Additionally, long term ingestion of estrogen by males increases the risks of cancers, pulmonary embolism, heart attack, high blood pressure, dementia, stroke and a few other life threatening conditions. Not to mention that the goal of experiencing female sexual arousal is not achieved. It will be up to the doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists to admit they've been selling snake oil.
Beyond the fairness in sports, the underlying concern is the damage in promoting the idea of children being born in the wrong body, which justifies medical experimentation on children as well as mutilation of body parts.
To support someone like Thomas on the field of play promotes the unsubstantiated belief, and it is only a belief, that the made-up myth of "trans" is valid in the real world. The issue of fairness is just the tip of the much graver problem. One that Democrats continue to be on the wrong side of history.
As feminists like Kara Dansky and J.K. Rowling have pointed out, the leftists' argument for letting men compete against women boils down to the ancient argument that men's "feelings" should take precedence over any needs or rights that women have. More specifically, the supposed emotional needs being attributed to the trans identified males are not real needs, they are narcissistic demands that everyone on the planet agree that their invented selves are real.
> the ancient argument that men's "feelings" should take precedence over any needs or rights that women have
Nope. Whereas certain males are happy to take advantage, trans doctrine comes solidly from feminist doctrine. It is women's "feelings" that they are equal to men in every respect that enables the notion that there's no reason to keep men out of women's sports. Conversely, it is when we admit to ourselves that men are stronger and faster, that the restoration of women's rights to separate competitive categories is reestablished.
Transsexual surgeries were popularized by John Money prior to the beginning of Second Wave feminism. The concept of "gender identity" (which did not have the same definition it does now), was the focus of Robert Stoller's work in the 1960's-1970's. Stoller was a psychoanalyst whose ideas about "gender" have been said to have influenced the Second Wave feminist movement during the Sixties and Seventies. I don't necessarily agree with that opinion, based on my early professional experience during the Seventies, when I taught a series of classes for mental health professionals that included a presentation on Stoller's ideas. The majority of my colleagues had never heard of him.
Transvestites have been around a lot longer than the feminist movement of the mid twentieth century. They started seeking "sexual reassignment surgery" in the 1950's when Money's experiments became known to the public. Many more of them sought treatment during the 1990's, when the surgeries were improved and the results looked a lot more like female genitals.
The population of men who have presented themselves for treatment are strikingly conventional and concrete in their thinking. They equate stereotypical images of women's roles, feminine behavior, clothing, etc. with what it means to be a woman, and conventional male roles, masculine behavior, etc. with what it means to be a man. Their views on that subject match the conventional thinking of what we now call old fashioned "conservative" perspectives on the proper roles of women and men. I have no reason to think that this has changed.
Trans activists are very skilled at exploiting and appropriating other peoples' civil rights movements to serve their own needs, and they have done this to both the women's and the gay/lesbian movements. Trans activists are generally extremely hostile to real feminists, and some radical feminists have taken the position that the current trans movement is a male supremacist reactionary movement that should be classified as "far right."
> The population of men who have presented themselves for treatment are strikingly conventional and concrete in their thinking. They equate stereotypical images of women's roles, feminine behavior, clothing, etc. with what it means to be a woman, and conventional male roles, masculine behavior, etc. with what it means to be a man. Their views on that subject match the conventional thinking of what we now call old fashioned "conservative" perspectives on the proper roles of women and men. I have no reason to think that this has changed.
That's fair and at least partially accurate. Interesting that when one transitions it is never to some indeterminate spot on 'the spectrum' -- transmen pretend to be classical Patriarchs and transwomen pretend to be June Cleaver.
> Trans activists
Most of whom are radical feminists.
> ... are very skilled at exploiting and appropriating other peoples' civil rights movements to serve their own needs, and they have done this to both the women's and the gay/lesbian movements.
Quite right, however who was the mover and who was the moved is open to debate. Most of the LG groups seemed more than happy to be taken over.
> Trans activists are generally extremely hostile to real feminists
Well, who are the 'real' feminists is open to debate as well. Both sides attempt to destroy the other with a viciousness that only women can display. As a Patriarch, I would only laugh at your self-destruction except that of course real, normal women are the casualties.
> , and some radical feminists have taken the position that the current trans movement is a male supremacist reactionary movement that should be classified as "far right."
Nope. Whoever the 'far right' may be, I think it's safe to say that essentially none of them support trans insanity. Speaking for the Patriarchy, if I may, we hold that men are never women and visa versa. Trannies are mentally disturbed persons who should be given whatever help is available, but they shouldn't be permitted to interfere with normalcy.
A transwoman is just about the lowest kind of man there is -- but a man. We Patriarchs detest them and we'd like to ally with the TERFS in overcoming their agenda. But then again the TERFS can't accept help from men and indeed, as you show, they want to blame the disaster caused by their doctrine on us. But if one were to call Trump 'far right', note that one of the cornerstones of his agenda is the demolition of everything to do with trans -- the political ideology of course, not the individual who probably just wants to be left alone.
