June 21, 2023 - 10:30am
Paris Lees has no idea what it feels like to be a girl. Of course not: Lees’s experience as a teenage boy, selling sex to predatory older men, tells us nothing about how girls feel about anything. Now the BBC has issued a gushing press release about its decision to turn Lees’s memoir, What It Feels Like For A Girl, into an eight-part drama series. It promises to deliver “a journey of love and danger, self-discovery and self-destruction”, without acknowledging that literally half the population is better qualified than Lees to say anything about the subject.
Just to be clear, Lees is a transwoman. His biological sex is very much the issue here, so I’m not going to pretend he is a woman, any more than I do when writing about Eddie Izzard. The memoir is a fictionalised account of growing up in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, where Lees suffered horrendous homophobic abuse. It is a legitimate subject for a book but its premise, that Lees always “knew” he was really a girl, repeats a highly controversial tenet of gender ideology.
One of the most striking things about Lees is his attachment to a very outdated, sexist view of what it means to be a woman. “Last summer I went to Ibiza, where I was catcalled, sexually objectified and treated like a piece of meat by men the entire week. And it was absolutely awesome,” he once wrote. Lees’s selling point is that he supposedly says things women secretly think but don’t want to admit, such as liking the most demeaning forms of male attention. It’s hard not to see the influence of pornography, a multi-million-dollar industry that sells the idea that women enjoy being reduced to their body parts.
Worse, however, is that Lees claims a right to representation: “So yeah, I’m a bit of a slut. I also used to be a prostitute. And before that, well, a boy. Uh-huh. And I’m a total attention junkie. So I may — may — not represent all women. Who does, though?” I’ve never met a woman who claims to represent all women, but we do have some things in common, such as growing up as girls who have to learn to deal with street harassment.
In one of the most disturbing passages of his memoir, Lees writes about being taken to some woods by one of the “dirty old men” who paid him for sex, where around 15 men vied to touch him sexually — and he “loved it”. I can’t imagine a teenage girl being anything but terrified in this situation, and I’m not surprised that Lees subsequently had to deal with all sorts of destructive emotions, including shame and self-hatred.
But what the BBC describes as “a rollercoaster ride of hedonism at the heart of the UK’s early 2000s club scene” ended in Lees robbing a “client”, stealing his bank card and emptying his bank account. At the age of 18, he served eight months of a two-year sentence in a young offenders’ institution.
Being a girl — the biological kind, I mean — has seldom been more problematic. Eating disorders and gender dysphoria are expressions of extreme anxiety about having a female body and the changes that come with puberty. Detransitioners have plenty to say about that, but the BBC has an apparently endless appetite for making programmes that recycle the claims of trans activists. If the corporation is really interested in what it means to be a girl, maybe it could ask one?
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She has been Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board since 2013. Her book Homegrown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists was published in 2019.
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SubscribeGood article and good to see this man being referred to as what he is and always will be. No surprise that the BBC are serialising this misogynistic narcissism. It never stops preaching the pro-trans ideology and goes out of its way to sideline gender-critical voices.
Indeed. Just imagine the reaction if Rachel Dolezal had written a memoir called’ What It Feels Like To Be Black’. Think about how people would respond if she wrote: “Last summer I went to Russia [or another overtly racist destination of your choice], where I was racially abused, denied access to taxis, refused service in bars, and told to go back to where I came from. And it was absolutely awesome.”
How have we got to this absurd place, where we recognise and increasingly call out prejudice on the basis of race, but have to pretend that sex isn’t real, on the say-so of a bunch of narcissistic male misogynists such as Lees? It beggars belief.
“How have we got to this absurd place…have to pretend that sex isn’t real”
The best definition of misogynist I have come across, is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other.
It took a lot of hard work do reach this ridiculous place. And the narcissistic misogynists who got us here aren’t males.
It was men who put in place separate categories for women’s sports, women’s spaces, laws and police forces that protected women from any men who turned violent.
It was women who have argued for the last decades that it’s sexist to consider biological differences between men and women.
The idea was, of course, that women who are utterly third rate at most sports, and also expend far less energy while playing, should steal the sports money that men earned.
Incidentally, if a bunch of women proved to have better skills and worked harder at some activity, and a bunch of men came in and tried to claim they should get paid an equal share, those men would be mocked and derided.
