Wow. This is heartfelt. I as a straight woman in the 80s and 90s walked with my lesbian and gay friends. I supported their calls for equality. When the trans question came out I stood for trans rights then something changed. A feeling that something wasn't right, that some not all were literally trying to claim that they were something that they couldn't be that if they felt they were a woman they were. This worried me. You have put all my fears into the words I felt I couldn't say. Thank you for this. You are such a strong brave man
The whole concept of being trans is referring to yourself as a man or woman later in life, because they were uncomfortable being the opposite. So what do you even mean?
This is terrific. So clear, considered and well-written. And also heartfelt. The only sad thing is that certain people will almost certainly give you hate for it, while failing to come up with anything half so eloquent.
This is a brave and important piece of writing. I am bisexual and automatically backed trans rights - I saw myself as a progressive so of course I'd support this struggling minority. But it's clear that the trans rights movement has moved from protesting the violence and prejudice some trans people suffer to claiming that biological sex does not exist. And it doing so it places women (and gay men) in great danger.
Most people don't think that. Even the actual medical experts regarding transition don't claim to change change chromosomes or grow wombs. So if a few people are saying something incorrect, then so what? There's tons of even worse medical misinformation going on. That's not an excuse to the demonize trans people collectively. There are people who even think the earth is flat. People are allowed to be wrong.
Because "pro trans" arguments are arguing in favour of trans people living their lives with dignity. Arguing against that is arguing that trans people should not be able to do that. i.e. demonising them.
You're committing a fallacy here, equating the cricitisim of pro-tans arguments with arguing that trans people should not live their lives with dignity. Why do you believe this?
Hang on, I've known trans people for decades, and I've always believed they should live their lives with dignity, but that does not change established biological science, just ask any molecular geneticist you happen to know. Use facts, not emotion, please.
No. I have known trans people for decades from working in the Arts and I have never demonised them. I have always been in favour of them and everybody else on the planet living their lives with dignity. However, if one of them was to tell me that they are the same biologically as a cis gender woman (which they never have, it's just not something that's ever come up), I would be respectful, and just not say anything so as not to upset them, but in my mind I wouldn't be thinking "Oh, so established biological science is wrong after all". I'd just be thinking, no harm in not correcting them then and there is it means so much to them – but they are factually incorrect all the same.
Just as if they said the world was flat, I'd go..."Right...well..." and not change my opinion of the shape of the planet.
The claim that people can change sex is made by so many people today, trans activists and allies alike. You are simply using the motte and bailey fallacy right now - you are pulling back from the more extreme position of trans activists and claiming a more modest position when, in fact, the more extreme position is the goal for trans activists. In Canada, we have politicians in more than one political party who are saying that trans women are "adult human females" and that the dictionary definition of "woman" is transphobic hate speech.
If "biological facts" are so important to radical feminists, it's odd then that they tend to tell people to shut up and get defensive when people speak bluntly and honestly about abortion, and medical professionals are even instructed to use politically correct language when talking about abortion, such as never use the word kill/killing to describe one. Kind of contradicts the whole biology angle.
Sterilised and mutilated any children lately? Gosh your comments are not ageing well lol. Turns out, you’re on the side that destroys children’s healthy bodies and futures just to validate the perversions and fetishes of predatory AGP males who hate and envy women so much they want to take everything they have. I wonder if your opinions have changed, 2 years later.
There's a clear conflation in gender ideology (which of course a lot of trans people don't subscribe to and a lot of non-trans people do), of gender and biological sex. It's been adopted in government policies. The term "assigned sex at birth" which is in widespread use in NZ institutions, reflects a belief that, as Duncan says, that sex is not a description of a reality, but a construct assigned to the child, ie biological sex does not empirically exist. Our statistics department recently released standards that do distinguish between sex and gender but then goes on to say that biological sex can change over the course of a lifetime. I wish I was lying.
When a baby is born the doctor looks at their external genitalia and claims the child either male or female. The doctor is assigning the sex. This does not take into consideration that chromosomes cannot be seen, and a baby that has been designated as a particular sex based on their genitalia may be chromosomally very different. Now, think about how chromosomes affect the brain and the mental makeup of a human being, and perhaps you can see how trans people are the gender they claim they are.
NO doctor in a delivery room in a maternity hospital (or other situation where a MD is required to fulfil certain obligations under laws relating to the registration of births (in some circumstances, such as home birth, a midwife may be empowered to file the registration of the birth)) or elsewhere (depending on the location of birth), "assigns" a sex to a child. They "record" or "observe" the apparent sex of the baby following birth, while following certain protocols and tests necessary to determine the physical and medical condition of the baby.
