What the hell! I saw the picture of that AGP guy, Phil Illy, at the Genspect conference, and I had a visceral feeling of distaste at it, because men displaying their fetishes in public is extremely distasteful. There's a good reason we feel that way - I say "we", because I'm sure others felt that way, too - because our gut tells us that the public display we see is just the tip of the iceberg of more distasteful private behaviours, and/or perversions. I know that clever rationalisations get employed to make us question that and convince us we're wrong, often against our better judgement, and they do work quite a lot, as we've seen from women who rush to defend AGPs. I don't give a flying eff about feeling compelled to be kind to transpeople, they can form their own 'kindness clubs'. Besides, they can suck up too much of one's oxygen. I won't go out of my way to be vicious to a transperson if they not causing any harm, but their wellbeing is not where I focus my energy, especially as their wants can clash with women's needs. My advocacy centres around what works best for women as a group. James Lindsay's character has always seemed a bit dodgy to me, and he certainly threw off any pretence at civility during this exchange. And Helen Pluckrose has always seemed a bit desperate to be onside with men, imo. I make these weighty condemnations from the position of only having spent a small amount of time listening to them :-)
I too have been concerned about what I see as a right-wing male anti-feminist attempt to slide their ideology into the cracks of this multi-pronged “culture war.” They’re against “trans,” but oh yea they’re against women too, and against any collectivization of people to fight against oppression or for their rights and interests. Lindsay seems to have created a cult-following. How did that happen, and why?
The idea seems to be that practicing your fetish on unwilling people (predominantly women) is OK as long as you are open about and nice enough. Its basically "be kind" argument but within the GC position. If this is not cooption I don't know what is - how blind to it are those running Genspect? Are GC activists so desperate for support they will welcome the very thing they are fighting against inside the tent? Would KKK members be welcome at a BLM rally?
I think I made a comment in defence of HelenP but didn’t realise Julia S was a bloke or that HP really has those opinions about trans. Very disappointing. Thanks for the context. Benjamin Boyce has turned out to be a creep too hasn’t he? Not surprised by that one though.
Anyone who has untangled themselves from even a casual acquaintance with an AGP can, on reflection and through objective analysis, understand that the coercion is rampant, even if they are not so all of the time.
Wow, this whole situation is mind-blowing. Can't believe how many in the gender critical camp are so vehemently opposed to concerns about gender ideology in practice. Very disappointed and concerned by James Lindsay's comments. And Pluckrose?
"Helen believes trans is a class subject to social oppression and qualify for class protections, female on the other hand is merely a sex and only entitled to individual protections."
That's absurd. People frequently point out how women tend to be more likely to promote critical social justice ideology. But I think that's because women are the group most significantly disadvantaged as a class and therefore more sympathetic to rhetoric around oppression, even when it's directly opposed to their interests, as in the case of trans rights. Let's say perfect equity was magically achieved overnight; women would still need certain protections because of their sex and the related biological realities. Now, here I would question what role feminism played in decoupling sex and gender and if the push for sex based equity and rhetoric about toxic masculinity has played some role in the transgender craze. It seems to me that both sides are wrong in certain respects, but I'm certainly feeling more affinity towards the feminists, at the moment.
Nov 23, 2023·edited Nov 23, 2023Liked by Edie Wyatt
Late to comment but I had to digest this and come to terms with the nastiness you received from supposedly intelligent people. Lindsay's comments display an unhinged and vindictive hatred of women. Illy in his dress was clearly meant, imo, as a male performance to show he can do whatever he wants, wherever he wants, flaunting his perversions. Then we have Sarah Phillimore who seems to think she's in charge of telling other women where their boundaries end. Pluckrose is suffering from a bad case of female accommodation of male needs and demands. That accommodation likely has evolutionary roots where females had (or have had) to accommodate the male or suffer physical aggression. Some of us in societies where females have the same legal protections and rights as males have evolved to a lesser need of accommodation, but Pluckrose seems to still be a few thousand years behind and still accommodating and putting males on a pedestal. Finally, Pluckrose shows the fatal flaw in her arguments when she states "No real understanding can be reached and there is no chance of any resolution." As a woman, I have nothing to resolve with these dudes and no need to understand their freak, but perhaps they can get understanding and resolution from psychiatrists. I don't give a hoot about their fetishes and fantasies, and their freak is theirs alone and doesn't involve females no matter how much they want to dissolve female boundaries and rub their freak in female faces. This behavior is typical of disturbed, aggressive males. I'm reminded of moving an appliance for my sister and the man working on her house came out to dictate to me how I was going to take the appliance off MY truck. I let him know this XX already had a plan and this guy started screaming and throwing a tantrum. We both watched him in amazement until he went back in the house and then I proceeded to unload the truck. There was nothing to resolve on my end, but he did need to resolve his hysterical emotional reaction to me having a boundary.
