the clinic has an array of medical, surgical and psychological support for this young patient. Patient, non-judgmental listening with no affirmation of any "permanent" gender decision is NOT offered. The entire agenda, per American Academy of Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology Society, is to affirm the young child's initial feelings and she/he enters a curriculum, the goal of which is full transition to the CHOSEN gender identity. It is all sincere and has the aroma and feel of a courageous act by troubled patient and heroic pediatricians over against the harsh, judgmental perspectives of the corrupt paternalistic, counter-revolutionary establishment. This approach ignores the anecdotes and data that shows a health percentage of these 12 year olds will regret their "decision" and eventually detransition. The mushrooming of these numbers out of proportion to historic incidence in the midst of a troubled era of mental health for young people should have led wise pediatricians to take a much less intrusive and affirming role.
Tara, there was a post about why pediatricians are selling out, many of them, just in the last week or two. I don't recall the name but it would be worth looking back at the titles. I hope this helps. It was a long, detailed, complex article, well worth reading due to the complexity of the answer.
Follow the money.
This is courage in the making. Thanks. Ute Heggen (uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com)
Thanks, Penny. This realistic perspective is very helpful to all of us.
Dear Penny, It sounds like your son has a wonderful mother. This must have been so challenging. I appreciate your perspective. Thank you, Tara Aders
I'm so sorry to hear of this tragedy. It's a threat to all humanity.
No it's not. Fossil fuel extraction and companies like BlackStar and a failing healthcare system for the masses is a threat to all humanity. Not this.
Absolutely on target Penny. Gender ideology hurts trans people who suffer and deserve wholistic interventions to get to the root of their discomfort. I appreciate you sharing that your son has neurological issues- that’s a very thought provoking reveal. We need more scientific research and data in this area. All the best to you and your son.
What science and data are you missing? All of the science accepted about this is out, published and reviewed.
Y’all do not accept any science if it means that you would have to challenge and adapt your perspective of this ever-changing world.
Science is not traditional or stagnant; it exists as a mode of thinking employed by those who seek to discover more about this world.
Y’all, however, want to stay uneducated, unchanged, and cry for people who do not want your pity or biological definitions. We are each more than our genitals.
You sound like you have been through a lot, Penny. You are a wonderful mother and it sounds like you have a wonderful son. All the best to you both. <3
What the hell is biological reality?
We are referring here to the biological reality that all humans, even those with Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs) (formerly referred to by doctors as "intersex" conditions) are either biologically (genetically) male or female.
Or, more concisely stated, that all humans are either male or female.
We can all agree (I hope) that genitalia and chromosomes exist. At a fundamentally biological level, on the scale of DNA, yes, we can agree that there are those who have ova and those have testes, and sometimes there are those who have both. These definitions weigh in heavily for gendered roles, like you've stated in your other reply to me, due to patriarchy.
However, this is where the paradox of realities comes in. Just because I may have ova or testes, my experiences and internalized emotions about my life differ from yours, regardless of the sexual organs you possess. This makes my reality different than yours as you have not undergone the exact same experiences as I did, and even if you had, you may have processed the accompanying emotions differently than I because you too have a idiosyncratic filter of which has shaped your world perspective.
Again, I have to state: I am here to antagonize those who would like to deny others reality/experience/emotional processes. This thread is riddled with fear and confusion and I'd like to engage in discourse with those who believe that a male, a human born with a penis and testes, is a man by all implications of that word.
1. Yes, you are here to antagonize. Not appreciated. It's trolling.
2. If you were interested in understanding or finding common ground, or debating, even, you would read gender-critical books and websites. So run along and go read those. We don't exist on this thread or elsewhere to waste our time educating you because you haven't bothered to do any basic gender-critical reading.
3. Here's a head start:
Woman - adult human female*
Female - of or pertaining to the sex that produces ova*
Male - of or pertaining to the sex that produces sperm*
* Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and other well-known dictionaries
Your internal experience and emotions about your life are irrelevant to whether you are male or female, man or woman.
Please subscribe to and read the sex-role critical (gender-critical) websites listed at the end of this substack.
We do not exist to repeat to you what has already been written ad nauseum on this subject. Please do your own thorough reading before raising elementary topics.
Ok, so this is really funny and kind of strange that you are not aware: Substack is not an informative outlet, it's a blog. And "repeating to you what has already been written" is exactly what each and every one of you do. You come here, to this blog, to lament about your indignation.
This is evident because you have used the dictionary to define what a woman is, but I know you have a large enough brain to discern that it takes much more than ova to be a woman and much more than sperm to be a man.
The way that you talk about people denies their identity, almost in a way that equates us to cattle; this one has utters so it's a heifer and this one has balls so it's a steer. Do you wish to be equated to cattle? Do you like minimizing your own identity to what is between your legs and under your shirt?
