I have recently purchased Janice Raymond’s new book so decided to revisit Transsexual Empire before I dive into Double Think: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism.
The usual quote amplified from Transsexual Empire is this one:
Trans-activists use the quote to make scurrilous accusations that she was advocating for “trans genocide”. This is, of course, nonsense. Raymond questioned the wisdom of medicalising the response to those who are refugees from their sex. She questioned the efficacy of the treatments (hormones and surgeries), the long term health ramifications and what happens to women, in particular, when sex stereotypes are embedded in the medico-industrial complex.
I expected this book to be a lot angrier but, throughout, she is compassionate to those who have a sense they are not meant to be their biological sex . Clearly the impact on women is uppermost in her mind but she shows genuine concern for those who identify as “transsexual” and have embarked on medical pathways.
A lot has changed since the book was written. The cotton ceiling term was not coined until 2012 and men’s demand to be accepted as sexual partners, by Lesbians, was not quite as mainstream as is now. Autogynephilia had not yet been labelled, by Ray Blanchard and it is not clear how much this was understood in 1979.
Certainly there were already men infiltrating the woman’s movement and Lesbian spaces and fuelling splits within the women’s movement. Raymond provides a few examples. Some Lesbians did accept “transwomen” and took a #BeKind approach to the men who had given their balls for feminism, as they claimed. The phenomenon was nowhere near the scale it is now but already men were proving a disruptive and divisive influence.
You can read my in-depth series here:
I will return with a series on Double Think but here is a taster. She doesn’t disappoint.
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