A gratifying review by an eloquent, conservative Christian of an important book by a clear-eyed, atheist feminist. Where else but Genderland do we find such unexpected delights?
In the 90's I lived in Boston, surrounded by Catholics. The Catholic Church was found to have covered up priests molesting children by--inconceivably--moving the priests to other cities where they could find new children to molest. The leaders chose protecting the Church over protecting children. I would ask my Catholic friends and coworkers, 'Why do you still go to that church? There are other Christian churches you can go to.' But they stayed, continuing to attend every Sunday. I have never understood this.
Nowadays, this is how I feel about my Democrat-voting friends and family. The evil is so clear. The leaders only care about protecting the party--they simply do not care about protecting children. (Or women. Or LGB people.) Why do people continue to identify/register/vote Democrat?! You don't have to vote for that party. And you don't have to vote Republican either. You can literally NOT vote at all--or better yet, join a third party and help it grow.
Americans have this weird sense of honor and pride in voting. There is no honor in voting when you only have two choices, and both of them are horrible. Just bow out!
I think of that hackneyed expression about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How many more decades are people going to follow the Democrats, believing they will change? They have shown time and again that they are corrupt to the core. Jenny, when you get Kara Dansky on your podcast (and you will!) I would love for you to have this conversation with her. Like you, I am considering writing in Dansky's name on my ballot for President. She is *literally* the only Democrat I trust. I get that she will never switch to Republican, but I wonder what it means to her, in 2024, to 'be a Democrat' and what it would take for her to leave the party.
I like your timing, Gary! Kara is moderating a panel discussion on this very topic next week at the WDI conference in Atlanta. I’ll be on the panel, as will Maud Maron from NYC and 2 southern-state elected Dems who have shown courage on this issue. I will post the video here —unless I tank, of course. 🤞😅
I'm not sure anyone has come to point this out yet, but the radical left's capture of public policy under the table is completely routine... what is not is that this is the first time THEY have succeeded at it. Maybe only because of this that it seems shocking.
It has been going the other way forever, look at in how many areas public interest was subverted by conservative or business interests, good examples would be intelligent design or gun laws. This is far too complex and deliberate to be dismissable as stupidity, and their messianism is beyond the political, it feels cult-like.
> "... David Brooks said, 'I always ascribe to stupidity things that could be ascribed to malevolence.' ... "
Hanlon's razor if I'm not mistaken. From the 1980s -- probably predating Brooks:
Wikipedia: "... Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to Murphy's Law Book Two (1980). Similar statements have been recorded since at least the 18th century."
"Always" may be a stretch, but, still, a useful principle to keep in mind.
But I too "reckon" Dansky is right, mostly so in any case. A notable fly in her "ointment", a serious if not fatal flaw, is her quite unscientific definitions for sexes. A notable manifestation, if I'm not mistaken, is her insistence that "sex is immutable 🙄" -- a mantra, an article of faith to match the transloonies' "trans women are women".
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
> "... live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) ... "
Not entirely "superficial". There are significant differences in the behaviors and personalities of men and women -- AKA, genders -- that are, more or less, bred in the bone.
You might have some interest in some solid evidence to justify that perspective:
Steersman: I certainly agree with that. What I am referring to are the actual superficial aspects like clothing or speech patterns. An effeminate boy is still a male and a tom boy girl is a real girl. You can dress anyway you want but you can’t change your sex.
👍🙂 You in particular might have some interest in a discussion on those points I'm having with transwoman "Tara" on the Substack of Yassine -- "Public Defender. Saracen Invader" -- Meskhout:
More particularly, while I quite agree with you that we can't change our sexes, part of my objections to Dansky and, probably, to the OP is their rather unscientific if not demented view that "sex is immutable!!11!!" 🙄, and that everyone is either male or female from conception to death.
Steersman: I don’t quite understand your point. If you agree that no one can change their sex doesn’t that necessarily mean that sex is immutable? How is that view demented?
Trans activiss talk about clownfish changing sex. However no mammals change sex. People are not fish. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein had the minimal decency to experiment on the dead.
Not the point. I'm not saying that people can change sex. At least not from male to female or vice versa.