Attending doctors are not empowered to "assign" a sex to a child.
If, in the very rare event there is a physiological situation which leads the doctor to realise there is some inconclusiveness or confusion regarding the observed sex of the child, the parents are consulted and the doctor will notify the parents/mother and then refer the case to a senior hospital officer/consultant or a team who will make full diagnostic determination. Depending on the extent of the physiological ambiguity (with reference to all diagnostic reports), any proposed treatments/interventions will either be discussed with, and approved by parental consent or, (and often it is a matter of hospital policy or local legislation) the case is referred to a committee (often referred to as an "ethics"/"medical reference" committee) who will advise the parents of options available.
Even at this point, the sex is not "assigned", and if necessary, the registration of the birth can be held "in abeyance" until an agreed treatment plan is determined.
The number of such births are still incredibly rare (for example in Ireland there were 58,443 births recorded in 2021, and I can only find references in some research papers to Irish births with genitalia anomalies amounting to 175 of these births (approx 3 in 1,000 births) in 2021).
It would be less disingenuous, more fruitful (and more correct!) if the pro-gender theory advocates stopped using this terminology. For a vast majority of births, the sex of the child, being a biological and observable physical determination, this is observed and then recorded. Factually, scientifically and biologically, it is impossible for a person "to be born in the wrong body", though later it is medically/psychologically possible to develop certain psychological/psychiatric conditions, the expressions of which can be the ideation that the individual believes they of a gender different to the biological sex into which they are born.
The vast majority of trans people have the chromosomes that match their biological sex. There isn't anything wrong with their chromosomes. They have body dysphoria, that's a fault in the brain, not chromosomes.
Genuine question (not bait) as I’ve seen this mentioned a few places. How common is it for someone to be born with chromosomes that don’t match their genitalia? Thanks, I’m pretty new to this whole subject
I find this Stats for gender website really useful for good unragey information. Here's the link to their information on DSD/intersex (though some separate those two things). https://www.statsforgender.org/dsd-intersex/
Just to clarify, a Harvard alumni magazine article. I don't think it's useful to bring in intersex or DSD into discussion around trans. They're quite different phenomena. However, most people with DSDs have a male or female biological sex. Being actually part male and part female, or no sex at all, is extremely rare.
Yes, they are the gender they claim they are, but not the sex. Sex and gender are two separate things, as any molecular geneticist will tell you. If I believe I am an entirely new gender, then nobody can say I am. If I claim I am a different biological sex than am, well, science can call me out. The Right have denied established climate science for decades, now some on the Left are trying to do the same with biological science that has been established far longer. Sad.
Next – "Gravity is a social construct". "The Laws of Physics are a social construct", "The Moon not being flat is a social construct". Sorry, but established facts are not a social construct, they are established facts.
I remember you from twitter and always appreciated your input. This essay is a very clear time line of the penny dropping and could potentially challenge even some if my most stubbornly righteous friends.
Thank you Duncan. I have also been on a journey on this trajectory. I'm a straight woman with many gay friends and an oldest and dearest friend is a trans man. I backed him all the way through his transition. I spent my youth in gay clubs partying with a mix of wonderful gay, bisexual, straight, transvestite and trans people. I knew which side I was on. I was angered by JK Rowling's comments which seemed to dismiss the painful experiences and feelings of trans women. I was angered by the suggestion that trans women were sexual predators just like I was angered years earlier by the suggestion that being gay meant sexual perversion. But I am also a feminist and I knew that biological sex matters. Something didn't feel right. Like you a discussion with a gender critical friend, and a lot of thinking and reading led me down the path you have described so well. I hope others follow.
JKR did not suggest that trans women were sexual predators. She said that if there are no rules about who identifies or claims to be trans, that biological males could enter women's spaces and some of them will be predators. They may not be the trans women at all. Though some will be because statistically trans women's stats are the same as any biological men's stats where it comes to crime.
There are cases where "trans women" prisoners have got women prisoners in the women's prison pregnant through rape. So I guess "biological sex" matters after all.
The debate reached its point of insanity when a cisgender male, who identifies as a woman and a lesbian, who has not fully transitioned, claimed on YouTube that "lesbians who refuse to date a lesbian with a penis are guilty of a hate crime". That's the sort of writing you'd expect on South Park.
Haven't seen that but that's hilarious. But then, some poeple would say, if Cartman identifies as a female, who are we to say they are not? In fact, Cartman identifies as an idiot.
