Are Lesbians Going Extinct? Katie Herzog Reports From The Field

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

I just finished listening to this podcast, I think it's really interesting that Katie thinks this whole trans movement had gotten so big because it's become trendy, and I honestly think she's right. Although transgenderism did originate from actual conversion therapy and probably people with genuine gender dysphoria, people who weren't dysphoric (non binaries/ transtrenders) decided to take it and ran off with it. Before I became gender critical, I actually debated on using he/him/they pronouns even though I was a girl (16 then, I'm older and an adult now), and calling myself "queer", and even top surgery, just because people in the LGBT (and a few of my peers) were doing it. It really is a social contagion, and that's what's really terrifying.

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

Episode description: Podcaster and journalist Katie Herzog returns to the podcast to discuss her article Where Have All The Lesbians Gone?, which talked about a trend she’s observed wherein many of her lesbian friends are now identifying as transgender or nonbinary. She explains how she sees the nonbinary identity as a "regressive trend” because it ultimately puts limits on gender expression even as it purports to do the opposite. She also talks about the woman who coined the phrase “the future is female,” the recent announcement that the actor once known as Ellen Page now identifies as male, and (not unrelatedly) her former career as a professional whitewater kayaker.

[–]Finnegan7921 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

There must have been a meteor strike.

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

I frequently discussed this on Reddit, particularly r/butchlesbians where so many "nonbinary" butches post. Back in 2008-2009, before there were a lot of "transbians" colonizing online lesbian communities... there were "FTM" groups on YouTube vlogging about using T, getting hysterectomies and mastectomies. The older butches/"trans men", who were in their 40s/50s, were leading the pack... and I realized then that they were the guinea pigs for this trans conversion therapy, just like Buck Angel. They'd "transitioned" in the late 90s/early 2000s and were convincing younger butches to do the same. If you search YouTube for "FTM 2008 2009", you'll see some of the videos. I don't know why GC feminists didn't notice this back then... maybe because lesbians aren't that important to them... they aren't a threat. So many butches were literally crying out for help and support, and the only people who gave a damn were older women on T. And this is still happening... older butches are advising younger butches to "transition", but no one really gives a shit since all eyes are on the men as usual. Radfems need to acknowledge that the enemy, the patriarchy includes women... women are constantly stabbing radfems in the back.

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

I don't know why GC feminists didn't notice this back then... maybe because lesbians aren't that important to them... they aren't a threat. So many butches were literally crying out for help and support, and the only people who gave a damn were older women on T. And this is still happening... older butches are advising younger butches to "transition", but no one really gives a shit since all eyes are on the men as usual. Radfems need to acknowledge that the enemy, the patriarchy includes

Some did notice. In her 2005 book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture," Ariel Levy devoted a very long, interesting chapter (or maybe a couple of chapters, I can't remember) to what was happening amongst lesbians in SF and NYC in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She definitely documented that there was a new trend wherein lesbians were increasingly being pushed by other lesbians to go "trans" and take T, bind, get surgeries, pretend to be men - and that some back then were even modeling their trans personas after misogynistic men who treated women like trash.

What's more, Levy did this in way that managed to convey worry, indeed alarm and horror, over what was happening amongst US lesbians while still not coming off as judgmental or disapproving of the individuals involved. (Perhaps, that is, with the exception of a "transman" who was particularly odious in her misogyny and proud of the way she mistreated her lovers.) But generally speaking, Levy was quite sympathetic to all and showed compassion and understanding for the difficult position these (mostly fairly young) women found them in this increasingly toxic, misogynistic, anti-feminist era. Or that's the impression I got. I remember really being impressed at what a good job she did as a reporter and story-teller: she provided the facts and laid them all out in a way that made it very clear that what was going on was terrible, but she never came off - to me anyways - as condemnatory of individuals or the community. I recall thinking as a reporter and writer, I definitely could not have done anywhere near as good a job.

Levy's book was pretty widely reviewed, read and spoken about back then... But I think it's faded into obscurity in part coz of the title. "Female Chauvinist Pigs" is a play on the 1960s locution "male chauvinist pigs," meaning male sexists and male supremacists. I never liked the term at the time when it actually was in wide use - and when most people knew what it meant. The problem with calling the book "Female Chauvinist Pigs" is that much of the potential readership won't have any idea what the title is referring to.

BTW, the broader topic of the book is how the feminism of the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90 got perverted and turned on its head into the faux "liberal feminism" we still have today.

If you read Levy's book, I hope you'll make a thread sharing what you think of it.

Also, I know a number of older lesbians who tried to tell younger lesbians back then that going trans was not a good way to go, but got dismissed as clueless old fuddy-duddies who were behind the times - or castigated and shamed for being transphobic too.

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

Just want to add here that Ariel Levy's book was researched and written before there was a YouTube. The book was published in August 2005; YouTube began in May 2005.

It's very clear that YouTube is a main driver for indoctrination into the trans cult, and for the exploding numbers of people going trans in the past 15 years. Tumblr has played a big role too - and interestingly Tumblr started in 2007. However, as u/censorshipment says, the trans trend amongst lesbians predated the inception of both YouTube and Tumblr. Older women who had "transed" were indoctrinating younger women in the 1990s and early 2000s via other means and platforms. With YT, Tumblr and other new social media that's come on the scene in recent years, the indoctrination efforts changed: the propaganda put out by trans people trying to get others to join the cult now has much more reach and power. Also, my impression is most of the TIF content on YT all along has been mainly peer-to-peer material put out by very young people (teens and early 20s) meant for other people close to their same age or younger. I haven't seen any videos from older TIFs in their 40s/50s (or even mid or late 30s) extolling how great transition is and trying to get teens and young adults to jump on the bandwagon. Most of the proselytizing vids seem to come from young TIFs like uppercase Chase, Jammidogger, Fox Fischer etc.

If anyone has links to vids of older TIFs encouraging young lesbians to go trans from any time period, please share.

BTW, the results I got from putting "FTM 2008 2009" into the YT search bar were videos about a mountain bike released back then named FTM, a French street music festival called FTM - Fête de la Musique, a USA band called FTM (Fair To Midland), a carnival somewhere in Asia (couldn't tell language) called FTM, a rap crew called fani tej muzyki (Polish? Hungarian?), a competition to find the Futur Top Model (male and female), footage of a footie player called Steve FTM Summers, a motor scooter named FTM and so on... LOL.

Only when I searched "FTM transition 2008 2009" and "FTM transgender 2008 2009" did I get transition-related vids, including some whose thumbnails were horrific pics of "bottom surgeries" that made me want to retch. But frustratingly most of the vids that came up on my feed were not made in those years. YT like the rest of Google individualizes everyone's searches, so different people get different results.

If anyone can provide links to the videos from 2008 and 2008 themselves, I'd appreciate it.

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

That's an excellent review. I'll have to add the book to my reading list. Thanks!

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

I did the YT search, and the first relevant video that came up was a post-mastectomy video. Dear lord. I am protectively hugging my own breasts in horror. It looks so painful. It does not look like a man's chest at all. It just looks like mutilated breasts. It is so tragic that girls and women feel they have to subject themselves to such butchering in order to express themselves.