Some things just go together. Macaroni and cheese, peaches and cream, comedy specials and accusations of transphobia. It doesn't matter how many jokes there are about black people or AIDS or child abuse or religion or the Holocaust, if there’s a trans joke in the mix, that’s all the media will be talking about.
Statistics from the UK indicate that incarcerated trans women have double the number of sex crime convictions as do male prisoners. That is a statistic that bears some examination as to what that means.
I believe there are people who genuinely have gender dysphoria. Yet, there are also trans women who are fetishists, something that does not get talked about and something that I’ve personally encountered.
As for the use of the word “panic”- it’s a rework of the old “women are hysterical” sexist dismissal. Most people who weigh in on this subject have had little experience with being attacked by trans activists. Once your life has been threatened for even politely disagreeing with them, or you’ve been told to go F yourself with a chainsaw, or to suck their Lady Dick, (all very common responses), you lose your ability to agree that “trans women are women.” And what is being called “panic” is actually understanding how misogynist trans activists are and how that never bodes well for women and girls.,
The original research, if I’m not mistaken, was carried out by FairPlayForWomen, and the BBC article challenges the findings a little. But even they found that trans women commit sexual offences at ta least the same rate as other male prisoners. Which makes sense and is supported by research (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885).
This is part of the issue. The "trans women are women" rhetoric really has convinced some number of people that they have pink brains or are incapable of the male aggression that males sometimes exhibit. But fundamentally, the exact same arguments can be made for most men. I'd never rape anybody. Nor would any of my male friends. We're all rational, reasonable people who respect other people's boundaries. Do we get access to female spaces? No! Because we're indistinguishable from the males who don't.
Yeah, I think term "moral panic" is being appropriated from the reaction to things like gay marriage and acceptance and desegregation. It's hilarious how often I've been confidently informed I was one of those people who opposed gay marriage when. I was stridently for it from day 1.
One thing that makes it hard for me to engage with trans activists politely sometimes is their constant appropriation of other people's struggles. Gay people, black people, women; trans people have absolutely nothing to do with these struggles. Yet they constantly adopt their language as cover. And sadly, many uninformed members of the public can't see through it.
As for the "F yourself with a chainsaw" talk, yeah, let's just say I've never heard an "old-fashioned" woman talk like that.
It is unfortunate that people will say that sex and gender are two different things while using sex specific words for gender.
Like it or not, when people think of sex they are thinking about plumbing. I'm a man so I'm just guessing that when women are in shared places where they will be visibly naked, no matter how open minded they are, a seven inch clitoris will be a hard sell. Especially when hard. That was blunt, but it must be addressed honestly.
There really is little out no reason for gender specific places in a world of equality, but there are for sex specific places. The argument being that sex and gender are separate things with common names needs to be applied across the board.
If I walked into a woman's locker room and exposed myself I could be arrested and end up on a sex offender list. But if I said that I identify as a woman and took off a dress to expose myself there would it be ok?
"It is unfortunate that people will say that sex and gender are two different things while using sex specific words for gender"
Yep, the language games are by design. They're a feature of all activism rooted in postmodernism. The changing definition of racism, the changing definitions of sex and gender, the changing defining of "woman." Eventually, people who aren't paying attention simply give up and accept whatever definition they're given. No matter how incoherent. Oh, black people can't be racists and all white people are? Okay. Oh, a woman is just "somebody who identifies as a woman." That's fine. What could possibly go wrong? Circularity be damned. In fact, many people don't even notice the circulatory anymore.
As Orwell observed years ago, if you limit people's ability to express their ideas, you limit their ability to think.
You want to read about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from 1929. It has strong and weak versions; the weaker says that not having the vocabulary for concepts makes their discussion difficult, the strong version says it makes their discussion impossible. The weak form is robustly supported by research, the strong form less so but far from wholly discredited.
Orwell was an advocate of the strong form but the inhibitions of Newspeak were tied to the willingness of doublethink. I see the seeds of doublethink in our new aggressive nomenclatural conformity.
