Let's Start With The Transphobia

A few days ago, Richard Dawkins posted the following observation on Twitter:

“Sex is not the same as gender.”

But it’s not your gender that gives you the physique to tower over woman athletes & break their swimming records. It’s your sex. It’s not your undressed gender that upsets women in changing rooms. It’s your sex.

You can’t eat your cake & have it.

Several commenters thought Dawkins had made an insightful point here. But I have to admit, I was left thinking, “Come on, isn’t that obvious??”

In my article, The Degrading Message Behind Dylan Mulvaney’s Daily Misogyny, I made what I thought was another fairly obvious point. Namely, that choosing a misogynistic attention-seeking grifter as a representative for your ailing brand probably isn’t going to end well for you.

One commenter asked if I’d been deleting replies because everybody in the comments agreed with this fairly common-sense take.

And Kitten wanted me to know that at least one more person didn’t find the point obvious.

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Kitten:

I also object to a lot of the not-so-veiled transphobia throughout the article.

Your handwringing about the supposed easyness of a gender incongruity diagnosis has no basis in reality and your claim that the right-wing view on gender as the sane or permissive one is laughable.

I also fail to see how bashing trans femme people in general for the vapidness of a single influencer could help the discussion when social media is filled with that much adult cis girls doing the exact same thing and a whole host of super-alpha-extreme-for-real men who sell the opposite product to impressionable teen boys.

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Steve QJ:

“I also fail to see how bashing trans femme people in general”

I could have highlighted pretty much any part of this reply and asked the same question, but where, exactly, did I do this?

Where do I bash trans femme people in general? Where is the "thinly-veiled transphobia"? Where did I support the "right-wing view" on gender? Where did I suggest that because I have a problem with Mulvaney, I support the "super-alpha-extreme" crap being peddled to young boys?

For somebody who presumably thinks nothing is binary, you sure seem to think in binaries.

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Kitten:

Let's start with the transphobia and your bashing of trans femme people

- The first verb you use to describe Dylans actions is "imitating" i.e not being genuine. This sets the tone four all your descriptions of trans femme people. They always seem to perform stereotypical femininity, never embodying womanhood

- A paragraph later you link to a piece from Raquel Sánchez who describes trans women as men

- Next you compare living a cliched femininity as a trans person to blackface, in turn invalidating being trans at all

- The phrasing "many trans women don't engage in Dylan's degree of parody" implies that they still parody womanhood instead of living it

- You worry about gender non-conforming kids being forced to transition, another transphobic talking point

- You also quote Germaine Greer who does not believe that trans women are women at length about giving birth, contrasting faux stereotypical femininity to the essential femaleness of having kids and breastfeeding (a rather regressive idea about cis women)

Next, the part about the right wing view point:

- You put the word hate in scarequotes despite people literally using guns to shoot objects portraying the face of a human being, while the rhetoric surounding trans people has become incredibly hateful

- You call the common-sense point to not impose strict gender roles on kids right-wing and transphobic, making trans rights out to clash with the right of kids to be themselves despite all of the stuff the right actually does to enforce a strict gender binary

I also critisized the part where you singled out one trans person for the ills of gender binaries and you somehow took this as me accusing you of being pro-alpha-male bullshit. That was not what I meant.

Lastly, the gotcha about me thinking in binaries feels a bit flat, I feel I have tried hard to apreciate what little subtleness and complexity your piece had. But sure, why not accuse me of being another one of those fanatical one-sided trans people, that sure seems to play well with your audience...

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Steve QJ:

“The first verb you use to describe Dylans actions is "imitating"”

Well, once again I could have highlighted almost any line, but this time I'd have to ask; do you understand the very basics of context? Or is a fair reading of what I wrote too much to ask in the Twitter age?

I use the word "imitating" before I mention Dylan at all. Though, to be fair, I don't think Dylan's actions are genuine. This isn't transphobia, it's recognising an obvious grifter. Dylan tried on a bunch of identities post-pandemic, and "girl" happened to gain traction. If you think that schtick is genuine I have a bridge to sell you.

