25 Comments
Sep 24·edited Sep 24Liked by Róisín Michaux

You do a great job here tying together threads of history and linguistic trickery.

If I remember correctly, when I was reading feminist writings in the 80s and 90s, the word gender was most often used as a VERB to describe a cultural phenomenon as "gendered" feminine or masculine. For example, housework has been "gendered female," and short hair has been "gendered male." To say something is "gendered" is a way to de-naturalize sex-role arrangements, to insist that they are merely social and cultural conventions to be critiqued, changed, and rejected. Somehow gender degraded into a noun, an entity, and now serves to reinforce those sex-role arrangements.

Because apparently, the evil rule is that everything women accomplish must be taken from them.

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Sep 30Liked by Róisín Michaux

I saw this changing in the 1990s, my English prof at university had left the Women’s Studies Department after it had been rolled up into “Gender and Women’s Studies,” she emphasized the importance of “sex” as biological, and “gender” as sociological, while my Human Development prof drilled into us to never use “gender” when referring to “sex” — he’d joke “nobody has genderal intercourse!”— and focused on DSDs, saying “intersex” was archaic and should be considered obsolete, as no human has an “in-between” sex, or functional gonads of both sex, they’re always male or female, with various abnormalities.

I think the language shift was concurrent, and a result of, increasing acceptance of frank discussions of sexual orientation and behavior in the public sphere, a movement largely characterized in the United States by the activism of Dr. Ruth Westheimer in the 1970s and 80s, including normalizing the euphemism “sexual intercourse”, typically shortened to just “sex,” as opposed to “sex” referring the biological properties of male and female. The word “sex” itself historically was not considered impolite; the notoriously discreet Victorians (more of an anachronistic modern misperception due to the legacy of “bowdlerized” works of classic and popular literature, republished for pious Christian households with sexually explicit language and cursing excised or replaced with cagey euphemisms) causally referred to the “fairer sex,” while early feminists demanded equal dignity before the law without respect to sex, however as it became normal , beginning in the golden age of Freudian analysis in the years following World War II , to the “sex-positivity” movement of the late 1980s and 1990s to refer to “sexual intercourse,” or more commonly, “sex,” replacing medical terms like “coitus” or “intromission,” and obscurantisms such as the Biblical “to know”, the word “sex” itself was no longer neutral, eliciting giggles from the immature and indignant gasps from the neurotic, impelling polite interlocutors to substitute “gender” to avoid the impression of impropriety. This allowed the preexisting linguistic concept of “gender,” with masculine, feminine, but also “neuter” and also “transgender” nouns such as a “feminine” word referring to a male subject, to elide into concepts of biological sex.

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Thank you for this! It’s really interesting. I may have to cite you in the future if that’s ok?

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Oct 2Liked by Róisín Michaux

Yes you're absolutely correct 💯, linguistic trickery indeed.

Well Said and I agree

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Sep 23Liked by Róisín Michaux

You can't make this shit up!

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Hilarious and smart essay looking forward to the listen.

I don’t mind being called anti-gender. I am. Being lumped in with anti reproductive rights zealots: well I think people are catching on that this is not a thing, radfems are not secret agents of the Vatican, and trans activists just lie a lot.

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Sep 23Liked by Róisín Michaux

You're doing such important work! Much gratitude for this. xx

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Thank you for having me on and for the great discussion!!

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Sep 23·edited Sep 23Liked by Róisín Michaux

This was a great podcast/interview! Very thought-provoking, especially for someone like me, not new to this stuff who thinks she's heard and seen it all, but hasn't! The idea of a sexual plaything colony within a country is new to me and spot on. Seeing as how men most likely have a greater sex drive at least because they can't get pregnant like women can, I can see that compulsory heterosexuality comes into this someplace, because men could turn to each other and probably would, if not for that. So some resort to trans prostitutes, keeping it in shame and secrecy, which hurts everyone. Also I think men can be more prone to sex addictions, for various unaddressed psychological reasons, and unfortunately, like you say, it's catered to instead of faced up to. Also just to say that you two were also very funny at times, in spite of the serious topics covered -- I LOLed when Roisin said "a sh*tload of men." Thanks, and keep up the good work. Best wishes to you both ❤️👍🏼

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Sep 26Liked by Róisín Michaux

I have to echo that sentiment. I had though that by now I had heard all the arguments. But Roisin Murphy really brought out something new in this episode. One can see why the other side insists on 'no debate'. Because the truth about trans---where it comes from, what it feeds on and where it is heading---is just too sinister and devastating.

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Oct 2Liked by Róisín Michaux

Thank You for this honest conversation Ladies. It's absolutely outstanding.

This confirms what I have been saying that the societal promotion of transgenderism is for extreme male empowerment and misogyny/child abuse‼️

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Sep 30Liked by Róisín Michaux

Excellent work. I believe Susan Stryker is the man, named Ryan Striker at birth, and heir to the substantial Stryker medical products fortune, which funds his Arcus foundation

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I tried to find a family connection but failed….

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I was mistaken, apparently they’re not related, but any information on who “Susan” Stryker transitioned from has been erased from the live web, and the Internet Archive — any search for “Susan Stryker birth name” and we are told he was named Susan at birth. This is how far this insidious conspiracy goes, they are rewriting history to hide their past. Interestingly enough this evening I was listening to Bill Burr’s podcast from last week, and he said just what I’ve been saying, that “transition” is a way to avoid dealing with trauma —or to escape responsibility for their crimes.

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His money apparently has enabled him to scrub the Internet of any pictures of “Ryan Stryker” or any references, though not long ago these could be found … any archived pages should be downloaded lest the Internet Archive memory hole them

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Brilliant article. I’m delighted that women of this intellect and ability to produce such readable writings is anti-gender movement.

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I am hoping that someone can help me to get in touch with any French feminist terfs for advice in regard to an Afghan woman now in Pakistan who is trying to escape the long arm of the Taliban. She has a sister who's a refugee in France after escaping the Taliban, but is not a French resident who she'd like to reunite with along with her younger sister and 12 year old niece. I if someone could give me a lead, an email, a phone number that I could follow up on I'd be very grateful. Decades ago I was in touch with feminist Christine Delphy; does anyone know where she is now? Or how I might get in touch with her? bwarrior2@yahoo.com

Christine Delphy is a groundbreaking French feminist who is known for her focus on material reality. Her analysis examines the economic oppression of women which relies on not recognizing the fundamental value of women's labor. This disenfranchisement relies on using the reality of women's biological sex to impose the confines of gender role stereotypes to imprison women politically, economically and socially.

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Try Marguerite Stern, her website is https://www.margueritestern.com/ she’s also on Twitter and her email is contact.margueritestern@gmail.com

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Otherwise maybe Genevieve Gluck at reduxx.info can help you out, she has reported on French feminist groups

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Thank you!!

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Please define GAMP?

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Sep 25Liked by Róisín Michaux

Gynoandromorohile - also known as a "chaser"

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Sep 26·edited Sep 26Liked by Róisín Michaux

Gynandromorphophile = a man who has a sexual interest in transwomen (if saying transwomen is acceptable - better to say men who present themselves as if they are women or trans-identified men?) But trans-chaser is a clearer and is easier to say!

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In "The trouble with gender", Alex Byrne answers your questions about how the word got into the feminist lexicon.

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You are noticing the apparent coordinated appearance of gender activism and lobbying around the world, because there is a playbook, called The Yogyakarta Protocols

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