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 can understand Pluckrose going that way but what truly disappoints me is that DocStock is an appeaser. Given what she's been through! She no longer has to grovel after leaving conventional academia for that online UAX thing. They are both academics who are insulated from the direct effects of their advocacy - they are unlikely to share a prison cell with a convicted rapist so can afford the luxury belief that there is a middle ground solution to an absolute win/lose scenario.
They are starting off from the rhetorical position of having conceded at the very start - then just negotiating away how much to surrender by. Once you revisit the causes of transgender ideation any claim to rights disappears - other than medical treatment, and I don't mean "affirmation".
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?
I believe fighting for opportunities, rights and interests is a better description then fighting against oppression. The reason I say this is because if there are oppressed people then there are people who oppress, and if one says there are oppressors then one could expect to name individual oppressors or a collection of oppressors. People will get defensive if they are targeted. Men as a group don't try and limit my actions, but there are individuals, both males and females, who have tried (and failed) to disrupt my life. Oppressors would be hard to fight, but I know how to fight for my rights, and I can also work to increase opportunities for all.
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.
Decoupling sex and gender is not a problem, it's absolutely essential if we are going to talk about gender when we mean gender and talk about sex when we mean sex. Calling gender sex and sex gender is the problem. having a sex class that is classified as vulnerable to oppression doesn't mean all women are oppressed it means structurally they are vulnerable. If we didn't have the protections we wouldn't have the freedom.
I can see how gender and sex are two different concepts. However, gender norms and stereotypes are related to biological differences. Take the dress issue, for example. A clear signifier of sex differences. It's a little bit tricky, because we want to allow for some amount of gender non-conformity, but then many people consider cutting things off at a certain point as, apparently, being "authoritarian".
Some gender norms and stereotypes are related to biological differences, but many have no basis in biology, ergo sex and gender are 2 different concepts.
You might note that Genspect's recently published "Gender Framework" does precisely that: it (more or less) clearly stipulates that sex and gender are two entirely different kettles of fish.
Sadly, too many of the so-called "gender critical crowd" have yet to read that memo.
But if you get around to reading that framework, you might note also that it usefully differentiates between gender as, on the one hand to a first approximation, masculine and feminine personalities and personality types, and, on the other hand, gender ideology. Even if I think they're somewhat wide of the mark on that point, and on a number of others.
It's only mind-blowing if you don't consider what disparate political origins GCs come from. Some of us vehemently disagree with each other on other things, some of us dislike each other. Many of us disagree on the best means of achieving our goals. We have been collectively traumatized by the gender cult and it's inevitable there will be infighting.
"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."
As I've just argued in another comment here, I think Edie is misreading what Helen has said. The sexes ARE categories/classes.
Not if they are not protected in law, that's what the entire debate is about, she thinks we should allow some males in the sex class which makes it a gender class. This is the centre of the debate. this is why she thinks we should respect trans identified males
Then call her on the biological definitions for the sexes. They say that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types. And no transwoman has the ovaries that are essential to qualify as a female.
There ARE rules and regulations. sound logical and philosophical principles involved in the creation of the standard biological definitions. It's not an effen free-for-all. Neither she nor Lindsay nor Scientific American get to make up their own:
Make up your mind. If I'm not mistaken, you said she wants to include males in the female category -- looks like prima facie evidence of denying the sex categories.
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.
Agreed. A wolf in sheep's clothing is just that. But an organisation involved in sex and gender for children and adolescents should at least make some nominal nods to child and sexual safeguarding.
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.
Thanks but i wanted to document it for myself. Its not drama its important to show the abuse women have been subject to and I also wanted to document the social theory, I wasn't worried too much if people read it all.
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.
"The problem with feminism is that it operates politically but also makes many (unproven) truth claims."
Rather long-winded comment that goes off into the weeds, but certainly agree with that portion. Substackers Helen Dale and Lorenzo Warby -- both Aussies-- argue, with some justification, that "the transcult is the bastard child of feminism".
