Much of the discourse in conservative spaces around feminism being the root cause of trans goes back to the existentialist philosophy of John Paul Sartre, of whom feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir was a contemporary.
In a December 2012 address, right before transgenderism saturated seemingly every square inch of the Western world, Pope Benedict XVI honed in on what being human truly means, citing de Beauvoir’s famous line “one is not a woman, but becomes so” as the source of “gender” as a new, destructive philosophy of sexuality. Feminists would no doubt reply that de Beauvoir was speaking of the process of female socialization, not their ontology or material reality. It is curious to me how though those who argue along those lines have a serious point when they note how months before she died, feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was famous for her defense of women "on the basis of sex," voted in favor of enshrining “transgender status” into civil rights law in the Bostock v. Clayton County decision at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020. Maybe there was indeed a toxic root and trajectory there. **shrug**
My view is that the current morass is a combination of factors converging on themselves. Hard to imagine de Beauvoir (or any other philosopher of her era) getting her head around giving children blockers to halt their natural puberty. So it's too simplistic to blame the trans mania on her.
Thank you for this, Brandon! Yes, many factors. I think my tongue-in-cheekness may not be apparent in the title, judging from the immediate number of unsubscribes! This is just one tiny piece of ye ole iceberg, but I enjoyed interviewing people about it!
I'm sure! The right-wing loudmouths online like to blame feminism for this. Even if they have a point, they're not interested in sifting through the nuances of it. They're just grouchy curmudgeons. Of course, there are similarly grouchy lefty types who do likewise.
There is a certain type of younger, online feminist--Lyz Lenz is the example that springs to mind for me, but I think there are many other--who is very doctrinaire about slogans like "there is no feminism without trans feminism." Meaning that any opposition to trans women being treated as women, full stop, is just another version of misogyny. I truly do not understand where this view comes from, or why it's so strongly held, but at least in the American context, I think that sort of "trans women are women" feminism is a significant component in the broader left's current tendency to reject as intolerant any idea that sex can be more important than gender in at least some circumstances. If American feminists--or at least, the ones with access to book deals and publishing--were expressing more caution over replacing sex with gender, I think the American left would be much more open to conversation on the topic than it currently is.
There is no question that the specific notion that "transwomen are women" is part of the problem. To the extent some branch of feminism espouses this notion, it could be to blame, in part, for the whole phenomenon. Further, to the extent that some extremist feminists (so not most feminists) express disdain for males or masculinity, implying that females are better than males, that also would be contributing factor, at least for some of the young males who transition, in part because of fear that they will turn out as the bad people they may think men, particularly heterosexual men who are masculine, are.
However, most of feminism has absolutely nothing to do with that.
To me, much of feminism involves: (1) the idea that women are capable of more than they were allowed to do, and should be allowed to vote, own property, go out into the workforce, etc.; (2) the idea that women deserve equal pay for equal work; or (3) the idea that stereotypes and set roles for women and men and boys and girls (including clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, hobbies and even careers) are harmful and unnecessarily limiting and prevent many people from living as fulfilled lives as they might without those constraints.
How would those ideas have caused the problems we are having? They would not. To the contrary, and I have thought this ever since I learned about transsexuals in the 1980's as a teen, loosening up on stereotypes and accepting homosexuality should have prevented most people who previously felt the need to transition from feeling that need. That is, the more we moved in the direction of not caring about stereotypes and accepting that males and females act in all sorts of ways, the less anyone would need to alter their body and pretend to be the opposite sex. (I know there would still be autogynephiles, but, to me, that's a sexual problem and the solution does not have to be transition, as there are other ways to satisfy their sexual desires. There would also be people who hate their bodies, but that's body dysmorphia, which, again, does not necessitate changing the body, but could instead involve figuring out how to become at peace with it.)
We had been moving in the right direction on those issues for many years, and then something went terribly wrong. It started in the early 2000's when I started hearing a lot of "girls can too..." [do math, play sports, work on computers, etc.] We already knew that. At the same time, we were seeing lots of "girl versions" of boy toys and clothes, usually involving the color pink. This was one of the odd ways in which people's view of girls and boys started to get weird. Why couldn't girls play with the regular Lego sets? Why were we suddenly concerned that girls needed an extra push toward math when that had not been an issue, at least not for many, many years? (I grew up in the 70s and 80s and never once thought I couldn't do math, or be a lawyer, or whatnot.)
