This is worth reading: Carole Hooven, co-director of Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and author of Testosterone: The Story of the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, on why “Academic Freedom is Social Justice”: While some activists insist that asserting the biological reality of the sex “binary” is entirely wrong-headed and pernicious, the true threat to science, and to human dignity is the idea that in order to support anyone’s rights we must deny or ignore reality.
Well, this is good news, isn't it? A prominent academic at Harvard believes in the importance of science! I'll have to send her a grateful note.
However, I'd like to talk about how far Cancel Culture (which seems to have originated with trans people) has reached into our culture. I am a retired male, so you would think that it doesn't affect me, but it does. I am a serious poet. I recently sent some of my poems to the editor of a journal, and she really liked them. In fact, she told me that I should submit my poems to one of the more prominent journals that pays money. The journal this editor represents is very liberal and publishes a lot of poems on social justice, so I told her that I am liberal on most issues, but that I oppose transgender ideology (making it clear that I have no problem with trans people themselves, as long as they are honest about what they are). Well, I haven't heard from the editor since I sent her that note. It has only been a week, but I think there's a chance she may cut me off because of my views.
I had this same experience with another editor at another poetry site. He was going to post a bunch of my poems, but we ended up hating each other after arguing about transgender ideology.
Besides harming children, this Cancel Culture business is really the worst thing that trans activists are doing. They are causing rifts in relationships all over the world. In all my life I have never known of any issue on which one side was trying to silence the other side. They would have us believe that refuting transgender ideology is akin to claiming that black people are inferior because they test more poorly on intelligence tests than whites do, but this is entirely different. The trans activists don't have reality on their side. I will keep speaking out against transgender ideology for this reason alone, if no other -- even if it costs me opportunities to publish my poetry.
(Yes, blacks as a group test more poorly on intelligence tests than whites do, but there are good reasons for that: They are part of an oppressed minority in this country, something which would naturally affect their performance on tests. They are also poorer as a group, have more stress in their lives, and have poorer nutrition.)
This really gets to where I split from transgender rights. The concept of a "gender identity" separate from medical facts about your sex necessarily implies a certain importance of sex/gender that I don't think is good. It is one thing to say that there are identity/personality/experience aspects that are associated with a particular sex/gender, e.g. that women tend to be wordcels rather than shape rotators or whatever. But once you get to the point where you are saying that having those identity/personality/experience aspects actually makes you the opposite sex/gender, you are implying that people of that sex/gender ~ought~ to have those identity/personality/experience aspects.
Personally, I think that William should be able to want a doll and still like playing football.
I guess you can mix and match gender stereotypes if you are nonbinary, but, given that we all mix and match gender stereotypes to a certain extent, what is even the point of that label?
It's important that we continue to attack trans ideology on the basis that this is not a social justice movement, but a malicious power-grab made by male sexual deviants who enjoy violating the boundaries of women and children, and who seek to perform their kinks and fetishes out in the open during their daily jobs and other activities, with the whole world held as a captive audience to their exhibitionism. It's nothing more than that.
There is no point to the nonbinary label and I don’t understand how can anyone with two brain cells to rub together take it seriously and give it any legitimacy 🤦🏻♀️
We have a few "non-binary" people where I work and, as far as I can tell, what it means is a man who likes to wear makeup and earrings, and two women (one heterosexual and one homosexual) who are a little butch and crop their hair short.
Why this needs a special identity and why everyone around them is expected to reify it is beyond me.
This whole thing reminds me of the Zodiac craze of the 70's. People just soaked their minds in that bullshit and refused to see reason. And we still have horoscopes posted daily in major newspapers 50 fucking years later.
Imagine if we're stuck with this for the next 50 years. Ugh.
It occurred to me today that esp. for a male nonbinary his maleness is a prerequisite for makeup and dresses and so forth to be a nonbinary trait; if he were female, they would be entirety unremarkable.
Does that adequately convey the mindfuck nature of this? That being specifically male (or female), and the knowledge thereof, is absolutely at the center of nonbinary-ness?
Exactly! You have to BE the thing before you can declare yourself the NON-thing. The funny part of trans ideology is that the zealots don't understand their own dogma. None of it is logical, of course, but they have exempted themselves from accountability through marginalized status, and that status allows them to squeak "No debate!" when they get asked scary questions. "I'm Baby, go away!"
"You have to BE the thing before you can declare yourself the NON-thing" is, I think, why I've gotten less and less interested in calling myself (or even thinking in terms of being) an atheist. I just...don't believe the things or involve myself with the things that religious people do, and defining myself in terms relative to that makes no sense; it's not part of my life. I'd much rather define myself by what I do like and believe rather than against some other group I have to publicly insist I'm not a part of.
Trans ideology is part of the male supremacy attack on women's rights, agency, and our very humanity. Young girls are already under pressure from being hyper-sexualized by their porn-sick peers. Now they are losing their last places to hide from this unwanted attention. They are being told by woke activists that protesting this invasion is wrong, and they are "literal nazis" and "killing people" by denying a trans person anything they want, so it is impossible to push back. The last available protection for these girls is to not be female, and to grasp a crumb of agency under the trans umbrella. It's a form of Stockholm Syndrome. "Don't hurt me, I'm just like you!"
