> Critics circulated a clip from the “Dead End: Paranormal Park” in which Barney Guttman, the series’ protagonist, comes out to his friend Norma as transgender. “I’m trans, Norma,” Barney says. “Being here, it’s like a whole new place. I can just be Barney, and I can choose if and when I tell people.” The character says he has “never been happier” and says it is important to “live your life without apology.” Libs of TikTok shared the clip and accused the show of pushing “pro-transgender” on “7-YEAR-OLDS.”
Wow. Replace "transgender" with "homosexual" and you get the homophobia of the late 20th Century. Are some people really so afraid of their kids learning that some people are happy being transgender?
jsheard•4mo ago
> Are some people really so afraid of their kids learning that some people are happy being transgender?
Elon disowned his trans daughter Vivian, so yes. It doesn't matter to him that she is happy, what matters is that this isn't what he wanted, and now he's lashing out at the world for letting this injustice happen to him.
Vivian alleges that Elon uses sex-selective IVF with a preference for boys, implying those control freak tendencies go back to before she was even born. He didn't just want a son, he demanded one, and then that child turning the tables on him broke his brain.
rsynnott•4mo ago
Pretty much the entire modern transphobia movement appears to be, essentially, taking 90s/early noughties-style homophobia and changing a few words. As someone who was a target the first time round it’s really very striking how similar it is.
(Interestingly, early noughties transphobia had a fairly different character; the “think of the children” aspect is fairly new.)
n4r9•4mo ago
How would you describe the transphobia of the early noughties? For those that might have been too young to pick up on it at the time.
rsynnott•4mo ago
Mostly either religious, or TERF stuff. By which I mean _real_ trans-exclusionary radical feminism stuff (TERF has come to have a much broader colloquial meaning). And it was _niche_. A number of European countries and US states passed gender recognition laws based on self-id, with minimal fuss. Even as late as 2015, Ireland passed such a law with no-one except the religious loons caring, while the marriage referendum around the same time attracted far more fearmongering.
This kind of moral panic around kids is new (though, as I mentioned, it very much echoes the homophobic movement a few decades ago), as is the bathrooms thing.
I’m convinced that its emergence at least in this part of the world was almost entirely due to the British right needing a new wedge issue after Brexit; you see it being suddenly pushed very hard out of nowhere there post-2016, and especially post-2021. From Britain, it leaked out, with European transphobia having a strong British flavour.
n4r9•4mo ago
Interesting... where are you referring to when you say "this part of the world"? Britain itself, or Ireland?
rsynnott•4mo ago
Western Europe in general really, though specifically Ireland, yeah. It hasn't caught on here to the same degree that it has in the UK, at least not for now, fortunately (politically, it's mostly the preserve of fringe weirdos, whereas it's a major-party thing in the UK at this point), but some of the talking points have definitely come over.
As to the sudden shift in the UK, Cameron and May's Conservative governments planned to introduce self-ID (and Cameron was very noisy about the UK's high rating on LGBT rights - of course it has since slid quite a bit in those rankings...), Boris was kinda transphobic but not particularly loud about it, but then by 2022 you see Penny Mordaunt basically facing a sort of transphobia purity test in her leadership campaign (https://news.sky.com/story/penny-mordaunt-dismisses-claims-a...). It was a really rapid about-face.
n4r9•4mo ago
Thanks for the info. I remember having dinner in Cambridge with a friend couple in what must have been the early 2010s; the woman was involved in local Labour politics but both were very opinionated about single-sex spaces, and there had been some scandal around someone taking the piss by identifying as a woman only on council meeting days and campaigning for women's officer. It felt very mumsnet.
clessed•4mo ago
It was May's plan to introduce gender self-ID that galvanised such a strong and rapid response against it, largely coordinated on Mumsnet, within its Feminism and Women's Rights (FWR) subforum.
In fact, the recent UK Supreme Court case which resulted in a ruling that references to "sex", "woman" and "man" in the Equality Act refer to biological sex (as in, a person's sex observed at birth), was brought by a small group of women who met on FWR.
More generally, I think much of the reason that the UK has been so successful in resisting and reversing policy that prioritises self-declared gender identity over sex is that we have a strong tradition of women's advocacy for single-sex provisions, that has been pursued regardless of other political affiliations.
n4r9•4mo ago
We've excluded trans women from somewhere they don't pose a threat, forcing them into spaces where they are under considerable threat.
clessed•4mo ago
What has led you to believe that?
n4r9•4mo ago
The evidence, e.g.
