X Close

Real feminists don’t need strongmen Not every critic of transactivism is an ally

A Pride parade in Budapest (PETER KOHALMI/AFP via Getty Images)

A Pride parade in Budapest (PETER KOHALMI/AFP via Getty Images)


October 7, 2022   5 mins

Last week in Hungary, I experienced two very different sides to lesbian activism in the age of Orbán. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

First, I attended the “EuroCentralAsian Lesbian* Conference (EL*C)”. It was international in its participant list, lavishly funded, and linguistically and aesthetically indistinguishable from any other modern LGBT event. There were pronoun declarations and safe space policies. There were wild dye-jobs and big specs. There were workshops on how to undermine women’s sport. There was the robotically impersonal ejection of a heretical wrongthinker on the eve of the conference. In other words, it was business as usual for Queer Inc. — albeit with some more local stuff about Roma and Ukrainian lesbians thrown in.

A second group of mostly young activists, who I met in a Budapest bar, were homegrown Hungarian, cash-strapped, defiantly female-only, and fairly punk in their aesthetic. And they were very cool. We smoked hookahs, got drunk, took selfies in the toilet, and talked about how stupid everything had got. They gave me homemade badges in Hungarian saying “Lesbian not queer” and “Nobody is born in the wrong body.” They solicited drunken soundbites from me for a podcast about how great being a lesbian is. They exhibited a frankly staggering general knowledge of happenings on “Terf Island”, otherwise known as the UK.

Some of this second group worked for organisations dealing with the aftermath of violence against women. They told me how wealthy Western funders, attempting to prop up embattled women’s services against the incursions of Orbán’s anti-feminist manoeuvres, would make their donations conditional on the insistence that organisations be “inclusive”, and so include males. The recipients simply could not afford to say no.

This brand of cultural colonialism — you know, the one that dare not speak its name and everyone’s fine with — was also in evidence at the EL*C conference, where it was quietly whispered that at least €1 million had been awarded to organisers by the European Commission and other private Western funders, partly on the condition that males who identified as women be included too. Despite the name of the organisation, the official focus of the conference was now “LBTI” people — lesbian, bi, trans, and intersex.

Predictably, with this widening of scope came a narrowing of what you could permissibly say at the conference. The result was a change in subject matter, away from boring old women who love and have sex with women towards something more soothingly generic, and the usual blanket denial that there had been any change in subject matter at all. Oceania had never been at war with Eurasia, and lesbians had never needed to politically organise away from males, just for themselves. The fact that only a few years prior, the EL*C had aimed to do exactly that seemed to have been memory-holed.

Officially, the story from the stage was that the rainbow coalition needed to stick together like glue against the anti-gender backlash currently being waged by Orbán, Putin, Erdogan and others: no queer left behind! For these self-styled strongmen, “gender”, vaguely defined, is a strategically useful symbol for everything terrible about the decadent West.

The original political target of Orbán Fidesz’s party was liberal feminism and gay rights. But with the official addition of the T to the LGB internationally in the last decade, and the sudden Western shift towards extreme policies such as self-ID and the medicalisation of trans-identified youth, not to mention the Western presentation of transactivism as a logical extension of feminism, a golden opportunity emerged to give added plausibility to Fidesz’s tale of crazy identity politics and moral corruption. Now they could juice up their disparagement of “gender” with tales of young girls being made to believe they were boys, and predatory males in women’s changing rooms. These days, I was told, the biggest focus of Orbán’s anti-gender campaign is extreme transactivist demands imported from the West and their consequences.

Inevitably a polarised situation has emerged, with both sides insisting the T be lumped together with the LG and B, for good or ill. On one side, Fidesz use the extremes of Western transactivism to justify incursions on the rights of women, gays, and the sex-non-conforming generally. And on the other, in the name of solidarity, Hungarian and Western progressives insist there is no difference between these extreme demands and more staid requests like being able to teach schoolchildren about homosexuality or demanding the right to gay marriage.

Reading between the lines, testimonies at the EL*C suggested that a similar dynamic is taking place elsewhere in the former Eastern bloc. A charismatic Albanian lesbian activist, Xheni Karaj, told the conference that she had visited the UK and worked in some capacity with Stonewall towards a campaign for greater acceptance of LGBT+ parenting. Going back to Albania, the idea had got out that she wished to replace the words “mother” and “father” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2”.  In a highly conservative country such as Albania, this notion caused a huge scandal, and Karaj became the subject of severe abuse and harassment because of it.

Karaj was clear on stage that she had never intended to suggest replacing the word “mother” with anything else. I believed her. But what she didn’t also say was that, only last year, Stonewall suggested doing precisely this in the UK. The idea was incendiary enough to many when made over here — let alone in a context like Albania, where religious leaders have a large influence, the family is venerated, and homophobia and misogyny is entrenched.

