Chapter V
In this chapter Raymond looks at the ethics of, so-called “sex reassignment surgeries” and their impact on individuals and society. What has come to pass is far worse than anticipated even though Raymond felt her dystopian predictions would be disbelieved.
The medical model has emboldened the medical priests in service of the Gender Industrial Complex to extend their practices far further than anticipated in 1979. We had not yet begun to experiment with puberty blockers for children.
The medical model prioritises surgical responses to a psychological problem. In 2022 the extensive evaluation has been jettisoned in favour of immediate affirmation and prompt access to hormonal treatments, followed by surgeries. The “transsexual” subject is not encouraged to challenge their discomfort with normative “gender” roles but, instead, to modify their body the better to perform a role more in keeping with their inclination.
As Raymond points out there is nothing revolutionary in this approach it is, in fact socially conservative, especially in relation to internalised homophobia. We are encouraging young homosexuals to retreat into a faux-straight medicalised closet.
The Gender Clinics have a monopoly on the “synthetic sex identity” business and do their best to restrict critics of the affirmative model or the practice itself. It is not in their interests to question the belief in “born in the wrong body” because their business model depends on a belief in “trans” ideology.
Raymond also makes the excellent point that any revolutionary potential in those at odd with the sex stereotypes is contained, neutered, in effect, by sex-conversion practices. Instead of rejecting the sex stereotypes they are, instead, having an opposite sex stereotype carved into, and out of their flesh.
Those designated “transsexuals” could turn their discomfort into real social protest and ally with feminists, gay men and Lesbians to disrupt normative expectations for their sex. Instead the social determinants for their dilemma are hidden by a process of mystification by the Gender priests. It is just the new face of defeatism against the sex hierarchy
Hormonal /Surgical interventions thus act as a social tranquilliser.
Raymond reminds us that the man who invented lobotomies won the Nobel prize. His patients were taken from mental health units and it has been well documented that this demographic is riddled with competing mental health diagnoses.
Another way in which Raymond was prescient was her speculation about the social control dimension which is masked by notions of “informed consent”. The notion of consent means the transsexuals are not seen as coercively controlled /manipulated into this solution but as enthusiastic participants. This was in 1979 before we had “Gender Identity Ideology” propaganda indoctrinating our kids from their nursery days. The Gender Identity Ideologues groom our kids so that the destination of the gender clinic has been normalised for a generation.
Writing from a U.S perspective Raymond speculates about the consequences if the Gender Industry was state run. In the U.K we have watched that play out in the U.K. with the state sponsored spread of Gender Identity Ideology now taught as “fact” in many (most) U.K schools and Universities. Raymond also anticipates the large scale social engineering we have witnessed unfold over a decade, aided by the internet.
At this point Raymond, almost apologetically, raises the expected skeptical reaction to her dystopian vision. Her prediction was eerily accurate. She also hits on another feature of this topic. People don’t want to believe it even now when it has clearly panned out as Raymond predicted. Though, I would argue, on a much larger scale than even she, would have predicted.
Raymond also points to the experimental nature of these surgeries and known cancer risks from exogenous hormones. She also speculated aboutthe lack of discussion about the pain from these procedures. This is very common from the YouTube generation who minimise the negative medical consequences from their surgeries. ( In the U.K we may just be puncturing this denial as new waves of detransitioners share their post operative complications).
One of Raymond’s theories is that their is a masochistic aspect to these surgery subjects; almost as if the pain to be reborn as your authentic self is worth it, or a rite of passage which shows they really are a “woman” or “man”. Speaking personally I would not rule out some sadists in the Doctors / Surgeons working in this field. I have no doubt that some get a perverse kick out of “forced feminising” males or mutilating teenage girls. Yes, this is dark but there are dark minds at work in this field.
It is worth posting Raymond talking about John Postgate at this point. Postgate was a microbiologist at Sussex University. He proposed a male pill to limit the number of female children. (This did not get a mention in his Guardian Obituary. Ironically he had three daughters himself.). This is a dark proposal and it gets worse when he speculated about the social consequences.
Informed Consent.
In the modern context the notion of “informed consent” seems little more than a means of trying to dodge legal liability. There is also the vexed question of children as young ten “consenting” to puberty blockers. Again Raymond was ahead of the game questioning how the “transsexual” could really give meaningful “informed consent” to these experimental procedures. For Raymond the transsexual subject is not encouraged to explore the societal conditioning that created this mind/body split in the first place.
There follows a lengthy section on parallels with the Nazi experiments which included one 13 year old boy who is reported as having been turned “into a woman”. This is interspersed with Richard Green lamenting that there has not been enough willingness to use “transsexual” subjects to further research in this field. The relevance of this line of enquiry is summed up by this quote.
The other issue that should concern us all is what this says about our priorities. This 👇 still holds true 50 + years later.
Finally Raymond was ahead of the curve with this prediction: I will wager even she did not anticipate the rate of growth over this last decade.
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Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.
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