Mistaken identity - "a growing number of post-operative transsexuals are scathing about their medical care. International research suggests that 3-18% of them come to regret switching gender. The issue has gained public attention since January when the General Medical Council (GMC) began an inquiry into the UK's best-known expert on transsexualism, consultant psychiatrist Russell Reid. Last month the GMC announced that Dr Reid will face a charge of serious professional misconduct over allegations that he has put his patients' health at risk... "My psychiatrist told me, you look great, you can pass. I've come to realise that human life is made up of connecting, not passing. I can 'pass' in a shop, I can 'pass' on the street. But when you tell a man your background, if you're lucky he'll walk away. Nothing can prepare you for that. I feel notorious in any group. You can say you're Napoleon but unless the whole world agrees with you, you patently are not Napoleon. I'm not a woman, I'm a thing - a chimera. As I move into my middle years, I'm genuinely worried that I just don't fit anywhere."... "We've seen individuals for whom two years' RLE was ideal because they expressed doubts or changed their minds about surgery only after 18-20 months." Some people choose to conceal their doubts. Many transsexual websites offer tips on what to say in order to meet the criteria for treatment: how to dress, talk and behave. Dainton says patients encourage each other purposely to avoid discussing issues that might hold up their treatment. "Most people who go to psychiatrists with a view to changing gender have actually researched and know a lot of the things they should say - and some of the things they should stay clear of."... The lack of medical consensus has led some to call for a moratorium on gender reassignment. Alan Finch helped to set up the Gender Identity Awareness Association, to dissuade people from genital surgery and campaign against what he calls the "sex change industry". In April, the chief psychiatrist of Victoria State began an inquiry into the Monash gender clinic, Melbourne, where Finch was treated. But Finch wants all treatment stopped, arguing that transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists. "Their language is illusory. You fundamentally can't change sex," he says. "The surgery doesn't alter you genetically. It's genital mutilation. My 'vagina' was just the bag of my scrotum. It's like a pouch, like a kangaroo. What's scary is you still feel like you have a penis when you're sexually aroused. It's like phantom limb syndrome. It's all been a terrible misadventure. I've never been a woman, just Alan." Finch, formerly known as Helen, wants to know why people who want a sex change are treated differently from other psychiatric patients who hate their bodies. He says: "The fact that someone's suicidal and wanting something isn't a reason to provide it. The analogy I use about giving surgery to someone desperate to change sex is it's a bit like offering liposuction to an anorexic."... Guardian Weekend asked Birmingham University's Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (Arif) to assess the findings of more than 100 follow-up studies of post-operative transsexuals. Arif, which conducts reviews of healthcare treatments for the NHS, concludes that none of the studies provides conclusive evidence that gender reassignment is beneficial for patients. It found that most research was poorly designed, which skewed the results in favour of physically changing sex. There was no evaluation of whether other treatments, such as long-term counselling, might help transsexuals, or whether their gender confusion might lessen over time. Arif says the findings of the few studies that have tracked significant numbers of patients over several years were flawed because the researchers lost track of at least half of the participants. The potential complications of hormones and genital surgery, which include deep vein thrombosis and incontinence respectively, have not been thoroughly investigated, either. "There is huge uncertainty over whether changing someone's sex is a good or a bad thing," says Dr Chris Hyde, director of Arif. "While no doubt great care is taken to ensure that appropriate patients undergo gender reassignment, there's still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatised - often to the point of committing suicide." Given that each sex change operation costs the NHS at least £3,000, why has there been so little long-term research?"
From 2004. The Guardian wouldn't publish this today...
