Cancel Culture or Free Speech

VioletSky

www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/

Interesting article, although I was not happy about the lack of links to the studies quoted within it. The article below has different figures but, as we all know, lies damn lies and statistics really is a thing so its hard to know what to believe without knowing the parameters of the various studies.

Doodledog

As this thread is about cancel culture and free speech, I have amused myself by going through it to find the attempts that have been made to cancel the views of the so-called 'gender critical' by twisting what we have said, and trying to paint our words as 'anti-trans'. I'll leave aside the frankly libellous comments about Kathleen Stock, as I'm sure she's heard worse and it would take too long. I'm sure that I'll have missed some of the slurs and insults, but this should give an idea:

1 - referring to Stock's words as 'hate speech' without having heard them (the first post on this thread) so anyone speaking up for her seems to be supporting hate speech.

2 - 'skip all the hate and arguing' (which nobody was doing, or has done - well, there has been argument from both sides)

3 - a comparison between biological realism and a desire to oppose same-sex marriage.

4 - 'cis' versus trans war

5 - Gender critical [sic] don't like any comparisons, Gay rights? Nope. Gay marriage? Nope. Intersex comparisons? Nope. Race hate? Nope. (a fairly comprehensive dismissal of the views of the majority of posters on these threads)

6 - accusations of hounding off threads, personal insults, demands and lack of respect. (Poster's emboldening. Irony apparently unintended)

7 - suggestion that opposition to the notion of TWAW is equivalent to saying that transwomen don't exist.

8 - unsubstantiated lies about Kathleen Stock.

9 - accusations of disingenuousness (against me)

10 - that 'demanding a reply' (which hadn't happened) is a 'classic gender critical response'. This accusation later moved to 'angry demands'

11 - accusations of 'manipulating questions' (NB requests for clarification of what these were received no response).

12 - assorted nonsense about what is right and left wing, with the underlying implication that anyone who doesn't believe that TWAW is to the right of Genghis Kahn.

13 - in amongst the disgraceful remarks about KS is the accusation that 'The Gender Critical see her as a heroine, although 'she doesn't have an idea of her own'. with the obvious implications about the intelligence of 'TGC'.

14 - 'It isn't possible for 'the GC' to have a reasoned and polite discussion' (ironic, in the light of the above - these comments are chronological, incidentally, and I'm only up to page eight.

15 - The offensive suggestion that I am justifying the aims of the Right, and am doing so by bringing in Stalin. (when no, I was justifying nothing, and using Stalin as an example of a left wing tyrant to show that the Right does not have monopoly on wickedness).

I could go on, but life's too short, and I think that 15 examples from the first few pages is enough to make my point? I hope that these are taken into account the next time the so-called 'Gender Critical' are accused of 'hounding' and 'twisting words'.

Doodledog
I can only echo what is often said about posting things on GN. If any of this is true post the evidence.
And (Your own favourite) Twisting what people say is not acceptable.

I will only observe this. Many of the things you are saying are just responses to things you cannot (or chose not to) answer.
Like what is left and right, which resulted in you trying to score points by posting the names of tyrants but no actual response to the concepts, or actual ideas about left or right ideology.

Demands to questions are often made by the same people on GN.

There are no lies or libel against Kathleen Stock. Just reasoned criticism. But in this thread , given its title, your allegations are quite amusing. Her iconicism is simply incredible.

As for twisting words, your own example is here. There are also numerous posts taking something I said out of context. If that isn't twisting what is it?

Germanshepherdsmum

People don’t tend to tell me what sex they are. Some might be trans, I don’t know, but they’re hardly going to mention it in general conversation. So how is it that VS knows ‘lots of’ trans people?

Yeah, I thought the same, as I don’t know even one.
Maybe only trans people themselves or with a transperson in the family, otherwise where are all these ‘lots’ coming from?

GagaJo

Oreo

GagaJo

Well, I sat through lectures in trans theory, read trans books off the reading lists of my professors and wrote essays on it. Including, as I've said, my thesis.

So I think my first person experience of a big trans focus (not to mention a VERY well stocked library of books on it - fabulous!) trumps your opinion to the contrary.

It was there. It was in full focus. Before the millennium. Before Kathleen Stock set foot there.

You're wrong. If I could find my thesis, I could produce it as primary source evidence.

