Trans Skepticism Goes Mainstream

By Madeleine Kearns

Saturday, July 09, 2022

 

The saying goes that when America sneezes, Britain gets the cold. However, when it comes to skepticism about transgender ideology, the reverse might be true. Perhaps buoyed by the courage of the fierce female natives of “TERF island” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), left-leaning American women are feeling increasingly emboldened.

 

“WOMEN OF THE WORLD!” Bette Midler wrote on Twitter last week. “We are being stripped of our rights over our bodies, our lives and even of our name! They don’t call us ‘women’ anymore; they call us ‘birthing people’ or ‘menstruators’, and even ‘people with vaginas’! Don’t let them erase you! Every human on earth owes you!’”

 

It’s not just her. Macy Gray, the singer, told Piers Morgan on his Talk TV show Uncensored: “I will say this and everyone’s gonna hate me, but as a woman, just because you go change your parts, doesn’t make you a woman, sorry.” J. K. Rowling, Britain’s most famous trans skeptic, tweeted her support: “Today feels like a good day to ensure I’ve bought @MacyGraysLife’s entire back catalogue.”

 

Of course, such commonsense statements are not themselves newsworthy. After all, it shouldn’t be controversial to recognize or say what a woman is. What is interesting is that long-standing darlings of the Left are willing to break ranks with their fellow celebrities on this issue. CNN reports “Macy Gray and Bette Midler face backlash for comments criticized as transphobic.” But backlash from where? Criticized by whom?

 

A recent Politico cover story, “The Metamorphosis of JK Rowling,” gives an idea. The artwork depicts a witchy-looking Rowling obscured by black shadows. The author, Sarah Wheaton, sets out to investigate why some fans abhor Rowling for what she’s said about transgenderism, only to reach the preordained conclusion that it’s because Rowling (and what she says) is nasty.

 

At the beginning of her piece, Wheaton identifies Rowling’s politics as having historically been “politically in the milquetoast center left.” For instance, when Rowling entered online debates with Jeremy Corbyn supporters, she tweeted in response to one critic, “little known fact about filthy bourgeois neoliberal centrists — we’re tougher than you’d think ;)” But Wheaton does not esteem such toughness. Rather, she sympathizes with those who find Rowling guilty of “cruelty” and “punching down.”

 

An example of this, Wheaton says, is Rowling’s “tweeting a public complaint” about a trans activist video which included the line, “J.K. hope you fit in a hearse.” She also thought Rowling insufficiently kind in complaining that trans activists had assembled outside her home and advertised her address online. “The activists took so much heat from Rowling’s followers that they deleted the photo — and their accounts.” Talk about gaslighting.

 

“It’s hard to escape the impression that Rowling is having a lot of fun,” Wheaton writes. This, Wheaton puts down to the fact that “her side seems to be winning.” On that alone, she may be right.

 

In America, left-leaning commentators such as Bill Maher and Bari Weiss have been unafraid to speak critically of transgender orthodoxy. Recently, even the New York Times has been publishing trans-skeptical perspectives. Times columnist Pamela Paul aligned herself with British “terfs,” including Rowling, arguing that both the far Left (in its transgender policies) and the far Right (in its abortion policies) agree that “women don’t count.” “Even the word ‘women’ has become verboten,” Paul complained. “In its place are unwieldy terms like ‘pregnant people,’ ‘menstruators’ and ‘bodies with vaginas.’” All this, she said, is a “bitter way to mark the 50^th anniversary of Title IX.”

 

For liberals, having right-wing tendencies and sympathies is one of the worst accusations you can face. However, this weapon can be wielded in both directions. In Wheaton’s Politico piece, she takes care to emphasize that on the one hand there are celebrities and Harry Potter cast members, and “on the other side of the spectrum,” Vladimir Putin (who said Rowling was a victim of cancel culture). But popularity contests are not proof of argument. And arguments of “guilt by association” are similarly unserious, as the feminist philosopher and trans-skeptic Kathleen Stock recently wrote: “There are also many on the Left who are not so shallow or contrarian, who can grasp basic humane points about children’s health or women’s rights without waiting to see who else agrees with them.”

 

Conservatives are used to being precanceled. When people on the right challenge liberal orthodoxies, they are typically ignored. They’ve come to expect it and tune it out. But when people associated with the Left raise objections, they are viewed as much more threatening, even though the views they express are objectively milder. Nevertheless, American liberals are increasingly willing to speak out against transgender orthodoxy. Let’s hope they keep it up.