The Gender Debate

[J_Stewart]

3 hours ago, virginton said:

Oh great, I see this binfire of a thread has naturally descended from 'citing non-entities as leading authorities because I agree with them' to 'invoking Godwin's Law on a loop'.

You could always just stop reading and posting in it, rather than your eye gougingly tedious attempts to pick people up on semantics, general tone policing, and (admittedly quite funny) misunderstanding of Godwin's Law.

3 hours ago, f_c_dundee said:

Wasn't me started on about Nazis

 

I repeat, bringing extremist bampots of any variety up isn't really helping anyone.

 

 

Strong disagree. It's extremely helpful to the understanding of the Parties in a conflict when you can directly point to one and say "their arguments and viewpoints are supported by actual Nazi's. Nazi's agree and share these ideals".

I tend to find that, other than excellent taste in fashion, if you're taking a position that is strongly favoured by actual Nazi's, you should reconsider your position. 

[Zern]

Posie Parker seems to be pretty extreme. Gender Policing? That is not a well-thought out idea at all.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Well m8. You’re fighting the good fight by spamming the P&B politics forum with your new alias account.

 

[vikingTON]

9 hours ago, Zern said:

I think your misunderstanding what Godwin's law is describing.

There are appropriate places for discussion of Nazis. WW2 forums, History forums, Politics forums.

Hypothetically; if a bunch of Nazis turned up to support a Lib Dem conference, it would be weird to have someone criticise mention of that fact by citing Godwin's Law.

Trying to portray the gender-critical lobby as a whole as Nazi is not appropriate or proportionate discussion. It is simply envoking 'Nazi!' like a trump card to shut down debate, which is indeed an application of Godwin's Law in its natural habitat of crap online debates that one side is desperate to win. 

[vikingTON]

7 hours ago, J_Stewart said:

You could always just stop reading and posting in it, rather than your eye gougingly tedious attempts to pick people up on semantics, general tone policing, and (admittedly quite funny) misunderstanding of Godwin's Law.

I don't think that you understand what 'tone trolling' means. 

Quote

 

Strong disagree. It's extremely helpful to the understanding of the Parties in a conflict when you can directly point to one and say "their arguments and viewpoints are supported by actual Nazi's. Nazi's agree and share these ideals".

I tend to find that, other than excellent taste in fashion, if you're taking a position that is strongly favoured by actual Nazi's, you should reconsider your position. 

 

If you're a complete moron with no understanding of Naziism as a political ideology/movement, sure.

There were tons of issues that the Nazis shared a common position with the conservative right in Weimar Republic (culture wars; German national restrengthening; rejecting the Treaty of Versailles). There were also plenty of issues where they shared a common position with the Social Democrats (support for German workers; also rejecting the ToV). There were also plenty of issues where they held a common position with the Communist Party (rejecting Weimar democracy as a corrupt sham; also support for German workers). All just a couple of examples among countless other positions. 

Nazis and all far right groups of even halfway competence have lots of positions that are not controversial. Many of them are popular too. They just tack on a lot of other policies that reflect their political agenda. If you think that the Nazis won nearly 14 million German votes because of their standalone 'exterminate international Jewry' policy, then you're ignorant of the facts.

The 'finding' that you have taken is both simple and wrong.

Edited May 31, 2023 by vikingTON

[vikingTON]

No doubt @J_Stewart will have to reconsider his position on such controversial and hate-filled agendas like, err work and bread for starving people, now that they have been irredeemably tainted by Nazi support. 

[CarrbridgeSaintee]

A stance should be judged on it's own merits, and not who supports it.

Some nazis supporting gender criticality has absolutely no bearing on gender criticality itself.

To suggest it does makes no sense whatsoever.

[Zern]

39 minutes ago, virginton said:

Trying to portray the gender-critical lobby as a whole as Nazi is not appropriate or proportionate discussion. It is simply envoking 'Nazi!' like a trump card to shut down debate, which is indeed an application of Godwin's Law in its natural habitat of crap online debates that one side is desperate to win. 

