Exactly. The logical fallacy of stating that sex is ambiguous for everyone, and on a spectrum, and therefore meaningless, and then insisting that teenage girls and boys MUST be chemically and surgically altered in dangerously unhealthy ways to appear as (and “be”) the opposite sex, or the will die of depression, and men whom wish they we…
Exactly. The logical fallacy of stating that sex is ambiguous for everyone, and on a spectrum, and therefore meaningless, and then insisting that teenage girls and boys MUST be chemically and surgically altered in dangerously unhealthy ways to appear as (and “be”) the opposite sex, or the will die of depression, and men whom wish they were women must be treated as women, is too obvious to explain.
Yet somehow, activists argue both of these points as if they are consistent. Either there are males and females, and some people desperately wish they were the opposite sex, but are not the opposite sex, and we can discuss how to deal with those wishes, or there is no such a thing as a “sex” and nobody is really male or female, in which case all categories for male and female have to be gone. No women’s sports or bathrooms or changing rooms - just unisex everything. I don’t think too many trans activists want this. “Trans women” want to be treated as women, not as part of a unisex species. My trans identified daughter wants to be treated as a boy. Thus, these people assume the existence of “men” and “women” and “boys” and “girls.” They don’t believe sex is on a spectrum, but just argue it to muddy the waters and justify the right to claim to be the opposite sex - because sex is unclear. But again, if it’s so unclear, what makes a trans woman a woman or a trans man a man? Aren’t they just part of an ambiguous spectrum? None of it makes sense.
The trans-identified men who began seeking gender surgeries during the Nineties were generally very concrete, conventional thinkers regarding sex and femininity. If they liked feminine clothes and had a history of playing more with girls than with boys, they were inclined to think they must be women. These men were not typically very sophisticated or informed about postmodern ideas, and were in most cases not familiar with feminist theory or queer theory. Queer and trans theory was introduced later by trans activists, who found these ideas to be useful in confusing critics of the trans agenda. The fundamental problem of gender dysphoric people, however, continues to be concrete, rigidly binary, conventional conceptions about what it means to be a man or woman in terms of traditional sex role stereotypes.
“The fundamental problem of gender dysphoric people, however, continues to be concrete, rigidly binary, conventional conceptions about what it means to be a man or woman…”
Sorry, I disagree profoundly that this is the *fundamental* problem when we *now* see at least an order of magnitude more (especially biological females, but substantially more males as well) claiming gender dysphoria than even just 15 years ago.
The fundamental problem is clearly the miseducation of young people on this topic, combined with the willingness of leftists all over the medical and education professions to “affirm” such pronouncements by youth - and of course reinforced by leftist social media, where being LGBTQ++ is cool, while being straight white heteronormative is vilified.
If you persist in reducing the anti-realism of transgender activism to a left ideological conspiracy alone, then you will be wrong for two reasons. First, not all on the left or pro-IP, indeed many like me are highly critical of it for replacing the politics of redistribution with the politics of identity. Second, IP is completely compatible with consumer capitalism and neoliberalism. It is individualistic "cos you're worth it", taking the knee in sports as a cheap empty moralistic gesture etc., and it deflects attention from economic determinants of social injustice. Look how consumer marketing in divided into identity categories. Look at the funding of transgender activism. The list goes on about following the money. This woke left problem is aligned with US individualism post civil rights protests, and sadly has now infected many on the left in Europe. Many of us though are fighting back. This is both an ideological and an economic challenge, with anti-realism being at its centre. Scepticism about that anti-realism is not the preserve of socially conservative critics.
I am not condemning leftists who are not woke above or here.
And I don’t claim to understand UK/European politics sufficiently well to be sure that there is nothing else but woke leftism behind the denial of biology there.
And I don’t claim that all leftists in the U.S. today are woke, as that is not the case, in particular among older leftists.
But you are fooling yourself or denying the reality if you claim that anything other than woke left activism is the primary thing driving the push on trans issues in the U.S. today.
But none of that changes the reality that wokeism is objectively bad for humanity, nor that wokeism is a dominant force, if not *the* dominant force, in American leftist politics today, and that no one in power on the left today is pushing back against it. Some are actively pushing it, the rest simply don’t resist it and certainly do not denounce it. I defy you to show me *any* major U.S. politicians on the left who are denouncing wokeism.
That there is a bigger pushback against woke by European leftists is encouraging. I certainly have seen/heard it re: trans procedures on minors in the U.K. Bravo!
And I hope you are successful. Because until and unless you are, leftism becomes more and more il-liberal every day. The term “cultural Marxism” fits as label for the activist woke agenda is extremely well.
I think I know what you mean. And yet… some fraction - I know not what part - of these massive reported increases in gender dysphoria are actually experiencing “gender dysphoria” because they have convinced themselves that they are, no?
