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Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism
In an age when falsehoods are commonly taken as truth, Janice Raymond’s new book illuminates the ‘doublethink’ of a transgender movement that is able to define men as women, women as men, he as she, dissent as heresy, science as sham, and critics as fascists. Meanwhile, trans mobs are treated as gender patriots whose main enemy is feminists and their dissent from gender orthodoxies.
The medicalization of gender dissatisfaction depicted by Raymond in her early visionary book, The Transsexual Empire, has today expanded exponentially into the transgender industrial complex built on big medicine, big pharma, big banks, big foundations, big research centers, some attached to big universities. And the current rise of treating young children with puberty blockers and hormones is a widespread scandal that has been named a medical experiment on children.
Whereas transsexualism was mainly a male phenomenon in the past with males undertaking cross-sex hormones and surgery, today it is notably young women who are self-declaring as men in large numbers. The good news is that these young women who formerly identified as ‘trans men’ or gender non-binary, are now de-transitioning. In this book, they speak movingly about their severances from themselves and other women, their escape from compulsive femininity, their sexual assaults, the misogyny they experienced growing up, and their journeys in recovering their womanhood.
Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism makes us aware of the consequences of a runaway ideology and its costs — among them what is at stake when males are allowed to compete in female sports and when parents are not aware of school curricula that confuse sex with gender and that can facilitate a child’s hormone treatments without parental consent.
The medicalization of gender dissatisfaction depicted by Raymond in her early visionary book, The Transsexual Empire, has today expanded exponentially into the transgender industrial complex built on big medicine, big pharma, big banks, big foundations, big research centers, some attached to big universities. And the current rise of treating young children with puberty blockers and hormones is a widespread scandal that has been named a medical experiment on children.
Whereas transsexualism was mainly a male phenomenon in the past with males undertaking cross-sex hormones and surgery, today it is notably young women who are self-declaring as men in large numbers. The good news is that these young women who formerly identified as ‘trans men’ or gender non-binary, are now de-transitioning. In this book, they speak movingly about their severances from themselves and other women, their escape from compulsive femininity, their sexual assaults, the misogyny they experienced growing up, and their journeys in recovering their womanhood.
Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism makes us aware of the consequences of a runaway ideology and its costs — among them what is at stake when males are allowed to compete in female sports and when parents are not aware of school curricula that confuse sex with gender and that can facilitate a child’s hormone treatments without parental consent.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
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391 people want to read
About the author
Janice G. Raymond
15 books68 followersJanice G. Raymond is a longtime radical feminist activist who works to end violence against women and sexual exploitation, as well as the medical abuse of women. She is the author of five books, one edited volume, and multiple articles translated into several languages on issues ranging from violence against women, women’s health, feminist theory, lesbian feminism, and bio-medicine.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 17, 2021
Janice Raymond has had a remarkable career of nearly five decades as a feminist academic and activist, addressing social evils perpetrated against women through trafficking, prostitution, pornography, the beauty industry, and more. As she pointed out in The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, there are powerful lobbies working at every level to protect the vested interests profiting by these disgraceful trades and she was able to demonstrate their use of every tool (political, ideological, legislative, corruption, intimidation) to frustrate and derail feminist critics and to deprive them of support by confusing and misrepresenting issues. As an activist she has always been conscious of their determined opposition. This new book contains many reminders of the abuse to which she has been subjected.
Raymond interprets the transgender phenomenon through the lens of feminist analysis and from the outset she recognised the seamless connection of the trans industry with other forms of cynical commercial exploitation, not least the cosmetic surgery industry. She set out her analysis very well in her 1979 classic, The Transsexual Empire, and her prediction of the future progression of the trans industry has been amply vindicated by events. Having read quite a number of different accounts, I would still recommend her 1979 book as the best way to understand what is happening today.
Without her feminist analysis, a structural one recognising the shared interests of women as a sex class and the organised, long term operation of patriarchy, other accounts of transgenderism (such as Material Girls) are at a serious disadvantage, dealing as it were with one damned thing after another and musing over the motivations of various actors. Especially infuriating is the routine appeal (often by women) to “liberal” values of freedom, choice, a false sense of equality and sexual liberation, to subvert any feminist critique of patriarchal violence against women. [This kind of structural analysis or so called "meta narrative" is of course anathema to the postmodern crowd.]
This new book does not attempt to replace or rewrite the Transsexual Empire, which the author has made available for free download. For the most part it simply sets out a great deal of information about the current state of affairs, which arguably goes over the same ground as other recent books on the subject. What is different and distinctive is that Raymond never loses sight of the political framework within which these events and transgenderism in general have to be understood.
