72 Comments

Mazal tov to Con-She, who speaks as the conscience of her field. I've lost friends and my sons won't talk to me, since I've written about my experiences of the woo back in the 1990s, when my then husband put on make-up and dresses, went down the rabbit hole. But, I have my voice, and my PTSD mostly went away. My real friends are family now and we talk truth. When we can, we speak it loudly, firmly and broadly. We'll get there if we live long enough. Take care of yourselves~

Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)

uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com

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What it must have cost you to survive that at the time, but not as much if you had tried to make something that had been made unworkable, work. Thank you for writing about this, it's valuable and allows others to use your experience in ways that might help them. Whether it resonates personally, or expands their understanding and capacity for empathy.

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True.

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Has anyone seen this?? I got it through PITT (Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans).

Affirmation Generation trailer for a documentary coming out in October/November 2022.

I sent it to my sister who replied to say it was hoax (she NOW informs me that she meant the whole transgender phenomenon was a hoax). FFS! Sorry, I misunderstood her. My mind jumped straight to the lies and misinformation of the TRAs. I am SO HAPPY this is coming out. I can hardly wait!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s1pg7UByoU&ab_channel=AffirmationGeneration

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It's mostly likely completely true. I cannot imagine getting 6 detransitioners, 3 male, 3 female, who are willing to go onscreen and tell their stories, for the sake of their younger cohorts. i am going to watch it now and post about it on my blog. The fragile, bitter, crackle glass reaction from the activists is no surprise to me, after 30 years of browbeating from my fragile, bitter, ever-complaining former husband who "thinks" he's a woman. Oy, the "oppression" of the male tech CEOs & COOs who put on a dress and gravitate into the Ladies'~

uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com

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Yes, I was almost CERTAIN it was true, too! I subscribe to PITT and it came through on their official email. Also Lisa Littman, Stella O'Malley, Stephanie Winn all speaking... I was almost sure it was real, but the world is a hotbed of misinformation and lies!

I'm beyond DELIGHTED! I just can't believe it, we've all been screaming FOR. SO. LONG.

I just read your story, FFS!!!!!! Sorry for everything you've been through. Let's hope this documentary blows everything out of the water.

I am so ready for this!

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Well, thanks, Kay! If you have a line or two in reaction, feel free to post a review at goodreads.com, where there are 2 great reviews. It will help get the word out. I'll never get over the claim that it was "so rare" and the social contagion those practitioners engendered. Pun intended.

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My review has disappeared into the ether , sorry Ute , I thought your book was wonderful

I expected to be very upset , instead I was angered then soothed

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"The Transmogrification and Transgressions of the Transgendered". A horror story for the decade, if not the century, with a cast of millions ... 😉

But such a bizarre if not depressing phenomenon - reminds me of Woody Allen's "mockumentary" Zelig, The Chameleon Man.

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Yep I never like that type of 'epic' music .... surely unnecessary. But nm all that it has been a stupid horror story imho - looks brilliant and about time. Will it get cancelled?

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Maybe not yet the beginning of the end, but surely the end of the beginning. To coin a phrase ... 😉

But somewhat apropos of which, though I can't say that I've read it yet:

"The Delusions Of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802157092

From a review in the Washington Post:

"In short, human ‘rationality’ constitutes a fragile lid perilously balanced on the bubbling cauldron of artifice and self-delusion.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-false-narratives-so-often-trump-reality/2021/02/24/9678ad5c-64db-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html

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'waves to Ute' xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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I came here to post the link.

I subscribe to PITT and have had two posts from them heralding this. I watched the trailer 2 days ago, it has Lisa Littman (and others) in it and looks excellent.

PITT have been highlighting the stories of desisters and detransitioners for some time now so this is the logical next step.

Here's the link to their Substack post about the documentary (free to subscribe)

https://pitt.substack.com/p/we-made-a-70-minute-documentary-on?utm_medium=email

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Me too - it seems legitimate by any measure I can apply. I haven't watched it yet, but I'll post some sort of review if I get chance later this evening.

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There's a note at the end of the trailer from the creators - it's well produced and it appears to be by some talented people in the entertainment industry who can't currently speak out under their own names.

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Wonderful! I can't wait!

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Thank you!

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Thank you sooo much!

I was 99.9% sure it was true, I subscribe to PITT. They are AMAZING!

I just had to reach out and ask you. The trans activists are such lying little sh*ts!!

I AM SO HAPPY! Thank you :) :) :)

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Yes, and you can subscribe after typing in Affirmation Generation into the YT search line. Its there.

For an update on the dearth of medical care in other fields, my experience not being able to get an eye appointment after serious symptoms, possibly pointing to near future retinal detachment and loss of eyesight, visit uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com

Thanks Graham! I imagine the wait lines for care at the NHS are just as bad. Ute

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It looks pretty real to me. I do hope it really makes a difference.

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It’s true, had the email earlier from PITT

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Thank you!!!

Anyone else SO EXCITED THAT THEY JUST CAN'T HIDE IT!?!?!