And Albania is not the only place where the creative projects of bored rainbow bureaucrats from North London are being used to make mischief. In his annexation speech last week, Putin said “no more Parent 1 and Parent 2, only mother and father”. A few days earlier, a 2019 speech by the new Italian leader Georgia Meloni went viral on Twitter — and was retweeted not just by conservatives but also by some gender-critical feminists who seemed to assume they had found a fellow traveller. “I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother,” she complained. “No. I must be Citizen X, Gender X, Parent 1, Parent 2. I must be a number.” Sound familiar?

Left-wing gender-critical lesbians like those I met in that Budapest bar are stuck in the middle of all this, a means to everyone else’s ends. The state paints them as deviant and anti-family to bash the liberals, while progressives in Hungary and their Western supporters demand that they pretend that their interests perfectly align with the rest of the rainbow. If lesbians nonetheless insist, perfectly sensibly, that female biology makes a difference to their political interests as lesbians, they are treated as somehow in league with the far-Right. And, in terms of optics, matters are not helped by the fact that Fidesz-supporting publishing houses are now buying up gender-critical titles to translate into Hungarian. Indeed, I discovered on my trip that the would-be Hungarian publisher for my own book was an Orbán think tank. (Since I got home, I have pulled out of the deal.)

In the febrile climate of UK gender politics, there is a tendency for those fed up with biology-denial to fall gratefully upon anything which looks like it asserts the primacy of material reality in a more sensible way. But feminists should beware strongmen and women bearing gifts. The international rejection of extreme trans ideology will be a pyrrhic victory if it is accompanied by a raft of measures against women, gays, and sex-non-conforming people. And the futures of young lesbians like those I met in the Budapest bar will be all the poorer for it.


Kathleen Stock is an UnHerd columnist and a co-director of The Lesbian Project.
Docstockk

Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

104 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
2 years ago

I yearn for the days when people had private lives and one’s sex life was part of one’s private life. I’m tired of hearing some lesbians constantly announcing to the world they are lesbians. I recently had a couple of lesbians ask me to take their photo as I did they kissed. I had a strong sense they were trying to shock me because of my age. It all felt very tedious.

Last edited 1 year ago by Aphrodite Rises
Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

… tedious … breeding contempt and resentment: all this eternal ‘in your face’, don’t they get that? G(ay) used to be ILLEGAL: that was WRONG: it was changed: end of story. All of their alphabet tags are now just a small selection of ‘kinks’ from ‘consenting adults in PRIVATE’ activities … who cares?

Andrew Vavuris
Andrew Vavuris
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

Did you actually believe this disorder would stay “private”? Really?

James Jenkin
James Jenkin
1 year ago

Which lesbians constantly announce they’re lesbians?

Will Rolf
Will Rolf
1 year ago
Reply to  James Jenkin

Since men are the sexual initiators in our species lesbians feel more compelled to announce their sexual preference early in to avoid unwanted attention. It’s also unfashionable to be a boring, cis-gender straight these days so identity announcements are offered early on to establish one’s bonafides.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Will Rolf

Your comment suggests every time a woman is having a conversation with a man (with anyone) she does not find sexually attractive, she should announce the fact.

MrGrumpyjohn01
MrGrumpyjohn01
1 year ago

er …they do…maybe not in explicit words…

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  MrGrumpyjohn01

Which begs the question – Why cannot lesbians express their lack of desire wordlessly? Or maybe you have not really been following the debate.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  James Jenkin

The ones that constantly announce it.

Huw Parker
Huw Parker
1 year ago

You mean back in the good old days, when gay people had to try to hide their sexuality, but still ran the risk of getting beaten up or even killed if they let it slip? I wonder if you would you have found this experience as ‘tedious’ or ‘tiring’ if it had been a heterosexual couple.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Huw Parker

Yes I would

Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
1 year ago

So would I, and I find the idea of straight people ‘dogging’ just as gross and disturbing as I find the idea of gay people ‘cottaging’.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Huw Parker

And instead, now, they can hide behind trans and brainwash children into compliance.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Huw Parker

Back in the good old days, if gays were allowed to practise their current lifestyle, a lot more would die from STDs than the number killed for letting it slip.

William Shaw
William Shaw
1 year ago

Don’t people have anything better to do? Activism related to these “issues” seem extremely tedious and such a waste of time. I realise for some people, including academics, it’s a way to make a living but aren’t there more productive endeavours in this world?

Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
1 year ago

Twice whilst I have been in New Zealand I have been on multi-day hikes in an organised glamping setting where Lesbians were part of the group.
From the moment I met them, I assumed they were but throughout the four days they kept on making the point in a variety of ways that had a kind of levelling up feel, However, the sad part about it was when they were not being ‘Lesbian’ they had absolutely nothing to say and again with the other couple when they showed the kind of affection in public that nobody else did you sensed they were making a point.
By contrast, great pals of mine whose business was left hanging by the Golden Handcuff policy were fantastic company when we went hiking and had a keen intelligence, a great sense of humour and never once talked about this stuff and the two ladies are married to each other.
It’s rather sad that these people, do not just move on, like us who accept it all and just get on with their lives and enjoy all the other wonderful things life has to offer. It strikes me as reverse “ghettoism.” and I am talking about people who live in countries where it is entirely accepted.
On a separate point, I have never understood why people who are identified by their sexual preferences are lumped together with people who genuinely want to reassign their gender. Just as men who simply say they are woman are nothing to do with the likes of the late April Ashley and Jan Morris.

Last edited 1 year ago by Michelle Johnston
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

You should have asked them where abouts on Lesbia did they come from?

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

I don’t know what the Golden Handcuff Policy is.

Ed Carden
Ed Carden
1 year ago

I hope you said “NO” to their request.

Jane Stephen
Jane Stephen
1 year ago
Reply to  Ed Carden

Why would this simple request be denied? All they wanted was a photo while they kissed, reasonable enough surely. They were presumably adults? I take it you would have said no, but why would you?

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Jane Stephen

it wasn’t the kissing I objected to it was the attitude. Maybe my comment was too nuanced for you. Though I would have found it odd if any two people unknown to me asked me to take their photo and then as I was about to take it started kissing. It would seem like exhibitionism.

Last edited 1 year ago by Aphrodite Rises
Jane Stephen
Jane Stephen
1 year ago

Hi. I think it would depend where you were at the time and what was happening . I often have people ask if I can take a pic but I live in a touristy place so it seems reasonable. As for exhibitionist I wouldn’t think so but obviously people differ. Just say no if you’re asked, it will spare your feelings.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
2 years ago

I think this is a good discussion of the trap the rainbow people have put themselves in. Trans people are part of the movement and it is pretty clear that many trans activists are just unpleasant mentally ill men. She is correct that this is creating a backlash against the entire movement. In Canada there are now websites where parents can find out which people running for school boards are ‘woke’ so they can vote them out. The people who get voted in in many cases are going to be actual conservatives. Gay people are going to have to show some backbone and start policing who speaks for them or they risk many of the gains they have made the last 40 years.

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Johnson
Paige M
Paige M
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Really actual “conservatives” shock horror what will we do with the actual ones? What exactly does that even mean?

Greg Morrison
Greg Morrison
1 year ago
Reply to  Paige M

These days it appears to mean anyone who doesn’t want adult homosexuals discussing sodomy with their children, or mentally disabled adults discussing castration with their children. So it’s a fairly broad net really.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Greg Morrison

“anyone who doesn’t want adult homosexuals discussing sodomy with their children”
As a parent, I don’t want anyone, homosexual or straight, discussing sex with a underage child in a classroom.
The only difference is, with heterosexuals the above is a non controversial, default standard , no one would question it and anyone who suggests otherwise would be rightly condemned.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

I have used that website and voted accordingly, and you’re correct – we don’t want woke gender-smiths on school boards. I don’t want catholic schools flying rainbow flags. And I definitely don’t want my kids being indoctrinated by blue-haired crazies. But that doesn’t mean conservatives want to police or criminalize homosexuality. It does mean that traditional family has to come back to centre-stage.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

I think I misread your comment on family. I agree.

Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

Likewise …we agree for sure

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

What is the name of the website? Does it have a UK analogue?

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Thanks v much.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

“In Canada there are now websites where parents can find out which people running for school boards are ‘woke’ so they can vote them out.”
I did not know this! How absolutely splendid!

Tony Reardon
Tony Reardon
2 years ago

Is there some change in the law that gay males or females are still fighting for? Haven’t they won everything they wanted and now they can just get on with their lives?

Mike Litoris
Mike Litoris
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Reardon

Well that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? All the so called activists would be out of a job if they admitted that.

Christine Hankinson
Christine Hankinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Reardon

You’ve not been paying attention. They were very happy and had achieved much, even marriage, universal acceptance until Stonewall created a new cash cow with transacitivism Then lesbians and gay men became outcasts and bigots for wanting same sex and not same gender.
Gender ideology has successfully enabled misunderstanding through confused use of language and appearing to be ‘on trend’ and fashionable.
It is a massive conundrum and the article informs us how entrenched this confusion is, dividing and destroying all previous homosexual gains.
But the biggest victims will be girls left unprotected and vulnerable to men who fancy being included in their sex and gaining access to safe places and sex defined categories, including positions for which they have long been denied all now open to men.
I’ve noticed that on the genealogy website Ancestry my ancestors did not have a sex, only a gender, and these singular people are uniformly pronounced as ‘they’. Making grammatical nonsense much of the time.
It is cataclysmic and people are letting it through for a quiet life. Thank goodness for Kathleen Stock and other brave women, as well as some listening men, for raising their heads and keeping us updated and informed.
Shockingly all the ‘progressive’ parties: Labour, Lib Dem, Greens SNP have sworn allegiance to transactivists and gender ideology and the more the Right are the dominant voice against the ideology, the more the liberal Left are silenced.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

“Then lesbians and gay men became outcasts and bigots for wanting same sex and not same gender.”
“the biggest victims will be girls left unprotected and vulnerable to men who fancy being included in their sex “
So which one is their real concern?


