I honestly think that the hamstringing of actual feminism and the demonization of lesbians is the point. Lesbians are often the most politically committed and active women, and the most threatening to the patriarchy. If we can get to the point where the most dangerous women can be demonized and all the gains of feminism can be undone under a woke banner, so much the better. Gains made by women are always as fragile as a cloud and just as capable of disappearing with the wind. Now, female-only safe spaces, rape crisis centers, Title IX ... all of it can be done away with by misogynists as long as they put on dresses first.
Great point. Lesbians are the sacrificial guinea pigs of the trans “rights” juggernaut.
I'm a 69 year-old lesbian. I've seen reduced to rubble the thriving lesbian culture that I helped create through the 70's, 80's and 90's. An entire generation of young lesbians, mostly the ones who in the old days we would have described as "butchy," has been convinced that lesbianism is a dead end: the world hates "masculine" women, and since masculine equals male, transition is the answer.
Don't like dresses? Play sports? Wear your hair short? Not interested in boys? Up until about 10 years ago, these traits would have sent our tomboy to the Phys Ed department where she would have connected with her peers, joined the girls’ softball team, and come out as gay by the time she was 15. Now that same girl spends her preteen years terrified of the passive, stupid sex object and wifey that she's warned she will become. She's horrified by her maturing body and encouraged by the schools and social media to bind her breasts and take testosterone. Anyway, who has time for sports when you're recovering from a double mastectomy?
I’m not theorizing. The detrans subreddit is replete with posts by former trans men sharing, often with great shame, the fact that they thought they were trans but now realize they were lesbians. Will their parents ever speak to them again? Can they get their breasts back? What about the body hair, deep voice, acne, masculine jaw line, prolapsed uterus, atrophied vagina? And poignantly, will a real woman ever love them? Even after detransitioning, many of them are still unable to think of themselves as women, so they call themselves non-binary. They may have discovered something authentic about themselves but their belief in gender ideology remains.
And so, in the name of fairness and inclusion, our progressive president throws women under the bus with the so-called Equality Act. Women’s sports, prisons, rape refuges are now the cozy domain of ladies with penises. "...all the gains of feminism can be undone under a woke banner... Gains made by women are always as fragile as a cloud and just as capable of disappearing with the wind.” Hear, hear.
Martina Navratilova is turning over in her cancelled grave.
I believe every word you've said. I've heard of it happening myself -- male predators are using this "civil rights movement" as a way to continue to bully and threaten women into having sex we don't want to have, and to bully lesbians especially, which I find enraging.
"Now that same girl spends her preteen years terrified of the passive, stupid sex object and wifey that she's warned she will become."
I think this is also terrifying straight girls as well; I am convinced this is also what's behind this trend to identify as "asexual" among straight girls and young women. When sex with men is defined as your obscene degradation and being nagged and bullied into letting him act out gonzo porn on you, well who the hell wouldn't be "asexual?"
And I blame feminism for accepting and then promoting the redefinition of porn as some bullshit empowerment thing. Porn is the treatment of human bodies and souls as empty calories to be gorged on like binge-eating. Porn does with sex what hyper-processed food does with nutrition: turns it into something alien, dangerous, unhealthy, and addictive that destroys your ability to enjoy the natural bounty in the world. I will swear to you that behind every incel in a dress who insists he's lesbian is a guy who dumps several hundred bucks a month into his laptop for "lesbian" porn.
I also wonder how many straight girls who cape for this ideology aren't doing it out of envy for lesbians, who they resent for being able to get laid without having to negotiate with the sewer that is today's young men and their porn addictions. (And before anyone jumps on me over that, I am a 55 year old straight woman.)
And this garbage is called "progressive" and "feminist," and I hear girls talking about how much "better" things are now than they were in the ill-understood and demonized past. Unbelievable.
Gender ideology is garbage. Gender is a straitjacket. When I was little, I was told that I can't be good at math (when I was) because I was a girl. Nowdays, I'd have been told that I can't be a girl because I'm good at math. And this is "woke." :-(
"Gender ideology is garbage. Gender is a straitjacket. When I was little, I was told that I can't be good at math (when I was) because I was a girl. Nowadays, I'd have been told that I can't be a girl because I'm good at math."
This! Thank you. This is such a great encapsulation of the madness. Nothing progressive or feminist about it.
I think a lot of this is a right-wing infiltration. I have heard too many angry young men telling women: "You wanted to take men's jobs and marry each other, so you forced us to put on dresses and rape you!" I am not making this us. The upshot being we asked for it by demanding rights like oh, voting and not being relegated to the shit-paying section of the job ads.
These are ultra-right-wing men who hate-hate-hate the fact that women with financial security can be rightly picky about who we marry, so they have cobbed together a "woke" way to undo all the gains of feminism by slapping on some shit lip gloss and demanding that we call them some pole-dancer name and let them in our changing rooms.
And the end result? "Radical feminists" are blamed for it all by both sides(!!!), yet we'll be the ones cleaning up after it. Christina Hoff Sommers blames radical feminism for it because women wanting to be financially independent and pass marital rape legislation undermined male identity or some shit, and meanwhile we're called "terfs" by the guys in dresses for NOT fucking them and are slurred, stalked, threatened, no-platformed, and punched in the face when we try to draw attention to what's going on.
wanted to take men's jobs and marry each other, so you forced us to put on dresses and rape you!" I am not making this us.
Yes but a lot of such men will identify as liberal, progressive, or even Left. They're not necessarily rightwingers. There is a whole "conservative Left" movement out there now.
"These are ultra-right-wing men who hate-hate-hate the fact that women with financial security can be rightly picky about who we marry, so they have cobbled together a "woke" way to undo all the gains of feminism by slapping on some shit lip gloss and demanding that we call them some pole-dancer name and let them in our changing rooms."
You can say that till the cows come home but finding a rightwing transwoman is quite rare. Almost all of them are somewhere on the Left, often pretty far to the left.
Thank you for continuing this conversation. True, heterosexual girls do transition because they experience the same terror of becoming adult women as lesbians do. And they share their detransition processes online. I recall one poster who wrote, in effect, "The men in my family would not protect me, so I became a man to protect myself.” After she detransitioned, she got married and had kids. By the way, the incidence of incest and sexual abuse in the childhoods of both female and male transitioners is high. It's mentioned frequently as an unconscious reason for wanting to transition that doesn’t get processed until later on.
Porn is absolutely an issue. Shrier discusses this in "Irreversible Damage.” Teenage boys learn about sex from watching porn online. It inspires them to try out their new skills on flesh and blood females whom they can choke and torture, because they've observed that that's what women like. Of course girls are terrified.
You're right here too: Based on what I've learned online, porn addiction is sometimes cited by men as they try to understand their sexuality and gender issues. The arousal they experience when dressed as a woman is called autogynephilia. These men are not gay, which initially confuses them. They’re heterosexual and watch porn compulsively. Neuroscientist Debra Soh, author of "The End of Gender,” explains that autogynephilia is a paraphilia, an abnormal sexual interest. For some men it becomes a terrible compulsion. However, the normalization of trans ideology has allowed these transvestites, i.e., men with a fetish, to come out. They get breast implants or take just enough estrogen to acquire breasts, and feminize themselves with make-up and clothes just enough to feel sexy, while maintaining a fully functioning penis. They may bully, harass and coerce women, especially young, naive lesbians, accusing them of transphobia if they refuse to have sex with these men. It’s accurate to call them incels. And it’s worth noting that despite all the time they spend repeating the phrase "transwomen are women,” these special lesbians are not interested in hooking up with each other, for same mysterious reason. To be fair, there are women who date and have sex with these men.
Yes. Gender ideology is garbage. It is a straitjacket. It is tyrannical.
P.S. I can’t speak from experience regarding your theory about straight girls being jealous of lesbians. You could be right, but I can’t get inside the heads of those women.
Some straight girls and young women may transition, but I think that identifying a "asexual" is more common among them. If you find yourself attracted to men, it's not your "gender identity" that might be called into question, but your desire for sex because if sex is defined as being treated like garbage then ... well, if I don't want to get spat at, slapped, or choked, I guess I'm not sexual is how the thought process goes. :-( There is a whole new labyrinth of identities like asexual nonbinary demisexual blah-blah-blah that ultimately all revolves around, "I think men are physically attractive but I don't want to get choked during sex, what's wrong with me?" or "I like women's bodies but porn makes me hate myself, what do I come out as?"
I can tell you that there is definitely an unfortunate envy of lesbians among a lot of straight women if they are honest. It's true that lesbians are victimized by a lot of violence, but so are a lot of straight women so I'd call that a wash.
Thank you as well for talking with me about this. It's all just so horrifying. I feel like I'm yelling at someone to get off the tracks while a train is barreling their way and they aren't listening. And I find it so tempting to just disengage. I get so angry at women for falling for this, and for being so eager to kowtow to patriarchy yet again, to have been condemned to being second-class humans after the ones with penises for eons, only to line up eagerly to be second-class WOMEN behind the ones with penises.
If I were to actually say what I think about feminism, sex, men, and women, I'd lose my job in a heartbeat.
I share your horror and frustration regarding the clueless feminists and lesbians who wonder what’s wrong with me. When did I turn into a bigot? Where do I get my right-wing ideas? Keira Bell's victory in the U.K. High Court wasn’t covered by the Times or the Washington Post, so they don't need to know about it. Probably just fake news anyway.
Regarding straight girls and the "asexual" label, I'm sure you're right. It makes a lot of sense. And it's terribly tragic. I recently learned that lesbians are using this label too now. Even if they don’t transition, folks under 30 marinate in trans ideology and struggle to place themselves somewhere on the gender spectrum, which they believe in utterly. Through social media, I started corresponding with a 21 year-old lesbian who lives on the East Coast. She's a college student, and she doesn't know a single other lesbian in real life. This is in a large metropolitan area that not long ago had a flourishing lesbian community with book stores, bars, music festivals and social organizations. All gone. Although she's had some sexual encounters with women and knows that they prefer women to men, they identify as pansexual, bisexual, or asexual, in order to avoid the lesbian label or simply to keep the men away. But “asexual" means they're also keeping the women away. They should be enjoying life and falling in love, but they’re imposing celibacy on themselves in the hopes that, as my young friend put it, “they might meet a guy they can stand one day so they can get married and be normal.” That blew my mind.
