I am not a conservative, I worked both in Mental Health and with children for a number of years and I am astounded at the depth this horrible CULT has taken in both our medical and social society.
I have a trans-identified son. The situation is frightening and painful, traumatic. I avoid pronouns as much as possible, especially with my affirming husband. But I have two friends who know my story and even when it’s just two of us in conversation, where I’m using correct male pronouns for him, they refer to him as she/her. Neither of these women have ever met my son. There is a certain sense of moral superiority that goes with the pronoun game, but at its heart it’s just a pernicious lie being told for the benefit of the teller.
I have a practice of using sex-based pronouns or, mostly in real life interactions, avoiding pronouns altogether if its necessary to avoid interpersonal tumult. I sometimes wonder if my friends have noticed my sidestepping, but none have mentioned it. Even for "passing" individuals, once someone's transness is known to me, my brain will usually slot them into their correct sex category. The only thing that really trips me up are names. Most names have already been pre-sorted into male and female categories, so if a traditionally opposite sex name is a close antecedent to a pronoun when I'm speaking, I'll often automatically spit out the pronoun that goes with that name.
There's a vendor at my local farmers market. Her name is Liam, she's short, with a double mastectomy, a scruffy beard, and that soft body shape Lisa talked about. Her young daughter calls her "Daddy." In every interaction I have with her, my internal sensor readout blares FEMALE. I 100% think of her as a woman. If a coworker mentioned her in passing, I'd probably avoid pronouns. But if I said "Liam", a "he" might come out before I even realized.
Thank you, Ben, for that anecdote about confusion over Andrea James’ sex!
Like Eliza, at times, for strategic reasons, I do choose to sidestep pronouns. (I’m about to listen to your talk in Lisbon—thanks for posting that!)
I was moved by Jamie’s thoughts about effects on children. As someone who was, years ago, in charge of programming for children and youth, I was cognizant of the “implicit curriculum” that exists, in addition to the explicit curriculum, and our responsibility as adults to pay attention to what we’re teaching via that “implicit curriculum.”
Lisa, thank you for being interested in “giving people the tools to recognize that this is a belief system, that there are a lot of problems with it, and that they have the right to reject it.” Love how you put that.
My "pronoun policy" is simply to do whatever comes easiest to my brain--whatever requires the least amount of brainpower. I try not to think too much about them, or give myself time to think about them, so that I can just use what comes naturally.
If you pass well enough, I'll probably end up using your preferred pronouns (as long as it's he/him or she/her. I don't do neopronouns, "it" or "they"--except in certain instances mentioned below).
I'm not going to force myself to take the extra time and brainpower to use sex-based pronouns if they wouldn't come naturally. Likewise, I won't do that for preferred pronouns.
If I feel conflicted enough that I can't figure out what word comes most naturally, I'll sometimes use "they," because in that case, I'm not sure what to say and it's the quickest way to avoid a headache.
It's never meant to be insulting or offensive, but I'll admit it's entirely selfish--I'm just doing what comes easiest to me. So if I end up using a trans person's preferred pronouns, I don't deserve any praise--it's just because they pass well enough to, essentially, fool me. I'm not happy about feeling deceived, but I'd rather get back to my own life as quickly as possible, which means not dwelling on that too much.
I respect that other people feel differently, and understand the reasons for different policies. I would never refer to a TW rapist as "she," because their behavior (and usually appearance) means they don't pass.
I really appreciated this nuanced and thoughtful discussion on pronouns, which is rare even in GC circles.
I am with Eliza and Jamie on this, and think it is important to tell the truth, however uncomfortable it might be.
I actually think it’s even more important to use correct sex pronouns for people who 'pass' as the opposite sex, like Buck Angel. If we restrict the ‘preferred pronoun’ use to people who we think ‘pass’, are we not tacitly accepting the idea that that there is really a ‘right way’ to be male or female? If nothing else, using ‘she’ for Buck, and ‘He’ for Brianna Wu will invite some interesting discussions.