Most of the young women who ally with male trans activists at the expense of girls and women do regard themselves as anti-patriarchal, but this is mostly about postmodernist speech games. The same group of female tyrants are vicious towards women who defend girls' and women's rights against the boundary invasions and outright violence of the trans activists (and Middle Eastern terrorists). They hiss at us that we are "patriarchal," and as always, they are unable to see the humor in that stance. They can call themselves and me whatever they want---if they don't support girls' and women's rights, even when those females are being physically attacked, they are not feminists.
"Quite right, however who was the mover and who was the moved is open to debate. Most of the LG groups seemed more than happy to be taken over."
I agree that who was the "mover and moved" became less apparent, but it was past the so-called feminist Second Wave. The Nineties was when people like Judith Butler became active in academia and the whole critical theory craze starting taking over entire departments. I was starting to work with men who presented "gender issues" at that time, most of whom had been out of college for at least 5 years (if they had a degree), had no connections with universities, and none of whom talked about post modern ideas on "gender." Some of them were, however, reporting meetings with trans activists and thinking about becoming one themselves.
I was involved with LG groups at that time, which had mobilized to oppose political efforts to block increases in gay legal rights. I went to a number of fund raisers hosted at lavish properties, owned mostly by wealthy male couples. The attendees were members of the LG communities and allies that the organizers correctly thought would be willing and able to donate money. I didn't see or meet a single person at these events who claimed to be trans, looked that way or brought up the subject at all.
"A transwoman is just about the lowest kind of man there is -- but a man. We Patriarchs detest them and we'd like to ally with the TERFS in overcoming their agenda."
The self described TERFS do sometimes form alliances with conservative women. Kara Dansky in particular (who is a lawyer) has worked with conservative female lawyers on cases related to trans, but she has felt the need to explain to her followers why she did that. TERFS are overwhelmingly Democrats, and they are generally more "loyal" to the Democratic Party than they are to people outside the Party who share their views about trans activism. Conservative people, on the other hand, seem to feel compelled to express their hostility towards feminism and blame us for most of the problems in our country. Which feels like an Adam and Eve narrative to me. So yes, there are major difficulties with either side being willing to work together on a limited agenda.
> Most of the young women who ally with male trans activists at the expense of girls and women do regard themselves as anti-patriarchal, but this is mostly about postmodernist speech games. The same group of female tyrants are vicious towards women who defend girls' and women's rights against the boundary invasions and outright violence of the trans activists (and Middle Eastern terrorists). They hiss at us that we are "patriarchal," and as always, they are unable to see the humor in that stance. They can call themselves and me whatever they want---if they don't support girls' and women's rights, even when those females are being physically attacked, they are not feminists.
Well as I said, the trans-positive 'feminists' seem to me to be engaged in a sort of doctrinal suicide. As you see I'm no friend of any brand of 3d wave feminism at all, still we do have common cause against the trans agenda.
> ... but it was past the so-called feminist Second Wave.
Sure, it's a '3d wave' thing. All things considered I'd even grant my support to most of '2nd wave' -- the hatred of men was unfortunate, but there were things that needed to be corrected, to be sure.
> Some of them were, however, reporting meetings with trans activists and thinking about becoming one themselves.
It's too bad it has to end up being spin doctored into a men vs. women thing. It's a sanity vs. madness thing and one finds allies and enemies in both sexes.
> I was involved with LG groups at that time
I must say that although I think we are not allies, I do respect your resume -- you obviously have some first hand knowledge about all this.
> Conservative people, on the other hand, seem to feel compelled to express their hostility towards feminism and blame us for most of the problems in our country.
Many of them, to be sure. We'll see. Perhaps there with be a 4th wave that will be less man-hating and more supportive of women as they really are -- not wanabe men, but natural females. It's a very disturbing thing: women who hate half the human race -- hate their own sons. Mind, most radfems have no kids. But if the hate can be put aside then it would be a fine thing to work together to overcome the trans-madness. As for we Patriarchs, our only task is to support the next generation and to build civilization. To hate women is to hate life.
I see cultural attitudes towards women as belief systems that are shared by members of both sexes. In misogynistic systems the women as well as the men hate girls and women, and in many cases the women are the primary perpetrators of misogynistic abuse. I don't know if there are systems in which men hate each other and boys in similar ways. I agree that boys and men are getting a bad rap currently in U.S. culture.
Anyway, thanks for the dialogue. I hope you have a beautiful 4th of July!
There are hundreds or thousands of quotes to that effect, I don't believe you haven't noticed. I wonder if somebody has made a collection of them?
It is the bedrock claim of the entire trans agenda, without it the notion that men should be able to participate in women's sports wouldn't have gotten off the ground. But the notion rewinds back to 2nd wave feminism when equality before the law (good!) slowly transformed into the idea that women should have equal outcomes in every area of society. Nope. Men are much better at math and very few women really want to code.
I did the incredibly hard work of searching on google for you. There is no such quote. But go ahead and ask your friend.
