Women’s Equality Party : 2

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The expulsion of Heather Brunskell-Evans.

This is the second post on W.E.P following their vote to accept men who self-identify as women. You can read part one here:

Women’s Equality Party: R.I.P

This one will focus on an episode of the moral maze, from 2017, which BBC licence holders can listen to here: 👇

Moral Maze November 2017

This was the Composition of the panel:

These were the witnesses who were called :

I will cover Fae and Caspian in this one and cover Whittle and Brunskell-Evans in the next one.

Quite a good introduction from Buerk recognising the exponential growth in referrals to the Tavistock, including children as young as three. He also asks if medicalising identity is solving a problem or creating one? He covers the issue of what accommodations are asked of the rest of us and whether that should compromise single sex spaces including NHS wards and Rape crisis centres etc.

The presenter first turns to the only person “who identifies as male”, ‘as introduced by Michael Buerk, Matthew Taylor. At the time he was chief executive of the Royal Society of the Arts. (R.S.A). he is now Chief Executive of NHS Confederation. He was formally head of Labour Party Policy unit under Tony Blair and worked at a left leaning think tank. This is his opening position.

Next up is Claire Fox who is perfectly fine for people to identify however they wish providing the rest of us are not forced to go along with it. She does worry the tyranny of coercing people and institutions have to go along with subjective beliefs about oneself. Fox also worries that this may be a fashion rather than the historic issue of people feeling “trapped in the wrong body”.

Mona Siddiqui believes we should try to find a safe space for minorities, try to accommodate as far as possible, to allow people to make their own mistakes and to have the right to self-expression.

Ann McElvoyI think it is easier, in principle, to establish the right to self-identity which many liberals would support than it is to work out what follows from it” She goes on to say this is a social, clinical, psychological and medical minefield. She advocates for a need for a very careful examination of the issues and stresses the need to consider the ethical issues it raises.

“Jane” Fae

Buerk then introduces “Jane” Fae as a “trans woman”, using she/her pronouns, he also references Fae’s close relationship with the controversial charity Mermaids. (Today the Charity Commission announced a statutory investigation into Mermaids.)

You can read an earlier piece on Fae below:

Jane Fae: Trans Britain (Part 13)

Buerk uses the language of “transgender children” in describing the work of Mermaids, rather than a more neutral framing of children showing gender identity issues. His opening question to Fae is that, whilst we might have sympathy for adults, like Fae, we can also worry about the administering of, potentially, irreversible treatments to pre-pubescent children; while their identities might seem to be in flux.

This was Fae’s response to that question. This, by the way, is a blatant lie because by 2017 we had been administering puberty blockers, to children as young as 10, for over five years. Later he will acknowledge, and defend, the very real medical interventions happening to children.

Fae is then asked about becoming an activist, by McElvoy, and what moral lesson would he draw from his experience. {Fae seems suspiciously keen to shoehorn a mention to the panel that he had given a talk at the WOW conference (Women of the World). WOW was set up by Jude Kelly formerly of West Yorkshire Playhouse in case you wondered where she stands. Fae has been invited more than once.} He then claims he became an accidental activist; forced into it because of a need to discuss the finer points of legislation. He also bridles at the suggestion there is any “agenda” being pushed by trans activists.

McElvoy presses him about the age for medical intervention and says 16 still seems very young. She also mentions the sky rocketing of referrals to the Tavistock, Gender Clinic. Again Fae talks about children only being “socially transitioned”. McElvoy doesn’t let him get away with this and mentions delaying puberty being a medical intervention. This forces him to admit we are giving medical treatment. His new argument is that if we don’t block puberty and the child turns out to be “trans” we are setting them up for more medical intervention /surgeries to reverse the impact of this puberty. Asked about whether he agrees with “watchful waiting” Fae brings in the fact that we allow contraception and abortions based on Gillick competence and claims this is equivalent because we already administer hormone treatment to girls. {Note contraceptive pills are not the same as giving testosterone to females and there is no equivalent of the pill for male children.}

Claire Fox follows up be raising the issue of affirmative approaches to children, who claim a “gender identity” at odds with their biological sex, and asks why we validate gender identity but not, for example, an anorexic? He again claims we are only supporting the child but he then conceded that age ten puberty starts to have a major impact and it is clear he knows full well we are blocking puberty from that age. Fox also interrogates what support for a child might look like? Re-organising society for a child that thinks they are the opposite sex? Fae dismisses this. {Another lie, this is precisely what is happening, schools are instructed to let boys who identify as girls use female changing rooms and toilets and be address by wrong sex pronouns}.

