As red states restrict or ban pharmaceutical and surgical interventions for gender-questioning youth, the trans community goes to some very, very dark places.
Thanks again, Eliza for your unique contribution to this fraught topic.
I had been thinking about the issue of trans genocide recently, because one of my favorite podcasts, the Fifth Column -- which has mostly sidestepped the trans issue -- responded aggressively to the controversy over the recent GLAAD/NY Times contributors letters. They made note of the rhetorical claim that the NYT was denying trans people’s right to exist, which of course sounds deranged. Kmele Foster commented that they were going straight to putting trans people in ovens.
I have been wondering how much this rhetoric is literal fear-mongering that trans genocide is intended, and how much is figurative. It seems to me that any questioning of trans identity appears to TRAs to be a kind of genocide, because it raises doubts about the reality of trans identities. It reminds me of Peter Pan -- if you don’t clap your hands, Tinkerbell won’t exist (for the record I clapped my hands, but hey, I was three years old).
In other words, the trans genocide rhetoric is a reflection of the fragility of trans identity claims. It requires the assent of the broader society. If that assent is lacking, trans people feel they won’t exist. Of course, this also morphs into fears of a literal genocide.
"Claims of ‘trans genocide’ rest on two pillars. The first is the idea that ‘trans’ pharmaceuticals and surgeries are life-saving, therefore regulations that restrict access in any way—such as by removing public funding or opening providers up to malpractice suits—are by definition life-threatening. (Never mind that the evidence doesn't support the idea that transition is life-saving.)
Then there’s the potential withdrawal of socially (and sometimes legally) enforced recognition of gender-identity-as-sex. That’s the second pillar.
Trans is only 'real' to the extent others (are compelled to) play along. This is the basis for claims that people who don't believe that gender identity should override sex in some or all settings are "denying" or "erasing the existence of trans people." Think Tinkerbell: if the audience claps, thus demonstrating their belief in the existence of fairies, Tinkerbell lives. (You can see hints of this in media coverage, like the time the New York Times described the Trump administration’s push to define sex as biological sex under Title IX as “‘Transgender’ could be defined out of existence under Trump administration.”)
Activists may also be leaning on the concept of cultural genocide, without saying so. Cultural genocide refers to “the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another.” (For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is how the term is being used in most cases, though if pressed activists might retreat to such a claim, motte-and-bailey style.)"
"The fragility of trans identity claims" or perhaps claiming a trans identity as a way of telling people you're fragile. I think this is also true of people who seek out multiple mental health diagnoses -- they see it as a way of garnering sympathy from others. This would explain the requirement for the assent of broader society as well.
Wasn't it not that long ago that mobs of feral NYC "journalists" were saying Elon was like Hitler for buying Twitter and that night when he kicked off those people for doxing his plane was compared to Kristallnacht?
One of the great ironies of our age is how people who supposedly make their living by selling words have become completely detached from rhetorical reality, and will shriek any victim whine if it gets their needs met at the moment.
If these perpetually aggrieved infantile crybullies had to go one day without emotional blackmail or moral bullying, they would be left completely speechless.
It's an age of hyperbole: a few days ago I read a comment by someone approving something "1000%" -- as though saying 100% wasn't enough to express enthusiasm. It might be innumeracy, but it's also form of illiteracy, not to realise that this figure is meaningless. As hyperbolic exaggeration serves to devalue words and language, it has to be constantly ramped up to new levels of frenzy and inauthenticity.
And now I've started to read the (previously unreached) next article "The frenzy continues..." and just reached "Desantis would 1000% be doing it..." (listing all trans people before rounding them up for death camps -- or withdrawing medication?).
"If these perpetually aggrieved infantile crybullies had to go one day without emotional blackmail or moral bullying, they would be left completely speechless."
Good point. And if that's what you're relying upon on a regular basis, what does that say about you? Do they ever stop to wonder?
the people we're talking about (i think) are the self-proclaimed cool kids of the NYC media bubble, who play socialism while their parents pay their bills, and who care about nothing outside their little hothouse echo chamber, where they screech like lost souls in hell trying to outdo each other in performances of public piety while engaging in compassion pissing contests.
nothing matters to them except expressing obedience to whatever the daily dogma is and in trying to climb to the top of their small sterile world.
the sick sad part is this small sliver of insiders wields so much influence for some unknown reason.
For the record: Those kids may think of what they do as socialism. Their opinions and actions are diametrically opposed to socialism - that goes for any strain of liberal identitarianism aka identity politics.
Socialism - like liberalism and at least classic conservativism - is rooted in universalism and the notion that there is such a thing as material reality.
