Thank you: Debbie Hayton in the Mail

I'd have thought this but do you remember The Danish Girl, 2015 film? I felt it was very sympathetic indeed to the trans widow...at the time when I watched it in the cinema, I didn't know much of trans issues but my immediate reaction was sympathy and indignation for the wife. I felt, even, that that was what the film intended me to feel. But the female friend with me in the cinema only felt sympathy and "wow how brave" about the TW himself. That friend was an oxbridge-educated, qualified solicitor (so you'd think, could consider things dispassionately/critically).

I didn't go to see it and still haven't seen it because a friend told me how infuriating she had found it.

That was a load of word salad, that says, from what I can make out, that if you can't tell then, what does it matter?

Which, unsurprisingly, relies on deceit.

For too long, the belligerents in the gender debate have effectively debated what the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ ought to mean.

Not what they 'ought' to mean, what they DO mean. I'm not debating what it ought to mean!

Their opinions are poles apart so it’s no wonder they have failed to find any common ground. As a result, fear and mistrust have torn society in two

This six of one and half a dozen of the other is a lie. It's not two sides contesting a controversial idea. It's one side deciding that reality is to be denied.

Our evolved psychology perhaps explains why the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) did not cause significant controversy when it was enacted in 2004, nor in the years that followed. The first group to apply for Gender Recognition Certificates were those who had already completed the process of gender reassignment,

Is that true? How long did that last? Because it's certainly not necessary now.

It’s not hard to understand why. A meaningful transition might not change our sex – that really is impossible – but it doesn’t need to change our sex to alter the way others naturally perceive us.

If transsexuals are perceived to be the other sex then instinct cannot be ignored.

So now it's the old 'passing' argument. Which relies on deceit.

Not to mention the absolute meaninglessness of that comment when you've just written a book about how much of a man you are!

I've yet to see a transactactivist who doesn't make everything about the fact that they are trans, therefore male. There is absolutely no mis-perception to be had.

If there is such a thing as a man who passes completely seamlessly, he sure as shit won't be writing a book about not being a woman.

He's mocking us as well, for example asking in almost so many words 'how are you going to stop me flaunting my fetish, without completely over the top laws about clothing?'

Once you've seen it you can't unsee it.

how are you going to stop me flaunting my fetish, without completely over the top laws about clothing?'

For too many people, women's consent has always been a social fiction. "I asked nicely" always has a hint of menace beneath it.

It's revelling in transgressing boundaries and knowing that we, and others, are given pause in how to react because of support for freedom of speech, thought, ideas, and the notion that adults of autonomous moral agents who seek to be pro-social.

Of course, while some of us are lost in the ethics of those considerations, there are others who find themselves enmeshed in a Thermidorean reaction, either as perpetrators or those harmed by it.

For historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership and a radical regime is replaced by a more conservative regime, sometimes to the point where the political pendulum may swing back towards something resembling a pre-revolutionary state.[11] In his book The Revolution Betrayed, Leon Trotsky alleges that the rise of Joseph Stalin to power was a Soviet Thermidor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermidorian_Reaction

It's a clever, well written piece, with much to grudgingly agree with (apart from the reference to 'intersex' people). But it seems to boil down to something like 'if I can disguise myself convincingly enough as a woman, then I should be allowed to get away with it'.

He's mocking us as well, for example asking in almost so many words 'how are you going to stop me flaunting my fetish, without completely over the top laws about clothing?'

Creepy.

Apologies, that was an immediate reaction to the article rather than to anyone on thread.

I have no fucks to give about dress codes or what people want to create in the manner of third spaces, and I'm rapidly running out of patience for the never ending word salad wangling.

Women need single sex spaces, free of men, whatever those men think or want or choose to call themselves. Because otherwise some women cannot access any spaces at all and are excluded from society, and others just want to be able to live in society with spaces where they can be free of sexually excited men who want to use them. Exempt those women and their spaces and resources from all the fuckery.

This has happened via selfish twits who want to niggle about what 'man' and 'woman' and 'sex' and 'chromosomes' mean (endlessly) and disappear up their own bottoms on the matter, but who have one thing as the end goal, which is to be a man, in a woman's space, where women are getting undressed and do not consent .

Fgs you don't need a bloody doctorate to see through that one.

Have a third space. In there can be those who opt out of sex, names, words, chromosomes, sanity and anything else they choose. And women who are happy to get their kit off with men can do so to their heart's bloody content, all day long. Just leave women bloody access Hayton, and stop boring on at them about it.

Yup. It's just like the time Hayton suggested mixed-sex prisons for people convicted of non-violent crime. Hayton repeatedly mouths the required words to inveigle Haytonself into a position as a GC commentator and then uses that status to push for mixed-sex facilities.

The thread's consensus certainly seems to have evolved from "thank you Hayton" to "no thank you, Hayton"...!

I can only comment that wims on this thread anticipated Hayton's arc and something like the Spectator piece.

