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Sandra Currie's avatar

Lionel's dismissal of feminism is so elitist. Women's liberation has always been about eliminating poverty (women make up 70% of poor people), and male violence. Lionel probably never expects to be imprisoned with rapists, and won't have to use shelters set up provide respite to women who have been victimized by male violence. And the feminist, Janice Raymond, warned us about what we are experiencing now in her 1979 book "The Transsexual Empire". We were dismissed then, and people like Lionel continue to dismiss us now.

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Ollie Parks's avatar

There's a special place in Hell that's reserved for those strong women who dismiss feminism.

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Lois A Edwards's avatar

This is very painful. I agree with all of you 1000% about trans ideology and about DEI and woke. But we are several more weeks into the Trump reign since this was recorded and he is doing his best to destroy democracy. He has cut off Ukraine and is trying to hand it to Putin. Babies in Africa are starving while thousands of tons of special nutritious food is sitting in warehouses because Trump cut off USAID. Trump's cabinet has been called a clown car but it is worse than that. Not one of them is remotely qualified. I live in Canada but I'm so traumatized that I'm struggling with my own mental health. Now he is playing with tariffs and the stock market is bouncing all over the place. Please keep doing your wonderful work with fighting the trans ideology but please admit what a horrible mistake it was to put Trump back in the White House.

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Pipinella's avatar

Wishful thinking like the kind Lionel does about Trump shows extraordinary blind spots, undermines her credibility on other issues. Totally unnecessary too. You can distinguish between issues. If your touchstone is Reality, it's undeniable that Trump cares nothing for free speech, for democracy, for the rule of law, for separation of powers.

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EyesOpen's avatar

Within this episode, altering birth certificates was mentioned. I am very focused on that issue and recently wrote about it. https://thetranstrain.substack.com/p/truthful-and-factual-birth-certificates

I hope to hear others stand up for truthful, factual birth certificates as well.

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Matt Osborne's avatar

It's actually a cult. The "true believers" are in a cult. Society has embraced the cult. Deprogramming society will take time, especially among the cultural and administrative elites.

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Reality check's avatar

I love what she says about how we are supposed to ignore what we observe with our own eyes, “The Emperor has no clothes!!”

Too long people have been bullied into going along with ridiculousness. Thankfully we are gradually breaking that down and (God willing) the end is near for so-called trans rights. All humans have human rights, but no one has the right to force everyone to accept a lie.

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Kate's avatar

Clearly this was taped before the absolute shitshow of the DOGE sabotage of the civil service and the realignment with the Russian dictator started... I was hopeful about the gender and DEI Executive Orders as well, but clearly the price is too high. Especially since Democrats have unfortunately decided to die on the stupid gender hill, and the EOs may be overturned in court. They only harden the fronts and won't change any minds, which is what's ultimately needed.

Lionel was wise not to vote at all in the last election; that was the only defensible opposition to the "woke" agenda, given how predictably destructive Trump was going to be on all other matters.

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Lisa's avatar

Three whip smart women with whom I fully agree on every topic discussed herein. I so appreciated Mania and of course saw every parallel and metaphor for the actual absurdity of our time. As Shriver said, discussions like this make me feel less lonely as I continue to fight the battle against gender ideology that is a colossal waste of time, intellect, and resources.

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Kassandra Stockmann's avatar

I'm no Lionel, but I have been working on a book about a trans identified child from the mother's point of view, A Dead Daughter or a Live Son! I'm about 15 chapters in, the 16th has been a bit tricky, but the end is in sight! https://open.substack.com/pub/kassandrastockmann/p/a-dead-daughter-or-a-live-son-chapter?r=37iypx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Also, I witnessed the birth of woke-ism in the late noughties on LiveJournal. My sister was indoctrinated into it early. She went at me several times for challenging groupthink on imperialism (even though I'm married to someone who was impacted by imperialism and he didn't agree that the movie in question promoted imperialism) and Jewish representation as well as how critical people were getting towards tv shows made in the 1990s for not being diverse enough. So I would say that a lot of things could get you in trouble from the beginning but by far the people you wanted to tango with the least was the nonbinary and trans identified people.

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u.n. owen's avatar

Considering we can't actually change sex, gender, biology or reproductive systems, this is neither ideology nor contagion, but mass hysteria & mania, like when the Martians landed. As Andrew Gold observes, it resembles many cults, incl. exorcisms.

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Sally J's avatar

It's hard to feel like you're a woman when everything you see growing up and as an adult in the media, in popular culture and in society as a whole promotes the idea that womanhood means dolling yourself up, sometimes to the point of looking like a porn actor. If you don't look and dress in a stereotypical way, if you are gender non-conforming, it's hard to see yourself as a woman. Especially if you are a butch lesbian.

That's also why male transgenders are often so overboard with their fake boobs and makeup. That's a male conception of what a woman should look like. The male gaze is still alive and well. Men who want to be or think they are women are performing a caricature, a stereotype in their male minds of what it means to be a woman.

If we want to know what makes some women very effeminate and others masculine looking and behaving, and I use those terms to refer to both innate differences and culturally taught stereotypes, we need to research innate physiological differences in girls and women's brains and bodies. Maybe butch lesbians have more proprioceptors than effeminate straight women, or perhaps they have more than effeminate lesbians have.