And feminist philosopher Amia Srinivasan argued, also with justification, that:
“The objection I have in mind is that feminist philosophy rests on a mistake: namely, a conflation of epistemology and politics. Philosophy, at least on the conventional understanding, is an epistemic project, a project oriented toward truth or knowledge, and thus committed to the kind of unfettered inquiry that is conducive to the acquisition of truth and knowledge. Feminism meanwhile is a political project, a project oriented toward the emancipation of women and the dissolution of patriarchy."
Much of feminism, and many "women" have been engaged in the bastardization and corruption of science and biology because much of it doesn't sit well with their ideology and their vanity -- Lysenkoism in a nutshell:
It was dodgy males who invented the 'trans' nonsense before women's liberation or early feminism was around. In Denmark it was Einar Wegener a/k/a 'Lili Elbe' who was a man who married to a woman in 1904. Wegener died in 1931 from complications from his so-called sex-reassignment surgery. Before Wegener the first completed 'sex-change' operation was done in Germany on 'Dora Richter.' In the U.S. it was 'Christine Jorgenesen' who started his so-called sex-change in Denmark and completed it in the U.S. in 1952.
Stop blaming women for men's paraphilias. Men are responsible for their own behavior. Feminism is not to blame for cross-dressing mostly heterosexual males w/ paraphilias who claim to be women-some even claim to be lesbian-it's barking mad.
No, I'm not blaming it all on feminism. As with my other comments, it is a contributing factor due to dodgy epistemology and mistaking polemics/politics for truth seeking.
More speculatively, I do wonder if the collective consciousness noticed that feminism has distanced itself from the very qualities that make women, women? So focusing on career over child rearing etc., denying aspects of itself like coquettetry. Perhaps, symbolically men noticed that womanhood itself was not being claimed by women, and have tried to infiltrate the gap?
Speculative and somewhat of a provocation I know - don't worry, I'm not some right wing, daily wire type.
"dodgy males who invented the 'trans' nonsense before women's liberation or early feminism was around."
Probably. A rather serious pathology which has probably become more prevalent now for one reason or another.
"who started his so-called sex-change in Denmark"
"so-called", indeed. But a great many people seem to "think" that that is actually possible. They apparently subscribe to the Kindergarten Cop definitions: boys have penises, and girls have vaginas. From which follows, "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄 There is the beginning of the rot.
But arguably including Christopher Rufo, though maybe that is just a matter of expediency with him. You might consider throwing a stone or two at him for doing so:
I'm certainly not blaming feminism for that -- but there's still a great deal of ideological claptrap in feminism that feminists at least CAN be blamed for. And much of which has contributed to the spread of transgenderism.
Srinivasan puts it well. Yes, I would say the problem has been that feminism has basically ignored biology, or viewed it essentially as an obstacle to be overcome. It's perhaps a stretch but could this be part of the cultural problem, where we have forgotten our bodies are primary, and we can't change sex? Intersectionalism, when you examine it, is also fundamentally undermining of feminism.
Feminism, clearly, is an equivocal term these days, but granted mainstream liberal feminism is probably what I mean. Though your feminism also seem to invoke the dreaded "patriarchy", an overworked term of questionable status in my view.
Almost as many "sects" under the "feminism" umbrella as there are under the Christian one -- Wikipedia once tallied up some 20 of them, but recent versions seem to have downplayed that fact. Given that too many Wikipedians seem no better than Judith Butler's acolytes, maybe they felt those facts reflected badly, as they do, on the whole ideology.
But quite agree with you on "patriarchy" being an "overworked term" -- no better than reification -- the turning of an abstraction into a real thing, like Adam Smith's "Invisible hand".
Feminism is not monolithic. Second-wave feminists, women's liberation, was not what more modern feminism became. Second-wave was about equal rights and opportunity, it was about having choices and liberation from the historical oppression of women and denial of their rights as full human beings. And remember more recent feminism was invaded by paraphilic males who call themselves women and feminists. Feminism that centers women and their rights and concerns is what feminism is truly about.
