Links - 19th January 2019 (Trans Mania)

Transgenderism: a fetish that got out of hand? - "In 1995, the transgender Labour Party activist Eddie Izzard was a young comedian who proudly described himself as a transvestite and regularly quipped ‘these aren’t women’s clothes, they’re mine’. In 1995, there were no arguments over what a woman was and social media didn’t exist to censor unfashionable viewpoints. In 1995, it was understood that a vanishingly small number of people suffered from gender dysphoria, and that they might need treatment... In this era of apparent sexual freedom, the suggestion that sexual arousal might be the reason behind the rising numbers of people ‘coming out’ as transgender is still strictly verboten... Transgender women are almost always portrayed as victims, with late-transitioning white computer programmers in the Home Counties weaponising the deaths of Brazilian transsexuals to bolster their standing in the oppression stakes. This insistence of vulnerability plays into a sexist stereotype of femininity, and in my opinion is part of the fetish... Despite the phenomenon of ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ trans women in the UK are no more likely to suffer violence than anyone else. Indeed, there is some evidence that suggests trans women are more likely to be sexual predators than other groups of males: it is estimated that around 40 per cent of trans women in prison have been convicted of sexual offences. This isn’t to demonise men who identify as women, but rather to explode some of the myths of victimhood and not shy away from the sexual element of transgenderism. To my mind, there is no doubt that the rise in availability of online porn and the huge growth in the numbers of men identifying as women are linked. Anyone who doubts this would do well to look at the research of transsexual Miranda Yardley, who has written extensively on the phenomenon of autogynephilia, the sexual arousal some men experience when thinking of themselves as women. Those seeking a more academic yet accessible approach should read the lesbian feminist scholar Professor Sheila Jeffreys, who pithily describes transgenderism as ‘a men’s sexual-rights movement’. Brave transgender pioneers who have found their identities on sites like Birchplace are paving the way for the human pups (men who wear latex and pretend to be dogs), and the human dolls (men who wear latex and pretend to be dolls), to be accepted in public. Spineless organisations like Stonewall are turning a blind eye to what are the often explicitly sexual reasons for men transitioning. A subsection of creepy men are using a movement that was conceived to stop discrimination against persecuted minorities to cloak their desires, and to force their fetish on the public."

The transgender man who identifies as a dog - "Tony McGinn, known as 'Tony Bark' to his friends, says he has been into animal role-play his entire life, and refers to himself as a 'human pup'.The 30-year-old, who was born female and is transgender, is supported by his husband and 'handler' Andrew who accompanies him to regular play dates with other role-players in their hometown of Los Angeles... He states confidently that he 'identifies as a dog' and says pet play is about getting into the head-space of the animal."
Is it bigotry to say he's not a dog?

Opinion | My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy - The New York Times - "Next Thursday, I will get a vagina. The procedure will last around six hours, and I will be in recovery for at least three months. Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain. This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to. That shouldn’t disqualify me from getting it... In this [conservative] view, it is not only fair to refuse trans people the care they seek; it is also kind. A therapist with a suicidal client does not draw the bath and supply the razor. Take it from my father, a pediatrician, who once remarked to me that he would no sooner prescribe puberty blockers to a gender dysphoric child than he would give a distemper shot to someone who believed she was a dog... A gender-affirmative model will almost certainly lead to more and higher-quality care for transgender patients. But by focusing on minimizing patients’ pain, it leaves the door open for care to be refused when a doctor, or someone playing doctor, deems the risks too high. This was the thrust of a recent Atlantic cover story in which the journalist Jesse Singal used the statistically small number of people who have come to regret their medical transitions to argue that transitioning is “not the answer for everyone.” There was a dog whistle here: Hormones and surgery can and should be withheld from patients who want them when such treatments cannot be reasonably expected to “maximize good outcomes.”...
Buried under all of this, like a sober tuber, lies an assumption so sensible you’ll think me silly for digging it up. It’s this: People transition because they think it will make them feel better. The thing is, this is wrong. I feel demonstrably worse since I started on hormones... I take estrogen — effectively, delayed-release sadness, a little aquamarine pill that more or less guarantees a good weep within six to eight hours.Like many of my trans friends, I’ve watched my dysphoria balloon since I began transition. I now feel very strongly about the length of my index fingers — enough that I will sometimes shyly unthread my hand from my girlfriend’s as we walk down the street. When she tells me I’m beautiful, I resent it. I’ve been outside. I know what beautiful looks like. Don’t patronize me.I was not suicidal before hormones. Now I often am.
???
So if trans surgery isn't really 'life saving'...
Presumably patients who demand opiods should get them
So much for 'first, do no harm'
This suggests that some trans people are doing it just for drama or to be special