In short, I don't think feminism is to blame for the problems of gender ideology, although two notions that are associated with feminism ("transwomen are women" and "men are yucky") contributed.
Chalk me down as a vote for “It’s Complicated.” I’m in an odd spot, where I’ve spent more time reading feminist texts and engaging in feminist communities than probably 95% or more of women my age, but if asked if I consider myself a feminist, I kind of just want to lie face down on the floor groaning like I’m Tina from Bob’s Burgers as a response. Also, I sometimes say that all the religious trauma I possibly should have from being raised Roman Catholic, I have from online feminist communities instead.
4thwavenow.com was essential in helping me survive this as an ROGD parent, not that I could tell you what that wave of feminism meant 8 years ago nor now.
For what it's worth, I just posted this elsewhere; you may relate it to feminism however you want: When I came of age in the 1980's it felt very important for us to be referred to as "women" rather than "girls" in order to designate us as adults who deserved to be regarded as such. I have especially noticed the use of the phrase "young girls" to refer to adolescent girls over the past decade -- this is inaccurate; a "young girl" is a prepubescent girl and an "adolescent girl" is an adolescent girl (or young woman). I recently listened to a young woman detransitioner discuss having wanted to be a man rather than a girl (as an adolescent). Who wouldn't prefer to be a powerful adult than a relatively powerless girl? As a culture we fear womanhood, the power of Mother, adolescent girls becoming sexual beings. Grappling with this discomfort around girls becoming women, as evidenced by calling women "girls", is an important component of healing our culture and of empowering us all to have a healthier relationship to our sexed bodies.
Lisa, I know you said we’re supposed to talk about feminism here. But all I can think about is the NYT doing this big project. Do you think it will be…okay?
Isn’t this just going to be another way for them to come at their “gender affirming care saves lives and all y’all who disagree are just bigots + you’re the ones who politicized it” thing once again?
I think we all know that at this point that the NYTimes would be among the least trusted sources of reporting and analysis of feminism. Like the ACLU, the NYTimes is not even able to define "woman" without the circular definition "a woman is anyone who feels they are a woman", which still does not say what a woman is.
No one who can with a straight face refer to "her penis" is fit to opine about feminism.
The NYTimes has never, to my knowledge, referred to "her penis", but instead has totally avoided reporting on how women in prison have been impregnated by male inmates who are being housed in women's prisons because of their claim that they "are women" or "are transgender". The NYTimes simply does not report on females being raped by males if those males "identify as" women or trans women. But other mainstream media do report that a "woman" has been convicted of raping a woman.
I agree, Sad_Mom. I don't trust the NYT to do a serious, rational project here. I've subscribed for many years but rarely read it anymore because I'm so fed up with their woke bullshit and with their censorship. I keep telling my husband we should cancel our subscription.
Regarding "The Protocol", I hope it is honest and thorough. We shall see.
And I wonder, Is this the New York Times's opening effort at a "climb down", as they say, after so many years of being largely trans court stenographers?
I do wonder if many trans supporters who understand the field have decided that their battle for data and empirical efficiency vis a vis pediatric gender thing is lost to them. There will be no admissions and media, academia, medicine will carry on as if nothing were the matter, until, perhaps no longer tenable.
I don't trust the NYT's series on this, and I say this as an NYT subscriber who rarely reads it anymore. They are so completely caputured by trans ideology and refuse to countenance opposing viewpoints, even going so far as to censor reader comments on this topic. I've written about it here on Substack more than once.
As for the feminism argument, there is no group or movement of any political stripe, ever, throughout the history of the world, that hasn't had internal disagreements. It's human nature. So it's impossible to look at feminism as a monolith.
I am a lifelong feminist, proud of it, and also a modern-day TERF, also proud of it. I have no problem reconciling those things. I have been agitating against transgender ideology for 20 years. But I see that only in the past five years has the culture been utterly saturated by it. It's maddening.
If you’re a life long feminist who’s been fighting against “trans ideology” for 20yrs,
You’ve been fighting against the end result of your own belief system.
(Tho there was no “trans ideology 20yrs ago- it’s been retro actively applied… were there nutter in the trans realm? Yes of course, but no one listened to them internally)
Feminists aren’t a monolith, but all feminisms share a central belief core & as it ripples out… that core adheres to logical premises that can’t be avoided.
