That was bracing, and I really needed to hear it! Thank you so much for summing up what so many of us have felt over the last several years. I, too, grew up with a mentally ill relative, and gender ideology set my alarm bells ringing non-stop as a result. Those of us who have been through that experience know first-hand that indulging delusion is to feed it and allow it to become truly monstrous.
I also found very insightful your commentary on left-wing men: "Left-wing men adore it because, after years of frustration at not being able to publicly hate women in the way their porn tells them to, they can scream in women’s faces, protest their gatherings, even assault them (after all, none of that is as bad as denying someone’s right to exist – these men are punching up!)." That is so, so incisive. You can really feel that hatred oozing out after years of being pent up . . .
"Light, to trans activism, is an existential threat." I want to have this tattooed somewhere. It's brilliantly succinct. This has been such an awful decade, watching the creeping and malign influence of Queer Ideology morphing into Gender ideology. The Cass Review has done something I barely believed could happen. Watching the reverse ferreting of individuals who have previously made some of the most spectacularly ludicrous comments about what it is to be a woman, that mostly illuminated their own staggering ignorance of human biology, has been both infuriating and hilarious. However, nobody is apologising.
What has followed Cass, however, is some of the most wonderful, eloquent, articulate, passionate writing it has been my absolute pleasure to read. I can feel, and share the deep rooted anger lying just beneath the surface of these sentences, many of which I've gone back and read over several times, just for the sheer joy of reading them.
I thought Suzanne Moore's magnum opus, "What do we want? Medical Malpractice " had reached the pinnacle of polemic, with its quiet, seething elegance, giving vent to the rage we've all been suppressing in order to produce thoughtful responses to ludicrous accusations. Then Victoria produces this. My favourite fiction writer, Kate Atkinson produces sentences, paragraphs, which send my eyes back to the beginning where I can enjoy their deliciousness over and over.
This very classy piece of writing does exactly that, whilst also exposing the myths that have so effectively silenced the most unexpected people, whilst giving voice to some of the worst informed.
Glory be to you both. I wish we hadn't had to live through the awfulness of the last few years, but gracious me, the writing is something else. Thank you ❤️
I think I heard Wes Streeting say he had been wrong to support trans ideology and he was sorry, when he spoke in the Commons as shadow Health Minister following the ministerial statement on the Cass Review, earlier this week.
Most of those who went along with the rubbish promulgated by trans rights activists will not apologise, of course, for having been wrong, and we have to accept that and move one. Someone described this last week as being noisy with the sound of “a jar of pennies dropping”, which I liked. Sadly, I still had to unpeel a pink and blue sticker saying “Terfs not welcome in Cardiff” yesterday. There are still many people for whom the penny still has to drop.
Victoria is always so spot on, and gets right under the surface, gender the biological series of Russian dolls or infinite reflections in the mirror. Eliza Mondegreen has always been my go-to as well.
What's scary is watching those cling on, like a drowning man to a piece of floating wood, or an alcoholic to a bottle. Happy to demean themselves totally in the light from Cass.
Thank you, Victoria, and all those other brave women and men who have spoken out and suffered due to this dangerous and delusional ideology. As a former CAMHS clinician, I am angry that the collapse of local CAMHS services has driven families into the medical scandal that was GIDS. I agree with Dr David Bell that there is no need for specialist services but desperate need for the funding and expertise to restore psychological services for children and their families.
Total brilliance, Victoria. Nailed it yet again. Agree with every single sentence. I will need to read this several times. So glad you’re on Substack. More please.
Gender is so disorienting because it is at once "everything", your learned socialisation from a young age, and how you and society mesh as you get older, and the prison of your body, especially as women...and at the same time "nothing", gender roles can't be easily described, we imagine them, there's certainly no "feeling" of being one sex or another.
Basically, this all revolves on "temperament". Gender ideologues are looking to disrupt and re engineer society based on people's temperaments. Without doubt the most bonkers social engineering experiment of all time.
Thank you for a great analysis of the trans” debate”. One cannot really have two sides when one side is so clearly against reality and truth. All the attempts to deny the binary of sex amounts to the desperate need to affirm the lies of “ women can have penises” or “I’m not a biologist “.
