I agree with most everything you wrote. And I'm a transgender woman and have been for 30 years, long before there were any protections at all. But I go further than you. Topics of gender and sex have no place in our elementary schools. None whatsoever. Before 7th or 8th grade children are incapable of making life altering decisions about this stuff. Yet some would push children into things which may have permanent effects. As is borne out by reams of studies, children go through phases. A young girl can happily identify as a "tomboy" but completely change once puberty starts. But just because a young girl wants to play Little League baseball doesn't mean she should be a boy. Yet "authorities" are increasingly pushing children to think their biological sex can be changed as if by magic. It can't.
You say that all people should be treated the same. I differ there. Sam Brinton, the luggage stealing "nuclear engineer", has admitted in print that his way of dress is a sexual fetish. He's perfectly welcome to do that on his own time. But making his fetish public and insisting that everyone accept it is no different than another gay man appearing in bondage gear at work. Not everything is ok.
And you're right. Gender at puberty defines everyone's bodies. I've not seen any transwomen insisting on playing for the NFL or NBA. As you probably know, Europe is rapidly stepping back from the trans ideology. Affirming medical procedures and medications are being withheld until kids are older.
Medium is a progressive haunt. Their name for the censorship group is perfectly Orwellian.
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, Nosh. I’ve known transgender women for most of my adult life. We partied together in gay clubs in the 80s. And I never remotely felt marginalized or disrespected as a woman. We peacefully co-existed in harmony. I acknowledged their preference to present and identify as women, but I never had the sense that they denied certain biological realities.
And I couldn’t agree with you more about the sexualization of minors. I think it’s completely inappropriate for any child to be exposed to sex education that goes beyond basic anatomy, contraception, and STDs. Sex and sexual orientation is something that teenagers (NOT children) can and should at experiment with, but on their own time, in their own space -- not at the behest of “educators.” And as you say, life-altering decisions that affect their bodies should be completely off the table. If a child isn’t old enough to drive or to consume alcohol, how can they possibly consent to a mastectomy?
As far as I can tell, the issues that are arising now come not from older members of the transgender community, but from a younger, almost fanatical group that has co-opted the movement and militarized it.
Curiously, the same thing seems to be happening in the black community. Older black people -- who experienced and remember “real” racism --can’t relate to “microaggressions” and the concept of “white fragility.” We never wanted to be treated better than white people or to shame them into submission; we just wanted to be on equal footing.
Both movements have been weaponized as tools of division. And I think we all know who benefits from this division.
It's ironically, tragically perfect that "content of character" - a dedication to honest, good-faith effort, a belief in the value of dialogue, a sense of responsibility to reality and to each other - is precisely what suffers most under the new thought regimes.
I like Medium fine, and some of the authors. But I really dislike outright censorship, and your article had nothing objectionable.
Calling themselves the "Trust & Safety Team" and only having articles and forms encouraging everyone to *turn in* those considered guilty of "wrong-speak" is is pretty one-sided. Who do they answer to? Apparently only to the truly righteous.
Trust & Safety Team apparent cannot be easily reached— it took me awhile to find an email, (trust@medium.com) and it really exists only to turn in non-believers. Blocking your article gives me an excellent reason to cancel my membership. One cannot reason with the truly righteous.
They answer to no one, and I have yet to meet one person on Medium who has successfully appealed an alleged violation of community guidelines. It's Soviet-style "Trust & Safety" (But not to worry -- Medium is just a private company, not controlled by the government, so all good. Carry on).
I plan to end my membership as soon as I find time to sift through my account and add a "No longer contributing due to rampant censorship -- please find me on Substack" blurb at the end of all my articles.
On a separate note, it seems that "Trust & Safety" is one of many deceptive labels that have infiltrated our society. Like "Operation Iraqi Freedom," "Affordable Health Care," "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," "Inflation Reduction Act, and "gender affirming care." I've come to believe that the label presented for most initiatives and legislation is often diametrically at odds with their intended (but not stated) goal.
If you want to understand what's really going on, flip whatever you're hearing/told on its head. And then it will all make sense.
Now that you, Steve QJ and Gesha Marie Bland have moved to substack, I've decided to cancel my Medium account (I just did this). I can't stand their attitude to heterodox voices.
Enough with the self-righteous religion already. I escaped from deeply toxic Christian fundamentalism in Appalachia in my late teens and I'm never going back to this paradigm - even if it is promulgated by the left, a political faction of which I used to be a proud member. Just can't do it. What they are doing right now resonates wrongly in my soul.
Great article! Nowadays telling the truth to power ( the trans power!) will get you censored or banned. Even though you made it absolutely clear that you are not again trans.
I wouldn't call it pornographic. Nakedness is not porn. But, I get that the juxtaposition of male and female sex organs is provocative and jarring, to say the least.
On a metaphorical level, it works - it would be great to see more men adopt a nurturing stance toward child rearing instead of dumping this role completely onto mothers. Tbf, many men already do this and our culture is slowly moving toward this attitude becoming more of a "norm."
But, I'm not a fan of uterine transplants into male bodies or a rush to enable men to have or breastfeed babies. What would be the purpose of such an effort? I'm not sure why men would want to do this other than out of a sense of jealousy that women can gestate life. I have read books that discuss men's fear of this power and how it plays into their efforts to disempower women. The whole thing is a muddle of epic proportions to be sure.
