Aug 19, 2022Liked by Eliza Mondegreen, Colin Wright
I absolutely love your writing, Eliza. It's just too bad that we, as a society, are too far gone to accommodate a shift in perspective. The fact that the public has been hoodwinked - out of the desire to be compassionate - into believing outright lies, leaves me gobsmacked. The blithe erasure of women's rights and protection from predatory males, after all that we supposedly learned in the #MeToo movement, reminds all women just how fragile our position in a free society really is. No matter how many women shout at the top of their lungs that we have specific needs based on our sex, the patriarchal culture we live in continues to be oblivious to just how much of a threat the trans movement is to women and to the LGB population. What's even more appalling is the comments from both left/right that women deserve this. It's women's fault for trying to be equal to men - conservative position. It's women's fault that we cannot 'just be kind', thus we deserve contempt from trans activists. It's absolutely crazy-making. It doesn't matter how accommodating we try to be, the trans lobbyists are never satisfied. We give them an inch, they take a mile. Women's socialization and indoctrination to be passive nurturers and caregivers has blinded us to the horrific cost of conceding to their demands. It's now an uphill, exhausting, mind-numbing battle to push back against the trans-extremism since so much of the public has been blinded to the true impact of trans ideology.
I'm terrified for my daughter and granddaughter. I can't sleep at night knowing the nightmare future they'll be facing if we don't win this misogynist war against female human beings. Transhumanism is a diabolical, detestable and despicable ideology that will destroy all humanity if we don't reclaim our rights as biological human beings and as women and mothers who MUST defend our children.
Where are the fathers, husbands, sons and brothers??? MIA. Shame on them.
I often talk about the "gay deal" and the "trans deal".
The "gay deal", which started really with Stonewall is "We gay folks are humans, and do what we want with CONSENTING ADULTS behind CLOSED DOORS. You non-gay folks do the same, behind your CLOSED DOORS. No one needs to know what goes on". That deal was a good one, and most people are accepting of it.
The "trans deal" is completely different. This deal is "We trans folks require that you agree with us. We do what we want in public. This has nothing to do with 'consenting adults', but is for all ages. We want to have access to your children, and we want you, the parent, to not be able to control them. You must use our language."
The "trans deal" is slowly becoming clear to most people. Those who understand it are completely horrified by it and are becoming more and more opposed to it. And those who oppose the "trans deal" are also more and more opposed to the "gay deal", because the predatory nature of the "gay view" on children is more and more clear.
This is interesting but I’m doubtful ‘reasonable accommodations’ were ever truly possible.
I’ve had the frightening experience of being alone in an open plan women’s changing room, with a male bodied person using his phone to record me, and himself, as we got changed (via the large mirror partially covering one wall). He’d gained access to the women’s changing room by self identifying as a woman.
Allowing any male bodied person into female spaces is dangerous, humiliating, and misogynistic. Never ‘reasonable’. But access to female spaces, for men who ‘identify’ as women, was always going to be the bottom line of any ‘reasonable adjustment’.
From that basic demand, that women’s spaces be opened to men, all the insanity has inexorably flowed. I doubt it could ever have been otherwise. Would men who identified as women ever have accepted being excluded from women’s private spaces?
> who struggle with gender dysphoria, or even those who hold extraordinary beliefs about the nature of “gender identity.”
I think we also need to remember that this situation falls into left/right USA culture war and those with a bad taste/bad history of seeing violent homophobia want to be "on the right side of history", want to be seen as an ally, and in doing so, suffer from wild cognitive dissonance in the form of asking people to "be nice" while also assaulting 80 year old women.
No. I completely disagree with the idea of "reasonable accommodations." I take a hardline approach because things have gotten out of hand. "Gender" bending, by its very nature is always destined to spiral out of control and cast a pox on both the vulnerable and the larger society.
There is only one "reasonable accommodation" that should ever be made for a child or adult who insists they're in the wrong body." And that one accommodation is intensive psychotherapy. And this psychotherapy should never be conducted by "gender" therapists but only by psychotherapists who work to get their clients to accept that the sex they were conceived with can never be changed.
We need to shut down the whole "transgender" industry immediately. All the "gender" indoctrination programs in the schools, colleges, medical institutions, media, and corporations should be permanently abolished. Gender mutilating surgeries, cross sex hormones and puberty blockers for anyone attempting to change their sex should be forbidden by law. Teachers, therapists, and doctors who took part in the "gender" industrial complex should lose their professional licenses. Some individuals should be criminally prosecuted.
Any male who invades a girl or woman's private spaces, regardless of intent, should be arrested. Birth certificates should be corrected back to the individual's natal sex and given name. Men who dress as women in public spaces should face stiff fines. People should face ridicule and/or censure for insisting they are entitled to use wrong sex pronouns.