Identity politics openly and proudly rejects both these notions and radically undermines any possibility of solidarity.
Not hard to deduct that the writer is a male. Threats of suicide bombings, taking as many transphobes with him as he can, getting his diy pipe bomber out of the garage - it's all ready and waiting!... Synthetic testosterone seems to be doing no good to the young women who take it, but males, even on estradiol, are still far more aggressive and murderous. When are the police and courts going to arrest and prosecute the REAL hate speech culprits?
"When are the police and courts going to arrest and prosecute the REAL hate speech culprits?" After they have contained and silenced Kelly-Jay Keen--at least in the U.K.
Lauren, I don't think JKR disapproves of KJK and certainly not vice-versa. My understanding is that the donation was anonymous so presumably the person is unknown.
I am also fascinated by this concept of trans ancestors, for this reason. This is a population that is literally being sterilized, and also, through double mastectomies, eliminating their ability to breast feed children. They are alienating themselves from their reproductive capacities. They are amputating their connection to the great chain of biology, which connects us with our ancestors (a friend of mine has commented that we are born in a river of blood, a vivid metaphor that expresses our deep connection with those ancestors and with the universe itself).
Having amputated this connection, and in many cases alienated themselves from their true biological families, they are now creating a false genealogy through the invention of invented ancestors.
Losing that connection would only heighten their sense of trans genocide.
I think that definitely contributes. It must. If only at a subconscious level. There is only one kind of continuity available, and it hinges on social recognition of a falsehood and medical technology. That's threatening.
Well, climate activism does have a point and comes from a true concern for the Earth, but extremes nonetheless are motivated by fear and leave people immobile. But this TRA stuff, it's completely bonkers and self-centered imo.
Yes, the extremes are there. Reactionary from the limbic brain. The ability to really think and ponder is gone. They seem to keep each other in this highly aroused, some what paranoid, state. My son said to me as he started his transition, “. I know I’m putting a target on my back.” One moment of clarity.
I think about Day of the Dead, which I experienced here in Oaxaca last year for the first time. How powerful is it to connect in this way with our ancestors.
Our modern “scientific” perspective might reject this practice as a primitive superstition, but to me that is a reflection of how our “modern” society has lost its connection with its own past. So now we have a neo-religion inventing a false history.
Perhaps we should not view trans ideology as an anomaly, but rather as a pathology that has emerged from a culture that has already been impoverished by its own lost connection with tradition.
Older transsexuals all laugh hysterically at the thinking today. As my friend Ray says, "so many men whose brains have fallen through the psychic hole where their vaginas should be!!" She and Ada went through surgery in Argentina in the early 60s by "foreign" doctors with German accents paid for by fathers who were pastors in the US Bible Belt. They know real discrimination and hatred and as they say if times had been different, both would be happy gay men. Actually they are both happy in themselves as they tell anyone who will listen. Just as they tell other folks that they are both biological men who present as women. Clashes with younger trans folks drove both off social media, but both insist they can "do as much damage face to face!" More power to both of them.
It is very characteristic of cognitive dissonance. You'll find practically the same ideas and behavior in most religious and esoteric cults, or, for that matter in any form of radical religiosity, and occasionally in political ideologies. (The latter are more forced to be somewhat grounded in reality and are generally mass movements. So there are limits as to how much cognitive dissonance a radical political movement can endure long term.)
What's worse here is that all the religious ideological bs has been heavily individualized.
It’s so hard to know that one of these voices could be that of my own child. How, how, how do we get them back? I think of hiring someone to get him out and have him ‘reprogrammed’ like those who had their beloveds rescued from religious cults. It’s so heartbreaking, scary and real and there is nothing I can do.
I wish you the best of luck out of the bottom of my heart - either with coming to terms with this horrible situation or with finding a way to save your child.
Imagine telling a young girl that, unless she immediately gets the nose-job and breast enlargement she's been clamoring for, she will suffer immeasurably, living in a shell of her "true, authentic" small-nosed, buxom self. What a horrific notion - telling someone they can never be happy unless and until they modify an otherwise healthy body. Even if some women may ultimately live better lives with smaller noses and bigger breasts (due solely to the shallow nature of our current society), what would the world think of some adult who has had those procedures and is happy about them and then tells vulnerable teenage girls they must immediately have the same procedures or risk suicide. The only difference between those cosmetic surgeries and the chemical and surgical alterations associated with transition (besides transition being much more invasive and dangerous) is something called a Gender Identity. However, Gender Identity is an undefined, undefinable amorphous concept that, if it exists at all, would by its nature, not require bodily alterations, since it's supposedly divorced from biology. People scaring these vulnerable kids do not have their best interests at heart.
