I have only recently come across this paper which, surprisingly, was co-authored by an academic in a U.K.University. The premise of the paper is that Transgenderism is “petty fascism” . Even after following this movement for the last eight years this paper clarified some of my thoughts.
Here is the abstract. 👇. The paper outlines the strategy of the transgender movement and it’s inherently anti-democratic tactics. Instead of winning hearts and minds they have appealed to authority, change laws, often by stealth, bypassing a public conversation. Their appeal is based on a fallacious victimhood; deployed to guilt and shame people into accepting their minority world view. This is combined with a suppression of debate and repression of alternative perspectives.
You can read the paper yourself, here.
The paper is refreshing in its use of the description of people who are at odds with their biological sex; making it clear that the sex is, in most cases, observed at birth and having no truck with “sex assigned at birth”.
The paper does reference violence against “trans” persons, which it immediately follows with facts about out the high rates of violence against women (even of it does call us “Cis”). The authors also highlight the extent of the research into discrimination against “trans” people; they are looking very hard for this “evidence”. Having read much of that research it tends to rely on self-reports and it is not hard to garner false positives from a community groomed into victimhood. The paper doesn’t reference the rise of hate crime legislation but this is one way of inflating societal discrimination against “trans” people. In the U.K. we have “hate crime incidents” which don’t require any crime to have been committed and rely on the self-perception of the individual. It’s worth noting that there is no category for hate crimes against women.
Free Speech
The authors focus is on the importance of free speech and how crucial this is for democracy.
They think censorship should be limited to those sentiments that advocate violence and are, themselves, a threat to democracy. Otherwise people should be allowed to express dissenting opinions, because censoring opinions leads to a decline in trust which is bad for democracy.
The authors then detail an attempt, in Germany, to facilitate dialogue between a muslim and a “trans” identified male but this proved impossible as both participants were encouraged to withdraw by their own communities. This is a common occurrence, as we have seen in the U.K.; with “trans” activists having successfully shut down debates by refusing to share platforms with feminists, who campaign for single sex spaces. The BBC were particularly vulnerable to this tactic; having a policy of platforming both sides in an important debate. By withdrawing, often at the last minute, “trans” activists were able to suppress debate for a long time; because the segments were often, then, cancelled.
The fear of an adverse public reaction is a good illustration that the “transgender” community fear scrutiny and know that the vast majority are opposed to the extreme demands made by this group. As we have seen, in the U.K. this has allowed the promulgation of gender identity ideology with limited coverage of public opposition.
The authors describe what happens when “a socially constructed reality becomes intentionally detached from its constitutive spontaneity, and is used to enforce a specific set of interests, as in commercial or political propaganda”. They continue by pointing out one of the main strategies is the undermining of the reality of biological sex.
Basically “Transgender Ideology” wants to build a world based on subjective belief and force the rest of us to validate that belief. Moreover this “belief” does not arise in a vacuum and whilst those people who are invested in making these claims have not come to the conclusion they are “transgender” on their own; in short they have been indoctrinated, groomed.
Trojan Horse
Imposing this belief on society is a huge task because the vast, vast, majority of people know biological facts and, apart from changing our minds, this ideology a,so requires reordering society such as changing how sex is recorded on databases and eradicating single sex spaces. The first step is people must be made to accept that our sexed bodies are secondary to a self-defined “gender”. Moreover laws must be passed to enshrine this ideology in law. As outlined in the Denton’s document one strategy is to force team groups and push through legislation using the social capital built by other groups, notable the gay rights movement.
If you have not read the Denton’s document then do visit my piece which links to the full document.
The next step is also straight out of the Dention’s playbook 👇
The authors draw attention to how this differs from previous minority rights claims which are not hidden from public scrutiny but were, largely, conducted openly or at least operated with an accompanying public discourse to complement the private lobbying. What the “trans” rights activists have done is to entirely ignore the feelings /beliefs of the ordinary populace and gone directly to those in control of the levers of power.
Another strategy is to create a narrative of perpetual victim status. In this the “trans” activists have been spectacularly successful. By claiming to be the most marginalised they have elevated themselves into the primary victim, who should therefore be allowed to trample over the sex based rights of women, trash child safeguarding and call Lesbians “sexual racists” if they don’t include penis-havers in their dating pool.
This tactic works at the level of emotional blackmail, which is the stock in trade of abusive men. This men’s sexual rights movement has persuaded society that “trans” are the most vulnerable minority and women are their persecutors whilst having sufficient power to rewrite laws and problematise to all mention of women as a sex based class.
