First article I read in the New Year(it hit my inbox right about midnight and I read it a few minutes past). Unsurprisingly, considering the author, that it may end up being the best, and most important, piece I'll read this year, a scant few minutes into it.
If we can get it on the ballot, it is very likely to pass.
Remember: in 2020, the exact same California electorate that voted for Biden 2-to-1 over Trump ALSO voted to reject race-based "affirmative action", 55% to 45%.
A popular defeat for gender ideology in California will send shock waves across the country and around the world.
Any legislation will be vetoed by the governor (even Republicans like DeWine veto these), challenged in courts, appealed, etc. It will fail.
California voted for Prop. 187 to deny social services to illegals nearly 30 years ago, and it passed. How did that work out?
California voted against gay marriage several years ago, and they supported a ban. How did that work out in the long run?
The only way this will end is if the medical industry begins to lose money on it instead of make money on it. Anything else will be overturned, denied, vetoed, etc. because the people who run this system will not allow it. Just like they've decided, now, to allow criticism of DEI, black academics, "wokeness" (which they caused), etc.
Hi Kat, you are correct in the area of legislation however, this ballot initiative is different. It is the one way that Californians have an opportunity to create law without the necessity of a governor approving it; therefore, the governor and the legislature have nothing to do with the petition that is currently being offered on the ballot for 2024. It will take all of us to collect the million signatures necessary to put this initiative on the ballot and I urge you and any of your friends and colleagues that think the way you do to please help us get this on the ballot so that the governor can not VETO!! Studies have shown that roughly 65 percent favor this initiative among Democrats. I took the training on how to properly gather the signatures to put this on the ballots directly to the voters bypassing the governor and the legislature!! You can too. Please go to Protect Kids California Act to learn more! Thank you.
Yes they could and likely will if it passes. I haven’t studied the language in detail but I expect it has been drafted to be as bulletproof as possible. It’s only about kids medically transitioning and carves out those already on a medical regimen.
Sure, anybody can file a lawsuit about anything. But in this case, any such lawsuit will ultimately end up with SCOTUS, where we have an excellent chance of prevailing.
Also, getting this on the ballot, and then getting a popular vote in favor of it, will send a huge message, including to malpractice insuarance providers (who are already starting to understand the risk). The more awareness there is, the more likely it is that malpractice lawsuits will be filed.
This is a war, and it must be fought on all possible fronts, even on fronts where the chances of success may seem small.
Though in this case, I think the chances are actually very good.
I don't live in CA and know very little about law and politics but I am wondering if it can be somehow piggybacked on proposition 65 that requires those carcinogen warnings on so many things (even non- food items). So if the testosterone and estrogen vials came with a huge warning about potential carcinogens, maybe it will give the Whole - Food- shopping wealthy young people and their parents at least a tiny pause?
How about running a series of public service announcements about the many dangers of "transgender" medicine. Make them like the anti-cigarette announcements. Transdanger medicine.
There is a lot said about virtue signalling and victimhood among the social justice leftish, but as a former member of that milieu (and now fiercely post-tribal) I see just as much of it on the right. And there's comfort in feeling you were right, long before the converts. But that is just ego and sometimes winning an argument demands the courage of showing a certain humility by not crowing. Abigail calls it exactly right here 💪
Haha. “I told you so” is so damn tempting. But at the end of the day don’t we want to change their minds? If they get to “yeah I guess you’re right” then we owe them the grace to say “cool, welcome home”
Excellent and highly truthful points were made, as usual. But please, please remember that boys and young men are also being irreparably harmed by gender ideology as well. Of the ROGD group your wonderful book discussed about 30% are male. Please don't leave them out of the discussion. Those of us who love boys ruining their lives and bodies with this trans nonsense don't want to be left out of the conversation. Our culture is horrible to boys. Especially white boys. They need support too. And they need to be protected from the destructive cult of transgenderism.
Amen. As a mom to boy ruining his body with HRT (he’s 22 and was never gender dysphoric til a year ago) I agree. Please remember us too. Each day is a struggle. I’d love some wins in the culture but I really pray for a win in my family.
Abigail's focus is on girls. Look at the title of her book. Stop derailing.
Somebody else is going to have write a book on boys. I feel bad for your son, but he's an adult male, not a 13 year old girl, which is the focus of Abigail's work.
Kat, this article is about a much broader point than just the ROGD issue or that of ROGD girls. Shrier talked about the southern border, crime, DEI affecting our society negatively. It was broad look at political differences and disagreements in the public sphere that can possibly lead to bitterness or "I told you so" attitudes. I simply wanted the ROGD issue, which is obviously a passion of her's , to include the significant percentage of boys and young men who fit that category. That is all I am asking. Those of us with sons, whether teens or immature young adults, are also at risk to feel intense emotions about our kids that could lead to bitterness. Not a unreasonable stance for me to take. I notice you mention the role of porn and other negative influences on why the boys adopt trans identities. But my son, and a large percentage of the boys, are autistic. My son is most likely asexual, and knowing his incredibly sweet and naïve personality would find porn very upsetting and gross. If you listen at all to AZ Hakeem( psychiatrist in UK) talk about his male patients (over 20 years treating this population) often the ASD guys are gullible, afraid of sex, and extremely vulnerable. So while I care deeply about ALL the young people caught up in this, girls and boys, I simply am looking for inclusion and consideration for the boys in this discussion. I care about the girls, and our boys are clearly NOT their enemy. They are victims too. So please consider that fact.