“…..is having an exclusively inescapably male experience of his idea of being a woman.” This is brilliant. I have asked this of many, including my son who now, at 34, insists he can be a woman (my hair has not grown back after the rage storm that ensued when I questioned this reality). How can anyone know what another sex feels like? How would I as a 67 year old woman pretend to know what it is like to feel male in this world? I suppose he can say, I like to wear flowy clothes but flowy clothes do not a woman make. I cannot get my mind around, ‘but I feel ‘like’ a woman. Thanks Eliza for your wonderful writings.
'In settings where sex matters, treating male people as though they were women undermines the rights of women and girls. In settings where sex doesn't matter, what does it mean to treat anyone 'like a woman'?' - brilliantly put, Eliza. I want to sew it in a sampler, frame it and hang it on my wall. The only vaguely coherent answer to your question that I've heard from TRAs (and believe me I've looked high and low) is this: if I treat you like a woman, I objectify you and de-person you.
(Then again there are of course trans-identifying males who rail against objectification, and they also object to the response that this actually comes with the territory of womanhood. This is where I get *really* confused.)
Your question also has made me reflect: there are settings where sex matters, but women don't have the rights we should - for example reproductive freedom. I suppose that's still consistent with your first sentence but it's something a bit more subtle than changing rooms or prisons. It's the fact that in order to improve our rights we have to have a language in which to talk about our experiences and our needs. The way things are going at the moment, that language is being taken away. Is this is a necessary consequence of trans-activism (or, as they would put it, trans people's existence)? Or is there room for some compromise here?
One key way in which I treat women differently from men is that I presume they aren't sexual predators. Men I don't know (and even a lot I do) don't get that presumption. And it is clearly precisely the kind of presumption a lot of trans-identifying males want to benefit from ... which is clearly precisely why they shouldn't get it.
Additionally, the men who think they are women "test out" with cross-dressing in a false context, "to be safe". For example, my then husband, when cross-dressing for his so-called "true life test" of appearing "female," he specialized in visiting bars in one of the gay capitals of the world, Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Thus, the men whose gaze he was seeking and writing about in his journals to document this "process of transitioning" were gay. Not the straight men he thought he'd attract if he had a female presentation. Update, he gave up on straight men a year after he had the surgeries. He's married to a woman now.
Well, this is good news, isn't it? A prominent academic at Harvard believes in the importance of science! I'll have to send her a grateful note.
However, I'd like to talk about how far Cancel Culture (which seems to have originated with trans people) has reached into our culture. I am a retired male, so you would think that it doesn't affect me, but it does. I am a serious poet. I recently sent some of my poems to the editor of a journal, and she really liked them. In fact, she told me that I should submit my poems to one of the more prominent journals that pays money. The journal this editor represents is very liberal and publishes a lot of poems on social justice, so I told her that I am liberal on most issues, but that I oppose transgender ideology (making it clear that I have no problem with trans people themselves, as long as they are honest about what they are). Well, I haven't heard from the editor since I sent her that note. It has only been a week, but I think there's a chance she may cut me off because of my views.
I had this same experience with another editor at another poetry site. He was going to post a bunch of my poems, but we ended up hating each other after arguing about transgender ideology.
Besides harming children, this Cancel Culture business is really the worst thing that trans activists are doing. They are causing rifts in relationships all over the world. In all my life I have never known of any issue on which one side was trying to silence the other side. They would have us believe that refuting transgender ideology is akin to claiming that black people are inferior because they test more poorly on intelligence tests than whites do, but this is entirely different. The trans activists don't have reality on their side. I will keep speaking out against transgender ideology for this reason alone, if no other -- even if it costs me opportunities to publish my poetry.
(Yes, blacks as a group test more poorly on intelligence tests than whites do, but there are good reasons for that: They are part of an oppressed minority in this country, something which would naturally affect their performance on tests. They are also poorer as a group, have more stress in their lives, and have poorer nutrition.)
Can I put your comment on Twitter? Thanks.
Is that a serious request? Can you do that? Sure, why not. I don't have a twitter account.
This really gets to where I split from transgender rights. The concept of a "gender identity" separate from medical facts about your sex necessarily implies a certain importance of sex/gender that I don't think is good. It is one thing to say that there are identity/personality/experience aspects that are associated with a particular sex/gender, e.g. that women tend to be wordcels rather than shape rotators or whatever. But once you get to the point where you are saying that having those identity/personality/experience aspects actually makes you the opposite sex/gender, you are implying that people of that sex/gender ~ought~ to have those identity/personality/experience aspects.
Personally, I think that William should be able to want a doll and still like playing football.
I guess you can mix and match gender stereotypes if you are nonbinary, but, given that we all mix and match gender stereotypes to a certain extent, what is even the point of that label?
It's important that we continue to attack trans ideology on the basis that this is not a social justice movement, but a malicious power-grab made by male sexual deviants who enjoy violating the boundaries of women and children, and who seek to perform their kinks and fetishes out in the open during their daily jobs and other activities, with the whole world held as a captive audience to their exhibitionism. It's nothing more than that.