Weird. We were told there were no studies on trans regret. With modern trans mania, the numbers are going to be much higher
NCA - Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery (CAG-00446N) - Proposed Decision Memo - "Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria. There were conflicting (inconsistent) study results – of the best designed studies, some reported benefits while others reported harms. The quality and strength of evidence were low due to the mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, potential confounding and small sample sizes. Many studies that reported positive outcomes were exploratory type studies (case-series and case-control) with no confirmatory follow-up"
From the US federal government in 2016. How fast the "science" "changes"
NCA - Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery (CAG-00446N) - Decision Memo - "Overall, the quality and strength of evidence were low due to mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, subjective endpoints, potential confounding (a situation where the association between the intervention and outcome is influenced by another factor such as a co-intervention), small sample sizes, lack of validated assessment tools, and considerable lost to follow-up... Several reported positive results but the potential issues noted above reduced strength and confidence. After careful assessment, we identified six studies that could provide useful information (Figure 1). Of these, the four best designed and conducted studies that assessed quality of life before and after surgery using validated (albeit non-specific) psychometric studies did not demonstrate clinically significant changes or differences in psychometric test results after GRS... mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years"
Short term followups not accounting for dropouts (e.g. those who kill themselves) can capture participants still in the post-surgery euphoria stage
Not your mother's Equal Rights Amendment - "a professor from Duke University and director of the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care, Dr. Deanna Adkins, stated: “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.” Dr. Adkins argued that gender identity is “the only medically supported determinant of sex.” Her claim that “it is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female” is being parroted more frequently. If this new medical “science “and new definition of sex is adopted, ratification of the ERA will have the unintended consequence of erasing many of the gains envisioned by its early supporters."
Neovagina Disasters website | GenderCritical - "Reading these, I'm struck by how superficial the trans comprehension of womanhood is. "If it has a hole for a dick to go in, it's a woman, rite?" It's like they have no awareness or acknowledgement of the complex biological systems that pervade a woman's entire body down to the cellular level all to support the reproductive system whose orifice happens to be able to accommodate a penis, because the sperm needs access to the egg so a baby can form in the womb and then come out the vagina when it's fully baked."
"Exactly - and the fact they already have two 'holes' that can act as a penis receptacle makes it all the more ludicrous. With all the colon material they use, these are closer to a second anus than a vagina."
"When I look at the misleading consent forms for FTM testosterone alone.....it's all so misleading. I just don't see any reason to believe that patients are suddenly told the truth when it comes to surgery time. Trans culture relies on so much dishonesty. Lying by omission, sunk cost fallacy (and every other fallacy) exaggeration, silence. GNCCentric's interview with Benjamin Boyce covers a lot of this. The young people in particular are clueless, but they're not getting the truth from their "trans elders." Nor are they getting it from the medical industry, nor of course the media."
Sadly https://www.neovaginadisasters.com/ is no longer around and there's no archive
‘Women’ or ‘vagina owners’? Teen Vogue’s publication of ‘masturbation guide’ mocked for advances in woke linguistics - "Teen Vogue has rolled out an ultra-inclusive anatomically-based new category of person in its never-ending bid to avoid offending anyone, and social media users are rolling in the aisles at the result. Behold “vagina owners.” The publication posted its “no-nonsense, 101 guide to masturbation for vagina owners” on Twitter on Tuesday, deploying the unusual phrase instead of more common descriptors like “women,” “girls,” or even the more generic standby “people with vaginas.”... Many pointed out that despite Teen Vogue’s supposed bid to empower readers, identifying women (or anyone else) by their body parts was actually dehumanizing."
Given how much feminists complain about "objectification" it's ironic most of them champion it when it's supposed to be "inclusive"
'Bodies With Vaginas' Isn't An Acceptable Replacement For 'Woman' - "“Bodies with vaginas” is certainly not the first attempt at replacing the word woman. Various alternative terms have been used to reduce women to biological functions, usually relating to birthing, breastfeeding, and menstruating. The Biden administration adopted the terms “birthing person” and “pregnant people” to replace the word mother. “Chestfeeding” is now a viable alternative to “breastfeeding.” On the anniversary of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) shared a quote from one of her best-known speeches on abortion and gender equality. However, the ACLU altered the quote for gender-neutral language, replacing the word “woman” with “person” and replacing feminine pronouns with gender-neutral pronouns... The executive director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, later issued an apology for altering the quote. Romero, however, suggested that he believed if Justice Ginsberg were alive today, “she would encourage us to evolve our language to encompass a broader vision of gender, identity, and sexuality.” But would the champions of women’s rights and leaders of women’s progress really be so keen on a broader vision that erases the group they fought so hard to uplift and protect?... The word “woman” appears to be more vulnerable to the wrath of cancel culture than the word “man.” We don’t exactly see headlines flooded with terms like “people with prostates.” However, in more subtle ways, we're also witnessing the erasure of the word “man.” A good example of this is the language used for male-dominated professions like fireman or fisherman. It’s now politically correct to use “fireperson” or “fisherperson.” Sure, the gender-neutral terms are more inclusive, but there’s no denying that they erase the history of masculine risk and sacrifice... the alteration of language is usually not welcomed by the groups it aims to protect. The term “Latinx” isn’t welcomed by the majority of Spanish speakers. The majority of women don’t want to call themselves a feminist. I can hardly imagine that women around the globe who don’t have access to proper sanitation and menstrual hygiene products are concerned with affluent people referring to them as “people who menstruate.” The erasure of the word “woman” is beyond inclusivity. It’s a means of controlling how we think, how we act, and how we view the world."