Eew nasty! and completely wrong.
Eew nasty! and completely wrong.
First rate comment.
“How have we got to this absurd place…have to pretend that sex isn’t real”
The best definition of misogynist I have come across, is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other.
It took a lot of hard work do reach this ridiculous place. And the narcissistic misogynists who got us here aren’t males.
It was men who put in place separate categories for women’s sports, women’s spaces, laws and police forces that protected women from any men who turned violent.
It was women who have argued for the last decades that it’s sexist to consider biological differences between men and women.
The idea was, of course, that women who are utterly third rate at most sports, and also expend far less energy while playing, should steal the sports money that men earned.
Incidentally, if a bunch of women proved to have better skills and worked harder at some activity, and a bunch of men came in and tried to claim they should get paid an equal share, those men would be mocked and derided.
First rate comment.
Indeed. Just imagine the reaction if Rachel Dolezal had written a memoir called’ What It Feels Like To Be Black’. Think about how people would respond if she wrote: “Last summer I went to Russia [or another overtly racist destination of your choice], where I was racially abused, denied access to taxis, refused service in bars, and told to go back to where I came from. And it was absolutely awesome.”
How have we got to this absurd place, where we recognise and increasingly call out prejudice on the basis of race, but have to pretend that sex isn’t real, on the say-so of a bunch of narcissistic male misogynists such as Lees? It beggars belief.
Good article and good to see this man being referred to as what he is and always will be. No surprise that the BBC are serialising this misogynistic narcissism. It never stops preaching the pro-trans ideology and goes out of its way to sideline gender-critical voices.
Yet more evidence of how completely estranged from its audience (and the people who pay for it) the BBC has become. How much longer can this go on?
Seemingly forever, no party has the balls to end this shakedown of the British tv viewing public.
We stopped watching BBC TV, ITV and Channel 4 years ago; but my wife doesn’t want to terminate our TV tax (‘licence fee’). The BBC is absolutely awful and I avoid it as far as possible.
Us too. And for news, we sometimes find ourselves watching (of all things) France24. Zut Alors.
Tell her to pay it.
Us too. And for news, we sometimes find ourselves watching (of all things) France24. Zut Alors.
Tell her to pay it.
Problem is it isn’t just the BBC. It’s just the most obnoxious face of it, because it actually forcibly charges people to pay for itself, just to feed them with insults and outrageous “opinions” that the vast majority find unacceptable.
Seemingly forever, no party has the balls to end this shakedown of the British tv viewing public.
We stopped watching BBC TV, ITV and Channel 4 years ago; but my wife doesn’t want to terminate our TV tax (‘licence fee’). The BBC is absolutely awful and I avoid it as far as possible.
Problem is it isn’t just the BBC. It’s just the most obnoxious face of it, because it actually forcibly charges people to pay for itself, just to feed them with insults and outrageous “opinions” that the vast majority find unacceptable.
Yet more evidence of how completely estranged from its audience (and the people who pay for it) the BBC has become. How much longer can this go on?
“So I may — may — not represent all women.”
He doesn’t represent any women.
“So I may — may — not represent all women.”
He doesn’t represent any women.
Excellent article, goes right to the point. I read this on the heels of watching a heartrending video of a young woman, who now regrets her irrevocable transition, recount why she transitioned starting at 15 and now realizes it did not solve anything for her. The young woman demonstrates vividly Smith’s points about how completely out of touch Lees is with any semblance of female reality. https://youtu.be/McG2JVglGUs
Joan Smith, as far as i’m concerned, is right up there among writers for Unherd with Kathleen Stock and Mary Harrington.
I hope she wouldn’t mind my saying that her writing isn’t as “intellectual” as theirs, but by “getting right to the point”, staying there and then stopping, she makes her own uniquely valuable contributions.
Exactly. It was very succinct.
One doesn’t need to be verbose to make a point, however, if one gets paid by the word………….
One doesn’t need to be verbose to make a point, however, if one gets paid by the word………….
I far prefer Smith’s straight forward writing to that of Stock and Harrington . She is easy to understand and communicates in a way that keeps it simple yet very clear.
Exactly. It was very succinct.
