Helen Joyce

[darada]

I just wanted to say how much I love Helen Joyce. For me she's the best thing about this whole sordid trans business.

I'd recommend you watch a few of her podcasts on YouTube. The clarity of her thinking and expression, her rationality and her non-tribalism are so refreshing. I also love the fact that with time she's run out of fucks to give and just calls out BS much more directly than her earlier comments.

Helen if you lurk here keep up the good work, I have learned a lot from you and we're all lucky to have you on our side in this increasingly important and urgent fight for sanity and our kids' future.

The link above to Helenas story 'by any other name' details her own personal experience of this phenomenon and how it encouraged her to transition.

Did you read it?

As someone who did read it, I can testify that a lot of Helena's online experiences were very familiar to me (I'm similar age to her, ex-Tumblr lurker, ex-fangirl). Although I wasn't a huge Tumblr user at that age, I was on another, more niche forum website that had similar dynamics, although it was nowhere near as bad as Tumblr.

Like Helena, I was obsessed with boys. Mostly fictional boys -- cute, respectful anime boys in anime and fiction either aimed at or written by teenage girls. I didn't like real teenage boys much because so many were obsessed with sex, and they were usually a bit spotty and smelled like Lynx on top of days-old BO. But the ones in the stories were sweet and handsome and if it was a gay love story, that was even better, because I didn't have to confront how a woman might be expected to fit into this relationship (and the female characters were usually so boring I got annoyed at seeing "my" male character so obsessed with them).

For a while, I wanted to be a gay anime boy. I didn't cut my hair, mostly because my preferred fictional crushes had long swishy ponytails, and I switched to wearing less feminine clothes. It was more a fantasy desire than an identity, but the forum I was on was full of teenage girls declaring new pronouns for themselves and I wanted in on this social group. And why not go for nonbinary? After all, that's not female, and I didn't want to have a relationship as a female.

So I decided to tell my dad I was nonbinary, but he thought I was coming out to him as bisexual. For the record, he was completely OK with that. Too embarrassed to push any further, I dropped the idea and went back to being a girl.

Reading Helena's story, my experiences could have been a lot worse. It's chilling to think I was more or less at her starting point, but retreated from it.

I hope she's doing OK now.

Hope you are too!

Thanks for sharing that.

Same! She is very clear and straight forward for dim dafties like me and she seems like someone I would get along with. I get a bit lost with all the various factions in the gc side and don't get a chance to go to many things due to wfh and crippling sociophobia but she doesn't seem to take sides and does her own thing. I like that. She's alright is Helen and funny too.

Thanks for sharing SongAboutJam.

Yay for confused but sensible dads who don’t mind if their kids are bisexual!

Apologies if it's already been posted, but in case anyone hasn't seen it, here's Helen being fabulous on Talk TV, earlier today I think. So calm and poised in the face of nonsense allegations.

https://twitter.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1773704610382766468

As for who the leaders of the transgender movement are, Helen Joyce thinks it's Jewish billionaires.

This is a TRA trope that you're just repeating without knowing what you're talking about. Helen mentions 3 rich male philanthropists who have been key in funding the transgender movement. They are:

George Soros (Jewish) - I'm sure you will agree with me that he funds a lot of soi disant "progressive" causes?

Jennifer Pritzker (apparently Jewish, but more relevant that this is a male trans activist)

Jon Stryker (not Jewish that I know of, but perhaps you know differently?)

https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/a-wild-ride/

In my book I demonstrate that mainstream transactivism is not a grassroots movement, but a top-down one. One part of the evidence is that rich individuals and foundations make large donations to campaign groups that, among other things, lobby to erase biological sex from law and to enshrine gender identity in its place. Some of that money is tied to campaigns for gender self-ID. I discuss the ACLU, HRC and Stonewall in most detail, but there are many others. And I give a sense of the funding that comes from rich individuals by discussing three examples: George Soros via the Open Societies Foundation; Jennifer Pritzker via the Tawani Foundation; and Jon Stryker via the Arcus Foundation.

It's also very funny that that is levelled at not particularly politically aligned centrist journalist Helen Joyce given the level of rabid antisemitism of many people on the "left".

That plum Comerford is obsessed with Magdalen Berns talking about that too.

Maybe Dad Joke is that plum Comerford.