One particular development, which Raymond thinks is important, is that the trans industry has been targeting a growing proportion of girls and young women for transitioning and they are different in important ways to the transsexual men dominating her 1979 book. Their desire to transition is rooted in the appalling stress associated with growing up as a female in a deeply sexist social environment; by contrast, the increasing frequency of female detransitioning is rooted in the eventual realization that the problems they face are not resolved by private medical procedures, that as self-identified trans men they remain subject to oppressive treatment, including rape, by men, not least by men who identify as women, and that there is far more to be gained by discovering and engaging with the solidarity of other women. Raymond supports this belief with analogies to the experience of women escaping or recovering from the sex industry, with whom she thinks detransitioning women have much in common. She believes that these women will have a growing impact as they organize around political feminism.
The importance of Raymond’s writing, compared with much of the other recent discussion, is her demonstration that the transgender phenomenon is political in nature and part of the widespread use of sexual liberalism – the appeal to freedom and choice – as a political cover for cynical exploitation. There is no good medical or therapeutic justification for the transgender industry.
My Review of The Transsexual Empire:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Quotes
…’transitioning’ has become a synonym for sex role conformity medicine, which reinforces the patriarchal system that thrives on gender stereotyping. [p30]
…puberty blockers stunt growth and impair the bone mass density of children who were subjected to the treatment… When puberty blockers are followed by cross-sex hormones, they can cause lifelong infertility. These hormones also increase risks of cancer, liver damage, diabetes, blood clots, strokes and heart problems. (Kersten, 2019) [p31] …. Hormonal therapy shortens lives and has been “associated with increased risk of heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, bone damage, liver and kidney failure and mental health complications.” [p34]
There are few other medical settings in which major surgery is done on healthy organs and where the pathology is actually caused by the treatments… there is no customary medical reason for hormone treatment and surgery. In medical ethical terms, these treatments were traditionally recognized as bodily mutilation and called iatrogenic, or doctor induced disease. [p34]
Approaching these problems from a disease perspective discourages a person who is dissatisfied with her or his body from seeing treatment in a social or political framework based on challenging gender and its expectations. [p35]
Sexual liberation left women more available for men to use without the protection of any bourgeois constraints. [p216]
The left has always been wary of women’s actual liberation and instead has chosen to put its mouth and money into those women’s rights that benefit men. Simply speaking, the moral bankruptcy of the left does not recognize women as a political class, nor that misogyny is real, excusing leftist men of taking responsibility for their own abuse of women. As Rebecca West wrote of the leftwing “carriage trade, they want to be right, not to do right.” [p215]
Australian academic and writer, Caroline Norma, has called transgenderism “the latest anti-feminist issue of the left.” (2015) A wedge issue can be defined as a political or social concern, often of a controversial or divisive nature, which divides a particular group… leftist groups are using transgenderism as a wedge issue to deflect attention from their historic silence about violence against women by pointing to their politically correct credentials in defending trans identified women (men) as legitimate women. When issues such as pornography, prostitution, surrogacy and now transgender came knocking at their doors, leftist and liberal organizations knew this meant challenging their own use and abuse of women… Amnesty International’s prostitution policy, which protects men’s right to use women in prostitution… is a primary example of how progressive organizations have totally sold out women. As Andrea Dworkin has written, “The Left cannot have its whores and its politics too” (Dworkin 1979). Yet leftist men continue to try. [p216,7]
As she grew older, [Keira] Bell understood , “I recognised that gender dysphoria was a symptom of my overall misery, not its cause.” … After a round of “superficial conversations” with social workers, Bell was given puberty blockers at age 16, testosterone shots at 17, and at 20 she had a double mastectomy. Five years later she de-transitioned. The health consequences, however, were not superficial: infertility, loss of breasts with inability to breastfeed, atrophied genitals and a permanently changed voice. [p224]
Why should gender nonconforming behaviour be confined to the realm of transgender and turned into an object of medical attention? Transgenderism depoliticizes non-compliant behaviour and restricts it to a so called gender identity, thus making it a question of individual behaviour amenable to hormone treatments, surgery and self-identification. Clinicians should be encouraging young people to challenge sex roles without rejecting their natal bodies. [p226]
Attorney Maya Dillard Smith … has said: “From what I can see the transgender narrative very much reinforces patriarchy … I’ve never heard a trans narrative that does not rely on sexual stereotypes to explain how someone knew they were actually born in the wrong body. I’d like to return to the old feminist war cry: Start a revolution and stop hating your body.” [p228]
Many people, especially feminists, have faced dissatisfaction with their bodies. However, feminists have raised questions and given answers to gender dissatisfaction that go far beyond the transsexual and transgender context – questions about body mutilation and integrity, medical research priorities, definitions of maleness and femaleness and the expansion of the industrialization of gender. Any woman who has experienced the agony of not fitting into a society where ‘gender hurts’ (Jefferys 2014) is hardly insensitive to the plight of trans identified persons. [p232]
Raymond interprets the transgender phenomenon through the lens of feminist analysis and from the outset she recognised the seamless connection of the trans industry with other forms of cynical commercial exploitation, not least the cosmetic surgery industry. She set out her analysis very well in her 1979 classic, The Transsexual Empire, and her prediction of the future progression of the trans industry has been amply vindicated by events. Having read quite a number of different accounts, I would still recommend her 1979 book as the best way to understand what is happening today.
