Letter Sent to PFLAG Vancouver Regarding Their Trans Protest Against Feminist Meghan Murphy: Some LGBT Community Members Support Her Right to Speak
Dear Colin McKenna of PFLAG Vancouver,
My name is Justine Kreher. I’m the bisexual woman, married to a lesbian, who talked to you briefly at the transgender rally against feminist Meghan Murphy (Vancouver BC, Jan 10, 2018).
I mentioned I thought the rhetoric that was being promoted by the protest and PFLAG was harmful. The conversation was a little terse, which I regret, as I am sure we both have strong feelings around this issue and want to do the right thing. I have volunteered in safe sex and LGBT youth activism in the past. I previously was a very enthusiastic trans activist movement supporter. I can assure you, many other people attending the talk in support of Murphy were as well.
I have some differing opinions from Murphy. I am not a “feminist.” I identify more with "skeptical" media (podcasts, blogs) than feminism. My opinions on trans activism are informed and well-researched. Some feminists often have the more rational arguments than those found in trans activism. Many people have not truly thought out all of the ramifications of it to other people.
I would greatly appreciate it if you, and other members of PFLAG, will hear me out and honestly address why so many women, lesbians, gay men (some bisexuals and trans people) have serious problems with what has been going on with trans activism.
Critics span the far-left to the far-right and everyone in between. If these issues are not addressed in a healthy way, I promise you they will only get worse. Staging protests, like the one in BC, will do absolutely nothing to solve these problems. The trans movement is bleeding allies among many former friends like myself. Understanding opposing viewpoints is in the interests of the trans people PFLAG serves (a population who does need support that I, and others you likely demonize, do care about).
Trans activism has been displaying a pattern of abusive, censorist, and slandering behavior going back to the harassment of Michael Bailey and Alice Dreger, for books they wrote on scientifically valid arguments about the causes of MtF transgenderism. This pattern has spilled over into threats to people's jobs, relentless harassment campaigns, and threats of violence and rape, on a regular basis, against anyone who disagrees with any aspects of trans activism. The most vitriolic behavior is directed at women.
I don’t recommend GLSEN, PFLAG, the HRC, The National Center for Lesbian Rights, or any other LGBT org continue to turn a blind eye to this. These orgs, currently funded largely from trans activist money, know it’s going on but do turn a blind eye. Thousands of LGBT people signed a statement against Stonewall UK for promoting the same kind of discourse PFLAG and others were at the Murphy event (see here and here). You must understand you don’t speak for the whole LGBT community.
I also am very well aware that all identity politics movements have extremism problems and never demonize whole communities, ever. I criticize my own community often. It is just objectively worse here in multiple ways. I follow many trans allies who believe this too.
I could send you a very long list of problematic behavior that includes bomb threats being called in to women’s events. This is for women wanting to meet to discuss legitimate issues such as:
extremely violent MtFs being put in prison with women, where they go on to sexually grope and harass them (multiple cases exist)
trans women routing biological females in sports
giving hormone blockers to children when some youth may outgrow GD and often wind up gay or lesbian
an (alleged) sexually inappropriate MtF, with a strong interest in tampons and tween girls (allegedly), trying to force Vancouver women to wax “female-identified” testicular sacks, with punishing legal complaints, using the BC government. You can see screencaps attributable to this person warning graphic here. Social media has been working to protect this individual from scrutiny, and in my opinion, LGBT organizations as well. This precipitated Murphy’s event, as they banned her from social media, for referring to this person as male. Behavior worse than the graphics I linked apparently
Examples of how these issues negatively impact other people, mostly women, and especially lesbians, in the real world:
1) The ideology that trans women are “literally” biologically female is causing actual rights infringements on other human beings.
Women are getting trounced by MtFs in sports. Estrogen does not erase all differences in muscle, bone, heart, and lung structure. In New England, biological males won 5 out of the 6 winning positions in high school track for that state (3 for boys and 2 positions that should have gone to girls). This will become the norm when LGBT organizations in the US destroy Title 9 as protecting biological females’ rights.
This person below has already broken a woman’s leg. Another woman in MMA had her skull bashed in by an MtF trans person.
Extremely violent offenders, sometimes sexual offenders, are being put in women’s prisons, where they are sexually harassing women. Female guards are also forced to do body searches on them. The sex offender rate for MtFs in Britain is actually higher than for the other males. This is not to paint all trans people this way but the stats are the stats, and these seem to have been verified by gov. sources. Similar incidences have happened in homeless shelters. There is a lot of apathy about this, especially from males such as yourself, who like to repeat “trans women are women,” with no actual consequences to you personally, or to males in general, in the real world.
These sex offenders, being put in female prisons, also will now be counted as “lesbian crime” as most are MtFs attracted to women. Changing birth certificates, and legally sealing them, erases biological females as a legal and scientifically studiable population. MtF stats can easily be lumped in with all statistics on women. They can be lumped in with lesbian crime stats, econ stats, health stats. etc. Lesbians, will officially and legally be a population where over 1/3 of its members are actually biological males with gender dysphoria. I read these studies and blog about ways to help my own community. This denies the empirical reality that these are 2 different groups with different needs and my rights to understand them. I’m bisexual and don’t even want lesbian and bi female stats combined, which they often are in studies. These are different groups in important ways. This matters.
