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QuestionWhat will it take to REALLY turn the tide?
Sooner or later there will be some sort of event, or incident, that triggers a massive shift in public opinion to the GC side.
What do you foresee that event being?
I kind of think it's happened already. I'm seeing tons of people speaking out who weren't willing to before.
For the US at least, I'm not confident there will ever be a shift to GC beliefs. I worry there will be a conservative over correction that will have serious consequences for women and LGB rights. But regardless, I don't think there will be a single event, but think aging detransitioners and sports will be the two things that make people care the most.
Honestly, I think most people are actually acknowledging that this has next to nothing to do with the LGB and is a separate thing entirely.
The thing that will turn is when people become unafraid of being called 'bigots' and 'transphobes' and the silent majority speaks out.
...Which is happening right now in numbers I haven't seen before. It will only pick up momentum as others are emboldened to make their views known as well. But it's still a process - not an "all at once thing". People stop going along with the charade one at a time.
I think a big part will be young people realizing it isn't cool, and move on to the next thing. I also think that the medical community moving on to their next fad diagnosis à la ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, and Autism will effect the collapse of the ideology. I just hope the next thing isn't another pandemic of veiled misogyny targeting women.
I've heard that more and more middle/ high schoolers are rolling their eyes at gender ideology as more "old people" (30's/40's, absolutely ancient really) are adopting neopronouns and pushing the ideology.
The chimpokomon method is working!
I really hope people realize it was a fad when it's over, and not just conveniently sweep it into history.
Oh I think all the lawsuits from all the children who were mutilated because doctors were oh so happy to sign off on giving them puberty blockers that will leave girls without breasts and boys with micropenis will certainly keep it in the public eye.
plus, all the nonbinary 15 year olds will grow up. Sure some will stick with it, but I'd wager there will be a lot of embarassed 20 year olds.
I think once the Republicans get a boost at the polls over this issue, and once detransitioners start winning a couple major lawsuits, then the tide will turn. But I don't expect a reckoning. I expect everyone who supported this to obfuscate and play the victim.
We won’t allow them to play the victim.
I get the feeling behind this, but golden bridges work better in practice. If we want change at policy level we need to make it easy for the bekinders to step back and come to our pov. The most change will happen when there’s no shame attached to previous TRA supporters saying oh that’s not what we meant, we agree x,y & z areas need laws to safeguard them. This approach gets the most done, more effectively, than digging our heels in to who did what wrong and holding them up as the big bad baddies (the extremes of apgers/lil oj etc not included). While I am very well aware that I am not someone who has the emotional resilience to personally extend golden bridges, I do see it’s the most effective mass scale tactic to encourage those we need to step over to our side. If we push for a public reckoning then people get defensive and the sunken cost fallacy kicks in, which wastes time when we could coax them over to seeing what we agree on and get them to back implementing change based on that now.
I am okay with them changing their minds, but I am not okay with them lying about what they previously supported, which is absolutely what they will do if they think they can get away with it. I will not play nice with anyone who tries that.
That’s not what I said.
In the early days of GC discussions on mumsnet and Twitter it was often brought up that the way we get the likes of public bekinders to avoid sunken cost fallacy and back away from the hashtag nodebate was to offer golden bridges. There were many, many discussions about tactics for organising and approaches needed and it’s visible those who offer golden bridges-like sex matters- make more headway than those who don’t.