Am stunned this has only just made national consciousness - and only because JK Rowling as raised it in her tweets. The other day I found the following article in The Economist from 2018 where it is discussed and the nuance of the difference between same sex attraction v same gender attraction and the nature of being a woman. I only found it as I have a 16yo gnc autie daughter who is clearly lesbian, but has been convinced she is trans since she was 12 - along with 50% of her peers - so I research stuff that might help her reframe what the TRA lobby tells her.
This has really helped me as a heterosexual woman to articulate my feelings on the subject, I knew I felt uncomfortable about certain trans terminology but I didn’t know why. Thank you for helping me to figure this out. Quite simply I was fearful of asking in case I was accused of hate. I don’t hate anyone for being anything and I think we should all live in a way which makes us happy and fulfilled but we should also question without fear. I think JK Rowling has been treated appallingly for trying to have the conversation. Well done you!
Finally... a succinct & thorough examination of this "debate" that I've been reluctant to publicly weigh in on for fear of being sledgehammered. I've been quietly flying under the radar informing my opinion. This is the 1st time I've responded to it, because your "essay" was logical, well researched yet personal. This is personal. Thankyou so very much...from a Woman in the "Colony's". 🌏,☮️ &5⭐'s.
How sad these people are. It is about time that Stonewall have their charitable status removed and replaced with "Political Organisation"! I fear for the influence these people have over the lessons being taught in schools so must be stopped before too much damage is done to generations of children!
As a PhD Biologist I was taught to gollow the evidence. I didn't have a problem eith Gay people but the biological evidence is firm.
Initially the sexed brains thing made me think there was a biological basis to Trans. Then an excellent female scientist carefully and thoroughly debunked them. Most evaporated when a proper correction for the size differences was applied. Shoddy science initialy.
Not being expert in brain imaging (my brain Anatomy isn't bad) I had to trust the initial studies.
There are no biological bases for Trans known. The Trans genome project gave up with circa 30k genomes sequenced finding nothing. That I have some understanding of. The genome tools (online or on GitHub) are powerful and sophisticated. My youngest is a PhD Bioinformatician. I'm something of a molecular geneticist.
It's clear the huge increase in women fleeing womanhood is a combination social contagion come opportunity grasped (without understanding the dangers). Butch Lesbians seem an endangered group.
Thank you for your logical long form argument and for fairly crediting Marie.
Thank you for this well written perspective on the gender debate from the perspective of a gay man.
I would like to point out your incorrect use of the term “phenotype”, you use it as though it means “appearance” but it only refers to the characteristics a person (or any living thing has) as a result of his or her DNA.
For example my phenotype dictates that I have brown hair. If I dye my hair blonde it doesn’t change my phenotype it simply changes my appearance.
Having said that, I really enjoyed your writing and I look forward to further essays etc as you have a clear, concise way of writing.
(Sorry for the nit picking about phenotype - anal retentive is my middle name)
This isn't true. Phenotype is the set of physical characteristics or observable traits of an organism. It can be due to the genotype (we still know virtually nothing about the genoptype to phenotype map in any complex organism) but can also relate to environmental inputs.
Surely not changing one's hair colour using a dye, I think you mean environmental inputs that affect biology, in addition to genes. Otherwise the term feels a bit washed-out, no...
This article has put so much of what I’ve been struggling with into words.
I’m a straight white, middle class, well educated, well spoken woman and I’m constantly aware of the huge privilege I have. This has meant that I’ve tried to temper my burgeoning gender critical thoughts by telling myself “yes but it’s easy for you, you don’t understand the lived experience that trans women have”.
I grew up in a women’s only communal house in the 80s which was, unsurprisingly, peopled with mostly gay and bisexual women, many of whom had only realised they were gay later in life. Many of these women had suffered abuse and traumatic experiences at the hands of men. This has meant that feminism has always been front and centre in my mind and meant that I had a very clear understanding of how far behind we are as a society in terms of women’s rights, safety and even women’s right to define the female gender without the male gaze.
I’m usually really outspoken about my beliefs which, for so long have mirrored relatively strong left wing and inclusionary lines of thought, that I’ve been really struggling with my sense of my own cowardice when it comes to discussing this. I feel like I’m going to be attacked and vilified if I vary from the, seemingly now mainstream, “all women are women” stance.
