Previously:
How does someone so delicate they break down into heaving sobs each time they don't get exactly what they want, and cannot bear appear on a radio show with someone they disagree with, even though no insults, slurs or threats have been used, cope in politics?
That's a question I would be asking Helen Belcher, if I were a voter in the constituency he is now standing in. How would he manage?
"Mr. Speaker, after Rosie Duffield's speech last night, I collapsed. Oh, I tried to hold the tears back, but as a lady, with lady levels of oestrogen, I couldn't stop. Not ice cream, a girly pillow fight nor the music of James Blunt or Bublè could assuage the blind terror. You know who else advocated for segregated domestic violence refuges? Nazis and Janice Turner. I'm googling Ireland's asylum policy now. She has actually killed me this time" ?It's no more absurd than what he's previously claimed.
Yes, he's standing a third time for the Liberal Democrats, this time for Reading West (with added mid Berkshire), where he grew up.
That may sound like the progression of a grassroots campaigner who has tirelessly advocated for their local community, but Belcher had earlier moved to Wiltshire to chase his political dreams, becoming councillor for Corsham & Pickwick.
A HUNG PARLIAMENT
There doesn't appear to be much required of the trans politician. After negligible public service, a turn at rotisserie-speed in a ladies toilet cubicle and, donning the cloak of trans vulnerability, rapid selection for candidacy in a political party follows.
Et voila!
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| There have been some murmurs of illegitimacy in Belcher's case. It's pure transmisogyny, of course |
Previously, I've enthralled you with moving accounts of Belcher's preformative outrage and feminine blubbering, even claiming he is equally likely to be raped as JK Rowling.
I've wowed you with the disclosure that he transitioned in an effort to avoid despising his daughter, who wrote and performed a song swearing to support the great fucklechuck, calling him a goddess.
After one of his better known trademark melodramas - his assassination fears, despite admitting he is only ever treated with respect - he said having his address public due to his councillor status was a worry, in case someone hurt his family. But still, onwards and upwards to the national arena, eh Belcher?
PUBLIC INTEREST
Why am I still writing about him? Because I am fascinated - he has a campaigning and political CV as long as Lamar Odom's arm, heavy involvement in multiple organisations, founded other organisations, is a regular contributor in the media and government committees, has influence in regards to media reporting. He's a school governor, and even on child safeguarding boards. And, again, he's standing as MP.
Not only this, however. I think he's both highly dishonest, deeply manipulative and would do major damage to the rights of women.
Others have written about Belcher - one being the excellent Gender Critical Woman, another is Terffan Man, who wrote a great article but bizarrely included that "in trans jargon, he “passes” - he looks like a woman". The issue here is, he clearly does fucking well not, but he does have a good, passable, voice. That combined with his other attributes makes his frequent radio appearances the perfect choice.
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| ""Imagine a long face, with deep set, narrow eyes, and its widest part, the smirk" she stuttered..." |
Like a massive, condescending aubergine, Belcher sticks mainly to purples, often with a LibDem-yellow scarf. It's a contractually-obliged to wear only Monsoon's autumn range - a presentation which confers authority and middle class banality. This, when considering his... spatial dominance, bat-shit sensitivity and highly aggressive approach to what he regards as his rights, is no mean feat. In fact, he's done remarkably well in not blowing every fuse in the circuit.
Today, I will be dealing with his interview on one particular podcast, recorded with a 'cis, she/her' host. It's an hour long so this blog is long.
50 SHADES OF GENDER
"Welcome to the 50 Shades of Gender podcast" purrs Esther Lemmens (AKA Zesty!) who is very profound and unique - a "pansexual, Queer Mystic" (her caps, definitely not mine) handmaiden extraordinaire - "I love to refer to myself as a ‘rebel with a cause’" she says, making it all super exciting.
Lemmens founded 50 Shades of Gender with Katie-Jon Went, and she talks to guests about "feminism - the inclusive kind - gender, sex, kink and sexuality" because who said that shit franchise of spicy, rebranded male on female abuse isn't a great vehicle for this, huh?