I came into the lesbian scene 1993 & even at that point, Kate Millets blank slate theories- based in Dr Moneys gruesome experiment w the Riemers- was STILL the cause celeb of the moment…. Almost 25yrs after “sexual politics” was published!
Saying “men are taller on average” or “men have more physical strength or speed” were statements that would guarantee separatist rad fems screaming at u so hard, spittle would hit ur face…
The movement that opened the door to disembodying humanity, making us not our bodies…. Feminism spent 50yrs promoting that cause, pushing the sentiments that there were NO differences between men & women- it was all a social construct.
I’m 50yo & the first time in my life I ever heard feminists actually get real abt biological reality- was 4-5 yrs ago when I stumbled across how Marxist the lgbt+ had become via Abigail shriers book!
Im sorry, I bear u no ill will personally-
Western civilisation is under attack & despite recent wins,
The woke movement overall- is decades & decades ahead of us,
They’ve indoctrinated 2-3 generations of children…
We don’t stand a chance at clawing back anything until everyone gets real abt the part thier belief systems have contributed.
There’s zero reason to transition. It shouldn’t be criminalised- but it should return to being so socially stigmatised,
Ppl KNOW going in- they’ll be shunned from polite society.
I say that as an FTM who’s 25yrs into “transition”
No I didn’t think I was changing sex,
I knew I would pass & knew that I could forge a path thru life looking like a guy.
There’s a bunch of “based trannys” & LGBs for whom it’s slowly dawning-
This entire “open acceptance” or “rights” movement- has had FAR more dire consequences that we ever could have imagined!
The NYT seems to be putting it in the politics section.
It's not politics providing the most important criticism of these interventions, it's medical standards, which have been abandoned.
I think once feminism claimed special ways of knowing that it opened the door to prioritizing anecdotal and subjective experience over objective analysis. There might be many experiences and interpretations of any situation or event, but the facts remain no matter what anyone feels,they remain fixed. We may not have a good way of determining them but that doesn't mean they don't exist. The truth does not vary depending on individual feelings and viewpoints.
Once you say a person has their own "truth" and that it is not to be questioned unless one has the right identity, you have undermined the basis for shared
determination of what is actually true.
Maybe it started earlier? There was a reasonable impetus, important aspects were unknown due to assumptions/biases --but when viewpoint got elevated to truth (beyond the yes they truly feel that), it led us
Why are you attributing the concept of "special ways of knowing" to feminists? When feminists demanded that the study of history include the study of women in history, that was not a demand to recognize "special ways of knowing", it was a demand that the methods of historical research and writing pay attention to what women have actually done and have actually experienced in the past, instead of historians just paying attention to the actions and experiences of men.
Feminists have never said that somehow women's experiences are "truer" than men's.
They have instead demanded that the experiences and viewpoints of women be taken as seriously as the experiences and viewpoints of men.
Yes, there are women (and men) who have written about women's superior intuition.
Intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning, and it is actually an evolved ability, crucial to survival. Being able to "read" other people, particularly people who are bigger, stronger and more prone to violence, is an evolved instinct which enables individuals (females) to survive and reproduce. Many scientific studies have shown that women tend to be better at identifying the emotional state of others from not just facial expressions but by their "body English". Intuition is not some magical ability, it is an evolved instinctual ability.
When I was studying gender psychology in the early 1990's, a faction within academic feminism was the vector for the idea that 'lived experience' was more important than the authority of science or medicine, which were considered patriarchal and heteronormative. I think they were right to conclude that women's and lesbians' perspectives had usually been excluded from those fields.
However there followed an over-correction, in that pure subjectivity became valorised among people who were scientifically illiterate, and so Idealism made a comeback courtesy of the people calling themselves postmodernists. Judith Butler was just the most famous of them.
What most ppl don’t realise- is that in the last couple generations,
Entire segments of history, large swathes- have retroactively been standpointed.
In the early 1900’s only 3-6% of women voted “yes” to polls asking if they wanted the vote.
The OVERWHELMING majority thought it would lead to the disintegration of the family &…. Basically to everything that has happened!
the largest group that campaigned against women’s suffrage… was women~
assuming they were too backwards or dumb to know what’s good for them re this issue is a common response- tho it’s HUGELY insulting to our foremothers, who were likely far better read than 90% of ppl now…
Tho- we don’t know anything abt that history, bc it’s been removed from texts, one might say systematically….
