No, radfems were not the first to notice that trans ideology is toxic bs - they may have been the first among the chattering classes to start organizing and writing about it. But they were not the first to notice that it is a false and dangerous ideology. I'm no feminist, but I smelled the bs the first time it was brought to my attention…
No, radfems were not the first to notice that trans ideology is toxic bs - they may have been the first among the chattering classes to start organizing and writing about it. But they were not the first to notice that it is a false and dangerous ideology. I'm no feminist, but I smelled the bs the first time it was brought to my attention and I am certainly not alone in this. That said, people should work together on common causes and not get caught up in their differences - conservatives, liberals, atheists, religious - we need to work together. What this work looks like, however, the essay didn't actually say.
Just out of curiosity, when was it first brought to your attention? The first radfems starting to raise the alarm did so in the 1970's. Have you really been involved in this for more than 50 years?
No, I wasn't born yet. But the first time I heard about it, in a workplace indoctrination session about 9 years ago, it was obvious to me that this was crap, and threatening crap at that. A number of my co-workers and I were in agreement, and none of us are radfems. So I'm assuming that lots of ordinary people have had the same reaction whenever it was first brought up, hence the radfems couldn't have been the first people to figure it out. I think it is a matter of "some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them," and perhaps among intellectuals radfems were the first? Granted, to be fair, you did say they were "among the first to recognize the threat." But I think it bears pointing out that to those whose heads are not up their asses, gender ideology is pretty clearly, to borrow a phrase from Farrakhan (cause I'm not into your-tribe-my-tribe stuff), "a gutter religion." But indeed, now that I reread your post, perhaps the radfems were the first to recognize it as a threat to women's rights. Others might have just thought "there go rich fools doing foolish things again." But somehow, I bet Phyllis Schlafly would have viewed it as a threat to women as well.
The version you first heard about 9 years ago was a great deal more obvious. The version being marketed 50+ years ago was subtle. It's obviously a religion NOW. It wasn't so obvious then.
The argument 50 years ago was this. .000001% of men are so feminine on a fundamental neurological basis that they should be treated socially as if they were women. They aren't really, but they just fit better with the women. And we're really only talking about being nice to a handful of individuals here. There's was no real social significance. No legal rights were being demanded. It was just a meek request by a few extremely feminine men to pass as women.
This went solidly into the "be nice to harmless weirdos" category for the vast majority of people. It wasn't considered significant or meaningful to almost anyone. The radfems reacted in a level of outrage that was seen as absurd paranoia at the time. The transsexual population was maybe a thousand people in the entire US, and they had no power of any kind. What possible threat could they pose to anyone on a meaningful scale? If Phillis Schlafly heard of it at all, she rolled her eyes and moved onto more important things.
Turns out the radfem argument about this setting a dangerous precedent was correct. Phillis Schlafly's argument that men and women shouldn't be treated as interchangeable was also correct. I don't think any of them could have possibly predicted that their concerns would dovetail in 50 years.
Interesting. I did not know that. But I don't know that the route from "let's be nice to this rare kind of guy" to what we have today with the whole trans ideology fiasco was a natural evolution, a slippery slope that we were bound to actually slip down. Maybe the initial "niceness" to the few paved the way to the present, but it wasn't inevitable. At least I'm not convinced it was inevitable. I think without the massive profit motive, hard-core narcissism/gnosticism/man-can-create-his-own-realityism of the current moment, I don't think we'd have slipped down this slope. Fascinating about the concerns of the radfems and Schlafly dovetailing 50 years on.
Yeah, I'm fairly certain that the door was opened by well-intentioned people who honestly asked for exactly what they wanted: a rare exception for a few odd individuals. They didn't intend for this to happen.
The door was left open in the explicit understanding that the opening wouldn't be misused and it could be closed at any time if it became necessary. Unfortunately, by the time most people realized that a boundary needed to be set, the takeover was nearly complete and it was no longer acceptable to close the door.
