Examining Gender Identity ideology and its impact on Women's Sex based rights and Gay Rights. Exploring how this has taken such firm root in Western societies (Cognitive & Regulatory Capture).
A review of Isabel Sanger’s book. (Written under a pseudonym). Sanger is a qualified, medical, doctor and has also studied and worked in psychiatry. If you think you know all there is to know about this topic you are in for a treat, if that’s not an odd way to talk about the biggest attack on women’s /Gay rights this century.
We pick up the review on Sanger’s open letter to a female “trans-activist”. Blistering retort to the young women who are embracing the destruction of their rights (and ours) in a misguided attempt to be “kind” and “progressive,
This is what these young women are actually fighting for 👇
If you are puzzled by the young women acting as handmaids this chapter is enlightening. As usual regressive anti-feminist movements function by driving a wedge between young women and their older sisters , the “hags” if you will. Cutting young women off from the wisdom of older women is a key component of any backlash against women’s rights.
Myth of Asexuality
The next chapter is on asexuality. You might enjoy the parts about the asexual activist who is a lingerie model and does actually have sex even though she is asexual. 😳. The explanations around asexuality take incoherence to a new level which is saying something in these crazy gender wars.
My take away from this chapter is about how our kids are groomed to claim “asexuality” when we parents talk about the sexual dysfunction, as a consequence of “transgender medicine”. I have first hand experience of this, from my son. The cynical way this is being used to justify the destroyed sexual function of pre-teens, and post-teens is hard to process but, yes, proponents of these treatments are indeed using this argument.
It beggars believe that a movement which has hijacked movements set up to defend the right to same sex attraction has morphed into an anti-sex movement at the same time as claiming they are sex positive.
Chapter 18 is very good on disorders of sexual development and sport. Personally this cleared up some confusion for me about complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. People with CAIS have a complete inability to process testosterone and may not find out about the condition until menstruation fails to start. They will be socialised as female and have an oestrogen fuelled puberty. Sangar is clear about the impact on female sport but doesn’t lose her humanity in addressing CAIS women.
The first thing that was new information, to me, was just how long the female sex category has been under threat. It was happening prior to 1968!
Prior to katyotype tests the way sex was assessed was clearly unacceptable. However it is true that people with DSDs had demonstrated their superior performance and were over represented in the female category in sport.
I didn’t know there was a competitive advantage from CAIS women and this calls into question techniques to promote “fairness” by capping testosterone levels in biological males. Once chromosome tests were abandoned in 1999 the consequences for female sport were clear,
.
Getting this wrong does have a devastating impact on female sports.
This is obviously a more sensitive issue than excluding males with typical chromosomal make up. For CAIS women any rules re sports need not translate into labelling of CAIS women. While sex clearly matters in sport, for fairness, but the social convention of accepting those, with CAIS, as women need not be disrupted.
The capture of the Medical Profession.
Chapter 19 is a devastating assessment of the capture of the medical profession. Sangar meticulously details the extent of the capture and the consequences. If you read no other chapter this one is key. The references at the end are also very useful and could keep you busy for hours.
I have covered some of these issues in my series on NHS “Transgender” policies but it is devastating to seem then all laid out in this chapter. Replacing the sex of patients by “gender identity” , creating mixed sex wards, corrupting data and compounding the problems of the over 1300 rapes that have happened in NHS hospitals. If only the NHS had proved as amenable to women raising the lack of care for ,and research into the sex based needs of women. Imagine what we could have achieved if the NHS had listened to women as much as they have to men who wish to be women.
This chapter covers the important legal cases and also the trans-activists who worked being the scenes at the heart of government and the NHS to socially engineer a world that panders to the belief that you can change sex. Stephen Whittle and Christine Burns are covered extensively.
Sanger follows up with a case study looking at the British Medical Association.
If you ever want to see how a few activists can drive through mad policy then this is the chapter for you. Sanger details how a tiny number of determined activists can drive through unpopular motions. Don’t give any notice of the motion, truncate debate, make sure you are prepared by h stuffing the conference with people who agree with the motion. This in turn gives a veneer of respectability to these mad, anti-women policies and creates a chilling effect by making those who disagree feel isolated and out of step with their professional bodies.
Names are named! Glad I didn’t find my doctor’s name!
This chapter also lists examples of men taking advantage of these policies; to watch porn from his hospitable bed!
The next chapter details how this translated into policy and provides some terrifying examples.
The book ends with an interview given by Sanger to the women at Filia. This is a very good overview of the implications of this ideology not just for women but for the people following a medical pathway in an attempt to escape their biological sex. We do these men and women no favours by uncritically accepting “gender identity” “medicine”. I have never felt so lacking in confidence in the medical profession or the Medical Schools that are delivering their training.
First Do No Harm
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Today I will be reviewing this book. You can purchase it from Amazon or Ebay, in hard copy, or electronic format. I bought the kindle edition for review purposes but I will be ordering a hard copy for solidarity purposes! Isidora also tweets at the following account.
Even the first chapter is full of key quotes so I will have to restrain myself.
Chapter One points out that the some of the first victims of the trans-medico complex were gay men whose homosexuality was not tolerated. The hard work of social change was eschewed in favour of body modifications, for the gay men. We are literally carving sexist stereotypes into, and out of, homosexual bodies and disregarding any costs to their health.
I have long said that we are creating a new Eunuch class to police women and Sanger doesn’t shy away from the implications for women either:
The re-designation of some males, as women, has had catastrophic impacts on the status of women in society. The desires of these men have been elevated above the needs of actual woman. Nowhere is this more evident than the phrase “Trans women are women” which is parroted by politicians across the political spectrum; while the language assigned to women is reductive and offensive.
Language is not the only casualty of the lie that men can become women. We now have a new group of sexual fetishists claiming the cover of the “trans” umbrella. We have male rapists in female prisons and a court case against the prison system confirmed this was legal.
Sanger touches on the sleight of hand that replaced sex with gender and is in large measure used as leverage by men with transvestic fetishism/autogynephilia. They needed this obfuscation to push for their re designation as a type of women; even as a type of Lesbian! She also covers the, oft repeated, lies which use people with disorders of sexual development to push the lie that biological sex isn’t real, or is on a spectrum.
Sex matters for all of us even those, perhaps especially those, who are in denial about their biological sex.
Changing sex markers is now routine in the NHS resulting in the ludicrous situation of men being invited for cervical smears. The NHS seems to trust men with delusions to recognise their real sex for health purposes. However, some of these men seem to be in a highly delusional state and not capable of acknowledging reality. Exhibit A. 👇
Because of her medical training Sanger is qualified to examine case studies to make her point.
Chapter 6 examines the complicity of the medical professionals with these ideology which she calls “apseudoscientific ideology based on wishful thinking”. Again, the author is also trained in psychiatry so in a position to critique their failings. She asks the question about why a delusion about your biological sex is treated differently to apotemnophilia (the desire to cut off a limb).
/
Another aspect of this which Sanger covers really well is the fantasy element of men who identify as women. Our lives are not slumber parties and fluffy slippers. Identifying “with” us implies empathy when you identify “as” us it is identity theft and it is not just women who pay a price. The effort of maintaining this fiction is exhausting.
Case Study 2 looks at inducing lactation in a male subject and the ethical implications of this as well as females breast feeding while on testosterone. It’s a terrifying experiment on these babies! Sanger makes the point that the accounts of these cases leave out the sex of the baby but the sex of the baby does matter. What will be the impact on a female infant who is dosed up with testosterone as a result of this ideology? Furthermore some men have a sexual fetish with breast feeding, known as Lactophilia, as is evident from the sexualised language used to describe the experience. (And, yes, I am judging!)
The next chapter covers the experiment on children via puberty blockers and the lies trans activists tell to justify this treatment path. The lies about suicide risk is one form these falsehoods take. It’s blackmail.
Chapter 11 details the consequences of using female language to describe males. An excellent over view of all the consequences for women when we lie about someone’s biological sex. She also covers the women who are paid to lie about sex and go along with Gender Identity Ideology from the comfort of their salaried positions. There is a harrowing section on male prisoners being housed with women and the horrendous crimes they are perpetrating within the prison estate.
Chapter 12 challenges those arguing that the P should be included in LGBT+ which, if you missed it, is seriously proposed by sexologist James Cantor, and others.
To this Sanger retorts:
The next section draws on the work of Dr Em who exposes the tactic of paedophiles who aim to normalise their predilection. The tactics are scarily similar to those of trans activists who are eroding the boundaries of women and girls.
The next chapter looks at the strategic use of a technique known as D.A.R.V.O, by trans-activists, which stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim and Offender. This is used to paint “trans-identified” men as victims, thereby creating a new priestly class immune from critique. This chapter details a case study from Sanger’s own experience which rips off the mask of a man who had sexually abused his niece. The lessons from this individual case can be applied to the institutional D.A.R.V.O to which we are being subjected.
Fantasy versus Reality.