I am also not convinced by the Andrew Doyle approach of sometimes using preferred pronouns for people he likes. It seems like a whim, and a ‘courtesy’ that can be withdrawn at a moment’s notice. People like Doyle also seem to adopt a strange Catch-22 approach: if a man like Debbie Hayton acknowledges his sex as male, then it’s ok to use female pronouns for him. But if a trans-identified male insists they are really female, they don’t 'pass the test', and will not be granted the privilege of preferred pronouns. This doesn't seem to me to be a way to solve this issue.
This was a particular challenge to me (thanks). I've followed Debbie Hayton's blog for some time and have used female pronouns to refer to him, but it's kept bugging me why I do this and whether I should (I'll reverse that in this comment to add to my discomfort). It's rare that I use the third person to refer to Debbie, but I sometimes do. It's not because I like him, it's because (a) he acknowledges - indeed, insists - that he is male, and nobody can change sex, (b) he writes and speaks on the subject of transition as a gender-critical person, and (c) he seems to have suffered significantly with gender dysphoria all his life and transitioned as a last resort, having exhausted the talking therapeutic options, in the days when there was pretty stringent gatekeeping in the UK, including "living as" the opposite sex for a significant time (I forget how long).
I'm not sure what I think after this discussion, but up to now I've used that kind of reasoning to give him honorary female pronouns. However, I'm increasingly conflicted about it. Parallel with this, I've always said that there may be people for whom living as their natal sex is too painful, and thus I'm not in theory against anyone transitioning - I'm against the ridiculous popularisation of it as a lifestyle and the assumption of gender dysphoria as a disguise for other mental distress. So I can put Debbie in that box (one of the extreme cases) and "be kind" without feeling too disingenuous. In fact, if I accept that there are some extreme cases, and I'm not against transition in principle, it would be pointlessly unkind, perhaps, not to play along with the disguise that comforts him.
What I found interesting about the pronoun conversation was how you were all struggling with it. Let me suggest why that might be. It is because you (and the rest of us) are struggling through a process of unwinding a pathology. It starts with a lie. Some people have decided they can change sex (or that sex isn’t real), and they want others to play along with that belief. This leads to all kinds of confusion, most poignantly in the raising of children.
So, how do we unwind that lie? That’s the heart of the problem.
Let’s also think about the lie at the heart of the Dutch protocol. The clinicians want for children to be able to grow up and appear to be members of the opposite sex. To live a lie. So they administer puberty blockers. Which of course is insane.
So how do we unwind that lie? Do we need to conduct research on puberty blockers, as NHS is now proposing? Isn’t that at some level a perpetuation of a lie?
The problem with these pathologies is the foundational lie. The only way out is through the truth.
Lately I’ve been using sex-truth pronouns for every person who willfully denies their biological sex. But I give Buck Angel and Blaire White the preferred pronoun treatment. A few reasons… They pass really well as binary transsexuals. They do not deny their sex-based realities, so it doesn’t feel like you’re affirming a fantasy when you use their preferred pronouns. They’re essentially on stage as characters/ personalities/ celebs, so it makes it a little easier to play along. (Similar to how Lisa mentions drag queens). Brianna Wu is a different story, however. If Brianna stops being an icky threat by promoting the transing of young boys, I’ll play along with the pronouns. Oh and the non-binary ze /zim /zir nonsense is an absolute NO in all cases. 🤡
If the military is woke, we are screwed. Please avoid TDS (and Musk DS) rants for awhile. Feels too premature (and media bias driven) for that. Buck Angel says she is a women and she is pretty honest about being involved in porn video making. She also agrees we shouldn't gaslight kids. Lots of really great points from you all as always. Thank you! please watch: https://youtu.be/q7VSHWfQddc?si=tYOMfrlW3IaJu0rs
Also very shameful confession. At the same time when I was in my sjw phase and trans true believer, I was very cynical with microidentities and sexuality labels that seemed fake. But because I saw in my own eyes that gender triumphs over sexual orientation and people were policing lesbian/gay/bi label around gender orientation and trans inclusion, I started wondering if sexual orientation is even real. Maybe everyone is hetero? Maybe homosexuality is just a fetish? How do we know something for sure, if science has proven to be so wrong and corrupted on trans issue? If people can transition and therefore be trans?
On bad days I still have doubts and I feel truely terrible with it. It isn’t even guilt of committing a thought crime again, it’s this unbearable nihilism.