I'm saying that standard biological definitions stipulate that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. Transwomen who cut their nuts off don't change from male to female; they change from male to sexless.
Something of a fine point -- though a crucially important one -- that turns on exactly what it means to have a sex in the first place. Which is the crux of the matter in the Khelif case at the Olympics, and the Tickle vs. Giggle case in Australia:
The problem is in not having a coherent definition for the sexes, and one that is endorsed by mainstream biology. And -- by the definitions published in various reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries all across the land -- to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. See:
By those definitions people like "Ms." Tickle are sexless -- and like most of the intersex and all of the prepubescent -- they don't have any gonads at all or none that are functional. Tickle, in particular, WAS a male, but then he cut his nuts off so has now joined the "sexless" cohort -- hardly "immutable".
Another part of the problem is that too many people don't realize that while a category -- e.g., "sex" -- may well be a binary -- e.g., "male" and "female" -- that does not mean that everyone has to be in one subcategory or the other. "sex" is not an "exhaustive" category.
For example, consider that IF there were only two religions -- say, Christianity and Islam -- THEN "religion" is a binary. But there are those who are clearly OUTSIDE that binary -- i.e., atheists -- who are neither Christian nor Muslim. They are "religion-less". "religion" is then a binary category but it is not exhaustive; it does not include everyone who might qualify.
You may wish to take a gander at an Aeon article by Paul Griffiths -- philosopher of biology, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy -- which underlines that point:
“Sex Is Real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other.”
For those interested, here is the episode in the docu-podcast (ep 1 of season 3) wherein I mention "The Reckoning" and interview Kara. Gotta give credit where it's due and hers was a great contribution to this series.
I always value Brandon's reporting, he is awesome. Way back a few years back ago, I was helping a friend (a committed liberal atheist) put out GC News. There was very little coverage from publications on the left to share with people in our daily roundup. Before the Reuters series, or the NYT started some good reporting. Actually, weird I know, but at that time there was very little on the right either! The whole thing just hadn't splashed on the US shores much. But we discovered Brandon and a publication I had never come across, The Christian Post. Not my usual fare! But he was and is a real reporter, who also does not apologize for his own personal beliefs. I so respect that. But more than that--people with great integrity like Brandon Shoalwater remind me to hold my own beliefs about reality a bit more lightly. I've been wrong before, and (huh!) maybe I don't get how it all works at all. I now have Evangelical Christian friends who I met through genderworld. I'm still not a Christian, and they still are, but we love each other. I wish there were more writers like him and Lisa S. Davis who crave more than clicks, who aren't just trying to advance a political agenda, who are coming from a deep sense of justice and fairness in reporting. When I read this review whenever it came out, it actually felt healing to me, like I was finally being seen--to have the feminists, not only Kara, but decades of them, acknowledged for their wisdom and clarity of thought instead of demonized as so many conservative writers do. Many cheers for Brandon and also for you Jenny!
Thank you, Elizabeth. When I first read the review last month, my reaction was astonishment. I don't know a single feminist who could have done it better.
Awfully nice, thank you. Conservative though I am, those right-wing demonizers drive me crazy too. Am very appreciative all voices, including and especially the rad fems, resisting the onslaught.
I also wrote to Desaulnier, probably sometime before you as I did receive a reply. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, as I did with the teachers that were grooming my daughter. "They weren't aware of the outside influences spreading this contagion," I thought.
He did reply to me. He is committed to "LGBTQ+ rights and "We'll just have to agree to disagree," he said.
My mistake was giving them the benefit of doubt. They were the "outside influences" all along.
The mindless invoking of "LGBTQ+ rights" and refusal to even think about concerns people raise, including objective studies like the Cass Report and those of "L" and "G" people about how transgender ideology is anti-homosexual and how "gender affirmation" is really conversion therapy for kids who are homosexual. We do not have to "agree to disagree"! We need to vote people like Desaulnier out!
No, MDUSD. We did try to get into SRVUSD using a law that was supposed to allow us to transfer from a low performing school to another district, but neither district would comply.
I made the biggest mistake of my life sending my girls to The College Preparatory School in Oakland.