This chapter lays out the consequences of a truth denying ideology and how it is corrupting institutions and policy on a massive scale. A movement built on lies relies on an inversion of the truth to shore it up. Sanger also takes a swipe at the “both-sidesism” at play when men pretend that women are guilty of the same behaviour as the, often violent, “trans” activists. Sanger covers the collusion of the medical establishment, the Ministry of Justice, prisons, law enforcement, schools, the list goes on.
The chapter on symbolism flags and totalitarianism resonated with me; especially the analogy with the Balkans conflict. This chapter also covers the force teaming of the LGB with the T and the historical revisionism of the foundational gay rights movement to centre “trans” activists.
This is a war! A war on reality itself. It’s the madness of crowds and we need society to recover its sense, sooner rather than later!
I will break off here to make sure I do justice to the second half of the book. Sanger has done us a great service with this book. Bravo! 👏👏👏👏
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Many years ago I did my dissertation on the European witch-hunts of the 1500s-1600’s, in a module on religion and society during a period of social upheaval. I have never forgotten this book, the author of which died at only 49.
The politics of popular belief.
The book’s mainly focus is on Scotland and England but Larner also covers continental Europe. She explores the distinctive nature of the English witch-hunts and how Scotland took more from the European model than the English did. Notice the subtitle is about the politics of popular belief. This was a popular belief system in the same way Gender Identity Ideology is a quasi-religious belief system. The approach Larner takes to the witch-hunts has much to teach us about the belief that people can be born in the wrong body, or have ”gendered souls”.
A study of this phenomenon is important because it can explain so much about contemporary issues. A belief in witchcraft became a regime enabled ideology. Laws were enacted to prosecute “witches”; in much the same way we are having a new State Religion, “Gender Identity Ideology”, imposed upon society. This has been accompanied by #HateCrime laws, to root out unbelievers, and public shunning of naysayers.
The belief in a “demonic pact” took particular hold in Scotland. This meant all those recognised as witches were now evil, a continental belief system King James I imported to Scotland. As you can see the result was the, subsequent, witch-hunts swept up the local ”scold” along with the ”villagehealers”
England retained the distinction between “Black” and “white” magic so the pattern of prosecutions and punishments somewhat differed from Scotland.
Dried up old women.
On ascending to the English throne, King James tried to introduce the notion of Satanic influence to his new subjects. A record of an exchange, with a courtier, survives, here James asks about the prevalence of witches among the ”ancient” women. He was met with a ribald joke about “dried up old women”.
Witch-Finder Generals.
In England the 17th century equivalent of Dr Haddock/Man at a bus stop, Matthew Hopkins, was responsible for one outbreak of testeria that saw 19 women hanged. Then, as now, there were men who particularly enjoyed their licence to demonise women.
Common-Prickers
Here’s a fun fact from another book. Men who were enthusiastic witch-hunters, came to be regarded as a nuisance and they were afforded the moniker ”Common-Prickers”. As in this quote some of those men sought to distract from their own sins. Here a man distracts from his own indecent exposure to attack an honest woman. 🤔
The above quote comes from this book which I have covered in a twitter thread but will add a blog for this series.
Torture was deemed necessary to extract confessions. The law was also amended to allow women to testify, especially to facilitate denunciations of other women. Usually women were not considered competent to be accepted as reliable witnesses. Naturally when women turned against other women the patriarchy was keen to hear from them. Plus ça change. (The more things change, the more things stay the same). Also children, convicted felons and interested parties were similarly upgraded to allow their testimony.
Trials of witches were considered more noteworthy than trials for theft, slaughter, cattle raising or for sex offences! Of course they were!
Scapegoating and group solidarity.
The execution of a witch marked her as deviant and fostered group solidarity in the ”in-group” By general agreement the witch was marked as a deviant to be cast out of normal society. This was the 17th century version of #VirtueSignalling whereby denouncing other women, as witches, signals a desire for membership of the protected class of “virtuous” women. This functions in much the same way as ”Terf” does in modern day Britain, by adopting this language women are signalling their membership of (oxy) moronic version ”feminism” branded ”inclusive”.
English witches were old, poor and , of course, female. They were also often economically dependent on those who accused them.
Their poverty, and dependence, was an important feature of the ”witch class” because of economic shifts and changes to the “poor laws”. A bureaucratic system of relief had divested, in theory, the charitable responsibilities of the individual but, perhaps, left a residual guilt when not discharging traditional social obligations? Hence the resulting SocialTension.
State promotion of dysfunctional beliefs
Here Larner looks at the nature of belief in society and whether they have an autonomous existence. Why do beliefs exist that are visibly dysfunctional to society and why do states, new leaders and revolutionaries go to such lengths to convince their populations of their “correctness”? Consider the parallels with the 21st Century state mandated belief in “Gender Identity”. The resulting sterilising of children, male rapists in female prisons, men in women’s sports are all manifestly damaging societal cohesion; yet the majority of our political class are falling over themselves to convince the population these are unmitigated goods. 🤷♂️
Moral Panics & Darvo
It is of note that women, campaigning for sex based rights, are being accused of generating a moral panic. (See my series on Moral Panics). This is a classic example of D.A.R.V.O. This stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. A step by step description of Gaslighting techniques. First you deny the truth; See #ThisNeverHappens about male rapists in female prisons. When that fails, due to mounting evidence, you attack. See #WomenRapeToo. Then you reverse Victim and Offender. See propaganda about the murder of trans-identified males and the accusations that ”Terfs” create the climate that allows these crimes against the trans community to flourish. Of course this also comes under Deny because those murders, the relatively small number that exist, are invariably committed by men.
During this time we see the emergence of the criminalisation of women which necessitated a new category of offences. Witches for the old and infanticide for the young, crimes very much rooted in being part of the reproductive sex class; either because you are currently fecund or you are no longer.
There is also an interesting aside here about the assumption women’s crimes were always as a result of ”male coercion”. Males are still more likely to be part of the criminal class and females in the prison system, for violent offences, especially those of a sexual nature, are significantly less likely to independently from a male. I think this is one area where we can be comfortably repudiate the, otherwise powerful rallying call, of “Sisters doing it for ourselves!”
Why were researchers into witch-hunts so oblivious to the sex question? Note the tautological answers. #WitchyWomenAreWomen….because the stereotype of witches was a women. Despite the obvious correlation between being female and demonised as a witch (much starker in England than Scotland or on the continent) some historians *still* disregard sex as an important variable.
Witches are Women & TWAW.
This 👆 is a precurser to many of the answers you receive to the mantra ”Trans Women are Women”. The answers are in variably reflective of a circular logic. We are told someone “feels like a woman” with no coherent way to define ”woman” without reference to sex stereotypes. The obvious definition is Adult Human Female but this cannot be allowed to stand because it excludes males.
Thank goodness the definition of woman was more stable in the period we are investigating. Look at the stats.😳. In England 92% of the accused were women. In twelfth century Russia they just rounded up all women! Note it was a “sex-specific” crime. No gender bollocks when working out who to hang or burn!
The few male witches tended to be swept up in trials as a result of guilt by association.
Witches are women who don’t conform.
Women singled out, as witches, were the kind that departed from sex stereotypical behaviour. A standard set by men. 👇
We have learnt nothing!
These deviant women generate hostility. The persecution of witches (ter*s in 2021) is a warning to other women to get in line to conform, in short to #BeCompliant. Thank you to twitter user @georgiaxcross for this perspective on #BeKind feminism. This is it in a nutshell, it is not a request. It is a demand.
The next quote illustrates the overlap in motivations for the Jewish persecution, in York, in the twelfth century. Because of a historic, religious, prohibition of ”usury” the money lenders were mainly Jewish who did not have such a taboo. The men of York were in debt to the Jewish money-lenders had an added incentive to initiate their, violent, expulsion, from the city. We see the same playing out below with the women they defined as witches in Nupe witch- hunting. The women also violated social norms for women by taking lovers and not providing children.
In Scotland there is a also suggestive correlation with the new ability to make accusations of sexual impropriety to the landlord class. Is it not also interesting that this modern day #Backlash has emerged on the back of the #MeToo movement?
Another factor was the rise of the male medical profession. This generated backlash to the traditional role of women as “healers”. Men now coveted this role in the community.
Eventually as the witch-hunts spread they ran out of Scolds and turned on the “honest” women.
First they came for the Scolds/Ter*s and I did not speak out…Your silence /complicity will not protect you #Handmaidens.
This is a rather magnificent aside on the (1980’s) phenomenon of popular witchcraft. The idea that Standard Witchcraft magazines look like a cross between penthouse and a PhD thesis has delicious application to the world of #GenderStudies. Bravo! I .😂✊️
Labour! From witch to bitch to terf.
Oh and this quote too!. Absolutely one that should have served as a warning to we left-wing women. From #DitchTheWitch (that’s a bit sexist) To. Ok you have a point we will use …wait for it..
