For the more studious, analytical trans activist, the name of the game is a twelve+ tweet thread dishonestly deconstructing something a prominent gender critic has said. Better still when the subject is already a politically isolated woman with a history of trauma (hi Zoe McConnell & Sarah Brown).
Watch out for it, and remember: they share their theories about what they think we believe. We focus on what they have done
Boring bit - Steve Wardlaw set up an insurance company (he has a 'zeal' for it, appaz).
He's described as an active ambassador for 'Stonewall on their trans ally program', which is obviously a great start, and is a governor at his local primary school.
He was openly gay with his now husband in Moscow, which deserves some respect. Otherwise he appears to be one of a generic (yet elite) league of businessmen.
So anyway, Steve is just explaining how Rosie Duffield is a purveyor of anti-trans dogma. She might be smiling, with her pretty face, but to the trained eye of Steve she gives the game away. Here, picking her apart with sneer quotes aplenty, Steve excels.
And, I am trying to understand.
It strikes me this is a classic, superficial performance of rationality concealing a litany of allusions, nods, winks - and fuck all else.
Rosie Duffield writes a letter to The Times regarding the Asleep at the Wheel: An Examination of Gender and Safeguarding in Schools report by the Policy Exchange.
As we all know, Duffield has written, said and been perceived to have thought things which have, by intention of not, the capacity to deflate penises from Land's End to John O'Groats. She must be held accountable for this, so Steve lets rip like a disappointed teacher with a red biro:
1) Appealing to historical homophobia
To start, Steve brings to mind the abuse of gay and lesbian people 'back in the day'.
It's an obvious comparison to make, we hear it all the time. It's a handy one because it's close to universally accepted it was an irrational, cruel and stupid persecution of a group who posed no danger whatsoever and who couldn't help who they were.
Fear, hatred or revulsion of gay people is the epitome of irrationality.
There really was (and still is) discrimination enforced in schools with homophobia going unchecked - this is something gender critical feminists are mocked for noting, even when Tavistock clinicians made the same point.
Steve muddies the water here by referring to authoritarianism in opaque terms. It almost looks as if he's casting any approach by authorities as authoritarian, which could just be a result of Twitter character limits, or an expedient ploy to damn with word association.
"Children must be protected" could apply to any of the Stonewall led initiatives I'm sure he advocates, so that's worth mentioning.
Protecting children will be a talking point forever, because they are fundamentally vulnerable to external, peer and self-initiated dangers.
How many more issues should be sidelined because they could be ridiculed as 'think of the children'? Should we mock sex education - it's all about thinking of their safety, happiness and welfare, isn't it? Or school shooters - do you stop the drills in American schools, because they're really rare?
It's still a great angle if you want to poison the well at the get-go - so let's set that aside as the yucky bit of scrap it is.
Everyone knows section 28 is a dark part of very recent history, and so it's both relatable and shocking all at once.
2) 'Sounds familiar, amirite?'
This turns swiftly into the insinuation that what underlies Duffield's concern is not concern at all, merely archaic prejudice dressed up with the hand-wringing busy-body model befitting many, normally female, virtue signalling conservatives. Margaret Thatcher's fear of gayness, Mary Whitehouse's prudishness. Frigid aunts, bitter spinsters, crazed nuns and - yes - terfs. Us. Us sexy terfs. 🤷
Of course protection can be a mask for bad things, but that doesn't mean it is not protection, does it? What Steve should explain is why it is not an honest summation. Why would he believe Duffield is party to veiled attempts to oppress?
Which brings me to this - who's life is Duffield trying to make intolerable?
Does anyone see in Duffield - who's responded to surround-sound abuse with nothing but measured, reasoned civility - a person who would want this? Is this a sincere concern that she hasn't already thought long and hard about this?
I doubt it.
3) 'She uses words which are DElIbEraTELy dESiGnEd! - TEXTBOOK!!!'
Now we actually get to Duffield's own words, and already we have to trust Steve can commune with the Ghost of Future Yet to Come - Duffield has some unpalatable argument afoot.
It's a thin end of the wedge, a slippery slope that begins where your aggressive dismissal of feminists ends. Why do you think Duffield is sweetening us up, Steve? What evil is she smuggling?
What is 'trans', that's the question, isn't it?
We all know that some people believe they feel like, should have been born as, or desperately wish to be, the opposite sex.
It's this fault line that leaves us so far apart and often speaking different languages. Is trans a coping mechanism, or innate identity that can only be addressed with a whole culture of support (lest they encounter misgendering and consequently suicidal ideation or attempts) and quite possibly medical and surgical treatment?
Does being trans make a decent comparator to being gay, when it's an action to relieve suffering rather than a free expression of one of the most critical elements of complicated lifeforms - sex, companionship and love?
Which trans is the real one?
