Just like anyone else

Written by

Ophelia Benson

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That’s not accurate.

It’s not “just like anyone else.” There are differences. Differences matter. And they don’t want to be accepted for who they are, they want to be accepted for who they are not. That’s the whole point. That’s what “trans” means. They’re men who want to be accepted aka validated aka confirmed as women. Men are not women.

What Owen Jones means is that they want to be accepted for who they fantasize they are. Children enjoy that. Children enjoy pretending to be various kinds of people. The enjoyment fades over time though, because pretending starts to seem silly.

Except when it doesn’t, I suppose. There are all these people – old enough to drive and vote and drink vodka – who go to comic book conventions and similar. I wonder if that’s part of the trans craze picture. I wonder if too much willing suspension of disbelief has enabled belief that people can change sex with the power of thought. Maybe Owen knows.

But either way, “just living their lives” is not a “just” when it includes men taking prizes and jobs and places in sports that were supposed to be for women. In that case they’re not “just living their lives,” they’re living a woman’s life, which prevents her from doing so.

Comments

7 responses to “Just like anyone else”

  1. Francis Boyle Avatar
    Francis Boyle

    Poor Owen Jones. He’s personally or professionally incapable of understanding that the old lies no longer work and that no amount of restating them or their supposed consequences will change that. He can ramp up the rhetoric all he wants. The secret is out and that gives lie to everything word he utters. It is indeed a grim episode but mainly for Owen Jones. He’s looking very naked in that t-shirt these days.

  2. Mostly Cloudy Avatar
    Mostly Cloudy

    There are all these people – old enough to drive and vote and drink vodka – who go to comic book conventions and similar. I wonder if that’s part of the trans craze picture. I wonder if too much willing suspension of disbelief has enabled belief that people can change sex with the power of thought.

    Speaking as someone who collected and read a lot of comic books and graphic novels in my teens and twenties, I *don’t* believe humans can change their sex with the power of thought.

    And yes, I went to a comic book convention or three back in the day, in the 2000s. I saw quite a few flamboyantly dressed folk there, but the ones i spoke to always described themselves as either men or women.

  3. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Sort of to echo Mostly Cloudy. I think it’s fine to read/watch/enjoy fantasy as an adult. The problem is when you start to believe it. All the Harry Potter hype – I meet people who know what house they are (if that means something to you, great. I have no clue what house you are means).

    I read fantasy as a kid, and I write it as an adult. I don’t see any harm in it, unless you believe it is true. If you believe Tinkerbell will really die if you don’t clap. If you believe that there are really witches and wizards, apparently living in houses.

    My mother had a lot of superstitions, but she was sure about one thing: her kids were going to grow up knowing where fiction ended and reality began. I will say, though, she never expected me to turn that against her pet belief, in short, to realize that the bible was just another fantasy novel, and God was just another Peter Pan.

  4. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    I don’t disagree with any of that. I don’t oppose fantasy. I just wondered if for some people it could erode the bullshit detector. I’m always wondering what could explain the bizarre credulity of our trans-believing siblings.

  5. Mostly Cloudy Avatar
    Mostly Cloudy

    Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make.

    If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion.

    That’s from “On Fairy-Stories” by J. R. R. Tolkien.

    I think certain powerful people and factions are deep in the Morbid Delusion stage.

  6. maddog1129 Avatar
    maddog1129

    If they “just wanted to live their lives” (“we just want to pee!”), they could have done so while keeping to the facilities set aside for their sex.

  7. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    maddog, or accepting the third facilities that were designed to be used by anybody.

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