DitchTheBitch
😳
Women with the power of words are a distinct threat. I am sure we all have some particular women in mind re this quote.
And look at this! Margaret Lister (Fife) was also identified as a “libber”. A liberated women who insists on making an issue of it. I had no idea women’s libber dated back to 1662! How very dare she and how delicious she is called Lister the same as Gentleman Jack!
Was the State consciously seeking to terrorise and intimidate women?
Are the State doing this in 2021 by seeking to criminalise women for saying we exist? That sex is real and we are not an “identity”?
Bravo to whoever did this. Note that Witch-Hunters were called #CommonPrickers in Scotland. I prefer just to call them pricks. The Male Feminists are the worst. Ironically.
You can access Christina’s book here: Open Library is free but they do need donations.
Full disclosure: Kathleen, very kindly, donated a signed copy of her book which she took the trouble to post to me. This was done despite Kathleen being aware that I was unlikely to agree with every one of her ideas or conclusions. It is true that I diverge on some issues but, nevertheless I highly recommend this book.
Kathleen (Professor Stock) writes from the perspective of an academic, philospher, whilst currently holding a post within a UK University. She has been subjected to a campaign of villification, from within her own discipline, and the university sector more generally. Even the main union for University staff, UCU, has not stepped up to protect women in Kathleen’s position. I cannot begin to imagine writing this book, from within academia, and I commend her courage in doing so. As Kathleen points out there is a huge struggle to get dissenting voices into the literature on this topic. This book represents a significant milestone in breaking this silence.
My reception of the book probably needs some clarity about my own perspective, or biases, if you will. I am not pure enough to claim the label radical feminist but I would say I am radical feminist adjacent; since their analysis makes the most sense to me. In a twist of fate I now find myself the mum of a trans-identified male and caught up in a fucked up, post modern, version of Sophie’s Choice. I am expected to hand my (gay) son over to the medical profession who, I am assured, will return a living “daughter”. My perspective is thus informed by both my feminism and the impact on my son. This is not easy terrain to navigate when you are also a stalwart defender of women’s, sex based, rights. It also makes me more, perhaps too, inclined to want to understand motivations for homosexual transitioners. My compassion should not be taken as compromise where women’s rights are concerned.
A brief history of Gender Identity
The book traces the origins of Gender Identity as a concept and covers feminist voices who argued that feminism could be advanced by a more extreme belief that sex differences were wholly “culturally constructed”. She covers Simone de Beauvoir, JohnMoney, Anne Fausto-Sterling (of “five sexes” fame), Judith Butler and also cites Julia Serano as one of the trans voices covered. I would have added the work of Janice Raymond to this list because “Transsexual Empire” is a seminal text on this area. Its omission may have been tactical because Raymond’s book tends to inflame those who see themselves as activists for the “Transgender” community.
John Money and Robert Stoller concieved of the idea we each have a “gender identity” which, as we have seen, is now being embedded in society and rapidly being privileged over biological sex.
This chapter also covers the Yogakarta principles which are essential to understanding how activists envision a world where gender identity is embedded in the law. There is also a section on the origin of the term “Terf” ; which is useful for those of you unaware of the history of it’s coinage.
What is sex?
The What is Sex chapter is a good debunking of the common arguments claiming it is difficult to define sex, that we are not sexually dimorphic and conflating issues of intersex (disorders of sexual development) with a trans identity. It may seem ludicrous but some, self-identified, serious academics proclaim we didn’t know to which sex to deny the vote. Apparently it was all a random act of disenfranchisement based on the nebulous concept of “gender identity”. If only Emmeline had come out as Edward Pankhurst the women’s rights movement could have been exposed as a complete waste of time. Below is a seaside postcard from the time.
For those of a philosophical bent this chapter will particularly appeal. I have rehearsed these arguments with trans-activists over many years so much of the content was familiar. One of the key issues that resonates with me is that we must not simply reduce everything to XX chromosomes. I am thinking of women with no abiliity to process testosterone. Their chromosomes will be XY but they will have had a female (oestrogen led) puberty They often have no idea they have male chromosomes until they fail to menstruate. (I am thinking of twitter user @ClaireCais when I type this and some of the painful things she has had to endure). If only for women with DSDs this chapter is important. It is also a useful source to debunk the false conflation of a transgender identity disorders of sexual development.
Why Sex Matters?
Stock then goes on to make a compelling case for why sex matters. She covers medicine, sport, sexual orientation and sex based statistics on crime. Women are still fighting for a world which doesn’t treat males as the default humans. Denying that sex is a significant variable in many areas will further, negatively, impact women. For more on this you can read Caroline Criado-Perez.
Though it is possible that somebody at the Guardian has read Kathleen’s book since the clarification, below, is from the Guardian in July 2021!
Now we are starting to see males competing, at the Olympics, in the women’s category will more people start speak out. Laurel Hubbard , who is competing in the 87kg women’s weight lifting category, may prove a tipping point.
Legal cases such as the issue of males in women’s prisons and the recording of male sex crimes as if they were committed by women is also covered in this chapter. I have covered many such cases on my blog about this so I am pleased to see this.
What is Gender Identity?
The topic on Gender Identity I found a difficult read, for personal reasons. As a woman I instintively recoiled from Monroe Bergdorf locating the film “clueless” as prompting their thoughts of transition. After watching this film they state: “Oh my God, this is where I fit in, these are my people”. Stock does not include some of the more controversial utterances from Monroe Bergdorf; one of them being to demand that women stop centring reproductive rights on a women’s march. This won’t please all readers but I think she is wise to avoid more sensationalist copy.
The recollections of Paris Lees and other gay trans people echo what I know of the impact homophobic bullying can have on self-acceptance. Interestingly this is a Paris Lees quote from an article (London Review of Books 2014). This was quite an honest assessment and pre-dates Lees adding “Adult Human Female” to their twitter bio:
On the topic of homosexual transsexuals I , inevitably, find myself conflicted. I want boys like my son to be protected in all their variant masculinity. I don’t want to enshrine “gender identity” in law and legitimise the sterilising of, likely gay, males. Neither do I want those gay males, who do fail to reconcile to their sex, to be unprotected. What I do know is that “gender identity ” must never take primacy over biological sex, for the sake of women. Enshrining “gender identity” in law would be disastrous for women’s rights. Sex also matters for trans-identified people. It is dangerous to become so immersed in an identity you deny that sex matters for your health care.
I was pleased to see this statement in the book: “in my view there are no cirumstances in which minors should be making fertility and health affecting decisions involving blockers, hormones or surgery”. Personally I take a harder line re decisions to embark on medical pathways. Achieving the magical age of majority is not sufficient for me. I know, from personal experience, our teenagers are being handed prescriptions with no counselling and no interrogation of what motivates a flight from their sex. I would ban it for under 25’s which we know is the average age of brain maturity. Whether it would deflect many from this path we can’t foresee. We do know many de-transitioners embarked on surgery, in their early twenties, only to regret it. Persuading legislators of this is likely to be an uphill, near impossible struggle, at this moment in time. Alarm bells should be ringing as the number of detransitioners in increasing daily. Sadly I fear many more broken bodies before this madness gets reined in.
In this chapter the author also attempts to elucidate the position of various schools of thought on Gender Identity. This is no mean feat giving the contradictions inherent in Gender Identity Ideology. This chapter uses the terminology of Trans Idealogues comparing “Cis” people to “trans people” and even using “non-trans”. That will irk some readers. However I see this chapter aimed at an audience (academics? politicians?) who have wholesale adopted the nomenclature of Gender identity Ideologues. The chapter does end with an unequivocal statement warning of the danger in accepting something which is “in danger of looking unverifiable as when Stonewall tells young people “” Someone else can’t tell you what your gender identity is – only you know how you feel””. This is not a sound basis on which to enact legislation, and perhaps using trans-approved language will convince more people?
What makes a woman?
There follows a long chapter interrogating “What makes a Woman” and looking at the definition of Adult Human Female versus Woman as Social Role. I suspect some people view this chapter as capitulation and some as compassionate. I subscribe to Adult Human Female but welcome the recognition that some people have built their lives around the narrative “Trans Women are Women”. These quotes sum up the difficulty, with the demand that the word “woman” is handed over to males in flight from their sex.
Marilyn Frye is quoted on page 152:
“If a woman has little or no economic or political power, or achieves little of what she wants to achieve, a major causal factor is she is a woman. For any woman of any race or economic class being a woman is significantly attached to whatever disadvantages and deprivations she suffers be they great or small” In response to the (much longer) quote Stock argues “Getting rid of the concept WOMAN would mean we couldn’t desribe, explain, predict or manage these distinctively caused phenomena”.
To those who have built their lives around the idea they are really women, Stock has this to say:
“People have built their lives around this narrative. Perhaps it feels as though I’m ripping all that away, and that causes you pain”.