So I evoke memory of concert attended mostly by gays and metro trip with them at 3 AM. IRL I’m isolated from lgbt community since I cut ties with my sjw social circle, which was full of TQ anyway. When Ben talks about his husband those are another moments when my brain lights up with GAYS EXIST.
No you're not uniquely stupid. We all are! People have no idea how susceptible we are to social contagion. You were unlucky to get the messages you got, and it seems to me you're doing well to untangle them. Internalized homophobia comes from the external world, we're not born with it.
You are emphatically not stupid. You, a person perhaps especially sensitive to pattern recognition and/or deep and thoughtful imitation--have been stewing in an environment that's been nothing but trans, trans, trans sounding off for a decade. You really haven't even gotten the chance to explore your own joys and desires yet! But plenty of folks are dismayed by incoherence, and still end up finding or crafting patterns that suit them without needing to consciously choose. I vote (not that I have a vote) for letting yourself happen.
Maybe I should open this comment with disclaimer that I’m autistic, which, as I discovered, was massive vulnerability to gender ideology, despite my high functioning? Your podcast in general, and this episode in particular is cathartic.
I’m 29 y/o desister lesbian, but for last 10 years I identified as ???? asexual bi and channeled my attention towards gay men. I learned about LGBT (and social justice angle) before I became aware of my own sexual orientation and it made sense to me that, if I’m rather butch and I’m supposed to be attracted to men and my family asks once a week if I have a boyfriend, it means I’m gay. I understood biological reality when I was 16 or 18 and was aware back then that I can’t be gay, though gay men were comfortably unavailable. When I was 18-19, trans people spawned around me and it blurred everything. Of course I took pronouns and Trans Women Are Women in most literal sense and it only bothered me that some trans people aren’t the true trans. I came up with many intellectual explanations to contradictions between reality and ideology. But I couldn’t really grasp the difference between a gay man and a trans identified woman, between a woman and a trans identified man. For sure it’s not genitalia, that’s essentialism, and trans people do SRS. In my mind trans identified females (who met my criteria of true trans) all seriously were men. My ex bf was pre-transition (even social transition) AGP and in my mind he was a woman-to-be, so almost a woman. If I’m not attracted to him, am I attracted to women…? I know it seems insane, but social pressures were strong.
I couldn’t figure out my sexuality and eventually decided LET’S DO GENDER FIRST, because I thought gender was more important. Like, sexuality changes with transition? and people corrected me when I said “same-sex attracted”. It’s a blesssing in disguise that I too started identify as trans, because otherwise I could stick forever in this limbo. Exploring these thoughts made me realize my massive internalized homophobia and that my inner gay identity was cope and decoy (targeting for unavailable + excuse why I can’t date men in female body), because I didn’t feel comfortable with lesbian relationships. GC/TERFs insisting on sex-based pronouns forced me to change my thinking about people I knew and it drilled me with message that I’m a female no matter how I dress and what I like. It took me months to reorganise my world, but I really needed that.
(I’m commenting as I watch.) I’m all for removing trans people from the military and these criteria; not because I’m rabid transphobe, but because over the years I realized that purpose of military isn’t inclusion. I’m female with asthma and poor mental health and long time interests in military stuff, I eventually came to terms with fact that this isn’t job for me.
It might seem like that it times of peace, but when it comes to real armed conflicts, then lives depend on the fact that soldiers are fit for service. Medical transition is like acquiring a disability, it can’t be compared to sexual orientation, I’m sorry. Pursuing transition = time out of service and predictable complications. Social transition can create many frictions in the unit and we’re back to single sex spaces: it actually matters in the military. And probably amount of food is calculated on basis of sex and I imagine sex is used as proxy for weight, which might matter in context of air travel, so falsifying sex marker is meh idea. And people with gender dysphoria are not of the most mentally stable kind, that’s why 3 years of desistance seems ok.
I am not a conservative, I worked both in Mental Health and with children for a number of years and I am astounded at the depth this horrible CULT has taken in both our medical and social society.
There is so much evidence against it.