Legal equality between men and women began in 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to that all women were regarded as property of their fathers or husbands. Women won the right to their care for their own children in case of divorce, the right to own their own property and the right to vote during that era. They won the right to their have their own sports teams and prizes a little later. At no time did women ever say that men and women are equal to men in every respect. We are different physically for the simple reason that we have different roles in reproduction. Men provide the sperm and women provide the ova, two very different gametes which each require a specialized means of production. We are a sexually dimorphic species, just like all the other great apes. That means that overall the males are bigger and stronger than the females.
With so many physical and emotional problems, continuing to increase around the world. It seems to me that even before someone wants to celebrate who they are, they might want to know how they got to be the way they are.
If an herbicide can cause such damage then what could the sum total of toxins, both inside and outside the medical establishment, be causing.
I worked at Penn for a good long time, and this news cracked me up. Not because Penn is getting its comeuppance--although that IS funny--but because, when you get down to brass tacks, wokeness really isn't all that important to the university. Sure, the higher-ups go on about inclusion and diversity and what have you, but I cannot tell you how many times I saw those values kicked promptly to the curb in favor of grant money, or because a Very Important Person was kicking up a fuss. To Penn, wokeness is a luxury to be set aside whenever circumstances dictate.
And that's what is so funny. Getting smacked down for standing on principle is in some ways noble; getting smacked down over principles you only pretend to hold is just embarrassing.
Loved your comment, but I'm doubting the UPenn has the ability to feel embarrassed at this point considering how the sprung L Thomas on the women to start with.
I just went back home for a visit (to NYC) and discussed this issue with my friends and what made it impossible to have a rational debate is the intense personalized and moralized emotional fixation liberals/progs have for the hypothetical Trans child and their hypothetical suffering.
The Trans child and their stigma and suffering is like a sun that blocks out every other concern. When I said teaching children that "they might be born in the wrong body" will lead many other children down the road of unnecessary, irreversible medical interventions, they denied this as a possibility; when I said teaching Gender Theory instead of teaching biology is like teaching astrology instead of astronomy, they said it didn't matter; when I said that Trans was regressive gay erasure, they claimed that T is simply another branch of LGB, with no difference, and only Fox News bigots disagree.
Trans has won so many minds because it's a form of sentimental therapeutic humanitarianism as filtered through cult dynamics. Most of our liberal class has been conditioned into believing that opposing the urgent needs of the Trans child is morally equivalent to drowning a kitten or punching a baby. I don't see any way out for these people or any chance of them changing. The Trans child is a sacred icon for our liberal gentry, a symbol of their superior enlightened morality and wisdom, and there is no amount of evidence or argument that can change their minds. I think this is also why the Dems can't and won't moderate on this issue, no matter what.
I'm sorry to hear that you had another bad experience trying to talk reality to people who prefer fantasy. The image, if we can call it that, of "being born in the wrong body" is one of the craziest things I have ever heard. The cult members toss it into conversations as if it makes sense, when it totally does not. Then they refuse to get into any of the details about the implications of the concept. It suggest to me an image of unused bodies in a warehouse that get pulled out like a suit, put on, then returned if they don't quite fit. (Fit on WHAT??)
Thank you for fighting this from the start. Had more men had the courage to react like Canadian Powerlifting coach Avi Silverberg, this could have ended much sooner. Silverberg, entered the 2023 Heroes Classic powerlifting event, registered as a woman, and easily defeated record winning holder “Anne” Andres, who took to Twitter to complaining about the terrible unfairness of it all.
It seems like this is a situation where we should be talking about a spectrum and not a binary. The claim is that GAC in males "reduces performance advantage." Reduction is not some binary on/off switch. How much reduction has to happen to be fair? Reduced to being no more than 10% faster than all the women's records? 5%? Reduced to the 90th percentile of women's performance? Reduced to the 50th percentile? Also, "reduction" is another nice word to gloss over something we should be concerned about. It's really impairing someone's physically healthy body with side effects and deficiencies until they are physically harmed enough to somehow be called a fair competitor. Is that safe or ethical?
What are your chromosomes? Period. End of story/discussion/argument. If there are Y chromosome, then you can only compete against boys/men. It is not like anyone has an inalienable right to compete in women’s sports if you are not a woman.
Liberalism/leftism is a mental disorder , it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have a DSM or ICD code.
Bravo! How long do you think it will take for the rest of the medical establishment to conclude the same as you? Many apparently have the same training as you, so it is beyond me to understand how they could buy in to the whole idea.
Holly, I don’t pretend to know. I was blindsided by how quickly this exploded. I. graduated from St Louis University (a conservative Catholic University @ the time & said the traditional Hippocratic oath @ graduation medical school in 1977, 4 years after R v Wade. We studied about the rare genetic & inborn errors of metabolism that can cause ambiguous genitalia, but there may be 1 or 2 new ones recognized in the last 50 years, and those pose clinical challenges, but how to deal with the clinical challenges posed by those individuals have been pretty well worked out.