Yes, agreed. But I think that broadly speaking, feminism has tended to underappreciates biology and evolution, focussing entirely on social constructivist explanations.
This made it much easier for queer theory ideas to take hold and symbolically I think has contributed to a culture of 'disembodiment', which the internet has amplified.
When you come from biology and evolution, you are grounded in the body. When everything is socially constructed, the tendency is to move to nominalism. Everything is just categories we make up.
I thought by now most know that feminism is not monolithic. So blaming 'feminism' is not appropriate. And no woman is responsible for male violence or for male paraphilias-men are responsible for their own deviant behavior-they need to own it.
Maybe less a "cultural problem" than the fact that women have had something of an uphill battle to equal rights. Not to say that many in that tribe aren't more a part of the problem than of the solution.
Apropos of which, ICYMI, a Law & Liberty post by Substacker & Aussie/UK lawyer Helen Dale has something of an insightful overview of Louise Perry's "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution":
HD: "After graduating in anthropology and women’s studies (from SOAS, one of the UK’s wokest universities), Perry worked for some years in a rape crisis centre. Already uneasy with bits of left theory, the experience of practical compassion and a desire to stop rape rather than blethering on about stopping rape led her to do what no feminist theorist has done before: take biology seriously."
But part of the problem, as the whole AGPGate Incident illustrates, is incoherent and inconsistent definitions for both sex & gender. Apropos of which, both you and Edie might want to take a gander at a recently published book, and something of a mini-review of it by Jesse Singal:
"Win A Copy Of 'Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions' By Alex Byrne"
Haven't more than skimmed the table of contents, but it points to several different conceptions of "gender". However, I think Byrne's definitions for the sexes are no better than folk-biology if not anti-scientific claptrap. (Aussie) philosopher of biology Paul Griffiths had some cogent criticisms of both:
PG: "Philosophers who have discussed biological sex, whether they seek to vindicate the idea (Byrne 2020) or critique it (Dembroff 2020), have not defined it in the way biologists do. The definitions of male and female they do consider are non-starters as general criteria to distinguish male and female organisms."
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:
I didn’t miss the point, we are taking about human rights law, it’s not a bloody identity. It’s a political class as well as a sex. You need to understand this is class politics it’s not human philosophy. She knew what she was saying when she said it’s a sex “more precisely” she doesn’t believe in class protections because she wants trans people in our bathrooms
It’s the logical extension of he argument. Apparently there is a trans sibling or something. She is pro “trans rights” she thinks women need to compromise.
I just wrote 3,500 words to show the logical arguments of her political theory but she only hints at the trans stuff because she talks almost total nonsense and philosophy. When you talk to her about how the liberal state operates she loses her track of thought.
All females are in the political class and the sex class, it’s a political concept where you class a group together based on a characteristic that is vulnerable to oppression. Once we get out category back we have to still organise to keep on and the rights attached to it
That's your definition. The whole transgender clusterfuck turns on the fact that virtually every last man, woman, and otherkin has entirely different definitions for both sex and gender.
I didn't say a female is a sex class. I said A female is a MEMBER of a sex class. You might try reading that definition and my post on what is a woman. "female" is BOTH the name for a category and members of it.
And IF you -- or anyone else -- accept boobs and a neovagina as sufficient to qualify someone as a woman then that IS woman as a gender -- someone who LOOKS like an adult human female.
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 can understand Pluckrose going that way but what truly disappoints me is that DocStock is an appeaser. Given what she's been through! She no longer has to grovel after leaving conventional academia for that online UAX thing. They are both academics who are insulated from the direct effects of their advocacy - they are unlikely to share a prison cell with a convicted rapist so can afford the luxury belief that there is a middle ground solution to an absolute win/lose scenario.
They are starting off from the rhetorical position of having conceded at the very start - then just negotiating away how much to surrender by. Once you revisit the causes of transgender ideation any claim to rights disappears - other than medical treatment, and I don't mean "affirmation".
Well you don't have to worry about because there's no such thing as a "trans person." The category doesn't exist.
