all 38 comments

[–]AreYouSureee 41 insightful - 2 fun41 insightful - 1 fun42 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Me not supporting the trans ideology does not make me any less left

[–]fuckupaddams 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Makes you moreso for rejecting gender norms.

[–]oyasuminasai50 36 insightful - 1 fun36 insightful - 0 fun37 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think most of us support liberal policies. In fact, a lot of us believe the new wave of trans and gender ideology is actually regressive and relies heavily on the perpetuation of gender stereotypes.

[–]hufflepuff-poet 28 insightful - 1 fun28 insightful - 0 fun29 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Fellow Leftist, I'm also frustrated at the inability of the left to look at the material reality of sex-based oppression and how that contradicts with trans ideology. I hate having to bite my tongue about this in lefty spaces, the refusal to even acknowledge that trans woman aren't actual women and maybe women do have valid concerns with this push to be inclusive of "all women" (re: TiMs) is maddening. Female oppression is erased and ignored by the left and weaponized against women and girls, at some point we went from "smash the patriarchy" and "the future is female" to "trans women are women" and "burn all TERFs at the stake" 🙄

[–]Badmammajamma 26 insightful - 1 fun26 insightful - 0 fun27 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Very liberal here. In no way shape or form conservative. It sucks people may assume we’re right wingers because we disagree with aspects of the trans movement.

[–]Binah17 24 insightful - 2 fun24 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I'm afraid the American left will become as useless as the labor party. The labor party over the last two years double downed on fighting their own female members to prop up transwomen for no reason. They don't even realize that it played a part in their massive defeat.

[–]jet199 16 insightful - 2 fun16 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The thing is that element had always been in the UK Labour Party, its just that the control Tony Blair had made us forget they were crazy. This is why they could never win against Thatcher no matter how much she was hated, they were just too mad and out of touch. Even going back to the 1930's they voted to defund the RAF because its existence was upsetting Hitler.

[–]Esseteee 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes this is so frustrating I feel so betrayed by them and they seem to have no awareness that most of the country sees their stance as completely ridiculous they will never confront the mistake just let it get worse and worse I despair

[–][deleted] 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

From the US. I feel like a political orphan, and I have zero trust in the left. I’m a female and therefor “cool to hate” by both sides. The left will sell out to whomever dishes more money out for campaigns— even to people who want to normalize pedophilia (that’s the way this train is heading). They don’t care about women; period. Tons of women are victims of domestic violence and are trapped with more burdensome domestic chores than ever; and no political figures give a shit. They’re more concerned with the well being and fee fees of rich techie perverts who shell out the dough. They’re out of touch and equally as hateful as the religious fundies. They’ll stand by and watch as women get cancelled and bullied by dudebros in makeup. It’s such a joke. I could see them making abortion and BC illegal so dudebros can buy unwanted babies from adoption agencies. That’s how dystopian this will become.

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Imo the Left is when you are an anticapitalist, in US politics Leftism is when you just don’t violently hate the poor. The dems sell everything out because they solely work for the wealthy and they that’s pretty much just how the party functions. The actual anticapitalist left can’t see through it because they’re too high on the ideal of the Civil Rights era and wanna be on the right side of history instead of taking an emotionless, materialist lens to the issue.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't get the trans support, because if you are an American trans person-- you probably have to have some access to serious money. While there are some states that cover all of these treatments via their medicaid, and some insurance companies that may cover part of the cost, it all "costs money" in the end. While a college campus might cover the treatments, that will all end once you leave college... then you have to pay off some serious student loans. (Off topic: I often wonder how many young people are using student loan money to fund their transition, as I believe some people have the funds directly deposited into their bank accounts, and no one checks to see what they're purchasing).

A poor person barely making ends meet can't even consider getting a decent hair cut, let alone worry about plastic surgery and non-essential hormone treatments. You should see my hair-- sheesh.

[–]PassionateIntensity 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Adoption, ha! They'll be buying and selling our wombs if they get their way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/style/lgbtq-fertility-surrogacy-coverage.html

[–]anfd 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There was a link here recently to a statement (English translation) by the Spanish Socialist Party PSOE which was along GC lines ("There are some theories (specifically queer theory) which are gaining ground around the academic and activist world, and which deny the existence of biological sex, given that they blur and obscure the material realities of women.").

The PSOE in not exactly marxist, but when a mainstream social democratic party like the PSOE issues a statement like this it's much more significant than if, say, the Militant Workers Revolutionary Party (Fire-breathing Bolshevik tendency) does the same.

[–]PassionateIntensity 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://womansplaceuk.org/2020/07/22/interview-spanish-feminist-politician-angeles-alvarez/ Related, here's an interview with Angeles Álvarez about Spanish socialists fighting back against this anti-women leglisaltion.