"The lie becomes the truth and then becomes a lie again"
BTW the S-W hypothesis predates Orwell; "1984" was written in 1948 and that was his original title.
Thanks for sticking up for women, Steve. Guys like T just don't get it. I'm just finishing up some edits on an article about misogyny and regressive feminist blindness for a Canadian feminism website and while it isn't specifically about male invasion of women's spaces it mentions them.
What bothers me more than the actual abuse of gender rights itself is all the idiot women and regressive lefties who actually *support* this nonsense. Like the so-called feminists on Medium who scream blue murder about Trump's or the Supreme Court's or MAGA misogyny, but can't see the problem in their own backyard.
This past week I researched the 'erasure' of lesbians in the LGBTQ community, who are being pushed to have sex with penised transwomen and are told they're 'transphobic' if they don't, that some women have penises. It works on the younger, less experienced ones who don't know how to set boundaries.
The inability to recognize the gross abuses of sexual predators in the LGBTQ/trans community points to a much bigger misogyny problem on the left than many are willing to admit. The 'War on Women' ain't just for Republicans.
Believe it or not, T is a woman. I've spoken with her a few times before. It blows my mind how often I find myself arguing this side of trans issues with women. Which isn't to say that it happens incredibly often, but simply that I'm shocked it happens at all. Short-sightedness is the only explanation I can think of. Because they never put forward a compelling argument.
Yeah, the "cotton ceiling" talk is some of the most openly misogynistic bile I have ever seen. I can't believe anybody in the trans community would dream of standing behind it. And I can't believe how completely the concerns of T rule over LGB in the media. Imagine if there were a group of men telling lesbians they're bigots because they don't want to have sex with them. Imagine how eagerly they'd be eviscerated by the press. Especially in the age of #metoo.
I'd enourage WOLF to file another lawsuit or lobby for legislation to get all male personnel removed from women's prisons. This would lend credibility to their claim that they're not transphobic (which I believe they are but I still support the lawsuit) and would be a good and much-needed reform for women prisoners. Some mild improvements were signed into law a few years ago in CA -- requiring that female prison guards are the default and that male prison guards only step in when necessary -- but plenty of abuse still goes on.
I wonder how much pushback there'd be to removing male officers from female prisons? The most obvious objection I can see is that the prison officers aren't criminals whereas the trans women being transferred into the female prisons are. Also they don't access areas like communal showers, changing areas etc.
But it seems like a perfectly reasonable proposal to me if it's logistically feasible (I'm assuming that temperamentally there are more male prison guards in general than female, but that might just be my biases at play).
I don't know enough about WoLF to say whether they are or aren't transphobic. What makes you believe they are?
I've heard them say things over the years that make me feel like they don't see trans-genderism as legitimate. Here's an example of a billboard they're running that I think is pretty in-your-face proclaiming binary simplicities when, in my view, the reality of gender is more complicated: https://www.womensliberationfront.org/news/wolf-defines-women-as-females-on-nh-billboard
I promised not to call them transnazis, you call them activists, but whatever we call them they are a complete pain in the ass and they invite derision and ridicule. Derision validates the sense of persecution that is for them the foundation of identity.
Nobody is "transphobic," there is only "incredibly transphobic." Before I get to my point let me say that gender dysphoria is a tragic, painful and debilitating condition and those who use it for attention or who would cast it as some sort of alternative lifestyle deserve as much contempt as we can shovel their way.
But we are talking about a pattern here. The same pattern appears in opposition to Israel's savage brutality toward those who resist the larcenous taking of Palestinian land and livelihood; Israel is a cruel right wing country and its wholesale theft of land has nothing to do with the Jewish faith, driven wholly by bigotry and profit. Settlement construction is big money.
But when people argue for an end to shooting children from helicopters they are labeled "antisemitic"; that it isn't the political state of Israel they speak against, but Jewish people all over the world. The equation is reinforced:
Israel = Jews = Israel = Jews = Israel = Jews
Speak against a slobbering savage like Avigdor Lieberman or against the rationalization for mass infanticide in The King's Torah, why, you're just one step from dropping the Zyklon-B.