It's a religion. The one and only concern of religious zealots is to grow their cult. Women and children have always been the acceptable collateral damage of male-centered belief systems.
But no, "being trans" is not a "mental health disorder"!? FFS, I have spent time in mental health facilities (as a visitor, not a patient) and this all sounds like the ravings of the severely unhinged. If we supported everyone in their beliefs, we wouldn't need inpatient mental health facilities because well, all us sane people would spend our lives catering to the delusional beliefs of the insane. If you need drugs, surgery and the unquestioning support of everyone around you to live your "real" life, I question just how "authentic" your life is. Artifice is not authenticity.
And parents' role is not to say "yes" to everything, but to keep children from harming themselves by doing things that will cause them lifelong damage, which is why these laws are aimed at children, not adults. If children are "gender questioning" it's because those around them (including their parents) have indicated to them that tree climbing girls and doll loving boys are either "wrong" or indicative of some problem that needs to be fixed. Children are incapable of distinguishing between adult definitions of gender and sex and (if given encouragement) will believe that sex change is possible when it is not.
All parents lie to their children in the cause of creating a magical world for them. But there exists a vast gulf between Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the unfulfillable promise that you can be whatever sex your heart desires. https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/lying-to-our-children-hey-all-parents
Great article. And it helps to explain the increasing violence shown at trans demonstrations: with placards now saying not just "KILL TERFS" but "DECAPITATE TERFS" -- taking a cue from Muslim jihadi extremists and terrorists.
Much easier to threaten real violence in "defence" against "genocide" as an indoctrinated phobic belief.
The comments strike a familiar note to trans widows, the ex-wives of cross-dressing men. They'll suddenly detransition of their own volition when they realize how tiring the entire charade is, after decades of causing their nearest and dearest to pretend for them. It is a psychiatric illness, as outlined by psychiatrist and former "affirming" practitioner, Dr. Stephen B. Levine. The casual mentions of eating disorders and other co-existing mental illnesses demonstrates that the hormones and surgeries haven't "cured" the conditions, but rather, have been used for placebo effect. I will repeat: if trans widows' stories of experiencing the husband's manic episodes (and other erratic, unwell behavior) after he got on estrogen, perhaps the path of the "diagnosis" would have been slightly less dogmatic and extreme.
It's truly mind blowing how this has been taken on board by so many young people.
I recently joined twitter and have tried to engage with some of the trans allied kids. They start with well structured sentences, but almost immediately go to something like "and you and your lot are just hateful bigots, you're as bad as those authoritian people in WW2. The KKK wanted to protect their women and children too. And you don't really care about vulnerble kids getting the wrong treatment, that's just a dog whistle for all your fascist friends" I have 15 followers.
These replies come after I've simply asked a question. Now some of them maybe trolling or trying to get clicks/clout. But this happens regularly. Which leads me to believe what you are saying here. Some of them truly believe that there is a genocide in progress. It's terrifying.
NO! We MUST have a presence on Twitter! Because of radfems sharing data and articles on Twitter, ordinary people are becoming well-versed in the pathology of the movement. We are giving people receipts and scripts to peak their friends and family members, and helping them protect their children. We are NEEDED on Twitter. Some of the hashtags that have been trending: #WomenWontWheesht #TranswomenAreMen #LBGWithoutTheT #KPSS (Keep Prisons Single Sex) #sexnotgender #AdultHumanFemale #IStandWithJKRowling #SaveWomensSports
I respect and admire those like you who stay and fight.
But I do wish you had a different meme than radfem. Nothing you want, need, and deserve is the least bit radical! Nothing in those hashtags is the least bit radical! So I worry that calling yourselves radical may push away potential allies among the normies.
Thank you! I understand your objection to the word "radical". In the context of feminism, radical does not mean extreme- it means getting to the core essence of what feminism is about- women's liberation from patriarchy. Since few people understand this, yes, I agree with you that we need a different word. It's a sad truth of the world we live in that we have to pre-think for our intended audience because critical thinking is used so rarely by those we are trying to reach.
My feeling is so much of this worldview and attitude is downstream from, and a byproduct of, Leftist academia, most esp gender & race theories and theorists....
Leftists were able to conquer academia by promiscuous use of bigotry accusations and by claiming that anyone not on their team was secretly a conservative or was guilty of "not centering the needs of the marginalized" aka a closet bigot who may need to be reported to a Dean.
This worked spectacularly for them and allowed them to chase away any opponents and consolidate total power—and it's why a generation or 2 later, they own just about our entire culture.
