The TERF wars have been going on for the last six years due to the rise of the trans movement from the outer edges of the gay liberation movement to the front and centre of Stonewall activism due to the growing uncritical acceptance of queer theory into mainstream academic and LGBT thinking. As it stands, the "LGBT" acronym (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans) movement has expanded to "LGBTQQIPA+" (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Polyamorous, and Asexual, and it can only get bigger and more unwieldy. While the implication is that queer women are at the heart of this, the truth is they're expected to submit to male-bodied people, whatever their presentation, to secure their place, or be forced out. To make matters worse, Stonewall's Youth wing enforces this. They're even blurring the distinction between biological sexes in teaching materials aimed at kids. This is not inclusion of the trans community, it's the erasure of biological sex.
Behind the mask
The trans rights movement, specifically the TWAW iteration, presents itself as protecting a vulnerable, marginalised group from hostile women, most of whom are conservative-minded or even right wing middle-class white women who are unwilling to share their privileged status with an underclass that experiences social ostracism, high rates of unemployment, and homelessness as a result of merely trying to express their true selves.
One in four trans people has experienced homelessness and more than a quarter in a relationship in the past year have experienced domestic abuse. Their plight is firmly a class problem when one in three employers is “less likely” to hire a trans person, and in Ireland, half of trans people are unemployed.- Inside the Great British TERF War, by Hannah Ewens for VICE 16/06/2020
What this movement explicitly doesn't do is fund shelters, employment initiatives, or other resources for trans folk. Why is that? Erin Pizzey put her money where her mouth was and created battered wives' refuges. Now traumatised women are expected to budge up and make room for male-bodied people. PTSD, etc? Tough tizzy, you transphobic TERF. Yes indeed, white women are clearly in need of being taken down a peg or two. So we're the target, a scapegoat to blame for the trans persecution Boogeyman's activities. Remember, we must never slay the Boogeyman, but there will always be scapegoats.
Again I ask: why does this powerful movement, which is able to insert its guidance into our schools, educational institutions, government, and courtrooms — regardless of their misinterpretations of the law — refuse to fund the resources required for the tiny minority of people whom they claim require them? Because it's not about helping a tiny marginalised group at all. That's a red herring.
Transhumanism & Queer Theory
Before we take a look at who's actually funding the TWAW iteration of the trans rights movement, let us look at its guiding philosophy. It begins with Transhumanism.
The second strain of transhumanism holds a contrasting view, that social institutions (such as religion, traditional notions of marriage and child rearing, and Western perspectives of freedom) not only can influence the trajectory of technological development but could ultimately retard or halt it. Bostrom and British philosopher David Pearce founded the World Transhumanist Association in 1998 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to working with those social institutions to promote and guide the development of human-enhancement technologies and to combat those social forces seemingly dedicated to halting such technological progress. - Transhumanism, social and philosophical movement, by Sean A. Hays for Encyclopedia Britannica
Okay, can you see what is happening here? We have an movement devoted to combat social forces that might get in the way of promoting their idea of progress. Sounds innocuous until you realise they've joined forces with the Queer Theory crowd. Now it seems that human progression is to be achieved by chopping and shaping the human body to the form desired by the subject — for a price. If you can't afford it, fear not, they'll just bully you into denying what's in front of your eyes for the sake of sparing someone's feelings.
Saying transgender people were "born" as the gender they were assigned at birth also mistakenly implies trans people need to "transition" — or go through gender-affirming medical procedures — to be the gender they identify as.
Not all transgender people need to take medical steps to be comfortable in their bodies or gender. - J.K. Rowling wrote a controversial statement about transgender people in response to being called a 'TERF.' Here's what that means, by Canela López for Insider Jun 10, 2020
So the distinction between a cis gender (non-trans identifying) male pervert and an innocent trans woman going about her business is erased by there being no requirement to make any changes. We are obliged to accept this on say-so alone. There is no way to screen out the potential threat and claiming that there is one makes me an evil-minded bigot. Got it? Good. The idea is to erase any boundaries or notions that deny the male, in whatever form they present socially or physically, the right to appropriate and access the body of any woman or child without fear of consequence or repercussion. Well that's the ideology addressed. Where are they getting the money from?
Dark Money and Astroturfing
Blogger "Sue Donym" has written a comprehensive breakdown of where the money is coming from for the increase in trans-promoting literature and chatter online and in the media.
Essentially, the modern philanthropist does not research to solve a problem; he has a predetermined solution in mind and desires research to support his opinion, rather than funding research to form an opinion. It’s like wanting to score a touchdown late in the fourth, using a specific play, and repeatedly calling that play trying to score, regardless of defensive scheme. This comes through grants to existing non-profit organizations, or through creating new ones that look grassroots — astroturf. See our friends NCTE or NCLR and GATE, respectively, who produce research and reports that seem designed to reach a specified conclusion. Because organizations are effectively created or hired, the power in the relationship is held entirely by the philanthropist, who expects return on investment. Essentially, with their vast funding and reach, they strangle any form of actual grassroots organization with ease. Because their research predominates, it becomes the orthodoxy among the chattering classes. This is not simply donations to non-profits in the case of transgenderism — it is donations to universities and hospitals, which then produce scientific research of questionable validity, given that bias is inextricable from this situation. - Inauthentic Selves: The modern LGBTQ+ Movement Is Run By Philanthropic Astroturf And Based On Junk Science, by Sue Donym Aug 6, 2018
Whether or not you agree with her conclusion that right-leaning perverts and weirdos are funding this to cater for their fetishes she's either right about where the money comes from or she's not. Note that any criticism thereof is mostly from supporters. The article is so carefully referenced that she can only be criticised for stylistic errors. Where facts are concerned, she's pretty much bulletproof.