"Sex-role" critical sites, aka institutions and groups of close-minded and scared individuals, are peddling traditionalist perspectives. Y'all go through so much trouble just to say that you're unwilling to challenge your own understanding of the world and learn to value individuals for more than their inherent sex organs.
I wouldn't be here if y'all could have the awareness that there are people who are different than you for all sorts of reasons you may not be able to empathize with. If you could just be aware enough to say out loud "I am fearful of transgender people in my community and what emotions I might feel around them," then I wouldn't be here.
Plenty of people who identify as the opposite sex do not have a neurological order. O don't know why you believe they do. Some do, but many don't. I don't even believe those on the Autism spectrum have their opposite-sex identity caused by their ASD. From what I understand, the ASD helps make this inaccurate perception stick, but doesn't cause it. Exposure and being inundated with cross-sex-role ideology plants the seeds as with other people, and the ASD makes the ideas stick.
Anyone, please correct me of I'm wrong about this.
So, all we can offer our fellow human beings is doubt for their experiences because they don't align with how you see things, B. Danielle? Just because you agree with the standards of your gender expectations doesn't mean we all do. There are three prescribed patterns of perception that you can have when it comes to gender and you fit into "traditional;" those who want to stay in the status quo and not change. Then there are those who are egalitarian and transitional; those who believe that roles on any level (work or family roles) are not divided by gender, but instead to be shared.
Hi JSD,
Please correct me if I've misunderstood you, but it sounds like you are conflating sex with gender. A person can acknowledge the biological reality of their sex without having to agree with the misogynist belief that there is a sex role for each sex which prevents us from each being whole and equal human beings.
One caveat is that there is no way anyone can completely reject the patriarchal sex roles during their life time, unfortunately, because we are socialized into these roles from birth, onward. That socialization significantly affects the layout of neuropathways in our brains by age 5, resulting in "gendered" (stereptyped) thoughts and behaviors, to varying extents, among all of us. However, all this is due to the effects of socialization: to nurture, not nature.
It has taken at least 5,000 years of patriarchy to develop these sexist stereotypes or "roles." It will probably take at least that long, another 5,000 years, for each of us and society to reject and unpack them all, but clearly, it is an important, worthwhile project for each of us to undertake, questioning and chipping away at the sex roles or sex stereotypes over the course of our lives and future millenia.
Does this make sense?
Whoopsies. Either I have been misconstrued or didn't say something correctly because I do not use the words sex and gender as interchangeable.
I'm here to antagonize those who are stuck in traditionalist mindsets because they do not want to use language in an inclusive, egalitarian manner.
Ok, thanks. I am not sure then which words you were disagreeing with on terms of definitions from the commenter you initially replied to here. Care to clarify, please? I'd like to understand you.
One salient issue that the general public overlooks is that there are different types of transgender person.
1) There is probably some small number of people out there who genuinely have the medical condition gender dysphoria. My feeling is that it is a tiny number of the so-called trans population. These people are mentally ill and need sympathy, proper medical care, and perhaps most importantly, not to be encouraged in their delusions. The men who have this often want to quietly pass as women and are homosexuals (i.e., they are attracted to men).
2) The second group comprises massive numbers of depressed and heavily online teenage girls who are terrified by bodily changes occurring during puberty and are being assured by the trans movement that they are in fact “trans men”. Who knows why? White guilt might be one thing; this is an easy way to slot oneself into the victim group as opposed to being a blonde Becky in the oppressor group. Perhaps the scale and scope of the online pornography they’ve encountered online since they were children has scared them off wanting to be women.
3) The third group is the political ringleader group: the autogynephiles. These are men who remain nerdishly masculine in their hobbies and interests, often self-describe as lesbian, etc. They display no feminine traits at all, except that they are turned on by the idea of being women.
All these groups have different motivations and nothing really in common apart from being mentally ill. It’s time we stopped considering them all the same thing if we want to put an end to this.
Also what teen doesn’t hate their body? What child facing uncomfortable feelings about themselves wouldn’t be taken in if respected adults say they can fix it?
As a teen, I was never comfortable in my own skin but I made the best of it; I was told that I was on my way to adulthood, like going over a rough bridge. I dressed and acted quirky trying to find a right style or behaviour. I also did some things that did not make me popular in the adult sector. When I finally reached the age of consent at 19, I had my first drink, a Tom Collins to celebrate, frightening and exhilarating at the same time. These trans kids will never get to experience proper childhood or teen hood or have to figure out what they want to be or if they ever want to have children; the puberty blockers once used to sterilize rapists and paedophiles. Doing puberty the old-fashioned way is the only way as was decent counselling on raging hormones and body changes.
