Theory: privileged woman + no kids, more likely to = trans-supportive?

submitted by NDG from (self.GenderCritical)

This is a thought that occurred to me and I wanted to run it by people here to see what you think.

I went to a girls’ school with very privileged classmates. Even the ones without loads of money weren’t so much poor as they were lower-middle-class. The faculty was very emphatic about how we as girls could accomplish what we wanted, shouldn’t let ourselves be held back by stereotypes, and things like that. I truly did not encounter anyone telling me I couldn’t do something because they was a girl, or even subtly discouraging me. I don’t think it was until I had kids that I encountered anyone telling me I needed to act in a sex-based role. If you’re from a certain upper-middle-class, highly educated culture, “women shouldn’t do that” isn’t something you necessarily run into a lot. Your family has money for you to do the things other women might be told they shouldn’t do.

Having kids was a big smack in the face to me. For the first time, I was supposed to act as a mother - and mothers are female, so I was supposed to act “like a woman.” Ruin your mental health so you can breastfeed? Society: “Well, mothers are supposed to sacrifice for their children, so what did you expect? It’s not all about you anymore!” Regardless of social class, money, or education, mothers are expected by a lot of people to sacrifice everything for their children. And sex differences become very clear. No matter how anyone feels, the baby’s father is not going to be pregnant, give birth, or breastfeed.

A lot of women I know who are very vocal about trans activism have two things in common: they come from the same privileged group of people I did, and they don’t have kids. They work for places that prioritize advancing women’s careers, and the men in their lives are aware that it’s a social faux pas to disagree with liberal feminist views. They live in nice neighborhoods where they don’t worry about being raped on their way home, and they’re able to go for days without stark reminders that they’re not just people, they’re female people. Aside from menstruation, there are very few female-specific things in their lives. So they’re disconnected from how much influence female biology has over other women’s lives.

Thoughts?

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[–][deleted] 37 insightful - 1 fun37 insightful - 0 fun38 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't think so. I see a lot of moms who parade around trans kids online. Or for instance, Jazz Jennings' mother.

Also to me, I think tying women's mental maturity to kids has been used to belittle women who don't want them. Not that kids can't make some people more mature.

[–]NDG[S] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I didn’t say anything about mental maturity. I said it can be easier to overlook how sex influences other women’s lives if you don’t have kids.

[–]yishengqingwa666 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nah.

[–]our_team_is_winning 25 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 0 fun26 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Some people have pointed out that among SJW female European leaders, none of them have children. That seems to be largely true. But PLENTY of mothers are doing the Munchausen by Proxy thing with their own children to get attention. Overall, I see it's largely wealthy white women who support Woke ideas, like it's a luxury they have. Plenty of exceptions all round though.

[–]jet199 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-status-symbol-for-rich-americans/

[–]BEB 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You've posted the opinion piece that I mentioned in my post. I was trying to remember where I read it but couldn't, so thank you!

u/jet199 link above speaks to the issue OP talks about, so please read it if you're interested.

[–]our_team_is_winning 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for that article! That article would be funny if it weren't true. It's like the Babylon Bee, but it's real. I think it turns out the Onion wasn't satire, just straightforward journalism.

[–]worried19 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think social class is more influential than parenthood. In general, it seems like middle to upper middle class white women are really on board the "woke" train. Poor women, working class women, immigrant women, not so much. I think this is also reflected in female transition. The current explosion of adolescent natal female teenagers identifying as trans is not spread out evenly among all demographics. Go to a school in the inner city and count the number of trans boys, and then go to a rich neighborhood in Seattle or San Francisco and count them. I can pretty much guarantee there would be a stark difference in numbers.

[–][deleted] 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

As a woman who does not want kids, and whose close circle of female friends is mostly childless (only one of us became a mother earlier this year), I would say no. I do agree that it's definitely easier to support transgenderism when you come from certain backgrounds, and therefore don't have to think about the implications of self ID on women's rights, the homophobia woven into the rhetoric, and the bodily harm being done by transing children. But I don't think being childless is tied to this type of societal blindness necessarily. The majority of TRAs I see on social media from women I went to high school with are mothers now. One TiF is a mother herself and still spouts the 'not all people who menstruate are women' stuff. I don't think motherhood makes a woman more or less likely to be a TRA, and that there are many factors at play.

With regard to myself and my circle of friends, I don't know if you'd call us privileged as black women, but we are all college educated and not living in poverty. Maybe some of our gender critical nature comes from the fact that we've grown very tired of hearing TRAs' racist comparisons of blackness to transness, the ever present "if black women are women, then trans women are women" line.