I have seen this pain up close and its not the performative, twitter, transperbole: though that certain exists. It can be raw and very real. I think compassion has a very real place on this topic and it needn’t include abandoning a very clear view about the necessity for sex based rights and a male exclusionary feminism. We don’t need to be inhibited from centring women in our feminism, indeed it is a necessity if women’s rights organisations are to serve women, as a sex class.
Once again, I quote Miranda Yardley (male transsexual): “Refugees from masculinity exist” and add my own caveat “it is not women’s job to run the refugee camps”.
Immersed in a fiction
This chapter begins with some commentary on the passing of the Gender Recognition Act, 2004. This enshrined to idea of a “legal fiction” allowing males, then the majority sex visiting Gender Clinics, to have their birth certificate amended to show their sex as female. Its astonishing to see the quality (or lack thereof) of contributions to the debate on the passage of the bill in the House of Commons. Below is a link to historic archives on Hansard. I find myself in the unusual position, for me, of recommending Norman Tebbit’s contribution which Professor Stocks also references in this chapter.
Stock them goes on to discuss the difference between fiction and reality and quotes both Miranda Yardley and Fione Orlander. I met both Fionne and Miranda on the same night and it was the first time I spoke publicly about my situation. Here Miranda clearly states ” I now disavow use of the word “woman” for myself and other transgender males, preferring to use the term “transsexual” or “transsexual male”. I should also point out that both Miranda and Fionne used male facilities at the meeting.
Stock covers the therapeutic benefit , to the individual, of being immersed in a fictional belief about your place within the sex binary. She also expresses concern about the risk of losing capacity to think rationally about your biological reality. This detachment from reality can be maladaptive and harmful. Moreover what latter day trans activists are increasingly demanding is the coercion of others to overtly participate in this fiction. This can result in the controlling of others around you. I was particularly pleased to see this sentence“Yet it isn’t reasonable to expect the person who gave birth to you, or the person who married you, or your own children to permanently relate to you mentally as of a different sex when they know you are not”
In addition the author sounds the alarm about the corruption of data which occurs when “gender identity” is substituted for sex. A particular danger is to criminalise speech such as “misgendering”. Something, by the way, which is already criminalised in some of the United States.
How did we get here?
This chapter is an excellent overview of how trans-activists have been allowed to lobby government to set the legal agenda whilst politicans were negligent, in seeking contributions from women’s groups. Stonewall figure prominently, as do Mermaids, and The Guardian newspaper does not emerge covered in glory. Jess Bradley of Action for Trans Health is also consulted. Professor Stock refrains from any reference to the sacking of Jess Bradley. He was the first Trans Officer at Manchester University and departed for sharing a bit more his anatomy ,at work, than would be considered decent.
This chapter has an excellent overview of the propaganda deployed to further Transgender Ideology. One of these is the egregious use of suicide statistics, which are based on dubious data. Hate crime statistics also create a false narrative about widespread abuse of this population.
This chapter also looks at the pornified representations of women and those public “transwomen” who draw on these depictions to demonstrate membership of the female “gender”. These performances reify dehumanising representations of what it means to be a woman; another reason why women are not served by any alliance.
The chapter on autogynephilia is where our attitudes diverge. In part this because my empathy goes to the women who find their husbands are autogynephiles. These women are now getting a voice by organising as “trans-widows”. I have read enough of these accounts to see commonalities with men who coercively control their wives. Many of these women found themselves subject to degrading and humiliating treatment. At the extreme end it involved forced participation in sexual acts which validated their husbands alter ego. At the milder end women report having their personal style and friendship groups co-opted by their husbands almost as if they were replicating, or replacing, their wives.
Even, seemingly, benign, behavioural autogynephilia includes males inserting themselves into female spaces, and conversations, to gratify their need to assert their membership of the female group. The wives, or trans widows, then find themselves excluded from the support of women because their erstwhile husbands have colonised their places of refuge.
Kathleen asks why the lack of coverage, on the gender critical side, relating to trans-identified females. This is surely because, whilst it exists, androphilia (sexually fetishising a male identity) is relatively rare? Women tend to focus on “trans-men” as female and are concerned that many would, if left alone, simply be Butch Lesbians. Gay males are latterly, waking up to the encroachment of those females who identify as gay men on their spaces. Defending gay male spaces is surely the job of gay men and they do seem to be, belatedly, joining the debate in growing numbers.
A better activism in future.
Those not immersed in this debate may regard this chapter as even-handed and reaching out to those who have feared to dip their toe in the water. Others may bristle at the criticism of Radical/Gender Critical feminists.
Julia Long came in for some criticism by name. For the record I am an admirer of Julia Long’s uncompromising stance. I think we need straight-talking women who reject the mantle of “Be Kind”. As a (heterosexual) woman who lives with three males I think Lesbian feminists, of a separatist persuasion, have often been the clearest sighted about the threats Gender Identity Ideology poses to women’s rights. I wish I had listened to them sooner. I also find Julia funny, she has Ovaries of steel; and is unafraid to offend in her direct action. She appeals to my Yorkshire bluntness and I admire her, albeit from some ideological distance. She is unashamedly woman-centred and some of the terminology used is reminiscient of attacks used by Men’s rights activists. For me we need the range of activists challenging this ideology and some of the women shifting the overton window won’t be invited to the top table discussions but will have opened the doors for the women who do get a seat.
At the same time Julia warns about using terms, such as “transsexual” and “transwomen”. I no longer use the latter but I do sometimes use the former whilst also sometimes, speaking plainly about “men”. I am inconsistent in my application and I don’t advocate for my, selective, approach as a basis for any women’s movement. It just happens to be a response to my personal circumstances. I choose to use less alienating language for those I love, or like and respect. I therefore do perform “polite fiction” on this issue and live with some cognitive dissonance.
Kathleen also warns about the alienating use of words like “mutilated” when describing the surgical harms to girls; subject to double mastectomies and other surgical procedures. Again those of us with our offspring’s skin in the game, literally, adopt different tactics in this area. I do regard these surgeons as butchers who are mining my son’s body for profit. I am angry about this. At the same time we need to find a welcome back, into the sex class they never left, for detransitioners. I was irritated by blue-tick feminists (not Kathleen) getting the vapours about some graphic images of phallioplasty procedures. Simultaneously nobody wants to exacerbate the regret of those who have found their way out of the gender cult. This is extremely difficult terrain to navigate because we want people to stare directly at the reality and not minimise by using euphemisms like “top surgery”.
The chapter outlines some ways in which these disparate groups might make common cause. I honestly don’t know if the extreme sex denialism, of the Trans lobby, will allow for compromise. Will it allow women the right to define ourselves and exclude males in any settings?
At an individual level, I find some of the more ruminative transsexuals, suprisingly, find meaning in a radical feminist analysis. They see common elements in questioning sex based expectations and are reflective on how they may have followed very diffent paths had they encountered this framework. At the same time I know of transsexuals who found Kathleen’s analysis of their path as an immersion in a fiction meaningful. Invariably these are homosexual transsexuals who are not quite so invested in the need to validate the “woman” they wish to consecrate their lives to….
It is possible therefore that some of the linguistic concessions, in this book, will reach a new audience who would shrink from the plain speaking of a Janice Raymond. It is also a book written from within existing employment in academia and that surely has an impact on which audience it is intended to reach.
One page 272, there is a really useful list of all the areas which need more exploration (data) and research. She devotes three pages to these areas and it is quite shocking to consider the policy decisions taken without this data. Stock argues that their is a “surfeit high theory” in activism and public discussion. This includes Trans Studies. She goes on to say “High theory is abstract, totalising, seductively dramatic in its conclusions and relatively insulated from any directly observable empirical consequences – which ….makes it harder to dislodge”. She then returns to a critique of Judith Butler whose conclusions are “reached through a byzantine set of theoretical manoevres”. I think it fitting that a critique of the High Priestess of Gender Bollox is in the conclusion.
My conclusion. I think this is a very important book. I imagine every single reader will diverge at some points with the book’s stance. We all are in this with varying perspectives and we need to navigate a path to enable disagreements to be voiced from within feminism. I am one of six sisters and only one of them feels able to agree with me. I still love them and hope they will come round. Thanks for writing this book Kathleen. I hope I have done it justice.
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Researching Gender Identity Ideology and its impact on Women and our Gay Youth. Support is always appreciated (I have no income). All my content is open access so if you can’t speak publicly, and want to support those who can, only IF you have spare cash, this helps me keep going.
Who exactly is writing policy for the Ministry of Justice?
This blog is going to focus on what Rothblatt had to say about prisons. Rothblatt has a lot to say about a range of issues; as a late-transitioning transsexual with an interest in Trans Humanism. I will do a series looking at Rothblatt’s ideas across a range of topics impacting women. Women are a SEX CLASS not an “identity” for men to claim whether it is done as an act of dominance or as a refuge. We can support males who reject their masculinity but no ally would claim to be the same as a woman; especially now the damage, to women, from Gender Identity Ideology, has become apparent.