This movement is only possible in Liberal societies and because of the legacy of gay, women and disabled rights movements; all groups that have a lot to lose if “trans” lobby groups get their way. Crucially this also required the internet which serves to magnify their appeal and allows activists to hide behind avatars and filters; so that people are hoodwinked into supporting the rights of massive blokes to invade single sex spaces. It is in real life encounters, such as sport, that the full impact (literally) of these demands is on display.
The capture of academia
A huge part of their leverage is because of the capture of academia. Liberal management has bough the “most vulnerable” propaganda, hook line and sinker. All the while it is another group entirely that is actually marginalised and hounded over their beliefs, 👇
As I have said before the only way this movement can work is authoritarianism and repression because the vast, vast, majority of people know that sex is real, immutable and there are only two. Social media is the ideal vehicle for this because anonymous “trolls” can whip up a fevered hostility on line and highlight opinions that are opposed to transgender ideology, tagging in employers etc. to threaten livelihoods. As the ideology embeds itself via propaganda, in schools and universities, the corralling of public opinion can be undertaken by named trolls (Owen Jones springs to mind) and other people with large followings. No woman is immune as is evidenced by the treatment of JKRowling who, I am sure, knew exactly what she was walking into.
The paper covers the abuse that Rowling gets but I won’t go over that here because it’s well documented. Rowling’s entry into the fray began with her open support for Maya Fostater, who lost employment, in essence, for believing biological sex was real and for saying it out loud.
The authors cover the first tribunal hearing which resulted in Judge Taylor finding that Maya’s opinions didn’t pass the Grainger test, which is not mentioned in this paper. The Grainger test is detailed in this clip. Basically gender critical beliefs were deemed “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”. (This is why you will sometimes see WORIADS in some tweets. The judiciary have refused to say who trains them on this issue but I am going to guess GIRES) That decision was overturned by a second tribunal and, in the U.K, gender critical beliefs are now legally protected.
The paper then details some of the people who have suffered “cancellation” or attacks because of varying degrees of these beliefs but finds it unsurprising that men (Richard Dawkins) are also attacked. I think they missed a trick here, by not recognising that there is a bias towards attacking the female sex and men are allowed a greater degree of latitude. The authors also characterise Rowling’s essay as “weaponised discourse” which suggests this is being treated as the same as the confected victimisation of the “trans” community. Perhaps Rowling is using emotive language to make her point but, at heart, she is fighting for single sex spaces so women can heal because they are literal victims of male violence /sexual assault. I am opposed to Identity Politics hijacking the left as much as anyone but we can’t give up the rights of 51% of the population to secure this.
The next section gets to the meat of the argument by comparing the tactics of the “transgender” activists to a form of fascism.
Petty Fascism
The experience of the populace, under fascism, is reminiscent of living under the Gender borg.
The authors quote some German research showing how many people feel unable to voice their tru opinions, the figure was only 59% even to their closest friends. And what were they most afraid of saying?
They argue that this is achieved by threats of ostracism rather than the law /force. I would argue that we do have laws, by now, and the police are now checking peoples thinking as the numerous court cases attest. (See Harry Miller, Kate Scotow, Miranda Yardley etc).
In a pluralistic society we must tolerate a diversity of opinion / belief. This doesn’t mean we can’t draw the line at human rights violations, under the guise of religion but it does mean recognising that someone has the right to their faith but, crucially, not to force you to profess that same belief.
What the “trans” rights lobby is demanding is not a simple “live and let live”; there is a testerical level of demand that we profess belief in something which is simply not true. We are expected to remain silent when a man tells us he is able to menstruate or lactate or that his penis is a female organ. The crazy level of demand means we have no choice but to resist.
This paragraph sets out why we are justified in calling this fascism.
Discussion/Conclusion
Compelled speech and thought policing are hallmarks of repressive /fascist regimes; this is what we are witnessing. We are in danger of undermining democracy and, sadly, our political class, with honourable exceptions, have not the wit to realise it. These are the rights we have to defend. Open debate and, heaven forfend, even jokes /limericks.
The author’s then reflect , with some detachment. on the rifts this has caused in feminism and gay rights movements. He also points to the divisions this has caused in left wing politics with some embracing identity politics (with some fervour, I would add) and the old Left which focuses on improving material conditions and women’s /minority rights. The former they describe as sanctimonious and self-righteous, a perspective with which I concur wholeheartedly.
He then points to the hypocrisy of our political elite who are surely lying.
They end with a call to fight to keep the public discourse on this ideology open.
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Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.
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