Yesterday I was told my writing could be seen as hateful. The accusation stems from my belief that men cannot ‘become’ women, & that ‘woman’ is a biological descriptor. Nor do I believe a child can be born in the ‘wrong’ body.
So I’ve written something short, to lay out my views and try to explain them in a piece that should only take a few minutes to read. Hopefully you’ll make it to the end and hopefully you’ll see that there is nothing hateful about my beliefs.
If you see hatred here, please pin point it. Call it out. Let me know where; let me know what and why. Be specific.
A girl who likes mud and short hair, and hates pink, is still a girl. She is strong and fierce, not broken; she does not need fixing or to change herself. If you love her, tell her that. Always.
If you feel uncomfortable that your boy child likes pink and tutus & you’ve agreed with him that that means he’s a girl, know that I will never comply with this. A boy who wants to sing and dance, to feel the breeze in long hair and a skirt flow around his knees is precious and wild. He can never be a girl, and that is fine because he is perfect as he is. Why would you ever tell him otherwise?
Your child does not need to be lied to. They need help to try to accept themselves as they are. They will find it much harder to do that if the adults that they love and trust tell them that they might be in a body that is ‘wrong’.
I have seen the effects of gender dysphoria first hand. I watched my own daughter wrestle with it, feeling that she was wrong, that to be herself she would need to make painful, unnatural changes to the unique creature that she is. It was terrible to see her so torn.
I understand that many people with gender dysphoria suffer terribly and I feel for them. Having that empathy doesn’t mean that I should be willing to lie about facts, change the meaning of the words that describe my sex, or stay silent when I see children being misled and harmed.
The same set of values that say the Munroes and Shons of this world ‘do woman’ properly, are the same values that say short-haired, make-up free lesbians don’t ‘do woman’ properly. This is not ‘inclusive’. It is crushing. It is untrue.
Sisters, if you remove your breasts it will not make you a man. You will always be one of us and not just because you understand the pain of womanhood better than most.
Woman is not a feeling or a costume that can be tossed away or picked up. A man in a dress is still a man. Plastic surgery does not make him a woman. Nothing can ever make him a woman. This may be a harsh reality, but it is still a reality.
The restrictive gender norms and values that our society has established for men and women are based on stereotypes. Like characters in a child’s cartoon, these stereotypes are two dimensional. We are so much more complex than that.
Stereotypes harm everyone. They are a web that traps and confines us, a mask forced on us that we never chose to wear.
We should strive to break them down, to leave the next generation a world where every personality is valid and every body is beautiful.
Let’s toss out the absurd rules that say there’s a right & wrong way to be a man or a woman. Women’s biology is unique to females and men’s to males. It shouldn’t define our personalities. Let’s celebrate that.
Bending the meanings of words does not change reality. Woman; man – these words are biological descriptors. The rest is a huge and vast expanse of diverse forms of expression, some of which we label as masculine or feminine.
Turn your back on sexist stereotypes. They help no-one. Women shouldn’t have to perform femininity; men shouldn’t have to perform masculinity. We are perfect as we are. We need to speak out and say this.
It is not hateful.
Don’t be afraid.
Break out of the boxes, don’t build new ones.
Thank you for an eloquent, loving account of reality which, sadly, too many people cannot accept.
There is nothing remotely hateful here but the lobby that does believe children can be born in the wrong body, that humans can change sex, that there are right ways to be women which men do best will resort to calling the truth hatred in order to avoid facing it. It is the same as cult members attacking anyone who questions their beliefs as anti-religious. And there is a similar expectation of ‘respect’ as religions have, a perception that sincerely held beliefs, however superstitious or metaphysical, cannot be asked for justification. In the case of this very cultish trans movement, there is no justification. The science doesn’t support it, experience – including yours and your daughters – doesn’t support it. What remains is faith and once sold on a belief, people will defend it with astonishing vitriol – but somewhere deep inside, they know they are wrong and you are right, that’s why they hate you. You are holding a mirror up unflinchingly to a naked emperor.
Thank you well put, you nailed it in the end.