The problem is, the world hates butch lesbians. So scientists are not going to study them. I read a brain study that included four categories: heterosexual men, homosexual men, heterosexual women, and so-called "transgender women." They apparently thought they had two categories of men and two categories of women. Who was left out? The lesbians of course. What that study really looked at was three categories of men and one of women. Ironically, lesbians are probably the key to the puzzle that they were trying to figure out, yet in their attempts to prove male transgenders have something in their brains that makes them women, they ignored the most pertinent category - lesbians.

What's worse is now tens of thousands of young gender non-conforming girls have been convinced that they're actually boys and are in the process of destroying their bodies.

It's time to save the lesbians!

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MsFrizzle's avatar

This was a fantastic episode and Lionel Shriver is such an intriguing, forthright person. I do hope that she considers writing a book as you suggested, Stella. She thinks it's a subject past it's prime for a book, but I disagree. The culture has not moved nearly far enough to recognize gender ideology for what it is, no matter how many laws are passed. Think of how "Uncle Tom's Cabin" moved a somewhat indifferent early American culture to recognize the cruel reality of slavery. I am also glad that you pointed out how vulnerable our kids are to this ideology when she said that they should be immune to this wasteful/stupid mind virus, as she called it. I don't think autism or ADHD were mentioned at that point, but that seems to be a factor for so many, my son included.

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Ollie Parks's avatar

Call me a cuck, but I can't get excited about anyone who is a fan of Elon Musk or who is still going on about the COVID lockdowns as the wedge end of the looming tyranny.

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Rebecca Lloyd's avatar

She says it exactly like it is! 🌹🌹

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Suzette Cullen's avatar

Riveting is right. Much to agree with and any questions about other realities spoken of. Do you think maybe having a women’s United Nations could move all forward. Women have so much in common.

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Kate Scott-Clarke's avatar

So disappointed at where this episode went.

It sounded like you’d all drank the right wing cool-aid on DEI hires. There are plenty of incompetent, unqualified white men in high places (I.e. the US Supreme Court, the White House) but the wrath a slightly incompetent black woman gets a job she ‘shouldn’t’ is phenomenal!

Executive Order 11246

Executive Order 11246, as amended, is a federal executive order applicable to federal government contractors, which prohibits job discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin and it requires affirmative action programs for minorities and women to ensure equal opportunity. (https://www.upstate.edu/diversityinclusion/policies-and-procedures/eeo/fedstatelaw.php#:~:text=Executive%20Order%2011246%2C%20as%20amended,action%20programs%20for%20minorities%20and)

This means that where there are two candidates equally qualified the DEI gets the job. It means sifting CVs blind I.e. without names, sex or race apparent, it means advertising jobs in more neutral language so that women apply.

Covid - wow! Just wow! Tens of thousands of people were dying, hospitals totally overwhelmed, morgues overwhelmed that’s why people stayed in, stayed away from each other because they wanted to survive.

The high tensions about masks were because masks are highly effective against airborne transmission of disease and people wanted to survive. We were actually in survival mode. Stella will know what that does to our psyche and the impact that it has on our ability to respond rationally and calmly to others. If anything the rally was against masks not for them.

There is no recognition of the fact that Trump creating the ‘right’ outcome in terms of trans issues in the US comes from a place of discrimination. It comes with terrible consequences for democracy, for world peace. Those saying that this was recorded before he put these and other policies in place, he told everyone what he was going to do and he did it!

Yes, trans issues are important but not as important as democracy as a whole. The UK left (ish) party turned it around on trans. The US democrats could have as well and we wouldn’t have to watch the world falling apart. If I had to choose I’d choose the democrats and their batshit crazy policies on trans over the loss of democracy every time.

I don’t think of myself as a woman all the time either but am reminded every time I go out into the world. Absolute madness.

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mikeb's avatar

In would be nice if this whole movement could be seen as a waste of time, as Lionel says, but maybe it isn’t. All acknowledge the waves of hysteria that repeatedly sweep through societies. I agree with the point that we can now understand Pol Pot, North Korea, the Stasi, satanic abuse etc as we have just lived through something similar. The current hysteria, hopefully waning, has been supercharged by internet community, algorithms, and what Lionel overlooks: money. Large pots of it, coloured green. Trans has been Sackler 2.0.

Figuring this stuff out and how to maintain liberal values may be the biggest challenge of our future. I’m glad Stella held up empathy and compassion for the kids and families afflicted by the recent trends. To lose this or not have this, as Lionel may have, is to lose the possibility of understanding why it has happened, and maybe how to counter the next wave of hysterical tyranny that is almost certainly coming our way – the best predictor of the future is still the past.

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Joaniepatricia@gmail.com's avatar

Loved this episode and introduction to Lionel. I wanted to add to her appreciation of women who stood out against the trans ideology that you (Genspec) and Sasha (Gender a Wider Lens) need to be included in there. You have both been so instrumental for me in my education around this movement. And now you have added another dimension to it with these interviews. I love it!

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