I'm renaming these self styled centrists The Confusionists. They're all over the place. United by a need to have a go at feminists and by their friending of mediocre media men. Nevermind. They can all interview each other on the roundabout they've constructed for themselves until the end of time.
I agree with you 100%, but this is too long. Don't amplify the petty parts of the drama, don't name or amplify the AGP in any way, stay focused on the short, clear message - AGPs are toxic, mentally ill and psychologically dangerous and their opinions aren't worth shit, Genspect fucked up and they know it and their egos are causing them to toss BS like an fleeing octopus squirts ink. Denigrate, dismiss, and move on.
As someone outside much of the detail, beyond these kind of posts, I have to say it is fascinating how emblematic this issue is in terms of the different ideas out in the culture.
I'm not sure what Genspect is all about but if James Lindsay was there it must be a pretty big church. I can see the value in that approach, though in retrospect perhaps, and against my natural instincts is there a case for a brand manager/comms perspective? James Lindsay's shocking Twitter attacks at you highlight what a mistake he was- what a guy for your cause?
And as to Phil, why was he given the opportunity to speak and promote his book? What does he add to the conversation really? We don't need more people spinning up theory based on their subjective experience. Enough of the sexologists with their failure to account for themselves and the possibility the conditions they are studying are culture bound.
My guess from the excerpts I've seen and a review, is that Phil is quite self-involved and fairly shameless in promoting his ideas without much epistemic humility tempering his outpouring. Again, based off a review, not his actual book, these ideas seem pretty vague and incoherent on closer inspection, and seem to end up with the idea that fulfilling a particular gender identity is somehow transcendent, or else framing gender liberation as the peak of liberal society whereby people can live the lifestyles they choose, through medicalisation or transhumanism if needs be, a fundamentally narcissistic idea.
And symbolically, and at a time when gender identity is legally in many cases usurping sex-based rights, as you rightly point out, to have a man in an outrageously inappropriate blue dress, fetishising womenhood, and seemingly (as the mind can project these narratives onto an image) being celebrated as some cause celebre! Now, in saying this, I don't impute ill-intent to Phil, beyond his self-promotion, and lack of fashion tact.
It sounds like Phil has some sane perspectives and if those in his situation were to hold similar grounding in their sex-based reality, we would all be better off. But so what, mant people have sane ideas, who cares what Phil has to say about it.
The suspicion I have (unfounded admittedly) is that Phil is being elevated because he's part of the trans/gender crowd that actually disagrees with some of the madness. He's potentially useful in persuading the mindless middle in that regard.
Now Phil is welcome to his views but I'm sick of the tendency of the sacred caste to be elevated and for liberal injunctions to go out on how we're supposed to treat them. That is entirely the morass we are in. I reserve the right to have extreme scepticism, Im no researcher but AGP seems to be associated with some unusually narcissistic personality styles. It's just possible that Phil is fooling himself, and others along with him, about his actual intentions or value to the moment.
But enough about Phil, I harbour no ill-will to him, though I'd encourage him to spend a lot more time sitting, thinking and listening because I think his book is probably actively unhelpful. I may be getting it wrong, but I find that many of these personal anecdotes do end up perpetuating the myth, in some way, of the born in the wrong body narrative and they make transition seem so exciting and liberating that it's time we called bullshit and queried why these 'special perspectives' of the insiders need to be taken so seriously.
One of the telling moments in the Gender-A Wider Lens, was the eunuch advocate. Just listening to his views, without push back, felt like a boundary violation of the shows ethic and purpose. To be fair, the interviewers were probably caught in shock and there's merit in the listening psychological approach for human insight, but if there's ever a time to say, 'you know, I don't have to listen to your strange fucking ideas, your ideas are nihilistic and insane, our time is up', that was it. Have to say I have huge respect for them both though, that show is an absolute game changer for my understanding.