🤔

@Ereshkigalangcleg I read what she said, and looked at the details. No, there is no vast conspiracy.

https://criticallegalthinking.com/2021/10/08/review-of-helen-joyces-trans-when-ideology-meets-reality-london-oneworld-2021-pp-311-rp-16-99-and-kathleen-stocks-material-girls-why-reality-matters-for-feminism-london-fle/

In relation to billionaires, she singles out three: Jewish trans woman, Jennifer Pritzker (Tawani Foundation), Jon Stryker (Arcus Foundation), and, the endpoint of all conspiracy theories, and Jew, George Soros (Open Society Foundation) (pp 227-228). In a ‘rebuttal’ designed to combat allegations of anti-semitism that have dogged her book since publication, Joyce states ‘I didn’t deliberately select three Jewish donors; it never occurred to me to think about their religions.’[23] Given her thesis of a ‘global agenda,’ and the fact this phrase is a classic anti-semitic trope, it would, at the very least, have been wiser and more balanced to have given more thought to the selection of wealthy funders. After all, gentiles are hardly absent from LGBTQ/social justice philanthropy. For example, in 2020 alone, MacKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) donated $46 million to LGBTQ+ equity issues,[24] $2 million of which was donated to the Fund for Trans Generations (FTG), the largest single donation the organisation has ever received.[25] In any event, given the view, ‘Jewish involvement in the “transgender rights” movement [is] a form of Jewish ethnic warfare,’[26] is rampant among white supremacists in the United States and elsewhere, Joyce might have been more attentive to the potential consequences of foregrounding Jewish donors.

Crikey, did that reviewer pull a
muscle stretching so incredibly far?

Oh OK.

Review is by Alex Sharpe, who is perhaps best known for wanting trans people to be exempt from sex by deception laws.

Very not-feminist.

LOL

@DadJoke, I have no idea about any of the people Helen Joyce mentions. But I do not understand why the "trans rights" cause has so much political and corporate power behind it. Despite the repeated claims that trans people are the most vulnerable and marginalised, they appear to be the only vulnerable and marginalised group with this much visibility and influence. I can't think of any other minority group we are supposed to not only accommodate but actively celebrate in this way.

Clearly this level of influence would not be possible without a serious amount of money behind the cause. Who is providing that money, and why?

I'm even less interested in what Alex Sharpe, who calls us "bubonic plague" thinks than what the Dad poster thinks.

The idea that because two of three men who have undoubtedly poured lots of money into transactivist campaigns are Jewish Helen Joyce is antisemitic is just desperate, but it's about the level I expect from TRAs, whose tactic is generally "fling shit and see what sticks".

'These 3 men did this'
'You racist'
'Huh?'
'They are Jewish so you are a racist'
'Well, turns out only two are Jewish so is it you that is racist for assuming the 3rd one is Jewish because he has money and influence?'
'Erm, she's a Racist! Drown Her'

Very good 😊 👏🏻

https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-80/

The LGBT cause in general does, as many progressive people support progressive causes. There is a great deal more money, primarily from the States, going the other way. Transgender people are at the forefront of progressive people's minds because they are under attack more than any other group in the West. They might be the only group whose rights are going backwards.

OK, there's a lot to unpick here.

Firstly, I'm glad you agree that "the LGBT cause" has a lot of money and corporate and political power behind it. That's a good start. It is rather inconsistent with the "most marginalised" narrative though, isn't it? People who are marginalised generally lack money and power.

Secondly, you claim that there is "a lot more money, primarily from the States, going the other way". Could you expand on what you mean by this? What exactly is "the other way"? If "the other way" means people who want to oppress trans people, which groups who want to oppress trans people do you believe are receiving money from the States, and who exactly in the States are they receiving money from? If "the other way" means people who believe women should be entitled to some single sex spaces and sports, which women's groups do you believe are receiving money from the States, and who exactly in the States are they receiving money from? Do you think that JK Rowling, for example, who is one of the richest women in the world, is being paid by shady anti-trans groups in the States? If not JK Rowling, then who? I think you need to produce some receipts here. What exactly are you saying and where is your proof? Facts matter.

And finally, in the UK, trans people have all the same rights everyone else has, plus a whole load of extra rights no one else seems to have. The new laws in Scotland which came into force just yesterday are a good example of that. Trans people now apparently have the right to report people to the police for causing them offence. Women do not have this right. What else? Trans people have the right to use single sex spaces they believe "match their gender identity", but women do not have the right to single sex spaces. Trans women have been allowed to compete in women's sports, whereas women are no longer allowed to compete fairly, against members of their own sex only. Trans women have been allowed to serve prison sentences for violent crimes in women's prisons, whereas female prisoners apparently have no right not to be locked up with members of the opposite sex. I think it's quite clear from all the above that women's rights are going backwards. Now of course the problem is that, having granted trans people rights which conflict with women's rights, any attempt to redress that wrongdoing is going to be interpreted as their rights going backwards. But why should they have rights no one else has in the first place?

They might be the only group whose rights are going backwards.

Do female people never even cross your mind, DJoke?

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/29/the-guardian-view-on-global-womens-rights-saudi-arabia-isnt-the-only-problem

I'm guessing only the ones with penises.