A few short years ago, those of us who were doing public speaking in favor of marriage equality answered many questions about the "transgender umbrella". I did my research; the vast majority of people under said umbrella were straight men who used to be called "transvestites" (men who found it erotic to dress as women- I AM SIMPLIFYING). The smallest percentage was "transsexual people". There was very little evidence that these numbers weren't correct. Now, we are supposed to pretend that all of these straight men are women. This is crazy-making, pure and simple.
I am uncomfortable with the categorization of transvestites (or transexuals) as perverts "in every possible way". That is a slippery slope to lesbians are perverts "in every possible way" etc. I am a lesbian; I know I am not a pervert. The thing is - lots of guys have these alien - to me - feelings. But they clearly develop in lots of cultures, in lots of men - including 3 of my friends. Now that said, I truly don't want to be around them when they are doing their dressing up thing. Also, I won't accept them as a "woman" for just saying they are - for the ones who do this. I, too, won't put up with that B.S.
I agree with you on those who "have no respect for boundaries" - but lots - probably the majority - of transvestites certainly do remain in boundaries. At least the ones I know do, and I doubt if I happen to know the only ones who do! I absolutely am with you on not redefining what a women is, etc. But you are talking about a subset of men - both gay and straight, transvestites or not - who don't respect children and women's boundaries. So sure, any one who crosses those lines is bad.
I, too, am uncomfortable seeing the word "pervert" in a short statement such as you originally wrote, without the helpful context you provided in your second comment. There are alot of of religious conservatives in the US using that term to refer not only to trans-identified people, but to LGBs, who very specifically are workng to remove not only cross-sex identities from discussion in classrooms and laws, but also LGBs, as well.
So I think if using the term "perversion," it would help to provide context as you did in your second comment. It feels very dangerous to LGBs, what religious conservatives are demonizing, so it's important to be clear what one means when usiing that word. Thank you for clarifying what you meant. And it was very well written, too.
Thank you Jennifer Bilek, for giving us the info we really need to know, along with the insidious nature of it. My experience as a trans widow, seeing the "transvestite = transsexual" metamorphosis before my eyes 30 years ago, takes the general into the personal. While I wasn't lured into using pornography the way Shannon Thrace was by her then husband (as detailed in her new memoir, 18 Months, Firestone), the groomer my then husband went to made all sorts of suggestions about it. I participated in one meeting to tell her to stop trying to indoctrinate him into indoctrinating me. We must keep our feet on the ground, our souls in our beings, our children in their natal bodies!
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Men (many, not most) have,always resented women for their ability to give birth. Its the one thing that really separates us. Most men are happy with this, others are not, this is the definition of misogyny.
That's not "the" definition of misogyny. Envy per se can indeed lead to bad things. But sometimes envy is actually about admiration. Misogyny has nothing to do with either envy or admiration. Like misandry (and other dualistic ideologies such as racism), it involves malice, or hatred--that is, the urge to harm, or persecute.
This is the kind of vague, conspiratorial string-pinning that was also used to "prove" that Obama was a socialist. It's just big connect-the-dots to show that X, Y, and Z are associated, and that proves that there's a dark conspiracy. The idea that Rothblatt was "tutored" by Ray Kurzweil (whatever that means), and that Kurzweill has a connection with Google (Google has over 150,000 employees) is supposed to show that transgenderism is part of the transhuman agenda, and it's being pushed by major technology companies as part of some sinister plan.
Zoltan Istvan ran for president! (Um, so what). OutLeadership "intersects with all our major corporations cross-marketing their $3.7T consumer base to them". Wow! These transgenderist/transhumanist must be pulling all the strings!
There's a lot to be said about the transgender movement, but the idea that it's really a conspiracy by the technology elites to push a transhumanist agenda on an unsuspecting public is not among that lot.
Interesting perspective for us to seriously consider. This shows me how easily one (I) can be drawn into a conspiracy theory based on loose associations. Thank you. I had questions as I read this article, but because I agree with the author regarding many of the dangers of gender identity ideology, I was setting them aside, when I shouldn't have. One was the 1.7 T(?) figure. I need to go back and re-read the whole article. Thanks again.