[–]motionlessoracle 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're right. Even though I am on the left, I'm not too keen on it anymore. I'm of the left that used to be called "liberal", as in "liberty". Freedom to love whoever you want and own your body and ingest weird substances if it makes you happy. The left is doubling down on telling people they can't do or say x/y/z because -ism/-phobia, and people must use pronouns and I am over the censorship and compelled speech.

[–]moody_ape 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

THANK YOU! it drives me crazy that now the left is automatically associated with identity nonsense. they call it "far-left" - excuse me???? do they even know what the left even is? it's unbelievable! and these lunatics drive away people from the left as a whole. no one wants to be associated with crazy.

[–]Stormweather 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I'm politically homeless for now, but I still see myself as "far left". I could never turn to conservatives since most of them are the same misogynists like TRAs and Brocialists are. Conservatives are just more "overt" and open about their regressive, shitty views.

[–]Spikygrasspod 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, I feel like both the left and right focus a lot on individuals, choice, and freedom, but not on power, structures, and class. They're powerblind, to my intense and lasting disappointment.

[–]ReapWhirlwinds 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the most meaningless, navel gazing, vapid bullshit since gamers felt oppressed.

this made me laugh. I don't think the Left/Right dichotomy is much use any more. I'd love to just take the left-wingers who play gender pokemon, think biology is white supremacy, and want to bully women into unwanted sex, and the right-wingers who kick up shit about mask wearing, think Donald Trump is going to rescue trafficked children, and want to bully women into unwanted pregnancy, and throw them all into the fucking bin together and then form a new political alignment where pro-women, data-driven people are our own side.

[–]yishengqingwa666 5 insightful - 4 fun5 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Ok, dude.

[–]sotiresome 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

funny you should mention gamergate. alt right assholes on 4chan openly discussed how they could best capitalize on it back when it was going down, same as they've more recently discussed how best to capitalize on the rift between traditional feminists and TRAs. now and then on the old gendercritical sub, you could see their agents in action - "DAE feel abandoned by the modern left? gosh I just don't see how I can in good conscience vote for the LPC/Labour/democratic party any more DDD:" ... and sad to say, I'm afraid you can still see them at it here. their strategy being to steer you into a perfect as the enemy of the good type mindset in the hopes you stay home on election day

anyway. sucks to be censored and watch the media drag your name through the mud by dint of distortion and deliberate misrepresentation of what you're about

[–]sisterinsomnia 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The left in many countries has shifted away from focusing on tangible, material reasons for oppressive outcomes. For instance, the linguistic wars about how to talk about BLM etc. have some worth, but any real change in the status of Black Americans requires moving resources to the areas where they live so that the schools become better, so that health care is available, and so that jobs can be obtained. Doing that would help so much more than Twitter activism, in my opinion.

And a similar shift away from understanding women's condition as based on the female body, how it is viewed and treated etc. means that now what goes for much of online feminism is silly language policing and more focus on everyone else's problems than those of female people. The mainstream news actually cover more real feminist topics now than feminist websites, including reporting on female unemployment during the pandemic, earnings differences, labor market discrimination and so on. Most feminist websites have been taken over by the queer theory folks and of course they don't see anything as material..

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

For me it’s weird how warped around sexuality in general things have become, idky but there’s a subsect of the Left very much obsessed with sex (not sexes, just the physical act of sex, sexuality, “sex work” and fetishes) they focus on little else. Very bizarre to me, but it’s probably all mostly upper middle class journalists and philosophy majors.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They're jumping on the push-porn-culture-into-the-mainstream, which they know might win some of the white male vote. Being hateful towards women will also win them male votes, too. We've been shoved under the bus.

[–]Esseteee 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The other day my friend said that the UK communist part and the morning star newspaper should not be considered part of the left because they are gender critical, how on earth dose he expect to be taken seriously ? Trans rights are their central belief and everything is judged in relation to trans rights what an insane philosophy they are not on the political spectrum whatsoever they are in a state of mass psychosis

[–]AugustiJade 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I would say that my being gender critical makes me more leftist than TRAs. I see the entire movement as a means to conform to gender stereotypes and convert gays to conform to heteronormity. Which conforming is what we have been fighting against for decades.

[–]Tarnation 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

What do you think of Angela Nagle?

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No opinion but mostly because I’m very disconnected from both the journalistic and Twitter Left

AFAIK I’m way to the Left of Nagle

[–]Tikiri 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I’ve always considered myself to be a leftist as well, but this trans craziness and just extreme identity politics worshipped by the left have left me politically homeless (and I’m a nonwhite immigrant woman who’s lived near or below the poverty level most of my life). Do you (or did you) participate in r/Stupidpol at all? I lurked in that subreddit a lot when I was on Reddit, but when the banwave hit I deleted Reddit altogether. I figured r/Stupidpol’s days were numbered as they often brought up the same concerns as you.

