I'm not sure if there's something in the water, but for the past few months, there’s been a spate of highly-intellectual men making highly questionable claims about womanhood. We’ve seen Neil DeGrasse Tyson, world-famous science communicator, explaining what an individual would do if they woke up feeling “80% female and 20% male” (put on makeup, obviously), well-known psychotherapist, Scott Alexander, comparing the impulse to defend women’s rights to drug addiction, talk-show powerhouse, Jon Stewart, drawing an equivalence between children with paediatric cancer and children confused about their gender identity, and noted mathematician, Eric Weinstein, citing his belief that there are male brains in female bodies (shortly before admitting that he doesn't understand this stuff).
Excellent summary of this misogynistic shit-show. Thank you a hundred times for your meaningful support of women and our ongoing fight not to be defined by men.
This reminded me of two cases where activists try so hard to prove their point that they throw their own definitions out the window, and expose the flaws in their reasoning.
Back in 2022 a local publication, in an attempt to prove that trans people have Always Been With Us, profiled some woman from the 19th century who disguised herself as a man so she could get a good job and marry the woman she loved. It was perfectly clear from the context that this was nothing more than a disguise, intended to fool people into believing she was a man, but she was nevertheless hailed as a trans hero.
Another example is when people are called "transphobic" if they object to drag performances for children.
I've seen references to the concept of the "trans umbrella" that includes drag queens/kings, transvestites, cross-dressers, etc. I think that's an attempt to make the trans community seem more robust but instead it dilutes it all to meaninglessness.
By removing both -vestite and -sexual, the size of the group (and, more to the point, the activists' audiences) is artificially enlarged.
Everything to do with "trans" is about getting attention. The identity part is nothing but a pretext for outrage, which itself is just another way to get attention.
Transvestites are men who enjoy dressing as women. I knew dozens of them in Norfolk when I came out, I never met one who claimed to 𝑏𝑒 a woman. To have transubstantiated into being female by putting on a dress.
A few months ago I regarded these shows as harmless, men caricaturing women so gaudily that it was akin to a circus act, but some of the arguments I've read since have changed my mind.
I think the main issue here is the luxury of viewing these questions as abstractions.
As Dillahunty says, you could do away with gender altogether in bathrooms as far as he's concerned. Because he's *not* concerned. He doesn't have to worry about being raped or assaulted or simply made to feel afraid in a bathroom or a changing room or prison.
He doesn't have to experience the unfairness and frustration of female athletes being beaten mediocre male athlete because of obviously unfair physical advantages.
He doesn't experience the familiar male pattern of abuse that women receive from trans activists.
So why not treat the whole issue as nothing more than a thought experiment? Why not take the opportunity to be a little contrarian and show off how "smart" you are? Why not dismiss the rapes and harassment you're never going to have to face as exceptions? As I've said before, it's astonishing to me how many of the men speaking on this issue have given absolutely no thought to how men's and women's experiences of the world differ.
Also, his partner is trans, so there's never going to be anything approaching rationale on this issue. I have a pet theory that an enormous amount of this ideology is based on internalised homophobia. Both from the (almost always gay) men and women who feel like ti\s better to be trans and "straight" than "cis" and lesbian or gay, and also from the men who don't want to admit that having sex with another male, even if he has long hair and wear makeup, is homosexual sex.
Interestingly enough, one of the many levers that society needs to pull to sort out this mess is to fight homophobia.
I suspect that homophobia is often a fear in the mind of the homophobe that they might have homosexual tendencies and that is how they fight or deny it.
I decided to go look at "trans porn" on a porn site to see it was about. I didn't look at enough to have a statistically relevant opinion but what I saw was revealing. In the "lady boy" category the man man performed felatio on the trans before they assumed the advertised roles. The homosexual aspect was in your face, or his face. Something to appeal to a gay man in denial?
The trans man was bearded and harrier than me. It featured a woman performing close up cunalingus on what could not be confused with a penis. Is that supposed to appeal to a lesbian in denial?
I mention all that because the superficial gender bending was overwhelmingly disrupted by closeup unambiguous homo sex. That seemed purposeful and I would guess the people making that porn know their audience. Gay and lesbian porn where getting turned on by it can be justified by, the dude looks like a pretty woman, etc.
If a sizable portion of homophobia is indeed a fear of ones own suppressed sexual attraction, how can that be fought against or extinguished?
"If a sizable portion of homophobia is indeed a fear of ones own suppressed sexual attraction, how can that be fought against or extinguished?"
Again, I think by decreasing homophobia.
The elephant in the room regarding gender ideology is that they kind of have a point. There's a great deal of stigma, certainly with young men, when it comes to behaving in effeminate ways. And effeminate behaviour in boys often lines up with homosexuality.
If you spend your formative years being bulled and beaten up for not being manly enough, and you also happen to be gay, is it so crazy to think transitioning is your best option? (Especially in today's world where it's #stunningandbrave to do so.) There are Reddit forums full of young boys asking this exact question.
If you're a male interested in performing fellatio, you're not heterosexual. Five cultural minutes ago, this was uncontroversial. But some men are incredibly threatened by that. And this has given them an "out." I'd actually be super interested to know how common this is. I mean, look at the sex industry in Thailand just for starters.
"And effeminate behaviour in boys often lines up with homosexuality."
The majority of the most effeminate men I've ever seen outside gay clubs in the late 70s were heterosexual. The effeminate gay man is a dying stereotype and is largely supplanted now by the hyper-masculine gay man, at the gym five days a week (me) and sporting a beard (I'd die first).
When I was in college and realized I was gay I began going to a gym for the first time in my life, not to be buff but out of fear of attack. In reality, it's never happened. Any time someone was stalking in my direction to "kick ass" he'd get a look at my biceps and pecs and change his mind.
But it was never because I'm gay, which I do not project, it was usually because I yelled at his idiot girlfriend in a convenience store to move her fucking car from blocking both gas pumps.
I have a hard time thinking of "trans" and all its tiresome variants as sexual. A lot of them are eunuchs, psychologically or somatically or both, and it seems like all of them are too attracted to themselves to ever have any desire for anyone else. For all their concern with third-person pronouns, it's the first person that is ever at the front of mind.
When I was a young Jarhead stationed in San Diego, several of us were out and about in town and saw a gym. Fitness freaks, we went in to check it out. There the myth of gay men all being fems died.