I far prefer Smith’s straight forward writing to that of Stock and Harrington . She is easy to understand and communicates in a way that keeps it simple yet very clear.
Which is why this isn’t just about “politics” or talking points.
I would be genuinely shattered if any of the young girls I know, leave alone my daughter, had her life destroyed by going for one of the mutilating “transitions”.
Unfortunately, for a lot of those in decision making positions in the bureaucracy, education and matter, children matter less than ideology or power.
Those with an agenda are unable to admit to being wrong when they are.
Those with an agenda are unable to admit to being wrong when they are.
Joan Smith, as far as i’m concerned, is right up there among writers for Unherd with Kathleen Stock and Mary Harrington.
I hope she wouldn’t mind my saying that her writing isn’t as “intellectual” as theirs, but by “getting right to the point”, staying there and then stopping, she makes her own uniquely valuable contributions.
Which is why this isn’t just about “politics” or talking points.
I would be genuinely shattered if any of the young girls I know, leave alone my daughter, had her life destroyed by going for one of the mutilating “transitions”.
Unfortunately, for a lot of those in decision making positions in the bureaucracy, education and matter, children matter less than ideology or power.
Excellent article, goes right to the point. I read this on the heels of watching a heartrending video of a young woman, who now regrets her irrevocable transition, recount why she transitioned starting at 15 and now realizes it did not solve anything for her. The young woman demonstrates vividly Smith’s points about how completely out of touch Lees is with any semblance of female reality. https://youtu.be/McG2JVglGUs
This is the sort of rubbish I’d expect from Channel4. I hope the BBC gets to regret their decision to commission this onzense. The audience will be tiny.
This is the sort of rubbish I’d expect from Channel4. I hope the BBC gets to regret their decision to commission this onzense. The audience will be tiny.
Like a 19th Century Christian missionary? Did the men have grass skirts and bones through their noses?
What does this have to do with being trans? Plenty of real women have the same attitude. Doesn’t make it right, but I don’t see the connection with being trans.
And you know this because…………?
And you know this because…………?
While it’s obvious that these “women” are men, that’s in fact one similarity they have to women – they think men have nothing better to think about and go after women. Which is often more about their own narcissistic self view than reality.
Maybe true for 15 year old teenagers. But people grow up
Pretty much every man I know is too stressed and busy with earning a living, spending time with kids, trying to make life work, to have any time or energy left for “objectifying” or catcalling any woman, leave alone these hilariously grotesque trans creatures.
There’s little that’s more misogynistic than the assumption that all women think alike.
If you were a woman you would know that’s not true. Where there’s testosterone there’s lust. Nature had made it that way.
There’s little that’s more misogynistic than the assumption that all women think alike.
If you were a woman you would know that’s not true. Where there’s testosterone there’s lust. Nature had made it that way.
What does this have to do with being trans? Plenty of real women have the same attitude. Doesn’t make it right, but I don’t see the connection with being trans.
While it’s obvious that these “women” are men, that’s in fact one similarity they have to women – they think men have nothing better to think about and go after women. Which is often more about their own narcissistic self view than reality.
Maybe true for 15 year old teenagers. But people grow up
Pretty much every man I know is too stressed and busy with earning a living, spending time with kids, trying to make life work, to have any time or energy left for “objectifying” or catcalling any woman, leave alone these hilariously grotesque trans creatures.
Like a 19th Century Christian missionary? Did the men have grass skirts and bones through their noses?
Lees means “dregs”, doesn’t it?
Lees means “dregs”, doesn’t it?
This person is psychologically very damaged. Why the BBC doesn’t see this is beyond comprehension.
Is it possibly because those who run the BBC are “psychologically very damaged”? I don’t know since I don’t live there, but there must be some sort of disorder at the root of it all.
Me neither, but I used to live there a long time ago. It was well respected then. It seems they’ve changed (as things do) and caved to the woke in order to stay viable.
Me neither, but I used to live there a long time ago. It was well respected then. It seems they’ve changed (as things do) and caved to the woke in order to stay viable.
Is it possibly because those who run the BBC are “psychologically very damaged”? I don’t know since I don’t live there, but there must be some sort of disorder at the root of it all.
This person is psychologically very damaged. Why the BBC doesn’t see this is beyond comprehension.
BBC has always favoured Gays over Women.