And everyone acts so damned shocked when hatred of global Jewry rises again. Who could have seen that coming?
Same with "trans." Those you call activists are not seeking a place in the world nor any reconciliation nor any relaxation of tension. They revel in doing harm and the genuinely dysphoric are not their concern nor ever will be.
Real dysphoric people have their own problems and what scant resources are available to help them are being squandered and wasted by people who just want attention and have found a way to get it.
Let's not pretend to be shocked when this backfires.
As we discussed, I don't want trans people to turn up here, to a space where certain aspects of trans activism are being challenged, and see language like this. Just as I wouldn't want black people to come here and see people comparing BLM to nazis or women to see feminists being compared to nazis.
If you're not sure why I think invoking nazism to describe any group of people other than actual nazis stifles productive discourse, I'd be happy to have that conversation. If you think it's unreasonable of me to ask you not to use this word, please tell me where you think I'm going wrong. But otherwise, this kind of rhetoric has no place here. The very last thing I want to be doing is policing language. So please don't make me have to do it.
Contempt is a uniquely self-defeating way of dealing with people. Even people who really are evil. Daryl Davis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw&t=1s), a personal hero of mine, has personally convinced over 200 klan members to leave the KKK. And the people he convinced have done the same for hundreds more. He did this, by turning up at klan rallies, as a black man, and speaking to them calmly and respectfully. If we didn't know he was real, many people would laugh at the idea that this were possible.
Of course, the vast majority of people don't have the stomach for that kind of work. Nobody could criticise them. But I do criticise those who satisfy themselves with the belief that those they disagree with are worthy of contempt. It is impossible to achieve anything at all with this mindset except to deepen divisions. And worst of all, the habits of thinking necessary maintain that mindset hurt the people who practice them.
I've been a big fan of Daryl Davis since I watched "Accidental Courtesy" when it first aired on PBS. Mr. Davis would be dead if he took a confrontationally hostile approach. But he does it in the face-to-face world. I could quote Mike Tyson.
So in the middle of a discussion about the need for nuance, listening, and complexity in discussing trans issues, we reduce an entire nation-state with millions of people to being "a cruel, right-wing country." (Which happens to be mostly populated by the descendants of refugees from the world upheavals in Europe and across the Muslim world in the middle of the last century.)
Whatever the problems are between the Jordan River and the sea, they're complicated, and have been for a very long time. And yes, lots of Jews, me being one of them, think that there's an organic connection between the land of Israel and the Jewish people- which in no way endorses or promotes any particular governmental policy but does shape how some of these conversations play out.
I've been to the West Bank and slept in Palestinian homes and seen maps in the refugee villages ringed by bullets outlining the entire State of Israel. I've also seen Israeli soldiers be cruel in executing policies that they didn't vote for and don't support. To reduce the settlements to "big money" is to ignore the entire history since UN resolution 181, which the Jews accepted and the surrounding states didn't, leading up to wars in 67 and 73 which Israel didn't want to fight.
Regarding Avigdor Lieberman, you might call him a slobbering savage, but he's also the guy who brought down Bibi Netanyahu, an act of improving the world the likes of which neither of us will ever accomplish. He's also an ardent supporter of the right to be secular and resist the encroachment of state religion. That's something progressives might like, no?
As for Torat HaMelech, the racist book that advocating preemptively killing some putative enemies- you know that the Attorney General of Israel indicted and convicted one of its authors for incitement, right?
I'm not asking you to join the Likud, I'm just pointing out that these issues are really, really complicated and if you want to effect change, listening and learning is probably a better strategy than condemning an entire country on the basis of its most extreme elements.