Christine Hankinson
Christine Hankinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I’m not personally at risk, or affected by same-sex attraction. I just feel for both groups of people that are.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Actually, your comment suggests that we heteros on the right are so ignorant and intolerant that because of the trans activists we will deny gays the rights they’ve achieved. It’s almost as if they still regard us as the enemy. Maybe they need to wake up to reality and see that we accepted and went with the changes. But they seem to be unable to coexist with us because we were the dreaded right. So, in reality, the prejudice lies with them. They wanted to be an accepted part of society, well it turns out that obligations go with it. They thought their future lay with the left. They were wrong.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

100%

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

And yet, despite the obvious intention of raising awareness of these issues so that they can better be addressed and where necessary, fought (but not like Putin) Kathleen is traduced by many, including commentators on this very page.
It may be tedious to some, but they have a very simple option of not reading. For others, the criticisms are taken straight out of a well-worn playbook. One thing that Kathleen Stock and Mary Harrington have is originality, and fresh insight. This should be cherished and nurtured.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I’m not sure Kathleen Stock and Mary Harrington are on the same page. They are certainly both original and bring insight. Kathleen is however, to my mind, less willing to draw some rather obvious conclusions …and question left-feminist shibboleths. She seems to want to wind back the clock and hold the gender revolution at a certain point…before trans ideology ‘takes it too far’. Whereas in fact, it seems to be a logical end point to her own starting point

Ed Carden
Ed Carden
1 year ago

You’ve not been paying attention. After winning the Marriage battle in the courts and many years before the trans-activism began the Gay community has been continuing its ever degrading pride parades and events where with each year the degrading acts they engage in during these events in public get worse and worse. These are not parades about pride but a way to show off their kinks and fetishes’. I will concede it’s not all Gay/Lesbian persons who do this but the LGB community as a whole was never critical about/of these pride events either.

Now that the transactivist have waged their war using many of the same methods/techniques the LGB people did against the larger heterosexual community when they we’re fighting to get stuff, their angry because what they used against “cis” people is now being used against them.

M Harries
M Harries
1 year ago

There’s a liberal Right, too; it does not help LGB positions that seemingly vilify anything Rightish.

Wim de Vriend
Wim de Vriend
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Reardon

You’re entitled to say so, but you risk losing sight of the bigger picture. The LBGXYZ epidemic has created countless new departments in the universities, which were longing for new sources of money to waste on pointless ‘studies’ and useless professors and bureaucrats. It’s JOBS! You wouldn’t have the heart to up and say the Emperor has no clothes, would you?

Last edited 1 year ago by Wim de Vriend
John McKee
John McKee
1 year ago
Reply to  Wim de Vriend

YES INDEED!

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago

Someone needs to tell Stonewall: some people are gay, get over it.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago

Kathleen, freed from her academic responsibilities at Sussex, is clearly having the time of her life.

Having the time, intellect and general wherewithal to be able to take Stock (someone had to say it…) from the front line of the culture wars is a great benefit to us all.

I’d no idea, for instance, about the origins of Orbán’s party or that Putin was familiar with Parent 1 & 2 nomenclature, highlighting how much the sex/gender discourse plays in their political calculations regarding the state of Western society.

One thing that strikes me is how the delineation and dissection of the issues around transactivism are almost exclusively, and certainly most penetratingly, brought forth by females. Alongside Kathleen, we have Mary Harrington, Julie Bindel and although not a contributor to Unherd (unless she uses another alias) JK Rowling. Male contributors to the debate somehow seem to shy away from the nitty-gritty, perhaps for fear of being called out whilst these females appear to have no such compunction.

I wonder where Kathleen is heading next?

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve Murray
Brett H
Brett H
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

“Male contributors to the debate somehow seem to shy away from the nitty-gritty,”
Because our opinions are dismissed as being discriminatory. I would think that most men were immediately suspicious of men-as-women, right from the beginning. But the feminist and gay marriage battles made it clear that what they thought was wrong.

Last edited 2 years ago by Brett H
Judy Englander
Judy Englander
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Re ‘male contributors’: would Debbie Hayton fit the bill? Just asking …

M Harries
M Harries
1 year ago
Reply to  Judy Englander

Yes, of course Debbie Hayton would fit that bill. DH is not female, ergo DH is male; one who presents as though female. Actors aren’t actually the characters they portray.
DH writes many quality thought-provoking pieces on Unherd.