There has been a perfect storm of Marxism, post modernism, feminist & post feminist ideology in undergraduate & graduate education, an explosion of Autism spectrum disorder most likely due to the explosion of infant and early childhood vaccinations (leaving aside other health problems—Andrew Wakefield WAS right), a large increase in the number of women (tendency to be more empathetic to patient’s distress & less likely to tell the patient to suck it up, & probably more easily swayed by these antiscientific constructs of’gender ideology’ floating around) medical schools—students and faculty, enterprising plastic, urologic, gynecological surgeons & the loss of any moral guardrails in the profession and the economic insentive of creating life long highly renumerative patients.
We are not in Kansas anymore! The JAMA this week had a couple of articles defending the current state of the malpractice 🙄—medicine & c docs used to be conservative by nature & politics, but $$$ & the cultural rot has infested the institutions of the profession, so I am afraid that the profession is going to have to be dragged kicking screaming back to sanity. I may doesn’t help that this coincides with the long overdue re-evaluation of vaccines & the fact that RFK is rightly pushing that 3rrd rail, which accounts for half the income of average pediatrician.
I am gratified y how quickly things have changed. It was already reverting to sanity medically in phenomenalEurope, but the advent of the Trump administration & even before they took office things were starting to change.
I think that reflects that the whole phenomenon has been astroturfed on the population and people are not as stupid as the talking heads nor as stupid as they think the general public is.
Indeed. So we poison men to the point where there performance is equal to women? It's grotesque. One might as well say that we should poison black basketball players to the point were whites get Equity on the court.
We don't have to estimate "performance reduction" when it comes to males competing in women's sports, though. EVERY male has the advantage of testosterone boosts since conception which NO female has. A simple cheek swab can detect the presence of the Y chromosome, which 99.9 per cent of males have.
Michael Phelps, like other legendary male athletes, competes against other males who all have an equal chance of possessing the same exceptional physical traits that give an edge in sport. When a male competes against females, the likelihood that female competitors possess those same traits is vanishingly small. This is not complicated, or difficult to grasp.
In almost all contexts, adding the word ‘biological’ before male or female is completely redundant. It’s like saying ‘serious crisis’, or ‘unexpected surprise’.
As a junior high student, I was offended by an old poem where a girl won the spelling bee and is apologizing profusely for beating the boy. She is sorry she "spelled the word right" and hates to win because she "loved him". Everything about including males in females' sports reminds me of this awful old poem; we should let them beat us because we love them so much! We hate to win if their feelings are hurt. Screw that old-fashioned crap.
Is the transgender bias in the mass news and social media indicative of the persistent creep of immorality and lawlessness into the values of the USofA?
I think it represents a cultural descent into lower levels of thought, and yes, morality. The effort to discern right from wrong has been replaced by unthinking conformity to what has become the new "conventional" belief system. (Never mind that it isn't really new).
"The school has reinstated the records of female swimmers who lost their titles to a male competitor."
In sports, "records" and "titles" are different things. Penn can change school records, but titles are awarded by sports organizations such as the Ivy League and the NCAA. Thomas still holds four Ivy League titles and one NCAA title.
It seems many democrats/the left have learned nothing since November. This, and the fact they’ve yet to coalesce around a set of governing principles that don’t offend the sensibilities of a majority of voters, does not bode well for midterms.
The Democrats will lose until they learn that females are fifty per cent of the population. They have sacrificed the rights of women and girls so they can retain the LGBTQ vote.
I urge everyone to read the Jill Lawrence article in The Bulwark to see what a stew of ignorance and wishful thinking it is. Isn't The Bulwark supposed to be a large left of center substack, or something?
The problem is the activist left, who are extremely pushy. Ex-men who think they should be allowed to compete in women’s sports are especially aggressive.
Many sports have offered a transgender category, but the people involved don't sign up. They want to win the women's prizes, the women's records and the women's titles. Plus they get to be recognized publicly *as* women. It's a win/win/win for them.
The short name for the University of Pennsylvania is not "UPenn" but Penn. We have the Penn Relays at Franklin Field, where I myself have competed. Yale and Harvard and Princeton play games against Penn, not "UPenn."
An old, alternative traditional name for Penn is simply "The University," but of course that would not work in your headline.
Additionally, long term ingestion of estrogen by males increases the risks of cancers, pulmonary embolism, heart attack, high blood pressure, dementia, stroke and a few other life threatening conditions. Not to mention that the goal of experiencing female sexual arousal is not achieved. It will be up to the doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists to admit they've been selling snake oil.
https://open.substack.com/pub/majortruthache/p/biology-makes-a-shocking-comeback?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=1gcprx&utm_medium=ios
Beyond the fairness in sports, the underlying concern is the damage in promoting the idea of children being born in the wrong body, which justifies medical experimentation on children as well as mutilation of body parts.
To support someone like Thomas on the field of play promotes the unsubstantiated belief, and it is only a belief, that the made-up myth of "trans" is valid in the real world. The issue of fairness is just the tip of the much graver problem. One that Democrats continue to be on the wrong side of history.