I also don't think that women in privileged environments shields them in any significant capacity from gendered expectations, or are never told "women shouldn't do that". It just may be a bit less overt. As a young girl who was good at programming I was acutely aware that when I looked around my classrooms I noticed I was either the only girl, or the only girl interested in the material. Straight and bi women are often very aware of the "womanly" expectations placed on us when dating men. When entering the workforce in IT I've seen firsthand how my female colleagues have to resort to being downright rude sometimes to get a word in edgewise because the men will talk over them during meetings. When trying to get my tubes tied I have been constantly rebuffed by doctors over the past few years by being told I'll definitely change my mind one day because "all women want kids." I am almost 30, and if I had kids already I would be facing a different set of expectations, the ones you describe after becoming a mother, however the message is still about control over my body, my well being, and my choices being pushed aside because I'm female. Despite growing up with access to many opportunities less fortunate women don't have, it was never lost on me that I'm not just a person, but a woman. If anything, reminders of their place in the world as women often times drives them right into the arms of the trans cult, rather than this awareness keeping them away from it. It's something I see a lot when listening to TiFs and other detrans women. Many of them cite some form of female specific trauma like lesbophobia, sexual assault, or overall dissatisfaction with womanhood that led them to transition and become TRAs.

[–]tuesday 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I also don't think that women in privileged environments shields them in any significant capacity from gendered expectations, or are never told "women shouldn't do that".

It's a working class thing, for sure. Poor men need to do something to keep their maid madonna whore access going, so they get really down on independent women and girls. I was threatened with beatings and other coercive behavior all the time for not performing my duties as a princess, while growing up.

Think about it... men with disposable income can BUY temporary instances of maid madonna whore whenever they need, so they don't have to coerce every woman around them into playing those roles. (Which is why middle class women annoy the fuck outta me. The men you know are just as sexist but you get to pretend to yourself that they're not.) Anyway, a man without disposable income, the poor ones, he has to enforce maid madonna whore onto every woman and girl he knows, cos he needs those women and girls to perform the job for free.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's interesting. You bring up a lot of good points. It seems like regardless of social class, the sexism worms its way out somehow. Poorer men might be more up front about it, making the women around them more acutely aware. But in cases where the men have more money and the women have more opportunity people can play pretend, as you said.

[–]BEB 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Very insightful post, thank you.

[–]TurkishCoffee 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it doesn't have much to do with not having kids. A lot of child free and infertile women (i'm the latter), are not particularly thrilled with the dehumanizing language of "child bearers" (no, we're women), or "uterus havers" (most of us do, but, there's a word for this, it's...woman..).

Now, the privilege part? You might be onto something there. 95%+ of trans supporting females I know are solidly middle class, and white. There are some outliers (mostly in class, a few in race). Some are childless, but I think it's largely because they can't afford to have children and still be middle class. The ones who do have children can afford to have a parent stay at home, often. To give you an idea.

(btw, i dont care why people choose not to have kids. not wanting to change your lifestyle? legit. i'm just noting a trend here)

[–]BEB 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's a great opinion piece that I just read about this very topic!

That is, how privileged liberals enthusiastically endorse all sorts of PC nonsense that will actually hurt the working class, but won't affect the wealthy at all -so the upper-middle-class get to pat each other on the back for being so WOKE, while escaping the fallout to these WOKE policies that hit lower economic classes hard.

I will find the piece and post the link, I think, OP, you might see a lot of your own situation in it.

[–]BEB 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

u/jet199 has posted the opinion piece that I'm talking about in this thread. It's very interesting and speaks to this issue.

[–]whateverneverpine 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's the privileged background, not whether they have kids or not, in my experience.

[–]vitunrotta 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'd tend to agree, especially as I'm now reading Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage." It dives deep into the trans-craze and how especially certain types of affluent, overly coddling parents fell into the trap head first. Obviously their kids were brainwashed first but there's a lot of good commentary in the book about how a certain type of parenting (majority of who are white and rich) may have actually accelerated the contagious transtrend. Usually with good intentions but... We know what the road to hell is paved with. :P

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Can I ask how old you are? (Generally - not trying to pry.) Age & the generation one belongs to seem to be a factor.

[–]NDG[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Mid-thirties.

[–]MarkTwainiac 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I suspect much or a large part of what's going on - and is understandably distressing to you - is generational.

If you and your peers are mid-30s, it means you were born circa 1985 and were 15 circa 2000 and entered your 20s circa 2005. So you're members of the first generation to come to awareness/adulthood during/after the period of history when feminism in the West degenerated into the "sex positive," dick-pandering "cool girl" ethos of "choosy-choice" lib feminism, which is a perversion and inversion of actual feminism that says the best way for girls & women to become "empowered" is to work as a stripper or hooker, and to suck dick and take dick up the ass...

