Me, Dennis and special guest, Dr Az Hakeem, in a wideranging discussion including Dr Az’s new book, “Detrans: when transition isn’t the solution” (Link to buy available below), autistic spectrum disorder and its relation to a trans identity, the disappearance of transvestites, transvestism vs autogynephilia and much, much more!
I love Dr Az's explanations of autism. It's scarily familiar to me as an autistic person who was, fortunately, born and diagnosed too early for this horror and actually got proper therapy and support. We do gravitate towards problem solving and easy solutions, so it's very easy to get sucked into cults or explanations or answers for why we find social situations difficult. If we're high functioning, we can learn and practise social skills and self-regulation, but it does take work and effort and it's a long and slow process. We used to all teach each other these skills we'd picked up: on forums like Wrong Planet and Aspie Hangout, we'd tell each other about CBT, meditation, breathing exercises, and things like wearing gloves, sunglasses and earplugs to block out too much sensory input to avoid getting overwhelmed.
A lot of us like doing roleplaying games and acting, because it's an opportunity to learn about expressing and identifying emotions in a "safe" context divorced from your real life. You read the script, you think, "how would I feel in that situation? How would my character feel? How do I show that to the audience?" and that teaches you a good deal about body language and tones of voice. I think that's why so many get hooked on this trans nonsense, because it's like they're always roleplaying, and the culture is such that they're more easily accepted as their fake persona than their real selves. It's one step removed from themselves too.
All this "gender medicine" reminds me of previous quack "autism cures" like Miracle Mineral Solution (enemas of industrial bleach - seriously), and even hormone blockers: Mark and David Geier were sterilising autistic kids with Lupron in the 2000s and it was, rightly, considered a medical scandal and eugenicist at the time. There were articles titled "Why not just castrate them?"
The autism self-advocacy and autism rights movement used to be on the ball about opposing this sort of medical abuse. I'm sickened by how easily they've swallowed the gender nonsense and how autism orgs have gone along with it.
I'm glad there's doctors like Az, and David Bell, and autistic advocates like Rachel Rooney and Hazel Appleby who've been speaking out about this. Thank you all!
That was very interesting to read. I'm going to look more into the previous autism "cures" as I'm sure the parallels with gender medicine will be illuminating.
It's from a Marxist perspective so there's a bunch of political opinion in there but I give a bit of the history. Plus I mean it as an actual old-fashioned Marxist, not a postmodernist neoliberal wokelord like the gender ghouls misuse the term today!
Thanks again for the work all three of you do to fight this atrocity.
It's interesting that he says the more autistic patients were more asexual: I've known a lot of autists who were into fetishes and things like object sexuality, I don't know why. Either because we have extra grey matter that connects areas of the brain that aren't usually connected, or the obsession and attachment to objects rather than people. A lot of autistics have comfort objects that aren't sexual but are for reassuring themselves, like a security blanket, but for some it does become a sexual thing.
Personally I was always pretty hypersexual but with none of the social skills to do anything about it. No weird fetishes, just a lot of awkwardness and nerves. Easily resolved by just hooking up with other autists though!
I don't have enough experience of autism organisations to make a proper judgement, but I wonder if Prof Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism made it easier for them to accept the idea of boy brains in girl bodies and vice versa.
I agree that the paucity of true autism advocacy at a time when autistic people (and especially children) are disproportionately the victims of this whole insane medical experiment is beyond shameful.
The lack of concern for how autistic people are treated does seem to be typical of society in general. I found it so disheartening a couple of weeks ago to see how little media coverage or social media interest there was of Baroness Hollin's report into the inhumane use of solitary confinement for autistic people and people with learning disabilities. It's not as trendy as Trans Awareness Week I suppose!
Sadly, I'm sure there will be people who look at the autism link and say, 'oh, that's what it was, they were just born in the wrong body, we can fix that now that we know'. Autists are not the only ones who look for simple explanations and easy solutions. MMR was a case in point.
I had assumed the homophobia at the Tavistock was simply cultural, so it was interesting to learn that it's inherent to an out-dated understanding in the psychoanalytic tradition.
Having such a knowledgeable guest made for a very interesting episode and I'll be putting Dr Az Hakeem's book on my wishlist!
My local NHS Trust launched a 'this is us' campaign. All of 'us' are represented using flags. So there are a bunch of 'gender' flags at the top, and a bunch of national flags at the bottom. In the middle is a 'disability' flag and a 'disability pride' flag.
Heterosexuals, lesbians asesxuals, bear gender plus a host of 'other' niche gender identities are represented in the gender flags.... gay men are not.
