"We're giving these girls mastectomies. You have to be curious about what's going on."
In this podcast, Corinna Cohn, Lisa Selin Davis, Wesley Yang, and I discuss our experiences at the European Professional Association for Transgender Health and Genspect conferences in this recording from the last day of our time together in Ireland.
(I have to say, being able to debrief with other people beat coming home from the WPATH conference—having not shared the experience with anybody—and having a kind of ‘lite’ nervous breakdown.) It turns out a lot of what I said here I later revisited in my pieces for Genspect, so the highlights are hearing Corinna and Lisa and Wesley’s takes.
(And apologies if you’ve already received this—Wesley and Lisa both sent it out and I know there’s a lot of overlap between our subscribers!)
I really appreciate that you flagged this conversation. Very worthwhile and thought-provoking. In fact, as many who are likely interested don't have time for long form, it would be worth, if possible, breaking discussions like this into shorter topic segments. Just as one example, in the segment about "bridging" conversations (starting about 41:35), Lisa noted that, in the 70s, stereotypes were to be defied, then explained how the concept of "gender" has changed, and then noted at ~43:10 "there's some very basic information that got lost in the last couple generations, and I want to bring this into the conversation."
This is also high on my "to do" list in speaking with (mostly female, often lesbian, all left of center) friends and neighbors, almost all of whom, before I am able to persuade them to engage with me on this, are extremely low information. Ironically, some among my peers, who tend to be 60+, think that younger people are just on to something we older folks missed. As one said, "I feel I just have to adapt." I am working on various ways for folks to grasp that IMHO this is really just old wine in new bottles. I'd be very interested in a discussion among folks as smart and knowledgeable as those here about your views on this and strategies you've used to address that problem.
What I think, myself, is that younger people are simply doing what younger people always do, which is, in Erik Erikson lingo, searching for the answer to the big question "Who Am I?" (There's a wonderful, easy to understand, article about this here: https://www.verywellmind.com/identity-versus-confusion-2795735.) As I see it, one of the many terrible things about the current gender identity discourse is that, instead of young people defying all stereotypes, they are instead being encouraged to fit themselves into the tiniest of little identity boxes. But they are not the ones at fault: it's the adults who are supposed to be guiding them who are the problem.
Liza, just watched the Boyce, Gunn interview you did a couple days ago. Can't comment there so am doing it here instead. Hope that's okay. It's about the reason many straight women support gender ideology and do it fiercely. Benjamin says this proves it isn't patriarchy creating gender ideology but he always misunderstands what patriarchy is... it is itself an ideology permeating our society... it doesn't reside specifically in a woman or a man, but can reside in either and both. When feminists criticise patriarchy they are not criticising MEN, they are criticising patriarchy. (Not that you don't know all this.) So back to why women support gender ideology... largely because of patriarchy. In other words women, from an extremely young age learn to fear male violence. Even if females don't experience that violence, they are continually threatened by it. "Be kind" is a threat; it implies "or else" you know what we can do to you because of our superior strength and our control of power... " be kind" derives from "smile bitch" thrown at us if we dare to reject a man's advances. Women live with this extreme fear every day after they first realise it; we push it down and carry on but many women push it so far down in order to survive the knowledge of it that they are able to pretend the fear doesn't reside in them. So my supposition is that straight women support gender ideology because they fear violent retaliation, whether they know this is why they support it or not. Fear is a powerful motivation. conscious or not. This extreme fear of going against the desires of men (trans identified men in this instance) will stop the access to critical thought. "If I go along with it, men won't hurt me or threaten me and they will like me and they will protect me from other men." This motivation is not to be underestimated. I think female academics who pretend to be feminists but instead promote male power are motivated by this. Thank god (well, not god actually) there are women doing wonderful work like you!! Bravo!!