The lines you’ve drawn are good ones, and defensible, even if they are somewhat different from where others would draw the line. Taking a hard stance, and vilifying anyone who disagrees, just serves to reinforce the divide on this topic that society finds itself in, and drives moderate, reasonable people to support the trans rights activists.
I found your recent article to be very insightful, and then read your book “Why Do I Do That”. I have an 18 year old daughter who has identified as a boy for the past 4 years, and it is very obvious to me that shame plays a huge part in it. She hates the person she used to be and has constructed a false persona who she believes is much cooler and much more protected than her true self.
I wonder about the role of intentional shaming by trans activists on the internet whose goal it is to get vulnerable kids to transition. I think she was made to feel ashamed of who she was - a “privileged” white female from a reasonably well-off intact family, and then offered membership into the trans community as an antidote to that manufactured shame. It seems clear to me after reading your articles and book that transitioning kids serves as another form of affirmation for AGP people.
What are your thoughts on this? And do you have any (brief) advice for what a parent of a young adult can do to help combat that shame? (I’m also grappling with the fact that I must have had a lot to do with the development of that shame, and why she was vulnerable to the online trans community, but that’s too big of a topic.)
Very well written. As for Hayton, and accepting him as a “her,” my concern is that in doing so just because he admits he is not a biological woman and freely admits to having AGP, it opens the door to accepting men with other types of sexual deviations/perversions, the victims of whom are primarily women and children.
In any event, Hayton is delusional on some level, regardless of his repeated assertions that he is not a biological woman. He seems to see nothing wrong in being AGP and admits it feeely. I reject that completely. AGP is a mental illness that should never be accepted as normal in a functioning society.
"Before his exit from 𝕏 last week, author and media commentator Andrew Doyle articulated a similar view after he was criticized for referring to Hayton, a biological male, as “she”; a vicious dogpile ensued as enraged gender critical feminists brutally denounced and insulted him."
Andrew Doyle has not been honest in the Debbie Hayton brouhaha. He took a nasty swipe at Alessandra Asteriti, by name, in his piece at UnHerd. She is a brilliant lawyer and legal scholar, not someone to trifle with. I recommend that everyone check out her "X" (Twitter) posts, especially those from February 11th, where she explains, quite logically, the legal ramifications, at least in the UK, that will ensue from some Gender Critical people using wrong sex pronouns. Here are a couple of her tweets:
"GC people who use female pronouns for at least some transwomen can be quoted as evidence in an employment tribunal against a woman who does not use compelled pronouns and appeals to her GC belief.
It stands to reason that, if GC people are willing to use pronouns, her refusal to do so is 'misgendering with impunity' as per Forstater v CGD. So their 'choice' could actually hurt women in tribunal cases defending their own choice not to call a man a woman.
It could be a transwoman who is not respectful to women (Doyle's criterion), or who did sexually abuse her (though this is not 'known', Turner's criterion). She could lose her job because of their choice to lie about some transwomen."
UnHerd did not grant Alessandra Asteriti the basic courtesy of the right to reply, so she posted this on her own:
While I appreciate how thoughtful this essay is, you missed an important point. Many, many—far too many—women have survived some degree of male sexual aggression, assault, or violence. When you include harassment, it’s practically 100%. For many of us, refusing pronoun coercion is about honoring our own mental health.
There have been court cases where a rape survivor was forced to refer to the rapist as “she,” which is state imposed psychological abuse of the rapist’s victim.
I encountered my first sexual predator when I was 8 years old. For this reason, referring to a male by female pronouns is profoundly unkind—to me, and all the women and children I know who have also survived sexual harm.
As a feminist sex realist I am moving towards accepting the Debbie Haytons of this world as she. If someone lives as the other sex and feels and expresses honestly that they respect and acknowledge women's rights then why not? Its polite.
The trans people speaking out in favour of truth, and acknowledging the horrors of trans ideology and narcissistic gender identity declarations are not the people who are causing the trouble and aggression towards women and male comrades. The more often decent and thoughtful trans people speak up, the better for all of us.