I have not a clue what 'bear gender' means and whilst have no intention of googling on a trust laptop. I do wonder if there was a flurry of searches. I also wonder if bear genders are welcome to bring their whole self to work every day, or any day?
As with all health environments my experience is you are tripping over gay men, so it is interesting to hear that the NHS has tradition of homophobia. It appears our 'this is us' campaign is endorsing the tradition.
Tbh I have a host of issues with this campaign and the absence of gay men is just one of them...I won't bore you with the detail ... but rest assured the asexuals and bear genders are acknowledged, whew what a relief.
'This is Virtue Signalling', it should've been called. What you describe sounds like a tedious, sterile version of Camberwick Green or Trumpton. 'This is us: there's Me Gender, Me Gender, My Gender and I Gender'. What a waste of money that the NHS don't have! 🤬
AIUI bears are a subculture of gay men, typically big hairy lads. Though why they'd be called another "gender" and why gay men as a whole wouldn't be mentioned, I have no idea.
Great episode and very interesting to hear that most of the men in dresses are transvestites ( such a relief to hear that name again 😎) with fetishes as opposed to the minority of AGPs. However at the end of the day, men with fetishes!
I think also mixed in with the term Queer is Queer Theory, perhaps better described as Cultural Maoism! See Xi Van Fleet. Just a thought!
I like the sound of the tsunami of law suits. Just what we need!
Wonderful show, guys! As I listen I am the more encouraged to get started on a memoir about the summer of my eighth birthday (June 1972) when my mother was placed in a mental hospital, my Victorian era grandmother told me it was OK to be gay, I briefly prayed to wake up a girl, and then discovered (as it was very much a time of discovery) that I loved other boys and loved being me - a gay boy. Nothing was ever the same after that intense, seismically transformative summer.
Very interesting to hear about the distinction between AGPs and transvestites, especially given how certain quarters are melting down quite spectaularly about the AGP at the conference, which if I am understanding this correctly, it sounds like he probably isn't? I've heard many people say all heterosexual adult Trans identified males are AGPs, but it would seem not.
Nov 25, 2023·edited Nov 25, 2023Liked by Queens Speech
Many thanks to you three brilliant uranians. An invaluable conversation, particularly as Dr. Az corrected my long-held misunderstanding of what AGP meant: I thought it meant 'man who becomes sexually aroused from wearing women's clothes'; this I now know to be a 'fetishistic transvestite'.
Clive's likening of autistic traits to the behaviour of the TQ+ movement is totally bang-on; something I'd never picked up on before, inexplicably, as it now seems so obvious. "Literal violence!" etc.
Re: 'Homosexual': I've always called myself 'heterosexual' rather than 'straight' because, growing up in the era of the homophobic slur 'bent', it always sounded to me as if 'straight' had been conceived as its 'acceptable' opposite. Whether I'm right or wrong, 'straight' still retains that negative connotation for me. Does anyone else share my view?
Also, regarding Dr. Hakeem's claims about Sigmund Freud, I thought Freud was meant to be relatively progressive about homosexuality? His daughter Anna was a lesbian.
I would enjoy hearing Dr. Hakeem react to Phil and his book. The way he tells it, Phil wears his own girlfriend. Remember the invisible friend you had as a small child? He puts her on every day. Here is an observation I wrote in my review of "Autoheterosexual:"
>> This explicit faith statement, ‘born in the wrong body,’ is not simply a fetish, a thing linked to sexual gratification. Rather, it is a fetish in the pre-sexology meaning of an inanimate object that someone worships, or believes to have magical powers, or believes to be inhabited by a spirit. The blue dress is the totem of Phil Illy’s magical fetish. <<
What an excellent episode chaps! I learned so much from this discussion. Thank you so much! I fully intend to buy Dr Az Hakeem’s book & I hope it will make me more confident to bring up the subject over the dinner table with some of my BBC & Guardian-toting-doting friends... The unfortunate fact is that I have kept my ‘GC’ views quiet in most company recently, ever since venturing a year ago to say out loud that it was ludicrous for a male to think he can ‘be a woman’. I was roundly criticised as an unsympathetic & thoughtless person - they stopped short of calling me ‘transphobic’, but that word has gained a bit more currency now, so I may be ‘branded’ next time I speak up. Still, I will forge on, armed with new knowledge!
