Why trans activists keep going to the mat for rapists and murderers

Not to put too fine a point on it.

Despite going to great lengths—such as wearing a no doubt uncomfortably tight pair of hot-pink leggings—this convicted rapist won’t be serving his sentence in women’s prison after all. So ‘transwomen’ are women in Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland—except when the timing is politically sensitive and the public is watching and the optics are this bad.

This is, of course, why trans activists keep going to the mat for rapists and murderers with special identities.

If 'transwomen' aren't women in all senses for all purposes that puts everybody's fragile claims to being something they're not at risk, not only out in the real world but in the privacy their own minds, which is a much scarier place.

That's because everybody in the ‘transwomen are women’ camp has doubts they don't know how to live with: in the case of trans-id people, self-doubt. In the case of allies, doubt in the cause. No one dares to tear off the packaging and look at what they're really supporting.

When confronted about their deference to the aforementioned rapists and murderers with special identities, trans activists say some version of: "Just because someone committed a crime, that doesn't mean you get to take away their identity."

What they really mean is, if trans identity isn't taken seriously by everybody in all senses for all purposes, then you're taking away my identity. When you say mean things like "I don't care what his pronouns are, male rapists don't belong in women's prisons," you're triggering my self-doubt and my cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is painful. Doubts—and the desperate attempt to suppress doubt—can rule over your life. Just look at online trans communities.

Because any contact with reality—however brief!—will raise doubts about an identity that's not rooted in reality, trans activists seek to control the world around them so that reality never stands a chance. Hence "no debate!" Hence "you're erasing my existence!" Hence every effort to shut down critics, no matter how cautious, compassionate, and limited the critiques.

And because unwanted contact with reality causes real pain, there's real suffering whenever dissidents force the issue.

(This real suffering, in turn, reassures the "just be kind" crowd that they're right to smother their own doubts about the cause…)

So you can see how we got here, where members of Parliament scream at women for raising reasonable concerns, where there's widespread deference ("her penis") to the gender claims of some of the worst men on the planet, and where even pointing out the absurdity is a cancellable offense.