You're missing an important point. These girls are the collateral damage of a male-driven obsession, enabled by male over-entitlement. Which is signified among other things by people going on and on and on about the poor boys while having nothing to say about the fact that the vast majority of victims are girls.
Girls are literally fleeing girlhood for boyhood, because they think girlhood is worthless, because of this.
The males on the other hand, are largely suffering from the OPPOSITE. Thinking that they are the center of all and their own feelz are the most important thing in the universe. Again, because the adults teach them that through their words and actions.
The men who feel entitled to invade women's spaces were once boys who were taught that girls' boundaries weren't worth being respected.
The result is a gender ideology movement made up of a whole lot of women with low self-esteem/ego being directed by a relative few mentally-ill men with excessively high self-esteem/ego.
I really hope you get that, so that you are able to maybe not take it personally when someone like Kat sensibly says, shut up already about the boys.
I'm sure you and the other moms of sons don't want to hear it, and I understand. But the fact remains. We need to focus more on the girls, less on the boys.
Both boys and girls are suffering from the impact of gender ideology. Any practical action, such as getting the California initiative on the ballot, will help both.
No YOU shut up. My son is not an over-entitled anything. Frankly that's exactly what you sound like. If he thought he was the center of the universe by being a boy he would stay one! What you said makes no sense. Even if this problem is male driven my son and the other young men are equally victims. Over 30% of ROGD cohort are male. That is not insignificant. That should not be ignored. I feel like women like you are so obsessed with your men hatred you are unable to learn. Or open your minds or be compassionate. How sad. I'm done trying to educate you.
Your son is just one (1) dot of many that researchers seek connection between.
It's pretty clear from the clinical research that the motivations of the affected males are overall somewhat different than the motivations of the affected females. Autogynephilia, the fetish that affects at least half of trans-identified males, is a narcissistic disorder. The opposite condition, autoandrophilia, is nearly non-existent in the trans-identified females. They are largely motivated by self-loathing.
Significant fractions of both are motivated by internalized homophobia, so they do have that in common. Obviously, it's a complex phenomenon, having multiple unrelated causes.
The plight of young men is under-examined. How are men supposed to relate to women? Whatever happens, the men get blamed.
There is one thing we know - marriages are down, stable relationships are down. This culture of "complete acquiesance" in matters of sex is not working. Men don't know what to do, how to make that first step. Women want to be in relationships, but won't agree to open to romance and relationships.
Thank goodness I am not on the dating market. It's not working for men or women.
They can begin by stop watching porn, specifically the violent porn today that are designed to degrade girls and women and normalize choking, slapping, spitting, and sorry to be crude, anal. Sure there are always a fringe segment of adults who are into that, and I pass no judgment on them. But pre-teens are literally getting their sex ed from this kind of porn now. So how can boys grow up into men who can relate to women this way?
Talk to Millennials and GenZ women and they absolutely will not believe you when you tell them men in older generations don't all watch porn. Porn is so normal with them they can't conceive of a time when a majority of men didn't watch or read porn (or grow out of it after their teenage years). And those were daddy's porn which, comparing to now, are just quaint.
But nobody wants to talk about that. Men don't want to give up porn, and parents still have no idea what their kids are watching nor do they seem to care to find out. Tell the average GenZ or boomer parents and they'll deny things are that bad, or they are absolutely certain their kids aren't watching those.
That's a pretty sensible comment. Porn creates a completely unrealistic and toxic view of women. The sensibilities of porn are not good, and the consumption of porn does seem to lead to an escalation of titillation, which does lead to the violent side.
I also am amazed at the penetration of porn into younger and younger kids. This is yet another reason why device use in young persons should be monitored. No one should have a device in a private space before they are adults. That's not realistic of course in today's world.
I don't agree that porn is necessarily toxic, however.
It's not escalation of titillation leading to violent side. Porn today literally is violent. It's not our daddy's porn. Nothing titillating. It's outright group of men using force, choking, slapping, and various other acts of degradation. Porn has normalized all of it. I don't know how true it is but I've heard some people say terrorists watch a lot of porn to fuel their violence. Laptops confiscated from terrorists are loaded with modern porn. While I have no evidence this allegation is true, it's not hard to make a connection of this to the Hamas mass rape.
Abigail hasn't looked into this, but porn is now also one of the pipelines into trans, putting the autogynephilia ideas into minds of young men.
I'm GenX. I know for a fact my male peers didn't and don't read or watch porn like it's normal because we didn't have the internet. Grown me who bought stroke books were generally considered to be losers. Even now, most men I know of my own generation are pretty social media averse, and not online 24/7. They're fathers and they aren't even aware how degenerate porn has become today. Every time I tell younger women that GenX men in fact do not all watch porn, they don't believe me.
It's beyond obvious that the Hamas monsters watched violent porn. And I mean a hell of a lot of it.
If today's porn causes normal, middle class, American teenage boys to choke their girlfriends, imagine what it did to the terrorists of Hamas. These Islamist maniacs didn't just rape and kill beautiful, young women. They chopped off breasts and shot up the vaginas to get sexual kicks. And they captured all the sick, stomach-turning savagery on video and broadcast their vile, sadistic snuff films to the cheers of crowds throughout Gaza, Islam, and the "Progressive" West.