And you're the first generation of women who grew up with the internet and online porn, and came into adulthood in the era of Pornhub. In fact, if you were born circa 1985, then you & your friends/schoolmates were circa 22 the year Pornhub began.

Ariel Levy documented the anti-woman sea change in the interpretation of feminism - and in Western culture more generally - in her really illuminating 2005 book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture." Her book was too early to expose Pornhub specifically, but it really lays out & dissects many of the trends we see today that are so distressing and damaging - such as the pornification of so-called feminism, and lesbians in significant numbers starting to abandon second-wave feminism & the lesbian feminism of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s to take T, get double mastectomies & embrace queer theory and misogynistic gender ideology. Her book is much deeper & more wide-reaching than the title suggests. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[–]BEB 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the book recommendation - it sounds along the lines of what I've been thinking but have been unable to articulate.

[–]tuesday 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

naw. The most vocal (and bright) radical feminists I know, none of them have kids. We are all ANTI-trans.

Some of them started out less anti trans, but over the years after you see trans given an inch and take a mile, you get pretty hardened. Now we're all very very ANTI.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't think it's accurate to do this sort of either/or pigeonholing either way, or to try to make the case that women can & should be divided into two camps depending on whether or not we've had children.

Yes, a lot of women who are vocally & actively "GC" don't have children and would call themselves radical feminists.

But many of the women who have put their heads above the parapet - and their jobs, reputations and livelihoods on the line - to raise the alarm about the dangers of the trans movement, and who've taken direct action to combat it, are women with children. For many women with children, there's a double motivation behind opposing the trans craze: they/we are concerned with girls & women's rights, and also with the safeguarding of the young & vulnerable of both sexes (including boys who are being transed by their parents like Jazz Jennings & Jackie Green, as well as boys who've been punished for not toeing the line of trans ideology, such as the one in Scotland who got expelled from school after recording his teacher say he wasn't allowed to claim that there are two sexes, & the young autistic man in England who was tried & convicted of a hate crime for asking a young TIF police officer, "are you a boy or a girl?")

A lot of enormously effective work countering trans ideology and politics has been done by mother-led parents groups like Transgender Trend, 4th Wave Now, Safe Schools Alliance. And by individual women who indeed do have children such as Lily Maynard, Abigail Shrier, Sharron Davies, Martina Navratilova, Beth Seltzer (founder of Save Women's Sports), Posie Parker/Kellie-Jay Keen, Maya Forstater and many more, including of course JK Rowling.

Also, a lot of women actively involved in trying to stop the trans train, including some whose names I've mentioned, don't call themselves "radical feminists" - or feminists at all. Some are "old school" feminists (like me) who came of age during the second-wave; because today's liberal feminism wasn't a thing back then, most of us just called ourselves plain feminists - adding the radical to mean root wasn't necessary, and having to do it today feels a bit strange. Still others are women who used to call themselves feminists but now eschew the label - like Posie Parker/Kellie-Jay Keen.

At the same time, many women who are vocally and actively fighting the trans tyranny and gender ideology have never been feminists, radical or liberal, nor are they now: politically, they are conservatives, centrists, moderates, libertarians, and so on. In the UK, conservative women like Tory MP Jackie Doyle Price, former left-winger & now conservative writer/columnist Melanie Phillips, and religiously conservative international women's & human rights champion Baroness Emma Nicholson of the House of Lords have stood up to oppose trans tyranny, as have some conservative female pols in Australia - and a number of Republican women state legislators in the US.

Some of the most vocal and bright women standing up in the public sphere to openly, adamantly and most effectively speak out in opposition to trans ideology and tyranny are most concerned with the censoriousness and authoritarianism of the trans movement and its attempts to shut down free speech with its "No Debate!" mantra. Like Lionel Shriver. She is extremely outspoken on this topic, and super-smart, but I dunno whether or not she has kids, nor would I assume she'd consider herself - or others would consider her - a radical feminist. (I suspect not.)

[–]BEB 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Totally agree with this post.

I also think adding "radical" was a mistake in terms of PR, because I spend about ten minutes explaining to people the "radical" part of "radical" feminism, ie. that it doesn't mean "radical" as in outre beliefs like beheading men before eating their testicles, before I can even get to why radical feminist organizations are one of the few (only) groups on "the Left" fighting against gender ideology.

And also because many, many people who are with us in spirit will balk at being called "radical" anything.

Also, the word "radical" will eventually give right-wing blowhards, like the next generation of Rush Limbaughs, their new "Femi-Nazis" when the right-wing finally figures out that extreme transgender activism is actually a men's rights movement. Now that, they can get behind.