It's been years since I was in Bangkok but at that time you found women women on patpong or soi cowboy. The transvesties were down sukumvit where we got off the bus to catch a took took to visit family. Nobody is being deceived, the sex shoppers knew where to go to get what they were looking for. It appears to be a booming business.
My family and I were on a tour bus that went down thru patpong. It was soul crushing. The girls outside the bars as advertisement looked so drugged that I wondered if they remembered their own names. Truly a horrific sight. The "ladies" outside the trans bars appeared to be sober and other than being obvious prostitutes they were not as dreadful a sight. That just might be me as a father of Thai girls who saw that.
"Nobody is being deceived, the sex shoppers knew where to go to get what they were looking for. It appears to be a booming business."
Oh yeah, I think the guys know exactly what they're getting. That's the point. Last time I was there, in 2018, the ladyboy bars were always full to bursting with men. I'm betting they wouldn't call themselves gay, but we all know what they were there for.
Homosexuality is a complete non-issue in my social circles, and I think that makes it easy to forget how incredibly stigmatised it still is in some places. Heck, a few years ago, I read a story about men who meet up with other men to have sex once or twice a week and still insist they're straight.
And yeah, prostitution is always pretty depressing as far as I'm concerned. Though I agree, it can hit new lows in Thailand. The age of some of those girls too...
True story: in one experiment, chimpanzees were introduced to the concept of money. They would earn tokens for certain tasks and could use them to buy treats. They liked it, and it motivated them.
You know where this is going, and you're right. One of the females started turning tricks.
Lay your suspicions to rest and accept it as established fact. It's happened so many times, strident antigay activists caught looking for sex on craigslist, dying of AIDS. Pupilometric dilation at images of gay porn.
Even without the preponderant evidence, I mean, think about it. Heterosexual men want to have sex with women and should be focused on getting women into the sack, not obsessing over what gay men are doing in bed.
Yet another of those important questions which are probably unanswerable.
I don't think it's a binary condition, tho. I think there is a spectrum of partial belief, or sorta belief - due to cognitive dissonance among other reasons. If you advocate some ideas for long enough, most people will "sorta" come to believe them, even if they were initially just playing along. We don't like to think of ourselves as deceitful or cowards.
Never underestimate the coercive power of conformity.
Schools all over the world are indoctrinating children with gender ideology; they will grow up believing it as scientific fact and pass their certainty to their own children, as the world fills with eunuchs.
It can be very difficult to hold an opinion contrary to the majority's, especially in a chanting crowd. I've had a lot of practice.
Hi, Steve. I had to take a time out from my inbox for illness and surgery. This was one of your articles that I saved to read when I was feeling better. It's good I did.
Your final quote is priceless: "Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them." Clearly Orwell didn't consider himself an intellectual.
I am 100% female and 100% person. It is the "person" part that the "old type of man" is still not getting. My brain is not "male". I ensured it has had the exposure to a vast range of ideas, concepts, and beliefs that many male brains get exposed to -- if the men housing them so choose. Regrettably, too many men still don't.
Thanks for shining your spotlight on these "old type" men. We among the "new type of woman" will keep trying to guide them to more open-minded attitudes, and we thank you for setting such a good example.
I have lost a lot of respect for NdT. He was fine as an astronomy popularizer, but since his sex scandal he seems to be strongly hewing to the CSJ lines and giving their arguments an unearned patina of respect.
I recently saw a cartoon with a bunch of zombies surrounding a house with only one person inside, with the text saying that it was NdT so there would be plenty of brain for everybody. That's his public image - a massively intelligent guy, who understands things at a level we mortal cannot. So now he's throwing that, um, popular credibility, on the side of some very unscientific ideologies.
I honestly have no idea why he's so widely viewed as hyper-intelligent. Maybe because he's an astrophysicist and there's a strong "maths/physics knowledge = all-round genius" mindset among non maths/physics types?
But listening to him talk about pretty much any topic, especially when it's off the cuff and not related to his specific field, is excruciating. I'm not sure there's anybody alive more unjustifiably impressed with themselves.
Speaking of someone undervedly viewed as smart, I endured the Musk/Carlson interview a few months ago, and while Carlson is a yapping moron, I was not impressed with Musk at all. It was easy to take his measure; his thoughts were poorly sequenced, he rambled and groped for words, it was, classically, the kid doing a report on a book he hadn't read.
It was only in finance that he was at all linear. The guy is no genius.
Tyson doesn't strike me as much of an astrophysicist. I haven't read his papers but there have been so many like Feynman who could explain a topic in lay terms and make it illuminating, Tyson completely lacks that. And Feynman was by all accounts a humble man.
Induced narcissism. His success as a popularizer fed his ego, which whispered to him, "Neil, people say you are a genius. That means you are an expert in... well, (blush), just about anything you put your hand to. Go forth, Neil, and illuminate the world". That generally doesn't end up anyplace good.
I hear you. Whenever I hear him talk about subjects outside of his field in physics. Like climate change, he goes on like he is an expert, but just by what he is saying you can see the lack of knowledge, yet he just goes on and on.
I am happy to see you getting angry about this. It's overdue.
It's disheartening that clarity like logic and scientific literacy mean so little to most people. It's frightening that so people educated and intelligent people still believe that
* "gender dysphoria" has strict diagnostic criteria. It doesn't. An impromptu declaration of self-identity is all it takes
* gender transition "therapy" requires a year living as the opposite sex. That has not been true since the replacement of gender identity disorder with "gender dysphoria" in 2013.
* a newborn's sex is "assigned" by something like a coin toss, while the child's true sex awaits a decision made while the brain is immature enough to believe in Santa Claus.
"I am happy to see you getting angry about this. It's overdue."
Not sure why you think I'm "overdue" in getting angry about an issue that I've been writing and talking about for around three years now. I am angry. I'm just not going to be indiscriminate about who that anger is directed at.
There are lots of people out there who are happy to condemn an entire group for the actions of its worst members. I'd have thought, after all these years, it would be obvious I'm not one of them.
