Why Do You Feel That Gender Ideology Should Be Logical?

Sometimes you know an article is going to be misunderstood.

The topic is too taboo, the point too nuanced, the facts too far removed from the popular narrative. I know in advance that no matter how carefully I choose my words, no matter how diligently I cite my sources, no matter how consice and logical the argument, somebody, somehow, will find a way to be mad.

But with my article, The Trouble With “Trans”, I honestly thought I was on pretty safe ground.

After all, my point was simply that the word “trans” means too many things to too many people. And that conversations about “trans” issues will always be fraught if we don’t learn to be more precise. Surely, nobody should be more concerned with differentiating genuine transgender people from the rapists and perverts seeking cover under the “trans umbrella” than transgender people. Right?!

Jas, who long-time readers might remember from this conversation, was happy to prove me wrong.

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Jas:

Why you feel so compelled to write about a subject matter you know nothing about is beyond me, but then again, you do that a lot. This would be the twentieth time writing about the trans community and its failings. I am sure you can write about what you actually know something about instead of writing and sharing misinformation, opinions, and commentary from gender-critical sources. Having read some of your previous essays and leaving a few responses, I stopped reading your pieces over a year ago. I have had trans friends mention some of your articles, but I tell them why waste my time. Another trans friend of mine said I really should read this particular one. I promised I would, so here I am.

Guessing we, the trans community, are the low-hanging fruit of this generation. We are the easy punchline, a political wedge issue, and the Black guy in the hoodie ready to mug you; instead of trying to understand the trans community, you choose to keep punching down.

It’s very showing that you want to pin us down to either “ a poor misgendered soul who just wants to pee or a dangerous predator intent on sneaking into women’s restroom.” As you refer to them, these simplistic stances are disseminated by people like you, the anti-trans, gender-critical people on social media, internet publications, and conservatives. You are correct that the trans community is not a monolith, but again you go straight to your cash cow, restrooms, prisons, and rape crisis centers. Your essays on the trans community and race are written for one purpose: to get views and make you money. I believe you are intelligent and purposely ignore all the information that proves that you keep publishing a false narrative.

First, you start with the debunked theories of Blanchard and his overused coined term autogynephilia. This is so easy, just keep sharing and keep the reader reading. I’m surprised you didn’t add Buffalo Bill as an example. Then you want to throw in the kitchen sink under the trans umbrella. OMG! this is so confusing; everybody is gender non-conforming. For laughs, let’s now mention Eddie Izzard, the male transvestite with “boob envy.” This is so easy you should write a “How To.”

Then you add Ritchie Herron, a person with mental health issues who says he was pushed to have gender-affirming procedures. Never mind that the article you share is probably 10% of the story if that much. But hey! It keeps your reader reading. Now let’s throw in a sex offender who happens to say he is trans. Why not? The trans umbrella is big enough.

To make things interesting, let’s add autogynephilic, transtrenders, and opportunistic predators when talking about trans rights. Great way to keep maligning our fight for equal rights.

Now let’s add a link to a piece written in a publication called 4W, created by a woman fired from her job for writing an article being critical of non-binary people. Reading their stuff is like being Black and reading an essay from a white nationalist publication

Then you state that people are unwilling to try to differentiate between a trans woman and a fetishistic predatory man. Why do you think that is? Maybe it’s because people like yourself write articles and essays that conflate trans women with rapists and perverts. It’s bad enough that Hollywood has made millions of dollars portraying killers, villains, rapists, and perverts as crossdressers.

I am sure you can see the correlation between the trans community and other marginalized groups, whether Gays, Blacks or Hispanics. Hollywood did a number on all of us. Your pieces are doing the same thing, and for what? Money.

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“I am sure you can see the correlation between the trans community and other marginalized groups, whether Gays, Blacks or Hispanics.”

There was so much mindreading, projection and bad-faith in this reply, that I didn’t get around to addressing this point, but no, I don’t see the correlation between the trans community and other marginalised groups at all. 

