LGBT...D???

WildApples · 2021-01-13T14:33:17+00:00

He really thinks that people around him suddenly believe he is a woman when he puts on eye shadow and lipstick? This polite-fiction-to-save-trans-lives culture is making them delusional. If they really believe they are passing when they are not due to everyone around them telling polite lies, I can see how it would be a shock when they finally encounter a person who confronts them with honesty. It must be pretty embarrassing after weeks, months, or even years to suddenly realize that you do not make a convincing woman when you previously thought you did.

WildApples · 2020-12-27T16:49:05+00:00

It must be noted that the narrator's observation was imperfect. He suspected his eventual love interest of being loyal to the party because she appeared as a "bigoted adherent" when in reality that was a cover for her secret rebellion. So the line quoted was disproven by the remainder of the book. I see it as an acknowledgement that women have historically had so little power that they had to play along with those in power to survive. Women, already accustomed to lay with the same enemy they were fighting against (i.e. men), adapted that duality in response to the political climate. They were adept at feigning solidarity to survive.

I also view it as a recognition that women often have higher levels of religiosity and have historically been the enforcers of morality. Enforcing the social codes has been a way women could influence men when they had little political or legal power. I read it as Orwell saying that the political regime was able to co-opt women's tendency to uphold the social order and use it to further perpetuate their own cause.

WildApples · 2021-01-13T00:15:19+00:00

Why do they always use the "we're more attractive so they jealous" argument,

When your definition of womanhood is based in superficial, sexist stereotypes, of course you will believe that the worst thing a woman could be is unattractive. To many of them, a woman is nothing more than a glorified drag queen, so if a woman is not striving for and accomplishing Kim Kardashian-level aesthetics she is failing in their eyes.

WildApples · 2021-03-09T01:44:00+00:00

It feels to me like a dam bursting, like many people have been penting up frustration with woke gender stuff for a while and have been waiting for a safe outlet to express it.

WildApples · 2021-03-17T01:50:59+00:00

The down voting turned me off. It felt very groupthinkish, with perfectly reasonably comments being downvoted into oblivion because it does not fit the group consensus. I worry that it will be too much like Reddit with regard to censorship and moderation, and I want to be able to express myself without having to self-censor or strive to fall in line with the majority.

I also did not like the how people there quashed and minimized racial concerns, telling POC to stay silent about their concerns to keep the group united.

WildApples · 2021-02-21T01:19:08+00:00

That is terrifying. These adults are projecting their own neuroses around sex and gender onto the children they are supposed to be protecting. Just let kids be kids and stop trying to foist upon them an unhealthy obsession with labels and "identity."

WildApples · 2021-04-24T16:27:52+00:00

They are not discussing plastic surgery; they are discussing completely forbidding plastic surgery. I disagree with plastic surgery for the reasons the OP mentioned, but I completely disagree with prohibiting it. The problem is not the availability of the surgery anyway; the problem is with a culture that is oversaturated with youthful, hypersexualized images of women and which continually sends the message that you are not good enough the way you are.

I don't want to force my beliefs on others any more than I want people to force their beliefs on me, and I agree with the commenter who mentioned that it would create a bad precedent for women if we empowered government to intervene and make decisions about women's bodies for us. I will never support anything that requires supplanting women's own will and control of their bodies with government's. That is the same reason I don't support things like mask and vaccine mandates (not a popular opinion these days, I know, but my eyes are on the long-term repercussions). Once you set the precedent that government has the authority to make decisions about your body, political interests groups are going to use that power to impose their will on vulnerable classes (e.g. banning abortion and birth control for women, policing what pregnant women eat and do and criminalizing behavior deemed harmful to the fetus, forcibly transitioning a child over the parents' objections, etc.).

WildApples · 2021-03-11T00:34:55+00:00

It is not just younger women. I was just speaking to a woman in her 60s who told me that wanting to save female sports is a right-wing (and therefore bad) talking point. And she spent years working at a women's support organization and considers herself a supporter of women's rights, so I definitely did not expect that from her. The mainstream media is brainwashing progressive people into being against women's rights by making it seem like the only people who are for women's rights are conservative extremists.

