If "woman" is a social role, isn't that "promoting harmful stereotypes"? Pray tell, trans activists, which particular specific social role defines the identity of "woman"? And do persons who do not fit this social role and it's specific expressions, therefore not qualify as "woman" even when in the posession of a uterus? Is Dylan Mulvany more woman than your average woman who might wear a pair of pants or might even have short hair instead of prancing around like an obscene caricature of a 15 year old girly girl?
I am sick to the teeth of this argument: "They represent a movement which discriminates against them and denies their existence.” Nobody is denying that men who wish to cosmetically alter themselves to fit a stereotype of women do not exist. Nobody is denying that men who won't even go so far as to cosmetically alter themselves to fit a stereotype of women but simply apply a label to themselves exist. We are all very well aware that these people exist. In fact they exist so much that we have to twist logic and language to make sure they exist exactly how they want to exist and we have to encourage children to damage their bodies so these people can pretend they "exist" that way from birth.
But what women need to do is to push back. A "transwoman" is a very specific thing. It's a man who wants to cosmetically alter himself or label himself a woman and live as the other gender. They can "exist" in that form without having to confuse language and insult women and erase us by insisting that we have to append "cis" to who we are because we are just another "subset."
Maybe I’m wrong here but I feel like woman’s movements are in fact responsible for much of this (and I’m sure I’m not the first to raise this but to be honest I don’t spend much time on these issues). It was these movements, which claimed to represent woman, that started the process of suggesting that genders are simply social constructs and that any suggestion otherwise was bigotry.
Since gender is a social construct any men’s or boys groups should be considered discriminatory in their nature since there is no justification for these groups since they just perpetuate these false constructs and roles (even while woman insisted on having their own groups, which thrive still in almost all areas of professional interest). This came at the expense of men and boys, who succeed best with strong male role models (especially when that isn’t available at the home, which is increasingly the case). Boys are hardly winning at anything outside of some top performers that distort this perception.
Now the trans are coming for woman, the definition of and any groups representing, using much of the same tactics. There is some sense of cosmic justice in this, but I don’t derive much pleasure in it. It does seem however that if women’s groups want to win this fight it might be time to acknowledge their own role in this.
This whole "denies their existence" phraseology is maddening. I doubt anyone is denying that "trans" people exist. Of course they do. If they didn't, we wouldn't be here having these discussions. What is being "denied" is that someone can just "be" the opposite sex because of how they feel, or become the opposite sex by means of hormones and/or surgery. When we recognize that a kid wearing a red cape isn't REALLY Superman, regardless of what he (or she) may think about the matter, we are not denying that child's existence. But we are aware of reality and how it differs from fantasy. Similarly, if we say that Lia Thomas isn't really a woman, we're not denying his existence; or denying that he may think he's a woman, or that he wants to be seen/treated as one. But we can object to him competing in the pool and sharing a locker room with actual women.
Just like for "woman", the word "they" cannot be given a new meaning by a specific individual. This pronoun "they" means "specific persons more than 1". It cannot be used for a specific person.
"Someone is coming. They have ice cream". This is wrong. "Someone is coming. He has ice cream." is correct.
Many of these arguments really hinge on "let's pretend 'woman' has exactly one meaning", don't they? Without getting into the whole prescriptive-vs-descriptive dictionary debate, seems to me that the social-role "gender" quasi-definition of woman is valid in the sense that lots of people now use it. But many of those people want to pretend that it replaced the "adult human female" definition, and use that pretext to say that obviously "trans women" should be allowed into "women's" spaces. But the "original" definition didn't become wrong just because they added a new definition. Just about any commonly used word has multiple definitions, and context matters. If the local Applebee's hangs up a banner saying "kids eat free on Tuesdays", everyone understands that they are only talking about human children. Kid can also mean young goat, but no one sees that banner and thinks they can bring a baby goat in for free alfalfa on Tuesday.