"And while those extremists alienate everybody who doesn’t agree with 100% of their demands, public opinion is shifting against the trans community in general."
in pointing out that frivolous charges of bigotry only make things worse for innocents, then you were alone in that misunderstanding. The diversionary charge of "antisemitism" is as cheap a shot as "transphobia" and the comparison between rising public disgust with global Jewry and the "trans" community is an inevitable one. More homologous than analogous.
But if you think replacing a politically cautious figure like Netanyahu with a bloodthirsty settler bigot like Naftali Bennett is some sort of improvement ...!
FTR both my grandmothers had their European families murdered in the Holocaust and I am 87% Ashkenazi by genetic analysis. However my choice is atheism.
Hi Chris, I did understand your point, which you made very clearly. I think in the course of making that point, some generalizations were made which are out of the spirit of this blog, and FWIW, I certainly didn't call you antisemitic or anything else. I don't disagree with you that some right-wing Jewish organizations are too quick to call critics of Israel "antisemites, though I don't see much evidence that this is causing a backlash against Jews in the US outside certain online progressive communities. After all, the most violent incidents against Jews in recent years- in Poway, Pittsburgh, and Jersey City- didn't have anything to do with Israel.
I think your point is much stronger when it comes to accusations of racism. Look at the huge backlash against the specter of "CRT".
Finally, I do think Naftali Bennett, of the now deposed coalition, was a better PM than Bibi, because Bennett brought Arabs into the coalition along with right-wingers and moderates, and didn't engage in the constant racist incitement that is Bibi's SOP. Bennett also sought to repair relationships across the world that Bibi had fractured. But that's all water under the bridge as of yesterday afternoon. The world moves faster than a blog debate.
Group 1: This goes to the heart if the issue of trans-what? People who are genuinely gender dysphoric have it tough and I don't want to make it tougher. Before transition surgery they must "live as a woman (or man)" which is met with resistance in the case of trans-women and may have danger for the trans-man. They are the real trans-persons but not the only ones.
Group 2: The enhanced transvestite with silicone breasts and some of which have a face that can "pass." A trip to a pornography site will reveal this trans group as retaining fully functional male sexual ability. For the most part homosexuals who may pose no danger to women if their sexual interest is in men. But they are functionally male.
Group 3: The fad group. Not really gender dysphoric, but could be a danger to themselves, or their children if puberty blockers or surgery takes place before they discover that they are really not gender dysphoric. As Bill Maher quipped, "If kids knew what they wanted to be at the age of eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery."
Group 4: And then there is another trans, the one at issue in this discussion. Predators seeking access to spaces where women are most vulnerable.
I don't know what the percentages the greater trans population is made up of. They all present different challenges. Finding a place in a society not fully accepting their condition (group 1), danger to themselves (group 2 violence from a deceived sex partner) or to themselves in the case of reckless medical intervention (group 3), or possible danger to women (group 4).
My go with plumbing solution is a hardship for the true transexual who must live as their new gender. Transvestites in Thailand don't seem to find that as an obstacle. I don't know what to say about the faddish except that I feel sorry for them if the end of the road is ruin. Pragmatically the best solution for the group 4 predators.
All that to say, what do you mean by trans? We could be discussing different things. I didn't even list the "activists" with that.
Group 2: last I read most transvestites are heterosexual
Group 5: the "nonbinary" claiming intermediate gender. Some of them extending this to claiming intermediate biological gender with absolutely zero physical or genetic corroboration yet flying into rages (with lots of 2-5 company) if this claim is questioned. The most strident pushers of the "they/them" horseshit. 100% fake and universally demanding an extra ration of special attention from everyone/
Group 6: want nothing to do with sex, either in the gender sense or the intercourse sense.
That's news to me, but I've made no attempt to gather statistics since they would be the result of self-reporting which is unreliable in my opinion. Your comments are to the point. My incomplete list is just to say that the trans group is not a monolith. Group 1 & 4 present issues hard to reconcile, especially with the others muddying the water.
Statistics from the UK indicate that incarcerated trans women have double the number of sex crime convictions as do male prisoners. That is a statistic that bears some examination as to what that means.