It's not underexamined. Every conversation about girls and women is derailed to males. All medical research has disproportionately focused on males, for decades.
Nobody cares about your dating life, George. Stop derailing conversations about women. Go somewhere else if you want to talk about males. Stop it.
Well, you know nothing, obviously, about medical research. I have sat on 45 or so NIH panels, and every single one examines the inclusion of women, minorities, etc in medical research, in every single grant application.
Stop derailing conversations with your ignorant confusion.
You're way off, Kat. Your comment would have been true 50 years ago and earlier, but definitely not for the past 30 years.
The U.S. government spends more than twice as much annually on breast cancer research and grants ($560 billion in 2021) than on prostate cancer. ($270 billion.)
Breast cancer kills about 48,000 people per year, compared to 43,000 for lung cancer ($470 billion in 2021) and about 40,000 for prostate cancer. Funding for breast cancer is actually disproportionately higher than it would be if funding were allocated actuarially based on incidence and death tolls.
You can bring bitterness and a bad attitude to substack boards popular with independently minded subscribers, but if you provide zero data to back up whatever you're bitter about, you won't win any converts.
Do you have any recent data to support your assertion? (Preferably something more recent than 100 years or 6,000 years ago?)
After googling around for 20 minutes, I'm not finding info that supports your contention. Seems more like the reverse, at least during this century.
Breast cancer gets male attention because men like talking and thinking about boobs a lot more than they like talking and thinking about their prostates.
Meanwhile, girls think womanhood sucks so bad that they'd rather cut off their breasts and be boys. We need to focus on making girlhood and womanhood a less miserable experience.
I think it worth saying here that the cancer industry is generally a scam. Women tend to be more vulnerable to fear of cancer and big pharma exploit this.
It has weaseled its way into government and its agencies and now poisons people including a very great many women with its toxic treatments which do nobody any good except provide profit for big pharma and its investors.
I have myself seen the cancer industry from the inside as it where in 2020 when I was given immuno-therapy for an alleged cancer which I now know to have been in essence fraudulent.
By the way, your comment went to George Q Tyrebyter rather than Kat Highsmith.
Could you please just stop with this nonsense? Males have been the focus of research for years. That's why doctors know so little about women's issues with endometriosis, menstruation, PCOS, etc., as they've been historically ignored by male medical establishments. What you say means nothing.
Entire books have been written about the lack of research involving females because males are seen as the default by other males (Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez). Women have always been considered defective and inferior to men. Why study us? Male doctors for centuries knew nothing about female reproductive systems. "Hysteria" was thought to be the womb trying to escape from the body (male logic ftw).
Stop derailing with your constant whining about men. Go obsess over yourselves elsewhere and leave women alone, and hopefully Abigail blocks you. You're indicative of the problem, and you're too dumb to see it, thereby proving the point. Go away.
Since 1993, this has been a federal mandate. I don't give a shit what the morons at the Guardian say. That's a liberal publication from the UK, and therefore is wrong about everything.
If you wish to be educated, you can look at the actual Federal statutes.
I'm talking about the topic in general and male self-obsession and exclusion of women in general.
Her book is about girls, and every conversation about women and girls HAS to be derailed by some stupid moid who thinks the past 6,000 years of history focusing on males isn't enough. They, and you, simply cannot leave women alone. You can see the comments here. This is why "male allies" don't exist.
Calling me bitter doesn't change this. Nice argument though; it really addresses the point I made.
Wow thank you--as an American Jewish Zionist and a Lesbian against both hamas AND gender equality ideology-this was the bright , poignant, and hopeful essay I needed to read. Because all identity aside-I want to live in a fair and free American/West by those who want the same. This is the good fight!
You said, “...all identity aside...” while leading with your identities to show your “intersectional cred”. I’m not trying to be harsh, but you seem to have rather missed the point of Ms Shrier’s piece (that all this “identitarianism” is literally destroying us, our society, and our children/future).
My wish for 2024 is that we ALL stop “leading with our identity”, and start leading with our humanity. So much more constructive, so much more likely to result in a culture we would all like to live in.
numbnuts i led with that to show that someone with an identity like mine that might be stereotyped into blind progressivism sees the truth. if you’re so triggered by it you’re no better than a snowflake liberal
California belongs to the people who live and die here. We know the stories. Mexica never ruled California. Nobody rules California. California was a republic for twenty thousand years. It is now a constitutional republic. I never learned the lies of the liars. Millions of us laugh at your lies. Your books are mostly lies.
This article hits home, as I was deeply disappointed by an article that Shrier wrote on Substack a while back which, IMO, was critical of folks like me who came out strongly against Covid tyranny. I expressed my disappointment in the comments, thinking that someone who was perceptive enough to realize how much damage was being caused by the gender madness should recognize folks like me as brothers in arms.
In any event, it sounds like Shrier has come around on this issue and, as she is recommending, I will not hold any bitterness toward her.
I agree with the sentiment, but at the same time there's something to be said for being a little bit tough and rough with people. Because I think that this left wing radicalism that you describe so well advances because it intimidates people into silence. It isn't nice. It scares the supposedly neutral institutions into going along with them. Conservatives don't scare them as much, which might be why things are the way that they are. A harsh reality perhaps but I think it's true.
The Left is extremely tyrannical, so many people fired, cancelled, etc. I was once banned by Facebook for 90 days for reposting a funny Hunter Biden meme. First offense. I never post anything political.
