Reddit reviews A Most Stirring and Significant Episode: Religion and the Rise and Fall of Prohibition in Black Atlanta, 1865–1887 (Northern Illinois University Press - Drugs and Alcohol)

> I have noted rightest thinktank policy positions and talking points that expressly advice to take talking points from GCs and radfems.

I suspect you're familiar with the way rightist think-tanks operate. They will seize onto anything that promotes their worldview, even if the intellectual framework behind it is vastly different from the neo-con perspective. Taking talking points from radfems-- even when it does happen-- is a woefully incomplete proposition *because* these organizations don't engage with the full content of radical feminism.

In effect, you're saying, "Radfems should shut up because their points could be cherry-picked and fit into an arch-conservative framework." That same argument, with minimal tweaking, could be leveraged against *any* marginalized group. (Examples: Black liberation movements are pro-gun and therefore natural allies of the NRA! Feminists who advocate for abortion are buddy-buddy with the eugenics movement and probably white supremacists to boot!) Would you like everyone who can be misconstrued by neo-cons to hush and toe the line?

>antisex feminists believed women couldn't be sexual agents under patriarchy and had to be protected from the degenerate gaze of me, and temperance activists worked from the frame of white protestant women needing protection the dangers of alchohol

So here's the thing: pornography and prostitution have terrible effects on women, particularly First Nations/Indigenous women, women of colour, women below the poverty line, and yes, trans women. Alcoholism had terrible effects on women in the 1800s and early 1900s. You can argue about the policy failure of Prohibition/anti-porn bills. That's fine, and I suspect I'd agree with you about a lot of it. But the actual issues these movements tried to address were extremely real. Are you conceding that trans women are a legitimate threat? Because otherwise, your analogy falls apart.

(Also, I remain confused by your insistence that Prohibition was a white Protestant phenomenon exclusively. It had support among Southern black women and male black community leaders precisely because of its religious roots.)

> Women get assaulted in bathrooms and especially prisons without transwomen present. Abolishing prisons is the progressive stance to take, or at least holding prison staff accountable for overlooking and often perpetuating violence against women themselves.

Sure thing! Most GC feminists are leftist and pro-prison reform and abolition. But we're also clear-eyed about the risks of putting pre-op trans women (particularly those with sexual offences under their belts) amidst a population of vulnerable women whom they can, statistically speaking, overpower. We're also aware that women's prisons tend to be nicer than men's, due to women's lower penchant for violence, and that people may very well lie about their gender identity to get access to preferential treatment.

>Medical transition processes that start with teenagers (potential hormone blockers) is child led and involves whole teams of professionals and parents.

Mermaids can provide same-day hormone blockers. (And that's in their own words, in a mediation with a newspaper.) Children under the age of five transition. Tell me more about this child-led, careful, very scientific process. (And, before I get told off for picking disreputable, fly-by-night organizations, Mermaids is extremely respected in the UK. The Canadian psychologist in the second article has close ties with the B.C provincial government. These people aren't unqualified.)

>Who is defunding shelters? Transpeople?

Morgane Oger, a trans women, spearheaded one such campaign in Vancouver.

>The outrage of what are we doing to children's bodies rings hollow when that argument is not used against the heavy psychiatric drugging of exponentially more children that has impacts on brain development.

Okay, you clearly don't hang out on GenderCritical. (Which is fair; I don't actually expect anyone to do that.) That community is shockingly (and in my view, unreasonably) anti-psychiatry. Nobody's for drugging kids in that political corner. And, more charitably put, the over-medicalization of children is basically a mainstream talking point. (see: the ADHD discourse)

>Jumping into the discourse with academic radical feminist credibility to peddle the same BS that transpeople are threats to women and children for the sake of women's liberation I think is dishonest, because we know that plenty of radical feminist thinkers disagree.

I'm still reeling from the assertion that normies are particularly moved by GC feminists. Weird, gender-nonconforming academics spouting theory are, like, the worst possible candidates to win hearts and minds, particularly in America.

When a community wants to win rights, there's a playbook. Members of that community make a principled argument: we're people just like you, we deserve the same rights, we care about this society. Unfortunately, trans activists have decided to metaphorically trample institutions, vigorously deny science, and demand special accommodations that nobody else receives. (See: trans women wanting access to a men's college, a trans man wanting access to a sorority, the reframing of consent as exclusionary) Y'all can't blame us for your own bad PR.