As feminists like Kara Dansky and J.K. Rowling have pointed out, the leftists' argument for letting men compete against women boils down to the ancient argument that men's "feelings" should take precedence over any needs or rights that women have. More specifically, the supposed emotional needs being attributed to the trans identified males are not real needs, they are narcissistic demands that everyone on the planet agree that their invented selves are real.
> the ancient argument that men's "feelings" should take precedence over any needs or rights that women have
Nope. Whereas certain males are happy to take advantage, trans doctrine comes solidly from feminist doctrine. It is women's "feelings" that they are equal to men in every respect that enables the notion that there's no reason to keep men out of women's sports. Conversely, it is when we admit to ourselves that men are stronger and faster, that the restoration of women's rights to separate competitive categories is reestablished.
My comment did not address "trans doctrine."
Transsexual surgeries were popularized by John Money prior to the beginning of Second Wave feminism. The concept of "gender identity" (which did not have the same definition it does now), was the focus of Robert Stoller's work in the 1960's-1970's. Stoller was a psychoanalyst whose ideas about "gender" have been said to have influenced the Second Wave feminist movement during the Sixties and Seventies. I don't necessarily agree with that opinion, based on my early professional experience during the Seventies, when I taught a series of classes for mental health professionals that included a presentation on Stoller's ideas. The majority of my colleagues had never heard of him.
Transvestites have been around a lot longer than the feminist movement of the mid twentieth century. They started seeking "sexual reassignment surgery" in the 1950's when Money's experiments became known to the public. Many more of them sought treatment during the 1990's, when the surgeries were improved and the results looked a lot more like female genitals.
The population of men who have presented themselves for treatment are strikingly conventional and concrete in their thinking. They equate stereotypical images of women's roles, feminine behavior, clothing, etc. with what it means to be a woman, and conventional male roles, masculine behavior, etc. with what it means to be a man. Their views on that subject match the conventional thinking of what we now call old fashioned "conservative" perspectives on the proper roles of women and men. I have no reason to think that this has changed.
Trans activists are very skilled at exploiting and appropriating other peoples' civil rights movements to serve their own needs, and they have done this to both the women's and the gay/lesbian movements. Trans activists are generally extremely hostile to real feminists, and some radical feminists have taken the position that the current trans movement is a male supremacist reactionary movement that should be classified as "far right."
> My comment did not address "trans doctrine."
No. Mine did, and I'd say accurately.
> Transsexual surgeries were
Impressive summary and resume!
> The population of men who have presented themselves for treatment are strikingly conventional and concrete in their thinking. They equate stereotypical images of women's roles, feminine behavior, clothing, etc. with what it means to be a woman, and conventional male roles, masculine behavior, etc. with what it means to be a man. Their views on that subject match the conventional thinking of what we now call old fashioned "conservative" perspectives on the proper roles of women and men. I have no reason to think that this has changed.
That's fair and at least partially accurate. Interesting that when one transitions it is never to some indeterminate spot on 'the spectrum' -- transmen pretend to be classical Patriarchs and transwomen pretend to be June Cleaver.
> Trans activists
Most of whom are radical feminists.
> ... are very skilled at exploiting and appropriating other peoples' civil rights movements to serve their own needs, and they have done this to both the women's and the gay/lesbian movements.
Quite right, however who was the mover and who was the moved is open to debate. Most of the LG groups seemed more than happy to be taken over.
> Trans activists are generally extremely hostile to real feminists
Well, who are the 'real' feminists is open to debate as well. Both sides attempt to destroy the other with a viciousness that only women can display. As a Patriarch, I would only laugh at your self-destruction except that of course real, normal women are the casualties.
> , and some radical feminists have taken the position that the current trans movement is a male supremacist reactionary movement that should be classified as "far right."
Nope. Whoever the 'far right' may be, I think it's safe to say that essentially none of them support trans insanity. Speaking for the Patriarchy, if I may, we hold that men are never women and visa versa. Trannies are mentally disturbed persons who should be given whatever help is available, but they shouldn't be permitted to interfere with normalcy.
A transwoman is just about the lowest kind of man there is -- but a man. We Patriarchs detest them and we'd like to ally with the TERFS in overcoming their agenda. But then again the TERFS can't accept help from men and indeed, as you show, they want to blame the disaster caused by their doctrine on us. But if one were to call Trump 'far right', note that one of the cornerstones of his agenda is the demolition of everything to do with trans -- the political ideology of course, not the individual who probably just wants to be left alone.
"> Trans activists
Most of whom are radical feminists."
Most of the young women who ally with male trans activists at the expense of girls and women do regard themselves as anti-patriarchal, but this is mostly about postmodernist speech games. The same group of female tyrants are vicious towards women who defend girls' and women's rights against the boundary invasions and outright violence of the trans activists (and Middle Eastern terrorists). They hiss at us that we are "patriarchal," and as always, they are unable to see the humor in that stance. They can call themselves and me whatever they want---if they don't support girls' and women's rights, even when those females are being physically attacked, they are not feminists.
"Quite right, however who was the mover and who was the moved is open to debate. Most of the LG groups seemed more than happy to be taken over."