There has to be a way forward with all of this. But I'm not a trans widow, and they have my full sympathy.
My sense is that you don't know much about Hayton. One thing you'd surely consider indefensible is his telling his wife early on that if, after he 'transitioned', she wanted him to move out of their house, he would do so. But guess what actually happened when she did indeed indicate this preference? Yep, no surprise -- he stayed, later claiming they'd worked out their differences. But even aside from this, he's really just a rank hypocrite. He's the kind of shame-seeking AGP willing to admit his maleness loud and (supposedly) proud, but still indicating his strong preference that most people not use accurate pronouns for him. This should be absolutely no problem though for Mr. Honest, right? Nope -- because he's apparently deluded enough to believe he actually passes much of the time. After all, in the twenty-teens he was instrumental in getting his teachers' union to change their rules so that he could use female-only bathrooms at school. He now carefully implies that he doesn't typically use women's public loos -- but he never says outright that he'll never do so, that he considers them off-limits as other men do.
The more I've learned about AGP, the more I've come to see that the best and really only way to induce men to stop wanting entrance to female spaces and contests is for everyone to consistently use male pronouns. This will do a great deal to lessen the attraction for them of woman-face and cosmetic surgery to approximate femaleness. Most of them will feel too ridiculous to go on with the act if we all continue to call them he/him. So many new cases of AGP will be averted. Hayton himself says his jealous fixation on acting out his paraphilia only became overwhelming when he saw other men online doing it and felt, damnit, if they could be out about their fetish, why couldn't he as well?
Last note: I'm surprised and disappointed to learn how A. Doyle behaved online. I've found his opinions thoughtful and considered until now. I hope he'll do some reflecting.
Fantastic article! Loving Dr Burgo’s takes on this issue! His patients are clearly lucky to have him as a therapist.
“Hayton remains married, hasn’t neglected all family obligations, and bears no resemblance to the Vindictive Narcissists I’ve described in this essay. Hayton acknowledges being a biological male and rejects gender ideology. As far as I can tell, Hayton means no harm to anyone.”
But you don’t know what he’s like at home, or to his wife.
“For many combatants, sacrificing a single man’s individual identity to fight trans rights activism makes sense when it furthers your cause. Given how aggressively and contemptuously women have been asked to respect the “inner truth” of trans-identified men and told to feel empathy for transgressors regardless of their own feelings, a refusal to feel any compassion is a natural kind of defiance.”
THIS. KJK is an ACTIVIST. Women are allowed to have any personality they have. She happens to be an extraordinarily feminine and ruthless woman- a bulldog. That’s who she is. She’s not setting up Genspect or some place for scientific and social inquiry filled with therapists and social workers. She’s a combatant, and we need people like that in our society, AS LONG AS someone can put a check on the raging fire these people put forth (cleansing, life bringing but also destructive). Saying a hard “NO” to tolerating disturbed men’s desire to be a sexy lady is a reasonable choice. It’s like people are seeking ONLY doormat-style motherhood from the women they encounter in public so they are shocked and horrified when some women are aggressive and ruthless and angry. People have less issue with what KJK says and more with how she says it. Interestingly, she hasn’t capitulated…and she’s pretty much the only women who has made her way onto mainstream platforms to share her stance in this issue, so… 🤔
“Gender critical feminists consider him a villain, while I see man lost in his belief that he “routinely passes” for a woman, and unaware of the problematic nature of his views. I see him as self-deceived rather than malicious.”
Well you would, bc ultimately it’s not your boundaries his identity requires he push and violate. 🤷♀️ What about his female students at school who feel socially pressured to call him “Ms Hayton,” knowing he may be getting off on it? Any empathy for them? What most men fundamentally don’t get is what if feels like for an otherwise nice man to sexually violate you.
“But then he argues that our perceptions of sex matter more than the biological reality, grounding his argument in a discussion of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS).”
