Review: The Abolition of Sex

There is a curious new anti-transgender book out now that comes from the extreme left, so-called transgender exclusionary radical feminism (TERF). The TERFs have made the news lately because J.K. Rowling and Dave Chapelle have espoused TERF political positions. Most anti-trans books come from the right but this is an exception. The book is The Abolition of Sex by Kara Dansky. You may see her on your favorite YouTube or TV channel. Ms. Dansky is making her way through the political YouTube sites to publicize her new book. Don’t buy it, if you can help it. Save your money. I will hit the (low) points and provide some of the science and facts that refute them herein.

Kara Dansky

Kara Dansky

Ms. Dansky tries to provoke fear of transgender people by saying that their existence harms “women and girls”. In her book, she claims that transgender people seek to abolish sex, but it is clear that she is the one trying to abolish sex by conflating it with gender. She bashes capitalism like the other leftists do, but she also bashes the left RAPOMO (Reified Applied Postmodernist woke) “wokies” for their positions on “identity” and tolerance of transgender people. (The wokies, of course, only care about transgender people to the extent that they can gain political power by using us as tokens.)

Kara says she is a “feminist, attorney and public speaker.” Not just any feminist, she proudly proclaims herself to be a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist). Although she has worked for the ACLU and the U.S. Federal judiciary, she is a member of the WoLF (Women’s Liberation Front) and in the leadership of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign. TERFs seem to agree with some leftist “woke” positions and disagree with others. The leftist woke have many names which are constantly changing (social justice warriors, critical queer theory believers, cultural Neo Marxists) but herein we will term them the RAPOMO woke. For example, TERFs agree with the RAPOMO woke that their enemy is the patriarchy which oppresses groups using cultural power. They are also anti-capitalist. However, they do not accept the concept of “identity” which the RAPOMO use to divide people into groups, in this case with respect to gender category. Unlike the RAPOMO, TERFs are biological essentialists with regard to sex and do not recognize the difference between sex and culturally constructed gender behavioral categories. Gender behavior is part of sex for them and they use male/boy/man as meaning the same thing. Also, female/girl/woman as synonyms.

Anti-Capitalism Twist

The TERFs are anti-capitalist. The TERF argument is that being transgender is driven by a mysterious “invisible industry” whose objective is to “obliterate human life as we know it.” (That is an actual quote from the book!) She denies that being transgender is self-motivated but instead it is a:

A top-down, corporate driven enterprise designed to sell products and to maximize profits, being fueled by a small handful of extremely wealthy men whose very objective is to make us all forget that biological sex, not “gender identity” is grounded in material reality.

I have not found such an enterprise but if there is one, it is like blaming a capitalist baker because people need to buy bread! I agree that gender identity is not real but genetic gender behavior predisposition is as real as any heritable trait. It is based on twin studies, genetics, neuroanatomy and neurophysiology science.

Now, here is a twist!. She lays the blame for providing a philosophical basis for this invisible industry on the RAPOMO “wokies” philosophy. But the RAPOMO wokies espouse ardent anti-capitalist sentiment! Either she is not aware of this contradiction or she thinks that the RAPOMO wokies don’t believe their own rhetoric.

Transgender Not Real

And probably most important for transgender people, unlike the RAPOMO woke, the TERFs do not regard transgender women as real women, but merely as males in dresses. They do not believe that being transgender is real, only a delusion; we are only pretending. They don’t talk a lot about trans men because trans men usually are currently not required to be in their spaces. It is ironic that if laws followed TERF positions, trans men being assigned female at birth, would be required to go to the same restrooms and locker rooms as the TERFs who are predominantly women. Wonder, how would that work out?

Her book is difficult to read for transgender or other people, due to the constant conflation of sex and gender. She uses whichever word has the most shock value in each sentence. To her, trans women are “biological men in skirts. (As you will know, the concepts of “skirts” and “men” are contained in gender categories and are not biological in nature. So, her definition is self-contradictory). While she claims that transgender people seek to abolish sex, it is clear that she is the one trying to abolish it by conflating it with gender. This is an old strategy to erase transgender people. But she is denying reality. As I have presented the science in my blog posts: sex, cultural gender behavior categories, and genetic gender behavior predisposition are objective facts. They are backed up by science. A is A. Existence Exists.

Dansky says that the word “transgender” was coined to obscure biological sex. But you, dear readers, know that it was created by John Oliven in 1965 to indicate that those who transition do so because of their gender, not their sex. “Gender”, of course, had been repurposed from grammar declensions by John Money in the late 1950s. She seemingly does not know the history of these words or deliberately obscures them to make the differences between sex and gender go away.

Hate Groups Advocating Gender Change Efforts

Kara has said that her organizations have been labeled as hate groups and they measure up. The definition of a hate group is one that attacks or maligns a group of people because of their immutable characteristics. The WoLF and WHRC groups attack transgender people, even though it has been shown that transgender gender predispositions are formed by genetics. These genetics cannot now be changed. For this reason, attempts to change transgender behavior have universally failed.