Finally, Im glad feminists are fighting it out, though Twitter isn't a good place. I think there is a reckoning that needs to be had. I'll note in finishing that I like your stance of framing it as political, but that it's slippery, as you actually seem to posit an epistemology, through ideas such as the patriarchy. The problem with feminism is that it operates politically but also makes many (unproven) truth claims. It is confused about what it is, and this explains how it can arrive at a place where it is now undermining its own basis, as I think you're right to emphasise. The very reality of woman is under legal and social attack, and feminism has its share of the blame for why this is so.
Pluckrose may well have a point or two, even if one was badly phrased, particularly in her "I do recognize women are a class. Or, more accurately as a sex". A point you may have missed, though many do.
The sexes ARE, by definition categories/classes. They're not identities, much less immutable ones based on any mythic essences -- which is what too many transloonie nutcases, and too many women, are trying to turn them into. See:
Oxford: "2 Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions."
Though it should be noted that that definition makes the sexes-- at least as defined in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries -- into non-exhaustive categories: there are many members of many species, including the human one, who have NO "reproductive function" and who are therefore sexless.
But the politically and ideologically motivated confusion over the biological definitions, and a pigheaded reluctance to consider what are the criteria to qualify as members of the sex CATEGORIES is part and parcel of the whole transgender clusterfuck. Whole scene reminds me of Abbott and Costello's "Whos on first", Pope's "Rape of the Lock (part deux)", and Swift's tale of a Lilliputian civil war over egg (ova) cracking protocols. A clown show from square one.
Though the roots of that confusion go rather deep and into some murky territory. My kick at the kitty, my efforts to shed some light:
What the hell! I saw the picture of that AGP guy, Phil Illy, at the Genspect conference, and I had a visceral feeling of distaste at it, because men displaying their fetishes in public is extremely distasteful. There's a good reason we feel that way - I say "we", because I'm sure others felt that way, too - because our gut tells us that the public display we see is just the tip of the iceberg of more distasteful private behaviours, and/or perversions. I know that clever rationalisations get employed to make us question that and convince us we're wrong, often against our better judgement, and they do work quite a lot, as we've seen from women who rush to defend AGPs. I don't give a flying eff about feeling compelled to be kind to transpeople, they can form their own 'kindness clubs'. Besides, they can suck up too much of one's oxygen. I won't go out of my way to be vicious to a transperson if they not causing any harm, but their wellbeing is not where I focus my energy, especially as their wants can clash with women's needs. My advocacy centres around what works best for women as a group. James Lindsay's character has always seemed a bit dodgy to me, and he certainly threw off any pretence at civility during this exchange. And Helen Pluckrose has always seemed a bit desperate to be onside with men, imo. I make these weighty condemnations from the position of only having spent a small amount of time listening to them :-)
I liked this post, Edie. We need to document what is happening and why. The deceit and gas lighting need to be exposed. Well done and well said.
I have no idea who James Lindsay is but his tweets were NASTY!
Guess he thinks when he's losing the argument, ad hominem attacks will work.
Looked him up and he's an author. Very bad optics for him; way to turn people off, burn bridges.
I too have been concerned about what I see as a right-wing male anti-feminist attempt to slide their ideology into the cracks of this multi-pronged “culture war.” They’re against “trans,” but oh yea they’re against women too, and against any collectivization of people to fight against oppression or for their rights and interests. Lindsay seems to have created a cult-following. How did that happen, and why?
The idea seems to be that practicing your fetish on unwilling people (predominantly women) is OK as long as you are open about and nice enough. Its basically "be kind" argument but within the GC position. If this is not cooption I don't know what is - how blind to it are those running Genspect? Are GC activists so desperate for support they will welcome the very thing they are fighting against inside the tent? Would KKK members be welcome at a BLM rally?
I think I made a comment in defence of HelenP but didn’t realise Julia S was a bloke or that HP really has those opinions about trans. Very disappointing. Thanks for the context. Benjamin Boyce has turned out to be a creep too hasn’t he? Not surprised by that one though.
