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Post by alicechalmers on Sept 25, 2020 15:31:59 GMT -5
Brava, Vill.
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Post by Mamapalooza on Sept 26, 2020 15:59:23 GMT -5
I'm glad she has not backed down and apologized for her views, which many in her position with less security would likely do. She's said nothing to apologize for.
Joe Rogan is also getting pushback from Spotify employees for his similar opinions. Because we're at a point where not wanting biological men to injure biological women in contact sport, is now misogynistic. So far, Spotify is backing him, even if they have pulled a couple of his podcasts, but I doubt that will last.
And I've been listening to Jordan Peterson since just before he blew up in the public arena, shortly before he was shouted down and forced outside at McMaster University, so roughly the winter of 2016/17. Not ironically at all, the topic of the debate was free speech. Most of his lay critics base their opinions not on what he says, but what others claim he says, and it shows. It's amazing to me that so many people (usually women) have a problem with young men soaking up his lectures where he tells them to be responsible, to be honest (or at least not lie), to put their own house in order before telling others how to live their lives, to be someone others can depend on, to read well, ask questions, be open to learning from others, to be brave, be kind, be monogamous, to know their own strength and restrain it when required. Contrary to the claim that he preaches misogyny to incels, he very clearly tells them that as men, they are statistically more likely to be healthy and content if they learn to nurture a good relationship.
I like that's he's introduced a new generation to Solzhenitsyn and the idea that the line between good and evil runs through each of us, so we'd better get in touch with that part of ourselves and learn how to deal with it so we don't find ourselves where others have, following the orders of those who conveniently put others into the category of "evil". He's warned clearly against the descent into polarized politics, which will (and has) devolved into violence when people can no longer speak civilly to one other. Free speech is, as he puts it, the mechanism by which people peacefully resolve their differences. Lose that, and we lose everything. The flip side of the loss of free speech is compelled speech, which is how he came to be known for the so-called pronoun controversy. He is on record saying he will call a trans person by their preferred he/she pronoun. What he won't do is be forced by his employer (then, a publicly funded university) to use made-up words, and he staked his job on that, to which they backed down. Compelled speech is a whole other dark road leading to a similarly miserable outcome throughout history. What's going on now is not unlike the struggle sessions of Moa's Red Guard in the 60s. In fact, it's scary as fuck some of the things going on. But, they don't' teach much of that in schools so kids don't know.
Speak your mind, and let others do the same - hence why I like that JK Rowling is holding her ground in the face of trans activist hostility (to stay on topic).
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Post by maurinsky on Sept 26, 2020 19:41:53 GMT -5
I will have to absorb some of this, because I think the greatest threats to women do *not* come from other marginalized groups. I can see some of the things Vill mentioned on social media - especially the "Karen" thing.
JK Rowling has a much bigger platform than any transgender activist has. It's not exactly symetrical warfare.
On the subject of free speech, it reminds me of the paradox of tolerance. There is a line somewhere, I don't know where it is.
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Post by villanelle on Sept 26, 2020 20:16:12 GMT -5
I will have to absorb some of this, because I think the greatest threats to women do *not* come from other marginalized groups. I can see some of the things Vill mentioned on social media - especially the "Karen" thing. JK Rowling has a much bigger platform than any transgender activist has. It's not exactly symetrical warfare. On the subject of free speech, it reminds me of the paradox of tolerance. There is a line somewhere, I don't know where it is. I don't think it's the greatest threat to women, but that doesn't mean it's not a threat. Although "threat" isn't a word I've ever mentally used for it. She has a bigger platform than transgendered activists. How does that mean she can't speak up as a biological-woman activist, when she sees an injustice? Is she supposed to shut up about injustices that she sees because she has a large audience? How does that make sense? She has a large platform. She sees an injustice against biological women and speaks out. And that's not fair because someone else who champions a different cause has a smaller audience? What? And how is it warfare? Or maybe it is? Maybe it is transwomen against bio-women, but if that's your claim, then you seem to be conceding that intersectionality is bullshit and that trans people's rights are in opposition to biological women's rights. You use the term warfare, which I think is quite telling.