[–]Femaleisnthateful 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I firmly believe that the people who buy into gender identity ideology and don't see the harms of modern transactivism are just not paying attention. It may be willful blindness, it may also be that a lot of liberal feminists, as you point out, are relatively exempt from the impact of transactivism. They likely don't compete in contact sport, they haven't been in prison, they don't utilize shelters or other services for marginalized women. They've taken sex-based rights and spaces for granted for so long that they've forgotten why we have them.

I'm sure there's an element of intimidation and moral cowardice as well. I mean, how does one interact with a person like Charles/Charlotte Clymer and think, 'this person is so oppressed and vulnerable'? There's a huge dependence on cognitive dissonance, and they're trying to get the rest of society to adopt it as well, under the guise of 'equality'.

[–]BEB 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think what you said and also that they're terrified of being ostracized from the cool kids so, perhaps even on a subconscious level only, they won't let themselves analyze what a load of nonsensical rot gender ideology actually is.

[–]sisterinsomnia 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree. Most of the eager supporters just tick all the boxes on the woke form. If you are against racism and sexism then you must be for trans rights or you lose your woke credit or must even think (gasp!) and figure out what you are going to do about women's rights clashing with trans demands.

And most people know nothing about this new world where we are vulva-owners so that 'trans women are women' can be literally true (which requires the decoupling of biological sex from gender altogether). They believe that transwomen are all post-surgery, very very few and very very oppressed, and ask what the harm might be in just being kind.

[–]MonstrousRegiment 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Anecdotally I don't see any correlation in my world. Some of my peers (that is, elderly women) who are mothers are super SJW because they want to be compassionate and don't see anything to alarm them, others are super wised-up and do see it. One got indoctrinated into TRA by her children's schools and universities. My younger women friends, mothers or not, are mostly still in the cult. They seem to think I'm dotty but they put up with me anyway.

[–]BEB 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I friginn' can't stand when older women, who know firsthand the struggle we had to get even basic rights, spout gender nonsense.

It's like, accept the fact that while you were once probably that smokin', rebellious, hot gal, who marched with Steinem, you're not hip any more, will never be hip again and so realize that instead of trying to be Cool Grandma, you need to fight for your grand-daughters RIGHT NOW using all the wisdom you should have accumulated, instead of bending over backwards to hand the rights you yourself fought for to men.

[–]Veneficca 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't have children, but I have never been able to go for days without reminders that I'm female. Whether it's ovarian cysts hurting me or men harassing me in the street or watching mediocre male colleagues get accolades and attention while exceptional female colleagues get ignored or people assuming I'm a subordinate or the constant comments about my looks - it's always there. Couldn't escape it if I tried.

However, I do think you're right about privilege being a factor. I see this in friends who have media/academic jobs where they're surrounded by people with all the "right" views and they don't know a single person in prison or who's stayed in a women's shelter. The repercussions of trans activism are vague and distant to them. A lot of women's issues are.

[–]penelopekitty 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I might be considered one of those women. Educated, not poor (not wealthy either) and childfree by choice. In fact the reason I am childfree is because I saw what it meant to be a mother and wanted no part of it. I am and always have been a radical feminist. I became aware of the trans issues only when they started to infringe on women's rights and I've been fighting against that ever since.

[–]luckystar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I agree. Having kids makes it really fucking obvious that biology matters.

The other correlation I see is being familiar with/connected to a culture that is more openly misogynistic. White people seem to be really disconnected from the reality of stuff like female infanticide, FGM, etc

[–]sisterinsomnia 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

One part of that disconnection is the tremendous problems liberal Western feminists have in deciding how to relate to issues such as female infanticide in other cultures, because they don't want to come across as Western white colonialists who are critiquing a culture the West once colonized and so on. So very few even dare to write anything on those topics.

That's what happened after the Cologne mass sexual harassment case: a lot of mealy-mouthed thoughts trying to be feminist without appearing racist or Islamophobic.

It's a real hornet's nest, to discuss those issues, and you start seeing the creation of the oppression hierarchies real fast. Women are not at the top on those hierarchies, and that is among liberal feminists.

[–]onemoredaydream 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I fit that description, and I am absolutely not on the trans-cult train.

I do think that a lot of women wake up to misogyny once they have children - they suddenly realize just how much the deck is stacked against them, and they feel the weight of the expectations put on mothers (and women) that men will never have to deal with.

I also think privilege is a point of intersection - the people who are always online and need something to quibble about for amusement, are definitely privileged.

So maybe you have something there, but I can offer myself as an anecdotal exception.