45
Conversation with a “soft” TRA doesn’t go as he planned
The dude asks “how would you feel if everyone around you started treating you like a man?”
“I would get more respect automatically, so that would be great. I wouldn’t be sexually assaulted as much…”
“No, I mean if everyone saw you as a man…”
“I could get away with almost always dressing in a T-shirt and jeans and not worry about hair or makeup ever.”
“What if you kept being called by the wrong name?”
“My name is often mistaken for the masculine version, and I never flipped out about it. Even as a child. I moved around a lot as a child. There was always one or two kids in a classroom while I was growing up who would have absolute meltdowns if a substitute teacher messed their names up. Even in my adult life, I have just let other people use the wrong name if it doesn’t affect me in any practical sense. Starbucks calling me a heinous misspelling is just fine by me.”
“So you only care how people treat you, not how they think of you.”
“I guess so? Yeah. I care about how the people close to me think of me. I get some social anxiety, but it’s more about crowds and uncertainty and myself making a mistake with new people.”
“I think trans people feel that sort of anxiety as being perceived as the wrong gender.”
“I know of at least 4 people that have been friends or adjacent to my friend group who have “transitioned.” 2 of them have detransitioned. One young woman said things like she felt wrong in her body and had traditionally masculine interests; therefore, she thought she must truly be trans. I think there are a lot of ways to come to that conclusion.”
I brought up medicalization of gender-nonconforming youth and Tavistock. I brought up the switch from mostly young boys “transitioning” to mostly teen girls “transitioning” in recent years.
I brought up the graph, which I thought I originally found from Transgender Trend. I found it on Science.org, but it didn’t have a great legend. (If anyone knows the figure I’m referring to, I’d appreciate a better link than what I found. Google is not very helpful on these topics. I used Bing, but that was only slightly better.)
I think the conversation went surprisingly well. We also talked about sports and preventing “trans girls” from playing. “A boy who thinks he’s a girl can still play with the teammates he’s always played with, even with a ponytail.” I also brought up women’s crisis shelters and how it’s completely inappropriate for men to be there. Introduced the term “autogynephilia” to him…
This dude has never been open to discussing this topic much at all with me. He would shut down if I called a TIM a man… so I hope it’s a sign that the tides are turning more broadly.
Women are the ones who see to it their daughters get clitoridectomies and made sure they had their feet bound in China, and made sure they wore corsets in the West. Mothers have been suppressing daughters' ambitions and talents for centuries. It all comes down to that calculus every woman does early in life. If the odds are too stacked against women, most mothers will counsel a girl to be non-threatening to the dangerous menfolk, to find a "protector" for herself and her children, above all things to survive. It's depressing how many modern American mothers think this way, and a very clear sign of how sexist our country has been and continues to be, especially for very poor women and women from rich families who don't control any money. The relative sweet spot has been the middle class, and that is rapidly vanishing. I hate to say it, but it was only nice so long because middle class men were mostly comfortable and satisfied with their lives. Poverty and wealth both really seem to bring out the exploiter and the shirker in men.
It's a good point. I'm in a 'male dominated' occupation, and have done reasonably well for myself (though when I think about what I've been denied or overlooked for over the course of my career I'm furious). I'm often asked to participate in 'women in X' events, and the last several years have pulled back from it because I'm not sure I can really be enthusiastic about women going into an occupation that has never been good for women and is overall getting worse - I feel like I'm lying to young women if I encourage them to pursue their goals in this field. Your comment is making me stop to think (or at least put a pin in it to stop to think later) how much my current attitude is actually supporting patriarchy.
I’ve started to feel the same way but I support women in my field, but don’t allow myself to be used at those events - because they are usually male led and involve quite a lot of manipulation of women
My mom was definitely in an extremely misogynistic household growing up, whereas my dad grew up with an incredibly strong and norm-breaking mother. I'm guessing that probably makes a difference in their views and what they think is needed.
It's like Stockholm Syndrome.
Religion is a plague upon humanity. It is no mistake that Abrahamic religion declares itself infallible. You cannot argue something that is infallible by default. It is a futile argument not because it cannot be disproved but because there was no logic/evidence in its creation. I like the saying, "you cannot reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into." The amount of suffering and destruction inflicted upon humanity and the earth by religion is beyond measure.
...although the track record of officially atheist societies is far worse still (all of them have been repressive dictatorships that have committed genocide and/or mass political killings).
