When the Temperate is Decried as Extreme
A Review of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment

4,670 words

Ryan T. Anderson
When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment
Encounter, 2018

With the menace of transgenderism becoming ever more aggressive, this author was obliged to finally acquire and read When Harry Became Sally by Ryan T. Anderson. Very much in the mainstream, Anderson describes himself as a religious conservative, while having ties with the Heritage Foundation and other well-heeled Conservative, Inc institutions. GLADD has written a profile about him on its website. While the language used to describe him would seem rather innocuous from the perspective of most, it can only be regarded as disparaging from the skewed perspective of LGBTQ YUCK.

There is a general impression that his book along with Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, are the two volumes of note that contradict and defy transgender orthodoxy. Shrier seems more prominent, in no small part because she, unlike Anderson, appeared on Joe Rogan, the video edition of which is no longer available. Shrier’s volume focuses mostly on how the transgender craze has harmed women and girls, from prepubescent girls, to teenagers, to young adults and beyond. Quite curiously, Anderson’s volume is banned on Amazon, whereas Irreversible Damage is still available on that behemoth retailer and mockery of anti-trust law. This can fairly be attributed to two factors: first, the feminist sensibility of Irreversible Damage as it focuses primarily on how the transgender craze harms girls and women who prove susceptible to it and, second, Anderson is a religious conservative.

It is rather remarkable that something so even-keeled and dispassionate as this text would get banned. It is very much in the mould of the mainstream, tepid, respectable conservative. As is custom with that particular breed, Anderson only really denounces so-called transgender affirming care for children and minors, as he cautions how the psychology, psychiatry, and other rackets make no effort to dissuade a patient, particularly a child or minor, from this delusion, but in fact are invariably poised to affirm such delusions.

One victim was greenlit for “transition” after just four visits. As will be discussed later on, Anderson is too soft on transgenderism, imploring multiple times that transgender “people” must be treated with respect and compassion and denounces “discrimination” against transgender people when not bound up with women’s rights, women’s right to privacy and safety, and so on. By limiting his opposition to transgenderism as it relates to kids and the issue of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports, he otherwise concedes the floor to transgenderism in most other respects. If that approach is not abandoned for something far more radical, transgenderism will inevitably become mainstream. Even the title seems wanting, drawing inspiration from a light-hearted, classic romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally. The title fails to convey the gravitas of the transgender plague which is destroying the lives of far too many. as its adherents have wreaked havoc on the language we use and how society regards sex and what it means to be a man or woman.

There are several observations that come immediately to mind. First, this book was published six years ago. Consider first and foremost what an extreme outrage the transgender menace is, in view of a number of important considerations, from endangering women by giving mentally ill men free rein to women’s spaces, to a sociological and cultural phenomenon whereby young women, even sometimes adolescents, go on TikTok and elsewhere to broadcast how they destroy their bodies. There are other equally pressing considerations, including what these people are trying to do to our languages[1], as well the psychic toll that the sight of these creatures incurs on our consciousness and senses. In view of these considerations, it is telling that this book and perhaps other books, essays, or speaking engagements like it have failed to rally a more robust, zealous resistance. This bolsters the conviction that mainstream conservatism is inherently inadequate and unsuitable to actually win the cultural battles it claims to be fighting.

Despite being published six years ago now, the volume offers a nice, tidy summary of events in the culture, to the extent one can call it that, up to the point of time when the book was published, including Bruce Jenner and the introduction of some transgender “person” on Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black. Such summaries are always appreciated, because they relieve the reader of having to watch or otherwise concern or sully himself with such dreck himself. As much as there is to criticize Anderson’s tone and temperament, as well as his position on some of the issues, he is to be applauded for calling Bruce Jenner by his birth name and for “dead-naming” generally.

The volume also offers a precise, simple to understand argument on why and how sex is an immutable characteristic that is created at conception—not something “assigned at birth.” The author also sets forth a concise litany summarizing how humans are a dimorphic species, listing many of the differences between men and woman that exist either categorically or in the aggregate (83-84). Anderson also does a commendable job in setting forth the various logical inconsistencies about sex and gender. This excerpted passage is worthy of a being featured in a meme or “inspirational quote.”