People are cowed into silence and actually silenced. I agree that we do have to fight back, in a meaningful and productive way.
Thanks for the encouragement Abigail! I would take issue with “our positions became conventional wisdom,”. I don’t see very many around me who have “seen the light “. Many “regular” people seem still to have not gotten the word. I decided after a family visit that I just have to pick my battles because the mass delusion is still operating. On the other hand, there is a growing opposition from all kinds of unexpected places and THAT is encouraging. I fear, however, that we as a nation are heading for a split. The “vaccinated” vs the “unvaccinated “ metaphorically speaking.
The kind of person who believes keeping an 8 year old out of a soccer league because her mother is guilty of wrongthink is truly dangerous. Someone who would hurt a child for the sole purpose of "punishing" her mother wouldn't hesitate to: try and get said parent fired from her job; make her lose her professional licenses; restrict her freedom; use state power to fine her or imprison her.
This behavior speaks volumes about her view of liberalism, civil rights, and our common humanity. Someone who will deny a child's rights to play soccer because of her parents politics will happily deny other rights to said parents, patting herself on the back (ala Delores Umbrage) for her compassion the whole time.
Lol, Matt Walsh is one to talk about not being there on the gender thing until just 5 minutes ago. Feminists like Janice Raymond (70s), Meghan Murphy and Julie Bindel have been "shouting from the rooftops" for decades, long before Walsh got on board by using the exact same feminists' arguments while screaming "where are all the feminists???".
And even though I think he's an arrogant misogynist dick who openly hates feminists, I welcome Walsh to the party, appreciate his work "What is a Woman?", and hope he takes your advice, Abigail. Thanks for this very thoughtful piece.
As a conservative myself, I continually have been asking liberals "If every liberal policy is a failure, and all the conservative notions are successful, tell me again WHY you stick to the liberal side?" Immigration. Gender woo wack. Cancel culture. Anti-jew screaming. Drug policy. Homelessness. BLM and race hustling anti-white garbage. Rampant inflation caused by "Fight for $15". Exploding crime in cities due to failure to prosecute criminals. Letting criminals out without bail to commit more crimes. Prices rising due to minimum wage increases.
What have liberals done LATELY that works? I can't think of a single thing.
Everything you listed IS their policy and the outcomes ARE their goal. So from their sick point of view it’s a screaming success and anyone who disagrees is a racist, transphobic Marxist.
It's what we liberals haven't done. We haven't robbed women of control over their reproduction. We haven't made it possible for deranged males to slaughter men, women and children in our cities with weapons of war. We aren't putting the pedal to the metal on climate change. We didn't open the door for white Christian Nationalists to begin turning the US into a theocracy. We didn't pretend Donald J. Trump was unimpeachable.
No, you liberals just continue to fund the USA's wars of aggression so that the arms manufacturers' still profit (they support all sides of course), you ignore the real issues of pollution (climate change is a red herring), you support by default the radical Islamists who will turn the USA into a caliphate with sharia law, and you voted an imbecile called Joe Biden into power when even Bernie Sanders was obviously more competent.
And you supported lockdowns and masks and mandatory vaccination by and large as bossing people around is enjoyed by the hypocritical left as much as the right.
Everything you mention in your article has been a battle for me one way or another. The DEI insanity did end up making me bitter. Ultimately, I have given up fighting it, but now playing the waiting game to see how it all pans out. It is hard to imagine the craziness that we have had to endure since 2020 and now for those on the left to slowly be waking up from the madness of it all is in itself astonishing to behold. How they didn’t see the writing on the wall in the first place is the bottom line concern. I think a movie needs to be made to showcase just how much has changed in our country since 2020.
I gave up on my successful online projects and failed to keep the new ones I started because I felt so bitter. I did not want to spread bitterness…
Now I have to find strength to overcome it, to find my voice again and make those new friends, find new circles, create new communities. Thank you for pushing us in this direction.
First article I read in the New Year(it hit my inbox right about midnight and I read it a few minutes past). Unsurprisingly, considering the author, that it may end up being the best, and most important, piece I'll read this year, a scant few minutes into it.
Thank you Abigail!
Here is something to do: get this protect-kids law on the ballot in California!
https://protectkidsca.com
If we can get it on the ballot, it is very likely to pass.
Remember: in 2020, the exact same California electorate that voted for Biden 2-to-1 over Trump ALSO voted to reject race-based "affirmative action", 55% to 45%.
A popular defeat for gender ideology in California will send shock waves across the country and around the world.
If you can, please help!
None of this will work.
Any legislation will be vetoed by the governor (even Republicans like DeWine veto these), challenged in courts, appealed, etc. It will fail.
California voted for Prop. 187 to deny social services to illegals nearly 30 years ago, and it passed. How did that work out?
California voted against gay marriage several years ago, and they supported a ban. How did that work out in the long run?
The only way this will end is if the medical industry begins to lose money on it instead of make money on it. Anything else will be overturned, denied, vetoed, etc. because the people who run this system will not allow it. Just like they've decided, now, to allow criticism of DEI, black academics, "wokeness" (which they caused), etc.