I think that a lot of older people are also overcompensating for possibly having been slow to accept gay rights; now they accept whatever BS politics is attached to the LGB cause without question so they can feel they are on the right side of the civil rights movement this time.

WildApples · 2021-02-22T16:21:18+00:00

Are you serious? I know I should not be surprised in this climate, but part of me still lives in the good old days when people with completely different political leanings were permitted to be fans of the same book. And really, if people are going to banned from that sub on that issue, shouldn't it be the people who are trying to cancel the author and her oeuvre? How are you going to have a fan forum consisting solely of people who hate the author?

WildApples · 2021-03-07T17:10:29+00:00

It is hilarious and so on point. They even came up with a parallel term for TRAs-- Super Exclusionary Radical Fascist (SERF). I'm dying.

WildApples · 2021-05-07T01:32:16+00:00

Trans issues currentlly trumping all other civil rights issues, which I believe is the case precisely because it allows the most privileged members of society (i.e. men, especially white and straight) to center themselves in the civil rights arena.

Claiming to want to be treated like women but then getting to opt out of being held to harsh feminine beauty standards by claiming such standards are transphobic.

Getting away with threats of violence on Twitter while women get banned and sometimes even terminated from their jobs for expressing non-threatening opinions about gender.

Their pain and discomfort being prioritized over women's so that women are forced to stop talking about our own identities and experiences to avoid triggering them. But if we say we don't like being called "cis" or the ways that some TWs are reinforcing sexually objectifying and degrading stereotypes about women, no one cares about our discomfort.

Violence against trans being taken more seriously than violence against women even though women experience a higher rate of violence. Society choosing to place TWs in women's spaces to avoid violence to them while comepletely ignoring the resultant risks of violence to women.

That society thinks that a TW's need for validation is more important than a female rape or domestic violence victim's need to avoid being retraumatized.

TWs getting to claim insight into women's experience despite not having any such experience, and then having objective scientific, medical, and social definitions and norms changed based on their supposed insights. Meanwhile, women have often had to fight (and are still fighting) to get official recognition of our experiences.

TWs getting to be super aggressive and even violent and not having it held against them.

Having a physical advantage in sport and getting to exploit that advantage to take women's spots and awards. TWs getting heralded as champions when their performance is just mediocre by biological standards, which is a privilege no woman will gets to experience.

In male-dominated tech spaces like Reddit, automatically fitting into the boys' club culture because they were conditioned as males.

TW getting to flaunt their sexual proclivities publicly and not have it held against them in politics or employment the way women do.

TWs feeling proud and validated at being sexually harassed in contrast to the fear and shame that women often feel at being harassed, presumably because they have the privilege of not having to live in fear of male violence all their lives like we do.

TW not being socialized like many women have been and continuing to behave in a traditionally masculine manner (dominating conversation, expecting women to emotionally prop them up, not doing their share of housework, etc.).

I could probably go on, but generally they continue to have very privileged, male expectations of being prioritized and centered in interactions, and those expectations are routinely fulfilled in way that few women ever get to experience.

WildApples · 2020-07-18T18:16:43+00:00

There is a massive difference between denying the existence and effect of concrete, biological facts like sex chromosomes and questioning abstract scientific theories that are based on hypotheses extrapolated from artificial laboratory conditions. There are many ways to misrepresent and overstate scientific results, and there are are many logical fallacies and forms of groupthink perpetuated in the name of science. Science has been used and misused for centuries to corroborate prejudicial ideas and foist erroneous information on the public. The simple fact that someone appeals to scientific authority does not in itself make something factual or correct. I am more concerned about people who approach science from an anti-intellectual, religious perspective and get upset when people question "Science." True science is based on questioning. That is how scientific consensus improves, and sound theories are able to withstand doubts and questions. Getting upset that people dare to question a consensus is itself anti-scientific and comes from the same illiberal place that TRA ideology comes from. It is all about trying to force one's beliefs on everyone else and eliminate discourse.

