Per usual, beautifully expressed and important insights Eliza. This story of gender is falling apart like a cheap suit because it cannot withstand contact with the reality expressed by detransitioners. As humans, we cannot escape needing stories, frames of context, to make sense of reality. Our human languages are the bones of our stories, and sometimes even the words we have to work with fail us in telling stories that are helpful and moving away from stories that are harmful. Stories are always at best approximations of reality that we tell ourselves and each other. Even science must be told in stories that are approximations of reality. When our stories fall apart, we are destabilized, because we actually need stories. They are essential to moving in the world as a human being. All we can do is try to create better stories that are 1. closer reflections of reality and 2. are helpful to humans wishing to be healthy, happy, and whole.
I think there's a profound disconnect taking place in our culture and it's being manifested in many different ways (disconnect from our bodies, each other, the earth). No one is immune -- not professionals, not anyone. Objectification has been popularized as "empowering" with the "choice" to alter one's appearance as the ultimate expression of the "true self". But subjugation is often repackaged and sold back to us as an "empowering choice".
Automation and mechanization of the world and humans gives us the illusion of ultimate control. I think the reality we need to reckon with is a much bigger than just transition/detransition--it's that the patriarchal worldview of power and control is harmful and unsustainable, that the view of women and the earth as nothing but exploitable resources has spread like a virus and infected everyone and everything.
It takes courage to face ourselves and we need to make room in our hearts for ourselves and others to be able to identify problems and mistakes before we attempt to make repairs.
Yes. The control of what can’t (shouldn’t) be controlled. “Grant me the serenity to accept...” It feels like an addiction. Patriarchy has become addiction. “The wisdom to know the difference” between accepting (ourselves?) and undue control in the form of power dynamics. Acceptance is key and something men in a patriarchy will never learn. How we escape patriarchy’s hold is key. Early feminists have always wanted to reject objectification and now look where we are.
I like that analogy. I think addiction and patriarchy both express the consequences of The Mother Wound. How can we be nurtured by mother (earth or human) when she is not nurtured in the world? As a consequence, we have an emptiness inside us that can never be filled. Patriarchocapitalism offers fake solutions in the form of drugs, food, relationships, stuff, sex, etc.
Every person comes to this life through a woman. I think men realized that--how truly dependent we all are on women and the earth--and didn't like it. Instead of giving women and the earth the respect we deserve, they decided to objectify and exploit us. And what kind of balance or healing can ANYONE find when half the earth's population is dehumanized? The cycle of objectification and maiming of our bodies and the earth is ENDLESS unless we realize what we've done.
Another masterful piece of writing Eliza. (I seem to have written that before...)
I'd be interested to know what parallels there are between the stories of detransitioners and religious apostates. I only have a sketchy knowledge of both, but it does seem that both are treated in a similar dismissive manner. I guess it's the ultimate 'betrayal' and rejection of a belief system that the true believers can't stand.
Mar 15, 2022·edited Mar 15, 2022Liked by Eliza Mondegreen
Cult deprogrammers are the experts in this: often starting as cult victims themselves, but having somehow escaped, they know the inside story of techniques used by cult leaders and their acolytes to trap new recruits and keep them ensnared.
Cult recruitment always involves preying on people's insecurities, and offering redemption through surrendering personality (and often worldly goods) to charismatic leaders and belief systems. Cult membership usually requires renouncing existing friendships, family etc to spend time only with other cult members, and silencing or demonising critics or opposed beliefs. Doubt and dissent are not tolerated: and are usually severely punished -- for the doubter's own good.
Chanting cult-affirming mantras ("trans women are women") is one of the hypnotic techniques used to affirm cult reality and uniformity of belief.
Leaving cults is made extremely difficult for anyone who tries to do so, so doubts usually have to be kept strictly hidden: until the mismatch between cult beliefs & required behaviours, and reality, becomes so unbearable that the devotee breaks away. Usually to be excommunicated, regarded as the worst kind of traitor, denounced and treated as dead.
It's worth reading about cults to understand how much the gender cult conforms to the range of brainwashing, hypnotic and mind control techniques. Steven Hassan (as an escapee from the Moonies turned cult deprogrammer) has written books about it: including "The Cult of Trump: A leading expert shows how the president uses mind control".