I'm opting for coping mechanism. With the best will in the world I do not believe anyone is born in the wrong body, that male and female brains or souls get mixed up in the sorting office on the astral plane before at last joining their newly emerging bodies. Transition is a statement mission and strategy. It has many drawbacks and should be a last resort.
I'd also like to make it clear to Steve and the millions like him: having a mental illness is not a slur on a person - or at the very least it shouldn't be.
This frequent refrain, suggesting or outright declaring mental illness is akin to being dehumanized, insulted, patronized - it's doing all of those things to those of us with mental illnesses, under the guise of being kind to another group. And it needs to stop.
Having mental illness makes no one less than, no one is necessarily unreliable, weak, incapable or demeaned. It doesn't mean we're not rational, or live in a deluded or psychotic state.
4) 'It's section 28 through the back door' (ooh err)
What is a backdoor section 28? How does that work?
Studies are normally taken from a small subsection. Do we need different protocol now? Do you dismiss the happy clappy trans 'affirmative' figures based on the tiny number of people with dysphoria who undergo medical treatments and remain in contact for follow-up surveys?
Because that really is a minute fraction of a percent, and you can't speak for those who don't go to clinics and manage in other ways.
5) 'Anti gay bigots from 30 years ago'
More appeal to the past.
So here's the thing:
"Children deserve to be children" also echoes the trans activists'
"protect trans youths"
"let trans kids play"
"trans kids belong".
'Resurrected' - this is highly loaded language.
Did people 40 years ago say supporting girls who wanted to keep their babies rather than being sent out of town for a few months, to return with nothing but stretch marks and post natal depression, was tantamount to encouraging them to have babies for a council house?
Was teaching them about safe sex the same as telling them to go and fuck around, because with a condom there's no finding out?
Was the idea we should seek a justice system that works to rehabilitate in the community akin to letting some kids run riot?
Is sending a kid who struggles in an academic environment to a vocational college giving up on them?
Can comparisons be bad, even when there's a thin veneer of a parallel?
The idea Duffield wants to endanger certain children is dishonest, batshit and lazy. Rather, I imagine she wishes to see an overturning of repressive and regressive gender norms, a reckoning with the homophobic environment in schools, open-ended, inquisitive talking therapy, an affirmation of every body fitting any gender and strong anti bullying measures.
6) Urgh, she thinks the trans are infectious + 'It sounds like section 28. Again.'
Is it?
Aren't there multiple safeguarding principles we use in a broad manner every day? I honestly don't understand this.
The comparison to gayness, again. Let's go back to that archaic fear of homosexuality - it is true the open identification of gayness has increased, but by the thousands of percents?
Do we see whole friend groups becoming gay in short succession?
And if they decide later they aren't gay, can they continue on with their lives and bodies in tact?
Does Steve actually believe transition, with its heavy reliance on medication and surgery, the difficulties it brings with relationships, sex, children, fertility, just living honestly in the world, is a good outcome?
It may not be avoidable, and we should support those who do so, but is this optimal? Or is it better they speak to people, work themselves out without the risks that transition entails?
Does Steve outright deny the existence of social contagion? From The Dancing Plagues of 1518 to Resignation Syndrome, affecting refugees in Sweden to The Town That Caught Tourettes, the anorexia and cutting phenomena that swept up adolescents of my generation, they often effect adolescent girls.
It's a conversion of psychic anguish, a psychosomatic phenomena and it's both real and serious. It may not account for all or even many cases, but when they impact small communities or whole countries (Resignation Syndrome has never been recorded outside of Sweden, it results in children falling into medically verifiable coma-like states requiring medical assistance like tube feeding, and normally resolves when asylum is granted - awful and fascinating, no?) it does seem to bear more resemblance to gender dysphoria/trans-ness than being gay.
7) 'Again, safeguarding is all, but...'
'In the head of some people' I wonder who Steve could mean?
It's fairly standard misogynistic tactic to dismiss women as hysterical. Some people might try to paint well-founded fears as hyperbole, because of their need to evade the issue and a deep-seated derisive attitude towards women. But I don't know who I mean here.
Safeguarding is all, and it should be equally important to safeguard all children, too.
8) Sinister & sinisterer - made up terms
How does Duffield advocate for 'squashing' a minority of children? Where is she suggesting that children with gender distress, gender dysphoria, children who identify as trans, are a threat to other children?
Is it not possible that she is in fact concerned for those very children?
As for protecting the majority against the minority - of course we do. All day, every day.
Are child molesters anything but a minority?
Are 'carers' with a fetish for violent, gerontophilic sex a minority or not? Very much a minority, actually, but they also exist and I'd rather they went through DBS vetting before being admitted into responsible roles.
People bringing weapons or noxious substances onto planes to hijack then for the purposes of terror - common or a tiny fraction of people?
