Topic: queer/trans comrades thread

[El Unicornio, mang]

I don't know, the old "it's not natural" argument

My housemate at college would use that term in relation to gay people, while also ingesting every synthetic drug he could get his hands on, and being well up for watching any kind of hardcore porn that wasn't man on man.

Best of luck with everything, OP. From my own experience I would say that a lot of these kinds of social anxiety fears are of our own making, made worse by not venturing out and conjuring up all kinds of awful scenarios in our minds. And of course amplified by what we see written on the internet or reported on the news. But, I understand there is also another level to this in your case which I haven't experienced.

A close friend of mine is a counsellor for an LGBTQA+ organization in Florida and her largest proportion of clients are trans. Many of them have made incredible progress, so it's something to consider.

[Zetetic]

"what a about frogs then"

I don't think an Italian comparing you to a frog is going to do anyone any favours.

[TrenterPercenter]

I don't think an Italian comparing you to a frog is going to do anyone any favours.

Yes i appreciate this is tongue (ha! like a frogs tongue) and cheek, but that isn't really the context, a lot of the appeal to nature stuff is loosely based around the idea of "choice" and that, (even though to them relativism doesn't exist, don't try and bring any actual logic into this), relativistic cultural moves are shaping people minds i.e. making them think they are women when they are really just propagandised children.  I think someone saying "Oh so you think humans are comparable to a frog now" is a tacit win in someone accepting a higher level of ignorance that intersex has no basis in nature.  You could even follow up then say so what do you think is happening with these frogs, are their leftwing protrans frogs that are persuading other frogs to change sex.

No of these things change hearts and minds overnight and it is actually quite rare for people to change their minds on things because of one argument.  Real cognitive and behaviour change is a slow process of interaction with environmental reinforcers in what is really a complex relationship between modifying and moderating variables.  Chveik and your good self are correct though in that conceptual and morally emotive appeals (such as rights, equality etc..) are important interactors with human minds; these however need to be accessible, consistent and trustworthy for skeptical individuals to entertain.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

I don't know why the onslaught is so pronounced now; there seems to be a lot of dark money involved somewhere.

It seems that part of what's going on is an attack via the side door on abortion rights. The Keira Bell verdict the other week apparently could be used to chip away at the ability of teens to get terminations. There was talk of US evangelicals being involved.

[TrenterPercenter]

My housemate at college would use that term in relation to gay people, while also ingesting every synthetic drug he could get his hands on, and being well up for watching any kind of hardcore porn that wasn't man on man.

Hypocrisy is definitely also a very natural phenomenon, integrity I would argue is of a much higher order because it requires self reflection and existing in brain states that are generally at high cost to the brain i.e. feel uncomfortable.

So it's much easy to write that all off and do as I say, not as I do, and what I do doesn't count and can't be compared because I'm not going to ever bother reflecting on it anyway.

[canadagoose]

It seems that part of what's going on is an attack via the side door on abortion rights. The Keira Bell verdict the other week apparently could be used to chip away at the ability of teens to get terminations. There was talk of US evangelicals being involved.

That would figure. I can see a lot of "respectable liberals" going "B-b-but we didn't want this!" when abortion rights changes are brought to the forefront.

Edit: not to mention that Chris McEleny, a prominent SNP "gender critical", is anti-abortion... and I doubt he's the only one.

[Kankurette]

Idk thread about the fucking state of all this here. As one of the resident trans people on this here forum I want to ask for support and to have a space where we can maybe talk about relevant things without it being specifically glued to the conduit of the suzanne moores, the glinners, the rowlings specifically, although that's not something that's off-topic per se.

Myself, I'm struggling, I'm increasingly affected on the ability to even leave my house. Deeply frightened. I've only been posting on cab this year and I've been so extraordinary, pleasantly surprised with the attitudes towards trans people. Many of you are real comrades and I wish to express a deep gratitude for that.