Harvey Solomon-Brady
Harvey Solomon-Brady
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

None of these female commentators are to the right of David Lammy or Emily Thornberry. Outspoken lesbianism and homosexuality are incompatible with true conservatism. A family-oriented culture will only tolerate sexual deviation if it’s reticent.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

There is no such thing as a non-family orientated culture.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

Look around Brett

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Strangely enough what I see confirms what I said. Unless someone was found in a cabbage patch.
Miscommunication here I think.

Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

There is what Philip RIeff calls a death culture/anti-culture – that separates the social order from any transcendent sacred order, and – in this case- seeks to undermine the traditional family. Clearly it’s unsustainable. Societies that fail to reproduce go into a tail spin. China is about to crash. Russia is crashing. It might take a couple of generations…..but when you say ‘look around’….I would say look at fertility rates. Look at divorce and single parent family rates….The latter require the state to act as father….and that takes money, which means fiscal transfers from a growing economy. We are about to hit the biggest depression possibly in history. So yes children are born into families….but some families structures are better than others. Some societies are more viable, sustainable, resilient than others. Feminism has weakened family structure and been part of the Enlightenment secular project…..terrible from top to bottom.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Yes, you’re right. I think I was confirming the most basic fact that we are a family based culture, but in fact it is in disarray and has been seriously undermined. Though from a survey published on this site it looks like people in traditional married structures are happier than those who think it can be restructured. Things may eventually right themselves out of necessity, but we’ll be carrying a lot of damage.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

“Male contributors to the debate somehow seem to shy away”

And you have the answer in the article

In response to the scandal about replacing “mother” and “father” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” what was the reaction?

“she had never intended to suggest replacing the word “mother” with anything else. ”

Notice something missing? The parent who is expected to contribute massively to raising the kid, while typically being the breadwinner even when divorced and often not allowed to see his child.

All this equality, progressive rubbish makes it clear that men are not welcome, other than being blamed for everything.
Turns out ladies, when you get men who are genuinely hostile, like these trans activists, you are on your own.

S Ash
S Ash
2 years ago

Many feminists are very aware of the pincer that Kathleen describes so vividly – and you can also see the impact in the current inability of Labour in the UK to define a coherent position, not to mention the madness of gender ideology gripping the US Democrats who are bent on gender self ID. And the lazy right on signalling of corporates painting their logos pink and blue and lauding the pronoun police is another depressing development. What next? I don’t know where we are heading but identity politics never end well for those of us who want to live in democratic, reasonably fair. liberal live-and-let-live society. The centre cannot hold? The centre must hold.

Hugh R
Hugh R
2 years ago

I feel left out. Where can I celebrate my white history, my heterosexual love of the fairer sex, …..where can I fly a vanilla flag and be proud, without spraying things up, and leaving used condoms among a mountain of garbage?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh R

Kanye West has been trying to contact you about his new t-shirt……

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
Tim Dilke
Tim Dilke
1 year ago

Stunning and brave? No, when Professor Stock speaks, particularly from Hungary, she’s insightful and brave. I no longer have any time for LGBT+++, I’ll stick to the non political basics of binary biology. I’ll let those who are fixated on their fantasies, fetishises and ideologies to promote their own agendas but please leave us homosexuals out of it.

Brett H
Brett H
2 years ago

“And they were very cool. We smoked hookahs, got drunk, took selfies in the toilet, and talked about how stupid everything had got.”
Far out.

Last edited 2 years ago by Brett H
Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
2 years ago
Reply to  Brett H

Despite having made her name and been driven out of her job for making the (obvious) assertion that it is impossible to change sex – apparently to change gender is straight forward, all that is required is a change of clothes or the utterance of a few magical words – developmentally she seems to be trapped in the rebellious teenage years.

Last edited 2 years ago by Aphrodite Rises
Alan Tonkyn
Alan Tonkyn
1 year ago

Yes, if I get the implications of your comment aright, there is something rather pathetic about ex-Professor Stock’s attempt to make herself sound loveably zany and with-it by means of telling us she smoked hookahs, got drunk (absolutely necessary for credibility) and took selfies. Who could object to such a happenin’ dame? How shallow our culture has become!

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Here’s the problem: Inside every trans-woman, screaming ‘I’m a woman! I’m a woman! Do you hear me? I’m a woman!’ is a tiny little voice whispering, ‘No you’re not, and you know it.’
It drives them mad, as evidenced by their behaviour. But it’s their problem, not mine. I don’t have to play their sad, silly, dishonest little mind game.

Arkadian X
Arkadian X
1 year ago

I wonder, how did you manage not to get expelled from that conference in Budapest? You must have been heretical enough.