(I never read it, but remember earwigging on two old ladies discuss it in a waiting room. They were appalled, and one called it disgusting. The prose was awful, apparently. Probably been written by a moron. As for Christian's erection 'springing forth', was it a spaniel? ect)
To be fair, maybe Went-Lemmens weren't thinking of that. Those words just flow with a rhythmic coherence, don't they? They should know there are far more than 50 genders now, though. Eliminationist hillbillies. (Website)
HOSTS
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| Esther - She / They / Fae, and not Est / Her |
Introducing Belcher as 'a woman with a trans history' (a bizarre euphemism for man) Esther is quite the polymath, being a "creator, artist, budding writer, podcaster, gentle activist, truth seeker, and all-round magical creature".
She is also (imagine sighs as I check my notes) "(cis)queer, pansexual, non-monogamous, neurodivergent, and dedicated to being the best gender-diverse ally I can be". Of course, she is also an empath.
Let me add to that with something truly remarkable: Esther is also someone happy to sit down and discuss sex, gender and kink with Claire Prosho.
With such intrepid, fearless grit, she's missing her vocation here - a socially essential job for the iron nerved - clearing up after a body has laid undiscovered in a once-hot bath for six months, perhaps, a manual gamete collector of rare farm breeds, or milker of snakes.
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| To those in the world of gender ideology, mindless bullshit chit chat has the allure of philosophical and political praxis |
Katy Jon Went is also busy - too busy to do his own write up! To be fair, though, it is boring as fuck.
FAMILY
It begins, like Freda Wallace in a short skirt, with a tantalising tidbit. It's a clip from the very end of the discussion where Belcher describes his transition as relatively low cost because he 'only' lost his job and the relationship with his dad. He now looks back with shuddering awe at his stoic resilience.
Because, both of these are huge things no one should suffer, so why do we expect it of trans people, he asks? Because we do, don't we? Totes - the emotional fortitude of trans people is taken for granted all the time.
Helen says he was aware of wanting to be a girl (or 'realising I was female' depending on your source) age seven.
When he came out in his thirties, his family said (and I quote):
"Yeah, you know, we've known you were trans since you were five, it was just a question of when you were going to do something about it"
Which surprised him, because he thought he'd hidden it well. But what, aside from the borrowed clothes, was there to hide?
'Wow' drawls Lemmens, for the first and last time in chorus with me.
Belcher was born in 1963, in the beautiful town of Reading. T'was the eve of Samhain, the end of harvest and beginning of winter, when the veil separating the living and dead is at its most thin. Maybe this is why he hates segregation so much.
Belcher's observant Christian family must have been very progressive. Not many watched the moon landing as a nursery-age boy played with dolls in the corner, nudging each other and in hushed tones confided: "our Nigel is really a girl. It's whether he decides to do anything about it, that's the only thing".
In 1968, one year after gay sex was decriminalised.
It's laughably improbable. Not least because as he himself says, by the time he came out his mum was dead, and his dad wouldn't accept his transition.
So, who were these family members? Siblings, old enough to have thought this when he was five? Great aunt Fanny?
Did he find a map to a time capsule, with a note bearing "If you're reading this, then you already know - you're actually a girl! It's late 1968 now, and while we worship God and know homosexuality is an abomination, we cannot deny your femininity. Your loving family x -PS, some maniac poshos called their baby Nigella, so you have options!" and a magic yellow scarf?
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| Let's use some historical context |
AUTOGYNEPHILIA
While I would never be so silly to state Belcher is driven by fetishism, Ray Blanchard has spoken about the revisionist personal histories of autogynephiles. Belcher is a heterosexual, later life transitioner with no observable feminine qualities and a documented grudge, or, truthfully, rage, against female journalists and feminists. But that's all.
No one wants to be an AGP, and will, in the main, frame the disorder as a slur. Therefore, constructing the 'journey' of a life-long repressed girl born in a massive, be-bollocked body is highly tempting. The problem was, when Blanchard spoke to these men's wives, the fetishism they point blank denied was very much in evidence.
SOCIALISATION
As a child, Belcher says he only ever played with girls, and didn't understand boys. Certainly his overbearing discussion tactics point firmly away from female socialisation. Even the way he stands and talks shows a man consciously utilising his imposing size, character and social status.
More manifest again, is just how well he has done in the male dominated industries of tech, business and political networking.
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| It isn't actually about taking up space in a power stance - it's for the circulation of air |
As an evangelical Christian with natural leadership qualities, he and wife Joanna ran their local church 'cell'. This particular congregation were in no doubt that gay sex was a sin, something Belcher managed to live with.
Still, it was a mighty shock he wasn't welcome 'as Helen'. Esther gasps as he recalls the time their former minister told him to 'do something about that anger'.
