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I think they are acting like men, give them an inch and they take a mile. They don’t want just what society as a whole was willing to give, they feel entitled to ALL OF IT. This was the inevitable conclusion, especially once self-ID became more acceptable. It’s manifest destiny, but for women’s rights and spaces. Men have proven over and over again that they will not stop until there is nothing left to take or someone stops them, on the small and large scale. So I don’t think it was a concerted, pre-planned takeover, it’s just men being men. (And I know TIF’s are involved too, but make no mistake, men are steering this ship).
I think that at the higher levels of formal advocacy groups like Stonewall, it was intentional. TRAs were canny enough to brand modern transgenderism as basically Gay 2.0. For a long time, Laverne Cox, a homosexual transsexual with camera-ready hair, clothes, and makeup was basically the face of the trans rights movement. They were also shrewd enough to ignore or downplay fetishistic behavior that they knew would alienate normies.
With Biden's Equality Act in the US, and other legal victories in Europe, AGPs are emboldened to advertise their misogyny and perversions. Now, when men like Darren Merager wag their dicks in front of little girls, "feminists" like Laurie Penny defend them. When lesbians complain about homophobic men in dresses harassing and raping them, the CEO of Stonewall scolds lesbians for not putting out.
I think in 2014 someone like Grace Lavery would have been a net liability to the movement. But by 2017-18 it had gathered enough momentum that the virulent misogyny that was always at the heart of transgenderism could start to creep out of the shadows. Coincidentally, TRAs derailing the 2017 Women's March is the first time I recall the trans rights movement really being able to commandeer control over mainstream feminism in an overtly hostile, highly public way.
Someone on Twitter posted a link to a kiwifarms thread detailing GL's history. Holy shit what a skeevy creepy individual - couldn't help but think if a woman or straight man had that history they would be CANCELED and unemployable everywhere.
He must be such an embarrassment to Berkley. I've seen people on KF question why the university hasn't disciplined him or 't tried to part ways with him before. I think the administration drank the gender Kool-Aid, is afraid of a lawsuit and negative press, and/or is quietly building an airtight case to ditch him.
I think that applies to spaces like reddit (it is just selfish, fetishistic men acting like men) , but as we have seen in that trans playbook circulating online, the ideological capture and invasion of certain institutions is a calculated political operation backed by powerful individuals who want to push this ideology worldwide.
Personally, I think it’s always been like this. Considering Camp Trans had been trying to shut down MichFest since the 70s on the basis that “transsexual women are real women” and “penises can’t hurt you”, the rhetoric has been around for as long as men have been crossdressing publicly. I think the difference now is media attention and the addition of cancel culture. Now, some media sources are more willing to report on crimes committed by TIMs and now that cancel culture has come for the average person (not just celebrities as it was intended to do) we can now see how the ideology affects us personally and as a class being women. Before, people always just waved away concerns by saying “don’t be offended by what doesn’t affect you”. Just look as the stories of how people peaked: sexual assault by a TIM, a husband transitioning after years of marriage/starting a family, women being fired from their jobs for saying the word female, women being arrested for putting up stickers in public areas, lesbians being called bigots for not sleeping with men. It’s to a point where we absolutely cannot deny that it affects us personally. The rhetoric hasn’t shifted, the truth just found its way to the forefront and couldn’t be ignored with mindless slogans like TWAW and “be kind”.
Yep. Its always been like this. Now they're just being more blatant with it, after convincing us by degrees to appease them. At a certain point they'll even want to call themselves "cis" and even erase the ability to even say "AFAB" or "AMAB."
After gay marriage became legal in the US (2015), the LGBTQ organizations shifted all of their resources to the trans agenda
The queer theorists and trans activists never shifted. They were always like this. They merely took over the existing LGBT orgs with their radical beliefs.
This is so true. Riki Wilchins and Kate Bornstein were wishing for it back in the 90s and others before them.
