I decided to do a piece on this interview, mainly because I had come across the name among those “transsexuals” who took part in the hounding of Michael Bailey, the author of The Man Who Would Be Queen. Bailey had committed the unpardonable crime of demonstrating the existence of autogynephilia by undertaking field work on the Chicago “trans” scene. The hounding of Bailey was taken to extreme lengths, here is a flavour:

Source:

The hounding of Michael Bailey

I have watched a number of interviews on this channel and the presenter’s (Dan Riley) style of interviewing, to my mind, facilitates a rather revealing exchange. The subject comes across as ultra-reasonable, at the outset. You can watch it here: 👇

Deidre McClosky

The interviewer opens by quoting McClosky’s own words, from their memoir:

Riley then proceeds to comment on how McClosky’s own memoir talks about how he was very much a boy “into boyish things”. This is important because many older “transsexuals” claim they were always “gender non-conforming”, from a young age. After being presented with his own recollections McClosky starts to enumerate all the ways he was not like other boys; using his failure to appreciate the Red Sox, American football team, and his lack of fights with other boys. (Later it turns out he was actually the captain of his high school football team, somewhat undermining this testimony).

McClosky then relates how he began to cross dress “as lots of men do” age 11, in his mother’s clothes.

McClosky then explains that he is heterosexual and married the love of his life, in 1965. He would be married for thirty years and father two children but continued to cross-dress and considered himself a heterosexual cross-dresser. He is keen to emphasise how common the practice is among other men. Later we will learn that he concealed this tendency from his wife until, by his testimony, three months into his marriage. We don’t have his wife’s account as is often the case.

By 1995 he had discovered the internet and made connections with other, cross-dressing, men and began to attend real life events where he could indulge his fetish publicly. By his own account it took less than a year for him to desire this lifestyle on a full-time basis.

At the 10:18 mark McClosky claims there are equal numbers of female cross-dressers to males. Given that the sex of referrals, to gender clinics, has only begun to reveal sizeable numbers of female referrals, in the last decade, I am more than skeptical about this claim.

He also recounts that he has not had any sexual experiences since his “transition”. (This is not unusual for men whose erotic target is inverted such that he has “become the woman he loves” ).

Riley circles back to ask McClosky to elaborate about the disclosure to his wife.

At around the 16:30 point they talk about how difficult it was to be in any way “unusual” in the 1950’s and how inhospitable society was for all different kinds of people including communists, gay people or even women. To transgress, in this way, in the 1950’s the compulsion had to be strong. McClosky talks about the how compulsions are strong when they have you “in their grip”. He then elaborates about how total absorption in anything “whether good or bad for us, or good or bad for other people, that’s happiness”. He ends this segment with a reference to Che Guevara writing to his father about how great he felt after he killed his first person. 😳 McClosky calls this state of being as “the flow” and explains that the cross dressing was arousing right up until he began to identify as full-time, in 1995. He would have been 53 at this point.

Dr Ann Lawrence talks about the decline of an erotic charge once “transition” happens. This could be a self-serving denial, to ensure access to female spaces. It could be a reaction to a decline in libido due to drugs/surgery. It could be a psychological need to transcend the sexual motivation and purify the new self.

Jan Morris

There is some talk of the happy marriage and suppressing the desire to be a woman and an encounter with Jan Morris’s book Conundrum. I have written about that book in this thread. I can see why it resonates. They were both high performing, heterosexual, married fathers who “transitioned” late in life.

Jan Morris: Conundrum

Of his previous life McClosky is keen to dispel the idea that he was unhappy. He was happy, he says but he is happier now even “ecstatic”. He is also keen to reject the idea he made a decision to “transition” ; it was not a choice it was a “realisation”, more of an “epiphany” than a decision. The location of this epiphany may be pertinent

He is keenly aware that the language is akin to talk of religion and, indeed he became an Episcopalian around this time. The reaction of his wife was only sympathetic at first, he describes her attitude as “hardening”. His mother was accepting but his sister was so alarmed she twice had him committed; though they have now reconciled.

The “trans” issue; Culture Wars

On the centrality of “trans” issues in the United States, McClosky ascribes this to the Trump administration and evangelical Christians. Unusually for a North American he recognises that the concern, in the U.K. originates on the left with the “terfs”. McClosky name checks JK Rowling and then tells us he has debated Kathleen Stock; who he stops short of lumping in with “terfs” and describes as a friend.