In fact, some may never experience ordinary sex with orgasm. While this is not the ultimate disaster, this is a loss of a gift that normal humans have. Many, if not most, of those in the trannie train have never experienced normal sex. They are trading away their normal functioning for this delusional illusion.
In a different forum you’d be vilified for this opinion. Not to mention that you’d be told it wasn’t opinion at all, but wrong and evil. This is where we are.
Nah, I can do it in this forum, too: this post is wrong. Evil? Nah, it's not eloquent enough. Even villains are empathetic. That is literally what makes them villains; they understand the world but don't agree. That's empathy. This rubbish? It's just rubbish.
Regarding point three see:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trans-mega-ta-tas-in-clown-world-canada/
WTF? Seriously disturbing.
Your theory about group 2 is borne out by the three female detransitioners, Grace, Helena and Cat, in the new documentary, Detransition Diaries. Trailers for it can be viewed free on Center for Bioethics and Culture Network YouTube channel. Another documentary with both male and female regretters is due out at the end of next month at Affirmation Generation YT channel.
The "sexologist" psychologists tried, and succeeded I guess, in "normalizing" sexual fetishes instead of seeking the trauma/abuse origins of unhealthy sexual expression.
Why does your taxonomy matter when the goal is to right the legal ship and erase the insane legal status of 'transgender'? Motivations for adopting this ideology are irrelevant to its eradication. It is dangerous bunk.
I disagree. I think understanding why people are falling prey to this poison, and who is most responsible for advancing it (the AGPs) helps in creating effective strategies to combat it. The young teen girls who are drugging and carving themselves up to escape being (white) females in our society will need a different kind of help/response to draw them away from it than the confused gay kids (and/or ASD kids) who don't understand why they feel out of step, and certainly different than the misogynistic fetishists and sexual perverts leading the charge, looking for access. Knowledge is power. And figuring out how to isolate the people causing the chaos brings us closer to the goal of restoring the necessary legal boundaries that protect people from this harm.
Leah-Rose, d*mn, what an eloquently written response! Your writing and your thinking. I would like to read more of your writing. And thinking.
That's gratifying to hear—thank you! I do have a free blog you're welcome to subscribe to. ;-) I'm nowhere near as prolific as many people on Substack and my writing isn't wholly focused on gender ideology, but my most recent piece, published earlier this month, is on the topic if you want to check it out: https://leahrose.substack.com/p/our-lying-eyes
Terrifi! Thanks, Leah, I'll check it out. I'm so glad you're logging, because of the pleasure of reading your polished writing.
Sweet! Thanks!
I understand why the taxonomy might matter for those helping the individual victims of this pernicious ideology.
I completely disagree that AGPs are most responsible for advancing transgender ideology and enshrining it into law.
Transgender ideology is objectively, realistically, absolute nonsense and no taxonomy of its victims/proponents is needed to combat it. To combat it on a legal/political level, it is necessary to follow the money and expose the corruption and profiteering that has given 'transgender' legal status. Do you really think a ragtag bunch of porn-addled AGPs could have got this far? "Transgender" is about profiteering.
I think I see your point re: legal/political level. The AGPs are clearing a path in society by being the activist front putting pressure on our institutions and helping to push the narrative. But yes, the big money behind the movement is where the real battle line is. I think we need the hearts and minds of people to defeat the deep pockets, and the best way to get that is to expose who the real victims of this ideology are, which include the teen girls and young gay/ASD kids, women, and children, and by showing up the misogynist perve front for who they really are, because right now they are protected by the media/tech giants.
You are speaking in pedantic rubbish.
Personally, I am more likely to believe it’s possible humans suddenly appeared 6 or 10 thousand years ago, and one dude rose from the dead a little over 2,000 years ago, than I am to believe that any and every dude born with male genitals and a male body can somehow “feel” or “believe” their way into being a woman or that it is just and moral to tell my 11yo daughter to strip naked in a pool locker room in front of mentally disturbed man that “feels” like he is “really” a woman.
The gender activists are now trying to de-stigmatize literal pedophilia. It’s pretty clear a lot of kids get harmed when they are sexualized, used as props for the sexual fantasies of grown men playing dress up, sterilized, genitally mutilated, or sexually abused as kids. Who does it harm for one to believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis?
While I am not a believer in new Earth Theory, I hold more respect for those who hold those beliefs than I do gender ideology activists. I’d also argue the average New Earth theory believer has a far better grip on objective truth/ reality than the average gender activists.
This is a very interesting point of view.... I tend to agree with you in the sense that the ideologues are far more out of touch with reality than most people with whom I've ever come in contact.
I come in contact with both groups everyday (and everyone in between). My observation isn’t as much theoretical as informed by actual experience.
A “progressive” sitting member of congress goes to the same club my family and I do. She has a strong following and donor base there. She’s been a member for decades.