"conspiracy theory based on loose associations" -- exactly right.
You might be interested in a cartoon in this tweet on the "difference between data, information, knowledge, insight, wisdom and conspiracy theory"; a fairly durable and ubiquitous meme by the look of it:
I know three straight men (extremely well) who are autogynephilic but absolutely do not consider themselves transexual or non-binary or women. They identify as men. Transvestite straight men. Of course, they are older (66, 68, 70 )and grew up without the gender ideology that exists now. None of them even knew the term autogynephilia before I told them about it. It was coined, of course, long after they were well aware of their proclivities. It's a lonely life because it's extremely hard to find a female partner who wants to take part in their world. As one of these men who is closest to me said, "I don't feel I am loveable as I am." That said, he and one other is in a long-term marriage with a woman in spite of their sexual incompatibility. Thus, I was uncomfortable with your definition of transvestism (autogynephilia) as being a form of transsexualism. It has now become so in many cases in the wake of the gender ideology tsunami. But, it remains unrelated to transsexualism in many straight men.
This is an interesting point. As a Biological Psychologist, I would suggest that all types of people — irrespective of their individual proclivities — are complex creatures. It's difficult to unequivocally categorize any one group of people in terms of their preferences.
Some transhumanists might be using the transgender movement as a bridge to coax society towards transhumanism? I suppose it's a plausible hypothesis. But I don't see anywhere near enough evidence here for you to state it as a fact.
Why do they need a "bridge"? How does this "bridge" actually work? If any transhumanist technology (such as life extension) ever becomes available, plenty of people will be open to it on its own merits. And it's not clear to me how the people that aren't interested would be convinced to change their mind by the existence of the transgender movement.
The author's link between transgenderism and transhumanism is an insightful one. Not so insightful is her exclusive focus on men who want to become women (trans-women). Why ignore women who want to become men (trans-men)? She does so, I assume, because she also links transgenderism, in turn, with transsexualism, which is (or was) a phenomenon primarily of men. I'm not so sure that transgender activists are correct in equating the two phenomena.
"Transsexualism is largely an adult male fetish that compulsively objectifies and covets womanhood"
Putting the offense of this rhetoric aside and in the interest of pure debate, I would like to say that probably none of you actually know enough transsexuals to make this statement. Those that do are seeing what they want to see.
I'm not AGP but as a transsexual, I am constantly put in a position to defend them. AGP is a very hard-to-understand issue that behaves like an orientation and not a fetish. That is why it leads to an identity for some.
If your only exposure to trans people is on the internet, you'll probably walk away thinking that you know them. You don't. For example, transsexuals, AGP, and otherwise mostly blend into the binary and live very boring lives. There are millions of us out there in the world. How many of us have you seen? Count them, then think of what that percentage represents.
As a transwoman, I transitioned 24 years ago. I have met many many trans people. I can tell you without a doubt that AGP is not just a male phenomenon. If butch lesbians (many that bind and wear all male clothing) were examined with objectivity, people would discover that they have the same triggers and mechanisms that motivate AGP's.
If you want to argue for women's spaces or your opinions about transition of minors, you don't need to make things up to do it. The subjects have legitimate issues that need debate. This type of misinformation that is easily debunked is a distraction from your goal and shows that your goal is to defame.
As a transsexual who has been in the fight for a long time, let me give you a piece of advice; Stick to the facts. Stick to the subject of debate. Posts like this, just obliterate your credibility. The people that you want to hear you stop listening when they read the untrue and offensive statement you made above. Tone down your rhetoric. There is plenty to talk about that is true, valid, and needs discussion.
Interesting and informative article for many reasons. Though maybe a case of starting at shadows and conspiracy theories run amok, not least in conflating and equating transgenderism with the worst of transhumanism. The latter of which promotes the use of “sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition”; don’t know about everyone else but I wouldn’t mind at least a half-dozen extra decades over the allotted three score and 10:
Though there is, of course, a lot of hype and wishful thinking under that rubric.
But somewhat more to the point is the information on Martine Rothblatt – regardless of his, her, or its pronouns, it seems clear that she, he, or it has made some not insignificant contributions to the common wealth for which “they” deserve some not inconsiderable credit.
