Guest post: 13 rules

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Just stop.

Lady Mondegreen writes:

The Trans Propaganda Playbook:

1) Appeals to emotion (“Trans people deserve love” “Trans Day of Remembrance”)

2) Obfuscation (“Social constructs!” “Intersex” “The Genderbread Person”)

3) Appeals to misunderstood, misrepresented, or dodgy science

(“Biologists say sex is a spectrum!” “Girl’s brain in a boy’s body!” “Clownfish!” “Did we mention intersex?”)

4) Bullying

To which I would add:

5) Tribalism (“It’s the right ‘leftist’/‘progressive’/‘feminist’ thing to do”)

6) False dichotomies (“If you’re not with us, you’re with the MAGA crowd”)

7) Word-magic/bad puns (“If we call TIMs by the same name as biological females, they magically become the same kind of people, and must therefore be given access to all the same spaces”)

8) Gaslighting/DARVO (“Isn’t it awful how that poor trans woman with her lady-cock was made to feel unwelcome in the women’s changing room?”)

9) Thought-terminating cliches (“Trans women are women!”, “Trans men are men!”, “Non-binary identities are valid!”, “Trans rights are human rights!”, “the right side of history”)

10) Sound volume/endless repetition (TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW! TWAW!!!!!!)

11) Appropriation/forced teaming (“LGBTQ…”, claiming monopoly on “non-white feminism”, “Queers for Palestine”)

12) Appeals to what is best left unspecified (the definition of “woman” or “gender”, what is meant by “trans rights”, “trans healthcare” etc.)

13) The gender of the gaps (“The biological sex model doesn’t meet this impossible standard, therefore the gender identity model gets to claim victory for free without meeting any standard at all”)

Comments

6 responses to “Guest post: 13 rules”

  1. Lady Mondegreen Avatar
    Lady Mondegreen

    The first part of this was written by me.

  2. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    Oh, sorry! I’ll credit you.

  3. Lady Mondegreen Avatar
    Lady Mondegreen

    Thanks.

    Sorry for the grump. It’s been a day.

  4. Arcadia Avatar
    Arcadia

    I think there’s a 14th rule, which is the misreporting and misrepresenting of history. Examples: “a trans woman of colour threw the first brick at Stonewall”, “gay has always meant attraction to the same gender, it wasn’t a genital fetish” and “trans women have always been welcome in women’s spaces”.

  5. Bjarte Foshaug Avatar
    Bjarte Foshaug

    Arcadia

    I suppose that also covers the posthumous “transing” of exceptional women (“Jeanne d’Arc was actually a trans man”)

    Which brings us to :

    15) Claiming other people for oneself (“Women are whatever they have to be to make me one of them”, “Other people are whatever they have [‘cis’, ‘binary’, ‘gender conforming’] to make me different, special, an exception [‘trans’, ‘nonbinary’, ‘gender nonconforming’]”, “Other people have to fit inside these narrow, confining boxes so that I can be more exceptional and transgressive by comparison”)

    And let’s not forget:

    16) Circular logic/tautologies (“Transwomen are women [if you define ‘women’ as ‘whatever transwomen happen to be’]”, “A woman is anyone who identifies as anyone who identifies as anyone who identifies as etc. etc.”)

    17) Imposing the sex/gender distinction on everybody else (“Sex is about physical traits, gender is an inner sense of self”)

    18) Conflating sex and gender (i.e. the very categories they told everyone not to conflate) themselves (“Don’t say ‘biological male’, say ‘cisgender’!”)

    19) Accusing others of conflating sex and gender (“Stop misgendering trans women by calling them biological males!”)

  6. Arcadia Avatar
    Arcadia

    Yes to all of that, Bjarte.

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