I *get* why men outside the transnuts support this; on some level, many men want to 'help out a bro' in supporting a sexual fetish he himself probably doesn't share; because who knows what those feminazis will come after next??? What if they go after porn and prostitution? Droning on about sex trafficking, which NEVER happens? What I don't understand is why *women* go along with this, although someone in my comments section this weekend came up with a damned good theory: That this is another way for bad actors to prey upon women (and I would add, children) sexually. They create the woke cognitive confusion that what they do isn't sex ("gender dysphoria"), that the less woke groomed a woman is, the less cognitive confusion she has, and the more instantaneous the recognition of unwanted sex is, and that they groom adults to accept the fictional trans children is non-sexual in nature when it is frankly so.
I wrote an article a few months ago arguing that 'trans grooming' also includes the grooming of adults to accept, eventually, pedophilia, I talked about 'MAPs', and said I didn't think the woke would offer any barriers when the pedos came to them and said, "If your child is old enough to know what they are [gender-wise], they're old enough to know who they want to have sex with and your child says they want to have sex with me. Children know what's best for them, as you're fond of saying. Butt out!"
I really do believe this is where it's going, because the woke have been grooming themselves with its 'inclusivity' obsession and desire to be sexually open - you know, not like those sourpussed tight-crotched conservatives! The trans groomers are taking advantage of woke uncritical thinking and sowing the cognitive confusion noted by my commenter (who I've asked to turn it into a guest post for my GSL).
Two of the greatest psychological weaknesses in the female brain are the desire to be 'nice' and to be liked. This is why you find so many women on the liberal end of the spectrum, and where the lowest numbers for mental health lie, especially with young liberal, progressive women.
And this--Two of the greatest psychological weaknesses in the female brain are the desire to be 'nice' and to be liked--shows you, incontrovertibly, that these nasty men are most definitely NOT women. Because they clearly don't care if they are liked, and they are definitely not "nice". "Nice" people don't threated J.K. Rowling with lynching. "Nice" people don't call for the beheading of lesbians.
'Nice' women also pretty much never threaten each other with our genitals. You never hear us get mad and yell, "Well you can just eat my p**sy!" Whenever a man says, "Suck my lady dick!" it's a noob move by an amateur 😁
And, reliable as sunrise, pedophilia is being promoted as just another "gender identity."
Only they call it "minor attracted."
Every limitation is oppression, right? We won't talk about ripped vaginas, ripped rectums, or broken minds, because inhibiting people from "being who they really are" is an intolerable injustice.
And the doctors who sew them back together can meet every morning in the conference room over coffee and 𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 at each other for the benefit they do promoting 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦.
"I think the main issue here is the luxury of viewing these...."
And there you have it, the crux of where we are today. If you burn all of this down to brass tacks, I think you'll find that we are living in a time where "luxury beliefs", to coin the phrase from Rob Henderson, have taken ahold of society, and we're seeing it's destructive consequences. Luxury beliefs are defined as the beliefs that privileged members of society hold that exact little to no consequence in their lives, but create huge problems for the non elite and lower classes. When I say elite, I mean intellectual, monied, and tech.
"Trans women are women" could put the female population in danger from potential "bad actors" in female spaces. What about doctors visits and medical industry redefining its meaning of "woman"? What about the danger that puts lesbians in and the push to medicalize them because "they're just trans men at heart"? The women that rely on sports to get ahead in life: through scholarships, potential endorsements, coaching gigs...that could all be upended.
"Abolish the police" already does put folks in danger. We have some American cities that are in states of horrible crime. And if there are less funds going into law enforcement, don't you think that the criminals are just loving that?
"The nuclear family is so outdated" this one is a beauty. Two parents in the household is a greater predictor of success for their children almost over anything else. Even a poor but intact family has a better chance than a family in upheaval with more money.
"Marriage is an outdated vestige of the patriarchy" It's amazing this gets thrown around when levels of loneliness are spiking, for both men and women.
But it's not all progressive voices. Throughout the years, conservatives have set out to, and in many ways succeeded, to destroy unions. In South Carolina, Nikki Haley's backyard, they have the lowest number of union members in the whole country. Just about all of the southern states have dismal union membership. Republicans have done an absolutely fabulous job at getting poor and working class whites to bet and vote against their best interests. All for money...
The interesting thing about the examples I gave, and there are more, is that the elites themselves would NEVER apply any of these beliefs to their own lives, no way! Most of them don't need the sport scholarships, they live in bubbles that shield them from having their spaces disrupted and endangered by those that are not invited, many of them come from nuclear families and have every desire to continue that tradition, they are actively looking for spouses, and they live in great areas where the police are at their beck and call, not to mention houses with great security.
And the tech bros have no problem pushing digital devices on us, but severely limit them when it comes to their own children. And conservatives continue to bust unions, one of the greatest pathways to middle class. But they're fine, they usually have enough money to keep them floating lovely...
Elites are not showing off their luxury goods so much anymore, that's just gouache, but instead are showing off their luxury beliefs. And who pays dearly?
“Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them.” 😂😂😂😂 I think Sowell quote this Orwell quote in "Intellectuals and Society." It's a good one.
You're in top form here, with a great pull-out quote:
"After all, the only men we need to worry about when women say, “Please stay out of our spaces,” are the ones who reply, “How are you going to stop me?”
The only aspect of this "debate" that is new, is that it takes place at all. The notion of gender identity didn't suddenly appear in 20th C America, and it didn't appear merely among "effete intellectuals." It's been around since complex human societies formed.
I don't know why you went on this bender of antagonism toward transgender people - but really, what exactly is damaged by giving them the freedom to be who they want to be? How is your life impinged?
As for the talking heads - spin up King Crimson's "Elephant Talk" on your music platform of choice and put this issue in perspective.
"what exactly is damaged by giving them the freedom to be who they want to be? How is your life impinged?"
This question has been asked and answered so many times that I can hardly believe I still see it. But just for starters, in the 21st Century incarnation of trans inclusion, women's sports, women's rights to privacy, women's safety, woman specific efforts at inclusion, and the ability to talk about reality accurately.
My life isn't impinged, at least not directly, by the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, the racial injustices in the prison system, or the economic subjugation of various part of the world. I still care about all of these things because, as surprising as it might be for some, I'm perfectly capable of caring about other people.
And yes, I know that the idea of gender identity isn't new. I've pointed this out many times. What's new is the idea that we have to erase the concept of womanhood to accommodate these new identities. Before this ridiculous idea that any man, even a rapist, who says he's a woman literally is one, trans (I should say transsexual) people lived almost completely uncontroversially in western society. Just as, as you say, they have in countless other societies.
Hijra, Muxe, Kathoey, two-spirit, none of these identities supplanted women. They were recognised as third genders that were treated as women or men in some cases and treated as men or women in others. They were able to draw these lines along sensible, real-world lines, just as we did before the current insanity.
I fully support people's right to be who they want to be. As long as a) that doesn't require us all to lie about what they *are*, and b) that that doesn't infringe on anybody else's right to be who and what they are. So if you want to engage with this issue, try actually engaging with it. Assuming people who think differently haven't "looked out the window" is pure laziness.
He doesn't have antagonism towards "transgender people". He has a problem with the men who have taken advantage of a cultural moment to assert themselves into women's spaces without permission and against the wishes of women.
Being more than a merely self-interested jerk, he actually cares about the erasure of women as a recognized human category. For which I am profoundly grateful. Being a woman is something that WOMEN are the foremost authorities on. Not men, and especially not men who think or feel or wish that they had been born with undamaged XX genes.
I totally agree that the world doesn't need nor even want more men mansplaining "womanhood." I am certain that my spouse's definition of "womanhood" is specific to her life experiences, as would be every other woman's. I feel that way about "manhood." The crux of the biscuit for me is that the present kerfluffle is not about "erasing womanhood," it is about redefining womanhood as a cultural norm - just as girls -> boys is redefining the norm of "manhood." What's lost in these strident exchanges is the people who are trying to figure out who they are. It doesn't mean doodly-squat to say "I fully support ..." and then lay down conditions on that support. I now regret having made the initial comment, but hindsight is 20/20.
It made me remember a T-shirt someone gave me as a prank - it shows a guy yelling at a woman, "I make the rules because I have the dick!" Indeed.
A thing that recently occurred to me pertains to female identifying males participating in women's sports. I think it is an effort to normalize the idea that trans-women are women and they are purposefully willing to throw women under the bus to active that goal. It's an effort to change societal norms and thinking.
As a father of daughters who participated in sports, my initial objections was fairness to girls and women. Now I see it as something much larger.
It has been amply demonstrated that a large part of what drives these men is their pleasure in displacing women: they're not willing to throw women under the bus, they're eager to do so. They are practically drooling with pleasure at their success. The vile hatred shown by a sadly deafening but small minority should be of greater concern to the trans community. Because it has turned off people like me, who used to be a vocal supporter of general trans rights. But this issue was the boiling point at which I decided that I won't go along, once again, with putting aside women's issues in order to push the agenda of some other group somehow deemed more deserving of aid and assistance. Especially not a group with so many loud, obnoxious, narcissists as their public face.
Never quite understand the scare stories about Trans people in toilets. As far as I know, as a man, that women's toilets are all private stalls, so it's highly unlikely you'll be exposed to the nuts and bolts. It's not as if women are lining up to squat in front of a urinal.
For many women, the mere fact of a man in a woman’s toilet will be frightening and/or uncomfortable. It’s a private space and men aren’t supposed to be there.
Avoiding this is the entire reason there’s such a thing as a women’s bathroom.
To be clear, the issue here is self ID. Not so much trans people. Lots of trans women already use the women’s bathroom because they look like women. They’ve been doing this, without incident, for decades. It would be ridiculous to tell them (or a bearded-up trans man) that they should use the bathroom of their sex.
But if we accept the idea that any man can declare himself a woman and immediately start using women’s facilities, and that it’s “transphobic” to tell him to get out, that’s an open door for rapists and perverts. A door that several rapists and perverts have already walked through.
These aren’t “scare stories.” They’re the obvious consequences of idiotic policy that fails to acknowledge that women’s and men’s concerns and risks are different.
It always surprises (and more to the point, despairs) me to witness how unaware a man can be of women's reality when it comes to male sexual violence and predation. Unless we know them well enough all men represent a threat - even if just to a small degree women are always vigilant in public spaces. Have you not seen us cross the road at night to avoid a man walking towards us? Walk to our our keys between our fingers because how do you know which man is safe and which isn't? Did MeToo not tell anything about women's lives? Google "Men take videos in women's toilets" and spend a night reading what men are capable of in that space. I cannot believe that in 2024 basic safeguarding our mothers and grandmothers fought for is up for question.
My apologies, Reuben, for perhaps speaking past you in my other replies. I believe you question instead fear of exposure to male bits when they are behind a stall door. I don't care to extend that in dialogue, but you might not feel like my other replies were really in response to yours. I will try to comprehend more quickly next time.
I detest being the one to bring up male advantage as some instead glory in it, but sometimes it is needed. 98-99% of females on this planet (including trained athletes) I can throw into that stall in a moment. I am strong but not at all rare in this ability.
Never mind that I am tall enough to look down over most bathroom stalls and remove all privacy for occupants. Unless the stall walls go to the ceiling, every private view is available to even short criminals from an extended arm and phone camera. This is already a common bullying tactic by girls to other girls at school. This is not lost on boys who, before cell phones, would place a mirror on their foot in order to look up a skirt. Oh right, there are many stalls with floor gaps too. No more illustration is needed.
Please consider that there are many, many reasons for females doing private things or just living (e.g., wearing a skirt) to have fear for their dignity and for their safety.
There are too many things wrong with stalls. I have never seen a stall door that could not easily be kicked in. They are designed to break open instead of destroying the entire structure. Stalls provide almost no safety at all. They provide at most some visual privacy for those not looking to easily defeat it.
Excellent summary of this misogynistic shit-show. Thank you a hundred times for your meaningful support of women and our ongoing fight not to be defined by men.
This reminded me of two cases where activists try so hard to prove their point that they throw their own definitions out the window, and expose the flaws in their reasoning.
Back in 2022 a local publication, in an attempt to prove that trans people have Always Been With Us, profiled some woman from the 19th century who disguised herself as a man so she could get a good job and marry the woman she loved. It was perfectly clear from the context that this was nothing more than a disguise, intended to fool people into believing she was a man, but she was nevertheless hailed as a trans hero.
Another example is when people are called "transphobic" if they object to drag performances for children.
“Another example is when people are called "transphobic" if they object to drag performances for children.”
This, especially, is so weird to me. Drag queens are literally men in dresses. That’s what they describe themselves as.
To argue that objecting to these men cavorting in front of children is “transphobic” is…interesting.
I've seen references to the concept of the "trans umbrella" that includes drag queens/kings, transvestites, cross-dressers, etc. I think that's an attempt to make the trans community seem more robust but instead it dilutes it all to meaninglessness.
By removing both -vestite and -sexual, the size of the group (and, more to the point, the activists' audiences) is artificially enlarged.
Everything to do with "trans" is about getting attention. The identity part is nothing but a pretext for outrage, which itself is just another way to get attention.
I doubt I could endure an American workplace now.
At some point this will have become so normalized it just won't be exciting any more. Attention will not be paid. And I so look forward to that point.
Exhibit A: https://www.womenarehuman.com/under-transgender-theory-women-and-girls-are-passive-objects-enabling-male-escapism/ You've probably already read this but if not, it makes your point quite well.
Drag is a sexual fetish - which is fine. I'm not here to rain on any adult's consensual kink. But sexual fetishes are NOT for kids. Jeez Louise.
Transvestites are men who enjoy dressing as women. I knew dozens of them in Norfolk when I came out, I never met one who claimed to 𝑏𝑒 a woman. To have transubstantiated into being female by putting on a dress.
A few months ago I regarded these shows as harmless, men caricaturing women so gaudily that it was akin to a circus act, but some of the arguments I've read since have changed my mind.
Great fun - neat and pithy. Will share if I can. Your 'male' brain pleases me!
Do these presumably intelligent people actually believe these absurdities or are they merely pusillanimous and submitting to tribal dictates?
I think the main issue here is the luxury of viewing these questions as abstractions.
As Dillahunty says, you could do away with gender altogether in bathrooms as far as he's concerned. Because he's *not* concerned. He doesn't have to worry about being raped or assaulted or simply made to feel afraid in a bathroom or a changing room or prison.
He doesn't have to experience the unfairness and frustration of female athletes being beaten mediocre male athlete because of obviously unfair physical advantages.
He doesn't experience the familiar male pattern of abuse that women receive from trans activists.
So why not treat the whole issue as nothing more than a thought experiment? Why not take the opportunity to be a little contrarian and show off how "smart" you are? Why not dismiss the rapes and harassment you're never going to have to face as exceptions? As I've said before, it's astonishing to me how many of the men speaking on this issue have given absolutely no thought to how men's and women's experiences of the world differ.
Also, his partner is trans, so there's never going to be anything approaching rationale on this issue. I have a pet theory that an enormous amount of this ideology is based on internalised homophobia. Both from the (almost always gay) men and women who feel like ti\s better to be trans and "straight" than "cis" and lesbian or gay, and also from the men who don't want to admit that having sex with another male, even if he has long hair and wear makeup, is homosexual sex.
Interestingly enough, one of the many levers that society needs to pull to sort out this mess is to fight homophobia.
I suspect that homophobia is often a fear in the mind of the homophobe that they might have homosexual tendencies and that is how they fight or deny it.
I decided to go look at "trans porn" on a porn site to see it was about. I didn't look at enough to have a statistically relevant opinion but what I saw was revealing. In the "lady boy" category the man man performed felatio on the trans before they assumed the advertised roles. The homosexual aspect was in your face, or his face. Something to appeal to a gay man in denial?
The trans man was bearded and harrier than me. It featured a woman performing close up cunalingus on what could not be confused with a penis. Is that supposed to appeal to a lesbian in denial?
I mention all that because the superficial gender bending was overwhelmingly disrupted by closeup unambiguous homo sex. That seemed purposeful and I would guess the people making that porn know their audience. Gay and lesbian porn where getting turned on by it can be justified by, the dude looks like a pretty woman, etc.
If a sizable portion of homophobia is indeed a fear of ones own suppressed sexual attraction, how can that be fought against or extinguished?
"If a sizable portion of homophobia is indeed a fear of ones own suppressed sexual attraction, how can that be fought against or extinguished?"
Again, I think by decreasing homophobia.
The elephant in the room regarding gender ideology is that they kind of have a point. There's a great deal of stigma, certainly with young men, when it comes to behaving in effeminate ways. And effeminate behaviour in boys often lines up with homosexuality.
If you spend your formative years being bulled and beaten up for not being manly enough, and you also happen to be gay, is it so crazy to think transitioning is your best option? (Especially in today's world where it's #stunningandbrave to do so.) There are Reddit forums full of young boys asking this exact question.
If you're a male interested in performing fellatio, you're not heterosexual. Five cultural minutes ago, this was uncontroversial. But some men are incredibly threatened by that. And this has given them an "out." I'd actually be super interested to know how common this is. I mean, look at the sex industry in Thailand just for starters.
"And effeminate behaviour in boys often lines up with homosexuality."
The majority of the most effeminate men I've ever seen outside gay clubs in the late 70s were heterosexual. The effeminate gay man is a dying stereotype and is largely supplanted now by the hyper-masculine gay man, at the gym five days a week (me) and sporting a beard (I'd die first).
When I was in college and realized I was gay I began going to a gym for the first time in my life, not to be buff but out of fear of attack. In reality, it's never happened. Any time someone was stalking in my direction to "kick ass" he'd get a look at my biceps and pecs and change his mind.
But it was never because I'm gay, which I do not project, it was usually because I yelled at his idiot girlfriend in a convenience store to move her fucking car from blocking both gas pumps.
I have a hard time thinking of "trans" and all its tiresome variants as sexual. A lot of them are eunuchs, psychologically or somatically or both, and it seems like all of them are too attracted to themselves to ever have any desire for anyone else. For all their concern with third-person pronouns, it's the first person that is ever at the front of mind.
When I was a young Jarhead stationed in San Diego, several of us were out and about in town and saw a gym. Fitness freaks, we went in to check it out. There the myth of gay men all being fems died.
It's been years since I was in Bangkok but at that time you found women women on patpong or soi cowboy. The transvesties were down sukumvit where we got off the bus to catch a took took to visit family. Nobody is being deceived, the sex shoppers knew where to go to get what they were looking for. It appears to be a booming business.
My family and I were on a tour bus that went down thru patpong. It was soul crushing. The girls outside the bars as advertisement looked so drugged that I wondered if they remembered their own names. Truly a horrific sight. The "ladies" outside the trans bars appeared to be sober and other than being obvious prostitutes they were not as dreadful a sight. That just might be me as a father of Thai girls who saw that.