Martine lays out his vision in his manifesto for a new“sexual revolution”. I find that an interesting choice of title because, from my vantage point, this is the perfect description. This a Men’s Sexual Rights movement masquerading as the civil rights issue of our time.
In this book he argues that the categories of male and female lead to a sort of apartheid, which is how he categorises sex segregated spaces. Martine argues his proposals have emerged from feminist thinking. When a man like Rothblatt starts, approvingly, quoting feminism, he is either going distort it beyond recognition, or he is quoting Dick pandering, doormat, ”Feminism”
I did a long thread, over on twitter, about Martine Rothblatt which you can find here:
What does this Martine’s vision have in store for women in prison? Martine argues that the justifications for sex segregated prisons are postulated on the basis of women’s “frailty”. He argues that these claims are suspect.
Before I continue here are some facts about the U.K Prison estate. 👇These were published in 2020 and represent the data as of November 2019. Please be aware that, stark as the sex differences are, some of these offenders are males allowed to blame their crimes on women. Despite this, state-sanctioned, gaslighting, the male-inclusive, category of women is still a tiny proportion of the prison population. Women are less likely to be imprisoned for crimes against the person and only 2% are recorded as imprisoned for sex offending. Note that some of those “female” crimes are actually committed by males. Thanks to a recent court case we now know that there is an over-representation of male “women” incarcerated for sex offences. With such small numbers even one male added to this category of criminal offences can make a huge difference. Hence we have an entire programme on the BBC expressing horror at an 84% rise in female paedophiles. Are they female? Really? Shamefully the BBC chose not to question the data, Fairplay For Women did, see link below.
He goes on to argue for his own solution to prison accommodation in a novel version of carceral feminism. Unbelievably he argues sex segregated, prisons have done nothing to stop rape in prisons. What he fails to mention is he is talking about male on male rape! (See below). Of course the Prison Industrial Complex, especially after the introduction of the profit motive, keeps costs low by providing low staff to prisoner ratios. I don’t disagree that the prison system fails to protect vulnerable, male, prisoners in the male estate. Prison reform campaigners have long argued single occupancy cells would reduce the numbers of men raped and murdered. Yet the solution selected has been to place, actual, and so called, “vulnerable” males, claiming a female identity, in the women’s estate. This has resulted in male sex offenders being housed with women, illustrating the naivete, or worse, nefariousness, of the architects of the policy. A system which denies women’s need for sex segregation and prioritises the needs of males, is a blatant example of institutional sexism.
Even worse is that final sentence. Men are to be allowed to mix with women because it may help with their rehabilitation. This is woman, as support human, territory.
FARMER V BRENNAN
Here Martine quotes a court case from 1994 where a be-penised inmate, who Rothblatt calls “her”, sued the government to be moved out of the prison where he was held. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was also involved in that case, but didn’t act for the prisoner.
I took a little detour to look at the Farmer case. Dee Farmer had a twenty year sentence for credit card fraud. They appear to have been moved to a higher security prison following further offences in the prison estate. They were a pre-operative “transsexual” in terms of being penis-intact. They had been transferred to the higher security prison because of a continued pattern of criminal offences. (No violent ones were reported or sex offences against women).
Dee was moved to administrative (segregated) detention due to engaging in consensual sex, whilst HIV positive. Farmer was seeking a move to a lower security prison with less violent offenders. Ruth Bader-Ginsburg drew attention to other groups of vulnerable male offenders in the oral arguments. In my darkest (or more realistic?) moments I think the madness may end when other (Gay?) males claim discrimination because they are being treated less favourably. Maybe men will be listened to and effect some change? Policy makers and politicians are clearly comfortable with ignoring the negative impact on women.
They were not asking to be moved to the female estate having dropped an earlier petition as detailed below. Undoubtedly, were this case to be brought today, the claimant would have targetted a move to the female estate.
BACK TO ROTHBLATT.
Now we come to some of the practicalities of this new utopia. Here Martine has to deal with the fact that women exist, as a sex class, and the fact it is the female people who get pregnant. How does he propose to get around this? We will forcibly implant contraceptives in the women and suppress sperm production in the men. The risk of pregnancy, he argues, can be remedied by a pharmaceutical solution which he is quite happy to be “mandatory”.
Here he avoids the use of woman but reduces the inmates to their “genitalia”. The use of “accidental pregnancy” also avoids having to confront whether these pregnancies would be the result of rapes; a distinct possibility when female prisoners are confined with men. Nowhere does he address the fact that 99% of prison convictions for sexual offences are committed by the male sex or the fact the female population will be vastly outnumbered by the men.
In summary, Martine constructs an argument which ignores the significance of biological sex in determining likely predators and prey. He leverages the clear vulnerabilities of a pre-op transsexuals. He conveniently ignores likely vulnerability of other young males; who may be gay and also deviate from accepted performances of masculinity. Worst of all he is prepared to expose women to serious risk because he cannot bear any division between his imaginary female identity and actual women. This is the misogyny peculiar to autogynephiles.
He then proposes the barbaric, and likely illegal, mandatory contraception for women. He shows little concern this is necessitated by the higher risk of rape. As an aside he claims that mixing the sexes may encourage lower rates of recidivism, a spurious claim given that you are providing sex offenders with captive prey. These men are not known for their restraint.
This book is from 1994. Had I encountered it at the time I would have dismissed this as merely the work of a deranged mind. Never could I have imagined it as a blueprint for the future. In 2021 it is eerily reminiscient of official Ministry of Justice policy and that should enrage us all.
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Shrier’s book is a timely contribution documenting increasing levels of concern over the rising rate of Trans-identifying Females. Young girls are having drastic surgeries/medical intervention, at ever younger ages, in a quest to become their “authentic selves”. Sadly, some of those young women are emerging, in their earlier twenties, to the realisation they were simply Lesbian or in flight from their sex for other reasons. This self-knowledge sometimes comes after years on testosterone, double mastectomies and even hysterectomies /ovary removal.
Facts and figures on the rising numbers of these girls are included in Shrier’s book. Many of the statistics are from the UK because the NHS makes it easier to keep track of the figures. In the US there are now tens of “Gender Identity” clinics to service the rising rates of “transgender” children /teens. This is a phenomenon across North America, Europe and Australasia. Shrier’s book documents this with extensive references, an excellent bibliography and conversations with many people at the cutting edge. This includes practitioners working in the field or reporting on this area. She also shares personal testimony from the young women and their parents.
I have kept quotations to a minimum because you really should buy this book! I have, however, interspersed some links/blogs to expand, or reference the UK context.
Censorship.
When research papers, articles or books, are published on the phenomenon of Trans-identifying children/ teens, they are inevitably followed by calls to ban them, accompanied by attacks on the author, sackings, loss of office or sponsorship. This book is no different.
Here is Chase Strangio, from the ACLU (Americal Civil Liberties Union), calling Shrier’s book “dangerous polemic” and calling for it to be taken out of circulation.
The ACLU have a proud history defending Civil Liberties and Free Speech. A legacy which has been utterly squandered by its advocacy of Gender Identity Ideology. As an organisation they appear unwilling to accept that Women, LGB people and even Transsexuals, have legitimate concerns about the extremist positions of Gender Identity Ideologues.
Chase Strangio is a Transman and ACLU Lawyer. Anyone questioning the transitioning of children seems to be perceived as an attack on Chase’s identity, as a man. Choosing to critique a book without reading it seems to be common in this “debate” but Chase claims to have actually read it. This doesn’t prevent Chase from seeking to deny other people the opportunity. This smacks of authoritarianism and is shocking from an organisation which, not too long ago, defended the right to free speech for members of the Ku-Klux Clan.
What is happening to Abigail’s book follows a familiar pattern of silencing. This happened to the work of Michael Bailey, Lisa Littman, Ken Zucker and many researchers whose work I have covered on this blog.
Lisa Littman
Lisa Littman coined the term “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”. Lisa Littman spoke to parents with children claiming to be transgender. These children/teens had not shown any signs of discomfort, with their sex, during childhood, and their stories were also at odds with the experience / recollections of their parents. Diane Ehrensaft, a proponent of Gender Identity Ideology, made this statement about talking to parents (p.28). claiming it was akin to “recruiting from Klan or alt-right sites to demonstrate that blacks really are an inferior race”. I would contend that parents are demonised because we know when our children fabricate a fantasy trans-narrative. This knowledge is perceived as dangerous, as is (legal) parental responsibility, to safeguard our children from youthful mistakes. Parents who affirm biological sex are a direct challenge to ideologues, like Ehrensaft, who contend three year olds are competent to know their “gender identity”.
Ms Shrier’s book centres teenage girls. This makes sense because young girls are emerging as the main demographic being harmed. The causes are also different for females. As a parent of one of the boys, caught up in this, I contend that, whilst there is some overlap in the causality, this is primarily a tale of two sexes. It therefore makes sense to cover boys separately. Let us hope someone takes up the challenge to look at the Transgender Craze in Our Boys.Maybe I will.