Anyway, if there is a change in government in a couple of years you will have to bid farewell to toilets and changing rooms and welcome maternity wards for men and women.

Huw Parker
Huw Parker
1 year ago

Oceania had never been at war with Eurasia, and lesbians had never needed to politically organise away from males, just for themselves.

Brilliant. Nineteen Eighty-Four has had many guises during its lifetime. It was written as a political cautionary tale. It subsequently became literature. And most recently it has become a ‘How To’ handbook for extremist gender cult evangelists.

D Frost
D Frost
1 year ago

It certainly is amusing to watch gay people being transformed (like it or not) into old fashioned conservatives.

stella teddy
stella teddy
1 year ago

I have noticed a few women getting very worried lately that their movement will be taken away by the ‘far right’. Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore seem very worried about this. Well, you want to be on your own, you’re on your own. As someone who understands the Orban and Putin mindset better than any of these women, I can assure you these men are not trying to muscle in on your movement: they believe in two sexes and are not interested in anything to so with this trans cult. Nor would someone like Meloni be. They don’t need you but you might need them. Your leftist leanings won’t allow you to accept any partnership with them so, as I have said, go and see if you can overcome this tidal wave on your own. Hint: you can’t.

Hilarious to see Helen Lewis also expressing concern about this as she works for one of the world’s premier warmongering neoliberal publications, the Atlantic.

Good Reason
Good Reason
1 year ago
Reply to  stella teddy

ST, stop and think. Progressives would like to erase women. Conservatives would like women to go back to being the subordinates of men (since it’s a “natural law” or something). I’d say it was a real Charybdis and Scylla situation for women, wouldn’t you? I place my hope on centrist men, who neither want to erase women, nor erase their hard-won gains towards equal standing in human society. Tell me where those men are, so we can make common cause . . .

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago

Kathleen, I do wonder when feminists such as yourself will take some measure of responsibility. The line of biology-denial represented by trans goes back to Descartes and Rousseau via Marx, Nietzsche and Freud – but the major hinge point along the way was feminists like De Beauvoir and Firestone. The separation of sex from gender – the very idea of gender as some disembodied internal self – is a feminist idea. The reality of biological difference rooted in both evolution and natural law – was denied first by feminists. The project of destroying the family was an overt dimension of radical feminist ideology (De Beauvoir and Firestone wanted families socialized and motherhood eliminated by in vitro pregnancy – exactly what transhumanist, transactivists are gunning for now). In Soviet Russia, Alexandra Kollontai wanted children to be taken by the state at birth and raised on collective child farms. This is YOUR tradition; your literary and theoretical backstory. I don’t know any conservatives who want to make homosexuality illegal or don’t see individual rights as inviolable. But this doesn’t mean that the sexual revolution and everything that has come with it has been good for women, good for men or good for children. Women are more unhappy. Men are more feckless and irresponsible and children are sexualized – and the next stop along the way….and there is nothing in the radical gender universe that can impede this …will be the legitimation of pedophilia and bestiality. There are already gender academics who are stealthily preparing the way (we must now refer to ‘minor attraction’; children know their sexuality at the age of 2 etc etc – ). But this is only possible because of the disembodying of the gendered self on the one hand, and (as Philip Rieff described it) the separation of the social order from the sacred order – the attempt to create a society in which individual purpose, happiness, telos – is answerable to nothing; where ‘woman is the measure of woman’; where the individual psychological-self owes nothing to society; where there is no transcendent moral order. As a secularist and an atheist, you are never going to buy that. But as a conservative and a Christian, I have supported your struggle against woke academia from day one and I will continue to support gender-critical feminists. If Posie Parker stands against Eddie Izzard I will send a substantial donation. Kelly J. has been much more gracious about the support of people like Matt Walsh. Perhaps it is time that were a little more honest about where all this crap is coming from. If you are willing to look in the mirror – and you strike me as someone who values intellectual honesty – you might have a look at this book by Carl Trueman https://www.amazon.ca/Rise-Triumph-Modern-Self-Individualism-ebook/dp/B089DNYCDY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=HQZER2TKDNFB&keywords=carl+trueman%27s+%27the+rise+and+triumph+of+the+modern+self&qid=1665143015&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjI2IiwicXNhIjoiMS4zNSIsInFzcCI6IjEuMzIifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=carl+TRu%2Caps%2C105&sr=8-1

