Born in the Right Body: Gender identity ideology from a medical and feminist perspective

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Around 2012 she became aware of a growing discourse around transgender issues, and became concerned about ethics and the evidence-base for gender self-identification and gender reassignment interventions. She decided to look into it further and has since written about various issues connected to that topic. Whole sectors of society have been conditioned to believe that there are “trans people,” as opposed to “people who believe in transgenderism.” Linguistic capture and mission creep are the trans activists’ modus. I do not accept that there is a distinct, objective category of “trans people.”“Trans” describes a subjective, and often impermanent, belief only. Besides that belief, there are autogynephilic men who fetishise femaleness – some of whom immerse so deeply in that porn-fuelled fantasy that they dissociate (“born in the wrong body”) – and there are women and girls in flight from femaleness. Men believe that women were nonvolitional beings, bound to their bodies and their instincts. But studies have shown that mothering is learned; is not instinctive. We learn to mother by being mothered, and creatures that are not mothered cannot do it. Taking care creates love, for a baby, a piece of land, an animal. Men devalue this work, attributing it to mere instinct, ignoring the many women who abandon children or raise them cruelly. Taking responsibility is not instinctual in human beings as it is in other mammals. It is a choice.” Rituals were designed to protect men from Earth's retribution, and it has been suggested that after the invention of horticulture, humans began to attribute creation to a deity above nature, rather than within it, to a male God rather than a female Goddess.”

People who suffer oppression for their bodies, such as ethnic minorities, women, and the disabled, don't have the luxury to identify out of it. Yet, our institutions continue to promote the belief that the most oppressed group in history consists of healthy and often privileged people - such as white middle class men - who are self identifying into oppressed groups using the phrase 'born in the wrong body'. Thanks to not suffering the same limitations experienced by groups they wish to be part of, they exert immense influence on the regulators and these communities, where they position themselves as leaders and spokespeople. They are then redefining the aims and priorities of these groups and preventing genuine members from freely discussing issues that affect them.” What do you like to read? I read quite widely. I love literary novels but also genre fiction, especially mystery, supernatural and science fiction. Some of my all-time favourite novels are The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Dictionary of Khazars by Milorad Pavic, The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Crime and Punishment by Fjodor Dostoyevsky , Dracula by Bram Stoker, Dune by Frank Herbert and The Three-Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. Transactivists claim that no man would go through the 'ordeal' of falsely claiming to identify as a woman, but is saying 'I'm a woman' in a society where everyone is treated as a hateful bigot unless they unquestioningly honour that statement really that difficult?”I also didn’t quite appreciate how physically strenuous writing a book can be; finding a good chair and desk was essential. It has become mandatory to affirm the self-declared 'female gender identity' of male criminals, even though over half of transgender prisoners in England and Wales are sex offenders, compared to less than a fifth in the ordinary male prison population, and the nature of their offences suggests that the vast majority are men. That quibble aside, anyone reading this book could be left in no doubt that the current mainstream medical approach to all things “trans” is profoundly off-beam, and at odds with reality. Gender laws and policies compel institutions like the NHS to lie. They will also understand how much we have all been let down by mainstream media. Puberty rites are specifically designed to coerce boys to reject their primary and deepest bond, to their mothers. Male initiations emphasise that men must be born twice, once through the mother and a second time through men.”

Isolated, confined, allowed only small amounts of certain foods and drink, taught that her body is powerful but contaminated, a girl learns that she has power - to pollute: in such cultures, menstrual blood is a source of horror and fear. Menstruation symbolises female power, considered destructive to men. If female power can destroy men, women are men's enemies, and the condition of the sexes is a state of war.”Writing non-fiction allows me to contribute to the conversation about issues that are important to me. However, my happy place is fiction-writing. Creating new worlds and characters, and seeing others enjoy and derive personal meaning from it, is a great privilege. Perhaps hunting, on which male anthropologists place so much weight, gave men a sense of identity, responsibility, and power.”

Transactivists use the acronym 'TERF' [trans-exclusionary radical feminist]. This is a misogynistic dogwhistle designed to punish women who refuse to accept the redefinition of the word 'woman' to include men. It is used to vilify women like J. K. Rowling who fight for sex-based rights and child safeguarding. Their idea of what it means to live a life in a female body is informed by the male gaze, gender stereotypes and porn. This is why their fantasy recreation of a woman hardly ever involves being paid less, doing unpaid domestic labour or being ignored. Instead they are drawn to the stereotype of beautiful bimbos whose lives are easy and filled with acceptance, slumber parties, gossiping in female toilets, colouring each other's hair and prancing around in sexy lingerie and fluffy slippers.”Myths rarely offer facts, only metaphors for political or social forces, but myths about former female powers would not exist if men had always controlled women. If men always controlled women, their domination would need to explanation or justification, but would seem natural. Myths of once powerful females are amazingly universal.” This has resulted in the de facto disappearance of women's single-sex spaces and provisions. When the desires of trans-identifying males dominate discourse on both trans rights and women's rights, women's needs become subjugated to men's wants. "That's what gender self-identification means - any man can say he is a woman and automatically gain entry into women-only space."