There are logical, real world consequences to ideas that are implemented.
You are correct- it’s not the only factor, to be sure,
The women’s studies depts are the delivery mechanism of queer Marxism,
& no- queer Marxism is not “corruption” of the ideas-
The first wavers- when we take the time to go look at what they were saying, what they believed in, what they advocated for-
All the base premises of queer Marxism are present;
Anti family- transhumanist views re reproduction
Pro sexual liberation without limit
Anti captial/ anti tradition etc
It’s all largely, the same movement- one grew logically from the other.
I'm second wave and don't care about anything that came next because it's not important. Just like early communism was about worker's rights and now it's about some other crap. Feminism is for women. The problem is that we women have been taught to be nice, polite, inclusive. We have also been taught that men are powerful so we must be afraid of them. This is how I see the whole inclusivity thing. Look, I want to be a millionaire. If I hop on board Elon Musk's private jet by stealth, that still won't make me a millionaire and they'll still going to tell me to get off the fucking plane.
What’s interesting is the use of the term “gender” to hide sex. It’s nonsensical to say “male female” or “female female” to indicate respectively gender and sex for men who compulsively imitate women versus women.
I wonder if it was the intention of feminism not to eliminate sex, I’m not sure then that arose, but was intending to eliminate “gender”.
Once “gender” occurs, then men can claim the mantle of feminism, which is the sort of “cuckoo’s” egg the trans movement is very good at.
They claimed the GLB movement as a sexual minority, then claimed feminism via gender.
They’ve managed to eject GLB from same-sex politics (find the word gay or lesbian in Pride), they seem to be ejecting women from feminism.
Not everything that feminists do has to be considered part of feminism.
Nor does every liberal woman (or man) who believes in feminism as a concept have to be labeled a feminist first and foremost.
Nor is every period in the evolution of women's political activity need to be considered a "wave", nor everything that took place during that time need be considered part of it.
Nor is the intergenerational warfare among politically active women that results from shit-talking the "3rd wave" particularly helpful.
My point is that the labels in this case aren't useful or productive. Or accurate really. There is no way to rationalize playing handmaiden to AGPs as a "feminist" act. It tarnishes the good name of feminism to do so. I don't care if most of the women doing it consider(ed) themselves feminists. History is written by the victors, we are progressing to victory, and I think that troonfest should more accurately be described as a particularly left-wing backlash AGAINST feminism, rather than part of "3rd-wave feminism".
"Some liberal women did and still do some dumb antifeminist shit on the urging of some left-wing men." 'nuff said.
Lisa. Can't wait to see your book. The issue of why and why now has been haunting me forever. You are taking on a monumental task and where do you start? Secular humanism surely provided a foundation-there were no doubt transexuals in the 15th century but there could have been nothing like a trans ideology. Post-scarcity capitalism opened up the space for self absorption-luxury beliefs and luxury ailments. Critical theory and the Frankfurt School inculcated the ideas of oppressor and oppressed and that acquisition of power is the sole motivator of humans. Feminism was an influence but I think queer theroy and its rejection of all societal norms was a bigger factor. All of this evoled in the present of many accelerants-the digital age and specifically social media, the idea of medical consumerism, humanistic psychology and the idea of self actualization, the looping effect (the creation of fad psychiatric diagnoses creating a population that mimics the symptoms), And many more. Hope you know about Carl Trueman's great book "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self" which carefully elucidate the cultural roots of the phenomena,
I think it's the fact that the world of parenting, childcare, therapy/psychology/social work, and education are already so female dominated, that means the movement to transition kids will also be female dominated, and that gets conflated with feminism.
Judith Butler’s third wave femanisim and academic fodder escaped the college debate and the woke world played make-believe with gender nonsense. I am not in any way trump fan but it is Title Nine month so I am celebrating!!!
Much of the discourse in conservative spaces around feminism being the root cause of trans goes back to the existentialist philosophy of John Paul Sartre, of whom feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir was a contemporary.