Now Hayton is in the Spectator.

https://archive.ph/0W0f2

I am particularly taken aback by this paragraph, which reminds me of trans activist nonsense on twitter.

For too long, the belligerents in the gender debate have effectively debated what the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ ought to mean. Their opinions are poles apart so it’s no wonder they have failed to find any common ground. As a result, fear and mistrust have torn society in two – there is just too much to lose. If ‘man’ and ‘woman’ become gender identities to be claimed by whoever covets them, women’s sex-based rights become meaningless. But if they become hardwired to XX and XY chromosomes then transsexual people – not to mention other individuals with certain intersex conditions – risk becoming total misfits in a society organised by gametes.

There is very little in our society that is organised by sex. It's just been changing rooms, toilets, prisons, hospital wards, refuges, rare single-sex organisations and so on.

So this looks like an opportunistic argument that some special, post-operative people should get to use facilities intended for the other sex.

But yes I had a look at the comments and they're just as you say. One from a self declared TW who says he has some specified bit of his brain that's the same as "natal females".

What absolute pish. He has no idea what is in the brain of "natal females". Nor have I, despite being one. My brain is my own; women are not a hive mind.

I read Benvenuto’s book last year, it’s excellent. Not long after, I read Shannon Thrace’s book too and also found it very good.

These women give slightly different but very compelling and informative viewpoints of their husband’s behaviour (the women have different backgrounds and lives so that’s to be expected but they both had remarkably similar stories of how badly they were treated by their husbands and by friends/society). It’s also amazing how very similar the stages of behaviour were for both husbands 😳

Wow that was a tough read. The gradual escalation of his behaviour. Copying his wife's clothes.

This bit stood out for me:

they said about their partners what my husband said about himself: he's still the same person inside. "Where inside?" I wanted to shout

Where indeed? He started to behave completely differently, stopped being considerate of his children and wife, revised memories to say he'd never been happy. In my opinion it's like when you replace the axe handle and then the axe head, it's not the same axe. He wasn't the same man any more.

But yes I had a look at the comments and they're just as you say. One from a self declared TW who says he has some specified bit of his brain that's the same as "natal females". Many others saying "have some compassion" [for the man].

But that was 11y ago. I wonder if that was published new today, whether the comments would be different. Maybe not

Remember this lady?:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/02/my-husbands-sex-change#comments

At least some of the comments are critical of her. It didn't help that he also wrote a book:

(search Joy Ladin)

which was better received literarily.

A week-long series about transwidows in the DM or Times would be great

I'd have thought this but do you remember The Danish Girl, 2015 film? I felt it was very sympathetic indeed to the trans widow...at the time when I watched it in the cinema, I didn't know much of trans issues but my immediate reaction was sympathy and indignation for the wife. I felt, even, that that was what the film intended me to feel. But the female friend with me in the cinema only felt sympathy and "wow how brave" about the TW himself. That friend was an oxbridge-educated, qualified solicitor (so you'd think, could consider things dispassionately/critically).

I think women's conditioning, to accept our role as caregivers and self-sacrificers, runs very deep indeed.

A week-long series about transwidows in the DM or Times would be great

It would.

And it would satisfy any newspapers' sense of sensationalism if that absolutely has to be a factor.

I guarantee it would sell.

Plus it wouldn't just move the Overton window, it would scrub it with Windolene, fling it open and flood the room with glaring sunlight.

I think that any libfem who is on board with extreme porn and the legalisation of prostitution, surrogacy etc would be capable of swallowing public erotic cross-dressing as a legitimate expression of sexual freedom (though her attitude to any TW she knows personally might switch from fawning to disgusted - all the more thrilling for him!).

Because it's all about men getting what they want, mostly at the expense of women, and who could possibly object to that?

A week-long series about transwidows in the DM or Times would be great, but I'm now feeling so pessimistic I can see it being greeted with a chorus of 'the wimmin are revolting again! Prudes!'.

No it is an odd one for a feminist.

Yes Datun. Is it wilful or down to life experience as you say. I suspect it is wilful with some of them but have no idea why a feminist would put their fingers in their ears when it comes to AGP.

It's interesting where she points out that these women have been talking about the issue for 8, 10 years, and they're still no closer to grasping the depth of AGP.

When I first got interested in this about nine years ago, there were lots of talks, in London, and dotted around. Women had really had enough, and were trying to gather together to discuss it. At one such talk, I'm guessing it was around 2017, maybe 2016, , there was a panel of women, about four of them. All of them now well-known.

None of them had heard of AGP.

They were talking about transgenderism, informed about the issue, angry, worried, but had no idea that it was driven by a sexual compulsion.

I still think that it might well come down to the life experience of some women, as to how readily they believe this is just all about sex.

Has anyone seen KJK's latest video? She hits the nail on the head as per usual.

Fuck! 😠

Someone on X should send her Amy Hamm's tweet.

You fear correctly

I've been avoiding it @TinselAngel I fear the worse.