A bunch of teenage boys put up a Trump 2024 banner at the pool 4th of July at the same club (it didn’t stay up long, but the over the top reactions from the old wokies in the adult pool were hysterical while it was up). There is no mono-ideological belief, in either direction or intensity, in my day to day life.
My kids go to one of the top private schools in NC, which also happens to be a conservative Christian school and they have friends’ whose families’ believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. At the same time, we have (mostly former) family friends who have “let,” after a great deal of encouragement from their social media obsessed mothers/ parents, one of their kids “transition” genders in response to “sudden onset gender dysphoria.” I only know one child who transitioned very young, and that too seemed to have more to do with mommy’s obsession with gender norms and trendy social ideas than her then 6 year olds’ concern about not fitting some “typical boy” mold no one can really define.
The Christians that believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible tend to be very successful. For example several of them are successful physicians who never advocated the Covid hype directed at kids or young adults and all openly expressed their concerns for vaccinating kids by using actual data to support their positions. Nearly all are history buffs that know human societal written history far better than the rest of my “well educated” peers. Plainly speaking, in literally every other aspect of life these creationist believers are very well informed with a great deal of intellectual curiosity.
All of them whom I have asked, which is only 5 (so not many), have actually read The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as part of that intellectual curiosity. Ironically they can parrot off Darwinist talking points better than those who view Darwin’s theory as settled fact. I enjoy debating them because while there are a lot of holes in Darwin’s theory, observationally I land on that we did evolve in the sense that life forms change over time and develop new forms of life, there are demonstrable examples of survival of the fittest so in some cases I think that drove evolution, and I believe the Earth is likely older than 4.54billion years. I don’t know that I buy that evolution was driven fully by survival of the fittest, I land that we don’t yet know many of the driving forces, but the replicated evidence I see is that the process of life forms evolving actually happened. I am humble enough to acknowledge this is just an informed belief, and I could be wrong.
The creationists more broadly are also the first to show up in person or open their checkbooks to actually help someone else in need.
On the other side, the pro-gender ideology people I know personally tend to be very emotionally immature. They have the same number of degrees, but tend to be less successful. They don’t have a lot of intellectual curiosity but they will fill their yards with the “we believe” and proudly post them to social media. They will go show up at the fun protest in summer 2020, but I have yet to see them sacrifice time or treasure with my family to actually help a person who needs help. When pressed about their ideas and conclusions they are easily flustered, quick to anger, and frequently rely on insults and faux senses of morally superiority to convince themselves they are “right.” Absent that they end conversations at the first push back on their ideological convictions. They all, and I’ve asked them all, genuinely believe “it’s different this time” wether that refers to child genital mutilation, the cause of our current inflationary issues in the economy, or othering the unvaccinated. They are untethered from basic cause and effect in life but love oversimplified semantics gymnastics so long as there is no questioning of their word salads.
The creationists make me want to be a better person and live up to the example they do often set even if I disagree with them about some material aspects of pre-history. The gender ideologists serve as regular reminders of the type of person I never want to let myself become. I understand that my personal circle doesn’t necessarily extrapolate to the whole of the population, but the macro evidence I see daily indicates it’s not a terrible barometer. 🤷♀️
Interestingly, I agree with everything that you've said including your assessments of the various groups of people with whom you deal. I have had precisely the same experiences and come to the same conclusions.
Regarding your points on evolution, I don't know if you have read this essay on my Substack:
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/crossbill-finches-evolution-and-bisexual
I'm finishing the second part now.... you may find it interesting. By the way I just subscribed to your newsletter.... You may enjoy mine, too.
Thanks for the very interesting reply to my comment. Sincerely, Frederick
Great article. I think I probably lean more towards there being a lot we don’t rather than simple random chance, though I don’t know what it is. Your students would benefit from an honest perspective like this. Too many are taught to accept an argument with zero intellectual curiosity.
You have literally accepted this banana argument with zero intellectual curiosity.
Thank you for posting the link. I look forward to reading when I get the kids down tonight. I find the whole debate and range of theories fascinating.
No you don't. You just like peer to peer confirmation of your own biases.
Troll. 😂
JSD, How about elaborating and explaining instead of just stating disagreement and sometimes even attacking?
Put your own ideas in the ring for others to debate and respond to, and/or disprove.
Excellent article. In the absence of ranked choice voting, though a life-long democrat, I will be voting Republican. My liberal friends chide me for being a single issue voter -well if that is what I am, fine - I don't want to live in a world that performs medical experiments on children.
I hear you. I've never considered voting Republican in my life, but there's no way my beloved Democratic party will get its common sense back before the next election cycle. Maybe it won't matter how we vote, because the party will probably have lost the rest of its Hispanic and blue-collar voters by then. Sensible people who see through this nonsense.
