Society must recognise trans

peoples gender identities

IQ2 Debate

In February, during Mardi Gras, there was a televised debate whose motion was the title
of this piece of writing. Peter Hyndal and Andrea James, both of whom are trans people,
spoke in favour of the motion. Bronwyn Winter and John Haldane spoke against the motion.
A great many points were made on both sides, but since I almost entirely agree with
Winter and Haldane, Ive decided to concentrate my critique on the affirmative side of this
motion, and pinpoint exactly what I find problematic about the arguments from Hyndal and
James.

The motion
But before I get onto their arguments, I have to say that for me, the motion itself is
problematic, as it reifies, right out of the gate, the concepts of gender identities, trans
people and society.
Firstly, the motion is so worded, I think, that most people (who do not really do much
thinking about this) would find it hard to conceive of a reason why the motion could be
denied. The sentence doesnt really explain what it means, and so this translated, as was seen
in the debate, into a 76% to 4% ratio of people voting yes vs. voting no, before the debate
began. Once the speakers had made their arguments, the final vote showed a swing towards
no, which indicates, at least to me, that a reasonable proportion of the audience changed
their mind once they had heard all of the arguments. My own theory is that if the same
audience attended 10 such debates, with the full range of pro-trans and gender critical
arguments being heard, there would be an even bigger swing. I expect this theory to be borne
out in the wider world as individual people reach their own peak trans moments, and
eventually the tide will turn against the idea that public support for the idea that society
should recognise gender identities. Time, as they say, will tell.
The second problem with the motion, and far more fatal to a proper understanding of
the premises that lie behind it, is that the title suggests that it is society that must do the

!1
recognising. Now, the reason this is such a huge problem, is of course that there is no such
thing as society. Society is not a single referent entity that has the ability to recognise or not
recognise anything. So we must ask what is really meant in the context of this motion.
If by society, it means people, then straight away it must be said that demanding that
an overwhelming majority of people accept the views of a tiny minority (less than 1% of the
population), when those views (that a man can be a woman, for example) contradict what
they have already known their whole lives to be true, is a ridiculous position. And beyond
being absurd, it is downright totalitarian to insist that people engage in the necessary
doublethink and allow their social interactions to be governed on the basis of the obvious
falsehood. It is not a stretch, I would argue, to suggest that such a radical reprogramming of
people to accept such a deception - in fact to be complicit in their own deception - would be
about as Orwellian a scenario as I can imagine.
But I think if you probed a bit deeper into what the motion is meant to get at, one
would find that by societal recognition, what is really being referred to is government, plain
and simple. After all, the trans mob has been (and remains) an activist and lobbyist group to
influence the governments and media establishments of the countries whose laws they want to
change, trying to use them as tools for gendered enforcement.
Now, I have a number of points to make about government, but I dont want to dwell
too much on it because this debate has far greater social importance than can be dealt with
just by critiquing statism.
The first short point to consider, given that we live in a world controlled by long-
established patriarchal elites that control enormous industries, is that for trans ideology to
gain any kind of foothold at all, it must in some way be utilisable by the forces of capitalism,
otherwise it would be dispensed with. How does big businesss profit from trans ideology? you
might ask. Well, do you think that the drugs and operations that trans people sometimes use
dont cost anything at all? The medical cartel is so completely intertwined with Big Pharma
that if there are drugs to be sold, they are for it, and if less drugs would be sold, they are
against it. Thats pretty much a rule of thumb. Additionally, there are very good reasons to
suspect that the splitting of society into fragmented gender identity groups is yet another
incarnation of the divide and conquer tactic that elites have been using for thousands of
years.
Secondly, I want anyone who ends up reading this to visit gender critical feminist
sources and find out for their selves just how much existing policies are harming women.

!2
Andrea James spoke out against the idea of trans people being a threat. I do not know if this
is ignorance or disingenuousness on his part (perhaps he is not aware), but there is simply no
way, that I can see, that laws can be changed in favour of trans people without literally
threatening and harming real women.
Finally, and this is more as a questioning aside: for those that havent yet really looked at
critiques of government as an institution - either moral or practical - just ask yourself how
effective fairness laws have been in addressing the preexisting problems of gender. Do you
think that the effectiveness in this regard depends on who in in power, or the right policies,
or are there deeper dynamics at work?
So thats why I wanted to unpack the motion itself, because the language that is being
used in such debates is already seriously problematic. By talking about society rather than
the individuals who are being asked to change their mind, it implies that people should
engage in thought policing (including self-policing) and asking people to deny what they know
to be true and to reify what they already know to be false.