What a brilliant, insightful, sensitive and humane expression of opinion this is. Lily Maynard demonstrates here that you can offer empathy and respect for people suffering from gender dysphoria whilst honoring your responsibility to truth and to science.
What is hateful is the fact numerous women-hating males are threatening women with male sexual violence because these women refuse to accept mens’ lie that males can magically morph into females!! The moon is not made of green cheese; the earth is not flat and there aren’t any male unicorns but apparently males can magically become women and we females are expected to believe these male lies!
Yup transphobia does not help anyone!
While you certainly have a right to tour opinion, you can and are wrong. While there is no overt hatred here, there is an overwhelmingly strong passive/aggressive tone here. Why the attack on trans people? Why is this your agenda? Time and time again, science has proven that gender dysphoria is real and that changing the “package” that holds a humans spirit can drastically change the person in a positive way. I know that it did for me as a transman. Note that I said transman and not cis man. As I said, everyone is entitled to their opinion but when it bashes others and associates criminal behavior with a certain people group, as you have done in some of the videos that I watched on your site, it is simply wrong; plain and simple.
Thank you for your thoughts. I’ve never denied that transition is an answer for a very small group of people. I’m not quite sure where you see passive/aggressive tone in my writing. Could you give me an example? Also, I don’t post videos on my site, perhaps you are confusing me with someone else?
You are awfully kind. All I can think of is the detransitioning biological male who said that every trans-identified person he met, whether male or female, was incredibly selfish and narcissistic. I think this comment was on gendertrender. And you are right, there is a lot of criminal behavior associated with trans-identified biological males. It does not seem common for trans-identified biological females, but a mentally ill young woman here in Maine who was transitioning and being given testosterone (genius doctor at work) killed a woman she did not know in a supermarket. Last I heard, it sounded like she was detransitioning (her lawyer referred to her as she, and she seemed to be referring to herself as she) and was very apologetic.
As you have said, Lily is entitled to her opinion, but that does not make it wrong. It just means you do not agree with her. I do as do many others. My friend Ada has asked me to respond. She is a he. She was born a he. She presents as a woman and has done so since she had surgery in the 1960s. She is happy that for the most part she is accepted as a woman, but is happy to admit she is biologically a man. She doesn’t understand why so many transpeople try to say they are something they are not. Roy, our friend, on the other hand has “detransitioned”. He has gone back to being a man though parts of his body look female. He was never happy presenting as a woman, but he is happy now he is living as a man again. Are they wrong? No. They are living their lives as they want, without fuss and without shouting others down. Nobody has taken their rights, and they haven’t taken anyone else’s.
Ada has removed herself from swimming pools and their changing tmrooms when asked politely to because someone has not been happy with her presence. How she explains it? “I am a biological man who presents as a woman. Some women and girls see through the” disguise”. It is only right that I move on when uncovered. ” Is she wrong? No, this is her reality as she sees it and I as her friend support her in this. Am I wrong? No. As this is our reality as close friends.
I feel like your essay is a breath of fresh air in a world that makes the novel 1984 all the more real and dangerous. Changing the language and the reality of science spirals us down an endless tunnel that leads to nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. People can have surgeries and wear any clothes they want. But, underneath those clothes is reality.
Thank you, exactly! I absolutely differentiate your right to become trans from my acknowledging the supposed sense and holistic health benefits of mutilating your body at that level. Tattoos and piercings and lip plates and neck lengthening is one thing. Cutting off your penis is just too much for me to swallow as potentially healthy for more than a very, very tiny minority of people .
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Hi Lily,
I enjoyed reading this piece, which is not hateful, but obviously is not agreeable with trans people. I am new to this subject and have been researching what I can on both sides of the argument. I have been reading some abstracts and conclusions from scientific journals that seem to suggest there could be some evidence for trans people having similar structures in some parts of the brain to their gender identity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20562024/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19341803/
I’m sure there are other articles that may not support the argument at all/as well, that findings/research can be biased and that this research seems to be very much in it’s infancy (also, I have been informed, in one of the articles, too small of a test group). However, I would be interested to know your thoughts on these findings. Namely, if in the future it is somehow proven that transgender people have brains (and possibly also neurologically and genetically as has been suggested elsewhere) similar to their gender identity rather than born sex, should this change the argument and mean TG people should be seen as they identify?
