Stephanie Hayton in The Times

her husband is actively supported in his paraphilia by the groups who should be supporting women like her, and is plastering himself all over the media

Quite.

How can a woman seek support or speak openly about herself when her husband is body blocking her from all support by dominating and controlling it all himself, including setting the narrative? And women are being effectively groomed into helping him out with this.

How consciously it is being done by her husband is another interesting question.

Yes. It isn't necessarily supportive or helpful or honest or even actually kind to 'yay, girl' to absolutely everything - prostitution, acting in extreme porn, surrogacy, staying with an abusive partner, etc.

Liberal feminism often attempts to do this, by focussing on a very immediate-gratification hyper individualised point of view. 'Sex work makes good money - yay, go you!'

Analysing patterns, asking questions is not about 'telling women what to do', but looking at women's actions and situations, and considering how healthy they are and whether they have been informed by other larger patterns within society - the male gaze, or the gender pay gap, fear, etc, and whether we could make better choices, more liberated choices that are not false dilemma fallacies.

And beyond feminism and just as a human being, I am going to be blunt in that I read this article and see an unhappy woman who has been treated very badly for a very long time, and it makes me angry.

Assertions about how abused women are weak or passive are just mistaken. And those can be damaging assertions, that can keep someone trapped.

Exactly this. I think discussing Stephanie's situation here is important. Not least because it might help other women who are in the same position.

Stephanie herself in an earlier interview in 2020 said how she had no say in her husband's decision to transition, he said he'd leave if she asked him to, but then refused when she did. His behaviour then was obviously abusive.

Stephanie was denied access to much of the support that might have helped her. Her husband used to post on here. How easy would it have been for her to access support from women on here while he was posting on here as some sort of rational and acceptable trans person? Media outlets were fawning over him. How could any woman married to such a man stand up and say that actually he's self-centred, narcissistic and abusive?

He was lauded by WPUK as an acceptable trans person and spoke at several of their meetings. Those meetings should have been for women like Stephanie, but how could they help women like her when they were allowing men like her husband to speak there (feeding their paraphilia)?

It must be hard enough just being married to a man like this, but her husband is actively supported in his paraphilia by the groups who should be supporting women like her, and is plastering himself all over the media as the reasonable face of transgenderism. Life must have become almost impossible for Stephanie.

Thanks for putting into words what I’ve been feeling on the issue 👍

Well I'm sorry, but a) feminism doesn't mean you don't question other women. Think about it, that really would be daft

and b) She's married to an AGP. Almost everything she says is completely typical, and exactly what transwidows will identify as a pattern.

It's not like Stephanie isn't telling people. All the escalation, all the broken promises, all the obsession. It's textbook.

Recognising male pattern behaviour is part of feminism.

Yes this is the feminism board. If we see our friends or other women in what we perceive as an abusive situation do we not speak up? If our friend is telling us that they are absolutely fine are we patronising her if we worry for her because we can see the classic progression of abuse? No of course not. SH has given an interview in a national paper. This will invite speculation and questions. This is an important discussion for women to have, as I am sure you have noted, many other women have left similar marriages because they did see it as abusive. Those women have been able to support each other and through discussions been able to shine a light onto something that has been and still is widely ignored. I have no idea what is happening in SHs mind or what she thinks but unfortunately I am well aware of the different forms of abuse women face and the situations they are locked into because of it. Whatever Stephanie chooses to do in her marriage then good luck and best wishes to her.

You what?

No fuckin' way.

Feminism is literally the title of this board

There it is again. Making assumptions while knowing almost nothing about SH. Seriously, so patronising (ah, the irony)

What's the feminist bit about? That women shouldn't question what is going on with another woman and the situation she's chosen to put in the national press and opened up for discussion?

Really?