I’ve gotta admit, it is looking mighty dark now. Too many people have talked themselves into staying silent and/or rationalizing the unfolding insanity.
But I’m cautiously optimistic that it’s not too late to turn this ship around. We don’t need a majority to wake up; just a vocal, critical mass. We’ve already seen several sports organizations reverse course w/r/t biological men in women’s sports. The key is to resist and to KEEP resisting. When they seek sense weakness, they push harder. When they meet resistance, they ease up.
Women have not waited to speak up. Women have BEEN speaking on this issue now for 15 years. We have been siloed, cut off from the public square, censored by the mainstream media, by social media, by increasingly captured government agencies, and by corporations who stand to make billions on medicalizing gender dysphoria. We have been threatened and physically abused by increasingly militant trans (read: men's) rights activists.
Yes! Until Elon took over, women weren't free to speak about this on Twitter without being suspended or losing their accounts. Same with Reddit, where so many teenagers get their info about trans issues. Women (such as Maya Forstater and Kathleen Stock) have been fired or hounded out of their jobs for speaking up. And this essay right here was removed from Medium and the author was threatened with suspension because it is hate speech. Hell, Catherine Crouch's film The Gendercator was removed from the San Francisco LGBT film festival back in 2007. Women have been speaking up about this for a lot of years.
I feel like we have lost the media war, but not the actual culture war. At least where I live, most people are normal and haven't lost touch with reality, despite how the media wants us to think that 'everyone else' is okay with these things, why aren't you?'. We need to resist the urge to be despondent or to just go along with the madness. Stay true to reality and truth. Humans are not born cyborgs or blank slates waiting for you to choose from a menu of features and change them at will. We are created with an immortal soul.
I couldn’t agree more. At this point, the media’s sole reason for existing is to gaslight us into thinking that most people are accepting this distorted reality.
Jun 3, 2023·edited Jun 3, 2023Liked by Monica Harris
It’s a solid article.
The problem though; it’s now a broken record. Every one of these points has been articulated so many times it’s like reading job descriptions; you scan them, see all the usual stuff, and click apply. Medium really makes no point here other than demonstrating willingness to censor under cover of authority.
Matt Walsh’s new flick, same thing. It goes a little further by showing the overt hostile, sophist and evasive responses to seemingly straightforward questions, but in the end, if you’ve been following the issue, you really haven’t learned anything new.
I think the focus needs to shift from “woman” to “female.” How would the question “what is a female” change these responses? Yes yes, we get that man/woman can be perceived as discourses/constructs that are rigid more by convention than reality (though even the university professor in Walsh’s movie acknowledges sex and gender are intertwined, leading to the reasonable suggestion that immutable biological characteristics can inform gender).
So abandon the confusion and go more basic. “What is a female?”
I am willing to concede that “man” and “woman” can have a straight jacket effect on society. But male and female is an important distinction. I would not expect a gynecologist to be on my referral list for a scrotum examination, and even if I had had surgery to transition I would not hide the information that my vagina is a surgically altered penis. The doctor absolutely must know the patient is a surgically altered male.
Sure, I know people even argue that point, but it’s preposterous. Any parent hiding such information is clearly criminally negligent, any patient doing so is at best dangerously confused, at worst full-on dissasociative.
All in, I’d abandon the “woman” argument because the social construct angle is •not• preposterous. Start being very specific; there are no “women’s’” prisons, there are “female” prisons. There are no “women’s” sports, there are “female” sports. This addresses the known and provable differences. Leave the social gender issues to the academics that choose to pursue these exercises.
Let females decide if they want to compete with and share facilities with “women.” That is their choice and we should not take it away.
For what it’s worth, all of this applies to men/males. At this time we haven’t seen much fallout from that angle, but that’s just a matter of time.
I like your logic, which seems grounded in common sense. The problem is that I don’t believe gender theorists will appreciate a distinction between “woman” and “female” because it is, by the definition they have imposed, still exclusionary. It invites a separation that “shouldn’t” exist.
In answer to your very pointed and reasonable question, “What is a female?”, I suspect the answer would be “Anyone who identifies as female.” You see this as an important distinction, but I doubt those who embrace transgender ideology would agree.
I think the core of the disconnect we’re seeing now is that we’re being conditioned to believe that biological sex is irrelevant for almost every purpose, regardless of the terminology used. There are no “known” and “probable” differences anymore because even the “science” is now waffling on this issue. Until last year, I would have argued that a woman or a female is defined by her ability to bear children, but even that is no longer the case as we are now told that we should refer to “pregnant people,” not “pregnant women,” because men can bear children.
I could be wrong, but this seems to be what’s happening IMO.
I acknowledge there are problems with my approach. The redefinitions make it difficult to find stable ground to build the argument. However, when a life is on the line and a doctor needs to be informed of a complete medical history, all these notions collapse. The doctor will acknowledge that a male, surgically altered to “be” female, is not the same thing as a biologically original female and treatment would have to be informed by this. I don’t believe anybody that could be perceived as reasonable would debate that, so it’s common ground, which if nothing else is a place to start.
Great article, and thank you for your perspective!
My one quibble was "Would it be appropriate to add “Hispanic Lives” to the Black Lives Matter movement?" I think that's a great illustration, but not analagous, because both refer to ethnicities. Adding the TQ to the LGB is two completely different categories. It would be like adding "straight" to BLM, or "balding" to BLM, as those are categories that have nothing to do with ethnicity. That's only a minor thing.