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mare
Full Member
Posts: 2,517
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Post by mare on Sept 27, 2020 1:54:23 GMT -5
I don't understand the many nuances of this issue. I have read some of JKR's writings about this controversy and I'm not seeing that she's discriminatory or insensitive. It sounds to me as if she's interested in discussing all the ramifications of trans gender issues. I don't think that's a bad thing.
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Post by GiftOfFlavor on Sept 27, 2020 8:09:33 GMT -5
I don't understand the many nuances of this issue. I have read some of JKR's writings about this controversy and I'm not seeing that she's discriminatory or insensitive. It sounds to me as if she's interested in discussing all the ramifications of trans gender issues. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think a lot of the frustration is that anyone that points out any nuance, or any disagreement with any small part of trans activism is considered a bigot and cancelled.
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Post by villanelle on Sept 27, 2020 13:58:25 GMT -5
I don't understand the many nuances of this issue. I have read some of JKR's writings about this controversy and I'm not seeing that she's discriminatory or insensitive. It sounds to me as if she's interested in discussing all the ramifications of trans gender issues. I don't think that's a bad thing. Yes. But instead, those who disagree, or who feel her statements are in opposition to their progress and only their progress, want to "cancel" her. I have a suuuuper liberal FB friend and she and her friends are all about how they will never spend another penny on HP merch and how Rowling is a villain and blah blah blah blah. Lots of hand-ringing about how her books were a haven for people who felt they never fit in and now she has spit in their faces, and similar. She's ruined her legacy and shit upon the very people who made her successful, dontchaknow. It's not even conversation or debate about why they disagree. I swear their posts would read almost identically if she'd said trans people were disgusting abominations, or trotted out the N-word. She disagrees so she's not only flat out wrong, she's mean and cruel and deserves to be entirely canceled from everything.
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Post by alicechalmers on Sept 27, 2020 14:49:02 GMT -5
I am seeing the same thing—so much pearl clutching about how awful she is. I am not on Twitter so I had no idea what the upset was. When I found it, I was like whaaaa?
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Post by villanelle on Sept 27, 2020 19:03:05 GMT -5
I am seeing the same thing—so much pearl clutching about how awful she is. I am not on Twitter so I had no idea what the upset was. When I found it, I was like whaaaa? Yes. This FB friend posted about it a while back when she first made the statement and I thought, "Oh, she's a bigot and hates trans people? How awful, and surprising." And then I googled to see exactly what horrifically cruel and small-minded thing she had said and, well... it didn't live up to the hype. And even if I disagreed with her, I'd like to believe that I could still see that what she said wasn't vile or evil, just different from my beliefs on the subject. Like if someone says the hope God blesses me. I don't think they are intolerant assholes. I just think they have different beliefs about the world. Because not everything has to be quite so tribal and adversarial. You can think Rowling is wrong and that trans women belong in women's sports but that doesn't mean I have to hate you and try to silence you and dox you and call you an enemy of decency.
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Post by katy on Sept 28, 2020 12:50:06 GMT -5
Mo, I don’t see anyone saying that trans women aren’t women.... I'll say it - transwomen aren't women. 🤷 The word "woman" has a pretty basic meaning: it's an adult human female. We should be able to discuss things like "women's reproductive health" and understand that we're talking about female reproductive organs.