ZZZ sdf FF t Cy awe gg5g ty gygà TC GG Fgffytft GG tt6 ty
I have a trans-identified son. The situation is frightening and painful, traumatic. I avoid pronouns as much as possible, especially with my affirming husband. But I have two friends who know my story and even when it’s just two of us in conversation, where I’m using correct male pronouns for him, they refer to him as she/her. Neither of these women have ever met my son. There is a certain sense of moral superiority that goes with the pronoun game, but at its heart it’s just a pernicious lie being told for the benefit of the teller.
I have a practice of using sex-based pronouns or, mostly in real life interactions, avoiding pronouns altogether if its necessary to avoid interpersonal tumult. I sometimes wonder if my friends have noticed my sidestepping, but none have mentioned it. Even for "passing" individuals, once someone's transness is known to me, my brain will usually slot them into their correct sex category. The only thing that really trips me up are names. Most names have already been pre-sorted into male and female categories, so if a traditionally opposite sex name is a close antecedent to a pronoun when I'm speaking, I'll often automatically spit out the pronoun that goes with that name.
There's a vendor at my local farmers market. Her name is Liam, she's short, with a double mastectomy, a scruffy beard, and that soft body shape Lisa talked about. Her young daughter calls her "Daddy." In every interaction I have with her, my internal sensor readout blares FEMALE. I 100% think of her as a woman. If a coworker mentioned her in passing, I'd probably avoid pronouns. But if I said "Liam", a "he" might come out before I even realized.
Thank you, Ben, for that anecdote about confusion over Andrea James’ sex!
Like Eliza, at times, for strategic reasons, I do choose to sidestep pronouns. (I’m about to listen to your talk in Lisbon—thanks for posting that!)
I was moved by Jamie’s thoughts about effects on children. As someone who was, years ago, in charge of programming for children and youth, I was cognizant of the “implicit curriculum” that exists, in addition to the explicit curriculum, and our responsibility as adults to pay attention to what we’re teaching via that “implicit curriculum.”
Lisa, thank you for being interested in “giving people the tools to recognize that this is a belief system, that there are a lot of problems with it, and that they have the right to reject it.” Love how you put that.
Cori, you’re always a ray of sunshine! xo
Tulips!!!! I have 4 feet of snow in my yard😭
My "pronoun policy" is simply to do whatever comes easiest to my brain--whatever requires the least amount of brainpower. I try not to think too much about them, or give myself time to think about them, so that I can just use what comes naturally.
If you pass well enough, I'll probably end up using your preferred pronouns (as long as it's he/him or she/her. I don't do neopronouns, "it" or "they"--except in certain instances mentioned below).
I'm not going to force myself to take the extra time and brainpower to use sex-based pronouns if they wouldn't come naturally. Likewise, I won't do that for preferred pronouns.
If I feel conflicted enough that I can't figure out what word comes most naturally, I'll sometimes use "they," because in that case, I'm not sure what to say and it's the quickest way to avoid a headache.
It's never meant to be insulting or offensive, but I'll admit it's entirely selfish--I'm just doing what comes easiest to me. So if I end up using a trans person's preferred pronouns, I don't deserve any praise--it's just because they pass well enough to, essentially, fool me. I'm not happy about feeling deceived, but I'd rather get back to my own life as quickly as possible, which means not dwelling on that too much.
I respect that other people feel differently, and understand the reasons for different policies. I would never refer to a TW rapist as "she," because their behavior (and usually appearance) means they don't pass.
I really appreciated this nuanced and thoughtful discussion on pronouns, which is rare even in GC circles.
I am with Eliza and Jamie on this, and think it is important to tell the truth, however uncomfortable it might be.
I actually think it’s even more important to use correct sex pronouns for people who 'pass' as the opposite sex, like Buck Angel. If we restrict the ‘preferred pronoun’ use to people who we think ‘pass’, are we not tacitly accepting the idea that that there is really a ‘right way’ to be male or female? If nothing else, using ‘she’ for Buck, and ‘He’ for Brianna Wu will invite some interesting discussions.
I am also not convinced by the Andrew Doyle approach of sometimes using preferred pronouns for people he likes. It seems like a whim, and a ‘courtesy’ that can be withdrawn at a moment’s notice. People like Doyle also seem to adopt a strange Catch-22 approach: if a man like Debbie Hayton acknowledges his sex as male, then it’s ok to use female pronouns for him. But if a trans-identified male insists they are really female, they don’t 'pass the test', and will not be granted the privilege of preferred pronouns. This doesn't seem to me to be a way to solve this issue.