For me the gender debate is further complicated by the fact that I’ve always really struggled with some of the eighties/90s gay culture where gay men started referring to each other as ‘she’ and women were caricatured bitchy, vapid, spiteful, and trampy. It made me so sad to see this start to permeate gay culture where it seemed that young gay men were being asked to almost emulate these traits in order to be seen as “gay”. Having grown up with lots of gay men and women who were outwardly the same as all the heterosexual people I knew, it was heartbreaking to see young men contorting themselves like this in order to fit in.
Watching these young, gay men create horrific caricatures of women for themselves has also meant that I’ve really struggled with the idea of allowing men to self define as women because that de facto means accepting their definition of what a woman is. Female drag is, in my opinion, an excellent of example (albeit writ large) of what happens when you allow men to pick out the characteristics of what they see as “woman”. The defining characteristics of womanhood for me have never included make up, bitchiness, dressing glamorously or being prissy. I’m aware that drag is much more complex than the way I’ve used it in this example but I think it does speak to how difficult it is to allow the male gaze to define what makes a woman.
Thank you for writing this article, I’m trying to find a way to be brave enough to share it and ask for people’s thoughts as a starting point to gaining clarity on my own.
As a gay man I share your disdain and sadness at the fabricated fake 'femininity' that a very tinny and extremely loud minority among us have felt compelled, often for self preservation reasons, to impose on themselves, while at the same time creating this ridiculous caricature of what it means to be 'stereotypically' gay. I have never ever, and I mean this, met an actual gay guy that was truly 'feminine', no matter how much they tried to act in whatever they associated with that 'femininity'. But I have met quite a few, in specific environments, that felt the need to either internalize this ugly image heterosexual males used to paint of us, or paradoxically they have done so as a psychological survival strategy, a strategy that allowed them to divorce themselves from the very thing that a homophobic society wants us to be, heterosexual males. Whem masculinity is identified with the heterosexual male it becomes like kryptonite for the gay male. I should know, I felt that pull and push as well. I was male, I was fully aware that I was male, but I was also fully aware that I was not heterosexual male. The idea that I'm expected to be didn't only terrified me, but it also disgusted me deeply. I'm not sure you can imagine just how much. When I was going through all of this between the ages of 12 and 18 I too was looking for ways to escape this pressure and fear. And I too have experienced what it means to try alternatives. But ultimately I was a male in my body in my sexuality and in my orientation for the same. And this natural sense of who I was literally saved me from a broken world that I have seen others for for. Now that a vocal portion of the trans community and their sexual or otherwise fans are using the same homophobic pressure that I experienced from heterosexuals when I was young, this makes me incredibly angry and sad. I have canceled my donations to several organizations after they decided to redefine what homosexuality is, a life of experience and lived truth, and reorient myself away from them for as long as they keep on attacking my community and way of life in the name of whatever ambition they might have.
Thank you for this comment; you are clearly a thoughtful and compassionate person.
You don't have to temper your thoughts or censor yourself because you are a white woman. The concept of privilege has just become another way to tell women to sit down and shut up. It's also a lot more complicated than it's portrayed in popular parlance.
A great read and a well-presented position. You and I are a similar vintage (I believe) and many of your milestones resonated strongly with me. Keep the Aspidistra Flying....and as your thinking is evolving and developing, keep it coming! What you have to say is felt in many of the silent majority who have had various fundamentally absurd ideologies rammed down our throats, which we felt obliged to accept, in the name of "inclusion", "equity" or "equality", rather than appear to be that exact thing we had worked so hard against in the 80's and 90's...bigotry! But a multi-coloured umbrella only fits in on a golf-course, while the rainbow umbrellas used to be something which united LGB people everywhere. Onwards, Duncan!
Wow. This is heartfelt. I as a straight woman in the 80s and 90s walked with my lesbian and gay friends. I supported their calls for equality. When the trans question came out I stood for trans rights then something changed. A feeling that something wasn't right, that some not all were literally trying to claim that they were something that they couldn't be that if they felt they were a woman they were. This worried me. You have put all my fears into the words I felt I couldn't say. Thank you for this. You are such a strong brave man
The whole concept of being trans is referring to yourself as a man or woman later in life, because they were uncomfortable being the opposite. So what do you even mean?
This is terrific. So clear, considered and well-written. And also heartfelt. The only sad thing is that certain people will almost certainly give you hate for it, while failing to come up with anything half so eloquent.
This is a brave and important piece of writing. I am bisexual and automatically backed trans rights - I saw myself as a progressive so of course I'd support this struggling minority. But it's clear that the trans rights movement has moved from protesting the violence and prejudice some trans people suffer to claiming that biological sex does not exist. And it doing so it places women (and gay men) in great danger.