A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male. Sex is determined at the moment of conception and is immutable. "Transgender" is absolute nonsense.
It terrifies me that the trans "rights' movement that claims to represent my son (he is a trans man) is so anti-science, irrational, violent, and misogynistic.
The missing truths, the lack of honest reporting in mainstream media involve these factors, among others:
1. Indoctrination of Media to NEVER report on the facts: This means unreported risks, heartbreaks of families, suppressed detransitioner stories, non-reporting of disastrous surgical outcomes such as 30% incontinence after surgeries in Brazil. High level agencies, e.g. the Washington Post and New York Times, base their "style of reporting" on the anonymously posted "Trans Journalists Association Style Guide" webpage. The etiology of child abuse and molestation experiences is the huge hidden iceberg under this rather large tip. (I know, that's my ex-husband)
2. Cancellation and harassment of scientists like Colin Wright, for simply stating known facts of evolutionary biology, significantly, after he stated that "preferred pronouns" are propaganda, brainwashing, to be rejected.
3. Political indoctrination of the public as well as their vulnerable mentally ill patients by psychiatrists and psychologists ("sexologists") who "affirm" and rush their clients into surgeries, family estrangements and fake "true life tests," another common phrase they pretend is scientifically supported.
How do I know this in my bones? Because my then-husband did this "therapy" along cross-dressing, deceiving me, abandoning our young children at significant developmental milestones, in the early 1990s. His "true life test" before making decisions about surgery, involved sending signals to men in bars he frequented while cross-dressing that they could buy him another drink, if they seemed to indicate he "passed" as female. I discovered the diaries. You cannot make this up.
The diagnosing psychologist stated in a sworn affidavit submitted to court in the custody proceedings that the diagnosis occurred at the first appointment, your typical 50 minute hour. The ideology was thrust on me, the beleaguered mother, as I was told I "must have known" my husband was not a regular guy (no, no idea) and that my duty was to stay married to him.
This same PhD practitioner (still in practice in NYC) also wrote about me, that my "inability to accept" that my refusal to stay in the marriage represented my "rage" at what "the world accepts." She'd never met me or talked to me, but rather, encouraged my husband to deceive me during his excursions into The Village. This was gross misconduct, based on corrupt, cooked data by charlatans like Jack Turban, who can't say definitively which biological sex his survey respondents actually were born.
We ex-wives, together with the detransitioners, have the facts, learned through our peepholes into the therapists' studios.
Ute Heggen, author of In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow, (iuniverse, 2022)
Absolutely brilliant. This makes so much sense. A logical, reasonable approach. And a huge missed opportunity, so far, by gender identity activists. Maybe if we each share this article far and wide, we can bring pressure to bear on them and the rest of society to adopt this reasonable approach. Thank you.
I work in the Arts, have been a Democrat my whole life. I just got pushed out of a theater job due to my lack of submission to the pronoun police. When I start to talk about this with my dutifully liberal friends and family, I see their minds start to open a little because they know me, they know I am kind and experienced with teenagers, and a mother, and they hear me say that there were 9 "trans" girls in my show this summer. One third!! I see the wheels turning to understand how insane this is but then somehow, they always want to ask about the poor "true transgender" people and how we accomodate them. I have started saying, " I am focused on kids and women." It amazes me that despite the insanity i am describing about kids, school, prisons etc, still they go back to "where can Caitllin Jenner go to the bathroom?" in so many words. There has been so much propaganda that makes people think there is an epidemic of cruelty to "trans" people. Last night, my brother, who seemed to totally understand me when I talked about the school indoctrination stuff, the internet's role, the women's safe spaces and other serious issues, still ended up saying that the Republicans are fascists who want to literally "Kill and destroy transgender people." I keep speaking up though. I can't control the outcome of my conversations but I can't lie and I won't keep silent anymore.
so much good stuff in this piece. the chapelle bit gave me chills. the denton doc made me barf. and the last bit: "Sometimes empathy sounds like “If I were a kid today, I would have transitioned, too. I’m glad I didn’t.” Or: “I understand why you want that but the answer is still no.” just a resounding YES.