I was just thinking about how OITNB was such a con. Laverne Cox as a TiM in a women's prison, it was so normalized. No one was sleeping with him, there was no weird woke shit about lesbians with ‘girl dick.’ Even though I’m pretty sure in the show, his character had a wife and kids, he was presented as either asexual or a homosexual transsexual, if I recall. At the time the show aired, I truly never thought it would be possible for men to just self ID into women’s jails. That wasn’t even something I could have imagined, there was so much emphasis on him as a safe character. In retrospect I wonder how much was propaganda and how much was naïveté from the show creators.
The "we just want to live/work/pee" argument was always about a conflict of rights, though. You cannot give a man the right to call himself a woman. You can give him the right to not be discriminated against as for job opportunities, and the right to expect other people not to target and harass him... but you CAN'T give him the right to use the women's restroom just because he wants to be or believes himself to be a woman.
"Intentional" isn't really the issue. It's that people are now being forced to see through the logical end point of them wanting to 'be nice'. The logical conclusion of "what you do in your private life" meets "societal rules, on a societal scale." Instead of intentional I'd say this was inevitable.
Even there, I query that right not to be discriminated against when what he is doing is imposing his fetish and discriminating against women. They call it discrimination to be made to use men’s toilets, change rooms etc. Why should any company be required to hire them? Give any other reason, like there being better candidates (which there would be - hell, anyone would be better) but they are sexual perverts trotting out their perversion in public, and that should not be a protected characteristic by any name.
I don't think it was intentional - I think it is a social contagion too many people have been caught up in.
It's hard for me to think this current madness is anything new to the trans movement, though. Twenty years ago I worked at a woman's shelter, and management brought in a TIM speaker to educate us on trans issues. At the time I was fairly neutral on the subject, but this speaker had all the crazy off-the-wall talking points we see predominant in trans ideology today. He was also incredibly unpleasant in general and badgered one of my co-workers into saying if we had a female resident who was uncomfortable with a transwoman being in the shelter, we would make the female resident leave.
I was deeply uncomfortable with the whole situation, and I still look back on that incident as my first tentative step on my way to the peak of Mount Terf.
Its intentional and its coming from the top down. The only reason that TIM was behaving that way, is because thats the tenets of the faith from the very top and the whole of the TQ belief system is rooted in privilege (from the top). I highly suggest you read Helen Joyces book on the matter (Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality.) Its really well written. I had no idea that queer theory had such significant sex denialist origins. It really does.
oof that sounds like a terribly uncomfortable situation, but thank you so much for sharing because this is exactly what I came here looking for - I was really curious as to how many women exactly have real life anecdotal evidence of experiencing current TRA ideology before the current TRA movement really even took off. that's what really fascinates me because if these ideas were present literally decades ago, how come they didn't start off with that? was psychotic TRAism simply a minority that became the majority? or have they just been lurking under the surface of the movement, waiting for the right time to come to the forefront?
My take on that is the rise of social media. It allows freaks to congregate in spaces they feel safe in behind the cover of a computer screen, and also reinforce ideas that would not be encouraged or maybe even encountered outside that space.
Twenty years ago if you had one weird guy dressed in slutty teen girl clothes, hanging out in a gay bar, he might be tacitly accepted within that atmosphere or outright ignored. He would certainly have a difficult time fitting in to 'normal' society and his fetish would be relegated to the bedroom or the club and bar scene. Now, they all find each other online and bolster their fetishes and MRA rhetoric and have taken over tech jobs like whoa. There are no social barriers to their behavior - if the same dude I mentioned above was screaming rape and death threats at a woman he disagreed with on the street, there would be a much higher chance for real life consequences, but that's not how it works on the internet. There is now no longer any suggestion for professional mental help or even self-reflection, it's full steam grooming all the way!
I met a TIM at the home of a lesbian couple in the 1980s. Twice married, father of two, former Scientologist, who left his family and was ingratiating himself in a lesbian theater community. Told me he'd been to a gynecologist for an exam and that the gyno was unable to tell he was a TIM. I was also in my 20s, not that worldly, but that was too much for me to believe. My friends seemed so pleased with themselves as they explained how first one deals with one's gender issues, and when that is resolved, one moves on to address sexual orientation, and all I could think was, "just seems like the long way round the block to me".