Autogynephilia
Shrier does not shy away from covering the more controversial issues accompanying Gender Identity Ideology in our society. This includes a reference to Autogynephilia (AGP) which is a male paraphilia. The love of oneself, as a woman, is the new love that cannot bear to be named. Acknowledging AGP tends to provoke narcissistic rage and backlash and explains a lot of the testeria in this “debate“.
Shrier also talks about the erosion of female only spaces (see anecdote about the bra-fiting for a teenage girl. p.143). She also covers the potential /actual destruction of female sports due to male inclusionary policies. Shrier quotes young women who told her the social cache attached to a transgender identity is in direct contrast to the disregard for Lesbians. (p.151). Why would you want to be Lesbian when it is mainly known as a category of porn? Indeed the depiction of young women, in porn generally, seems suffiicient explanation for a flight from the female sex. Looked at one way adopting a male identity is a perfectly rational response to a hostile environment.
School Policy
Shrier is also excellent on the way Transgender ideology is disseminated, particularly in schools. The same phenonemon is at play in the UK. Sometimes this is done overtly via a Transgender Policy but other times it is slipped in, covertly, under the guise of anti-bullying. To truly root it out you have to check school transgender policy but also anything referencing bullying or equality or inclusion. I am doing a series on all the policies I have found and downloaded. This is one.
Shrier’s also documents how parents are treated by these policies and by schools, generally. Parents are painted as a safeguarding risk to our children, if we don’t immediately “affirm” a trans identity. I blogged about this here 👇 covering school policies advocating lying to parents about our children and “socially transitioning” them behind our backs.
Another issue subject to scrutiny is the threat of suicide and the topic of transgender kids. Not just in the US but globally. This is despite the fact suicide attempts are actually no higher in trans-identifying children than other kids with mental health issues. Completed suicides are actually very rare in transgender youth but they are higher in the adult group post transition. One Swedish study, with the longest follow up time of any other study, found the suicide rate to be significantly higher than their comparator sex. You can read about this here:
This is one of the longest follow up studies and points to a need for more after care and a review of the outcomes for post-operative transsexuals. This area is replete with references to suicide as evidenced by the repetition of “Better a live daughter than a dead son” . Yet discussion on post-operative mental health issues is verboten.
I wrote about suicide, in transgender youth, below.
Shrier seems to have spoken to most of the prominent voices in this debate. Ray Blanchard is the man who coined the term Autogynephilia. He is very good on the psychological toll it takes to present as the opposite sex. I have written about this, which I call “imposter syndrome on steroids” , after observing and listening to adult transsexuals. Blanchard goes a bit “bad on bothsides” re Trans Activists and Gender Critical Feminists (p. 132) but then we do appear to be, or are, critiquing his life’s work.
Medical Treatment
The book is bold and unflinching on the paucity of medical research and provides case studies on the deleterious impact of experimental, medical, solutions to a trans-identity. She points out that there is no reliable test for an innate “Gender Identity”. There is no biological marker. Detransitioners met the diagnostic criteria in the same way as did those who persist, for now, with a medicalised solution to their distress. She explodes the myth that puberty blockers are a pause and emphasises the public data which shows that 100%, put on puberty blockers, will continue to Cross Sex hormones. This is not a pause, it is the introduction to, an almost inevitable, pathway to medical transition. Shrier deals with the risks of puberty blockers (p.165); the shocking statistic of a 5 times higher rate of heart attack in females on testosterone (p. 169) and the medical complications leading to the high rate of hysterectomies after 5 years on testosterone. (p.171). She is also not afraid to name leading proponents of Gender Identity /Medical transition such as Jo Elsson-Kennedy who dismisses post mastectomy regret with this flip response “if you want breasts later on you can go and get them”. (p. 172)
Personal Testimony
The book is packed with personal stories from parents, adult transsexuals, desisters/de-transitioners. The bulk of these are females, as you would expect, but she does also reference young males. This approach allows us to meet some of the young girls/women caught up in the Transgender phenomenon, putting flesh on the bones of the statistics, just as surely as flesh is being put on the line. We hear the voices of parents endeavouring to navigate a path to protect their children, without alienating them. This is difficult and not always successful. Young women share their stories, one on being a Butch Lesbian, who identified as trans. The anorexic who swapped pro-ana sites for transgender ones. Crucially she ends the book with stories of those who made their way back, to reconcile with their sex and, very often to their formerly estranged families. Because: There is a way back!
Cultural differences
This is clearly a global phenomenon as I have tried to demonstrate. There are also some cultural differences. I don’t think therapy and medicalised responses to children/teenagers distress are quite as embedded in the UK. Though I am from the North of England and we can be a bit “haven’t you got any mates?” (Crocodile Dundee Style😉) about North American reliance on therapy. Shrier has lots to say about parenting styles and our growing impulse to step in when our children encounter difficulties. The phenomenon of Helicopter parents is less embedded in working class culture but is definitely rampant in middle class parenting. Overall this book translates very well, to the U.K. context, and it is eerie how much commonalty there is in the experiences of parents on both sides of the atlantic.
In Conclusion. This is a very important book.
Purchasing Abigail’s book via the link, below, will provide funds to a UK Parent’s group (Bayswater Support Group) who support families, with children who identify as transgender, to navigate a path to wholeness.
My copy of this book will be going to a generous donor who has purchased it to help fund my work. If you wish to support me you can do so here.
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Investigating the march of Gender Identity Ideology. The impact on Women’s rights and the cost paid by our Gay offspring & children on the Autistic spectrum.
Part 3: The Man Who Would Be Queen: Autogynephiles.
Having seen many references to this book I have finally got around to tackling it. The full text is available free here: The Man Who Would Be Queen
Bailey is clearly fascinated with the topic of transsexualism and immerses himself in their subculture to recruit “subjects” for his research. He is not, at least in this book, concerned with the legislative framework to protect transsexuals. He also doesn’t examine how any such laws interact with those enacted to protect the female sex. His exposition of the underlying, erotic, motivations for transition does, however, reinforce the need for women’s, sex based, rights.
Bailey, uses prominent researcher Ray Blanchard’s typology of transsexuals which differentiate between HSTS (homosexual transsexuals) and AGP transsexuals. The wider public, and many commentators, are either ignorant about this typology or reject it. Bailey believes transsexualism could illuminate some fundamental facts about human nature, if, and only if, the topic was treated honestly. It is not treated honestly. The strenuous efforts to shut down debate are, in my view, indicative of how damaging this knowledge is to the demands of transactivists. People don’t know Blanchard’s typology because of, quite simply, deliberate concealment. It is impossible to get someone to admit to something they are unable to admit to themselves.
Maxine Peterson, a gender clinician, is also quoted and points out that “Most gender patients lie”. The tendency to skirt around the equivalent of identity up-skirting has been noted by an early researcher in this field, HarryBenjamin. For transactivists extra effort will be taken to shroud the AGP motivation in secrecy, especially, when trying to get changes to legislation or public policy. 👇
Leading activists have been invited into the heart of government to speak on trans rights. This has exposed the sinister motivations of *some* who campaign for an end to sex segregated spaces. Take the cases of Jess Bradley. Here is a source from within the trans-community. Naturally it makes liberal uses of the misogynist slur “terf” but covers the issue fairly comprehensively. Jess Bradley. For the purposes of women’s rights we need only note that Jess Bradley is publicly thanked, by Baroness Barker, for helpful input to the Gender Identity Forum.
Karen/Mark Jones was invited to discuss how Transgender Prisoners could be better served within the criminal justice system, by Lord Patel. Reading the offences committed by this Transexual it would appear to be the prisoner in the court case I covered in an earlier blog. Transgender prisoner moved to female estate
Note the way the attempted rape is dismissed. Also, if this is the same person in penis news they now appear to identify as a butch lesbian.
Any focus on the erotic motivation for transition would set off alarm bells at the demand women grant access to our, single sex, spaces. The very condition of AGP makes the sufferers demand access. They simply cannot accept any demarcation between their, self-created, female persona and biological women. It is for this reason that I think the clash between the demands of Trans Rights Activists anwomen’s rights was inevitable.
The author is sympathetic to gay and trans rights, but dismisses the idea of “Born in the Wrong Body”. The most he will concede is, for some men, they would “like to be in a female body”. {The book doesn’t cover females who transition or theories of the origins of Lesbianism. He does, briefly, touch on Androphilia (Women who identify as gay men) in the interview which I included in part one}.