We do what we can. I donate money to the few organizations that work for women's sex-based rights. Internationally there is a movement. I sign petitions. I forward articles. I write on line. I sympathize with you and I relate to your isolation and frustration. How awful that you're being held hostage at work because we live in such an authoritarian, censorious society. And yet, here we are, communicating on Abigail Shrier's Substack. That's a good thing. Shrier is a hero.
YOUR right-wing ideas? And you're accused of this by people who think that a girl has to get her breasts amputated if she prefers short hair and doesn't want to paint herself up like a drag queen?
" ... in the hopes that, as my young friend put it, “they might meet a guy they can stand one day so they can get married and be normal.”" I'm heterosexual and I never found a guy I could stand and hence never married. Besides, normal sucks. Normal in this country is brick-stupid, addicted to garbage food, sedentary, depressed, and self-hating. The last thing anyone should want to be is normal.
I think sometimes that a lot of this really cranked up after the Edith Windsor decision. When the world realized that lesbians now had the chance to be happy and live unpersecuted lives, there was this "OH NO YOU DON'T BITCHES" reaction. And now this young woman suffers for no reason.
"Should be enjoying life and falling in love, but they’re imposing celibacy on themselves in the hopes that, as my young friend put it, “they might meet a guy they can stand one day so they can get married and be normal.”"
If they are really and truly lesbians, this isn't going to work. True lesbianism is biological IMHO.
However, some lesbians can be "cured" or go straight. I am talking to one right now. She went 180 degrees. However it was very hard and she had to work at it for hours a day and I doubt if most lesbians would be up for it. Gay men absolutely cannot change as male sexual orientation is fixed at age 15 at least. They can't even move it 10% in either direction after that.
"they identify as pansexual, bisexual, or asexual, in order to avoid the lesbian label or simply to keep the men away."
LOL bisexual and pansexual won't keep us away. In fact, a lot of men will flock right to those women.
I can tell you that we straight men absolutely envy gay men. Those guys can pretty much get laid any time they want to! It's about as hard as going to the gas station and filling up your car. Of course there are problems related to that, but that's how much straight men want to have sex. We want women to be as loose as those gay men. But they're not. Even nowadays.
Women can pretty much have sex anytime they want to IMHO. Well with us men, it's just not so. And women can't figure this out. They think we can get it anytime like them.
Well if that was true, there would be no whore market or prostitute market. The prostitute market only exists because women make sex hard to get and also they frequently make us spend money one war or another to get in. Women say, "Well just go to a bar." LOL if any man could go to a bar and get sex with a woman for free within an hour, you would have long lines of men outside the bars waiting for the bars to open at noon!
Also I have a gay friend who envies me as a straight man. He hates being gay and wishes he were straight.
Porn addiction doesn't cause autogynephilia. First comes transvestic fetishism, which starts in childhood by trying on women's clothes. Then it often goes to autogynephilia. Really they are the same thing. But autogynephilia has a lot of gender dysphoria.
You go on and on about autogynephilia. However, what you leave out is that ALL autogynephiles start out as transvestic fetishists, which ALWAYS comes on in childhood and solidifies in puberty and adolescence.
You literally cannot become a transvestic fetishist or an autogyenphile in adulthood. It's not possible. All paraphilias in men have an onset in childhood and come on in puberty and adolescence. I've talked to a lot of pedophiles, and they all told me it came on no later than age 14.
Sure you can pick up all sorts of weird kinks in adulthood but they don't "stick" like they do with the early-onset ones and you can pretty much drop them any time you want to.
"It’s accurate to call them incels."
LOL says who? You realize that the meaning of incel means you have never had anything even closely resembling sex with a real woman (although they are letting the "escortcels" in, but that's controversial). You get laid ONE TIME in your whole life, and you're not an incel anymore, and they throw you off the boards.
"To be fair, there are women who date and have sex with these men."
There's been porn like that. Those are bisexual porn stars. It looks like a woman and has breasts, so they like that, and then it has a cock and they like that too. I don't think it's real common though.
"By the way, the incidence of incest and sexual abuse in the childhoods of both female and male transitioners is high."
Do you have any evidence that this is higher than normal?
"It inspires them to try out their new skills on flesh and blood females whom they can choke and torture, because they've observed that that's what women like. Of course girls are terrified."
Do you have any evidence that this is why women are transitioning? I've met several straight TIW, and they never mentioned this. In fact, they never mentioned any reason for transitioning.
And you would be amazed at how perverted many straight TIW's are. In fact there is a whole weird kink of these women getting on a degradation kink where they get off on being told that they're really just women and being men is a fake, that they made a terrible mistake, etc. They like being deadnamed. They have LOTS of their own porn blogs set up with this kink and a lot of the stuff they post is the stuff you claim made them transition in the first place, so I'm not really buying it.
I recommend the r/detrans site on Reddit, and the many detrans videos on YouTube. Another interesting podcast is called Transparency. It's hosted by two transmen, both named Aaron, oddly enough, who together have formed an organization called the Gender Dysphoria Alliance, also worth a look. Go right to the source.
"Pornography also plays a role. Violent porn – readily available to children on platforms such as Pornhub – terrifies young girls about men and the prospect of sex with them.
"Sasha Ayad, a therapist whose practice is largely devoted to trans-identifying adolescents, says: 'The kids that I work with are often pretty freaked out by porn… In some cases, porn played a big role in their new adopted identity.'"
Hey thank you very much Beeswax! Feminists have been insisting that this was true for a long time but it's such a convenient argument for them that I was dubious, and unfortunately, they're not the most reliable sources as a lot of their agenda has more to do with ideology than fact. But here is the gold nugget I have been looking for - the truth! And yes, it is true! Porn is freaking these girls out.
So, we, the men, with this terrible violent and (I to use the word but here it applies) misogynistic porn we created, are partially responsible for this insane, horrible, and mostly tragic cult.
A lot of us men are not real comfortable with this porn either. You have any idea what young straight women are like nowadays? They don't all hate that porn. Many embrace it. And they want to act a lot of this crazy stuff out. I keep getting dumped by young women for not being mean enough to them. They want an asshole who treats them like shit, and that ain't me, babe. That ain't me you're looking for, babe.
Feminists also go on about how perverted and sick men we men are in terms of sex. All you have to see is how gay men act where there are no female gatekeepers to limit their perversions to see that this is the basic nature of men. However, what these women leave out is that a HELL of a lot of mostly young women nowadays are pretty damn sick and perverted too! REAL sick and perverted. Not in the almost evil and twisted and retching way that some of these TIM's are, but still. They're masochists.
Wait a minute. You're a lesbian? Wow. How come you're so nice? To me, a man? I hate to say it but so many lesbians are just not pleasant to us men. They really seem like they do hate men. Now they may have their reasons for that but as a man, it makes it hard to talk to them.
Anyway thanks for going against the crowd and being kind to half the population. We're really not that different from you all, you know.
I also like the way you think. You've got some great ideas here and you articulate them very well. You're a great abstract thinker. You think things through calmly and incisively. I've learned some new things from you, and that's a compliment because I'm self-educated.
Thanks. I love doing research on difficult questions and I take the "I don't know" or "prove it" stance on all sorts of things. I'm not saying the claim is false, I'm just saying that I'm not sure if it's true or false. This sounds like a goldmine! I love to learn new things!
"Porn does with sex what hyper-processed food does with nutrition: turns it into something alien, dangerous, unhealthy, and addictive that destroys your ability to enjoy the natural bounty in the world."
I don't know. I meet this porn-addled young women all the time. A lot of them have their very own porn blogs! They are extremely sexual, masturbate a LOT, and seem to enjoy sex to an almost insane degree to where they are basing their lives on it. You may not like it but these chicks are absolutely getting off.
"I think this is also terrifying straight girls as well; I am convinced this is also what's behind this trend to identify as "asexual" among straight girls and young women. When sex with men is defined as your obscene degradation and being nagged and bullied into letting him act out gonzo porn on you, well who the hell wouldn't be "asexual?""
Ace is a stupid fad and a number of these women calling themselves "ace" are actually highly sexual and masturbate all the time, typically daily. I've met them. They seem to have a "disorder of attraction" to where they have a raging sex drive but are hardly sexually attracted to any men. Every man is "not their type." I don't know what this is but a raging sex drive and "asexual" do not go together.
I understand this but do you have any evidence that this is so? Also I'm not seeing a lot of young women who are identifying as "ace." Most young women nowadays are incredibly sexual and they are masturbating all the time, typically on a daily basis.
And a LOT of young women into what you call this "gonzo porn and obscene degradation." I meet young women all the time who dump me for being too nice and not wanting to treat them like crap. They also dump me for not being perverted enough, and I'm Hella kinky. You would be amazed at what these women want you to do to them.
I'm not aware the testosterone actually changes the shape of your jaw. That would be pretty odd if it did.
I've never heard of the prolapsed uterus problem.
Yes they can get vaginal atrophy, but won't this arrest when they go off testosterone and start getting the benefits of their estrogen again. I doubt if it reverses though.
Also you would be stunned at how many of these transmen are heterosexual! I've met quite a few of them. Oddly enough many are virgins even into their mid-20's. One wanted to have sex with me. I was going to do it if she shaved her chest but I decided I would be turned off by the male face.
Yes sir, testosterone does affect the bone structure of the face. This includes the brow too. If you have any doubt, check out some photos of competitive female body builders who use testosterone to enhance their muscularity.
In fact, a major concern for women who detransition is the fear that their features will never return to their original feminine character. If you visit the r/detrans site -- the detransitioners' site on Reddit -- you'll eventually see photos submitted by a woman comparing how she looked while on T, and how she looks now, after ceasing testosterone injections.