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Stupidpol is okay from time to time, I just mostly see them as liberals tho, tbh

They say they’re marxists in the sidebar but most people there actually prefer capitalism

[–]cybitch 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Why would any sort of authoritarianism appeal to feminists is beyond me. If power is taken by force, the receivers of it will be male. And once it's been got, there is no giving it back, not to the "protelitariat" or whoever. Communism is responsible for genocide in my country and many others, and one of the reasons I've grown so disgusted with reddit is all the revolting tankies that are no better than holocaust deniers. Westerners shrugging away gulags so easily while calling anything and everything nazi and fascism as though that's actually saying anything is so funny. History is written by the victors.

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Liberalism enslaved or eradicated most of my ancestors, as a black person with native and hispanic ancestry. Liberalism in terms of its crimes easily tops anything any communist regime has done; liberalism has probably produced more bodybags than fascism has. And yet somehow this does not at all discredit liberalism.

Your post ends with “History is written by the victors”, I ask, who won the Cold War again? You are right, history is written by the victors, liberals have warped history to such a disgusting degree that their worldwide genocide and murderfest lasting 300 years was not only inevitable, but also natural and an expression of freedom or some other meaningless term, liberals warped history such that the people that sacrificed the most horrifically defeating Nazism are in fact the same as the Nazis while the people that empowered them, have the same economic system as them, had the same white supremacist ideology as they did, and also led global empires are completely different.

Yes, liberals have revised history so much that the average French person believes America won WWII even though 86% of German soldiers to have died in the war died in the Eastern Front. No, liberals are no better than Holocaust deniers, calling a literal fucking famine a genocide on par with the Holocaust is just unironically actual Holocaust denial and comparable to pissing on the gas chambers in Auschwitz

[–]cybitch 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Who said anything about famines? Go educate yourself. And let me make one thing clear - I don't do oppression olympics. You want to be a vile, blood-thirsty tankie and defend mass murder because "well those other dudes murdered more" go ahead. Just don't expect me to give any more of a shit about the deaths of your ancestors than you do about mine.

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don’t care much about it all, mine or yours. My point is that it means nothing, “People died under communism” okay, people also die under capitalism too; clearly this isn’t at all an issue for liberal capitalism and people in liberal capitalism do not see the deaths as an issue, so my question becomes, why then should it matter for communism? Especially when communism also defeated nazism (whose ideological goal was an actual total genocide of all of Eastern Europe, tho I know many anti-Soviet Europeans have regaling stories of the lovely SS officer their grandparent met once), ushered in the Space Age, and cleared the way for the end of classical colonialism?

[–]Nelumbo 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I feel the same. Is there no communist online community that doesn't promote trans drivel? I know mostly nothing about politics, and communism seems interesting so I want to learn about it, but all leftist places are so pro-trans. I even saw a r/stupidpol mod saying they wanted to ban "TERFs". I don't get it? Isn't most of the world "Trans Exclusionary"? Pick any random woman in China or Africa and surely there's a 99% chance she thinks only women can menstruate?

you’re not allowed to be against trans bs nonsense unless you wanna be kicked out, if you do it online you get banned and cancelled, I can’t take this shit anymore

Yeah, trans activists make the left completely toxic to people. Ladydick and the jewish question are both moronic subjects, but I'm having a more pleasant time interacting with literal fascists on saidit than lefty trans activists on reddit, cause most of the nazis won't run crying to the mods and attempt to get my account banned for disagreeing.

[–]JoeDzhugashvili[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Want my advice? Just read actual communist lit if you wanna get into it, maybe try working with a union or some party. The only leftist space online I find remotely tolerable is a board called leftypol, but you probably wouldn’t like it. As for readings, you’re better off just reading either classical marxist texts or reading people like Paul Cockshott and John Smith for contemporary theoretical work. One good recent book is Socialism or Extinction by Ted Reese.

And yea, idky Reddit got devoured by trans mods in general

[–]Nelumbo 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for the recommendations, I will note them down.

The only leftist space online I find remotely tolerable is a board called leftypol, but you probably wouldn’t like it.

I can handle rude and edgy behaviour, the only thing I can't stand about 4chan style websites is that they tend to be infected by pedos who like little cartoon girls. Leftypol seems to like catgirls but as long as they aren't too creepy about it, it seems ok to me.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They’ve permeated everywhere they don’t belong. The fact that they can’t have a movement on their own merits is telling. They have “centered” themselves in Marxism, feminism, BLM and other social causes and have their own shitty one as well. I remember at work they will have a Trans awareness month every month. Like Seriously, WTF?