Awfully nice, Kathleen. I remember chatting with you in early 2020 when you told me about what happened to Nina Louise Courtpatte and the man who savagely murdered her. I’ve never forgotten that! Thank you for your courage!
I remember too and I was grateful to you for reaching out when I went through the wringer. The Nina Courtepatte case remains hard to think about and that one of the men involved used gender laws in Canada to get a safer prison berth among women ought to have been national news for weeks. Men’s prisons ought to be managed so they are safe, even for the most appalling offenders. Using women’s prisons as a valve for male offenders is …. Well I don’t have to tell anybody here how awful it is.
I mentioned our conversation and that horrible case in this speech I gave later that year (https://youtu.be/WWErAYEl5j0?si=V3xS99Ylvuk8tXvx) and also in the bonus episode of season 1 of our documentary-podcast in the context of interviewing Heather Mason and others about the state of women’s correctional facilities. The prison situation upsets me about as much as the medicalization of kids.
I hear ya. As it happens, I’m also pretty much aligned with rad fems on some other issues: prostitution, surrogacy, and pornography etc. It’s meaningful overlap worth exploring. People gotta talk TO not AT each other.
I fully agree, the art of conversation needs facilitation. If you're not familiar with Christian radical feminist Josephine Butler (1828-1906) she may be of interest: https://josephinebutlerpage.com/about/
I'm midway through. Every page enrages me! The injustice!
In the 90's I lived in Boston, surrounded by Catholics. The Catholic Church was found to have covered up priests molesting children by--inconceivably--moving the priests to other cities where they could find new children to molest. The leaders chose protecting the Church over protecting children. I would ask my Catholic friends and coworkers, 'Why do you still go to that church? There are other Christian churches you can go to.' But they stayed, continuing to attend every Sunday. I have never understood this.
Nowadays, this is how I feel about my Democrat-voting friends and family. The evil is so clear. The leaders only care about protecting the party--they simply do not care about protecting children. (Or women. Or LGB people.) Why do people continue to identify/register/vote Democrat?! You don't have to vote for that party. And you don't have to vote Republican either. You can literally NOT vote at all--or better yet, join a third party and help it grow.
Americans have this weird sense of honor and pride in voting. There is no honor in voting when you only have two choices, and both of them are horrible. Just bow out!
I think of that hackneyed expression about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How many more decades are people going to follow the Democrats, believing they will change? They have shown time and again that they are corrupt to the core. Jenny, when you get Kara Dansky on your podcast (and you will!) I would love for you to have this conversation with her. Like you, I am considering writing in Dansky's name on my ballot for President. She is *literally* the only Democrat I trust. I get that she will never switch to Republican, but I wonder what it means to her, in 2024, to 'be a Democrat' and what it would take for her to leave the party.
I like your timing, Gary! Kara is moderating a panel discussion on this very topic next week at the WDI conference in Atlanta. I’ll be on the panel, as will Maud Maron from NYC and 2 southern-state elected Dems who have shown courage on this issue. I will post the video here —unless I tank, of course. 🤞😅
You'll do great!!
I'm not sure anyone has come to point this out yet, but the radical left's capture of public policy under the table is completely routine... what is not is that this is the first time THEY have succeeded at it. Maybe only because of this that it seems shocking.
It has been going the other way forever, look at in how many areas public interest was subverted by conservative or business interests, good examples would be intelligent design or gun laws. This is far too complex and deliberate to be dismissable as stupidity, and their messianism is beyond the political, it feels cult-like.
Beckoning the reckoning!!! Brilliant
Brooks stole that from Hanlon
https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/hanlons-razor
And this is a good place for an Ian Fleming quote:
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action”
I’m a two-time offender then. Time to clean up my act!
> "... David Brooks said, 'I always ascribe to stupidity things that could be ascribed to malevolence.' ... "
Hanlon's razor if I'm not mistaken. From the 1980s -- probably predating Brooks:
Wikipedia: "... Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to Murphy's Law Book Two (1980). Similar statements have been recorded since at least the 18th century."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
"Always" may be a stretch, but, still, a useful principle to keep in mind.
But I too "reckon" Dansky is right, mostly so in any case. A notable fly in her "ointment", a serious if not fatal flaw, is her quite unscientific definitions for sexes. A notable manifestation, if I'm not mistaken, is her insistence that "sex is immutable 🙄" -- a mantra, an article of faith to match the transloonies' "trans women are women".