What is so very infuriating is that so many people go along with the Orwellian nonsense and that so many have been harmed by this ridiculous ideology… not just the children.
The Cass Report feels like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Stasi, secret police who had been responsible for controlling what the East German people thought and said were disbanded. We can only hope and pray that toxic trans ideology and it's activists are disbanded too.
Thank you for being so blunt. It's very refreshing, given how some people have been falling all over themselves agreeing that to be kind one must believe (or at least not make public reference to one's failure to believe) in balderdash, while the rest of us tiptoe around hoping not to get to get fired for stating the obvious or referring to those most (apparently) cruel inventions of the Enlightenment, facts.
I was recently informed by someone who is demonstrably a lovely person (except that she has a Trans-identified daughter whom she recruits to explain to people why there is no such thing as sex), that my public belief in human biology wasn't a "good look" for me. She said it the way an honest friend would confide something like, "those pants make your butt look big", except that what she really meant was that I was in danger of becoming persona non grata among her extensive and influential network of friends and allies. I'd be nervous (I'll get there, I imagine), except I'm still marveling that an intelligent woman not otherwise in need of inpatient psychiatric care could suggest with a straight face that there is actually no general word which specifically refers to people who can gestate a baby.
"the starting point for a reasonable and compassionate debate is acceptance that trans people exist. That trans women are women and that trans men are men. Everything flows from those truths"
The fact that the lawyer says "compassionate" proves that he (she?) knows it is not an actual, factual truth but just something some people believe to be nice and kind.
Crumbs, bracing, brilliant stuff. You’re right about the toxicity on both sides thing. They’ve had to invent the violent right-wing transphobe, because it justifies their actions. Moderate women with rational arguments just don’t fit the bill. Subscribed so I can listen to your next tirade.
That was bracing, and I really needed to hear it! Thank you so much for summing up what so many of us have felt over the last several years. I, too, grew up with a mentally ill relative, and gender ideology set my alarm bells ringing non-stop as a result. Those of us who have been through that experience know first-hand that indulging delusion is to feed it and allow it to become truly monstrous.
I also found very insightful your commentary on left-wing men: "Left-wing men adore it because, after years of frustration at not being able to publicly hate women in the way their porn tells them to, they can scream in women’s faces, protest their gatherings, even assault them (after all, none of that is as bad as denying someone’s right to exist – these men are punching up!)." That is so, so incisive. You can really feel that hatred oozing out after years of being pent up . . .
"Light, to trans activism, is an existential threat." I want to have this tattooed somewhere. It's brilliantly succinct. This has been such an awful decade, watching the creeping and malign influence of Queer Ideology morphing into Gender ideology. The Cass Review has done something I barely believed could happen. Watching the reverse ferreting of individuals who have previously made some of the most spectacularly ludicrous comments about what it is to be a woman, that mostly illuminated their own staggering ignorance of human biology, has been both infuriating and hilarious. However, nobody is apologising.
What has followed Cass, however, is some of the most wonderful, eloquent, articulate, passionate writing it has been my absolute pleasure to read. I can feel, and share the deep rooted anger lying just beneath the surface of these sentences, many of which I've gone back and read over several times, just for the sheer joy of reading them.
I thought Suzanne Moore's magnum opus, "What do we want? Medical Malpractice " had reached the pinnacle of polemic, with its quiet, seething elegance, giving vent to the rage we've all been suppressing in order to produce thoughtful responses to ludicrous accusations. Then Victoria produces this. My favourite fiction writer, Kate Atkinson produces sentences, paragraphs, which send my eyes back to the beginning where I can enjoy their deliciousness over and over.
This very classy piece of writing does exactly that, whilst also exposing the myths that have so effectively silenced the most unexpected people, whilst giving voice to some of the worst informed.
Glory be to you both. I wish we hadn't had to live through the awfulness of the last few years, but gracious me, the writing is something else. Thank you ❤️
I think I heard Wes Streeting say he had been wrong to support trans ideology and he was sorry, when he spoke in the Commons as shadow Health Minister following the ministerial statement on the Cass Review, earlier this week.