The downside of this has been that they have no practice honestly debating opponents (they don't know any!) and has left them and their acolytes stuck singing the same ol song in every and any situation: anyone who disagrees w any sacred dogma is an evil fascist racist Nazi bigot etc etc...
You can't blame the kids here, they are just mimicking their teachers.
We gave these lunatics power. Now we reap what we sow.
I'm tired of kowtowing to these people and letting them abuse everyone around them with threats of suicide if they don't get what they want. I'm at the point where I honestly do not care anymore. If all these laws are passed (and hopefully they will be) I don't care what the people in this thread do to themselves. What's alarming is what they want to do to others.
There is a mental health professional (I forget her name) that postulates self-harm and suicidality represent an unhealthy relationship w/anger. For teens who are self-harming or suicidal, she'll work with their family on being more assertive so anger and upset can be managed in a healthier way. This really makes sense to me and I wish there was more research into the links between anger, aggression, and suicidality.
There does seem to be quite a bit of aggression in the comments whether it's self-directed, other-directed or both. This would also make sense as to why females are typically more suicidal but don't die by suicide as often (females aren't typically permitted to express anger on their own behalf) as males. From what I've read, the sex ratio holds true in trans populations as well. From my work in mental health, I've also noticed that people who struggle with suicidality also struggle with mental rigidity as well as difficulty self-regulating (which seems to apply to a good portion of the trans population).
If all of this is true, a "solution" might be to work with these individuals on building their assertiveness, cognitive flexibility, and self-regulatory skills. Perhaps this would even lead to life in general feeling more tolerable.
That statistic made me laugh. 75%, eh? "Neurodivergent" seems to be one of those terms whose definition becomes so wide it encompasses everyone.
Oh, the irony of people who claim multiple diagnoses yet become angry if someone suggests being trans is an expression of mental illness. Pick a lane, people. If it's an identity that needs no diagnosis, let's get it out of our diagnostic manuals. If ,however, it IS a diagnosable disorder, then we ought to treat it as such. Oy.
As I read your first-class piece, Eliza, it reminded me of a documentary I saw about an Australian man and his family, although it has happened here, too, on numerous occasions. It featured a homicidal man who took the lives of his family out of spite, it seemed to me. He was no longer in control of their lives, so he slaughtered them. I believe there is a name for this phenomenon.
These people, I would bet, are mainly males because the murderous language used is both extreme and toddler-like tantrumy at the same time. TRAs who are thwarted in any way display this dichotomy. It is mainly associated with domestic abuse, and we have come to learn from 'trans widows' that autogynephiles often behave in ways that can only be deciphered as extreme domestic abuse edged with sexually-motivated cruelty and sadism.
I think these men do not actually want to harm themselves - that's their last resort, and it's a kind of self-spite - but they would harm others. The use of the word, genocide, in relation to 'trans' is such a gross insult to those who did suffer genocide as to be unconscionable. These people are plainly deranged, dangerously so, and, if we do not put a stop to this madness, we are going to regret it deeply and for a very long time. I think it needs a Jordan Peterson to actually tease out all the psychological strands.
Deranged and scary. I meant to add in my earlier comment that they are also like the gun-toting kids who shoot people for something that seems puerile in the light of day. Narcissism must play a huge part in all of this. No normal person would imagine that he or she has the right to enforce his or her individual preferences on everyone else. There is a lack of self-esteem, for sure, but also an enormous ego. People say it's like a cult - and it is - but it seems to me that it is far more than that - a pathological sense of unreality and delusion with emotional blackmail added in as an extra. Very child-like.
Thanks again, Eliza for your unique contribution to this fraught topic.
I had been thinking about the issue of trans genocide recently, because one of my favorite podcasts, the Fifth Column -- which has mostly sidestepped the trans issue -- responded aggressively to the controversy over the recent GLAAD/NY Times contributors letters. They made note of the rhetorical claim that the NYT was denying trans people’s right to exist, which of course sounds deranged. Kmele Foster commented that they were going straight to putting trans people in ovens.
I have been wondering how much this rhetoric is literal fear-mongering that trans genocide is intended, and how much is figurative. It seems to me that any questioning of trans identity appears to TRAs to be a kind of genocide, because it raises doubts about the reality of trans identities. It reminds me of Peter Pan -- if you don’t clap your hands, Tinkerbell won’t exist (for the record I clapped my hands, but hey, I was three years old).
In other words, the trans genocide rhetoric is a reflection of the fragility of trans identity claims. It requires the assent of the broader society. If that assent is lacking, trans people feel they won’t exist. Of course, this also morphs into fears of a literal genocide.