Despite his family 'having always known', his dad could not accept the transition, outrageously suggesting he was being a selfish prick when he had a new wife and two infant children. Ultimately, this led to him dying years later having never known 'Helen', and estranged from remaining family. This is sad, but he made his choice.
Even at home, poor Helen faced turmoil in those early days. Wife Joanna was unable to get to grips with husband Nigel's news, inexplicably blind to his obvious ladylike soul. This has been alluded to in many places, and I'll dig into it further in a following blog because Belcher's weaponising of suicide is something to behold.
Essentially, Helen 'really broke down' one Christmas and stood on a railway bridge, contemplating jumping.
After running home to tell all, Joanna realised the obvious - her husband's inner woman was "bigger than us both".
So it was not the abusive 'do what I want or I'll kill myself' manipulation otherwise known as coercive control. Good.
Still, at Christmas? That's famously a time of domestic bliss for all!
Belcher tells of losing his job because his company's two directors couldn't comprehend he "wasn't who I appeared to be".
But, he wasn't sacked:
Oh no. An oppressed, vulnerable Belcher was paid 'quite a bit' of money to leave, because sacking him would be illegal.
With that money, he set up a business 'in direct competition', miraculously managing to snap up some of their biggest clients. He was very successful and recently sold it to the same men, for a reportedly massive sum. On telling an employee of this, she (allegedly) replied "teach me your zen technique oh Jedi master". This makes him very excited, he sounds bursting with pride telling this tale, and it's a great example of why you should vote Belcher.
This isn't the only time Belcher has demonstrated his ability to spin things:
In OBElcher's Ballad of Trans Complaint, I wrote that;
"Belcher speaks of having knocked on 9,000 doors during his election campaign: "Only one person was recorded to say they could not vote for Helen because she is transgender." And no one else raised an issue, either on or off the record".
This time it is 800 doors, but the only person to mention trans was a brave ally, telling Belcher:
"your personal history is well known throughout the town, and we all think, if you're brave enough to not only go through that but be public about it, you're brave enough to fight for our town, and that's what we want"
What a remarkable turn of events!
And one more for the road - while a leading light in his evangelical church, he took media training. Essentially it's made him just remarkably media savvy. People arent as clever as him, they don't unpick the narrative because that's intellectually harder and he knows just how it all works.
CONVERSION THERAPY
Within the church, Helen claims he was subjected to conversion therapy.
He wasn't beaten, starved or made to pray out demons, but he felt he had to crush his femininity - which he did, brilliantly - but it's apparently the same thing.
It has to be said, Belcher is working with a broad definition here, as trying to 'heal', or not "being the best you can be", also fits his definition. And of course, conversion therapy is violence, and must be banned.
It seems there's no depths he won't sink to in this bitter, grasping minimisation of the horrific abuse gay people endure across the world.
When you think of conversion therapy, the shrieking neolib TRAs, and how they condemn any reticence to 'affirm' or cement a trans identity in children as conversion, abuse, it seems even worse to hear him describe the Keira Bell v Tavistock as "predicated on the idea if you stop trans youth from transitioning then we'll stop trans people altogether".
There's no other way to put it - this is a shameless lie. And an especially unpleasant one, removing Bell's agency and dismissing the gravity of girls half his daughter's age beginning menopause, or undergoing bilateral mastectomies, or boys living the rest of their lives with micro penises, and all with a high risk of infertility, bone problems, anorgasmia etc.
MENACE!
But Belcher, the hard-nosed businessman who tells the world he blubs on the toilet, googling how to claim asylum when he hears he won't be let in the ladies, is not done yet. It is, he says, the "whole idea is this trans menace, we need to eradicate it... so I think we need to call it out as the hateful campaign to eliminate difference."
I despair how we have sunk so low that he isn't laughed out of every studio. Apartheid, conversion therapy, the danger he faces 'as a woman', it's calculated and risible, yet no one seems able to call him out, face to face.
He says he doesn't just feel dehumanised by the "anti trans organisations who want to eradicate trans people" but that they are "stripping me of my of gender and feeling human" his "very basic humanity dismisssed" and he must fight to be recognised as a person.
I hope that's not laughing at the back.
TOO MUCH WHINING
Belcher realised early on that law change is only one side of the trans demand dodecahedron, and so media browbeating was essential. So was born Trans Media Watch, formed with Josephine Straw in 2009. It's been very busy over the years, complaining about coverage of trans people in the media, transphobic ads, rapists being misgendered etc.