Just because you studied a trans course there at the Uni doesn’t mean it was a huge pro trans establishment, pushing that ideology above all else.
Am curious as to what sort of job that lead to in the real world.
Stonewall need a reason to exist so have moved to supporting and promoting trans issues, they didn’t give it a mention back in the day😄

Sussex was a trail blazer in its approach to Queer Theory. I appreciate people not in academia may not be aware of that. It's less ground breaking now, because other universities have followed their lead. But it definitely led the pack. Sadly, a lot of the original academics there, leaders in their field, have since died. Replaced I'm sure with equally eminent figures, but I'm not up to date with that.

But feel free to disparage things you have no experience of.

I'm a teacher. Self employed now. Never been out of work. Clearly my qualifications while not up to snuff in the opinions of the GC are fine in the real world.

Sussex did have a liberal reputation it’s true, but gay isn’t trans.
I was curious about your chosen course leading to a well paid job as it seems a strange thing thing to want to study, unless of course you are trans? Obvs you don’t have to say.
If people have no axe to grind in this matter then I do wonder why they seem to back trans activists against women’s needs.
Biological women.

Glorianny

icanhandthemback

Dickens

If I visit a doctor it is a private not a public transaction and not something I do every day. If I ovulate or not is no one's business. My mother never had a period from the age of 25 until her death at 94. A good friend never ovulated or had children after she had cervical cancer at the age of 32. Are you saying their biology mattered and they were not women? You have actually vividly illustrated why it isn't possible to use biology or science in everyday life, because you do not, cannot and should not know the intimacies of anyone else's body unless they choose to tell you about them, and making assumptions or posting generalities about women is demeaning and dangerous for all women.

Isn't this missing the point?

Who is asking to know the intimate details of your body?

The medical relevance to your biological sex might matter if you present to your doctor with the symptoms of a possible heart attack - symptoms which are not infrequently quite different to those presenting in males.

It also might matter in relation to various other conditions and illnesses which are known to statistically affect women more than men - or the other way round.

Whether you ovulate or not won't be of any interest to the wider public, but it might be relevant to a member of the health profession if he or she is attempting to form a diagnosis relating to symptoms you present with.

As for those women who don't ovulate, or haven't for an extended period of time, these are anomalies that usually have a cause - it's no different to men who have difficulty peeing, or all the other things that don't work properly with the male anatomy. They are not the norm and it's quite useful for a doctor to know whether you're a biological male or female when he or she is attempting to figure out what's gone wrong. Unless you think the intimate details of your body are not their concern either unless you choose to tell them?

Thank you, Dickens, you put the words so much better than me. Whether transactions are private or public, it doesn't change your biological gender! I'd be quite pee'd off if I went to the GP and he told me I had a prostate problem because biological gender doesn't matter!

Please will people have the grace to stop posting things out of context and if they must requote me at least have the decency to post the whole conversation.
I was told that my biology mattered everyday and did so because I ovulated, had children and went through the menopause. None of which are essential to be a woman. I simply explained why.
My doctor would know my biology but it would certainly not be public knowledge.
Because, as I have consistently stated, and none of the bizarre and contradictory selective posts have yet managed to disprove, in everyday life the biology of me, or anyone else is neither obvious nor checkable.

Hardly out of context when you initially said, "I regard the biological argument as a complete irrelevancy since no one can or has explained to me how it applies to my everyday life. But if you can explain to me how it will be done I'm quite willing to look at the question again."

I fully accept the way you publicly present may not give away your gender but whether you like it or not, your biology does make a difference and impacts you. I chose a couple of things out of many, many things that make you female but time is not on my side as I am fitting in a caring role for several members of my family at the moment and time is limited which is also why I responded late to Dickens' post. I don't care if you are a trans person or any other gender because to me you are a sentient being and I wouldn't want to hurt anybodies feelings deliberately. I have a nephew who transitioned at 7, a friend who transitioned at 16 and an uncle who transitioned in his 60's, all who have faced transphobia and a lack of understanding through out their lives. I would protect them in any way I could from hate but I wouldn't lie to them about whether they can be ultimately biologically different. I wouldn't rub their nose in it but, just like I can't choose to be a different biological sex, neither can they so I think there's an equality there.

Aveline

Are you just trying to wear us all down VS? Constantly carping, deflecting and nit picking despite sensible articulate responses that sum up what most of us think. You won't change our minds but drone on if it makes you feel you're somehow doing something useful if only making yourself feel better.