[T]he activists promote a highly subjective and incoherent worldview. On the one hand, they claim that the real self is other than physical body… yet at the same time they embrace a materialist philosophy in which only the material world exists. They say that gender is purely a social construct, while asserting that a person can be “trapped” in the wrong body. They say there are no meaningful differences between man and woman, yet they rely on rigid sex stereotypes to argue that “gender identity” is real while human embodiment is not. They claim that truth is whatever a person says it is, yet they believe there is a real self to be discovered inside that person. They express a radical expressive individualism in which people are free to do whatever they want and define the truth however they wish, yet they try to enforce acceptance of transgender ideology in a paternalistic way. (46)

Anderson also correctly recounts that the vast majority of adult onset, so-called male-to-female transgender fits in to two groups, gay men with such self-loathing that they feel compelled to pretend to be women, and ostensibly straight (or who knows what, precisely) usually (but not always) older men with the paraphilia of autogynephilia[2], which is often paired with other pathologies like masochism. Anderson has the temerity to suggest that Bruce Jenner is likely the latter, especially given how, despite being in his sixties (whether a man or woman) wears revealing, provocative clothing only suitable for young women in their 20s and maybe 30s. For this he is to be lauded.

It must also be noted that Anderson correctly discerns that transgender and radical gender ideologues have only recently sought to redefine gender. While he does not look at different definition in details as was done to some extent in “This Mockery of Language II: Gender Redefined,” he mentions the work of Sister Mary Prudence Allen, whose analysis of the etymology of the word gender and the base root syllable “gen” in etymologically related words undermines these attempts to redefine the word to suit the radical transgender agenda. (159)

The last notable advantage of this volume is how Anderson rebukes the medical counseling racket. As most everyone knows, the overwhelming number of counselors, it seems, do not focus on trying to dissuade a patient experiencing gender dysphoria out of that very delusion, and indeed make no such effort at all to do that one thing they must do, but are instead poised to encourage dysphoria as well as “transition,” particularly in relation to patients who are minors. This becomes a self-perpetuating, “self-reinforcing” trap (125). Notably, Anderson informs the reader how the natural onset of puberty is a critical tool in winning the battle against gender dysphoria, as the process of puberty where a teen grows into adulthood helps propel such unfortunate persons out of such dysphoria. And therein lies just one of the evils of the transgender lobby. Aside from permanent damage done by puberty blockers in terms of stunted growth, deficiencies in bone strength and density, and other ailments, the regimen of puberty blockers prescribed to patients with gender dysphoria deprive these poor, confused souls from the natural onset of puberty which, in over 90 percent of cases, helps lifts these people out of their gender dysphoria. (12-)

This damning reprimand is coupled with another observation into how a child’s reasoning often plays into such delusion. Anderson writes that very often boys who fall prey to this have a natural temperament against things like “rough-housing” or other stereotypically boyish behavior. Endowed only with the very limited reasoning of a child, a boy, to paraphrase, surmises “boys like to rough-house, I do not. Girls do not like to rough-house, therefore I want to be a girl.” Girls susceptible to this madness are led astray by the same sort of reasoning of a child, but inverted, i.e., “I do not like to play with dolls, therefore. . ..” The very real concern that the transgender craze preys upon what are in actuality tomboys is well-known and pervasive, although not nearly pervasive enough. As an illustration of how the reasoning of a child renders itself to this delusion, one boy under Kenneth Zucker’s care thought he was a girl or wanted to be a girl with this absurd reasoning of a child—reasoning that transgender zealots and nutters, cloaked in the guise of psychologists and clinicians, regularly sign off on with a proverbial rubber stamp:

[W]hen asked why he wanted to be a girl, one seven-year boy said that it was because he did not like to sweat and only boys sweat. He also commented that he wanted to be a girl because he liked to read and girls read better than boys.

Another eight-year old “commented that ‘girls are treated better than boys by their parents’ and that ‘the teacher only yells at boys’” (136). That such naked misandry against innocent boys has not provoked open revolt is an indictment of our society.