Uterine prolapse occurs because estrogen is required to keep the reproductive organs healthy and toned. The uterus falls if the muscles and ligaments that hold it in place lose their tone. And vaginal atrophy makes orgasm extremely painful, so if a woman transitions and still hopes to have pleasurable sex, she'll need to get rid of that too. I don't know the answer to your question regarding the return to health of the vagina if a woman ceases testosterone.
Regarding transmen being attracted to men, in other words, not being lesbians -- I've heard some interesting theories about this, but the short answer is that sexuality is incredibly complex under the most mundane of circumstances, so add in trans and who knows?
I can tell you right now that there are LOTS of straight women who have transitioned and are now TIW. In fact, I haven't met a lesbian TIW yet. Of course they are out there, but I never meet them. I've had theses straight TIW's ask me to have sex with them, but the male face turned on my homophobia LOL and I blew it off. I was ok with the huge clit. And I demanded she shave her chest, dammit.
This is just part of the crazy social contagion. It's not just lesbians who are transitioning. LOTS of young straight women are too. They end up being "gay men" who often have sex with straight men.
And vaginal atrophy makes orgasm extremely painful,
Is this true? I talk to postmenopausal women about sex all the time, and none of them have ever mentioned this. I always try to get them on that damned estrogen string if they are having problems. Most don't even know there's a solution.
One thing I've noticed is that the vagina tightens up to an extreme degree to where you can't even really get in! They often carry around this thing called a vibe that they use to somehow pry their vag open enough to have sex.
Most of the postmenopausal women I've met enjoy sex just fine and a lot of them are not having any issues. Many of them still get quite wet for some reason. I talk to others who use dildos on themselves every day to keep their vags open.
It's not unusual at all to meet a woman in her 60's who still masturbates to orgasm on a daily basis! Postmenopausal women are hornier than you think.
A woman I dated works in an old folks home and a 99 year old woman asked her for a dildo. She gave one to the woman and she barely got it in (she was very tight) before she had a raging orgasm. She orgasmed after that dildo was in her for maybe 5-10 seconds. I think we vastly underestimate older women's potential sexual response.
There is missing a crucial component, which also cuts across your conflation of the trans phenomenon with the "hard left." How do you explain the role of billionaires such as "Jennifer" Pritzker, Jon Stryker, "Martine" Rothblatt,? Not only are these people not "hard left," many of them are most definitely on the "right wing" end of the political spectrum. There is BIG money to be made once young people are put on lifelong drugs and surgeries. Sorry, but that money isn't flowing to anyone with politics aimed at empowering the working class, or stopping the US government from overthrowing other governments around the world.
You, James Lindsay, Christopher Rufo, and others pull this sleight of hand on a regular basis now. It's misleading. I'm a long-time leftist, a supporter of women's sex-based rights, and not at all in favor of Robin DiAngelo-type "White Fragility" guilt-baiting. I'm far from alone.
I don't believe she said this problem lies exclusively with the left, but I think you'll find it hard to argue that it isn't being pushed primarily by the radical left.
I think we have a problem with the term "left", here. Most of what passes for "the left" nowadays has nothing to do with the needs and interest of the working class, as opposed to the power of capital. And it is to the benefit of the billionaires that such confusion remains. Jennifer Bilek, at https://www.the11thhourblog.com/about does a good job "following the money" behind this very rapid expansion - an explosion, really - of the trans movement. There are medical/pharmaceutical fortunes funding this, often filtered through large Foundations. These are not "leftists" out to nationalize the banks, organize labor unions, provide universal health care, make education free, guarantee jobs, massively increase Social Security, and shut down the 800 or more US military bases all over the planet!
"The Left", tracing back at least to Marx and Engels, roots itself in materialism. Wherever else some academics have floated in the past decades, declaring that males are women is to take leave of material reality. The "radical left" to which you refer is a cultural phenomenon. A lot of it is a fashion statement, to put it crudely.
Would you prefer the term “progressive” vs. “left”? I appreciate your concern with semantics and terminology, but sometimes we need to admit that a word that has always meant one thing has now been co-opted to mean something else. And I also agree that she isn’t claiming it’s exclusively the left, but rarely do I see/read people who are generally “conservative” fighting hard for kids/teens to be allowed to get prescriptions and medical procedures without parental consent. I don’t doubt that money is behind a lot of this—the mere fact that there are 300 gender clinics means there are a lot of people making money off of this and, like most, will fight to the death to preserve their livelihood.
We need to own this. I'm on the Left, actually a "tankie" LOL and we created this whole mess along with the rest of the Cultural Left Freakshow. This is our baby, I'm afraid. We're not perfect. We on the Left screw up all the time.
I appreciate your viewpoints even if I don’t agree always. I have a progressive, atheist friend (for ease, I’m a conservative Jesus follower), and whenever we have lunch we are always convinced that together we could change the world :-)
I don't think "liberal" has been coopted. It's been demonized by the progressives. They hate the word liberal; they haven't coopted it at all. Calling oneself a liberal to them is no different from calling oneself a Trump voter.
"Leftist", "Socialist," Communist," are all terms that have been demonized in the United States at least since the post-World War II McCarthy Era Red Scare. It goes back even further: Socialist Eugene Debs won close to a million votes for President in 1918, while imprisoned for his opposition to Woodrow Wilson taking the US into World War I. "Liberal" became a term of opprobrium, the result of a sustained right-wing campaign, such that many of those who used to proudly call themselves by that title switched to using "progressive." The words have lost meaning, yes. But "Left", if it means anything, has to have a serious economic component to it. When Jeff Bezos increases his fortune by billions during the pandemic, while his corporation does everything to crush a unionization drive among a largely Black workforce in Alabama, does it matter that Amazon PR pushes out "progressive" statements on racism, or trans rights? Look at all the corporate grants and support to BLM (the organization), corporate "Diversity" trainings, police and spy agencies flying the rainbow flag: this is the giveaway that none of this threatens ruling class power!
My original comment - which may have come across harshly, when I very much respect Abigail Shrier's writing and speaking on behalf of girls, women, and biological reality - was in response to a broader campaign on the Right (by which I mean those seeking to privatize public resources and infrastructure, financialize everything, and generally grant more and more control to unaccountable private holders of vast fortunes) to conflate "Marxism" with gender ideology. It's a useful tactic to dissuade people from considering socialist ideas, at a time when wealth inequality is hurtling toward Gilded Age levels of the late 19th Century. We'll be in a very dangerous place, indeed, when "left" is seen as destroying the sex-based rights of girls and women, or breaking apart real solidarity among working people of all races or ethnicity in the guise of "Anti-Racism." There's nothing "progressive" about this: it's a sophisticated form of Divide and Rule.
Shant Mesrobian wrote a very good piece on this a couple of days ago:
The leftists I know who believe in gender ideology do want all those things you mention: free education, universal healthcare, guaranteed jobs that are well-paying, a massive increase in social services including guaranteed income for all, a reduction or elimination of US military bases, AND an elimination of the police, prisons and reparations for racial disparities and discrimination past and present (slavery). They are all for labor unions, would love to get rid of or nationalize the banks and probably nearly everything else. Oh, there are some variations in the stance, but basically they are economic and cultural leftists in one swoop. Their embrace of gender ideology is part of their embracing what they consider to be oppressed groups and ironically their embracing of getting rid of binary sex and sex/gender roles. They view all sexual differences as constructed, much like many radical feminists but their prescription includes not only discouraging sex roles but also enabling the expression of any gender by any person at any time. And the idea of a gender spectrum and not simply a gender binary - that's part of their gender ideology. They are leftists and often see themselves as some kind of revolutionary and they are feminists. They are just not the same kind of radical feminist that is anti-gender ideology or anti-trans. I know many of these people. Some are armchair revolutionaries but revolutionaries nonetheless. So, seriously this gender ideology is a left wing movement and idea. There are branches of the left that are against it, and leftists like yourself (I assume) who are against it. Some radical feminists are against it. The left has never been a monolith. There are different often warring factions. Martine Rothblatt (btw) is a leftist also. I know her personally. Many wealthy people fancy themselves leftists. The BLM movement was founded by at least one woman who comes from a wealthy background. At any rate... the left has to take responsibility for this sick puppy. I undertstand not all leftists are on the side of gender ideology but that's where it was born.
Such folks are very few and far between. Sure they might be left on some of this cultural BS (Pritzker) but they're not Left on the stuff that counts as it obviously goes against their class interests.
Radical left AND simple liberal and progressive democrats. And social democrats. If it was just the radical Left, it would never have gotten any traction, as nothing they propose goes anywhere.
I agree with so much of what Ms Shrier says but not with laying this ghastly situation on the doorstep of us liberals. There is almost no group other than the hard right that hasn’t come to accept that people’s’ sincerely held feelings, especially about anything to with beliefs about the self, are as exempt from being questioned as their religious beliefs.
Indeed, as a society, people across a wide swath of the political spectrum have come to accept a bunch of unproven propositions as gospel — including the proposition that gender identity exists, that it is an exact parallel to sexual orientation, and that we simply must go along with whatever people say and believe about their gender identity.
Far from being the provenance of the far left, you actually have to be pretty far to the right to NOT be steeped in this kind of mainstream acceptance and “tolerance” as a baseline.
"I agree with so much of what Ms Shrier says but not with laying this ghastly situation on the doorstep of us liberals."
I agree with you. This is a right-wing reaction against the gains of feminism. They couldn't defeat it through the courts, so now they all put on dresses and cheap lipstick and will destroy Title IX by forcing us to compete against them. They will destroy Planned Parenthood by calling any talk of abortion or birth control "transphobic." They will destroy rape crisis centers by demanding access to them for completely intact men in dresses. They will do away with any compensatory awards or scholarships for women by awarding them to young men in satin nighties.
And they will have the gall to BLAME the 1970s feminists for this in the bargain.
So exactly who are these right-wing transgender terrorists? Name them. Blaming the right for this ideology is taking a page right out of the right wing nut playbook. Either way, women are the losers and it's infuriating.
What's that song lyric?
"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...Stuck in the middle with you."
