Janice Raymond literally wrote the book on how transsexualism developed and it’s effects on women. Writing in 1979, she produced the template of what we are seeing writ-large today. She paid a price, being ousted from her university who then issued a public apology for the association.
This sort of labeling excuses those who use it from engaging with the substance of the arguments and ideas
Janice Raymond, on being the trans community “Public Enemy Number One”
Why You Should Read Janice Raymond
Because she mapped out how and why the gender ideology was created, and how it impacts women in society.
The Transsexual Empire describes the medical empire that has evolved to create and treat the disease of gender dysphoria. Read it for free on Janice Raymond’s website. While John Money was busy performing experimental sex changes on children, Janice Raymond was critiquing his work from an ethicist’s standpoint. Her finding is “… that the issue of transsexualism is basically one of social ontology—that is, an issue of what society allows and encourages its constituency to be.”
Lesbians Don’t Have A Penis
You heard it first in the chapter “The Surgically Constructed Sappho” where Raymond breaks down the social implications of accepting males into female spaces in the 70’s. She muses on the philosophy of whether a male can trans-sex and what his motivations might be for trying to do so.
It is from this chapter that we get the “transphobic” quote “all transsexuals rape women’s bodies”. The full paragraph is more considered:
Rape, of course, is a masculinist violation of bodily integrity. All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves. However, the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist violates women’s sexuality and spirit, as well. Rape, although it is usually done by force, can also be accomplished by deception. It is significant that in the case of the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist, often he is able to gain entrance and a dominant position in women’s spaces because the women involved do not know he is a transsexual and he just does not happen to mention it.
The “rape” is the violation of integrity that occurs when the body is reduced to interchangeable pieces that can be individually appropriated by a male. We are not our breasts or our hair styles, but they are a part of us. When transsexuals pick us apart, they pick these things to dominate and appropriate. It violates our bodily integrity to be deconstructed and consumed in this way.
Listen to the chapter read aloud by Karen (the Karen not a Karen) here on the Actual Feminism Podcast.
Listen to Janice Raymond interviewed by Megan Murphy
I could certainly never could have predicted that trans activists would have the cheek to rename us as “cis women,” “TERFs,” “front holes,” “uterus-owners,” “egg-producers,” “chest-feeders”—and even “non-men.”
Janice Raymond Interview Transcript – Feminist Current
Janice Raymond Quote Tiles
Instagram-sized tiles free to share.
Lady Kit Kowalski 