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 sop…
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.
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.