Guest post: The basic books
Originally a comment by Artymorty at Miscelllany Room.
I wish there was one single all-encompassing, factual, non-polemical book about this. So far, there isn’t one. (But I’ll be honest: I’d love to write one myself.)
Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality is fantastic — analogous to Dawkins’s The God Delusion in the sense that it’s a broad overview of the definition of trans and how the concept is not backed by science — just like Dawkins did with the concept of God.
But Joyce’s (excellent) book sticks to the facts, and lacks a broader analysis of the social and political context, which has so much to do with why this nonsense idea has become so popular so quickly.
Here, Kathleen Stock steps in and takes a feminist-philosophical view in her book Material Girls. (Which — I know, I’m a horrible monster, kill me now — I have only started and haven’t finished. So I can’t really speak to this one too much.)
For a pre-social-media perspective on specifically male transsexualism, transgender identity, and homosexuality, and the connection between them, Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen is very good. (And it’s available as a free PDF now, with the author’s blessing.)
And then there’s Bailey’s spiritual sequel of sorts, Galileo’s Middle Finger by Alice Dreger, which mostly focuses on the controversy surrounding Bailey’s book, and which launches from there into the subject of ideology and activism and how those forces interact with the pursuit of science, for better or for worse. (Very interesting, enlightening and engaging stuff.)
In Tough Crowd, Graham Linehan writes movingly about trans from the perspective of the social media landscape and what it’s like to be a celebrity who dissents from the liberal consensus and who dares to blaspheme about the topic. (I’m biased towards this book because I had a hand in its creation, and because Graham is one of my closest and dearest friends. We’re colleagues, too: we host a long-running, popular YouTube podcast together. But all bias aside, the book has been a runaway bestseller because the consensus is that it’s a brilliant, hilarious, and moving read.)
Dr. Az Hakeem has written two books from the perspective of a therapist who has seen first-hand that there’s a way for virtually all (98%) young people who are convinced that they need trans identities and sexchange surgeries that they can climb down from that belief and reconcile their minds with their bodies. His latest is the newest of the bunch of high profile trans books, and I haven’t read it yet, but I hear it’s very good.
I myself have taken a stab at a broad-overview essay, which imagines its reader as an otherwise uninformed liberal progressive looking to get a foothold into this subject. A Cliff’s Notes primer. My essay tries to pare this incredibly complex topic down to a few basic, digestible concepts to a reader who is otherwise hostile to gender-critical ideas. Here it is.
There’s no one way into this mess of a topic, and there’s no single, universal story that comes close to capturing it — yet. But I puzzle every night and day over whether such a solution is possible, in the way mathematicians and chessmasters probably puzzle over abstract theorems. I want so badly for there to be some kind of elegant, simple solution: an easily deployed explanation I can use to break my erstwhile friends free of the spell of gender madness. It’s a cult, and it’s stolen my life away because it’s stolen virtually all of my friends and colleages, and I keep wishing for some kind of science-fiction code word that will break them all out of the spell, like Angela Lansbury’s Queen of Diamonds playing card in The Manchurian Candidate — only in reverse: to break someone OUT of a mind-control trance, instead of inducing one.
There’s gotta be a solution out there somewhere that will solve this problem! Something to stop the madness!
Until we find one, I hope the recommendations come in handy for you.
I’ve downloaded Bailey’s book and am simply riveted. I really liked the interviews of him I’ve seen, so I really appreciate getting the link to the PDF.
At first, I was put off, a bit angry with the catering to stereotypes, but as Bailey went on, I simply fell in love with Danny. I am a gay man but I did not present in childhood the way Danny did. The book keeps reminded me of my own isolation–I was not much of a “gay” gay boy, definitely not a rough-and-tumble straight boy. I liked girls immensely–they seemed so bright and funny!–but their clothes were just weird to me. I distinctly remember seeing my mother’s satiny girdle in the hamper in the bathroom once. I pulled it out, looked it over and thought “What the fuck is this?” Never crossed my mind to put it on. . . .
I’m still in the early pages of Bailey’s book and find myself rooting for Danny, although his story differs from mine. Let the sissyboys be sissies, for chrissakes.
