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DiscussionWhat changed? What caused all this to escalate?
I'm still new to gender critical feminism so if anyone has any posts or books I should read, feel free to rec.
But I've been wondering...what changed? Misogyny has been raging for hundreds of decades. What has happened in the last ~60 or so years that have made everything escalate to the point where we have the invasion of female spaces in this way? Why has transgenderism exploded?
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Feminism is the movement to liberate women from patriarchy. We stand up for the rights of women to control our own bodies as individuals and to control women-only spaces as a class.
Women are adult human females. We do not believe that men can become women by 'feeling' like women or 'identifying' as women. We condemn the erasure of females and female-only spaces, the silencing of critical thinking, the cancelling of feminists and critics, the denial of biological reality and of sex-based oppression. We oppose the 'cotton ceiling' and the pressure on lesbians to have sex with men. Women are oppressed to exploit their biological sex characteristics, and women have a right to a movement that is about their own liberation from that oppression. We resist the redefinition of both "women" and "feminism" to make them serve men.
"Women do not decide at some point in adulthood that they would like other people to understand them to be women, because being a woman is not an ‘identity.’ Women’s experience does not resemble that of men who adopt the ‘gender identity’ of being female or being women in any respect. The idea of ‘gender identity’ disappears biology and all the experiences that those with female biology have of being reared in a caste system based on sex." –Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts
"The key thing to understand about trans rights activism is that, unlike gay rights activism, it is not just a movement seeking to ensure that trans people are not discriminated against. It is, rather, a movement committed to a fundamental reconceptualization of the very idea of what makes someone a man or a woman. In theory, this equally affects both men and women, but in practice, almost all the social pressure is coming from trans women towards the idea of ‘woman’ and the rights of women." –Jane Clare Jones
It suits many people.
It's a capitalist wet dream - being trans cost a lot of money over many years. This industry is worth trillions of dollars. Cross sex hormones and health issues caused by them lead to a lifelong dependency on medication. There's also plastic surgeries, and these SRS seem to always have complications and need follow up surgeries. Also the most basic consumerism in the shape of clothes, make up and other products.
It's a pedo paradise - queer ideology aims to erase all boundaries so predators (pedo or not) gain access to their targets. It removes safeguarding of children and women. Minors who take cross sex hormones and/or puberty blockers may have their brain and emotional development crippled, which means they'll become adults with the brain of a child, making them more vulnerable to predators.
It's the Mengelean/Frankensteinean doctors' heaven - it gives them the opportunity to make medical experiment on willing people.
It's the power-hungry men's perfect scenario - it's keeping people distracted and divided while they continue their dick measuring contest between them (it's how I describe politics), and keep popular uprise at bay.
It's the misogynists' triumph - fucking women over is what they live for.
Edit to add more things:
Why now? I think a lot of the other answers cover a lot of the elements that facilitated the spread (internet and all). This is not new at all. Someone more knowledgeable may elaborate better, but feminists are fighting against it for decades. Pedos also have been trying to group themselves with the LGB at least since the 80s as well, something that the LGB community has also been fighting against since then, and now they are infiltrating via TQ+.
What I can say is that the past couple of decades both the feminist and LGB causes have advanced, and the TQ+ crowd managed to tag along and replace the conversation for their own agenda. I believe, however, it's thriving so much due to the rise in interest for socialist ideals among millennials and gen Z. They have completely captured the left and are destroying it from within, which is another incentive for powerful people - the ones who control politics, media, and tech - to push this ideology. There's nothing leftist in this. Like I pointed out at the beginning, this is the capitalist wet dream. Also, they can shut any conversation with talks about "inclusivity", they can make the left look ridiculous, and when this whole things falls apart (I believe we'll see lots of lawsuits and regret within the next decade), it will strengthen the religious conservatives.
Only thing that's missing from your list is that it fills a moral void and lack of group identity, once held by religion. It also gives people the opportunity to 'cheat' their way into being on the 'right side of history' this time, as opposed to racism towards immigrants, slavery, and anti LGB before gay marriage was legalized. People are desperate to belong to something and be right, looking for something that places them above the average person on a moral & intellectual level.
Actually, it being a capitalist wet dream raises an interesting question - what about nominally communist countries? (I am not sure there is any such country that is not a totalitarian state in practice, but ...)
You would expect to see more resistance against it there.
I don't know how the gender woo is happening in any so-called communist states. You don't hear much about it. What I can tell you, is that aside from maybe Cuba, I wouldn't call any other country "communist". China absolutely operates as a capitalist state, already controlling a huge chunk of global economy. Venezuela has a socialist leaning government, but corporations still control production over there, as far as I know. I have too little information about North Korea to make a statement whether they are as communists as they claim to be. It is important to make this distinction, though. Communism is not the same as totalitarian state. On the contrary, in communism the means of production would be controlled by the people, not the state, like it happens in Cuba. The state should merely manage it.
I'm not sure if I can make an accurate guess on how the gender woo would fit in an actual communist society, but I'd speculate it wouldn't thrive. Gender woo is a very individualistic and narcissistic ideology. For communism to work out, it requires cooperation and people working together, and I don't think any of these people are capable of it. Also if you remove the incentive of profit, and remove the ability of rich people to buy their way out of legal trouble, I think the chances of this spreading there is much lower. Your garden variety AGP would probably still exist, but with fewer resources to buy a new body, and less willingness of people to allow them to get their way. Just a guess, though.
On a side note, I don't think any communist or communist-like society is possible while men are in power. Men can't handle power.
Yeah, Marxists tend to be very against gender-woo.
One statement I recall was "Being influences thought" (my own, probably bad translation from German). So ... while genderists believe that your thoughts define your physical body, communism believes the exact opposite. It doesn't mesh well.
And I agree, communism doesn't work with men in power. That's likely the reason why it always failed. I like the idea of communism, but it never seems to work in practice ... (I think Marx himself noted that women were the original oppressed class, on whose oppression all other oppressions are built. So, not exactly surprising any attempts at introducing communism without getting rid of patriarchy first failed.)
Yeah. Material reality. It's the thing communist theory is based on, and it's the thing that negates the gender woo.
I strongly believe that the main reason why communism attempt keeps failing is men. The Soviet revolution started by women, then men took power and ruined it all. Stalin was a piece of shit who murdered thousands of people just because he could. I never trust anyone who calls themselves Stalinist. There are other factors, as well. Like Cuba is under US sanctions, and every leftist government is constantly having to deal with coup attempts by, of course, the US. I think communism can only thrive if 1) is led by women and 2) it happens simultaneously in all main countries, so we stop trying to fuck with each other.