Guest post: No longer able to get out
Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Uh oh, there’s a range of views here.
I strongly suspect that cognitive dissonance is a big part of the explanation as well. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the pyramid metaphor from Mistakes were made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, but anyway, imagine two people standing right next to each other on the top of a big pyramid and trying to decide which way to go down. At this stage no option may appear obviously better than any other, and neither of our two testpersons may feel all that confident about the way to proceed. Even if they eventually end up picking opposite routes, it may in fact have more to do with a temporary mood or whim than any strong disagreement in principle.
However, once You have made a choice, You have a stake in defending it. The same logic used to justify each previous step in a particular direction, as well as the need for consistency, keeps pushing You further in the same direction, and the further down the side of the pyramid You go, the harder it gets to turn back without admitting to Yourself (probably the hardest part) and the world that You’ve have been wrong all along, that Your justifications were all bogus, and that You may in fact have been a bit of an asshole. In our metaphor we see how these two people, who were initially standing side by side, end up very far apart by the time they reach the bottom.
I don’t doubt that many of the people currently riding the trans bandwagon got on it for reasons that seemed both noble and worthy at the time. Then, as the demands and the thought-policing kept getting more extreme, all those former concessions (as well as their justifications) came back to haunt them, and by now they have dug themselves in too deeply and are no longer able to get out.
I can certainly relate to this myself. As (I suspect) so many others, I got into social justice issues following the death of movement atheism/skepticism. When I started hearing from trans* activists, I initially thought what (once again, I suspect) many of us were thinking: “Well, some of the things they say don’t seem quite right to me, but maybe I just need to “shut up and listen” as well as “educate” myself like everyone keeps saying. Don’t want to be like all those guys who mansplain feminism to women and think they understand the issues better than the women who have been dealing with them their whole lives, do I. Trans people are indeed a marginalized group, and social justice is all about standing up for marginalized groups. At least we can all agree on that. Etc. etc.” The borrowed association with LGB issues probably helped their cause as well. I think they even got me to sign a couple of petitions to ban “TERFs” from specific venues (*blush*).
In a way my own cluelessness was what saved me. In my limitless naivety I assumed we were all “in it together” against the Social Injustice Warriors (SIWs) of the far right, and started following every feminist, anti-racist, LGBT activist etc. who seemed to have something interesting or worthwhile to say on twitter. It didn’t take long before I discovered that the diabolical “TERFs” I kept hearing about (who I was told were at least as bad as the MRAs sending death and rape threats to Rebecca Watson) included at least half of the feminists I was following, and I couldn’t help noticing the Trump-level dishonesty of the accusations leveled against them (including Caroline Criado-Perez who was at the same time going through the ugliest cyber-bullying I had ever seen by the MRA mob). One of the earliest red flags (and one of the most bizarre conversations I have had in my life) was when a trans activist PMed me on twitter in order to interrogate me about why I was following a certain feminist blogger. As I recall “they” assured me that although this woman never said anything explicitly transphobic, it was non the less “implied in very subtle ways” that only trans people could detect and that I was not in a position to question.
Had I been ever so slightly less clueless about the various fractions and divisions among nominally pro-social justice types, I might never have followed any of the “wrong” feminists in the first place, and then who knows were I’d be…
This is a really good point, and I think one of the reasons trans ideology managed to get such a foothold among people who care about social justice and feminism. We’re used to assuming that the members of a group are more reliable descriptors of the Group than anyone outside of that group. If you’re not a woman, don’t contradict a feminist describing their problems and needs. If you’re not indigenous, don’t contradict their explanation of what happened and is happening. If you’re not black, don’t contradict their lived testimony of discrimination.
And if you’re not trans — don’t contradict them on anything. Especially when they explain that they ARE a woman, or ARE a man. Listen and learn. Stories about the experiences of trans people blur right into what it means to be trans.
In a discussion on a blog, I once suggested that someone who identified as transgender might be too close, too emotionally involved, too personally invested, to carefully access the scientific and philosophical claims of transgender ideology.
Immediately, everyone seemed to lose their collective minds. That was the OPPOSITE of true! I was telling someone I knew them better than they knew themselves! I was denying their existence! Coming from a background in the skeptic movement— and knowing many others there did as well — I thought it odd that a fairly well understood psychological point wasn’t just rejected, but rejected out of hand, and with such vehemence. The skeptical approach collided with “Listen and learn.”
Excellent point, Sastra. And while it is important to listen to what people say about their own experiences, it isn’t always true that they are going to be the best judge. I mean, seriously, should we listen when Trump describes himself as a stable genius? We should listen and show respect, but sometimes the science, or other objective measurements, can show differently. And sometimes outsiders see something an insider doesn’t see, and that can be useful too.
PZ once said “Always listen to women when they tell you something is sexist”. I had a problem with that then (and apparently he doesn’t do it anymore), because not everything one particular woman thinks is sexist is necessarily so. They may be mistaken about intent, or they may just be wrong. And a lot of women will deny the sexism in certain things for various reasons, so which woman should we listen to? Our experience is just that – our experience. It isn’t the final word on reality. We should be respectful of people when they explain things to us, and recognize that their experience is different than ours. When dealing with racism, I have no point of reference for how it is experienced by a person of color. I need to shut up and listen, and not try to tell them what it feels like, or should feel like, or is. I don’t like it when my colleague tries to tell me what it is really like to be a woman (because he is not now, and never has been, female).
So, yeah, listen to the person. Respect the person. But no, don’t assume theirs is the only word on something. Maybe another person in that group has a different perspective.
And besides, why then do transwomen get to tell “cis” women what it is like to be “cis”? They are utterly clueless.
It’s one of those “it can be true but” things. Generally it’s true that we (women) don’t want men explaining feminism to us, but if it’s say Graham Linehan talking to Laurie Penny…
I went through similar waters, really. What I finally managed to grok was that it wasn’t so much a matter of GCs trying to deny trans-folks’ “lived experience” as it was trying to defend their own, as women born as women. As soon as that clicked, a lot of other things fell into place.
I would still, in casual conversation, refer to a trans colleague with feminine terms of address, and I would also argue against many of the conservative Christian arguments against transition, which are usually so mired in gender essentialism that they make my head hurt. But I can’t ignore the absurdity of the TRAs position.
Similar to my own trajectory. It was looking up the term “TERF,” following the B&W debacle at FTB that made me stop and notice the claims being made and determine that one side didn’t add up or ring true. And yes indeed, truth matters. If you’ve abandoned it, or worse, attack it, that’s an indication of problems in the ideas you’re promoting and defending. If you can’t make your case against an honest appraisal of the views of those with whom you are arguing, then you need a better argument, a better case, and better ideas.
I haven’t seen ANY belligerent hostility from trans men yet. Is it out there? Perhaps the fact that trans men are less likely to be equipped to physically bully ‘cis-men’ is some deterrent? Or is it a plain fact that the term ‘trans women’ has been stretched to include a particular subset of violent, misogynist, men.
Re #6
Not exactly, but they are insisting that we amend our language to replace “pregnant women” with “pregnant people”. And they are getting their way. They also bullied Always to remove the “woman” symbol from their packaging.