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Evan Davis on the Radio 4 program PM had a 5 minute discussion of “trans participation” (always the generic “trans” instead of “trans women” of course – must obscure the issue whenever possible) just now. He talked to one person. A woman who is good at a sport? Nah, don’t be silly. He talked to Joanna Harper, a runner who transitioned at age 47.
In case you want to listen it starts at 48:40.
I bet some doofus has already said that “transwomen” are far more oppressed and marginalized than “transmen” (sorry, “trans women”, i.e. men, and “trans men”, i.e. women), because nobody is fighting to keep transmen from playing sports, but “everyone” hates transwomen and is trying to “prevent them from playing sports”.
Isn’t it funny how some media outlets, for some stories, are quick to get spokespeople from “both sides” of an issue, but not this particular issue? Having both sides generates buzz, debate and controversy. Doesn’t that help generate viewers, listeners and clicks? I remember when feathered dinosaurs became a thing. Long after the time when the vast majority of paleontologists had come to understand that yes, birds are dinosaurs, many stories about new fossil finds would include a quote or two from one of the few holdouts who did not agree. His papers continuing to argue the point did not cite more recent research or literature, which answered many of his objections. Still, in articles and stories wanting to generate a bit of intellectual sparring, he’d be wheeled out in the interests of balance. In politics too, you can see a relatively wide polling of opinion, the shape and colour of which can depend on where today’s position of the Overton Window happens to be. There’s at least a bit of lip service in the name of “balance”, however perfunctory.
One wonders why this does not happen in connection to women’s sports, women’s prisons, women’s hospital wards, and women’s rights to single sex spaces? How is it that media outlets which would otherwise normally LOVE to present both sides, have decided, quite unfairly, prematurely and ill-advisedly, that this issue has but one side? And that that side consists of a very small percentage of the population, in opposition to more than half the humans on the planet? The fact that the rights, needs and safety of women and girls can be so casually tossed aside, is a clear indication that feminism was nowhere near completing its original mission. If women had reached the level of power and influence that trans identified males pretend to, we would not be having these discussions over and over again. Women would not be walked on or have to put up with this bullshit, because there would be a price to pay for disregarding the rights and needs (let alone the desires) of a large, powerful group of people with the ability to hold those who ill-treated them to account. Nobody would DARE to piss women off (in exactly the way they are being pissed off right now) if they were held in any regard at all. Instead, they’re derided as “Karens”. If “cis” women were as all-powerful and oppressive as trans activists assert, these activists would not be in the position they’re currently enjoying, guiding and distorting policy of countless authorities and institutions, attempting, and all too often succeeding in their demands to remold the very words we use to describe reality itself. You’d think a story like that, of a small group of people obtaining unwarranted power and influence, with no accountability or oversight and without debate or discussion, would be worth reporting? If it were in a novel, you wouldn’t believe it; but we’re living it right now. We’re supposed to believe that this isn’t being covered because “kindness?” Please.
That TiMs have convinced people and institutions that should know better that this is “just” or “right” or “progressive” continues to astound me. How is it that they can believe this crap, yet still know enough to tie their shoelaces, or even breathe? The widespread brain-death makes me wonder if we are indeed in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, but one in which all the festering rot is on the inside. The zombies we’re fighting are not mindless, stumbling, shuffling horrors of cadaverous putrescence, but smiling, purposeful, dedicated functionaries, with heads full self-righteous zeal, and pronouns in their bios. Unfortunately, the latter type of zombies are harder to spot, and are thus, much more dangerous.
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