> Current policy debates regarding transgender people’s access to restrooms and other gendered facilities are predicated on narratives about protecting the safety and privacy of women’s spaces. These narratives lack evidence showing any negative impacts on safety and privacy in women’s restrooms or other facilities when transgender people can use restrooms according to their gender identity. However, transgender people consistently report having negative experiences in restrooms perpetrated by others, including denial of access, verbal harassment, and physical assault. Evidence suggests that transgender people are put at added risk if required by law to use restrooms in accordance with their sex assigned at birth.
But that report misses the point that women's rights to single-sex spaces is about boundaries, consent and protection from male presence in intimate settings. By only surveying "transgender experiences" it's basically just ignoring women who object to this and implying that women's boundaries and consent don't matter.
Looking at crime statistics won't capture the discomfort and intimidation that many women will experience upon encountering intrusive males in female spaces, nor their withdrawal from public life as a consequence of this.
Also it focuses heavily on toilet facilities but this is just a part of the wider issue. Like for example there's a much worse problem in women's prisons where males are being transferred in based on self-declared gender identity, with sexual assaults, rapes and impregnation of female prisoners by these men occurring as a direct result of such policy.
n4r9•4mo ago
> women's rights to single-sex spaces is about boundaries, consent and protection
I agree that these are important things, and there's a discussion to be had about it. There's an argument for some safe spaces such as women's refuges having some kind of biological criteria. But I think the Supreme Court ruling is too broadly sweeping and I have doubts that it's a net positive.
This is slightly derailing from topic though, which is about how transphobia has surged in recent years. I'm curious to know if you think it's reasonable to boycott Netflix because they have produced kids shows with transgender characters.
clessed•4mo ago
I see the Supreme Court ruling as striking just about the right balance in law. It affirms single-sex spaces as actually being single-sex, and confirms that both sex and "gender reassignment" are protected characteristics in the Equality Act. So sex-based rights are upheld and at the same time there are protections against discrimination for the trans-identified.
As an example of how this should work going forward: a male work colleague who decides to start calling himself a woman and putting "she/her" in his email signature and so on can't be discriminated against because of this, which is fair. But also his female colleagues can be assured he has no right to start barging in on the women's toilets or changing rooms, which is also fair.
Back on the topic of boycotting Netflix, I personally think it's an overreaction. The whole gender identity ideological system sits somewhere between ludicrous and sexist, depending on exactly which beliefs someone takes from it, but there's loads of other shows on Netflix that are also ludicrous and also sexist. I feel it's an opportunity for critique of these ideas, rather than a blanket boycott of the whole platform.
That said, I wouldn't want my child to start believing this nonsense when she gets older but it feels like a fad that's on its way out. I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm more concerned about all the other misogynistic messaging that shows no sign of disappearing any time soon.
n4r9•4mo ago
> his female colleagues can be assured he has no right to start barging in on the women's toilets
What if they've fully committed to the process and undergone gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy etc... Should that change anything in your view? At that point it's clearly more than just labelling themselves.
> I wouldn't want my child to start believing this nonsense when she gets older but it feels like a fad that's on its way out.
Transsexuality is a fad? Hasn't it existed in some form or another throughout all human culture and history?
rsynnott•4mo ago
Also imposing a significant threat on cis women who don’t look sufficiently conventionally feminine for the transphobes’ tastes, tbh.
clessed•4mo ago
Not really though. This is about female and male, not feminine and masculine.
Like for example, women in prison won't have any problem if they don't look stereotypically feminine. But they certainly are under significant threat if male prisoners are locked up with them.
Homosexuality doesn't make you permanently infertile tho.
n4r9•4mo ago
Fair point, that is a difference. Transitioning is a significant change and not to be taken lightly. That said, fertility can be preserved by freezing sperm or eggs. It's offered on the NHS as part of the gender transition process.
n4r9•4mo ago
Wow. Replace "transgender" with "homosexual" and you get the homophobia of the late 20th Century. Are some people really so afraid of their kids learning that some people are happy being transgender?
jsheard•4mo ago
Elon disowned his trans daughter Vivian, so yes. It doesn't matter to him that she is happy, what matters is that this isn't what he wanted, and now he's lashing out at the world for letting this injustice happen to him.
Vivian alleges that Elon uses sex-selective IVF with a preference for boys, implying those control freak tendencies go back to before she was even born. He didn't just want a son, he demanded one, and then that child turning the tables on him broke his brain.
rsynnott•4mo ago
(Interestingly, early noughties transphobia had a fairly different character; the “think of the children” aspect is fairly new.)
n4r9•4mo ago
rsynnott•4mo ago
This kind of moral panic around kids is new (though, as I mentioned, it very much echoes the homophobic movement a few decades ago), as is the bathrooms thing.