Imo you are making a big mistake to vote Republican. The very same instinct that tells you it is wrong to experiment on children should be screaming at you about the many inhumane and blasphemous behaviors and future plans of the Trumpocracy.
I hear you. We need someone centrist like a Mitt Romney.
The most damaging aspect to the left is how the unquestioned and complete acceptance of gender ideologies hampers the legitimacy of organizations which otherwise champion and prioritize progressive agendas. But if these groups can be so out of touch with reality on this one issue, what's to say that their legitimacy on other causes is sound?
Transgender people have a right to live with dignity and respect. Adult transgender individuals should have access to gender affirming treatment, under the guidance of well-qualified physical and mental health professionals. But the complete re-organization of society to validate a non-falsifiable, Cartesian dualism is obviously ludicrous, and will ultimately harm the progressive cause.
Ariel I understand what you’re saying. At first I was very uncomfortable to find myself in the company of right-wing people on the Trans issue. As it began taking up more of the public’s bandwidth, I started wondering if the timing of it has to do with splitting progressive voters for the midterms.
So I will vote straight Dem despite what I see as misguided wokeness on the part of many progressives. My hope is that as more comes out about and by de-transitioners, they will come out if their trance.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. The world has gone far too insane. I see no evidence of Democrats backing off the destructive work agenda, and I believe they should be held accountable for the immense harm they are causing the next generation from failing public schools to harmful and largely useless demands for school closures to sexuslizing and confusing young kids with gender ideology. I won’t join it. I’m straight Republican ticket this time around. I don’t know how I’ll vote in 10 years, but who is in charge and more importantly their actual policies make a huge difference. The current Democrat policies result in lots of harm to lots of people. I’m voting based on outcomes and the outcomes I see resulting from the policies of the last 2 years are lots and lots of needless suffering. 🤷♀️
Ok, but look at what the GOP-chosen Supreme Court has just done to women's rights, bodies, and lives; and to overpopulation? Amidst the world's ever-worsening energy resource depletion crisis that has already resulted in at least 3 U.S. wars for control of oil; and amidst the consequences of climate change? These are catastrophic issues that are returning American women to reproductive slavery, and the climate crisis already having caused millions to die from oil wars and extreme weather, and this crisis is only getting started. And the U.S. is leading the way in causing the climate crisis, with our massive over-consumption of fossil fuels and other resources per capita. Over-consumption that the GOP just wants to double down on and profit from.
And please know, I'm completely with you on being sickened and horrified at the child sexual poisoning and mutilation that the Democrats are unconscionably and spinelessly championing and aggressively facilitating legislatively and judicially.
The best argument I've read for remaining a Democrat instead of registering as an independent is that it is the best way to have leverage over Dem politicians, to say, "I'm absolutely a Democrat, and I'm well versed in and appalled by the Democatic Party's position on this issue, for these reasons...."
However, I'm also not a mother, let alone a mom of a child swept up by this cult; I don't know if your child or a relative of yours is.
Your thoughts please, NCmom?
I respect that some will disagree with me, but I need to be able to sleep at night, and the thought of Democrats right now maintaining control keeps me up at night. I respect differences of opinion, but I am passionate and unashamed of where I stand on this and voting this fall.
I care about this issue because I would have been destroyed by this. I was convinced I should have been a boy until I was at least 8 or 9. I would have eaten this crap up and no way my parents could have stopped me. My mom actually left the Democrat party after 52 years of loyalty following Biden's "day 1" executive orders because she broke down and realized it would have been me and she and my dad could not have stopped me in today's environment. My first-grade teacher thought I was a boy for the first week of school after all. Imagine if she stuck with that when I told her "I'm a little girl?"
In reality I am just free spirited, hate pink, and thought barbies were dumb. Sports, girls' sports, is where I found myself and my confidence. I marred a pretty boy college soccer player, and he is my best friend. I love my life now. I had a right to grow up and live this life. I will not stand by and let the opportunities I have had to be myself be taken from little girls like me today.
My kids are my world and I need to justify to them in 20 years, with the benefit of hindsight, why I make the decisions I do every day - from sending them to private school to rejecting kiddie covid "vaccines" to how I vote. I tell them all the time that outcomes matter far more than intentions, if something is going to work it will actually work, complaining about a problem without offering a solution is called whining, and doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity. The least I can do in my daily pursuit of being the best mom I can, which is imperfect because I am human but that doesn't excuse trying, is to have my actions match my words.