I’m well aware I’m not someone whose skilled at this personally- I will forever seethe over teachers who don’t immediately see the inherent safeguarding risks involved in this- yet I have had a fair bit of success (two very different, large and influential, secondary schools completely change track and implement 9/10 changes I request) by biting my tongue over how they should be ashamed of themselves and slowly walking them through the Socratic method (also a tactic many of us cut our teeth on debating on mumsnet and twitter) and letting them stumble onto the glaring problems themselves. Public shaming rarely provokes real change of thought, mostly it gets peoples hackles up and then they feel they have to fight their corner more, so listen less. While there are obvious extremes like apgers this isn’t for, many TRAs are young and caught up in the magical thinking cause of their generation, or bekinders who blindly think we should support the kids being brave and stunning, or the likes of public figures who thought they were merely following the direction of the trend and catching the likes ahead of others (think cowardly slime weasels like Penny Mordaunt or Keir Stammer). They can’t be trusted, but they will be more likely to back down and cooperate on bills/policy/regulations that are GC if those seeking discussion avoid the nailing-dicks-to-the-wall and opt for golden bridges over public shaming (think Miriam Cates’ firm diplomacy). Like I say, it’s not a natural skill of mine to offer up an easy backtrack, but I can see how it gets the change I want quicker and more effectively than my natural default to write these people off absolutely (which I still do silently…). We need to get people on side and golden bridges does this more often than not.
Did I say something to suggest I was against golden bridges?
I wouldn't rely on the right to solve anything. The Republicans have no answer to media spin from the other side. 'Wait until Eight' became 'Don't Say Gay', and 'no smut in school libraries' became 'book banning'.
Overturning Roe vs Wade was a major act of self-harm by the Republicans, too (especially once 'let the states decide' was spun into 'total abortion prohibition'). That's going to cost them a whole lot of votes at the next election, regardless of how weak the opposition remains.
A very tainted Trump still lingers, not making way for a new leader, and they've now essentially lost one of their most valuable activists/propagandists, with Tucker Carlson gone.
Gender ideology is a problem that the left/centre needs to solve if it's ever to be solved. There needs to be a compromise position, where severe dysphoria sufferers can get an objective diagnosis, treatment, and respect, and where the trenders and fetishists can wear whatever clothes and makeup they want, but much respect single-sex spaces and have no special powers to demand anybody else respects their made-up name or chosen pronouns.
It often feels that there's not much hope of that compromise. Although watching the bits of the recent Genspect conference that have been posted on YouTube gives me some hope, a lot of very intelligent and compassionate people, often professionals in relevant fields, discussing the issues calmly in a 'respectable' conference format. There was even some talk of building bridges with 'the other side'.
Trump is done but the media won't let go because Trump and abortion are what the democrats are running on. Gender ideology needs to be treated like anorexia. We need to treat people with dysphoria with compassion but not accolades including praise for being so brave. I agree with what you are saying about the way to treat "trenders and fetishists" Is anyone using the 70's term androgenous now?
I still remember the plethora of tv-movies and after school specials about anoerexia/bulemia in the mid 90s. I was young, but it was the only reason I even knew what those things were at that time. I guess there was an epidemic of it. I can only imagine if we treated those disorders like we do with the trans currently. Can you imagine? I forsee the trans train pulling into the same station eventually where all the trenders will hop off as they get older, all the pedo males and fetishists finally being called out for what they are, and of course, LAWSUITS.
I hate to say it, but the lesser side of me sometimes thinks that if this is what the younger generations want so badly, then maybe we should just let them have at it and let the chips fall where they may and let it blow up in their face ( and believe me, it will )
maybe then they will be forced to see all the destruction they have caused to women's rights and how callously they threw away everything older generations of women fought so hard for. Some people refuse to listen or debate and only learn from experiencing the consequences of their actions. We've said all there is to say and done all we reasonably can do. We tried our best to warn them and they basically terrorized us for it. I honestly think there is going to be hell to pay when future generations behind them figure out what they did, but knowing tras, they will likely point the finger and blame everyone else when that time comes.
But then the better side of me remembers that unfortunately for us, this is going to have widespread implications for all women, regardless of age and other differences..and it's more than just about trans rights, this is a full-scale war on women at this point..so, I'll hang in for all my sisters..but I'm not gonna lie, it doesn't stop me from wondering what would happen if we backed off and let them self-destruct..it's tempting..lol
Edited to add- I'm not including the actual children that caught up in all this when I speak of younger generations..they are obviously victims of all of this too
When they are all facing crippling medical issues, sterility, lack of sexual function, etc - I think they will slowly realize they were lied to. Repeatedly.
When TRAs start inconveniencing and annoying men more and more.
