Transitioning out of shame - Monroe Bergdof's memoir reviewed by spiked Brendon O'Neil

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Interesting article analysing Bergdof's own words in their autobiography and their reasons for transitioning.
It looks at internalised homophobia and the conversion of young gay people into gender ideology.

www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/19/the-return-of-gay-shame/

That's very interesting.

Such a shame Bergdorf wasn't allowed to be proud of who they were, wasn't allowed to do ballet, and all those other things that have clearly deeply affected them.

What a mess.

It's very interesting.

Oh and it's worth while clicking through the link to what Milo Yianopolous is reduced to these days !

Yes interesting. But also infuriating that women, the very concept of womanhood, is being repurposed to suit the sexual proclivities of a man.

Again, women are nothing more than a resource.

The arrogance is off the scale.

That's the first time I've actually felt any empathy for Monroe.

'why is Bergdorf’s tale of transitioning away from the shame that consumed him as a gay teen into the pride that came with his intensive surgical transformation into a ‘woman’ considered acceptable, wonderful even?'

Very sad. Very well written article.

'It seems to me that Bergdorf is using the language of ‘liberation’ to describe what other people more honestly refer to as ‘conversion’. Show me the difference between his ‘liberation’ from his feelings of gay shame and someone else’s ‘conversion’ from their shameful homosexuality. Indeed, if anything the trans ideology’s enticement of young gay men and lesbians into the shady sphere of surgical correction is worse than religious-style conversion therapy. There is always a way back for the young homosexual who believes that he has been converted to heterosexuality. There’s no way back for Munroe Bergdorf.'

O'Neill writes:
Going back even further, to the pathologisation of homosexuality in the 19th century, we find the insulting belief pushed by psychologists that homosexuality was a case of a ‘female soul inhabit[ing] a male body’. Anyone else feel uncomfortable that the old homophobic view that male gayness is trapped femaleness seems to be making a comeback?

Indeed! The whole gender identity ideology is both misogynist and homophobic to its core.

I never understood this; transition and conversion have the same meaning. If a person transitions from one gender to another they have undergone conversion - surely conversion therapy if others have actively supported it.

Conversion therapy is bad - we all agree it should be banned. But by manipulation of language - in this instance banning conversion means allowing people to convert (transition), but banning any attempts to dissuade them from converting.

What a mess

In an earlier life I had a best friend who had a relationship with a man whom everyone assumed was gay. They had a normal sex life and apparently he was good enough in bed, and I told myself off for assuming people's sexuality. And then he started dressing up in her clothing and then it was Beaumont Society meetings and swiftly on to transitioning and full sex reassignment surgery, and then ta-da he was out as a woman-hating TW convinced he was a better woman than me or my friend and hoping to find a rich older man to look after him. This was back in the 90s when all this was pretty new, but even then my friend and I came to the conclusion that he was a repressed gay man (very strict, homophobic military father) who used transitioning as a way to deal with his shame. Bergdorf seems to be morphing into Madonna.

The homophobia and sexism appears depressingly common.

Juno Dawson famously said “A lot of gay men are gay men as a consolation prize, because they couldn't be women.” And I read somewhere that they claim their male partner is heterosexual. I've had a cursory look, and I can't find that article, but I did find this

Mum told me how she remembered the younger me pleading for dolls and dresses in the aisles of shops. She had worried in silence, trying as best she could to shield such behaviour from my father.

"He even seems to welcome the downsides of womanhood, such as being pestered by men. When he finds himself being sexually objectified, he feels relieved that people ‘found me desirable’. These were ‘breadcrumbs of validation… being fetishised felt like genuine affection"

I suggest that rather than identifying into the 'downsides' of womanhood there are many gay transwomen who actually court and seek the attention of men, especially straight men, as a way to validate their identity. They don't fancy gay men. They fancy and want to be desired by straight men. The idea of womanhood is totally tied up with being sexualised.

“Mum told me how she remembered the younger me pleading for dolls and dresses in the aisles of shops. She had worried in silence, trying as best she could to shield such behaviour from my father”

It seems to me that people like this are going to perpetuate their sufferings on younger generations of boys by the ideology that they subscribe to.

30 years ago I remember that the attitude was girls and boys should be free to play with any toy, to play dressing up games, to explore their imaginations etc, now, because of gender identity beliefs suffusing the mainstream parents wouldn’t be wrong to genuinely fear that by letting their boys play with dolls, wear a princess costume or do ballet their may “become girls”. Teachers, health professionals, family friends and neighbours may all be inclined to push this on them. Any parents saying no he is just playing, he is in fact a boy, might be assumed to be in denial or worse still abusive, perpetrators of conversion therapy.

So men who suffered this in the past and grew up to claim an internal feminine soul requiring surgery and medication to force the body to match up to the assumed feminine soul are making it so much more likely that many more boys in the future will suffer the same thing, even if parents of boys would allow them freedom to explore and play without imposing gender identity on them, wider societal institutions may not.

Any parents wanting to protect their sons from harmful surgery and medication will necessarily need to be restrictive and impose sex based stereotypes to protect their children from pharmaceutical and medical industry exploitation. The dangers to children of behaviours which are not the norm for their sex are now real and the harms from the medical interventions irreversible.

This is yet another way that gender identity theory is regressive and far from challenging sexual stereotypes it solidifies them and makes them harder to challenge or escape from.