Fae then changes the subject, to respond to McElvoy’s earlier point, about the exponential growth in referrals. Fae claims that nobody becomes “trans” they simply are “trans” based on the medical model of a “trans” identity. The idea this is a natural occurring mutation is hugely contested. I will just leave you with these statements by Andrea Chu 👇 and remind you that, as John Ozimek, Fae was a vocal defender of extreme porn.

James Caspian

Next up James Caspian, a psychotherapist, who worked with this group of patients for many years until he became concerned about increasing incidents of post surgery regret. This is his background.

Djordjevic had recently had seven people approach him to get “reversal” surgeries which had concerned him greatly. It was for this reason that Caspian wished to research de-transition but, as you can see above, Bath Spa University blocked this research, fearing backlash.

Matthew Taylor opens his line of questioning by asking Caspian to agree that the marginalised “trans” community, until recently, paid a huge price when they begin to identify as the opposite sex. Taylor’s point is that increased social acceptance has increased the numbers identifying as “trans”. (Caspian, though is talking about increased rate of regret, which, based on Taylor’s argument we would expect to see decreased). Caspian then talks about his shock at seeing the increased rate of teenage girls who regretted their bodily changes including mastectomy. Taylor’s rejoinder is to ask why Caspian had chosen to focus on this group.

Caspian explains that, in his two years of preliminary research, he found that the detransitioners he spoke to were wrestling with mental health issues, eating disorders, previous sexual abuse and their “transition”had not alleviated their issues. He also pointed out that those with autism were over-represented x 6, based on its prevalence in wider society. This is something widely known but nobody understands why this is the case.

Mona Siddiqui now asks what Caspian’s opinion is on the “right” reasons to transition. Caspian makes it clear this is a complex question. For this condition there is no diagnostic test and he points out this is the only condition where we perform surgery when no medical cause can be identified. It is diagnosed by a self-report from the patient.

First Do No Harm.

James gives an excellent clinician’s answers invoking his professional responsibility and that of the Doctors to “Do No Harm”. We are not just talking about someone’s “identity” but the medical consequences. He reiterates the amount of detransitioned femsles who deeply regret the hormones /surgeries they underwent and how easy it was to access treatments under the “affirmative model”. He then also points to a book Blood and Visions, about detransitioning, written by 10 females. I have not been able to locate a copy but this is the tumblr account which appears to be behind it.

Autotomouswomyn

I will break off here so that I have space to cover Stephen Whittle’s and Heather Brunskell-Evans’ contribution but also to look at the consequences for Heather and her own commentary on the experience.

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Jane Fae: Trans Britain (Part 13)

“Jane” Fae.

Can’t quite believe I have never covered Fae before. Fae has his own chapter in the book “Trans Britain”. Fae is another, heterosexual, man who married, fathered children and, when he hit middle age, began to identify as a woman. In his previous name “John Omizek” he was a defender of extreme porn and has published on this topic in the Guardian, Index on Censorship, Liberty etc. He has also self-published a book called “Taming The Beast” which also explores the attempts to regulate pornography.

You can read Fae on porn in this article. This article was originally published as John Omizek.

Jane-Fae_Tyrannys-genesis-and-its-opposition_SDk-Latest-News_USL

The article defends extreme pornography, dismisses feminist’s who expose the harm of this material, uses the language of the “coven” to describe those “witches” who oppose pornography and even appears to question the idea that men, who possess violent pornography, might be unsuitable for some forms of employment. Here are a coups of clips.

Above ☝️ Fae displays his witch-finder general side. Below is his view on the possession of extreme pornography. 👇

Apparently a chill wind has passed over the practitioners of sadomasochism. Fae paints the Labour party as the prudish maiden aunt of politics. Fae himself is a Liberal Democrat.

His chapter in Trans Britain introduces him as a “feminist” and journalist. Like a lot of these men have a background in I.T and an interest in preserving the rights of purveyors of extreme pornography.

Fae’s chapter repeats much of the ground by other contributions so I won’t detain you with much of the detail. He analyses coverage of the “trans” community in print media complaining that it tended to to be treated as if it was a sexual kink. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest Fae’s “kink” and interest in BDSM is his route into the identity of “transwoman”. As if enjoying being hurt during sex is the essence of being “female”; a not uncommon attitude from the penis wing of “womanhood”.

