"Why is Ireland such a hotbed of transactivism? There are 300 biopharmaceutical corporations calling Ireland home, 19 of the 20 largest. This matters."
This is a paid for article and Bilek is doing some incredible work shouldn't be ripped off so I am not copy - pasting. But I've attached a screenshot of the first paragraph - please pay to read if you can.
Oh yes, that link does work. Bilek is an accomplished investigative journalist - what makes you think her work is a bit 'conspiracy-theorist'? It you read the article in parallel with this one you'll see her common thread is 'follow the money'.
I buy that big pharma has a vested interest in lifelong medication, but I can't for the life of me see how the rugby link would do anything but disadvantage the ideology. I think it is a manifestation of the ideology not a part of a joined up plan. I think Bilek (rigourous as she is) has drawn a link and assumed intention when I expect there is non. There would certainly not be enough revenue from chronic pain meds for contact sport related injury and treatment to make it a focus for big pharma. However the article you link to is pretty damning on the first point. I also found this one, which is very disconcerting (not because I read the American conservative I hasten to add, just because it came up on a search of Martine Rothblatt )
Arcus is listed as a donor to Stonewall. Only tens of thousands not millions, but probably more than the entire budget of groups like Women's Place and the UK is unlikely to be their focus.
"The roots of the gender identity industry must be central to all other arguments or it is ineffectual compartmentalization. It is the roots which provide the power the gender identity industry brandishes and those roots are in corporate power and profiteering. The malignancy of queer theory and the efforts to destabilize reality, the feminist fight against gender stereotypes and for women’s rights and the exposure of the homophobia still rampaging though western cultures, are informative elements of what is playing out in the transgender arena. They are not the root. A voracious and pathological corporatism which has already destroyed so much of the planet is now colonizing all that is left. Humans (and our roots in sex) are the last frontier of vulture capitalism."
I'm not sure I'd agree with her, maybe I'm blind to it but I've never seen signs of any influence of the pharma industry in Ireland on policy like this.
Personally, I think people just love being seen as "progressive", they loved the worldwide bualadh bos Ireland got for gay marriage and repeal the 8th and want to recreate that. You just have to look at how many people claim credit for the success of those movements. They want that kudos back and the current movements are either transactivisim, abolish DP or repeal the 27th.
If this was being pushed by the pharma industry, then there would be more of a push that Ireland should have its own version of the Tavistock and do trans surgeries in Ireland etc. As it is there is a half hearted call every once in a while that there should be informed consent which the HSE are never going to agree to but I have never seen any money behind that campaign.
Yeah, I don't think it's right. I can see the argument she's trying to make, but it's a bit of a reach. The evidence is so tenuous, and some of the claims are just wrong (TENI is small fry, for example, both in personnel and funding, compared to Stonewall), that it comes across as a study in confirmation bias.
That said, I haven't read the full blog piece because I'm not a subscriber, but the other articles didn't persuade me. The massive influence of big pharma isn't playing out on the ground here in Ireland the way she seems to think.
Big tech, however, and the cultural import of strongly pro-trans (and anti-women) American HR policies, is another matter...