Without her feminist analysis, a structural one recognising the shared interests of women as a sex class and the organised, long term operation of patriarchy, other accounts of transgenderism (such as Material Girls) are at a serious disadvantage, dealing as it were with one damned thing after another and musing over the motivations of various actors. Especially infuriating is the routine appeal (often by women) to “liberal” values of freedom, choice, a false sense of equality and sexual liberation, to subvert any feminist critique of patriarchal violence against women. [This kind of structural analysis or so called "meta narrative" is of course anathema to the postmodern crowd.]
This new book does not attempt to replace or rewrite the Transsexual Empire, which the author has made available for free download. For the most part it simply sets out a great deal of information about the current state of affairs, which arguably goes over the same ground as other recent books on the subject. What is different and distinctive is that Raymond never loses sight of the political framework within which these events and transgenderism in general have to be understood.
One particular development, which Raymond thinks is important, is that the trans industry has been targeting a growing proportion of girls and young women for transitioning and they are different in important ways to the transsexual men dominating her 1979 book. Their desire to transition is rooted in the appalling stress associated with growing up as a female in a deeply sexist social environment; by contrast, the increasing frequency of female detransitioning is rooted in the eventual realization that the problems they face are not resolved by private medical procedures, that as self-identified trans men they remain subject to oppressive treatment, including rape, by men, not least by men who identify as women, and that there is far more to be gained by discovering and engaging with the solidarity of other women. Raymond supports this belief with analogies to the experience of women escaping or recovering from the sex industry, with whom she thinks detransitioning women have much in common. She believes that these women will have a growing impact as they organize around political feminism.
The importance of Raymond’s writing, compared with much of the other recent discussion, is her demonstration that the transgender phenomenon is political in nature and part of the widespread use of sexual liberalism – the appeal to freedom and choice – as a political cover for cynical exploitation. There is no good medical or therapeutic justification for the transgender industry.
My Review of The Transsexual Empire:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Quotes
…’transitioning’ has become a synonym for sex role conformity medicine, which reinforces the patriarchal system that thrives on gender stereotyping. [p30]
…puberty blockers stunt growth and impair the bone mass density of children who were subjected to the treatment… When puberty blockers are followed by cross-sex hormones, they can cause lifelong infertility. These hormones also increase risks of cancer, liver damage, diabetes, blood clots, strokes and heart problems. (Kersten, 2019) [p31] …. Hormonal therapy shortens lives and has been “associated with increased risk of heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, bone damage, liver and kidney failure and mental health complications.” [p34]
There are few other medical settings in which major surgery is done on healthy organs and where the pathology is actually caused by the treatments… there is no customary medical reason for hormone treatment and surgery. In medical ethical terms, these treatments were traditionally recognized as bodily mutilation and called iatrogenic, or doctor induced disease. [p34]
Approaching these problems from a disease perspective discourages a person who is dissatisfied with her or his body from seeing treatment in a social or political framework based on challenging gender and its expectations. [p35]
Sexual liberation left women more available for men to use without the protection of any bourgeois constraints. [p216]
The left has always been wary of women’s actual liberation and instead has chosen to put its mouth and money into those women’s rights that benefit men. Simply speaking, the moral bankruptcy of the left does not recognize women as a political class, nor that misogyny is real, excusing leftist men of taking responsibility for their own abuse of women. As Rebecca West wrote of the leftwing “carriage trade, they want to be right, not to do right.” [p215]