Ecstasy

Riley is quite adept at circling back to issues he clearly doesn’t feel have been explored sufficiently, so we break off talk of culture wars for McClosky to explain, more fully, how the “ecstasy” of “transition” manifests itself. One of the examples is seeing himself in the mirror now that he has had facial feminisation surgery. McClosky dismisses the more romantic notions of becoming your authentic self in favour of the more prosaic “You are what your social role is”.

Liberalism

As a liberal McClosky starts to defend the right of people to do what makes them happy providing you don’t interfere with the rights of others but he soon reconsiders this as placing too much of a limitation. He concedes that he did “interfere” with his wife’s life, who he hurt, but he still had the right to do what he did. As an aside he mentions (wistfully?) that she did not need to divorce him and that Jan Morris’s wife stayed. He seems to imply that his wife was too unsophisticated and small town to accept his new persona.

What do you enjoy about being a “woman”.

There is an interesting digression about the nature (inadequacy) of male friendships; which made me wonder if high achieving, competitive men are somehow closed off from intimate male friendships. Deep friendships involve a degree of exposing weakness and maybe that’s only palatable to do with women and not with men?

Transitioning Children

Deidre says “straight” people don’t understand “transitioning” and then uses Kathleen Stock (a Lesbian) as an example of one of the people who don’t understand. Riley probes the issue of child transition within Deidre. The response is unequivocal:

“That’s a silly argument, Here’s why. I can give you ten reasons. Here’s one. It’s not irreversible”. Bizarrely, McClosky gives himself as an argument even though he “transitioned” at 53 and immediately afterwards conceded that yes, indeed, some things about the change are, indeed, irreversible. So, not a convincing argument, in fact this is rather silly. It gets worse.

This is a man who fathered children.

He then uses the example of people who failed to study at school, claiming that is similarly irreversible; except it is clearly not hence mature students! There follow a number of illogical examples, becoming an alcoholic, dangerous driving moving your children around because you are in the army. All will have irreversible effects, says McClosky so why pick on this one thing?

It gets worse. After conceding he didn’t start cross dressing till age 11 he then begins to talk about the kids who “knew” at age two! Something tells me Donald was not a hands on Dad. 👇

In this case, for McClosky not to allow “him to be him” is cruel “it’s child abuse”. For McClosky the fear of regret is based on a “fairy tale” because he has not met anyone who regrets it. He is rather patronising about Dr/Professor Stock. To him she is misguided but the consequence of her mistake is the “arousal of hatred against transgender people”. He then compares it to racism and the fear of the sexual potency of black men, by whites racists; the fear of granting women the vote; and the rise of anti-semitism in Nazi Germany. A transperbole hat-trick.

And the inevitable dismissal. This is how we know you don’t know what a woman is! 👇

Those irrational women!

”It’s irrational and based on data that the “terfs” completely make up” He then says the “terfs” have been aroused by dangerous rhetoric; just like Trump voters. There’s some repetition here and he is a bit testerical but he then moves onto State interference in parenting. Naturally his concern is State interference to “stop” childhood “transition” but, in fact, all of the cases of State interference have been taking children into care because the parents wouldn’t medicalise their children. After some more silly arguments about the State not interfering if you fail to read to your child it is clear Deirdre’s patience is wearing thin. He doesn’t believe the onus is on him to rebut the “terfs” arguments.

There is a bit more waffle on “terfs” wanting the State to interfere with parents who think they have “trans kids”. In fact many of us just don’t want the State to use tax payers money to sterilise kids or the take children away from “non-affirming” parents. [This has happened in Canada, Australia and the United States. Even in the U.K we have had Social Workers interfere, with parents trying to protect their kids from the Gender Industrial Complex.

At the end of the interview McClosky talks of their responsibility to be a role model and speak up for “transgender” people. He also brings up Michael Bailey as I mentioned in the first paragraph. So, I had a quick look to see if Bailey had commented on McClosky. I was not disappointed. Here’s a flavour of what McClosky put him through. (Notice that he did not refer to the estrangement from his wife and children in the above interview). 👇

Another admission which puts a different slant on an “innocent” way to pass the time:

Sometimes we learn as much from what is left out as what is kept in….

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