Convert, you bigot!

The trans demand that everyone else denies who they are

Photo by Norbu GYACHUNG on Unsplash

Sometimes it takes just one lightbulb moment to dramatically shift the way you look at a problem. Among all the controversies associated with the Olympics, the trigger for me was one word, “passport”. Is that all it takes to be a woman, an entry on a passport? Therefore, with self-declared gender change legal in many countries, any man can enter female Olympic events.

And then I realised what is so different about the push for trans rights compared to gay rights. As a clinical psychologist in the 1970s-90s I saw many sexuality-questioning clients, and in the 70s-80s social attitudes still held that homosexuality was sinful and deviant. The threat of conversion therapy of one kind or another was very real. At that time Sydney psychiatrist Neil McConaghy was well known for using aversion therapy to literally shock gay people into renouncing same-sex attraction (it didn’t work). My clients had to cope with family, friends and police who disapproved of their same-sex orientation.

But with trans rights, it isn’t the gender-questioning person who is at risk of conversion practices, rather they are affirmed as quickly as possible. There are so many days and weeks celebrating LGBTQI Pride that nobody could escape the message that gender-questioning people are a vulnerable group who need social support and attention. Trans-identifying people can be anything they say they are, and anyone who disagrees is a bigot, a transphobe and guilty of hate speech.

The group most at risk of conversion practices are females of all ages who don’t believe a boy can become a girl, or that a man can become a woman. Telling a woman she is transphobic for saying a woman is an adult human female is like telling gay people they are sinners who must repent.

But before I delve further into the maze of contradictions and confusions inherent in trans ideology, it is helpful to understand how trans activists became so powerful that they dictate the meaning of words to suit their agenda.

Queer disruption

The rise to power of trans activists began with a strategy developed during the 1990s. When Queer Theory displaced women’s issues in university departments of gender studies, it created the opportunity to influence students from a range of disciplines to embrace the philosophy whose sole purpose is the disruption of accepted gender and sexuality norms.

Unlike the gay rights movement, trans activists favoured an aggressive and, dare I say, unethical approach, including labelling any research that contradicted their claims as unscientific, shutting down any opposition using claims of “bigotry” or “transphobia”, and piggy backing on gay rights which had made substantial gains in the last decades of the twentieth century. Trans activists insisted “the science is settled” and there could be “no debate” over their claims.

The next step was to spread the influence of queer advocates into public and private workplaces. Management hierarchies were convinced to sign up to the various versions of the Workplace Equality Index (WEI) developed by Stonewall as the definitive benchmark on LGBTQ workplace inclusion, using an in-depth employee survey on organisational culture. In fact, this is a propaganda tool under the deceptive banner of “diversity and inclusion”.

A close examination of the content of the WEI reveals that its sole aim is to entrench trans ideology in workplaces and maintain the commitment by requiring gender ideologues to be given key roles in the management hierarchy.

The Australian Workplace Equality Index is an example of how public and private organisations around the world have been captured by gender ideology. It certainly is “comprehensive and rigorous”. The following are just some of the actions that the employer commits to—

We have at least one diversity/HR professional whose job description, performance appraisal or work plan includes specific and detailed LGBTQ inclusion objectives/targets

We include specific diversity and inclusion accountabilities, job goals or expected outcomes within senior management appraisals beyond generic company values addressing diversity/inclusion (this may or may not include LGBTQ-specific accountabilities)

We have established and promoted an internal LGBTQ advisory group available across the organisation

Media coverage: our work in LGBTQ inclusion has been covered by an independent source (not internally written or published) within the assessed calendar year

We have actively distributed, promoted or developed information on how to be an ally to trans and gender-diverse employees

Within the assessed calendar year, we have celebrated and promoted LGBTQ Days of Significance across the organisation while providing and/or educating employees with an understanding of why these dates are important

Once trans activists are entrenched in upper management, any challenge can be and has been brutally silenced, with the threat of sanctions including termination of employment of any employee who disagrees with any aspect of gender policy. The experience of Queensland psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer is a case in point; there are many others who don’t make the media.

