( LunarWolf )
Anyone with eyes knows that Khelif is male.
This is exceedingly relevant. Part of the tactic and possibly goal of this movement is to convince us we cannot trust our own senses, instincts, knowing and perception of the world.
“We can always tell!”
Senses, instinct, knowing and perception of the world, you say?
Well, here’s the thing: all of those things are very much imperfect and fallible.
It’s not just that it’s not always possible to tell someone’ gender natal sex just by looking at them. Otherwise a number of, say, butch lesbians wouldn’t be misgendered… or accosted and attacked in female toilets for being supposed “male invaders”.
But it’s also other things.
Instinct isn’t some perfect mechanism that lets us accurately interpret the world. Nor is what we consider “instinct” wholly inborn; much of it is learned through life. Sometimes, our instincts can be a good way to avoid or escape a dangerous situation; but other times, they can be wrong.
Especially when you consider that “instinct” is affected by bigotry.
When, say, a racist sees a person of a “wrong” race, their instincts often immediately scream “DANGER!”. After all, the things they heard and internalized throughout their life — partly due to their upbringing, but also due to a very specific media and informational diet — have primed them to see pretty much any person of a given race or ethnicity as a potential or actual threat. After all… they know what those people are like!
That, right there, is a racist’s “knowing”. Few bigots see themselves as bigoted; the vast majority see their own bigotry as simply “common sense”, based on reason, logic, experience and… knowledge about the world.
Unless they’re one of the few self-aware racists like some modern neo-Nazis (and sometimes even then), racists see their racism as simply “trusting our own senses, instincts, knowing and perception of the world.” Pretty much all bigots are like that.
Perception, knowing, and even instinct are always colored and affected by our own preconceptions. We are not neutral observers; we’re all biased!
Our senses, too, aren’t interpreted neutrally. What we see and hear is filtered through our mind, with all of its inherent biases and convictions. Two people with different beliefs, anxieties and preconceptions will look at the very same thing and might ‘see’ two very different things in each of their own minds.
If you think of yourself as being very neutral, unbiased, rational and logical, it’s often a good indicator that you very much aren’t, and it leaves you seriously vulnerable to manipulation, bullshit and, yes, bigotry. After all, if you think you are immune to them or close to it, then you won’t recognize those things in yourself, since you think that you can’t fall for them.
The first step to actual resilience against it and to real independence in thinking is to recognize that you’re not immune to propaganda.
As a friend of mine put it:
As soon as you accept that everyone is:
1) human
2) emotional
3) ego-driven
4) prone to stake their ego on opinions
5) all of the above applies to you as well
…you have an easier job of realising what's affecting you and how.
(Note that ‘ego’ there isn’t meant negatively, as egotism. It’s simply meant to say that our own self and needs matter to us, sometimes even when we talk about things that don’t seem to affect us directly. And our opinions are influenced by those needs.)
I’ll respond to the rest of that post in the next comment.
If you can’t trust your own senses and perceptions, where do you look for truth? Always and only outside yourself.
And there we have more of the typical ‘gender critical’ binary, black-and-white thinking.
The way I see it, you should look for the truth both inside and outside yourself.
If you look only outside, you will have no genuine views of your own. You need to use your reason and your critical thinking to process outside information, but that doesn’t mean that you refuse it automatically, of course.
But if you put too much trust in your own senses and perceptions, then you will have no corrective factor for your own biases, misconceptions, misunderstandings and, yes, failures in perception.
You are not perfect. You are fallible, and vulnerable to misunderstandings and propaganda.
And so is the rest of the world.
So, in conclusion, you should have some trust in your own senses, perceptions and reasoning, but only to a certain point. Always leave room for alternative interpretations and possibly being mistaken.
Including about someone else’s body or internal sense of self.
But I guess I’m just part of a movement whose tactic and goal is to gaslight you into thinking that you “cannot trust your own senses, instincts, knowing and perception of the world.” So, you’ll just disregard whatever I have to say, because it’s all just a conspiracy anyway.