Who is saying biology doesn't exist? If you're claiming that trans people are going around claiming this, you're lying.
Few do. Some unfortunately claim that a) post “transition” they have literally changed sex (false) and that b) sex is a “spectrum” (also false)
Most people don't think that. Even the actual medical experts regarding transition don't claim to change change chromosomes or grow wombs. So if a few people are saying something incorrect, then so what? There's tons of even worse medical misinformation going on. That's not an excuse to the demonize trans people collectively. There are people who even think the earth is flat. People are allowed to be wrong.
If true, then they don't believe "trans women are women" And should not use this phrase to dismantle single sex spaces.
Why is any criticism of any pro trans arguments "demonising" people? Or is that just an excuse to shut down debate?
Because "pro trans" arguments are arguing in favour of trans people living their lives with dignity. Arguing against that is arguing that trans people should not be able to do that. i.e. demonising them.
You're committing a fallacy here, equating the cricitisim of pro-tans arguments with arguing that trans people should not live their lives with dignity. Why do you believe this?
Hang on, I've known trans people for decades, and I've always believed they should live their lives with dignity, but that does not change established biological science, just ask any molecular geneticist you happen to know. Use facts, not emotion, please.
No. I have known trans people for decades from working in the Arts and I have never demonised them. I have always been in favour of them and everybody else on the planet living their lives with dignity. However, if one of them was to tell me that they are the same biologically as a cis gender woman (which they never have, it's just not something that's ever come up), I would be respectful, and just not say anything so as not to upset them, but in my mind I wouldn't be thinking "Oh, so established biological science is wrong after all". I'd just be thinking, no harm in not correcting them then and there is it means so much to them – but they are factually incorrect all the same.
Just as if they said the world was flat, I'd go..."Right...well..." and not change my opinion of the shape of the planet.
The claim that people can change sex is made by so many people today, trans activists and allies alike. You are simply using the motte and bailey fallacy right now - you are pulling back from the more extreme position of trans activists and claiming a more modest position when, in fact, the more extreme position is the goal for trans activists. In Canada, we have politicians in more than one political party who are saying that trans women are "adult human females" and that the dictionary definition of "woman" is transphobic hate speech.
On the subject of flat-earth belief, there's this recent satirical novel that's pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Flat-Simon-Edge-ebook/dp/B098KS95KX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2C33MAUC8NS9O&keywords=the+end+of+the+world+is+flat&qid=1641083745&sprefix=the+end+of+the+world+is+flat%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1
I take it then, Momiko, that you do not think that trans women are women?
I think David Lanny believes that men can grow a cervix once they identify as women
If "biological facts" are so important to radical feminists, it's odd then that they tend to tell people to shut up and get defensive when people speak bluntly and honestly about abortion, and medical professionals are even instructed to use politically correct language when talking about abortion, such as never use the word kill/killing to describe one. Kind of contradicts the whole biology angle.
And now a Straw Man enters the argument...
So how does that change the biological facts of male and female sex? It doesn't. Nor the Laws of Physics, or any other established science.
Sterilised and mutilated any children lately? Gosh your comments are not ageing well lol. Turns out, you’re on the side that destroys children’s healthy bodies and futures just to validate the perversions and fetishes of predatory AGP males who hate and envy women so much they want to take everything they have. I wonder if your opinions have changed, 2 years later.
You're the only person who brought up 'radical feminists'
There's a clear conflation in gender ideology (which of course a lot of trans people don't subscribe to and a lot of non-trans people do), of gender and biological sex. It's been adopted in government policies. The term "assigned sex at birth" which is in widespread use in NZ institutions, reflects a belief that, as Duncan says, that sex is not a description of a reality, but a construct assigned to the child, ie biological sex does not empirically exist. Our statistics department recently released standards that do distinguish between sex and gender but then goes on to say that biological sex can change over the course of a lifetime. I wish I was lying.
When a baby is born the doctor looks at their external genitalia and claims the child either male or female. The doctor is assigning the sex. This does not take into consideration that chromosomes cannot be seen, and a baby that has been designated as a particular sex based on their genitalia may be chromosomally very different. Now, think about how chromosomes affect the brain and the mental makeup of a human being, and perhaps you can see how trans people are the gender they claim they are.
