David Aaronovitch Review of Helen Joyce's Book

[Igneococcus]

In the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a9738a12-e57d-11eb-afdb-c7b01afbcfc5?shareToken=bde4e05d2955fb1682ae3da09be1f707

Final paragaph:

"I’m off the fence. I will call people by the name and pronouns they tell me they want to be called by. I am prepared to defend their right not to be discriminated against at work and in shops, to defend them against bullying and harassment. But as Joyce says so passionately, that doesn’t change reality. A penis is a male sex organ, men don’t have babies. Women exist."

I'm Jewish. Criticizing TRAs and specifically pharma companies, even ones owned by Jews, is absolutely not anti-Semitic.

If you want to see anti-semitism when criticising big pharma read the currently lauded book - by a New Yorker writer no less - about the family behind the Oxy crisis. He literally cannot get in enough references to their being Jewish. He is obsessed.

I've not seen one person call this out anywhere.

Helen discusses billionaire funding in her chapter Behind the Scenes - Transactivism's long march through the institutions.

This is an excerpt.

A movement that focuses on the levers of power rather than building grassroots support is one in which a few wealthy people can have considerable sway. They have shaped the global agenda by funding briefing documents, campaign groups, research and legal actions; endowing university chairs; and influencing health-care protocols. One is an American transwoman billionaire, Jennifer (James) Pritzker, a retired soldier and one of the heirs to a vast family fortune. Pritzker’s personal foundation, Tawani, makes grants to universities, the ACLU, GLAAD, HRC and smaller activist groups. To cite a couple of examples, in 2016 it gave the University of Victoria $2 million to endow a chair of trans-gender studies, and throughout the ‘bathroom wars’ it supported Equality Illinois Education Project, which is linked to a group campaigning for gender self-ID in the state.

Two other billionaires, neither transgender, also spend lavishly on transactivism. One is Jon Stryker, another heir to a fortune. His foundation, Arcus, supports LGBT campaign group ILGA, and Transgender Europe, which channels funding to national self-ID campaigns. Arcus funds the LGBT Movement Advancement Project, which tracks gender-identity advocacy in dozens of countries (and partners with President Biden’s personal foundation on the Advancing Acceptance Initiative, which promotes early childhood transition). In 2015 Arcus announced that it would give $15 million in the next five years to American trans-rights groups. Among the recipients were the ACLU, the Transgender Law Center, the Trans Justice Funding Project and the Freedom Center for Social Justice, which campaigned against North Carolina’s bathroom law. In 2019, it gave $2 million to found a queer-studies programme at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and it funds Athlete Ally, the group that dropped Martina Navratilova as an ambassador when she opposed trans inclusion in female sports. In March 2021 he gave a further $15m to the ACLU, to be spent in part on pressing for legal change.

The third billionaire funder of transactivism is George Soros, via his Open Society Foundations (OSF), a network of independently managed philanthropic institutions. OSF has made multi-million-dollar donations to both the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, and in 2010 gave $100 million to the HRC, the largest donation the campaign group had ever received. OSF pays for the production of model laws and ‘best-practice’ documents on trans-related issues. To highlight just one example, in 2014 it supported ‘License to be Yourself’, a guide to campaigning for national gender self-ID laws. This argued, among other things, that children of any age should be able to change their legal sex at will. This pattern of funding helps explain the gap between trans campaign groups’ rhetoric and the policies they pursue. The talk is about the world’s downtrodden: poor, homeless trans people forced into survival sex work, lacking health care and harassed by the police. But the money comes in large part from the world’s most powerful people: rich, white American males. The two groups’ needs and desires barely overlap at all.

@FightingtheFoo do you mean Empire of Pain?

When 'Barnsey' is correctly told in the comments 'That answer has no intellectual content' he accuses the writer of insulting him. That's the level of their ability to argue, I fear. How did they get this far? (Rhetorical - funders with vital connections and deep pockets).

the group that dropped Martina Navratilova as an ambassador when she opposed trans inclusion in female sports is inaccurate, though. She opposed inclusion of male trans people in female sports.

There is no possible book that Joyce, or anyone else for the matter, could have written which would have chipped away at the faith of the faithful. The book will be most successful with those who are still "trying to keep an open mind" on the issue. Those who still can't bring themselves to believe that it is all just a Dorito, that the emperor must surely be wearing something. I'm halfway through it, and I am really enjoying it. Wow, but she can write!

Just had another look at the replies to David's tweet. It's grim reading. One TRA appears to be inciting violence towards Helen. I've reported it to Twitter, but I'll be shocked if they remove it.

twitter.com/MikkiHereEgo/status/1416002699636756480?s=19

www.thejc.com/landing/Author/David%20Aaronovitch

I’m confident that Aaronovitch is perfectly capable of spotting anti-semitism where it exists.

Has Dawkins copped any more flack from the Twitter gender warriors? His glowing endorsement takes pride of place on the front cover.

I've read the book. Helen is remarkably measured and calm, just as she always is on Twitter. To call her writing angry is absurd. Unfortunately any woman who voices an opinion an anything is perceived by men as angry, aggressive and so on, just by virtue of expressing an opinion.

The anti-Semitism accusations are straw-clutching. They have nothing they can pin on Helen so they invent anti-Semitism. With other women, it's racism, or "weaponising their trauma" or various other unsubstantiated and absurd criticisms. It's because they haven't got a single rational argument with which to answer her - and they know it. Theirs is an ideology that is completely vacuous, both morally and intellectually.

One TRA appears to be inciting violence towards Helen

So, that person believes that Helen's book will get someone killed and that she should be held responsible for it.

Do they ever think for themselves? I and others on a thread recently were told by two males that we also should shoulder our share of blame for violence, this time violence from extremist groups toward each other. And that the woman who recorded the reporting of the WiSpa incident was directly responsible for those injuries.