I mean, if you’d asked a black person during the civil rights movement, or a gay person during the fight for marriage equality, or a feminist during the suffragette movement, what rights they wanted, they’d have been able to tell you. They had clear, measurable aims that didn’t include policing how everybody spoke about them, erasing women’s right to privacy and safety or performing experimental surgery on children. 

The trans community regularly appropriates the language of other struggles, and has attached itself to lesbians, gays and bisexuals despite sharing none of their concerns. So the correlation between these groups? The only thing I can think of is that the bible-thumping Right doesn’t like any of them. 

But then, the bible-thumping Right hasn’t liked anybody since Reagan.

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Steve QJ:

I stopped reading your pieces over a year ago.

Yeah, I remember you. I quite enjoyed not having to explain my articles to you after the fact because you were unable to understand them the first time.

But just as you felt entitled to explain racism and privilege to me, I feel entitled to talk about an issue that, actually, I understand very well indeed.

And if you were able to read without going straight into your feelings, you'd notice that this article is an attempt to decrease the toxicity of this debate. The same aim I've had in each of my articles (far less than 20) on this topic.

It's so boring to just keep having the same childish argument. People like you demand that everything related to gender ideology, no matter how obviously problematic, be completely above criticism. Anything that isn't 100% affirming, anything that doesn't claim that the entire commuity is 100% perfect victims, anything that doesn't lie about the glaring flaws with gender ideology, is "punching down" on trans people.

If that's how you feel, then fine. I'm not even slightly interested in proving myself to you.

I'll just say that it's very telling that you think I'm the one pinning trans people down to either poor misgendered souls or dangerous predators. It's telling that you've just "read" an article explaining very clearly that transgender people are not predators but the category trans has become meaninglessly broad, a fact that hurts trans people most of all, and accuse me of conflating trans women and predators.

I'm doing literally the opposite of any of this. But you're not actually reading. Which, as I rememebr, is par for the course for you. So I won't waste any more time arguing with your caricature of what I'm saying.

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Jas:

It's the "I am not racist and then say something racist" but in your case it's I.m not transphobic then write something transphobic. You are so defensive about what you write but that come from your immaturity and not being able to accept feedback. You wrote this piece like you all your pieces kinda a quasi devils advocate. You want to play the middle but you always veer in the direction you most believe in. You look at things and try to be objective but you are not good at it.

Are there problems in the trans community? sure just as there are problems in every communities. You write from your lived cis perspective and you judge from a reference point of a someone just walking up to the riots at Stonewall. You talk to few people, judge what is going on not knowing anything about what lead up to it. Then try to write an objective piece thinking you have both sides and do a Trump and write there are good and bad people on both sides. Because you were not part of that community of trans and gay people at Stonewall your piece will never be objective. Just as your essays on the trans community always leans cis. You writing about the trouble with trans would be like me writing about the trouble wth the Black community. Sure I can do the same thing you do but that would be stupid of me to try as I don't live a Black experience.

Having written what I have written I know it's difficult for anyone who is trans to be objective about a piece written by someone outside the community. What you don't understand many in the trans community especially the middle and late transitioners know what our problems are and they are not the issues you state. What you write about is the fringe. The biggist problem we have is being judged due the people on the edges. It's like judging the pie based on the edge of the crust. It's like the unarmed POC who get shot by racist cop being blamed for making them scared. The trouble with trans is not us, it is how the larger cis straight community judges our fringe. All you do is highlight the fringe and blame us for our fringe.

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Steve QJ:

You talk to few people, judge what is going on not knowing anything about what lead up to it.

I suspect you're too narcissistic to appreciate this point, but do you notice how much time you've spent in this reply telling me, a complete stranger, what I have and haven't done and do and do not think? I know from experience that this is your M.O., but trust me when I tell you you aren’t nearly as insightful as you imagine yourself to be.