T. Lister
T. Lister
1 year ago

Let me remind you that the lesbian feminist professor at the U of Mass., Janice Raymond, wrote the book, The Transsexual Empire, in 1979 warning of the dangers of trans. Lesbians and radical feminists (not the third wave ones who have been hoodwinked by pervy men impersonating women) have been calling out the trans nonsense for decades and have been called hysterical, transphobic, bigots, etc. and threatened and de-platformed for doing it. Feminists are not responsible for what pervy fetishist men choose to do–stop blaming them. Heterosexual, male, trans cross-dressers w/ a fetish, autogynephiles/transvestic fetishists, are the primary funders and drivers of the trans movement (see the 11th Hour blog) and they use vulnerable young people who are distressed and confused as their shield. LGB is a sexual orientation based on the material reality of sex but T is an ‘identity’ based on no material reality, it is an invention, a fiction that allows entry of genitally-intact, male fetishists into women’s spaces. Trans reifies old stereotypes and is regressive, homophobic, and misogynist and is perpetrating a fraud on the public. Self-respecting LGBs want nothing to do w/ trans ‘gender’ ideology or the simulacrums it creates.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  T. Lister

It’s a great book and there are plenty of feminists who have seen the direction of travel. But this is akin to standing on the top of a slide and then wanting to stop half-way down. Trans is the inevitable corollary of: rejecting natural law; creating a social order separate from sacred order and turning away from any transcendent meaning; understanding individuals to be sovereign and autonomous of everything and everyone such that the purpose of life is defined only by some free floating essence within each of us; a rejection of any kind of material/ecological limits. I very much hope that LGB will prevail along with that subset of feminists who don’t reject biology. But I’m skeptical…and I think it’s impossible unless feminists (including lesbian feminists) acknowledge that thread of collectivist, Promethean trans-humanism…that runs through the history of the movement….which means embracing sexual difference in social contexts as well as sex/relationships – and means embracing and making central heterosexual-motherhood within mostly traditional families…and for those of us who are ecologically minded and have deeper issues with our shallow consumer society.. this means also raising the status and centrality of work within the household (including child rearing but also subsistence/livelihood) ..based on partnerships between (for the most part) men and women….

,

Good Reason
Good Reason
1 year ago

SQ, we can all play that game, because there are always people who identify with some cause and who then proceed to undermine it (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally). You know, like Catholic priests as pedophiles? Scientists as industry shills? Feminism, like all human endeavors, has never been monolithic, and for every Firestone there is a Raymond. For every Butler there’s a Stock. So just stop with the games.

Alan Tonkyn
Alan Tonkyn
1 year ago

Very good comment, Stephen! As you rightly say, the rot set in when feminist academics posited this mysterious concept of ‘gender’, floating free from sex. At the same time, however, they seemed to accept the congruence of sex and gender when it suited them, as in De Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’, or Germaine Greer’s ‘The Female Eunuch’.

David Mayes
David Mayes
1 year ago

Alas, Christianity isn’t the firm moral and philosophical platform you think it is. Secularism and atheism are both offshoots of the Christian world-view, as are communism and feminism. Christians also need to keep looking harder in their mirror.
Science looks to be our best institutional option to maintain social order and map a stable path forward. Science, for instance, tells us a man can’t become a woman and that human reproduction requires sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  David Mayes

Certainly all of these modern ideologies are Judea-Christian to the extent that they are ostensibly post-tribal and rooted in some kind of ontological individualism (however bastardized). But you can’t lay secularism/atheism at the door of Christianity; and then look to ‘science’. Makes no sense at all. Science doesn’t say that in vitro pregnancy is evil, or transhumanism….It has nothing to say about meaning….or telos. Only a Judeo-Christian understanding of natural law can do that.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

All of this stuff, this “activism”, looks to me like Comic Con. It’s entertainment and a social life for participants and merch hawkers. Okay doke, have a good time. Otherwise, who bloody cares?

Harry Bo
Harry Bo
1 year ago

That’s something that’s really struck me, the overlap between nerd culture and SJW/woke activism. Awkward middle class kids with too much time, energy and/or money.
I see my younger self in them.

R Wright
R Wright
2 years ago

You should be happy to have any fellow travellers at all, and accept help wherever you can.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago

“workshops on how to undermine women’s sport”

Why on earth would you want to do that?
What’s the point?

Paige M
Paige M
1 year ago

Because it’s not inclusive to trans women aka biological males who have an extreme advantage over biological women. Trans activism is the absolute worst thing to happen to women since the sexual revolution. Zero upside all downside

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

What if these ghastly right-wing types are right about the Trans thing and wrong about almost everything else. Can’t you just say so? Do people have to be right about everything or wrong about everything?

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

I’m guessing you’re a ‘ghastly’ progressive type? 🙂

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

On the contrary, Malcolm’s a good bloke.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

Oh no he’s Knott!

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Nope. Quite the contrary, as Richard Craven is my witness. (thank you, Richard.)

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

I”m glad to hear it 🙂 Sorry I mis-ideologued you

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

Good for the author in recognizing the damage the trans movement is doing to gay rights. It’s doing even worse damage to feminism and women’s rights in general. The message in this article needs to be repeated and repeated often by anyone who supports the gains made in women’s and gay rights over the past half century.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

“It’s doing even worse damage to feminism and women’s rights in general.”
And much worse to families.