I believe there are people who genuinely have gender dysphoria. Yet, there are also trans women who are fetishists, something that does not get talked about and something that I’ve personally encountered.
As for the use of the word “panic”- it’s a rework of the old “women are hysterical” sexist dismissal. Most people who weigh in on this subject have had little experience with being attacked by trans activists. Once your life has been threatened for even politely disagreeing with them, or you’ve been told to go F yourself with a chainsaw, or to suck their Lady Dick, (all very common responses), you lose your ability to agree that “trans women are women.” And what is being called “panic” is actually understanding how misogynist trans activists are and how that never bodes well for women and girls.,
Yeah, that data is summarised here (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42221629).
The original research, if I’m not mistaken, was carried out by FairPlayForWomen, and the BBC article challenges the findings a little. But even they found that trans women commit sexual offences at ta least the same rate as other male prisoners. Which makes sense and is supported by research (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885).
This is part of the issue. The "trans women are women" rhetoric really has convinced some number of people that they have pink brains or are incapable of the male aggression that males sometimes exhibit. But fundamentally, the exact same arguments can be made for most men. I'd never rape anybody. Nor would any of my male friends. We're all rational, reasonable people who respect other people's boundaries. Do we get access to female spaces? No! Because we're indistinguishable from the males who don't.
Yeah, I think term "moral panic" is being appropriated from the reaction to things like gay marriage and acceptance and desegregation. It's hilarious how often I've been confidently informed I was one of those people who opposed gay marriage when. I was stridently for it from day 1.
One thing that makes it hard for me to engage with trans activists politely sometimes is their constant appropriation of other people's struggles. Gay people, black people, women; trans people have absolutely nothing to do with these struggles. Yet they constantly adopt their language as cover. And sadly, many uninformed members of the public can't see through it.
As for the "F yourself with a chainsaw" talk, yeah, let's just say I've never heard an "old-fashioned" woman talk like that.
It is unfortunate that people will say that sex and gender are two different things while using sex specific words for gender.
Like it or not, when people think of sex they are thinking about plumbing. I'm a man so I'm just guessing that when women are in shared places where they will be visibly naked, no matter how open minded they are, a seven inch clitoris will be a hard sell. Especially when hard. That was blunt, but it must be addressed honestly.
There really is little out no reason for gender specific places in a world of equality, but there are for sex specific places. The argument being that sex and gender are separate things with common names needs to be applied across the board.
If I walked into a woman's locker room and exposed myself I could be arrested and end up on a sex offender list. But if I said that I identify as a woman and took off a dress to expose myself there would it be ok?
"It is unfortunate that people will say that sex and gender are two different things while using sex specific words for gender"
Yep, the language games are by design. They're a feature of all activism rooted in postmodernism. The changing definition of racism, the changing definitions of sex and gender, the changing defining of "woman." Eventually, people who aren't paying attention simply give up and accept whatever definition they're given. No matter how incoherent. Oh, black people can't be racists and all white people are? Okay. Oh, a woman is just "somebody who identifies as a woman." That's fine. What could possibly go wrong? Circularity be damned. In fact, many people don't even notice the circulatory anymore.
As Orwell observed years ago, if you limit people's ability to express their ideas, you limit their ability to think.
You want to read about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from 1929. It has strong and weak versions; the weaker says that not having the vocabulary for concepts makes their discussion difficult, the strong version says it makes their discussion impossible. The weak form is robustly supported by research, the strong form less so but far from wholly discredited.
Orwell was an advocate of the strong form but the inhibitions of Newspeak were tied to the willingness of doublethink. I see the seeds of doublethink in our new aggressive nomenclatural conformity.
"The lie becomes the truth and then becomes a lie again"
BTW the S-W hypothesis predates Orwell; "1984" was written in 1948 and that was his original title.
Oh, but if you put on a dress fifteen seconds before entering the women's "space" and declare yourself a woman, everyone must honor your "identity."