What do you think of this idea?
I wrote about this a couple weeks ago (Tinkerbell included!):
https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/phobia-indoctrination-not-trans-genocide
"Claims of ‘trans genocide’ rest on two pillars. The first is the idea that ‘trans’ pharmaceuticals and surgeries are life-saving, therefore regulations that restrict access in any way—such as by removing public funding or opening providers up to malpractice suits—are by definition life-threatening. (Never mind that the evidence doesn't support the idea that transition is life-saving.)
Then there’s the potential withdrawal of socially (and sometimes legally) enforced recognition of gender-identity-as-sex. That’s the second pillar.
Trans is only 'real' to the extent others (are compelled to) play along. This is the basis for claims that people who don't believe that gender identity should override sex in some or all settings are "denying" or "erasing the existence of trans people." Think Tinkerbell: if the audience claps, thus demonstrating their belief in the existence of fairies, Tinkerbell lives. (You can see hints of this in media coverage, like the time the New York Times described the Trump administration’s push to define sex as biological sex under Title IX as “‘Transgender’ could be defined out of existence under Trump administration.”)
Activists may also be leaning on the concept of cultural genocide, without saying so. Cultural genocide refers to “the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another.” (For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is how the term is being used in most cases, though if pressed activists might retreat to such a claim, motte-and-bailey style.)"
The ideology's volatile triple fuel combination:
1. fear -- ramped up to existential heights
2. pathological kindness
3. the noxious fumes of victimhood
We mustn't forget
4: sexualization of children
5. fetishization of womanhood
Undoubtedly I was influenced by your previous writing, which I managed to forget -- though it kept rattling around in my aging brain.
I would also add that the sheer derangement of this claim prompts closer inspection of the trans movement.
Well said. The old motte-and-bailey style of argumentation is a favorite go-to.
"The fragility of trans identity claims" or perhaps claiming a trans identity as a way of telling people you're fragile. I think this is also true of people who seek out multiple mental health diagnoses -- they see it as a way of garnering sympathy from others. This would explain the requirement for the assent of broader society as well.
Wasn't it not that long ago that mobs of feral NYC "journalists" were saying Elon was like Hitler for buying Twitter and that night when he kicked off those people for doxing his plane was compared to Kristallnacht?
One of the great ironies of our age is how people who supposedly make their living by selling words have become completely detached from rhetorical reality, and will shriek any victim whine if it gets their needs met at the moment.
If these perpetually aggrieved infantile crybullies had to go one day without emotional blackmail or moral bullying, they would be left completely speechless.
It's an age of hyperbole: a few days ago I read a comment by someone approving something "1000%" -- as though saying 100% wasn't enough to express enthusiasm. It might be innumeracy, but it's also form of illiteracy, not to realise that this figure is meaningless. As hyperbolic exaggeration serves to devalue words and language, it has to be constantly ramped up to new levels of frenzy and inauthenticity.
And now I've started to read the (previously unreached) next article "The frenzy continues..." and just reached "Desantis would 1000% be doing it..." (listing all trans people before rounding them up for death camps -- or withdrawing medication?).
"If these perpetually aggrieved infantile crybullies had to go one day without emotional blackmail or moral bullying, they would be left completely speechless."
Good point. And if that's what you're relying upon on a regular basis, what does that say about you? Do they ever stop to wonder?
the people we're talking about (i think) are the self-proclaimed cool kids of the NYC media bubble, who play socialism while their parents pay their bills, and who care about nothing outside their little hothouse echo chamber, where they screech like lost souls in hell trying to outdo each other in performances of public piety while engaging in compassion pissing contests.
nothing matters to them except expressing obedience to whatever the daily dogma is and in trying to climb to the top of their small sterile world.
the sick sad part is this small sliver of insiders wields so much influence for some unknown reason.
For the record: Those kids may think of what they do as socialism. Their opinions and actions are diametrically opposed to socialism - that goes for any strain of liberal identitarianism aka identity politics.
Socialism - like liberalism and at least classic conservativism - is rooted in universalism and the notion that there is such a thing as material reality.
Identity politics openly and proudly rejects both these notions and radically undermines any possibility of solidarity.
Not hard to deduct that the writer is a male. Threats of suicide bombings, taking as many transphobes with him as he can, getting his diy pipe bomber out of the garage - it's all ready and waiting!... Synthetic testosterone seems to be doing no good to the young women who take it, but males, even on estradiol, are still far more aggressive and murderous. When are the police and courts going to arrest and prosecute the REAL hate speech culprits?
yeah, i hate to say this, but many M to Fs seem to be truly twisted people filled w rage and aggression, i try to steer clear of em
"When are the police and courts going to arrest and prosecute the REAL hate speech culprits?" After they have contained and silenced Kelly-Jay Keen--at least in the U.K.
