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• I won't join in with the discussion since it makes my head explode after thinking we had made it clear in the 1960's that no one had to conform to any stereotyping. Meanwhile the focus on "identity" has managed here to pit people against each other in a race to claim the status of the most marginalized. What happened to agreeing that we have humanity in common?

  • It IS mind-blowingly crazy!

• The actual meaning of progress is movement, it can produce improvements or regression; an ambiguous mixture of technique and ideology, however, all political movements will interpret the term to suit their interest and culture will modify its meaning to its current trends. But despite many apparent gains, history will judge progress by its current ethical standards.

  • Yes. The measure of whether the change is actually "progress' depends on the socially determined notion of the word. One group's idea progress is another's regress,
    By many of the social indicators I look to, we are living in regressive times.

• I'm so angry about trans ideology, I don't care anymore who hates me for speaking out against it. I don't care how people choose to live their lives, including transpeople (not all transpeople agree with this perverse ideology pushed onto us in their name), if it hurts no one, but women and children are almost exclusively bearing the cost of it. As you say, it's regression, but just with different packaging.

  • I'm with you. Defending the rights of women, children, gays and lesbians is neither hateful nor transphobic.

    I support the rights of trans people to live their lives with respect, dignity, and equal rights. Always have. Always will.

    The transactivist and lobbying organizations (e.g. HRC, StonewallUK, and all the rest) are not doing trans folks any favors with this. Unfortunately, they and their money have the ear of the Democratic politicians (in the US) who are now in the position of defending a totally unscientific position when it comes to women and sports. What a betrayal!

• What is progress? Here is George Bernard Shaw's definition:
  "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to him -- therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."

  • Yay! That brings to mind that it's the grit that makes the pearl in the oyster shell.
    It's why debate and discussion and difference are healthy! Without it we are all stuck.
    Thanks mistermuse.

    • Like (clicking the "Like" at the end of your reply wouldn't 'take').

• Josie, I too question the idea of progress, and I think many people do, whether they are on the left, feminists, environmentalists, economists, or plain old believers in democracy. Back in the Victorian era there was this Darwinian notion that we were all inevitably getting better and better, moving onward and upward toward perfection. Most of us, no matter what our political persuasion, have become disabused of that notion by now.

  When you move to the issues of sexual and gender equality, there is also plenty of scope to question how much progress we have made. From my perspective, and that of many others I dare say, the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade and the sweeping and punitive anti-abortion laws being enacted in state after state are clear evidence of regression when it comes to women's rights.

  Broadly speaking, I feel that extending the same rights to gay and transgender persons that have been fought for by African Americans and women (among other disenfranchised groups), makes total sense. The issues are complex, to be sure, but surely not so complex or so threatening that we can't entertain them calmly. I don't think that the issue is a social crisis, or that it threatens the progress that women have made. For transgender people, though, it is an ongoing crisis, and the current effort to roll back their hard-won gains are making daily existence much worse for them. Like you, I am a retired teacher, and greater acceptance of different gender and sexual identities was a non-issue to my college students, even the first-years. They simply didn't find it threatening. I think it's mostly our generation and to some extent their parents' generation who see this changing scenario as a threat.

  I like the idea of posing questions for consideration as you do in your post. Several of them could lead to illuminating discussions. As a reader, though, I find that the sweeping pronouncements that pepper the post make it seem as if your position is already fixed and intractable.

  If you're interested, here's "Why is Gender Identity so Important?" a TEDx Talk from the UK (c. 2015) that I have shown to students in the past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFBU7h7fqLc
  Of course it's just one person, Rikki Arundel, speaking about her personal experience, but I think it usefully sketches out the differences between sex, gender, and gender identity and raises some helpful questions about issues such as the "pinkification" and dumbing-down of girls. Clearly, this one transwoman is a feminist in her concern about how gender stereotyping hurts girls.

  Sorry this reply has been so long.

  Best wishes, Josna

  • Yes! - "the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the sweeping and punitive anti-abortion laws being enacted in state after state are clear evidence of regression when it comes to women’s rights" - Absolutely.

    But women's rights are also being eroded by gender identity ideology when it takes the form of men insisting that they are now eligible to play women's sports, win women's awards, and to have access to the spaces and places that have been reserved for women in order to provide places of dignity and safety. This insistence often being just a matter of self-identification. The current plague of sex offenders changing their pronouns and being placed in women's prisons is an extreme example of this. "I am a woman because I say I am and I have the right to enter any woman's space on the basis of my seld-selected identity."

    And lesbian and gay rights are also under attack by this movement. Heterosexual men are now declaring themselves to be lesbian and demanding access to what were formerly women-only spaces. (There's a big trial going down right now in Australia on this very topic of whether men can be excluded from an app designed to be for lesbians only.)

    Of course, trans rights are human rights and they should have the same legal rights as any other group. And they do. Thanks to the long struggle for equal rights by the women's and LGB movements they have the same legal protections and rights as other groups - the right to marry, own property, drive a vehicle, serve in the military, have a credit card, attend school, vote etc. (This is not true in all countries of course where discrimination against women and LGB people is enshrined in law.) This is as it should be. What they do not deserve are any additional rights that erode the rights of others.

    Thanks for the link. I will take a look. It's the gender identity ideology that is the problem, not the people. Rights do not have to be in conflict. There are solutions that can offer equal protection for all - in sports, in prisons, and everywhere else. The solutions start with recognizing that there are two sexes; we are all one or the other; and that no one has ever changed sex. And that - in some circumstances - sex really does matter.

    Thanks for the comment Josna.

• I utterly and totally agree with you Josie. It’s the most conformist “movement” ever and it’s about as sexist as can be. Your two videoed are pearls of wisdom. I especially relate to the young woman’s observation at the Riverside Unified District Board meeting.
  In terms of progress—it’s a hoax. Other than imagining and believing having more money etc is progress, I see the touting of progress as a brainwashing tool, to keep us all not living in the present but always in a hurry to get somewhere else! Progress, if indeed it exists, would be: no more violence, no more killings, no more abuse! See what I mean? Progress is an illusion.

  • Totally. In terms of the Riverside Unified District Board meeting - there's footage online of some of the violence that led up to it and also of the full meeting. Haven't watched it all yet.

    I think people confuse progress with change. Rather in the way gender and sex are confused and we inevitably get into a muddle in any discussion. It's why we need to stop using the g-word whenever we actually mean sex.

    And those two young women - good stuff!

    Thanks for the comments Ingrid.