Australian academic and writer, Caroline Norma, has called transgenderism “the latest anti-feminist issue of the left.” (2015) A wedge issue can be defined as a political or social concern, often of a controversial or divisive nature, which divides a particular group… leftist groups are using transgenderism as a wedge issue to deflect attention from their historic silence about violence against women by pointing to their politically correct credentials in defending trans identified women (men) as legitimate women. When issues such as pornography, prostitution, surrogacy and now transgender came knocking at their doors, leftist and liberal organizations knew this meant challenging their own use and abuse of women… Amnesty International’s prostitution policy, which protects men’s right to use women in prostitution… is a primary example of how progressive organizations have totally sold out women. As Andrea Dworkin has written, “The Left cannot have its whores and its politics too” (Dworkin 1979). Yet leftist men continue to try. [p216,7]
As she grew older, [Keira] Bell understood , “I recognised that gender dysphoria was a symptom of my overall misery, not its cause.” … After a round of “superficial conversations” with social workers, Bell was given puberty blockers at age 16, testosterone shots at 17, and at 20 she had a double mastectomy. Five years later she de-transitioned. The health consequences, however, were not superficial: infertility, loss of breasts with inability to breastfeed, atrophied genitals and a permanently changed voice. [p224]
Why should gender nonconforming behaviour be confined to the realm of transgender and turned into an object of medical attention? Transgenderism depoliticizes non-compliant behaviour and restricts it to a so called gender identity, thus making it a question of individual behaviour amenable to hormone treatments, surgery and self-identification. Clinicians should be encouraging young people to challenge sex roles without rejecting their natal bodies. [p226]
Attorney Maya Dillard Smith … has said: “From what I can see the transgender narrative very much reinforces patriarchy … I’ve never heard a trans narrative that does not rely on sexual stereotypes to explain how someone knew they were actually born in the wrong body. I’d like to return to the old feminist war cry: Start a revolution and stop hating your body.” [p228]
Many people, especially feminists, have faced dissatisfaction with their bodies. However, feminists have raised questions and given answers to gender dissatisfaction that go far beyond the transsexual and transgender context – questions about body mutilation and integrity, medical research priorities, definitions of maleness and femaleness and the expansion of the industrialization of gender. Any woman who has experienced the agony of not fitting into a society where ‘gender hurts’ (Jefferys 2014) is hardly insensitive to the plight of trans identified persons. [p232]
September 10, 2022
Well, I guess I'm a radical feminist now. O jei rimtai, nepamenu, kokiu būdu šita knyga atsirado mano to-read sąraše. Užtat pamenu, kaip sunku man būdavo suprasti feminizmo grupėse kartas nuo karto apsireiškiančias ir greitai užblokuojamas "terfes". Kadangi stengiuosi nesuredukuoti žmonių nuomonių iki nesąmonės vien dėl to, kad nesuprantu, galvoju, okei, išgirskim argumentus.
Šita knyga labai nuosekliai išdėstė pagrindines problemas, kurias trans judėjime mato feministės. Be abejo, ji yra vienpusiška ir nestokojanti stiprių generalizacijų, bet joje niekad ir nebuvo išreikšta ambicija pateikti "subalansuotą požiūrį". Buvo labai sunku nuryti visus tuos "genderizmus" ir kitus terminus, kuriuos dažniausiai girdžiu iš visai kitos kategorijos žmonių, su kuriais dažniausiai nesutinku.
Mano vertinimu, išsakyti argumentai turi būti adresuoti ir nenustumti į paraštes, pravardžiuojant ir cancellinant žmones (jaučiausi eretikė jau vien dėl to, kad skaitau šitą knygą). Dabartinis maksimaliai užjautrintas diskursas tik kelia didžiulę įtampą ir lemia tai, kad šiuos argumentus iš konteksto ištraukia ir drąsiai naudoja mano jau anksčiau minėti visai kitos kategorijos žmonės - tie, kuriems jau vien lesbiečių santuoka lygu kažkokioms privilegijoms, sugriausiančioms "tradicinę šeimą", o vaikai "gėjizmo" kažkur išmoksta. Toks susijautrinimas lemia ir tai, kad sunku specialistams ramiai diskutuoti ir tyrinėti darbo su lyties disforiją patiriančiais asmenimis perspektyvas - apsaugant pirmiausia jų interesus ir sveikatą.
Šita knyga labai nuosekliai išdėstė pagrindines problemas, kurias trans judėjime mato feministės. Be abejo, ji yra vienpusiška ir nestokojanti stiprių generalizacijų, bet joje niekad ir nebuvo išreikšta ambicija pateikti "subalansuotą požiūrį". Buvo labai sunku nuryti visus tuos "genderizmus" ir kitus terminus, kuriuos dažniausiai girdžiu iš visai kitos kategorijos žmonių, su kuriais dažniausiai nesutinku.
