Yes, pretty much treating women as less than the sum of their parts.
I think that (for whatever reasons) fully transsexual people who were operated as adults knew that they would end up neither fish nor fowl and would understandably not feel part of the discussion about 'women' but in the end, the use of 'woman' or 'female' is only common when used with regard to issues that affect women specifically so, regardless of transgenders' screams, they were always going to be excluded. Most of our daily life is not sexually segregated ie commuting, going to work, visiting museums, eating out, etc so why can't they just get on with their lives like the rest of us and keep out of our spaces?
Despite all that feminism has achieved, we're still not seen as fully human. We're blamed for all the ills of the world, even as we're being exploited for all the 'services' we offer - motherhood, reproduction, sexual services, emotional support. We need a global strike from ALL women in all cultures, countries, customs for as long as it takes for men to realize that much of the unpaid women do has value. The world would literally come to a screeching halt if women shut down their thankless jobs. Men complain 'Look at everything MEN do!! Well, they get PAID to do it - often in the form of sexual services. I'm just so disgusted with how feminism has betrayed women through transgender ideology and surrogacy. It's horrifying. I have a daughter and a granddaughter. I'm terrified for them. It's my worst nightmare coming true.
Many men see women as a possession. It was not a great step really to see bits of us as commodities or services - the bits that they want or are useful at that particular time.
Eliza, your writing on this topic is fantastic. It is great to see women especially writing such clear, insightful analysis of the big picture of what the TRA movement is, where it is coming from (certainly to grass roots activism), and the bigger, extremely sinister picture of a global authoritarian technocracy being born and taking over our global culture whilst the rest of humanity was either too exhausted from the daily capitalist grind trying to survive or mindless, numbly staring into the glowing screen of Big Brother.
Keep beating that drum, we need to wake people up ASAP.
"global authoritarian technocracy being born": yes. I can add another. Researchers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (Queen Charlotte and St Mary's Hospitals) are seeking to implant a "donor" uterus into "transwomen" - men! They are even appealing for supporters and funders: https://wombtransplantuk.org/. This is the "market research" which they conducted among "transwomen": https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2775302 "Perceptions and Motivations for Uterus Transplant in Transgender Women" (20th Jan 2021).
that is so sick and crazy. When half of our dimorphic species is already biologically designed to do this trying to surgically engineer the opposite sex to gestate is the ultimate misogynist utopian fantasy of the transhumanists. I'm utterly horrified at the nightmare potential for the experimental mutant creatures that might be cut out of the transplanted "donor" uteruses (most likely the uteruses will be one use). It is all about realising autogynephilic paraphilias around maternity, nothing to do with parenting baby human beings.
I actually changed my status to donate my body if I die based on all this stuff. I don’t want to be harvested and wouldn’t put it past the ghoulish creeps that traffic in human flesh to do something I would never consent to.
Anyone who wants to se the big picture of this just needs to take a nosedive into what Martine Rothblatt is doing. Aside from the fact that he’s made a Stepford wife robot replica of his wife (who seems oddly ok with that) he is basically the head of a cult that is pushing us toward trans humanism.
I am holding out hope that Mother Nature will come put this right. It’s these psychopathic billionaires driving the machine and in their estimation every living thing is a commodity to make them rich as they strive for immortality.
It’s crazy how fast this is all happening. Most people havent a clue and by the time they get a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg the ship will be half under.
Thank you agin Una-Jane. That 'Perceptions and Motivations for Uterus Transplant in Transgender Women' paper and the one comment is quite some read. Repeating parts here as it's a doozy.
Some men would like to 'enhance their perceptions of femininity' and to 'feel like more of a woman'. This is galling, and that some are devoting their academic careers to this. This is getting attention and funding but with the premise it's already a given and some divine right.
They also seem to think 'infertility' is the same as desiring the fertility of the opposite sex, so they have broadened out the 'right to fertility' to mean the fertility of either sex. So are women demanding the implantation of testes as their human right now?
'In addition, most respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the ability to gestate and give birth to children (171 [94%]) and menstruate (161 [88%]) would enhance perceptions of their femininity. Similarly, high proportions strongly agreed or agreed that having a transplanted, functioning vagina would improve their sexual experience (163 [90%]), improve their quality of life (163 [90%]), and help them to feel like more of a woman (168 [92%]). Nearly all respondents (180 [99%]) believed that uterus transplant would lead to greater happiness in transgender women.'
'This report on the desire and willingness of transgender women to undergo uterus transplant may support the need for further animal and cadaveric model research, which is necessary to assess the feasibility of performing this procedure in transgender women.'
Research begets research begets research. Meanwhile men and women die and are overlooked by appalling and negligent failures in 'healthcare'.
The conclusion is hardly a surprise:
'As such, just as the desire to experience gestation and psychological sequelae spurred uterus transplant research in women categorized as female at birth with AUFI, uterus transplant in transgender women could be considered in the same light, and research should be undertaken regarding its feasibility.'
No, it could and should not be considered in the same light.
Dimly aware yes. I have been involved in some 'smart' tech stuff. Sectors get very excited and in stupid giddy ways. How 'convenience' (for whom? why? is it really?) is always prized and things happen and the ethicists or legal frameworks, or the 'rest' of us are lagging way behind. The just because 'we' can, but should we issue can't keep up. It's a tech race like all other arms races.
Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and their ilk (Rothblatt etc) have such power in tech, then science, health and politics so are twisting what we deem as important to invest in. And our cultures. They are a few men, with very similar characteristics and are skewing what the entire of humanity is doing and where we are all heading. They are not the only ones with good ideas. I knew some people were being chipped some years ago, and wanting to link themselves up to databases/systems to allow easier access, like with ticketing or physical barrier access to 'areas', so their 'identities' were security checked and they could wave their arm instead of wearing a pass or having a card. Handing over all data to what/whom. 'Downloading' or 'uploading' themselves almost. They get to choose with their 'philanthropy'. Then the 'why' as data gets sold or used gets ignored, then we ask questions in the wrong order or not at all. It's all 0s and 1s to some.
This piece started out really strong, with "The New Global Empire of Disembodiment." And the intro to the piece is spot on, talking about the language of disembodiment! She gets it!, I thought, and read on with great interest, expecting a cutting edge, cohesive analysis which would further the conversation. But then -- what's this? "'Trans' people, 'trans' community, 'trans' friend"? Isn't this the very "language of disembodiment" she was referring to which is being used to sell the named societal harms? What's a "trans" person? That's where she lost me.
I read on with a sense of cognitive dissonance. If one posits, as does the author, that we need to reject the "language of disembodiment," and that transgenderism is a corporate fiction, an ad campaign to sell drugs, surgeries, and more -- body dissociation for corporate profit, as the intro suggests -- why would one then use the false, made up language of the corporate profiteers that reinforces these concepts at any time, let alone in an essay specifically talking about the need to reject it?
Using the fictitious term "trans" only serves to reinforce to others the idea that there is a legitimate new category of human that we must acknowledge as "trans" because of an idea in their heads, and that "trans" is anything other than science fiction. By using these terms, the author perpetuates the propaganda which supports the industry she claims to want to dismantle. It's like saying that men can't be women and vice versa but then using opposite sex language for the LARPers who one deems the "good" ones. Perhaps if one needs to support "dear friends" who engage in this type of delusional thinking, it affects one's ability to clearly deconstruct it.
Quite fair points. I've written a lot elsewhere about trans -- I think it's a way of making sense of suffering and that there's no such thing as being "really trans," the way there is being "really female" (just female) or "really diabetic." It just gets wearying to write 'trans-identifying' every single time, but I quite take your point.
I think you miss the point. If you say, for instance, "trans-identifying," you are still pretending that "trans" is a real thing, and promoting the concept just as much. What is the difference between the terms "trans person," "trans people," "trans woman," "trans man," "trans community," or "trans identifying"? You are claiming to fight against the concept of transgenderism while embracing it as real.
It seems like you are influenced by the work of Bilek. If you notice, Bilek never uses the term "trans" in her essays. We all manage to find other terms that do not promote the idea that "trans" is a real thing, which would handicap an analysis of the corporate promotion of body dissociation.
I have read some of your other essays and from them I get the distinct impression that, in your staunch support of "trans rights/rites," you believe that there is a new category of humans that we need to acknowledge as "trans," rather than just men and women, and whom you will go to great lengths not to offend by acknowledging this corporate fiction they believe in. As a activist and a former journalist, I believe this is both harmful and lazy.
I don't think there's a distinct group of people we need to acknowledge as trans. I am always asking: what rights are we talking about? What does trans rights mean? So I'm curious where you get the idea I'm a staunch supporter of 'trans rights/rites.' I think trans is a hundred different things and I'm very interested in what it means to different people and what we do in its name. I don't agree that acknowledging that people identify as trans and that there exist communities built around this identity is ceding that there's such a thing as being 'really trans.'
I've read a couple pieces of Jennifer Bilek's, tracing funding and markets -- very interesting, though I haven't read much and have never noticed she avoids the term 'trans.' What really got me was Kajsa Ekis Ekman's Being and Being Bought -- how the playbooks for surrogacy and prostitution were almost identical to the gender identity playbook I was trying to figure out.
Hope you don't mind me jumping in here. I liked many parts of the article but was taken aback at the point where you discussed your dear friend and "female automatically (to use the phrasing you offered) means 'not me'".
Well yes. And it's not all about them. Life isn't. We - all other humans - are not all a default with them in the centre. I would have hoped that you could have expanded on that as I wished you could have helped them understand that yes, female, automatically means not male, so if they are male, then yes, they are not female. And to reiterate, not everything is about him.
And that it struck me as narcissistic of them to think and refer everything back to themselves. It must be a constant source of dissonance with every female human or image of one they see or are in public around if it triggers that kind of thinking? It explains why some dysphoric men wish to completely remove the word woman and all sex-segregated spaces so that there is never any hint that they are not what they wish to be seen as, and be, yet are not. They can live so deep in their delusion with no other reality jarring by its existence.
I did say that in our conversation: "But you *are* female." (Friend is trans-id female... now that I'm in the comments and can't just scroll up, I can't remember if that was clear from the piece: friend is female). Here, I was just reflecting on how that word had been poisoned for my friend.
And I think the cognitive dissonance is huge, and the drive to reduce cognitive dissonance by silencing those who trigger it is one of the motivators behind trans activism.
Does it happen with other words? Being able to see, fully, partially or being visually impaired? There will be other characteristics that many others have that your dear friend has or does not have, so how do they integrate and accept that difference without choosing to identify as those too? By rejecting or absorbing it into their own 'self'. Do they 'identify' as darker skinned when they are not? Do they 'identify' as disabled when they are not and are able bodied? Do they 'identify' as shorter when they are taller? Do they 'identify' as born in Finland, when they were born in the United States? Do they 'identify' as a little girl when they are an older, adult man? Do they ‘identify’ as having sickle-cell anaemia?
I am genuinely interested in how they negotiate the world as is not as they imagine or wish?
It would be a good thing for the gender critical community to use our own preferred words for the phenomenon - fighting fire with fire. We could then use words descriptive of what we see rather than their words describing they want us to see. They are succeeding with corrupting our words (woman etc).
Again, I'm curious how you propose doing this in practice. That would be helpful because I feel like I'm not following you. I use "trans" in a similar way to the way I would use "Christian": a reference to adherents to a belief system, which implies no belief on my part.
I am not sure why you think that the sex of a person would have bearing on my points. We are discussing language, not people. I am questioning your use of the language of transgenderism to deconstruct transgenderism, after you have recommended that we reject the language of transgenderism. It's like saying a woman is what a woman is.
Whether, as you say, "trans is a hundred different things," or if one thinks, as I do, that there's no such a thing as "trans" anything, you are using a term that has no clear definition in a piece about language without defining how you are using it, while also saying we need to reject the language. So I would have supposed that, to that end, you would have rejected that term in favor of other wording in order to make and support your point about rejecting language.
Either way, it seems like your piece was saying that we should reject this language, and if that is what you believe then why are you referring to a state of being or describing something by calling it "trans"? At the very least, if you are going to use the language of transgenderism, we should know what you mean when you use their words.
They're not trans activists are they? They don't give a shit about the backlash to the trans community or they wouldn't do things to harm it. There was a comment by Caitlyn Jenner - she doesn't understand why the trans swimmer would take a female place and risk harming the trans community. It got me thinking.
They aren't trans activists, not really, not anymore. They're men's rights activists, aren't they?
I wrote a post about it. Please read it and consider this idea. If we start calling them men's rights activists, their behaviour becomes really clear. Don't care about kids or women, just indoctrination and taking power about from women. It might be a way to crack the thing open!
It's a concept and idea that's cropped up many times here with articles and commenters trying to figure out where and when this movement changed or sprouted new aspects. There's a lot of other commentary saying it too. Spotting the same themes. It's exactly that. It's a form of men's rights movement dressed up as a trans rights movement. Many use TRA and MRA interchangeably or together. It shares many, and some new aspects of misogyny and plus the internet incel movements on speed. So all the old and vicious arguments over feminism, feminist waves, and being progressive or not, or political or not, have grown horns and distilled into this. Whatever 'this' now is. Or always was. It is, but it's not and is so hotly denied and utilising the vulnerable status of every other protected status to deflect. It also capitalises on how the Feminist waves and offshoots fought against each other. Many women who disagreed or refused to term themselves as 'Feminist' are perhaps more likely to agree with those who also disagree with the way women speak up and out, so follow along with the be nice, TRA view.
Caitlyn Jenner, or Bruce Jenner as was, can do what they want. Show more nuance or come to conclusions in a much freer way as they are so far above the rest of us and it doesn't affect them in the same ways. They could detransition if they wanted, and it would be seen and congratulated as some brilliant human rights move. He had children, he is having several lives in one, unlike the children being encouraged down this path. He encouraged a movement and this is the inevitable result and it's sad he didn't appear to realise what he was riding the wave of. His personal decisions have affected and encouraged this public change in discourse. He sought that limelight; he sought that attention.
Yeah I agree, I've just not been able to make sense of it until that comment. I'm not approving of Caitlyn's choices, it just made me think of things differently.
The Penny Project is a free resource for people and organisations who are standing up for our rights and pushing back against this. - sayings, slogans, witticisms, rhymes and poems.
To add into posts, leaflets, interviews etc. We're missing the discourse that generates this stuff and gives things extra weight and authority. I thought I could help make these things since I do poeting anyway.
I need to understand everything really well in order to write about it. :)
Thank you to everyone for helping me learn more - thank you ☺️
Graham, wouldn't it be better to link to this article rather than fork a new copy of it? Comments to the original (I wrote one) won't be seen by the readers of this.
Brilliant. And explains why, once the word 'woman' was taken by some men, and they got a way with it, the worf 'female was was ripe for takeover. Hence, Boots magazine isn't content to list a transwoman in its Inspirational Women piece for IWD last year; it referred to him as 'female'. And the BBC Sports website referred to L Raul Hubbard as female.
Seeing a man a transidentifying man referred to as female is not at all unusual now
Using 'female' instead of 'woman' has always be the trick to silence people who want to sell you fluidity in sex by using or not using 'gender'. Female is a word only women can use without being embarrassed or too biological
Brilliant article! Shout it from the rooftops. Transgenderism is NOT a civil rights movement, it's a multi-billion dollar industry.
And a mass psychosis.
Yes, pretty much treating women as less than the sum of their parts.
I think that (for whatever reasons) fully transsexual people who were operated as adults knew that they would end up neither fish nor fowl and would understandably not feel part of the discussion about 'women' but in the end, the use of 'woman' or 'female' is only common when used with regard to issues that affect women specifically so, regardless of transgenders' screams, they were always going to be excluded. Most of our daily life is not sexually segregated ie commuting, going to work, visiting museums, eating out, etc so why can't they just get on with their lives like the rest of us and keep out of our spaces?