To understand the vitriolic attacks on the author , as detailed inpart one, it is necessary to talk about the dark secret at the heart of Trans ideology. Bailey exposes the erotic motivations for transition, via the taboo subject of Autogynephilia. AGP is a male paraphilia which is sexual attraction, to oneself, as a woman. Bailey argues that any consideration of transexuals which ignores the erotic motivation is incomplete and dishonest. Transsexuality simply cannot be seperated from sexuality. For Homosexual transsexuals see Part Two
Men who become the women they love are Autogynophiles (AGP). It is difficult to gauge the level of AGP within the trans-community but a brief look at #GirlsLikeUs and #SheMale (content warning. Lots of “Lady Penis”, even on twitter) exposes its prevalence. Reddit threads show males, addicted to #SheMale porn and confessing to masturbating, into, or whilst wearing, female apparel. This is often followed up with the plaintive cry of “Am I just Trans?” Most of the replies immediately affirm the trans-identity and rarely does anyone raise the issue of AGP. The attempt to cleanse a fetish activity with the idea that you are actually a woman has taken root in this community. It has also been supported by all our (UK) mainstream political parties. What this actually means for women’s sex based rights has been totally overlooked, in a quest to appear “Woke” to sections of the electorate. When a private fetish is given primacy, over sex based rights, and allowed to dicktate (sic) access to women’s rights, and single sex spaces, women have a right to know the truth.
Bailey illustrates his point embodied in two transsexuals of two different types, one homosexual and one autogynephile. The HSTS transsexual Terese is attracted to males and, more specifically, to straight males, who they can only attract as a “woman”. Post sexual re-assignment surgery, Bailey notes, as an aside, Terese’s mother, is pleased to have a feminine daughter rather than a feminine son. There is a streak of homophobia running through this movement which is ignored by, so called, LGBT organisations. More on HSTS transsexuals is in parttwo.
“Terese” has sexual relationships with straight males to whom their transsexual status was not disclosed. (Note: Sex by deception is a criminal offence in the UK and Stonewall is campaigning to have this removed by the statute books. This is a discussion on the topic, although it does not reference the pressure on lesbians to engage in sexual relationship with the opposite sex, known as the #CottonCeiling.Disclosure}
“Cher” is an autogynophilic transsexual who was born “Chuck”. He did not exhibit “feminine” tendencies as a boy. What he did do was dress in his mother’s lingerie and masturbate to climax. His secret life, as a cross-dresser, persisted, though he was riddled with shame and frequently “purged” female apparel to try to rid himself of the habit. Eventually, reconciling to his “secret life” Chuck became Cher and devoted himself to his fetish. He collected pornography, featuring women, but his fantasy was that he was the women who was vaginally penetrated, by a man. He constructed elaborate fantasies and began to wear prosthetics and make his own pornography. Eventually “Cher” was referred to a gender clinic and diagnosed as transsexual.
Chuck is not a woman. He is a male, with a very male paraphilia, (paraphilia’s are not a feature of female sexuality) which covers him in shame. Being diagnosed as transsexual drapes his fetish in a cloak of respectability. With new legislation this locates “Cher” as a legal woman and, as in the UK, any crimes committed or sentence to be served would be, legally, as a woman.
Next we meet a Heterosexual Transvestite. His name is Don but he dresses up, part-time, as Stephanie. His cross-dressing has an erotic component (masturbating whilst dressed in female apparel or into female apparel). He has a successful career, as a man, and is married. Like the transsexual we met earlier, Don has periods of shame and purges his female outfits. Each time he “regresses”. A feature of the interaction with Don is that the shame about his compulsion also leads to denial about the sexual motivation. He claims it is not sexual anymore and Bailey does not believe him. Nor do I.
Under Leeds City Council’s policy Don would be allowed to register a female name and “female gender” even as a part-time cross dresser. This is their criteria:
Let that sink in. Masculine, males with a paraphilia, which fetishizes being a woman, are now legally allowed to be recognised as “women” . Furthermore women are being compelled to accept them in our most intimate spaces. What autogynophiles have in common is a desire to be seen as “women” and , for them, the ultimate expression of being a woman is being penetrated by a man. This enactment of what it means to be a woman is deeply offensive to women. This is a man-made fantasy projected onto women.
The fantasy is not restricted to our, perceived, place in sexual intimacy but also fetishizes more everyday activities which , in the autogynophile’s world are “womens” past-times.
This places the women, who are kindly including the harmless transsexual, in the position of props in a male fantasy. AGP transsexuals will go to great lengths to conceal their interests from the women who include them. However it is nearly impossible for the conversation not to enter territory that betrays their misunderstanding of women’s boundaries and expose their fetishizing of the women in the group. There are many ways to breach women’s boundaries and this is one of the most subtle, and insidiously offensive, ways.
Autogynophiles typically come from hyper-masculine occupations. There are, as many have noted, a lot of ex-military “late transitioners”. There is also an over-representation from those in information technology as many have noted:Many explain their “hyper-masculine” past as evidence they were in flight from their femininity. This is doubtful. As Bailey argues it speaks to the fact that AGP males are not stereotypically feminine but study and work hard to fulfil a very male fantasy of what a woman is. Dr Ann Lawrence’s description, as an AGP transsexual, rings true:
Bailey goes on to discuss nature/nuture and its role in AGP. There is clearly a discussion to be had on this issue but it is not, in my view, relevant for women working to protect same sex spaces. More pertinent is his statement of the co-existence of other paraphilias , in particular sexual sadism, with cross-dressing of all types.
For those lobbying to change laws to accommodate their paraphilia they must, at all costs, disguise the true nature of their condition. 👇 Below is a quote from a prominent figure in this field.
Modern day Trans Activists, especially, it seems, the most prominent ones strive to make sure our politicians avert their gaze to the sexual motivations which underly transition. Yes, there will be shame, some will find it humiliating to admit to the dressing in women’s clothing as a sexual activity. However the most dangerous aspect is the demonstrable fact that this is not a private fetish. It requires female participation to validate the identity; whether we know we are an extra in a Trans Drama or not. This is no longer a private activity but encroaching on women’s boundaries. Here an autogynephile explains: 👇
This is why they cannot bear women to have same sex spaces. Women are erecting a barrier between themselves and “the woman he loves”. This is the reason why removal of the, already scandalously cavalier, safeguarding of women and girls cannot be allowed to succeed. Nor should the provision of Gender Recognition certificates be widened in favour of a self-declaration. This is reckless endangerment of women. As we have seen a male, imprisoned for attempted rape, managed to get a GRC whilst serving a sentence for that crime! This was in 2006, only two years after the passage of the Gender Recognition Act.
There is no such thing as a man trapped in a woman’s body. Hence why I reject the notion that transsexuals become “women” or that they belong in single sex spaces. Women are not an idea in a mans head, we are not fodder for a male fetish, and we have good reason to exclude males from sex specific spaces.
We don’t want males,with or without paraphilias, frock or no frock, parachuted in. They begin to look like an advanced guard for a male colonisation of women.
Having seen many references to this book I have finally got around to tackling it. The full text is available free on line here: The Man Who Would Be Queen
The author is sympathetic to gay and trans rights, a lot of his research has a focus on evolutionary theory and adaptive, or maladaptive, responses to the environment. So expect some evolutionary biology & some interrogation of nature v nurture. There is plenty to challenge long cherished beliefs, both for TransActivists & radical feminists. Since it needs saying in 2019, I don’t agree with every single word!
My reading is motivated by a concern for women’s, sex based, rights and the premature medicalisation of Gay males. The book doesn’t cover females who transition or theories of the origins of Lesbianism. He does, briefly, touch on Androphilia (Women who identify as gay men) in the interview linked in Part One of this series.Part One
In short there is plenty to provoke discussion. To kick off, I think the cover was needlessly tabloid and likely ensured many people rejected its thesis without opening the covers. As we all know there is no more vociferous opponent of a book’s content than someone who hasn’t read it. However it’s an absolute mustread and, bonus, I finally understand the acronym MWWBQ!
What Bailey does is talk about erotic motivations for transition, why feminine gay males are in danger of being, wrongly, diagnosed as “trans”, and why gay males reject their feminine brothers. All of these topics are deeply unpopular in some sections of the Trans community and with some gay males. Nearly 20 years one journalists, in the U.K., dare not broach the topics he covers.
Parents of gay males often are aware of their child’s, likely, future sexual orientation from a relatively early age. Bailey looks at early manifestations of what he calls feminine behavioural traits and in particular a young subject called Danny; to whom he devotes an early chapter. Danny is one of those “gendernon–conformingboys” from an early age. He also, it turns out, has a closeted gay uncle. Bailey presents a lot of research which explores various hypotheses on the origins of homosexuality. He looks at heredity and explores the idea of a “gay gene”. He also explores the controversy generated by these theories. On the one hand it reinforces the notion that this is a naturally occurring phenomenon (Born This Way) whilst also presenting a danger of pre-natal diagnosis and selective abortion. For the purposes of my reading I am concerned about these self-same gay males being de-stabilised by Gender Identity Ideology. 👇
These, frequently bullied, proto-gay children are now subject to,school taught. programmes which present a scale of “Gender Conformity” and children, are told it is possible to be born in the wrong body. A “trans diagnosis” is based on the notion of an innate gender identity, which can be at odds with your biological sex. In his book Bailey raises the risk to gay males from this ideology:
Whilst some developments may lead to complacency about homophobia this utopia is not yet with us. Young children are subjected to slurs about their prospective sexuality from a very early age. When they become aware of their sexuality they are now presented with an alternative hypothesis and a retreat into a faux-straight, medicalised closet can look, superficially, like an attractive prospect. Recent whistle blowers from Britains foremost Gender Clinic (The Tavistock) raised this concern directly. Here is one of those clinicians, quoted in an article published by The Times Newspaper:
Given that the leading activists for Gay Rights have aligned themselves with the T, now added to the LGB, this represents a real tension between the rights of the Trans community, who agitate for earlier medicalisation, and Gay Rights. Most gender-non-conforming children would, if left un-medicalised, go on to to be Gay Males or Lesbians.