Well, it's much the same with 'woman.' Until about five minutes ago, most people outside activism and academia understood woman to mean adult human female, or maybe "any human female" in the context of women's bathrooms and locker rooms. If a business or government office hung up a "women's restroom" sign in 1950, nobody thought that this would ever include a male in a dress, no matter what he called himself. Then at some point, a small but critical mass of vocal people not only adopted the "gender" definition of woman but started acting as though it was and always had been the only valid definition in all contexts, including women's locker rooms and sports. If we had collectively agreed that, OK, "woman" now includes some males in these contexts, it would be easier to swallow, but instead it feels like we all just woke up one day and were told that we were obviously and hatefully wrong about something that everyone agreed on yesterday. It feels dishonest and gaslighting, although I'm sure the people advocating it see it as fair and just.
When young Eric Blair toddled to Spain to fight the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, he noted that in Communist-held areas, they had prohibited the use of formal pronouns—an obvious ploy to communicate that we are all proletarians now (or else). Of course, Eric is better known by his pen name of George Orwell, and I cannot help but wonder if that political use of pronouns didn’t spark the idea of “newspeak” in his later writings. We let totalitarians control our language at peril to our liberty….
This is wonderful! I love the humor, although the trans ideology is really about trying to take over the world.
Changing language to suit their ideology has always been the goal of authoritarians . But as the author points out , reality gets in the way. Men will never be women, and women can never be men.
Great writing! In my trans widow memoir, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022, eBook and soft cover, 50 nature photos), I start off with exactly the same sentiments, but from the personal stance of my ex husband now claiming "motherhood," and to his acquaintances (there was some overlap, so they told me) he co-opts my experiences of natural labor, birth and breastfeeding as if it was him. Anyone in this community seeking a free copy of my book, who can provide a continental US mailing address, up to 10 copies total, I will send free of charge. When you're done reading, donate to a Little Free Library in the "woke-est" neighborhood near you.
I find the insistence on 100% categorical accuracy — which with the presence of intersex and “abnormal sexual conditions is not possible — a bit like Portia’s insistence that Shylock can only get his pound of flesh but not one drop of blood.
If "woman" is a social role, isn't that "promoting harmful stereotypes"? Pray tell, trans activists, which particular specific social role defines the identity of "woman"? And do persons who do not fit this social role and it's specific expressions, therefore not qualify as "woman" even when in the posession of a uterus? Is Dylan Mulvany more woman than your average woman who might wear a pair of pants or might even have short hair instead of prancing around like an obscene caricature of a 15 year old girly girl?
I am sick to the teeth of this argument: "They represent a movement which discriminates against them and denies their existence.” Nobody is denying that men who wish to cosmetically alter themselves to fit a stereotype of women do not exist. Nobody is denying that men who won't even go so far as to cosmetically alter themselves to fit a stereotype of women but simply apply a label to themselves exist. We are all very well aware that these people exist. In fact they exist so much that we have to twist logic and language to make sure they exist exactly how they want to exist and we have to encourage children to damage their bodies so these people can pretend they "exist" that way from birth.
But what women need to do is to push back. A "transwoman" is a very specific thing. It's a man who wants to cosmetically alter himself or label himself a woman and live as the other gender. They can "exist" in that form without having to confuse language and insult women and erase us by insisting that we have to append "cis" to who we are because we are just another "subset."
T is for tyrants. The sooner we get this the sooner we can get through this insanity.
Maybe I’m wrong here but I feel like woman’s movements are in fact responsible for much of this (and I’m sure I’m not the first to raise this but to be honest I don’t spend much time on these issues). It was these movements, which claimed to represent woman, that started the process of suggesting that genders are simply social constructs and that any suggestion otherwise was bigotry.
Since gender is a social construct any men’s or boys groups should be considered discriminatory in their nature since there is no justification for these groups since they just perpetuate these false constructs and roles (even while woman insisted on having their own groups, which thrive still in almost all areas of professional interest). This came at the expense of men and boys, who succeed best with strong male role models (especially when that isn’t available at the home, which is increasingly the case). Boys are hardly winning at anything outside of some top performers that distort this perception.
Now the trans are coming for woman, the definition of and any groups representing, using much of the same tactics. There is some sense of cosmic justice in this, but I don’t derive much pleasure in it. It does seem however that if women’s groups want to win this fight it might be time to acknowledge their own role in this.