It's just like that "I sleep" meme. Women losing their rights, being raped in prisons and homeless shelters doesn't move anyone, especially men. Men being called "people with prostates", on the other hand... 🔥🔥🔥
I see men acting like this every fucking time TRA nonsense affects them in some petty way. Petty shit that causes annoyance is so often the final straw that inspires men to recognise transacitvism as a serious social problem and take action, not the human rights violations against women. Of course, the social problem, as they see it, is "beta" males and women disrespecting their authority.
It will come a moment in which everything that has been under people' s eyes will just click. Their treatment of children and LGBs (maybe even their treatment of women, but I am not holding my breath for that since shitting on us is considered "normal"), their entitlement, them being insufferable, doctors being sued by detransitioners, acts of violence, maybe a famous TRA doing something bad or detransitioning in a very public fashion, sports, sexual assaults, business/politicians/celebrities going too woke, their "MAP" tendencies, censorship, threats, etc...
But I don' t think it will be a single event. If people don' t peak en masse after seeing young girls bragging about their recent mastectomies, or TIMs so brazenly trying to groom younger and younger children, then I don' t think anything single will be enough. It will simply come a point in which trans will not be as edgy and intriguing as it has been sold in the past few years, people will be bored to death by them and everything they have done and said will just come crashing down.
I don’t think it will be a single event so much as TIPs aging like milk thanks to their hormone regimens. I think the youngest kids are already moving on.
Crazy enough we don't even know what decades of hormone abuse at unnatural levels will even do to these people. Osteoporosis has been mentioned louder and louder these days.
It’s already happened but members of the silent majority either don’t know they hold the majority viewpoint or they are too afraid of running afoul of the loud minority to go public.
If/when celebrities who are well-respected on the left speak out against the insanity, regular folk will feel more empowered to do so as well. Every time a Dee Snider type publicly pushes back and survives to see another day, it gives regular folk a little more courage to do the same.
The sports issue is still ripe for some fed up celebrities to take up.
In the US, I think a massive peaceful (on one side at least) march by women would make the powers realize that more than 50 percent of voters want a change. Are younger women activists though? And there is the wedge issue on the left that the right is wrong about everything so the left has to stay pure.
It's definitely in the process of happening right now. I really do think Dylan Mulvaney was "peak trans".
As others have said there won't be a single event that causes it, just as support for gay marriage or weed legalization wasn't caused by a single event. It takes repeated exposure to seeing men win in women's sports, people condemned for opposing male rapists in women's prisons, and celebrities shamed for saying children shouldn't be transed for their preference in toys or hairstyles.
I have to admit I'm oscillate between being optimistic and pessimistic but one thing I think definitely works is high profile, influential people publicly denouncing transgender ideology. So my country like many others is diligently following the Denton protocol of sneaking self id in without anyone noticing. I firmly believe England would be the same if they didn't have the insane luck of having JKR. A gigantic celebrity, beloved by billions, but even she got canceled as much as a beloved billionaire is cancelable. Although if she was a man, she would be celebrated for being transphobic. Case in point: mention JKR in reddit and see what happens. Then mention Ricky Gervais who said everything JKR said but MUCH LESS polite but predditors love him.
Besides a high profile person speaking out, the only thing I can see is sadly: a child of a rich or influential person has to be mutilated, raped by AGPs, or killed. But as long as only us lowly women suffer, i don't see an end to this. Only maybe if women actually closed ranks and refused to vote for people pushing the misogynistic gender cult (will never happen).
At least the parties pushing it in my country, the greens, are completely losing voters, they're in free fall. Why is always the greens btw? They pushed "child rape is a sexual orientation" in the 70s and now are pushing "feminine boys must get their dicks cut off". Wtf is wrong with these people, why does environmentalism seemingly attract mostly coomers, pedos and other assorted degenerates? I just want clean nature but i will never in my life vote for these horrid misogynists.