It's not long ago that VS said she had never talked to a transperson, but had only heard them on film telling their stories. If she now knows lots of them, maybe she has sought them out, which seems an odd thing for someone to do, unless they are obsessed with the matter. Unless these people are online posters, which is really not the same thing. Most of the time, people meet one another almost by accident - at work, in interest groups, in the pub and so on. Whether someone meets a transperson or not is about fate, really, unless they do seek out a particular group of people.

As GSM says, people don't go about asking one another if they are male or female, and the peculiar notion that we might 'ask to see what's in their pants' only exists on here, as far as I can tell. Nobody in 'real life' has ever suggested such a thing to me, and I wouldn't expect them to - it's not what people do, is it?

Germanshepherdsmum

You now say you know ‘some’ trans people. Previously you said you knew ‘lots’. You must have forgotten.

I know trans people

I have no idea if they qualify as lots of some

It doesn't really matter, there are definitely lots of trans people I listen too because the whole group is in the millions

Are you just trying to wear us all down VS? Constantly carping, deflecting and nit picking despite sensible articulate responses that sum up what most of us think. You won't change our minds but drone on if it makes you feel you're somehow doing something useful if only making yourself feel better.

You now say you know ‘some’ trans people. Previously you said you knew ‘lots’. You must have forgotten.

Germanshepherdsmum

Ah, ‘some’. Not ‘lots of’.

Define

What is some?

What is lots of?

Ah, ‘some’. Not ‘lots of’.

VS vs

Why don't trans views on who they are matter though?

You keep making these statements, but who says they don’t matter?
Who has said it? Where? When?

VS says . . .
There are so many comments saying their feeling are invalid in direct or indirect ways

Who says their feelings are invalid? Where? How?

VS says . . .
What is actually wrong with just speaking up for safe spaces and sports etc if those are the real issues?

You may not have noticed, but that’s what is posted again and again on these threads.

I read that posters on GN, whatever label you like to give them, say Trans can say they are whatever they want as long as it does not harm anyone. Where have you read any of the things you say?

They DO say males (trans or not) should not go into female safe spaces, sports etc.

They also say that no one, male or female, trans or TRA claiming to act for trans , should not threaten or carry out harmful acts against females.

Do VS, or Glorianny or anyone else disagree with that?

VS says . . .
Telling trans people they cannot be who they are, that no medical science that supports them is good enough and that no amount of transition will actually help them align their outside with their inside... Why is that actually even necessary if people are trans inclusive?

Who is doing this telling? Where? How?

Saying you can’t change sex is a fact. If people choose to chop off their bits and pieces or take drugs, that’s their choice.
It won’t change their sex, but unless they ask me, I wouldn’t tell them that.

So where are these trans people, who go round GN asking people to tell them things?

Now to be fair, I didn’t expect a reply from VS. There are a couple of posters on GN who announce they’re not going to answer me, but since I have specifically mentioned claims in her post, this looks more like she won’t because she can’t prove what she avers.
Have a nice day VS.

Very well said Doodledog

Germanshepherdsmum

What do you mean VS, how come I don’t know if any people I know are trans? Why would I unless they very obviously don’t look like what they’re dressed as? What sort of conversations do you think I have with people?

I belong to a group of feminists that includes trans people

So I know some trans people

You don't, or at least you don't know if you do.

No problem, I do and you don't

What do you mean VS, how come I don’t know if any people I know are trans? Why would I unless they very obviously don’t look like what they’re dressed as? What sort of conversations do you think I have with people?

As this thread is about cancel culture and free speech, I have amused myself by going through it to find the attempts that have been made to cancel the views of the so-called 'gender critical' by twisting what we have said, and trying to paint our words as 'anti-trans'. I'll leave aside the frankly libellous comments about Kathleen Stock, as I'm sure she's heard worse and it would take too long. I'm sure that I'll have missed some of the slurs and insults, but this should give an idea:

1 - referring to Stock's words as 'hate speech' without having heard them (the first post on this thread) so anyone speaking up for her seems to be supporting hate speech.

2 - 'skip all the hate and arguing' (which nobody was doing, or has done - well, there has been argument from both sides)

3 - a comparison between biological realism and a desire to oppose same-sex marriage.

4 - 'cis' versus trans war

5 - Gender critical [sic] don't like any comparisons, Gay rights? Nope. Gay marriage? Nope. Intersex comparisons? Nope. Race hate? Nope. (a fairly comprehensive dismissal of the views of the majority of posters on these threads)

6 - accusations of hounding off threads, personal insults, demands and lack of respect. (Poster's emboldening. Irony apparently unintended)

7 - suggestion that opposition to the notion of TWAW is equivalent to saying that transwomen don't exist.