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I watched this and wish I hadn’t , those poor children

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It's heart breaking but it's the beginning of the end for the cult! I'm so pleased it's coming to light - so proud of (and thankful for) everyone involved!

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Sooner the better , I’ve only known about this shit for a relatively short time ! Shocking really given I live in the land of the freakies ( snp and greens , biggest woo woos)

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Rally on 15th suspended , will wait to hear of next date

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Same. About a year and a half maybe. I'm so sorry for you in Scotland. I have family in Scotland and they have no idea what's going on, re: women's rights and trans etc. Are people "peaking" or is it slow going?

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O very slow going , folk think I’m talking pish

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Even women? They can't see their rights slowly disappearing? I have family in Scotland and they think NS is really good. I think they see her authoritarianism as her being a strong and organised leader. She's colour-coordinated, that's the only praise I can give her.

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Ahhhhhh, Con-She-entious objector. I get it. God, I'm slow on the uptake sometimes.

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It is a very clever name!

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continues thus .... 'The tide of worldwide opinion turned in September 2022, following Graham Linehan's recommendation for a well deserved honorary knighthood, as commonsense broke out at last.' EDIT/POSTSCRIPT - needless to say, his 'Father Ted' musical was a smash hit.

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The last 20s were roaring, this lot are barking.

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Love it

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Put like that, it reads like the summary of a dystopian science fiction novel from the 1960's.

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That's a superb definition. Looking forward to seeing it on Wokepedia...

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Dystopian non fiction at its best.

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Absolutely perfect.

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A truly accurate summary, I have already shared. A definition which I believe will be in encyclopedias (or whatever high tech internet version we’re using for that purpose then, probably not Wokepedia) in decades to come.

I think what I like about it is that it implies this nonsense will be old hat by the 2030s. We can only hope. The tide does seem to be turning :)

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Funny you should say that. Someone I know often asked what words meant, then after a delay would tell me the 'definition' he'd found 'online'. I would give him the definitions learned over time, from experience, general usage and reliable sources. I grew really annoyed as I could tell which 'online dictionaries' he was lazily searching after putting the queried term in a search engine. Clicking on the first few results. It was usually a porn term or sexual act. Everything through that lens and he thought this was amusing. No, not when millennia of knowledge is being eroded and overlaid with fetish. And it feels like being bombarded and having to tiptoe through web searches or have settings set to block almost everything.

It's another element of how a very small population of mainly men have skewed another area of our lives and slanted if not tipped the record, the archive and general understanding of everything. People think any website or 'what they read' is a reliable source. Why did we decide the socially inept out to make a buck should have that power?

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I keep a printed copy of the Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language on hand, copyrighted in 1992. It’s not the Oxford, but its definitions are not truncated like the online dictionaries are, nor do they change from day to day with fads. For example, there’s an entire page and a half of definitions for the word “mind.” I like playing Dictionary, too. These large tomes need to make a popular comeback!

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Absolutely. Maybe my Grandmother who drew fire when playing Scrabble by choosing which of the tomes she'd justify her word choice with ruined me for life...

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"when millennia of knowledge is being eroded and overlaid with fetish"

That's the scary thing about the internet. Think back to cultures of oral transmission, to the old manuscripts, to the fact that e.g. the Bible (no matter what you think of it) has lasted two millennia. Now consider our modern pop culture and how it has seemed to constantly speed up. Until with the internet - alongside the impending collapse of live concerts - now threatens a world subject to "click delete". In the absence of concerts where actual people congregate, anything could disappear. All it takes is one generation NOT to be told about e.g. Beethoven .... and Beethoven disappears.

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I see what is happening now as the logical conclusion to what has gone before. If you know anything about pre-literate peoples, they had tremendous memories, which may have a lot to do with our brains shrinking for the past 10,000 years. Now, when we need to be more literate than ever in order to understand what is happening in our world, literacy rates are declining, especially literacy beyond about the fourth-grade level (I'm speaking here of the U.S.).

And our world is getting faster and faster. When I think about the changes that have occurred in the past 50 years, I am overwhelmed. Just when we need to be slowing down, learning and thinking, we are told we need to hurry up, we need to buy this or that, we need to pressure our children so they can be successful, we need to be stars on social media.

Junk culture to feed junk minds.

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There's an interesting article in UnHerd which has some relevance to what you're saying and Susan's reference to the speeding up of the world. It has a series of graphs showing the academic and media uptake of the language of oppression and discrimination. The timescales show how rapidly mainstream acceptance / adoption of concepts can take place now.

https://unherd.com/thepost/where-did-the-great-awokening-come-from/

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Great point. Remember when the OED changed the definition of “female” to “the gender identity opposite to male” or something similar?

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And now the definition of OED: "clown dictionary."

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We use dictionaries constantly in this house, and I've been very disturbed by the butchering of language for decades. Bureaucratic usages have been problematic for a long time as is the misuse of words such as "humanitarian" (bombing human beings), "reform" (making things worse not better), "violence" (speech is violence, assault is free speech), on and on and on. We need to think about the words we are using and how we are using them, and not fall into the traps laid for us.

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Excellent. Just shared.

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That’s brilliant

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On the nose.

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