In a December 2012 address, right before transgenderism saturated seemingly every square inch of the Western world, Pope Benedict XVI honed in on what being human truly means, citing de Beauvoir’s famous line “one is not a woman, but becomes so” as the source of “gender” as a new, destructive philosophy of sexuality. Feminists would no doubt reply that de Beauvoir was speaking of the process of female socialization, not their ontology or material reality. It is curious to me how though those who argue along those lines have a serious point when they note how months before she died, feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was famous for her defense of women "on the basis of sex," voted in favor of enshrining “transgender status” into civil rights law in the Bostock v. Clayton County decision at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020. Maybe there was indeed a toxic root and trajectory there. **shrug**
My view is that the current morass is a combination of factors converging on themselves. Hard to imagine de Beauvoir (or any other philosopher of her era) getting her head around giving children blockers to halt their natural puberty. So it's too simplistic to blame the trans mania on her.
Thank you for this, Brandon! Yes, many factors. I think my tongue-in-cheekness may not be apparent in the title, judging from the immediate number of unsubscribes! This is just one tiny piece of ye ole iceberg, but I enjoyed interviewing people about it!
I'm sure! The right-wing loudmouths online like to blame feminism for this. Even if they have a point, they're not interested in sifting through the nuances of it. They're just grouchy curmudgeons. Of course, there are similarly grouchy lefty types who do likewise.
OMG, people unsubscribed because of your title??
They clearly not only don't know what you usually write about, they don't understand sarcasm.
There is a certain type of younger, online feminist--Lyz Lenz is the example that springs to mind for me, but I think there are many other--who is very doctrinaire about slogans like "there is no feminism without trans feminism." Meaning that any opposition to trans women being treated as women, full stop, is just another version of misogyny. I truly do not understand where this view comes from, or why it's so strongly held, but at least in the American context, I think that sort of "trans women are women" feminism is a significant component in the broader left's current tendency to reject as intolerant any idea that sex can be more important than gender in at least some circumstances. If American feminists--or at least, the ones with access to book deals and publishing--were expressing more caution over replacing sex with gender, I think the American left would be much more open to conversation on the topic than it currently is.
You might want to look up Kara Dansky and her two books. It’s difficult for radical feminists like her to get any coverage in mainstream media.
There is no question that the specific notion that "transwomen are women" is part of the problem. To the extent some branch of feminism espouses this notion, it could be to blame, in part, for the whole phenomenon. Further, to the extent that some extremist feminists (so not most feminists) express disdain for males or masculinity, implying that females are better than males, that also would be contributing factor, at least for some of the young males who transition, in part because of fear that they will turn out as the bad people they may think men, particularly heterosexual men who are masculine, are.
However, most of feminism has absolutely nothing to do with that.
To me, much of feminism involves: (1) the idea that women are capable of more than they were allowed to do, and should be allowed to vote, own property, go out into the workforce, etc.; (2) the idea that women deserve equal pay for equal work; or (3) the idea that stereotypes and set roles for women and men and boys and girls (including clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, hobbies and even careers) are harmful and unnecessarily limiting and prevent many people from living as fulfilled lives as they might without those constraints.
How would those ideas have caused the problems we are having? They would not. To the contrary, and I have thought this ever since I learned about transsexuals in the 1980's as a teen, loosening up on stereotypes and accepting homosexuality should have prevented most people who previously felt the need to transition from feeling that need. That is, the more we moved in the direction of not caring about stereotypes and accepting that males and females act in all sorts of ways, the less anyone would need to alter their body and pretend to be the opposite sex. (I know there would still be autogynephiles, but, to me, that's a sexual problem and the solution does not have to be transition, as there are other ways to satisfy their sexual desires. There would also be people who hate their bodies, but that's body dysmorphia, which, again, does not necessitate changing the body, but could instead involve figuring out how to become at peace with it.)
We had been moving in the right direction on those issues for many years, and then something went terribly wrong. It started in the early 2000's when I started hearing a lot of "girls can too..." [do math, play sports, work on computers, etc.] We already knew that. At the same time, we were seeing lots of "girl versions" of boy toys and clothes, usually involving the color pink. This was one of the odd ways in which people's view of girls and boys started to get weird. Why couldn't girls play with the regular Lego sets? Why were we suddenly concerned that girls needed an extra push toward math when that had not been an issue, at least not for many, many years? (I grew up in the 70s and 80s and never once thought I couldn't do math, or be a lawyer, or whatnot.)