However, somewhat more “problematic” is the claim at the Lifeboat link that “she had sex reassignment surgery” – as Jennifer quite reasonably points out, “a misnomer since no one can actually change their sex.” Although I might go much further and call that an egregious fraud, a case of sailing under a false flag; as transwoman “Helen Highwater” once put it, “a vicious lie”:
Which society should have absolutely no part in endorsing, much less in actually promoting.
The only way that Martine and his/her/its ilk are going to change their sexes, as Colin once reasonably argued, is if they replace the gonads they had at birth with functioning ones that they hadn’t had:
I rather doubt Martine has had his testicles replaced with “functional ovaries”. Though Colin is a bit wishy-washy in apparently thinking, according to a letter published in the UK Times (hardly a peer-reviewed biological journal), that they don’t actually have to be functional:
Though those definitions basically turn each sex into a spectrum of three: gonads of past, present or future functionality as the criteria for category membership.
But maybe transwomen and transmen can swap gonads, a prisoner exchange on a fog-shrouded bridge between East and West Berlin (circa 1989) ... 🙄
Thoughtful and insightful analysis. Thank you. It is more than merely ironic that today's spear-point of the misogynistic and patriarchal attack on the rights of biological women comes in the person of men (surprise, surprise) - this time "men who 'identify' as women."
I think your connection of "transgender" being a sort of psychological bridge to eventually accepting "trans humanism" is spot on and missed by most people analyzing these issues. Having studied Western propaganda operations for many decades now, I've come to the simple and obvious conclusion that when MSM, academia, the corporate world, the big NGO's, and the political class all magically "align" on some particular "topic" - suspecting that it is a planned orchestrated propaganda operation is a pretty safe bet as a starting point to understanding it. Just my two cents.
The Trans Journalists Association Style Guide webpage demonstrates how anonymous, uncredited material is disseminated. The American Journalists Association adopted these right after it was published. https://transjournalists.org/style-guide/
Detailed take down of the above indoctrination group at
Thank you for a deeper dive into the link between transgender and transhumanism, this was something I discovered as well but coming from a different direction. There’s an even bigger movement happening that people need to understand. This is just another stepping point to another bat shit crazy movement that has big names and more money behind it: longtermism. Transhumanism influenced longtermism. Guess who is a fan? Elon Musk … he said it himself. Read this article for an introduction. Follow @davetroy on Twitter and buckle up, our kids are in deep. Jennifer, please reach out to Dave Troy, he is researching all of this and needs to see the links between transgender and the transhumanists. https://www.salon.com/2022/08/20/understanding-longtermism-why-this-suddenly-influential-philosophy-is-so/ (and someone needs to tell the author of the Salon piece to wake up too and drop the pride flag from their bio).
So what if Musk likes long-termism? I do too! Do you believe that makes us unquestioningly transhumanist, and gender ideology adherents?
In fact, Musk has argued against prioritising life extension, as humanity would then become stale, and set in its ways, lacking the vibrancy that comes when a new generation replaces an old one. I agree with him that those are issues of concern, and I would also add that many bad people accrue power over their lifetime. Death puts a limit on their ability to harm society. Postponing death removes that safeguard.
Musk once tweeted "pronouns suck". Another time I think he tweeted his concern over premature medicalization of children with gender confusion. And I've heard a rumour that one of his sons now identifies as a woman, and they are not on good terms.
Dave Troy seems to be a conspiracy theorist. He recently stated that Musk's latest corporate merchandise release (a fragrance called Burnt Hair - very niche humour) was a psyop in support of Putin!
Amusingly, if this was true, then you definitely wouldn't need to worry about Musk boosting transhumanism and gender ideology, because Putin hates those kinds of things!
A few short years ago, those of us who were doing public speaking in favor of marriage equality answered many questions about the "transgender umbrella". I did my research; the vast majority of people under said umbrella were straight men who used to be called "transvestites" (men who found it erotic to dress as women- I AM SIMPLIFYING). The smallest percentage was "transsexual people". There was very little evidence that these numbers weren't correct. Now, we are supposed to pretend that all of these straight men are women. This is crazy-making, pure and simple.