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Language games

For generations a person’s sex defined their gender, so the words were used interchangeably—

Woman: an adult female human being

Female anatomy is distinguished from male anatomy by the female reproductive system, which includes the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, and vulva

Man: an adult male human being

Male is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilisation

One of the early demands made by trans activists was to separate these words—

Gender: Broadly, gender is a set of socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate (see social construction theory)

Gender Identity: A person’s deeply held core sense of self in relation to gender. Gender identity does not always correspond to biological sex. (Emphasis added)

And this is where it gets complicated. Gender activists insist that transwomen are women, that women can be either sex, and therefore biology is irrelevant to gender identity. A sleight of hand then comes into play, with the biological male characteristics magically becoming female biology: a penis is now a “ladydick”.

Trans women often tuck their lady bits under a thick layer of undergarments called a gaff. 

“Ladydick” (or “girldick”) is a slang term usually used within (often aggressive) forms of Trans Rights Activism to indicate the intact penis of a transgender woman who has not undergone bottom surgery (removal of the male genitals, etc.). That is, it is a trans woman’s penis. (Emphasis in original text)

To define a woman as an adult human female is considered a transphobic slur; some people lose jobs over this, and politicians refuse to answer the question “what is a woman?”

Males or lesbians who don’t want to have sex with a transwoman are, apparently, transphobic bigots. They are accused of having a “genital fetish” and need therapy to resolve their “genital phobia”.

The demand from trans activists is that transwomen—males—must be accepted as women and have access to female-only spaces, sports, associations. Why isn’t there the same expectation that transmen—females—access all male spaces?

False beliefs

A fact is verifiable, whereas a belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.

A fundamental belief underpinning trans ideology is that sex is not binary. This is verifiably false: sex in all species is about reproduction, and for humans, every person on the planet exists because sex is binary, an egg from a female is fertilised by sperm from a male, including people born with disorders of any kind in sight, hearing, mobility, sexual development and so on. Visit an IVF clinic if in doubt.

The person who came up with the notion that sex is a spectrum was being deliberately provocative and/or doesn’t know the difference between sex-related characteristics and a person’s biological sex (female or male). It is true that both women and men have diverse bodies, sex characteristics, voices, frames, statures and so on, and these overlap across the female and male ranges. This has always been the case. However, humans have a good record of being able to distinguish females from males from an early age.

There are occasions when a woman may be mistaken for a man and vice versa, which demonstrates that it is sex-related characteristics that are on a spectrum, not sex itself.

Gender-critical beliefs are quite ordinary beliefs based on biological reality about the two sexes. If you accept that people are born either female or male, that a young female is a girl while a young male is a boy, and that they grow up to be women or men, then you are gender critical. Disorders of sexual development occur, but just as blindness doesn’t change the definition of sight, these disorders don’t change our understanding of binary sex.

Trans activists, however, become apoplectic at the idea of single-sex spaces, sports, change rooms, and associations. Who would have thought that stating “a woman is an adult human female” would be classified as hate speech?

Second-wave feminists of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, of which I am a proud veteran, fought for independence from and equality with males. In some Australian towns, the rules barring married women from paid work were not repealed until the 1980s. Rape in marriage was only criminalised in the state of Queensland in 1989. Married women couldn’t get a passport without their husband’s consent until the law changed in 1983. We fought for equal access to the professions such as medicine and engineering, to express ourselves intelligently without having to consider the feelings of men. We fought and won these battles, and through all this, what we wore and how we looked were the least of our concerns.

All this demonstrates the ignorance of trans activists who wilfully declare that gender-critical women favour regressive gender stereotypes.

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Video: Feminist writer Julie Bindel on the dangers for women of trans ideology

Anti-female conversion

I would never in my wildest dreams have believed that females would be subject to conversion practices—

Change or suppression (conversion) practices are considered extremely harmful. They are practices that intend to change or make someone hide their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. (Emphasis added)

Consider the treatment of the females on the university swim team when transwoman Lia Thomas was allowed to join; this gives a clear account of a conversion practice—

“The most disturbing thing [was] the psychological manipulation from the [university] that made the real girls on the team question their own common sense and judgment. They knew it was wrong to have a man on the team but the gaslighting campaign was extremely effective.”