Have a memoji of my Jae (me) face

Right back atcha. The Mumsnet crowd do not represent me or most other feminists I know. And what a lot of people forget is that organisations who attack trans people tend not to be very LGB-friendly either.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my mum, who is a second-waver, disagrees with Germaine Greer about trans people and is actually pro-trans rights.

[Zetetic]

Bears repeating that plenty of second-wavers weren't fussed by trans people or were trans inclusive[1]. The prominence given by the British media was and is misleading.

1.

and "feminists" of other traditions, of the same time and whose perspectives were not underpinned by individualism. I keep meaning to write about Irmtraud Morgner's Gospel of Valeska which involves a woman discovering she can change physiological sex at will with a cup of coffee. Edit: And who then mostly remains a man. Except sometimes for sex with men. Morgner's and the DDR's relationship with homosexuality was weird.

[petrilTanaka]

not sure what I can contribute lately in my addled, depressed and constantly on edge state, but as one of the other trans members, its good to have a rolling space like this perhaps, hopefully this one can have a bigger bias towards positive and good things where they are

[JaDanketies]

Yknow I'm sure we can all remember when gay marriage, teaching gayness in schools, etc was a big sticking point, and it seemed intractable, and maybe even people whose opinions you could muster up an ounce of respect for justified their anti-gay viewpoints with crappy misunderstandings of the law, like "I just don't think churches should be forced to marry gay people," "what about freedom of religion, eh?" etc.

I remember reading our very own Prime Minister saying in the book Have I Got Views For You that if gay people can marry, he sees no reason why a man can't marry a dog. And it didn't strike me as a particularly unusual or egregious argument; it was the same argument that a million other people were making. It was 13 and a half years ago that I read that book iirc.

And nowadays, these arguments seem like ancient history. If you said to the PM that he once compared gay marriage to bestiality, he would hide in a refrigerator. Hell, even Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama came out strongly against gay marriage around that time.

So I expect this whole trans 'debate' to go the same way. I also think that terfs and their far-right supporters such as Julia-Hartley Brewer or Brendan 'Forehead' O'Neill are probably still anti-gay but recognise that their beliefs are odious and career-ruining nowadays, but they can still stick the boot into trans people. For example, I recall terfs being horrified that 13-year-olds were being taught about anal sex in school, which seems to evoke Section 28's ban on pro-gay education to me.

The Man is very successfully making this a wedge issue at the moment. But once the mainstream argument ceases to be "do you think that JK Rowling deserves to get rape and death threats for saying that biology exists," and becomes "do you think that trans people deserve to be treated with basic human decency, or should they be automatically distrusted," then the wedge will disappear and a new wedge will be created in its wake. There's a reasonable chance that in 13-and-a-half years' time, a lot of the key proponents of terfery will be six feet under, and the blue-haired youth will be starting their own families, and the mainstream media will be even weaker.

[Mister Six]

Big love from me and Mrs Six to all of CaB's trans posters. I know there are a lot of cunts out there but I have heart that this will pass.

Yknow I'm sure we can all remember when gay marriage, teaching gayness in schools, etc was a big sticking point, and it seemed intractable, and maybe even people whose opinions you could muster up an ounce of respect for justified their anti-gay viewpoints with crappy misunderstandings of the law, like "I just don't think churches should be forced to marry gay people," "what about freedom of religion, eh?" etc.

Yeah, and I think it's worth remembering that all of this has happened in a tiny timeframe. Transpeople were basically unheard and unseen in popular culture for the most part until Orange Is the New Black premiered seven years ago, and Transparent a year later.

Just two or three years on from that, Laverne Cox of OITNB was appearing on talk shows all over the shop and trans awareness was flooding through into the mainstream discourse - broadly with the support of the creative media (if not the worthless pundit class).