I am uncomfortable with the categorization of transvestites (or transexuals) as perverts "in every possible way". That is a slippery slope to lesbians are perverts "in every possible way" etc. I am a lesbian; I know I am not a pervert. The thing is - lots of guys have these alien - to me - feelings. But they clearly develop in lots of cultures, in lots of men - including 3 of my friends. Now that said, I truly don't want to be around them when they are doing their dressing up thing. Also, I won't accept them as a "woman" for just saying they are - for the ones who do this. I, too, won't put up with that B.S.
I agree with you on those who "have no respect for boundaries" - but lots - probably the majority - of transvestites certainly do remain in boundaries. At least the ones I know do, and I doubt if I happen to know the only ones who do! I absolutely am with you on not redefining what a women is, etc. But you are talking about a subset of men - both gay and straight, transvestites or not - who don't respect children and women's boundaries. So sure, any one who crosses those lines is bad.
I, too, am uncomfortable seeing the word "pervert" in a short statement such as you originally wrote, without the helpful context you provided in your second comment. There are alot of of religious conservatives in the US using that term to refer not only to trans-identified people, but to LGBs, who very specifically are workng to remove not only cross-sex identities from discussion in classrooms and laws, but also LGBs, as well.
So I think if using the term "perversion," it would help to provide context as you did in your second comment. It feels very dangerous to LGBs, what religious conservatives are demonizing, so it's important to be clear what one means when usiing that word. Thank you for clarifying what you meant. And it was very well written, too.
Thank you Jennifer Bilek, for giving us the info we really need to know, along with the insidious nature of it. My experience as a trans widow, seeing the "transvestite = transsexual" metamorphosis before my eyes 30 years ago, takes the general into the personal. While I wasn't lured into using pornography the way Shannon Thrace was by her then husband (as detailed in her new memoir, 18 Months, Firestone), the groomer my then husband went to made all sorts of suggestions about it. I participated in one meeting to tell her to stop trying to indoctrinate him into indoctrinating me. We must keep our feet on the ground, our souls in our beings, our children in their natal bodies!
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com (mind/body sequences, data from valid studies)
I LOVE this sentence: " We must keep our feet on the ground, our souls in our beings, our children in their natal bodies!"
Thanks! You might like my memoir, with the 50 nature photos, healing in the woods:
In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow by Ute Heggen (iuniverse, 2022)
(eBook very affordable, paperback available US, UK)
Men (many, not most) have,always resented women for their ability to give birth. Its the one thing that really separates us. Most men are happy with this, others are not, this is the definition of misogyny.
That's not "the" definition of misogyny. Envy per se can indeed lead to bad things. But sometimes envy is actually about admiration. Misogyny has nothing to do with either envy or admiration. Like misandry (and other dualistic ideologies such as racism), it involves malice, or hatred--that is, the urge to harm, or persecute.
Thank you for this insightful and detailed analysis.
This is the kind of vague, conspiratorial string-pinning that was also used to "prove" that Obama was a socialist. It's just big connect-the-dots to show that X, Y, and Z are associated, and that proves that there's a dark conspiracy. The idea that Rothblatt was "tutored" by Ray Kurzweil (whatever that means), and that Kurzweill has a connection with Google (Google has over 150,000 employees) is supposed to show that transgenderism is part of the transhuman agenda, and it's being pushed by major technology companies as part of some sinister plan.
Zoltan Istvan ran for president! (Um, so what). OutLeadership "intersects with all our major corporations cross-marketing their $3.7T consumer base to them". Wow! These transgenderist/transhumanist must be pulling all the strings!
There's a lot to be said about the transgender movement, but the idea that it's really a conspiracy by the technology elites to push a transhumanist agenda on an unsuspecting public is not among that lot.
Interesting perspective for us to seriously consider. This shows me how easily one (I) can be drawn into a conspiracy theory based on loose associations. Thank you. I had questions as I read this article, but because I agree with the author regarding many of the dangers of gender identity ideology, I was setting them aside, when I shouldn't have. One was the 1.7 T(?) figure. I need to go back and re-read the whole article. Thanks again.
"conspiracy theory based on loose associations" -- exactly right.