In short, I don't think feminism is to blame for the problems of gender ideology, although two notions that are associated with feminism ("transwomen are women" and "men are yucky") contributed.
Chalk me down as a vote for “It’s Complicated.” I’m in an odd spot, where I’ve spent more time reading feminist texts and engaging in feminist communities than probably 95% or more of women my age, but if asked if I consider myself a feminist, I kind of just want to lie face down on the floor groaning like I’m Tina from Bob’s Burgers as a response. Also, I sometimes say that all the religious trauma I possibly should have from being raised Roman Catholic, I have from online feminist communities instead.
4thwavenow.com was essential in helping me survive this as an ROGD parent, not that I could tell you what that wave of feminism meant 8 years ago nor now.
For what it's worth, I just posted this elsewhere; you may relate it to feminism however you want: When I came of age in the 1980's it felt very important for us to be referred to as "women" rather than "girls" in order to designate us as adults who deserved to be regarded as such. I have especially noticed the use of the phrase "young girls" to refer to adolescent girls over the past decade -- this is inaccurate; a "young girl" is a prepubescent girl and an "adolescent girl" is an adolescent girl (or young woman). I recently listened to a young woman detransitioner discuss having wanted to be a man rather than a girl (as an adolescent). Who wouldn't prefer to be a powerful adult than a relatively powerless girl? As a culture we fear womanhood, the power of Mother, adolescent girls becoming sexual beings. Grappling with this discomfort around girls becoming women, as evidenced by calling women "girls", is an important component of healing our culture and of empowering us all to have a healthier relationship to our sexed bodies.
Lisa, I know you said we’re supposed to talk about feminism here. But all I can think about is the NYT doing this big project. Do you think it will be…okay?
Isn’t this just going to be another way for them to come at their “gender affirming care saves lives and all y’all who disagree are just bigots + you’re the ones who politicized it” thing once again?
I think we all know that at this point that the NYTimes would be among the least trusted sources of reporting and analysis of feminism. Like the ACLU, the NYTimes is not even able to define "woman" without the circular definition "a woman is anyone who feels they are a woman", which still does not say what a woman is.
No one who can with a straight face refer to "her penis" is fit to opine about feminism.
The NYTimes has never, to my knowledge, referred to "her penis", but instead has totally avoided reporting on how women in prison have been impregnated by male inmates who are being housed in women's prisons because of their claim that they "are women" or "are transgender". The NYTimes simply does not report on females being raped by males if those males "identify as" women or trans women. But other mainstream media do report that a "woman" has been convicted of raping a woman.
I agree, Sad_Mom. I don't trust the NYT to do a serious, rational project here. I've subscribed for many years but rarely read it anymore because I'm so fed up with their woke bullshit and with their censorship. I keep telling my husband we should cancel our subscription.
Regarding "The Protocol", I hope it is honest and thorough. We shall see.
And I wonder, Is this the New York Times's opening effort at a "climb down", as they say, after so many years of being largely trans court stenographers?
I do wonder if many trans supporters who understand the field have decided that their battle for data and empirical efficiency vis a vis pediatric gender thing is lost to them. There will be no admissions and media, academia, medicine will carry on as if nothing were the matter, until, perhaps no longer tenable.
I don't trust the NYT's series on this, and I say this as an NYT subscriber who rarely reads it anymore. They are so completely caputured by trans ideology and refuse to countenance opposing viewpoints, even going so far as to censor reader comments on this topic. I've written about it here on Substack more than once.
As for the feminism argument, there is no group or movement of any political stripe, ever, throughout the history of the world, that hasn't had internal disagreements. It's human nature. So it's impossible to look at feminism as a monolith.
I am a lifelong feminist, proud of it, and also a modern-day TERF, also proud of it. I have no problem reconciling those things. I have been agitating against transgender ideology for 20 years. But I see that only in the past five years has the culture been utterly saturated by it. It's maddening.
If you’re a life long feminist who’s been fighting against “trans ideology” for 20yrs,
You’ve been fighting against the end result of your own belief system.
(Tho there was no “trans ideology 20yrs ago- it’s been retro actively applied… were there nutter in the trans realm? Yes of course, but no one listened to them internally)
Feminists aren’t a monolith, but all feminisms share a central belief core & as it ripples out… that core adheres to logical premises that can’t be avoided.