WildApples · 2021-05-05T21:36:05+00:00

"Sir" is now a slur comparable to the n- word? Do these people even hear themselves? It is appalling that people buy into this crap.

WildApples · 2021-01-15T00:17:55+00:00

Spoiler alert: their child is a boy and chose to identify as male.

Also, gag:

she explained: 'Zoomer understands that some girls have penises and some boys have vulvas, and some intersex kids have vulvas and testes. Zoomer knows some daddies get pregnant and some nonbinary parents are called Zazas.

I guess providing children with a stable sense of material reality is overrated. It must be draining to grow up in that family. I cannot wait for the Zoomers of the world to release their memoirs in a couple of decades.

WildApples · 2020-12-30T00:26:49+00:00

There seems to be a continual refusal to acknowledge the threat of violence women face from men, and I do not understand it. On the a recent episode of the Blocked and Reported podcast, the female host stated that she and many other women feel a real, visceral discomfort at the idea of sharing bathrooms with men (kudos to her for acknowledging that this is a real and valid feeling), but she also seemed to suggest that it is something we women would work through in time, as though we just aren't enlightened enough to overcome our silly, passe customs about modesty. There was no acknowledgement that women are uncomfortable because the risk of violence by men in a semi-private, enclosed space is very real. That is bizarre to me because the threat of sexual violence is constantly on my mind; where I go, when I go, how I go, who I go with-- everyday I make these choices on the basis of how I could avoid possible harassment or violence. It is pretty automatic at this point, but it is always there.

I sense that there is an overlap between women who are TRAs and women who have been lucky enough to avoid a lot of the sexual harassment and violence that other women face. I remember writing about my many experiences with sexual harassment on social media one time, and a very woke, TRA woman responded sympathetically but noted that she never experienced such things. I wonder if a lot of the female support for gender advocacy simply boils down to the fact that some women have no conception of the scope and magnitude of sexual violence that other women face. Could it be that they sell out women in dorms, DV shelters, prisons, and other sex segregated spaces simply because they are incapable of appreciating the terror and risks that other women do face on a daily basis?

WildApples · 2021-04-19T12:44:15+00:00

Yikes. That biometric scanning feature is creepy. So all the GC and rad fems will be rounded up in one place with their faces recorded in the company database. Even if the company is trustworthy, it would take just one TRA hack to cause a lot of trouble for the female user base.

Also, why do I have the suspicion that this feature will inevitably be modelled on European bone structures and will wrongfully exclude black women at a higher rate than women of other races? And males who transitioned early in life or even some who just have particularly delicate featured might be able to pass. This feels like a mess waiting to happen.

WildApples · 2021-03-12T01:29:48+00:00

I wish it was corporate suicide, but it's not. I have waited in vain for a scandal to break Facebook, but they always shake it off because people will not stop using their products. Tech companies put in concerted effort to be intertwined in all aspects of our lives and to make us dependent on them. They rule our lives, and they know it. They have the power and money to sway governments, and they have the power to control information to shape narratives and to stop people from organizing. If something like this somehow managed to cause a major scandal that they cannot suppress with their tech powers, they will simply blame the current CEO and go back to business as usual.

WildApples · 2021-03-12T01:01:41+00:00

I fully support gay rights and I thought conservatives were being hysterical when they said it would be a slippery slope, but they were not wrong. It sucks that gay rights is being tainted with all of this craziness.

WildApples · 2021-03-27T13:54:29+00:00

It is not about coddling TRAs. We are in a PR battle and we need as much support as we can get. It we take the high road, it makes them look ridiculous when they accuse us of hate. If we sink to their level and use slurs, then the people who are on the sidelines will agree with them that we are hateful bigots. I am annoyed thinking about all the Redditors who are new to the issue and had that thread as their introduction to GC ideas. Those people will now believe that we are hateful and will not be open to hearing from us. It plays right into TRA hands, and we are the ones who lose because of it.