Thanks for putting all that work in Edie.
Anyone who has untangled themselves from even a casual acquaintance with an AGP can, on reflection and through objective analysis, understand that the coercion is rampant, even if they are not so all of the time.
Wow, this whole situation is mind-blowing. Can't believe how many in the gender critical camp are so vehemently opposed to concerns about gender ideology in practice. Very disappointed and concerned by James Lindsay's comments. And Pluckrose?
"Helen believes trans is a class subject to social oppression and qualify for class protections, female on the other hand is merely a sex and only entitled to individual protections."
That's absurd. People frequently point out how women tend to be more likely to promote critical social justice ideology. But I think that's because women are the group most significantly disadvantaged as a class and therefore more sympathetic to rhetoric around oppression, even when it's directly opposed to their interests, as in the case of trans rights. Let's say perfect equity was magically achieved overnight; women would still need certain protections because of their sex and the related biological realities. Now, here I would question what role feminism played in decoupling sex and gender and if the push for sex based equity and rhetoric about toxic masculinity has played some role in the transgender craze. It seems to me that both sides are wrong in certain respects, but I'm certainly feeling more affinity towards the feminists, at the moment.
Late to comment but I had to digest this and come to terms with the nastiness you received from supposedly intelligent people. Lindsay's comments display an unhinged and vindictive hatred of women. Illy in his dress was clearly meant, imo, as a male performance to show he can do whatever he wants, wherever he wants, flaunting his perversions. Then we have Sarah Phillimore who seems to think she's in charge of telling other women where their boundaries end. Pluckrose is suffering from a bad case of female accommodation of male needs and demands. That accommodation likely has evolutionary roots where females had (or have had) to accommodate the male or suffer physical aggression. Some of us in societies where females have the same legal protections and rights as males have evolved to a lesser need of accommodation, but Pluckrose seems to still be a few thousand years behind and still accommodating and putting males on a pedestal. Finally, Pluckrose shows the fatal flaw in her arguments when she states "No real understanding can be reached and there is no chance of any resolution." As a woman, I have nothing to resolve with these dudes and no need to understand their freak, but perhaps they can get understanding and resolution from psychiatrists. I don't give a hoot about their fetishes and fantasies, and their freak is theirs alone and doesn't involve females no matter how much they want to dissolve female boundaries and rub their freak in female faces. This behavior is typical of disturbed, aggressive males. I'm reminded of moving an appliance for my sister and the man working on her house came out to dictate to me how I was going to take the appliance off MY truck. I let him know this XX already had a plan and this guy started screaming and throwing a tantrum. We both watched him in amazement until he went back in the house and then I proceeded to unload the truck. There was nothing to resolve on my end, but he did need to resolve his hysterical emotional reaction to me having a boundary.
What an eye opener, Edie. Thank you.
This won't be the last such episode. It's part of the AGP obsession to go where they know women don't want them.
Genspect = Suspect. They didn't set themselves up from the get-go with proper risk management policy/procedures.
I'm renaming these self styled centrists The Confusionists. They're all over the place. United by a need to have a go at feminists and by their friending of mediocre media men. Nevermind. They can all interview each other on the roundabout they've constructed for themselves until the end of time.
I agree with you 100%, but this is too long. Don't amplify the petty parts of the drama, don't name or amplify the AGP in any way, stay focused on the short, clear message - AGPs are toxic, mentally ill and psychologically dangerous and their opinions aren't worth shit, Genspect fucked up and they know it and their egos are causing them to toss BS like an fleeing octopus squirts ink. Denigrate, dismiss, and move on.
As someone outside much of the detail, beyond these kind of posts, I have to say it is fascinating how emblematic this issue is in terms of the different ideas out in the culture.
I'm not sure what Genspect is all about but if James Lindsay was there it must be a pretty big church. I can see the value in that approach, though in retrospect perhaps, and against my natural instincts is there a case for a brand manager/comms perspective? James Lindsay's shocking Twitter attacks at you highlight what a mistake he was- what a guy for your cause?
And as to Phil, why was he given the opportunity to speak and promote his book? What does he add to the conversation really? We don't need more people spinning up theory based on their subjective experience. Enough of the sexologists with their failure to account for themselves and the possibility the conditions they are studying are culture bound.