8 - unsubstantiated lies about Kathleen Stock.

9 - accusations of disingenuousness (against me)

10 - that 'demanding a reply' (which hadn't happened) is a 'classic gender critical response'. This accusation later moved to 'angry demands'

11 - accusations of 'manipulating questions' (NB requests for clarification of what these were received no response).

12 - assorted nonsense about what is right and left wing, with the underlying implication that anyone who doesn't believe that TWAW is to the right of Genghis Kahn.

13 - in amongst the disgraceful remarks about KS is the accusation that 'The Gender Critical see her as a heroine, although 'she doesn't have an idea of her own'. with the obvious implications about the intelligence of 'TGC'.

14 - 'It isn't possible for 'the GC' to have a reasoned and polite discussion' (ironic, in the light of the above - these comments are chronological, incidentally, and I'm only up to page eight.

15 - The offensive suggestion that I am justifying the aims of the Right, and am doing so by bringing in Stalin. (when no, I was justifying nothing, and using Stalin as an example of a left wing tyrant to show that the Right does not have monopoly on wickedness).

I could go on, but life's too short, and I think that 15 examples from the first few pages is enough to make my point? I hope that these are taken into account the next time the so-called 'Gender Critical' are accused of 'hounding' and 'twisting words'.

Germanshepherdsmum

People don’t tend to tell me what sex they are. Some might be trans, I don’t know, but they’re hardly going to mention it in general conversation. So how is it that VS knows ‘lots of’ trans people?

How come you don't?

People don’t tend to tell me what sex they are. Some might be trans, I don’t know, but they’re hardly going to mention it in general conversation. So how is it that VS knows ‘lots of’ trans people?

Sorry, I added an extra not
It should read
They also say that no one, male or female, trans or TRA claiming to act for trans , should … threaten or carry out harmful acts against females.
Do have a nice day VS.

VioletSky

Why don't trans views on who they are matter though?

We have not walked in their shoes

There are so many comments saying their feeling are invalid in direct or indirect ways

Most of us would hate that, so why do it?

What is actually wrong with just speaking up for safe spaces and sports etc if those are the real issues?

Telling trans people they cannot be who they are, that no medical science that supports them is good enough and that no amount of transition will actually help them align their outside with their inside... Why is that actually even necessary if people are trans inclusive?

VS vs

Why don't trans views on who they are matter though?

You keep making these statements, but who says they don’t matter?
Who has said it? Where? When?

There are so many comments saying their feeling are invalid in direct or indirect ways
Who says their feelings are invalid? Where? How?
VS says . . .
What is actually wrong with just speaking up for safe spaces and sports etc if those are the real issues?

You may not have noticed, but that’s what is posted again and again on these threads.

I read that posters on GN, whatever label you like to give them, say Trans can say they are whatever they want as long as it does not harm anyone.
They DO say males (trans or not) should not go into female safe spaces, sports etc.

They also say that no one, male or female, trans or TRA claiming to act for trans , should not threaten or carry out harmful acts against females.

VS says . . .
Telling trans people they cannot be who they are, that no medical science that supports them is good enough and that no amount of transition will actually help them align their outside with their inside... Why is that actually even necessary if people are trans inclusive?

Who is doing this telling? Where? How?

*Saying you can’t change sex is a fact. If people choose to chop off their bits and pieces or take drugs, that’s their choice.
It won’t change their sex, but unless they ask me, I wouldn’t tell them that.*

So where are these trans people, who go round GN asking people to tell them things?

People I know, don’t announce their sex to me; though Glorianny implies they do to her. They don’t announce they’re trans, so I don’t offer whatever opinion I hold, in the same way good manners prevent me from telling someone that I don’t like their outfit or hairdo.

Galaxy

If you tried to imagine that some trans people are gender critical you might be able to look at things differently.

Why wouldn't I?

I tend to listen to any polite, thoughtful discourse

I've met lots of trans people of the same opinion to me too

But I tend to think all views and feelings can be respected as long as people aren't using them to cause harm

This is the internet anyone can read these threads. I have that in mind when I write.

If you tried to imagine that some trans people are gender critical you might be able to look at things differently.

If you tried to imagine yourself a trans person reading these threads and were able to successfully do that, I think it would look quite different

Neither have I Ilovecheese and saw no reason to answer that particular question.