Your issues with the people I quoted are suffering from the same binary thinking I mentioned earlier. Germaine Greer has said a great many things I disagree with. Many of them about men. But I think she's spot on when she points out that femininity and femaleness are different things (I suspect you agree with this, even if from the opposite direction). I'm quite comfortable agreeing with people on some things and disagreeing with them on others. Let's say that my agreement with her is on a spectrum.

I don't call the common sense point not to impose strict gender roles on kids "right wing." I say that this common sense advice is now often misrepresented as "right wing" or transphobic. Which it is. I've been writing and talking on this topic for more than long enough to see how reflexively and insincerely people describe anything that's not wholly affirming of gender dogma as "hate."

And if you actually read the sentence that follows, you'll see that I acknowledge that the people firing guns into cans of Bud Light clearly have issues. But that very obviously doesn't represent the majority of people.

All the rest of your points follow the same theme, which is taking a criticism of Dylan and claiming that it's a criticism of "all trans femme people." This, ironically enough, is what you accused me of. Are your criticisms of me criticisms of all black people? Of course not.

Dylan describes "Day 1 of "girlhood" using a series of reductive, inaccurate and offensive stereotypes. This, essentially, is what blackface is. So I criticised Dylan, not all trans people, for doing so.

And yes, of course I worry about gender non-conforming kids being pressured to transition or being led down the wrong path when they're impressionable and vulnerable. This should be a normal human concern for any minimally thinking adult. Because these procedures are permanent, carry significant risk of complication, and require life-long medicalisation. Describing this very obvious concern as a "talking point" is absolutely ghoulish (especially as it's borne out with the growing number of detransitioners speaking out, and the various scandals around centres for gender affirming care like Tavistock and Vanderbilt).

It is, believe it or not, possible to want trans people to get the care they need and to also see how cult-like, irresponsible and greedy some people have become on this issue.

Lastly, yes, the rhetoric on both sides of trans discourse has been getting pretty nasty for a while now. I suspect we mostly see opposite sides of it. But suffice it to say there's no shortage of vitriol, misogyny and violence coming from trans activists both on Twitter and in real life. It's wildly disingenuous to pretend that trans people (or at least trans activists) are blameless for the toxicity of current trans discourse.

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Kitten:

*Sigh* Why do I bother?

I had written a longer text addressing your various points, but the website lost it, so let's summarize:

It's hard to believe anyone would decry the fake authenticity of one influencer when it's literally the job description for all of them and I find it much more likely that you wanted publicity by going after an acceptable trans target and do not have the writing skills necessary to at least pretend it's not an attack on trans people in general convincingly.

I would have liked for you to actually address the points I made instead of declaring them a theme, somehow switching the fact that I critized you for attacking all trans people to me doing that and calling it irony.

I would also have liked a your views on why it's somehow on me to weigh the whole of your soul and it's celestial non-binarity (which seems to mean that you do not have to use logic in your arguments) before critizing the fact that you quote transphobes on transphobia, when you could just use citations like the rest of us does: As an endorsement of the views therein, unless framed by words contrasting them with your oppinion.

Finally, I would have liked some actual source other than your asserted imense experience with this topic on the huge problem of people forced to transition. Of course I empathize with people whose body does not align with their gender identity after having gone through the same thing and am strongly in favor of good medical practise to support the individual making an important decision, but focusing exclusively on the problem of unwarranted intervention with negative outcomes just so happens to conceal the problem of trans people being prevented from getting the neccesary information and power to make such an informed decission. Also, there is a general lack of knowledge regarding the actual medical guidelines and procedures and a lot of fact-free fearmongering on the right. That's why it's a right-wing talking point.

So in short, I asked for substance over blustering rhetorics and for a well-written argument instead of claims about who you truly are and what moves you.

I know it sounds harsh, but I do not do an extensive character study of each author on medium to explore their psyche - I read the pieces they write. If they are great or truly suck, I sometimes write a comment -- not because I hate the person on the other end of the screen, but because I love good texts and wish they write better ones.

Pity the website ate my answer. But I guess this exchange has left the esteemed fellow reader with enough to come to their own conclusions.