This was a particular challenge to me (thanks). I've followed Debbie Hayton's blog for some time and have used female pronouns to refer to him, but it's kept bugging me why I do this and whether I should (I'll reverse that in this comment to add to my discomfort). It's rare that I use the third person to refer to Debbie, but I sometimes do. It's not because I like him, it's because (a) he acknowledges - indeed, insists - that he is male, and nobody can change sex, (b) he writes and speaks on the subject of transition as a gender-critical person, and (c) he seems to have suffered significantly with gender dysphoria all his life and transitioned as a last resort, having exhausted the talking therapeutic options, in the days when there was pretty stringent gatekeeping in the UK, including "living as" the opposite sex for a significant time (I forget how long).
I'm not sure what I think after this discussion, but up to now I've used that kind of reasoning to give him honorary female pronouns. However, I'm increasingly conflicted about it. Parallel with this, I've always said that there may be people for whom living as their natal sex is too painful, and thus I'm not in theory against anyone transitioning - I'm against the ridiculous popularisation of it as a lifestyle and the assumption of gender dysphoria as a disguise for other mental distress. So I can put Debbie in that box (one of the extreme cases) and "be kind" without feeling too disingenuous. In fact, if I accept that there are some extreme cases, and I'm not against transition in principle, it would be pointlessly unkind, perhaps, not to play along with the disguise that comforts him.
What I found interesting about the pronoun conversation was how you were all struggling with it. Let me suggest why that might be. It is because you (and the rest of us) are struggling through a process of unwinding a pathology. It starts with a lie. Some people have decided they can change sex (or that sex isn’t real), and they want others to play along with that belief. This leads to all kinds of confusion, most poignantly in the raising of children.
So, how do we unwind that lie? That’s the heart of the problem.
Let’s also think about the lie at the heart of the Dutch protocol. The clinicians want for children to be able to grow up and appear to be members of the opposite sex. To live a lie. So they administer puberty blockers. Which of course is insane.
So how do we unwind that lie? Do we need to conduct research on puberty blockers, as NHS is now proposing? Isn’t that at some level a perpetuation of a lie?
The problem with these pathologies is the foundational lie. The only way out is through the truth.
Lately I’ve been using sex-truth pronouns for every person who willfully denies their biological sex. But I give Buck Angel and Blaire White the preferred pronoun treatment. A few reasons… They pass really well as binary transsexuals. They do not deny their sex-based realities, so it doesn’t feel like you’re affirming a fantasy when you use their preferred pronouns. They’re essentially on stage as characters/ personalities/ celebs, so it makes it a little easier to play along. (Similar to how Lisa mentions drag queens). Brianna Wu is a different story, however. If Brianna stops being an icky threat by promoting the transing of young boys, I’ll play along with the pronouns. Oh and the non-binary ze /zim /zir nonsense is an absolute NO in all cases. 🤡
What a fantastic conversation! The discussion about pronouns was so thoughtful. I love your podcast.
If the military is woke, we are screwed. Please avoid TDS (and Musk DS) rants for awhile. Feels too premature (and media bias driven) for that. Buck Angel says she is a women and she is pretty honest about being involved in porn video making. She also agrees we shouldn't gaslight kids. Lots of really great points from you all as always. Thank you! please watch: https://youtu.be/q7VSHWfQddc?si=tYOMfrlW3IaJu0rs
Also very shameful confession. At the same time when I was in my sjw phase and trans true believer, I was very cynical with microidentities and sexuality labels that seemed fake. But because I saw in my own eyes that gender triumphs over sexual orientation and people were policing lesbian/gay/bi label around gender orientation and trans inclusion, I started wondering if sexual orientation is even real. Maybe everyone is hetero? Maybe homosexuality is just a fetish? How do we know something for sure, if science has proven to be so wrong and corrupted on trans issue? If people can transition and therefore be trans?
On bad days I still have doubts and I feel truely terrible with it. It isn’t even guilt of committing a thought crime again, it’s this unbearable nihilism.
So I evoke memory of concert attended mostly by gays and metro trip with them at 3 AM. IRL I’m isolated from lgbt community since I cut ties with my sjw social circle, which was full of TQ anyway. When Ben talks about his husband those are another moments when my brain lights up with GAYS EXIST.