ACLU director admits altering Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote was a 'mistake' - "The quote that had been championed by pro-abortion advocates stemmed from remarks Ginsburg made during her Senate confirmation hearing in 1993 as the Supreme Court nominee of then-President Bill Clinton. "The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices," Ginsburg originally said. The ACLU then used brackets and stripped any reference of sex in an attempted to be more politically correct. "The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person's] life, to [their] well-being and dignity… When the government controls that decision for [them], [they are] being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for [their] own choices"... Even ACLU lawyer Jennifer Granick called out the ACLU's tweet, writing, "@ACLU Changing what someone actually said is not what [ word ] is for. Those brackets are to make an existing text clearer, not to add new stuff to the text.""
Women are not just ‘bodies with vaginas’ - "Are we allowed to ask why females who identify as men are apparently triggered by the words ‘mother’ and ‘breast’, but not by giving birth – a definitively female experience?... Since 2018, Kellie-Jay Keen, founder of campaign group Standing for Women, has been fighting back against the erasure of the word woman with the simple yet apparently radical act of repeating the dictionary definition. Keen’s billboards, t-shirts and adverts – bearing the phrase, ‘Woman, wʊmən, noun, adult human female’ – have popped up across the globe. ‘One only has to take a cursory glance at the history books or a dystopian novel to see that a fundamental tool of the destruction of rights is language’, Keen tells me. ‘I’m not surprised to see gutless, dishonest politicians engage in mental gymnastics to avoid saying what they really know: that only adult human females are women.’ Keen’s now well-known slogan was first placed outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool in 2018. The outcry that followed led former Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson to pledge to ‘remove stickers and work with the police to identify those responsible’. The following week, Liverpool council voted unanimously in favour of a motion declaring that ‘trans women are women’ to show their collective disgust at the dictionary. Nonetheless, the truth remains – women are adult human females. Not that the truth has much bearing on the trans debate. Women wearing t-shirts designed by Keen have been kicked out of political parties, denied service in bars and harassed by transgender activists... Perhaps this wresting of mind from body, and the disconnection of identities from biological reality, underscores a new phase of consumer capitalism. After all, wombs can now be rented from surrogates and the self has become a lucrative new product, to be made and remade according to customer wishes. Maybe it is no great surprise, then, that women are being erased as a group. And in their place, we have mere individuals who perform a set of biological functions. The fleshy, messy reality of being human is increasingly viewed as something to be discarded – as a barrier to realising one’s ‘authentic’ identity. The reduction of women to mere ‘bodies with vaginas’ is more than just a product of sexism – it is a product of a world in which the self and our identities have been commodified."
Abertay University law student's degree is at risk because she said women have vaginas - "'I was chatting to another mum the other day whose little girl had come home from school saying they had been learning about how women have vaginas and men have penises. I said to her, 'I don't want to be mean, but I'm not sure we can say that now.' 'How is it OK for a child to be learning that women have vaginas at school, but not OK for me to say it in a university seminar? It doesn't make sense.' She's not alone in voicing alarm. Britain's new equalities chief Baroness Falkner of Margravine this month vowed to fight for women's right to challenge transgender activism. The 66-year-old peer said women must have the right to question transgender identity without being abused, stigmatised or risk losing their job... 'The lecturer said something like 'all men are rapists and we should lock them up after 6pm'. I took offence at this. I have two boys and a partner who is a man. I don't think all men are rapists. Of course they are not. 'All this is about rights. What about men's rights to not be called rapists?'... 'The other girls pitched in. It was men-hating. I was appalled.' She says there were 12 or 13 students involved in the seminar, most of whom had their cameras on if they were talking. 'It was all women, apart from one who I think was a boy, but I'm afraid to even say that now. He didn't speak.' At times it sounds as if Lisa is describing an unruly mob, rather than sober law students. 'What I actually find terrifying is that they were talking about men as if they were guilty. We are law students. Above all else we believe in the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Or we should.'... There was another altercation when she tried to comment on the idea of safe spaces. 'It got onto talking about women-only changing rooms, and one girl said categorically that trans people do not do bad things. I thought this was at best naïve, but also wrong. I cited a case where a rapist had been put in an all-female jail, but I was shot down and told I was a privileged, white cis woman, and what did I know... 'The thing is, I have since read transgender people's online content and some have even been in touch to say they support me. So this is crazy. Who do those girls think they are speaking for?'... 'Scottish universities are required by law to investigate all complaints, whether by students, staff or members of the public.'"