WildApples · 2022-02-22T20:07:17+00:00

And why do they always have histories like this?! https://www.reduxx.org/post/trans-r-antiwork-moderator-admitted-to-serial-rape-allegations

WildApples · 2021-03-15T00:11:55+00:00

Wow. This actually gives me a little hope. It is refreshing to see that there are students who have not been indoctrinated into the gender cult and who are pushing back.

The student feminists' open letter is well worth a read: https://filia.org.uk/latest-news/2021/3/13/open-letter-to-the-minister-of-education-by-feminist-student-society-women-talk-back

WildApples · 2021-02-26T23:50:05+00:00

So true. I was thinking about this as I was trying to figure out how to talk about the purported Equality Act. If we speak the truth and acknowledge people by sex, we will be accused of hatred and bigotry and our arguments will be ignored. If we concede as a matter of politeness so people will listen to us, it undermines the argument that we are trying to make. It is an impossible situation we're in.

WildApples · 2021-01-08T16:24:16+00:00

Samantha Lux stated around the 10 minute mark that the surgery does not allow for pregnancy to occur in TIMS... unless you have a uterus transplant! Firstly, I am not sure if Lux understands the necessity of ovaries for pregnancy.

This is the second time now I have seen reference to uterus transplants from TRAs. So effing creepy that there are TRAs contemplating literally taking a woman's body part and grafting it in themselves to feel more feminine! What the hell? Male bodies are not designed to carry and birth children. Even if you could transplant a uterus and a fertilized embryo into a TIM, their biologically male body still would not be ready to support pregnancy. I hope no scientists are wasting resources and effort on such a vain, creepy, and narcissistic endeavor, but I am truly scared to google it.

WildApples · 2021-02-05T14:25:05+00:00

I am curious about the wife in all this. How does she really feel about it? I imagine between her love for him, her desire to keep her family unit intact, and the pressure to not be transphobic in the eyes of an increasingly belligerent TRA society, she does not have a lot of space to feel or express her own feelings. She does not have much opportunity to grieve the loss of her husband and the relationship they had before.

WildApples · 2021-01-25T14:52:55+00:00

I think that there is a good argument that it is unlawfully discriminatory. It would be unthinkable to make an employee prominently identify their race, national origin, religion, or disability status at work, and I would argue that the same applies to sex, which as others have noted can have a detrimental effect on female employees.

Secondly, if you live in a jurisdiction that protects discrimination on the basis of creed, you could argue that you are being forced to violate your creed by the requirement to choose an identity that you do not personally believe in.

Also, for anyone working in government (including public schools and hospitals) in the U.S., remember that government cannot infringe on your right to free speech. That protection includes freedom from compelled speech.

WildApples · 2021-02-14T20:49:19+00:00

How do the heck do they jump from the idea that non-human species have genitalia that differ from human genitalia to the idea that there is no difference in genitals between men and women? And then they simultaneously imply that the "full spectrum" of genitalia in the animal kingdom means that there is a wide variety of genital constructs in humans. Which is it? Do we all have the same exact genitals or is there a fabulous constellation of genital types among the human species?

WildApples · 2021-01-13T15:20:32+00:00

Those workplace trainings are developed with an eye toward avoiding legal liability for the employer. If an employee accuses the employer of discrimination, they want to be able tell the government that they forbid such behavior and told their employees that such actions were prohibited. That's why the materials are so inconsistent; the training is developed by human resources and legal professionals to check legal boxes, not by true believers trying to further the cause.

So the sinister subtext is--whether people believe it or not, whether it makes sense or not-- governments have adopted the view that not catering to gender preferences is discriminatory, and consequently the workplace is probably going to be a primary staging area for normalizing TRA logic. Let's hope there will be sensible courts to keep this from going too far. But, for those of us in the U.S., with Biden, Harris, and Pelosi, sensible judges might not be enough to save women's rights.

