Good article. I have been reporting on the trans issues for the election and the denialism in the Democratic party. I will do a mention of your post in my upcoming newsletter. I am also in touch with the Human Gay Male people and their conference in London is in Jan. 2025. I hosted them when their traveling organizer stopped in Dallas, Texas. Feel free to use any reference materials in my posts for your group. Also, I save stuff to the Internet Archive so the opposition can't delete it.
I am a centrist Democrat and a sex realist gay man in my late 60s. There is no daylight between us on gender identity ideology and its pernicious social consequences. I, too, am disgusted with how progressive trans allies are falling all over themselves to reaffirm their commitment to every element of the trans agenda.
At the same time, those allies - some of whom are gay men - are reiterating their shrill contempt towards the sex realist position and all its advocates. What they cannot censor they will slander and shame. As they themselves might put it, they give us sex realists a darned good "othering" 24/7 and are damned proud of it.
I was disappointed but not surprised when the political operative and Obama-era official Jon Lovett, a gay man, expressed his anguish on Tim Miller's Bulwark podcast over the prospect that Trump was coming for "LGBTQ people." Tellingly, Lovett also gave a cri de coeur lamenting how awful it was that he (and presumably other progressives) were so right in their thinking while those who disagree with them are so very, very wrong. Miller, who is also gay, has a knee-jerk way of standing up for trans on his podcast. Within the past few months he demeaned himself by the flippant way he blew off female's legitimate opposition to competing against men in women-only events.
In other words, Lovett and Miller are two of countless progressive gay men who still stridently defend gender identity ideology and kick down at sex realists and their critiques of the phenomenon.
I responded by posting the following quotation from J.K. Rowling in the comments to yesterday's episode of The Bulwark podcast. As you and your readers are bound to know, Rowling is the TERF American liberals and progressives like to hate. I wish I had been keeping track of the non-political and otherwise unobjectionable podcasts where the host or a guest will bring up J.K. Rowling because the result is always the same. There is an almost ritualistic acknowledgement on the part of those present that Rowling is a terrible human being. Then the conversation moves on. It is reminiscent of the way little boys of a certain age make a show of letting each other know just how icky girls are. To think otherwise would be grounds for exile from boyland. Without further ado, this is what I pasted into my comment:
Women like me, and there are a lot of us, aren't and never have been far-right. We simply want the left to wake the hell up, because we're watching it do its utmost to alienate people it used to represent. I'm not saying Trump's win was down to the gender stuff - I'm not an American voter, so can't judge.
In any case, the Labour Party won the last UK election and they've embraced gender identity ideology whole-heartedly (although they won against a Tory government so enfeebled and unpopular it would have been miraculous if they hadn't, and their popularity since gaining office has plummeted.)
What I do know is that millions of women in the UK and across the developed world are extremely angry about men in women's sport, men in women's jails and the erosion of single-sex spaces. Parents are angry at being demonised because they don't want their troubled kids to undergo irreversible medical treatments of extremely questionable benefit. People are sick to the back teeth of being bullied and threatened for refusing to embrace an elitist, academia-generated ideology that's having severe real world consequences.
Large swathes of the left continue to be threatening and abusive to anybody who resists their attempts to impose ideological language or bully them out of wrongthink. Leftist activists jeer and sneer at erstwhile female allies for the crime of believing biological sex is real and matters.
And leftist leaders still appear more interested in sucking up to gender activists than - to take a topical example in the UK - female nurses whose crime is not wanting to undress in front of a fully intact male.
So to those screaming 'bigot' and 'fascist' at me, you should know two things. Firstly, I'm completely indifferent to your disapproval, as I'd have thought you'd have realised by now. Secondly, and far more importantly, the only thing more harmful to your cause than your pseudo-religious belief in gender identities is your astounding, self-righteous arrogance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------So far, there have been no negative replies. It could be that I posted after most subscribers had read the piece. I would not object at all if the lack of blowback is a sign readers concurred. Somehow, I think that is doubtful. Here's the link to the Substack comment section in question:
Wow -- totally phenomenal job covering all of the bases here --- and with stellar visual aids! thank you for all you are doing to raise consciousness on these issues!!!
Good article. I have been reporting on the trans issues for the election and the denialism in the Democratic party. I will do a mention of your post in my upcoming newsletter. I am also in touch with the Human Gay Male people and their conference in London is in Jan. 2025. I hosted them when their traveling organizer stopped in Dallas, Texas. Feel free to use any reference materials in my posts for your group. Also, I save stuff to the Internet Archive so the opposition can't delete it.