So he’s a “gender identity ideology for me but not for thee” trans. What I’ve been saying all along about “GC” trans people. Ritchie Herron had a great essay where he touches on this.
Great essay! Glad to see the dialogue moving forward on this issue in a productive and fair way.
Thank you for making intelligible, also emotionally intelligible, the position of women who take a very hard line against preferred pronouns in public discourse.
Nope. That was a LOT of words for, "I'll split hairs to the nth to accommodate MY empathy — and reality be damned." No man ever died having their correct pronouns used in their presence. But the dignity of/respect for countless women has by using the wrong ones. 👎 #realityRULES
Dr. Burgo, I have to point out to you that while transwidowsvoices.org has a wealth of information on many of our experiences as trans widows, it is not a comprehensive presentation of what we've been through. In my data of 57 trans widows' experiences (the only such data in the world), 23 womenr eported they had been sexually assaulted (raped, essentially) by her husband, often while he was in a state of autogynophilic arousal, wearing women's lingerie. The other 2/3 of us got out before that happened or were otherwise able to protect ourselves. I've also found there's a pattern of the worst, most violent sexual assaults on the wives (or female partners) in the younger generation; these dudes are watching hypno-sissy porn, request the humiliation experience, then decide to be the perpetrator. In several cases, the rapes were reported to law enforcement. I'm talking about Canada, Scandinavia, the UK and US. None of the sexual crimes were prosecuted. Please do not sugarcoat the violence. Ute Heggen
When you allow your empathy to drive you to use "preferred pronouns" that are contrary to sex for certain trans-identified people, you are implying that the designation is earned. No man should be called "she", even if you think he's a sympathetic, nice guy.
And to be clear, Hayton is not a sympathetic, nice guy.
It really doesn't matter what drives them. I don't find these men interesting because it doesn't matter what drives male stupidity and perversion. Is this complicated? What is there to figure out here?
They're just nasty and need to be shamed. End of story. As if these men are such complex creatures.
Thank you for this, it's given me much to think about. I did want to point out that the perception standard of sex is obviously incoherent because sex is immutable, but that's why there's not only sex but also gender. I use pronouns as a courtesy towards transgender people who are cordial and who are making a good faith attempt to pass. But for people who are acting maliciously, I'm happy to condemn them and will "misgender" them if I'd been making an active attempt not to. Note that if they pass well enough that my senses tell me they are the gender they claim they are, then I will continue to use the correct pronouns since not doing so would be going against my own senses. To those who don't like the concept of gender, I would point you towards Debra Soh's "The End of Gender." While not perfect, it does give credence to the assertion that sex and gender are both binary and biological but not necessarily aligned with each other, which strikes me as consistent with my experiences.
My bulwark against gender ideology was not wanting to be intellectually taken advantage of just because other people say so and placing high value on my own senses and conscience. Similarly, I will not be pressured into using pronouns strictly concordant with natal sex by GC feminists or conservatives just because they get offended; I'd again much rather trust my own senses and standards. I already have a decent amount of disdain for feminism to begin with because of its push to center the sociopolitical aspect of womanhood over the biological — which provided fertile ground for gender ideology, ensconced subtle and overt forms of misandry into polite society, and set the stage for the strife between the sexes that we suffer from today. As such, I'm not privy to take radical feminists that seriously because they aren't willing to take their positions to their logical conclusion, which would buttress gender ideology, on account of their blatant favoritism for the "fairer" sex.
Ultimately I agree with the lines that Dr. Burgo has drawn as they roughly match my own. Evolution has gifted me (and all of us) with the ability to ascertain sex remarkably well, and if someone is able to fool that module, I won't fight it. If they're moving in that direction and still don't pass but through their actions and behavior acknowledge that my acquiescence is merely a courtesy, then I will play along.
The lines you’ve drawn are good ones, and defensible, even if they are somewhat different from where others would draw the line. Taking a hard stance, and vilifying anyone who disagrees, just serves to reinforce the divide on this topic that society finds itself in, and drives moderate, reasonable people to support the trans rights activists.