I was a teenager when Bush II became president and will never supported a war monger president. But we have a war monger now. We only fight over foreign resources when our own are restricted by our own government. I was an outdoor adventure guide in undergrad. I did Outward Bound in high school. I am an environmentalist, and there are ways to harness energy that are environmentally responsible. Nothing is more ecologically destructive and poverty inducing (poverty is terrible for the environment by the way), than this pro-scarcity environment destroying not actually "green" crap being pushed by Democrats. It is terrible for animals, nature, the climate, and people alike. The math ensures it can't actually work to make everyone, or even half the US, drive electric cars. The minerals and infrastructure simply can't magically appear in 3 or 5 or even 10 years.
Burning wood is the most destructive to the environment - wanna guess how Germans are going to heath their homes this winter or how much wood burning goes up when clean natural gas is restricted or how much poverty drives wood burning? Coal is the second worse, and coal burning has been increasing since Biden took office and started restricting natural gas production pushing up both US and global coal consumption. Then comes oil which has seen 80% plus reductions in emissions over the last 30 years with emissions capturing technologies required in every car and SUV on the road as well as plants. Natural gas is very clean, and the US has enough reserves to power the US and Europe for 1,000 years - a full transition to nuclear and hydrogen is probably 50-70 years off at most. No one serious about the environment rejects nuclear in favor of short lived, inefficient, and ecologically destructive windmills and solar panels and batteries everywhere that have sort useful lives. But Democrats right now passed an "inflation reduction act" that will bankrupt nuclear by heavily subsidizing alternatives up front and waiting to fund nuclear to a lower yet competitive level down the road. Michael Shallenberger has a great substack if you would liek to learn some details.
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/
I am no longer a Democrat. I gave my first political donation to Obama in 2007 a couple years out of grad school. I voted for Ralph Nader when I turned 18 in 2000 and then a bunch of Democrats but not anymore, at least not right now. As I said, I make no commitment for a decade from now. My kids and their future and the society they will enter means way too much to me to be distracted by false narratives or those supporting child genital mutilation calling me names or feigning moral superiority when they have zero morality at the moment.
Democrats have stopped caring if their policies work and they have stopped caring who they hurt. My husband has an aunt and first cousins still in Cuba and far more family here that has escaped. The far left is a dark path that leads to poverty, misery, and suffering. I am turning back now before it's too late.
I will not align myself or my identity with people who think semantics gymnastics matter more than outcomes or who call parents who oppose the sexualization of their 5-year old's domestic terrorist (along with all those questioning school closures, vaccine mandates, open borders, and anything else the far left just doesn't like). My kids are protected because we can afford private school, club sports, 2 homes, international travel (even unvaccinated throughout Covid) and a very nice life. The least I can do in gratitude for this life I've built is look out for the kids who aren't so lucky and who were locked up in solitary confinement for a year and are having nonsense gender ideology shoved down their throats by holding those doing the harm accountable.
I also disagree on SCOTUS. I don't think SCOTUS did anything to my body. They didn't restrict a single abortion procedure. All SCOTUS did was return the abortion issue to the states. Over time the reasonable polices like those of Western Europe will most likely win out. A large majority oppose all out bans on abortion. A large majority oppose abortion on demand until the moment of birth. We may have more outliers than western Europe, but most likely we will broadly end up with policies that mimic European abortion policies that mostly ban elective abortions between 10 and 15 weeks which is where the culture is and has been for decades. I am no more interested in living in a society that has so dehumanized babies that they think nothing of having a living, feeling human ripped apart limb by limb or burned alive in saline while that human being can feel every excruciating moment of the barbaric procedure than I do a country that gives the sperm of a rapist more rights to the reproductive capacity of a woman than she has over it herself. Plus, the way the Democrats are going, I don't trust them not to mandate the abortion of wanted babies in the name of a "climate change" emergency in 10 years. They have moved so far out of the mainstream so fast I do not trust them to stop themselves. I don't trust the party of vaccine mandates to ensure my right to my body any more than I do a politician trying to outlaw the morning after pill. Both are insane to me.
Sorry for the book - it's my attempt at other's avoiding inaccurate assumptions.
As will pushing transitions on children
Would you please explain the "non-falsifissue? part, and give some examples regarding this issie? I keep reading this "non-falsifiable" term in this debate, and don't know own what sorts of pro-"trans" arguments it is referring to.
Also, I completely agree with you about our now having to choose between voting progressive for other issues, i.e. abortion rights, vs.this sex-role madness that's 5earing the left apart. Or stands to.
By non-falsifiable, I mean it is not possible to prove or disprove someone's purported gender identity. If you say you "feel" like the opposite sex there is no way to evaluate the validity or strength of that feeling, it is completely subjective. A claim that is impossible to prove or disprove can only be taken on faith.
There's nothing inherently with believing in gender identity, as long as we can accept that these kinds of religious beliefs have no place influencing policy in a secular society.