I have a question: many of the high profile TIMs - men like India Willoughby, Steph Richardson, Katy Montgomerie, Sarah Jane Baker, Munroe Bergdorf et al seem to fall into the category of ‘fetishist transvestite’ because they wear stereotypical women’s clothing - and who want to be absolutely included into women-only spaces. But at the same time they seem to have the AGP’s urge for adding female breasts & using filters on their photos to ‘prettify’ themselves up to Grade A movie ingenue. They’re the most vocal & have massive followings. How do we engage them & make them see that we SEE them?
The brilliant Dr Hakeem should be given a prime time discussion slot on mainstream media so that his clarity of view & understanding of the mindset of these delusionists can be heard by millions more people. Otherwise the infection of the repeated transactivist mantras will infiltrate ever further into our organisations, our institutions & our government.
For the fetishistic TV, breasts are just put on and taken off whenever they want to look "laydee". Willoughby may fall under the transsexual description in that he's a "buyer" not a "renter" of a body approximating a female appearance.
I agree that Sodomite sounds wonderful. But I must confess, I'm an old, old straight male who in his time was quite a fan of sodomy. As were about a half dozen straight women I've known... so... Homosexual seems plumb. But, of course, that's up to you. Your fan, The Absurdilachian. xo
I think one of the take homes for me was people shouldn’t be self diagnosing themselves as they’re likely to get it wrong. I understand that Phil self diagnosed himself as AGP in his attempt to understand why he likes wearing‘women’s’ clothes. From Dr Az’s comments, that may well not be the case.
...sorry.... informative educational revealingly comprehensive guide. I’m sharing on fb (I have a fb friend in USA) who was sold the lie dead daughter or trans son. I watch on in dread as this child is midway through teenage years now socially transitioned -not sure if had surgery (yet) or hormones. I hope she sees this and see the light for herself and her daughter whom she calls son.
absolutely brilliant show. Dr Az was really interesting and enlightening. what he says makes so much sense. Having been married to a transvestite for 35 years without being aware! it was very interesting to hear the explanations of the different traits. l am now divorced due to the absurd escalation that followed the 'coming out of the closet' xx
I love Dr Az's explanations of autism. It's scarily familiar to me as an autistic person who was, fortunately, born and diagnosed too early for this horror and actually got proper therapy and support. We do gravitate towards problem solving and easy solutions, so it's very easy to get sucked into cults or explanations or answers for why we find social situations difficult. If we're high functioning, we can learn and practise social skills and self-regulation, but it does take work and effort and it's a long and slow process. We used to all teach each other these skills we'd picked up: on forums like Wrong Planet and Aspie Hangout, we'd tell each other about CBT, meditation, breathing exercises, and things like wearing gloves, sunglasses and earplugs to block out too much sensory input to avoid getting overwhelmed.
A lot of us like doing roleplaying games and acting, because it's an opportunity to learn about expressing and identifying emotions in a "safe" context divorced from your real life. You read the script, you think, "how would I feel in that situation? How would my character feel? How do I show that to the audience?" and that teaches you a good deal about body language and tones of voice. I think that's why so many get hooked on this trans nonsense, because it's like they're always roleplaying, and the culture is such that they're more easily accepted as their fake persona than their real selves. It's one step removed from themselves too.
All this "gender medicine" reminds me of previous quack "autism cures" like Miracle Mineral Solution (enemas of industrial bleach - seriously), and even hormone blockers: Mark and David Geier were sterilising autistic kids with Lupron in the 2000s and it was, rightly, considered a medical scandal and eugenicist at the time. There were articles titled "Why not just castrate them?"
The autism self-advocacy and autism rights movement used to be on the ball about opposing this sort of medical abuse. I'm sickened by how easily they've swallowed the gender nonsense and how autism orgs have gone along with it.
I'm glad there's doctors like Az, and David Bell, and autistic advocates like Rachel Rooney and Hazel Appleby who've been speaking out about this. Thank you all!
That was very interesting to read. I'm going to look more into the previous autism "cures" as I'm sure the parallels with gender medicine will be illuminating.
Thank you! I did an article about it a few years back for the On The Woman Question blog that Jen Isaacson (Hannah Berelli's gf) runs: https://onthewomanquestion.com/2020/12/01/children-cannot-consent-puberty-blockers-gender-eugenics-and-keira-bell/
It's from a Marxist perspective so there's a bunch of political opinion in there but I give a bit of the history. Plus I mean it as an actual old-fashioned Marxist, not a postmodernist neoliberal wokelord like the gender ghouls misuse the term today!
Thanks again for the work all three of you do to fight this atrocity.
Myles Power and Ben Goldacre and other pseudoscience debunkers have good details of those but they've been pretty quiet on the gender woo sadly.
