The idea that the NGOs had to designate these homosexual males who "lived as women" in traditional cultural roles as "trans women" to target infection for funding purposes is something I have never come across. That piece of the story seems non-nefarious and well-meaning, not fueled by clever and powerful AGPs trying to normalize their fetish through policy and law, but by liberal public health goals. But obviously with terrible consequences from the perspective of women's rights. And I imagine it all intersects. Roisin, you say you just lost your job—where did you work? Is there a piece you wrote about that?
While 'non-nefarious and well-meaning', it still looks terribly short-sighted. NGOs realized that it was important to differentiate the homosexual transvestite from his non-feminine gay compatriot, but saw no downsides in failing to differentiate him from the fetishistic, heterosexual AGP? And in seeking to legitimize the needs of the former type, they inadvertently legitimized the needs of the latter type. It almost sounds as if all this could have been avoided if the NGOs had given homosexual transvestites a different label, one that didn't have '-woman' as a suffix.
I would also really be interested to see an article from RM about this connection.
The explanation usually given for why trans activism popped up everywhere -- because Western LGB organizations won on gay marriage and needed a new raison d'etre -- has never explained the pharmaceutical juggernaut part of the story
If you are a Gen Xer, you remember how *HUGE* the whole HIV / AIDS thing was in manner very similar to trans stuff: it was in popular culture, it was in fashion, and the messaging that *everyone* had to assess themselves in relation to it was very similar to pronoun stuff: me and all my straight female friends dutifully got HIV tested even though we were having heterosexual sex with 1 to a few partners and were at vanishingly low risk. The point was that the net was cast to *involve* us in this worldwide moral/medical crusade. You were a stupid backwards racist homophobe if you didn't understand that millions of lives were at risk, that any amount of funding and experimental research was necessary, people of color and gay men and also sort of fashionable looking butch women gazing off camera expected you to Do Better.
And almost all of the HIV / AIDS disease risk profiles and epidemiological projections were dead wrong, at least one of treatments (early AZT) killed a lot of people, but pharmaceutical companies got a lot of patients and a lot of funding and rich country governments did a lot of intervening in the domestic social policies of poorer nations. same same.
Thanks for this comment, Kathleen. As a young boomer, I'm older than you but young enough to have lived through all that too and remember I "dutifully got HIV tested" in that time period as I was directed to do. It felt weird, but I did it. I wouldn't even have remembered that, ever, without reading your comment. I remember that pressure you write about. I didn't follow it closely, years went by and then one day (whenever that was) was glad to hear there was a medicine for people with AIDS, that people no longer died from this terrible disease. I assumed that all that research and funding finally worked. And maybe that IS part of the story. But it was still a huge propaganda campaign similar to Covid policies that also turned out to be wrong, similar to how rich countries intervened in poor countries. I didn't know any of the points you bring out in the last paragraph about them being wrong about so much with this research. Assuming you are right (which honestly I do assume, given you're a smart TERF!) it's like the repressed memory stuff--people believed it, went along with it, got harmed by it, but anyone in liberal circles (me too) was stamped by it at the time, harmed by it to some degree, even as it quietly slipped away and was discredited. (And people still are true believers in that stuff.) This is not a very articulate response, just processing the parallels in my own life and repeating patterns.
Thanks for replying Elizabeth. I think there is a big book to be written about trans as we now know it and COVID being the twin offspring of the HIV/AIDS moralized pharma juggernaut. A formula for siphoning a ton of public money and for justifying a ton of managerial intervention in the intimacies of everyday life
You're welcome, and thanks for sharing the info, grass-roots style! Because this IS a genuine grass-roots movement we are part of, not an astroturf (or astroTERF ha! right-wing funded) one, which despite far more defeats than any of us ever dreamed would be possible a few years ago is also quite interesting and exciting to be part of. Every bit of sharing, even with strangers online buried in a comments section, helps the truth emerge and also furthers what I consider to be true feminist aims. Maybe YOU are the one to write that big book! :)
That should say “lactating individuals”
Your anger and disdain come through so clearly in your writing and I have to say I find reading it cathartic, someone else is as pissed off as I am.