There was a study a few years ago that said these types of trainings for sexual harassment made employees more likely to engage in harassment, so who knows? It will probably end up peaking more people.

WildApples · 2021-04-13T11:57:14+00:00

This one really floored me. Wow, there is nothing they won't colonize.

They are not trying to get or avoid pregnancy nor looking for a reminder to avoid an uncomfortable situation in which they begin menstruating without access to menstrual products. I am sure they do experience some weird medically induced hormonal fluctuations as their bodies struggle to return them to normal, but what would be the point of tracking that on a personal level? What behavior would they need to change? There is no point except to try to add verisimilitude to the pretence of being female. It is so delusional.

And I am continually offended by their caricature of of the menstrual cycle. It is clear they have no idea what a cycle is, what body parts are involved, or what is happening within the body to cause the changes we experience because if they did they would understand it sure as hell is not happening to them. They seem to think the essence of a period is mood swings and cramps (the uterine shedding is too female and can be dispensed with, obvs). They are clinging to and promoting the negative stereotype of women acting crazy and irrational due to their periods. It pisses me off because most of my life I felt like I had to minimize and be silent about what I experienced due to my cycle precisely because I wanted to avoid that stereotype.

WildApples · 2021-03-12T18:53:14+00:00

There is also a Gender Group where grade 6-8 meet bi-weekly in single gender groups facilitated by Middle School faculty. 'Groups discuss gender-related issues, stereotypes, what it means to be authentic and to make good decisions,' the school claims.

So kids are forced to choose a gender identity and be taught that boys belong in female spaces. I can just imagine the reception a child would receive in these groups if she or he dared to express that there are times they want to be in single-sex spaces. This is a pretty blatant attempt to reeducate or engineer children into denying their sex and sex-based preferences. It is crazy. These wealthy kids will someday be the ones making law and policy in the United States.

Megyn Kelly expressed similar concerns about other NYC private schools:

She said her sons' school in particular troubled her. When he was in third grade, she said, they 'unleashed a three-week experimental trans-education program.' Kelly said it was difficult for her son to understand, and not helpful. Her son was in a class where the children were eight and nine at the time. 'It wasn't about support — we felt that it was more like they were trying to convince them,' she said. 'Like, come on over.'

WildApples · 2021-02-23T04:54:50+00:00

Reflecting on it further, I do not think the sponsors truly have any idea how far this bill could go. It technically makes any differences in treatment of sex in public spaces outright illegal, and I do not think the TRAs even want that. They need women's spaces to exist to continue to validate TiMs.

I imagine the supporters of this bill are envisioning our current, rightfully sex-segregated world with exceptions carved out for trans people, not a world with no sex segregated spaces. But the bill on its face would create the latter scenario. I could be wrong, but I don't think Nancy Pelosi is striving for a world in which she has to share a bathroom with Mitch McConnell. Of course, her wealth and stature would protect her. The rest of us are not so lucky.

WildApples · 2021-02-08T22:26:25+00:00

Honey, we don't hate you because you're trans; it is your unadulterated misogyny that repulses us.

I love when their own statements are a melange of toxic masculinity and complete ignorance of what it feels like to be a woman. Women are not a monolith, but no one but a man could think that a woman's worth is dependent on how much semen she can intake.

WildApples · 2021-02-05T17:42:48+00:00

And he knows his wife is not sexually attracted to him like that and they are not sexually active because of it, but he thinks it is fine because they "discovered a whole different part of the relationship." Yeah, it is cool for him because he gets the thrill of having his wife treat him like one of the girls, but what is she getting out of that?

WildApples · 2020-10-11T21:42:38+00:00

NYC has been captured by TRAs. Unfortunately, because so much of the media is based in NYC, gender ideology is being disseminated to the rest of the country and world as the norm even though it is not representative of the perspectives of most people outside NYC (or probably even within it, for that matter).

