"It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion."
I'm constantly amazed by this too. It's really difficult to keep the tin-foil hat off sometimes! I don't think I've ever seen another group wield so much influence over discourse.
"It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion."
I'm constantly amazed by this too. It's really difficult to keep the tin-foil hat off sometimes! I don't think I've ever seen another group wield so much influence over discourse.
One partial explanation I've heard is that the major LGB advocacy organizations, after decades of slow buildup, were at peak power when they got their major demands met (eg: in the US, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage). They could have reduced their staff and fundraising to a more "maintenance" level, fighting smaller residual battles. Or they could quickly shift most of their efforts to a new battle (in particular concentrating on the added T), and perhaps increase the staffing, fundraising, and political influence. So the T issue pretty suddenly had front and center attention from an already geared up advocacy industry which needed a new focus to maintain its staffing and relevancy.
This dynamic could go beyond the donation supported major and minor activist organizations; for example, some celebrities and politicians also need to find the next righteous cause.
Another factor is the strong emphasis on life and death, both "Trans folks are being killed all the time" and "Trans folks kill themselves all the time unless...". While those are serious issues that nobody would dismiss, there are some rational questions about magnitudes which tend to get swept under the rug in the heat of activist rhetoric.
(This emotional tactic is also used regarding race in America; liberals tend to overestimate the frequency of police killing of unarmed Blacks by a factor of 10 to 1000, based on media emphasis and rhetoric. If such killings were 1000 times higher, I would have a very different take on the issues too, so I am more emotionally sympathetic to them when I remember their assumptions. [Just as I would have a very different take on abortion if I really believed it was murder.] However, I try to rely on facts rather than being steered by media emphasis and impressions and activist distortions, so my emotional sympathy for the motives of the duped does not mean I agree with their conclusions.)
One of my theories is that the trans movement is a place where misogynist men (and particularly white men) can go and finally be accepted as 'victims' and even, bonus, get idiot regressive lefty feminists to go along with them and do their bidding! Also, emphasis on the violence transwomen face distracts from the group that gets aggressed against far more: Natal women, and particularly by transwomen acting an awful lot like entitled men.
"It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion."
I'm constantly amazed by this too. It's really difficult to keep the tin-foil hat off sometimes! I don't think I've ever seen another group wield so much influence over discourse.
And that power arose amazingly fast.
One partial explanation I've heard is that the major LGB advocacy organizations, after decades of slow buildup, were at peak power when they got their major demands met (eg: in the US, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage). They could have reduced their staff and fundraising to a more "maintenance" level, fighting smaller residual battles. Or they could quickly shift most of their efforts to a new battle (in particular concentrating on the added T), and perhaps increase the staffing, fundraising, and political influence. So the T issue pretty suddenly had front and center attention from an already geared up advocacy industry which needed a new focus to maintain its staffing and relevancy.
This dynamic could go beyond the donation supported major and minor activist organizations; for example, some celebrities and politicians also need to find the next righteous cause.
Another factor is the strong emphasis on life and death, both "Trans folks are being killed all the time" and "Trans folks kill themselves all the time unless...". While those are serious issues that nobody would dismiss, there are some rational questions about magnitudes which tend to get swept under the rug in the heat of activist rhetoric.
(This emotional tactic is also used regarding race in America; liberals tend to overestimate the frequency of police killing of unarmed Blacks by a factor of 10 to 1000, based on media emphasis and rhetoric. If such killings were 1000 times higher, I would have a very different take on the issues too, so I am more emotionally sympathetic to them when I remember their assumptions. [Just as I would have a very different take on abortion if I really believed it was murder.] However, I try to rely on facts rather than being steered by media emphasis and impressions and activist distortions, so my emotional sympathy for the motives of the duped does not mean I agree with their conclusions.)
One of my theories is that the trans movement is a place where misogynist men (and particularly white men) can go and finally be accepted as 'victims' and even, bonus, get idiot regressive lefty feminists to go along with them and do their bidding! Also, emphasis on the violence transwomen face distracts from the group that gets aggressed against far more: Natal women, and particularly by transwomen acting an awful lot like entitled men.