Yet there is total silence on this issue from the main advocacy group, for gay rights, Stonewall. Why would this be? The answer to why Stonewall is complicit with Trans Ideology has been explored in many articles. One such analysis is here, by Michael Biggs, so I don’t propose to expand on this topic here: Stonewall Funding & Focus of Activism. Crudely. Money.
The other puzzling feature of this “debate”, for me, has been the silence of adult gay males or downright advocacy of the notion that feminine males, who are same sex attracted are really “trans”. I have been twitter blocked by a number of prominent gay males for asking questions about this. Bailey presents a lengthy analysis of sexual attraction in gay males to masculine men. His hypothesis is that despite a predilection for “femme” behaviour in gay males these self-same gay males are not attracted, maybe even repelled, by their own femininity and that of other gay males.
The above was shared by a gay male who is tired of people asking him why he is not transitioning because he’s “sofeminine”.
Some of this may be rooted in child-hood shaming, as Bailey suggests. The other strand is, he argues, that it is not unremarkable to find that gay men are attracted to the masculine qualities in a sexual partner. This may then lead to a rejection of “femme” gay males and also an internalised shame and loathing for the “femme” parts of themselves.
Bailey argues that homosexual transsexuals (HSTS) are drawn from the feminine gay males and they transition to access masculine males who otherwise are less available to them within the gay community.
Parents of gay males, like the aforementioned Danny, are perfectly reasonable in resisting a lifelong dependence on cross-sex hormones & significant surgery. This is a pro-gay stance.
Boys like Danny are lucky if they have a mum like him.👇
The other part of the transsexual community, using Blanchards two part typology, are opposite sex attracted, or auto-gynephilic trans. These are males who are attracted to the idea of themselves as a woman. It was the depiction of AGP that aroused the ire of the transactivists. Even now the mention of AGP triggers fury as we can see in twitter interactions. It is also a deeply shaming orientation which is often lied about. Many researchers have highlighted that it is extremely difficult to research this population because they are driven to conceal and disguise their real motivations. These motivations matter when women are subject to demands that we include them, in single sex spaces, as literalwomen. Their motivation matters.
Having seen many references to this book I have, finally, tackled it. It doesn’t take a strictly biologically determinist or a social constructionist stance. It is sympathetic to gay and trans rights. {Though not in ways likely to satisfy Trans Activists, in 2019}. There is plenty to disagree with, for one, I think the cover was needlessly tabloid. However it’s well worth a read and, finally, I understand the acronym MWWTBQ. Bailey talks about erotic motivations for transition, why feminine gay males are in danger of being, wrongly, diagnosed as “trans”, and why gay males reject their feminine brothers. All topics deeply unpopular in some sections of the Trans community and with *some* gay males. Hence why it feels necessary to discuss the controversy, prior to discussing the book itself.
The book had sold only 4000 copies, when it became the centre of a Trans Rights Tornado. This, predictably, drew it to the attention of a much wider audience; a phenomenon known as the Barbara Streisand Effect. [Named for the singer’s legal attempt to block a publication which revealed the location of one of her properties. Ironically ensuring much wider dissemination of the information she wished to protect].
AliceDreger covered the controversy in forensic detail. She spoke to all the key players, or at least those who were willing to go on record. Some wished to remain anonymous and others refused to co-operate at all. Dreger was also subject to a campaign of vilification following her piece. The key to the controversy is Bailey’s lack of acceptance of the main thesis of gender identity ideology, namely that transsexuals have a gender identity at odds with their biological sex. Bailey, instead, locates its origins in “erotic interests” and, in particular, covered the issue of Autogynephilia (AGP). Worse, even though this book was aimed at a more popular audience, it was based on rigorous science. Dreger:👇
Even today any mention of AGP is furiously denied in sections of the Trans community. Most often the AGP deniers are late-transitioners who, coincidentally, appear to fit the typology like a velvet glove. AGP is, put simply, described as an erotictargetlocationerror, a male, normally heterosexual, becomes erotically charged by the fantasy of himself, as a woman. (See Ray BlanchardAbstract: Blanchard)
Dreger is an intersex advocate who is also concerned about gay and transgender rights. Despite this, her coverage of this controversy over MWWBQ garnered attacks on her own work, and provoked attempts to discredit her, particularly, in the intersex community. Once her account was published the backlash escalated to personal attacks on Dreger herself .
Support for Dreger and Bailey came in the unlikely persona of Dr. Ann Lawrence a, self-proclaimed, autogynephile, transwoman. Lawrence analysed the controversy with an insiders knowledge of AGP, as a condition. The fury, Lawrence argues, originates in the shame of the AGP community which makes sufferers vulnerable to “Narcissistic Injury”. One response, to Narcissistic Injury, is internalised shame but a more common response is to externalise the response and display “Narcissistic Rage”. The full paper is available below:
Lawrence reflected on the savagery of the campaign and located it in a co-existing vulnerability to “narcissistic rage” in the AGP community.
Another, related, backlash is the attempt to shut down another, emerging, research area: RapidOnsetGenderDysphoria. Childhood identity confusion, and late onset Gender Dysphoria (of the AGP type), are relatively well researched and documented. A more recent phenomenon is a spike in late childhood (often at puberty) Gender Dysphoria. The spike in female children declaring a trans-identity has inverted the sex of those expressing themselves as transgender. In the UK a spike in girls, referred to Gender Identity Clinics , well over a 4000% increase over the last decade, has generated theories of social contagion. There are also increases in males, identifying as transgender, but the increase has been nowhere near as dramatic. Early speculation about the causes has resulted in the label of “RapidOnsetGenderDysphoria” and calls for further investigation of the phenomenon. The first attempt to capture data on the phenomenon was published by Lisa Littman. Like Bailey and Dreger, the author of this study LisaLittman has faced similar opprobrium which resulted in the withdrawal of her paper, at the behest of a Trans activist. Not an academic, or peer in her field but this “transsexual”. I wish I was joking.
This is also the person who applied to become a counsellor at Vancouver women’s refuge and was involved in a 10 year campaign, still ongoing, to defund /close the refuge for offering single sex services.
The paper was then subject to a second peer review and republished, virtually unaltered. You can read further about this controversy here: Interview with Lisa Littman
What all these controversies have in common is a reluctance to accept any opposition to the idea of an innate gender identity at odds with biological sex. The mantra of “born in the wrong body” attempts to cement the idea that gender non-conformity (often a hallmark of future Gay males and Lesbians) is an early sign of being “transgender”. The existence of “trans-children” de-sexualises transition for the adults, with AGP, and cleanses some of their shame. It also presents the public with a population (children), far more likely to garner sympathy than adults with a paraphilia. This seems to be the motivation for the backlash to both Bailey’s book and any professionals who adhere to Ray Blanchards typology of Transexuality.
Transactivists are keen to convey the idea that transsexuals have always been with us and are a naturally occurring phenomenon. There is scant evidence for this. Cross-dressing is indeed a historic phenomenon. Women disguising themselves as males, to escape the restrictions imposed on the female sex are similarly not a recent phenomenon. Yet our children are being taught Transgender Ideology in schools. Our Judicial system has accepted this, our legal system is involved in wholesale sex-denialism. I have done other blogs about what is happening in our prison estate but this quote is from Family Court. Where is the evidence for this assertion?
Before I publish part 2 , which looks at the book in some detail, here is a recent interview given by Michael Bailey to Benjamin Boyce. As it is from 2019 he also speaks on the topic of ROGD. (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria). As he is careful to say, at the moment, we are operating on a “hunch” at the reasons for the spike in referrals. We need empirical evidence and, at the moment, any forays into this area are met with the same backlash as his own book.
The ACLU have a proud history defending Civil Liberties and Free Speech. A legacy which has been utterly squandered by its advocacy of Gender Identity Ideology. As an organisation they appear unwilling to accept that Women, LGB people and even Transsexuals, have legitimate concerns about the extremist positions of Gender Identity Ideologues. 
Many explain their “hyper-masculine” past as evidence they were in flight from their femininity. This is doubtful. As Bailey argues it speaks to the fact that AGP males are not stereotypically feminine but study and work hard to fulfil a very male fantasy of what a woman is. Dr Ann Lawrence’s description, as an AGP transsexual, rings true:
