Synthgirl

jadis

Around the time of the Iraq war, the anti-war left built a common cause with racist paleoconservatives. That's the depressing reality of politics: to stand a chance to achieve certain goals you don't have a choice but to work across the aisle with people some of whose views you find indefensible.

Some of the alleged alliances mention in the video seem, from where I'm sitting, like grave miscalculations. But then the situation vis-à-vis gay and reproductive rights in the UK is different from what it is in the US: they face no real threat afaik. Then I can see the rationnel behind, hypothetically speaking, taking money from rich conservatives idiots so that your organization can keep the lights on. Does it entail an uneasy balancing act? For sure.

Btw in her excellent book Kathleen Stock is pretty critical of certain manifestations of "gender critical" feminist activism, including calls for temporary alliances of convenience with certain strands of the right. They're not above criticism.

The bottom line for me is that building alliances is bound to be difficult and lead to some tough (or maybe unfortunate) choices when you've been excluded, completely unjustly in my opinion, from "progressive" spaces.

Having said all that, I decided to look into one of those examples cited in the video: Maya Forstater's participation in a panel at something called the Battle of Ideas. It was organized not by ADF UK but by something called The Academy of Ideas (whose stated mission is to expand the boundaries of the public debate and who seem to be standard issue libertarians); the one panel on which Forstater sat was organized in partnership with ADF UK. It is stated from the outset by the chair that disagreement is likely. There is one guy on the panel who's from ADF, Jeremiah Igunnubole. The others represent different perspectives, tending toward libertarianism as far as I can tell. It seems like a punishingly boring discussion but the idea that Forstater (a standard issue British liberal) is somehow aligning with the religious right by appearing there is blatant guilt-by-association nonsense that makes me doubt some of the other claims.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhVN...nel=worldwrite

jadis

Anyway for my money the most interesting author in that thumbnail is Kathleen Stock, a philosopher of the analytic persuasion.



This lucidly argued book is probably the best thing I've read from the British gender critical feminists. Will be posting bits and pieces here.

Synthgirl

You're defending and praising people who think trans people are worse than fascists. Got it.

jadis

Lots of fascism to go around. A surfeit of fascism. Almost like this word doesn’t mean **** when used as a playground insult by historical illiterates.

Anyway, more of Kathleen Stock's impressive lucidity


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJhndRR4vF0

jadis

And now for the latest from the UK's gender wars...

Telling children they can change sex is conversion therapy, say campaigners


Sex Matters say treatments mask sexuality issues and seek to ‘trans away the gay’

Sex Matters said they wanted to see an end to what they call “modern conversion therapy”, under which children who may be struggling with their sexuality are encouraged to change gender.

“Modern conversion therapy is telling children that they can be the opposite sex, which if they are going to grow up to be gay makes them ‘straight’.
“In the strongest possible terms, we are calling for a ban on harmful and misleading practices that are targeting minors and vulnerable people. Puberty is a human right.”

Sex Matters said that, increasingly, these products are being offered to children who are worried their sexual orientation may be unacceptable.
By changing gender, they are told, they will be effectively straight – a process called “transing away the gay”.

The group is campaigning for legislation that outlaws all medical or surgical treatment of minors to modify their sexual characteristics, as well as medical or surgical treatment performed on anyone who thinks it will change their sex.

The group said such legislation could use the model of laws against female genital mutilation and virginity testing.

Increasing numbers of same-sex attracted children are being prescribed drugs that halt the natural progression of puberty, and cross-sex hormones that cause secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex to develop.
Some go on to have irreversible surgery to remove their breasts, genitals or internal sexual organs.

jadis

Another one of the alleged fascists is Allison Bailey.

This is who she is:

And this is what she has to say. I guess I wasn't listening at school when they taught what fascism is.

Marie Monday

That's not fascist but still a very superficial and overly simplistic statement. Does a very effeminate man get a treatment or experience that's even close to that of an average man? Is my frame of reference close to that of most women? Absolutely not. Of course there are parts of it that all cis women have in common, but it's not so simple as a binary divide between men and women. What we consider 'man' and 'woman' is much more than just a bunch of genitals; that's due to cultural conditioning and such but it is an inevitable fact. We can't wish it away at once, so in the meantime the better option is to allow people to navigate those categories more freely

__________________

jadis

No Marie, that's precisely what this statement does not say or imply. It is not an endorsement of gender norms. A definition of the female experience as synonymous with or confined to that of gender-confirming or "feminine" women is the precise opposite of what this is about.

This is what Allison Bailey looks like:



What it entails is that we should embrace the real diversity of our world, that women who look like her should be accepted as nature made them. The experience of a future weightlifting champion growing up and the experience of an effeminate boy who you know is going to be gay at age 4 are male experiences, because both were born men.

I'll be the first to admit that how we think of our bodies is mediated through the classificatory networks of meaning residing in our language and culture. And where you have classification you also have norms and normalization. Developing an awareness (sometimes heightened and sophisticated, as with Judith Butler) of this leads different people to different conclusions and strategies.

The radical position (let's call it "gender ideology") is to conclude that we should fight and subvert the norm. But its proponents' hyperfocus on our semantic and cultural networks of classification runs the risk of making them oblivious to the actual, real diversity that already exists in the world prior to our normalizing and repressive classifications. To acknowledge that diversity we do not need to invent new pronouns or "correct" bodies through medical intervention. Being born as a man or a woman need not and does not pigeonhole you as one culturally determined version of either.

Shaving bone off your brows and jaw to look more like what you imagine women should look like is not freedom from stereotypes. It means you operate wholly in the realm of stereotypes.

[Part of the problem is that so much of gender theory's verbiage comes from the humanities. Natural scientists know that norms are amenable to expansion, shift, transformation in ways have nothing to do with our crude sloganeering about "subversion"]

Synthgirl

Hi! I'm back from my two weeks of having this site blocked.

It's pretty funny that you seem to think trans people are just playing into stereotypes. Like yeah, I do play into performative stereotypes sometimes. Because I don't want to get misgendered! Do I actually think woman = dresses/makeup/femme stereotypes? Of course not. But I'm gonna get more people calling me "sir" if I don't wear a bit of eye makeup or paint my nails or wear a skirt or something. Not the most ideal way to say "hey I'm a woman", but I don't have that by default so those femme stereotypes are a quick and easy way of signifying that. It's society that directly associates all that with being a woman. It's their world, I'm just living in it, y'know?

I thought you had trans friends? This is pretty basic trans stuff lol.