The infantilisation (or self-infantilisation) is one aspect of some trans activists that I am constantly surprised by. It feeds into the ‘most vulnerable’ aspect. And this constant need that ‘safety’ includes only reading or viewing affirming content.
Young people with specific vulnerabilities are drawn into communities (online and academic) and exposed to respected 'elders' who teach that dissenting voices seek to "exterminate" those who identify as 'trans'. Black and white thinking is encouraged in those already that way inclined for a range of reasons (including age).
The false attributation of malign motive to women informed by and informing Radical Feminist analysis is striking.
'How Did TERFs Become So Powerful In Britain?'
Rebecca Jane Morgan
Jan 15
(extract)
"If there is such a thing as a definitive expression of ‘TERF’ ideology, American feminist Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979) is a strong contender. Trans writers Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle argue that it ‘did more to justify and perpetuate [anti-trans prejudice] than perhaps any other book ever written.’ In its sheer ability to do harm, they go so far as to compare it to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic hoax that did much to fuel the Nazi conspiracy machine.⁵
Raymond’s language is deliberately incendiary. She accuses trans women of being ‘yet another face of patriarchy’ and sees them as part of a conspiracy to infiltrate and obliterate cis women’s spaces. In this sense, Raymond contends, ‘he [sic] performs total rape,’⁶ and the only correct response was ‘morally mandating it out of existence’.⁷ Like most exclusionary feminists, Raymond had little to say about trans men, who are typically regarded by such authors as ‘poor oppressed women’⁸ suffering from ‘false consciousness,’⁹ or as seeking an easy way out of oppression by ‘joining the caste of men.’¹⁰ Since they are not seen to ‘invade’ women’s spaces, they are usually spared the attribution of malevolence reserved for trans women.
Raymond’s influence in Britain is contested. On the one hand, feminist journalist Jane Fae writes that Transsexual Empire ‘attracted little attention in the UK’ and was ‘little more than a footnote’.¹¹ On the other hand, Stephen Whittle, a founding member of the British trans activist movement, recalls a sharp change in feminist attitudes in 1979. From being ‘listened to’ prior to the publication of Raymond’s book, he felt a sudden shift towards feminists seeing trans people as ‘co-conspirators in an attempt by men to possess [women] and to remake them in a mould that suits them.’¹² British sociologist Carol Riddell, meanwhile, felt that Transsexual Empire was a ‘dangerous book’ that made it ‘more problematic’ for trans women to be visible in the women’s movement.¹³" (continues)
aninjusticemag.com/how-did-trans-exclusionary-feminism-become-so-powerful-in-britain-77275d77c632
Feminist Current
OCTOBER 16, 2020
PODCAST: The Transsexual Empire revisited — Janice Raymond on transgenderism, yesterday and today
by MEGHAN MURPHY
(extract)
"In 1979, Janice Raymond published The Transsexual Empire, the first and probably most well-known book articulating a radical feminist analysis of transgenderism. Little did we know, 40 years later, trans activism would become the biggest threat to feminism in decades. She warned us all, early on, and now we are living it: watching women’s sex based right be eroded in order to accommodate gender identity legislation. So much of Raymond’s analysis could have been written today. But it wasn’t
I spoke with Janice recently about the book, how it was received then vs how it is discussed today, the backlash, what we are up against now, and how we can fight back."
www.feministcurrent.com/2020/10/16/podcast-the-transsexual-empire-revisited-janice-raymond-on-transgenderism-yesterday-and-today/
Open access copy of Raymond's book, 'The Transsexual Empire' is available on her website: janiceraymond.com/