I'm not trying to play the middle. I never have. I write what I believe to be true. And I'm not being defensive, unless you think defensiveness is anything other than saying, "Ah yes, you're right oh wise one," when somebody half reads what you've written and then projects their insecurities onto it.

The reason my article is not like writing "the trouble with the black community" is that I'm not writing about the trans community at all (this is what I meant when I suggested you hadn’t understood the article). If you wrote an article called the trouble with "Black" and were talking about how that single word conflates a whole bunch of people with different ancestries and cultures and perspectives, it might even be interesting.

I'm writing about a word, "trans," which has become hopelessly overloaded. I say this verbatim in the article. I'm talking about how this word, and the various ideas various people have in their head when they say it, makes it almost impossible to have an honest, sensible, compassionate conversation about trans issues.

Some people, when they hear the word "trans" think only of perverted men in dresses trying to sneak into woman's spaces. Some people think only of transvestites. Some think only of people who transitioned with no regrets and are perfectly happy. Some think only of their trans friends who would never hurt a fly and just wants to live their lives in peace.

ALL of these interpretations describe real people. But none of them, obviously, describes the trans community as a whole. And if you're trying to talk to somebody whose interpretation is different to yours, and don't establish what you're talking about, you end up taking past each other. This is especially true when you have people trying to set policy with these conflicting definitions.

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Jas:

Am I narcissistic? I believe any person AMAB, who went through male socialization and who self identifies as a A personality will have issues with narcissism. Being a late transitioner letting go of the many toxic male personality traits or habits that were learn and honed has been challenging to say the least. Coming out as trans in 2000 at 38 has given me over 20 years to recognize, unpack and let go of many of these traits or habits. It also have given me the ability to recognize these same traits or habits in others, especially in cis men. I am guessing what you see in me in my responses is what you see in yourself.

You are correct, your piece is about the trouble with the term trans and what it means to people, cis people mainly. The Trans umbrella is big and some say getting bigger as more and more gender variations are being created. What we are witnessing is a growth of the human experience. We moving beyond the binary that has stayed stagnant for centuries.

Being trans my perspective on the trans community is different than cis people in that I am not fearful of it. I understand that just because someone is trans doesn't negate them from being just like any other human. Trans people just any other human can kill, steal, cheat, lie and assault someone. We can make decisions and regret them later. We can be racist, homophobic and transphobic. We can show our explicit and implicit biases.

Your written words, your perspective is from a cis perspective that is fearful. So fearful you want to define it but one word is not good enough for you. To you "Trans" is not good enough anymore because when cis people hear trans they think of the fringe. Sure some people have trans friends, neighbors, co-worker and relatives and these trans people are fine and great. But the rest of them are preverts, child molesters, grommers, and rapist.

The trouble with the word trans have nothing to do with the trans community. We are just human like all other humans. While you try to center your piece on the term and how people perceive it you give examples after example of the people on the fringe and whose fault is that? Not the trans community. It's people like you, these are your word.

But when it comes to policies that affect the privacy and safety of women, when vulnerable teenagers are encouraged to undergo life-changing surgery, when a single word describes people who pose no threat and people who clearly do, shouldn’t we all want to be more precise?

Trans community is very small compared to the cis population. There are more trans people assulted and killed than there are trans people that assault people. We need more protection from cis people that cis people need protection from us. Children and teens are not encouraged to undergo life changing surgeries. They are encouraged not to and should they still insist they wait until they are adults. Trans doesn't describe people that pose a threat.

You are no better than the gender-critical person or the racist, or homophobe down the street. Trans is just a word just like Gay, Black, Latino and Asian.

Didn't you write in your piece Illusion of Blackness

"Should we say that the actions of a tiny percentage of criminals are a reflection on the millions of decent, law-abiding black people?"