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
> "... live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) ... "
Not entirely "superficial". There are significant differences in the behaviors and personalities of men and women -- AKA, genders -- that are, more or less, bred in the bone.
You might have some interest in some solid evidence to justify that perspective:
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
Steersman: I certainly agree with that. What I am referring to are the actual superficial aspects like clothing or speech patterns. An effeminate boy is still a male and a tom boy girl is a real girl. You can dress anyway you want but you can’t change your sex.
👍🙂 You in particular might have some interest in a discussion on those points I'm having with transwoman "Tara" on the Substack of Yassine -- "Public Defender. Saracen Invader" -- Meskhout:
https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/against-delusion-based-politics/comment/67678660
More particularly, while I quite agree with you that we can't change our sexes, part of my objections to Dansky and, probably, to the OP is their rather unscientific if not demented view that "sex is immutable!!11!!" 🙄, and that everyone is either male or female from conception to death.
Steersman: I don’t quite understand your point. If you agree that no one can change their sex doesn’t that necessarily mean that sex is immutable? How is that view demented?
Trans activiss talk about clownfish changing sex. However no mammals change sex. People are not fish. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein had the minimal decency to experiment on the dead.
Not the point. I'm not saying that people can change sex. At least not from male to female or vice versa.
I'm saying that standard biological definitions stipulate that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. Transwomen who cut their nuts off don't change from male to female; they change from male to sexless.
Something of a fine point -- though a crucially important one -- that turns on exactly what it means to have a sex in the first place. Which is the crux of the matter in the Khelif case at the Olympics, and the Tickle vs. Giggle case in Australia:
https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2024/2024fca0960
The problem is in not having a coherent definition for the sexes, and one that is endorsed by mainstream biology. And -- by the definitions published in various reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries all across the land -- to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. See:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
By those definitions people like "Ms." Tickle are sexless -- and like most of the intersex and all of the prepubescent -- they don't have any gonads at all or none that are functional. Tickle, in particular, WAS a male, but then he cut his nuts off so has now joined the "sexless" cohort -- hardly "immutable".
Another part of the problem is that too many people don't realize that while a category -- e.g., "sex" -- may well be a binary -- e.g., "male" and "female" -- that does not mean that everyone has to be in one subcategory or the other. "sex" is not an "exhaustive" category.
For example, consider that IF there were only two religions -- say, Christianity and Islam -- THEN "religion" is a binary. But there are those who are clearly OUTSIDE that binary -- i.e., atheists -- who are neither Christian nor Muslim. They are "religion-less". "religion" is then a binary category but it is not exhaustive; it does not include everyone who might qualify.
You may wish to take a gander at an Aeon article by Paul Griffiths -- philosopher of biology, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy -- which underlines that point:
“Sex Is Real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other.”
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
Thanks. Deep shit. 🤓😎
For those interested, here is the episode in the docu-podcast (ep 1 of season 3) wherein I mention "The Reckoning" and interview Kara. Gotta give credit where it's due and hers was a great contribution to this series.
https://www.christianpost.com/podcast/season-premiere-a-breaking-point-legislatures-revolt-against-gender-ideology.html
I always value Brandon's reporting, he is awesome. Way back a few years back ago, I was helping a friend (a committed liberal atheist) put out GC News. There was very little coverage from publications on the left to share with people in our daily roundup. Before the Reuters series, or the NYT started some good reporting. Actually, weird I know, but at that time there was very little on the right either! The whole thing just hadn't splashed on the US shores much. But we discovered Brandon and a publication I had never come across, The Christian Post. Not my usual fare! But he was and is a real reporter, who also does not apologize for his own personal beliefs. I so respect that. But more than that--people with great integrity like Brandon Shoalwater remind me to hold my own beliefs about reality a bit more lightly. I've been wrong before, and (huh!) maybe I don't get how it all works at all. I now have Evangelical Christian friends who I met through genderworld. I'm still not a Christian, and they still are, but we love each other. I wish there were more writers like him and Lisa S. Davis who crave more than clicks, who aren't just trying to advance a political agenda, who are coming from a deep sense of justice and fairness in reporting. When I read this review whenever it came out, it actually felt healing to me, like I was finally being seen--to have the feminists, not only Kara, but decades of them, acknowledged for their wisdom and clarity of thought instead of demonized as so many conservative writers do. Many cheers for Brandon and also for you Jenny!
