Disruption at Book Fairs

[likesfish]

so Irelands did this and hasn't collapsed into a rape ridden dystopia driven by men pretending to be women so the UK won't either and next summer I can't get a certificate declaring I'm a lesbian even though I sleep with a woman and have a cat and moved in after our first date couldn't be more of a lesbian stereotype if I tried

 

[Treacle Toes]

and next summer I can't get a certificate declaring I'm a lesbian even though I sleep with a woman and have a cat and moved in after our first date couldn't be more of a lesbian stereotype if I tried

What does this even mean and why is it funny?

Lesbian stereotype? wut?

 

[smokedout]

2) "Being part of a Big Pharma conspiracy for voicing support for trans people" - yes there's plenty of people who see trans as an excellent opportunity for big pharma to make a healthy profit whilst at the same time doing some good PR for itself as the facilitator of a hip new marginalised group - it makes a change from being the scumbags that they obviously are. You don't have to believe that the trans movement is a Big Pharma Conspiracy - it obviously isn't - to think that Big Pharma loves it. What's so weird about that view?

The fact that there are no trans specific drugs, all the drugs trans people take were developed for other conditions and both estrogen and testerone are very cheap and produced in the human body so impossible to patent. There is a small global cottage industry of trans healthcare, much of it based around surgery and that's all. Big pharma couldn't give a shit.

 

[Treacle Toes]

.

 

[co-op]

Yes but you also deny outright that one side has a problem. The reality is that you are part of the problem, to the point of putting your fingers in your ears when presented with evidence contradicting you.

No I don't think I have - it's obvious that my views are niche and I disagree with loads of people on both "sides". I have repeatedly spoken about both sides having wankers. I'm not sure what "evidence" you're referring to?

 

[Sea Star]

Was it you who posted a vid about this on another thread? I thought it was very interesting, but it was largely ignored. I suppose it just wasn't what other people wanted to talk about.

I posted it to specifically refute something another poster was saying but they chose to ignore it. C'est la vie.

It seems to me highly plausible that some - but very few - people do have an innate propensity to see themselves as belonging to the other sex.

However, thinking that this is probably the case with Jan Morris (just to choose a very famous example) is one thing. It is a very different thing to think this is probably the case with most of the avalanche of youngsters - highly disproportionately many autistic and highly disproportionately many lesbians - who in the last few years have suddenly declared themselves trans.

Avalanche? Really? You really shouldn't believe everything you read in the Mail and the Express. There hasn't been avalanche of youngsters - just the numbers you'd expect given that for years trans people just could not be open about ourselves. There is a huge backlog - but the numbers of kids presenting themselves as trans right now are perfectly in line with the current belief that around 1% of the population are transgender.

Do you agree that the probable existence of some cases of innate gender dysphoria does NOT justify:

• ignoring women's concerns that some predatory men will exploit self-id to prey on women?
• providing confused adolescents with irreversible medical treatments, including surgical mutilation?
• deceiving children still young enough to believe in fairy stories that they can choose to be boys or girls, as if there were a magic wand?
• bullying people who refuse to go along with ideological fashion?
• pretending that it is somehow a blow against gender stereotypes (rather than in fact an extraordinary return to stereotyping) to encourage 'tomboy' girls to think they are not really girls or 'sissy' boys to think they are not really boys?

Wow - well, respond to these then:

• not ignored - has been responded to many, many time, including by cis women who have taken this point on and responded to it in support of trans people being able to self id for GRC's, even on U75.
• does not happen - & what evidence do you have that any of these things happen or that such children are confused? I certainly wasn't confused when i was a teenager and knew i was a girl. I knew.
• it's not deception. For years i believed the bullshit, that i could never be a woman. But I am a woman and if I was told that at age 4 then i wouldn't be fucked up like i am now.
• medical truth isn't ideological fashion and it's trans people being bullied into silence.
• doesn't happen. Trans boys aren't "tomboys" and trans girls aren't sissy boys. The fact that you claim that clearly indicates you do not have a mind open enough to be able to discuss this stuff in good faith.

 

[likesfish]

A joke which references U-Haul (a brand of rental "move-it-yourself" trucks and trailers) became well known in North American lesbian culture.[4]

Question: What does a lesbian bring on a second date?

Answer: A U-Haul.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/...lmates-and-the-stereotype-is-completely-true/

 

[smokedout]

But as radicals we seek to change society to accommodate our human reality, not change the individual to conform to the demands of an unjust class society, right?

