Absolutely in fashion
And there’s the trendy angle.
What I don’t get about this, and probably never will, is why it’s trendy. What’s so trendy about it? What’s the outcome? Lesbians become…straight men? I’m not seeing the trendy.
Call me old-fashioned but I’d rather have more lesbians than more straight men. There’s no great shortage of straight men in the world, so what’s the burning need to make more of them by magicking lesbians?
Call me old-fashioned and boomer and TERF and all the rest of it, but I still think lesbians and gays (and feminists) do far more to uproot and disrupt and sabotage the rules and restrictions of gender than The Magic Gender Party on its best day.
Why is being transgender ‘trendy?’ Probably a congruence of factors. I’ve seen these:
1— It’s seen as similar to being gay or lesbian — but more so. More woke, more oppressed, more edgy, more marginalized, more powerful, more vulnerable, more aggrieved, more interesting, more bullied, more supported.
2— For women, it’s a way to avoid misogyny and discomfort with either failing to live up to “femininity,” being harassed for being obviously feminine.
3— It’s the natural result of a culture which fetishizes sex differences, providing a means to break away from stereotypes.
4— it’s fueled by suggestion, encouragement, and support in social media communities
5— It’s a fear reaction to the way pornography demeans woman, and pressure for having sex too early
6— It’s seen as a means of breaking down barriers and restrictions, a form of rebellion.
7— It’s both an act of self-love, and a socially-acceptable form of self-harm.
8– Internalized homophobia
9– It’s a simple explanation and solution to complex problems, esp mental health problems.
10– Social contagion and suggestibility. Which snowballs.
I’m sure there are other explanations out there.
It’s #6 I’m disputing most – I think it’s absurd to see it as a means of breaking down barriers and restrictions and a form of rebellion while feminism and LGB are seen as the opposite. Trans ideology is reactionary, dressed up in trendy-like rhetoric. It’s cargo cult rebellion. (Credit to Andy Lewis for that one.)
How can it be rebellion to replace dykes with straight men?
@Ophelia #3;
Instead of being recognized as a form of conversion therapy, the leap from homosexuality to transgenderism is viewed as smashing sexual dimorphism itself. That’s a bigger “convention.”
Also, see #8.
Aka clinically delusional.
I’ve read many accounts of detransitioned women who say they hadn’t really thought through what becoming a straight man actually entailed. It hadn’t occurred to them that passing as a straight man meant other women would be uncomfortable alone around them. That other men would let them in on their sexist misogynist conversations. Like, how could you not have thought about that beforehand?! What were you thinking?!
Although to be quite honest I think lesbians don’t really see transmen as a subset of straight men, they see transmen as a subset of lesbians. And despite all the angry shouting to the contrary, I’ll bet most transmen see themselves that way, too.
I heard a joke that if they were to reboot the groundbreaking lesbian TV drama “The L Word” it would just be a bunch of nonbinary people chatting about which doctor did their top surgery.
Well, just now they did reboot “The L Word” and the joke wasn’t far off. Why does a show that is exclusively about lesbians — it’s right there in the title! — need to include a bunch of transmen if transmen are really just “straight men”?
Likewise, some trans activist or other is complaining that there aren’t any transwomen on RuPaul’s Drag Race. That’s ridiculous in the same way: RuPaul’s Drag Race is a show made by and for gay men. If TrAns wOmEn aRe woMeN why would we need to include them on a show about homosexual men who wear exaggeratedly feminine costumes? The mask slips yet again.
Also self-contradictory. One cannot even in principle transition from thing A to thing B without acknowledging the existence, coherence, and mutual exclusivity of both A and B. To smash the distinction between A and B would negate all of that.
Holding to the idea that one can transition from man to woman while simultaneously holding to the idea that the categories ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are objectively meaningless is doublethink. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
I personally think it’s trendy because it’s a way to get attention. I don’t think this is necessarily even a conscious decision. It’s clear that a lot (not all) of transgendered people really love being the center of attention, and I suspect at some point their subconscious mind decided being transgender would get them that attention.
It also agree with Sastra’s #9. Someone might feel bad that their life isn’t going as well as they’d hoped, but, wow, if they’re transgender then obviously that’s the cause of their problems, so really they’re actually quite amazing people for doing as well as they have, all things considered.
If you become (or announce that you are) “non-binary” because all those rules, assumptions, constraints, etc., don’t work for you, aren’t you saying that those rules, assumptions, constraints, etc., rightly define genders? (“I’m not really a woman because femininity doesn’t fit me.”) That totally reinforces the bullshit construct they claim to be rebelling against. I thought the feminist project was about decoupling the female from the feminine. The non-binary movement (if that’s really a thing) seems determined to re-connect them.
Where “assigned male at birth” are concerned, Sastra’s #8 deserves serious consideration, combined with some honest study of the effects of “hormone-induced Puberty 2.0” – a state/process that seems to be fundamental to the religious conversion of born-again T
After all the troubles we’ve fought through (and are still fighting through), the need of some men to be considered/recognized as the “normal gender” that desires to partner with another man (ie for people to identify them as “woman” because they carry a purse, wear a bra, paint their nails, use the women’s washroom, inject the appropriate hormones, et al) before they will let themselves respond to another man, is simply so sad?
Nullius in Verba #7 wrote :
I recently saw a TiM explain that the “trans” in “transgender” did not refer to “transition,” but “transcendence.” Being male or female transcends biology, and someone who is transgender is above or outside of the binary.
