What strikes me about it is how it disconnects female experience across time. Classifying a woman as a "menstruator" severs her from her pre-adolescent and post-menopausal selves, denying the continuity of the individual. Why exactly the "vertically integrated messaging apparatus" (as Wesley Yang dubs it) would want to do this I'm not sure, but I do notice the similarity in thinking in trans ideology, re things like "dead names" and other taboos around acknowledging that a trans woman used to be a man (and is still male). In wokese there is only the eternal present, which lasts forever until it changes again and becomes what it always was and will be, until another change rolls around the palimpsest is rewritten again.
The impression I'm left with is that there's an entire activist class who lack object permanence, as through a whole generation missed out on a crucial developmental milestone from infancy. Perhaps this explains their loathing of and antipathy towards women, and the reduction of female reproductive capacity to a list of atomized traits?
"Missed out on a crucial developmental milestone from infancy" maybe encapsulates the problem. The magical thinking of transitioners re gender change seems to correspond with the cognitive development of a 5 year old. Apparently until age 5 or so, if a child sees another child wear clothes typical of the other sex, that child has changed sex. The 5 year-old lacks cognitive capacity to think otherwise. Takes until age 7-9 for cognitive development sufficient to understand the child has changed only its clothes, but not its sex.
Perhaps children's brains have become so saturated & unmoored from reality by rapidly changing consumer images (1000 a day?) & distracting demands of school life, social media etc that the lack of "object permanence" is a feature, not a bug, of a permanent identity crisis: due to cognitive developmental arrest -- exploited & reinforced by gender identity indoctrination.
However, merely crossdressing isn't enough for most transitioners: prey also to the hard sell seductions of hormones & surgery. Gender identity is a commodity to be advertised, bought & sold, including spare parts surgery, as in any other industry: the newest manifestation of gender capitalism spiced with a misogynist backlash against feminism.
And PS in this context, prevention of puberty is the masterstroke: by elimination of a developmental milestone, creating a customer for life. Therefore early indoctrination in gender identity is an absolute necessity. Like the Jesuits said, give us a child before the age of 7, and he is ours for life.
I agree with the concept of a stage of childhood development having been curtailed or completely missed. Jordan Peterson has some interesting things to say about the transgender phenomenon being a reflection of a lack of unstructured fantasy play in childhood. The digital world does much to stifle the development of imagination, among other vitally important aspects of a mature adult personality.
"Lack of unstructured fantasy play in childhood" sounds very plausible: for the challenge to select a preformed "gender identity" from an ever-expanding range. Reminds me of endless infantile ads for video games (apparently designed for children) involving selection of Disneyfied images of commodities: eg which style of elaborate magic wand for a Harry Potter Hogwarts game? In real life, any stick would do -- given the transforming fantasy of imagination. And I remember observations about kids getting hours of amusement from fantasising the different possibilities of an empty cardboard box, long after the toy it contained was quickly discarded.
Feminist linguist Deborah Cameron wrote about this back in 2016. She's less direct about critiquing gender ideology but she makes the same points about "inclusive" language being obfuscating.
I agree that the article avoids the use of the word "girl" (although they do use "daughter"), but it's important to note that the term "menstruator" is in a quote from a "charity". https://period.org/ The NYT never actually chooses to use that word. Which is not a word. This, from the Mirriam-Webster dictionary: “menstruator”
The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above.
What strikes me about it is how it disconnects female experience across time. Classifying a woman as a "menstruator" severs her from her pre-adolescent and post-menopausal selves, denying the continuity of the individual. Why exactly the "vertically integrated messaging apparatus" (as Wesley Yang dubs it) would want to do this I'm not sure, but I do notice the similarity in thinking in trans ideology, re things like "dead names" and other taboos around acknowledging that a trans woman used to be a man (and is still male). In wokese there is only the eternal present, which lasts forever until it changes again and becomes what it always was and will be, until another change rolls around the palimpsest is rewritten again.
The impression I'm left with is that there's an entire activist class who lack object permanence, as through a whole generation missed out on a crucial developmental milestone from infancy. Perhaps this explains their loathing of and antipathy towards women, and the reduction of female reproductive capacity to a list of atomized traits?
"Missed out on a crucial developmental milestone from infancy" maybe encapsulates the problem. The magical thinking of transitioners re gender change seems to correspond with the cognitive development of a 5 year old. Apparently until age 5 or so, if a child sees another child wear clothes typical of the other sex, that child has changed sex. The 5 year-old lacks cognitive capacity to think otherwise. Takes until age 7-9 for cognitive development sufficient to understand the child has changed only its clothes, but not its sex.
Perhaps children's brains have become so saturated & unmoored from reality by rapidly changing consumer images (1000 a day?) & distracting demands of school life, social media etc that the lack of "object permanence" is a feature, not a bug, of a permanent identity crisis: due to cognitive developmental arrest -- exploited & reinforced by gender identity indoctrination.
However, merely crossdressing isn't enough for most transitioners: prey also to the hard sell seductions of hormones & surgery. Gender identity is a commodity to be advertised, bought & sold, including spare parts surgery, as in any other industry: the newest manifestation of gender capitalism spiced with a misogynist backlash against feminism.
And PS in this context, prevention of puberty is the masterstroke: by elimination of a developmental milestone, creating a customer for life. Therefore early indoctrination in gender identity is an absolute necessity. Like the Jesuits said, give us a child before the age of 7, and he is ours for life.
The puberty blockers didn't even enter my mind, but that's a great observation.
I agree with the concept of a stage of childhood development having been curtailed or completely missed. Jordan Peterson has some interesting things to say about the transgender phenomenon being a reflection of a lack of unstructured fantasy play in childhood. The digital world does much to stifle the development of imagination, among other vitally important aspects of a mature adult personality.
"Lack of unstructured fantasy play in childhood" sounds very plausible: for the challenge to select a preformed "gender identity" from an ever-expanding range. Reminds me of endless infantile ads for video games (apparently designed for children) involving selection of Disneyfied images of commodities: eg which style of elaborate magic wand for a Harry Potter Hogwarts game? In real life, any stick would do -- given the transforming fantasy of imagination. And I remember observations about kids getting hours of amusement from fantasising the different possibilities of an empty cardboard box, long after the toy it contained was quickly discarded.
Calling a 'trans woman' sir is a crime similar to murder but labelling women by body parts or functions is inclusive.
Are we meant to take these fools seriously?
Feminist linguist Deborah Cameron wrote about this back in 2016. She's less direct about critiquing gender ideology but she makes the same points about "inclusive" language being obfuscating.
https://debuk.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/the-amazing-disappearing-women/
Spot on! Thanks for the article...
I agree that the article avoids the use of the word "girl" (although they do use "daughter"), but it's important to note that the term "menstruator" is in a quote from a "charity". https://period.org/ The NYT never actually chooses to use that word. Which is not a word. This, from the Mirriam-Webster dictionary: “menstruator”
The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above.