What we're seeing now is a sharp knee-jerk pushback from a lot of older entitled sorts who (a) were always awful on this subject but didn't think they had to be vocal about it because they assumed everyone agreed with their awful cunt opinions, or (b) have just woken up from a mid-90s caviar and champers coma and realised that they are now the out-of-touch conservatives hidebound by an archaic "morality", and rather than re-examine their prejudices they'd rather fight tooth and nail to prove how they were the good guys all along.

The good news is, they don't have the kids on their side, except for the blatantly awful pseudo-fascist shitposters. And they're old. And they will die and they will fade in importance. It happened with the anti-gay and lesbian push in the 1980s and it will happen again here.

I know that fucking shit news for trans kids (and all trans people) who are having to deal with all this shit right now in this moment, but keep heart. These cunts are on the way out.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I was just thinking earlier that this is taking a similar cultural trajectory to gay rights with campaigning, a period of slightly fraught normalisation and then incremental acceptance. However there is a point that in the 90s there was a sweeping liberalisation, the mood at the time whereas trans rights is moving into a headwind what with the alt-right backlash in recent years. Probably going to succeed but in a smaller number of countries in the short and medium term.

[jamiefairlie]

I think that explains what’s happening pretty well. I’d also add that the self-ID idea is also increasing the argument. Many older people who are accepting of trans folks are shocked when they realize that it doesn’t just mean people who have physically transitioned. It feels like the ramping up of intensity coincided with self-ID laws being proposed.

[JaDanketies]

"You can just proclaim you're a woman one day and then spend it hanging around in the ladies' changing rooms leering at people with your dick out, and if anyone complains they get arrested for a hate crime and they throw the key away. You couldn't make it up!"

[jamiefairlie]

Not to mention, in Scotland, the SNP and pro-independence folk have been absolutely taken over by tervery since last year, in some kind of wedge-driving plot to get Gropey Eck back in Bute House and boot Sturgeon out.

I have a few issues with that.

Salmond was granted damages dues to a flawed SG process. He was found innocent in a court of law. The current enquiry into the SG process is being blocked by Sturgeon and co as if their political lives depended on it. Three of the thing he was charged with included touching  woman’s fully clothed shoulder on a dancefloor, commenting on another woman’s hair and saying that yet another must have killer heels as they set of an airport security alarm. It took the combined efforts of the SG and a 20 strong police task force to come up with that.

Sturgeon has sat on her arse for four years since Brexit doing nothing on indie but having time to a actively block citizen legal challenge. She is also surrounded by acolytes who are all too comfortable waiting for indie to come all by itself. Unless she include an unequivocal promise to hold a ref in 2021 then she and they need to go.

[Johnny Yesno]

I don't know, the old "it's not natural" argument has been fed into people with some dodgy science whilst it is quite obvious that changing sex is something that happens in nature.  It doesn't need to be more complicated than that really.  As you say generally in terms of knowing, people attach themselves to arguments, then colour in that argument in with evidence.  This then often leads to poeple finding only things that support their argument, which then bleeds into absolutism as an excuse for not properly considering counter evidence.   It might be overly complicated to have a full blown conversation about genetics but saying "what a about frogs then" to someone that says nowhere else in nature do animals change their sex and thinks that is something biologically impossible.

I don't like the appeal to nature fallacy, however it's deployed. There are a shit-ton of things people do every day that aren't replicated in the rest of nature, and this needs pointing out scornfully to the bigots. These are human conceptual issues and what happens in nature proves nothing about human happiness.

The whole video is great, but I particularly like Contrapoints's take that 'gender critical' is analogous to 'race realist': https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?t=1532

The comparison between treating trans people poorly and treating immigrants poorly is also a good one: https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?t=687

[canadagoose]

I have a few issues with that.

Salmond was granted damages dues to a flawed SG process. He was found innocent in a court of law. The current enquiry into the SG process is being blocked by Sturgeon and co as if their political lives depended on it. Three of the thing he was charged with included touching  woman%u2019s fully clothed shoulder on a dancefloor, commenting on another woman%u2019s hair and saying that yet another must have killer heels as they set of an airport security alarm. It took the combined efforts of the SG and a 20 strong police task force to come up with that.