There is no point to the nonbinary label and I don’t understand how can anyone with two brain cells to rub together take it seriously and give it any legitimacy 🤦🏻♀️
We have a few "non-binary" people where I work and, as far as I can tell, what it means is a man who likes to wear makeup and earrings, and two women (one heterosexual and one homosexual) who are a little butch and crop their hair short.
Why this needs a special identity and why everyone around them is expected to reify it is beyond me.
This whole thing reminds me of the Zodiac craze of the 70's. People just soaked their minds in that bullshit and refused to see reason. And we still have horoscopes posted daily in major newspapers 50 fucking years later.
Imagine if we're stuck with this for the next 50 years. Ugh.
It occurred to me today that esp. for a male nonbinary his maleness is a prerequisite for makeup and dresses and so forth to be a nonbinary trait; if he were female, they would be entirety unremarkable.
Does that adequately convey the mindfuck nature of this? That being specifically male (or female), and the knowledge thereof, is absolutely at the center of nonbinary-ness?
Exactly! You have to BE the thing before you can declare yourself the NON-thing. The funny part of trans ideology is that the zealots don't understand their own dogma. None of it is logical, of course, but they have exempted themselves from accountability through marginalized status, and that status allows them to squeak "No debate!" when they get asked scary questions. "I'm Baby, go away!"
"You have to BE the thing before you can declare yourself the NON-thing" is, I think, why I've gotten less and less interested in calling myself (or even thinking in terms of being) an atheist. I just...don't believe the things or involve myself with the things that religious people do, and defining myself in terms relative to that makes no sense; it's not part of my life. I'd much rather define myself by what I do like and believe rather than against some other group I have to publicly insist I'm not a part of.
May I share this on a private page? I can give the author as anonymous if you'd like.
Yes, feel free. :)
thanks !
Well said. Agreed.
How does this framing explain the 4000% increase in teenage girls identifying as men?
Trans ideology is part of the male supremacy attack on women's rights, agency, and our very humanity. Young girls are already under pressure from being hyper-sexualized by their porn-sick peers. Now they are losing their last places to hide from this unwanted attention. They are being told by woke activists that protesting this invasion is wrong, and they are "literal nazis" and "killing people" by denying a trans person anything they want, so it is impossible to push back. The last available protection for these girls is to not be female, and to grasp a crumb of agency under the trans umbrella. It's a form of Stockholm Syndrome. "Don't hurt me, I'm just like you!"
I have also wondered if a lot of young lesbians identify as male so they can avoid having sex with 'male lesbians'
YES! That's the first time I've heard that idea, but it seems so obvious, doesn't it. I think you nailed it.
do you mind my asking if you are female or male?
Male.
“…..is having an exclusively inescapably male experience of his idea of being a woman.” This is brilliant. I have asked this of many, including my son who now, at 34, insists he can be a woman (my hair has not grown back after the rage storm that ensued when I questioned this reality). How can anyone know what another sex feels like? How would I as a 67 year old woman pretend to know what it is like to feel male in this world? I suppose he can say, I like to wear flowy clothes but flowy clothes do not a woman make. I cannot get my mind around, ‘but I feel ‘like’ a woman. Thanks Eliza for your wonderful writings.
'In settings where sex matters, treating male people as though they were women undermines the rights of women and girls. In settings where sex doesn't matter, what does it mean to treat anyone 'like a woman'?' - brilliantly put, Eliza. I want to sew it in a sampler, frame it and hang it on my wall. The only vaguely coherent answer to your question that I've heard from TRAs (and believe me I've looked high and low) is this: if I treat you like a woman, I objectify you and de-person you.
(Then again there are of course trans-identifying males who rail against objectification, and they also object to the response that this actually comes with the territory of womanhood. This is where I get *really* confused.)
Your question also has made me reflect: there are settings where sex matters, but women don't have the rights we should - for example reproductive freedom. I suppose that's still consistent with your first sentence but it's something a bit more subtle than changing rooms or prisons. It's the fact that in order to improve our rights we have to have a language in which to talk about our experiences and our needs. The way things are going at the moment, that language is being taken away. Is this is a necessary consequence of trans-activism (or, as they would put it, trans people's existence)? Or is there room for some compromise here?
One key way in which I treat women differently from men is that I presume they aren't sexual predators. Men I don't know (and even a lot I do) don't get that presumption. And it is clearly precisely the kind of presumption a lot of trans-identifying males want to benefit from ... which is clearly precisely why they shouldn't get it.
Additionally, the men who think they are women "test out" with cross-dressing in a false context, "to be safe". For example, my then husband, when cross-dressing for his so-called "true life test" of appearing "female," he specialized in visiting bars in one of the gay capitals of the world, Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Thus, the men whose gaze he was seeking and writing about in his journals to document this "process of transitioning" were gay. Not the straight men he thought he'd attract if he had a female presentation. Update, he gave up on straight men a year after he had the surgeries. He's married to a woman now.
50 seconds capsule of the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlK8diWJEk8
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Yes it was. I follow someone discussing censorship in publishing. She’s in the UK. Thought she might be interested. Thanks!