There are way more cis men that are White, Black, Asian and Latino that commit more violence against women and trans people. If a cis man wants to commit violence against a woman no space is safe. More abortions and cosmetic procedures are done to vulnerable teens than gender affirming care is given to trans kids. There are more laws passed in this past year than ban trans kids from participating in girls sports than there are out trans kids K-12.

Cis people have created the trouble of the word trans. Just like White people created the trouble with Black and POC and your piece is an example of it.

Your title should have been How Cis People have turned Trans into a slur. Just as many in the Black community say that racism is a White problem as they created and prepetuate it, so is how you and other cis people believe trans is overloaded and combines the good and the bad and you can't differentiate between a trans woman and a predatory man. Yah! and all Black men look alike.

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Steve QJ:

Being trans my perspective on the trans community is different than cis people in that I am not fearful of it.

Here's something I've noticed about the trans people I encounter online. It's as if you're absolutely desperate to believe that everybody who sees the gaping logical inconsistencies within gender ideology is either fearful or, preferably, hateful. Maybe because if we don't hate you, if we're decent, thoughtful people who aren't the least bit bigoted, you might have to grapple with the fact that we have a point. The "monstering" of JK Rowling for crimes none of the people who hate her can articulate is a good example of this.

I don't hate or fear trans people in the least. I don't know a single "cis" person who is hateful of trans people (though I certainly wouldn't deny that these people exist). And as it applies to individuals I don’t care about defining “trans” at all. I’m not the tiniest bit interested in the infinite regression of words teenagers invent to describe how their “gender” feels that day. But as it applies to policy and laws, as it applies to the changes being demanded to women’s boundaries or the medicalisation of children, yes I think it matters.

I don't think minors should be having life-changing surgery or taking life-changing medications except in the most carefully assessed cases of need (please don’t “safe and reversible” me here, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are neither). I don't think we should redefine "woman" to include any male who says he is one without some simple, common sense safeguards. Safeguards that used to exist! I think, for example, that the legal definition of woman should unambiguously exclude me as I currently am. And it doesn't.

I also think you're demonstrably wrong when you say that what we're witnessing is a growth of the human experience. You think that after ~200,000 years we've figured out something new about the human experience?? Especially with regards to gender identity? What we're seeing now is the same stuff we've seen for thousands of years. Some of it dressed up in different clothes.

The rejection of gender norms isn't new. We've seen it in various cultures for thousands of years. I think this is unreservedly a good thing. And interestingly, in all those ancient cultures, whether the various two-spirit identities or the Muxe or the Hijras, they never lost track of what a woman was as they embraced these new identites.

Gender dysphoria isn't new. It's likely existed since the dawn of humanity. Even in the West, it's been recognised since the mid-1800s or so. And yet it's only since some bright spark decided that being a woman was entirely self-diagnosable by any man at any time, and needed to be immediately legally validated, that the issue of trans inclusion became controversial.

Kids grappling with their identity certainly isn't new. We've seen it with goths and hippies and punks. We see that in these groups, too, suicide ideation is far higher than normal for their age. Because children struggling with their identity will often gravitate towards a new "outsider" group and will often have higher rates of depression/anxiety/OCD. We used to support these kids whilst leaving them free to explore and figure themselves out as adults. Now we give them hormones and cut off their breasts.

But you know what is relatively new? The idea that men don't have to be "men" and women don't have to be "women." In the fifties, a boy would be called a girl as a pejorative if he liked flowers or dresses. Never mind if he was gay. Women weren't allowed to wear trousers, and certainly not to enter into "men's" professions. No women in the army, no women as CEOs, no women as the breadwinners in their families. Boys played with trucks and wore blue, girls played with dolls and wore pink. Girls were pretty and sparkly and soft. Boys liked "rough and tumble" games and "'took charge." Blah, blah, blah.

All of this was slowly changing. We were finally wrapping our collective heads around the fact that none of these things made you a man or a woman. You could just be yourself. And then, right on cue, gender ideology came along and taught kids those same regressive ideas all over again in new language.