It may be a fault or deficiency made inevitable by the time in which it was written (although this author is doubtful), but this text does not even discuss the Munchausen by Proxy phenomenon in which sick parents implant these ideas into the minds of their children, either because of a need to virtue signal, be seen as a deep, thoughtful, progressive person, or whatever their motivations might be. Another shortcoming, and an area where Irreversible Damage is clearly superior, is that this volume does not explore—at all—the ways in which insidious elements in the culture, most particularly social media—are fueling this social contagion. He does discuss how transgender ideology has been incorporated into mainstream education, including official policy handed down by the National Education Association, but Shrier goes into much more detail about the goings on in classrooms and even assemblies encouraging this stuff, including “transgender” kids running out in the school auditorium with a transgender flag as a cape during whatever assembly is held to promote these sick ideas to children and minors. He does note how many children and minors susceptible to the transgender craze have underlying psychological problems or issues with the parenting received. One sample statistic he cited states 75 percent of boys having an insecure attachment relationship to the mother with similar figures for girls. (70)

One interesting aspect of this text is that it sets forth how the transgender menace, in many ways, stems from the feminist movement before it, as feminists were—and still are—so zealous in eradicating traditional gender roles as well as society’s greater recognition of the fundamental differences between the sexes. Although he of course makes no mention of it, this stated history of the devolution in Culture since 1945 further exemplifies the principle of Defining Deviancy Down[3], a subject this author has written about before, including most particularly in “This Horrid Rainbow: Defining Deviancy Down and Away.” Although Anderson is an opponent of so-called gay marriage, his objection seems to stem from religious principles and not as much as secular reasoning[4], of which the understanding and application of Defining Deviancy Down is a part, and which, when properly understood, warns of dangers like transgenderism and other societal evils becoming mainstream if gay marriage and homosexuality become mainstream and part of mainstream society.

Anderson also notes how LGBTQ YUCK palms transgender advocacy off in the garb of the civil rights movement. Rather than question whether mainstream conservatism perhaps should never have internalized the ethos of Martin Luther King or his various handlers such as Stanley Levison, he is careful to explain how gender identity is different than race or sex. On one hand one cannot expect a mainstream conservative, with a lucrative career backed by the likes of the Heritage Foundation and other Conservativism, Inc. organs to be too radical, but on the other hand, why must figures like Anderson be so tepid about rights of an individual to associate with whomever he wants and shun or dissociate with whomever he pleases? A proprietor of an eating establishment who hates transgender “people,” correctly so in this author’s opinion, should be well within his rights to refuse service on that ground.[5] Discrimination is a faculty, not a moral failing.

This comes to a head in much of his repeated cautioning about the need to be tolerant and compassionate to transgender people, as he also denounces “discrimination” against transgender people in ways not related to women’s safety and privacy. In an otherwise lucid although obvious argument on why women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and other such spaces should not be made available to biological men, Anderson wrote this unfortunate passage (emphasis added):

The concern is not that people who identify as transgender will engage in inappropriate acts (as some activists have mockingly said), but that the predators will abuse gender identity policies to gain earlier access to victims. Law enforcement experts have given testimony on precisely this problem. (186)

While it is true that predators abusing absurd transgender policies is a legitimate concern, why does this man concede any ground to transgender activists? Why does he delude himself, and many of his readers, into thinking that “genuine” transgenders will not engage in appropriate acts? Recall that in addition to gay men who wish to present themselves as women because they cannot reconcile themselves with being what they are–homosexual men–other so-called male to female transgenders who do not fit that description are ostensibly straight or bisexual men, for lack of a better term, who are subject to the paraphilia of autogynephilia. That is often but not exclusively paired with masochism, i.e. it can be and is associated with other paraphilia. In this and other passages he is being a feckless coward. Does he really expect more astute readers to expect “genuine” male to female transgenders, sick with autogynephilia and who imagine themselves to be “transgender lesbians”, to be in no way a threat to women’s safety in these spaces?

The author admonishes the reader, stating these people need to be treated with dignity and respect.

