So many great lines, so many powerful arguments in this piece - for which I thank you. You are a very talented writer and your metaphors are brilliant! I think my favourite is “It’s because drag is the alcopop of gender theory”. So true!
My only reservation with your writing is your use of the term “ perverts” to describe autogynaephilic men. As a fellow terf, I empathise with your anger at the way some narcissistic autogynaephiles behave, demanding access to women’s spaces and sports and DARVOing women who don’t agree. But I’d have to say, “Not all autogynaephiles”. Ray Blanchard, who coined the term while working with these men, emphasises that many (maybe most?) autogynaephiles just want to have a quiet life, are not narcissists, and do respect women’s rights and spaces. I recently watched a Peter Boghossian “street epistemology” with Philly Illy (the guy in the blue dress at Genspect, Denver and a self-confessed autogynaephile) and I was impressed by his deep understanding and empathetic attitude towards women’s legitimate concerns about males in women’s spaces.
My worry about the use of the term “perverts” is that normies reading your article, who might be close to “peaking” and who might be ready to be persuaded by your arguments, might get turned off by the use of such terms. And we need to deprogramme as many normies and “be kinders” as possible if we are to win this war.
Please keep investigating and writing so persuasively. You are a great asset to the terf cause.
I think this is a rational strategic concern but I also think it's a red herring and besides it's not healthy for people to repress their natural instincts on these matters.
The reality is there are overt dangerous perverts that people should find out about, and their is a whole class of less dangerous but fetishistic people, AGPs. I'm of the opinion that there's no value in sugar-coating reality but nonetheless, you could be the change you want to see and do it in a manner that appeals to the ignorant mainstream.
But it's a red herring as the problem is greater than people writing in the right style. It's that institutions and media have been taken over by an authoritarianism and so people, through fear or misguided progressivism aren't even finding out the truth, which is very, very easy to find. It is like the vast majority of Chinese that don't know, or don't care about Tiananmen square.
I can't figure it out, even on Substack only a small percentage are actually exercised by this medical scandal enough to comment and publish on it. The rest are sick of the issue and don't even care. I suspect people know which way the wind blows and subconsciously suppress or they are apathetic, knowing there are many issues to care about which they have little control over and this one isn't their pet concern.
Why so many women would go along with limitations to their basic human rights while obvious misogynists (and sick perverts) run amok is the real enigma though.
Women go along with the reduction in their rights because of the oldest tactic in the book of patriarchy - violence and the threat of violence, which includes poverty. Women who fight this destruction of their rights lose their livelihoods, their friends and colleagues and sometimes their family. They are attacked on social media with death and rape threats, threats to kidnap, rape and murder their children too without any redress. Their jobs are lost, their colleagues attack them, any freelance work dries up. The bravery required to voluntarily go through this is immense, and usually it is done without realising the “consequences” until it is too late.
The other problem is that it is “only” women and children who suffer with this “progressive” movement, it hardly touches men at all. So it is easy for men in positions of power to vote for trans affirming policies, and self-destructive for the women to vote against them. The women who have taken on the fight are fabulously brave and yet all have been injured. Don’t wonder at women’s compliance, they just want to live, in a society that is prepared to accept their destruction as simply an unfortunate fact of modern life.
I know there are many stunningly brave women at the vanguard of the backlash to this nonsense and such people are at the receiving end of vile misogyny.
But your explanation of the violence of the patriarchy etc just doesn't bear up from where l live. There are many women with high agency in government departments, NGOS, corporates, legal offices etc who are actively promoting this cult, all under the auspices of being kind and inclusive. There's no patriarchy behind the scenes directing them, it's their own motivation and status incentives.
The closest answer to why women now actively undermine feminism is the madness of the crowds, social contagion. But it's still weird to me as some of these people you think would know better by now...