The speakers

If a motion is introduced that asks people to decide whether or not society should do X
or not, surely each side of the argument ought to be at least somewhat representative of the
society that has been invoked? I mean, if the motion were should Nazi texts be outlawed
and the No campaign were entirely comprised of Nazis, that would make it a little biased,
wouldnt it? Since neither Nazi book burners nor antifascist book banners are representative
of most of the constituents of society, it would surely be a more rounded and reflective debate
if each side were drawn from concerned people who were of the mind to one side or the
other.
So the last thing Id ask readers to bear in mind before we get to the arguments, is that
on the Yes side on this debate, both are transsexuals, who represent less than 1% of society.
This does not in itself automatically invalidate their arguments, but its important to show,
from the outset, that their views stem from a tiny vocal minority. The degree to which that
minority is being victimised or victimising others, is something I encourage you to research
and decide for yourself.

!3
 The pro-trans arguments

Peter Hyndal
Apart from being a transsexual, and therefore inextricably biased, we are introduced to
Peter Hyndal as an activist who ostensibly helped pass some of the identity laws that are
already in place. The first question this raises for me is about the end goal of trans activism
and lobbying. In other words, if they increasingly have the legal recognition they want, why
do they want to change everyones minds as well? Could it be because a law on its own is
nothing without the will to obey it, whether its being enforced or followed (whether by
acquiescence or choice)? Is there an admission in wanting to change everyones minds that
legal recognition is not the real goal? These questions raise interesting points for the
perspectives on government and societal brainwashing that I raised earlier.
It raises one further point as well. Since people are reluctant to deny what they
obviously know, and since laws are already in place that contradict long-established common
knowledge, it means that those laws are, by definition, undemocratic; they have not been
chosen by the people but pushed through by a liberal elite, possibly as part of the agenda I
mentioned earlier.
Before she even begins to make her arguments, Hyndal makes reference to aboriginal
culture - specifically about it being the oldest culture on earth (debatable, but irrelevant) and
how it includes brother boys and sister girls. One can only assume that by bringing up the
longevity of the culture, and the fact that it includes these people, that she wishes to conflate
them as if to suggest that these queer groups have always been a part of aboriginal culture,
and by implication, that transgender ideology has been a part of aboriginal culture stretching
back into the mists of prehistory.
Now, I dont know if there is any evidence that brother boys and sistergirls are a long-
established tradition, but I couldnt find any. There isnt even any reference to the term in
internet searches before 2002 when the first reference appeared on the Australian website
Freedom Centre. What there is plenty of evidence for however, is that aboriginal communities
are apparently even more hostile towards this manifestation of queerness than most
Western societies. If anyone has any evidence that I am mistaken on either of these two
points, I will happily engage with it, but until proven otherwise, Im going to say the evidence

!4
looks like there is no great transgender tradition within aboriginal culture, and that Hyndals
namedropping of this is purely aimed at sycophantic points-scoring and one-upmanship,
making herself look cooler and more liberal than everyone else, and to create a false history
of transgender ideology that is older than it actually is.
Hyndal actually begins her argument by defining gender as a way of thinking about
ourselves, which is one of those statements so vague that its universally true. And if gender
is a way of thinking about oneself, then I would have no difficulty understanding the concept
of a transition wherein one began to think differently about oneself, either by taking on new
behaviours or stopping old ones.
She limits gender initially to man, woman, and neither of those. This narrow
selection should immediately be seen as contradictory to the open, autonomous choice of her
previous premise. Its also worth noting that although she says that these are valid concepts,
her next move is to suggest that they do not have any real meaning.
There are no biological differences that hold true for all men all women over the
course of our lives,shesays. This simply isnt true, is it? Men have two different sex
chromosomes (XY ) and women have two of the same sex chromosomes (XX).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system#Humans