The author, Abigail Shirer, is a hard extremely partisan rightwing Republican across the board on most subjects, so of course she's going to blast the Left. Go read her Twitter.
There are definitely some "anti-woke Left" movements out there. You should consider joining one of them.
I'm well aware of Abigail Shrier's politics, especially when it comes to Israel and Zionism. But she's far from the only one who points to the utterly anti-materialist, homophobic and misogynistic "trans rights" movement, and calls it "Left." The word has been stripped of all meaning, intentionally so, as it benefits actual right-wing, "privatize it all" types to do so. No worries: I've been an "anti-woke" Leftist for many decades.
Wonderful. You argue in a balanced, circumspect and fact-focused manner. I hold out hope that if we can all hold the line, not get angry, focus on facts, evidence, and good reasoning, we will win the day.
Please, please tell us, Ms Shrier, how do we help our daughters to extricate themselves from this mind virus once it has a hold on them? That is information that thousands of parents need right now. What will work to bring our beloved daughters back before it is too late?
That's from a John Prine song, of course but it may be the only answer.
The powers that be will never stop now that they have the minds of children. Get them out of public school and surround yourself and your children with sane and moral adults. God bless you and your family.
As if. One of my oldest closest friends and her husband (stable, educated, down to earth, morally mindful, loving people) tried to take that approach 10+ years ago with their three daughters to disastrous results. Their 16-year old was taken in by a group of Satan worshiping meth heads in a rural town an hour outside of a large city. The way she later put it was, "We thought we were moving out of the big bad city but little did we know, we were headed straight for the big bad country."
Today it's far worse because you cannot get away from social media no matter where you go. You have to fight this head on.
Listen to them, keep lines of communication open with them, ask open questions, get them asking and thinking about those questions, and especially the answers. Try not to preach older kids, they hate it & need to come to their own conclusions, so make sure you encourage them to think think think. Drip feed certain information to them, don;t interrogate them with it all at once as they just shut down. Reassure them you love m regardless and will always be there for them. Try hard not to agree to call them by any other chosen name or pronoun other than what you always have. Keep home a safe haven for them. If they are younger restrict access to the internet/online gaming/social media, dont take it away but give boundaries and time limits,and know who they are in touch with and the games they are playing. Take an interest in what they are doing without being over protective and controlling. Believe me it is so hard, and if you have a child/teen going through this look after your own mental well being, as it can all be so consuming.
This is a cogent and rational exposition of what exactly is wrong with gender ideology. I thank you for not blaming actual transsexual people for this crisis, but the far left ideologues who are sometimes trans but always, always far left ideologues. The word "transsexual" is now a non-PC term and is banned or seen as reactionary in many woke trans/NB groups. The idea that a person needs to have gender dysphoria to be trans is now suspect and politically inconvenient. Self-identification is the rage and people can represent themselves as trans without doing any surgery or hormones. Many are NB or non-binary and are slightly contemptuous of actual "binary" transsexuals. It is complicated but you hit the nail on the head when you stated that it is the ideologues who are promoting confusion and easy transition to the young, that are at fault. Academic trans activists are in the mix and they are leftist and often also support CRT. The rank and file transsexual is watching all of this with a mixture of horror and confusion. I'm one. Thanks for your clarity and courage.
Firstly thank you for the informative and quite enlightening article. I must say I wasn't entirely surprised by the covert nature of the "trans agenda", which isn't actually about transgender individuals when examined objectively.
Although political and financial motives probably are the motivation for short term goals, I do strongly feel the "trans" activism posses a much deeper and more nefarious agenda in keeping with the creation of a controlled dystopoian society completely devoid of human identity, values, cultural differences and even morality for that matter, viewing humans no different from commodified products.
I only say this because I keep observing the same themes being fundamental in the pseudo apocalyptic climate change agenda, the massive invasion of technology in our lives both private & professional almost to addictive proportions, education replaced by indoctrination in universities, prevalence of censorship and pseudoscience authority and latest the complete mismanagement of covid by governments around the world almost wanting to deliberately stretch the outbreak as long as possible while unjustly degrading freedom, liberty and democratic principles, not to mention determined to normalise completely dehumanising behaviour such as social isolation, destabilising family support, disrupting social cohesion including "banning" entertainment, recreational & ironically even health related activities, all under the pretext of preventing a viral infection with >99% survival odds for majority of the population and not forgetting the ridiculous wearing of mask in public by everyone.
All these are extremely dehumanising conduct that seem to be intentionally propagated by misusing legislation and unjustified public health reasoning.
I see this dehumanising and enslaving of humanity along with several other sociopolitical ideologies including the "trans agenda" as serving a deeper more sinister long term purpose. It's as if wanting to destroy sex & gender differences in humans including essential values that, uniquely "what makes humans as living human beings".
Thus, I think the public especially the future generations should be very wary about these sinister hidden agendas because at a deeper level, almost all of them share a common theme of enslaving and dehumanising humanity amidst constructing a highly controlled dystopian society on a global scale. The insidious damage such changes pose on societal level will not become apparent until its very late stages, by the time which it would be too late to resist, respond accordingly and bring about a significant revolutionary change. Such issue needs to be addressed at the root level, otherwise it cannot be prevented, let alone destroyed. Need to Nip it in the Bud!
Hi. I enjoyed your book very much. And I found your article interesting. But I also agree with Jim about the missing crucial component. My experience from my own country, Norway, is that much of the left believe they are fighting for the freedom of trans people, but we are many women especially, on the left fighting for women, for transpeople but hard against trans activist.
Since the beginning of civilization, the real issue is class. The rich versus everyone else. To distract everyone from that fundamental issue, all sorts of less important issues are promoted by the elite's propaganda media machine. Issues like, republican versus democrat, race conflicts, sexual discrimination, and now sexual identity. Meanwhile the issue of greatest importance is the enslavement of humanity by the elite. Today its wage slavery. If the elite get their way a global digital currency and social credit scores will tighten the invisible shackles more than ever. Despite all of that, this issue is very important for those affected by it. Still, don't forget to watch the psychopathic ruling class who have sold their soul to you know who.
You reap what you sow. The United States, since 2001, has gone around the world invading and violently destabilizing countries under the pretext (lie) that they were bringing "women's rights", freedom and stability to the people, especially the women, in those countries. They spread suffering and chaos around the world so that they, and corporate America, could fill their treasuries with the spoils of war. Well, fast forward 20 years and now they are discovering what Karma means. You go around destroying the lives of other peoples sons and daughters, causing their deaths and murder, eliminating security in their society and their stability, their access to food and education, and now your own society is going to psychologically and physically destroy it's own daughters and sons....what goes around comes around.
Not buying this theory. You're overthinking it. The reasons for most things are fairly simple (Occam's Razor) and the connections between different trends are often nonexistent. Sure in particle physics everything is connected to everything else, but that doesn't apply to theories.
I'm sorry but I really don't think so. I'm not even convinced that these men hate real women. I had one on my website and he was almost a caricature of a super-feminist. Also feminism is very much split on the subject of trans people, with the majority being lib fems who probably support it. This is one of those things that a lot of women feel has the effect of being bad for women, but I don't think it was designed that way.
Basically, you feminists are overthinking it and linking it up with this mysterious misogyny you claim is everywhere yet is hard for me to find.
Excellent article. In answer to your question "why would any parent or doctor do this (halt puberty)?", the answer in the case of the medical profession would seem to be money. As you point out, almost all children put on puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones and presumably a lot of them onto surgery. As I understand it even after surgery you are then forced to permanently remain on medication to prevent your natural biology from rejecting the changes. All of this adds up to party time at Big Pharma, because all these things mean vast amounts of money going into their coffers, turning otherwise healthy young bodies into lifelong drug addicts.
"Critical Race Theory goes into schools to convince white kids that they bear the original sin of their skin color. " This is not how I understood critical race theory as it was explained to me. Nor was "turning the American people against each other" any part of the goal of CRT as I understood it. I am 100% behind you on the trans craze problem, and the parent of a daughter with ROGD, but can you help me find the resources that led you to this opinion on critical race theory? Perhaps I judged too hastily or misunderstood the full spectrum of ramifications there. Just not sure that lumping the two together is constructive or helpful, but I am open to changing my mind and hearing/reading some legitimate discussions on the topic.
It's as crazy as the trans cult, trust me. Literally nothing they say is true and most of their claims are not even falsifiable. This is a problem with ALL Identity Politics. This new antiracism is nothing like what MLK and Malcolm and the Selma marchers were pushing. This is just craziness and it's huge on hatred of Whites. And I'm Hard Left!
I've been asking myself why people in higher offices have all of a sudden started showing their 'true' colors and their absolute hate for America and people - have you noticed how many times in the past 8 months, you've heard the term 'human' used? Granted we are humans but why that generalization? I believe they want to create chaos, confusion, division and yet remove genders - I'm almost to the point where I believe these 'people' are demon possessed or just straight up demons themselves; hell, they may be the 'alien' invasion we've all heard about for decades. Perhaps it's the CCP infiltrating our country to weaken us so they can take over, I do recall a while back they stated they need to 'man up' a lot of their men as they have become too feminium ... odd, how we are becoming them and they are becoming us ... hmmm. Something to think about. At any rate, we need to protect our children and fight like hell. Take your children out of the schools if need be (do charter or homeschool) but still be involved in the school board meetings and start putting strong patriotic people on that board! Let the 'momma bear' loose!
I honestly think that the hamstringing of actual feminism and the demonization of lesbians is the point. Lesbians are often the most politically committed and active women, and the most threatening to the patriarchy. If we can get to the point where the most dangerous women can be demonized and all the gains of feminism can be undone under a woke banner, so much the better. Gains made by women are always as fragile as a cloud and just as capable of disappearing with the wind. Now, female-only safe spaces, rape crisis centers, Title IX ... all of it can be done away with by misogynists as long as they put on dresses first.
Great point. Lesbians are the sacrificial guinea pigs of the trans “rights” juggernaut.