Mano vertinimu, išsakyti argumentai turi būti adresuoti ir nenustumti į paraštes, pravardžiuojant ir cancellinant žmones (jaučiausi eretikė jau vien dėl to, kad skaitau šitą knygą). Dabartinis maksimaliai užjautrintas diskursas tik kelia didžiulę įtampą ir lemia tai, kad šiuos argumentus iš konteksto ištraukia ir drąsiai naudoja mano jau anksčiau minėti visai kitos kategorijos žmonės - tie, kuriems jau vien lesbiečių santuoka lygu kažkokioms privilegijoms, sugriausiančioms "tradicinę šeimą", o vaikai "gėjizmo" kažkur išmoksta. Toks susijautrinimas lemia ir tai, kad sunku specialistams ramiai diskutuoti ir tyrinėti darbo su lyties disforiją patiriančiais asmenimis perspektyvas - apsaugant pirmiausia jų interesus ir sveikatą.
In a gender-defined culture it is easier to change your body than to change your society.
Women have learned a lot about life through our bodies. Our life history has been lived in our sexed bodies. Dworkin knew that the ‘learning’ women gain from our lives is not some feeling, essence, or ‘ineffable idea’ that men can claim. This learning about a woman’s life is not driven by biology but also not detached from our biology, a material condition in which our bodies help shape the circumstances of our lives.
Our bodies are the sites of our oppression.
Trans advocates have no monopoly on gender non-conformity.
Why should gender non-conforming behavior be confined to the realm of transgender and turned into an object of medical attention?
Transgenderism depoliticizes non-compliant behavior and restricts it to a so-called gender identity, thus making it a question of individual behavior amenable to hormone treatments, surgery and self-identification. Clinicians should be encouraging young people to challenge sex roles without rejecting their natal bodies.
Gender non-conformity is just what it says — the practice of not conforming to role-defined rules and regulations, no matter whether they are traditionally or progressively presented. People shouldn’t need to identify as transgender or transsexual to live a gender non-compliant life.
Feminists invented gender non-conformity, and we have fought for decades to break out of traditional sex roles and to combat toxic masculinity and femininity, only to see them reappear as variations of transgenderism. Women have battled many gendered restrictions in the professions, higher education, politics and government: roles traditionally reserved for men but historically considered off-limits to women because of our alleged natures. There is nothing innate about sex roles, in contrast to the claims of trans activists, and there should be nothing wrong with people expressing a range of so-called masculine and feminine behaviors and appearances, without having to alter their sex.
January 8, 2022
'Doublethink - A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism' by Janice G. Raymond reads a bit like a catalogue of the ways in which (trans) gender identity ideology and its industrial arm seeks outright colonisation and commodification of human bodies (particularly girls' and women's). In the context of a male-dominant and exchange-based society this is significant, as men continue to assert their perceived authority in defining what a woman is (and continuing to gain support from some women themselves in the process), and what women are for. That ever more female youth are seeking an escape route out of the various manifestations of girlhood and womanhood proscribed by pornography and prostitution saturated male-dominant societies into some fantasy of acceptance by, or inclusion into, the male sex class without being encouraged to first recognise and challenge male-domination (what real feminism is for), points to the general success of an anti-feminist backlash. And if problems can be depoliticised, made entirely personal and simply matters of "identity" with solutions available to be purchased, then the system is guaranteed a bit more time safe from scrutiny.
That the ideology and machinery of this movement is targeting children, capitalising on many adults' ignorance of a (real) feminist analysis of what are commonly known as patriarchal sex-roles, is a serious red flag. Sadly, so many can't see it, and are not encouraged to listen to those who can, including de-transitioned women - those liberally labelled bigots, haters, traitors, and transphobes.
'Doublethink' brings together so many of the problematic aspects of the ideology of gender, and how it clashes with the interests of women and children. 'Doublethink,' a title chosen from the content of the novel 1984 by George Orwell, explores the way its proponents use language, deliberately twisting critique or disagreement and framing it instead as discrimination and outright hatred, and engaging in a double standard of overt bullying. "All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink.' (quoted in the Introduction, p.1)
Sub-headings through the book include subjects on media, social media and government censorship, censorship of academics and researchers, hate speech, the education system, a gender identity curriculum, prisons, the marriage of gender identity and sexuality, "Real Violence against Real Women," violence against and the erasure of lesbians, and the rapid roll-out of transgenderism to name a few. Even the teaching of medicine is being adversely affected in some US medical schools, where the relevance of male and female sex differences are being denied in instances such as heart attack symptoms. In her conclusion, Raymond says it plainly: "We are in the grip of a repudiation of reality that is responsible for much harm, especially to children." She also expresses her, "hope that more people will come to see gender dissatisfaction not as a disorder requiring medical treatment, or as a matter of self-identification, but as an issue that will not be solved until we challenge both the traditional and 'progressive' gender-defined culture and the denialism that perpetuates it." (p. 233)
That the ideology and machinery of this movement is targeting children, capitalising on many adults' ignorance of a (real) feminist analysis of what are commonly known as patriarchal sex-roles, is a serious red flag. Sadly, so many can't see it, and are not encouraged to listen to those who can, including de-transitioned women - those liberally labelled bigots, haters, traitors, and transphobes.