It's very sad that a voice like yours is being silenced in favor of only trans "affirming" articles being allowed. Why not publish it and then someone else can publish why you're wrong? Only one reason. They can't refute it. They can only perpetrate narratives and propaganda that can bear not the slightest scrutiny.
Thank you, Kris! I appreciate your point about the comparison between Hispanic Lives and BLM, and I do agree that the two groups have more in common (a reference to ethnicity) than the LGB and TQ+ (a reference to sexual orientation vs gender identity). I guess my point is that while Black and Hispanic are both ethnic descriptors, the experiences of the two groups are so vastly different that the commonality of ethnic descriptor becomes meaningless.
But you are definitely correct; the comparison is not completely analogous. I struggle to find an analogy that is completely spot on. Something to noodle going forward.
It is a peculiar place we find ourselves where people would rather silence others than engage in debate. My experience has been that people who opt for the former are generally not secure in the strength or validity of their position.
We see something similar unfolding in mainstream media. Back in the day (and I’m probably dating myself) I recall vibrant exchanges between pundits (I’m thinking “Crossfire”). And even 20 years ago cable news networks would routinely invite people from the “other” side to offer their opinions on issues. But when we tune in now, we’re instantly funneled into an echo chamber. It’s almost as if they’re terrified that if people heard the “other” side, they might actually change their mind...🤔
Thanks for this article, Ms. Harris. It is well argued and comprehensive, and matches very well what I have seen from another vantage point on our society. I wish it could be distributed to a wider audience, and I will do my part to help with that by forwarding it to people I know.
Thank you for crafting this article and so eloquently speaking about this very critical issue. So well written, and you deftly navigate through every important part of this increasingly perplexing topic.
Jun 2, 2023·edited Jun 2, 2023Liked by Monica Harris
Thank you for your article. Your experience (and the experience of women and gay people in general) speaks to a wider phenomenon, namely that the Left (Marxism) appropriates people and cultures to push forward the Marxist agenda and then discards those people and cultures.
Feminism was not about women. The Left used women to advance the Marxist agenda through feminism.
Gay rights was not about gay people. The Left used gay people to advance the Marxist agenda through gay rights.
You were promised (and reasonably expected) that the Left was establishing a new set of norms which would elevate women and gay people and which would be upheld in perpetuity. But this is actually a small-c conservative approach (which seeks to create valuable infrastructure and then conserve it in perpetuity because of its ongoing value).
What you were *not* told is that the Left has no ambition to conserve anything at all, but to foster a system of perpetual revolution which denounces everything static (e.g. 'the Patriarchy') as Fascist, destroys it, and replaces it with a new structure which is further to the Left (e.g. 'Feminism').
And then, in the next revolution, it will denounce everything static (e.g. 'Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism') as Fascist, destroy it, and replace it with a new structure which is further to the Left (e.g. 'Transgender rights').
This will never stop. Transgender people are not being favored by Marxism, they will be discarded in the next revolution to support whatever is coming next down the line.
Revolution, over and over again. Using and discarding people, over and over again.
In short, you've been had. You and your people were appropriated by Marxism and then spat out.
You are now a small-c conservative, seeking to conserve what you thought you were building. And, therefore, you are now labelled by the Left as a fascist.
I am genuinely sad for your loss.
If you are willing to consider it - and I do not doubt that this will be a bitter pill to swallow - I suggest that you were looking in the wrong place for love, value, purpose and meaning, and that there is another place you should look to find it.
The Left speaks about love, but it knows only power. It is a parasite which feeds on humanity and destroys it.
If you want love, the place to find it is by looking at the God who voluntarily used his immense power to serve the highest needs of humanity, by dying on the cross for each of us so that we can, if we accept his gift, be made whole and restored to full relationship with Him.
"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." from the Bible (1 John 4:10).
Accepting this means giving up a lot, particularly our belief that we are inherently good people who have done nothing wrong. It also means giving up the idea that we are the saviors of the world (as activists) and admitting that we actually need someone else to save us.
By giving all of this up, however, we gain so much more in Jesus Christ. We gain everything, including real love and, most importantly, a relationship with the author of that real love.
You might enjoy the writings of Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian activist who found this love. A good place to start might be https://rosariabutterfield.com/biography
p.s. (following on from one of your comments) MLK is indeed a hero. But he was calling America to live up to what it claimed it believed - that under God all men are created equal and, therefore, must be treated as equals. MLK's answer started with God and flowed outward.
Yes. That's where I discovered him as well. It was interesting to find out about the long game in terms of institutional capture and the "neverending" state of revolution that he advocated.
Personally, I don't like the idea of living in a world where nothing is ever resolved and we are always at each other's throats. I think we can be adults and reach consensus on certain basics that pretty much everyone can agree on - or at least a majority. Everything else that remains contentious (like abortion or guns, for instance) can be left up to individual choice.
This was so, so good. I’ve been struggling so much to wrap my head around this issue for years now -- your writing brings some nice clarity to the issue.
Thank you, Sarah!I Do you by any chance live in a "blue" state? I ask because I left California 12 years ago and now live in Montana (I work remotely with clients in L.A.). People here are far less consumed with issues du jour. I've found that when you have that kind of "space" and aren't trapped in an echo chamber of propaganda, it's often easier to synthesize what's going on.