Despite all that feminism has achieved, we're still not seen as fully human. We're blamed for all the ills of the world, even as we're being exploited for all the 'services' we offer - motherhood, reproduction, sexual services, emotional support. We need a global strike from ALL women in all cultures, countries, customs for as long as it takes for men to realize that much of the unpaid women do has value. The world would literally come to a screeching halt if women shut down their thankless jobs. Men complain 'Look at everything MEN do!! Well, they get PAID to do it - often in the form of sexual services. I'm just so disgusted with how feminism has betrayed women through transgender ideology and surrogacy. It's horrifying. I have a daughter and a granddaughter. I'm terrified for them. It's my worst nightmare coming true.
Many men see women as a possession. It was not a great step really to see bits of us as commodities or services - the bits that they want or are useful at that particular time.
Eliza, your writing on this topic is fantastic. It is great to see women especially writing such clear, insightful analysis of the big picture of what the TRA movement is, where it is coming from (certainly to grass roots activism), and the bigger, extremely sinister picture of a global authoritarian technocracy being born and taking over our global culture whilst the rest of humanity was either too exhausted from the daily capitalist grind trying to survive or mindless, numbly staring into the glowing screen of Big Brother.
Keep beating that drum, we need to wake people up ASAP.
"global authoritarian technocracy being born": yes. I can add another. Researchers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (Queen Charlotte and St Mary's Hospitals) are seeking to implant a "donor" uterus into "transwomen" - men! They are even appealing for supporters and funders: https://wombtransplantuk.org/. This is the "market research" which they conducted among "transwomen": https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2775302 "Perceptions and Motivations for Uterus Transplant in Transgender Women" (20th Jan 2021).
that is so sick and crazy. When half of our dimorphic species is already biologically designed to do this trying to surgically engineer the opposite sex to gestate is the ultimate misogynist utopian fantasy of the transhumanists. I'm utterly horrified at the nightmare potential for the experimental mutant creatures that might be cut out of the transplanted "donor" uteruses (most likely the uteruses will be one use). It is all about realising autogynephilic paraphilias around maternity, nothing to do with parenting baby human beings.
I actually changed my status to donate my body if I die based on all this stuff. I don’t want to be harvested and wouldn’t put it past the ghoulish creeps that traffic in human flesh to do something I would never consent to.
Anyone who wants to se the big picture of this just needs to take a nosedive into what Martine Rothblatt is doing. Aside from the fact that he’s made a Stepford wife robot replica of his wife (who seems oddly ok with that) he is basically the head of a cult that is pushing us toward trans humanism.
I am holding out hope that Mother Nature will come put this right. It’s these psychopathic billionaires driving the machine and in their estimation every living thing is a commodity to make them rich as they strive for immortality.
It’s crazy how fast this is all happening. Most people havent a clue and by the time they get a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg the ship will be half under.
Thank you agin Una-Jane. That 'Perceptions and Motivations for Uterus Transplant in Transgender Women' paper and the one comment is quite some read. Repeating parts here as it's a doozy.
Some men would like to 'enhance their perceptions of femininity' and to 'feel like more of a woman'. This is galling, and that some are devoting their academic careers to this. This is getting attention and funding but with the premise it's already a given and some divine right.
They also seem to think 'infertility' is the same as desiring the fertility of the opposite sex, so they have broadened out the 'right to fertility' to mean the fertility of either sex. So are women demanding the implantation of testes as their human right now?
'In addition, most respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the ability to gestate and give birth to children (171 [94%]) and menstruate (161 [88%]) would enhance perceptions of their femininity. Similarly, high proportions strongly agreed or agreed that having a transplanted, functioning vagina would improve their sexual experience (163 [90%]), improve their quality of life (163 [90%]), and help them to feel like more of a woman (168 [92%]). Nearly all respondents (180 [99%]) believed that uterus transplant would lead to greater happiness in transgender women.'
'This report on the desire and willingness of transgender women to undergo uterus transplant may support the need for further animal and cadaveric model research, which is necessary to assess the feasibility of performing this procedure in transgender women.'
Research begets research begets research. Meanwhile men and women die and are overlooked by appalling and negligent failures in 'healthcare'.