If the only way to make Hyndals statement true, which is necessary for his definition of
transgender, is to include transwomen in the category of woman', that would be a complete
case of a circular argument.
Hyndal goes on to say that if there were [such differences], we would all be able to
articulate them clearly and conciselyand we cant. In this way, Hyndal is using widespread
public ignorance on the subject of biological sex determination as evidence to support her
case. But thats like saying that there are no differences in the everyday life between North
and South Korea because most people cant articulate them clearly and concisely. It is a
wholly invalid argument.
Hyndal then goes on to say that there is no definition of men and women in
legislation. Now, I wasnt sure about this, and so did some research, and it seems that the
reason for the lack of a legal definition of man and woman is that once again, these concepts
have been well-understood for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. Certainly,

!5
there are signs that judicial figures are aware of the basic concepts when they make law. As
was suggested to me by a correspondent, theres probably no legal definition of water, either.
But that doesnt stop people from knowing what it is and functioning normally.
Hyndall then decides to start a path through the realms of pseudoscience, first by
going through list of not alls. Not all women menstruate, not all men are fertile. Well,
its obvious that not all men are fertile, but the flip side of this is that ALL men do possess XY
gonosomes, right? And the instances where women do no menstruate and where men are
infertile are caused by genetic mutations, and are extremely rare. They do not account for
anything like a sizeable proportion of society, and certainly not large enough for there to be
any confusion about what a woman or a man actually is.
Hyndal then implies that the audience could possibly be unaware of their own sex
because they havent had their selves tested. Does she really expect people to stop and wonder
about that? Because weve not had ourselves tested, we cant be sure if were men or
women? What pseudo-scientific BS! Women and men grow up knowing intuitively what they
are, and although there might be understandable confusion in the case of intersex people,
again these are extremely rare. It is not unsympathetic to intersex people to say that their
presence does not invalidate the concept of sex. Its worth noting that Hyndals suggestion
that the audience might not know their own sex directly contradicts her later statement that it
is hurtful for transgender people to be told by others what their sex is.
Hyndals stance is that we assume that we know ourselves based solely on our gender
identity. Errno, we know based on our sex. I know Im a man because my body tells me
so. I have a penis and testicles. No woman has those. Women have vulvas and breasts, which I
do not have. I have to say that I dont know whether Im fertile or not, but there is no way this
lack of knowledge creates a gap of possibility for me to be a woman.
Hyndal then presents her central position. By saying that she recognises people as
women when they say that they are, and that she doesnt ask them for their certificate or ask
them to disrobe, shes implying that this is how other people would react. Er, actually, no,
most people have enough about them to see for their selves. And implying that society and
law should function on the basis of say-so is an absurd corollary. A cop asks questions of a
suspect who says they are NOT a rapistoh well, no further legal procedures are necessary.
The only people who might struggle in a paradigm built on nominalist thinking are those that
are trying to hoodwink others.

!6
 Hyndal tries to support her self-determined theory of sex by saying that what makes
someone a woman is something at the very core of their identitysomething by definition
only they can know. In other words, a persons identity is determined by their identity, which
is entirely decided on by their self. This kind of insane logic has no place in social
interactions, let alone societal debates. Why should society recognise anything that an
individual says as automatically valid? What kind of world would that lead to?
When a trans male claims I am a woman and his claim is rejected, it DOES not mean
that people are saying (as Hyndal suggests) I know better than you do who you really
are [emphasis added], it means that the mans knowledge in that regard is either mistaken
or wholly dishonest. It's worth bringing up, at this point, that if the man in question wants to
engage in behaviour that has been historically gendered as feminine, then I dont think that
any reasonable gender critical commentator is suggesting that he shouldnt. He should be free
to express himself in any consensual way. But that does not, and can not, alter his sex.
The question that can no longer be postponed at this point, and which Hyndal doesnt
even address, is: why does transgender ideology want to obliterate sex?
Again, I would encourage interested readers to explore gender critical feminist
perspectives on this question, and ask their selves if this isnt perhaps a very insidious way to
erase women. Of course there are gendered power structures, but they are based on sex, on
one sex systematically and structurally oppressing the other. Hyndal tries to erase even this,
when she says that the gender structures that oppress women are exactly the same as those
that oppress trans people. This is demonstrably false. How can a trans woman be oppressed
on the basis of their reproductive organs when they do not possess a womb that can bear a
child, and therefore that womb cannot be treated by men as a piece of male property to
control? These kinds of narratives are attempts to erase women and their oppression, plain
and simple.
Hyndal tries to lend weight to her erasure by making a pretence of sympathy. No one,
she says, should tell women how they should or shouldn't look or behave. Yes, doing so is
gendered oppression, but in this context, the meaning of gender is VERY different to the
meaning of gender in trans ideology. Gendered oppression of the female sex is not telling
them that they are women (they already know that). Its telling them that because they are
women they must do X.
At this stage, I would like to introduce a picture from the GCF subreddit.