I think that would incredibly confusing to have those beliefs reinforced as what it means to be a good person (and to be gay/lesbian!).
I think I’m uniquely stupid: people either see through nonsense or don’t need coherency to be happy
No you're not uniquely stupid. We all are! People have no idea how susceptible we are to social contagion. You were unlucky to get the messages you got, and it seems to me you're doing well to untangle them. Internalized homophobia comes from the external world, we're not born with it.
You are emphatically not stupid. You, a person perhaps especially sensitive to pattern recognition and/or deep and thoughtful imitation--have been stewing in an environment that's been nothing but trans, trans, trans sounding off for a decade. You really haven't even gotten the chance to explore your own joys and desires yet! But plenty of folks are dismayed by incoherence, and still end up finding or crafting patterns that suit them without needing to consciously choose. I vote (not that I have a vote) for letting yourself happen.
And I rejoiced in learning you are a desister.
Maybe I should open this comment with disclaimer that I’m autistic, which, as I discovered, was massive vulnerability to gender ideology, despite my high functioning? Your podcast in general, and this episode in particular is cathartic.
I’m 29 y/o desister lesbian, but for last 10 years I identified as ???? asexual bi and channeled my attention towards gay men. I learned about LGBT (and social justice angle) before I became aware of my own sexual orientation and it made sense to me that, if I’m rather butch and I’m supposed to be attracted to men and my family asks once a week if I have a boyfriend, it means I’m gay. I understood biological reality when I was 16 or 18 and was aware back then that I can’t be gay, though gay men were comfortably unavailable. When I was 18-19, trans people spawned around me and it blurred everything. Of course I took pronouns and Trans Women Are Women in most literal sense and it only bothered me that some trans people aren’t the true trans. I came up with many intellectual explanations to contradictions between reality and ideology. But I couldn’t really grasp the difference between a gay man and a trans identified woman, between a woman and a trans identified man. For sure it’s not genitalia, that’s essentialism, and trans people do SRS. In my mind trans identified females (who met my criteria of true trans) all seriously were men. My ex bf was pre-transition (even social transition) AGP and in my mind he was a woman-to-be, so almost a woman. If I’m not attracted to him, am I attracted to women…? I know it seems insane, but social pressures were strong.
I couldn’t figure out my sexuality and eventually decided LET’S DO GENDER FIRST, because I thought gender was more important. Like, sexuality changes with transition? and people corrected me when I said “same-sex attracted”. It’s a blesssing in disguise that I too started identify as trans, because otherwise I could stick forever in this limbo. Exploring these thoughts made me realize my massive internalized homophobia and that my inner gay identity was cope and decoy (targeting for unavailable + excuse why I can’t date men in female body), because I didn’t feel comfortable with lesbian relationships. GC/TERFs insisting on sex-based pronouns forced me to change my thinking about people I knew and it drilled me with message that I’m a female no matter how I dress and what I like. It took me months to reorganise my world, but I really needed that.
Thank you for sharing that. I learned from it. I'm glad you came through it!
(I’m commenting as I watch.) I’m all for removing trans people from the military and these criteria; not because I’m rabid transphobe, but because over the years I realized that purpose of military isn’t inclusion. I’m female with asthma and poor mental health and long time interests in military stuff, I eventually came to terms with fact that this isn’t job for me.
It might seem like that it times of peace, but when it comes to real armed conflicts, then lives depend on the fact that soldiers are fit for service. Medical transition is like acquiring a disability, it can’t be compared to sexual orientation, I’m sorry. Pursuing transition = time out of service and predictable complications. Social transition can create many frictions in the unit and we’re back to single sex spaces: it actually matters in the military. And probably amount of food is calculated on basis of sex and I imagine sex is used as proxy for weight, which might matter in context of air travel, so falsifying sex marker is meh idea. And people with gender dysphoria are not of the most mentally stable kind, that’s why 3 years of desistance seems ok.
Jesse and Katie did a deep dive into Rufo’s reporting here.
https://open.substack.com/pub/blockedandreported/p/episode-250-chris-rufo-allegedly?r=7hgxh&utm_medium=ios