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Steve QJ:

“I find it much more likely that you wanted publicity by going after an acceptable trans target”

Well, what you find likely isn't really at issue here is it? You're talking to the person who wrote the piece. If you've already decided you understand my thoughts and motivations better than I do, well, hopefully you can see the problems with that line of thinking for yourself. And if you can't, there was no need to comment in the first place, was there?

I'm decrying the fake authenticity of this particular influencer because this particular influencer was invited to the White House as a representative of trans people. Because this particular influencer was at the centre of this particular controversy. And because this particular influencer is arguably the most famous and influential "trans" person in the world today. I'm constantly bemused by how trans people and their allies would rather attack criticism of the grifters and misogynists speaking in their name (and harming public perceptions of trans people as a whole) than speak up themselves.

Because most people don't know a single trans person. Like, the vast majority of people. So whether you like it or not, millions of opinions about trans people are being formed by the Mulvaneys of the world. Add to that the offensiveness and the misogyny, and yes, I think writing about it is relevant.

Anyway, I think I did address your criticisms, though yes, when they followed a theme, I thought it more efficient to just address the theme.

1. You criticised me for quoting Greer and Sánchez because they've said some things you disagree with. I responded by saying that I often quote people who I disagree with on certain other points. I find this all or nothing attitude to agreement truly baffling.

Given this conversation, it seems we disagree significantly about sex/gender/etc. But you also seem like a smart, reasonable person who I'm sure I'd agree with on lots of other things. This shouldn't be hard to understand.

2. You repeatedly described my criticisms of Dylan as "bashing of trans femme people." The irony lies in the fact that you're accusing me of generalising one insincere trans person out to the entire "trans femme" community when, in fact, you're generalising criticism of one insincere trans person out to criticism of the entire "trans femme" community. Dylan is not all trans femme people. I'm aware of that in my criticisms. Are you?

3. I don't think it's on you to "weigh the whole of my soul." No idea what you're talking about here.

4. Finally some agreement. Although you're putting words in my mouth. I'm not saying people are forced to transition. Nobody is holding anyone down and cutting off their breasts or injecting them with hormones. I'm saying that young, impressionable people (often girls) are having false, incoherent ideas about sex and gender presented to them as answers to their feelings of discomfort during puberty or as an answer to sexual trauma they've experienced, again, often during puberty.

They're being sold on an identity that will not only make them reliant on the medical industry for the rest of their lives but that many of them will have to spend the rest of their lives trying to convince other people to play along with. It's incredibly hard for me to believe that you're unaware of this, but if you are, read r/detrans on reddit. Look up Chloe Cole or Sinead Watson or Elle Palmer or Ritchie Herron or Laura Becker or Abel Garcia or Keira Bell (see also the class action lawsuit against the Tavistock clinic) and these are just from memory, give me time and I could pretty much do this all day.

Look at the Vanderbilt clinic, (which I also mention by name if you were interested in where I was getting my information) who admitted in a hastily deleted video to seeing trans kids as a "big money maker." The "actual medical guidelines" and what is actually happening are wildly at odds with each other in many, well-documented cases.

Heck, just type "detrans stories" into Google.

This isn't to say that there aren't people who have gender dysphoria and for whom transition is an effective way of treating that discomfort. It's to say that many activists in the trans community label all attempts to differentiate between these two cohorts as "hate" or "transphobia" or "conversion therapy." And for many reasons, differentiating between them is important.

Lastly, no, it doesn't sound harsh that you don't do an extensive character study of everybody you read. Only an insane person would expect you to do that. Which is why I find it so strange that you expect me to agree with everything somebody else has written to agree with them on a single point. A quote of a statement is an endorsement of that statement. Not of everything the person who made it ever said.

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One of the (many) great ironies of trans discourse is that trans activists and “TERF”s should, on most issues, be on the same side.

If trans women want to be taken seriously, they should be just as invested in calling out the grifters and misogynists as TERFs. If trans women want to use women’s spaces, they should be just as invested in keeping them safe from rapists and perverts as TERFs. If trans women want to gain women’s trust, they should be more invested than TERFs when it comes to calling out the fakers.

I mean, come on. Isn’t that obvious??