Let's keep in contact. I mentioned you in my newsletter. I would like to get like minded people together.
I am a centrist Democrat and a sex realist gay man in my late 60s. There is no daylight between us on gender identity ideology and its pernicious social consequences. I, too, am disgusted with how progressive trans allies are falling all over themselves to reaffirm their commitment to every element of the trans agenda.
At the same time, those allies - some of whom are gay men - are reiterating their shrill contempt towards the sex realist position and all its advocates. What they cannot censor they will slander and shame. As they themselves might put it, they give us sex realists a darned good "othering" 24/7 and are damned proud of it.
I was disappointed but not surprised when the political operative and Obama-era official Jon Lovett, a gay man, expressed his anguish on Tim Miller's Bulwark podcast over the prospect that Trump was coming for "LGBTQ people." Tellingly, Lovett also gave a cri de coeur lamenting how awful it was that he (and presumably other progressives) were so right in their thinking while those who disagree with them are so very, very wrong. Miller, who is also gay, has a knee-jerk way of standing up for trans on his podcast. Within the past few months he demeaned himself by the flippant way he blew off female's legitimate opposition to competing against men in women-only events.
In other words, Lovett and Miller are two of countless progressive gay men who still stridently defend gender identity ideology and kick down at sex realists and their critiques of the phenomenon.
I responded by posting the following quotation from J.K. Rowling in the comments to yesterday's episode of The Bulwark podcast. As you and your readers are bound to know, Rowling is the TERF American liberals and progressives like to hate. I wish I had been keeping track of the non-political and otherwise unobjectionable podcasts where the host or a guest will bring up J.K. Rowling because the result is always the same. There is an almost ritualistic acknowledgement on the part of those present that Rowling is a terrible human being. Then the conversation moves on. It is reminiscent of the way little boys of a certain age make a show of letting each other know just how icky girls are. To think otherwise would be grounds for exile from boyland. Without further ado, this is what I pasted into my comment:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Women like me, and there are a lot of us, aren't and never have been far-right. We simply want the left to wake the hell up, because we're watching it do its utmost to alienate people it used to represent. I'm not saying Trump's win was down to the gender stuff - I'm not an American voter, so can't judge.
In any case, the Labour Party won the last UK election and they've embraced gender identity ideology whole-heartedly (although they won against a Tory government so enfeebled and unpopular it would have been miraculous if they hadn't, and their popularity since gaining office has plummeted.)
What I do know is that millions of women in the UK and across the developed world are extremely angry about men in women's sport, men in women's jails and the erosion of single-sex spaces. Parents are angry at being demonised because they don't want their troubled kids to undergo irreversible medical treatments of extremely questionable benefit. People are sick to the back teeth of being bullied and threatened for refusing to embrace an elitist, academia-generated ideology that's having severe real world consequences.
Large swathes of the left continue to be threatening and abusive to anybody who resists their attempts to impose ideological language or bully them out of wrongthink. Leftist activists jeer and sneer at erstwhile female allies for the crime of believing biological sex is real and matters.
And leftist leaders still appear more interested in sucking up to gender activists than - to take a topical example in the UK - female nurses whose crime is not wanting to undress in front of a fully intact male.
So to those screaming 'bigot' and 'fascist' at me, you should know two things. Firstly, I'm completely indifferent to your disapproval, as I'd have thought you'd have realised by now. Secondly, and far more importantly, the only thing more harmful to your cause than your pseudo-religious belief in gender identities is your astounding, self-righteous arrogance.
-- J.K. Rowling
https://www.thefemalecategory.com/p/word-to-democrats-men-in-womens-sports?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1606471&post_id=151334790&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=8bzqv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------So far, there have been no negative replies. It could be that I posted after most subscribers had read the piece. I would not object at all if the lack of blowback is a sign readers concurred. Somehow, I think that is doubtful. Here's the link to the Substack comment section in question:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/jon-lovett-the-worst-people-are-happy
Excellent and comprehensive article. I also love Ollie’s comment.
Excellent article !
Fantastic letter.
Wow -- totally phenomenal job covering all of the bases here --- and with stellar visual aids! thank you for all you are doing to raise consciousness on these issues!!!