Patriarchy, in the persons who are pushing transhumance did and does drive women in high agency jobs, and men, like the President of the United States via his first Executive Order the day after inauguration, to do their bidding by getting transideology shackling every person in every institution and govt on the globe selling their snake oil, on PAIN OF BEING FIRED, cancelled via MOB interference, and/or by doxxing ppl, siccing their hired bots and irl transrights activists on them. The billionaires also shower money to their campaigns, their funding, their new buildings, etc., and some, just plain threatened, Putin-style. All of the core pushers of transhumance and sex change nonsense are men: BILLIONAIRE men, read up on it at 11th Hour Blog with JBilek; or read Miriam Grossman--a psychologist who draws you a map reverse engineering the unbelievable cockamamie genesis of "sex changing" children. Chrissakes, Matt Walsh made a documentary last year or so, "What is a Woman", where he blundered into Grossman and her critical, astute explanations of where it came from. Don't doubt your sister human beings; we do not want this, but we too need to keep our jobs, and our children. Women are targeted more pointedly because of our natural keener empathy and all the "nice for niceness' sake" and "kindness" ten ton weight we live under--I mean, look, ON THIS Earth with us now is a whole culture of millions of people where the men have decided that women will not speak, go outside, talk to each other, go to school, have jobs, and will not be seen at all except covered in individual black tents with only eyeholes to see out. And, women are targeted because of our complementary characteristic of having NO empathy for those who endanger our children, of being MOMMA bears who are the first and last line of protection for most children in every culture, and they want to remove that barrier: strong mothers, from access to our children, to sterilize and carve up (causing a secondary medical care market of 'fertility' treatments so their first generation of desexed people, who will want children, as all people usually do, can pay pay pay for hopeless treatments for bodies no longer equipped to cause pregnancy or gestate a baby. Bilek talks about that. That's why women are targeted. Hook yourself up with strong ones and help us fight, COME to protests, speak out, let us know you CARE. LET US KNOW YOU CARE, because it's the right thing to do, and, because, you're next, men. They DO want you. And they don't want you to be loyal to women, to care about women, to fight for women. They want you to want them, those sexually different men, instead, to want the Woman that they insist is in them, via their man parts, however. There are PLENTY of feminists out here, OLD SCHOOL, and we are PART of the human race, we do not want to control it, have a matriarchy, we want to share it with our natural counterparts, whom we love, MEN. Cease wasting time and energy blaming those women who've had to cave for some reason: some of the best people HAVE buckled under to the pressure, and work with women who are HARDLINERS. No men in dresses. No men in our restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, hosp ward, prisons, sports, jobs, speaking engagements, women's products spokespersons. Watch Karen Davis's podcast on Substack, You're Kiddin' Right?, for a 1/2 hour of reporting on contemporary issues in this subject, a few laughs and sometimes, the professional musician that she is will give us a song, 5-6 nights a week. https://ykright.substack.com/p/courageous-woman-confronts-troon Follow Amy Sousa on Twitter @KnownHeretic, subscribe for a few (3) dollars for extra content, she's a master degree genius Trauma Psychologist. Read Miriam Grossman, MD https://www.miriamgrossmanmd.com/ Follow my substack, I'm starting it by just responding to other people's substack posts, like this BRILLIANT one by Róisín Michaux. I'm an old feminist from Southern California, now living out of my home state in Nevada. I've enjoyed reading you and your friend's considered posts.
Oh yes misogynist men are part of the origin story for sure although so was Reed Erikson, tho mainly men.
But at the risk of overbeating the drum that doesn't explain the failure for a whole group of women, who call themselves feminists to resist gender ideology.
I'd argue feminism in undermining the importance of biology in favour of social construction of gender has led to the current gender ideology. You can see this via gender studies resulting in the stupidity of people like Judith Butler.
I read a lot on this topic and am familiar with all the authors you quote. The substack space is great but it's pretty much all preaching to the converted.
Totally agree that there is a serious outrage deficit in society, especially about the medical scandal of “gender affirming care” for minors. Whenever I have tried to enlighten otherwise reasonable, liberal people in my social group, I am met with “there are much bigger things in society to be worrying about” or “but it’s so rare” or similar shut downs. So I am currently reading “How to have impossible conversations” by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay in an effort to improve my tactical approach. They strongly advise against being combative or derogatory in any way as it can shut down a conversation before it’s even begun.
As you say, even on Substack, there are surprisingly few speaking out or even showing an interest in this topic. That is why I think we need to be careful not to alienate those who might be ready to dip a tentative toe into the shark-infested waters of the genderism debate.