'Doublethink' brings together so many of the problematic aspects of the ideology of gender, and how it clashes with the interests of women and children. 'Doublethink,' a title chosen from the content of the novel 1984 by George Orwell, explores the way its proponents use language, deliberately twisting critique or disagreement and framing it instead as discrimination and outright hatred, and engaging in a double standard of overt bullying. "All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink.' (quoted in the Introduction, p.1)
Sub-headings through the book include subjects on media, social media and government censorship, censorship of academics and researchers, hate speech, the education system, a gender identity curriculum, prisons, the marriage of gender identity and sexuality, "Real Violence against Real Women," violence against and the erasure of lesbians, and the rapid roll-out of transgenderism to name a few. Even the teaching of medicine is being adversely affected in some US medical schools, where the relevance of male and female sex differences are being denied in instances such as heart attack symptoms. In her conclusion, Raymond says it plainly: "We are in the grip of a repudiation of reality that is responsible for much harm, especially to children." She also expresses her, "hope that more people will come to see gender dissatisfaction not as a disorder requiring medical treatment, or as a matter of self-identification, but as an issue that will not be solved until we challenge both the traditional and 'progressive' gender-defined culture and the denialism that perpetuates it." (p. 233)
December 5, 2021
This is the best book of the year on transgenderism: well researched, incisive, ethical, and easy to read. Despite being a pioneer in writing about this topic, Professor Raymond is very meticulous in acknowledging other researchers' work, and she referenced almost everyone who had written on this subject, academics, non-academics, and bloggers. I wish others follow suit rather than undermining previous research.
March 30, 2022
It was great to read a whole book about this. Janice Raymond has a back ground in working against sex trafficking and has written an earlier book on what used to be called transexualism. Here she explains very clearly the harms done by the transgender industry. Harms to children especially and also to women's rights. The bit that I find the most horrifying is the shutting down of debate and argument, the censoring of any opposition to the industry. The capture of the left side of politics. The normal person has no idea what is going on and they aren't able to find out from the media. Excellent book.
July 4, 2022
I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone interested in feminism, women's rights, the transgender activism that's going on and/or what's happening with our children as related to transgenderism. We are really only hearing one side of things from big media about transgender things. Journalists, academics, researchers - anyone who is even remotely critical is quashed. Raymond is offering a well-researched and well written critique. Check it out.
November 2, 2021
Excellent. Highly recommend!
January 2, 2025
Review for First Read:
This is a great book, but there is some confusion resulting from the language Raymond uses. She's rather inconsistent about the terms she uses to describe trans-identified individuals, and, where other gender critical feminist authors call men who want to be women "trans-identified males/men", she calls them "trans-identified women". It takes a minute to get used to, and then it's not enormously obstructive to understanding or enjoying the book, but I do wish she was less confusing/strange about her language. I also don't like the way she call trans-identified males "self-declared women" - they really don't deserve that "women" label. Trans-identified males and trans-identified females seem, to me, to be the most logical and easy-to-understand labels to apply to these categories of people.
Honestly, now that I've completed the entire thing, I've got to say, I felt that this book was badly constructed. Compared to the other books of Janice Raymond I've read (Not A Choice, Not A Job, and The Transsexual Empire), it felt stilted and bumbling. The language actually was, I feel, a big handicap - I hated the way she called trans-identified males "self-declared women (men)" - it increased confusion, and it felt logically inconsistent to call them women with a few words beforehand, when she is resisting the ideology that calls for that. Also, sometimes the sentences sound a bit bungled. I suppose Raymond is getting older...
In any case, I can't give this a higher rating. On the positive side, I really enjoyed the section on Andrea Dworkin, correcting the way she has recently been forcibly "reclaimed" by trans actvists as "pro-trans" - y'all, she is not yours! You can't have her.
My relatively low rating isn't because I disagree with the political ideology of this book, which I strongly support.