I think that the majority of adolescent and young adult females and perhaps also most of the young males presenting at gender clinics do not have the condition of gender dysphoria that was presented to gender therapists during the Nineties through more recent time. I think that most of the young gender clinic patients have other developmental and psych issues that are causing their symptoms. Outside of the gender clinics, I think that the young people, mostly girls, who are claiming to be various genders and sexual orientations are suffering from confusion induced by their own woke peer culture and its associated adolescent fads, as well as effects of indoctrination by their school systems, and by online trans influencers.
We are in 100% agreement that the overwhelming majority of females, and at least some of the males, “presenting at gender clinics do not have the condition of gender dysphoria that was presented to gender therapists during the Nineties through more recent time.”
You make my point about woke activism and a portion of its terrible effects precisely when you say this.
I actually don’t have all that strong an opinion about trans adults (except re: participation in women’s sports). But these activists are, at least, consistent.
They are consistent that what matters is being woke. The rights of the oppressed LQBTQ++ to do/have whatever is in *their* interest trump the rights of cishetero people, including girls’ and women’s ability to participate in sports.
More importantly, the “rights” of adults to be trans and be recognized as having rights trumps any sanity/circumspection/whatever in terms of what the proper thing to do is for children, including chemical and surgical alterations. Re: almost every other conceivable issue, children are the leftist justification for all sorts of restrictive laws. But in this case, since woke must triumph, we must do the opposite when it comes to children.
The creation of the trans child had to happen to make it more believable that trans is a thing. Now that there is a concept of a ‘trans child’ you have ‘trans adults’ and all these fetishy, AGP men running the world are getting what they want.
You are correct. The trans child is a reification created by activist clinicians. The Cass review in the UK inter alia drew attention to 'diagnostic over-shadowing' whereby gender questioning children from a wide range of biographical backgrounds (including abuse, autism, depression and being gay but with homophobic parents) are all lumped together in one reified grouping. This assumption flows from gender ideology invented by adults. See Moore, M. and Brunskell -Evans H. (eds) Inventing Transgender Children and Young People.
…if you believe the “rights” of the trans “oppressed” justify any means necessary to overcome their “oppressors”, then sure, it is a very acceptable price to sacrifice the health of children towards the goal.
This is what woke / DEI / intersectionality / Critical Race Theory teaches. This is what radicals believe. And this is what most leftists gladly go along with today, whether they understand it and truly believe it or not.
Exactly. The logical fallacy of stating that sex is ambiguous for everyone, and on a spectrum, and therefore meaningless, and then insisting that teenage girls and boys MUST be chemically and surgically altered in dangerously unhealthy ways to appear as (and “be”) the opposite sex, or the will die of depression, and men whom wish they were women must be treated as women, is too obvious to explain.
Yet somehow, activists argue both of these points as if they are consistent. Either there are males and females, and some people desperately wish they were the opposite sex, but are not the opposite sex, and we can discuss how to deal with those wishes, or there is no such a thing as a “sex” and nobody is really male or female, in which case all categories for male and female have to be gone. No women’s sports or bathrooms or changing rooms - just unisex everything. I don’t think too many trans activists want this. “Trans women” want to be treated as women, not as part of a unisex species. My trans identified daughter wants to be treated as a boy. Thus, these people assume the existence of “men” and “women” and “boys” and “girls.” They don’t believe sex is on a spectrum, but just argue it to muddy the waters and justify the right to claim to be the opposite sex - because sex is unclear. But again, if it’s so unclear, what makes a trans woman a woman or a trans man a man? Aren’t they just part of an ambiguous spectrum? None of it makes sense.
The trans-identified men who began seeking gender surgeries during the Nineties were generally very concrete, conventional thinkers regarding sex and femininity. If they liked feminine clothes and had a history of playing more with girls than with boys, they were inclined to think they must be women. These men were not typically very sophisticated or informed about postmodern ideas, and were in most cases not familiar with feminist theory or queer theory. Queer and trans theory was introduced later by trans activists, who found these ideas to be useful in confusing critics of the trans agenda. The fundamental problem of gender dysphoric people, however, continues to be concrete, rigidly binary, conventional conceptions about what it means to be a man or woman in terms of traditional sex role stereotypes.
“The fundamental problem of gender dysphoric people, however, continues to be concrete, rigidly binary, conventional conceptions about what it means to be a man or woman…”
Sorry, I disagree profoundly that this is the *fundamental* problem when we *now* see at least an order of magnitude more (especially biological females, but substantially more males as well) claiming gender dysphoria than even just 15 years ago.