I agree that who was the "mover and moved" became less apparent, but it was past the so-called feminist Second Wave. The Nineties was when people like Judith Butler became active in academia and the whole critical theory craze starting taking over entire departments. I was starting to work with men who presented "gender issues" at that time, most of whom had been out of college for at least 5 years (if they had a degree), had no connections with universities, and none of whom talked about post modern ideas on "gender." Some of them were, however, reporting meetings with trans activists and thinking about becoming one themselves.
I was involved with LG groups at that time, which had mobilized to oppose political efforts to block increases in gay legal rights. I went to a number of fund raisers hosted at lavish properties, owned mostly by wealthy male couples. The attendees were members of the LG communities and allies that the organizers correctly thought would be willing and able to donate money. I didn't see or meet a single person at these events who claimed to be trans, looked that way or brought up the subject at all.
"A transwoman is just about the lowest kind of man there is -- but a man. We Patriarchs detest them and we'd like to ally with the TERFS in overcoming their agenda."
The self described TERFS do sometimes form alliances with conservative women. Kara Dansky in particular (who is a lawyer) has worked with conservative female lawyers on cases related to trans, but she has felt the need to explain to her followers why she did that. TERFS are overwhelmingly Democrats, and they are generally more "loyal" to the Democratic Party than they are to people outside the Party who share their views about trans activism. Conservative people, on the other hand, seem to feel compelled to express their hostility towards feminism and blame us for most of the problems in our country. Which feels like an Adam and Eve narrative to me. So yes, there are major difficulties with either side being willing to work together on a limited agenda.
> Most of the young women who ally with male trans activists at the expense of girls and women do regard themselves as anti-patriarchal, but this is mostly about postmodernist speech games. The same group of female tyrants are vicious towards women who defend girls' and women's rights against the boundary invasions and outright violence of the trans activists (and Middle Eastern terrorists). They hiss at us that we are "patriarchal," and as always, they are unable to see the humor in that stance. They can call themselves and me whatever they want---if they don't support girls' and women's rights, even when those females are being physically attacked, they are not feminists.
Well as I said, the trans-positive 'feminists' seem to me to be engaged in a sort of doctrinal suicide. As you see I'm no friend of any brand of 3d wave feminism at all, still we do have common cause against the trans agenda.
> ... but it was past the so-called feminist Second Wave.
Sure, it's a '3d wave' thing. All things considered I'd even grant my support to most of '2nd wave' -- the hatred of men was unfortunate, but there were things that needed to be corrected, to be sure.
> Some of them were, however, reporting meetings with trans activists and thinking about becoming one themselves.
It's too bad it has to end up being spin doctored into a men vs. women thing. It's a sanity vs. madness thing and one finds allies and enemies in both sexes.
> I was involved with LG groups at that time
I must say that although I think we are not allies, I do respect your resume -- you obviously have some first hand knowledge about all this.
> Conservative people, on the other hand, seem to feel compelled to express their hostility towards feminism and blame us for most of the problems in our country.
Many of them, to be sure. We'll see. Perhaps there with be a 4th wave that will be less man-hating and more supportive of women as they really are -- not wanabe men, but natural females. It's a very disturbing thing: women who hate half the human race -- hate their own sons. Mind, most radfems have no kids. But if the hate can be put aside then it would be a fine thing to work together to overcome the trans-madness. As for we Patriarchs, our only task is to support the next generation and to build civilization. To hate women is to hate life.
I see cultural attitudes towards women as belief systems that are shared by members of both sexes. In misogynistic systems the women as well as the men hate girls and women, and in many cases the women are the primary perpetrators of misogynistic abuse. I don't know if there are systems in which men hate each other and boys in similar ways. I agree that boys and men are getting a bad rap currently in U.S. culture.
Anyway, thanks for the dialogue. I hope you have a beautiful 4th of July!
Which woman said that "women are equal to men in every respect"?
Humans are a s@xually dimorphic species, and have been since the dawn of time.
There are hundreds or thousands of quotes to that effect, I don't believe you haven't noticed. I wonder if somebody has made a collection of them?
It is the bedrock claim of the entire trans agenda, without it the notion that men should be able to participate in women's sports wouldn't have gotten off the ground. But the notion rewinds back to 2nd wave feminism when equality before the law (good!) slowly transformed into the idea that women should have equal outcomes in every area of society. Nope. Men are much better at math and very few women really want to code.
It's amazing that you couldn't find a single quotation for this discussion. Then again, I couldn't either--probably because it never happened.
p.s. My daughter codes and loves her job.
Note I said 'few'. As to the quotes, I haven't looked, but they're out there. I know a guy who might even have a collection, I'll get hold of him.
I did the incredibly hard work of searching on google for you. There is no such quote. But go ahead and ask your friend.
Legal equality between men and women began in 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to that all women were regarded as property of their fathers or husbands. Women won the right to their care for their own children in case of divorce, the right to own their own property and the right to vote during that era. They won the right to their have their own sports teams and prizes a little later. At no time did women ever say that men and women are equal to men in every respect. We are different physically for the simple reason that we have different roles in reproduction. Men provide the sperm and women provide the ova, two very different gametes which each require a specialized means of production. We are a sexually dimorphic species, just like all the other great apes. That means that overall the males are bigger and stronger than the females.