Sturgeon has sat on her arse for four years since Brexit doing nothing on indie but having time to a actively block citizen legal challenge. She is also surrounded by acolytes who are all too comfortable waiting for indie to come all by itself. Unless she include an unequivocal promise to hold a ref in 2021 then she and they need to go.

So, trans people are just expendable capital to save OOOOOOR ECK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 then? Funny how all of Salmond's allies jumped on the TERF bandwagon after he got in trouble. Almost as if they wanted a shield from being called misogynists, as well as something to divert attention away from his trial. Also, didn't his own defence lawyer say himself that he was lecherous?

I disagree about Sturgeon and independence; she's certainly being cautious, but there's not much other option afforded to her. I keep seeing auld blowhards on Twitter suggesting a Plan B, but it seems absolutely unworkable and seems like yet another bloody way to sneak Salmond back into power.

I think that explains what%u2019s happening pretty well. I%u2019d also add that the self-ID idea is also increasing the argument. Many older people who are accepting of trans folks are shocked when they realize that it doesn%u2019t just mean people who have physically transitioned. It feels like the ramping up of intensity coincided with self-ID laws being proposed.

You are aware that the "self-ID" law change which was posited only has to do with birth certificates, which aren't even proof of identity?

[Thursday]

Not sure what I can add, but I'm happy if this place is seen as inclusive to trans people, as there was certainly a learning period some years ago. (Myself included as someone that had a lot to learn and understand) There were few arseholes about at times, that I think have mostly gone now.

[jamiefairlie]

I don't like the appeal to nature fallacy, however it's deployed. There are a shit-ton of things people do every day that aren't replicated in the rest of nature, and this needs pointing out scornfully to the bigots. These are human conceptual issues and what happens in nature proves nothing about human happiness.

The whole video is great, but I particularly like Contrapoints's take that 'gender critical' is analogous to 'race realist': https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?t=1532

The comparison between poorly treating trans people and poorly treating immigrants is also a good one: https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?t=687

Agreed but do you not think we have a more winnable argument to say that that trans people should be fully treated the same as people of that sex, rather than insisting that they literally are that sex? I fully support the former but can’t the latter as it’s akin to believing in the transubstantiation of my catholic youth.

[Sin Agog]

Agreed but do you not think we have a more winnable argument to say that that trans people should be fully treated the same as people of that sex, rather than insisting that they literally are that sex? I fully support the former but can’t the latter as it’s akin to believing in the transubstantiation of my catlic youth.

Wouldn't treating people the same as their identified gender require saying that they are that gender? 

The transubstantiation line is veering awfully close to Jeremy Irons' gay marriage/marrying your own dog territory.

[Sebastian Cobb]

So, trans people are just expendable capital to save OOOOOOR ECK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 then? Funny how all of Salmond's allies jumped on the TERF bandwagon after he got in trouble. Almost as if they wanted a shield from being called misogynists, as well as something to divert attention away from his trial. Also, didn't his own defence lawyer say himself that he was lecherous?

I disagree about Sturgeon and independence; she's certainly being cautious, but there's not much other option afforded to her. I keep seeing auld blowhards on Twitter suggesting a Plan B, but it seems absolutely unworkable and seems like yet another bloody way to sneak Salmond back into power.
You are aware that the "self-ID" law change which was posited only has to do with birth certificates, which aren't even proof of identity?

Who are you inclined to support these days CG? I can't imagine how awful it must be to feel how bad The SNP are at the moment, although it seems Labour (dunno about Scottish labour rather than all of Labour) seem to be fairing no better :( I even heard The Greens aren't great UK-wide but I also heard somewhere the Scottish Greens are slightly better on this issue.