The homophobia is clear to see for those not blinded by ideology

Absolutely. Not only does it cement gender roles, it provides horrifying punishment for those who don't comply. Having to actually try and turn yourself into the opposite sex through the use of drugs and surgery feels like the only recourse for many.

Although people can see the unfairness of men in women's women sports, rapists in women's prisons, etc, public perception has yet to grasp the underlying, dangerous sexism involved.

This is the link to my quote above, as I missed it off my post.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/juno-dawson-cant-be-24-hour-sexual-fantasy-dating-trans-woman

Apart from being clearly riven with homophobia, it shows how women as a sex are so utterly irrelevant to the men who claim to be one.

convinced he was a better woman than me or my friend
For me this just sums up the 'mode' average/most common male psyche, the need to always dominate and score points over women, and when women still get on in life and get ahead despite the attempts of men to drag them down the only option left to men is to turn themselves into women and say 'I'm a better woman than the women-women'
No f* off you dumbo 🤬, you dumb as a rock proto hominid 🤬

This lack of acceptance of gender-non-confirming boys by adult males seems to be at the root of so many MTF transitions.

I knew a girl from my Lesbian social group, butch, who really wanted to trans to a male but didn't as she'd be evicted from our social circle. Everyone knew this about her.

She was the most awful stereotype of male behavior, arrogant, dominating, dismissive and would constantly patronize and belittle us. I remember she told a girl and me 'to stop chattering ' ( because women's conversation is trivial and annoying). I was absolutely fuming and told her off.

It's obvious self-hate, I would feel sorry for Munroe but he's such a sexist pig that I don't.

That was an Attitude (Gay Men’s magazine!) article.

It got scrubbed due to the uproar but here is another Attitude article defending it:

www.attitude.co.uk/news/world/its-not-homophobic-to-say-some-gay-men-are-actually-trans-i-should-know-i-was-one-of-them-292692/

Yes, we are a resource, like the European rulers and explorers saw other continents at the beginning of the era of colonisation.

Nobody important lives in the Women's Country, so it is for the taking. And it's fine to cosplay its natives and to redefine its laws (such as what counts for being a citizen, not being born in the country), to ban its language (we are now wombcarriers and menstruators etc.)

I can have empathy for Bergdorf's suffering, but Bergdorf appears to have very little empathy for the indigenous inhabitants of the Women's Country. Even the way Bergdorf creates herself as woman reflects an outsider's view of what a real woman is (desirable to men, seductively dressed, fully made up, irrespective of the time of the day and context).

Your point about women being a resource is so important in this context: We are validation resource, we are an applauding resource (in sports), we are a resource for various imaginary interpretations of womanhood, as seen from the outside, and, last but not least, we are mental support staff resource for the rest of the world.

If we fall short of those, then we deserve great wrath. I think this follows if you equate 'woman' with 'feminine' which seems to mean passive, submissive, emotional and nurturing. The very definition of a self-sacrificing support cast.

The idea of womanhood is totally tied up with being sexualised.

Paris Lees is another like this.

'[The] barest essentials [of femaleness] are an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes'.'

Andrea Long Chu.

I'm very familar with one young'ish trans identifying young man ( now aged about 30). I've watched him grow up and develop his trans identity via the pages of a forum I contribute to. He's fully committed: has a band of, mainly, gay men who encourage him and egg him on, applaud his every word and testament; close down anyone ( ie me) who dare to bring up the issue of women's rights and integrity.

He has always come across to me as a young gay man with mental health issues; quite delicate features; an avid gamer; very attached to his family who he still lives with. I've been watching his transiton from a distance. He now calls names himself after what I now realise is a female avatar from a currently very popular game that has been made into a movie. He has had breast implants and other 'work' done. He's scheduled for full 're-assignment' surgey in April. He clearly detests his male anatomy and has said In the past that at night he claws at his genitals and wishes them gone.

He posts occasional transition photos to his almost entirely male audience ( a mixture of gay and straight men). It is always the same coquettish, head tilted pose, soft lit; big submissive eyes. He get s told how great he looks and is clearly gratified when a straight man says something complimentary about " How if I didn't know otherwise...."

I do wonder how his self image will evolve as he grows older and is no longer wolf whistled ( his testimony) or fancied by men - since his image of being a woman is so tied up with his own repressed sexuality ( he identifies asexual).

The realities of life as an older woman are not the aim of transition, are they? even for those older, late transitioners, who dress in inappropriate ( for their age) and overtly sexualised ways.

The realities of life as an older woman are not the aim of transition, are they?

Nope!

I suppose it’s easy to imagine yourself as much like a woman of similar age until you get to 30-35 and realise how much priorities have changed for your female peers.

You can’t live your life in hot pants and nightclubbing mode forever - fortunately a fulfilling life exists beyond those years for those of us who always knew it was only a temporary phase - I imagine later life can be very lonely for people who transitioned young.

It's amazing * how little of the internalised homophobia makes it into the Guardian's recent hagiography of MB, it's like Brendan O'Neill/Spiked read a totally different book!

*not really

What's so ironic is that this adoration of youth as the epitome of sexuality is entirely male driven; for gay men middle age is 30.
It's so sad.
As a Lesbian, our culture is different we don't focus on youth. I easily could find partners in my 40s, 50s and probably in my 60s too!

That’s a very good point NotHavingIt about what they will do in middle age.