Most of those who went along with the rubbish promulgated by trans rights activists will not apologise, of course, for having been wrong, and we have to accept that and move one. Someone described this last week as being noisy with the sound of “a jar of pennies dropping”, which I liked. Sadly, I still had to unpeel a pink and blue sticker saying “Terfs not welcome in Cardiff” yesterday. There are still many people for whom the penny still has to drop.
Victoria is always so spot on, and gets right under the surface, gender the biological series of Russian dolls or infinite reflections in the mirror. Eliza Mondegreen has always been my go-to as well.
What's scary is watching those cling on, like a drowning man to a piece of floating wood, or an alcoholic to a bottle. Happy to demean themselves totally in the light from Cass.
100% agree, Kate. Brilliant piece.
Thank you, Victoria, and all those other brave women and men who have spoken out and suffered due to this dangerous and delusional ideology. As a former CAMHS clinician, I am angry that the collapse of local CAMHS services has driven families into the medical scandal that was GIDS. I agree with Dr David Bell that there is no need for specialist services but desperate need for the funding and expertise to restore psychological services for children and their families.
Welcome to substack, so good to see you here. xxx
Total brilliance, Victoria. Nailed it yet again. Agree with every single sentence. I will need to read this several times. So glad you’re on Substack. More please.
Gender is so disorienting because it is at once "everything", your learned socialisation from a young age, and how you and society mesh as you get older, and the prison of your body, especially as women...and at the same time "nothing", gender roles can't be easily described, we imagine them, there's certainly no "feeling" of being one sex or another.
Basically, this all revolves on "temperament". Gender ideologues are looking to disrupt and re engineer society based on people's temperaments. Without doubt the most bonkers social engineering experiment of all time.
Absolutely the most bonkers and also the most dangerous.. leading to transhumanism! I worry for my grandchildren!
Thank you for a great analysis of the trans” debate”. One cannot really have two sides when one side is so clearly against reality and truth. All the attempts to deny the binary of sex amounts to the desperate need to affirm the lies of “ women can have penises” or “I’m not a biologist “.
What is so very infuriating is that so many people go along with the Orwellian nonsense and that so many have been harmed by this ridiculous ideology… not just the children.
Where can one find the complete Cass report?
Blistering article thank you. I’d love Kirsty Allsop to read it but I suspect she won’t.
brilliant. thank you.
Stunning article. Thank you Victoria.
The Cass Report feels like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Stasi, secret police who had been responsible for controlling what the East German people thought and said were disbanded. We can only hope and pray that toxic trans ideology and it's activists are disbanded too.
Thank you for being so blunt. It's very refreshing, given how some people have been falling all over themselves agreeing that to be kind one must believe (or at least not make public reference to one's failure to believe) in balderdash, while the rest of us tiptoe around hoping not to get to get fired for stating the obvious or referring to those most (apparently) cruel inventions of the Enlightenment, facts.
I was recently informed by someone who is demonstrably a lovely person (except that she has a Trans-identified daughter whom she recruits to explain to people why there is no such thing as sex), that my public belief in human biology wasn't a "good look" for me. She said it the way an honest friend would confide something like, "those pants make your butt look big", except that what she really meant was that I was in danger of becoming persona non grata among her extensive and influential network of friends and allies. I'd be nervous (I'll get there, I imagine), except I'm still marveling that an intelligent woman not otherwise in need of inpatient psychiatric care could suggest with a straight face that there is actually no general word which specifically refers to people who can gestate a baby.
"the starting point for a reasonable and compassionate debate is acceptance that trans people exist. That trans women are women and that trans men are men. Everything flows from those truths"
The fact that the lawyer says "compassionate" proves that he (she?) knows it is not an actual, factual truth but just something some people believe to be nice and kind.
Thrilled to see you back!
Crumbs, bracing, brilliant stuff. You’re right about the toxicity on both sides thing. They’ve had to invent the violent right-wing transphobe, because it justifies their actions. Moderate women with rational arguments just don’t fit the bill. Subscribed so I can listen to your next tirade.
The cover of the Swedish edition of Hags is absolutely delightful!
When will (Un)kind be available to preorder in the US?