Didn't you know? Dresses have magical properties that turn you into a nice person with zero sexual predation. <sigh>
Thanks for sticking up for women, Steve. Guys like T just don't get it. I'm just finishing up some edits on an article about misogyny and regressive feminist blindness for a Canadian feminism website and while it isn't specifically about male invasion of women's spaces it mentions them.
What bothers me more than the actual abuse of gender rights itself is all the idiot women and regressive lefties who actually *support* this nonsense. Like the so-called feminists on Medium who scream blue murder about Trump's or the Supreme Court's or MAGA misogyny, but can't see the problem in their own backyard.
This past week I researched the 'erasure' of lesbians in the LGBTQ community, who are being pushed to have sex with penised transwomen and are told they're 'transphobic' if they don't, that some women have penises. It works on the younger, less experienced ones who don't know how to set boundaries.
The inability to recognize the gross abuses of sexual predators in the LGBTQ/trans community points to a much bigger misogyny problem on the left than many are willing to admit. The 'War on Women' ain't just for Republicans.
" Guys like T just don't get it"
Believe it or not, T is a woman. I've spoken with her a few times before. It blows my mind how often I find myself arguing this side of trans issues with women. Which isn't to say that it happens incredibly often, but simply that I'm shocked it happens at all. Short-sightedness is the only explanation I can think of. Because they never put forward a compelling argument.
Yeah, the "cotton ceiling" talk is some of the most openly misogynistic bile I have ever seen. I can't believe anybody in the trans community would dream of standing behind it. And I can't believe how completely the concerns of T rule over LGB in the media. Imagine if there were a group of men telling lesbians they're bigots because they don't want to have sex with them. Imagine how eagerly they'd be eviscerated by the press. Especially in the age of #metoo.
Thank you. Just imagine how WE feel :-(
I'd enourage WOLF to file another lawsuit or lobby for legislation to get all male personnel removed from women's prisons. This would lend credibility to their claim that they're not transphobic (which I believe they are but I still support the lawsuit) and would be a good and much-needed reform for women prisoners. Some mild improvements were signed into law a few years ago in CA -- requiring that female prison guards are the default and that male prison guards only step in when necessary -- but plenty of abuse still goes on.
I wonder how much pushback there'd be to removing male officers from female prisons? The most obvious objection I can see is that the prison officers aren't criminals whereas the trans women being transferred into the female prisons are. Also they don't access areas like communal showers, changing areas etc.
But it seems like a perfectly reasonable proposal to me if it's logistically feasible (I'm assuming that temperamentally there are more male prison guards in general than female, but that might just be my biases at play).
I don't know enough about WoLF to say whether they are or aren't transphobic. What makes you believe they are?
I've heard them say things over the years that make me feel like they don't see trans-genderism as legitimate. Here's an example of a billboard they're running that I think is pretty in-your-face proclaiming binary simplicities when, in my view, the reality of gender is more complicated: https://www.womensliberationfront.org/news/wolf-defines-women-as-females-on-nh-billboard
I promised not to call them transnazis, you call them activists, but whatever we call them they are a complete pain in the ass and they invite derision and ridicule. Derision validates the sense of persecution that is for them the foundation of identity.
Nobody is "transphobic," there is only "incredibly transphobic." Before I get to my point let me say that gender dysphoria is a tragic, painful and debilitating condition and those who use it for attention or who would cast it as some sort of alternative lifestyle deserve as much contempt as we can shovel their way.
But we are talking about a pattern here. The same pattern appears in opposition to Israel's savage brutality toward those who resist the larcenous taking of Palestinian land and livelihood; Israel is a cruel right wing country and its wholesale theft of land has nothing to do with the Jewish faith, driven wholly by bigotry and profit. Settlement construction is big money.
But when people argue for an end to shooting children from helicopters they are labeled "antisemitic"; that it isn't the political state of Israel they speak against, but Jewish people all over the world. The equation is reinforced:
Israel = Jews = Israel = Jews = Israel = Jews
Speak against a slobbering savage like Avigdor Lieberman or against the rationalization for mass infanticide in The King's Torah, why, you're just one step from dropping the Zyklon-B.