Can you add citations for that?
Dude she shouldn't have to cite that for you, you can just Google it, it's well known
It is not my job to back up a claim made by another. The burden of proof lies on the beholder.
Sure. I'll assume no citations are needed for the three without them, but I can supply plenty of those if needed.
Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, and Communist Vietnam were genocidal dictatorships. (Some historians identify Nazi Germany, too, as an atheist state, although the Reich wasn't officially atheist.)
North Korea, Hoxha Albania, and Communist Angola may not have been guilty of genocide per se, but both of them (have) committed mass politically motivated killings of their own citizens and, in the cases of Angola and the DPRK, enriched themselves at the cost of keeping the bulk of their populations teetering on the brink of starvation.
I believe that's the entire historical record of officially atheist societies.
Of course, Christians nowadays are going to want to think of Nazi Germany as 'atheist'. I they weren't Christian, why were they concerned with Jews? That has been a traditional Christian issue. Plenty of Christians went along with the slaughter, regardless of Hitlers religion. He was raised Christian.
There are plenty of atrocities committed by Christians. Christianity was used to kill off who knows how many millions.
What societies would you say were NOT genocidal?
Religious views of Adolf Hitler - from various biographers - noted on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler#:~:text=Historiography,-Hitler with Vatican&text=Alan Bullock wrote that Hitler,be rational and moral grounds.
Specifically mentioning atheism (in the wiki article): "Hitler feared the collapse of the pact with churches, leading to conversion to atheism, which he equates to "the state of the animal": "I'm convinced that any pact with the Church can offer only a provisional benefit, for sooner or later the scientific spirit will disclose the harmful character of such a compromise. Thus the State will have based its existence on a foundation that one day will collapse. An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature and bows before the unknowable. An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal) as soon as he perceives that the State, in sheer opportunism, is making use of false ideas in the matter of religion, whilst in other fields it bases everything on pure science. That's why I've always kept the Party aloof from religious questions."[72]
According to Table Talk, Hitler believed that Jesus' true Christian teachings had been corrupted by the apostle St Paul, who had transformed them into a kind of Jewish Bolshevism, which Hitler believed preached "the equality of all men amongst themselves, and their obedience to an only god. This is what caused the death of the Roman Empire."[73][74]
(The atheists that I know are the more educated, in science, etc., not less. And while feeling connected and even in awe of nature - don't bow "before the unknowable").
Why a whole post about the one entry in the list that "some historians count" as atheist, but that I don't?
I they weren't Christian, why were they concerned with Jews?
Not following this argument. By this logic, are Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRGC Christians, too?
What societies would you say were NOT genocidal?
Most modern western societies have clean hands here—you'd have to go back to predecessor societies that would be almost unrecognizable from a modern vantage point. In some cases (e.g. the Nordic countries, France, the Baltic countries) you'd have to go back more than 200 years.
And notably, several countries whose people have been victims of genocide have no such history at all: e.g. Armenia, Poland, and, yes, Israel.
The thing that's so WHOA about the list of officially atheist, mostly (nominally) Communist, countries in my post is that their mass atrocities have all happened in the modern era—since the development of the notions of "human rights" and, indeed, "genocide" itself, neither of which appeared anywhere in international law or diplomacy until 1948.
The atheists that I know are the more educated, in science, etc., not less.
But atheists are no less likely to seek out some other metaphysical faith, to take the place of traditional religion. Look no further than the fundamentalist fervor with which atheists and [selective] 'skeptics'—with a couple of notable exceptions, most prominently 'cultural Christian' Richard Dawkins—have plunged headlong into transgenderism, which is absolutely a religious faith.
Excellent example of why I always say religion is no friend to women. It's bad enough when men use it to oppress us but it's insidious that it grooms women to do it to themselves. It's evil.
Lost in this entire discussion is a woman who is obvious very much in pain because of her son has been infected by the trans mind virus.
OP, from my reading of your post, your mom's issue isn't religion or patriarchy. She's very hurt and she's crying out for help. People say stupid things when they're wounded to protect themselves. Your TIM brother is obviously not going to be the solution here. But maybe you and your dad haven't noticed how much your mom is crying out for help and support either. May I suggest you put aside all the religious/societal/political grievances for now and take another look how you can give your mom the comfort and support she needs? I think she needs you now more than ever.
I don't know all the details of your family situation, but I'll take a stab at offering some suggestions and you can adjust accordingly.