Are we aware a minority of kids who've suffered abuse can pose a similar risk to other children in certain situations? I hope so.
Safeguarding is about fearing the worst of everyone, and taking measures to mitigate or screen for them.
For fuck's sake man.
Gender distressed sounds like a useful, self-explanatory, layman's term which does not rely on a psychiatric diagnosis - which is what gender dysphoria is and which I can see being used against Duffield if and when she uses it - she's not a medical professional, who is she to issue diagnoses?
That you didn't find a study using it could even be a clue. Like sadness is not necessarily depression, there are symptoms and there are conditions and they can be connected or discrete.
9) She's being clever + this is important, we're not talking nutters here
Again, the idea distress is mental illness, which is an accusation and a degradation is offensive and genuinely discriminatory, Steve.
Talking about mental health and seeking a change in popular narratives and approach as a potential resolution over medical and / or (actually authoritarian) social fixes (where 'don't ask, don't tell' becomes 'affirm, don't mention, don't question and ensure no one else does') - this isn't saying gender dysphoria or gender distress isn't real.
It's saying that it may not be such a indelible condition that a wholesale denial of biological sex is required.
It's a bit like what some dentists refer to as the "blood and volcanite years", where a whole head of teeth were preemptively removed in young adulthood because they would inevitably cause pain and expense later on. And dentures were fine, so what's the problem?
Aren't we using affirmation, puberty blockers, hormones and surgery as a prophylactic or cure for dysphoria?
Might talking therapy, a heterodox approach, better anti bullying and homophobia programs be preferable?
Might it be better to acknowledge gender in terms of stereotypes alone, and embrace genuine non-conformity?
Surely we could just look after our teeth and make the irreversible decision to extract only when really necessary?
Why is it clever, Steve? Do you mean sneaky, ominous? I suggest you do.
10) Basically, we were right about her all along. Based on all that mighty fine, compelling evidence
This is a non sequitur. The sum of Steve's analysis is nothing more than nudges, suggestion and saying perfectly benign words with scary sound effects over the top.
"Rosie Duffield thinks trans people are not literally in the wrong body"
+ the eery gurgle of distant screams
"She doesn't even use the terms I'm used to"
+ a creaking door swings open
"She thinks being trans means gender dysphoria, which means they're disgusting, dangerous and need locking up, like those schizo-psycho murderers"
+ EastEnders' duff duffs.
He gets the core tenets of safeguarding wrong, and he's a school governor (authoritarian or what, Steve?)
I would hope, if my kids were at his school, he was offered a refresher course on the basis of this alone.
When he speaks about her apparent ease with other people being oppressed, my cynicism pipes up to say no fucking wonder he's in insurance. Looking at everyone as if they are frauds is possibly something for him to work on.
Not being satisfied with these facades of an argument, which are comprised of a superior attitude plus insinuation-as-bulking agent, that isn't a sign she only cares about misogyny. It means there are genuine problems.
Rosie Duffield isn't oppressing anyone, she's a really decent, compassionate woman who's been subjected to horrendous abuse and harassment due to her diligence and conscience.
Abuse that is given a legitimate appearance when liberal-elite insurance bosses like Steve give multiple tweet breakdowns which amount to nothing but 'I don't like her' and invitations to imagine wrong things in the past™.
11) Vague allusions to VAWG without context + 'but remember, it's secondary to these growing and unsubstantiated claims I have'
This can be summed up as "it's important, obviously, that girls and women are vulnerable to sexual assault, and children are vulnerable, full stop. We should bloomin' well deal with it, and that's a promise."
"But, some men are women. And Rosie Duffield still doesn't understand or be quiet, even after the kind of explanation I just gave you has been bellowed at her for ages now. She's doing it wrong, I won't say more but I will keep tutting sagely."
12) And without any evidence I hereby assert that she hates the gays too!
*I just invented that word. You won't find it in any medical paper, but I hope it's sufficiently obvious what I mean
So I implore you to actually read what she said, listen to her speak, before troubling her with any more of this low-key harassment and cynical smearing.
I think she's probably the bravest politician we have going, and history will be celebratory of her and her conscientious stance.
Because she's not a homophobe, or a transphobe, or a reactionary.
Sadly however, a lot of males who do not care to understand the vulnerability of women and children, and who suffer from a kind of feminist-induced, mental colic, are actually pretty damn prejudiced and reactionary and deeply authoritarian, too.
The evidence is available. Don't be fooled by the invested class - there's a huge, multifaceted tragedy unfurling and The Right Side Of History will in retrospect look like a bunch of Blairite warmongers shrieking about weapons of mass destruction.
Retweets of Steve's masterpiece
By Elsie Wilbeshot, Terven Gobshite & Bullshit Soothsayer
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