Maybe people should complain about everyone all the time so the Scottish universities will be perpetually investigating everyone
Abertay University student Lisa Keogh cleared after being investigated for saying women have vaginas - "A LAW student who was investigated by a Scottish university for saying women have vaginas and are not as strong as men has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Lisa Keogh, 29, was investigated by Abertay University after classmates complained she had made “offensive” and “discriminatory” remarks at a lecture. She had argued the difference in strength between the sexes meant it was not fair that women should have to compete against trans women in sport... Ms Keogh, who was supported by the SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC and the Free Speech Unuion, said she was delighted at the victory but saddened the episode took place. She said she had been targeted in a “modern day witch hunt” because of her gender critical views and belief in sex-based rights, and accused Abertay of being “needlessly cruel” in dragging on an the investigation for two months during her final year exams... Free Speech union general secretary Toby Young said: “It should have been obvious that the complaints against her were due to her gender critical views, not the manner in which she expressed them. In a seminar on gender, feminism and the law there should be room for a range of views, from militant trans activism to traditional feminism."
Bid to exclude ‘people with penises’ from lesbian events ‘unlawful’ - "Lesbians will be breaking the law if they exclude biological males who are transgender from social events, after a controversial discrimination ruling set to become a national test case. Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination commissioner Sarah Bolt has ruled lesbian events that exclude trans-women carry a “significant risk” of breaching legislation... “I want to exclude people with penises, because being a lesbian is about same-sex attraction. It’s not about same-gendered attraction … There are many events that cater for the trans community in Tasmania that are all-inclusive. “This event was going to be just for lesbians who are same-sex attracted.”"
But of course, men can still be excluded from women's events
She didn't get the memo that the left equates sex and gender when it's convenient (while calling people ignorant for conflating the two at other times)
Many Ls have had enough of the Ts in the alpabet soup LGBTQ ‘community’, now it seems plenty of the Gs want to escape them too - "The toxic Ts in LGBTQ have already forced some of the Ls – that’s lesbians – to jump out of that once warm and cosy bowl of alphabet soup. And now it looks like a load of the Gs – gays – have had enough of them too. Maybe the Ls and Gs are far better off on their own; they’re fundamentally far more compatible as a community. First off, let’s just have a recap of where we’re at with that alphabet soup. It actually all began in the first place with the Ls and the Gs anyway, as a movement to protect the rights of lesbians and gays. But the rainbow now has so many stripes it’s pretty much every colour under the sun. We're now up to LGBPTGQIAAA+. Take a deep breath, it’s a bit of a tongue twister... that's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Genderqueer, Queer, Intersexed, Agender, Asexual, and Ally. It’s as if adding another splash of colour, plopping another letter into the soup, somehow shields all those individuals sheltering under that multi-coloured and multi-faceted umbrella from the petty, silly little foibles and fallouts we all have to endure whenever human beings rub up against each other. They’re not all sitting happily together in a forever friends group hug though, oh no. It seems this ‘community’ is coming apart at the seams. Some Ls, for a while now, have had enough of some of those Ts. Especially transwomen, that’s men who now identify as women. They make way too much noise and they dominate way too much of the debate, some lesbians and feminists argue, and therefore get most of the attention and resources... Rosie Duffield is, rather ominously, being investigated by her Labour Party bosses for liking an ‘anti-trans’ tweet by a gay American rapper... So what did this gay rapper dude say to cause all the fuss then? Well, Kurtis Tripp tweeted: “I’m so sick of hearing about how ‘queer’ has been reclaimed. I had that word spit in my face as recently as 2018. And look at WHO is reclaiming it. Mostly heterosexuals cosplaying as the opposite sex and as ‘gay’. Stop co-opting our language. Stop colonizing gay culture.” ‘Cosplaying’ is costume playing – dressing up as a cartoon, movie character and such like in infinite detail. And now, guess what? It seems Twitter has suspended Tripp’s account because his opinion goes against the current woke groupthink. Madness. Tripp, on his – still active, thank God – Facebook page identifies as: “homosexual. husband. hella loud. I make music, GC info videos and majorly gay up the place.” Now, if this gay guy is not allowed to express an opinion on the LGBTQ community – his OWN community, by the way – then… who the hell is? The rainbow seems to be melting, and some of those colours are dripping away. And it is entirely and absolutely the fault of the mindless trans lobby mob who do nothing but shout people down if they dare to dissent... Some people into Kink – I don’t know where the Ks stand in that alphabet soup and, quite frankly, I simply don’t care – sometimes go way too far. Add the Ks to the TQs. And you could always add a Z, I guess, for the Zoophiles. People who have sex with animals, they insist they should also be included in the world of pride. The TQKZ community. Awesome. Don’t you just desperately wanna join?"