Here's my theory: years ago there was a larger transvestite community, which gathered in cities for parties, held annual festivals, went on cruises together, etc., as described by Amy Bloom in her article "Conservative Men in Conservative Dresses". These men would not have gotten through the gatekeeping then in place to get surgery, hormones, etc., and there was not the same amount of acceptance and adulation which is directed towards TIPs today. But the gatekeeping is gone, and now those men can live their fetish full-time. The transvestite groups are largely gone. Somewhere I saw a joke: "What's the difference between a transvestite and a transwoman? Two years."
then you may like to watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG4d_u4Cg5M
it's so sad to see us fighting the same fight 50 years later. thank you for sharing.
Yes. It’s being funded by men who hate women. Look at what happened on Reddit. Bardfinn is still banning gender critical women, he boasted about it recently on AHS. I think that the men’s rights movement are supporting this insanity to disable feminism.
Idk if it was intentional, but trans activism has always been hostile and misogynistic since I've personally come across it. But im still fairly young.
I first came across it about 12 years ago on tumblr and virtually every TiM I ever came across was honestly hard to not to dislike due to the ridiculously misogynistic views on womanhood. I also remember them being so insanely anti-cis and always calling women "cisshit". They were genuinely the most hateful group I had the misfortune of discovering on the internet.
It's hard to support people that want to identify their way into your sex class that clearly give zero fucks about your sex and anything your sex goes through let alone have any interest in promoting women's rights or liberation. I find it appalling that I live in a society where that is considered a "bigoted" viewpoint but what they're doing.. isn't bigoted???
It was always a male supremacist movement (with TiFs as the useful idiots) and always WANTED the same thing, only back when they didn't have any societal power they were just moping around and feeling sorry for themselves. They basically kept the manipulation focused on individuals after stealing their partners'/sisters'/daughters' underwear and being found out.
Now that they're shameless and empowered you get the "we're better than (cis) women in every way and all they're good for is sex and similar validation" which is just patriarchy 101.
I wouldn't call it intentional so much, more like the natural progression of any particular group of men power coming into power.
I honestly believe that in the last few years MRAs, fetishists, and paedophiles started seeing the potential of trans activism and jumped on the train and really gave it momentum. I think the push to keep all activism on the downlow and how easily gains were made also gave TRAs confidence and a sense they could ask for anything and get it.
In addition, after gay marriage was legalised, organisations like Stonewall started to lose their sense of purpose and needed a new crusade to justify their existence.
Yes.
I suspect I differ from many people here in that I believe there are some genuine trans people. I don't mean by this that they are "born in the wrong body" or "are really a woman". I mean they are people who, for whatever reason, experience such distress living as their actual sex (or gender if you prefer) that the only solution is for them to adopt a persona of the other sex and try to live in the world as that sex. Life can't be easy for them no matter what they do, and they have my sympathy. I get the impression a lot of them have been left behind by the current TRA stampede, and don't really want to be part of it.
At the same time, a lot of fetishists, incels, misogynists and other people who just don't like women (which includes plenty of women) have jumped on this bandwagon as a means of pushing back women's rights. The goal isn't to liberate trans people (many of them don't really care about trans people); it's to hurt women. There's a lunatic fringe who'd love to eliminate all women entirely. if they ever figure out how to grow babies in bottles by combining sperm, they'll do it, too.
I agree with you that gender dysphoria is real, and that there are some people who are innately different than the rest of their sex, but I strongly disagree that medical transition is the best way for them to be happy.
I've mainly dated butch women, including ones who are stone butch. They didn't become like this on a whim or because some social contagion, many of them were "misgendered" even as toddlers. They clearly have different relationships to their bodies than I do. As they matured and found community with other lesbians, they came to accept themselves and their bodies, and to be proud of their identities.
