Is it a "fringe"?
the problem runs deeper
Before you read this, you may want to read
’s piece that I commenting on. I am partially disagreeing with Mr. Doyle’s characterization; that’s all. This is not a “slam” piece, it’s not personal, and I have no ill will toward Andrew Doyle; I quite like his work.
I don’t think it’s a “fringe.” They may be smaller in number (harassers and misandrists) than the sum total of women pushing against trans, but they have set the tone. And, I think the loudest members who shout the nastiest things are only more extreme in their vocal expression. Unlike many, including many women who read my Substack (thank you), I don’t believe there’s a reasonable feminism that doesn’t hate men or that doesn’t displace responsibility onto men so that women don’t have to act like adults or take responsibility for their contribution to societal problems.
The average feminist may not be as outwardly hateful as the “fringe,” and she may even disagree at how many men are truly awful, but at bottom she still believes that women have been in a permanent state of subjection to men. She still believes that men owe much to women, and women owe about nothing to men, not even curbing their own casual anti-male bigotry. For her, there is no such thing as female bad behavior, only male violence. And anyway, since she can’t hurt him physically the way he can hurt her, then no abuse she inflicts on him really matters anyway.
Andrew is much more mild than I am, and he probably wouldn’t say what I’m about to say even if he believed it.
Most of these women hate men. Not bad men, not trans identified men, but men. Men as men. Men as a sex class. We are the external locus of control onto which they project all of their problems so that they have to take zero responsibility for anything that happens to them, or anything wrong in society.
They have been blaming men, as men, for the creation of trans, and for everything else they believe is wrong in their lives, and they’ve been doing it forever. They’re the same women who’ve always been loud feminist malcontents. Trans is just the latest fad to hook onto.
No one could honestly mistake me for being soft on trans. I hate the entire idea. It’s a lie, it’s monstrous. It hurts everyone involved with it.
Women are also entirely correct to demand that men in dresses get the hell out of their bathrooms, their locker rooms, and any other place that’s for women.
Before I changed my mind politically from liberal to conservative, these women were my friends, this type of grouping of women. I tried to be the Best Male Ally I could be. That included talking down men—all men— for their essential maleness. It meant agreeing that I had “male privilege” and that I was morally required to acknowledge it, and perform shame about it constantly.
I was a fool. I made myself a slave of women’s machinations just like I let myself stay a slave to my own disordered and wicked mother, also a man-hating feminist.
None of it mattered. The moment I began questioning anything about the feminist/woman take on matters, the moment I observed that women had some responsibility for their own actions, I was ex-communicated. Called a misogynist, called “dangerous to women,” all of it.
This set has a special loathing for gay men who stop acting as gelded patsies for them. They hate us because to them we’ve gone “traitor” by insisting on keeping our balls.
If any man, especially a gay man, asked me for advice, I would say that he should not believe he’s gotten a good-boy pass from the feminists. It is conditional upon absolute subjection to feminist ideology. Deviate one jot or tittle, and they will turn on you and shred you.
As always, please insert your own “not all women” statements, understanding that I know this is not all women. And if you are a feminist among my readership (whatever that means to you, which these days is so bloody bespoke that every woman who uses it can find a way to get offended at how I define it), I am also not talking personally about you. But since “feminist” means whatever every individual woman wants it to mean in the moment, there’s nothing I can say that would satisfy you if you’re offended at my characterization. So I’m not going to try, and I’m not going to soothe you if you’re offended. If you are a grown adult who is rational and who thinks like an individual, you have my respect, even if I disagree with you on [insert topic].
I am a woman, a TERF, as gender critical as they come, and somewhat of an early wave feminist, and I fully agree with you. I think Me Too went way too far and over-reported male "toxicity," and all of us -- our sons, good men, even women, all of us -- are hurt by it.
I don't get the "men made trans" thing. If you ask any guy (if they're free to speak) the whole idea of trans is a joke. Something to ridicule. Normal guys think that anyway. None of them has any interest in going near women's spaces.
But I suppose this is just the latest feminist projection onto the barstool crowd. It doesn't have to make sense.