!7
 Continuing on from what I said earlier about self-expression and consensual activity, this
picture shows very simply how the answer to the patriarchal conundrum of gender is NOT
the reification of an infinite pantheon of genders.
Hyndal actually partially acknowledges this view when she eventually comes around to
the were all different viewpoint. Well yes, in many ways we are all different. In a paradigm
purely conducted on the basis of individual associations, we wouldnt have mass society or
patriarchy or governments. But the debate is taking place in world where those things are
present and do control people.
But anyway, if were all different, and some of us start grouping and using words to
define our group, like Trekkie or metalhead, those words ought to have an objective
meaning, or the reason for the grouping is lost. Women group together as women for a variety
of reasons, and since they live under patriarchy, one of the reasons they group together is to
benefit their selves and other women. All people concerned with undermining control in
social interactions should acknowledge and support this. And since patriarchy inflicts damage,
fear, and trauma on women, when they make groups they are understandably concerned for
their safety. So what a woman means is very important to them, and it just so happens that
what women mean when they say women is the same that the vast majority of humans have
meant when they said women for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. It is the
nominal definition. We all know intuitively and perceptively what a woman is, and although
we might be mistaken or tricked, that does not mean that the word is meaningless. The
attempted intrusion into womens groups and spaces by men, therefore, is something that

!8
simply has to stop, and no apologetics from people standing at lecterns, like Peter Hyndal, can
change that.
Hyndal ends her segment by saying that trans peoples gender identities should be
recognised because trans people exist, as if the existence of a group should automatically be
enough for society in general to recognise their claims. I think not, and I think that any
undecided reader should consider Haldanes question of why it is that no one is suggesting
that society feel pressured to recognise the claims of transracial people like Rachel Dolezal.

Andrea James

I have less to say about the arguments made by Andrea James because in actual fact, he
made far less arguments. Most of what he said was not reasoned argument but a kind of
quasi-religious sermon peppered with bizarre comments. Where Hyndal was systematic and
organised, James was pretty scattered. One wonders if this is part of James very obviously
insincere acted persona? Does he think that all women are a bit ditsy and ought to debate in
that fashion? Why was the transman so typically masculine-gendered in her delivery, and the
transwoman so feminine-gendered? (gendered in the sense of enforced gender)
There are a couple of points he made that I really want to look at though.
Firstly, he made a bizarre suggestion during his speech that trans dis-ease is the result
of a society that expects people to conform to rigid gendered expectations. This is actually
something I think most people looking at this from a gender critical perspective could agree
with. But it actually flies in the face of the trans ideological view that trans people have
always been that way. I think a lot of people, including those suffering from dysphoria,
should think long and hard about this statement, especially when taken together with the
picture I showed earlier. To me, the desperation of having a personality that does not
conform to the gendered expectations for ones sex seems like it could be a hugely important
source of trans dis-ease.
James actually spends a lot of time talking about gendered expectations, though he does
not really go into where they come from or who enforces them. Of course, each person in
society plays their part in continuing to enforce them, by believing in them, which is why only
a wholesale rejection of gender can liberate everyone, regardless of they sex or personality.
And of course, the state institutions are very important, as I mentioned earlier, and are a key