I've also known two butches for many years both pre and post transition, and while there was a temporary period of joy while they were getting a lot of attention from the trans community, they aren't as happy overall now that they've transitioned. Both have admitted to me that they miss being a lesbian, and are upset that lesbians no longer date them. They don't fit in with straight men and straight women also don't want to date them. They've also realized that they can never have the sexual function that a man has. There's no way to transition from one sex to the other, these people are being sold a load of shit by irresponsible doctors.
People with dysphoria need the same things the rest of us need, a loving community that accepts them as they are, and therapy to deal with their insecurities.
'I get the impression a lot of them have been left behind by the current TRA stampede, and don't really want to be part of it.'
Maybe...but this reminds me of the fact that not all men physically harm women but all men benefit from the behaviour of the men who do. Maybe many, or even most, TIMs are uncomfortable being represented by gender ideologists, but a) what are they doing about that? and b) aren't they still benefiting from the changes those activists have forced society to make? Also I'd be a bit sceptical of how, particularly, TIMs 'try to live in the world as' women. Does that mean appropriating spaces and resources women have fought for, or taking advantage of the trust women engender, even if they 'don't really want to' gain these unwarranted benefits?
Good questions. I've seen some TIMs tweeting against TRAs. Unless they're athletes, or seeking access specifically to women's medical resources, or a shelter, or are in prison, I'm not clear on what advantages their trans status gives them. It's the flip side of the question, "what rights do they want that they don't already have"? They're not fooling anyone into thinking they actually are women, so they can't take advantage of the trust women engender.
I see some TIMs tweeting against TRAs, and speaking against gender ideology at women's meetings...but they're still getting all the 'benefits' (sexual thrills and other?) of playing woman dressup, reinforced by the law of the land. Seems like it's a win-win for them.
If they want to dress up as women and get a kinky thrill out of it, that's none of my business. If they want to go through their daily lives in that get-up, shopping, working etc.., I don't care. However, I don't want men to secure by law a free pass into every protected women's space, nor do I want to lose my job or get arrested by the police because I referred to a man as "he". I see no reason why I should be compelled by law to validate other people's delusions.
I get the impression a lot of them have been left behind by the current TRA stampede, and don't really want to be part of it.
thiiiiiiis. whether one 'believes' in True Trans™️, it's impossible to deny that there are in fact people who are simply trying to live and pass as the opposite sex, no more and no less, and they're definitely being left behind by TRAs. just think of how TRAs demonize the concept of 'passing', think about how they spit on 'binary' trans people, look at how they're now claiming nonbinary is the most oppressed, look how they absolutely hate and fight against 'trans meds' aka trans people who believe you need medical transition to truly be trans. the fact of the matter is that the current trans movement has pretty much ensured that any """true trans""" person is beaten down, ostracized, and bullied out of the community in order to make room for more heterosexuals who think that changing your pronouns and doing nothing to your appearance is the most radical thing you can possibly do.
We still can't ignore that while most of us still have a lot of empathy for this subset of people, even the transmed people could not possibly give less of a shit about the rights of straight women. So let's not shed too many tears. They aren't returning the favour.
exactly. I'm not sorry to say I think any man who calls himself ANY kind of woman "trans woman" or whatever, is a predator. I don't want then in my spaces or my feminism.
oh no tears shed at all lmaooo. i just think it's fascinating how the people who arguably are the most 'real' examples of the movement are being totally tosses away & it's turned around into an entirely different thing.
Yes, in some ways the TRA movement does seem to have been hijacked by ordinary normal people desperate to be special and oppressed.
I don't think it was intentional in the sense of being planned out. It was way too soon for TIMs to start pushing full-on male sexual degeneracy. They should have achieved mainstream acceptance first. Right now, the only normalized acceptance they get is in liberal enclaves (and even then it's not the full acceptance the LGB has), and r/AITA is proof that even liberal tolerance of TIMs' bullshit has its limits.