He is not alone. Here are some prominent “trans” identifying males pontificating on what it means to be a “women” to them. These are the extremely sexist fantasies of porn-addled men.

Fae allows himself a detour to attack Janice Raymond’s book “Transsexual Empire” which I cover in this series.

Janice Raymond: Transsexual Empire: Final

He also takes side swipes at Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel, who he has debated a few times. You can find some of his debates,with Bindel, on YouTube should you wish to see him in action. In one he appeared alongside Bindel and Milo Yiannopolous; where he ostentatiously produced his knitting; a common hobby in behavioural autogynephiles.

Much of his chapter is repetitive but I do want to single out this one quote 👇 which lies about the law to claim that “transgender” is a legally protected characteristic. It is not. The protected characteristic, in law, is “Gender Reassignment”. The GRA is a very badly drafted piece of legislation but it does not do what Fae says here. 👇

In Trans Britain Fae links the backlash to the election of Donald Trump which, he argues, unleashed anti-trans sentiment and imported narratives about “bathroom” usage to the U.K. This resulted in a plethora of articles he labels “anti-trans” from a range of media outlets.

Along the way Fae finds time to attack coverage of the medical malpractice of Russell Reid which I covered here:

Russell Reid: Part One

Fae expresses his misogyny in interviews on YouTube and on his twitter account. This is one interview well worth a listen. The trans activist has rather a puerile introduction which relies on the scatalogical humour of the adolescent male. You might want to fast forward that but. 😳

 Jane Fae

In this interview Fae claims that “terfs” are allied with regressive movements in the United States and the crowdfunding to defend women’s rights is a great way to launder money from across the atlantic. This is how Fae characterises gender critical feminists on his twitter account.

His interviewer goes further and calls LGB Alliance a homophobic, hate group who are supported by neo-nazis. Fae also uses the tired old trope about middle-aged women being prudes and lacking a sex life. Sigh.

Both men pretend that the women they call “terfs” have shown zero concern about male violence against women and are using faux feminist credentials as a cover for their “anti-trans” hate. These men also claim to have done more work to oppose male violence which, of course, in their minds is only perpetrated by “cisgender” men. Let us remind ourself about Fae’s work on male violence against women. This 👇 is called blaming the victim.

Coming out as “trans”

Here is an interview with Fae on coming out as “trans”.

Coming out

We learn that Ozimek had been married before and had a daughter who was 16 when he decided to “come out” as “trans”. His teenage daughter had a hard time with the transition and elsewhere blamed the stress on her failed A’Levels. This is the reason Ozimek gives for the failure of the first marriage.

There is a strategic omission about his interest in sadomasochistic practices but he does admit to an early history of transvestism; which “thrilled” and “terrified him. He gives no further details of the nature of the “thrill”.

His then partner vowed to stand by her man but it was clearly taking its toll on her:

This is Fae’s public narrative about how he came to identify as a woman. The usual sexist, regressive bullshit carefully crafted to de-emphasise any connection to a sexual motive.

Fae and partner had a five year old son. She attempts a bit of levity about now being a “lesbian”. I don’t think they remained together.

Consensual Slavery

Before I leave Fae just a reminder of when John Ozimek engaged in that most feminine of pursuits; defending Consensual slavery.

Here is advising about how to evade new laws about extreme porn even offering tips about how to clean up your hard drive.

Obscenity Laws: Darryn Walker

This is a legal case in which Ozimek appeared as an expert witness for the defence.

John Ozimek Legal case

This is what he was defending 👇

His sympathy lies entirely with the porn-addled bloke, a civil servant.

I was going to finish on the unexpected discovery that, as John Ozimek, the son of a doctor and graduate of Oxford University, was an erstwhile joke writer for Noel Edmonds. However, I read Fae’s Submission to the Transgender Equality Inquiry and came across something I found more noteworthy (and, frankly, disturbing). Fae boasts of advising an organisation dedicated to child safeguarding. Why is the U.K Council for CHILD internet safety listening to a defender of extreme porn?

If you still believe Fae got into this through an excessive love of ironing I have a bridge to sell you. Next piece, in this series, is on the delightful Annie Wallace.

You can support my work here. All donations gratefully received, or consider a paid subscription to my substack.

My substack

Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.

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