"Nobody is being deceived, the sex shoppers knew where to go to get what they were looking for. It appears to be a booming business."
Oh yeah, I think the guys know exactly what they're getting. That's the point. Last time I was there, in 2018, the ladyboy bars were always full to bursting with men. I'm betting they wouldn't call themselves gay, but we all know what they were there for.
Homosexuality is a complete non-issue in my social circles, and I think that makes it easy to forget how incredibly stigmatised it still is in some places. Heck, a few years ago, I read a story about men who meet up with other men to have sex once or twice a week and still insist they're straight.
And yeah, prostitution is always pretty depressing as far as I'm concerned. Though I agree, it can hit new lows in Thailand. The age of some of those girls too...
The oldest profession.
True story: in one experiment, chimpanzees were introduced to the concept of money. They would earn tokens for certain tasks and could use them to buy treats. They liked it, and it motivated them.
You know where this is going, and you're right. One of the females started turning tricks.
"𝐼 𝑠𝑢𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑏𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑦 𝑖𝑡."
Lay your suspicions to rest and accept it as established fact. It's happened so many times, strident antigay activists caught looking for sex on craigslist, dying of AIDS. Pupilometric dilation at images of gay porn.
Even without the preponderant evidence, I mean, think about it. Heterosexual men want to have sex with women and should be focused on getting women into the sack, not obsessing over what gay men are doing in bed.
Hi Peaceful Dave, I think your first sentence defines homophobia.
There's ample research in support of the the idea that male homophobes are same-sex attracted and in denial.
Yep.
Yet another of those important questions which are probably unanswerable.
I don't think it's a binary condition, tho. I think there is a spectrum of partial belief, or sorta belief - due to cognitive dissonance among other reasons. If you advocate some ideas for long enough, most people will "sorta" come to believe them, even if they were initially just playing along. We don't like to think of ourselves as deceitful or cowards.
Never underestimate the coercive power of conformity.
Schools all over the world are indoctrinating children with gender ideology; they will grow up believing it as scientific fact and pass their certainty to their own children, as the world fills with eunuchs.
It can be very difficult to hold an opinion contrary to the majority's, especially in a chanting crowd. I've had a lot of practice.
"𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘺."
Indeed!
Hi, Steve. I had to take a time out from my inbox for illness and surgery. This was one of your articles that I saved to read when I was feeling better. It's good I did.
Your final quote is priceless: "Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them." Clearly Orwell didn't consider himself an intellectual.
I am 100% female and 100% person. It is the "person" part that the "old type of man" is still not getting. My brain is not "male". I ensured it has had the exposure to a vast range of ideas, concepts, and beliefs that many male brains get exposed to -- if the men housing them so choose. Regrettably, too many men still don't.
Thanks for shining your spotlight on these "old type" men. We among the "new type of woman" will keep trying to guide them to more open-minded attitudes, and we thank you for setting such a good example.
Thank you Carol. Hope you’re feeling better now!
Excellent.
I have lost a lot of respect for NdT. He was fine as an astronomy popularizer, but since his sex scandal he seems to be strongly hewing to the CSJ lines and giving their arguments an unearned patina of respect.
I recently saw a cartoon with a bunch of zombies surrounding a house with only one person inside, with the text saying that it was NdT so there would be plenty of brain for everybody. That's his public image - a massively intelligent guy, who understands things at a level we mortal cannot. So now he's throwing that, um, popular credibility, on the side of some very unscientific ideologies.
I honestly have no idea why he's so widely viewed as hyper-intelligent. Maybe because he's an astrophysicist and there's a strong "maths/physics knowledge = all-round genius" mindset among non maths/physics types?
But listening to him talk about pretty much any topic, especially when it's off the cuff and not related to his specific field, is excruciating. I'm not sure there's anybody alive more unjustifiably impressed with themselves.
Speaking of someone undervedly viewed as smart, I endured the Musk/Carlson interview a few months ago, and while Carlson is a yapping moron, I was not impressed with Musk at all. It was easy to take his measure; his thoughts were poorly sequenced, he rambled and groped for words, it was, classically, the kid doing a report on a book he hadn't read.
It was only in finance that he was at all linear. The guy is no genius.
Tyson doesn't strike me as much of an astrophysicist. I haven't read his papers but there have been so many like Feynman who could explain a topic in lay terms and make it illuminating, Tyson completely lacks that. And Feynman was by all accounts a humble man.
Induced narcissism. His success as a popularizer fed his ego, which whispered to him, "Neil, people say you are a genius. That means you are an expert in... well, (blush), just about anything you put your hand to. Go forth, Neil, and illuminate the world". That generally doesn't end up anyplace good.
I hear you. Whenever I hear him talk about subjects outside of his field in physics. Like climate change, he goes on like he is an expert, but just by what he is saying you can see the lack of knowledge, yet he just goes on and on.
See my reply to Passion, above.
I lost all respect for him when he jumped on the gender bandwagon. He is dead to me now.
I am happy to see you getting angry about this. It's overdue.
It's disheartening that clarity like logic and scientific literacy mean so little to most people. It's frightening that so people educated and intelligent people still believe that
* "gender dysphoria" has strict diagnostic criteria. It doesn't. An impromptu declaration of self-identity is all it takes
* gender transition "therapy" requires a year living as the opposite sex. That has not been true since the replacement of gender identity disorder with "gender dysphoria" in 2013.
* puberty blockers do no harm and are completely reversible, based on a deeply flawed study financed by a pharmaceutical corporation that manufactures them, https://open.substack.com/pub/genderclinicnews/p/cognitive-challenge
* a newborn's sex is "assigned" by something like a coin toss, while the child's true sex awaits a decision made while the brain is immature enough to believe in Santa Claus.
"I am happy to see you getting angry about this. It's overdue."
Not sure why you think I'm "overdue" in getting angry about an issue that I've been writing and talking about for around three years now. I am angry. I'm just not going to be indiscriminate about who that anger is directed at.
There are lots of people out there who are happy to condemn an entire group for the actions of its worst members. I'd have thought, after all these years, it would be obvious I'm not one of them.
I could have chosen my word better. "Derisive," not angry.