Yes. A LOT of women from difficult relationships do in the long term describe how what they said and even thought they felt at the time were more about survival than what they really felt or wanted. There's a hell of a lot of pressures going on for a woman in this very difficult situation, many layers to the situation, and self deception and self protection are often a part of it. Which is naturally something feminists would care about.

we have expressed concern that she has a husband who is demonstrably manipulative and we have speculated about what she may be thinking and why , I’ve questioned how someone can reconcile deep Christian belife’s with use of sissy porn as I find that hard to comprehend but I don’t recall anyone stating with certainty how Stephanie should behave and what she should think

Amazing that so many posters on here, who presumably consider themselves feminists, seem to think they know better than Stephanie herself how she should behave and what she should think.

He has said on numerous occasions that in group/public situations it makes sense to refer to him, and to point him out to potential strangers, as a woman rather than as a man because calling him a man would only confuse these potential strangers because, as he says, he so obviously looks like a woman 🤷‍♀️

The perspective of the users on Ovarit, regarding this book, might be of interest to this thread:

https://ovarit.com/o/GenderCritical/533846/for-those-curious-about-the-debbie-hayton-book

‘On the basis of the courtesy others offer him he believes that if a woman was someone “perceived as a woman”, he would make the grade.’

This is part of the problem with #bekind and using someone preferred pronouns, Hayton actually thinks he passes 😳

Thanks. I don’t want to read his book, certainly not pay for it! but that tells me a lot of its contents.

Lorelei’s thread review was excellent and very revelatory - we now have, in essence, Hayton’s Manifesto and we can quote it, chapter and verse, without Hayton having wiggle-room to equivocate (as has happened so much in the past where the message was always edited and targeted to the particular audience).

Honestly, D Hayton is living proof that the medium is the message with these guys.

Thanks Tinsel!

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1755650643446939933.html

Easier version to read.

That was a weird article! It didn’t really say anything & ended quite abruptly!

<massively astonished and disbelieving facial expression>

“Journey back to REALITY?!?!?!?”

Like….reality-reality??!

Hatpinwoman has reviewed the book here
https://twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1755650643446939933

She's picked up on many similar themes as this thread.

(apologies to anyone that can't view it - it's far too long for SS )

I hadn't thought to look for the book cover design 🤢

Hayton is effectively arguing that becoming so absorbed by a fetish as to make it one’s whole life, and wanting to be able to perform it in public among non-consenting men, women and children, is a civil right and as such precludes women and men retaining the right to spaces based on biological sex. I can’t get over having such a massive ego and sense of self-importance (and I thought Grayson Perry was massively self-important and selfish on this issue).

Helen Joyce is right that the male sex drive of AGPs is the nuclear reactor powering all of their lobbying. Seeing other people as obstacles merely to be got around or talked around is not good for the soul or society.

Edited to add: of course TQ+ people (I will not add the grotty leverage reference used by Hayton here), cannot possibly be left to feel misfits in a society...

Plus he's explained, at length, that the people he's talking about are sexual fetishists. He's actually saying that sexual fetishists must get what they want, at women's expense, because they mustn't feel like misfits.

It's breathtaking really.

Some do, and understand that when we're faced with difficult situations often no solution is perfect.

But quite a few seem very committed to the idea that her experience must ultimately reflect what they think her situation is. And that in so far as she sees herself as an autonomous adult making the decisions she chooses, she is rationalizing or hiding her own real motivations.

I think a lot of the comments about her are quite condescending.

It's not uncommon at all.

I know three physicists who are Christians. Catholics.
I also know a chemist, who tends to be on the physics end of chemistry, who is CofE.
My husband's astrophysics prof was a Jesuit. (As was the man who came up with the Big Bang theory. There are a lot of Jesuits in the sciences.)

I don't think any of them would see this as a contradictory set of beliefs, quite the opposite. Physics is very compatible with the kind of platonic philosophy that orthodox Christian theology tends to be based on.

FWIW I know two neurosurgeons who are Catholic, one also has a theology degree, and a professor who runs a program on the history and philosophy of science.