And everyone acts so damned shocked when hatred of global Jewry rises again. Who could have seen that coming?
Same with "trans." Those you call activists are not seeking a place in the world nor any reconciliation nor any relaxation of tension. They revel in doing harm and the genuinely dysphoric are not their concern nor ever will be.
Real dysphoric people have their own problems and what scant resources are available to help them are being squandered and wasted by people who just want attention and have found a way to get it.
Let's not pretend to be shocked when this backfires.
"I promised not to call them transnazis"
And yet...
As we discussed, I don't want trans people to turn up here, to a space where certain aspects of trans activism are being challenged, and see language like this. Just as I wouldn't want black people to come here and see people comparing BLM to nazis or women to see feminists being compared to nazis.
If you're not sure why I think invoking nazism to describe any group of people other than actual nazis stifles productive discourse, I'd be happy to have that conversation. If you think it's unreasonable of me to ask you not to use this word, please tell me where you think I'm going wrong. But otherwise, this kind of rhetoric has no place here. The very last thing I want to be doing is policing language. So please don't make me have to do it.
Contempt is a uniquely self-defeating way of dealing with people. Even people who really are evil. Daryl Davis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw&t=1s), a personal hero of mine, has personally convinced over 200 klan members to leave the KKK. And the people he convinced have done the same for hundreds more. He did this, by turning up at klan rallies, as a black man, and speaking to them calmly and respectfully. If we didn't know he was real, many people would laugh at the idea that this were possible.
Of course, the vast majority of people don't have the stomach for that kind of work. Nobody could criticise them. But I do criticise those who satisfy themselves with the belief that those they disagree with are worthy of contempt. It is impossible to achieve anything at all with this mindset except to deepen divisions. And worst of all, the habits of thinking necessary maintain that mindset hurt the people who practice them.
Thanks for the link to the TED talk. I had never seen that.
I've been a big fan of Daryl Davis since I watched "Accidental Courtesy" when it first aired on PBS. Mr. Davis would be dead if he took a confrontationally hostile approach. But he does it in the face-to-face world. I could quote Mike Tyson.
So in the middle of a discussion about the need for nuance, listening, and complexity in discussing trans issues, we reduce an entire nation-state with millions of people to being "a cruel, right-wing country." (Which happens to be mostly populated by the descendants of refugees from the world upheavals in Europe and across the Muslim world in the middle of the last century.)
Whatever the problems are between the Jordan River and the sea, they're complicated, and have been for a very long time. And yes, lots of Jews, me being one of them, think that there's an organic connection between the land of Israel and the Jewish people- which in no way endorses or promotes any particular governmental policy but does shape how some of these conversations play out.
I've been to the West Bank and slept in Palestinian homes and seen maps in the refugee villages ringed by bullets outlining the entire State of Israel. I've also seen Israeli soldiers be cruel in executing policies that they didn't vote for and don't support. To reduce the settlements to "big money" is to ignore the entire history since UN resolution 181, which the Jews accepted and the surrounding states didn't, leading up to wars in 67 and 73 which Israel didn't want to fight.
Regarding Avigdor Lieberman, you might call him a slobbering savage, but he's also the guy who brought down Bibi Netanyahu, an act of improving the world the likes of which neither of us will ever accomplish. He's also an ardent supporter of the right to be secular and resist the encroachment of state religion. That's something progressives might like, no?
As for Torat HaMelech, the racist book that advocating preemptively killing some putative enemies- you know that the Attorney General of Israel indicted and convicted one of its authors for incitement, right?
I'm not asking you to join the Likud, I'm just pointing out that these issues are really, really complicated and if you want to effect change, listening and learning is probably a better strategy than condemning an entire country on the basis of its most extreme elements.