Sigh. I tried to explain to a 30-something that gender ideology was going off the deep end. Response was that most of this was not happening at all, but “science” says puberty blockers help people.
it seems almost impossible to get anyone on the Left side of the aisle to even admit the possible negative consequences of any part of their agenda (esp since they will mostly even deny it's their agenda)—gender studies for small children, racialization of everything, open the prisons, open the borders etc—they just know in their pure kind hearts that these are the "right" positions all Good People must have.
The modern Left seems to be in the grip of an epidemic of moral narcissism combined with a cult-like level of conformity and discomfort w dissent—they cannot be reasoned with because they believe they have already found the One Holy Truth we should all live by.
Clever Pseudonym: You nailed it! "The modern Left seems to be in the grip of an epidemic of moral narcissism combined with a cult-like level of comformity and discomfort w dissent - they cannot be reasoned with..." Very well put.
As a lifelong Democrat whose friends are almost all progressives, I've watched in a mixture of amazement, disbelief, and horror as so many of my friends seem to have turned into mindless pod people in recent years. I used to love to debate the intricacies of public policy with these friends, almost all of whom are well educated. But these days I keep my mouth shut most of the time.
I have now joined the ranks of the politically homeless, as I am by no means a Republican. But, I've chosen to vote Republican recently, mainly to send a message to the Dems that they need to reverse course. Still hoping this will happen - and things like this substack do give me hope.
Bravo, Bruce Lesnick, for identifying so many of the clear ramifications and dangers of "gender ideology." There are also the ex-wives and ex-husbands, the traumatized sons and daughters of, who are verbally abused, often publicly, and erased as mother or father. Later, the likelihood of wrong sex hormones causing osteoporosis, dementia, cardiac conditions and other ill health put the families in caregiver positions for narcissistic, demanding individuals. Here's a link to my description of female erasure, an experience originating in the early 1990s as my then husband started cross-dressing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gIgGPfcN08
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com (recent analysis of WPATHs new SOC8)
I remember reading a sad, heartfelt essay from Buck Angel (a woman who identifies as a man) about the pain she is in after decades of heavy testosterone use. Buck never had "bottom surgery", but now her vagina has atrophied from the many years of male sex hormones, and it causes chronic, excruciating pain. Buck has been very vocal about wanting young women who think they identify as men to learn from her experiences.
I'm glad to hear that B Angel does speak out against the T for young women. However, she also appeared on Howard Stern and performed a vulgar sexual act publicly. At one time, she also advocated for pornography creation as an alternative to getting a college degree. She plays into the celebrity aspect of this too much for my taste, often also repeating the old mantra, "for some of us . . it was the right choice.' As she ages, perhaps she'll get it. I can just imagine the pain the public display on Howard Stern must have caused. I will always favor detransitioners' voices over those who say they don't regret. Angel has a lot of followers--I figure there's some trepidation with challenging someone like this. Unfortunately, she was a big influencer in California back in the day, when lesbians started down the T path.
Thank you for this interesting article. You are correct about the ambiguous use of words and the fundamental confusion about discrete sexes. I pointed out some of the misunderstandings from a biological point of view in the essay” “If Aneuploidies = Sexes, Then Two-Headed Turtles Aren’t Turtles.”
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/if-aneuploidies-sexes-then-two-headed
I also agree with you that the demeaning tone of the ideologues toward women is reprehensible, and I appreciate you pointing this out, yet again. It is a very important issue that bears repeating.
Your straightforward warning, “it’s time to wake up!” Should be a call to every thinking person. Thank you for this thoughtful essay, Frederick.
This is superb! It's extremely educational with a clear meaning; it's so factual that anyone who doesn't see the truth lives in dreamland.
Uh oh, someone doesn’t know what a “fact” is.
The jargon of these people is confusing. Is a "trans-woman" a biological female who thinks she's a male or a biological male that thinks he's a female? I'm befuddled until you get this stuff into practice, and NO, a male convict who thinks he's a female shouldn't be housed with female prisoners.
That's intentional on the part of trans activists. The idea is to continually muddy the ideological conversation until finally, the confused average person gives up and says "Fine, he's a woman, then."
I simply call them "men who identify as women" and "women who identify as men". No need to use jargon that was designed to trick and confuse.
“I simply call them by nouns that they do not identify with.” Lololol, you sound like a bully.
I bet you call your parents by their first names instead of “mom” and “dad,” too.
A bully requires someone else to tell a lie to make themselves feel better. That’s exactly what “trans” activists are.
A woman is an adult human female. A female is a living organism that produces ova. While any biological system can occasionally have deformities, in the case of reproductive physical deformities in mammals, it is a deformity of one of the two sexes - male or female - not some deformity that magically invents a spectrum between the sexes. There is no reproductive organ deformity that produces something between an ova and a sperm.