I found your recent article to be very insightful, and then read your book “Why Do I Do That”. I have an 18 year old daughter who has identified as a boy for the past 4 years, and it is very obvious to me that shame plays a huge part in it. She hates the person she used to be and has constructed a false persona who she believes is much cooler and much more protected than her true self.
I wonder about the role of intentional shaming by trans activists on the internet whose goal it is to get vulnerable kids to transition. I think she was made to feel ashamed of who she was - a “privileged” white female from a reasonably well-off intact family, and then offered membership into the trans community as an antidote to that manufactured shame. It seems clear to me after reading your articles and book that transitioning kids serves as another form of affirmation for AGP people.
What are your thoughts on this? And do you have any (brief) advice for what a parent of a young adult can do to help combat that shame? (I’m also grappling with the fact that I must have had a lot to do with the development of that shame, and why she was vulnerable to the online trans community, but that’s too big of a topic.)
Very well written. As for Hayton, and accepting him as a “her,” my concern is that in doing so just because he admits he is not a biological woman and freely admits to having AGP, it opens the door to accepting men with other types of sexual deviations/perversions, the victims of whom are primarily women and children.
In any event, Hayton is delusional on some level, regardless of his repeated assertions that he is not a biological woman. He seems to see nothing wrong in being AGP and admits it feeely. I reject that completely. AGP is a mental illness that should never be accepted as normal in a functioning society.
I won't use the wrong pronouns. I know such a person. I use the name, but not pronouns. I actually don't even use the name much. I avoid the person.
You've written
"Before his exit from 𝕏 last week, author and media commentator Andrew Doyle articulated a similar view after he was criticized for referring to Hayton, a biological male, as “she”; a vicious dogpile ensued as enraged gender critical feminists brutally denounced and insulted him."
Andrew Doyle has not been honest in the Debbie Hayton brouhaha. He took a nasty swipe at Alessandra Asteriti, by name, in his piece at UnHerd. She is a brilliant lawyer and legal scholar, not someone to trifle with. I recommend that everyone check out her "X" (Twitter) posts, especially those from February 11th, where she explains, quite logically, the legal ramifications, at least in the UK, that will ensue from some Gender Critical people using wrong sex pronouns. Here are a couple of her tweets:
"GC people who use female pronouns for at least some transwomen can be quoted as evidence in an employment tribunal against a woman who does not use compelled pronouns and appeals to her GC belief.
It stands to reason that, if GC people are willing to use pronouns, her refusal to do so is 'misgendering with impunity' as per Forstater v CGD. So their 'choice' could actually hurt women in tribunal cases defending their own choice not to call a man a woman.
It could be a transwoman who is not respectful to women (Doyle's criterion), or who did sexually abuse her (though this is not 'known', Turner's criterion). She could lose her job because of their choice to lie about some transwomen."
UnHerd did not grant Alessandra Asteriti the basic courtesy of the right to reply, so she posted this on her own:
https://alessandraasteriti.substack.com/p/unheard
Read what she has to say.
While I appreciate how thoughtful this essay is, you missed an important point. Many, many—far too many—women have survived some degree of male sexual aggression, assault, or violence. When you include harassment, it’s practically 100%. For many of us, refusing pronoun coercion is about honoring our own mental health.
There have been court cases where a rape survivor was forced to refer to the rapist as “she,” which is state imposed psychological abuse of the rapist’s victim.
I encountered my first sexual predator when I was 8 years old. For this reason, referring to a male by female pronouns is profoundly unkind—to me, and all the women and children I know who have also survived sexual harm.
As a feminist sex realist I am moving towards accepting the Debbie Haytons of this world as she. If someone lives as the other sex and feels and expresses honestly that they respect and acknowledge women's rights then why not? Its polite.
The trans people speaking out in favour of truth, and acknowledging the horrors of trans ideology and narcissistic gender identity declarations are not the people who are causing the trouble and aggression towards women and male comrades. The more often decent and thoughtful trans people speak up, the better for all of us.