Hi Kat, you are correct in the area of legislation however, this ballot initiative is different. It is the one way that Californians have an opportunity to create law without the necessity of a governor approving it; therefore, the governor and the legislature have nothing to do with the petition that is currently being offered on the ballot for 2024. It will take all of us to collect the million signatures necessary to put this initiative on the ballot and I urge you and any of your friends and colleagues that think the way you do to please help us get this on the ballot so that the governor can not VETO!! Studies have shown that roughly 65 percent favor this initiative among Democrats. I took the training on how to properly gather the signatures to put this on the ballots directly to the voters bypassing the governor and the legislature!! You can too. Please go to Protect Kids California Act to learn more! Thank you.
Can somebody still file a lawsuit against it to get it overturned?
Yes they could and likely will if it passes. I haven’t studied the language in detail but I expect it has been drafted to be as bulletproof as possible. It’s only about kids medically transitioning and carves out those already on a medical regimen.
Sure, anybody can file a lawsuit about anything. But in this case, any such lawsuit will ultimately end up with SCOTUS, where we have an excellent chance of prevailing.
Also, getting this on the ballot, and then getting a popular vote in favor of it, will send a huge message, including to malpractice insuarance providers (who are already starting to understand the risk). The more awareness there is, the more likely it is that malpractice lawsuits will be filed.
This is a war, and it must be fought on all possible fronts, even on fronts where the chances of success may seem small.
Though in this case, I think the chances are actually very good.
To fix government or anything that is part of government we must first:
1. Correctly identify our biggest problem as the corruption in our governing systems.
2. Find common ground and unify against this problem
How?
With these three simple steps:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in
I don't live in CA and know very little about law and politics but I am wondering if it can be somehow piggybacked on proposition 65 that requires those carcinogen warnings on so many things (even non- food items). So if the testosterone and estrogen vials came with a huge warning about potential carcinogens, maybe it will give the Whole - Food- shopping wealthy young people and their parents at least a tiny pause?
Nice idea but our prescriptions already come with a huge pamphlet of warnings which nobody reads. Like Prop 65 warnings which are universally ignored.
How about running a series of public service announcements about the many dangers of "transgender" medicine. Make them like the anti-cigarette announcements. Transdanger medicine.
There is a lot said about virtue signalling and victimhood among the social justice leftish, but as a former member of that milieu (and now fiercely post-tribal) I see just as much of it on the right. And there's comfort in feeling you were right, long before the converts. But that is just ego and sometimes winning an argument demands the courage of showing a certain humility by not crowing. Abigail calls it exactly right here 💪
Fuck that. An eye for an eye. I'm tired of being bent over.
Haha. “I told you so” is so damn tempting. But at the end of the day don’t we want to change their minds? If they get to “yeah I guess you’re right” then we owe them the grace to say “cool, welcome home”
YES!!
Excellent and highly truthful points were made, as usual. But please, please remember that boys and young men are also being irreparably harmed by gender ideology as well. Of the ROGD group your wonderful book discussed about 30% are male. Please don't leave them out of the discussion. Those of us who love boys ruining their lives and bodies with this trans nonsense don't want to be left out of the conversation. Our culture is horrible to boys. Especially white boys. They need support too. And they need to be protected from the destructive cult of transgenderism.
Amen. As a mom to boy ruining his body with HRT (he’s 22 and was never gender dysphoric til a year ago) I agree. Please remember us too. Each day is a struggle. I’d love some wins in the culture but I really pray for a win in my family.
Abigail's focus is on girls. Look at the title of her book. Stop derailing.
Somebody else is going to have write a book on boys. I feel bad for your son, but he's an adult male, not a 13 year old girl, which is the focus of Abigail's work.
Kat, this article is about a much broader point than just the ROGD issue or that of ROGD girls. Shrier talked about the southern border, crime, DEI affecting our society negatively. It was broad look at political differences and disagreements in the public sphere that can possibly lead to bitterness or "I told you so" attitudes. I simply wanted the ROGD issue, which is obviously a passion of her's , to include the significant percentage of boys and young men who fit that category. That is all I am asking. Those of us with sons, whether teens or immature young adults, are also at risk to feel intense emotions about our kids that could lead to bitterness. Not a unreasonable stance for me to take. I notice you mention the role of porn and other negative influences on why the boys adopt trans identities. But my son, and a large percentage of the boys, are autistic. My son is most likely asexual, and knowing his incredibly sweet and naïve personality would find porn very upsetting and gross. If you listen at all to AZ Hakeem( psychiatrist in UK) talk about his male patients (over 20 years treating this population) often the ASD guys are gullible, afraid of sex, and extremely vulnerable. So while I care deeply about ALL the young people caught up in this, girls and boys, I simply am looking for inclusion and consideration for the boys in this discussion. I care about the girls, and our boys are clearly NOT their enemy. They are victims too. So please consider that fact.
You're missing an important point. These girls are the collateral damage of a male-driven obsession, enabled by male over-entitlement. Which is signified among other things by people going on and on and on about the poor boys while having nothing to say about the fact that the vast majority of victims are girls.
Girls are literally fleeing girlhood for boyhood, because they think girlhood is worthless, because of this.
The males on the other hand, are largely suffering from the OPPOSITE. Thinking that they are the center of all and their own feelz are the most important thing in the universe. Again, because the adults teach them that through their words and actions.
The men who feel entitled to invade women's spaces were once boys who were taught that girls' boundaries weren't worth being respected.
The result is a gender ideology movement made up of a whole lot of women with low self-esteem/ego being directed by a relative few mentally-ill men with excessively high self-esteem/ego.