ripx4nutmeg on Twitter - "A lesbian user of the lesbian dating app Her says in her experience more biological males than females are now using it"
'We're being pressured into sex by some trans women' - ""I've had someone saying they would rather kill me than Hitler," says 24-year-old Jennie*. "They said they would strangle me with a belt if they were in a room with me and Hitler. That was so bizarrely violent, just because I won't have sex with trans women." Jennie is a lesbian woman. She says she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas. She therefore only has sex and relationships with women who are biologically female. Jennie doesn't think this should be controversial, but not everyone agrees. She has been described as transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a "terf" - a trans exclusionary radical feminist... those affected have told me the pressure comes from a minority of trans women, as well as activists who are not necessarily trans themselves. They described being harassed and silenced if they tried to discuss the issue openly. I received online abuse myself when I tried to find interviewees using social media. One of the lesbian women I spoke to, 24-year-old Amy*, told me she experienced verbal abuse from her own girlfriend, a bisexual woman who wanted them to have a threesome with a trans woman. When Amy explained her reasons for not wanting to, her girlfriend became angry. "The first thing she called me was transphobic," Amy said. "She immediately jumped to make me feel guilty about not wanting to sleep with someone." She said the trans woman in question had not undergone genital surgery, so still had a penis. "I know there is zero possibility for me to be attracted to this person," said Amy, who lives in the south west of England and works in a small print and design studio. "I can hear their male vocal cords. I can see their male jawline. I know, under their clothes, there is male genitalia. These are physical realities, that, as a woman who likes women, you can't just ignore." Amy said she would feel this way even if a trans woman had undergone genital surgery - which some opt for, while many don't. Soon afterwards Amy and her girlfriend split up. "I remember she was extremely shocked and angry, and claimed my views were extremist propaganda and inciting violence towards the trans community, as well as comparing me to far-right groups," she said. Another lesbian woman, 26-year-old Chloe*, said she felt so pressured she ended up having penetrative sex with a trans woman at university after repeatedly explaining she was not interested... One woman reported being targeted in an online group. "I was told that homosexuality doesn't exist and I owed it to my trans sisters to unlearn my 'genital confusion' so I can enjoy letting them penetrate me"... One compared going on dates with trans women to so-called conversion therapy - the controversial practice of trying to change someone's sexual orientation... Another reported a trans woman physically forcing her to have sex after they went on a date. "[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them]," she wrote. "I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a 'woman' even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me."... Trans YouTuber Rose of Dawn has discussed the issue on her channel in a video called "Is Not Dating Trans People 'Transphobic'?"... Rose made the video in response to a series of tweets by trans athlete Veronica Ivy, then known as Rachel McKinnon, who wrote about hypothetical scenarios where trans people are rejected, and argued that "genital preferences" are transphobic... Rose believes views like this are "incredibly toxic". She believes the idea that dating preferences are transphobic is being pushed by radical trans activists and their "self-proclaimed allies", who have extreme views which don't reflect the views of trans women she knows in real life. "Certainly from my own friends group, the trans women I'm friends with, almost all of them agree lesbians are free to exclude trans women from their dating pool," she said. However, she believes even trans people are afraid to talk openly about this for fear of abuse... Debbie Hayton, a science teacher who transitioned in 2012 and writes about trans issues, worries some people transition without realising how hard it will be to form relationships. Although there is currently little data on the sexual orientation of trans women, she believes most are female-attracted because they are biologically male and most males are attracted to women... Stonewall is the largest LGBT organisation in the UK and Europe. I asked the charity about these issues but it was unable to provide anyone for interview. However, in a statement, chief executive Nancy Kelley likened not wanting to date trans people to not wanting to date people of colour, fat people, or disabled people... The term "cotton ceiling" is sometimes used when discussing these issues, but it is controversial. It stems from "glass ceiling", which refers to an invisible barrier preventing women from climbing to the top of the career ladder. Cotton is a reference to women's underwear, with the phrase intended to represent the difficulty some trans women feel they face when seeking relationships or sex. "Breaking the cotton ceiling" means being able to have sex with a woman... "The language is gross because you are evoking the metaphor of the glass ceiling, which is about women being oppressed. So saying that if someone doesn't want to have sex with you that person is oppressing you."