There has to be a way forward with all of this. But I'm not a trans widow, and they have my full sympathy.
My sense is that you don't know much about Hayton. One thing you'd surely consider indefensible is his telling his wife early on that if, after he 'transitioned', she wanted him to move out of their house, he would do so. But guess what actually happened when she did indeed indicate this preference? Yep, no surprise -- he stayed, later claiming they'd worked out their differences. But even aside from this, he's really just a rank hypocrite. He's the kind of shame-seeking AGP willing to admit his maleness loud and (supposedly) proud, but still indicating his strong preference that most people not use accurate pronouns for him. This should be absolutely no problem though for Mr. Honest, right? Nope -- because he's apparently deluded enough to believe he actually passes much of the time. After all, in the twenty-teens he was instrumental in getting his teachers' union to change their rules so that he could use female-only bathrooms at school. He now carefully implies that he doesn't typically use women's public loos -- but he never says outright that he'll never do so, that he considers them off-limits as other men do.
The more I've learned about AGP, the more I've come to see that the best and really only way to induce men to stop wanting entrance to female spaces and contests is for everyone to consistently use male pronouns. This will do a great deal to lessen the attraction for them of woman-face and cosmetic surgery to approximate femaleness. Most of them will feel too ridiculous to go on with the act if we all continue to call them he/him. So many new cases of AGP will be averted. Hayton himself says his jealous fixation on acting out his paraphilia only became overwhelming when he saw other men online doing it and felt, damnit, if they could be out about their fetish, why couldn't he as well?
Last note: I'm surprised and disappointed to learn how A. Doyle behaved online. I've found his opinions thoughtful and considered until now. I hope he'll do some reflecting.
Fantastic article! Loving Dr Burgo’s takes on this issue! His patients are clearly lucky to have him as a therapist.
“Hayton remains married, hasn’t neglected all family obligations, and bears no resemblance to the Vindictive Narcissists I’ve described in this essay. Hayton acknowledges being a biological male and rejects gender ideology. As far as I can tell, Hayton means no harm to anyone.”
But you don’t know what he’s like at home, or to his wife.
“For many combatants, sacrificing a single man’s individual identity to fight trans rights activism makes sense when it furthers your cause. Given how aggressively and contemptuously women have been asked to respect the “inner truth” of trans-identified men and told to feel empathy for transgressors regardless of their own feelings, a refusal to feel any compassion is a natural kind of defiance.”
THIS. KJK is an ACTIVIST. Women are allowed to have any personality they have. She happens to be an extraordinarily feminine and ruthless woman- a bulldog. That’s who she is. She’s not setting up Genspect or some place for scientific and social inquiry filled with therapists and social workers. She’s a combatant, and we need people like that in our society, AS LONG AS someone can put a check on the raging fire these people put forth (cleansing, life bringing but also destructive). Saying a hard “NO” to tolerating disturbed men’s desire to be a sexy lady is a reasonable choice. It’s like people are seeking ONLY doormat-style motherhood from the women they encounter in public so they are shocked and horrified when some women are aggressive and ruthless and angry. People have less issue with what KJK says and more with how she says it. Interestingly, she hasn’t capitulated…and she’s pretty much the only women who has made her way onto mainstream platforms to share her stance in this issue, so… 🤔
“Gender critical feminists consider him a villain, while I see man lost in his belief that he “routinely passes” for a woman, and unaware of the problematic nature of his views. I see him as self-deceived rather than malicious.”
Well you would, bc ultimately it’s not your boundaries his identity requires he push and violate. 🤷♀️ What about his female students at school who feel socially pressured to call him “Ms Hayton,” knowing he may be getting off on it? Any empathy for them? What most men fundamentally don’t get is what if feels like for an otherwise nice man to sexually violate you.
“But then he argues that our perceptions of sex matter more than the biological reality, grounding his argument in a discussion of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS).”