Review for Second Read:
I enjoyed reading this, and I respect Raymond a lot, but this book had one notable issue: the language. Or, more specifically, the terminology. Part of this may be due to her age, but she seemed to have trouble keeping track of the terminology she was using. She oscillated wildly between “trans manhood” (meaning trans-identified females), “trans-identified women (men)” (meaning trans-identified males), “‘trans men’” (meaning trans-identified females), and a couple others. There was little consistency, and, though as a veteran reader of such topics, I was able to keep track of what she was trying to say, I’m inclined to think a newcomer would be confused. This is a particularly grievous problem as Raymond herself recognizes the intentional confusion and misdirection caused by the artificial language of gender ideology. Most surprising to me is the fact that she uses the term “trans-identified women” to refer to trans-identified males, when I’m pretty sure her term is not used at all by radical feminists, while the latter is, and it also qualifies them as a type of women, even though elsewhere she calls them men. Her occasional use of gender ideologues’ chosen terminology, sometimes in scare quotes, sometimes not, also is an ideological inconsistency and seems to go against her proclaimed politics. I find this disappointing because. as a radical feminist theorist, Raymond is a role model for other people questioning the madness, and she should be the last person to use confused and inconsistent language. I wish she would follow the example of, for example, Kara Dansky, who, early on in her books, describes the language she will use, language which she adheres to and which reflects her viewpoints. (Raymond did add a note about language near the beginning, but it didn’t make what was to come any less confusing.) One other thing Raymond does is use the word “transgender” as a noun. Not in the sense of a person, but in the sense of a theory—meaning, for example, that she might say, “Radical feminists challenge transgender.” This strikes me as clumsy and grammatically incorrect, and something that could be easily corrected, as she sometimes uses “transgenderism” instead. Overall, I’d say the language gets clumsy quite often, and that’s my only big problem with this book. The politics I take no issue with. I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to newcomers, because it’s much less thorough, well-organized, and approachable than, for example, Kasja Ekis Ekman’s book on the subject, or Laura Lecuona’s.
Oh, my God. I just learned that I already read this book to the end. I thought I’d read the beginning on my computer as a PDF, so I only read on from the point where I thought I had stopped, but apparently I got all the way to the end? So now I need to read the first 76 pages again for this to count as a full reread… Ughh. (I ended up doing that. A little annoying but didn’t take too long.)
This is a great book, but there is some confusion resulting from the language Raymond uses. She's rather inconsistent about the terms she uses to describe trans-identified individuals, and, where other gender critical feminist authors call men who want to be women "trans-identified males/men", she calls them "trans-identified women". It takes a minute to get used to, and then it's not enormously obstructive to understanding or enjoying the book, but I do wish she was less confusing/strange about her language. I also don't like the way she call trans-identified males "self-declared women" - they really don't deserve that "women" label. Trans-identified males and trans-identified females seem, to me, to be the most logical and easy-to-understand labels to apply to these categories of people.
Honestly, now that I've completed the entire thing, I've got to say, I felt that this book was badly constructed. Compared to the other books of Janice Raymond I've read (Not A Choice, Not A Job, and The Transsexual Empire), it felt stilted and bumbling. The language actually was, I feel, a big handicap - I hated the way she called trans-identified males "self-declared women (men)" - it increased confusion, and it felt logically inconsistent to call them women with a few words beforehand, when she is resisting the ideology that calls for that. Also, sometimes the sentences sound a bit bungled. I suppose Raymond is getting older...
In any case, I can't give this a higher rating. On the positive side, I really enjoyed the section on Andrea Dworkin, correcting the way she has recently been forcibly "reclaimed" by trans actvists as "pro-trans" - y'all, she is not yours! You can't have her.
My relatively low rating isn't because I disagree with the political ideology of this book, which I strongly support.
Review for Second Read:
I enjoyed reading this, and I respect Raymond a lot, but this book had one notable issue: the language. Or, more specifically, the terminology. Part of this may be due to her age, but she seemed to have trouble keeping track of the terminology she was using. She oscillated wildly between “trans manhood” (meaning trans-identified females), “trans-identified women (men)” (meaning trans-identified males), “‘trans men’” (meaning trans-identified females), and a couple others. There was little consistency, and, though as a veteran reader of such topics, I was able to keep track of what she was trying to say, I’m inclined to think a newcomer would be confused. This is a particularly grievous problem as Raymond herself recognizes the intentional confusion and misdirection caused by the artificial language of gender ideology. Most surprising to me is the fact that she uses the term “trans-identified women” to refer to trans-identified males, when I’m pretty sure her term is not used at all by radical feminists, while the latter is, and it also qualifies them as a type of women, even though elsewhere she calls them men. Her occasional use of gender ideologues’ chosen terminology, sometimes in scare quotes, sometimes not, also is an ideological inconsistency and seems to go against her proclaimed politics. I find this disappointing because. as a radical feminist theorist, Raymond is a role model for other people questioning the madness, and she should be the last person to use confused and inconsistent language. I wish she would follow the example of, for example, Kara Dansky, who, early on in her books, describes the language she will use, language which she adheres to and which reflects her viewpoints. (Raymond did add a note about language near the beginning, but it didn’t make what was to come any less confusing.) One other thing Raymond does is use the word “transgender” as a noun. Not in the sense of a person, but in the sense of a theory—meaning, for example, that she might say, “Radical feminists challenge transgender.” This strikes me as clumsy and grammatically incorrect, and something that could be easily corrected, as she sometimes uses “transgenderism” instead. Overall, I’d say the language gets clumsy quite often, and that’s my only big problem with this book. The politics I take no issue with. I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to newcomers, because it’s much less thorough, well-organized, and approachable than, for example, Kasja Ekis Ekman’s book on the subject, or Laura Lecuona’s.