... "You don't see as many trans men interested in gay men so they don't get it [the pressure] as much, but you do see a lot of trans women who are interested in women, so we are disproportionately affected by it." Ani believes these kind of messages are confusing for young lesbians... Ani says she gets contacted on Twitter by young lesbians who do not know how to exit a relationship with a trans woman. "They tried to do the right thing and they gave them a chance, and realised that they are a lesbian and they didn't want to be with someone with a male body, and the concept of transphobia and bigotry is used as an emotional weapon, that you can't leave because otherwise you're a transphobe," she said. Like others who have voiced their concerns, Ani has received abuse online. "I've been incited to kill myself, I've had rape threats," she said. However, she says she is determined to keep speaking out."
Of course the TRAs didn't like this article
This is a "rape culture" that most feminists love
Facebook - "- BBC accused of publishing transphobic article (left)
- The actual article BBC published ['We're being pressured into sex by some trans women']
This is close to the end point of identity politics, isn’t it? Where any real talk involving a marginalized identity is taken as an indictment of the entire group and hence… phobic or violent towards the group?
So we erase the experience of lesbians speaking out now?"
Laura 🐍🐸 on Twitter - "One thing every lesbian deals with is straight dudes telling them if only they'd give them a chance they might realize they're actually straight. Trans activists have that same energy. Let people date who they want to date. If someone rejects you, it's none of your business why."
Trans ‘Champion’ Cyclist Probably Won’t Make Full Professor - " Transgender athlete and professor Dr. Veronica Ivy recently shared a performance review from her college departmental administration, and it is glorious. Ivy, formerly known as Rachel McKinnon on Twitter and still posting under that moniker on Facebook, posted the review out of anger rather than good sense... Not surprisingly, the review says that Dr. Ivy/McKinnon has been “doing a rather minimal job in teaching writing and in preparing students for future work in philosophy.”... Perhaps Ivy/McKinnon was too busy tweeting. But wait, there’s more! This review is filled with delicious tidbits of academese. For instance, department chair Larry Krasnoff calls Ivy a lazy writer, but in a bright, professional tone. You see, not only has Ivy been deriving new articles from previous work, “she” has also tried to fob these rewrites off as original work in order to meet publishing expectations. Which might be forgivable … if only Dr. Ivy would bother to show up for meetings... Dr. Veronica/Rachel Ivy/McKinnon has a disability? The world champion “female” indoor cyclist is disabled? Stop the presses! What kind of disability are we talking about? It can’t be a physical disability, surely. Though I would not be shocked if the professor tried to identify as disabled to enter the paralympics. So, what? Neuroatypical? Mental illness? A personality disorder, maybe? Perhaps the kind of disorder where someone adopts different names and identities, making desperate, pitiable efforts to enlist other people in their alternate reality?... Dr. Ivy/McKinnon’s troubles began last August when the professor celebrated the untimely death of gender critical YouTube commentator Magdalen Berns. Berns was a lesbian who rubbished notions such as ‘ladypenis’ and ‘male lesbian.’ Ivy/McKinnon denounced Berns as a transphobic bigot and expressed pleasure that she had died of a brain tumor... Ivy/McKinnon declared pansexuality to be the only morally defensible orientation because it includes trans people. Get that? Being gay is no longer acceptable, people!... there was a third round of complaints after Ivy/McKinnon suggested on Twitter that a rape relief shelter in Vancouver had nailed a rat to their own doorway in order to frame trans rights activists protesting their women-only hiring policy... is it really just a coincidence that Dr. Rachel McKinnon turned into Dr. Veronica Ivy after things got bumpy last August?... Ivy/McKinnon was clearly upset by this performance review and it is not hard to see why. Having made an entire career by competing against women with his male body and arguing that this makes him a great philosopher as well as a woman and that he does not have to explain himself at all, Rhys McKinnon is on notice that he must explain himself, after all."