EHRC
It may be a shock, but happy-go-lucky Helen continues his persecution LARP, bullshitting that we have "moved to a point the head of the EHRC says, "well you can question trans people's existence"" and that we've been told we've "the right to say trans people should eliminated".
It's breathtakingly dishonest, and makes me wonder about the role Belcher and his coterie play in our culture. Is this how we're kind, caring, to older, successful white blokes now? How he manages to have a scratch of self respect is a mystery if he and his friends take this seriously, but I can't believe they do. This is patently not true, and they must be laughing.
Belcher talks with confidence, peppered with a pseudo self-deprecation ("I'm not a sporting type - you might be able to tell") filler that offers up a facade of affable, avuncular and accommodating, when in reality there's a ruthless and single minded agenda beneath. And that is of dominance. Not content with his luck so far, he picks away and complains, demanding upgrades and money refunded for emotional distress and disappointment. Im reminded of those shameless, canny shoppers who call customer service over every bruise on the soft fruit they carried home in an overstuffed grocer's bag.
He tries to pass as an accidental candidate, thrust into the limelight by a social conscience and a wave of popular support.
After giving evidence at the Leveson inquiry, he claims to have been pestered every few days with 'you should stand as an MP - you should stand as an MP.'
Most exciting, one of these came from a Baroness, whilst hobnobbing in the House of Lords.
Baroness Liz Barker employs Belcher as a researcher, and he's obviously gone to great lengths to educate her.
In a 2020 article by Matthew Hulbert, Barker is quoted condemning the
"vicious campaign against trans women" which is "orchestrated by extreme right wingers from the US" and "perpetrated by people, many of them women, who are traditionally on the left"
which certainly sounds familiar.
When asked about diversity in Parliament, Barker glows: "I do hope that the brilliant campaigner Helen Belcher" can get a seat.
Because those upper middle class, public school educated, wealthy, straight, white geezers with potential (I did say potential, Belcher) paraphilias really are not heard from enough.
He still decided against it, but frequently visits parliament for various reasons, including work, and knows a few MPs, as you do. So he eventually "had my arm twisted". Now, Helen is often told to write a book. No rest for the wicked eh.
"I'M NOT DEFINED BY BEING TRANS!"
Helen says that he never wanted to be 'professionally trans' and that being trans won't win him an election, and besides, it's a marginal part of who he is.
So, Esther asks, what would you do to make everyone's lives better? Without skipping a beat he immediately launches into learning about how trans people live (oh the dearth of information!) and how many articles concerning trans issues The Times have published, and that none were written by trans people.
When he stood for Corsham in 2016, he assured his wife he wouldn't win. How could he, a nobody? Well, "top tip for aspiring parliamentary candidates - stand in a seat with no opposition". Oh, how he laughed.
This was just one year after joining the Lib Dems. But, please remember, trans people are reviled, marginalised and subject to "systemic and structural cissexism".
Belcher's wife Joanna crops up regularly, normally as a preemptive strike against the fears dissenting women may express over male intrusion in women's spaces.
She was instrumental in Belcher's introduction to politics, as she thought giving permission for Helen to legally change sex, which, after the GRA, is the option alongside divorce or annulment, was wrong - she was even wheeled out to do a speech on it. It's relatable stuff; instead of sorting out their own affairs between themselves, they should just change the law.
Imagine, if they had to cope as a disabled person on benefits, or a single mum having a third child?
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| Joanna, Belcher's wife, gives a rousing speech |
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| And everyone clapped |
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| Soul-gazer Moran demands spousal acceptance |
And so was born the Lib Dem policy to remove the spousal veto. Because some things can't wait for divorce.
SEGREGATE & CELEBRATE
While constantly banging on about the importance of "letting trans people just live our lives" (translation: we use and dictate all your stuff, and you shut the fuck up) he of course brings 'the bathroom debate' up a lot.
The absurdist premise here is Belcher is in danger if using men's facilities, while women are not in any danger at all when men who identify as women use our spaces. This despite there being ample evidence we are. That's a 'horrific argument'. If the man has called himself a woman, which, by the way, you aren't allowed to ask about, it's his business.