Mom Dresses 6-Year-Old Son As Girl, Threatens Dad For Disagreeing - "Six-year-old James is caught in a gender identity nightmare. Under his mom’s care in Dallas, Texas, James obediently lives as a trans girl named “Luna.” But given the choice when he’s with dad, he’s all boy — his sex at birth.In their divorce proceedings, the mother has charged the father with child abuse for not affirming James as transgender, has sought restraining orders against him, and is seeking to terminate his parental rights. She is also seeking to require him to pay for the child’s visits to a transgender-affirming therapist and transgender medical alterations, which may include hormonal sterilization starting at age eight. I learned of James’ plight on a recent visit to Plano, Texas, where I spoke to teenagers about my own transgender story. I lived through a similar scenario when I was his age. I was cross-dressed for two-and-a-half years by my grandmother, who made a purple chiffon dress for me. Somewhat like James, my cross-dressing occurred under one adult’s care, but away from grandma’s I was all boy with my mom and dad. Also, just like James, I found my way into the office of a gender therapist, who quickly started me toward transition... My grandmother didn’t intend to harm me, but her actions destroyed my childhood and my family and consumed nearly 50 years of my life."
Keywords: Jeffrey Younger, Anne Georgulas

Kathleen Stock on Twitter - "2) One of the main focuses of this piece is ' TERF propaganda'. McKinnon claims that worries about legislation designed to remove sex protections for females are based on lying propaganda... '"There's never been a verified reported instance of a trans woman sexually assaulting a cis woman in such spaces'...
3) This is false, as a simple google will confirm...
4) If we expand the search to ones under 'cross-dressing' - and these days, given the move towards self-ID and the widening of the trans umbrella, this would seem acceptable to many - see [examples]...
5) I could go on. If the argument is that, as soon as crime occurs, the perpetrator ceases to be genuinely trans, I'd like to hear it, especially since the current mood in philosophy seems to make it impermissible to make any distinctions between reasons for claiming to be trans...
7) McKinnon's argument attributes the strawman to her opponents that they think that all trans women are sexual predators, because some are. This is not the claim. The claim is that social spaces are sex-separated for good reasons, one of which is to minimise sexual predation.
8) To remove sex-separation further faciliates predation against females from small number of offenders. That's the argument. Simple. And there is nothing to stop third spaces being resourced to shield trans women from violence.
9)That a respected academic journal should publish a demonstrably false empirical claim, used in the services of pushing a political agenda - and worse, in an article ostensibly about propaganda (!) - is shameful. It should publish a correction."