Warning: profanity in screencaps to follow
Lesbian youth have been exposed now for years to a constant social justice campaign to have their sex organs be an affirmative action program for the “queer” community. 90% of sexual orientation guilt is directed, not at straight men, women, or gay men like yourself, but at lesbians by MtFs and queer theory allies. Thousands of examples range from emotionally manipulative accusations of bigotry and transphobia to threats of violence and rape. You know well that gay men would not be expected to tolerate being told to suffocate and choke on gay trans men’s genitals. Lesbians are expected to tolerate this, as other members of the LGBT community monster them when they try to push back.
This dirty laundry needs to be aired. LGBT orgs know all about this. You send out tweets about respecting pronouns every single day, and not one single one decrying this behavior directed at lesbian youth. Cowardice and rank hypocrisy would be terms I’m comfortable with here. Evidence of this has been sent to LGBT orgs on SM, including PFLAG. You all know. You intentionally ignore it. Not a single finger has been raised at any LGBT org to stop the type of harassment lesbians like Arielle Scarcella, and every other lesbian her age gets, who expresses even the politest boundaries around having sex with trans women (see “Dear Trans Women, Stop Pushing “Girl Dick” On Lesbians.”).
“Oh, this is just social media troll drama” No, it is not. These arguments are promoted (albeit more politely) by the most vocal trans activists, on the most prominent liberal media sites. This has affected lesbians in real life on multiple occasions. LGBT organizations would do well to understand just how angry this is making lesbians (and more and more gay men every day), and how destructive it is to tell gay men and lesbians their sexual orientation is problematic now because…postmodern queer theory. Because trans people may exercise body choice, but gay people are shamed for doing so.
2) The number of females with gender dysphoria has increased dramatically, all enthusiastically celebrated and promoted by organizations like PFLAG. This is despite research data that shows some youth, with even serious GD, grow up gay or lesbian. There is also a long list of historical examples of female teens and young adults who get caught up in body harming fads. These charts strongly suggest social contagion. If you think all of these teen and young adult females, getting double mastectomies at such young ages, are going to be perfectly fine in 10 years, I can tell you they all won’t be.
I’m sure the gender affirmative model has benefits for the trans community. Their rights must be respected. But some of this is harmful to LB youth. Damage is already happening, and we have a right to talk about it without being threatened and having parents have to cower in the shadows because trans activists viciously harass them. I would be willing to bet PFLAG will never talk about this. Over-medicalized lesbian, bisexual, and autistic female youth, are of zero concern to any LGBT organization. If they were of concern, these orgs would be honest about the fact these stats look disturbing.
3) It’s very irresponsible of LGBT organizations to come out and constantly push the trans suicide narrative, which was happening at the Meghan Murphy protest you were participating in. It violates the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide’s own guidelines for reporting suicide in LGBT youth and the advice of all other suicide prevention organizations. It is well-known suicide, especially in young people, is socially contagious.
Trans youth can be supported. Trans youth can be taught that they are loved. Trans youth can be taught their difference makes them special. Trans youth can be strong. And trans youth can understand some aspects of gender ideology affect other people’s rights, and this doesn’t mean people hate them or “don’t want them to exist.” All LGBT orgs need to role model resilience, respect for differing worldviews, and emotional regulation of difficult feelings. I recommend reading research by Johnathan Haidt, for evidence that raising young people to be highly reactive and to catastrophize conflict is harmful to them. And how “safe spaces” (you mentioned the library should be one) aren’t always helpful in the long run. I say this as a person who had a serious anxiety disorder when younger and who was psychologically damaged by my status as a sexual minority. Please don’t think I don’t understand being a minority and hurt feelings and suicide ideation, I do. But I do not think the event was handled responsibly.
4) Another reason people don’t want to go along with gender ideology anymore…I and many others, do not believe there are multiple genders, that you become a rare gender by declaring special pronouns, and that you should force people to validate these identities. And I’m a pretty solid balance between masculine and feminine and had some gender dysphoria as a tween. The way genderqueer ideology is expressing itself, in the current culture, is not the same as in past indigenous societies which should not be glorified anyway. These cultures did not have time to obsess about identity minutia. I see a “queer” youth culture where there is more gender dysphoria, more body dysmorphia, and more negative rumination. I am not seeing gender liberation happening here.
In my opinion, all of this conflict is avoidable, but it requires mutual respect and a willingness to problem-solve. Maybe you disagree.
I can, however, tell you the type of protest you engaged in where women who are:
tired of having their issues ignored
tired of losing to bigger/stronger MtFs in sports
tired of being threatened and harassed
tired of being told they need to be sexually available for social justice
are compared to the Ku Klux Klan (who raped, murdered, and castrated black people, and set their houses on fire), is not going to solve anything. There are reasons why more people attended the talk than the protest. These reasons are why people are losing the desire to respect pronouns. I urge you to reflect on why.