And yes, funny you mention my piece, The Illusion of Blackness. I was chuckling to myself as I wrote it because of the similarities between this piece and that one. My point in both is that using a single word to provide cover for people whose intentions and actions are very different is a problem. It's funny that you don't see this. Consider this paragraph:

"But there are no gangsters in my community. There are no murderers on my team. I feel no solidarity with people who kill innocent black men, women and children, regardless of the colour of their skin."

The entire piece was saying that black people shouldn't be afraid to call these other black people out. That they harm our community and its acceptance. And that the idea that it's racist to talk honestly about them and the crimes they commit is ridiculous. It's you who is saying that it's transphobic to differentiate between perverts and fetishists and people like Nikkie de Jager. It's you who is searching for excuses to ignore the rapists seeking cover under the trans umbrella. If you understood that piece, you understand this one too. You’re just not thinking.

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Jas:

Why do you feel that gender ideology should be logical and shouldn't have inconsistencies? I find it interesting that you believe people should be as logical as mathematics. Everyone that is trans shares one thing and that is an in congruence between the sex they were assigned at birth and their gender. Every trans person experiences that incongruencey differently. Why is that so hard for you and gender-critical people to understand. You experience your Blackness differently than other Black people, You share the same the social construct called race but every person in the Black community experiences it differently. It's no different in the LatinX, Asian and Gay communities.

So you are a endocrinologist? Please what do you know about puberty blockers? Puberty blockers have been around for over 50 years, so you know more that people that prescribe them? And you call me narcissistic. No one under 18 is being prescribed HRT. Why do keep promoting this idea that kids under 18 are getting gender affirming surgeries. This is not happening, they are getting gender affirming care. They are getting therapy to deal with their gender incongruence. They are getting help socially transitioning. If you don't know what that means it s living and presenting in public as their true gender. They are introduced to other trans kids in their communities to help them learn how to deal with transphobia in school. Lastly with the permission of their parent or parents, therapist and endocrinologist they can be on blockers. At 60 I couldn't get the surgeries I wanted without a psychologist, my therapist and my endo submitting evidence (letters) that first I was in good mental and physical health and that I suffered from gender incongruence. This belief that you and other gender -critical people have that kids under 18 are having life changing gender affirming surgeries is ludicrous.

Where did this "define a woman" crap come from? Where else, from the gender-critical people. This is as destructive as colorism. What I have issue with is people trying to conflate sex and gender. Female is sex and woman is gender. Currently the definition of woman is an adult female. That definition will change in the near future as language evolves. I cringe when trans people say they are female. All we can do is try to educate. I also cringe when trans people who still live as men call themselves trans women. Again all we can do is educate them that they have to first live as a woman.

Funny how you want to define what I meant by "witnessing is a growth of the human experience." Yes trans people have been around since humans has walk this earth. Each cultural had to learn and came up with ways to integrate us into the tribe. Some were seen as women, some as priest, some as healers and some as devine entities. What I mean by a growth of the human experience is a distruption. A moving away or letting go of the binary. I have no idea what that will look like but we are seeing the begining of it. It will probably take another century but things like this don't happen in a couple of generation.

I am done. This excerise was not meant to change your mind only you can do that. I just wanted to get to place where you just put it all out there. You seriously have a problem with trans, you just can't understand someone having a gender incongruence. It make no sense to you. That's OK I have no idea what it is like to be cis. I lived it or at least tried for 54 years. I have no idea what it is like to be female or a woman. I only know what it is like to me. I feel more congruent now than I ever have, thank you HRT and body modifcations. No one really wants to be trans. Why you and the gender-critical folks want to make things more difficult for us I don't know, we have our own problems. Take care Steve

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“This belief that you and other gender-critical people have that kids under 18 are having life changing gender affirming surgeries is ludicrous.”