NO doctor in a delivery room in a maternity hospital (or other situation where a MD is required to fulfil certain obligations under laws relating to the registration of births (in some circumstances, such as home birth, a midwife may be empowered to file the registration of the birth)) or elsewhere (depending on the location of birth), "assigns" a sex to a child. They "record" or "observe" the apparent sex of the baby following birth, while following certain protocols and tests necessary to determine the physical and medical condition of the baby.
Attending doctors are not empowered to "assign" a sex to a child.
If, in the very rare event there is a physiological situation which leads the doctor to realise there is some inconclusiveness or confusion regarding the observed sex of the child, the parents are consulted and the doctor will notify the parents/mother and then refer the case to a senior hospital officer/consultant or a team who will make full diagnostic determination. Depending on the extent of the physiological ambiguity (with reference to all diagnostic reports), any proposed treatments/interventions will either be discussed with, and approved by parental consent or, (and often it is a matter of hospital policy or local legislation) the case is referred to a committee (often referred to as an "ethics"/"medical reference" committee) who will advise the parents of options available.
Even at this point, the sex is not "assigned", and if necessary, the registration of the birth can be held "in abeyance" until an agreed treatment plan is determined.
The number of such births are still incredibly rare (for example in Ireland there were 58,443 births recorded in 2021, and I can only find references in some research papers to Irish births with genitalia anomalies amounting to 175 of these births (approx 3 in 1,000 births) in 2021).
It would be less disingenuous, more fruitful (and more correct!) if the pro-gender theory advocates stopped using this terminology. For a vast majority of births, the sex of the child, being a biological and observable physical determination, this is observed and then recorded. Factually, scientifically and biologically, it is impossible for a person "to be born in the wrong body", though later it is medically/psychologically possible to develop certain psychological/psychiatric conditions, the expressions of which can be the ideation that the individual believes they of a gender different to the biological sex into which they are born.
The vast majority of trans people have the chromosomes that match their biological sex. There isn't anything wrong with their chromosomes. They have body dysphoria, that's a fault in the brain, not chromosomes.
Genuine question (not bait) as I’ve seen this mentioned a few places. How common is it for someone to be born with chromosomes that don’t match their genitalia? Thanks, I’m pretty new to this whole subject
I find this Stats for gender website really useful for good unragey information. Here's the link to their information on DSD/intersex (though some separate those two things). https://www.statsforgender.org/dsd-intersex/
Thanks!
You should know that conflating persons with DSD with trans is a tactic of trans activists. People with DSD's are not cool with it.
https://hms.harvard.edu/magazine/lgbtq-health/body-self
Here is a paper from Harvard that explains it. It's really more common than we think.
Just to clarify, a Harvard alumni magazine article. I don't think it's useful to bring in intersex or DSD into discussion around trans. They're quite different phenomena. However, most people with DSDs have a male or female biological sex. Being actually part male and part female, or no sex at all, is extremely rare.
Thanks!
Medical tests can show the sex long before birth. Every cell in the body is a sexed one,
Yes, they are the gender they claim they are, but not the sex. Sex and gender are two separate things, as any molecular geneticist will tell you. If I believe I am an entirely new gender, then nobody can say I am. If I claim I am a different biological sex than am, well, science can call me out. The Right have denied established climate science for decades, now some on the Left are trying to do the same with biological science that has been established far longer. Sad.
Next – "Gravity is a social construct". "The Laws of Physics are a social construct", "The Moon not being flat is a social construct". Sorry, but established facts are not a social construct, they are established facts.
Thanks for this, Duncan.
I remember you from twitter and always appreciated your input. This essay is a very clear time line of the penny dropping and could potentially challenge even some if my most stubbornly righteous friends.
Thank you Duncan. I have also been on a journey on this trajectory. I'm a straight woman with many gay friends and an oldest and dearest friend is a trans man. I backed him all the way through his transition. I spent my youth in gay clubs partying with a mix of wonderful gay, bisexual, straight, transvestite and trans people. I knew which side I was on. I was angered by JK Rowling's comments which seemed to dismiss the painful experiences and feelings of trans women. I was angered by the suggestion that trans women were sexual predators just like I was angered years earlier by the suggestion that being gay meant sexual perversion. But I am also a feminist and I knew that biological sex matters. Something didn't feel right. Like you a discussion with a gender critical friend, and a lot of thinking and reading led me down the path you have described so well. I hope others follow.
JKR did not suggest that trans women were sexual predators. She said that if there are no rules about who identifies or claims to be trans, that biological males could enter women's spaces and some of them will be predators. They may not be the trans women at all. Though some will be because statistically trans women's stats are the same as any biological men's stats where it comes to crime.