Does anyone know why JKRowling didn't donate the 3000 GBP that KellieJay needed for her lawyer. Does JKR not approve of her?
Lauren, I don't think JKR disapproves of KJK and certainly not vice-versa. My understanding is that the donation was anonymous so presumably the person is unknown.
Totally! It's like, "dude, your mentitlement is showing".
I am also fascinated by this concept of trans ancestors, for this reason. This is a population that is literally being sterilized, and also, through double mastectomies, eliminating their ability to breast feed children. They are alienating themselves from their reproductive capacities. They are amputating their connection to the great chain of biology, which connects us with our ancestors (a friend of mine has commented that we are born in a river of blood, a vivid metaphor that expresses our deep connection with those ancestors and with the universe itself).
Having amputated this connection, and in many cases alienated themselves from their true biological families, they are now creating a false genealogy through the invention of invented ancestors.
Losing that connection would only heighten their sense of trans genocide.
I think that definitely contributes. It must. If only at a subconscious level. There is only one kind of continuity available, and it hinges on social recognition of a falsehood and medical technology. That's threatening.
Also gives trans activism a flavor that's not dissimilar to some of the extremes of climate activism: apocalyptic, no future.
Well, climate activism does have a point and comes from a true concern for the Earth, but extremes nonetheless are motivated by fear and leave people immobile. But this TRA stuff, it's completely bonkers and self-centered imo.
I'm talking about the world-is-ending fringes.
So glad to see you post paintings on Twitter. We all need a respite from staring into this abyss.
Yes, the extremes are there. Reactionary from the limbic brain. The ability to really think and ponder is gone. They seem to keep each other in this highly aroused, some what paranoid, state. My son said to me as he started his transition, “. I know I’m putting a target on my back.” One moment of clarity.
I think about Day of the Dead, which I experienced here in Oaxaca last year for the first time. How powerful is it to connect in this way with our ancestors.
Our modern “scientific” perspective might reject this practice as a primitive superstition, but to me that is a reflection of how our “modern” society has lost its connection with its own past. So now we have a neo-religion inventing a false history.
Perhaps we should not view trans ideology as an anomaly, but rather as a pathology that has emerged from a culture that has already been impoverished by its own lost connection with tradition.
Older transsexuals all laugh hysterically at the thinking today. As my friend Ray says, "so many men whose brains have fallen through the psychic hole where their vaginas should be!!" She and Ada went through surgery in Argentina in the early 60s by "foreign" doctors with German accents paid for by fathers who were pastors in the US Bible Belt. They know real discrimination and hatred and as they say if times had been different, both would be happy gay men. Actually they are both happy in themselves as they tell anyone who will listen. Just as they tell other folks that they are both biological men who present as women. Clashes with younger trans folks drove both off social media, but both insist they can "do as much damage face to face!" More power to both of them.
It is very characteristic of cognitive dissonance. You'll find practically the same ideas and behavior in most religious and esoteric cults, or, for that matter in any form of radical religiosity, and occasionally in political ideologies. (The latter are more forced to be somewhat grounded in reality and are generally mass movements. So there are limits as to how much cognitive dissonance a radical political movement can endure long term.)
What's worse here is that all the religious ideological bs has been heavily individualized.
Triple likes for that comment, as well as for Eliza's article. Scary times, we need all the insight and clear reporting we can muster. Thank you!
It’s so hard to know that one of these voices could be that of my own child. How, how, how do we get them back? I think of hiring someone to get him out and have him ‘reprogrammed’ like those who had their beloveds rescued from religious cults. It’s so heartbreaking, scary and real and there is nothing I can do.
I wish you the best of luck out of the bottom of my heart - either with coming to terms with this horrible situation or with finding a way to save your child.
What kind of "social movement" threatens suicide if they don't get what they want? A cult. Cults do that
a cult that attracts people w Cluster B Personality disorders
Holy 🐄. Yeah, no mental illness here...
What dark and scary mass psychosis is taking over the world?
Hint: it’s one that makes people want to ‘unalive’ themselves.