A dude born with the organs to produce sperm, even if deformed, will never ever ever be any kind of actual woman. Those who insist otherwise are bullies. No amount of your endless trolling JSD will change reality, and no amount of your ridiculous bullying will make men with mental delusions a “women.”
You can wrote whatever silliness you want, you still lose because you don’t have reality on your side, and no amount of word salad semantics gymnastics will make lies become actual truth.
Yikes on bikes. Whatever reality you live in, you can keep.
You obviously do not comprehend that we all live within our own realities that were created by the experiences we endure and the internalization that happens after said experiences. You would not be who you are today, NCmom, without the droll experiences you have endured and the empty reflections you have made about them.
You, dear NCmom, are an umempathetic drone. You rob others of creating their own realities because their experiences do not match your own.
No we don’t all live “within our own reality.” If I shoot you, you still die even if you’ve told yourself you identify lead bullets as fluffy stuffed animals. We all live in the one reality that actually exist, and no amount of pontificating changes that. Beliefs to the contrary are delusions.
I live in the exact same reality as you. You don’t get to pick and choose reality. You aren’t a God and no matter how much you hate it, you don’t get to pick a reality like choosing a flavor of coffee.
You can call me whatever names you want. It doesn’t change reality. Men can’t believe their way to being women and I won’t be bullied into pretending otherwise because mentally disturbed people really really really wish their delusions to be true.
You aren’t enlightened. You aren’t intelligent. You’re gullible and promoting child genital mutilation. Yikes on bikes that is the factual reality you live in no matter how many lies you tell yourself.
Ooooook, got it: you're a very, very literal person. A very limited, literal person.
Yes, if you shoot me with bullets, I will die because I am organic, regardless of what I believe bullets to be comprised of. However, I can still marry a rollercoaster or a train station, as others have, regardless of what you believe a matrimonial arrangement is in your version of reality.
We have a shared reality, yes, where we can agree on things like which side of the road to drive on and what a post office is and how old someone needs to be to buy beer, etc; however, your life has been different than mine, from the very start to this moment right now. You have endured experiences that I have not, and if we have a shared experience, I imagine that you have internalized the experience differently than me. And that is what makes our realities different; not even artists agree on what color the sky is.
The jargon. I think to a certain age group the only acceptable way to say you're male or female now is that you're AMAB or AFAB. Yeah, the doc just assigns your gender at birth. It's totally random. Uh huh.
That's the way it is on several of the Reddit subs I participate in. Reddit skews younger, and a very large percentage of people of people stating their sex/gender in posts in these groups says "AFAB" or "AMAB" instead of "woman" or "man". It bugs me, but I can't comment on this usage (much), because Reddit will give you a lifetime ban if you do.
Spot on! An excellent analysis.
Excellent, sir.
Good post and love your analogy. Never thought of ascribing this to subject of n=gender ideology but it is apt. I recently applied it to other related items:
https://kwnorton.substack.com/p/ouroboros-jack-kerouac-and-the-killing?r=boqs0&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
A conservative might reply to the points made, quite rightly, in this article belie the fact that progressive thought and policy *always* shoots itself in the foot. The needs/wishes/desires of all the various minorities never perfectly interlock in some intersectual utopia. (Case in point: affirmative action.)
So, just to be our local little conservative for a moment: it is a hard pill to swallow, but the world is not fair, just, and reasonable. It will never be. We can make incremental, local improvements, but we will never succeed in banishing the limits that are given by both nature and society. Utopianism is what underlies leftist politics. However much I disagree with many on the American right, I just cannot sign on to any type of revolutionary socialism.
So yes, progressives are shooting themselves in the foot. Exactly. They've been at it for a long time.
You literally just spout rubbish when you type, eh?
“ 'Progressives' who yesterday chided others for not “following the science” on climate change have today thrown science out the window when it comes to gender ideology. ... they have abandoned any pretense of supporting free speech and civil liberties, supporting instead censorship of those who dare to say the emperor has no clothes."
This. I just don't understand how otherwise intelligent people embrace this fantasy-cult ideology.
You are so funny! Gender ideology is not based in science — it’s a societal perspective. Genitalia is only a small percentage of what is observed in gender ideology. I don’t believe you know what ideology is: it is a system of characteristic thinking formed on the basis of economic, political, theoretical, and/or social theory. It’s a mode of thinking, examining, researching, etc; something that you do not do on your own, obviously.
YES! Liberal Democrat CASA here. Agree 100%.
I strongly feel 'trans' is the identity that now stands in for 'lack of identity,' a developmental issue.
Developmental Trauma, 0-3, leaves dissociation, lack of self regulation, self hatred, numbness/ over-reactivity, poor relational skills, poor sense of self.
"Designated issue" = gender.