Yes, without the financial predators, individual predators, and gnostics, this would not have occurred. The old rules, with a few case-by-case exceptions, would have worked fine indefinitely if everyone was of good intent. Unfortunately, everyone is NOT of good intent, and predators took advantage of open hearts and minds.
But imagine if there had been no nicey-nicers saying ok let's invite Thomas to our tea party in 1970 and pretend he's Thomasa. I still think the trans train could have gotten rolling anyway. It's based, after all, not on let's be nice to Thomas-who-wishes-he were-Thomasa, but DaddyBigBucks-If-You-Can-Believe-It-You-Can-Achieve-It-presto-I'm-a-woman-now. You may very well be right, but I am not convinced that you are, and I'm not sure I'm articulate enough to put forth my argument as to why you aren't. Basically, I don't think the initial failure to push back was anything substantial. Like when a white person hangs with the Black Student Association meetings, or a Vietnamese premed student joins the Latino Business Student Association, or when a Palestinian is a member of the Pakistani Student group. People are always hanging out with, and on some level treated as one of, some other group, and nothing dramatic happens because of it. Anyway, thank you for a lovely and polite, informative discussion.
I actually agree with you! There are 3 main forces behind gender ideology, and they all have a long history of taking any opportunities they get.
1. Financially predatory corporations. These are the same lovely folks who brought us the opioid epidemic. They mine people for money and don't really care what happens to their slag heaps.
2. Individual predators. Human beings are one of the few species that will prey on our own kind. Predators want to harm others without consequence. Always have, always will.
3. Gnostic religious fanatics who want to free souls from bodies/physical reality. These folks have been around for at least a couple thousand years, sometimes fringe, sometimes powerful. They always run stealth under other religions/groups, so their history is hard to track.
These 3 groups are always around, and they will always take advantage of any openings available to achieve their goals. It's largely coincidence that their interests dovetail nicely in gender ideology.
The problem was never choosing to be nice to a few outliers. That's fine. The danger came when it became a moral obligation to welcome the outliers. Once it became obligatory, we lost the ability to set boundaries at all.
Without clear boundaries, the players I describe above will ALWAYS come in and wreak havoc. Every single time.
No, radfems were not the first to notice that trans ideology is toxic bs - they may have been the first among the chattering classes to start organizing and writing about it. But they were not the first to notice that it is a false and dangerous ideology. I'm no feminist, but I smelled the bs the first time it was brought to my attention and I am certainly not alone in this. That said, people should work together on common causes and not get caught up in their differences - conservatives, liberals, atheists, religious - we need to work together. What this work looks like, however, the essay didn't actually say.
Just out of curiosity, when was it first brought to your attention? The first radfems starting to raise the alarm did so in the 1970's. Have you really been involved in this for more than 50 years?
No, I wasn't born yet. But the first time I heard about it, in a workplace indoctrination session about 9 years ago, it was obvious to me that this was crap, and threatening crap at that. A number of my co-workers and I were in agreement, and none of us are radfems. So I'm assuming that lots of ordinary people have had the same reaction whenever it was first brought up, hence the radfems couldn't have been the first people to figure it out. I think it is a matter of "some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them," and perhaps among intellectuals radfems were the first? Granted, to be fair, you did say they were "among the first to recognize the threat." But I think it bears pointing out that to those whose heads are not up their asses, gender ideology is pretty clearly, to borrow a phrase from Farrakhan (cause I'm not into your-tribe-my-tribe stuff), "a gutter religion." But indeed, now that I reread your post, perhaps the radfems were the first to recognize it as a threat to women's rights. Others might have just thought "there go rich fools doing foolish things again." But somehow, I bet Phyllis Schlafly would have viewed it as a threat to women as well.
The version you first heard about 9 years ago was a great deal more obvious. The version being marketed 50+ years ago was subtle. It's obviously a religion NOW. It wasn't so obvious then.
The argument 50 years ago was this. .000001% of men are so feminine on a fundamental neurological basis that they should be treated socially as if they were women. They aren't really, but they just fit better with the women. And we're really only talking about being nice to a handful of individuals here. There's was no real social significance. No legal rights were being demanded. It was just a meek request by a few extremely feminine men to pass as women.