Oh, space, I do indeed have! 😅 I’m from Waco, Texas, but have been an immigrant in Mexico for the past 20 years so am watching all of this “from afar.” While there’s some trans activism in Mexico (and certainly trans people, as there are everywhere, I suppose), the discourse around it isn’t anywhere near the level of fever pitch it seems to be at in the US. And honestly, I think Mexico at least recognizes it’s got much bigger fish to fry in terms of actual social problems that need to be solved...who’s going to be focusing on what color to paint the wall when there’s not even a roof, you know? “Gender activism” for the moment is more centered around reducing our abhorrent femicide rate and gaining access to abortion.
So I guess from down here, the whole trans activism world of the richest countries seems a little frivolous to most people, like a problem people made up out of boredom and loneliness, a way to make oneself special and part of a group at a time when the US is so lacking in the kind of social cohesion that before made people feel like they lived in actual communities. In my mind, it’s connected to a study I read about in which people were placed in empty rooms without their phones, books, etc, but with a little machine they could use to give themselves electrical shocks. Even for as little as 30 minutes, a lot of people chose to shock themselves rather that just sitting alone with their thoughts. Somehow, this feels similar.
Lol. I would say we're having "First World Problems," except this country (given the level of poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, etc.) is clearly no longer part of the First World. We once had a roof, and a rather nice one, at that. But now it's collapsing fast, and it feels like frivolous social issues are being used to distract us from the collapse. "Quick, look over here -- before that beam smacks you on the head!"
And that empty room study -- OMG, it sounds like the 21st century version of Milgram's experiment! I would love to read it. It's so true that people can no longer be alone with their thoughts. I suspect this is why most Americans find it so frustrating (and almost impossible) to meditate.
You said it on the "first world" (for lack of a better classification) distractions! I wonder if things like extreme income inequality and homeless kids and the fact that people can get shot just going to the grocery store will ever get the kind of sustained attention and intensity that these gender issues do. Like, national health organizations are now writing "people with vaginas" instead of women on the basis of a very small minority's strong suggestions, but we can't stop people from carrying AK-47s into Target? Every time I read the news I think, What the hell is going ON up there??
By the way, read your older article about money -- it seems we've got lots of overlapping interests and I look forward to exploring your writing more! Also, and this is a little weird, but I was excited to see your partner's name is Lisa, haha. My sister's name is Lisa, and I named my daughter Lisa! The more Lisas in the world, the better, I'd say. :D
This is another great article, Monica. However, a bit of perspective I'd like to add to this statement of yours:
"Thanks to feminist standard bearers like Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem, pop culture icons like Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey, and advocacy groups like the National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), we’ve made tremendous strides over the past century by highlighting these inequities and enacting legislation to remove them. These crusaders passionately defended our rights and made us proud, and even honored, to be women."
For all the good one might claim the likes of Oprah Winfrey did, she is no champion or hero for anyone other than herself. She is a classic example of proving that women and PoC in power behave no better than their male or white counterparts, and her rise to talk show and media stardom in the 1980s went a long way towards pushing third wave feminism and the "victim" mindset, as well as the moral panics that shifted America far more conservatively towards a surveillance state, and led to the very phenomenon of "woke" politics that you do such a good job of critiquing.
She has promoted the "stranger danger" phenomenon, along with the panic-driven mindset that helped foment the Satanic ritual abuse component of the moral panics that derailed the youth liberation movement of the '70s, helped eventually destroy its less illustrious second phase that emerged in the late '90s, and replaced empowerment of youth with a protectionist mindset that is now being applied to women. The gay community only continued to advance in this environment by, sadly, jettisoning the truly revolutionary aspects of their movement and embracing capitalism & socially conservative attitudes in general. And, of course, the power-hungry among that group went for postmodernist "woke" ideology which has led us to where we are now. I am certain that Oprah looks down from the top floor of one of her multi-storied mansions and smiles approvingly on where America has gone since she pushed out class acts in the talk show industry like Phil Donahue and opened the door to the likes of Rikki Lake, Geraldo Rivera, and Maury Povich in his place.
Which leads me to point to the particular horse that Ellen DeGeneres rode to fame and capitalist wealth. The one that caused her to behave obnoxiously towards her employees (now seen as peons to her) and show her class unity by cozying up to an evangelical homophobe, war criminal like George Bush because he is a fellow capitalist, has embraced the Trump Derangement Syndrome, and is wooing the hearts of many by painting vivid portraits of flowers. Which leads to the matter of her being an example of how LGBTs behave no better than us "breeders" when in positions of power.
We will just have to agree to disagree on seeing these two women as champions of progress or positive inspirations. Please do not take this as an indication that I have abandoned you as one of my own heroes and inspirations, as I really enjoyed your book and I tend to agree with 95% of what you say :-)
I agree with most everything you wrote. And I'm a transgender woman and have been for 30 years, long before there were any protections at all. But I go further than you. Topics of gender and sex have no place in our elementary schools. None whatsoever. Before 7th or 8th grade children are incapable of making life altering decisions about this stuff. Yet some would push children into things which may have permanent effects. As is borne out by reams of studies, children go through phases. A young girl can happily identify as a "tomboy" but completely change once puberty starts. But just because a young girl wants to play Little League baseball doesn't mean she should be a boy. Yet "authorities" are increasingly pushing children to think their biological sex can be changed as if by magic. It can't.