Thank you for this very good essay. Perhaps, the most important point you made was "... empathy isn't submission." Most of us were raised to be kind, thoughtful people. It's difficult for many people to stand up to those who are very aggressive and rude (to say the least). That, unfortunately, leads to what appears to be submission (or acquiescence ). It will take some time for this craze to pass but it will as people become more comfortable resisting it. Thank you again, Frederick
Trans Activism and the Road Not Taken
I absolutely love your writing, Eliza. It's just too bad that we, as a society, are too far gone to accommodate a shift in perspective. The fact that the public has been hoodwinked - out of the desire to be compassionate - into believing outright lies, leaves me gobsmacked. The blithe erasure of women's rights and protection from predatory males, after all that we supposedly learned in the #MeToo movement, reminds all women just how fragile our position in a free society really is. No matter how many women shout at the top of their lungs that we have specific needs based on our sex, the patriarchal culture we live in continues to be oblivious to just how much of a threat the trans movement is to women and to the LGB population. What's even more appalling is the comments from both left/right that women deserve this. It's women's fault for trying to be equal to men - conservative position. It's women's fault that we cannot 'just be kind', thus we deserve contempt from trans activists. It's absolutely crazy-making. It doesn't matter how accommodating we try to be, the trans lobbyists are never satisfied. We give them an inch, they take a mile. Women's socialization and indoctrination to be passive nurturers and caregivers has blinded us to the horrific cost of conceding to their demands. It's now an uphill, exhausting, mind-numbing battle to push back against the trans-extremism since so much of the public has been blinded to the true impact of trans ideology.
I'm terrified for my daughter and granddaughter. I can't sleep at night knowing the nightmare future they'll be facing if we don't win this misogynist war against female human beings. Transhumanism is a diabolical, detestable and despicable ideology that will destroy all humanity if we don't reclaim our rights as biological human beings and as women and mothers who MUST defend our children.
Where are the fathers, husbands, sons and brothers??? MIA. Shame on them.
I often talk about the "gay deal" and the "trans deal".
The "gay deal", which started really with Stonewall is "We gay folks are humans, and do what we want with CONSENTING ADULTS behind CLOSED DOORS. You non-gay folks do the same, behind your CLOSED DOORS. No one needs to know what goes on". That deal was a good one, and most people are accepting of it.
The "trans deal" is completely different. This deal is "We trans folks require that you agree with us. We do what we want in public. This has nothing to do with 'consenting adults', but is for all ages. We want to have access to your children, and we want you, the parent, to not be able to control them. You must use our language."
The "trans deal" is slowly becoming clear to most people. Those who understand it are completely horrified by it and are becoming more and more opposed to it. And those who oppose the "trans deal" are also more and more opposed to the "gay deal", because the predatory nature of the "gay view" on children is more and more clear.
This is interesting but I’m doubtful ‘reasonable accommodations’ were ever truly possible.
I’ve had the frightening experience of being alone in an open plan women’s changing room, with a male bodied person using his phone to record me, and himself, as we got changed (via the large mirror partially covering one wall). He’d gained access to the women’s changing room by self identifying as a woman.
Allowing any male bodied person into female spaces is dangerous, humiliating, and misogynistic. Never ‘reasonable’. But access to female spaces, for men who ‘identify’ as women, was always going to be the bottom line of any ‘reasonable adjustment’.
From that basic demand, that women’s spaces be opened to men, all the insanity has inexorably flowed. I doubt it could ever have been otherwise. Would men who identified as women ever have accepted being excluded from women’s private spaces?
> who struggle with gender dysphoria, or even those who hold extraordinary beliefs about the nature of “gender identity.”
I think we also need to remember that this situation falls into left/right USA culture war and those with a bad taste/bad history of seeing violent homophobia want to be "on the right side of history", want to be seen as an ally, and in doing so, suffer from wild cognitive dissonance in the form of asking people to "be nice" while also assaulting 80 year old women.
Thoughtfully articulated. This is the kind of discourse we need -- around this and many other issues. Thanks Eliza!
No. I completely disagree with the idea of "reasonable accommodations." I take a hardline approach because things have gotten out of hand. "Gender" bending, by its very nature is always destined to spiral out of control and cast a pox on both the vulnerable and the larger society.
There is only one "reasonable accommodation" that should ever be made for a child or adult who insists they're in the wrong body." And that one accommodation is intensive psychotherapy. And this psychotherapy should never be conducted by "gender" therapists but only by psychotherapists who work to get their clients to accept that the sex they were conceived with can never be changed.
We need to shut down the whole "transgender" industry immediately. All the "gender" indoctrination programs in the schools, colleges, medical institutions, media, and corporations should be permanently abolished. Gender mutilating surgeries, cross sex hormones and puberty blockers for anyone attempting to change their sex should be forbidden by law. Teachers, therapists, and doctors who took part in the "gender" industrial complex should lose their professional licenses. Some individuals should be criminally prosecuted.
Any male who invades a girl or woman's private spaces, regardless of intent, should be arrested. Birth certificates should be corrected back to the individual's natal sex and given name. Men who dress as women in public spaces should face stiff fines. People should face ridicule and/or censure for insisting they are entitled to use wrong sex pronouns.
A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male. Sex is determined at the moment of conception and is immutable. "Transgender" is absolute nonsense.
Brilliant article! This is a multibillion dollar grift funded by the Pritzkers and Big Pharma. Hence the road not taken.
https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/trans-messaging-is-too-sophisticated
Thank You.