Also agree about institutional capture - but I don’t think that’s going to be undone until we can persuade enough “be kinders” that GAC is the antithesis of kindness.
I disagree. For too long women have been tolerant of autogynephiles using their sex as a masturbatory aide. Enough is enough. There was a reason men with gender dysphoria were marginalised and it was due to society recognising that their kink was harmful, distasteful and dangerous. They are perverts and freaks and need to be excluded from public life.
Yes, "perverts" actually distracts from the real concern most people have about men larping as women: how it adversely affects girls, women and boys. Few people care about other people's sexual proclivities as long as they do not make public nuisances of themselves by being exhibitionists, particularly when children are around.
I think perverts is the right word, you know how I know? It gets you suspended on other platforms. Also, as Confucius said, call things by their right name or we end up all twisted up and easily controllable. No, we don't care about what we don't see, but, they are not hiding themselves anymore, and, if we do know there's a pervy guy living across the back, we do not want our children visiting over there. Why? Because they are perverts and may hurt ours or others' children. SOMEBODIES are kidnapping, using and trafficking children... and they might be over the back fence. If so, do we call them, "Mr. Smith", or, do we tell our kids, "Stay away, he's a dangerous person that the law has seen fit to put on a sex offender map, but not to keep far away from children, like you, who he might do bad things to, or to shorten this up, he's a pervert." Perverts anywhere is an ingredient of trans ideology: look at Genspect; they purport to be leading the knowledge base to protect children from sex change medicalizations, but, they ALSO support sexologists who are insisting more and more that we broaden so-called, "LGBTQIA" protections against discrimination to include Minor Attracted Persons, who "can't help what they are attracted to." (too bad for the Nelsons down the way, their son is exactly what he obsesses about). So, this push is far from complete: the bulldozer blade knocking down women's rights, even women's right to be women, excluding men, is preparing for a world that only myopic nerds of the more bizarre makeup could imagine. Taking away the pleasures of natural sex from OTHER people when they are still children. Terrible. :- ) Thanks for reading, I hope I didn't come as too much of a broadside about using the word perverts.
I lived in France then Holland through the 90’s and I have the feeling there’s going to be a very unpleasant explosion taking a lot of trans to a place they didn’t want to go in public, being called out, harassed and not left alone.
All movements go through cycles. This one manages to keep nobody in reserve to provide support as they offend all women simultaneously, and all men who respect women, and all people who enjoy humor which may not be gentle to a particular group.
Dutch and French adults don’t really give a shit about feelings, an observation I have from my experience living there. There is no instinct to not offend which Americans have, no being nice.
Brava! Such a great summary showing in this globalized world everything is the same. I am reminded of the 'banality of evil' - how the self-interested smug, stupid people in charge of media, govt institutions and NGOs and their obfuscation and suppression of the actual issues leads to active harm, harm to the children undergoing surgery, harm to women literally just trying to speak, harm to lesbians and women who no longer have access to private spaces.
Just as bad as these direct harms is the insanity and creeping authoritarianism, which reduces the resolution of the issues and prevents critical thinking. Where are the leaders that understand this rot within our institutions and will stand up and do something?
Thank you for doing this work! I still haven't got my answer from Substack (can't log onto my blog via browser) but when I do I am also translating this post for the Balkans, for Ex Yugoslavia. The orgs here work on the same principles, yet we don't even have gay marriage.
Thanks so much for this detailed and thoroughly researched piece. So the only people above satire are queer gender-identity cultists, and we all have a sacred duty to respect their orthodoxy and have no right to disbelief, and will get mobbed, fired, vilified, fined and possibly gailed for heresy should we not comply. This does not apply to any other religion in the West, only to gender-identity. I'm a philosophical theologian trying to write about this (GCPT substack) and I am amazed at how religious - state and corporation backed religious - this whole space is. Fabulous work Roisin; many thanks.
Wow! Such a comprehensive recounting of Belgium's "first big trans tantrum"! Thank you! The Belgium public seems to remain tethered to reality.
So many great lines, so many powerful arguments in this piece - for which I thank you. You are a very talented writer and your metaphors are brilliant! I think my favourite is “It’s because drag is the alcopop of gender theory”. So true!