Loved your article, Arty! I would add Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier and The Abolition of Sex by Kara Dansky to the list as well. Feminism for Women by Julie Bindel and Hags by Victoria “Glosswitch” Smith are about many things besides gender ideology, but are obviously relevant to this topic also. I also think it is vitally important to see gender ideology in the context of wider intellectual trends, whether you prefer to call it “applied postmodernism”, “wokism”, “identity politics”, “the identity synthesis”, or something else entirely. If Plucrose and Lindsay are too toxic for you, at least check out Yascha Mounk’s The Identiy Trap. As I commented on elsewhere, these books are not specifically about gender, but it’s trivially easy to apply their arguments against “the thing” in general to gender ideology in particular. The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt is probably worth checking out as well.
I half expected to find Material Girls more annoying than I did, since Stock had been accused of bothsiderism. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to discover that I liked it a lot better than expected. I especially appreciate the way Stock, more than anyone of the other authors, touched on something I personally keep returning to, which is this: It’s not simply about the right of trans people to “define who they are”. Hardly anything they have to say make sense without a lot of implicit claims about who and what other people are as well: “Women are whatever they have to be to make me one of them”, “Other people are whatever they have to be (“cis”, “binary”, “gender conforming” etc.) to make me different, special, an exception (“trans”, “non-binary”, gender non-conforming” etc.)”, “Other people have to fit inside static and rigid boxes, so I can be more ‘fluid’ by comparison”. Redefining “man” and “woman” as “an inner sense of self” turns these labels into an implicit claim about what’s going on inside other people’s heads, and they don’t get a say in the matter.
Very good point!
Yes, their freedom and specialness require everyone else’s continued imprisonment and conformity. They’re the only ones clever enough to break their chains. Their “gender identity” depends on misgendering anyone who doesn’t have a gender identity, imputing the existence in others of something that just isn’t there.
AM–I just read the opening of your Substack article and, holy shit! I can’t wait to read the whole thing!
Great article, Arty! There’s only one point I would modify.
Falling out of favour suggests it’s in favour. I would argue that the extreme belief system isn’t currently in favour with the masses. I think the masses are broadly ignorant, and gender fundamentalism isn’t on their radar enough to be noticed and supported as such. Genderists want to keep it that way, which is why they’re so desperate to avoid debate, and to shut down people who are pointing out the extremeness itself. Genderists would prefer an ignorant compliance to a knowing opposition. I think the more people learn what’s really happening, the more they will oppose it, but they will do so without ever having really “supported” it in the first place, beyond a vague sense of “fairness” and “kindness” arising from the carefully cultivated, yet completely false analogizing with Gay Rights. Captured media play into this strategy by using “preferred” language, hiding male intrusion into women’s spaces. Actual policing of language and communication by actual police is part of this too. If there was widespread support for gender fundamentalism, I don’t think this camouflage and policing would be necessary.
As left-leaning people, we’re both, as Canadians, ill-served by the parties we would most likely support, all of them having bought into “strong” transgenderism. I’m not sure what it will take (a sufficient number of successful lawsuits? Electoral disaster that can be tied unambiguosly to the support of gender ideology?) for these parties to wake up from this nightmare of supporting lies and delusions, letting right-wing parties of all stripes to be able to truthfully tell voters that (on this issue) they are being lied to, and bullied into submission. It was really disheartening to hear Trudeau make a speech in which declared that LGBTQ…people’s “existence” was “not up for debate.” NOBODY IS DOING THAT JUSTIN. Stop legitimizing the idea that this is something that’s actually happening. Stop supporting the continued forced teaming with LGB people.
How about Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children by Hannah Barnes? This would be a good introduction to the whole “trans” controversy for a newcomer.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230216130621/https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2023/02/hannah-barnes-inside-collapse-tavistock-gender-clinic-lgbtq-transgender-nhs
I do think what is *really* needed is an illustrated introduction to gender-critical ideas for adolescents.
You do a search for “books about the transgender issue for teenagers” and the usual suspects all come up – Shon Faye, Lewis Hancox, Juno Dawson. There must be at least 30 pro-TRA books for adolescents currently on the market.
Arty:
Thank you for that article.
If someone seems to have bought into trans ideology, I guess I can point it out in a fairly non-committal way to start discussion with minimal hostility. Ie: I can ask if they think you get significant points wrong.
And for a little amusement, also check out the novels by Simon Edge that are based on the UK’s gender wars, given a twist to make the persecuted beliefs be about the Earth being round or not created 6000 years ago: “The End of the World is Flat” and “In the Beginning”.
My wife has Ryan T. Anderson When Harry Became Sally — Responding to the Transgender Moment on her pile of unread books.
I don’t know anything about it.