BBC has always favoured Gays over Women.
“Lees always “knew” he was really a girl”.
I wonder if he knew what many girls knew, that they should never have been born.
What of all the mothers, who, at the end of their labour, faced the father coming into the room saying, “I’m sorry, it’s a girl.”
“Lees always “knew” he was really a girl”.
I wonder if he knew what many girls knew, that they should never have been born.
What of all the mothers, who, at the end of their labour, faced the father coming into the room saying, “I’m sorry, it’s a girl.”
I’ve never heard of this person and not a penny from me goes to the BBC but read the autobiography of Paul O’Grady and it’s almost exactly the same story. If course P O’G is now a Saint in Heaven (our contemporary version) and his genuine love of dogs and ability to connect with people took him a long way after he put Lily’s dresses in the wardrobe. And reading his book tells you he has a keen and savage intelligence (the appropriate word),he took no prisoners. But the 70s teenage life he describes,well not only does it sound uncannily similar to this one (maybe he read the book and is plagiarising it!) but so unlike my 1970s teenager life I found myself exclaiming “so that’s where all the action was!”
But Paul O’Grady didn’t claim to be a woman and promote the myth that you can change sex.
But Paul O’Grady didn’t claim to be a woman and promote the myth that you can change sex.
I’ve never heard of this person and not a penny from me goes to the BBC but read the autobiography of Paul O’Grady and it’s almost exactly the same story. If course P O’G is now a Saint in Heaven (our contemporary version) and his genuine love of dogs and ability to connect with people took him a long way after he put Lily’s dresses in the wardrobe. And reading his book tells you he has a keen and savage intelligence (the appropriate word),he took no prisoners. But the 70s teenage life he describes,well not only does it sound uncannily similar to this one (maybe he read the book and is plagiarising it!) but so unlike my 1970s teenager life I found myself exclaiming “so that’s where all the action was!”
We’re all talking at cross-purposes. Some of you think that Paris Lees should be ignored. I don’t. Others think that the transgender movement amounts to a tempest in a teapot. I don’t. Still others think that transgender ideology is a significant threat to women. And so do I.
Almost all of you, however, seem to believe that transgender ideology is historically unrelated to feminist ideology (and other ideologies) and therefore that it appeared either out of the blue or out of some ahistorical hatred of women. That’s what I dispute. Anyone who cares about ideas knows that they mingle freely and often uneasily in the public square–sometimes in ironic ways and with destructive results.
Going by the criteria you suggest, we would have equal grounds for disputing the claim that “transgender” ideology is historically unrelated to conservative ideology, philosophical liberalism, social-democratic/market socialist ideology, and faschist ideology; whereas I think your intention is to link “transgender” ideology to feminism to the latter’s moral detriment. If so, I think you should be more explicit about your meaning. I am virulently anti-“transgender” ideology, but genuinely undecided as to whether it’s all the fault of feminism. As a floating voter on this issue, I would like to read some effective argumentation from both sides.
Edit: My apologies. I see that you do exactly this in another comment.
Going by the criteria you suggest, we would have equal grounds for disputing the claim that “transgender” ideology is historically unrelated to conservative ideology, philosophical liberalism, social-democratic/market socialist ideology, and faschist ideology; whereas I think your intention is to link “transgender” ideology to feminism to the latter’s moral detriment. If so, I think you should be more explicit about your meaning. I am virulently anti-“transgender” ideology, but genuinely undecided as to whether it’s all the fault of feminism. As a floating voter on this issue, I would like to read some effective argumentation from both sides.
Edit: My apologies. I see that you do exactly this in another comment.
We’re all talking at cross-purposes. Some of you think that Paris Lees should be ignored. I don’t. Others think that the transgender movement amounts to a tempest in a teapot. I don’t. Still others think that transgender ideology is a significant threat to women. And so do I.
Almost all of you, however, seem to believe that transgender ideology is historically unrelated to feminist ideology (and other ideologies) and therefore that it appeared either out of the blue or out of some ahistorical hatred of women. That’s what I dispute. Anyone who cares about ideas knows that they mingle freely and often uneasily in the public square–sometimes in ironic ways and with destructive results.