Good article. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Ultimately, the only conclusion that can be reached is that there is no such thing as "transgender."
And pretending otherwise doesn't make someone kind or cool or progressive. It's just a lie, and telling lies to delusional people is harmful and weak.
It may not be a lie. There is precious little data on where the feelings of transgenderism come from.
Frog atrazine study from UC Berkeley 2010:
Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20194757/
With so many physical and emotional problems, continuing to increase around the world. It seems to me that even before someone wants to celebrate who they are, they might want to know how they got to be the way they are.
If an herbicide can cause such damage then what could the sum total of toxins, both inside and outside the medical establishment, be causing.
I worked at Penn for a good long time, and this news cracked me up. Not because Penn is getting its comeuppance--although that IS funny--but because, when you get down to brass tacks, wokeness really isn't all that important to the university. Sure, the higher-ups go on about inclusion and diversity and what have you, but I cannot tell you how many times I saw those values kicked promptly to the curb in favor of grant money, or because a Very Important Person was kicking up a fuss. To Penn, wokeness is a luxury to be set aside whenever circumstances dictate.
And that's what is so funny. Getting smacked down for standing on principle is in some ways noble; getting smacked down over principles you only pretend to hold is just embarrassing.
Loved your comment, but I'm doubting the UPenn has the ability to feel embarrassed at this point considering how the sprung L Thomas on the women to start with.
Thank you for saying PENN! This "UPenn" nonsense has got to stop.
I just went back home for a visit (to NYC) and discussed this issue with my friends and what made it impossible to have a rational debate is the intense personalized and moralized emotional fixation liberals/progs have for the hypothetical Trans child and their hypothetical suffering.
The Trans child and their stigma and suffering is like a sun that blocks out every other concern. When I said teaching children that "they might be born in the wrong body" will lead many other children down the road of unnecessary, irreversible medical interventions, they denied this as a possibility; when I said teaching Gender Theory instead of teaching biology is like teaching astrology instead of astronomy, they said it didn't matter; when I said that Trans was regressive gay erasure, they claimed that T is simply another branch of LGB, with no difference, and only Fox News bigots disagree.
Trans has won so many minds because it's a form of sentimental therapeutic humanitarianism as filtered through cult dynamics. Most of our liberal class has been conditioned into believing that opposing the urgent needs of the Trans child is morally equivalent to drowning a kitten or punching a baby. I don't see any way out for these people or any chance of them changing. The Trans child is a sacred icon for our liberal gentry, a symbol of their superior enlightened morality and wisdom, and there is no amount of evidence or argument that can change their minds. I think this is also why the Dems can't and won't moderate on this issue, no matter what.
I'm sorry to hear that you had another bad experience trying to talk reality to people who prefer fantasy. The image, if we can call it that, of "being born in the wrong body" is one of the craziest things I have ever heard. The cult members toss it into conversations as if it makes sense, when it totally does not. Then they refuse to get into any of the details about the implications of the concept. It suggest to me an image of unused bodies in a warehouse that get pulled out like a suit, put on, then returned if they don't quite fit. (Fit on WHAT??)
Thank you for fighting this from the start. Had more men had the courage to react like Canadian Powerlifting coach Avi Silverberg, this could have ended much sooner. Silverberg, entered the 2023 Heroes Classic powerlifting event, registered as a woman, and easily defeated record winning holder “Anne” Andres, who took to Twitter to complaining about the terrible unfairness of it all.
He's the only man to do this, AFAIK:
https://www.foxnews . com/sports/male-powerlifter-breaks-womens-record-held-by-biological-male-protest-transgender-policies
It seems like this is a situation where we should be talking about a spectrum and not a binary. The claim is that GAC in males "reduces performance advantage." Reduction is not some binary on/off switch. How much reduction has to happen to be fair? Reduced to being no more than 10% faster than all the women's records? 5%? Reduced to the 90th percentile of women's performance? Reduced to the 50th percentile? Also, "reduction" is another nice word to gloss over something we should be concerned about. It's really impairing someone's physically healthy body with side effects and deficiencies until they are physically harmed enough to somehow be called a fair competitor. Is that safe or ethical?
What are your chromosomes? Period. End of story/discussion/argument. If there are Y chromosome, then you can only compete against boys/men. It is not like anyone has an inalienable right to compete in women’s sports if you are not a woman.
Liberalism/leftism is a mental disorder , it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have a DSM or ICD code.
Bravo! How long do you think it will take for the rest of the medical establishment to conclude the same as you? Many apparently have the same training as you, so it is beyond me to understand how they could buy in to the whole idea.
Holly, I don’t pretend to know. I was blindsided by how quickly this exploded. I. graduated from St Louis University (a conservative Catholic University @ the time & said the traditional Hippocratic oath @ graduation medical school in 1977, 4 years after R v Wade. We studied about the rare genetic & inborn errors of metabolism that can cause ambiguous genitalia, but there may be 1 or 2 new ones recognized in the last 50 years, and those pose clinical challenges, but how to deal with the clinical challenges posed by those individuals have been pretty well worked out.