You say that all people should be treated the same. I differ there. Sam Brinton, the luggage stealing "nuclear engineer", has admitted in print that his way of dress is a sexual fetish. He's perfectly welcome to do that on his own time. But making his fetish public and insisting that everyone accept it is no different than another gay man appearing in bondage gear at work. Not everything is ok.
And you're right. Gender at puberty defines everyone's bodies. I've not seen any transwomen insisting on playing for the NFL or NBA. As you probably know, Europe is rapidly stepping back from the trans ideology. Affirming medical procedures and medications are being withheld until kids are older.
Medium is a progressive haunt. Their name for the censorship group is perfectly Orwellian.
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, Nosh. I’ve known transgender women for most of my adult life. We partied together in gay clubs in the 80s. And I never remotely felt marginalized or disrespected as a woman. We peacefully co-existed in harmony. I acknowledged their preference to present and identify as women, but I never had the sense that they denied certain biological realities.
And I couldn’t agree with you more about the sexualization of minors. I think it’s completely inappropriate for any child to be exposed to sex education that goes beyond basic anatomy, contraception, and STDs. Sex and sexual orientation is something that teenagers (NOT children) can and should at experiment with, but on their own time, in their own space -- not at the behest of “educators.” And as you say, life-altering decisions that affect their bodies should be completely off the table. If a child isn’t old enough to drive or to consume alcohol, how can they possibly consent to a mastectomy?
As far as I can tell, the issues that are arising now come not from older members of the transgender community, but from a younger, almost fanatical group that has co-opted the movement and militarized it.
Curiously, the same thing seems to be happening in the black community. Older black people -- who experienced and remember “real” racism --can’t relate to “microaggressions” and the concept of “white fragility.” We never wanted to be treated better than white people or to shame them into submission; we just wanted to be on equal footing.
Both movements have been weaponized as tools of division. And I think we all know who benefits from this division.
You have a keen insight. I'm white but I idolized MLK. It's hard to find him now. And it's not for the better of any of us.
MLK is one my very, very few heroes. We desperately need to hear his voice again now.
The irony, of course, is that if MLK were alive today, he would be cancelled.
Truth.
It's ironically, tragically perfect that "content of character" - a dedication to honest, good-faith effort, a belief in the value of dialogue, a sense of responsibility to reality and to each other - is precisely what suffers most under the new thought regimes.
I like Medium fine, and some of the authors. But I really dislike outright censorship, and your article had nothing objectionable.
Calling themselves the "Trust & Safety Team" and only having articles and forms encouraging everyone to *turn in* those considered guilty of "wrong-speak" is is pretty one-sided. Who do they answer to? Apparently only to the truly righteous.
Trust & Safety Team apparent cannot be easily reached— it took me awhile to find an email, (trust@medium.com) and it really exists only to turn in non-believers. Blocking your article gives me an excellent reason to cancel my membership. One cannot reason with the truly righteous.
They answer to no one, and I have yet to meet one person on Medium who has successfully appealed an alleged violation of community guidelines. It's Soviet-style "Trust & Safety" (But not to worry -- Medium is just a private company, not controlled by the government, so all good. Carry on).
I plan to end my membership as soon as I find time to sift through my account and add a "No longer contributing due to rampant censorship -- please find me on Substack" blurb at the end of all my articles.
On a separate note, it seems that "Trust & Safety" is one of many deceptive labels that have infiltrated our society. Like "Operation Iraqi Freedom," "Affordable Health Care," "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," "Inflation Reduction Act, and "gender affirming care." I've come to believe that the label presented for most initiatives and legislation is often diametrically at odds with their intended (but not stated) goal.
If you want to understand what's really going on, flip whatever you're hearing/told on its head. And then it will all make sense.
Great rule of thumb! I’m glad to have found your substack.
well-said!
Now that you, Steve QJ and Gesha Marie Bland have moved to substack, I've decided to cancel my Medium account (I just did this). I can't stand their attitude to heterodox voices.
Enough with the self-righteous religion already. I escaped from deeply toxic Christian fundamentalism in Appalachia in my late teens and I'm never going back to this paradigm - even if it is promulgated by the left, a political faction of which I used to be a proud member. Just can't do it. What they are doing right now resonates wrongly in my soul.
Great article! Nowadays telling the truth to power ( the trans power!) will get you censored or banned. Even though you made it absolutely clear that you are not again trans.
It happened in Germany. Very sad!!!!
And the statue in Denmark is pornographic !
I wouldn't call it pornographic. Nakedness is not porn. But, I get that the juxtaposition of male and female sex organs is provocative and jarring, to say the least.
On a metaphorical level, it works - it would be great to see more men adopt a nurturing stance toward child rearing instead of dumping this role completely onto mothers. Tbf, many men already do this and our culture is slowly moving toward this attitude becoming more of a "norm."
But, I'm not a fan of uterine transplants into male bodies or a rush to enable men to have or breastfeed babies. What would be the purpose of such an effort? I'm not sure why men would want to do this other than out of a sense of jealousy that women can gestate life. I have read books that discuss men's fear of this power and how it plays into their efforts to disempower women. The whole thing is a muddle of epic proportions to be sure.
Great article, but I fear women have waited too long to speak up.
I’ve gotta admit, it is looking mighty dark now. Too many people have talked themselves into staying silent and/or rationalizing the unfolding insanity.