The conclusion is hardly a surprise:
'As such, just as the desire to experience gestation and psychological sequelae spurred uterus transplant research in women categorized as female at birth with AUFI, uterus transplant in transgender women could be considered in the same light, and research should be undertaken regarding its feasibility.'
No, it could and should not be considered in the same light.
You have seen Elon Musk's goal to implant a microchip in humans, based on similar successful experiments in Macaque monkey? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/elon-musk-brain-chip-firm-neuralink-lines-up-clinical-trials-in-humans/
Men don't see any difference between control of neural links in the brain and flesh and blood implants?!
Dimly aware yes. I have been involved in some 'smart' tech stuff. Sectors get very excited and in stupid giddy ways. How 'convenience' (for whom? why? is it really?) is always prized and things happen and the ethicists or legal frameworks, or the 'rest' of us are lagging way behind. The just because 'we' can, but should we issue can't keep up. It's a tech race like all other arms races.
Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and their ilk (Rothblatt etc) have such power in tech, then science, health and politics so are twisting what we deem as important to invest in. And our cultures. They are a few men, with very similar characteristics and are skewing what the entire of humanity is doing and where we are all heading. They are not the only ones with good ideas. I knew some people were being chipped some years ago, and wanting to link themselves up to databases/systems to allow easier access, like with ticketing or physical barrier access to 'areas', so their 'identities' were security checked and they could wave their arm instead of wearing a pass or having a card. Handing over all data to what/whom. 'Downloading' or 'uploading' themselves almost. They get to choose with their 'philanthropy'. Then the 'why' as data gets sold or used gets ignored, then we ask questions in the wrong order or not at all. It's all 0s and 1s to some.
Gruesomely fascinating.
This piece started out really strong, with "The New Global Empire of Disembodiment." And the intro to the piece is spot on, talking about the language of disembodiment! She gets it!, I thought, and read on with great interest, expecting a cutting edge, cohesive analysis which would further the conversation. But then -- what's this? "'Trans' people, 'trans' community, 'trans' friend"? Isn't this the very "language of disembodiment" she was referring to which is being used to sell the named societal harms? What's a "trans" person? That's where she lost me.
I read on with a sense of cognitive dissonance. If one posits, as does the author, that we need to reject the "language of disembodiment," and that transgenderism is a corporate fiction, an ad campaign to sell drugs, surgeries, and more -- body dissociation for corporate profit, as the intro suggests -- why would one then use the false, made up language of the corporate profiteers that reinforces these concepts at any time, let alone in an essay specifically talking about the need to reject it?
Using the fictitious term "trans" only serves to reinforce to others the idea that there is a legitimate new category of human that we must acknowledge as "trans" because of an idea in their heads, and that "trans" is anything other than science fiction. By using these terms, the author perpetuates the propaganda which supports the industry she claims to want to dismantle. It's like saying that men can't be women and vice versa but then using opposite sex language for the LARPers who one deems the "good" ones. Perhaps if one needs to support "dear friends" who engage in this type of delusional thinking, it affects one's ability to clearly deconstruct it.
Quite fair points. I've written a lot elsewhere about trans -- I think it's a way of making sense of suffering and that there's no such thing as being "really trans," the way there is being "really female" (just female) or "really diabetic." It just gets wearying to write 'trans-identifying' every single time, but I quite take your point.
I think you miss the point. If you say, for instance, "trans-identifying," you are still pretending that "trans" is a real thing, and promoting the concept just as much. What is the difference between the terms "trans person," "trans people," "trans woman," "trans man," "trans community," or "trans identifying"? You are claiming to fight against the concept of transgenderism while embracing it as real.
It seems like you are influenced by the work of Bilek. If you notice, Bilek never uses the term "trans" in her essays. We all manage to find other terms that do not promote the idea that "trans" is a real thing, which would handicap an analysis of the corporate promotion of body dissociation.
I have read some of your other essays and from them I get the distinct impression that, in your staunch support of "trans rights/rites," you believe that there is a new category of humans that we need to acknowledge as "trans," rather than just men and women, and whom you will go to great lengths not to offend by acknowledging this corporate fiction they believe in. As a activist and a former journalist, I believe this is both harmful and lazy.