Oh, my God. I just learned that I already read this book to the end. I thought I’d read the beginning on my computer as a PDF, so I only read on from the point where I thought I had stopped, but apparently I got all the way to the end? So now I need to read the first 76 pages again for this to count as a full reread… Ughh. (I ended up doing that. A little annoying but didn’t take too long.)
February 14, 2023
That some men wear makeup, or have long hair and are nurturing, and that some women don't wear makeup or have short hair, and are non-nurturing, should be unexceptional. If we expand the bandwidth of what it is to be a man or a woman, we don't need to seek a change in sex but rather a change in society's codes of femininity and masculinity. If we expand the bandwidth of what it is to be a man or a woman, trans terms would have little meaning and certainly, we wouldn't need the medicalizing of young bodies in order to live in a gender non-conforming way. (p. 228)
November 23, 2021
An excellent analysis of the consequences of gender ideology. The book is well researched, incisive, humanely written in clear & easy to read/understand language. Fully recommended.
March 18, 2023
Cogent.
Read
June 24, 2024This is a roundup of the state of the trans situation as of 2021 focusing primarily in the US, drawing on a lot of recent journalism and internet sources.
It covers how it developed in to its current iteration of transgenderism, the current philosophy underpinning it, what caused it to take off to the extent it has, the nonsensical logic of it, the mayhem it is causing against females and the state of media that enables it.
It’s a decent roundup.
Some notes:
In chapter five she says that using testosterone levels as a gauge as to whether a person can compete in women’s sports category is inadequate as there are other factors that also advantage males. Then she cites Caster Semenya being excluded from the women’s category due to higher testosterone as unfair, refers to her as she. From what I gather Semenya is biologically male with DSD 5αR2 (that only males can be affected with) ie Semenya has, as well as higher testosterone, other advantages of a male body too. I’m not sure how Raymond’s example of Semenya’s exclusion, as evidence of unfairness to women, works here.
She explains Title IX and the assault on it as of 2021. Further developments have since happened.
She mentions The Equality Act in the US and that it would be detrimental to women in sport if passed in Congress, but I had to google what it is.
It covers how it developed in to its current iteration of transgenderism, the current philosophy underpinning it, what caused it to take off to the extent it has, the nonsensical logic of it, the mayhem it is causing against females and the state of media that enables it.
It’s a decent roundup.
Some notes:
In chapter five she says that using testosterone levels as a gauge as to whether a person can compete in women’s sports category is inadequate as there are other factors that also advantage males. Then she cites Caster Semenya being excluded from the women’s category due to higher testosterone as unfair, refers to her as she. From what I gather Semenya is biologically male with DSD 5αR2 (that only males can be affected with) ie Semenya has, as well as higher testosterone, other advantages of a male body too. I’m not sure how Raymond’s example of Semenya’s exclusion, as evidence of unfairness to women, works here.
She explains Title IX and the assault on it as of 2021. Further developments have since happened.
She mentions The Equality Act in the US and that it would be detrimental to women in sport if passed in Congress, but I had to google what it is.
August 16, 2025
I have read a lot of books about transgenderism and they are mostly a catalogue of horrors in which women are discriminated against in the most egregious ways, and men, who call themselves women, are promoted to 'stunning and brave' and are lauded for their sex denialism. This book is no different. If you are feminist, or simply want to know what's happening to women and girls in this new world of gender celebration, this book will give you the low down.
It's an easy read, really well written and written by a woman who is obviously angry at where we are as a society and how women and girls have been treated. Though, as I say, there is not a lot to distinguish this from any of the other feminist/gender critical writers on the subject.
It's an easy read, really well written and written by a woman who is obviously angry at where we are as a society and how women and girls have been treated. Though, as I say, there is not a lot to distinguish this from any of the other feminist/gender critical writers on the subject.
July 28, 2025
Fortunately, Janice Raymond and those who think like her have been sidelined by the vast majority of feminist academics and activists, and will continue to be sidelined into obscurity with their bigotry fading with them. "Sophisticated" transphobes are still transphobes.
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