My guess from the excerpts I've seen and a review, is that Phil is quite self-involved and fairly shameless in promoting his ideas without much epistemic humility tempering his outpouring. Again, based off a review, not his actual book, these ideas seem pretty vague and incoherent on closer inspection, and seem to end up with the idea that fulfilling a particular gender identity is somehow transcendent, or else framing gender liberation as the peak of liberal society whereby people can live the lifestyles they choose, through medicalisation or transhumanism if needs be, a fundamentally narcissistic idea.
And symbolically, and at a time when gender identity is legally in many cases usurping sex-based rights, as you rightly point out, to have a man in an outrageously inappropriate blue dress, fetishising womenhood, and seemingly (as the mind can project these narratives onto an image) being celebrated as some cause celebre! Now, in saying this, I don't impute ill-intent to Phil, beyond his self-promotion, and lack of fashion tact.
It sounds like Phil has some sane perspectives and if those in his situation were to hold similar grounding in their sex-based reality, we would all be better off. But so what, mant people have sane ideas, who cares what Phil has to say about it.
The suspicion I have (unfounded admittedly) is that Phil is being elevated because he's part of the trans/gender crowd that actually disagrees with some of the madness. He's potentially useful in persuading the mindless middle in that regard.
Now Phil is welcome to his views but I'm sick of the tendency of the sacred caste to be elevated and for liberal injunctions to go out on how we're supposed to treat them. That is entirely the morass we are in. I reserve the right to have extreme scepticism, Im no researcher but AGP seems to be associated with some unusually narcissistic personality styles. It's just possible that Phil is fooling himself, and others along with him, about his actual intentions or value to the moment.
But enough about Phil, I harbour no ill-will to him, though I'd encourage him to spend a lot more time sitting, thinking and listening because I think his book is probably actively unhelpful. I may be getting it wrong, but I find that many of these personal anecdotes do end up perpetuating the myth, in some way, of the born in the wrong body narrative and they make transition seem so exciting and liberating that it's time we called bullshit and queried why these 'special perspectives' of the insiders need to be taken so seriously.
One of the telling moments in the Gender-A Wider Lens, was the eunuch advocate. Just listening to his views, without push back, felt like a boundary violation of the shows ethic and purpose. To be fair, the interviewers were probably caught in shock and there's merit in the listening psychological approach for human insight, but if there's ever a time to say, 'you know, I don't have to listen to your strange fucking ideas, your ideas are nihilistic and insane, our time is up', that was it. Have to say I have huge respect for them both though, that show is an absolute game changer for my understanding.
Finally, Im glad feminists are fighting it out, though Twitter isn't a good place. I think there is a reckoning that needs to be had. I'll note in finishing that I like your stance of framing it as political, but that it's slippery, as you actually seem to posit an epistemology, through ideas such as the patriarchy. The problem with feminism is that it operates politically but also makes many (unproven) truth claims. It is confused about what it is, and this explains how it can arrive at a place where it is now undermining its own basis, as I think you're right to emphasise. The very reality of woman is under legal and social attack, and feminism has its share of the blame for why this is so.
Pluckrose may well have a point or two, even if one was badly phrased, particularly in her "I do recognize women are a class. Or, more accurately as a sex". A point you may have missed, though many do.
The sexes ARE, by definition categories/classes. They're not identities, much less immutable ones based on any mythic essences -- which is what too many transloonie nutcases, and too many women, are trying to turn them into. See:
Oxford: "2 Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions."
https://web.archive.org/web/20190326191905/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sex
Though it should be noted that that definition makes the sexes-- at least as defined in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries -- into non-exhaustive categories: there are many members of many species, including the human one, who have NO "reproductive function" and who are therefore sexless.
But the politically and ideologically motivated confusion over the biological definitions, and a pigheaded reluctance to consider what are the criteria to qualify as members of the sex CATEGORIES is part and parcel of the whole transgender clusterfuck. Whole scene reminds me of Abbott and Costello's "Whos on first", Pope's "Rape of the Lock (part deux)", and Swift's tale of a Lilliputian civil war over egg (ova) cracking protocols. A clown show from square one.
Though the roots of that confusion go rather deep and into some murky territory. My kick at the kitty, my efforts to shed some light:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/what-is-a-woman