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Post by villanelle on Sept 28, 2020 18:51:55 GMT -5
Mo, I don’t see anyone saying that trans women aren’t women.... I'll say it - transwomen aren't women. 🤷 The word "woman" has a pretty basic meaning: it's an adult human female. We should be able to discuss things like "women's reproductive health" and understand that we're talking about female reproductive organs. While I disagree with this and I do think trans women are women, I think the push to shoehorn them into language that was created before they were considered is causing pushback. Because, as in this example, we now have to consider testicular cancer when we talk about *women's* reproductive health, which is nonsense. And this is why I think we need to better differentiate between female/woman (and male/man). FEMALE reproductive health (with "human" implied before that "female") is ovaries and labia and breasts. MALE reproductive health is testicles and penises. And while typically female reproductive health applies to women, some women might fall more into the concerns of male productive health. Because you can be female and a man, or male and a woman (such as a transgendered woman). If male/female applies to biology and chromosomes and nothing more, then we can differentiate while also including. (And yes, I'm aware that there are people who aren't either XX or XY.) But even that is off-putting to transgendered people because they won't to be 100% included in everything relating to the sex (not just gender) that they have transitioned to. There is no room for compromise. I can see how they would feel that their entire lives and situations have been compromises and there's no room for more. But that's not a stance from which progress is made. And it's a reality that their experiences and--most especially and relevantly-- their bodies are different than the bodies of biologically female women. It's awful and painful for them that this is the case, but it doesn't make it any less real. I wish that every woman was born into a female body (and man/male). But that's not something we can ever, ever change. We can be accepting of that fluke of biology, and compassionate to the pain it causes. We can support them as they wade those messy, painful, awkward waters. But we can't make it so their bodies are other than what they always were, biologically.
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Post by alicechalmers on Sept 28, 2020 19:05:20 GMT -5
I figure trans women are women and trans men are men in so far as social niceties go, but no, there are actually biological differences and I think it is BSC to pretend that is not the case. I do favor honoring another persons preferences and I favor inclusion to the point that actual biologists women are not left out.
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Post by katy on Sept 29, 2020 1:56:58 GMT -5
Why can't we just call them "transwomen?" They inhabit a sort of limbo where they are treated like women in some ways (pronouns, etc), but not all (sports etc.)
The ones who get really upset about wanting to be included in every aspect of the word "woman" tend to be the heterosexual men who transition later in life. They're consumed by a fetish: autogynophilia. They're sexually aroused by the thought of being a biological woman. They declare themselves lesbians (and often insist that their wives are now lesbians, as well.) They rage about the "cotton ceiling" when they discover that very few women find them sexually attractive.
Not all transwomen are like this. There are also homosexual males who transition or behave feminine from pre-puberty. I do believe that some people are genuinely trans - there are both male and female pre-pubescent children who express this. But the adult autogynophiliacs are the loudest voices driving the push to put these children on puberty blockers, because they want their entire fetish to be legitimised.
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Post by alicechalmers on Sept 29, 2020 6:14:28 GMT -5
I agree, Katy. The people I am most conscious of, however, are young and feel deeply awkward. While I have significant concerns about medical transition as an actual treatment, I religiously use pronouns and names of choice became the kid group seems awfully fragile in a whole host of other ways. I tend to think there is something else psychiatric going on and our modern psych care is all but useless. There is also a cultural component that it’s not okay to just be a butch lesbian or a femme gay man. Transitioning wipes out categories of people.
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Post by katy on Sept 29, 2020 6:56:19 GMT -5
In Iran, being a homosexual man is illegal. But being trans is not. Gay men are pressured to transition.
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Post by Tpatt100 on Sept 29, 2020 9:15:55 GMT -5
I have a couple of trans relatives, one came out years ago the other only a couple. It took them a while before they started transitioning. The first only did his legal identity change the hormones started a while after.
I am not sure what the term is but they get really offended if you refer to them by their previous gender/name in old photos. It’s as if that identity is dead to them. I remember seeing it being a thing where people intentionally use their old name because they know it offends them. I see it on social media for any trans person who has some celebrity status. One was a female trans gamer that died a while back and her twitter was flooded by people intentionally calling her “he” because they know others took offense to it.
The first relative that transitioned years ago I forgot he used to be female. The one that’s more recent I am more comfortable with it now but at first man I felt super awkward because men transitioning to female late in life have an incredibly hard time passing.
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Post by stellarfeller on Sept 29, 2020 10:08:42 GMT -5
It’s deadnaming
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