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Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism

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Kathleen Stock

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“In the spread of gender-identity ideology, developments in academia played a crucial role. This is not the place for an extended critique of the thinking that evolved on American campuses out of the 1960s French philosophy and literary criticism into gender studies, queer theory, critical race theory and the like. I will merely focus on what some have dubbed 'applied postmodernism' and the form of activism, known as 'social justice', that seeks to remake humanity along ideological lines. And I will lay out the key elements that have enable transsexuality, once understood as a rare anomaly, to be converted into an all-encompassing theory of sex and gender, and body and mind. Within applied postmodernism, objectivity is essentially impossible. Logic and reason are not ideals to be striven for, but attempts to shore up privilege. Language is taken to shape reality, not describe it. Oppression is brought into existence by discourse. Equality is no longer achieved by replacing unjust laws and practices with new ones that give everyone the chance to thrive, but by individuals defining their own identities, and 'troubling' or 'queering' the definitions of oppressed groups. A dualistic ideology can easily be accommodated within such a framework. Being a man or woman – or indeed non-binary or gender-fluid - becomes a matter of finding your own gender identity and revealing it to the world by the medium of preferred pronouns. It is a feeble form of dualism to be sure: the grandeur of Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am' replaced by 'they/them' on a pronoun badge.”

Social JusticeTransgenderTransPostmodernismDualismGender CriticalTranssexualHelen Joyce
Book:Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality
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“As developed by trans activists, standpoint epistemology says there are special forms of standpoint-related knowledge about trans experience available only to trans people, not cis people. For instance, only trans people can properly understand the pernicious effects of ‘cis privilege’, and how it intersects with other forms of oppression to produce certain kinds of lived experience. As with some versions of feminism and critical race theory, when transmuted through popular culture this has quickly become the idea that only trans people can legitimately say anything about their own nature and interests including on philosophical matters of gender identity. Cis people, including feminists and lesbians, have nothing useful to contribute here. Their assumption that they do have something useful to contribute is a further manifestation of their unmerited privilege.”

TransgenderGender Critical
Book:Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism
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“So straight away I want to be absolutely clear about what I’m not saying, before I go on to explain and justify these points in more detail in the next chapter. (I can anticipate a lot of these misunderstandings because they’re frequently fired at me by critics, as assumptions about what I must really be saying.) I’m not saying that to physically alter oneself to look like the opposite sex, or unlike one’s own sex, or both, isn’t ever a reasonable thing for adults to do in response to developing a misaligned gender identity. I think it can be, and have explained why in Chapter 4. More generally, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with looking or being radically sex nonconforming, either naturally or artificially. Quite the opposite. Personally speaking, I value and celebrate sex nonconformity: masculine women, feminine men and androgyny. Indeed, it’s partly in the service of this evaluation that I’ve made the arguments I have. I’m not underplaying the psychological relief it gives many trans people to think of themselves as members of the opposite sex. Nor, perhaps surprisingly, am I saying that trans women and trans men, respectively, shouldn’t ever call themselves ‘women’ and ‘men’ or be referred to that way by those around them. I’ll explain why in the next chapter. I’m not saying trans people are ‘deceivers’, nor that they are ‘delusional’ or ‘duped’ – far from it. I’ll explain why in the next chapter, so there can be no doubt.”

TransgenderGender Critical
Book:Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism
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“My experience as a parent whose young adult daughter needed time, exploration of treatment options, and healing of multiple issues but instead clambered aboard the medicalized trans train has led me to feel like I’m in a tortured dream state.”

TransParenting QuotesGender IdeologyGender CriticalTrans IdeologyTransgenderismMedicalizationParental AlienationTrans IssuesTrans Identity
Book:The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology
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“Even when raised by a loving parent, a young adult may be influenced to the point of hopping on the fast-moving trans train and leaving the loving family behind.”

Family RelationshipsFamily LoveParenting QuotesGender IdeologyGender CriticalTrans IdeologyMedicalizationParent LoveParent Love And ProtectionFamily Relationships Trauma
Book:The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology
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“The biggest decision of a young person’s life, to present themselves as the opposite sex, needs time and thorough investigation of the root causes prompting the request for drastic measures of drugs and permanent surgery to remove healthy body parts.”

Decision MakingTransgenderGender CriticalTrans IdeologyRoot CausesMedicalizationTrans IssuesUnderlying ProblemsTrans IdentityUnderlying Causes
Book:The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology
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“This mastectomy craze of removing healthy breasts that is happening to our young girls and women today will probably be the era that we look back on in the future and ask ourselves how and why we ever allowed and glorified self-harm.”

TransgenderTransSelf HarmGender IdeologyGender CriticalMastectomyGender ConfusionYoung GirlsTrans IssuesTop Surgery
Book:The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology
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