Show me an individual that hasn't changed or compromised their authentic selves to conform to the demands of an unjust class society?

 

[smokedout]

Yep I am quite old-fashioned about this stuff. .

Indeed, pre-enlightenment it appears.

 

[Sea Star]

Here's an evidence review. Note Sea Star wassn't saying it had been proved, just that there is evidence supporting the position.

tbh the only thing i wanted to "prove" was that I've never bought into the male brain/ female brain thing - at least not since i was about 20 years younger anyway - but it's a thing i get stuck on me over and over.

 

[Treacle Toes]

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/...lmates-and-the-stereotype-is-completely-true/

Wow...they actually published that.

 

[Sea Star]

Yep I am quite old-fashioned about this stuff. I don't think clever scientists can "prove" much about who we "really" are, nor can they come up with a clever "objective" proof about social categories like race or gender..

a posh way of saying you're just going to ignore any scientific evidence that contradicts you.

 

[co-op]

a posh way of saying you're just going to ignore any scientific evidence that contradicts you.

TBF I'll also ignore the scientific evidence that "supports" me.

 

[co-op]

Show me an individual that hasn't changed or compromised their authentic selves to conform to the demands of an unjust class society?

Of course I can't; but the fact that we are all dealing with the society we are born into doesn't mean that we just cave in to all its demands and accept them as objective reality.

ETA bit surprised to have to be arguing this point on these boards.

 

[co-op]

Indeed, pre-enlightenment it appears.

LOL at the idea that thinking that science has ideological bias makes me pre-enlightenment. Post-enlightenment science has, among other things, "proved" that Africans are inferior to Europeans and Jews are descended from a completely different evolutionary line than non-Jews.

ETA also a bit surprised to have to be making these kinds of points on a board like this.

 

[smokedout]

LOL at the idea that thinking that science has ideological bias makes me pre-enlightenment. Post-enlightenment science has, among other things, "proved" that Africans are inferior to Europeans and Jews are descended from a completely different evolutionary line than non-Jews.

ETA also a bit surprised to have to be making these kinds of points on a board like this.

It has neither proved, nor claimed to prove either such thing. Of course science is influenced by ideology, but gene's aren't.*

If genetic markers could be found for transsexuality, and those gene grouping are known to influence hormonal activity and sex development, and further evidence suggests that pre natal exposure to hormones in the brain might inform gender/sex identity and there is physical evidence of this found in trans brains, then that is worthy of further enquiry wouldn't you suggest? That doesn't mean any of it is proved, it's not there yet, but that is a hypothesis many researchers are examining, and given the scope of recent projects we may have some more solid data soon.

Of course even this won't tell us much except there is something diferent about trans brains, and that difference appears to relate to areas of the brain and genetics related to sex development/identity. And of course further research may throw doubt on it. But it's not made up. It is hard data. How robust that data is, and how strong correlations prove to be will really inform how the science develops. But to write off hard verifiable science like this completely is just silly and does your credibility no good.

ETA *waits for some epigenetics cunt to go actually.

 

[smokedout]

Kind of funny really, the science is all ideology and I refuse to look at it because the conclusions contradict what I believe. Do you not see the problem with this?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Can you say why it rings alarm bells for you without making the musical skill comparison please? What does it mean to you?

What kabbes said really regarding correlation and causation. Finding neural correlates for particular conditions doesn't necessarily explain them. In this case saying a trans person is trans because they have a trans brain doesn't really explain anything. You can equally say that they have a trans brain because they're trans.

 

[smokedout]

What kabbes said really regarding correlation and causation. Finding neural correlates for particular conditions doesn't necessarily explain them. In this case saying a trans person is trans because they have a trans brain doesn't really explain anything. You can equally say that they have a trans brain because they're trans.

If you're talking about brain plasticity then whilst you might be correct that surely raises question about whether socialisation based on born physical sex is quite as clear cut as often regarded.

 

[kabbes]

tbh the only thing i wanted to "prove" was that I've never bought into the male brain/ female brain thing - at least not since i was about 20 years younger anyway - but it's a thing i get stuck on me over and over.

The evidence review I was pointed to does in fact make claims about male brain / female brain. Again, the authors seem to presume that correlation implies causation in a particular direction.

 

[smokedout]

The evidence review I was pointed to does in fact make claims about male brain / female brain. Again, the authors seem to presume that correlation implies causation in a particular direction.