One of the most concerning examples of a conversion practice is a ruling by the Australian Human Rights Commission that lesbians cannot hold a public event only for lesbians born female but must include translesbians (males who identify as a lesbian). This requires the lesbians to hide their own sense of being lesbian and/or change their beliefs about who can be a lesbian, and to be forced to acknowledge translesbians as their equal.

And this is far from the only situation in which women are subject to conversion practices as a result of the requirement that they accept transwomen as women—

in their sports teams, thus displacing female competitors and putting the other females on the team at risk of injury

in their change rooms

on women-only social apps

in female work roles

when required to wear a pronoun badge in their work

when expected to accept being referred to as “person with a front hole”, a “menstruator”, a “non-man”

when required to refer to “her penis”

when punished for gender-critical views

Although the physical differences between males and females mean that transmen are less likely to want to share spaces such as change rooms, nevertheless men are also targeted by trans activists.

Males are being required to change or hide their deeply held core sense of self in relation to gender and sexual orientation in the following situations—

Straight men are told they are transphobic and have a genital fetish if they won’t date transwomen

Gay men are told they are transphobic and have a genital fetish if they won’t date transmen

Both sexes are labelled transphobic and bigoted if they state that a woman can’t have a penis.

In my opinion, the following actions put children at risk of incorrectly coming to the belief they are trans when—

the first question a gender-affirming health professional asks a gender-questioning young client is “what are your pronouns?” thus immediately signalling the approved answer, increasing the risk of an inappropriate diagnosis

the school has a curriculum teaching that a child can be born in the wrong body as a fact rather than a contested belief

the school has a curriculum teaching that a girl can become a boy and vice versa as a fact rather than a contested belief

when school staff support a student to transition at school without assessment by an appropriately qualified health professional

when school staff support a student to transition without the knowledge and consent of the parents who may have good reason to be concerned about their child coming to that belief

Children are at risk of distress and confusion when they are required to accept trans-identifying students in their spaces, sports or associations and are disciplined if they express any concerns.

Backlash coming

From my 50 years of clinical practice, I know some people genuinely hold the belief that they are the other gender, and some benefit from transitioning socially, medically and surgically to live as the preferred gender. The major hurdle to safe clinical practice is the absence of clear diagnostic guidelines to identify those most likely to benefit from living in their preferred gender after transition.

The transpeople I know are ordinary people living ordinary lives, not bothered by being “misgendered”. They know they haven’t changed sex and they are mindful of other people’s right not to accept them as the other sex. These are the individuals the average person in the community thinks of when they are asked if they support trans rights.

But support will drop as the criteria for being “gender diverse” broadens, and the demands of trans activists become more strident and extreme, as people witness abusive masked males in black shouting at and threatening violence to women expressing views based on biological reality. I suspect that all the drama of the Olympics will have a negative impact concerning “gender-queer” people in general and male bodies in female sports in particular. Attitudes will change as males in female sports inflict injuries on girls and women and take trophies meant for females.

Until recent times the trans activist strategies of trashing science and abusing anyone who disagrees were very effective. That time has passed. As more people become aware of the activities of males insisting on accessing female spaces, ordinary transgender people living their lives peacefully will also face the backlash.

Queer theorists don’t care about individuals, their stated aim is to disrupt societal norms, regardless of the harm that does to children, adults and families of both sexes and any gender identity.

Feminists who talk about “intersection” and insist that transwomen are women in my view do not have the right to call themselves feminists. By supporting the view that a man can be a woman, they are preferencing the wants of a group of males over the needs of females, they are supporting conversion practices for all females.

Now gender-critical women may need to take the fight to trans activists by calling out conversion practices against females. How individuals and groups do that will be shaped by the fact that each jurisdiction will have its own criteria and penalties for conversion practices.

Dr Sandra Pertot retired not long ago after five decades of practice as a clinical psychologist specialising in human sexuality, including sexual dysfunction, sexual orientation and gender diversity

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