Manufacturing Moral Panic

This document, titled Manufacturing Moral Panic, claims feminists, indeed anybody opposed to Gender Identity Ideology, are aligned with sinister, anti-democratic forces. It claims we are well funded (😂), highly co-ordinated and involved in a global conspiracy dating back 35 years! It uses the technique of ”association fallacy” to spotlight right wing opponents of Gender Identity Ideology and imply /state that all opposition comes from the same ideological stance. The aim is to associate grassroots feminists with proponents of anti-abortion, anti-gay, authoritarian regimes.

The document was produced by organisations who are either actively promulgating, Gender Identity Ideology, or acquiescing in its dissemination. A coalition of hugely resourced, charitable foundations have banded together as the Global Philanthropy Project and joined forces with Elevate Children’s Funders Group; a coalition of charities focussed on children. It is particularly disturbing that an organisation representing children’s charities has been persuaded to endorse a document critical of the language of child safeguarding.

Recently more attention has been paid to the charitable foundations committed to spreading Transgender Ideology and exposing the huge corporate machinery promoting a medicalised “identity”. This document would appear to be a co-ordinated response to the Gender Critical resistance which has had some success, particularly in the United Kingdom.

You can read the full document below. Warning, it is very long and extremely repetitive. Also thin on evidence, which does not surprise me.

Manufacturing-Moral-Panic-Report

Gender Restrictive Ideology

It will take a few blogs to cover the different sections of the 131 page document. It purports to provide an overview of an ideology it labels ”Gender Restrictive”. It does not use the term ”Gender Critical Feminists” because it needs to smear us as biological essentialists who believe in traditional gender roles. This is ludicrous. Even a cursory analysis of the Gender Critical feminist analysis would conclude that they are critical of traditional sex stereotypes enfoced by the imposition of traditional gender roles. The authors cherry pick country case studies to set up an association fallacy claiming an alliance of authoritarian regimes and second wave /GC Feminists. They focus on countries which support their central thesis; which is that there is a sinister, anti-democratic, anti LGBTQ+, cabal driving opposition to Transgender Ideology. The entire thesis is a textbook example of D.A.R.V.O 👇

The normalisation of a rejection of our sexed bodies is no accident. It is driven by a hugely profitable industry which is mining our children’s bodies for profit. Biological sex denialism also has unintended (or intended?) consequences for women’s sex based rights. This is the root of my objection to Gender Identity Ideology. Philanthropic foundations drape their motivations under the “Charity” umbrella but are they really a beard for the Gender Industrial Complex?

I Intend to cover the report in three, further blogs, I also have women from Bulgaria, Ghana and Peru who have agreed to cover the country specific sections. It is significant, in my view, that the authors did not use the United Kingdom as a case study. The grassroots fight back in the U.K. originates largely on the political left which is an inconvenient fact for those calling us right wing, fascists.

Background

Global Philanthropy Project

I think it is worth examining who is behind this document. First of all I want to look at who is behind the Global Philanthropy Project. Here is the call for proposals to map opposition to Gender Identity Ideology in the Caribbean on behalf of the Arcus Foundation.

Here is their website:

Global Philanthropy Project

This is what they are about

They have 22 members, who are listed below:

Many of the members were familiar to me and I have blogged on a few, or referenced them in my earlier work.

Barings Foundation 1

 Barings Foundation 2

Astraea Lesbian Foundation

ARCUS FOUNDATION GRANTS

I have also looked at Open Society Foundations who make significant grants to foundations involved in the dissemination of Transgender Ideology. Open Society Foundation, and other members of GPP, fund areas which, as a woman of a Left Wing persuasion, I heartily support. If you are neophyte this is important context; it can be disconcerting to find yourself criticising organisations which also do important, and worthwhile, work. However the spread of Gender Identity Ideology, and the promotion of a medicalised identity to a generation of kids, is doing real harm in our society while it has been promoted as a social good.

Many of the grant-making from these foundations demonstrate concern about the rise of Authoritarianism in countries such as Hungary, under Orban. I share that concern. The Hungarian administration is in opposition to Gender Identity Ideology, however the backlash is indiscriminate. This has resulted in legislation that harms Lesbians, Gay Males, Bisexuals and women’s rights. I do not support any legislation that hurts those who are in flight from their sex and identify as “Transgender” or “Transsexual”. My concern is to protect single SEX spaces for women and girls and to end the promotion of a medicalised identity to children, and teens. Historically, medical interventions were restricted to the most serious, intractable, cases of Gender Dysphoria. That is not the case in 2021.

The document is a result of a collaboration between the Global Philanthropy Project and Elevate Children’s Funders Group, a group I had NOT encountered before. I was especially concerned to see a coalition of children’s charities signed up to this document. Could it be that this organisation is being “forced–teamed to support an agenda? Do they appreciate what they are getting involved with? I don’t know.

This is the background to Elevate Children Funders Group:

The Elevate Children’s Funders Group 

Here is the history of Elevate Children’s Funders Group:

Here are the membership details for Elevate Children’s Funders Group. Common link seems to be the Oak Foundation and Open Society Foundations. {As an aside Comic Relief are deeply implicated in funding groups promoting Trans-Ideology}.

This group have clearly been persuaded that women, who are concerned about Gender Identity Ideology, have some unsavoury alliances with anti-democratic forces. Rather than see us as parents, with safeguarding concerns, they seek to paint us as the actual safeguarding risk. Here is a clip from the report which tells a collection of organisations, centred on children, to be wary of people using “child protection rhetoric”.

Here are some clips from Elevate Children’s Funders Group 2021 Strategic plan. This contains some familiar terminology such as intersectional and challenging norms.

The emphasis on children exercising their rights may be entirely innocuous but it immediately raises alarm bells for me. Based on everything I have read in the last five years it has echoes of campaigns for “bodily autonomy” for children with Gender Dysphoria.  Note the reference to “Gender Justice”. 

The reference to “intersectional” also sets off my spidey senses. The excellent work on intersectional feminism, by Kimberle Crenshaw, has been co-opted by proponents of trans-ideology. What was originally a plea for feminists to recognise the intersections between race, sex and class has now morphed into something quite different. Crenshaw’s work is now used, against women, to claim that female only spaces are akin to racial apartheid.

 “Sexual Apartheid” is even the title of a work by Martine Rothblatt. Rothblatt’s is a billionaire, trans-identified male who dreams of a world where we eradicate sex as a classification. I wrote about him in this post THE APARTHEID OF SEX: Rothblatt

The reference to challenging attitudes and norms also echoes Queer Theory idealogues who believe in smashing heteronormative culture and disrupting social norms. Some of those norms are indeed founded on prejudice but some, such as defending sex based rights and protecting children from making irreversible changes to their body ,are norms rooted in child protection. 

I hope they mean supporting “evidence based interventions” because currently they appear to be siding with an ideology with a poor evidence base. 

There is of course always the chance that I am reading too much into this, so I had a look at their publications and this was the first one I came across on “Looked After Kids” in the care sector. I have done a few posts on children in the care sector because they are over-represented in referrals to Gender Clinics. The language is steeped in the propaganda of Gender Identity Ideology.

So this is the background before I get to the meat of the document. There is a lot of money to be made in fostering unhappiness with your body. This is just a new branch of the self-commodification industry. Selling it as a Social Justice moment is genius. It is also a LIE.

As always any financial help would be much appreciated. I do this full time and have no income. This helps me purchase books and journal articles, where necessary, and to keep going.