Bit of a tangent but my answer is: if Taylor Swift came out as gender critical. Or Oprah. Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman or whatever actors are fashionable now. Or a high ranking dem politician has to have a child killed or raped by a TIM. Other than that I'm pessimistic.
Reddit is completely drowned in trans ideology. You say anything is sub that is modded by a TRA/genderspecial and you are lucky to not get some admin warning not long after. I said in a Bernie Sanders snark sub that Lia Thomas is a man and has the advantages therein, and of course I got downvoted and they claimed I was coming in from another sub to make them look bad. Like, no. These are my opinions and I don't know why you all support this wack idea.
And Maya.
We only have JKR’s voice because Maya spoke up.
Almost all of our GC movement comes from everyday women - Keira, all the tavi whistleblowers, Stephanie Davies-Arai, KJK etc.
You're so right, i almost forgot. But i will always remember waiting for her verdict and the relief i felt when it was proven that "believing in biological sex is an acceptable opinion in polite society". What an unbelievable sentence but yet here we are....
Ricky Gervais who said everything JKR said but MUCH LESS polite but predditors love him.m
There's no doubt a man can get away with saying the same thing much more than a woman. Comparing Ricky Gervais to JKR though, I wonder how much is also due to the two's own personna as presented to the public. JKR has always been know to be kind and nice. Her blog post on this was a plead to reason and to try to explain in the gentlest way. Ricky and Chapelle et al right off the bat just gave no fuck. From what I observe, a lot of times the mob reacts to the original baseline someone set for themselves. A good example is Trump. He set the bar so low from the onset, he's essentially teflon and immune from being criticized for being undignified and uncouth.
I think a better comparison for Ricky is Megyn Kelly. People in UK may not know her but Meghan Kelly is possibly the most popular female newscaster in the US with a clear indisputable following (as opposed to the ones propped up by corporate MSM.) Megyn Kelly has been eviscerating the trans movement for women. I don't think she'll get the kind of backlash like JKR. Yes it helps that Megyn Kelly is conservative. But I also think the mob's impact is debilitated because her public persona has never been about being nice or being kind. It was always "I'll tell it like it is."
So much of the massive self-silencing on the left is caused by people on the left feeling the need to #BeKind. Generally speaking, a regular woman on the left feels like if she raise the slightest criticism, she'd have to come up with a text book of explanations of why what she's saying is not "transphobic". I think this is part of the problem and a huge problem. Because the TRAs can be disarmed if one who decides to go Terf on the Main would just start off with: I don't care, IDGAF, see if I care attitude from the onset.
I noticed JKR has come to this conclusion as well for a while. Her tweets are not biting and give no quarter. But it's still less effective because she has been known as a nice and polite person for years and years.
And while I'm pointing this out, I do think it's sad we're at this state. The Left online mob has so overplayed their hands for a decade now hurling moralistic, self-righteous accusations at the slightest perceived infraction, that reasoned and civilized discourse is essentially dead. I think it directly led to Trumpism. When nothing can ever redeem anyone and everything intentional or unintentional can lead to mob crucification, the only thing remained to do is just to say screw you and we'll be exactly as terrible as you accuse us to push back. That's Trumpism.
I fear that it's unstoppable, that the 'culture war' has already been won by 'team Woke', and it's now a cultural revolution.
The pushback against gender identity ideology is small, and only pushing back against one facet of the wider woke/dangerously-radical-progressive movement, with it's incredibly destructive goals (ending capitalism by any means necessary, abolition of property ownership via abolition of police, exterminating 'whiteness', declaring war on Christianity (while embracing other religions, though...)).
The gender stuff and sexualisation of kids isn't even an end goal, it may just be another tool to disrupt/destroy, to chip away at the 'evil capitalist western civilization' that they despise so deeply?
This attempted revolution is not going to lead to some sort of high-tech eco-communist utopia. It's going to lead to ruin.
I think it will take about 20 years when all the children who have had puberty blockers and surgeries when underage grow up into pissed off adults who can't believe what adults did to them
A wave of childhood detransitioners filing massive lawsuits and/or dying super young because of the effects of the Frankenstein experiments on their health.