If you did not understand that I was expanding on
"And while those extremists alienate everybody who doesn’t agree with 100% of their demands, public opinion is shifting against the trans community in general."
in pointing out that frivolous charges of bigotry only make things worse for innocents, then you were alone in that misunderstanding. The diversionary charge of "antisemitism" is as cheap a shot as "transphobia" and the comparison between rising public disgust with global Jewry and the "trans" community is an inevitable one. More homologous than analogous.
But if you think replacing a politically cautious figure like Netanyahu with a bloodthirsty settler bigot like Naftali Bennett is some sort of improvement ...!
FTR both my grandmothers had their European families murdered in the Holocaust and I am 87% Ashkenazi by genetic analysis. However my choice is atheism.
Hi Chris, I did understand your point, which you made very clearly. I think in the course of making that point, some generalizations were made which are out of the spirit of this blog, and FWIW, I certainly didn't call you antisemitic or anything else. I don't disagree with you that some right-wing Jewish organizations are too quick to call critics of Israel "antisemites, though I don't see much evidence that this is causing a backlash against Jews in the US outside certain online progressive communities. After all, the most violent incidents against Jews in recent years- in Poway, Pittsburgh, and Jersey City- didn't have anything to do with Israel.
I think your point is much stronger when it comes to accusations of racism. Look at the huge backlash against the specter of "CRT".
Finally, I do think Naftali Bennett, of the now deposed coalition, was a better PM than Bibi, because Bennett brought Arabs into the coalition along with right-wingers and moderates, and didn't engage in the constant racist incitement that is Bibi's SOP. Bennett also sought to repair relationships across the world that Bibi had fractured. But that's all water under the bridge as of yesterday afternoon. The world moves faster than a blog debate.
"𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘺𝘴𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵."
Group 1: This goes to the heart if the issue of trans-what? People who are genuinely gender dysphoric have it tough and I don't want to make it tougher. Before transition surgery they must "live as a woman (or man)" which is met with resistance in the case of trans-women and may have danger for the trans-man. They are the real trans-persons but not the only ones.
Group 2: The enhanced transvestite with silicone breasts and some of which have a face that can "pass." A trip to a pornography site will reveal this trans group as retaining fully functional male sexual ability. For the most part homosexuals who may pose no danger to women if their sexual interest is in men. But they are functionally male.
Group 3: The fad group. Not really gender dysphoric, but could be a danger to themselves, or their children if puberty blockers or surgery takes place before they discover that they are really not gender dysphoric. As Bill Maher quipped, "If kids knew what they wanted to be at the age of eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery."
Group 4: And then there is another trans, the one at issue in this discussion. Predators seeking access to spaces where women are most vulnerable.
I don't know what the percentages the greater trans population is made up of. They all present different challenges. Finding a place in a society not fully accepting their condition (group 1), danger to themselves (group 2 violence from a deceived sex partner) or to themselves in the case of reckless medical intervention (group 3), or possible danger to women (group 4).
My go with plumbing solution is a hardship for the true transexual who must live as their new gender. Transvestites in Thailand don't seem to find that as an obstacle. I don't know what to say about the faddish except that I feel sorry for them if the end of the road is ruin. Pragmatically the best solution for the group 4 predators.
All that to say, what do you mean by trans? We could be discussing different things. I didn't even list the "activists" with that.
Group 2: last I read most transvestites are heterosexual
Group 5: the "nonbinary" claiming intermediate gender. Some of them extending this to claiming intermediate biological gender with absolutely zero physical or genetic corroboration yet flying into rages (with lots of 2-5 company) if this claim is questioned. The most strident pushers of the "they/them" horseshit. 100% fake and universally demanding an extra ration of special attention from everyone/
Group 6: want nothing to do with sex, either in the gender sense or the intercourse sense.
"𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭"
That's news to me, but I've made no attempt to gather statistics since they would be the result of self-reporting which is unreliable in my opinion. Your comments are to the point. My incomplete list is just to say that the trans group is not a monolith. Group 1 & 4 present issues hard to reconcile, especially with the others muddying the water.