I don't think there's a distinct group of people we need to acknowledge as trans. I am always asking: what rights are we talking about? What does trans rights mean? So I'm curious where you get the idea I'm a staunch supporter of 'trans rights/rites.' I think trans is a hundred different things and I'm very interested in what it means to different people and what we do in its name. I don't agree that acknowledging that people identify as trans and that there exist communities built around this identity is ceding that there's such a thing as being 'really trans.'
I've read a couple pieces of Jennifer Bilek's, tracing funding and markets -- very interesting, though I haven't read much and have never noticed she avoids the term 'trans.' What really got me was Kajsa Ekis Ekman's Being and Being Bought -- how the playbooks for surrogacy and prostitution were almost identical to the gender identity playbook I was trying to figure out.
Anyway, feel free to suggest how you would write about such things -- I'm curious.
Hope you don't mind me jumping in here. I liked many parts of the article but was taken aback at the point where you discussed your dear friend and "female automatically (to use the phrasing you offered) means 'not me'".
Well yes. And it's not all about them. Life isn't. We - all other humans - are not all a default with them in the centre. I would have hoped that you could have expanded on that as I wished you could have helped them understand that yes, female, automatically means not male, so if they are male, then yes, they are not female. And to reiterate, not everything is about him.
And that it struck me as narcissistic of them to think and refer everything back to themselves. It must be a constant source of dissonance with every female human or image of one they see or are in public around if it triggers that kind of thinking? It explains why some dysphoric men wish to completely remove the word woman and all sex-segregated spaces so that there is never any hint that they are not what they wish to be seen as, and be, yet are not. They can live so deep in their delusion with no other reality jarring by its existence.
I did say that in our conversation: "But you *are* female." (Friend is trans-id female... now that I'm in the comments and can't just scroll up, I can't remember if that was clear from the piece: friend is female). Here, I was just reflecting on how that word had been poisoned for my friend.
And I think the cognitive dissonance is huge, and the drive to reduce cognitive dissonance by silencing those who trigger it is one of the motivators behind trans activism.
Does it happen with other words? Being able to see, fully, partially or being visually impaired? There will be other characteristics that many others have that your dear friend has or does not have, so how do they integrate and accept that difference without choosing to identify as those too? By rejecting or absorbing it into their own 'self'. Do they 'identify' as darker skinned when they are not? Do they 'identify' as disabled when they are not and are able bodied? Do they 'identify' as shorter when they are taller? Do they 'identify' as born in Finland, when they were born in the United States? Do they 'identify' as a little girl when they are an older, adult man? Do they ‘identify’ as having sickle-cell anaemia?
I am genuinely interested in how they negotiate the world as is not as they imagine or wish?
It would be a good thing for the gender critical community to use our own preferred words for the phenomenon - fighting fire with fire. We could then use words descriptive of what we see rather than their words describing they want us to see. They are succeeding with corrupting our words (woman etc).
To paraphrase, HE who controls language controls thought! We need to take back the narrative and not use the language of transgenderism.
Again, I'm curious how you propose doing this in practice. That would be helpful because I feel like I'm not following you. I use "trans" in a similar way to the way I would use "Christian": a reference to adherents to a belief system, which implies no belief on my part.
OK, I think I might understand better where you're coming from based on another comment... the friend I'm talking about is female, not male.
I am not sure why you think that the sex of a person would have bearing on my points. We are discussing language, not people. I am questioning your use of the language of transgenderism to deconstruct transgenderism, after you have recommended that we reject the language of transgenderism. It's like saying a woman is what a woman is.
Whether, as you say, "trans is a hundred different things," or if one thinks, as I do, that there's no such a thing as "trans" anything, you are using a term that has no clear definition in a piece about language without defining how you are using it, while also saying we need to reject the language. So I would have supposed that, to that end, you would have rejected that term in favor of other wording in order to make and support your point about rejecting language.
Either way, it seems like your piece was saying that we should reject this language, and if that is what you believe then why are you referring to a state of being or describing something by calling it "trans"? At the very least, if you are going to use the language of transgenderism, we should know what you mean when you use their words.
