Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
For our predictive texts series, we have asked our contributors to select a book which sheds eerily prescient light on our lives today. We weren’t after HG Wells or George Orwell, we wanted something less predictable. Here is the foresight so far.
“Transsexualism has taken only twenty-five years to become a household word,” reads the opening line of the 1979 book, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. The author, Janice Raymond, a renowned academic and feminist campaigner, caused a massive kerfuffle when she published the work, which seriously tackled the theory and consequences of diagnosing the feelings of body dysphoria and the unbearable desire to live and present as the opposite sex.
Raymond wrote TTE as a response to the rising rates of sex-change surgery in the US. She had long been concerned about the medical practices that negatively impacted women, such as unnecessary hysterectomies and caesareans. This led her to question the medical consequences of the bodily mutilation inherent in transsexual surgery, and the detrimental effects of taking lifelong hormones.
She predicted that the handful of gender identity clinics treating adult transsexuals – the first of which opened in 1967 – would become what she calls ‘sex role control centers’ for so-called deviant female and male children. “Such gender identity centers are already being used for the treatment of designated child transsexuals,” she wrote, before arguing that these centres would proliferate.
There are now at least 40 such clinics treating children’s ‘gender dysphoria’ in the United States, and in England there are seven treating adults, and only one at present that specialises in under 18s, but with calls for more. This is in spite of concerns about the effects that such treatment might have on individuals legally considered too young to make most major life decisions.
Small wonder, then, that 40 years after it was first published, TTE is perceived as an important foundation stone in gender critical feminist thinking.
In 1979, the word gender was understood to be separate from the word sex. Sex was what defined a person biologically; gender was understood to mean the sex-appropriate behaviour that was socially constructed. Today, gender has replaced the word sex in common parlance, as if gender itself were biological.
Raymond foresaw this shift. “As I saw it then and see it now, transsexualism goes to the question of what gender is, how to challenge it, and what reinforces gender stereotyping in a role-defined society,” wrote Raymond in her preface to the 1994 reprint of TTE. When I interviewed her recently for this article, she added that “only feminism can challenge the idea of the ‘male’ and ‘female’ brain and notions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ being innate”.
And only feminism can defend the rights of those born into the bodies of women – though it sometimes feels as though we’re not allowed to call ourselves ‘women’ anymore. Instead we’re uterus-owners, egg producers, chest feeders and even non-men. Abortion providers now often use the term ‘pregnant people’ rather than ‘pregnant women’ so as not to exclude trans men.
One of Raymond’s transsexual interviewees, quoted in TTE, proclaimed: “Genetic women are becoming quite obsolete, which is obvious, and the future belongs to transsexual women. All you have left is your ability to bear children, and in a world which will groan to feed 6 billion by the year 2000, that’s a negative asset.”
Today, trans women are asking for womb transplants and the ability to breast feed. By demanding the ‘right’ to give birth, they are rendering natal women obsolete.
Forty years ago Raymond wrote, “Masculine behaviour is notably obtrusive”. She was referring to the level of notoriety achieved by the trans woman Renee Richards “in the wake of the Tennis Week Open”. Richards fought to compete on a level playing field with natal women. The New York Times review of TTE read: “The transsexual propagandists claim to transform ‘women trapped in men’s bodies’ into ‘real’ women and want them to be accepted socially as females (say, in professional tennis).”
Not only was The Transsexual Empire prescient – so too was the response to the book. Raymond experienced the kind of backlash that is endured by anyone who questions trans women’s rights today. Martina Navratilova was hounded on Twitter after she wrote a piece examining transgender participation in women’s sport; upon the publication of TTE, the transsexual lobby accused Raymond of bigotry and said the book constituted ‘hate speech’. Navratilova was thrown out of an advocacy group for LGBTQ sportspeople, which accused her of ‘transphobia’; Raymond was turned down for grants, reported to her university and publicly harassed and threatened with violence on a regular basis.
With the advent of the internet, a cesspool of vitriol aimed at anyone who dissents from transgender orthodoxies has gone viral. Since I first wrote about the issue I have come in for the same treatment as Raymond, as have scores of other women.