I’m convinced that its emergence at least in this part of the world was almost entirely due to the British right needing a new wedge issue after Brexit; you see it being suddenly pushed very hard out of nowhere there post-2016, and especially post-2021. From Britain, it leaked out, with European transphobia having a strong British flavour.
n4r9•4mo ago
rsynnott•4mo ago
As to the sudden shift in the UK, Cameron and May's Conservative governments planned to introduce self-ID (and Cameron was very noisy about the UK's high rating on LGBT rights - of course it has since slid quite a bit in those rankings...), Boris was kinda transphobic but not particularly loud about it, but then by 2022 you see Penny Mordaunt basically facing a sort of transphobia purity test in her leadership campaign (https://news.sky.com/story/penny-mordaunt-dismisses-claims-a...). It was a really rapid about-face.
n4r9•4mo ago
clessed•4mo ago
In fact, the recent UK Supreme Court case which resulted in a ruling that references to "sex", "woman" and "man" in the Equality Act refer to biological sex (as in, a person's sex observed at birth), was brought by a small group of women who met on FWR.
More generally, I think much of the reason that the UK has been so successful in resisting and reversing policy that prioritises self-declared gender identity over sex is that we have a strong tradition of women's advocacy for single-sex provisions, that has been pursued regardless of other political affiliations.
n4r9•4mo ago
clessed•4mo ago
n4r9•4mo ago
> Current policy debates regarding transgender people’s access to restrooms and other gendered facilities are predicated on narratives about protecting the safety and privacy of women’s spaces. These narratives lack evidence showing any negative impacts on safety and privacy in women’s restrooms or other facilities when transgender people can use restrooms according to their gender identity. However, transgender people consistently report having negative experiences in restrooms perpetrated by others, including denial of access, verbal harassment, and physical assault. Evidence suggests that transgender people are put at added risk if required by law to use restrooms in accordance with their sex assigned at birth.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/safety-i...
clessed•4mo ago
Looking at crime statistics won't capture the discomfort and intimidation that many women will experience upon encountering intrusive males in female spaces, nor their withdrawal from public life as a consequence of this.
Also it focuses heavily on toilet facilities but this is just a part of the wider issue. Like for example there's a much worse problem in women's prisons where males are being transferred in based on self-declared gender identity, with sexual assaults, rapes and impregnation of female prisoners by these men occurring as a direct result of such policy.
n4r9•4mo ago
I agree that these are important things, and there's a discussion to be had about it. There's an argument for some safe spaces such as women's refuges having some kind of biological criteria. But I think the Supreme Court ruling is too broadly sweeping and I have doubts that it's a net positive.
This is slightly derailing from topic though, which is about how transphobia has surged in recent years. I'm curious to know if you think it's reasonable to boycott Netflix because they have produced kids shows with transgender characters.
clessed•4mo ago
As an example of how this should work going forward: a male work colleague who decides to start calling himself a woman and putting "she/her" in his email signature and so on can't be discriminated against because of this, which is fair. But also his female colleagues can be assured he has no right to start barging in on the women's toilets or changing rooms, which is also fair.
Back on the topic of boycotting Netflix, I personally think it's an overreaction. The whole gender identity ideological system sits somewhere between ludicrous and sexist, depending on exactly which beliefs someone takes from it, but there's loads of other shows on Netflix that are also ludicrous and also sexist. I feel it's an opportunity for critique of these ideas, rather than a blanket boycott of the whole platform.
That said, I wouldn't want my child to start believing this nonsense when she gets older but it feels like a fad that's on its way out. I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm more concerned about all the other misogynistic messaging that shows no sign of disappearing any time soon.
n4r9•4mo ago
What if they've fully committed to the process and undergone gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy etc... Should that change anything in your view? At that point it's clearly more than just labelling themselves.
> I wouldn't want my child to start believing this nonsense when she gets older but it feels like a fad that's on its way out.
Transsexuality is a fad? Hasn't it existed in some form or another throughout all human culture and history?
rsynnott•4mo ago
clessed•4mo ago
Like for example, women in prison won't have any problem if they don't look stereotypically feminine. But they certainly are under significant threat if male prisoners are locked up with them.
n4r9•4mo ago
dzhiurgis•4mo ago
n4r9•4mo ago