[jamiefairlie]

I certainly don’t want Salmond back.
I do want Sturgeon and her cabal gone.
I do believe she was at the centre of a conspiracy to stitch up Salmond, that has now massively backfired.
I do believe she ha been got at in some way and will be rewarded in some way once she’s gone.
I do believe Scottish independence is the only reason the SNP exists and that every single thought an  and action they do should be designed to further that cause. I found it telling that many of the previous   NEC folks that flounced were stating they don’t want indie if it’s run by these kind of people.

Any, way OT, sorry.

[canadagoose]

Who are you inclined to support these days CG? I can't imagine how awful it must be to feel how bad The SNP are at the moment, although it seems Labour (dunno about Scottish labour rather than all of Labour) seem to be fairing no better :( I even heard The Greens aren't great UK-wide but I also heard somewhere the Scottish Greens are slightly better on this issue.

I'm personally fond of the Scottish Greens. I don't agree with them on absolutely everything (Sheriffhall roundabout's redevelopment is one of them) but they generally seem to be going in the right direction. I'd say they're a bit left of the E&W Green Party, and are pro-HS2, and very anti-woo. I'm planning to vote for them in my constituency this year (Edinburgh Northern & Leith) - there have been a couple of predictions where they were placed second!

Edit: In that constituency, I mean - sorry for ambiguity

[jamiefairlie]

Wouldn't treating people the same as their identified gender require saying that they are that gender? 

The transubstantiation line is veering awfully close to Jeremy Irons' gay marriage/marrying your own dog territory.

If gender and sex are different things, then yes

[JaDanketies]

Whether it's sex or gender they change, or if sex is immutable or not, is an argument for whoever writes definitions in the dictionary. If we agree that trans women should be treated as women to all extents and purposes, then whether woman is a sex or gender category, or if female means biological sex, or any other terf talking point, is of so little relevance as to be pointless.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm personally fond of the Scottish Greens. I don't agree with them on absolutely everything (Sheriffhall roundabout's redevelopment is one of them) but they generally seem to be going in the right direction. I'd say they're a bit left of the E&W Green Party, and are pro-HS2, and very anti-woo. I'm planning to vote for them in my constituency this year (Edinburgh Northern & Leith) - there have been a couple of predictions where they were placed second!

Nice, one of my pals was trying to be a councillor in Aberdeen at one point. I think he's still a member but he's taken a bit of a back seat now I think. I think he got fed up of putting all his work into the mechanisms of the party itself rather than making an impact outside, I think that's probably a problem in all political parties, although I he's the type of person to allow themselves to get bogged down with it.

Personally I feel some of their energy/infrastructure policy is a little scientifically naive, but that's me making a bit of a snap judgement mostly on historic policy and it's probably not up to date, I should do more research. I do want them to do well though.

[Johnny Yesno]

If gender and sex are different things, then yes

As I understand it, they are different.

[jamiefairlie]

As I understand it, they are different.

then we agree, yes.

[canadagoose]

Nice, one of my pals was trying to be a councillor in Aberdeen at one point. I think he's still a member but he's taken a bit of a back seat now I think. I think he got fed up of putting all his work into the mechanisms of the party itself rather than making an impact outside, I think that's probably a problem in all political parties, although I he's the type of person to allow themselves to get bogged down with it.

I wonder if I know him? Is he still active-ish?

Personally I feel some of their energy/infrastructure policy is a little scientifically naive, but that's me making a bit of a snap judgement mostly on historic policy and it's probably not up to date, I should do more research. I do want them to do well though.

It quite possibly is - I think a lot of Green campaigning, particularly in the past, was more based around moving the Overton window of discourse towards green policies than actually being fully-formed solutions. As they've grown in popularity, though, I think they're focussing more on realistic changes. It's certainly worth writing to their MSPs about.

[Zetetic]

As I understand it, [gender and sex] are different.

In terms of how you treat someone else, they're frequently indistinguishable unless you're fiddling about with certain bits of their physiology.[1]

1.	Setting aside the development of gender identities largely disconnected from the slightly fuzzy sex binary.