And the bullying doesn’t stop there. Today, many lesbians who will not date trans woman say they feel under pressure to do so or risk being labelled transphobic. In recent years, the term ‘cotton ceiling’ is used by some trans-activists to describe the difficulties faced by male-bodied trans women in persuading lesbians to have sex with them. Recently published research on the ‘cotton ceiling’ phenomenon found that significant numbers of lesbians have encountered bullying and sexual harassment by ‘trans lesbians’. Reading the chapter, “Sappho By Surgery”, it’s hard not to think she must have a time machine: she writes that men who asserted they were women would also claim to be ‘trans lesbians’ and expect access to natal women’s bodies.
“It is significant that in the case of the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist,” wrote Raymond, “often he is able to gain entrance and a dominant position in women’s spaces because the women involved do not know he is a transsexual and he just does not happen to mention it.”
Four decades ago, Raymond saw how in a society obsessed with gender rules which determine how women and men should behave, that it would become easier and more acceptable to change bodies rather than behaviour. Did she also foresee how aggressive and demanding trans activists would eventually become, where ‘mis-gendering’ a trans person can be treated as a ‘hate crime’ and reported to police?
“Yes” she tells me. “I always suspected that transsexualism would change women’s lives in a way that would attempt to define us out of existence.”
Julie Bindel is an investigative journalist, author, and feminist campaigner. Her latest book is Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation. She also writes on Substack.
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SubscribeI have a good Canadian friend who is a retired GP. A few years ago, while Carney was still Governor of the Bank of England, he told me that Carney was disliked in his native Canada, and that Canadians were glad to see the back of him when he was appointed to the BoE by the Labour socialist Prime Minister, Gordon ‘Grim’ Brown.
Carney occupies a place at the apex of the Woking Class elite. He was bad news as Governor or the BoE – very political – pushed Net Zero, did everything he could to discredit and destroy the Brexit initiative, Climate Change fanatic, into the whole notion of transferring wealth from the developed nations to the developing world, socialist in outlook, DEI enthusiast, etc. I hope we never again see his like running our national bank. He did us no favours.
I hope he does not grab power in Canada as he will be bad news for you too!
As a Canadian, I can say that you are right on about Carney being disliked in Canada. A lot of Canadians felt sorry for Brits when he became the governor of BoE. However, Canada is as polarized as the rest of the western countries, and many diehard Liberals are cheering on Carney’s campaign. I hope that the wind of change is coming to Canada and the Liberal Party gets wiped out in the next election.
I will be praying for you, Joanne, and your Canadian compatriots!
I do hope Carney is not elected leader of the Liberals. He is the only member of that carnival of fools with an outside chance of beating Poilievre.
Does Carney not realise he is the symbol par excellence of an ideology and class that are now almost universally loathed – along with their annual festival of greed and narcissism that we will be forced to watch yet again next week.
Poillievre’s Conservatives are bound to rightly crow: He’s an outsider alright! A citizen of Europe, not Canada.
Trudeau’s dirt has hung on the Canadian scene for so long that it’s now covered his entire party, and anyone who looks or sounds like him. Carney is likely to serve as the Liberals’ sacrificial goat at the next election, much as Michael Ignatieff did 16 years ago, and as Kim Campbell did for the Tories back in the ?90’s. Canadians despise an unlelected incumbent. At least let’s hope that’s still true.
Looking at this man, you realize from his face and eyes, that he is dead and hollow.
The liberals are definitely not trading up.
Canadians would be insane to elect this man – or tolerate his presence in any public office. Take it from a Brit who has already experienced the consequences of his galloping dishonesty, incompetence and political naivety.
So this guy’s never held any political office and never been elected to anything. But seems to think he can just rock up and become leader of a political party and even Prime Minister without any of this experience. Who does he think he is ? Donald Trump ?
Why would anyone want to save Canada’s liberal establishment? In 40 years Canada has gone from ~90% of the US per capita GDP in 1980, to 80% in 2010, to 60% today, while their average home price is double the US.
The liberal establishment and their war on natural resource extraction have devastated Canada economically.