Apologies for the wording and info, I’m not an academic or scientist. My initial gut reaction to trans rights has been in the like of “so A man could just decide to be a woman and go into a ladies changing room, rubbish.” However, I try to resist that and instead research it so I can have an informed opinion. I believe there are people out there who genuinely feel like their gender identity and they should not be discriminated against, but I also understand the genuine fears of harm to women and girls, children and other harms that people have.
Thank you David. My reply would be that ‘being trans’ is an idea in someone’s head, a belief that can’t be measured, explained or confirmed. There are some traits which women’s brains may be (note I say may be) more inclined towards, but a woman whose brain doesn’t fall in the middle of the ‘femininity curve’ is not a man, nor vice versa. Our brains are an organ, they are sexed the same as the rest of our bodies. Masculinity and femininity are not what makes us male and female. I write about this more in my article ‘What makes somebody ‘real trans’ Part 1 – adults. So I’d refer you to that for a longer answer. I would add that of course nobody should be discriminated against for their beliefs, but nor should others be obliged to go along with them. So a man may believe he ‘feels like a woman’ but there should be no reason the rest of us have to confirm his delusion. Finally I would add that we only really know how we ourselves feel: the idea that there is a particular way that all women feel is patently absurd.
Dear David,
There is no concrete evidence that there are differences in people brains that correspond to either their sexuality or their gender dysmorphia. The research you have read was debunked easily as being poor and badly researched. If you follow the later research on the right hand side of the pubmed site the more recent reserch tells you this.
There is not a ‘female brain’ and a ‘male brain.’ That was a myth perpetuated by male neuroscientists.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x
I don’t think the scientific consensus is with Rippon. There’s an entire issue of Journal of Neuroscience devoted to this issue. I don’t doubt that gender stereotypes can be harmful though.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10974547/2017/95/1-2
Well said. Just because you don’t go along with someones opinion doesn’t make you Transphobic. Facts are facts.
Hi all,
Thanks for the responses. I will be sure to look at your other article about this Lily and the more recent research Mrs. Rummiya. I look forward to my continued learning in this area and will try to keep up to date with the science.
I will try to keep my opinions on this matter neutral and follow the science.
Well Hello Little Lily!
Seems you didn’t heed our advice did you?
You were told to shut your foul fucking mouth before it got shut for you.
Well, guess what? It is going to be shut for you.
We know who you are and we know where you live.
PS: Magdalen Berns was a paedo. Kiddie fiddling little slag. Hope it was painful.
You sound like a psychopath. I hope you are investigated making such threats. You could have easily written a response to the essay detailing your points but instead your defensiveness is telling. And you need to be careful because your ip number can be traced by the police….trust me on that one.
Wow. Just wow.
Nothing in this article even comes close to deserving your hate-filled, nasty, rotten vitriol.
The fact that you could not respond with a balanced comment/argument, speaks volumes. Your thinly veiled threats prove beyond any doubt, that scum like you have no place within a civilized society, let alone near any women, anywhere.
You are clearly dangerous. And I hope that when the end is near for you, the pain Magdalen Berns endured will be a walk in the park by comparison.
This is a very well written article. There is no hate to be seen. Thank for being brave enough to speak to the truth, with love.
Greetings!
We are the Anti-TERF League.
You can report that comment to the police but you need to realise we got there first. YOU have been reported to the police. Why? Child abuse. Doxxing. Harassment of trans people. Oh yes, Lily. We’ve got all the receipts. So you might want to tell your kiddie fiddling friends that. Especially that nonce Fisher who has been harassing Steph Hayden both on Twatter and Kiwi Farms. You know Kiwi Farms? Far right, transphobic, homophobic, ableist website banned in its home country of New Zealand. We believe you’ve been posting there too. And so do the police. Who also know about Fisher harassing Steph.
Well there is hate here, but only from two anonymous sources who support trans ideology.
I love your world Lily, and maybe once we have reached the other side of this it will be a reality. Keep going! We can only reach this if those brave enough to face “Big John” and his like keep shining through. And thank you.