You might be interested in a cartoon in this tweet on the "difference between data, information, knowledge, insight, wisdom and conspiracy theory"; a fairly durable and ubiquitous meme by the look of it:
https://twitter.com/hdrochon/status/1294260219850129420
For those interested in language and how that meme apparently evolved over the last couple of years, see:
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=52581
Excellent article. Thank you.
Yes, they have piggy-backed onto LGBT rights, despite having a very different agenda.
I know three straight men (extremely well) who are autogynephilic but absolutely do not consider themselves transexual or non-binary or women. They identify as men. Transvestite straight men. Of course, they are older (66, 68, 70 )and grew up without the gender ideology that exists now. None of them even knew the term autogynephilia before I told them about it. It was coined, of course, long after they were well aware of their proclivities. It's a lonely life because it's extremely hard to find a female partner who wants to take part in their world. As one of these men who is closest to me said, "I don't feel I am loveable as I am." That said, he and one other is in a long-term marriage with a woman in spite of their sexual incompatibility. Thus, I was uncomfortable with your definition of transvestism (autogynephilia) as being a form of transsexualism. It has now become so in many cases in the wake of the gender ideology tsunami. But, it remains unrelated to transsexualism in many straight men.
This is an interesting point. As a Biological Psychologist, I would suggest that all types of people — irrespective of their individual proclivities — are complex creatures. It's difficult to unequivocally categorize any one group of people in terms of their preferences.
Some transhumanists might be using the transgender movement as a bridge to coax society towards transhumanism? I suppose it's a plausible hypothesis. But I don't see anywhere near enough evidence here for you to state it as a fact.
Why do they need a "bridge"? How does this "bridge" actually work? If any transhumanist technology (such as life extension) ever becomes available, plenty of people will be open to it on its own merits. And it's not clear to me how the people that aren't interested would be convinced to change their mind by the existence of the transgender movement.
The author's link between transgenderism and transhumanism is an insightful one. Not so insightful is her exclusive focus on men who want to become women (trans-women). Why ignore women who want to become men (trans-men)? She does so, I assume, because she also links transgenderism, in turn, with transsexualism, which is (or was) a phenomenon primarily of men. I'm not so sure that transgender activists are correct in equating the two phenomena.
"Transsexualism is largely an adult male fetish that compulsively objectifies and covets womanhood"
Putting the offense of this rhetoric aside and in the interest of pure debate, I would like to say that probably none of you actually know enough transsexuals to make this statement. Those that do are seeing what they want to see.
I'm not AGP but as a transsexual, I am constantly put in a position to defend them. AGP is a very hard-to-understand issue that behaves like an orientation and not a fetish. That is why it leads to an identity for some.
If your only exposure to trans people is on the internet, you'll probably walk away thinking that you know them. You don't. For example, transsexuals, AGP, and otherwise mostly blend into the binary and live very boring lives. There are millions of us out there in the world. How many of us have you seen? Count them, then think of what that percentage represents.
As a transwoman, I transitioned 24 years ago. I have met many many trans people. I can tell you without a doubt that AGP is not just a male phenomenon. If butch lesbians (many that bind and wear all male clothing) were examined with objectivity, people would discover that they have the same triggers and mechanisms that motivate AGP's.
If you want to argue for women's spaces or your opinions about transition of minors, you don't need to make things up to do it. The subjects have legitimate issues that need debate. This type of misinformation that is easily debunked is a distraction from your goal and shows that your goal is to defame.
As a transsexual who has been in the fight for a long time, let me give you a piece of advice; Stick to the facts. Stick to the subject of debate. Posts like this, just obliterate your credibility. The people that you want to hear you stop listening when they read the untrue and offensive statement you made above. Tone down your rhetoric. There is plenty to talk about that is true, valid, and needs discussion.
Interesting and informative article for many reasons. Though maybe a case of starting at shadows and conspiracy theories run amok, not least in conflating and equating transgenderism with the worst of transhumanism. The latter of which promotes the use of “sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition”; don’t know about everyone else but I wouldn’t mind at least a half-dozen extra decades over the allotted three score and 10:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Though there is, of course, a lot of hype and wishful thinking under that rubric.