But I’m cautiously optimistic that it’s not too late to turn this ship around. We don’t need a majority to wake up; just a vocal, critical mass. We’ve already seen several sports organizations reverse course w/r/t biological men in women’s sports. The key is to resist and to KEEP resisting. When they seek sense weakness, they push harder. When they meet resistance, they ease up.
Women have not waited to speak up. Women have BEEN speaking on this issue now for 15 years. We have been siloed, cut off from the public square, censored by the mainstream media, by social media, by increasingly captured government agencies, and by corporations who stand to make billions on medicalizing gender dysphoria. We have been threatened and physically abused by increasingly militant trans (read: men's) rights activists.
Yes! Until Elon took over, women weren't free to speak about this on Twitter without being suspended or losing their accounts. Same with Reddit, where so many teenagers get their info about trans issues. Women (such as Maya Forstater and Kathleen Stock) have been fired or hounded out of their jobs for speaking up. And this essay right here was removed from Medium and the author was threatened with suspension because it is hate speech. Hell, Catherine Crouch's film The Gendercator was removed from the San Francisco LGBT film festival back in 2007. Women have been speaking up about this for a lot of years.
It’s never too late ! Never give up, because then they win! Remember Germany in the 30’s!
I feel like we have lost the media war, but not the actual culture war. At least where I live, most people are normal and haven't lost touch with reality, despite how the media wants us to think that 'everyone else' is okay with these things, why aren't you?'. We need to resist the urge to be despondent or to just go along with the madness. Stay true to reality and truth. Humans are not born cyborgs or blank slates waiting for you to choose from a menu of features and change them at will. We are created with an immortal soul.
I couldn’t agree more. At this point, the media’s sole reason for existing is to gaslight us into thinking that most people are accepting this distorted reality.
Well written. Very interesting
Thank you, Dr. Brady!
It’s a solid article.
The problem though; it’s now a broken record. Every one of these points has been articulated so many times it’s like reading job descriptions; you scan them, see all the usual stuff, and click apply. Medium really makes no point here other than demonstrating willingness to censor under cover of authority.
Matt Walsh’s new flick, same thing. It goes a little further by showing the overt hostile, sophist and evasive responses to seemingly straightforward questions, but in the end, if you’ve been following the issue, you really haven’t learned anything new.
I think the focus needs to shift from “woman” to “female.” How would the question “what is a female” change these responses? Yes yes, we get that man/woman can be perceived as discourses/constructs that are rigid more by convention than reality (though even the university professor in Walsh’s movie acknowledges sex and gender are intertwined, leading to the reasonable suggestion that immutable biological characteristics can inform gender).
So abandon the confusion and go more basic. “What is a female?”
I am willing to concede that “man” and “woman” can have a straight jacket effect on society. But male and female is an important distinction. I would not expect a gynecologist to be on my referral list for a scrotum examination, and even if I had had surgery to transition I would not hide the information that my vagina is a surgically altered penis. The doctor absolutely must know the patient is a surgically altered male.
Sure, I know people even argue that point, but it’s preposterous. Any parent hiding such information is clearly criminally negligent, any patient doing so is at best dangerously confused, at worst full-on dissasociative.
All in, I’d abandon the “woman” argument because the social construct angle is •not• preposterous. Start being very specific; there are no “women’s’” prisons, there are “female” prisons. There are no “women’s” sports, there are “female” sports. This addresses the known and provable differences. Leave the social gender issues to the academics that choose to pursue these exercises.
Let females decide if they want to compete with and share facilities with “women.” That is their choice and we should not take it away.
For what it’s worth, all of this applies to men/males. At this time we haven’t seen much fallout from that angle, but that’s just a matter of time.
I like your logic, which seems grounded in common sense. The problem is that I don’t believe gender theorists will appreciate a distinction between “woman” and “female” because it is, by the definition they have imposed, still exclusionary. It invites a separation that “shouldn’t” exist.
In answer to your very pointed and reasonable question, “What is a female?”, I suspect the answer would be “Anyone who identifies as female.” You see this as an important distinction, but I doubt those who embrace transgender ideology would agree.
I think the core of the disconnect we’re seeing now is that we’re being conditioned to believe that biological sex is irrelevant for almost every purpose, regardless of the terminology used. There are no “known” and “probable” differences anymore because even the “science” is now waffling on this issue. Until last year, I would have argued that a woman or a female is defined by her ability to bear children, but even that is no longer the case as we are now told that we should refer to “pregnant people,” not “pregnant women,” because men can bear children.
I could be wrong, but this seems to be what’s happening IMO.
I acknowledge there are problems with my approach. The redefinitions make it difficult to find stable ground to build the argument. However, when a life is on the line and a doctor needs to be informed of a complete medical history, all these notions collapse. The doctor will acknowledge that a male, surgically altered to “be” female, is not the same thing as a biologically original female and treatment would have to be informed by this. I don’t believe anybody that could be perceived as reasonable would debate that, so it’s common ground, which if nothing else is a place to start.
If a stronger argument exists for repealing 19A than women erasing themselves from society, I am unaware of it.
Great article, and thank you for your perspective!
My one quibble was "Would it be appropriate to add “Hispanic Lives” to the Black Lives Matter movement?" I think that's a great illustration, but not analagous, because both refer to ethnicities. Adding the TQ to the LGB is two completely different categories. It would be like adding "straight" to BLM, or "balding" to BLM, as those are categories that have nothing to do with ethnicity. That's only a minor thing.