Imagine telling a young girl that, unless she immediately gets the nose-job and breast enlargement she's been clamoring for, she will suffer immeasurably, living in a shell of her "true, authentic" small-nosed, buxom self. What a horrific notion - telling someone they can never be happy unless and until they modify an otherwise healthy body. Even if some women may ultimately live better lives with smaller noses and bigger breasts (due solely to the shallow nature of our current society), what would the world think of some adult who has had those procedures and is happy about them and then tells vulnerable teenage girls they must immediately have the same procedures or risk suicide. The only difference between those cosmetic surgeries and the chemical and surgical alterations associated with transition (besides transition being much more invasive and dangerous) is something called a Gender Identity. However, Gender Identity is an undefined, undefinable amorphous concept that, if it exists at all, would by its nature, not require bodily alterations, since it's supposedly divorced from biology. People scaring these vulnerable kids do not have their best interests at heart.
It's a religion. The one and only concern of religious zealots is to grow their cult. Women and children have always been the acceptable collateral damage of male-centered belief systems.
It needs to be repeated for those who refuse to listen “ women and children have always been collateral damage of male-centered belief systems “!
Exactly!
But no, "being trans" is not a "mental health disorder"!? FFS, I have spent time in mental health facilities (as a visitor, not a patient) and this all sounds like the ravings of the severely unhinged. If we supported everyone in their beliefs, we wouldn't need inpatient mental health facilities because well, all us sane people would spend our lives catering to the delusional beliefs of the insane. If you need drugs, surgery and the unquestioning support of everyone around you to live your "real" life, I question just how "authentic" your life is. Artifice is not authenticity.
And parents' role is not to say "yes" to everything, but to keep children from harming themselves by doing things that will cause them lifelong damage, which is why these laws are aimed at children, not adults. If children are "gender questioning" it's because those around them (including their parents) have indicated to them that tree climbing girls and doll loving boys are either "wrong" or indicative of some problem that needs to be fixed. Children are incapable of distinguishing between adult definitions of gender and sex and (if given encouragement) will believe that sex change is possible when it is not.
All parents lie to their children in the cause of creating a magical world for them. But there exists a vast gulf between Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the unfulfillable promise that you can be whatever sex your heart desires. https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/lying-to-our-children-hey-all-parents
Great article. And it helps to explain the increasing violence shown at trans demonstrations: with placards now saying not just "KILL TERFS" but "DECAPITATE TERFS" -- taking a cue from Muslim jihadi extremists and terrorists.
Much easier to threaten real violence in "defence" against "genocide" as an indoctrinated phobic belief.
“life-saving breast augmentation and laser-hair removal" -- what a phrase.
Weird! Upside down “ thinking “!
The comments strike a familiar note to trans widows, the ex-wives of cross-dressing men. They'll suddenly detransition of their own volition when they realize how tiring the entire charade is, after decades of causing their nearest and dearest to pretend for them. It is a psychiatric illness, as outlined by psychiatrist and former "affirming" practitioner, Dr. Stephen B. Levine. The casual mentions of eating disorders and other co-existing mental illnesses demonstrates that the hormones and surgeries haven't "cured" the conditions, but rather, have been used for placebo effect. I will repeat: if trans widows' stories of experiencing the husband's manic episodes (and other erratic, unwell behavior) after he got on estrogen, perhaps the path of the "diagnosis" would have been slightly less dogmatic and extreme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_5-7-2azH0&t=1s
It's truly mind blowing how this has been taken on board by so many young people.
I recently joined twitter and have tried to engage with some of the trans allied kids. They start with well structured sentences, but almost immediately go to something like "and you and your lot are just hateful bigots, you're as bad as those authoritian people in WW2. The KKK wanted to protect their women and children too. And you don't really care about vulnerble kids getting the wrong treatment, that's just a dog whistle for all your fascist friends" I have 15 followers.
These replies come after I've simply asked a question. Now some of them maybe trolling or trying to get clicks/clout. But this happens regularly. Which leads me to believe what you are saying here. Some of them truly believe that there is a genocide in progress. It's terrifying.
My advice: get off twitter and stay off. No good will come of it.
Note that the completely unhinged GLADD letter to the NYT has almost 35,000 signatures. There are a LOT of cultists out there.
NO! We MUST have a presence on Twitter! Because of radfems sharing data and articles on Twitter, ordinary people are becoming well-versed in the pathology of the movement. We are giving people receipts and scripts to peak their friends and family members, and helping them protect their children. We are NEEDED on Twitter. Some of the hashtags that have been trending: #WomenWontWheesht #TranswomenAreMen #LBGWithoutTheT #KPSS (Keep Prisons Single Sex) #sexnotgender #AdultHumanFemale #IStandWithJKRowling #SaveWomensSports
I respect and admire those like you who stay and fight.
But I do wish you had a different meme than radfem. Nothing you want, need, and deserve is the least bit radical! Nothing in those hashtags is the least bit radical! So I worry that calling yourselves radical may push away potential allies among the normies.