No-one has tried to portray the gender-critical lobby as a whole, as Nazi mate.

We called the Nazis that were throwing Nazi salutes Nazis.

 

[Zern]

15 minutes ago, CarrbridgeSaintee said:

A stance should be judged on it's own merits, and not who supports it.

Some nazis supporting gender criticality has absolutely no bearing on gender criticality itself.

To suggest it does makes no sense whatsoever.

The name of the fallacy in question is argumentum ad Hitlerum.

[strichener]

4 minutes ago, Zern said:

No-one has tried to portray the gender-critical lobby as a whole, as Nazi mate.

We called the Nazis that were throwing Nazi salutes Nazis.

 

And used it to try and taint an entirely separate group of people by association.  An association that doesn't actually exist.

[Zern]

21 minutes ago, strichener said:

And used it to try and taint an entirely separate group of people by association.  An association that doesn't actually exist.

The association exists because the fuckers turned up to support a self-identifying leader of the Gender Critical movement. 

 

[f_c_dundee]

32 minutes ago, CarrbridgeSaintee said:

A stance should be judged on it's own merits, and not who supports it.

Some nazis supporting gender criticality has absolutely no bearing on gender criticality itself.

To suggest it does makes no sense whatsoever.

That's pretty much what bothers me I guess.

 

Many things I say are jumped on not because the poster is expressing how they specifically disagree with my point , but because it was in the wrong newspaper or is the same view as Posie Parker or other individual classed as a bigot etc.  Maybe also worth pointing out how many (leftie, feminist) journalists have already jumped ship from the Guardian a few years back, landing up at the Times and Telegraph where they maybe didn't feel they fitted, but were able to publish articles on this topic.

Personally I am tired of all the click baity world of news now and every publication lets folk turn out any amount of shite and opinion pieces. But at least the 'Tory' papers published some of both varieties of it on this topic I reckon.

 

NB not a Nazi fan, nor a supporter of some of the Antifa behaviour at some of the protests either. Mild critical comment about one doesny actually mean big fan of the other.  I actually feel a little insane that I have to clarify that mad shit. Here's where we are, I guess.

[f_c_dundee]

2 hours ago, Zern said:

The association exists because the fuckers turned up to support a self-identifying leader of the Gender Critical movement. 

 

'Turned up to support'.

 

So no one invited them, requested their presence or otherwise sought this association. They just turned up to an open public event.

I don't believe that all pro-self id demonstrators are in favour of crime , just because, for example, Sarah Jane Barker - convicted of torture  + kidnap and attempted murder - has been welcomed to shout into a megaphone at several protest events? Because that would be really stupid. (seen here with Labour buddies as well: https://twitter.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1615797910859399168?s=20 )

 

Posie isn't anyone's leader, she's done a good job making a noise to get more discussion started, I'll give her that.  I also probably disagree with some stuff she thinks. There are a whole bunch of people from many walks of life who would like to go back to when we could say things like "sex is important in many situations" without being called bigots and maybe have proper discussions. Like how words have meanings, and the impact of that fact on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, data collection, prison and hospital policy etc etc.

 

2 hours ago, Zern said:

No-one has tried to portray the gender-critical lobby as a whole, as Nazi mate.

We called the Nazis that were throwing Nazi salutes Nazis.

It's more of a poor attempt at discrediting by association. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by f_c_dundee

[strichener]

2 hours ago, Zern said:

The association exists because the fuckers turned up to support a self-identifying leader of the Gender Critical movement. 

 

And?  If they turned up to support your football team would that stop you from supporting them?  Even if they weren't invited?