Per usual, beautifully expressed and important insights Eliza. This story of gender is falling apart like a cheap suit because it cannot withstand contact with the reality expressed by detransitioners. As humans, we cannot escape needing stories, frames of context, to make sense of reality. Our human languages are the bones of our stories, and sometimes even the words we have to work with fail us in telling stories that are helpful and moving away from stories that are harmful. Stories are always at best approximations of reality that we tell ourselves and each other. Even science must be told in stories that are approximations of reality. When our stories fall apart, we are destabilized, because we actually need stories. They are essential to moving in the world as a human being. All we can do is try to create better stories that are 1. closer reflections of reality and 2. are helpful to humans wishing to be healthy, happy, and whole.
I think there's a profound disconnect taking place in our culture and it's being manifested in many different ways (disconnect from our bodies, each other, the earth). No one is immune -- not professionals, not anyone. Objectification has been popularized as "empowering" with the "choice" to alter one's appearance as the ultimate expression of the "true self". But subjugation is often repackaged and sold back to us as an "empowering choice".
Automation and mechanization of the world and humans gives us the illusion of ultimate control. I think the reality we need to reckon with is a much bigger than just transition/detransition--it's that the patriarchal worldview of power and control is harmful and unsustainable, that the view of women and the earth as nothing but exploitable resources has spread like a virus and infected everyone and everything.
It takes courage to face ourselves and we need to make room in our hearts for ourselves and others to be able to identify problems and mistakes before we attempt to make repairs.
Yes. The control of what can’t (shouldn’t) be controlled. “Grant me the serenity to accept...” It feels like an addiction. Patriarchy has become addiction. “The wisdom to know the difference” between accepting (ourselves?) and undue control in the form of power dynamics. Acceptance is key and something men in a patriarchy will never learn. How we escape patriarchy’s hold is key. Early feminists have always wanted to reject objectification and now look where we are.
I like that analogy. I think addiction and patriarchy both express the consequences of The Mother Wound. How can we be nurtured by mother (earth or human) when she is not nurtured in the world? As a consequence, we have an emptiness inside us that can never be filled. Patriarchocapitalism offers fake solutions in the form of drugs, food, relationships, stuff, sex, etc.
Every person comes to this life through a woman. I think men realized that--how truly dependent we all are on women and the earth--and didn't like it. Instead of giving women and the earth the respect we deserve, they decided to objectify and exploit us. And what kind of balance or healing can ANYONE find when half the earth's population is dehumanized? The cycle of objectification and maiming of our bodies and the earth is ENDLESS unless we realize what we've done.
Another masterful piece of writing Eliza. (I seem to have written that before...)
I'd be interested to know what parallels there are between the stories of detransitioners and religious apostates. I only have a sketchy knowledge of both, but it does seem that both are treated in a similar dismissive manner. I guess it's the ultimate 'betrayal' and rejection of a belief system that the true believers can't stand.
Cult deprogrammers are the experts in this: often starting as cult victims themselves, but having somehow escaped, they know the inside story of techniques used by cult leaders and their acolytes to trap new recruits and keep them ensnared.
Cult recruitment always involves preying on people's insecurities, and offering redemption through surrendering personality (and often worldly goods) to charismatic leaders and belief systems. Cult membership usually requires renouncing existing friendships, family etc to spend time only with other cult members, and silencing or demonising critics or opposed beliefs. Doubt and dissent are not tolerated: and are usually severely punished -- for the doubter's own good.
Chanting cult-affirming mantras ("trans women are women") is one of the hypnotic techniques used to affirm cult reality and uniformity of belief.
Leaving cults is made extremely difficult for anyone who tries to do so, so doubts usually have to be kept strictly hidden: until the mismatch between cult beliefs & required behaviours, and reality, becomes so unbearable that the devotee breaks away. Usually to be excommunicated, regarded as the worst kind of traitor, denounced and treated as dead.
It's worth reading about cults to understand how much the gender cult conforms to the range of brainwashing, hypnotic and mind control techniques. Steven Hassan (as an escapee from the Moonies turned cult deprogrammer) has written books about it: including "The Cult of Trump: A leading expert shows how the president uses mind control".
Thanks for the analysis of intellectual acrobatics required to keep faithful practitioners and defaulting recruits anchored in GenderWorld.