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?
All excellent questions
I believe fighting for opportunities, rights and interests is a better description then fighting against oppression. The reason I say this is because if there are oppressed people then there are people who oppress, and if one says there are oppressors then one could expect to name individual oppressors or a collection of oppressors. People will get defensive if they are targeted. Men as a group don't try and limit my actions, but there are individuals, both males and females, who have tried (and failed) to disrupt my life. Oppressors would be hard to fight, but I know how to fight for my rights, and I can also work to increase opportunities for all.
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.
Decoupling sex and gender is not a problem, it's absolutely essential if we are going to talk about gender when we mean gender and talk about sex when we mean sex. Calling gender sex and sex gender is the problem. having a sex class that is classified as vulnerable to oppression doesn't mean all women are oppressed it means structurally they are vulnerable. If we didn't have the protections we wouldn't have the freedom.
I can see how gender and sex are two different concepts. However, gender norms and stereotypes are related to biological differences. Take the dress issue, for example. A clear signifier of sex differences. It's a little bit tricky, because we want to allow for some amount of gender non-conformity, but then many people consider cutting things off at a certain point as, apparently, being "authoritarian".
Some gender norms and stereotypes are related to biological differences, but many have no basis in biology, ergo sex and gender are 2 different concepts.
You might note that Genspect's recently published "Gender Framework" does precisely that: it (more or less) clearly stipulates that sex and gender are two entirely different kettles of fish.
Sadly, too many of the so-called "gender critical crowd" have yet to read that memo.
But if you get around to reading that framework, you might note also that it usefully differentiates between gender as, on the one hand to a first approximation, masculine and feminine personalities and personality types, and, on the other hand, gender ideology. Even if I think they're somewhat wide of the mark on that point, and on a number of others.
It's only mind-blowing if you don't consider what disparate political origins GCs come from. Some of us vehemently disagree with each other on other things, some of us dislike each other. Many of us disagree on the best means of achieving our goals. We have been collectively traumatized by the gender cult and it's inevitable there will be infighting.
"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."
As I've just argued in another comment here, I think Edie is misreading what Helen has said. The sexes ARE categories/classes.
Not if they are not protected in law, that's what the entire debate is about, she thinks we should allow some males in the sex class which makes it a gender class. This is the centre of the debate. this is why she thinks we should respect trans identified males
Then call her on the biological definitions for the sexes. They say that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types. And no transwoman has the ovaries that are essential to qualify as a female.
There ARE rules and regulations. sound logical and philosophical principles involved in the creation of the standard biological definitions. It's not an effen free-for-all. Neither she nor Lindsay nor Scientific American get to make up their own:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/scientific-americans-lysenkoism
But we'll past my bedtime on the wet west coast of Canada. Later, I hope. 🙂
she doesn't deny human sex categories she denies women require protection.
Make up your mind. If I'm not mistaken, you said she wants to include males in the female category -- looks like prima facie evidence of denying the sex categories.
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.
Thanks for the comment. It’s been quite the week. Cheers
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.
It doesn't take a risk management policy to know that you shouldn't allow David Miscavige to attend an ex-Scientologists' gathering.
Agreed. A wolf in sheep's clothing is just that. But an organisation involved in sex and gender for children and adolescents should at least make some nominal nods to child and sexual safeguarding.
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.
Thanks but i wanted to document it for myself. Its not drama its important to show the abuse women have been subject to and I also wanted to document the social theory, I wasn't worried too much if people read it all.
Fair enough.
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.
"The problem with feminism is that it operates politically but also makes many (unproven) truth claims."
Rather long-winded comment that goes off into the weeds, but certainly agree with that portion. Substackers Helen Dale and Lorenzo Warby -- both Aussies-- argue, with some justification, that "the transcult is the bastard child of feminism".