My only reservation with your writing is your use of the term “ perverts” to describe autogynaephilic men. As a fellow terf, I empathise with your anger at the way some narcissistic autogynaephiles behave, demanding access to women’s spaces and sports and DARVOing women who don’t agree. But I’d have to say, “Not all autogynaephiles”. Ray Blanchard, who coined the term while working with these men, emphasises that many (maybe most?) autogynaephiles just want to have a quiet life, are not narcissists, and do respect women’s rights and spaces. I recently watched a Peter Boghossian “street epistemology” with Philly Illy (the guy in the blue dress at Genspect, Denver and a self-confessed autogynaephile) and I was impressed by his deep understanding and empathetic attitude towards women’s legitimate concerns about males in women’s spaces.
My worry about the use of the term “perverts” is that normies reading your article, who might be close to “peaking” and who might be ready to be persuaded by your arguments, might get turned off by the use of such terms. And we need to deprogramme as many normies and “be kinders” as possible if we are to win this war.
Please keep investigating and writing so persuasively. You are a great asset to the terf cause.
I think this is a rational strategic concern but I also think it's a red herring and besides it's not healthy for people to repress their natural instincts on these matters.
The reality is there are overt dangerous perverts that people should find out about, and their is a whole class of less dangerous but fetishistic people, AGPs. I'm of the opinion that there's no value in sugar-coating reality but nonetheless, you could be the change you want to see and do it in a manner that appeals to the ignorant mainstream.
But it's a red herring as the problem is greater than people writing in the right style. It's that institutions and media have been taken over by an authoritarianism and so people, through fear or misguided progressivism aren't even finding out the truth, which is very, very easy to find. It is like the vast majority of Chinese that don't know, or don't care about Tiananmen square.
I can't figure it out, even on Substack only a small percentage are actually exercised by this medical scandal enough to comment and publish on it. The rest are sick of the issue and don't even care. I suspect people know which way the wind blows and subconsciously suppress or they are apathetic, knowing there are many issues to care about which they have little control over and this one isn't their pet concern.
Why so many women would go along with limitations to their basic human rights while obvious misogynists (and sick perverts) run amok is the real enigma though.
Women go along with the reduction in their rights because of the oldest tactic in the book of patriarchy - violence and the threat of violence, which includes poverty. Women who fight this destruction of their rights lose their livelihoods, their friends and colleagues and sometimes their family. They are attacked on social media with death and rape threats, threats to kidnap, rape and murder their children too without any redress. Their jobs are lost, their colleagues attack them, any freelance work dries up. The bravery required to voluntarily go through this is immense, and usually it is done without realising the “consequences” until it is too late.
The other problem is that it is “only” women and children who suffer with this “progressive” movement, it hardly touches men at all. So it is easy for men in positions of power to vote for trans affirming policies, and self-destructive for the women to vote against them. The women who have taken on the fight are fabulously brave and yet all have been injured. Don’t wonder at women’s compliance, they just want to live, in a society that is prepared to accept their destruction as simply an unfortunate fact of modern life.
I know there are many stunningly brave women at the vanguard of the backlash to this nonsense and such people are at the receiving end of vile misogyny.
But your explanation of the violence of the patriarchy etc just doesn't bear up from where l live. There are many women with high agency in government departments, NGOS, corporates, legal offices etc who are actively promoting this cult, all under the auspices of being kind and inclusive. There's no patriarchy behind the scenes directing them, it's their own motivation and status incentives.
The closest answer to why women now actively undermine feminism is the madness of the crowds, social contagion. But it's still weird to me as some of these people you think would know better by now...