It's very sad that a voice like yours is being silenced in favor of only trans "affirming" articles being allowed. Why not publish it and then someone else can publish why you're wrong? Only one reason. They can't refute it. They can only perpetrate narratives and propaganda that can bear not the slightest scrutiny.
Thank you, Kris! I appreciate your point about the comparison between Hispanic Lives and BLM, and I do agree that the two groups have more in common (a reference to ethnicity) than the LGB and TQ+ (a reference to sexual orientation vs gender identity). I guess my point is that while Black and Hispanic are both ethnic descriptors, the experiences of the two groups are so vastly different that the commonality of ethnic descriptor becomes meaningless.
But you are definitely correct; the comparison is not completely analogous. I struggle to find an analogy that is completely spot on. Something to noodle going forward.
It is a peculiar place we find ourselves where people would rather silence others than engage in debate. My experience has been that people who opt for the former are generally not secure in the strength or validity of their position.
We see something similar unfolding in mainstream media. Back in the day (and I’m probably dating myself) I recall vibrant exchanges between pundits (I’m thinking “Crossfire”). And even 20 years ago cable news networks would routinely invite people from the “other” side to offer their opinions on issues. But when we tune in now, we’re instantly funneled into an echo chamber. It’s almost as if they’re terrified that if people heard the “other” side, they might actually change their mind...🤔
Thanks for this article, Ms. Harris. It is well argued and comprehensive, and matches very well what I have seen from another vantage point on our society. I wish it could be distributed to a wider audience, and I will do my part to help with that by forwarding it to people I know.
Many thanks, Friki 🙏
Ah! So brilliantly said -- thank you for putting this into words. Totally agree!!
Your article here is a serious reason I subscribed to Reality's last Stand. The bullying, the mob mentality is a page out of Maoism`s book.
And if you can see “ What is aWoman “, the Matt Walsh documentary, I’d recommend it! Unless you take the silly warning seriously!😅😅
Saw it and really enjoyed it!
Thank you for crafting this article and so eloquently speaking about this very critical issue. So well written, and you deftly navigate through every important part of this increasingly perplexing topic.
Thank you for your article. Your experience (and the experience of women and gay people in general) speaks to a wider phenomenon, namely that the Left (Marxism) appropriates people and cultures to push forward the Marxist agenda and then discards those people and cultures.
Feminism was not about women. The Left used women to advance the Marxist agenda through feminism.
Gay rights was not about gay people. The Left used gay people to advance the Marxist agenda through gay rights.
You were promised (and reasonably expected) that the Left was establishing a new set of norms which would elevate women and gay people and which would be upheld in perpetuity. But this is actually a small-c conservative approach (which seeks to create valuable infrastructure and then conserve it in perpetuity because of its ongoing value).
What you were *not* told is that the Left has no ambition to conserve anything at all, but to foster a system of perpetual revolution which denounces everything static (e.g. 'the Patriarchy') as Fascist, destroys it, and replaces it with a new structure which is further to the Left (e.g. 'Feminism').
And then, in the next revolution, it will denounce everything static (e.g. 'Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism') as Fascist, destroy it, and replace it with a new structure which is further to the Left (e.g. 'Transgender rights').
This will never stop. Transgender people are not being favored by Marxism, they will be discarded in the next revolution to support whatever is coming next down the line.
Revolution, over and over again. Using and discarding people, over and over again.
In short, you've been had. You and your people were appropriated by Marxism and then spat out.
You are now a small-c conservative, seeking to conserve what you thought you were building. And, therefore, you are now labelled by the Left as a fascist.
I am genuinely sad for your loss.
If you are willing to consider it - and I do not doubt that this will be a bitter pill to swallow - I suggest that you were looking in the wrong place for love, value, purpose and meaning, and that there is another place you should look to find it.
The Left speaks about love, but it knows only power. It is a parasite which feeds on humanity and destroys it.
If you want love, the place to find it is by looking at the God who voluntarily used his immense power to serve the highest needs of humanity, by dying on the cross for each of us so that we can, if we accept his gift, be made whole and restored to full relationship with Him.
"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." from the Bible (1 John 4:10).
Accepting this means giving up a lot, particularly our belief that we are inherently good people who have done nothing wrong. It also means giving up the idea that we are the saviors of the world (as activists) and admitting that we actually need someone else to save us.
By giving all of this up, however, we gain so much more in Jesus Christ. We gain everything, including real love and, most importantly, a relationship with the author of that real love.
You might enjoy the writings of Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian activist who found this love. A good place to start might be https://rosariabutterfield.com/biography
p.s. (following on from one of your comments) MLK is indeed a hero. But he was calling America to live up to what it claimed it believed - that under God all men are created equal and, therefore, must be treated as equals. MLK's answer started with God and flowed outward.
Sounds like you've been reading Paolo Friere.
I haven't, but I've heard James Lindsay read through and discuss his work on the New Discourses podcast.
Yes. That's where I discovered him as well. It was interesting to find out about the long game in terms of institutional capture and the "neverending" state of revolution that he advocated.
Personally, I don't like the idea of living in a world where nothing is ever resolved and we are always at each other's throats. I think we can be adults and reach consensus on certain basics that pretty much everyone can agree on - or at least a majority. Everything else that remains contentious (like abortion or guns, for instance) can be left up to individual choice.
This was so, so good. I’ve been struggling so much to wrap my head around this issue for years now -- your writing brings some nice clarity to the issue.
