Bernadette Wren:Tavistock

Can evolution explain Gender Diversity? (Part 1)

This post reviews a presentation by Bernadette Wren, while at the Tavistock, to a group of evolutionary biologists. You can find the link here:

Can Evolution explain Gender Diversity?

Wren opens by explaining this is a highly contested field, she is habitually nervous when speaking on this topic but she is confident the people in the room are too scholarly for there to be any uncivil discourse. She explains that she, herself, is curious about the topic and does not take a particular stand.

Here she comments on the issue of uncertainty in the practice of “gender medicine” ; emphasising the lack of a firm foundation for the management of “gender variance”.

She expresses the hope that an evolutionary perspective could reduce stigma for those who are “transgender” and perhaps this will lower the temperature in the public debate. On the referrals to the Tavistock she has this to say: 👇

The Tavistock, she advises, see people who are questioning the assignation of their “gender” and “gender roles” insofar as “they embody a set of expectations about how someone will live and how they will feel about being in the body”. Wren talks about their intense distress about their sexed body and suggests, in the past, this may have been a hidden distress. She argues that these feeling are not new but what is new are the numbers and the certainty with which they present, accompanied by demands for urgent medical intervention and pushy parents who she calls “assertively supportive”.

She described the Tavistock approach as “broadly affirmative”. They take the distress seriously and don’t assume a “psycho-pathological” causality, however, she claims, they do bear in mind if the onset of distress is linked to any trauma. She adds a caveat that they do not lose sight of an “unconflicted trans and gender diverse experience”. This is quite telling. Previous clinical practice would have maintained that anyone feeling as if they are “born in the wrong body” requires serious exploration of the underlying causes. Now we make a default assumption this is a natural development, a variation, unless evidence is presented to the contrary. This has major implications for how patients present themselves, perhaps downplaying psychological issues to swiftly access medical treatment? It also has consequences for how Gender Clinics respond to this condition and, it is my, firmly held, view that this is why we are seeing an explosion in the numbers of detransitioners. Here 👇 Wren still sees their service as “gatekeeping” medical intervention.

This is a list of names involved in a Tavistock working group looking at the, potential, role of evolutionary biology in “gender variance”. I have not encountered these names before so, I am merely including this slide for archival purposes and in case their names recur.

Next Wren shares some Gender New Speak and makes it clear she does so without apology. Check out the definition of SEX!

Next, Wren puts up a slide with estimates of the prevalence of people diagnosed with this condition. The slide is less interesting than what she says while it was on screen. I will include it for completeness. Surprise, Surprise, once you start talking about and publishing on “transsexuals” the prevalence increases.

Wren now cites the work of an evolutionary biologist “herself a transwoman” to muddy the waters about sex/gender, so let’s take a little detour to learn about the biologist whose insights she shares. 👇

Joan/Jonathan Roughgarden

While the above slide is on screen, Wren treats us to the above named 👆 scientist who has spent time cataloguing the lack of sexual dimorphism in the animal kingdom. Joan was Jonathon up until the age of 51. You can find a Ted Talk of his on YouTube. Here’s a statement he made in that talk.

Roughgarden takes us on a whistle stop tour of diversity in the animal kingdom including, of course, the clownfish. He has also written a book, Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in nature and people. Below are a selection of quotes:

Roughgarden acknowledges we are divided into biological males/females based on whether we make large or small gametes.

He accepts the universality of the biological distinction but throws in a reference to claim a difference between sex and gender.

To insist on the salience of biological sex is a mistake called “essentialism”.

Instead we can choose who counts as a male or a female; how convenient for Joan/Jonathon.

He then adds some TRAlinist revisionism by re-classifying Joan of Arc as a “transgender man”; claiming we had a wealth of transvestite saints in the middle ages and that eunuchs were early transgender people.

Finally, before we leave Roughgarden to his musings, here are his thoughts on how to deal with “transphobia”; eerily reminiscent of calls to Lesbians to seek help to get over their hang ups about Lady Penis.

Intersex: Via Fausto-Sterling

Of course no discussion about biological sex would be complete without weaponising people with disorders/differences in development (DSDs). There are many conditions which lead to atypical chromosomal development, funnily enough these conditions occur in either males or females. They carry with them differing levels of severity in terms of the medical consequences. Fausto-Sterling famously claimed there were 5 sexes and “intersex” conditions were as common as red hair.

Worth a detour to share some of Fausto-Sterling’s thoughts. 😳.

Cultural Genitals to Lady Penis in women’s sport. 😳

Was Anne just having a laugh? (Worth including this just because of the tone of this public admonishment 😂).

All of which leads Wren to make this observation, which demonstrates that societies have handled the identification of the sexes reasonably well, even prior to karyotype tests.

I will leave part one on this talk, at this point. What you need to take away from this is that Wren and her fellow travellers really do think the world would be a better place if we stopped recognising biological sex. In their fantasy world this would eradicate sexism and make the world a better place.

To believe this you have to disregard facts like sex selective abortion *still* happens (even in the United Kingdom), at least 98% of sex offenders are male which is one reason WHY women fought for single sex spaces. Even after multiple surgeries men are still recognisable, as men. The fantasy of “passing” males means blocking male puberty and, as we know, this means the eradication of the ability to orgasm.

In the U.K, have had the vote for less than a 100 years *1, we still don’t have equal representation in parliament and, unless one party comes out for Women’s, sex based, rights, unequivocally, our votes will be rendered meaningless.

. (*1 women were granted the vote in 1918 but it was not extended to all women, over 21, until 1928).

You can support my work here, should you feel so inclined. Rumours to the contrary, women fighting this are not awash money. Unlike the organisations receiving the billions funnelled into spreading Gender Identity Ideology, by “Charitable” Foundations.