This whole "denies their existence" phraseology is maddening. I doubt anyone is denying that "trans" people exist. Of course they do. If they didn't, we wouldn't be here having these discussions. What is being "denied" is that someone can just "be" the opposite sex because of how they feel, or become the opposite sex by means of hormones and/or surgery. When we recognize that a kid wearing a red cape isn't REALLY Superman, regardless of what he (or she) may think about the matter, we are not denying that child's existence. But we are aware of reality and how it differs from fantasy. Similarly, if we say that Lia Thomas isn't really a woman, we're not denying his existence; or denying that he may think he's a woman, or that he wants to be seen/treated as one. But we can object to him competing in the pool and sharing a locker room with actual women.
Good stuff.
Just like for "woman", the word "they" cannot be given a new meaning by a specific individual. This pronoun "they" means "specific persons more than 1". It cannot be used for a specific person.
"Someone is coming. They have ice cream". This is wrong. "Someone is coming. He has ice cream." is correct.
Many of these arguments really hinge on "let's pretend 'woman' has exactly one meaning", don't they? Without getting into the whole prescriptive-vs-descriptive dictionary debate, seems to me that the social-role "gender" quasi-definition of woman is valid in the sense that lots of people now use it. But many of those people want to pretend that it replaced the "adult human female" definition, and use that pretext to say that obviously "trans women" should be allowed into "women's" spaces. But the "original" definition didn't become wrong just because they added a new definition. Just about any commonly used word has multiple definitions, and context matters. If the local Applebee's hangs up a banner saying "kids eat free on Tuesdays", everyone understands that they are only talking about human children. Kid can also mean young goat, but no one sees that banner and thinks they can bring a baby goat in for free alfalfa on Tuesday.
Well, it's much the same with 'woman.' Until about five minutes ago, most people outside activism and academia understood woman to mean adult human female, or maybe "any human female" in the context of women's bathrooms and locker rooms. If a business or government office hung up a "women's restroom" sign in 1950, nobody thought that this would ever include a male in a dress, no matter what he called himself. Then at some point, a small but critical mass of vocal people not only adopted the "gender" definition of woman but started acting as though it was and always had been the only valid definition in all contexts, including women's locker rooms and sports. If we had collectively agreed that, OK, "woman" now includes some males in these contexts, it would be easier to swallow, but instead it feels like we all just woke up one day and were told that we were obviously and hatefully wrong about something that everyone agreed on yesterday. It feels dishonest and gaslighting, although I'm sure the people advocating it see it as fair and just.
When young Eric Blair toddled to Spain to fight the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, he noted that in Communist-held areas, they had prohibited the use of formal pronouns—an obvious ploy to communicate that we are all proletarians now (or else). Of course, Eric is better known by his pen name of George Orwell, and I cannot help but wonder if that political use of pronouns didn’t spark the idea of “newspeak” in his later writings. We let totalitarians control our language at peril to our liberty….
This is wonderful! I love the humor, although the trans ideology is really about trying to take over the world.
Changing language to suit their ideology has always been the goal of authoritarians . But as the author points out , reality gets in the way. Men will never be women, and women can never be men.
And, my cat can never be a dog .
Wonderfully said. Thank you for the great read. Sincerely, Frederick
Keep fighting for truth and facts. Rational people support you!
Great writing! In my trans widow memoir, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022, eBook and soft cover, 50 nature photos), I start off with exactly the same sentiments, but from the personal stance of my ex husband now claiming "motherhood," and to his acquaintances (there was some overlap, so they told me) he co-opts my experiences of natural labor, birth and breastfeeding as if it was him. Anyone in this community seeking a free copy of my book, who can provide a continental US mailing address, up to 10 copies total, I will send free of charge. When you're done reading, donate to a Little Free Library in the "woke-est" neighborhood near you.
(contact form at uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com) {and Steersman, thanks for not replying}
Right? LOL. All that matters is power.
I too share an appreciation for Orwell’s “warnings” so examined the dangers of transgenderism’s focus on subjective reality.
https://hoisttheblackflag.substack.com/p/the-emperor-has-no-clothes
Cunts like Claire Lehmann rejoice when 9-year-old girls are sexually assaulted and publicly humiliated.
https://twitter.com/62Takes/status/1668434471249653761
I find the insistence on 100% categorical accuracy — which with the presence of intersex and “abnormal sexual conditions is not possible — a bit like Portia’s insistence that Shylock can only get his pound of flesh but not one drop of blood.