Patriarchy, in the persons who are pushing transhumance did and does drive women in high agency jobs, and men, like the President of the United States via his first Executive Order the day after inauguration, to do their bidding by getting transideology shackling every person in every institution and govt on the globe selling their snake oil, on PAIN OF BEING FIRED, cancelled via MOB interference, and/or by doxxing ppl, siccing their hired bots and irl transrights activists on them. The billionaires also shower money to their campaigns, their funding, their new buildings, etc., and some, just plain threatened, Putin-style. All of the core pushers of transhumance and sex change nonsense are men: BILLIONAIRE men, read up on it at 11th Hour Blog with JBilek; or read Miriam Grossman--a psychologist who draws you a map reverse engineering the unbelievable cockamamie genesis of "sex changing" children. Chrissakes, Matt Walsh made a documentary last year or so, "What is a Woman", where he blundered into Grossman and her critical, astute explanations of where it came from. Don't doubt your sister human beings; we do not want this, but we too need to keep our jobs, and our children. Women are targeted more pointedly because of our natural keener empathy and all the "nice for niceness' sake" and "kindness" ten ton weight we live under--I mean, look, ON THIS Earth with us now is a whole culture of millions of people where the men have decided that women will not speak, go outside, talk to each other, go to school, have jobs, and will not be seen at all except covered in individual black tents with only eyeholes to see out. And, women are targeted because of our complementary characteristic of having NO empathy for those who endanger our children, of being MOMMA bears who are the first and last line of protection for most children in every culture, and they want to remove that barrier: strong mothers, from access to our children, to sterilize and carve up (causing a secondary medical care market of 'fertility' treatments so their first generation of desexed people, who will want children, as all people usually do, can pay pay pay for hopeless treatments for bodies no longer equipped to cause pregnancy or gestate a baby. Bilek talks about that. That's why women are targeted. Hook yourself up with strong ones and help us fight, COME to protests, speak out, let us know you CARE. LET US KNOW YOU CARE, because it's the right thing to do, and, because, you're next, men. They DO want you. And they don't want you to be loyal to women, to care about women, to fight for women. They want you to want them, those sexually different men, instead, to want the Woman that they insist is in them, via their man parts, however. There are PLENTY of feminists out here, OLD SCHOOL, and we are PART of the human race, we do not want to control it, have a matriarchy, we want to share it with our natural counterparts, whom we love, MEN. Cease wasting time and energy blaming those women who've had to cave for some reason: some of the best people HAVE buckled under to the pressure, and work with women who are HARDLINERS. No men in dresses. No men in our restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, hosp ward, prisons, sports, jobs, speaking engagements, women's products spokespersons. Watch Karen Davis's podcast on Substack, You're Kiddin' Right?, for a 1/2 hour of reporting on contemporary issues in this subject, a few laughs and sometimes, the professional musician that she is will give us a song, 5-6 nights a week. https://ykright.substack.com/p/courageous-woman-confronts-troon Follow Amy Sousa on Twitter @KnownHeretic, subscribe for a few (3) dollars for extra content, she's a master degree genius Trauma Psychologist. Read Miriam Grossman, MD https://www.miriamgrossmanmd.com/ Follow my substack, I'm starting it by just responding to other people's substack posts, like this BRILLIANT one by Róisín Michaux. I'm an old feminist from Southern California, now living out of my home state in Nevada. I've enjoyed reading you and your friend's considered posts.
Oh yes misogynist men are part of the origin story for sure although so was Reed Erikson, tho mainly men.
But at the risk of overbeating the drum that doesn't explain the failure for a whole group of women, who call themselves feminists to resist gender ideology.
I'd argue feminism in undermining the importance of biology in favour of social construction of gender has led to the current gender ideology. You can see this via gender studies resulting in the stupidity of people like Judith Butler.
I read a lot on this topic and am familiar with all the authors you quote. The substack space is great but it's pretty much all preaching to the converted.
Totally agree that there is a serious outrage deficit in society, especially about the medical scandal of “gender affirming care” for minors. Whenever I have tried to enlighten otherwise reasonable, liberal people in my social group, I am met with “there are much bigger things in society to be worrying about” or “but it’s so rare” or similar shut downs. So I am currently reading “How to have impossible conversations” by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay in an effort to improve my tactical approach. They strongly advise against being combative or derogatory in any way as it can shut down a conversation before it’s even begun.
As you say, even on Substack, there are surprisingly few speaking out or even showing an interest in this topic. That is why I think we need to be careful not to alienate those who might be ready to dip a tentative toe into the shark-infested waters of the genderism debate.
Also agree about institutional capture - but I don’t think that’s going to be undone until we can persuade enough “be kinders” that GAC is the antithesis of kindness.