It's interesting that he says the more autistic patients were more asexual: I've known a lot of autists who were into fetishes and things like object sexuality, I don't know why. Either because we have extra grey matter that connects areas of the brain that aren't usually connected, or the obsession and attachment to objects rather than people. A lot of autistics have comfort objects that aren't sexual but are for reassuring themselves, like a security blanket, but for some it does become a sexual thing.
Personally I was always pretty hypersexual but with none of the social skills to do anything about it. No weird fetishes, just a lot of awkwardness and nerves. Easily resolved by just hooking up with other autists though!
I don't have enough experience of autism organisations to make a proper judgement, but I wonder if Prof Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism made it easier for them to accept the idea of boy brains in girl bodies and vice versa.
I agree that the paucity of true autism advocacy at a time when autistic people (and especially children) are disproportionately the victims of this whole insane medical experiment is beyond shameful.
The lack of concern for how autistic people are treated does seem to be typical of society in general. I found it so disheartening a couple of weeks ago to see how little media coverage or social media interest there was of Baroness Hollin's report into the inhumane use of solitary confinement for autistic people and people with learning disabilities. It's not as trendy as Trans Awareness Week I suppose!
Sadly, I'm sure there will be people who look at the autism link and say, 'oh, that's what it was, they were just born in the wrong body, we can fix that now that we know'. Autists are not the only ones who look for simple explanations and easy solutions. MMR was a case in point.
I had assumed the homophobia at the Tavistock was simply cultural, so it was interesting to learn that it's inherent to an out-dated understanding in the psychoanalytic tradition.
Having such a knowledgeable guest made for a very interesting episode and I'll be putting Dr Az Hakeem's book on my wishlist!
My local NHS Trust launched a 'this is us' campaign. All of 'us' are represented using flags. So there are a bunch of 'gender' flags at the top, and a bunch of national flags at the bottom. In the middle is a 'disability' flag and a 'disability pride' flag.
Heterosexuals, lesbians asesxuals, bear gender plus a host of 'other' niche gender identities are represented in the gender flags.... gay men are not.
I have not a clue what 'bear gender' means and whilst have no intention of googling on a trust laptop. I do wonder if there was a flurry of searches. I also wonder if bear genders are welcome to bring their whole self to work every day, or any day?
As with all health environments my experience is you are tripping over gay men, so it is interesting to hear that the NHS has tradition of homophobia. It appears our 'this is us' campaign is endorsing the tradition.
Tbh I have a host of issues with this campaign and the absence of gay men is just one of them...I won't bore you with the detail ... but rest assured the asexuals and bear genders are acknowledged, whew what a relief.
'This is Virtue Signalling', it should've been called. What you describe sounds like a tedious, sterile version of Camberwick Green or Trumpton. 'This is us: there's Me Gender, Me Gender, My Gender and I Gender'. What a waste of money that the NHS don't have! 🤬
AIUI bears are a subculture of gay men, typically big hairy lads. Though why they'd be called another "gender" and why gay men as a whole wouldn't be mentioned, I have no idea.
Thanks for the mention!!
Great episode and very interesting to hear that most of the men in dresses are transvestites ( such a relief to hear that name again 😎) with fetishes as opposed to the minority of AGPs. However at the end of the day, men with fetishes!
I think also mixed in with the term Queer is Queer Theory, perhaps better described as Cultural Maoism! See Xi Van Fleet. Just a thought!
I like the sound of the tsunami of law suits. Just what we need!
Thanks Clive, Dennis and Az.
Dusty
Wonderful show, guys! As I listen I am the more encouraged to get started on a memoir about the summer of my eighth birthday (June 1972) when my mother was placed in a mental hospital, my Victorian era grandmother told me it was OK to be gay, I briefly prayed to wake up a girl, and then discovered (as it was very much a time of discovery) that I loved other boys and loved being me - a gay boy. Nothing was ever the same after that intense, seismically transformative summer.
Very interesting to hear about the distinction between AGPs and transvestites, especially given how certain quarters are melting down quite spectaularly about the AGP at the conference, which if I am understanding this correctly, it sounds like he probably isn't? I've heard many people say all heterosexual adult Trans identified males are AGPs, but it would seem not.
Many thanks to you three brilliant uranians. An invaluable conversation, particularly as Dr. Az corrected my long-held misunderstanding of what AGP meant: I thought it meant 'man who becomes sexually aroused from wearing women's clothes'; this I now know to be a 'fetishistic transvestite'.