Jennifer Bilek names the usual suspects, Stryker and Soros, in this expose:
As the example of the Arcus Foundation shows, the LGB civil rights movement of yore has morphed into a relentless behemoth, one that has strong ties to the medical industrial complex and global corporatists. The pharmaceutical lobby is the largest lobbying entity in Congress. Although activists present the LGBT movement as a weak, powerless group suffering oppression and discrimination, in truth it wields enormous power and influence—power it increasingly uses to remake our laws, schools, and society. - The Billionaires Behind the LGBT Movement, by Jennifer Bilek for First Things 21/01/2020
Funding that could be going towards protecting women and girls from institutionalised violence and repression is being diverted to "other causes."
Despite a high-level global commitment among humanitarian actors to increase funding for local and national implementing agencies, progress toward localization of humanitarian action, including GBV response, has been slow. Obtaining funding for GBV is a challenge that women- and girl-focused organizations are still struggling to overcome – often without the necessary resources. - Where is the Money? - International Rescue Committee
In fact, the only way that aid intended for women and girls can get anywhere near them is if they include the trans community.
Never has there been more awareness or consensus in the international funding community about the importance of including women and girls in efforts to bring about lasting change. Various initiatives focused on women and girls have been launched in the past several years, including from governments and foundations (corporate as well as private).
Central to this consensus is an increasing emphasis on partnership—among donors themselves, but also with regards to their grantees: asking for organisations to work together as a pre-condition to be eligible to access funding. What does partnership—often experienced as collaborative work—mean in terms of the quality of funding available to women’s, girls and trans* rights movements? How are funders supporting movement agendas, and how do we make sure that we as funders don’t get in the way, but instead resource and support movements? - Quantity and quality: Part 1 on funding women’s rights, by Nicky McIntyre and Esther Lever for Open Democracy 22/02/2017
The trouble is that donors and their agendas tend to get in the way. The last thing they appear to want is the beneficiaries having a say in what is done with the money. In fact, any organisation that doesn't include, and indeed centre trans folk gets defunded, whatever it's set up to do, especially rape crisis centres. Traumatised by sexual abuse by men? Too bad, TERF.
The Balance of Power
Assuming that you have taken all of this on board, where does that leave us? Well we've got rich white men ruling the funding world and giving (and controlling) the funding for projects that promote their pet causes, leaving women and girls under-served in the name of protection for a group of people that they don't actually care about.
It's all about men
This group, loosely described as Trans, includes everybody on the TQ+ spectrum from people born male who fully transition to a feminine presentation to cross-dressers to chaps who don't even bother but want us to accept them as women nonetheless. For a group of supposedly powerless people it's amazing how many laws have been enacted, how much structural adjustments have been implemented, and how public discourse has been altered to cater for them.
The balance of power has always been tilted in favour of men, and this continues to be the case. Now all the gains that women have made to escape from beneath the shadow of male domination and control are being rolled back to force women to cater for those born male at their own expense; no additional funding has been made available for people with such complex, individuated needs: the money is being taken from needy women and handed over to trans causes. And we are being told to sit down, shut up, and accept this.
Don't tell me that trans folk are a marginalised group when they have that much firepower. Meanwhile, transsexuals, i.e. the people who actually transition, hate being lumped in with the TWAW brigade since they tend to suffer as we do, and for the same reasons.
So it's mainly misogynistic wokebros unloading on women while keeping their woke credibility because we're the wrong kind of women, unthinking feminists desperate to be seen to be current and on trend, jobbing hacks acting as stenographers instead of reporting the news, and politicians desperate to to be popular who have a go at anyone who says that sex is real and a woman is an adult human female.
They use trolls as muscle to keep us in line
Take another look at the avatar I posted at the top. Behind that image type is a rancid wave of incels and 4Chan types who love to stir the pot and help to keep it boiling over. They work to prevent any dialogue since the idea is to antagonise, and the press connives at this by acting as stenographers for the noisiest ones while refusing to examine what they're told. So it falls to the women who won't drink the Koolaid to report on the situation as it is — and be willing to take the consequences to their social lives and their careers.
I must confess that as a Christian I've got it easy; they can't get at my church because I've never identified it online (I'm not stupid) and my co-religionists aren't buying it, so I've got support. I haven't updated my Linked In for months and am not going to — I've had advance warning of what happens when you upset an internet troll. Nonetheless I will continue to speak out and to blog about this. Nothing will change until we make it change. The good news is that the women of Britain and Ireland are waking up to what is going on. The tide will turn soon enough, and hopefully the cocky little twerps strutting about acting like they own the place will slither back beneath their rocks where they belong.
Conclusion
Any reasonable, rational discussion of the rights of trans folk will have to be done as a separate issue from those affecting women. Their needs are as unique as they are and most of us are not equipped to deal with them. Rather than stretching scarce resources even thinner, separate provision will have to be made. Anyone who seriously believes they are helping trans people will have to provide an answer to each of these three questions if they want me to take them seriously:
- Why not make provision for them as a separate group from women in order to meet their distinct complex needs as people whose identity does not align with the bodies they were born in?
- Why not spend all that money on providing housing and employment initiatives to enable trans people to live lives of dignity and purpose instead of blowing it on the kind of advocacy that leads to conflict with the rest of us?
- Why is all this being done at the expense of women when men ought to be stepping up? The only ones who do seem to spend their time bashing women instead of practically helping anyone.
I'm not going to get an answer to these questions, am I?
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