There has been a perfect storm of Marxism, post modernism, feminist & post feminist ideology in undergraduate & graduate education, an explosion of Autism spectrum disorder most likely due to the explosion of infant and early childhood vaccinations (leaving aside other health problems—Andrew Wakefield WAS right), a large increase in the number of women (tendency to be more empathetic to patient’s distress & less likely to tell the patient to suck it up, & probably more easily swayed by these antiscientific constructs of’gender ideology’ floating around) medical schools—students and faculty, enterprising plastic, urologic, gynecological surgeons & the loss of any moral guardrails in the profession and the economic insentive of creating life long highly renumerative patients.
We are not in Kansas anymore! The JAMA this week had a couple of articles defending the current state of the malpractice 🙄—medicine & c docs used to be conservative by nature & politics, but $$$ & the cultural rot has infested the institutions of the profession, so I am afraid that the profession is going to have to be dragged kicking screaming back to sanity. I may doesn’t help that this coincides with the long overdue re-evaluation of vaccines & the fact that RFK is rightly pushing that 3rrd rail, which accounts for half the income of average pediatrician.
I am gratified y how quickly things have changed. It was already reverting to sanity medically in phenomenalEurope, but the advent of the Trump administration & even before they took office things were starting to change.
I think that reflects that the whole phenomenon has been astroturfed on the population and people are not as stupid as the talking heads nor as stupid as they think the general public is.
Indeed. So we poison men to the point where there performance is equal to women? It's grotesque. One might as well say that we should poison black basketball players to the point were whites get Equity on the court.
We don't have to estimate "performance reduction" when it comes to males competing in women's sports, though. EVERY male has the advantage of testosterone boosts since conception which NO female has. A simple cheek swab can detect the presence of the Y chromosome, which 99.9 per cent of males have.
Michael Phelps, like other legendary male athletes, competes against other males who all have an equal chance of possessing the same exceptional physical traits that give an edge in sport. When a male competes against females, the likelihood that female competitors possess those same traits is vanishingly small. This is not complicated, or difficult to grasp.
In almost all contexts, adding the word ‘biological’ before male or female is completely redundant. It’s like saying ‘serious crisis’, or ‘unexpected surprise’.
As a junior high student, I was offended by an old poem where a girl won the spelling bee and is apologizing profusely for beating the boy. She is sorry she "spelled the word right" and hates to win because she "loved him". Everything about including males in females' sports reminds me of this awful old poem; we should let them beat us because we love them so much! We hate to win if their feelings are hurt. Screw that old-fashioned crap.
Is the transgender bias in the mass news and social media indicative of the persistent creep of immorality and lawlessness into the values of the USofA?
I think it represents a cultural descent into lower levels of thought, and yes, morality. The effort to discern right from wrong has been replaced by unthinking conformity to what has become the new "conventional" belief system. (Never mind that it isn't really new).
"The school has reinstated the records of female swimmers who lost their titles to a male competitor."
In sports, "records" and "titles" are different things. Penn can change school records, but titles are awarded by sports organizations such as the Ivy League and the NCAA. Thomas still holds four Ivy League titles and one NCAA title.
sigh.
It seems many democrats/the left have learned nothing since November. This, and the fact they’ve yet to coalesce around a set of governing principles that don’t offend the sensibilities of a majority of voters, does not bode well for midterms.
The Democrats will lose until they learn that females are fifty per cent of the population. They have sacrificed the rights of women and girls so they can retain the LGBTQ vote.
I urge everyone to read the Jill Lawrence article in The Bulwark to see what a stew of ignorance and wishful thinking it is. Isn't The Bulwark supposed to be a large left of center substack, or something?
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/transgender-issue-is-not-a-distraction-for-democrats-facts-golden-rule
The problem is the activist left, who are extremely pushy. Ex-men who think they should be allowed to compete in women’s sports are especially aggressive.
There's no such thing as an ex-man, though. Once male, always male.
It’s kind of a joke. I refuse to call them anything with “women” in the name. I understand your point though.
If these ppls want to be transgender, decide it’s good for them, why can’t they make their own category for sports, their own bathroom too.
Many sports have offered a transgender category, but the people involved don't sign up. They want to win the women's prizes, the women's records and the women's titles. Plus they get to be recognized publicly *as* women. It's a win/win/win for them.
So frustrating
😣😡
The short name for the University of Pennsylvania is not "UPenn" but Penn. We have the Penn Relays at Franklin Field, where I myself have competed. Yale and Harvard and Princeton play games against Penn, not "UPenn."
An old, alternative traditional name for Penn is simply "The University," but of course that would not work in your headline.
You're behind the times. Check out this article from 2017:
https://thepenngazette.com/penn-v-upenn/
I REALLY JUST DON'T CARE, MARGARET.
Anyone can squat on a domain name. The proper name is PENN. Not "Youpenn."