William Hickey
William Hickey
1 year ago

This article and its focus on the supposed threat of Orban to lesbian existence merely serves to remind me how often the Left fails to see the true danger, even when that danger is getting ready to lock the old lefties up next.

Real Mensheviks Don’t Need Lenin
Real Bukharinites Don’t Need Stalin.
Real Agrarian Socialists Don’t Need Mao
Real Cuban Leftists Don’t Need Fidel

They all sacrificed a quiet life on the margins for a long stay in the Gulag — or worse.

In “Gulag” Anne Applebaum relates the tale of the wife of Bukharin who, even after she was imprisoned in a Soviet concentration camp, continued to compose poems to the great days of The Revolution. Years later she looked back and described those poems as “the ravings of a lunatic.”

Last edited 1 year ago by William Hickey
Mark Marino
Mark Marino
1 year ago

Thanks so much for this essay. It succinctly outlines the situation that progressive and leftwing folk such as myself find ourselves in. The situation in the US is much the same. The neofascists in and around the Republican party have weaponised this caricature of a solid bloc of ‘the left’ and the LGBTQ+ industry. As a Marxist and gay man, I feel especially isolated in this newly emerging political culture. Further, these issues can’t be broached with the always fair weather liberal allies associated with the Democratic party. Even if they agreed, they’d find it a toxic ‘third rail’ topic. And speaking out can cost one’s job – especially in academia. I feel especially bad for young feminists and lesbians. Compared with the atmosphere I remember of my own youth, today’s seems so crabbed and stultifying.
Anecdotally, I must say that the experience of finding some of my gender-crtical or TERF allied tweets liked by alt-right bros or Christian nationalist soccer moms is a very creepy one indeed – and a wake-up call. But these issues need to be analysed and confronted. Your essay is an excellent start.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

Back in the day we all used to laugh about medieval philosophers arguing about the number of angels that could fit on the head of a pin: those of us that had a sense of humor.
Now we argue about how many gays can fit on the trans of a lesbian: and you are not allowed to laugh.
That is what is called progressive.

Ed Carden
Ed Carden
1 year ago

There is absolutely nothing PRIDEFUL about ones sexual preference. These Gay Pride events are nothing less than excuses to engage publicly in crude homosexuals behavior. There are no Straight Pride events with men & women showing off how heterosexual relationships do their thing.
where religious leaders have a large influence, the family is venerated, and homophobia and misogyny is entrenched”
People who do not agree or support the gay/lesbian movement are NOT homophobic nor are they misogynistic. These are merely slanders the LGB community uses to try and discredit anyone who doesn’t agree with them. The exact same tactic teh trans activist are now using on the LGB community. You are now getting served up that which you were previously dishing out and your mad about. It’s called what goes around comes around.

Andrea Baird
Andrea Baird
1 year ago

Fascinating discussion. Love hearing all sides from the comments.

Thinking about family stability and the best environment for raising the next generation there’s more impacting families than same sex couples raising children.

If I look around at the families I know – it’s issues like parents being absent due to very committed careers. It’s the loss of multigenerational approaches to raising children. It’s also regular drug and alcohol use by parents, and I’m including high functioning parents from all classes here, which then are setting younger generations up with early regular drug use which then impacts mental health.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrea Baird

Yes, as a child of divorce I grew up scorning the notion of family believing it was a schmaltzy American myth. It was only later as I got to know people with functional families that I realized how much good parenting can positively shape a child’s life.

Mick James
Mick James
1 year ago

While I can understand your disquiet at being published by an “Orban think tank” you have wonder who will publish your book. Publishing is a young industry after all, and people who have chosen a career in it will–without any sense of irony–rise up against working with content they feel will soil them in some way.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

Your priorities are wrong Kathleen.
Very soon LG and B will be erased midst the plethora of gender preferences and sexual practices, with children incorporated too.

It’s like ‘The Black Hit of Space’, by the Human League, ‘sucking in the human race’ until everything is TTTT.
https://genius.com/The-human-league-the-black-hit-of-space-lyrics

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

I wonder if our Bronze Age ancestors were on to something when they outlawed homosexuality. Maybe in their own way they experienced an ideological turmoil similar to that of the current liberal world order and learned that it produces nothing but filth, decadence, and cultural stagnation.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Have you studied Bronze Age (c3300 to c1200BC) jurisprudence?

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

There must be a reason why almost every culture tries or has tried to stymy it. As the story of Sodom and Gomorrah tells us, it just doesn’t work. It is corruptive and destroys innocence, which is why G*d could find not one single reason to spare these cities.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

The actor Michael Gambon once said that he used to be gay but had to give it up, because it made his eyes water.