I came into the lesbian scene 1993 & even at that point, Kate Millets blank slate theories- based in Dr Moneys gruesome experiment w the Riemers- was STILL the cause celeb of the moment…. Almost 25yrs after “sexual politics” was published!
Saying “men are taller on average” or “men have more physical strength or speed” were statements that would guarantee separatist rad fems screaming at u so hard, spittle would hit ur face…
The movement that opened the door to disembodying humanity, making us not our bodies…. Feminism spent 50yrs promoting that cause, pushing the sentiments that there were NO differences between men & women- it was all a social construct.
I’m 50yo & the first time in my life I ever heard feminists actually get real abt biological reality- was 4-5 yrs ago when I stumbled across how Marxist the lgbt+ had become via Abigail shriers book!
Im sorry, I bear u no ill will personally-
Western civilisation is under attack & despite recent wins,
The woke movement overall- is decades & decades ahead of us,
They’ve indoctrinated 2-3 generations of children…
We don’t stand a chance at clawing back anything until everyone gets real abt the part thier belief systems have contributed.
There’s zero reason to transition. It shouldn’t be criminalised- but it should return to being so socially stigmatised,
Ppl KNOW going in- they’ll be shunned from polite society.
I say that as an FTM who’s 25yrs into “transition”
No I didn’t think I was changing sex,
I knew I would pass & knew that I could forge a path thru life looking like a guy.
There’s a bunch of “based trannys” & LGBs for whom it’s slowly dawning-
This entire “open acceptance” or “rights” movement- has had FAR more dire consequences that we ever could have imagined!
The NYT seems to be putting it in the politics section.
It's not politics providing the most important criticism of these interventions, it's medical standards, which have been abandoned.
I think once feminism claimed special ways of knowing that it opened the door to prioritizing anecdotal and subjective experience over objective analysis. There might be many experiences and interpretations of any situation or event, but the facts remain no matter what anyone feels,they remain fixed. We may not have a good way of determining them but that doesn't mean they don't exist. The truth does not vary depending on individual feelings and viewpoints.
Once you say a person has their own "truth" and that it is not to be questioned unless one has the right identity, you have undermined the basis for shared
determination of what is actually true.
Maybe it started earlier? There was a reasonable impetus, important aspects were unknown due to assumptions/biases --but when viewpoint got elevated to truth (beyond the yes they truly feel that), it led us
to a lot of problems.
Why are you attributing the concept of "special ways of knowing" to feminists? When feminists demanded that the study of history include the study of women in history, that was not a demand to recognize "special ways of knowing", it was a demand that the methods of historical research and writing pay attention to what women have actually done and have actually experienced in the past, instead of historians just paying attention to the actions and experiences of men.
Feminists have never said that somehow women's experiences are "truer" than men's.
They have instead demanded that the experiences and viewpoints of women be taken as seriously as the experiences and viewpoints of men.
Yes, there are women (and men) who have written about women's superior intuition.
Intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning, and it is actually an evolved ability, crucial to survival. Being able to "read" other people, particularly people who are bigger, stronger and more prone to violence, is an evolved instinct which enables individuals (females) to survive and reproduce. Many scientific studies have shown that women tend to be better at identifying the emotional state of others from not just facial expressions but by their "body English". Intuition is not some magical ability, it is an evolved instinctual ability.
When I was studying gender psychology in the early 1990's, a faction within academic feminism was the vector for the idea that 'lived experience' was more important than the authority of science or medicine, which were considered patriarchal and heteronormative. I think they were right to conclude that women's and lesbians' perspectives had usually been excluded from those fields.
However there followed an over-correction, in that pure subjectivity became valorised among people who were scientifically illiterate, and so Idealism made a comeback courtesy of the people calling themselves postmodernists. Judith Butler was just the most famous of them.
You’re talking abt standpoint theory.
What most ppl don’t realise- is that in the last couple generations,
Entire segments of history, large swathes- have retroactively been standpointed.
In the early 1900’s only 3-6% of women voted “yes” to polls asking if they wanted the vote.
The OVERWHELMING majority thought it would lead to the disintegration of the family &…. Basically to everything that has happened!
the largest group that campaigned against women’s suffrage… was women~
assuming they were too backwards or dumb to know what’s good for them re this issue is a common response- tho it’s HUGELY insulting to our foremothers, who were likely far better read than 90% of ppl now…
Tho- we don’t know anything abt that history, bc it’s been removed from texts, one might say systematically….