Kara says that the best one can do with trans kids is to try to make them comfortable in the gender category assigned them at birth by culture. But that category does not fit trans kids and science shows that they are not confused. Her approach borders on reckless advocacy for reparative or conversion gender change efforts. In some states and countries, these are now illegal. They have been universally condemned by mental health and medical professional organizations because then are ineffective and because of the psychological and physical damage that they cause.

Facilities

Kara maintains that females need protection from transgender women (those assigned male at birth) in segregated facilities, even though only one attack has ever taken place in the U.S. And that one is pretty dubious. It was by a mentally disturbed minor, not crossdressed, who several years after the attack came out as trans. The person is still under house arrest pending mental health treatment. That single problematic case hardly indicates that transgender people are a threat. There are, however, many instances of attacks on transgender women in restrooms. All people need to be protected from sexual assault but excluding transgender women from women’s facilities will not stop attacks and probably encourage them. No new laws are needed, it is already illegal to commit assault or battery in a restroom or locker room or anywhere else for that matter.

Most restroom and locker room facilities in the U.S. were not originally designed to provide privacy for transgender people, or the disabled, or people with families, or people who need assistance from a different-sex provider. Elsewhere in the world, design of such facilities has proceeded, allowing for privacy in individual cubicles, while providing common areas for hygiene and diaper changing. Kara is too busy complaining to advocate for redesigns.

Kara castigates distribution of condoms in prison facilities where transgender people are housed with natal females. Being knowledgeable about lesbians, Kara should be aware that condoms are also used in female-female sex. If they are on hormones for any length of time, most transgender women cannot get erect anyway, making some forms of rape unlikely.

Non-transitioners Have Rights Too

Kara is correct that only about 15% of transgender people transition, that is, have their bodies modified to make them look and function as the opposite sex, but that does not invalidate their need to express their congruent gender. Most such people present part time in their gender. They do not transition because they have families to support, do not want to lose their jobs, or do not want to experience social rejection from the community. Many of the medical procedures involved in transition are major procedures and carry risks which dissuade many from pursuing them.

Athletics

Kara believes it is unfair for trans women to compete with females in athletics, regardless of hormone levels or prior history. But transgender people compete according to the appropriate organization rules (state high school athletic associations, NCAA, AAU, International Athletics, Olympics). If she wants to change those rules, she should be talking to the appropriate non-profit authority.

Donna De Varona

Athletics is inherently unfair to all participants. The inherited athletic abilities of individuals do not fit neatly into categories for competition. Athletic organizations know this and, for example, create weight categories for sports like wrestling and football. It is recognized that smaller schools have fewer athletes to draw from, so competitive categories were created for high school and collegiate sports teams according to school size. The Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, headed by Donna de Varona, former Olympic swimmer is attempting to better integrate transgender people into sports by carving out better competitive categories. The politicization of this issue, helped along by the TERFs, has so far inhibited discussion and resolution.

Transgender Pathology

Kara believes that being transgender as a “delusion”. A delusion is a pathological false belief which is contradicted by objective evidence. Being transgender is no longer classed as a pathology. Wanting to change sex has a medical classification that is in the same category (ICD insurance coding) similar to medical treatment for normal pregnancy. The scientific evidence indicates that we all have genetic gender behavior predispositions. It is just that those of transgender people do not fit with cultural expectations. Scientific evidence shows that transgender people, including trans kids, are not confused or deluded about gender categories or sex.

Driving a Wedge Between Groups

Kara is wrong about her conspiracy theory that the “T” in LGBT was put there so that being transgender people could be regarded as a sexual orientation. Dear Kara, the reason that the “T”s are included in this LGBT movement is that they were there at the pointy end of the spear at the start of the push for LGBT rights. Not only were we at Stonewall but we also were at the three other demonstrations that proceeded it in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia in the 1950-1960s. One of the triggers for these demonstrations was that transgender people had had quite enough of being publicly strip-search by the police. Transgender people have consistently supported rights for LGB people because there are many LGB transgender people (me for one).

Kara mentions pressure by the RAPOMO wokies for lesbians to date transgender people. This is absurd. People can date whoever they want to date. No one is putting a gun to their heads. I currently happen to be dating a lesbian who does not care that I am transgender but likes me for who I am as a person. Does she really think so little of lesbians that they can be verbally forced to date someone? Personally, I find them fiercely independent.

Kara says that transgender people practice misogyny but she seems to be the one harboring hatred, as is common among feminists. Transgender people do not hate females. We have mothers, daughters and many female relatives that we love. Some of us romantically love females. There are, however, feminists who seem to hate males.

Spaghetti on the Wall

The aim of this book seemed to be to throw spaghetti on the wall to see what would stick. Its arguments are self-contradictory, incoherent, anti-scientific and non-factual. Arguments in support of her positions are thin and she makes no attempt to discuss opposing views. For these reasons, the book loses any intellectual impact it might have.

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