It seems strange to me that no one, including Smith herself, has yet noted any link between the rise of anxiety, rage and self-destructiveness among girls (let alone women) and the rise of feminist ideology and the transgender ideology that has emerged from it under the umbrella of wokism. I’m not arguing that feminist ideology is the sole cause among girls and women of rampant eating disorders, depression, rapid-onset gender dysphoria and transgender self-mutilation. I’m arguing only that feminist ideology, which has for decades sent conflicting messages to women about almost everything, is surely part of the problem.
Consider only a few of the confusing double messages that feminists have sent to girls (although I state these more bluntly here than I would in a scholarly treatise). Men are inherently evil but also safer than women (except on city streets, let alone in wartime), so becoming “trans men” should make sense for women at least on practical grounds. Almost all forms of human behavior are cultural or “social constructs,” but any features of the female body that really do distinguish them from male bodies must be either irrelevant or burdensome. Women have been heroic enough to transform society in the most radical ways (thanks to feminism), but they nonetheless remain the eternal victims of a male conspiracy to oppress women (thanks to feminist ideology). Women should clothe or reveal their bodies however they like in public, but they should also expect men not to notice and therefore “objectify” women’s bodies. Women should be whatever they please, but they should not waste too much time and energy on the one thing that only females can be: mothers. Women are innately so compassionate that they hardly ever resort to violence (except toward their own children), but they nonetheless have some moral or constitutional “right” to abortion (and possibly infanticide) on demand. Most women want to marry or live with men, but they should want also, or want even more, to be “autonomous” and therefore able to say (like “feisty” Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast), “I don’t need anyone at all.”
A man blaming feminism for the rise of an ideology that allows men to call themselves women? That’s superb.
He has a point. Feminist women have been holding the doors open for these men that walk all over us.
Oh please!
Oh please!
Call it, or me, what you like, but truth is sometimes ironic. Transgenderism openly conflicts with feminism, it’s true, even though many women, as dutiful wokers, now give it priority over feminism. But the whole idea of gender as a mere “social construct,” which suggests that we can eliminate it through social engineering, comes directly from feminism.
Gender IS a social construct. Gender refers to sex-role behaviours, things we typically associate with “being feminine” or “being masculine.
Sex is not a social construct. Sex is a biological fact. There are women and girls who are of the female sex and men and boys who are of the male sex.
Yes, Janet, you’re correct. I’ve made the same distinction many times and should have been more careful on this occasion. Sex is a natural given, gender a cultural creation. Women and girls are female by sex, feminine by gender. Men and boys are male by sex, masculine by gender. In theory, it’s that simple.
But gender is not entirely independent of sex, a complicating factor that is responsible for much of the current conflict between men and women. Rather, gender is a cultural elaboration on sex. We can use culture not only to counteract natural tendencies but also to reinforce natural tendencies.
So my underlying point in that comment remains worthy of consideration. Many feminists have indeed tried hard for decades to elide sex with gender in order to minimize the differences between men and women and thus to argue that inequality between men and women must be due to the iniquity of men–that is, to their immoral cultural behavior (an argument that wokers now apply to race). To complicate matters even more, other feminists have tried hard for reasons of their own to maximize the differences between men and women.
Important central point. Of course more and more female writers, often self-described feminists, are highlighting the conflict between certain extreme trans-rights positions and rather mild feminist ones.
Three well-known real-world examples: male-born athletes–often ordinary versus their own sex–excelling in women’s sports (sometimes with their original equipment); declaring oneself female in order to serve your sex-offense sentence at a women’s (happily that did not stand, and Sturgeon stood down); attempting to make “mother” into some kind of taboo word with regard to childbearing because it hurts the ears of some who’ve lately declared a new or altered gender identity.
Even many trans people–those that have the nerve or positional strength–are calling these positions extreme and unfair to women. And women who speak up against the wildest overreach are reflexively labelled TERFs, harassed and threatened online (at a minimum), and sometimes fired (e.g. Julie Szego).
How much female liberty & safety, or parental authority, needs to be eroded to accommodate the most militant faction of the Trans Rights Movement?
Paul
I can’t figure why you’ve received so many downticks (perhaps from feminista bigots?) as you have argued your case cogently and responded firmly but respectfully to those who have disagreed or challenged with you. I think you are correct that trans ideology substantially was spawned via the feminist agenda.