I *get* why men outside the transnuts support this; on some level, many men want to 'help out a bro' in supporting a sexual fetish he himself probably doesn't share; because who knows what those feminazis will come after next??? What if they go after porn and prostitution? Droning on about sex trafficking, which NEVER happens? What I don't understand is why *women* go along with this, although someone in my comments section this weekend came up with a damned good theory: That this is another way for bad actors to prey upon women (and I would add, children) sexually. They create the woke cognitive confusion that what they do isn't sex ("gender dysphoria"), that the less woke groomed a woman is, the less cognitive confusion she has, and the more instantaneous the recognition of unwanted sex is, and that they groom adults to accept the fictional trans children is non-sexual in nature when it is frankly so.
I wrote an article a few months ago arguing that 'trans grooming' also includes the grooming of adults to accept, eventually, pedophilia, I talked about 'MAPs', and said I didn't think the woke would offer any barriers when the pedos came to them and said, "If your child is old enough to know what they are [gender-wise], they're old enough to know who they want to have sex with and your child says they want to have sex with me. Children know what's best for them, as you're fond of saying. Butt out!"
I really do believe this is where it's going, because the woke have been grooming themselves with its 'inclusivity' obsession and desire to be sexually open - you know, not like those sourpussed tight-crotched conservatives! The trans groomers are taking advantage of woke uncritical thinking and sowing the cognitive confusion noted by my commenter (who I've asked to turn it into a guest post for my GSL).
Two of the greatest psychological weaknesses in the female brain are the desire to be 'nice' and to be liked. This is why you find so many women on the liberal end of the spectrum, and where the lowest numbers for mental health lie, especially with young liberal, progressive women.
And this--Two of the greatest psychological weaknesses in the female brain are the desire to be 'nice' and to be liked--shows you, incontrovertibly, that these nasty men are most definitely NOT women. Because they clearly don't care if they are liked, and they are definitely not "nice". "Nice" people don't threated J.K. Rowling with lynching. "Nice" people don't call for the beheading of lesbians.
'Nice' women also pretty much never threaten each other with our genitals. You never hear us get mad and yell, "Well you can just eat my p**sy!" Whenever a man says, "Suck my lady dick!" it's a noob move by an amateur 😁
And, reliable as sunrise, pedophilia is being promoted as just another "gender identity."
Only they call it "minor attracted."
Every limitation is oppression, right? We won't talk about ripped vaginas, ripped rectums, or broken minds, because inhibiting people from "being who they really are" is an intolerable injustice.
And the doctors who sew them back together can meet every morning in the conference room over coffee and 𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 at each other for the benefit they do promoting 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦.
"I think the main issue here is the luxury of viewing these...."
And there you have it, the crux of where we are today. If you burn all of this down to brass tacks, I think you'll find that we are living in a time where "luxury beliefs", to coin the phrase from Rob Henderson, have taken ahold of society, and we're seeing it's destructive consequences. Luxury beliefs are defined as the beliefs that privileged members of society hold that exact little to no consequence in their lives, but create huge problems for the non elite and lower classes. When I say elite, I mean intellectual, monied, and tech.
"Trans women are women" could put the female population in danger from potential "bad actors" in female spaces. What about doctors visits and medical industry redefining its meaning of "woman"? What about the danger that puts lesbians in and the push to medicalize them because "they're just trans men at heart"? The women that rely on sports to get ahead in life: through scholarships, potential endorsements, coaching gigs...that could all be upended.
"Abolish the police" already does put folks in danger. We have some American cities that are in states of horrible crime. And if there are less funds going into law enforcement, don't you think that the criminals are just loving that?
"The nuclear family is so outdated" this one is a beauty. Two parents in the household is a greater predictor of success for their children almost over anything else. Even a poor but intact family has a better chance than a family in upheaval with more money.
"Marriage is an outdated vestige of the patriarchy" It's amazing this gets thrown around when levels of loneliness are spiking, for both men and women.
But it's not all progressive voices. Throughout the years, conservatives have set out to, and in many ways succeeded, to destroy unions. In South Carolina, Nikki Haley's backyard, they have the lowest number of union members in the whole country. Just about all of the southern states have dismal union membership. Republicans have done an absolutely fabulous job at getting poor and working class whites to bet and vote against their best interests. All for money...
The interesting thing about the examples I gave, and there are more, is that the elites themselves would NEVER apply any of these beliefs to their own lives, no way! Most of them don't need the sport scholarships, they live in bubbles that shield them from having their spaces disrupted and endangered by those that are not invited, many of them come from nuclear families and have every desire to continue that tradition, they are actively looking for spouses, and they live in great areas where the police are at their beck and call, not to mention houses with great security.
And the tech bros have no problem pushing digital devices on us, but severely limit them when it comes to their own children. And conservatives continue to bust unions, one of the greatest pathways to middle class. But they're fine, they usually have enough money to keep them floating lovely...
Elites are not showing off their luxury goods so much anymore, that's just gouache, but instead are showing off their luxury beliefs. And who pays dearly?
We do, the rest of us.
And sadly, we've become useful idiots for them...
“Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them.” 😂😂😂😂 I think Sowell quote this Orwell quote in "Intellectuals and Society." It's a good one.
You're in top form here, with a great pull-out quote:
"After all, the only men we need to worry about when women say, “Please stay out of our spaces,” are the ones who reply, “How are you going to stop me?”
Or, perhaps you just need to look out the window.
https://www.gq.com/story/burrnesha-albanian-women-living-as-men
The only aspect of this "debate" that is new, is that it takes place at all. The notion of gender identity didn't suddenly appear in 20th C America, and it didn't appear merely among "effete intellectuals." It's been around since complex human societies formed.
I don't know why you went on this bender of antagonism toward transgender people - but really, what exactly is damaged by giving them the freedom to be who they want to be? How is your life impinged?
As for the talking heads - spin up King Crimson's "Elephant Talk" on your music platform of choice and put this issue in perspective.
"what exactly is damaged by giving them the freedom to be who they want to be? How is your life impinged?"
This question has been asked and answered so many times that I can hardly believe I still see it. But just for starters, in the 21st Century incarnation of trans inclusion, women's sports, women's rights to privacy, women's safety, woman specific efforts at inclusion, and the ability to talk about reality accurately.
My life isn't impinged, at least not directly, by the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, the racial injustices in the prison system, or the economic subjugation of various part of the world. I still care about all of these things because, as surprising as it might be for some, I'm perfectly capable of caring about other people.