Perception is reality and this works very well for Carney. He can say he had nothing to do with Liberal Party over the last decade – something Freeland simply can’t do. He will probably support scrapping the carbon tax, which is very much hated in Canada, even though he was likely the architect of that very policy. Carney is very intelligent in the very worst way. He is an unwavering convert to the cult of climate change hysteria and has relentlessly pushed net zero behind the scenes. He believes in all the progressive ideas so in vogue with the technocratic intelligentsia today, like ESG and DEI. Carney will be an unmitigated disaster for Canada, but he’s infinitely smarter and more presentable than Trudeau, and that makes him very dangerous.
The Liberals are very good at spin however the Conservatives are going to have a field day with all the video of him endorsing the policies that are driving Canadians insane. Look for another 10 minute video called “Who is Mark Carney” or some such. One was circulating today where he says ‘as a European…..”. Shades of Ignatieff.
He is being nicknamed Justin Carney, also Carbon tax Carney.
Another champaign socialist pushing the green agenda.
He will espouse the same smug progressive pro-immigrant, anti-business, anti-freedom and net zero policies that the uniparty has applied to the ruination of Europe and Canada.
His UN Net Zero investment club is literally falling apart in real time. A bunch of US heavyweights pulled out a few days ago and the Bank of Montreal pulled out today.
All I can say is that, as the theoretically apolitical Governor of the Bank of England, he was a thoroughly disingenuous and highly politically-motivated partisan player in the anti-Brexit camp. I happened to agree with him, but he acted in a manner of which he should still feel ashamed.
The Liberal Party clearly thinks the problem is Trudeau – not their policies. I am not a Liberal supporter and would be pleased if Carney is their leader. He is very closely aligned with their current policies and general mindset and will have to convince voters he has turned a new leaf. What they really need is a newcomer who has a proven fiscally conservative and practical track record. Christy Clark (former Premier of British Columbia) – who dropped out of the race – would have fit that bill nicely. I think her French was too weak. I would have worried if she were their leader.
For Canada’s sake I’m praying for Pierre Poilievre’s rising Conservatives to win decisively in the next election.
Carney is Trudeau v2.0 – albeit less glamourous. The Liberals are looking at decimation in the next election, which will come despite Trudeau’s desperate machinations to delay it. There’s still a faint home among some that “maybe a new face will make a difference”. I doubt it. And the polls doubt it too.
Carney is a card-carrying member of the WEF/Net Zero club that Trudeau and most of his cabinet belong to which makes him a laughable choice to take over just as the failed DEI, ESG and Net Zero ideologies are disappearing off the corporate radar. Freeland is a fellow traveler (famous for her post-pandemic bon mot “we have to restart the economy but it must be a green economy”) yet the word is Trudeau dumped her to make room for Carney as finance minister. The idea that Carney is selling anything like a “new direction” for the Liberals is a sick joke.
Conservatives pundits are correct when they say Carney went to the Daily Show simply because Stewart didn’t have the background knowledge to challenge his “I’m an outsider” baloney.
Carney also tried to sell the ‘just a regular guy from small town western Canada’ story but a western newspaper pundit knew better.
“For instance, he left out Ottawa and London, where he was governor of the respective national banks. He missed New York City, where he’s both the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and chair of the board of the huge international corporation Bloomberg. He also missed his community in Davos, Switzerland, where he and fellow Europeans (he also has U.K. and Irish citizenship) make up the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, and Toronto, where he’s chair of the Canadian multi-national Brookfield Asset Management, with its US$900 billion in assets. (my note- he’s since stepped back from Brookfield to run for leader) Carney has also said he sees himself he’s a member of the same social movement as radical climate activist Greta Thunberg.”
He is far from an outsider. He is the brain behind Trudeau’s disastrous policies. He is the godfather of a child of Chrystia Freeland, the executor of Trudeau’s policies. What a puppet show! Trudeau’s drama skills are finally peaking!
As to winning Alberta, good luck! An out of touch elite and textbook hypocrite, he was the one who blocked the Energy East pipeline and the Northern Gateway pipeline, while his firms invested billions in foreign energy in UAE, America, India etc., outsourcing Canadian emissions to achieve Canada’s net-zero goals and simultaneously destroying the Canadian economy.
A true globalist and opportunist with three passports, Ignatieff 2.0 is just visiting!