There are logical, real world consequences to ideas that are implemented.
You are correct- it’s not the only factor, to be sure,
The women’s studies depts are the delivery mechanism of queer Marxism,
& no- queer Marxism is not “corruption” of the ideas-
The first wavers- when we take the time to go look at what they were saying, what they believed in, what they advocated for-
All the base premises of queer Marxism are present;
Anti family- transhumanist views re reproduction
Pro sexual liberation without limit
Anti captial/ anti tradition etc
It’s all largely, the same movement- one grew logically from the other.
I'm second wave and don't care about anything that came next because it's not important. Just like early communism was about worker's rights and now it's about some other crap. Feminism is for women. The problem is that we women have been taught to be nice, polite, inclusive. We have also been taught that men are powerful so we must be afraid of them. This is how I see the whole inclusivity thing. Look, I want to be a millionaire. If I hop on board Elon Musk's private jet by stealth, that still won't make me a millionaire and they'll still going to tell me to get off the fucking plane.
What’s interesting is the use of the term “gender” to hide sex. It’s nonsensical to say “male female” or “female female” to indicate respectively gender and sex for men who compulsively imitate women versus women.
I wonder if it was the intention of feminism not to eliminate sex, I’m not sure then that arose, but was intending to eliminate “gender”.
Once “gender” occurs, then men can claim the mantle of feminism, which is the sort of “cuckoo’s” egg the trans movement is very good at.
They claimed the GLB movement as a sexual minority, then claimed feminism via gender.
They’ve managed to eject GLB from same-sex politics (find the word gay or lesbian in Pride), they seem to be ejecting women from feminism.
The cuckoo, mimic, parasite.
Also, I was pleased to see you’d interviewed Holly Lawford-Smith (I still need to watch that) but why interview two men about feminism for your only other installment? J Michael Bailey is particularly problematic with his views on pedophilia: https://open.substack.com/pub/msediewyatt/p/clinical-discourses?r=12wpv0&utm_medium=ios
Not everything that feminists do has to be considered part of feminism.
Nor does every liberal woman (or man) who believes in feminism as a concept have to be labeled a feminist first and foremost.
Nor is every period in the evolution of women's political activity need to be considered a "wave", nor everything that took place during that time need be considered part of it.
Nor is the intergenerational warfare among politically active women that results from shit-talking the "3rd wave" particularly helpful.
My point is that the labels in this case aren't useful or productive. Or accurate really. There is no way to rationalize playing handmaiden to AGPs as a "feminist" act. It tarnishes the good name of feminism to do so. I don't care if most of the women doing it consider(ed) themselves feminists. History is written by the victors, we are progressing to victory, and I think that troonfest should more accurately be described as a particularly left-wing backlash AGAINST feminism, rather than part of "3rd-wave feminism".
"Some liberal women did and still do some dumb antifeminist shit on the urging of some left-wing men." 'nuff said.
Lisa. Can't wait to see your book. The issue of why and why now has been haunting me forever. You are taking on a monumental task and where do you start? Secular humanism surely provided a foundation-there were no doubt transexuals in the 15th century but there could have been nothing like a trans ideology. Post-scarcity capitalism opened up the space for self absorption-luxury beliefs and luxury ailments. Critical theory and the Frankfurt School inculcated the ideas of oppressor and oppressed and that acquisition of power is the sole motivator of humans. Feminism was an influence but I think queer theroy and its rejection of all societal norms was a bigger factor. All of this evoled in the present of many accelerants-the digital age and specifically social media, the idea of medical consumerism, humanistic psychology and the idea of self actualization, the looping effect (the creation of fad psychiatric diagnoses creating a population that mimics the symptoms), And many more. Hope you know about Carl Trueman's great book "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self" which carefully elucidate the cultural roots of the phenomena,
I think it's the fact that the world of parenting, childcare, therapy/psychology/social work, and education are already so female dominated, that means the movement to transition kids will also be female dominated, and that gets conflated with feminism.
Judith Butler’s third wave femanisim and academic fodder escaped the college debate and the woke world played make-believe with gender nonsense. I am not in any way trump fan but it is Title Nine month so I am celebrating!!!