I disagree. For too long women have been tolerant of autogynephiles using their sex as a masturbatory aide. Enough is enough. There was a reason men with gender dysphoria were marginalised and it was due to society recognising that their kink was harmful, distasteful and dangerous. They are perverts and freaks and need to be excluded from public life.
Yes, "perverts" actually distracts from the real concern most people have about men larping as women: how it adversely affects girls, women and boys. Few people care about other people's sexual proclivities as long as they do not make public nuisances of themselves by being exhibitionists, particularly when children are around.
I think perverts is the right word, you know how I know? It gets you suspended on other platforms. Also, as Confucius said, call things by their right name or we end up all twisted up and easily controllable. No, we don't care about what we don't see, but, they are not hiding themselves anymore, and, if we do know there's a pervy guy living across the back, we do not want our children visiting over there. Why? Because they are perverts and may hurt ours or others' children. SOMEBODIES are kidnapping, using and trafficking children... and they might be over the back fence. If so, do we call them, "Mr. Smith", or, do we tell our kids, "Stay away, he's a dangerous person that the law has seen fit to put on a sex offender map, but not to keep far away from children, like you, who he might do bad things to, or to shorten this up, he's a pervert." Perverts anywhere is an ingredient of trans ideology: look at Genspect; they purport to be leading the knowledge base to protect children from sex change medicalizations, but, they ALSO support sexologists who are insisting more and more that we broaden so-called, "LGBTQIA" protections against discrimination to include Minor Attracted Persons, who "can't help what they are attracted to." (too bad for the Nelsons down the way, their son is exactly what he obsesses about). So, this push is far from complete: the bulldozer blade knocking down women's rights, even women's right to be women, excluding men, is preparing for a world that only myopic nerds of the more bizarre makeup could imagine. Taking away the pleasures of natural sex from OTHER people when they are still children. Terrible. :- ) Thanks for reading, I hope I didn't come as too much of a broadside about using the word perverts.
Superb article, everyone should read it.
I lived in France then Holland through the 90’s and I have the feeling there’s going to be a very unpleasant explosion taking a lot of trans to a place they didn’t want to go in public, being called out, harassed and not left alone.
All movements go through cycles. This one manages to keep nobody in reserve to provide support as they offend all women simultaneously, and all men who respect women, and all people who enjoy humor which may not be gentle to a particular group.
Dutch and French adults don’t really give a shit about feelings, an observation I have from my experience living there. There is no instinct to not offend which Americans have, no being nice.
There is an instinct to fairness.
This will be trans downfall in the region.
Again, superb writing.
I'm speechless, use emojis instead 🙌🏻😍👏🏻💚🤍💜
Brava! Such a great summary showing in this globalized world everything is the same. I am reminded of the 'banality of evil' - how the self-interested smug, stupid people in charge of media, govt institutions and NGOs and their obfuscation and suppression of the actual issues leads to active harm, harm to the children undergoing surgery, harm to women literally just trying to speak, harm to lesbians and women who no longer have access to private spaces.
Just as bad as these direct harms is the insanity and creeping authoritarianism, which reduces the resolution of the issues and prevents critical thinking. Where are the leaders that understand this rot within our institutions and will stand up and do something?
Absolutely brilliant.
Thank you for doing this work! I still haven't got my answer from Substack (can't log onto my blog via browser) but when I do I am also translating this post for the Balkans, for Ex Yugoslavia. The orgs here work on the same principles, yet we don't even have gay marriage.
Excellent, such a well written piece. Thank you.
Thanks so much for this detailed and thoroughly researched piece. So the only people above satire are queer gender-identity cultists, and we all have a sacred duty to respect their orthodoxy and have no right to disbelief, and will get mobbed, fired, vilified, fined and possibly gailed for heresy should we not comply. This does not apply to any other religion in the West, only to gender-identity. I'm a philosophical theologian trying to write about this (GCPT substack) and I am amazed at how religious - state and corporation backed religious - this whole space is. Fabulous work Roisin; many thanks.
The Right's Gender Scam: How They're Conning America with Fake Outrage
A grotesque theater of bathroom panic and pronoun hysteria, designed to keep you scared, distracted, and obedient—while they ignore the real problems.
https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/moral-panic-for-dummies?r=4d7sow&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true