The idea that the NGOs had to designate these homosexual males who "lived as women" in traditional cultural roles as "trans women" to target infection for funding purposes is something I have never come across. That piece of the story seems non-nefarious and well-meaning, not fueled by clever and powerful AGPs trying to normalize their fetish through policy and law, but by liberal public health goals. But obviously with terrible consequences from the perspective of women's rights. And I imagine it all intersects. Roisin, you say you just lost your job—where did you work? Is there a piece you wrote about that?
While 'non-nefarious and well-meaning', it still looks terribly short-sighted. NGOs realized that it was important to differentiate the homosexual transvestite from his non-feminine gay compatriot, but saw no downsides in failing to differentiate him from the fetishistic, heterosexual AGP? And in seeking to legitimize the needs of the former type, they inadvertently legitimized the needs of the latter type. It almost sounds as if all this could have been avoided if the NGOs had given homosexual transvestites a different label, one that didn't have '-woman' as a suffix.
My point is not to let them off the hook. It's just interesting to me how many different paving stones reinforced this road to hell.
I would also really be interested to see an article from RM about this connection.
The explanation usually given for why trans activism popped up everywhere -- because Western LGB organizations won on gay marriage and needed a new raison d'etre -- has never explained the pharmaceutical juggernaut part of the story
If you are a Gen Xer, you remember how *HUGE* the whole HIV / AIDS thing was in manner very similar to trans stuff: it was in popular culture, it was in fashion, and the messaging that *everyone* had to assess themselves in relation to it was very similar to pronoun stuff: me and all my straight female friends dutifully got HIV tested even though we were having heterosexual sex with 1 to a few partners and were at vanishingly low risk. The point was that the net was cast to *involve* us in this worldwide moral/medical crusade. You were a stupid backwards racist homophobe if you didn't understand that millions of lives were at risk, that any amount of funding and experimental research was necessary, people of color and gay men and also sort of fashionable looking butch women gazing off camera expected you to Do Better.
And almost all of the HIV / AIDS disease risk profiles and epidemiological projections were dead wrong, at least one of treatments (early AZT) killed a lot of people, but pharmaceutical companies got a lot of patients and a lot of funding and rich country governments did a lot of intervening in the domestic social policies of poorer nations. same same.
Thanks for this comment, Kathleen. As a young boomer, I'm older than you but young enough to have lived through all that too and remember I "dutifully got HIV tested" in that time period as I was directed to do. It felt weird, but I did it. I wouldn't even have remembered that, ever, without reading your comment. I remember that pressure you write about. I didn't follow it closely, years went by and then one day (whenever that was) was glad to hear there was a medicine for people with AIDS, that people no longer died from this terrible disease. I assumed that all that research and funding finally worked. And maybe that IS part of the story. But it was still a huge propaganda campaign similar to Covid policies that also turned out to be wrong, similar to how rich countries intervened in poor countries. I didn't know any of the points you bring out in the last paragraph about them being wrong about so much with this research. Assuming you are right (which honestly I do assume, given you're a smart TERF!) it's like the repressed memory stuff--people believed it, went along with it, got harmed by it, but anyone in liberal circles (me too) was stamped by it at the time, harmed by it to some degree, even as it quietly slipped away and was discredited. (And people still are true believers in that stuff.) This is not a very articulate response, just processing the parallels in my own life and repeating patterns.
Thanks for replying Elizabeth. I think there is a big book to be written about trans as we now know it and COVID being the twin offspring of the HIV/AIDS moralized pharma juggernaut. A formula for siphoning a ton of public money and for justifying a ton of managerial intervention in the intimacies of everyday life
You're welcome, and thanks for sharing the info, grass-roots style! Because this IS a genuine grass-roots movement we are part of, not an astroturf (or astroTERF ha! right-wing funded) one, which despite far more defeats than any of us ever dreamed would be possible a few years ago is also quite interesting and exciting to be part of. Every bit of sharing, even with strangers online buried in a comments section, helps the truth emerge and also furthers what I consider to be true feminist aims. Maybe YOU are the one to write that big book! :)
"... the data is very low quality and the FRA is a sham."
Low quality data! Quelle surprise'! I haven't seen high-quality data yet from any 'study' of gender woo. Because, of course, there isn't any.
Urrgh.