Women speaking out in carefully moderated language are being threatened in this way simply for one reason. To shut them up. To silence the dissension to males getting their way.

plus ca change

The anti-Semitism accusations are straw-clutching. They have nothing they can pin on Helen so they invent anti-Semitism. With other women, it's racism, or "weaponising their trauma" or various other unsubstantiated and absurd criticisms. It's because they haven't got a single rational argument with which to answer her - and they know it. Theirs is an ideology that is completely vacuous, both morally and intellectually.

They are, they had to find something to use that would cause shock among people who will probably never read it or fact-check, and this is what they chose. With JKR they invented a ridiculous story about how her Robert Galbraith pen name was because she admired a pioneer of gay conversion therapy. With no actual evidence apart from pure speculation.

I have bought the book but not had chance to start it yet. But I've heard good things and this thread has backed those things up. It should be a good addition to my ever-growing library on this subject. I liked the comment above about donating a copy. I might do the same.

ovahere
'Not only is her book antisemitic, her anti-Soros obsession clearly illustrates Joyce's wish to marry Viktor Orban'

There is no possible book that Joyce, or anyone else for the matter, could have written which would have chipped away at the faith of the faithful.

This is absolutely true of course. It's like arguing with Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. They are in thrall to a completely irrational ideology, which is impervious to rational argument.

It will be joining 'Invisible Women's and 'Material Girls' on the feminism shelf in my school library. Have to confess, I'm a bit nervous, but prepared to defend my decisions

Shared in on Facebook earlier. My husband "liked" it. Tried to discuss it and found that he hadn't even read it and had not idea what I was talking about. And I thought he was an ally... :(

@JustSpeculation

There is no possible book that Joyce, or anyone else for the matter, could have written which would have chipped away at the faith of the faithful. The book will be most successful with those who are still "trying to keep an open mind" on the issue. Those who still can't bring themselves to believe that it is all just a Dorito, that the emperor must surely be wearing something. I'm halfway through it, and I am really enjoying it. Wow, but she can write!

That's fine, I don't expect the faithful to be moved - not least because they won't risk reading the book just in case it turns them.

It's the silent majority that has to be reached. Like David himself, who admits in the article that he is now off the fence. And tweets "Person with testicles comes off the fence." It's all those fence-sitters, keeping quiet and keeping their heads down, that must be reached. They are the ones who must be persuaded that they are actually the majority, that they don't have to keep their opinions to themselves, that they can ask questions and say that the answers they're being given by TRAs are nonsense. That's who need to be reached.

Buy here for £12.35 with free delivery and they make a small donation to your local bookshop of choice

www.hive.co.uk/Product/Helen-Joyce/Trans--When-Ideology-Meets-Reality/25774311

Two paragraphs in David's article stood out to me

"In her book, Helen Joyce, an editor at The Economist, sums up what was my understanding of the subject: “Most people thought, and many still do — that transness meant ‘transsexuality’: such a deep discomfort with one’s sexed body and strong identification with the opposite sex that only surgery to reshape the body to the extent possible could bring a measure of peace."

"That certainly seemed to be the story of those magazine features and Channel 4 documentaries about (mostly) people trapped in men’s bodies, driven to despair by prejudice and hopelessness until liberated. Having semiconsciously harboured for many years the natal male’s fear of castration (and doesn’t this subject quickly become personal?) I realised I had been one of those closet “transphobes” repulsed by the thought of sex-change and so was newly anxious at the very least to be sympathetic to the cause."

That was definitely my starting position all those years ago - that it was all about a tiny number of men (always men, never women back then) crippled by dysphoria, aww, we must be kind to those poor souls. And this is definitely the image fostered by those documentaries, or of boys, so even less threatening and more likely to attract sympathy. So this paragraph and a half reminded me of where I once was and where the majority of people still will be, largely because that's all they hear from out captured, IPSOS-bound, media.

Then he talks about something I, since I am a woman, have never and could never have - "the natal male’s fear of castration", and how that could shape how a man would view a TW. "I realised I had been one of those closet “transphobes” repulsed by the thought of sex-change and so was newly anxious at the very least to be sympathetic to the cause."

And that is what has to be overcome. I've always thought that men don't have skin in the game so happily give women's rights to other men. But maybe they do have skin in the game (reflex reaction to castration), and backing TW is their very own BeKind burden. And so maybe the best way to counter it is to hammer home that there are no castrations happening boys, so uncross your legs and use your eyes and your logic. No castration, no sex change happening so no, you're not a closet transphobe; so now you know these intact males are inserting themselves into women's spaces, do you still feel the need to back them?

[quote MegCleary]@FightingtheFoo do you mean Empire of Pain?[/quote]
Yup

Interestingly of course OJ’s comments to DA in the tweets above - where he tells him he has no authority on matters of bigotry - is an actual example of straightforward anti-Semitism. Exactly the stuff Baddiel wrote about in his book.

How strange the faithful don’t seem to mind that though! No cancellation for Saint O!

Agree @where.

In addition, from the many online interactions I've seen, I think some men reflexively say twaw because they are sexually attracted to them (porn) and cannot handle that it makes them not heterosexual. If the people they're attracted to are women, then their heterosexuality can remain in tact. Another homophobic strand to trans activism

Trued to share this article to my Facebook but the share token isn't working. I'm a subscriber and went via the website and clicked on share to Facebook. Can anyone help me out with how to get the share token on there?

Also, one thing troubling me. Why is the race of the teen 'trans girl' athlete in the US relevant?

I'm about a third of the way through the book and my word it's good. it's telling me stuff I already know but seeing it all laid out so clearly is brilliant