A Rebuttal to Ms Black & Ms. Rayner: Anti-feminist Politicians with Lazy Thinking? Part II

Politicians Angela Rayner and Mhairi Black have denied the relevance of biological sex to the protection of women’s rights. Dr Em responds.

Part one available here.

If transgenderism is progressive then Iran must be the most progressive place on earth. Iran is a world leader on changing gender identity. A gay man or lesbian woman faces the death penalty but a man who is ‘really’ a woman in a man’s body and vice versa fairs much better. As the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated at Columbia University ‘In Iran, we do not have homosexuals like in your country’. Countries which are acknowledged to be the worst to be same-sex attracted in are leading the way in trans rights. Iran is in fact described as ‘a hub for sex-change surgery’ ¹ and Pakistan is quickly creating a cultural acceptability that if one does not conform to sexist stereotypes one is born in the wrong body. ²

Indeed, transgenderism entails that homosexuality can’t exist — if we self –identify to be a man or a woman regardless of sex then how can one be attracted to a single sex? This is how men with penises argue that lesbians should have sex with them because they identify as a woman. They describe their male genitalia as a ‘lady dick’. Heterosexual men — complete with penises and beards — argue with feminists that if lesbians would not have sex with them then it is bigotry and transphobic because they identify as a woman. Regularly women online are told to ‘suck my lady d***’. ³ For example, Jazmin Frost claims that ‘Cis dudes, there’s no shame in being attracted to trans women. Also, liking lady-dick doesn’t somehow make you gay!’ ⁴ Thus, homosexual attraction is erased, homosexuality ceases to exist. One ‘Zoë‏WhoMaker’ insists that ‘lesbians love trans lesbian lady dick..i for 1 want to say thank u Cameron and i’ll share mine with u anyday baby’. ⁵ Another trans person with the screen name ‘justmythoughts‏’ argues ‘naw bro it’s a womens dick so unless you take that lady cock in you you hate trans people and want them in death camps’. ⁶ One trans individual, Chrissy Valentine, assures us that ‘It took me one look at you over the internet even to know you’d be quite fine with a beautiful trans women’s pretty little lady dick’. ⁷ One trans individual using the nom de jure ‘SkepticalMilfXX’ ‏told a lesbian to ‘Have your trans girlfriend rub her balls and dick on your face until you realize how awesome it is?’ ⁸ One ‘Sleepy-Queers’ informed Tumblr that ‘the definition of lesbian is “Woman Who Exclusively Loves Women” not “Female Homosexual”. ⁹ Trans is a men’s rights movement which erases women’s sexual boundaries.

Transgender ideology and your proposition (that male words override reality) Ms. Black is also problematic for Rape cases. Described as ‘Sex by Deception’ the act of deceiving another person into consenting to sex which they otherwise, in full possession of the facts, would not consent to is rightly considered Rape. For example, Gayle Newland was convicted of rape and imprisoned for eight years for pretending to be a man to trick her friend into sex. ¹⁰ However, Stonewall argues that people identifying as Transgender should in effect get a free pass and their feelings should trump other people’s boundaries and sexual orientation. Stonewall comments regarding sex by deception that

cases involving trans people and gender identity issues have revealed an alarming lack of clarity around trans people’s rights and obligations to disclose or not disclose their trans history to their sexual partners. These cases demonstrate that it is possible for non-disclosure of a person’s trans status to impair the validity of consent. This leaves a great many trans individuals at risk of prosecution for a criminal offence. It is, however, still unclear as to whether the courts regard this to be the case for a trans person who has undergone medical transition, and it is further greyed by whether or not an individual can be defined as trans, based on their appearance, by the court. Clarity is urgently needed. ¹¹

Stonewall is in effect arguing that it is a trans person’s right to, for example, pretend to be a woman, seduce a lesbian, and then penetrate the lesbian with their penis because the trans person ‘feels like a woman’. The ‘Cotton Ceiling’ is rape culture, it is corrective rape of Lesbians as recorded by the report ‘Lesbians at Ground Zero’. ¹²

There is a global move to argue that a male can be a female without gender dysphoria. We have witnessed Ms Black argue this in the House of Commons. If transgenderism is not based on dysphoria then why is medical intervention in regards to trans children presented as an absolute necessity? More everyday examples of trying to de-medicalise transgender for male adults include Travis argued to his 5,000 plus followers on 1 November 2017 to ‘stop acting like dysphoria is always something that innately happens and isn’t also something that happens cus ppl are shit’. ¹³ Kendra C. Goodson‏ asserts that ‘Education is an awesome thing, not all transgender people have gender dysphoria but nice try & I could not even #giveafuck about that bigot’. ¹⁴ One ‘Gaskarth’ claimed that ‘if you experience no dysphoria you’re still trans!/ if you experience minor dysphoria you’re still trans!/ if you experience daily dysphoria you’re still trans!…if you’re trans you are trans, there isn’t a right or wrong way to be trans!’. ¹⁵ Freyja Falke, while insisting that trans women are women, claimed that ‘gender Dysphoria (which not every trans person experiences) has no backing in anything other than social science’. ¹⁶ Gender Identity lacks any basis outside personal feelings and can have no relation or all to do with biological sex. Gender Dysphoria in some cases is understood as a dislike to certain bath and body products. For example ‘letters-to-lgbt-kids’ argues that ‘using products that are labeled as the gender you were assigned at birth makes you dysphoric or not really depends on the person (and even for one person, may depend on the day or the specific product)’. ¹⁷

I hope you would agree that make-up does not make a woman a woman. There is something more to us as people than the way we dress. Or maybe high-heels are not an essential truth of a woman’s humanity. How does a man putting on make-up suddenly then become a woman? How is a man claiming his pretty dress makes him a woman acceptable? How does a man’s choice of shoes change his essential personhood? Would it not be better to say, ‘I’m glad you like that and are comfortable, it looks nice, well done you for being a man willing to challenge gender stereotypes’? This is important because saying ‘you’re a woman now, because of make-up’ reduces me to a costume, I am no longer a full human being, just a look.

Gender identity ideology is rooted in sexist stereotypes of what a woman and man is. Transgender is a movement demanding women centre men’s feelings over women’s reality. The proposed legal changes would make this inner feeling a protected characteristic over biology and be damned how others feel. Transgenderism reinforces the gender cage rather than breaking the bars open. We should not be further enshrining sexist stereotypes but rather challenging them at every turn and celebrating people and individuals for who they are regardless of sex. The 70s glam rock and the gender-bending 80’s came close when suddenly men could wear make-up, heels and still be men and be told it was grand.

I am of the opinion that Ms Black’s insistence that all that is needed to change sex is a statutory declaration is as dangerous as it is ridiculous. First of all, why do men’s words dictate reality. Secondly are you saying men wouldn’t lie to gain access to women and girls, particularly when they are vlnerable? We have seen consistently how men will train for years, get careers just to access their victims. Larry Nassar is a case in point. How do you propose to determine if the statutory declaration is fraudulent, Ms. Black, you have just claimed asking for any evidence is wrong and discriminatory.