But somewhat more to the point is the information on Martine Rothblatt – regardless of his, her, or its pronouns, it seems clear that she, he, or it has made some not insignificant contributions to the common wealth for which “they” deserve some not inconsiderable credit.
However, somewhat more “problematic” is the claim at the Lifeboat link that “she had sex reassignment surgery” – as Jennifer quite reasonably points out, “a misnomer since no one can actually change their sex.” Although I might go much further and call that an egregious fraud, a case of sailing under a false flag; as transwoman “Helen Highwater” once put it, “a vicious lie”:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/12/gender-critical-trans-women-the-apostates-of-the-trans-rights-movement.html
Which society should have absolutely no part in endorsing, much less in actually promoting.
The only way that Martine and his/her/its ilk are going to change their sexes, as Colin once reasonably argued, is if they replace the gonads they had at birth with functioning ones that they hadn’t had:
https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1240781010800979968
I rather doubt Martine has had his testicles replaced with “functional ovaries”. Though Colin is a bit wishy-washy in apparently thinking, according to a letter published in the UK Times (hardly a peer-reviewed biological journal), that they don’t actually have to be functional:
https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
Though those definitions basically turn each sex into a spectrum of three: gonads of past, present or future functionality as the criteria for category membership.
But maybe transwomen and transmen can swap gonads, a prisoner exchange on a fog-shrouded bridge between East and West Berlin (circa 1989) ... 🙄
Thoughtful and insightful analysis. Thank you. It is more than merely ironic that today's spear-point of the misogynistic and patriarchal attack on the rights of biological women comes in the person of men (surprise, surprise) - this time "men who 'identify' as women."
I think your connection of "transgender" being a sort of psychological bridge to eventually accepting "trans humanism" is spot on and missed by most people analyzing these issues. Having studied Western propaganda operations for many decades now, I've come to the simple and obvious conclusion that when MSM, academia, the corporate world, the big NGO's, and the political class all magically "align" on some particular "topic" - suspecting that it is a planned orchestrated propaganda operation is a pretty safe bet as a starting point to understanding it. Just my two cents.
Society has rights.
https://johncarpenter.substack.com/p/so-what-if-gender-is-a-social-construct
The Trans Journalists Association Style Guide webpage demonstrates how anonymous, uncredited material is disseminated. The American Journalists Association adopted these right after it was published. https://transjournalists.org/style-guide/
Detailed take down of the above indoctrination group at
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
Thank you for a deeper dive into the link between transgender and transhumanism, this was something I discovered as well but coming from a different direction. There’s an even bigger movement happening that people need to understand. This is just another stepping point to another bat shit crazy movement that has big names and more money behind it: longtermism. Transhumanism influenced longtermism. Guess who is a fan? Elon Musk … he said it himself. Read this article for an introduction. Follow @davetroy on Twitter and buckle up, our kids are in deep. Jennifer, please reach out to Dave Troy, he is researching all of this and needs to see the links between transgender and the transhumanists. https://www.salon.com/2022/08/20/understanding-longtermism-why-this-suddenly-influential-philosophy-is-so/ (and someone needs to tell the author of the Salon piece to wake up too and drop the pride flag from their bio).
So what if Musk likes long-termism? I do too! Do you believe that makes us unquestioningly transhumanist, and gender ideology adherents?
In fact, Musk has argued against prioritising life extension, as humanity would then become stale, and set in its ways, lacking the vibrancy that comes when a new generation replaces an old one. I agree with him that those are issues of concern, and I would also add that many bad people accrue power over their lifetime. Death puts a limit on their ability to harm society. Postponing death removes that safeguard.
Musk once tweeted "pronouns suck". Another time I think he tweeted his concern over premature medicalization of children with gender confusion. And I've heard a rumour that one of his sons now identifies as a woman, and they are not on good terms.
Dave Troy seems to be a conspiracy theorist. He recently stated that Musk's latest corporate merchandise release (a fragrance called Burnt Hair - very niche humour) was a psyop in support of Putin!
Amusingly, if this was true, then you definitely wouldn't need to worry about Musk boosting transhumanism and gender ideology, because Putin hates those kinds of things!