And yes, I know that the idea of gender identity isn't new. I've pointed this out many times. What's new is the idea that we have to erase the concept of womanhood to accommodate these new identities. Before this ridiculous idea that any man, even a rapist, who says he's a woman literally is one, trans (I should say transsexual) people lived almost completely uncontroversially in western society. Just as, as you say, they have in countless other societies.
Hijra, Muxe, Kathoey, two-spirit, none of these identities supplanted women. They were recognised as third genders that were treated as women or men in some cases and treated as men or women in others. They were able to draw these lines along sensible, real-world lines, just as we did before the current insanity.
I fully support people's right to be who they want to be. As long as a) that doesn't require us all to lie about what they *are*, and b) that that doesn't infringe on anybody else's right to be who and what they are. So if you want to engage with this issue, try actually engaging with it. Assuming people who think differently haven't "looked out the window" is pure laziness.
He doesn't have antagonism towards "transgender people". He has a problem with the men who have taken advantage of a cultural moment to assert themselves into women's spaces without permission and against the wishes of women.
Being more than a merely self-interested jerk, he actually cares about the erasure of women as a recognized human category. For which I am profoundly grateful. Being a woman is something that WOMEN are the foremost authorities on. Not men, and especially not men who think or feel or wish that they had been born with undamaged XX genes.
I totally agree that the world doesn't need nor even want more men mansplaining "womanhood." I am certain that my spouse's definition of "womanhood" is specific to her life experiences, as would be every other woman's. I feel that way about "manhood." The crux of the biscuit for me is that the present kerfluffle is not about "erasing womanhood," it is about redefining womanhood as a cultural norm - just as girls -> boys is redefining the norm of "manhood." What's lost in these strident exchanges is the people who are trying to figure out who they are. It doesn't mean doodly-squat to say "I fully support ..." and then lay down conditions on that support. I now regret having made the initial comment, but hindsight is 20/20.
It made me remember a T-shirt someone gave me as a prank - it shows a guy yelling at a woman, "I make the rules because I have the dick!" Indeed.
A thing that recently occurred to me pertains to female identifying males participating in women's sports. I think it is an effort to normalize the idea that trans-women are women and they are purposefully willing to throw women under the bus to active that goal. It's an effort to change societal norms and thinking.
As a father of daughters who participated in sports, my initial objections was fairness to girls and women. Now I see it as something much larger.
It has been amply demonstrated that a large part of what drives these men is their pleasure in displacing women: they're not willing to throw women under the bus, they're eager to do so. They are practically drooling with pleasure at their success. The vile hatred shown by a sadly deafening but small minority should be of greater concern to the trans community. Because it has turned off people like me, who used to be a vocal supporter of general trans rights. But this issue was the boiling point at which I decided that I won't go along, once again, with putting aside women's issues in order to push the agenda of some other group somehow deemed more deserving of aid and assistance. Especially not a group with so many loud, obnoxious, narcissists as their public face.
Never quite understand the scare stories about Trans people in toilets. As far as I know, as a man, that women's toilets are all private stalls, so it's highly unlikely you'll be exposed to the nuts and bolts. It's not as if women are lining up to squat in front of a urinal.
For many women, the mere fact of a man in a woman’s toilet will be frightening and/or uncomfortable. It’s a private space and men aren’t supposed to be there.
So while it’s mostly (but not always (https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1757767650791326089?s=46&t=7lwufDtctGAZKmHgPuw7Vw)) true that there’s no problem while everybody is in their stalls, unless there’s some means of teleporting in and out of them, those men will also be in women’s (and young girls’) communal space.
Avoiding this is the entire reason there’s such a thing as a women’s bathroom.
To be clear, the issue here is self ID. Not so much trans people. Lots of trans women already use the women’s bathroom because they look like women. They’ve been doing this, without incident, for decades. It would be ridiculous to tell them (or a bearded-up trans man) that they should use the bathroom of their sex.
But if we accept the idea that any man can declare himself a woman and immediately start using women’s facilities, and that it’s “transphobic” to tell him to get out, that’s an open door for rapists and perverts. A door that several rapists and perverts have already walked through.
These aren’t “scare stories.” They’re the obvious consequences of idiotic policy that fails to acknowledge that women’s and men’s concerns and risks are different.
It always surprises (and more to the point, despairs) me to witness how unaware a man can be of women's reality when it comes to male sexual violence and predation. Unless we know them well enough all men represent a threat - even if just to a small degree women are always vigilant in public spaces. Have you not seen us cross the road at night to avoid a man walking towards us? Walk to our our keys between our fingers because how do you know which man is safe and which isn't? Did MeToo not tell anything about women's lives? Google "Men take videos in women's toilets" and spend a night reading what men are capable of in that space. I cannot believe that in 2024 basic safeguarding our mothers and grandmothers fought for is up for question.
Fair point but there's no world where I'll be googling "Men take videos in women's toilets"
Lol. It is actually just a list of news reports that come up, but yeah.
My apologies, Reuben, for perhaps speaking past you in my other replies. I believe you question instead fear of exposure to male bits when they are behind a stall door. I don't care to extend that in dialogue, but you might not feel like my other replies were really in response to yours. I will try to comprehend more quickly next time.
I detest being the one to bring up male advantage as some instead glory in it, but sometimes it is needed. 98-99% of females on this planet (including trained athletes) I can throw into that stall in a moment. I am strong but not at all rare in this ability.
Never mind that I am tall enough to look down over most bathroom stalls and remove all privacy for occupants. Unless the stall walls go to the ceiling, every private view is available to even short criminals from an extended arm and phone camera. This is already a common bullying tactic by girls to other girls at school. This is not lost on boys who, before cell phones, would place a mirror on their foot in order to look up a skirt. Oh right, there are many stalls with floor gaps too. No more illustration is needed.
Please consider that there are many, many reasons for females doing private things or just living (e.g., wearing a skirt) to have fear for their dignity and for their safety.
There are too many things wrong with stalls. I have never seen a stall door that could not easily be kicked in. They are designed to break open instead of destroying the entire structure. Stalls provide almost no safety at all. They provide at most some visual privacy for those not looking to easily defeat it.
All great points. Thank you.
You are kind. I did not read your original comment correctly.