I don’t think that one holds up very well either, though, unless you’re claiming you’re non-binary.
Sastra @11, I think to many, transcendence means “special”. I am “transcendent”. I am “special”. I am not like you, I transcend you. I am not ordinary, I transcend.
And if we really can transcend Biology just by wishing, does that mean I can think my asthma away? Think my blood sugar back to normal? Think away my aging back that leads to pain?
Nope. Biology isn’t that easy to transcend. Biology is what we are, at least if we are living. You cannot transcend Biology if you are alive. That is the very crux of Biology.
@iknklast #12:
I always try to keep in mind the arguments of the TRAs who are atheists and skeptics, because those are the ones I interact with, and they have the better arguments. They’re not claiming that they can transcend biology by wishing, or that gender identity is a metaphysical thing like the soul. That’s not part of the conceptual baggage for self- identified, intellectually engaged atheists and skeptics (at least not consciously, so that it’s what they’re saying.)
Instead, the claim is that gender identity is rooted in biology, and that at some point in the early development of a fetus the part of the brain that normally develops in a way that’s consistent with the chromosomes, hormones, and primary and secondary sex characteristics goes in a different direction. This means that people who are transgender are intersex; it’s a scientific claim. If someone making this claim talks about “transcending” sex categories, I’d interpret that within this framework.
At least, on the surface, as part of the explanatory ideology. But ideologies run deep, and I won’t say your analysis ( transcend = special) is wrong as a subtext, as part of the emotional appeal and drive . In fact, I think you’re probably right. They’re pulling from the analogy to gender-nonconforming.
The enormous difference between MtF and FtM transitioning has to be ignored in TRA culture. Trans militancy enforces gender essentialism. All manifestations of individuality, any trace nonconformity around gender roles, MUST be shoehorned to transition. Not just butch lesbians, but any woman who hesitates about high heels and eating disorders.
I’m not sure if there’s a corresponding pressure on ‘femme-ish’ men like me.
You’re just not trying hard enough. Meet the Breatharians: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Breatharianism
Yes, I hear those arguments, but do not find them compelling, and they seem to have been adopted by the trans lobby after the fact in order to find a justification for their ideology. The thing is, you can’t get there in any way without gender essentialism; using Biology to justify transness requires gender essentialism, a position many of these individuals rejected until they jumped on with trans issues (i.e., the ubiquitous PZ). When addressed as “girls like pink, boys like blue” or “girls like tea parties, boys like baseball” or “girls can’t do math, boys can’t do nurture”, they still reject that. They just have become so blinded they don’t see this is no different than what the trans are saying – girls are born into a gender role, and boys are born into a gender role, it’s just some of them are born in the wrong bodies. It leaves the gender roles intact, the idea of a “girl brain” and a “boy brain” intact, it just moves the pieces from one box to the other.
Because so many of them were gender critical feminists before trans, I cannot buy into the argument that they are acting in good faith when they invoke biology and intersex conditions. I read that as a desperate attempt to justify their dogmatic arguments, just like the religious with “and how do you explain morality? Huh? Huh?”
@iknklast:
I think at least some of them are honestly trying to make a good faith effort to conceive of a biological sense that one is psychologically male or female without that going into stereotypes. It’s supposed to be the sort of inner knowledge which is both obvious when pointed out but you aren’t aware you have unless it’s out of whack — sort of like “orientation in space.” But, no, it doesn’t work if you ask for descriptive details. Which is why they’re suddenly like liberal theists asked to describe God: it’s too mysteriously mysterious to get into details.
There’s also the problem of trans kids, who are necessary for providing the “it’s what we’re born with” aspect. “I’m a girl and not a boy because I like trucks and wrestling and hate dolls and wearing dresses” said no trans kid, ever.
Sastra,
I think you’re giving them too much credit. I suspect they’re simply defending their beliefs and trying to stave off cognitive dissonance the way most of us do.
But these are people who are nominally still supposed to care about things like evidence. And there is no evidence that a hormone wash at a critical point in utero (or whatever that particular hypothesis is) causes transgender identity.
And even if we were to find brain differences not attributable to sexual orientation, they would likely account only for some gender dysphoria–not for all transgender identities.
I recently argued with three of the horde: at least one of them seemed to think that someday MRIs would be able to spot trans identity.
But that was not their main argument. Their main argument was “trans people are dying, so shut up.”
I offered evidence against all of their claims. None were addressed in good faith.
And speaking of evidence: do PZ and his fans ever consider the arguments against transgenderism? Do they read “TERFs”? Do they even read Jesse Singal, Ray Blanchard, the clinicians at Tavistock and elsewhere who have raised alarms about the treatment of children at gender critics?
I think not.
Hey, what do you expect, reading any TERFery, no matter how mild, causes your eyeballs to turn into acid and eat your brain.
@Lady Mondegreen:
Years ago Greta Christina wrote an excellent post on what she termed “The Argument from Shut Up.” This was an argument for the existence of God which didn’t attempt to support the existence of God through reason or evidence, nor refute an atheistic argument. It was only an argument for why the atheist needed to shut up. People needed religion; it was mean to tell people they were wrong; it was never the time or place; and so on. “God exists. Shut up, that’s why.”
“Trans people are dying, so shut up.”
I know what emotional manipulation looks like. I also recognize the Argument from Shut Up.
Sastra, that is what makes it so ironic that Greta Christina is willing to call other women TERFs and tell them to shut up when it comes to trans; she can recognize the argument from shut up until she is the one doing it.