I'm a 69 year-old lesbian. I've seen reduced to rubble the thriving lesbian culture that I helped create through the 70's, 80's and 90's. An entire generation of young lesbians, mostly the ones who in the old days we would have described as "butchy," has been convinced that lesbianism is a dead end: the world hates "masculine" women, and since masculine equals male, transition is the answer.
Don't like dresses? Play sports? Wear your hair short? Not interested in boys? Up until about 10 years ago, these traits would have sent our tomboy to the Phys Ed department where she would have connected with her peers, joined the girls’ softball team, and come out as gay by the time she was 15. Now that same girl spends her preteen years terrified of the passive, stupid sex object and wifey that she's warned she will become. She's horrified by her maturing body and encouraged by the schools and social media to bind her breasts and take testosterone. Anyway, who has time for sports when you're recovering from a double mastectomy?
I’m not theorizing. The detrans subreddit is replete with posts by former trans men sharing, often with great shame, the fact that they thought they were trans but now realize they were lesbians. Will their parents ever speak to them again? Can they get their breasts back? What about the body hair, deep voice, acne, masculine jaw line, prolapsed uterus, atrophied vagina? And poignantly, will a real woman ever love them? Even after detransitioning, many of them are still unable to think of themselves as women, so they call themselves non-binary. They may have discovered something authentic about themselves but their belief in gender ideology remains.
And so, in the name of fairness and inclusion, our progressive president throws women under the bus with the so-called Equality Act. Women’s sports, prisons, rape refuges are now the cozy domain of ladies with penises. "...all the gains of feminism can be undone under a woke banner... Gains made by women are always as fragile as a cloud and just as capable of disappearing with the wind.” Hear, hear.
Martina Navratilova is turning over in her cancelled grave.
I believe every word you've said. I've heard of it happening myself -- male predators are using this "civil rights movement" as a way to continue to bully and threaten women into having sex we don't want to have, and to bully lesbians especially, which I find enraging.
"Now that same girl spends her preteen years terrified of the passive, stupid sex object and wifey that she's warned she will become."
I think this is also terrifying straight girls as well; I am convinced this is also what's behind this trend to identify as "asexual" among straight girls and young women. When sex with men is defined as your obscene degradation and being nagged and bullied into letting him act out gonzo porn on you, well who the hell wouldn't be "asexual?"
And I blame feminism for accepting and then promoting the redefinition of porn as some bullshit empowerment thing. Porn is the treatment of human bodies and souls as empty calories to be gorged on like binge-eating. Porn does with sex what hyper-processed food does with nutrition: turns it into something alien, dangerous, unhealthy, and addictive that destroys your ability to enjoy the natural bounty in the world. I will swear to you that behind every incel in a dress who insists he's lesbian is a guy who dumps several hundred bucks a month into his laptop for "lesbian" porn.
I also wonder how many straight girls who cape for this ideology aren't doing it out of envy for lesbians, who they resent for being able to get laid without having to negotiate with the sewer that is today's young men and their porn addictions. (And before anyone jumps on me over that, I am a 55 year old straight woman.)
And this garbage is called "progressive" and "feminist," and I hear girls talking about how much "better" things are now than they were in the ill-understood and demonized past. Unbelievable.
Gender ideology is garbage. Gender is a straitjacket. When I was little, I was told that I can't be good at math (when I was) because I was a girl. Nowdays, I'd have been told that I can't be a girl because I'm good at math. And this is "woke." :-(
"Gender ideology is garbage. Gender is a straitjacket. When I was little, I was told that I can't be good at math (when I was) because I was a girl. Nowadays, I'd have been told that I can't be a girl because I'm good at math."
This! Thank you. This is such a great encapsulation of the madness. Nothing progressive or feminist about it.
I think a lot of this is a right-wing infiltration. I have heard too many angry young men telling women: "You wanted to take men's jobs and marry each other, so you forced us to put on dresses and rape you!" I am not making this us. The upshot being we asked for it by demanding rights like oh, voting and not being relegated to the shit-paying section of the job ads.
These are ultra-right-wing men who hate-hate-hate the fact that women with financial security can be rightly picky about who we marry, so they have cobbed together a "woke" way to undo all the gains of feminism by slapping on some shit lip gloss and demanding that we call them some pole-dancer name and let them in our changing rooms.
And the end result? "Radical feminists" are blamed for it all by both sides(!!!), yet we'll be the ones cleaning up after it. Christina Hoff Sommers blames radical feminism for it because women wanting to be financially independent and pass marital rape legislation undermined male identity or some shit, and meanwhile we're called "terfs" by the guys in dresses for NOT fucking them and are slurred, stalked, threatened, no-platformed, and punched in the face when we try to draw attention to what's going on.
wanted to take men's jobs and marry each other, so you forced us to put on dresses and rape you!" I am not making this us.
Yes but a lot of such men will identify as liberal, progressive, or even Left. They're not necessarily rightwingers. There is a whole "conservative Left" movement out there now.
"These are ultra-right-wing men who hate-hate-hate the fact that women with financial security can be rightly picky about who we marry, so they have cobbled together a "woke" way to undo all the gains of feminism by slapping on some shit lip gloss and demanding that we call them some pole-dancer name and let them in our changing rooms."
You can say that till the cows come home but finding a rightwing transwoman is quite rare. Almost all of them are somewhere on the Left, often pretty far to the left.
Thank you for continuing this conversation. True, heterosexual girls do transition because they experience the same terror of becoming adult women as lesbians do. And they share their detransition processes online. I recall one poster who wrote, in effect, "The men in my family would not protect me, so I became a man to protect myself.” After she detransitioned, she got married and had kids. By the way, the incidence of incest and sexual abuse in the childhoods of both female and male transitioners is high. It's mentioned frequently as an unconscious reason for wanting to transition that doesn’t get processed until later on.
Porn is absolutely an issue. Shrier discusses this in "Irreversible Damage.” Teenage boys learn about sex from watching porn online. It inspires them to try out their new skills on flesh and blood females whom they can choke and torture, because they've observed that that's what women like. Of course girls are terrified.
You're right here too: Based on what I've learned online, porn addiction is sometimes cited by men as they try to understand their sexuality and gender issues. The arousal they experience when dressed as a woman is called autogynephilia. These men are not gay, which initially confuses them. They’re heterosexual and watch porn compulsively. Neuroscientist Debra Soh, author of "The End of Gender,” explains that autogynephilia is a paraphilia, an abnormal sexual interest. For some men it becomes a terrible compulsion. However, the normalization of trans ideology has allowed these transvestites, i.e., men with a fetish, to come out. They get breast implants or take just enough estrogen to acquire breasts, and feminize themselves with make-up and clothes just enough to feel sexy, while maintaining a fully functioning penis. They may bully, harass and coerce women, especially young, naive lesbians, accusing them of transphobia if they refuse to have sex with these men. It’s accurate to call them incels. And it’s worth noting that despite all the time they spend repeating the phrase "transwomen are women,” these special lesbians are not interested in hooking up with each other, for same mysterious reason. To be fair, there are women who date and have sex with these men.
Yes. Gender ideology is garbage. It is a straitjacket. It is tyrannical.
P.S. I can’t speak from experience regarding your theory about straight girls being jealous of lesbians. You could be right, but I can’t get inside the heads of those women.
Some straight girls and young women may transition, but I think that identifying a "asexual" is more common among them. If you find yourself attracted to men, it's not your "gender identity" that might be called into question, but your desire for sex because if sex is defined as being treated like garbage then ... well, if I don't want to get spat at, slapped, or choked, I guess I'm not sexual is how the thought process goes. :-( There is a whole new labyrinth of identities like asexual nonbinary demisexual blah-blah-blah that ultimately all revolves around, "I think men are physically attractive but I don't want to get choked during sex, what's wrong with me?" or "I like women's bodies but porn makes me hate myself, what do I come out as?"
I can tell you that there is definitely an unfortunate envy of lesbians among a lot of straight women if they are honest. It's true that lesbians are victimized by a lot of violence, but so are a lot of straight women so I'd call that a wash.
Thank you as well for talking with me about this. It's all just so horrifying. I feel like I'm yelling at someone to get off the tracks while a train is barreling their way and they aren't listening. And I find it so tempting to just disengage. I get so angry at women for falling for this, and for being so eager to kowtow to patriarchy yet again, to have been condemned to being second-class humans after the ones with penises for eons, only to line up eagerly to be second-class WOMEN behind the ones with penises.
If I were to actually say what I think about feminism, sex, men, and women, I'd lose my job in a heartbeat.
I share your horror and frustration regarding the clueless feminists and lesbians who wonder what’s wrong with me. When did I turn into a bigot? Where do I get my right-wing ideas? Keira Bell's victory in the U.K. High Court wasn’t covered by the Times or the Washington Post, so they don't need to know about it. Probably just fake news anyway.
Regarding straight girls and the "asexual" label, I'm sure you're right. It makes a lot of sense. And it's terribly tragic. I recently learned that lesbians are using this label too now. Even if they don’t transition, folks under 30 marinate in trans ideology and struggle to place themselves somewhere on the gender spectrum, which they believe in utterly. Through social media, I started corresponding with a 21 year-old lesbian who lives on the East Coast. She's a college student, and she doesn't know a single other lesbian in real life. This is in a large metropolitan area that not long ago had a flourishing lesbian community with book stores, bars, music festivals and social organizations. All gone. Although she's had some sexual encounters with women and knows that they prefer women to men, they identify as pansexual, bisexual, or asexual, in order to avoid the lesbian label or simply to keep the men away. But “asexual" means they're also keeping the women away. They should be enjoying life and falling in love, but they’re imposing celibacy on themselves in the hopes that, as my young friend put it, “they might meet a guy they can stand one day so they can get married and be normal.” That blew my mind.
We do what we can. I donate money to the few organizations that work for women's sex-based rights. Internationally there is a movement. I sign petitions. I forward articles. I write on line. I sympathize with you and I relate to your isolation and frustration. How awful that you're being held hostage at work because we live in such an authoritarian, censorious society. And yet, here we are, communicating on Abigail Shrier's Substack. That's a good thing. Shrier is a hero.