There are cases where "trans women" prisoners have got women prisoners in the women's prison pregnant through rape. So I guess "biological sex" matters after all.
The debate reached its point of insanity when a cisgender male, who identifies as a woman and a lesbian, who has not fully transitioned, claimed on YouTube that "lesbians who refuse to date a lesbian with a penis are guilty of a hate crime". That's the sort of writing you'd expect on South Park.
Have you seen that a lot of similar things have been on South Park including Cartman putting a bow on his head so he can use the girl's toilet.
Haven't seen that but that's hilarious. But then, some poeple would say, if Cartman identifies as a female, who are we to say they are not? In fact, Cartman identifies as an idiot.
Season 18 Episode 3 - 'The Cissy'
Thanks!
Am stunned this has only just made national consciousness - and only because JK Rowling as raised it in her tweets. The other day I found the following article in The Economist from 2018 where it is discussed and the nuance of the difference between same sex attraction v same gender attraction and the nature of being a woman. I only found it as I have a 16yo gnc autie daughter who is clearly lesbian, but has been convinced she is trans since she was 12 - along with 50% of her peers - so I research stuff that might help her reframe what the TRA lobby tells her.
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/03/the-gender-identity-movement-undermines-lesbians
That was a great article, thanks
Beautiful clear writing - thanks.
This has really helped me as a heterosexual woman to articulate my feelings on the subject, I knew I felt uncomfortable about certain trans terminology but I didn’t know why. Thank you for helping me to figure this out. Quite simply I was fearful of asking in case I was accused of hate. I don’t hate anyone for being anything and I think we should all live in a way which makes us happy and fulfilled but we should also question without fear. I think JK Rowling has been treated appallingly for trying to have the conversation. Well done you!
Finally... a succinct & thorough examination of this "debate" that I've been reluctant to publicly weigh in on for fear of being sledgehammered. I've been quietly flying under the radar informing my opinion. This is the 1st time I've responded to it, because your "essay" was logical, well researched yet personal. This is personal. Thankyou so very much...from a Woman in the "Colony's". 🌏,☮️ &5⭐'s.
How sad these people are. It is about time that Stonewall have their charitable status removed and replaced with "Political Organisation"! I fear for the influence these people have over the lessons being taught in schools so must be stopped before too much damage is done to generations of children!
I have been saying this for over a year now. Stonewall is destroying society as we once knew it!
As a PhD Biologist I was taught to gollow the evidence. I didn't have a problem eith Gay people but the biological evidence is firm.
Initially the sexed brains thing made me think there was a biological basis to Trans. Then an excellent female scientist carefully and thoroughly debunked them. Most evaporated when a proper correction for the size differences was applied. Shoddy science initialy.
Not being expert in brain imaging (my brain Anatomy isn't bad) I had to trust the initial studies.
There are no biological bases for Trans known. The Trans genome project gave up with circa 30k genomes sequenced finding nothing. That I have some understanding of. The genome tools (online or on GitHub) are powerful and sophisticated. My youngest is a PhD Bioinformatician. I'm something of a molecular geneticist.
It's clear the huge increase in women fleeing womanhood is a combination social contagion come opportunity grasped (without understanding the dangers). Butch Lesbians seem an endangered group.
Thank you for your logical long form argument and for fairly crediting Marie.
Thank you for this well written perspective on the gender debate from the perspective of a gay man.
I would like to point out your incorrect use of the term “phenotype”, you use it as though it means “appearance” but it only refers to the characteristics a person (or any living thing has) as a result of his or her DNA.
For example my phenotype dictates that I have brown hair. If I dye my hair blonde it doesn’t change my phenotype it simply changes my appearance.
Having said that, I really enjoyed your writing and I look forward to further essays etc as you have a clear, concise way of writing.
(Sorry for the nit picking about phenotype - anal retentive is my middle name)
This isn't true. Phenotype is the set of physical characteristics or observable traits of an organism. It can be due to the genotype (we still know virtually nothing about the genoptype to phenotype map in any complex organism) but can also relate to environmental inputs.
Surely not changing one's hair colour using a dye, I think you mean environmental inputs that affect biology, in addition to genes. Otherwise the term feels a bit washed-out, no...
This article has put so much of what I’ve been struggling with into words.
I’m a straight white, middle class, well educated, well spoken woman and I’m constantly aware of the huge privilege I have. This has meant that I’ve tried to temper my burgeoning gender critical thoughts by telling myself “yes but it’s easy for you, you don’t understand the lived experience that trans women have”.