I really hope you get that, so that you are able to maybe not take it personally when someone like Kat sensibly says, shut up already about the boys.
I'm sure you and the other moms of sons don't want to hear it, and I understand. But the fact remains. We need to focus more on the girls, less on the boys.
Both boys and girls are suffering from the impact of gender ideology. Any practical action, such as getting the California initiative on the ballot, will help both.
Yes. No argument here. The root causes are another matter.
No YOU shut up. My son is not an over-entitled anything. Frankly that's exactly what you sound like. If he thought he was the center of the universe by being a boy he would stay one! What you said makes no sense. Even if this problem is male driven my son and the other young men are equally victims. Over 30% of ROGD cohort are male. That is not insignificant. That should not be ignored. I feel like women like you are so obsessed with your men hatred you are unable to learn. Or open your minds or be compassionate. How sad. I'm done trying to educate you.
Your son is just one (1) dot of many that researchers seek connection between.
It's pretty clear from the clinical research that the motivations of the affected males are overall somewhat different than the motivations of the affected females. Autogynephilia, the fetish that affects at least half of trans-identified males, is a narcissistic disorder. The opposite condition, autoandrophilia, is nearly non-existent in the trans-identified females. They are largely motivated by self-loathing.
Significant fractions of both are motivated by internalized homophobia, so they do have that in common. Obviously, it's a complex phenomenon, having multiple unrelated causes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_typology
The plight of young men is under-examined. How are men supposed to relate to women? Whatever happens, the men get blamed.
There is one thing we know - marriages are down, stable relationships are down. This culture of "complete acquiesance" in matters of sex is not working. Men don't know what to do, how to make that first step. Women want to be in relationships, but won't agree to open to romance and relationships.
Thank goodness I am not on the dating market. It's not working for men or women.
"How are men supposed to relate to women?"
They can begin by stop watching porn, specifically the violent porn today that are designed to degrade girls and women and normalize choking, slapping, spitting, and sorry to be crude, anal. Sure there are always a fringe segment of adults who are into that, and I pass no judgment on them. But pre-teens are literally getting their sex ed from this kind of porn now. So how can boys grow up into men who can relate to women this way?
Talk to Millennials and GenZ women and they absolutely will not believe you when you tell them men in older generations don't all watch porn. Porn is so normal with them they can't conceive of a time when a majority of men didn't watch or read porn (or grow out of it after their teenage years). And those were daddy's porn which, comparing to now, are just quaint.
But nobody wants to talk about that. Men don't want to give up porn, and parents still have no idea what their kids are watching nor do they seem to care to find out. Tell the average GenZ or boomer parents and they'll deny things are that bad, or they are absolutely certain their kids aren't watching those.
That's a pretty sensible comment. Porn creates a completely unrealistic and toxic view of women. The sensibilities of porn are not good, and the consumption of porn does seem to lead to an escalation of titillation, which does lead to the violent side.
I also am amazed at the penetration of porn into younger and younger kids. This is yet another reason why device use in young persons should be monitored. No one should have a device in a private space before they are adults. That's not realistic of course in today's world.
I don't agree that porn is necessarily toxic, however.
It's not escalation of titillation leading to violent side. Porn today literally is violent. It's not our daddy's porn. Nothing titillating. It's outright group of men using force, choking, slapping, and various other acts of degradation. Porn has normalized all of it. I don't know how true it is but I've heard some people say terrorists watch a lot of porn to fuel their violence. Laptops confiscated from terrorists are loaded with modern porn. While I have no evidence this allegation is true, it's not hard to make a connection of this to the Hamas mass rape.
Abigail hasn't looked into this, but porn is now also one of the pipelines into trans, putting the autogynephilia ideas into minds of young men.
I'm GenX. I know for a fact my male peers didn't and don't read or watch porn like it's normal because we didn't have the internet. Grown me who bought stroke books were generally considered to be losers. Even now, most men I know of my own generation are pretty social media averse, and not online 24/7. They're fathers and they aren't even aware how degenerate porn has become today. Every time I tell younger women that GenX men in fact do not all watch porn, they don't believe me.
It's beyond obvious that the Hamas monsters watched violent porn. And I mean a hell of a lot of it.
If today's porn causes normal, middle class, American teenage boys to choke their girlfriends, imagine what it did to the terrorists of Hamas. These Islamist maniacs didn't just rape and kill beautiful, young women. They chopped off breasts and shot up the vaginas to get sexual kicks. And they captured all the sick, stomach-turning savagery on video and broadcast their vile, sadistic snuff films to the cheers of crowds throughout Gaza, Islam, and the "Progressive" West.
It's not underexamined. Every conversation about girls and women is derailed to males. All medical research has disproportionately focused on males, for decades.
Nobody cares about your dating life, George. Stop derailing conversations about women. Go somewhere else if you want to talk about males. Stop it.
Well, you know nothing, obviously, about medical research. I have sat on 45 or so NIH panels, and every single one examines the inclusion of women, minorities, etc in medical research, in every single grant application.
Stop derailing conversations with your ignorant confusion.
You're way off, Kat. Your comment would have been true 50 years ago and earlier, but definitely not for the past 30 years.
The U.S. government spends more than twice as much annually on breast cancer research and grants ($560 billion in 2021) than on prostate cancer. ($270 billion.)