It's not controversial that there are different tendencies between male and female brains probably down to socialisation imo but hormones play a part and it is possible there is an innate component

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If you're talking about brain plasticity then whilst you might be correct that surely raises question about whether socialisation based on born physical sex is quite as clear cut as often regarded.

I think this stuff is anything but clear cut and the evidence of prenatal hormone influence is growing and persuasive, particularly as it has also been shown in other mammals. We are animals, much less in control of ourselves then we all like to fancy.

Here, I would repeat something I said to sea star a while back. I'm sure she doesn't give a shit what I think, but I'll say it again anyway: it is important not to base a fight for rights and space and dignity on science. These things need to be fought for and won over recognition of lived experience and the right to space and dignity on that basis. Today you might find some scientific findings that you like, but tomorrow's findings might not be so much to your liking. Your right to live as you want and need to live needs to exist and justify itself independently of any finding from neuroscience. While we are all animals much less in control of ourselves than we like to fancy, we are also highly social animals who find all kinds of meanings at a social level. Those meanings all have a neural correlate, but we do not mediate them at the level of neurology. We mediate them at a social level.

 

[smokedout]

I think this stuff is anything but clear cut and the evidence of prenatal hormone influence is growing and persuasive, particularly as it has also been shown in other mammals. We are animals, much less in control of ourselves then we all like to fancy.

Here, I would repeat something I said to sea star a while back. I'm sure she doesn't give a shit what I think, but I'll say it again anyway: it is important not to base a fight for rights and space and dignity on science. These things need to be fought for and won over recognition of lived experience and the right to space and dignity on that basis. Today you might find some scientific findings that you like, but tomorrow's findings might not be so much to your liking. Your right to live as you want and need to live needs to exist and justify itself independently of any finding from neuroscience. While we are all animals much less in control of ourselves than we like to fancy, we are also highly social animals who find all kinds of meanings at a social level. Those meanings all have a neural correlate, but we do not mediate them at the level of neurology. We mediate them at a social level.

I don't really disagree with this, and I think there are political dangers is placing too much emphasis on biology, as there are political dangers in the search for a gay gene. My interest in this is personal as someone who largely believes gender is a social construct but finds that theoretical idea struggles to match my lived experience. I've been like this as long as I remember, it feels like I was born this way, I'm curious why that is.

But there's no doubt a biological driver would cut the legs off a lot of transphobic myths such as that it's all a fetish, delusion or misogyny, or that there's no such thing as trans children, or that trans men are all confused lesbians. Although not sure it would make such a difference as we've just seen, those with the most virulent trans critical views have little interest in science.

 

[co-op]

Although not sure it would make such a difference as we've just seen, those with the most virulent trans critical views have little interest in science.

My point which - you refuse to understand - is that believing that science will step in and resolve complex intrinsically political questions about social relationships is just plain stupid. It's routinely used by right wing liberals to valorise a reality which they endorse. It's like thinking that "the economy" would be best run by a committee of experts who really understand it (which lots of people do think).

Appealing to "science" as a solution to social conflict is never going to work on me. This is nothing to do with whatever crazy mis-reading of the latest science that trans activists have come up with - I am not in the slightest bit interested in science that "proves" the opposite either - because I think it does no such thing.

 

[TopCat]

This is about anarchist bookfairs? Why not discuss trans ideology and science and that on another thread?

 

[andysays]

This is about anarchist bookfairs? Why not discuss trans ideology and science and that on another thread?

You're so gonna get accused of being a typical leftie male no platforming women who just want to talk about issues that concern them...

 

[maomao]

This is about anarchist bookfairs? Why not discuss trans ideology and science and that on another thread?

A specific trans science thread might actually be quite interesting and serve to carve off one particular part of the conversation from others so we don't end up with 500 page fights.

 

[smokedout]

This is about anarchist bookfairs? Why not discuss trans ideology and science and that on another thread?

I did try.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Don’t wake me, I plan on sleeping in: some comments on the “woke anarchists” and related matters

Cracking stuff.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I’ve seen that pop up before on Social Media. Interesting blog.
My one gripe (which I think is where I’m currently at politically rather than any points the blog makes, or even this topic) regarding anarchism is that it’s always the theory that rules, and everything else follows. Which is how we end up placing the people we need on board ending up as bigots and us not being relevant or moving forward for another few decades.