‘Trans activists are trying to bully people’ - "The gay-rights movement is among the most successful civil-rights movements of recent times. In the space of a few decades, gay people went from being despised and marginalised to being embraced by the mainstream. This movement won equality by persuading people. In contrast, today’s LGBT activists view debate as violence. ‘My existence is not up for debate’ is a common trans-rights mantra. Meanwhile, critics of the movement’s excesses are routinely harassed, hounded and branded ‘transphobic’. Andrew Sullivan – former editor of the New Republic, founding editor of the Weekly Dish and author of a new essay anthology, Out on a Limb – was a prominent figure in gay-rights commentary and activism, but has since grown concerned with the direction and tactics of the LGBT movement...
Andrew Sullivan: I am in no way hostile to transgender people’s rights, dignity, equality and humanity. But at the same time, I cannot believe that trans people are indistinguishable from actual women or actual men. I am sorry, but I cannot say it, because I do not believe it is true. I think it is self-evidently untrue. The arguments have changed. Campaigners started by saying that sex is different to gender. And they ended by saying that gender replaces sex. It is the second part that I will not acknowledge. That’s all. I am reminded of George Orwell’s dictum that the party’s final command is for you to deny what is in front of your eyes. We only have to talk about these issues because these activists are insisting that, for example, ‘people’ have periods as opposed to ‘women’. ‘People with uteruses’, ‘non-prostate owners’… these are the new terms used to deconstruct people. It is all driven by a belief that we have to dismantle language as well as liberal society itself – to destroy all categories that are fixed, or that might in any way be used as a means for supporting ‘power structures’. Why has society not had the strength to say that these guys need some mental-health support?
O’Neill: There is another problem here, too, which is the impact that this kind of campaigning has had on some of the very positive developments of the past 50 or 60 years. Lots of young girls are now presenting themselves for transition. Many of them are lesbians. There is something about the social value attached to becoming a trans male that seems more attractive to them than being an old-fashioned lesbian. We may be medicalising lesbians out of existence. And there is also a rehabilitation of homophobic attitudes taking place. Some trans activists refer to same-sex attraction as ‘genital fetishism’. Is this new generation of campaigners undermining gay and lesbian rights?
Sullivan: In the past, the trans lobby had very sane and much braver leaders. The main group for trans rights in the US was led for a long time by a rather brilliant person who was ousted in a coup by younger activists. So it’s not just a minority of trans people that we are talking about – historically, it has also been a minority within trans activism. One of the things that gay people were often known for in the past was our defence of free speech... The only reason gay people made our civil-rights gains was because of our speech rights... When I produced my anthology on same-sex marriage, I included pros and cons. I published some of the most right-wing religious figures. That was in the liberal spirit. And that liberal spirit achieved an amazing thing in one generation: it changed people’s minds. I look at today’s campaigners and wonder who they are trying to persuade. Actually, they are not trying to persuade anyone. They are trying to bully people. It’s an extraordinary paradox that the people who were most fucking bullied growing up now inflict that on others. It makes me as upset as it makes me angry. They have lost their way. I am part of the generation that did this civil-rights work, all while we were dying. The current generation treats that work as if it is irrelevant, meaningless and insufficient. The contempt for us from that generation takes my breath away."