Breast cancer kills about 48,000 people per year, compared to 43,000 for lung cancer ($470 billion in 2021) and about 40,000 for prostate cancer. Funding for breast cancer is actually disproportionately higher than it would be if funding were allocated actuarially based on incidence and death tolls.
You can bring bitterness and a bad attitude to substack boards popular with independently minded subscribers, but if you provide zero data to back up whatever you're bitter about, you won't win any converts.
Do you have any recent data to support your assertion? (Preferably something more recent than 100 years or 6,000 years ago?)
After googling around for 20 minutes, I'm not finding info that supports your contention. Seems more like the reverse, at least during this century.
Breast cancer gets male attention because men like talking and thinking about boobs a lot more than they like talking and thinking about their prostates.
Meanwhile, girls think womanhood sucks so bad that they'd rather cut off their breasts and be boys. We need to focus on making girlhood and womanhood a less miserable experience.
I think it worth saying here that the cancer industry is generally a scam. Women tend to be more vulnerable to fear of cancer and big pharma exploit this.
It has weaseled its way into government and its agencies and now poisons people including a very great many women with its toxic treatments which do nobody any good except provide profit for big pharma and its investors.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/world-cancer-day/
I have myself seen the cancer industry from the inside as it where in 2020 when I was given immuno-therapy for an alleged cancer which I now know to have been in essence fraudulent.
By the way, your comment went to George Q Tyrebyter rather than Kat Highsmith.
Could you please just stop with this nonsense? Males have been the focus of research for years. That's why doctors know so little about women's issues with endometriosis, menstruation, PCOS, etc., as they've been historically ignored by male medical establishments. What you say means nothing.
Entire books have been written about the lack of research involving females because males are seen as the default by other males (Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez). Women have always been considered defective and inferior to men. Why study us? Male doctors for centuries knew nothing about female reproductive systems. "Hysteria" was thought to be the womb trying to escape from the body (male logic ftw).
Stop derailing with your constant whining about men. Go obsess over yourselves elsewhere and leave women alone, and hopefully Abigail blocks you. You're indicative of the problem, and you're too dumb to see it, thereby proving the point. Go away.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials
Since 1993, this has been a federal mandate. I don't give a shit what the morons at the Guardian say. That's a liberal publication from the UK, and therefore is wrong about everything.
If you wish to be educated, you can look at the actual Federal statutes.
https://grants.nih.gov/policy/inclusion/women-and-minorities.htm
But from your comments, written with spite and ignorance, suggest that you are not interested in facts, just venting your sclerotic rage.
To be fair George, I am from the UK and the Guardian is not wrong about everything, just highly biased and wrong about a lot of things.
But all traditional newspapers are poor nowadays and it is hard to find a truly balanced article.
Kat, you are obviously a very bitter person. Reread Abigail’s article..
I'm talking about the topic in general and male self-obsession and exclusion of women in general.
Her book is about girls, and every conversation about women and girls HAS to be derailed by some stupid moid who thinks the past 6,000 years of history focusing on males isn't enough. They, and you, simply cannot leave women alone. You can see the comments here. This is why "male allies" don't exist.
Calling me bitter doesn't change this. Nice argument though; it really addresses the point I made.
Wow. You don't own this space, honey. Stop pretending to be the cop.
Hi George: I was responding to Kat but my comment got misplaced under yours. Apologies!
Not a problem. As I noted, it's easy to get these nested comments all confused up.
Happy New Year!!! May the Gender Woo Wackos be taken to the woodshed and mercilessly thrashed!!!
Gee, honey, you seem upset. You need to calm down.
You are the problem.
Thanks for proving it.
No, you’re the problem Kat. He has every right to express an opinion and who are you to tell him to “go away.” You sound like a bully.
Wow thank you--as an American Jewish Zionist and a Lesbian against both hamas AND gender equality ideology-this was the bright , poignant, and hopeful essay I needed to read. Because all identity aside-I want to live in a fair and free American/West by those who want the same. This is the good fight!
You said, “...all identity aside...” while leading with your identities to show your “intersectional cred”. I’m not trying to be harsh, but you seem to have rather missed the point of Ms Shrier’s piece (that all this “identitarianism” is literally destroying us, our society, and our children/future).
My wish for 2024 is that we ALL stop “leading with our identity”, and start leading with our humanity. So much more constructive, so much more likely to result in a culture we would all like to live in.
numbnuts i led with that to show that someone with an identity like mine that might be stereotyped into blind progressivism sees the truth. if you’re so triggered by it you’re no better than a snowflake liberal
Zionists should be forced to live in Zion.
And where will you be forced to live?
Force me to live on the land I love. Force me to die on my country. Force me to live on my native California.
But it's not yours. It belongs to Mexico. It belongs to Native Americans. Remember?
California belongs to the people who live and die here. We know the stories. Mexica never ruled California. Nobody rules California. California was a republic for twenty thousand years. It is now a constitutional republic. I never learned the lies of the liars. Millions of us laugh at your lies. Your books are mostly lies.
love, love, love your perspective and challenge to love those who didn't and don't love us
How come Bill Ackman only noticed this after Israel started getting criticized?
Go on. Say it. Don’t mince words.
Kat, please post your vile comments somewhere else.
For Kat, ‘Israel being criticized’ = supporting Hamas rampage and denying atrocities. And bill Ackman meets regularly with the Elders of Zion.
Can you answer the question?
Because he was directed by the Elders of Zion. Obviously.