This went solidly into the "be nice to harmless weirdos" category for the vast majority of people. It wasn't considered significant or meaningful to almost anyone. The radfems reacted in a level of outrage that was seen as absurd paranoia at the time. The transsexual population was maybe a thousand people in the entire US, and they had no power of any kind. What possible threat could they pose to anyone on a meaningful scale? If Phillis Schlafly heard of it at all, she rolled her eyes and moved onto more important things.
Turns out the radfem argument about this setting a dangerous precedent was correct. Phillis Schlafly's argument that men and women shouldn't be treated as interchangeable was also correct. I don't think any of them could have possibly predicted that their concerns would dovetail in 50 years.
And yet, here we are.
Interesting. I did not know that. But I don't know that the route from "let's be nice to this rare kind of guy" to what we have today with the whole trans ideology fiasco was a natural evolution, a slippery slope that we were bound to actually slip down. Maybe the initial "niceness" to the few paved the way to the present, but it wasn't inevitable. At least I'm not convinced it was inevitable. I think without the massive profit motive, hard-core narcissism/gnosticism/man-can-create-his-own-realityism of the current moment, I don't think we'd have slipped down this slope. Fascinating about the concerns of the radfems and Schlafly dovetailing 50 years on.
Yeah, I'm fairly certain that the door was opened by well-intentioned people who honestly asked for exactly what they wanted: a rare exception for a few odd individuals. They didn't intend for this to happen.
The door was left open in the explicit understanding that the opening wouldn't be misused and it could be closed at any time if it became necessary. Unfortunately, by the time most people realized that a boundary needed to be set, the takeover was nearly complete and it was no longer acceptable to close the door.
Yes, without the financial predators, individual predators, and gnostics, this would not have occurred. The old rules, with a few case-by-case exceptions, would have worked fine indefinitely if everyone was of good intent. Unfortunately, everyone is NOT of good intent, and predators took advantage of open hearts and minds.
But imagine if there had been no nicey-nicers saying ok let's invite Thomas to our tea party in 1970 and pretend he's Thomasa. I still think the trans train could have gotten rolling anyway. It's based, after all, not on let's be nice to Thomas-who-wishes-he were-Thomasa, but DaddyBigBucks-If-You-Can-Believe-It-You-Can-Achieve-It-presto-I'm-a-woman-now. You may very well be right, but I am not convinced that you are, and I'm not sure I'm articulate enough to put forth my argument as to why you aren't. Basically, I don't think the initial failure to push back was anything substantial. Like when a white person hangs with the Black Student Association meetings, or a Vietnamese premed student joins the Latino Business Student Association, or when a Palestinian is a member of the Pakistani Student group. People are always hanging out with, and on some level treated as one of, some other group, and nothing dramatic happens because of it. Anyway, thank you for a lovely and polite, informative discussion.
I actually agree with you! There are 3 main forces behind gender ideology, and they all have a long history of taking any opportunities they get.
1. Financially predatory corporations. These are the same lovely folks who brought us the opioid epidemic. They mine people for money and don't really care what happens to their slag heaps.
2. Individual predators. Human beings are one of the few species that will prey on our own kind. Predators want to harm others without consequence. Always have, always will.
3. Gnostic religious fanatics who want to free souls from bodies/physical reality. These folks have been around for at least a couple thousand years, sometimes fringe, sometimes powerful. They always run stealth under other religions/groups, so their history is hard to track.
These 3 groups are always around, and they will always take advantage of any openings available to achieve their goals. It's largely coincidence that their interests dovetail nicely in gender ideology.
The problem was never choosing to be nice to a few outliers. That's fine. The danger came when it became a moral obligation to welcome the outliers. Once it became obligatory, we lost the ability to set boundaries at all.
Without clear boundaries, the players I describe above will ALWAYS come in and wreak havoc. Every single time.