Brilliant article and highlights the problems women are now facing.
We are fighting for the right to define ourselves.
We are fighting for the right to defend ourselves.
And I will not desist...
Incisive and concise. It is so frustrating when people on the left can’t see how this ideology is straight out consumer capitalism.
They're not trans activists are they? They don't give a shit about the backlash to the trans community or they wouldn't do things to harm it. There was a comment by Caitlyn Jenner - she doesn't understand why the trans swimmer would take a female place and risk harming the trans community. It got me thinking.
They aren't trans activists, not really, not anymore. They're men's rights activists, aren't they?
I wrote a post about it. Please read it and consider this idea. If we start calling them men's rights activists, their behaviour becomes really clear. Don't care about kids or women, just indoctrination and taking power about from women. It might be a way to crack the thing open!
https://thepennyproject.substack.com/p/trans-activists-or-are-they-mens?justPublished=true
Here's an article about a trans woman leading a MRA group. Just in case you needed proof that the two do actually go together
https://xtramagazine.com/power/why-is-a-trans-woman-leading-a-mens-rights-group-69998
It's a concept and idea that's cropped up many times here with articles and commenters trying to figure out where and when this movement changed or sprouted new aspects. There's a lot of other commentary saying it too. Spotting the same themes. It's exactly that. It's a form of men's rights movement dressed up as a trans rights movement. Many use TRA and MRA interchangeably or together. It shares many, and some new aspects of misogyny and plus the internet incel movements on speed. So all the old and vicious arguments over feminism, feminist waves, and being progressive or not, or political or not, have grown horns and distilled into this. Whatever 'this' now is. Or always was. It is, but it's not and is so hotly denied and utilising the vulnerable status of every other protected status to deflect. It also capitalises on how the Feminist waves and offshoots fought against each other. Many women who disagreed or refused to term themselves as 'Feminist' are perhaps more likely to agree with those who also disagree with the way women speak up and out, so follow along with the be nice, TRA view.
Caitlyn Jenner, or Bruce Jenner as was, can do what they want. Show more nuance or come to conclusions in a much freer way as they are so far above the rest of us and it doesn't affect them in the same ways. They could detransition if they wanted, and it would be seen and congratulated as some brilliant human rights move. He had children, he is having several lives in one, unlike the children being encouraged down this path. He encouraged a movement and this is the inevitable result and it's sad he didn't appear to realise what he was riding the wave of. His personal decisions have affected and encouraged this public change in discourse. He sought that limelight; he sought that attention.
I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking it. When I did come to that conclusion it made me boiling angry.
Yeah I agree, I've just not been able to make sense of it until that comment. I'm not approving of Caitlyn's choices, it just made me think of things differently.
The Penny Project is a free resource for people and organisations who are standing up for our rights and pushing back against this. - sayings, slogans, witticisms, rhymes and poems.
To add into posts, leaflets, interviews etc. We're missing the discourse that generates this stuff and gives things extra weight and authority. I thought I could help make these things since I do poeting anyway.
I need to understand everything really well in order to write about it. :)
Thank you to everyone for helping me learn more - thank you ☺️
Graham, wouldn't it be better to link to this article rather than fork a new copy of it? Comments to the original (I wrote one) won't be seen by the readers of this.
Gah! Will add link now. (But Eliza, tell him it's not entirely my fault!)
LOL, it's my fault, I formatted it!
Thank you!! haha
have updated
Brilliant. And explains why, once the word 'woman' was taken by some men, and they got a way with it, the worf 'female was was ripe for takeover. Hence, Boots magazine isn't content to list a transwoman in its Inspirational Women piece for IWD last year; it referred to him as 'female'. And the BBC Sports website referred to L Raul Hubbard as female.
Seeing a man a transidentifying man referred to as female is not at all unusual now
Using 'female' instead of 'woman' has always be the trick to silence people who want to sell you fluidity in sex by using or not using 'gender'. Female is a word only women can use without being embarrassed or too biological
Men who call themselves women have started using "female" too, rather absurdly.