WildApples · 2021-02-19T00:46:51+00:00

I just read the exchange and, while he was clearly critical of a part of your message, I would not call it an attack just as I would not call the line you wrote about conservative women bigoted. He reasonably explained why he disagreed with your characterization of conservative women, and I found his explanation rather enlightening because it was not really about you so much as about the way feminist spaces can unfortunately become echo chambers.

I do not know many conservatives, so I'll admit to having what might be a caricature view of conservative women as being anti-choice and regressive about female roles. That same perception has played out in a lot of feminist spaces, and I've seen feminists argue against partnering with conservative women on GC issues for that reason. He is highlighting that in this way, we can be our own enemy.

Clearly, that is not you, but I can imagine it is probably pretty isolating to identify as conservative in spaces like this, and I can see why he had a lot of pent-up frustration that you became the unfortunate target of. At the end of the day, I do not think his criticism was as much about you as it was about all of us and our need to see beyond our potentially myopic viewpoints.

And since, as you said, it was a throwaway line anyway, maybe accept the criticism and acknowledge that all conservative women do not believe women should only be wives and mothers or disregard it because ultimately it does not matter to your main point that we all need to organize against the Equality Act. It seems like you and he have more in common that not. You both want women of all political stripes to come together to combat TRA attacks on women. I hope you two can overcome your differences and fight the good fight in a united front.

Either way, I appreciate you and your efforts to keep us mobilized! You've motivated me to start drafting letters to my members of Congress. :-)

WildApples · 2022-05-18T21:43:48+00:00

This is the outrageous level of narcissistic entitlement that using pronouns just to be nice leads to. The object of the compliment does not get to dictate what kind of compliments others give. They are trying to control, not just the language people use (which is bad enough), but the very way people perceive the world around them. The sooner these people learn that no one gets to control how others experience the world, the happier they will be. So much of their frustration is borne of the unreasonable expectation that they have the power to micromanage other people’s realities.

WildApples · 2022-02-13T17:50:47+00:00

If TiMs are undeniably women, then why would such a statement offend them? Their very indignation is further proof of the fact that they know they are not women.

WildApples · 2021-03-26T23:50:01+00:00

Hard agree. Now they will be more convinced than ever that they are right about gender criticism being synonymous with hatred and bigotry.

WildApples · 2020-11-25T21:15:50+00:00

“Being a self-aware bimbo is amazing: you become everything men want visually whilst also being everything they hate (self-aware, sexually empowered, politically conscious, etc.) Reverse the fetishisation of femininity.”

I doubt there are many modern men who hate "sexually empowered" women. It could be an attack on heteronormativity, but it does nothing to reverse the fetishization of women. LARPing as a female, sex object while retaining the privileges of being male is not subversive.

I think modern media has been so effective at selling objectification of women for decades that men have strongly internalized the desire to be objectified in the same way. All of these political arguments are just rationalizations to explain the subconscious conditioning. And now with people connected to media 24/7, a lot of them probably never get a break from sexually objectifying imagery.

WildApples · 2021-03-03T00:03:34+00:00

I would not have known this headline was satire if you had not specified Babylon Bee. Don't give them ideas!

WildApples · 2022-02-24T02:58:42+00:00

My ex was Heterosexual but Homoromantic xD I am a Transfem Enby, wasn't aware at the time

and

Similar story for me! My girlfriend has said a few times (and apparently thought I knew, before I came out as trans) that she was attracted to me because I had feminine features even as a seemingly cis guy.

Lord, these people... Why are they so reluctant to just be straight?

WildApples · 2021-12-29T01:11:48+00:00

I guess this means we will get even more trans co-opting of black people and race issues to sell their movement.

WildApples · 2021-08-02T22:15:28+00:00

I have not been following the Olympics at all, but when I saw headlines that he lost all three events I immediately suspected him of throwing the competition for political reasons. Now he can be a history-making hero without and sympathetic female pulling focus from him, and now people will use this as supposed proof that there can be fair competitions between males and females.

WildApples