And feminist philosopher Amia Srinivasan argued, also with justification, that:
“The objection I have in mind is that feminist philosophy rests on a mistake: namely, a conflation of epistemology and politics. Philosophy, at least on the conventional understanding, is an epistemic project, a project oriented toward truth or knowledge, and thus committed to the kind of unfettered inquiry that is conducive to the acquisition of truth and knowledge. Feminism meanwhile is a political project, a project oriented toward the emancipation of women and the dissolution of patriarchy."
Much of feminism, and many "women" have been engaged in the bastardization and corruption of science and biology because much of it doesn't sit well with their ideology and their vanity -- Lysenkoism in a nutshell:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/wikipedias-lysenkoism
It was dodgy males who invented the 'trans' nonsense before women's liberation or early feminism was around. In Denmark it was Einar Wegener a/k/a 'Lili Elbe' who was a man who married to a woman in 1904. Wegener died in 1931 from complications from his so-called sex-reassignment surgery. Before Wegener the first completed 'sex-change' operation was done in Germany on 'Dora Richter.' In the U.S. it was 'Christine Jorgenesen' who started his so-called sex-change in Denmark and completed it in the U.S. in 1952.
Stop blaming women for men's paraphilias. Men are responsible for their own behavior. Feminism is not to blame for cross-dressing mostly heterosexual males w/ paraphilias who claim to be women-some even claim to be lesbian-it's barking mad.
No, I'm not blaming it all on feminism. As with my other comments, it is a contributing factor due to dodgy epistemology and mistaking polemics/politics for truth seeking.
More speculatively, I do wonder if the collective consciousness noticed that feminism has distanced itself from the very qualities that make women, women? So focusing on career over child rearing etc., denying aspects of itself like coquettetry. Perhaps, symbolically men noticed that womanhood itself was not being claimed by women, and have tried to infiltrate the gap?
Speculative and somewhat of a provocation I know - don't worry, I'm not some right wing, daily wire type.
"dodgy males who invented the 'trans' nonsense before women's liberation or early feminism was around."
Probably. A rather serious pathology which has probably become more prevalent now for one reason or another.
"who started his so-called sex-change in Denmark"
"so-called", indeed. But a great many people seem to "think" that that is actually possible. They apparently subscribe to the Kindergarten Cop definitions: boys have penises, and girls have vaginas. From which follows, "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄 There is the beginning of the rot.
But arguably including Christopher Rufo, though maybe that is just a matter of expediency with him. You might consider throwing a stone or two at him for doing so:
https://christopherrufo.com/p/in-review-2023/comment/46476288
"Stop blaming women for men's paraphilias."
I'm certainly not blaming feminism for that -- but there's still a great deal of ideological claptrap in feminism that feminists at least CAN be blamed for. And much of which has contributed to the spread of transgenderism.
Srinivasan puts it well. Yes, I would say the problem has been that feminism has basically ignored biology, or viewed it essentially as an obstacle to be overcome. It's perhaps a stretch but could this be part of the cultural problem, where we have forgotten our bodies are primary, and we can't change sex? Intersectionalism, when you examine it, is also fundamentally undermining of feminism.
That’s all government generated “feminism” that’s not actually feminism. Feminism is based in the vulnerability of the female body
Feminism, clearly, is an equivocal term these days, but granted mainstream liberal feminism is probably what I mean. Though your feminism also seem to invoke the dreaded "patriarchy", an overworked term of questionable status in my view.
Almost as many "sects" under the "feminism" umbrella as there are under the Christian one -- Wikipedia once tallied up some 20 of them, but recent versions seem to have downplayed that fact. Given that too many Wikipedians seem no better than Judith Butler's acolytes, maybe they felt those facts reflected badly, as they do, on the whole ideology.
But quite agree with you on "patriarchy" being an "overworked term" -- no better than reification -- the turning of an abstraction into a real thing, like Adam Smith's "Invisible hand".
"No true feminists (™)"? 😉🙂
Feminism is not monolithic. Second-wave feminists, women's liberation, was not what more modern feminism became. Second-wave was about equal rights and opportunity, it was about having choices and liberation from the historical oppression of women and denial of their rights as full human beings. And remember more recent feminism was invaded by paraphilic males who call themselves women and feminists. Feminism that centers women and their rights and concerns is what feminism is truly about.