Clive's likening of autistic traits to the behaviour of the TQ+ movement is totally bang-on; something I'd never picked up on before, inexplicably, as it now seems so obvious. "Literal violence!" etc.
Re: 'Homosexual': I've always called myself 'heterosexual' rather than 'straight' because, growing up in the era of the homophobic slur 'bent', it always sounded to me as if 'straight' had been conceived as its 'acceptable' opposite. Whether I'm right or wrong, 'straight' still retains that negative connotation for me. Does anyone else share my view?
Also, regarding Dr. Hakeem's claims about Sigmund Freud, I thought Freud was meant to be relatively progressive about homosexuality? His daughter Anna was a lesbian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud%27s_views_on_homosexuality
p.s. Only slight gripe about today's episode was that Dennis' dulcet tones were somewhat muffled...by his Zoom connection or mic, maybe?
I would enjoy hearing Dr. Hakeem react to Phil and his book. The way he tells it, Phil wears his own girlfriend. Remember the invisible friend you had as a small child? He puts her on every day. Here is an observation I wrote in my review of "Autoheterosexual:"
>> This explicit faith statement, ‘born in the wrong body,’ is not simply a fetish, a thing linked to sexual gratification. Rather, it is a fetish in the pre-sexology meaning of an inanimate object that someone worships, or believes to have magical powers, or believes to be inhabited by a spirit. The blue dress is the totem of Phil Illy’s magical fetish. <<
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/sympathy-for-the-devil-with-the-blue
What an excellent episode chaps! I learned so much from this discussion. Thank you so much! I fully intend to buy Dr Az Hakeem’s book & I hope it will make me more confident to bring up the subject over the dinner table with some of my BBC & Guardian-toting-doting friends... The unfortunate fact is that I have kept my ‘GC’ views quiet in most company recently, ever since venturing a year ago to say out loud that it was ludicrous for a male to think he can ‘be a woman’. I was roundly criticised as an unsympathetic & thoughtless person - they stopped short of calling me ‘transphobic’, but that word has gained a bit more currency now, so I may be ‘branded’ next time I speak up. Still, I will forge on, armed with new knowledge!
I have a question: many of the high profile TIMs - men like India Willoughby, Steph Richardson, Katy Montgomerie, Sarah Jane Baker, Munroe Bergdorf et al seem to fall into the category of ‘fetishist transvestite’ because they wear stereotypical women’s clothing - and who want to be absolutely included into women-only spaces. But at the same time they seem to have the AGP’s urge for adding female breasts & using filters on their photos to ‘prettify’ themselves up to Grade A movie ingenue. They’re the most vocal & have massive followings. How do we engage them & make them see that we SEE them?
The brilliant Dr Hakeem should be given a prime time discussion slot on mainstream media so that his clarity of view & understanding of the mindset of these delusionists can be heard by millions more people. Otherwise the infection of the repeated transactivist mantras will infiltrate ever further into our organisations, our institutions & our government.
For the fetishistic TV, breasts are just put on and taken off whenever they want to look "laydee". Willoughby may fall under the transsexual description in that he's a "buyer" not a "renter" of a body approximating a female appearance.
I meant to add that Clive & Dennis should also get a prime time slot!
I agree that Sodomite sounds wonderful. But I must confess, I'm an old, old straight male who in his time was quite a fan of sodomy. As were about a half dozen straight women I've known... so... Homosexual seems plumb. But, of course, that's up to you. Your fan, The Absurdilachian. xo
Good point though.
Another great episode and a great guest. I'll buy Az's book.
I think one of the take homes for me was people shouldn’t be self diagnosing themselves as they’re likely to get it wrong. I understand that Phil self diagnosed himself as AGP in his attempt to understand why he likes wearing‘women’s’ clothes. From Dr Az’s comments, that may well not be the case.
I will NEVER use the word “queer”.
Blimey more like a monologue than a conversation he does live talking 🥱
Well, he was the guest so it's kind of THEIR show when we have guests on :)
Another amazing
...sorry.... informative educational revealingly comprehensive guide. I’m sharing on fb (I have a fb friend in USA) who was sold the lie dead daughter or trans son. I watch on in dread as this child is midway through teenage years now socially transitioned -not sure if had surgery (yet) or hormones. I hope she sees this and see the light for herself and her daughter whom she calls son.
absolutely brilliant show. Dr Az was really interesting and enlightening. what he says makes so much sense. Having been married to a transvestite for 35 years without being aware! it was very interesting to hear the explanations of the different traits. l am now divorced due to the absurd escalation that followed the 'coming out of the closet' xx