I tend rather to agree with your thesis about the consequences of over a century of feminism. Indeed, I would suggest that feminism, as distinct from more general Marxism (though feminism is strongly influenced by this egregious philosophy) has had a profound and fundamental impact on virtually every aspect of western culture, politics, corporations, education and much more besides. The parallel demonisation of (especially White) men, which has crescendoed in the past two decades, is a significant factor in the ultimate development and power of the Woking Class under whose tyranny we move into the future today.
As an historical aside, a huge proportion of the British male population received the vote at the same time as women; though this fact is never ventilated in the contemporary Women (oppressed) vs Men (oppressors) debate. Nor is the fact that this legislation and related legislation that followed has been largely enacted by male majorities in western political systems.
Thank you again for your balanced approach to discussion as opposed to debate.
Important central point. Of course more and more female writers, often self-described feminists, are highlighting the conflict between certain extreme trans-rights positions and rather mild feminist ones.
Three well-known real-world examples: male-born athletes–often ordinary versus their own sex–excelling in women’s sports (sometimes with their original equipment); declaring oneself female in order to serve your sex-offense sentence at a women’s (happily that did not stand, and Sturgeon stood down); attempting to make “mother” into some kind of taboo word with regard to childbearing because it hurts the ears of some who’ve lately declared a new or altered gender identity.
Even many trans people–those that have the nerve or positional strength–are calling these positions extreme and unfair to women. And women who speak up against the wildest overreach are reflexively labelled TERFs, harassed and threatened online (at a minimum), and sometimes fired (e.g. Julie Szego).
How much female liberty & safety, or parental authority, needs to be eroded to accommodate the most militant faction of the Trans Rights Movement?
Paul
I can’t figure why you’ve received so many downticks (perhaps from feminista bigots?) as you have argued your case cogently and responded firmly but respectfully to those who have disagreed or challenged with you. I think you are correct that trans ideology substantially was spawned via the feminist agenda.
I tend rather to agree with your thesis about the consequences of over a century of feminism. Indeed, I would suggest that feminism, as distinct from more general Marxism (though feminism is strongly influenced by this egregious philosophy) has had a profound and fundamental impact on virtually every aspect of western culture, politics, corporations, education and much more besides. The parallel demonisation of (especially White) men, which has crescendoed in the past two decades, is a significant factor in the ultimate development and power of the Woking Class under whose tyranny we move into the future today.
As an historical aside, a huge proportion of the British male population received the vote at the same time as women; though this fact is never ventilated in the contemporary Women (oppressed) vs Men (oppressors) debate. Nor is the fact that this legislation and related legislation that followed has been largely enacted by male majorities in western political systems.
Thank you again for your balanced approach to discussion as opposed to debate.
Yes, Janet, you’re correct. I’ve made the same distinction many times and should have been more careful on this occasion. Sex is a natural given, gender a cultural creation. Women and girls are female by sex, feminine by gender. Men and boys are male by sex, masculine by gender. In theory, it’s that simple.
But gender is not entirely independent of sex, a complicating factor that is responsible for much of the current conflict between men and women. Rather, gender is a cultural elaboration on sex. We can use culture not only to counteract natural tendencies but also to reinforce natural tendencies.
So my underlying point in that comment remains worthy of consideration. Many feminists have indeed tried hard for decades to elide sex with gender in order to minimize the differences between men and women and thus to argue that inequality between men and women must be due to the iniquity of men–that is, to their immoral cultural behavior (an argument that wokers now apply to race). To complicate matters even more, other feminists have tried hard for reasons of their own to maximize the differences between men and women.
Gender IS a social construct. Gender refers to sex-role behaviours, things we typically associate with “being feminine” or “being masculine.
Sex is not a social construct. Sex is a biological fact. There are women and girls who are of the female sex and men and boys who are of the male sex.
Feminists demanding arbitrary quotas for women in STEM or equal prize money for sportswomen because women are exactly the same as women,
While also whining about “misogyny” when third rate men sweep up the winning positions in women’s sports.
That’s superb.
What? “Women are the same as women?”
What? “Women are the same as women?”
You are joking, right?
He has a point. Feminist women have been holding the doors open for these men that walk all over us.