Yes, agreed. But I think that broadly speaking, feminism has tended to underappreciates biology and evolution, focussing entirely on social constructivist explanations.
This made it much easier for queer theory ideas to take hold and symbolically I think has contributed to a culture of 'disembodiment', which the internet has amplified.
When you come from biology and evolution, you are grounded in the body. When everything is socially constructed, the tendency is to move to nominalism. Everything is just categories we make up.
I thought by now most know that feminism is not monolithic. So blaming 'feminism' is not appropriate. And no woman is responsible for male violence or for male paraphilias-men are responsible for their own deviant behavior-they need to own it.
Maybe less a "cultural problem" than the fact that women have had something of an uphill battle to equal rights. Not to say that many in that tribe aren't more a part of the problem than of the solution.
Apropos of which, ICYMI, a Law & Liberty post by Substacker & Aussie/UK lawyer Helen Dale has something of an insightful overview of Louise Perry's "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution":
HD: "After graduating in anthropology and women’s studies (from SOAS, one of the UK’s wokest universities), Perry worked for some years in a rape crisis centre. Already uneasy with bits of left theory, the experience of practical compassion and a desire to stop rape rather than blethering on about stopping rape led her to do what no feminist theorist has done before: take biology seriously."
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/feminising-feminism/
But part of the problem, as the whole AGPGate Incident illustrates, is incoherent and inconsistent definitions for both sex & gender. Apropos of which, both you and Edie might want to take a gander at a recently published book, and something of a mini-review of it by Jesse Singal:
"Win A Copy Of 'Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions' By Alex Byrne"
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/win-a-copy-of-trouble-with-gender
Haven't more than skimmed the table of contents, but it points to several different conceptions of "gender". However, I think Byrne's definitions for the sexes are no better than folk-biology if not anti-scientific claptrap. (Aussie) philosopher of biology Paul Griffiths had some cogent criticisms of both:
PG: "Philosophers who have discussed biological sex, whether they seek to vindicate the idea (Byrne 2020) or critique it (Dembroff 2020), have not defined it in the way biologists do. The definitions of male and female they do consider are non-starters as general criteria to distinguish male and female organisms."
https://philpapers.org/archive/GRIWAB-2.pdf
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
I didn’t miss the point, we are taking about human rights law, it’s not a bloody identity. It’s a political class as well as a sex. You need to understand this is class politics it’s not human philosophy. She knew what she was saying when she said it’s a sex “more precisely” she doesn’t believe in class protections because she wants trans people in our bathrooms
And where, exactly, did she say that she wants transwomen in women's bathrooms and sports?
It’s the logical extension of he argument. Apparently there is a trans sibling or something. She is pro “trans rights” she thinks women need to compromise.
Or reading between the lines ...
I just wrote 3,500 words to show the logical arguments of her political theory but she only hints at the trans stuff because she talks almost total nonsense and philosophy. When you talk to her about how the liberal state operates she loses her track of thought.
So what are the criteria to qualify as a member of both the political class and the sex?
All females are in the political class and the sex class, it’s a political concept where you class a group together based on a characteristic that is vulnerable to oppression. Once we get out category back we have to still organise to keep on and the rights attached to it
You STILL haven't said what it takes to qualify as a female. Does boobs and a neovagina work? Now you're talking of "woman" as a gender.
gender is the word we use for the cultural meanings that societies give to sex.
That's your definition. The whole transgender clusterfuck turns on the fact that virtually every last man, woman, and otherkin has entirely different definitions for both sex and gender.
What? no female is a sex class, I've never talked about woman as gender.
I didn't say a female is a sex class. I said A female is a MEMBER of a sex class. You might try reading that definition and my post on what is a woman. "female" is BOTH the name for a category and members of it.
And IF you -- or anyone else -- accept boobs and a neovagina as sufficient to qualify someone as a woman then that IS woman as a gender -- someone who LOOKS like an adult human female.