I grew up in a women’s only communal house in the 80s which was, unsurprisingly, peopled with mostly gay and bisexual women, many of whom had only realised they were gay later in life. Many of these women had suffered abuse and traumatic experiences at the hands of men. This has meant that feminism has always been front and centre in my mind and meant that I had a very clear understanding of how far behind we are as a society in terms of women’s rights, safety and even women’s right to define the female gender without the male gaze.
I’m usually really outspoken about my beliefs which, for so long have mirrored relatively strong left wing and inclusionary lines of thought, that I’ve been really struggling with my sense of my own cowardice when it comes to discussing this. I feel like I’m going to be attacked and vilified if I vary from the, seemingly now mainstream, “all women are women” stance.
For me the gender debate is further complicated by the fact that I’ve always really struggled with some of the eighties/90s gay culture where gay men started referring to each other as ‘she’ and women were caricatured bitchy, vapid, spiteful, and trampy. It made me so sad to see this start to permeate gay culture where it seemed that young gay men were being asked to almost emulate these traits in order to be seen as “gay”. Having grown up with lots of gay men and women who were outwardly the same as all the heterosexual people I knew, it was heartbreaking to see young men contorting themselves like this in order to fit in.
Watching these young, gay men create horrific caricatures of women for themselves has also meant that I’ve really struggled with the idea of allowing men to self define as women because that de facto means accepting their definition of what a woman is. Female drag is, in my opinion, an excellent of example (albeit writ large) of what happens when you allow men to pick out the characteristics of what they see as “woman”. The defining characteristics of womanhood for me have never included make up, bitchiness, dressing glamorously or being prissy. I’m aware that drag is much more complex than the way I’ve used it in this example but I think it does speak to how difficult it is to allow the male gaze to define what makes a woman.
Thank you for writing this article, I’m trying to find a way to be brave enough to share it and ask for people’s thoughts as a starting point to gaining clarity on my own.
As a gay man I share your disdain and sadness at the fabricated fake 'femininity' that a very tinny and extremely loud minority among us have felt compelled, often for self preservation reasons, to impose on themselves, while at the same time creating this ridiculous caricature of what it means to be 'stereotypically' gay. I have never ever, and I mean this, met an actual gay guy that was truly 'feminine', no matter how much they tried to act in whatever they associated with that 'femininity'. But I have met quite a few, in specific environments, that felt the need to either internalize this ugly image heterosexual males used to paint of us, or paradoxically they have done so as a psychological survival strategy, a strategy that allowed them to divorce themselves from the very thing that a homophobic society wants us to be, heterosexual males. Whem masculinity is identified with the heterosexual male it becomes like kryptonite for the gay male. I should know, I felt that pull and push as well. I was male, I was fully aware that I was male, but I was also fully aware that I was not heterosexual male. The idea that I'm expected to be didn't only terrified me, but it also disgusted me deeply. I'm not sure you can imagine just how much. When I was going through all of this between the ages of 12 and 18 I too was looking for ways to escape this pressure and fear. And I too have experienced what it means to try alternatives. But ultimately I was a male in my body in my sexuality and in my orientation for the same. And this natural sense of who I was literally saved me from a broken world that I have seen others for for. Now that a vocal portion of the trans community and their sexual or otherwise fans are using the same homophobic pressure that I experienced from heterosexuals when I was young, this makes me incredibly angry and sad. I have canceled my donations to several organizations after they decided to redefine what homosexuality is, a life of experience and lived truth, and reorient myself away from them for as long as they keep on attacking my community and way of life in the name of whatever ambition they might have.
Thank you for this comment; you are clearly a thoughtful and compassionate person.
You don't have to temper your thoughts or censor yourself because you are a white woman. The concept of privilege has just become another way to tell women to sit down and shut up. It's also a lot more complicated than it's portrayed in popular parlance.
A great read and a well-presented position. You and I are a similar vintage (I believe) and many of your milestones resonated strongly with me. Keep the Aspidistra Flying....and as your thinking is evolving and developing, keep it coming! What you have to say is felt in many of the silent majority who have had various fundamentally absurd ideologies rammed down our throats, which we felt obliged to accept, in the name of "inclusion", "equity" or "equality", rather than appear to be that exact thing we had worked so hard against in the 80's and 90's...bigotry! But a multi-coloured umbrella only fits in on a golf-course, while the rainbow umbrellas used to be something which united LGB people everywhere. Onwards, Duncan!
I thought I understood these things before...I didn't. Thank you for this. It is an unexpected happiness to learn these truths.