But I also think the shift was inevitable because that's who TIMs actually are. When they were trying to be normal, that was an act. In current day, plenty of "normal" TIMs who "just want to blend in" will still lose their shit if you push them too hard. Steamrolling over others and demanding compliance is baked into the disorder.
"But I also think the shift was inevitable because that's who TIMs actually are. When they were trying to be normal, that was an act."
Agreed!
Sinister from the start. This was never anything but a movement for pornsick straighties.
I don't think it was intentional. As far as I'm aware, the turning point was 2015. Caitlyn Jenner had that interview with Diane Sawyer in April. Same-sex marriage was legalized in the USA in June. I am Jazz premiered on TLC in July. After that point, it seems like things went to "all trans, all the time" and it just ramped up crazily from there.
As for what caused the movement to go insane, I'm not sure. I think there's validity to the theory that LGBT activists were left without anything to do after they won same-sex marriage, and so they immediately glommed on to transgender rights as the next big thing. It still took a few years after that to go completely nuts. Using my experience as a yardstick, things had gotten crazy enough by mid-late 2017 for me to peak.
Yeah, I mean I'm not super old, but I'm old enough to remember ~15 years ago when they really just wanted to be left alone and not murdered homophobic men (most of the ones who were out at that time were homosexuals, AGPs hadn't really crawled out of the woodwork yet). I was with them at that point. I think there are two types of TIPs, the first group really did just want to be left alone, but then the AGP sexual predators saw how the first group was making some headway in society, and saw how other movements like gay rights were finally getting some traction, and saw it as an opportunity to pounce.
Liberals were really caught between a rock and a hard place because they had been so conditioned to believe whatever "marginalized" people were telling them and to root for the underdog no matter what. None of the other social justice movements has such a high concentration of narcissists like Lia Thomas who are happy to walk around with their dicks out despite everyone around them voicing their discomfort. I think it's caught people by surprise and a backlash will follow. It won't be as fast as it should be because TRAs have taken over large parts of the internet and many major media companies are still afraid of getting "cancelled" if they report all of this stuff, but people will learn about it and peak eventually.
To be clear, I'm not excusing homosexual TIPs either, they're allowing this more aggressive, anti-woman ideology to dominate their movement and they're complicit in the sterilization of gay/neuroatypical children. It's really unfortunate because I think other movements like gay rights will be caught up in the backlash against gender ideology. I hate being tied to them.
Yes, it was intentional, and no its not new. I'm currently reading (almost done) with Helen Joyce's incredible book "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality."
Its been the idea from the beginning to deconstruct and deny sex and sexual orientation and its all been packaged to us from the top down (academia, pharma etc) in a very dishonest way to make us think that's not the goal. I highly highly recommend that book. So far its my favorite one on this issue. Helen Joyce is amazing.
Fetishists ate every cause. The moment they could LARP about their physically reality online was the moment everything got fucked.
Astroturfing amplified by ignorance, immaturity and narcissism.
Plus the postmodernism that seems to be creeping into everything, probably because it allows everyone, no matter how straight, white, and/or male, that sweet victim cred.
All worthy causes get invaded & weaponized by and for the patriarchy. The patriarchal enforcers are those who inflict violence against the vulnerable, aka women, children & men who do not conform with the patriarchal demands.
I don’t think it was intentional. I think the crazy and sane voices were all always there, but the slippery slope seems to have been real. I’m not sure what caused everyone to suddenly want to be a “victim” and “minority,” but that played a part in giving voice to the crazies
It was always intentional, read more about the originators of queer theory and how they all traveled in the same circles among psychologists and sexologists. Modern trans identity is rooted in sex deconstructivism and a war against objectivity as objectivity is considered a natural enemy and socially constructed oppressor to one's true identity "essence".
Read about Michel Foucalt please:
I think it was probably intentional for many. The ones that just want to assault women.
There are also people who really do have dysphoria and just want to pee. But they're overshadowed by the ones who enjoy having penises and making women look at them.
But who exactly was orchestrating it?
I think there were just people (shitty men) who took advantage of the way things were going.
But who exactly was orchestrating it?