Call it, or me, what you like, but truth is sometimes ironic. Transgenderism openly conflicts with feminism, it’s true, even though many women, as dutiful wokers, now give it priority over feminism. But the whole idea of gender as a mere “social construct,” which suggests that we can eliminate it through social engineering, comes directly from feminism.
Feminists demanding arbitrary quotas for women in STEM or equal prize money for sportswomen because women are exactly the same as women,
While also whining about “misogyny” when third rate men sweep up the winning positions in women’s sports.
That’s superb.
You are joking, right?
“Women have been heroic enough to transform society in the most radical ways ”
In fact, no.
Most of the improvement in human lives has been due to the development of modern technology, medicine, infrastructure, science.
Pretty much all men.
Not just thst, most of the change in “rights” – treating people equally, equal laws etc, were also brought about by men.
Female activists such as suffragettes got a lot of publicity – but they ONLY worked for their own groups (not even all women, but typically typically upper class women), and even so the biggest contributions towards women getting equal rights – were men, who worked tirelessly to fight for equality for all, men and women, irrespective of class.
A man blaming feminism for the rise of an ideology that allows men to call themselves women? That’s superb.
“Women have been heroic enough to transform society in the most radical ways ”
In fact, no.
Most of the improvement in human lives has been due to the development of modern technology, medicine, infrastructure, science.
Pretty much all men.
Not just thst, most of the change in “rights” – treating people equally, equal laws etc, were also brought about by men.
Female activists such as suffragettes got a lot of publicity – but they ONLY worked for their own groups (not even all women, but typically typically upper class women), and even so the biggest contributions towards women getting equal rights – were men, who worked tirelessly to fight for equality for all, men and women, irrespective of class.
It seems strange to me that no one, including Smith herself, has yet noted any link between the rise of anxiety, rage and self-destructiveness among girls (let alone women) and the rise of feminist ideology and the transgender ideology that has emerged from it under the umbrella of wokism. I’m not arguing that feminist ideology is the sole cause among girls and women of rampant eating disorders, depression, rapid-onset gender dysphoria and transgender self-mutilation. I’m arguing only that feminist ideology, which has for decades sent conflicting messages to women about almost everything, is surely part of the problem.
Consider only a few of the confusing double messages that feminists have sent to girls (although I state these more bluntly here than I would in a scholarly treatise). Men are inherently evil but also safer than women (except on city streets, let alone in wartime), so becoming “trans men” should make sense for women at least on practical grounds. Almost all forms of human behavior are cultural or “social constructs,” but any features of the female body that really do distinguish them from male bodies must be either irrelevant or burdensome. Women have been heroic enough to transform society in the most radical ways (thanks to feminism), but they nonetheless remain the eternal victims of a male conspiracy to oppress women (thanks to feminist ideology). Women should clothe or reveal their bodies however they like in public, but they should also expect men not to notice and therefore “objectify” women’s bodies. Women should be whatever they please, but they should not waste too much time and energy on the one thing that only females can be: mothers. Women are innately so compassionate that they hardly ever resort to violence (except toward their own children), but they nonetheless have some moral or constitutional “right” to abortion (and possibly infanticide) on demand. Most women want to marry or live with men, but they should want also, or want even more, to be “autonomous” and therefore able to say (like “feisty” Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast), “I don’t need anyone at all.”
This is where I fall off the anti-trans train. This guy clearly looks like a girl, I’m sure he felt more feminine as a child than masculine, and he got surgery as an adult. All this is meh IMO.
I haven’t read the book and I know nothing about this person. As long as he isn’t out there promoting medicalization of children, guys competing in women sports, I have zero interest in his life or lifestyle. Live and let live.
All the stuff about prostitution and sexualization can be said about real women as well. This guy’s sexual antics are none of my business, just as it would be with any other person.
I’m in primary agreement with you on this. It seems that Joan Smith had to reach deep into the “outrage barrel” in order to take offense on behalf of all born women here. One qualification: Paris Lees is not being private about all this. Not that the right to personal liberty and tolerance is thereby removed, but I think you get my point about public display, so to speak.
I’m not saying this broader topic is trivial, but can we dial down the hair-on-fire outrage by a few degrees and do better at picking things to lose all sense of proportion about? Yeah, I know they started it, but it’s still good to pick your battles, select which bones to pick.