No, Trump is not ‘erasing’ trans people - "guidance from Trump officials would not ‘narrowly define gender’ – it would clarify the definition ‘sex’, which is the basis of the specific sex-discrimination law under consideration, known as ‘Title IX’. Indeed, it would restore the understanding that existed until the Obama administration slipped ‘gender identity’ into the law in 2014... the Obama administration redefined the meaning of sex in Title IX to cover gender identity and transgender people. They did so not by getting Congress to pass a new or amended law, but by regulation (and even this regulation did not go through the normal internal process of approval). Obama officials simply declared that, ‘Title IX’s sex-discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity’... Leaning on their expanded definition of sex to include gender, they imposed mandates on schools nationwide, including rules on pronoun use, bathrooms and lockerrooms, sports teams, among others. What Democrats could not introduce via legislation they dictated by Obama’s pen... What really bothers transgender advocates is any recognition of the biological basis of sex – that’s what they would like to erase... As transgender supporters like to say, gender is socially constructed and fluid. But, in reality, they do not allow for fluidity. Facebook might have 71 gender categories, but the transgender lobby insists that transmen must be recognised as ‘men’ and transwomen as ‘women’... if anyone wants to extend anti-discrimination law to include gender identity, that’s their prerogative, but they should seek to pass a new law, not edge in on an existing law designed to protect women. Of course, that would require transgender advocates to wage a campaign to convince the public and elected representatives – something that the pro-trans ‘movement’ has not done to date. Indeed, this cause has been a thoroughly top-down initiative, originating in the US from a small clique of the Obama civil rights unit administrators and the New York Times editorial board only a few years ago. At a rapid pace, transgenderism has become the conventional wisdom of the political and cultural elite, and anyone who questions its premises risks being labelled a bigot by these elites."
So much for liberalism being science based

Transgender Cyclist Celebrates World Championship In Women's Event, Says Critics Are 'Transphobic Bigots' - "McKinnon, who teaches a class on ethics and inclusion, compared criticism of the victory to racism, adding, “This is bigger than sports and it’s about human rights. By catering to cisgender people’s views, that furthers transgender people’s oppression. When it comes to extending rights to a minority population, why would we ask the majority? I bet a lot of white people were pissed off when we desegregated sports racially and allowed black people. But they had to deal with it.”... Another transgender woman, who competes on a higher level than McKinnon, has argued with McKinnon, acknowledging that the inherent sex differences between men and women making competing against women unfair. USA Today wrote about Jillian Bearden, who asked McKinnon to leave Bearden's cycling team in 2017"

WALSH: On The Left, 'Trans Rights' Trumps Women's Rights Every Time - "McKinnon, behaving rather unladylike in victory, gloated about his achievement and blasted his critics as neanderthalic bigots. The trans cyclist, whom we should note is a college professor, also declared that his testosterone and muscle mass do not give him any sort of physical advantage at all. He said "we have no idea" why men outperform women in athletic events. The subject of male biology is, according to the esteemed educator, "complicated as f**k." He theorized that a man's ability to run faster than a female is probably "sociological, not biological." I should mention again that this individual is employed by an academic institution... e are told that women are tired of being "silenced." But then women are told to shut up and cooperate when the hairy-legged man walks into the locker room and disrobes in front of them. Something doesn't quite add up here."

Why the transbullies are a threat to us all - "Even West Yorkshire police appear to be under their cosh. Last week, a verbal harassment warning was issued to Graham Linehan, the co-creator of the sitcom Father Ted, for pointing out that the transwoman Stephanie Hayden was biologically male, and tweeting her two previous male names – a practice known in the transgender universe as “deadnaming”. Even though, in the course of their spat, Hayden had posted details of Linehan’s wife’s company on Twitter, she still considered herself to be the aggrieved party... That’s five hours of police time, plus the paperwork involved, and for what? For describing a person with XY chromosomes as “he”."

Bafta award-winning creator of Father Ted reported to police in online row with transgender activist - "Addresses linked to Graham Linehan's wife's company were allegedly tweeted by Stephanie Hayden - an activist with a history of threatening Twitter users with legal action and reporting reporting them to police if they disagree with her."

Billboard removed after dictionary definition of 'woman' deemed offensive, transphobic hate speech - "A billboard quoting the dictionary definition of ‘woman’ has been removed after it was deemed transphobic hate speech... Soon after the billboard was installed, NHS doctor and LGBTQ activist Adrian Harrop complained that the posters were dangerous and made transgender people feel unsafe."... “If I was arrested today by a police officer who still had a penis but said he was a woman, he’s allowed to intimately search me”"
Piss Christ was dangerous and made Christians feel unsafe and should be banned