This is not a grassroots movement. Classic astroturf with big money behind it. No authentic grassroots civil rights movements has ever had so much government and corporate support behind it, that alone signals something else going on
In the US, the Civil Rights Movement DID NOT involve calls for better "whitening creams," hair straighteners, surgeries (facial feminization surgery? facial whitezation surgery?) There has been ZERO medical or surgical component to civil rights movements of any kind anywhere in the world, ever. Why is this in and of itself not the proverbial "red flag? Insanity!
But did it start that way? I know there is money behind it now, which are the people I think who took advantage of it, but were they always there pushing it?
The "Yogyakarta Principles" were developed at a meeting put together by Martin(e) Rothblatt and other big money TRAs in 2006. The game plan was already well advanced by then.
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ETA: If you downvote that please go buy a copy of Helen Joyce's incredible book "Trans: When Ideology Meets reality" Everything I'm saying here is also reiterated in her book.
The sex denialism (including the sexual orientation denialism) is 100% planned and its not "narcissim" its pure hubris, idiocy, greed and evil. It has religious roots in the concept of mind-body dualism of descartes and others. I.e. that there is a body, but the mind or essence of the soul is separate and in fact, much more important.
This type of thinking has also given rise to cultic body denialism of the 2nd revivalist (Lee Harvey Kellogg) kind which advocates that if you pleasure your body at all you are tainting your pure soul with the earthen vessel, but that is a different subject entirely.
The dualism belief later leaked into theory of power and theory of belief discourses (critical theory, deconstructivism, marxism and queer theory) which lead to the modern TQ theory of today. It was always extremist, just read about Foucalt and see for yourself:
According to Foucault, the body is not something objective that stands outside of history and culture. Instead, Foucault argues, the body has been and is continuously shaped by society and history – by work, diet, body ideals, exercise, medical interventions, etc. Foucault presents no "theory" of the body, but does write about it in Discipline and Punish as well as in The History of Sexuality. Foucault was critical of all purely biological explanations of phenomena such as sexuality, madness and criminality. Further, Foucault argues, that the body is not sufficient as a basis for self-understanding and understanding of others.[204]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Theory_of_the_body_and_sexuality
He's one of the founding fathers of queer theory.
Its always been like this. Its just been engineered to make us think its not really about this. It is.
Trans ideology was always about sex deconstructivism and erasure of objectivity. Always.
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Have you read Helen Joyces book yet?
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Lol, probably. Its a granular distinction imho.
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Well here we disagree. How it is bullshit has to be named and understood. Its part of deprogramming us from it and being able to recognize it easily when a person is acting from it/trying to sell it. You can't have people get critical understanding of it if you won't speak on it fully. Secondly it doesn't just damage us via trans ideology, it also damages us via pedophilia apologism and the assault on all objectivity in law. Its post-truthism that is in fact, perfectly aligned with the behaviors of modern dictators like Xi and Putin. And men aren't the only purveyors of it.
Joyce talks about crony beliefs and how they operate in her book. Do you remember? Crony beliefs are cultic beliefs and they are often contagious specifically to girls and women, who then spread them among themselves.
Its not transparent. If it was, it wouldn't be spread as far as it has been. And particularly, the insanely dangerous ideas of it at the root which try to deconstruct even normal objective developmental stages of children (like that children cannot consent to sex, this is something queer theorists from the very top believe is part of institutional oppression.) is super important to call out and show how they market it (with their own special, distracting, bloviating lexicon.)
love this comparison. it always rings extremely true. trying to appease TRAs is like an abusive relationship in so, so many ways.
One hundred fucking percent. This is all highly intentional. This is orchestrated. Whatever you think of men, you will have to admit that they are extremely good at using their capital to push women back under the boot in the most psychologically destructive ways imaginable. This must be THE most efficient backlash against feminism in the history of women's rights. Within just a few years, men have managed to demonise us completely, to erase our class consciousness, and to make us willing participants in our own downfall. It's absolutely astounding. And women won't wake up until it's too late.