I can also see it falling apart if some major trans figures like Jazz Jennings came out against it. But it would take a lot of them to make an impact (if its just one or two, they can be written off as outliers)
I think if Jazz doesn't end up killing himself (which given his mental state I don't rule out sadly) that he will eventually come out against it.
I hope so. But considering how the blockers fucked his brain development, I don't know if he has the capacity to break free of a lifetime of brainwashing.
I'd love to be proven wrong. But I just don't see it. His best case scenario is getting away from his family and quitting his reality show and activism forever. Even if he still chooses to remain a "trans-woman", getting away from the cameras would help him immensely
I think it’s already starting to happen right now. A lot of people have begun to speak out. But another big shift will occur when doctors start being sued and losing huge lawsuits about medical transition and trans surgeries.
The capture of civil service and public services needs over turned. The tail wagging the dog much applies currently.
I think this will require a multi pronged approach. The bekinders need faces with reality of their lies (detransers law suits and details that will spill out with them, the increase in incidents like the Loundon rapist and girls mass protesting mixed sex toilets and so on.
And active consequences for the activists. Those covering shit up need charged, sacked, disciplined, banned from working in safeguarding, sued, and whatever else is possible. Both individuals and institutions. When insurers won’t cover pay outs because safeguarding risk assessments were ignored and schools/nhs trusts etc have to pay out of their budgets, then there will need to be redundancies to recoup costs and a public bloodletting to try and regain public trust.
Unfortunately, things will get worse before better and the best thing we can do is all be as vocal as possible within our areas/schools etc, to try and creat pockets insulated from the worst of it (because these then become how those sued/prosecuted etc will base their remodel) and so it snowballs the voices against this to try and put pressure on the cowardly bekinders to speak up before the worst happens.
The coordinated efforts to engage with politicians and organisations in the U.K. is making some headway, as are other countries, but I think we are going to see some devastating incidents and cases before this is ridded from our ideological civil service and public services and sadly I think this will come with laws that limit our political freedom in other ways and leave us further towards the right in someways than the grass roots GC campaigners and groups are. I think we will see a need to build society back up for our girls only after shit gets torn to the ground.
Which is very sad. But also, imho, reveals the truth of how heavily misogynistic and gynophobic our country always has been and illustrates the need to start working from this starting point all over again.
I’m not a fan of rose tints, however tough it is to see things as they are. I want a better future for my girls, not a false illusion of one.
I don't think it will be a single thing, but a cumulative effect of a bunch of small things until a critical mass of dissenters has been reached, enough that people speaking out start seeing some safety in numbers, and that will be the watershed moment. When the fear lessons enough that people break their silence and are actually heard. When publications are willing to publish the real criticisms and actually conduct some investigative journalism, when Democratic politicians are willing to dissent, when lawyers are willing to start really taking on malpractice (and other) suits, when more doctors start speaking out, when TIPs do even more unhinged, violent things in response to minor or non-issues then cry victim, when enough people get first-hand experience that TIMs aren't harmless, cuddly, castrated gay men who just want to pee. Suspect Big Tech will be one of the last holdouts, due to how many TIMs work in tech, but at some point they will be beholden to others to account for their censorship/heavy-handed "influence" on the conversation, especially if that censorship becomes less effective due to people learning things through other platforms.
It will be when enough people find the courage to say the emperor is naked. Most people are already thinking it. And when it happens it will all fall apart fast because everyone is already thinking it and too afraid to say anything.
Think it's going to be like a dam breaking. And while that sounds like a relief in some ways, it's also worrying. Think it's a growing, pent-up destructive force with the potential to destroy quite a lot of things we want to keep in society, not something precise and thoughtful and measured, and it will be all the worse because people will be furious the more afraid they've been made to feel and the more they realize how much they've been lied to about everything. How much will gay people, women, feminists be blamed? Punished? The worse TRAs become, the more extreme the backlash is likely to be, the more rage and 'revenge' will be driving it, the more opportunity extremists of other stripes will have to influence the direction it takes.