A seven-page dossier
A colonel has claimed he was forced to quit the Army after he was criticised for stating that “men cannot be women”.
Dr Kelvin Wright, 54, had been a Reservist commanding officer with 14 years’ unblemished service, including two tours in Afghanistan, before his “honour was attacked” with a transphobia complaint and an investigation he described as “hellish”.
In May, he shared a post on his private Facebook account from Fair Play for Women, a campaign group that works with governing bodies to preserve women’s sport for those born female, which consisted of a quote from Helen Joyce, a feminist campaigner backed by the author JK Rowling.
The quote, shared without any additional comment, said: “If women cannot stand in a public place and say ‘men cannot be women’, then we do not have women’s rights at all.”
So the heresy-sniffers leapt into action.
This prompted a junior officer to warn him that his gender-critical views could be at odds with Ministry of Defence transgender policies, before what Dr Wright calls the Army’s “LGBT champions” allegedly drew up a seven-page dossier about his “substandard behaviour” – which he was not allowed to see.
Isn’t it interesting how women have never had this kind of instant intense rushing to punish people for disputing our rights, but when we have the gall to say men are not women and if we’re not allowed to say that then we can’t have our own rights – then the hammer comes down. The hammer comes down so hard that it hammers even army colonels who say it with us.
Dr Wright, who led a team of 60 troops in 306 Hospital Support Regiment alongside working as an NHS intensive care consultant, has this month felt forced to retire six years earlier than planned, slashing his total Army pension in the process.
He is being supported by the Free Speech Union, which has appointed an employment barrister to defend him, as the investigation is still ongoing.
Dr Wright told The Telegraph: “This attack on my honour made my position completely untenable. I could no longer remain in an Army which treated its officers with such disrespect.
“What message does it send to women in the Army, that merely for noting the existence of women and women’s rights even a colonel can be placed under investigation? I therefore feel there is no other choice but to make this matter public.”
The message it sends to women in the Army is absolutely horrific. He’s a good man for giving a damn.
I’m glad the Free Speech Union is defending Colonel Wright. I recently ditched my little canvas New Yorker tote bag for a little canvas Free Speech Union bag that I proudly carry every time I go to the market.
I’m not entirely surprised the army is so hostile to gender-critical views, considering the military is lousy with crossdressers. For reasons still not quite understood, military men are far more likely to become transvestites than men in any other profession. The trope of the secretly-crossdressing general has been around since at least the 18th century. It’s incredible how many of the most famous trans activists of the 20th and 21st centuries were soldiers:
Private Bradley “Chelsea” Manning, famed Wikileaks whistleblower.
Admiral Richard “Rachel” Levine, Assistant Secretary of Health.
Sergeant First Class James “Jamie/Ellie Rae” Shupe, first legally-recognized “nonbinary” American.
Lieutenant Colonel James “Jennifer” Pritzker, founder of the Pritzker Military Library.
G.I. George “Christine” Jorgensen, the first famous transsexual.
Lance Corporal James “Jan” Morris, CBE, journalist and bestselling author; famed for accompanying Hillary on his Everest expedition.
No wonder the “trans in the military ban” was the first major campaign the nascent transgender movement took on. I have a friend who works in a government job that serves veterans — he says you wouldn’t believe how many crossdressers/trans identifying men he has to deal with.
There’s a great scene in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, where the director Ed Wood, played by Johnny Depp, confesses to a film producer that he’s a transvestite (but definitely not gay) in an attempt to win the bid to direct a Christine Jorgensen bio-pic:
Producer: “So, you’re not a fruit?”
Wood: “No, I’m all man. I even fought in WW2. Course I was wearing women’s undergarments under my uniform.”
Producer: “You gotta be kidding me.”
Wood: “Confidentially, I even paratrooped wearing a brassiere and panties. I’ll tell ya, I wasn’t scared of being killed, but I was terrified of getting wounded and having the medics discover my secret.”
Starts at about the 1:30 mark.
https://youtu.be/IJ7oLXg9zFg?t=94
Nit: Levine is an admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which is a uniformed service but not military, so I suspect it is incorrect to call him a soldier. (Kind of like how a police lieutenant is not a soldier, despite the military-like title.) Minor quibble, excellent and illuminating list.
Fair nit. And Christine Jorgensen served in the Army, but I think he was just a clerk. So, maybe not “soldiers,” but, you know.
[…] a comment by Arty Morty on A seven-page […]
Do we have actual statistics on trans/nb/wtf identification by profession or field? That’s something I would love to see.
Nullius in Verba @5
I don’t know if there are hard statistics, but both Blanchard and Bailey have pointed out that autogynephilic men tend towards stereotypically masculine professions. In The Man Who Would Be Queen, Michael Bailey wrote:
https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JMichael-Bailey/autogynephilia.htm
Anecdotally, I’ve heard that there are lots of autogynephiles in Silicon Valley, which may help to explain why social media were so quick to try and suppress terfery.
So was Corporal Klinger in MASH based on real life people?
Though in story, he was using it in hopes of getting a discharge on psychological grounds.