[D Angelo Barksdale]

You're always going to run into problems with the "I must support position x because this group/person supports position y'  argument. A more recent example than the Nazi's would be the BNP back when they enjoyed some modest success in local elections. Their economic platform was comfortably to the left of the mainstream parties, re-nationalisation, investment in public services, taxing wealth and big business. Nick Griffin is a bigot and I could never vote for the BNP, but I'm not going to stop supporting the above economic policies because he also does.

Clearly there's real concerns with the far right inserting themselves into this particular debate though. They're not there to support feminist theory or lesbians or women's safety. They're there for the chance to stomp on a minority, one which they see as degenerate. They'll be encouraged by the heated tone of the debate and the language used by some of the regular GC's. It'll be used as a recruiting tool and a trajan horse or foot in the door to attack the wider LGBT community, given that a fair amount of transphobia is just rebadged homophobia. This already seems to be happening in the US.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I'm not labelling all GC's as far right, or that they all have the same motivations as them.

[f_c_dundee]

1 minute ago, Herc said:

You're always going to run into problems with the "I must support position x because this group/person supports position y'  argument. A more recent example than the Nazi's would be the BNP back when they enjoyed some modest success in local elections. Their economic platform was comfortably to the left of the mainstream parties, re-nationalisation, investment in public services, taxing wealth and big business. Nick Griffin is a bigot and I could never vote for the BNP, but I'm not going to stop supporting the above economic policies because he also does.

Clearly there's real concerns with the far right inserting themselves into this particular debate though. They're not there to support feminist theory or lesbians or women's safety. They're there for the chance to stomp on a minority, one which they see as degenerate. They'll be encouraged by the heated tone of the debate and the language used by some of the regular GC's. It'll be used as a recruiting tool and a trajan horse or foot in the door to attack the wider LGBT community, given that a fair amount of transphobia is just rebadged homophobia. This already seems to be happening in the US.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I'm not labelling all GC's as far right, or that they all have the same motivations as them.

Yes, and the fact that so many of the men and women on the GC side are actually lesbian and gay themselves (and/or gender non conforming thenselves) in a lot of cases makes it particularly nuts to tar everyone with this brush. The 'traditionalist Christian fixed gender roles for men and women' mindset is clearly way more of a thing in the USA, hence the above observation. 

 

I have started to read what sounds like a sensible tweet/comment which then segues into things about the Lord and whatever He thinks and maybe just blatant homophobia.  There is an overlap between the 2 groups in the belief that there is harm being done to children and to laws with words that mean things (clearly defined things).  That's about it as far as I can see.

[Zern]

9 minutes ago, strichener said:

And?  If they turned up to support your football team would that stop you from supporting them?  Even if they weren't invited?

Yes. Especially if it turned my football team's management were making speeches advocating the removal of transgender rights and were non-plussed by a bunch of Nazis standing nearby seig heiling their every word.

I would be very concerned about that.

Sadly politics is not an intellectually pure exercise and you can absolutely judge a person by the support they garner.

If the Indy movement was getting vocal Nazi support it would be judged seven ways from Sunday and be constantly re-reminded of that fact. The problem is that anyone trying to ignore the Nazi support for Posie Parker is that you have yet to address why they were there. They are the ones saying they support her and they are they ones approving of her stance of removing transgender as a protected characteristic.

Do you really think they have good reasons for this?

[Zern]

1 hour ago, f_c_dundee said:

Posie isn't anyone's leader, she's done a good job making a noise to get more discussion started, I'll give her that.  I also probably disagree with some stuff she thinks. There are a whole bunch of people from many walks of life who would like to go back to when we could say things like "sex is important in many situations" without being called bigots and maybe have proper discussions. Like how words have meanings, and the impact of that fact on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, data collection, prison and hospital policy etc etc.

The idea that language is being degraded is bullshit, that you are in any way safeguarding anyone by shitting on transgender people is a fiction and the idea that you are being called a bigot for saying "sex is important in many situations" is patently false.

Posie Parker is not stimulating discussion. She' s preaching a gender essentialism that is bigoted. Being endorsed by Nazis only lends credence to this observation.