Thank you! I understand your objection to the word "radical". In the context of feminism, radical does not mean extreme- it means getting to the core essence of what feminism is about- women's liberation from patriarchy. Since few people understand this, yes, I agree with you that we need a different word. It's a sad truth of the world we live in that we have to pre-think for our intended audience because critical thinking is used so rarely by those we are trying to reach.
My feeling is so much of this worldview and attitude is downstream from, and a byproduct of, Leftist academia, most esp gender & race theories and theorists....
Leftists were able to conquer academia by promiscuous use of bigotry accusations and by claiming that anyone not on their team was secretly a conservative or was guilty of "not centering the needs of the marginalized" aka a closet bigot who may need to be reported to a Dean.
This worked spectacularly for them and allowed them to chase away any opponents and consolidate total power—and it's why a generation or 2 later, they own just about our entire culture.
The downside of this has been that they have no practice honestly debating opponents (they don't know any!) and has left them and their acolytes stuck singing the same ol song in every and any situation: anyone who disagrees w any sacred dogma is an evil fascist racist Nazi bigot etc etc...
You can't blame the kids here, they are just mimicking their teachers.
We gave these lunatics power. Now we reap what we sow.
I'm tired of kowtowing to these people and letting them abuse everyone around them with threats of suicide if they don't get what they want. I'm at the point where I honestly do not care anymore. If all these laws are passed (and hopefully they will be) I don't care what the people in this thread do to themselves. What's alarming is what they want to do to others.
There is a mental health professional (I forget her name) that postulates self-harm and suicidality represent an unhealthy relationship w/anger. For teens who are self-harming or suicidal, she'll work with their family on being more assertive so anger and upset can be managed in a healthier way. This really makes sense to me and I wish there was more research into the links between anger, aggression, and suicidality.
There does seem to be quite a bit of aggression in the comments whether it's self-directed, other-directed or both. This would also make sense as to why females are typically more suicidal but don't die by suicide as often (females aren't typically permitted to express anger on their own behalf) as males. From what I've read, the sex ratio holds true in trans populations as well. From my work in mental health, I've also noticed that people who struggle with suicidality also struggle with mental rigidity as well as difficulty self-regulating (which seems to apply to a good portion of the trans population).
If all of this is true, a "solution" might be to work with these individuals on building their assertiveness, cognitive flexibility, and self-regulatory skills. Perhaps this would even lead to life in general feeling more tolerable.
That statistic made me laugh. 75%, eh? "Neurodivergent" seems to be one of those terms whose definition becomes so wide it encompasses everyone.
Oh, the irony of people who claim multiple diagnoses yet become angry if someone suggests being trans is an expression of mental illness. Pick a lane, people. If it's an identity that needs no diagnosis, let's get it out of our diagnostic manuals. If ,however, it IS a diagnosable disorder, then we ought to treat it as such. Oy.
If everyone is neurodivergent, then no one is neurodivergent.
Totally.
As I read your first-class piece, Eliza, it reminded me of a documentary I saw about an Australian man and his family, although it has happened here, too, on numerous occasions. It featured a homicidal man who took the lives of his family out of spite, it seemed to me. He was no longer in control of their lives, so he slaughtered them. I believe there is a name for this phenomenon.
These people, I would bet, are mainly males because the murderous language used is both extreme and toddler-like tantrumy at the same time. TRAs who are thwarted in any way display this dichotomy. It is mainly associated with domestic abuse, and we have come to learn from 'trans widows' that autogynephiles often behave in ways that can only be deciphered as extreme domestic abuse edged with sexually-motivated cruelty and sadism.
I think these men do not actually want to harm themselves - that's their last resort, and it's a kind of self-spite - but they would harm others. The use of the word, genocide, in relation to 'trans' is such a gross insult to those who did suffer genocide as to be unconscionable. These people are plainly deranged, dangerously so, and, if we do not put a stop to this madness, we are going to regret it deeply and for a very long time. I think it needs a Jordan Peterson to actually tease out all the psychological strands.
Yes, deranged for sure. Many of them , if not most, should be in a psychiatric hospital.
Deranged and scary. I meant to add in my earlier comment that they are also like the gun-toting kids who shoot people for something that seems puerile in the light of day. Narcissism must play a huge part in all of this. No normal person would imagine that he or she has the right to enforce his or her individual preferences on everyone else. There is a lack of self-esteem, for sure, but also an enormous ego. People say it's like a cult - and it is - but it seems to me that it is far more than that - a pathological sense of unreality and delusion with emotional blackmail added in as an extra. Very child-like.