I often write about the problems with echo chambers, and the trans bubble is one of the most airtight, truth-repellant echo chambers I’ve ever come across.

Part of that is the insistence that anything “gender-critical” people say is “hate.” But in the case of older trans people like Jas, I think it’s because it’s genuinely unbelievable how much things have changed since they transitioned.

Yes, the idea that kids under 18 are having life-altering surgeries is ludicrous. Sadly, it’s also true.

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Steve QJ:

Why do you feel that gender ideology should be logical and shouldn't have inconsistencies?

Because policy and laws are being built around it. It seems you're not getting this simple point. As I've said over and over again, I couldn't care less about the existence of this incoherent ideology. Any more than, for example, I care about the existence of Christianity. I could spend hours writing about how incoherent and illogical religion in general is. But why bother? People can believe whatever they want to believe.

However, if those beliefs were used to legislate society as a whole, if it became a legal requirement to go to church or a mosque on the Sabbath and worship, if any criticism of religious ideas became forbidden or was treated as bigotry (Salman Rushdie springs to mind), if laws were being written on the basis of these incoherent ideas, then I would speak up. Not as an attack on Christian or Muslim people, but as a defence of a society that runs on rules that make sense.

And it's not just about how it affects my life. Religions are almost universally misogynistic. If a strict interpretation of the Bible or the Quran was used to guide policy (the Taliban spring to mind) the resulting society would be a disaster for women. I'd speak up against this too.

This is a really important point that it seems you're not getting. Some of my dearest friends are Christians and Muslims. I think they're wonderful people. But I think some of the ideas in their religions are ridiculous and harmful (I've read the Bible and the Quran from cover to cover). And I would fight against those ideas being imposed on society in general.

I often wonder if the trans people I speak to are really unaware that children under 18 can get double mastectomies. In fact, children as young as 12 have had them. I wonder if your echo chambers are so well sealed that these facts don't get in. Probably. You just get told over and over again that people who are better informed than you are, "hate" you, right? Here's some light reading that you'll probably ignore. Here's the Mayo clinic saying that HRT typically begins at 16. I'm absolutely aghast at how many trans people I talk to don't know this stuff. A lot has changed since you transitioned. Which is why people are speaking up now who didn't speak up then.

As for people conflating sex and gender, I hate that too. But then you might want to have a word with some of your fellow gender ideologues. They'd savage you for admitting that a woman is an adult human female, even if you believe that definition will change. I've lost track of the number of times I've been speaking to a trans person or an "ally" and had to remind them that sex and gender are different. That it used to be the trans community that pointed this out. Here's a fun case in point.

Again, you try to insist that I have a problem with trans people even after I pointed out that I don't. Isn't it embarrassing that this is the only card you have to play? That disagreement is hate? Say it as often as you want. Repeat it to yourself like mantra. Wish upon a star every night. It's not true. And won't become true. I don't hate you or any trans person. I have no wish to control what you believe. I have no wish to stop you from getting the surgery and hormones you need. I want you to live your life free from discrimination. But some of your ideas are demonstrably harmful when applied to society at large. If you were better informed, you might even agree.

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It’s interesting speaking to older trans people, because they seem much less aware of what’s going on with trans healthcare today than their younger, more brainwashed counterparts. I wonder, if I could show her the things that are happening in the name of gender ideology, whether she’d admit that there’s a problem.

I wonder what Jas would say if she realised that under-18s are being put on irreversible hormones and having radical double mastectomies. I wonder how she’d feel if she knew that all of the safeguarding that was in place when she transitioned has been wilfully dismantled.

Most importantly, I wonder if she really believes there’s been a spontaneous, unprovoked surge in anti-trans sentiment from across the political spectrum. Or does some part of her wonder why, after decades of transsexual people living their lives in peace, there’s a sudden wave of pushback where women’s rights and children’s safety are concerned?

At what point does she ask herself if there’s something she’s misunderstood?