Nor are you being denied a 'proper discussion'.

It might help if you were to focus on one particular aspect that you feel requires changing in the equalities legislation.

[Johnny Martin]

8 hours ago, f_c_dundee said:

That's pretty much what bothers me I guess.

 

Many things I say are jumped on not because the poster is expressing how they specifically disagree with my point , but because it was in the wrong newspaper or is the same view as Posie Parker or other individual classed as a bigot etc.  Maybe also worth pointing out how many (leftie, feminist) journalists have already jumped ship from the Guardian a few years back, landing up at the Times and Telegraph where they maybe didn't feel they fitted, but were able to publish articles on this topic.

Personally I am tired of all the click baity world of news now and every publication lets folk turn out any amount of shite and opinion pieces. But at least the 'Tory' papers published some of both varieties of it on this topic I reckon.

 

NB not a Nazi fan, nor a supporter of some of the Antifa behaviour at some of the protests either. Mild critical comment about one doesny actually mean big fan of the other.  I actually feel a little insane that I have to clarify that mad shit. Here's where we are, I guess.

I notice this too.

If you were to act in the same obnoxious manner then you'd be banned straight away.

[f_c_dundee]

 

7 hours ago, Zern said:

The idea that language is being degraded is bullshit, that you are in any way safeguarding anyone by shitting on transgender people is a fiction and the idea that you are being called a bigot for saying "sex is important in many situations" is patently false.

Posie Parker is not stimulating discussion. She' s preaching a gender essentialism that is bigoted. Being endorsed by Nazis only lends credence to this observation.

Nor are you being denied a 'proper discussion'.

It might help if you were to focus on one particular aspect that you feel requires changing in the equalities legislation.

What's gender essentialism, exactly?

 

Language being 'degraded' is a bit of a dramatic way of putting it. It's not about some kind of philosophical purity of the language though. 

 

We need a word for women that doesn't include some men and the same for men. We need to be able to exclude men (or women) in some situations for reasons of risk or for privacy and dignity when undressed or otherwise vulnerable. 

 

Also to avoid gathering incorrect data - for things like the census, but also for recording crimes, health statistics. 

 

No one wishes to stop any individual from expressing themselves how they wish - the exception perhaps being men who dress e.g. in miniscule dresses at work which would not be accepted without batting an eyelid if worn by a woman.

 

I do not personally wish to conform to the gendered expectations placed on my sex by some sections of society. I feel exceptionally uncomfortable in a dress and like an idiot in make up. I am 0% interested in fashion or fancy nails, I like what I like and if it coincides with fashion it's a fluke, like combat trousers in the 90s .  No one at all GC is saying people can't express themselves how they want and do whatever job or sport they choose. 

 

They just can't be the opposite sex. They can be treated as such out of politeness at times, but this doesn't extend to a right to be recognised as their desired sex absolutely anywhere, because this affects others rights to things like single sex services and competitive sport.

 

Yes even park run. Even grass roots football. What % of us are going to be elite sports people? No that many. So having your weekly crack at the park run record for your age group placed out of reach for a male to feel included, is just as crap as the fact that males can set records that will be nigh on impossible to beat in women's sport. 

 

It's not about shitting on anyone, just that the realities must be considered and that's not bigotry.

 

It's not the same as homophobia, because giving the right to same sex marriage and protection from discrimination affected no one else apart from those in the relationship. As mentioned above- yes, people who are already homophobic and probably many other varieties of arsehole are happy to leap in and be genuinely derogatory. In the UK trans people are already protected from discrimination under a protected characteristic, I know this isn't the case everywhere. 

 

It's hard to focus on one aspect when the effects are very wide ranging. 

 

45 minutes ago, Johnny Martin said:

I notice this too.

If you were to act in the same obnoxious manner then you'd be banned straight away.

I've already had a week off for "abusive behaviour".