The fundamental problem is clearly the miseducation of young people on this topic, combined with the willingness of leftists all over the medical and education professions to “affirm” such pronouncements by youth - and of course reinforced by leftist social media, where being LGBTQ++ is cool, while being straight white heteronormative is vilified.
If you persist in reducing the anti-realism of transgender activism to a left ideological conspiracy alone, then you will be wrong for two reasons. First, not all on the left or pro-IP, indeed many like me are highly critical of it for replacing the politics of redistribution with the politics of identity. Second, IP is completely compatible with consumer capitalism and neoliberalism. It is individualistic "cos you're worth it", taking the knee in sports as a cheap empty moralistic gesture etc., and it deflects attention from economic determinants of social injustice. Look how consumer marketing in divided into identity categories. Look at the funding of transgender activism. The list goes on about following the money. This woke left problem is aligned with US individualism post civil rights protests, and sadly has now infected many on the left in Europe. Many of us though are fighting back. This is both an ideological and an economic challenge, with anti-realism being at its centre. Scepticism about that anti-realism is not the preserve of socially conservative critics.
Feel free to be a leftist.
I am not condemning leftists who are not woke above or here.
And I don’t claim to understand UK/European politics sufficiently well to be sure that there is nothing else but woke leftism behind the denial of biology there.
And I don’t claim that all leftists in the U.S. today are woke, as that is not the case, in particular among older leftists.
But you are fooling yourself or denying the reality if you claim that anything other than woke left activism is the primary thing driving the push on trans issues in the U.S. today.
But none of that changes the reality that wokeism is objectively bad for humanity, nor that wokeism is a dominant force, if not *the* dominant force, in American leftist politics today, and that no one in power on the left today is pushing back against it. Some are actively pushing it, the rest simply don’t resist it and certainly do not denounce it. I defy you to show me *any* major U.S. politicians on the left who are denouncing wokeism.
That there is a bigger pushback against woke by European leftists is encouraging. I certainly have seen/heard it re: trans procedures on minors in the U.K. Bravo!
And I hope you are successful. Because until and unless you are, leftism becomes more and more il-liberal every day. The term “cultural Marxism” fits as label for the activist woke agenda is extremely well.
My comment was in regard to people who are actually experiencing gender dysphoria.
I think I know what you mean. And yet… some fraction - I know not what part - of these massive reported increases in gender dysphoria are actually experiencing “gender dysphoria” because they have convinced themselves that they are, no?
I think that the majority of adolescent and young adult females and perhaps also most of the young males presenting at gender clinics do not have the condition of gender dysphoria that was presented to gender therapists during the Nineties through more recent time. I think that most of the young gender clinic patients have other developmental and psych issues that are causing their symptoms. Outside of the gender clinics, I think that the young people, mostly girls, who are claiming to be various genders and sexual orientations are suffering from confusion induced by their own woke peer culture and its associated adolescent fads, as well as effects of indoctrination by their school systems, and by online trans influencers.
We are in 100% agreement that the overwhelming majority of females, and at least some of the males, “presenting at gender clinics do not have the condition of gender dysphoria that was presented to gender therapists during the Nineties through more recent time.”
You make my point about woke activism and a portion of its terrible effects precisely when you say this.
I actually don’t have all that strong an opinion about trans adults (except re: participation in women’s sports). But these activists are, at least, consistent.
They are consistent that what matters is being woke. The rights of the oppressed LQBTQ++ to do/have whatever is in *their* interest trump the rights of cishetero people, including girls’ and women’s ability to participate in sports.
More importantly, the “rights” of adults to be trans and be recognized as having rights trumps any sanity/circumspection/whatever in terms of what the proper thing to do is for children, including chemical and surgical alterations. Re: almost every other conceivable issue, children are the leftist justification for all sorts of restrictive laws. But in this case, since woke must triumph, we must do the opposite when it comes to children.
The creation of the trans child had to happen to make it more believable that trans is a thing. Now that there is a concept of a ‘trans child’ you have ‘trans adults’ and all these fetishy, AGP men running the world are getting what they want.
You are correct. The trans child is a reification created by activist clinicians. The Cass review in the UK inter alia drew attention to 'diagnostic over-shadowing' whereby gender questioning children from a wide range of biographical backgrounds (including abuse, autism, depression and being gay but with homophobic parents) are all lumped together in one reified grouping. This assumption flows from gender ideology invented by adults. See Moore, M. and Brunskell -Evans H. (eds) Inventing Transgender Children and Young People.
…if you believe the “rights” of the trans “oppressed” justify any means necessary to overcome their “oppressors”, then sure, it is a very acceptable price to sacrifice the health of children towards the goal.
This is what woke / DEI / intersectionality / Critical Race Theory teaches. This is what radicals believe. And this is what most leftists gladly go along with today, whether they understand it and truly believe it or not.