So he’s a “gender identity ideology for me but not for thee” trans. What I’ve been saying all along about “GC” trans people. Ritchie Herron had a great essay where he touches on this.
Great essay! Glad to see the dialogue moving forward on this issue in a productive and fair way.
Thank you for making intelligible, also emotionally intelligible, the position of women who take a very hard line against preferred pronouns in public discourse.
Nope. That was a LOT of words for, "I'll split hairs to the nth to accommodate MY empathy — and reality be damned." No man ever died having their correct pronouns used in their presence. But the dignity of/respect for countless women has by using the wrong ones. 👎 #realityRULES
Dr. Burgo, I have to point out to you that while transwidowsvoices.org has a wealth of information on many of our experiences as trans widows, it is not a comprehensive presentation of what we've been through. In my data of 57 trans widows' experiences (the only such data in the world), 23 womenr eported they had been sexually assaulted (raped, essentially) by her husband, often while he was in a state of autogynophilic arousal, wearing women's lingerie. The other 2/3 of us got out before that happened or were otherwise able to protect ourselves. I've also found there's a pattern of the worst, most violent sexual assaults on the wives (or female partners) in the younger generation; these dudes are watching hypno-sissy porn, request the humiliation experience, then decide to be the perpetrator. In several cases, the rapes were reported to law enforcement. I'm talking about Canada, Scandinavia, the UK and US. None of the sexual crimes were prosecuted. Please do not sugarcoat the violence. Ute Heggen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCD6uvnpl78
Stephanie was forced to to become an incel. I don’t know if she enjoyed PIV as much as I but I would be furious and embarrassed.
I disagree with you because you have not considered Stephanie and the kids.
When you allow your empathy to drive you to use "preferred pronouns" that are contrary to sex for certain trans-identified people, you are implying that the designation is earned. No man should be called "she", even if you think he's a sympathetic, nice guy.
And to be clear, Hayton is not a sympathetic, nice guy.
It really doesn't matter what drives them. I don't find these men interesting because it doesn't matter what drives male stupidity and perversion. Is this complicated? What is there to figure out here?
They're just nasty and need to be shamed. End of story. As if these men are such complex creatures.
Thank you for this, it's given me much to think about. I did want to point out that the perception standard of sex is obviously incoherent because sex is immutable, but that's why there's not only sex but also gender. I use pronouns as a courtesy towards transgender people who are cordial and who are making a good faith attempt to pass. But for people who are acting maliciously, I'm happy to condemn them and will "misgender" them if I'd been making an active attempt not to. Note that if they pass well enough that my senses tell me they are the gender they claim they are, then I will continue to use the correct pronouns since not doing so would be going against my own senses. To those who don't like the concept of gender, I would point you towards Debra Soh's "The End of Gender." While not perfect, it does give credence to the assertion that sex and gender are both binary and biological but not necessarily aligned with each other, which strikes me as consistent with my experiences.
My bulwark against gender ideology was not wanting to be intellectually taken advantage of just because other people say so and placing high value on my own senses and conscience. Similarly, I will not be pressured into using pronouns strictly concordant with natal sex by GC feminists or conservatives just because they get offended; I'd again much rather trust my own senses and standards. I already have a decent amount of disdain for feminism to begin with because of its push to center the sociopolitical aspect of womanhood over the biological — which provided fertile ground for gender ideology, ensconced subtle and overt forms of misandry into polite society, and set the stage for the strife between the sexes that we suffer from today. As such, I'm not privy to take radical feminists that seriously because they aren't willing to take their positions to their logical conclusion, which would buttress gender ideology, on account of their blatant favoritism for the "fairer" sex.
Ultimately I agree with the lines that Dr. Burgo has drawn as they roughly match my own. Evolution has gifted me (and all of us) with the ability to ascertain sex remarkably well, and if someone is able to fool that module, I won't fight it. If they're moving in that direction and still don't pass but through their actions and behavior acknowledge that my acquiescence is merely a courtesy, then I will play along.