Thank you Abigail, you are always such a breath of fresh air. Wish I heard more from you. God Bless and Happy New Year. 🤍
This article hits home, as I was deeply disappointed by an article that Shrier wrote on Substack a while back which, IMO, was critical of folks like me who came out strongly against Covid tyranny. I expressed my disappointment in the comments, thinking that someone who was perceptive enough to realize how much damage was being caused by the gender madness should recognize folks like me as brothers in arms.
In any event, it sounds like Shrier has come around on this issue and, as she is recommending, I will not hold any bitterness toward her.
I agree with the sentiment, but at the same time there's something to be said for being a little bit tough and rough with people. Because I think that this left wing radicalism that you describe so well advances because it intimidates people into silence. It isn't nice. It scares the supposedly neutral institutions into going along with them. Conservatives don't scare them as much, which might be why things are the way that they are. A harsh reality perhaps but I think it's true.
The Left is extremely tyrannical, so many people fired, cancelled, etc. I was once banned by Facebook for 90 days for reposting a funny Hunter Biden meme. First offense. I never post anything political.
People are cowed into silence and actually silenced. I agree that we do have to fight back, in a meaningful and productive way.
Agreed. I will pull no punches with people. They say offense is the best form of defence, so one must not sit on it, the fence that is!
Thanks for the encouragement Abigail! I would take issue with “our positions became conventional wisdom,”. I don’t see very many around me who have “seen the light “. Many “regular” people seem still to have not gotten the word. I decided after a family visit that I just have to pick my battles because the mass delusion is still operating. On the other hand, there is a growing opposition from all kinds of unexpected places and THAT is encouraging. I fear, however, that we as a nation are heading for a split. The “vaccinated” vs the “unvaccinated “ metaphorically speaking.
The kind of person who believes keeping an 8 year old out of a soccer league because her mother is guilty of wrongthink is truly dangerous. Someone who would hurt a child for the sole purpose of "punishing" her mother wouldn't hesitate to: try and get said parent fired from her job; make her lose her professional licenses; restrict her freedom; use state power to fine her or imprison her.
This behavior speaks volumes about her view of liberalism, civil rights, and our common humanity. Someone who will deny a child's rights to play soccer because of her parents politics will happily deny other rights to said parents, patting herself on the back (ala Delores Umbrage) for her compassion the whole time.
Delores Umbrage, great analogy!
Lol, Matt Walsh is one to talk about not being there on the gender thing until just 5 minutes ago. Feminists like Janice Raymond (70s), Meghan Murphy and Julie Bindel have been "shouting from the rooftops" for decades, long before Walsh got on board by using the exact same feminists' arguments while screaming "where are all the feminists???".
And even though I think he's an arrogant misogynist dick who openly hates feminists, I welcome Walsh to the party, appreciate his work "What is a Woman?", and hope he takes your advice, Abigail. Thanks for this very thoughtful piece.
As a conservative myself, I continually have been asking liberals "If every liberal policy is a failure, and all the conservative notions are successful, tell me again WHY you stick to the liberal side?" Immigration. Gender woo wack. Cancel culture. Anti-jew screaming. Drug policy. Homelessness. BLM and race hustling anti-white garbage. Rampant inflation caused by "Fight for $15". Exploding crime in cities due to failure to prosecute criminals. Letting criminals out without bail to commit more crimes. Prices rising due to minimum wage increases.
What have liberals done LATELY that works? I can't think of a single thing.
Everything you listed IS their policy and the outcomes ARE their goal. So from their sick point of view it’s a screaming success and anyone who disagrees is a racist, transphobic Marxist.
Fascist rather than Marxist I think.
It's what we liberals haven't done. We haven't robbed women of control over their reproduction. We haven't made it possible for deranged males to slaughter men, women and children in our cities with weapons of war. We aren't putting the pedal to the metal on climate change. We didn't open the door for white Christian Nationalists to begin turning the US into a theocracy. We didn't pretend Donald J. Trump was unimpeachable.
No, you liberals just continue to fund the USA's wars of aggression so that the arms manufacturers' still profit (they support all sides of course), you ignore the real issues of pollution (climate change is a red herring), you support by default the radical Islamists who will turn the USA into a caliphate with sharia law, and you voted an imbecile called Joe Biden into power when even Bernie Sanders was obviously more competent.
And you supported lockdowns and masks and mandatory vaccination by and large as bossing people around is enjoyed by the hypocritical left as much as the right.
They don't see any of what you brought up as failures. They see them as the policies are working.
Seriously, talk to some East and West Coast liberals and you'll find people who agree with these policies and outcomes.
Everything you mention in your article has been a battle for me one way or another. The DEI insanity did end up making me bitter. Ultimately, I have given up fighting it, but now playing the waiting game to see how it all pans out. It is hard to imagine the craziness that we have had to endure since 2020 and now for those on the left to slowly be waking up from the madness of it all is in itself astonishing to behold. How they didn’t see the writing on the wall in the first place is the bottom line concern. I think a movie needs to be made to showcase just how much has changed in our country since 2020.
Thank you for this!
I gave up on my successful online projects and failed to keep the new ones I started because I felt so bitter. I did not want to spread bitterness…
Now I have to find strength to overcome it, to find my voice again and make those new friends, find new circles, create new communities. Thank you for pushing us in this direction.
Wow! A stunning entry for the new year! Thank you.