Thank you, Abigail.
BTW, that "like a drag queen" was not incidental. Like A MAN'S IDEA OF WHAT A WOMAN IS, in other words.
YOUR right-wing ideas? And you're accused of this by people who think that a girl has to get her breasts amputated if she prefers short hair and doesn't want to paint herself up like a drag queen?
" ... in the hopes that, as my young friend put it, “they might meet a guy they can stand one day so they can get married and be normal.”" I'm heterosexual and I never found a guy I could stand and hence never married. Besides, normal sucks. Normal in this country is brick-stupid, addicted to garbage food, sedentary, depressed, and self-hating. The last thing anyone should want to be is normal.
I think sometimes that a lot of this really cranked up after the Edith Windsor decision. When the world realized that lesbians now had the chance to be happy and live unpersecuted lives, there was this "OH NO YOU DON'T BITCHES" reaction. And now this young woman suffers for no reason.
"Should be enjoying life and falling in love, but they’re imposing celibacy on themselves in the hopes that, as my young friend put it, “they might meet a guy they can stand one day so they can get married and be normal.”"
If they are really and truly lesbians, this isn't going to work. True lesbianism is biological IMHO.
However, some lesbians can be "cured" or go straight. I am talking to one right now. She went 180 degrees. However it was very hard and she had to work at it for hours a day and I doubt if most lesbians would be up for it. Gay men absolutely cannot change as male sexual orientation is fixed at age 15 at least. They can't even move it 10% in either direction after that.
"they identify as pansexual, bisexual, or asexual, in order to avoid the lesbian label or simply to keep the men away."
LOL bisexual and pansexual won't keep us away. In fact, a lot of men will flock right to those women.
I can tell you that we straight men absolutely envy gay men. Those guys can pretty much get laid any time they want to! It's about as hard as going to the gas station and filling up your car. Of course there are problems related to that, but that's how much straight men want to have sex. We want women to be as loose as those gay men. But they're not. Even nowadays.
Women can pretty much have sex anytime they want to IMHO. Well with us men, it's just not so. And women can't figure this out. They think we can get it anytime like them.
Well if that was true, there would be no whore market or prostitute market. The prostitute market only exists because women make sex hard to get and also they frequently make us spend money one war or another to get in. Women say, "Well just go to a bar." LOL if any man could go to a bar and get sex with a woman for free within an hour, you would have long lines of men outside the bars waiting for the bars to open at noon!
Also I have a gay friend who envies me as a straight man. He hates being gay and wishes he were straight.
Porn addiction doesn't cause autogynephilia. First comes transvestic fetishism, which starts in childhood by trying on women's clothes. Then it often goes to autogynephilia. Really they are the same thing. But autogynephilia has a lot of gender dysphoria.
You go on and on about autogynephilia. However, what you leave out is that ALL autogynephiles start out as transvestic fetishists, which ALWAYS comes on in childhood and solidifies in puberty and adolescence.
You literally cannot become a transvestic fetishist or an autogyenphile in adulthood. It's not possible. All paraphilias in men have an onset in childhood and come on in puberty and adolescence. I've talked to a lot of pedophiles, and they all told me it came on no later than age 14.
Sure you can pick up all sorts of weird kinks in adulthood but they don't "stick" like they do with the early-onset ones and you can pretty much drop them any time you want to.
"It’s accurate to call them incels."
LOL says who? You realize that the meaning of incel means you have never had anything even closely resembling sex with a real woman (although they are letting the "escortcels" in, but that's controversial). You get laid ONE TIME in your whole life, and you're not an incel anymore, and they throw you off the boards.
"To be fair, there are women who date and have sex with these men."
There's been porn like that. Those are bisexual porn stars. It looks like a woman and has breasts, so they like that, and then it has a cock and they like that too. I don't think it's real common though.
"By the way, the incidence of incest and sexual abuse in the childhoods of both female and male transitioners is high."
Do you have any evidence that this is higher than normal?
"It inspires them to try out their new skills on flesh and blood females whom they can choke and torture, because they've observed that that's what women like. Of course girls are terrified."
Do you have any evidence that this is why women are transitioning? I've met several straight TIW, and they never mentioned this. In fact, they never mentioned any reason for transitioning.
And you would be amazed at how perverted many straight TIW's are. In fact there is a whole weird kink of these women getting on a degradation kink where they get off on being told that they're really just women and being men is a fake, that they made a terrible mistake, etc. They like being deadnamed. They have LOTS of their own porn blogs set up with this kink and a lot of the stuff they post is the stuff you claim made them transition in the first place, so I'm not really buying it.
I recommend the r/detrans site on Reddit, and the many detrans videos on YouTube. Another interesting podcast is called Transparency. It's hosted by two transmen, both named Aaron, oddly enough, who together have formed an organization called the Gender Dysphoria Alliance, also worth a look. Go right to the source.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9106895/ABIGAIL-SHRIERS-investigation-exploding-numbers-girls-wanting-change-sex.html
"Pornography also plays a role. Violent porn – readily available to children on platforms such as Pornhub – terrifies young girls about men and the prospect of sex with them.
"Sasha Ayad, a therapist whose practice is largely devoted to trans-identifying adolescents, says: 'The kids that I work with are often pretty freaked out by porn… In some cases, porn played a big role in their new adopted identity.'"
Hey thank you very much Beeswax! Feminists have been insisting that this was true for a long time but it's such a convenient argument for them that I was dubious, and unfortunately, they're not the most reliable sources as a lot of their agenda has more to do with ideology than fact. But here is the gold nugget I have been looking for - the truth! And yes, it is true! Porn is freaking these girls out.
So, we, the men, with this terrible violent and (I to use the word but here it applies) misogynistic porn we created, are partially responsible for this insane, horrible, and mostly tragic cult.
A lot of us men are not real comfortable with this porn either. You have any idea what young straight women are like nowadays? They don't all hate that porn. Many embrace it. And they want to act a lot of this crazy stuff out. I keep getting dumped by young women for not being mean enough to them. They want an asshole who treats them like shit, and that ain't me, babe. That ain't me you're looking for, babe.
Feminists also go on about how perverted and sick men we men are in terms of sex. All you have to see is how gay men act where there are no female gatekeepers to limit their perversions to see that this is the basic nature of men. However, what these women leave out is that a HELL of a lot of mostly young women nowadays are pretty damn sick and perverted too! REAL sick and perverted. Not in the almost evil and twisted and retching way that some of these TIM's are, but still. They're masochists.
Wait a minute. You're a lesbian? Wow. How come you're so nice? To me, a man? I hate to say it but so many lesbians are just not pleasant to us men. They really seem like they do hate men. Now they may have their reasons for that but as a man, it makes it hard to talk to them.
Anyway thanks for going against the crowd and being kind to half the population. We're really not that different from you all, you know.
I also like the way you think. You've got some great ideas here and you articulate them very well. You're a great abstract thinker. You think things through calmly and incisively. I've learned some new things from you, and that's a compliment because I'm self-educated.
Thanks. I love doing research on difficult questions and I take the "I don't know" or "prove it" stance on all sorts of things. I'm not saying the claim is false, I'm just saying that I'm not sure if it's true or false. This sounds like a goldmine! I love to learn new things!
"Porn does with sex what hyper-processed food does with nutrition: turns it into something alien, dangerous, unhealthy, and addictive that destroys your ability to enjoy the natural bounty in the world."
I don't know. I meet this porn-addled young women all the time. A lot of them have their very own porn blogs! They are extremely sexual, masturbate a LOT, and seem to enjoy sex to an almost insane degree to where they are basing their lives on it. You may not like it but these chicks are absolutely getting off.
"I think this is also terrifying straight girls as well; I am convinced this is also what's behind this trend to identify as "asexual" among straight girls and young women. When sex with men is defined as your obscene degradation and being nagged and bullied into letting him act out gonzo porn on you, well who the hell wouldn't be "asexual?""
Ace is a stupid fad and a number of these women calling themselves "ace" are actually highly sexual and masturbate all the time, typically daily. I've met them. They seem to have a "disorder of attraction" to where they have a raging sex drive but are hardly sexually attracted to any men. Every man is "not their type." I don't know what this is but a raging sex drive and "asexual" do not go together.
I understand this but do you have any evidence that this is so? Also I'm not seeing a lot of young women who are identifying as "ace." Most young women nowadays are incredibly sexual and they are masturbating all the time, typically on a daily basis.
And a LOT of young women into what you call this "gonzo porn and obscene degradation." I meet young women all the time who dump me for being too nice and not wanting to treat them like crap. They also dump me for not being perverted enough, and I'm Hella kinky. You would be amazed at what these women want you to do to them.
"masculine jaw line, prolapsed uterus, atrophied vagina"
I'm not aware the testosterone actually changes the shape of your jaw. That would be pretty odd if it did.
I've never heard of the prolapsed uterus problem.
Yes they can get vaginal atrophy, but won't this arrest when they go off testosterone and start getting the benefits of their estrogen again. I doubt if it reverses though.
Also you would be stunned at how many of these transmen are heterosexual! I've met quite a few of them. Oddly enough many are virgins even into their mid-20's. One wanted to have sex with me. I was going to do it if she shaved her chest but I decided I would be turned off by the male face.
Yes sir, testosterone does affect the bone structure of the face. This includes the brow too. If you have any doubt, check out some photos of competitive female body builders who use testosterone to enhance their muscularity.
In fact, a major concern for women who detransition is the fear that their features will never return to their original feminine character. If you visit the r/detrans site -- the detransitioners' site on Reddit -- you'll eventually see photos submitted by a woman comparing how she looked while on T, and how she looks now, after ceasing testosterone injections.
Uterine prolapse occurs because estrogen is required to keep the reproductive organs healthy and toned. The uterus falls if the muscles and ligaments that hold it in place lose their tone. And vaginal atrophy makes orgasm extremely painful, so if a woman transitions and still hopes to have pleasurable sex, she'll need to get rid of that too. I don't know the answer to your question regarding the return to health of the vagina if a woman ceases testosterone.