Thank you, Elizabeth. When I first read the review last month, my reaction was astonishment. I don't know a single feminist who could have done it better.
I'm glad to hear you think I speak good TERF-ese, lol.
You do of course, but I was reacting to the content more than the style.
Awfully nice, thank you. Conservative though I am, those right-wing demonizers drive me crazy too. Am very appreciative all voices, including and especially the rad fems, resisting the onslaught.
I also wrote to Desaulnier, probably sometime before you as I did receive a reply. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, as I did with the teachers that were grooming my daughter. "They weren't aware of the outside influences spreading this contagion," I thought.
He did reply to me. He is committed to "LGBTQ+ rights and "We'll just have to agree to disagree," he said.
My mistake was giving them the benefit of doubt. They were the "outside influences" all along.
The mindless invoking of "LGBTQ+ rights" and refusal to even think about concerns people raise, including objective studies like the Cass Report and those of "L" and "G" people about how transgender ideology is anti-homosexual and how "gender affirmation" is really conversion therapy for kids who are homosexual. We do not have to "agree to disagree"! We need to vote people like Desaulnier out!
100%
Are you in SRVUSD, Stan?
No, MDUSD. We did try to get into SRVUSD using a law that was supposed to allow us to transfer from a low performing school to another district, but neither district would comply.
I made the biggest mistake of my life sending my girls to The College Preparatory School in Oakland.
I’m so sorry, Stan. Parents like you were never far from me.
I still think about our phone conversation years ago. Thank you for all you do for people like me who you don't even know.
You bet, Stan. We've got an episode coming soon in our docu-podcast at CP entirely dedicated to parents fighting for their kids from the shadows. https://share.transistor.fm/s/b65b09de?fbclid=IwY2xjawFOpwpleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHQpnPP9n7nxEUiEusuUa3Nnro7nIbfFlOkgcgCYqeQZJOJVAVAsCqqJxIQ_aem_29O7oyD_sxL4IjmtUmHH7A
A little tearful reading this. Thanks for sharing it.
Awfully nice, Kathleen. I remember chatting with you in early 2020 when you told me about what happened to Nina Louise Courtpatte and the man who savagely murdered her. I’ve never forgotten that! Thank you for your courage!
I remember too and I was grateful to you for reaching out when I went through the wringer. The Nina Courtepatte case remains hard to think about and that one of the men involved used gender laws in Canada to get a safer prison berth among women ought to have been national news for weeks. Men’s prisons ought to be managed so they are safe, even for the most appalling offenders. Using women’s prisons as a valve for male offenders is …. Well I don’t have to tell anybody here how awful it is.
I mentioned our conversation and that horrible case in this speech I gave later that year (https://youtu.be/WWErAYEl5j0?si=V3xS99Ylvuk8tXvx) and also in the bonus episode of season 1 of our documentary-podcast in the context of interviewing Heather Mason and others about the state of women’s correctional facilities. The prison situation upsets me about as much as the medicalization of kids.
It just goes to show that principled people can have basic standards in common even though they disagree on almost everything.
I hear ya. As it happens, I’m also pretty much aligned with rad fems on some other issues: prostitution, surrogacy, and pornography etc. It’s meaningful overlap worth exploring. People gotta talk TO not AT each other.
I fully agree, the art of conversation needs facilitation. If you're not familiar with Christian radical feminist Josephine Butler (1828-1906) she may be of interest: https://josephinebutlerpage.com/about/
Also, I have recently posted a review of The Well of Loneliness (1928) by transmasculine Catholic, Radclyffe Hall https://open.substack.com/pub/danielhowardjames/p/the-well-of-loneliness-and-the-gendered - any comments would be welcome.
Yes, another piece I recommend!
I have indeed heard of Josephine Butler. Not to be confused with Judith Butler ha ha ha!!!
Nevertheless, malevolence exists.