Poets and Storytellers United: Writers’ Pantry #65: The Complexities of Gender Id...

Poets and Storytellers United: Writers’ Pantry #65: The Complexities of Gender Id...: Some months ago, an acquaintance stopped talking to me after I congratulated them on completing a difficult project. I didn’t even know this...

This issue is too complex for me to address my entirety of thought on it. Suffice it to say, I align with J.K. Rowling, who said she respects “every trans person’s rights to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.” She went on to say she would march “if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”

There is a lot of misogyny in the gender identity movement, and that is my biggest problem with it. Referring to women as "menstruators," "birthing parents" and "chestfeeders" is utterly appalling to me. I also don't believe in putting children on a path to lifelong medicalization via puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery. No ethical surgeon would give a 13-year-old girl DD implants. Why do surgeons deem it ethical to remove the healthy breasts of a 13-year-old girl struggling with gender dysphoria?

Like J.K. Rowling, I have received death and rape threats and been branded a "TERF C*nt" for my concerns regarding the erasure of women and the rising number of young women wanting to take steps to transition to male.

Also like J.K. Rowling, I don't hate transgender people. My housemate is a bisexual transwoman. I'm very much a live and let live kind of person. But I think it's very dangerous to have an ideology where no-one is allowed to explore or question. Those who question gender ideology risk being ostracized, blacklisted, and even physically harmed. I consider this to be a very serious problem.

~Sly Has Spoken~