So you would happily enter into a sexual relationship with him?? Apologies if I am assuming you’re heterosexual. Less than one in ten of these men have their wedding tackle removed and in fact glorify their “lady-d**k” and demand lesbians service them.
Transmen “demand lesbians service them”!! Good grief where did you get that idea.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lesbian-dating-platform-sends-message-transphobes-delete-app-rcna82049
Men who say they are women (aka transwomen, a term I don’t use as it’s confused everyone they’re not any kind of woman, male in every cell) have been in lesbian clubs for years doing just that. Lesbian events have to be advertised by word-of-mouth only, just like my lesbian friend told me about before the war, or the men turn up and leer and pressurise young lesbians by accusing them of transphobia. It’s absolutely dire.
A ‘transman’ is female. It’s ‘transwomen’ (males), claiming to be lesbians (impossible because they’re just heterosexual men), who are pressurising actual lesbians to have sex with them.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lesbian-dating-platform-sends-message-transphobes-delete-app-rcna82049
Men who say they are women (aka transwomen, a term I don’t use as it’s confused everyone they’re not any kind of woman, male in every cell) have been in lesbian clubs for years doing just that. Lesbian events have to be advertised by word-of-mouth only, just like my lesbian friend told me about before the war, or the men turn up and leer and pressurise young lesbians by accusing them of transphobia. It’s absolutely dire.
A ‘transman’ is female. It’s ‘transwomen’ (males), claiming to be lesbians (impossible because they’re just heterosexual men), who are pressurising actual lesbians to have sex with them.
Transmen “demand lesbians service them”!! Good grief where did you get that idea.
He/She/It/Whatever looks like a cartoon
I’m in primary agreement with you on this. It seems that Joan Smith had to reach deep into the “outrage barrel” in order to take offense on behalf of all born women here. One qualification: Paris Lees is not being private about all this. Not that the right to personal liberty and tolerance is thereby removed, but I think you get my point about public display, so to speak.
I’m not saying this broader topic is trivial, but can we dial down the hair-on-fire outrage by a few degrees and do better at picking things to lose all sense of proportion about? Yeah, I know they started it, but it’s still good to pick your battles, select which bones to pick.
So you would happily enter into a sexual relationship with him?? Apologies if I am assuming you’re heterosexual. Less than one in ten of these men have their wedding tackle removed and in fact glorify their “lady-d**k” and demand lesbians service them.
He/She/It/Whatever looks like a cartoon
This is where I fall off the anti-trans train. This guy clearly looks like a girl, I’m sure he felt more feminine as a child than masculine, and he got surgery as an adult. All this is meh IMO.
I haven’t read the book and I know nothing about this person. As long as he isn’t out there promoting medicalization of children, guys competing in women sports, I have zero interest in his life or lifestyle. Live and let live.
All the stuff about prostitution and sexualization can be said about real women as well. This guy’s sexual antics are none of my business, just as it would be with any other person.
Calm down, she’s just an entertainer.
And quite a good one at that.
Never a dull moment.
All I hear is hate. Referring to any human being as ‘it’ is disgusting. None of you need to read her book or to watch her show.
Like someone said earlier, Someone is having their memoirs serialised. Their life has been interesting. It makes for good drama.
Thinking, however, that it’s ok to pour scorn and disrespect over someone you’ve never met and don’t know is wrong.
Paris is very clear about not presuming to represent other women any more than she claims to represent all trans women.
This group, which includes a lot of men I notice, rather perversely seems to think it does.
Fight the real patriarchy not trans women – whatever happened to kindness, respect and acceptance ?
All I hear is hate. Referring to any human being as ‘it’ is disgusting. None of you need to read her book or to watch her show.
Like someone said earlier, Someone is having their memoirs serialised. Their life has been interesting. It makes for good drama.
Thinking, however, that it’s ok to pour scorn and disrespect over someone you’ve never met and don’t know is wrong.
Paris is very clear about not presuming to represent other women any more than she claims to represent all trans women.
This group, which includes a lot of men I notice, rather perversely seems to think it does.
Fight the real patriarchy not trans women – whatever happened to kindness, respect and acceptance ?
Calm down, she’s just an entertainer.
And quite a good one at that.
Never a dull moment.