Try to open discussion with her about your brother. Give her an ear for a cathartic outpour of how she feels about the whole mess. Do your best to just listen. It's not about what's right or what's wrong. Your mom needs to be heard. She's a cup filled to the brim with pain and anger. Until she can pour it all out, she has no room for you to fill it with anything else.
When she's ready to hear some senses, you can start offering her some antidote. If she's diving into religion as a way of escape, then she's not in the right mental state to really BE a follower of God either. She's looking for whatever she can grab to take her pain away. Maybe the crazy concept that God created patriarchy is her cry to say how she wants your TIM brother to be a man that he is, and what he's doing is not right and not as it should be. Maybe it's her subconscious way of punishing your brother in her mind, to make him now the "lesser sex". Hell, maybe it's even her way to be mad at God (like in a passive aggressive sense) that God made the patriarchy, and if patriarchy didn't exist, your TIM brother wouldn't have a female gender to wrap himself in.
Whatever is her mental state, right now, debating logic with her won't change her mind. She can't think clearly so you need to meet her where she is. Here are some sources to counter her misguided idea. Tell her God did not create a "patriarchy" because Genesis 1:27 clearly says God created both man and woman in his own image, so both are equal. Affirm to her that "male and female he made them" may help too, because what your mom needs now is not a logical discussion, but someone who agrees with her.
Here's a Methodist pastor's sermon series. Tell her to watch the one about Mary Magdalene. The pastor went at length to explain how Jesus valued women as much as men, and he elevated his female disciples higher than the male disciples, and he entrusted women first, not men, with his most important revelations: https://resurrection.church/series/the-people-jesus-loved/
And if that's not convincing enough, here's a popular Catholic priest reading the Bible. Tell her to go to the 20 minute mark where he emphasized that men and women are equal, that no one has dominion over anyone else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXRlsHSDHRo
But all of these is just to help your mom get over a hurdle. The real issue here is her mental health. Now is not the time to pick arguments with her about societal woes. She needs you (and your father) now more than you realize. She needs someone to be on her side and to make her feel she's correct and not alone. Where is she going to church? Maybe find out and see if someone at her church can help her through this? You don't have to accept her religion or agree with it yourself. But it'd be better if she can get support from ministry that will steer her onto a mentally healthier path without veering off to the extremes. Because from the way it sounds, she's not so much seeking spiritual fulfillment than her own justifications.
I'm so sorry and angry this fucked up trans ideology has caused so much unnecessary pain to so many families including yours. Hope you'll all heal from this.
Decades ago I was in an organisational behaviour seminar and the (male) facilitator was talking about some kind of sexist thing, and an older woman asked him something about it, and he said 'yes, this is called the patriarchy, it's a way to systematically oppress women' and she just looked at him outraged, and said 'well who the hell thought of that, some MAN?'
Just ask your mom if she wants to share your dad with a few more (younger, fertile) women. That's how the biblical patriarchy worked, after all. So it should be fine, right?
He created the plague too. Not putting up with that either.
I just don't understand how she can sit there and say that she, and in the same manner myself, are intended to be ruled by men by a god's will.
My mom is the same way. I don't think they're thinking about other women, or their daughters, when they say this type of shit. They're just so deep in the "this is what God said, this is what God wants, I don't want to be wrong, so it must be right." And it just... stops there. There's no critical thinking, no questioning, no outrage. Just "mm yes I must submit to my husband and my lord savior Jesus Christ and be a good wife."
It's incredibly frustrating, and there's no gentle amount of coaxing or reasoning for this because anything that Goes Against The Word Of God is Blasphemy.
These are the same people who argue that God intended to give aids to babies in Africa because of gay sin or some shit like that. There's just literally no thought involved. "If God said it, it must be true," and pointing out to them that their precious Word of God has been modified by the hand of men several times throughout the millennia always gets handwaved away as God intended it, God was writing through them, God this, God that, God everything. There is nothing that can get through to these people once they've swallowed the whole "God is the one true God and his word is gospel" lie. Everyfuckingthing ties back to God for them, and can be explained away either as God answered, or he did not.
The mental partitioning and cognitive dissonance for this is crazy to watch. They can be completely logical and reasonable in everything else but bring out the G word and all ability to think goes to shit. Because they might burn in hell.
I hate religion with a passion but I loathe Christianity the most. Second to Islam.
I know she started deep diving into religion due to my TIM brother's insane spiral and trying to find meaning in religion
So she wasn't into Christianity before this?
Has she tried telling your TIM brother all the things she believes about herself as a woman now applies to him, too, or...? Somehow I don't think so.
I'm sorry this is happening.
My mom practiced before my TIM brother became a hot mess, but it was more of a "go to church a couple times a month and volunteer" sort of thing. Now she's doing a deep dive, is in a really weird IMO cult-like church, and believes that it's demons that have possessed my brother to make him the way he is. I guess it's a coping solution? My dad and I agree that he's that way because of drugs, porn, and BPD but my mom seems to have dug in her heels in the religious demon bullshit.
We don't actually know where my brother is right now honestly, my mom is convinced he's dead but my dad and I think he's just hiding from debt and collection agencies.
I'm very sorry to hear the distress your family has gone through from your brother becoming trans-identified, and that your mom has turned heavily to religion as a way to cope.
Not sure if it helps, but again - because my own parents are very devout conservative Christians too - when they found out I was attracted to women they just refused to listen to anything, and immediately jumped on "it's because of the devil, it's the devil's work, the devil is causing her to sin, but my original pure daughter is still somewhere in there, she just needs to turn to Christ and repent and all will be okay again". They had this mentality 20 years ago and still have it now. They just... can't cope with reality. Blaming the devil is the easier solution because it allows them to believe this is truly out of their hands (it is, not their choice how I want to live my life or what my sexuality is) and that It's All Part of God's Plan (it isn't. I'm just fucking WLW).
Sometimes there's just... nothing to do for it. They are self-soothing in the only ways they know how to make life easier to live through for themselves. Challenging them on this is more painful because neither side will budge.
I'm sorry for the distress. I hope your mom, and your family, and your brother find peace with themselves.
And it just... stops there. There's no critical thinking, no questioning,
You've described most people I've ever met, sadly. And irritatingly.
There's just literally no thought involved.
Exactly.
One of my mother's arguments was that since people had believed in God / Christianity for nearly 2000 years - it must be true.
Of course, the more you know about people who were killed for not 'believing', etc., the less that holds up. A lot of people never hear much about that.
How does this make sense? ‘God’ also created fascism and/or every political movement that she disagrees with
I am glad your dad has a brain!
I don't agree with her, and it sounds like it's just based on religion, but I am going to make up some shit here to try to understand your mom. Perhaps she has an underlying view that legal marriage protects women? In the event of divorce, women may get assets or child support. Blah blah.
I think it honestly was that she just did an extreme deep dive into religion post TIM brother going completely insane as a way to cope, and she's just digging in deeper and deeper despite how ridiculous it is. It's just frustrating and sad to see her falling deeper and deeper when it's not sane and has extreme logic flaws and she's usually been a pretty progressive person otherwise.
At one point in my life, over 10 years ago I think, I gave a talk to my church small group about how the bible commands wives to submit to their husbands, and women to submit to men generally, and tough shit if they didn't like it. I basically told them that if they didn't like it, they'd have to take it up with the doctrines around biblical inerrancy. If they didn't like those particular verses, which other ones could they just throw out as a matter of personal convenience? Could "Thou shalt not murder" be just as unreliable in its transmission as a commandment of the male deity as "wives submit to your husbands as to Christ"?
I'm sure many people would like to speculate all sorts of horrible things about me as to why I would give such a talk, but I can tell you that it was mostly fear. I was raised where practically every day and multiple times per day I would be reminded that the fate of the unbelieving/unrepentant is eternal conscious torment. Hell terrified the living shit out of me, and I would lay awake at night trying to scrutinize my every action to make sure I had acknowledged and repented of all my sins. I was taught that women who did not submit would be cast into hell. I didn't want my fellow church small group women going to hell.
Of note—The original Koine Greek word choices that have been rendered in English as "submit"/"submission" actually referred to a less hierarchical, and more reciprocal, form of deference/respect.
Religion is a joke. Man made god in his image to have fables and scare tactics to control women with. "God says so therefore it must be so" mighty convenient that nobody can go and ask god what he actually thinks.
The "Appeal to Authority" logical fallacy is still one of the most powerful forces in American culture. God is the ultimate Authority figure so can always be appealed to to shut down debate, that's probably why God was made-up to begin with!
More like, men created God, so of course "God's plans" are patriarchal & in line with men's interests, at all times.