For Belcher and his ilk, it's essential to frame the intrusion of men into the women's same sex spaces as "the bathroom debate"
because you'll want to swerve the uncomfortable facts, like:
Women have been detained in psychiatric wards due to psychosis, being professionally gaslit that a transwoman is a real woman while trying to regain a sense of reality;
It looks bad, all the above, so trivialise it by casting it as nothing more than using a warden-attended ladies toilet.
ELIMINATE,
SEGREGATE, APART-HATE
I didn't count the number of times 'segregation' 'elimination' and 'apartheid' appear in the podcast, but suffice it to say it's near constant.
I found this difficult, partly because the crux of the fallacy is so painfully fucking obvious. First is that he is arguing for gender segregation, insisting the danger to him, as a lummoxing great bloke, is equal or even higher to that of a woman of any age or size.
But it's also that gender isn't the basis of our oppression, nor the weapon or target, when we are sexually assaulted.
The other thing was, picturing the perfectly named Belcher, a great jiggling ball of thin-skinned demand, slumped on the toilet while he repeatedly said 'elimination' was just too much. Maybe Lemmens can handle it. I cannot.
Helen is so invested in hyperbole and his own supposed tearful, girly delicacy, you have to wonder what it is he thinks of women.
He could make parliament interesting, especially whether he would maintain the same level of coercive blackmail when faced with Rosie Duffield or Miriam Cates, as opposed to his döppelganger Eric Pickles. Something tells me he would be shown to be much less fragile.
According to Helen, "there is no evidence to say trans women are any kind of issue in terms of safety". He is at least consistent, having previously written that there have not been any incidents of assault in a toilet by a trans identified male.
Again, this isn't true, and while simultaneously feigning persecution and martyrdom, it gets pretty sickening. His complete disregard is a very telling trait.
He pushes scurrilously illogical arguments, knowing he won't be challenged, and that he will be wanted to appear on radio etc even with bafflingly pathetic wishes dressed as needs.
There are few things I'd love more than to see the real Helens, Joyce and Stanisland, or Kathleen Stock, Julie Bindel etc etc face him in debate - or do it myself.
It's something that he would never agree to, but it's unbelievably frustrating to see the prominence and influence he has, when he would surely be exposed as a very angry, entitled, selfish man, dragging a sack of knackered bollox around, claiming they're magic beans.
Anyhow, apparently on telling the wife of the terrifying risks he, a strapping TWOman faces every time he has to take a piss, she was incredulous and foolishly sought to ground his histrionic flailing in reality. "It can't, it can't really be as bad as you say!" she said.
A very tired Helen set the silly bint straight:
"And so I said 'Right. Imagine, right; I go into London because I do some work in parliament (always relatable) "'I go into London and I am arrested for using the women's toilets in parliament. How would you feel?'"
"How would you feel if every time I went to parliament, you didn't know if I was going to come back?'"
I bet that shoved her back in her box, eh? He can't even conceive of arrest as in any way distinguishable from being disappeared in an Argentine regime.
It's an astonishing slip, really.
Histrionic Helen has no concerns over 'what about me! Meee!?'
For all his faults, however, he's quite the raconteur. If I were on Desert Island Discs I'd ask not for music but for Helen Belcher, to entertain with mad shit anecdotes, and the chance to challenge him.
Forget Andy McNabb and Bravo Two Zero, Belcher used the ladies in parliament. No wonder he's encouraged to write a book.
According to Belcher, we've always policed same sex spaces by behaviour, which is a categorical lie. There's no confusion over who is meant by a sign with a stick person with skirt, or the words 'ladies' or 'women'. We all know which door he should use.
What he means is, he has no respect for women's boundaries. He will march right over them, and presumably make a huge scene if challenged by anyone.
He goes on to decry the present situation where 'lesbians face increased aggression' without a slither of recognition that (assuming many of these stories are true, Rain Dove ...) the reason women's fears have increased is that we have these massive, aggressively entitled men demanding access, vowing to continue, whatever we think, and now wailing that if they broke the law they'd be arrested, like a little common person.
"It's going to cost women a lot because it's women who are being protected, in inverted commas" he says before asking "but is it a situation, a society, you want to live in?"
Well, yes. It's precisely the society I want. How can anyone with daughters want different? What about his daughter? Does she factor in here?
Finally, stretching credibility with the mother of all dilators, he says "we've got to a really weird place in society where we're not sure whats true or not" which is where I'll finally leave it, because at a certain point, your only option is to point and laugh.
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