Regarding transmen being attracted to men, in other words, not being lesbians -- I've heard some interesting theories about this, but the short answer is that sexuality is incredibly complex under the most mundane of circumstances, so add in trans and who knows?
Thank you for the kind reply.
I can tell you right now that there are LOTS of straight women who have transitioned and are now TIW. In fact, I haven't met a lesbian TIW yet. Of course they are out there, but I never meet them. I've had theses straight TIW's ask me to have sex with them, but the male face turned on my homophobia LOL and I blew it off. I was ok with the huge clit. And I demanded she shave her chest, dammit.
This is just part of the crazy social contagion. It's not just lesbians who are transitioning. LOTS of young straight women are too. They end up being "gay men" who often have sex with straight men.
And vaginal atrophy makes orgasm extremely painful,
Is this true? I talk to postmenopausal women about sex all the time, and none of them have ever mentioned this. I always try to get them on that damned estrogen string if they are having problems. Most don't even know there's a solution.
One thing I've noticed is that the vagina tightens up to an extreme degree to where you can't even really get in! They often carry around this thing called a vibe that they use to somehow pry their vag open enough to have sex.
Most of the postmenopausal women I've met enjoy sex just fine and a lot of them are not having any issues. Many of them still get quite wet for some reason. I talk to others who use dildos on themselves every day to keep their vags open.
It's not unusual at all to meet a woman in her 60's who still masturbates to orgasm on a daily basis! Postmenopausal women are hornier than you think.
A woman I dated works in an old folks home and a 99 year old woman asked her for a dildo. She gave one to the woman and she barely got it in (she was very tight) before she had a raging orgasm. She orgasmed after that dildo was in her for maybe 5-10 seconds. I think we vastly underestimate older women's potential sexual response.
There is missing a crucial component, which also cuts across your conflation of the trans phenomenon with the "hard left." How do you explain the role of billionaires such as "Jennifer" Pritzker, Jon Stryker, "Martine" Rothblatt,? Not only are these people not "hard left," many of them are most definitely on the "right wing" end of the political spectrum. There is BIG money to be made once young people are put on lifelong drugs and surgeries. Sorry, but that money isn't flowing to anyone with politics aimed at empowering the working class, or stopping the US government from overthrowing other governments around the world.
You, James Lindsay, Christopher Rufo, and others pull this sleight of hand on a regular basis now. It's misleading. I'm a long-time leftist, a supporter of women's sex-based rights, and not at all in favor of Robin DiAngelo-type "White Fragility" guilt-baiting. I'm far from alone.
I don't believe she said this problem lies exclusively with the left, but I think you'll find it hard to argue that it isn't being pushed primarily by the radical left.
I think we have a problem with the term "left", here. Most of what passes for "the left" nowadays has nothing to do with the needs and interest of the working class, as opposed to the power of capital. And it is to the benefit of the billionaires that such confusion remains. Jennifer Bilek, at https://www.the11thhourblog.com/about does a good job "following the money" behind this very rapid expansion - an explosion, really - of the trans movement. There are medical/pharmaceutical fortunes funding this, often filtered through large Foundations. These are not "leftists" out to nationalize the banks, organize labor unions, provide universal health care, make education free, guarantee jobs, massively increase Social Security, and shut down the 800 or more US military bases all over the planet!
"The Left", tracing back at least to Marx and Engels, roots itself in materialism. Wherever else some academics have floated in the past decades, declaring that males are women is to take leave of material reality. The "radical left" to which you refer is a cultural phenomenon. A lot of it is a fashion statement, to put it crudely.
Would you prefer the term “progressive” vs. “left”? I appreciate your concern with semantics and terminology, but sometimes we need to admit that a word that has always meant one thing has now been co-opted to mean something else. And I also agree that she isn’t claiming it’s exclusively the left, but rarely do I see/read people who are generally “conservative” fighting hard for kids/teens to be allowed to get prescriptions and medical procedures without parental consent. I don’t doubt that money is behind a lot of this—the mere fact that there are 300 gender clinics means there are a lot of people making money off of this and, like most, will fight to the death to preserve their livelihood.
We need to own this. I'm on the Left, actually a "tankie" LOL and we created this whole mess along with the rest of the Cultural Left Freakshow. This is our baby, I'm afraid. We're not perfect. We on the Left screw up all the time.
I appreciate your viewpoints even if I don’t agree always. I have a progressive, atheist friend (for ease, I’m a conservative Jesus follower), and whenever we have lunch we are always convinced that together we could change the world :-)
Btw, I had to look up “tankie” :-)
I don't think "liberal" has been coopted. It's been demonized by the progressives. They hate the word liberal; they haven't coopted it at all. Calling oneself a liberal to them is no different from calling oneself a Trump voter.
"Leftist", "Socialist," Communist," are all terms that have been demonized in the United States at least since the post-World War II McCarthy Era Red Scare. It goes back even further: Socialist Eugene Debs won close to a million votes for President in 1918, while imprisoned for his opposition to Woodrow Wilson taking the US into World War I. "Liberal" became a term of opprobrium, the result of a sustained right-wing campaign, such that many of those who used to proudly call themselves by that title switched to using "progressive." The words have lost meaning, yes. But "Left", if it means anything, has to have a serious economic component to it. When Jeff Bezos increases his fortune by billions during the pandemic, while his corporation does everything to crush a unionization drive among a largely Black workforce in Alabama, does it matter that Amazon PR pushes out "progressive" statements on racism, or trans rights? Look at all the corporate grants and support to BLM (the organization), corporate "Diversity" trainings, police and spy agencies flying the rainbow flag: this is the giveaway that none of this threatens ruling class power!
My original comment - which may have come across harshly, when I very much respect Abigail Shrier's writing and speaking on behalf of girls, women, and biological reality - was in response to a broader campaign on the Right (by which I mean those seeking to privatize public resources and infrastructure, financialize everything, and generally grant more and more control to unaccountable private holders of vast fortunes) to conflate "Marxism" with gender ideology. It's a useful tactic to dissuade people from considering socialist ideas, at a time when wealth inequality is hurtling toward Gilded Age levels of the late 19th Century. We'll be in a very dangerous place, indeed, when "left" is seen as destroying the sex-based rights of girls and women, or breaking apart real solidarity among working people of all races or ethnicity in the guise of "Anti-Racism." There's nothing "progressive" about this: it's a sophisticated form of Divide and Rule.
Shant Mesrobian wrote a very good piece on this a couple of days ago:
https://www.inquiremore.com/p/why-power-is-getting-woke
No way. Liberal and progressive both have been demonized by the Right. The only people on the Left who hate liberals are Hard Left types.
The leftists I know who believe in gender ideology do want all those things you mention: free education, universal healthcare, guaranteed jobs that are well-paying, a massive increase in social services including guaranteed income for all, a reduction or elimination of US military bases, AND an elimination of the police, prisons and reparations for racial disparities and discrimination past and present (slavery). They are all for labor unions, would love to get rid of or nationalize the banks and probably nearly everything else. Oh, there are some variations in the stance, but basically they are economic and cultural leftists in one swoop. Their embrace of gender ideology is part of their embracing what they consider to be oppressed groups and ironically their embracing of getting rid of binary sex and sex/gender roles. They view all sexual differences as constructed, much like many radical feminists but their prescription includes not only discouraging sex roles but also enabling the expression of any gender by any person at any time. And the idea of a gender spectrum and not simply a gender binary - that's part of their gender ideology. They are leftists and often see themselves as some kind of revolutionary and they are feminists. They are just not the same kind of radical feminist that is anti-gender ideology or anti-trans. I know many of these people. Some are armchair revolutionaries but revolutionaries nonetheless. So, seriously this gender ideology is a left wing movement and idea. There are branches of the left that are against it, and leftists like yourself (I assume) who are against it. Some radical feminists are against it. The left has never been a monolith. There are different often warring factions. Martine Rothblatt (btw) is a leftist also. I know her personally. Many wealthy people fancy themselves leftists. The BLM movement was founded by at least one woman who comes from a wealthy background. At any rate... the left has to take responsibility for this sick puppy. I undertstand not all leftists are on the side of gender ideology but that's where it was born.
Many wealthy people fancy themselves leftists.
Such folks are very few and far between. Sure they might be left on some of this cultural BS (Pritzker) but they're not Left on the stuff that counts as it obviously goes against their class interests.
Those who believe in gender ideology are NOT feminists. They are misogynists. Period.
Radical left AND simple liberal and progressive democrats. And social democrats. If it was just the radical Left, it would never have gotten any traction, as nothing they propose goes anywhere.
I agree with so much of what Ms Shrier says but not with laying this ghastly situation on the doorstep of us liberals. There is almost no group other than the hard right that hasn’t come to accept that people’s’ sincerely held feelings, especially about anything to with beliefs about the self, are as exempt from being questioned as their religious beliefs.
Indeed, as a society, people across a wide swath of the political spectrum have come to accept a bunch of unproven propositions as gospel — including the proposition that gender identity exists, that it is an exact parallel to sexual orientation, and that we simply must go along with whatever people say and believe about their gender identity.
Far from being the provenance of the far left, you actually have to be pretty far to the right to NOT be steeped in this kind of mainstream acceptance and “tolerance” as a baseline.
"I agree with so much of what Ms Shrier says but not with laying this ghastly situation on the doorstep of us liberals."
I agree with you. This is a right-wing reaction against the gains of feminism. They couldn't defeat it through the courts, so now they all put on dresses and cheap lipstick and will destroy Title IX by forcing us to compete against them. They will destroy Planned Parenthood by calling any talk of abortion or birth control "transphobic." They will destroy rape crisis centers by demanding access to them for completely intact men in dresses. They will do away with any compensatory awards or scholarships for women by awarding them to young men in satin nighties.
And they will have the gall to BLAME the 1970s feminists for this in the bargain.
So exactly who are these right-wing transgender terrorists? Name them. Blaming the right for this ideology is taking a page right out of the right wing nut playbook. Either way, women are the losers and it's infuriating.
What's that song lyric?
"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...Stuck in the middle with you."