!9
reason why I encourage gender critical people to question the existence of governments and
look at the role that institution plays in enforcing gender roles.
So again, if trans people like James understand that gender is something that is
invented and enforced, why is this appeal being made to society? If the trans mob is
unhappy with how society enforces a gender paradigm, how is the trans ideological gender
paradigm any better? Swapping one form of delusion for another isnt exactly the best way to
overcome delusions.
James also says that this enforcement all comes down to order, and implies that
accepting trans ideology is a libertarian or anarchistic view, wherein one throws off the order
and recognises the freedom of chaos and diversity.
But for reasons already explained, societal manipulation of this sort is closer to being an
infiltration. Its about using society (usually meaning government) to physically force an
aberrational order on people that won't accept it mentally because they inherently know its
wrong.
On the subject of diversity, James quotes someone as saying that nature loves
diversity.society hates it. Again, yes, he is correct, but for the wrong reasons. Yes, society
hates diversity, but because society is controlled by government and elites. But thats not an
argument in favour of any one given sub-group. It must still fall to each group to articulate
and proselytise their position. Should we accept Nazi ideology just because they exist as part
of a diversity? Should we accept paedophilia? No, we dont want them, so stop using diversity
as a way to make us accept insane trans ideology. I can assure you that if the trans
movement repositioned itself as wanting only to abolish gender and encourage acceptance of
people of both sexes engaging in all kinds of consensual behaviours, that they would do a lot
better. Of course, they dont do that, because they want everyone else to accept their claim to
be something they are not. This is why so many critics suggest that the root problem here is
internal conflict (or mental illness, as some people call it) that drives people to extreme
lengths.
James own contribution to the erasure of sex is made through his exposition on what he
calls the tyranny of the binary, and tries to suggest that race, morality and sex are all falsely
being defined in binary terms. Now, when it comes to race, yes, peoples skin comes in all
kinds of different colours. When it comes to morality, yes, many of us view the world
according to frameworks that are more than a simple matter of good and evil. And yes,
human behaviour should NOT be confined to a gendered binary, as Ive already said several

!10
times. But neither should that behaviour be defined by an imaginary gender, either. Reader,
ask yourself which makes more sense, a future society that recognises and legislates for 360
separate genders, or one that has no reference to it at all, and lets people act as they like
without oppressing them.
The worst thing about James inclusion of sex in that list is that it does not fit because it
is binary. Sex as a noun indicates the two different halves of human sexual reproduction. We
have a binary view of this because it is binary, because an ovum and a gamete are the two
distinct halves of human sexual reproduction. One group of people carry one, and the other
group carry the other, and for tens of millennia in most places, one sex (men) have dominated
and oppressed the other (women), in ways that are both obvious and insidious. Again, trying
to erase this fact in any way is an affront to women.
James next gambit is to claim that the arguments made by gender critical feminists are
the same made by religious authorities, which I think is a deliberate and premeditated lie.
Religious authorities refer to a natural order created by a god, and any deviant behaviour as
somehow sinful. Ive not seen any religious figure tackle the issue philosophically from first
principles like the GC feminists with reference to sex. I have no alternative but to see this as a
lie to demonise radical feminists.
But perhaps the most disturbing moment for me in James entire speech was when he
suggested that society should love trans children. For me, the view a person forms about
the concept of trans children is of crucial importance. Rather than swallow the trans
ideological packaging of this concept, I recommend the reader stop and ask their selves some
very important questions. Like what about consent? What about informed choice? What
about the well-understood concept of kids going through phases. If a boy plays with his
friends dick when hes 8, it doesnt mean he IS gay. And if a girl likes Obamas TV persona
when shes a girl, doesnt mean she was born a Democrat, or will even be a lifelong
supporter of that party.
People change all the time. People transition in their views all the time. But they cannot
change their sex. Even if you take a child and butcher them with an operation, and pump
them full of untested artificial hormones, that is not going to change their sex. I think the
death knell of trans ideology will come when some of the kids currently being abused in this
way either reach a certain age when they come more into the public limelight, or fail to reach
that age due to suicides brought on by that abuse.

!11
 If a child really is trans in the way that the trans ideologues claim they are, then what
harm would it do to wait until theyre of majority before you let them choose for their selves
whether they want to permanently alter their bodies. I think that the inconvenient fact is, if
you wait, most of them will grow out of it and this appalling attempt to swell the numbers,
will fail. I hope it does fail, with a minimum of casualties, and I hope everyone involved in
transitioning kids faces justice.
James ends his speech with the statement that acceptance doesn't come from society but
from each individual. I think this is self-evidently true, and I hope listeners to this debate and
readers of this review will think long and hard about the motion theyre being asked to
swallow.
My own view, since its been acknowledged that acceptance comes from the individual:
well, as long as Im in society youre not going to get that acceptance from me. I stand by my
free choice not to buy into this awful religion and I will exercise my free choice to warn
others, as Im doing with this piece of writing.
Thank you all for reading.

!12