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The gender critical twisting of language
Who gets to control language is as old as the written word itself. George Orwell’s 1984 remains the totemic book outlining how authoritarian regimes seek to impose their conception of language onto a populace by reframing the past to suit their ends, and gender critics such as JK Rowling and the LGB Alliance are using the same principles to enforce their beliefs. This is seen in the dehumanisation of trans women as transwomen and trans identifying men, along with the deconstruction of trans womanhood to become biologically male. The same for trans men. The fact that the BBC and other new outlets have yielded to this framing of trans personhood shows just how deep this reorientation has gone, to the point that when trans people complain they are told that such language is justified because “trans woman” is confusing and/or offensive to certain groups.
One only need look at the putrid morass of X posts which draws from transphobic cesspits to see how such language and philosophical framing has been classified as free speech to justify the hate and dehumanising. I have to catch myself when I am around my non-online…