It terrifies me that the trans "rights' movement that claims to represent my son (he is a trans man) is so anti-science, irrational, violent, and misogynistic.
It disgusts me, and does nothing to help him.
Brilliant observation!
The missing truths, the lack of honest reporting in mainstream media involve these factors, among others:
1. Indoctrination of Media to NEVER report on the facts: This means unreported risks, heartbreaks of families, suppressed detransitioner stories, non-reporting of disastrous surgical outcomes such as 30% incontinence after surgeries in Brazil. High level agencies, e.g. the Washington Post and New York Times, base their "style of reporting" on the anonymously posted "Trans Journalists Association Style Guide" webpage. The etiology of child abuse and molestation experiences is the huge hidden iceberg under this rather large tip. (I know, that's my ex-husband)
2. Cancellation and harassment of scientists like Colin Wright, for simply stating known facts of evolutionary biology, significantly, after he stated that "preferred pronouns" are propaganda, brainwashing, to be rejected.
3. Political indoctrination of the public as well as their vulnerable mentally ill patients by psychiatrists and psychologists ("sexologists") who "affirm" and rush their clients into surgeries, family estrangements and fake "true life tests," another common phrase they pretend is scientifically supported.
How do I know this in my bones? Because my then-husband did this "therapy" along cross-dressing, deceiving me, abandoning our young children at significant developmental milestones, in the early 1990s. His "true life test" before making decisions about surgery, involved sending signals to men in bars he frequented while cross-dressing that they could buy him another drink, if they seemed to indicate he "passed" as female. I discovered the diaries. You cannot make this up.
The diagnosing psychologist stated in a sworn affidavit submitted to court in the custody proceedings that the diagnosis occurred at the first appointment, your typical 50 minute hour. The ideology was thrust on me, the beleaguered mother, as I was told I "must have known" my husband was not a regular guy (no, no idea) and that my duty was to stay married to him.
This same PhD practitioner (still in practice in NYC) also wrote about me, that my "inability to accept" that my refusal to stay in the marriage represented my "rage" at what "the world accepts." She'd never met me or talked to me, but rather, encouraged my husband to deceive me during his excursions into The Village. This was gross misconduct, based on corrupt, cooked data by charlatans like Jack Turban, who can't say definitively which biological sex his survey respondents actually were born.
We ex-wives, together with the detransitioners, have the facts, learned through our peepholes into the therapists' studios.
Ute Heggen, author of In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow, (iuniverse, 2022)
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
Absolutely brilliant. This makes so much sense. A logical, reasonable approach. And a huge missed opportunity, so far, by gender identity activists. Maybe if we each share this article far and wide, we can bring pressure to bear on them and the rest of society to adopt this reasonable approach. Thank you.
I work in the Arts, have been a Democrat my whole life. I just got pushed out of a theater job due to my lack of submission to the pronoun police. When I start to talk about this with my dutifully liberal friends and family, I see their minds start to open a little because they know me, they know I am kind and experienced with teenagers, and a mother, and they hear me say that there were 9 "trans" girls in my show this summer. One third!! I see the wheels turning to understand how insane this is but then somehow, they always want to ask about the poor "true transgender" people and how we accomodate them. I have started saying, " I am focused on kids and women." It amazes me that despite the insanity i am describing about kids, school, prisons etc, still they go back to "where can Caitllin Jenner go to the bathroom?" in so many words. There has been so much propaganda that makes people think there is an epidemic of cruelty to "trans" people. Last night, my brother, who seemed to totally understand me when I talked about the school indoctrination stuff, the internet's role, the women's safe spaces and other serious issues, still ended up saying that the Republicans are fascists who want to literally "Kill and destroy transgender people." I keep speaking up though. I can't control the outcome of my conversations but I can't lie and I won't keep silent anymore.
so much good stuff in this piece. the chapelle bit gave me chills. the denton doc made me barf. and the last bit: "Sometimes empathy sounds like “If I were a kid today, I would have transitioned, too. I’m glad I didn’t.” Or: “I understand why you want that but the answer is still no.” just a resounding YES.
Beautifully written. I want to send it to my child with the subject line: "You are being used." He would never read it, though.
Editing note. Please see this section:
“Instead, we got a radical trans movement that wants to erase sex in law and society, ….
What we have now is a trans movement that . . . now seeks to erase sex in law and society. “
Thank you for this very good essay. Perhaps, the most important point you made was "... empathy isn't submission." Most of us were raised to be kind, thoughtful people. It's difficult for many people to stand up to those who are very aggressive and rude (to say the least). That, unfortunately, leads to what appears to be submission (or acquiescence ). It will take some time for this craze to pass but it will as people become more comfortable resisting it. Thank you again, Frederick
EverythingIsBiology.substack.com