Thank you, Sarah!I Do you by any chance live in a "blue" state? I ask because I left California 12 years ago and now live in Montana (I work remotely with clients in L.A.). People here are far less consumed with issues du jour. I've found that when you have that kind of "space" and aren't trapped in an echo chamber of propaganda, it's often easier to synthesize what's going on.
Oh, space, I do indeed have! 😅 I’m from Waco, Texas, but have been an immigrant in Mexico for the past 20 years so am watching all of this “from afar.” While there’s some trans activism in Mexico (and certainly trans people, as there are everywhere, I suppose), the discourse around it isn’t anywhere near the level of fever pitch it seems to be at in the US. And honestly, I think Mexico at least recognizes it’s got much bigger fish to fry in terms of actual social problems that need to be solved...who’s going to be focusing on what color to paint the wall when there’s not even a roof, you know? “Gender activism” for the moment is more centered around reducing our abhorrent femicide rate and gaining access to abortion.
So I guess from down here, the whole trans activism world of the richest countries seems a little frivolous to most people, like a problem people made up out of boredom and loneliness, a way to make oneself special and part of a group at a time when the US is so lacking in the kind of social cohesion that before made people feel like they lived in actual communities. In my mind, it’s connected to a study I read about in which people were placed in empty rooms without their phones, books, etc, but with a little machine they could use to give themselves electrical shocks. Even for as little as 30 minutes, a lot of people chose to shock themselves rather that just sitting alone with their thoughts. Somehow, this feels similar.
Lol. I would say we're having "First World Problems," except this country (given the level of poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, etc.) is clearly no longer part of the First World. We once had a roof, and a rather nice one, at that. But now it's collapsing fast, and it feels like frivolous social issues are being used to distract us from the collapse. "Quick, look over here -- before that beam smacks you on the head!"
And that empty room study -- OMG, it sounds like the 21st century version of Milgram's experiment! I would love to read it. It's so true that people can no longer be alone with their thoughts. I suspect this is why most Americans find it so frustrating (and almost impossible) to meditate.
You said it on the "first world" (for lack of a better classification) distractions! I wonder if things like extreme income inequality and homeless kids and the fact that people can get shot just going to the grocery store will ever get the kind of sustained attention and intensity that these gender issues do. Like, national health organizations are now writing "people with vaginas" instead of women on the basis of a very small minority's strong suggestions, but we can't stop people from carrying AK-47s into Target? Every time I read the news I think, What the hell is going ON up there??
By the way, read your older article about money -- it seems we've got lots of overlapping interests and I look forward to exploring your writing more! Also, and this is a little weird, but I was excited to see your partner's name is Lisa, haha. My sister's name is Lisa, and I named my daughter Lisa! The more Lisas in the world, the better, I'd say. :D
I found an article about the study -- here you go! https://www.science.org/content/article/people-would-rather-be-electrically-shocked-left-alone-their-thoughts
Lisas rock!!!!! They are often solid, grounded thinkers :-)
Thanks so much for sharing the study. That’s worth a blog post, in and of itself, eh?
This is another great article, Monica. However, a bit of perspective I'd like to add to this statement of yours:
"Thanks to feminist standard bearers like Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem, pop culture icons like Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey, and advocacy groups like the National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), we’ve made tremendous strides over the past century by highlighting these inequities and enacting legislation to remove them. These crusaders passionately defended our rights and made us proud, and even honored, to be women."
For all the good one might claim the likes of Oprah Winfrey did, she is no champion or hero for anyone other than herself. She is a classic example of proving that women and PoC in power behave no better than their male or white counterparts, and her rise to talk show and media stardom in the 1980s went a long way towards pushing third wave feminism and the "victim" mindset, as well as the moral panics that shifted America far more conservatively towards a surveillance state, and led to the very phenomenon of "woke" politics that you do such a good job of critiquing.
She has promoted the "stranger danger" phenomenon, along with the panic-driven mindset that helped foment the Satanic ritual abuse component of the moral panics that derailed the youth liberation movement of the '70s, helped eventually destroy its less illustrious second phase that emerged in the late '90s, and replaced empowerment of youth with a protectionist mindset that is now being applied to women. The gay community only continued to advance in this environment by, sadly, jettisoning the truly revolutionary aspects of their movement and embracing capitalism & socially conservative attitudes in general. And, of course, the power-hungry among that group went for postmodernist "woke" ideology which has led us to where we are now. I am certain that Oprah looks down from the top floor of one of her multi-storied mansions and smiles approvingly on where America has gone since she pushed out class acts in the talk show industry like Phil Donahue and opened the door to the likes of Rikki Lake, Geraldo Rivera, and Maury Povich in his place.
Which leads me to point to the particular horse that Ellen DeGeneres rode to fame and capitalist wealth. The one that caused her to behave obnoxiously towards her employees (now seen as peons to her) and show her class unity by cozying up to an evangelical homophobe, war criminal like George Bush because he is a fellow capitalist, has embraced the Trump Derangement Syndrome, and is wooing the hearts of many by painting vivid portraits of flowers. Which leads to the matter of her being an example of how LGBTs behave no better than us "breeders" when in positions of power.
We will just have to agree to disagree on seeing these two women as champions of progress or positive inspirations. Please do not take this as an indication that I have abandoned you as one of my own heroes and inspirations, as I really enjoyed your book and I tend to agree with 95% of what you say :-)