"So exactly who are these right-wing transgender terrorists? Name them."
There aren't any.
The author, Abigail Shirer, is a hard extremely partisan rightwing Republican across the board on most subjects, so of course she's going to blast the Left. Go read her Twitter.
There are definitely some "anti-woke Left" movements out there. You should consider joining one of them.
I'm well aware of Abigail Shrier's politics, especially when it comes to Israel and Zionism. But she's far from the only one who points to the utterly anti-materialist, homophobic and misogynistic "trans rights" movement, and calls it "Left." The word has been stripped of all meaning, intentionally so, as it benefits actual right-wing, "privatize it all" types to do so. No worries: I've been an "anti-woke" Leftist for many decades.
Wonderful. You argue in a balanced, circumspect and fact-focused manner. I hold out hope that if we can all hold the line, not get angry, focus on facts, evidence, and good reasoning, we will win the day.
Please, please tell us, Ms Shrier, how do we help our daughters to extricate themselves from this mind virus once it has a hold on them? That is information that thousands of parents need right now. What will work to bring our beloved daughters back before it is too late?
"Blow up the tv
Throw away the paper
Move to the country
Build your family a home
Try to find Jesus on your own"
That's from a John Prine song, of course but it may be the only answer.
The powers that be will never stop now that they have the minds of children. Get them out of public school and surround yourself and your children with sane and moral adults. God bless you and your family.
As if. One of my oldest closest friends and her husband (stable, educated, down to earth, morally mindful, loving people) tried to take that approach 10+ years ago with their three daughters to disastrous results. Their 16-year old was taken in by a group of Satan worshiping meth heads in a rural town an hour outside of a large city. The way she later put it was, "We thought we were moving out of the big bad city but little did we know, we were headed straight for the big bad country."
Today it's far worse because you cannot get away from social media no matter where you go. You have to fight this head on.
Listen to them, keep lines of communication open with them, ask open questions, get them asking and thinking about those questions, and especially the answers. Try not to preach older kids, they hate it & need to come to their own conclusions, so make sure you encourage them to think think think. Drip feed certain information to them, don;t interrogate them with it all at once as they just shut down. Reassure them you love m regardless and will always be there for them. Try hard not to agree to call them by any other chosen name or pronoun other than what you always have. Keep home a safe haven for them. If they are younger restrict access to the internet/online gaming/social media, dont take it away but give boundaries and time limits,and know who they are in touch with and the games they are playing. Take an interest in what they are doing without being over protective and controlling. Believe me it is so hard, and if you have a child/teen going through this look after your own mental well being, as it can all be so consuming.
This is a cogent and rational exposition of what exactly is wrong with gender ideology. I thank you for not blaming actual transsexual people for this crisis, but the far left ideologues who are sometimes trans but always, always far left ideologues. The word "transsexual" is now a non-PC term and is banned or seen as reactionary in many woke trans/NB groups. The idea that a person needs to have gender dysphoria to be trans is now suspect and politically inconvenient. Self-identification is the rage and people can represent themselves as trans without doing any surgery or hormones. Many are NB or non-binary and are slightly contemptuous of actual "binary" transsexuals. It is complicated but you hit the nail on the head when you stated that it is the ideologues who are promoting confusion and easy transition to the young, that are at fault. Academic trans activists are in the mix and they are leftist and often also support CRT. The rank and file transsexual is watching all of this with a mixture of horror and confusion. I'm one. Thanks for your clarity and courage.
Firstly thank you for the informative and quite enlightening article. I must say I wasn't entirely surprised by the covert nature of the "trans agenda", which isn't actually about transgender individuals when examined objectively.
Although political and financial motives probably are the motivation for short term goals, I do strongly feel the "trans" activism posses a much deeper and more nefarious agenda in keeping with the creation of a controlled dystopoian society completely devoid of human identity, values, cultural differences and even morality for that matter, viewing humans no different from commodified products.
I only say this because I keep observing the same themes being fundamental in the pseudo apocalyptic climate change agenda, the massive invasion of technology in our lives both private & professional almost to addictive proportions, education replaced by indoctrination in universities, prevalence of censorship and pseudoscience authority and latest the complete mismanagement of covid by governments around the world almost wanting to deliberately stretch the outbreak as long as possible while unjustly degrading freedom, liberty and democratic principles, not to mention determined to normalise completely dehumanising behaviour such as social isolation, destabilising family support, disrupting social cohesion including "banning" entertainment, recreational & ironically even health related activities, all under the pretext of preventing a viral infection with >99% survival odds for majority of the population and not forgetting the ridiculous wearing of mask in public by everyone.
All these are extremely dehumanising conduct that seem to be intentionally propagated by misusing legislation and unjustified public health reasoning.
I see this dehumanising and enslaving of humanity along with several other sociopolitical ideologies including the "trans agenda" as serving a deeper more sinister long term purpose. It's as if wanting to destroy sex & gender differences in humans including essential values that, uniquely "what makes humans as living human beings".
Thus, I think the public especially the future generations should be very wary about these sinister hidden agendas because at a deeper level, almost all of them share a common theme of enslaving and dehumanising humanity amidst constructing a highly controlled dystopian society on a global scale. The insidious damage such changes pose on societal level will not become apparent until its very late stages, by the time which it would be too late to resist, respond accordingly and bring about a significant revolutionary change. Such issue needs to be addressed at the root level, otherwise it cannot be prevented, let alone destroyed. Need to Nip it in the Bud!
Hi. I enjoyed your book very much. And I found your article interesting. But I also agree with Jim about the missing crucial component. My experience from my own country, Norway, is that much of the left believe they are fighting for the freedom of trans people, but we are many women especially, on the left fighting for women, for transpeople but hard against trans activist.
Since the beginning of civilization, the real issue is class. The rich versus everyone else. To distract everyone from that fundamental issue, all sorts of less important issues are promoted by the elite's propaganda media machine. Issues like, republican versus democrat, race conflicts, sexual discrimination, and now sexual identity. Meanwhile the issue of greatest importance is the enslavement of humanity by the elite. Today its wage slavery. If the elite get their way a global digital currency and social credit scores will tighten the invisible shackles more than ever. Despite all of that, this issue is very important for those affected by it. Still, don't forget to watch the psychopathic ruling class who have sold their soul to you know who.
Hi
You may want to check out Christopher Rufo if you haven't already, he write extensively about CRT. Below is a link to his Atlantic Interview
https://christopherrufo.com/the-atlantic-interview/
Thank you for the link to the interview. I'm reading it now.
Thank you, Ms. Shrier, for being willing to stand up and speak on behalf of women and children in the face of this madness.
Well done. Thank you for your courage and the important work you are doing.
You reap what you sow. The United States, since 2001, has gone around the world invading and violently destabilizing countries under the pretext (lie) that they were bringing "women's rights", freedom and stability to the people, especially the women, in those countries. They spread suffering and chaos around the world so that they, and corporate America, could fill their treasuries with the spoils of war. Well, fast forward 20 years and now they are discovering what Karma means. You go around destroying the lives of other peoples sons and daughters, causing their deaths and murder, eliminating security in their society and their stability, their access to food and education, and now your own society is going to psychologically and physically destroy it's own daughters and sons....what goes around comes around.
Not buying this theory. You're overthinking it. The reasons for most things are fairly simple (Occam's Razor) and the connections between different trends are often nonexistent. Sure in particle physics everything is connected to everything else, but that doesn't apply to theories.
I'm sorry but I really don't think so. I'm not even convinced that these men hate real women. I had one on my website and he was almost a caricature of a super-feminist. Also feminism is very much split on the subject of trans people, with the majority being lib fems who probably support it. This is one of those things that a lot of women feel has the effect of being bad for women, but I don't think it was designed that way.
Basically, you feminists are overthinking it and linking it up with this mysterious misogyny you claim is everywhere yet is hard for me to find.
Excellent article. In answer to your question "why would any parent or doctor do this (halt puberty)?", the answer in the case of the medical profession would seem to be money. As you point out, almost all children put on puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones and presumably a lot of them onto surgery. As I understand it even after surgery you are then forced to permanently remain on medication to prevent your natural biology from rejecting the changes. All of this adds up to party time at Big Pharma, because all these things mean vast amounts of money going into their coffers, turning otherwise healthy young bodies into lifelong drug addicts.
"Critical Race Theory goes into schools to convince white kids that they bear the original sin of their skin color. " This is not how I understood critical race theory as it was explained to me. Nor was "turning the American people against each other" any part of the goal of CRT as I understood it. I am 100% behind you on the trans craze problem, and the parent of a daughter with ROGD, but can you help me find the resources that led you to this opinion on critical race theory? Perhaps I judged too hastily or misunderstood the full spectrum of ramifications there. Just not sure that lumping the two together is constructive or helpful, but I am open to changing my mind and hearing/reading some legitimate discussions on the topic.
It's as crazy as the trans cult, trust me. Literally nothing they say is true and most of their claims are not even falsifiable. This is a problem with ALL Identity Politics. This new antiracism is nothing like what MLK and Malcolm and the Selma marchers were pushing. This is just craziness and it's huge on hatred of Whites. And I'm Hard Left!
I know everything you said here is true, but I still don't understand why. Why are they going after our kids?
I've been asking myself why people in higher offices have all of a sudden started showing their 'true' colors and their absolute hate for America and people - have you noticed how many times in the past 8 months, you've heard the term 'human' used? Granted we are humans but why that generalization? I believe they want to create chaos, confusion, division and yet remove genders - I'm almost to the point where I believe these 'people' are demon possessed or just straight up demons themselves; hell, they may be the 'alien' invasion we've all heard about for decades. Perhaps it's the CCP infiltrating our country to weaken us so they can take over, I do recall a while back they stated they need to 'man up' a lot of their men as they have become too feminium ... odd, how we are becoming them and they are becoming us ... hmmm. Something to think about. At any rate, we need to protect our children and fight like hell. Take your children out of the schools if need be (do charter or homeschool) but still be involved in the school board meetings and start putting strong patriotic people on that board! Let the 'momma bear' loose!