Guest post: Trans activism as progressive credential
Originally a comment by Artymorty on Serious people.
I still can’t quite figure out where all of this passion about “trans rights” has suddenly come from. It’s got little to do with the ‘Western’ concept of transsexualism as it was understood a few decades ago, and it’s got nothing to do with celebrating or encouraging gender diversity in general. Nor does it have anything to do with the ways other societies are structured around sex, sexuality, and gender roles, like in indigenous, collectivist cultures around the world. “Transphobia” as the term is presently used is an elusive spectre that seems to have been conjured entirely out of people’s minds. None of the terms it relies on can be consistently defined, or even roughed out: what is and is not “transgender”? What does and does not constitute a “trans right”?
If we can’t get anywhere with the words themselves, can we find some clues in the people who use them? What do the people who carp about “trans rights” have in common? Based on the insults they throw at their supposed enemies, they seem to share an anxiety about the “far right”, about Donald Trump or Brexit, about a general sense of loss of social cohesion, some kind of cultural splintering, and a fear of being left tribeless after a period of political disruption…
All that anxiety has led to the formation of an in-group/out-group mentality among some progressives, and “trans rights” appears to serve no function except as a shibboleth to signal that one is loyal to the tribe and willing to fight the good fight against its enemies in order to earn favour and maintain status among the in-group. It’s certainly got nothing to do with actual progressive values. Women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of speech… they’re being ripped to shreds. The degree of enthusiasm with which a person takes up the transgender cause corresponds closely to the degree to which that person is invested in publicly displaying his or her “progressive” credentials: direct financial incentive, career obligations or opportunities, insecure social standing or job position, etc. Jolyon Maugham has found a lucrative market in selling virtuous, crusading lawsuits to credulous backing donors within the group. Billy Bragg built his entire image for decades around being the most progressive folk troubadour in England — it’s his bread and butter. Owen Jones, progeny of prominent old-school hippie leftists, rests his entire social media and media-media brand on lefty militancy. On and on.
No wonder JK Rowling, possibly the woman with the most secure credentials, career opportunities, and finances in the whole United Kingdom, is so far the most prominent person to step up and speak out.
The Australian Greens have abandoned all pretence of being about the Environment and are now totally exposed as homophobic misogynists.
https://twitter.com/angijones/status/1649518470420369410
Arty,
Well there’s not even a passion about trans rights, is there? If there were passion, there’d be a constant emotional outpouring describing those rights and the injurious effects of their supposed lack. If there were passion, there’d be powerfully reasoned argument, studded with heart warming and heart breaking examples.
The passion is not for ‘trans rights’, it’s for shouting the slogan, signalling the virtue, siding with the side, as you say, Arty.
One of the most interesting parts of any #LetWomenSpeak event is watching the behaviour of the ‘protesters’ (when they’re not being violent). They’re passionless, for the most part. They stand, slackly and without expression, blandly repeating the mantras. Every so often, someone with a megaphone will whip up 30 seconds of enthusiasm, but it quickly dies out. They put on music, for goodness’ sake, to stop everyone getting bored and wandering off!
The comparison to the passion expressed by our side, in the form of detailed explanations of injustice and calls for specific action rather than vague appeals to phobia, tells you everything you need to know about trans activism.
Then, in my experience (I’ve only been to three), when the trans activists sense that the event is about to finish, they attempt to surge forward. At Newcastle, Glasgow and Belfast, this thrust was decidedly half-hearted and the antagonists seemed relieved, more than anything, that the police did such a good job of holding them back.
What they’d have done had the police not been there is anyone’s guess, of course, but my point is that this is the part they get behind. This is why they’re there. The part that requires no words, reason or even responsibility. That’s the only thing they can really muster passion for: the part about stopping women speaking. Because they know what they’re saying and they know who they’re saying it about.
This is borne out by those events that have been less well-policed, where the protesters have been allowed so close to the speakers that their noise really did drown out women’s voices. There’s no passionless shuffling and half-hearted chanting there! It’s almost as though the entire point of these ‘protests’ is to stop women telling the truth about trans activism and its ‘activists’!
I’ve often said how interesting I find it that the TAs never copy our format. They never have similar open mic events where trans people and their allies can speak passionately about the many injustices they feel plagued by. Instead of protesting about *checks notes* women being allowed to speak, they could let trans people speak, right! The optics would be great! The news channels would be falling over themselves to compare and contrast in a light most favourable to their side!
There’s only one reason I can think of why they don’t do this. They know how stupid it all sounds. They know how pathetic it will seem if they whine about getting funny looks when they barge into women’s spaces. They know how monstrous it will look when they demand that disabled women accept intimate care from men against their wishes. They know they have no logical, legal or moral arguments. They know there is no human right they don’t already have. They know their demands are neither feasible nor sustainable and they know they have nowhere near the support among the general public that they have within their social media and, as you put it, media-media bubbles.
You’re right, Arty. The ‘passion’ is all in the side-picking and purity-signalling, not in any deeply-held belief in ‘trans rights’. I have no doubt that many believe in or even feel a deep sense of injustice. We all did, at that age, and sometimes it turned out that the perceived injustice wasn’t really there. This is about the rebellion, not the cause, and it’s the dullest, most tedious, most regressive, least passionate rebellion in history.
Three resounding cheers and a standing ovation for Arty Morty and latsot! Thank you both!
@2 damn, such a good point. I’ve been to a few of these events now–the only ‘passion’ I see is men getting excited about screaming at women, that’s always entertaining. And when I left the WPUK meeting I went to, where all the ‘action’ was inside a building, the kids were just hanging out dully repeating the mantra, looking like they were bored stiff, as there was no one to actually scream at. And yes, what a fantastic idea, let’s hear their grievances in a public forum! Surely that would be a powerful and moving way to affect the public debate.
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— from the preface to Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, 2nd edn, 1852
This has probably dawned on everyone else but it’s just occurred to me – these men do spend a lot of time airing their grievances on social media, where their images are carefully curated, but if they say the same things in person, looking for all the world like large, unstable and potentially threatening males, the message would have a very different effect.
Very good point, and one worth reminding ourselves of often.