The ultimate source of this and other errors made by Anderson doubtlessly stems from how beholden he is to the civil rights ethos, as well as its ideological and rhetorical baggage. Note how, in this passage, he unequivocally denounces anyone who “discriminates” against transgender people in accordance with the civil rights era creed that he is clearly beholden to:

Granted, there has been historic bigotry against those who identify as transgender, and it has not vanished. If people are being turned away from restaurants or denied basic medical care solely on grounds of a transgender identity, that is real discrimination and it should be addressed appropriately so that people are treated with dignity and respect. (197)

The language he uses does not qualify his appraisal merely in terms of what is legally permissible or impermissible. His language is expressed in the terms of what he views as normatively good and bad, and not merely what is legally allowed, prohibited, or mandated. Anderson is very much a case study in how mainstream conservatism failed to inoculate itself from the rhetoric or underlying assumptions of the civil rights era as well as the consequences of that critical failure. Although the most obvious conclusion escapes the author, some readers will note how the perverse preoccupation with taking care to never appear to be “bigoted” harms women:

The prospect of being accused of bigotry or discrimination can also make women more hesitant to report certain forms of sexual misconduct, such and peeping and indecent exposure. “Most women are already afraid to report suspected crime or suspicious activity if they think that people will label them for making a report” […] The fear of being accused of bigotry and transphobia will make this problem worse. (188)

Nowhere does he suggest that perhaps people need to stop cowering at the prospect of being called names like “bigot,” “transphobe,” or what have you, let alone question, in any way, the continuing legacy of the civil rights movement.

Consider for example that Anderson denounces a hypothetical where a transgender student is denied access to water fountains, to analogize sentimentalized baggage from the civil rights era (emphasis added):

If a school were to say that students who identify with their biological sex may use the water fountains but students who identify as transgender may not, that would be discrimination on the basis of gender identity. It would take a student’s gender identity into account where it has no relation to the matter at hand, in order to disadvantage the student. And it would be rightly prohibited.  (200)

Despite some heated language on this matter, this author advocates a somewhat more refined position on the degree to which some people caught up in this deserve compassion, and to what extent they deserve nothing other than absolute, unwavering intolerance, depending on how far any one individual has gone down the transgender rabbit hole. To the extent a person has not yet crossed the point of no return, either through genital mutilation, body-destroying surgery, or intake of puberty blockers or hormones to whatever extent goes beyond the threshold of reversibility, some measure of compassion is in order. Such compassion is in order not just for the overriding objective to dissuade this person from this life-ruining madness, but from the realization and understanding that these persons were born into a cultural milieu or set of circumstances that implanted these sick ideas in their heads in the first place.[6]

Conversely, once people susceptible to the transgender mind disease have crossed the point of no return by destroying their bodies, either by cutting up their penis to form a disgusting, crude, and very poor counterfeit of a vagina or by lopping off breasts, removing ovaries or undergoing the horrors associated with the neo-penis, or even intaking enough cross-sex hormones to permanently destroy their bodies, such persons have obliterated their own humanity and deserve nothing other than absolute inhumanity. They have utterly ruined their own lives and their bodies and, having destroyed their very humanity, are utterly beyond redemption, as they have reduced themselves to a most loathsome state that is very much less than human.

These “pooners” have only succeeded in destroying most of what makes them women. A very poor attempt to counterfeit manhood fools no one. Not being men but no longer being women, they are less than human. And the leftist, transgender and gender radical swine dare to ask, “Why do you care? How does it affect you, personally?”

With that caveat stated, consider this novel position: for the purposes of persuading vulnerable people to disabuse themselves of such mad folly before they cross beyond the point of no return, compassion may need to be offset with a little bit of nastiness, including social stigma and the strongest pronouncements possible that transgender lunacy is not acceptable, not welcome, and will not be tolerated. For those who can be saved, a carrot-and-stick approach works best: Zuckerbrot und Peitsche. Anderson shows no such realization. Such tepid, weak-tea conservatism has been the order of the century, for 80 years or more. And given what an outrage the transgender menace is, an outrage that strikes at something visceral, something core not just to human sexuality but to the mammalian essence, this even-keeled, tepid approach of respectable conservatism is just not cutting it.

As partial as this author is to post punk, goth, and indie youth subcultures from years past, maybe schools ought to have not tolerated dress and garb in conformance with these subcultures decades ago. Such a proposition remains unconvincing to this author at least (although the androgyny of the late 70s into the 80s and 90s seems to invoke the principle of Defining Deviancy Down). However, as such questions should at least be considered, schools and other institutions should absolutely apply dress code standards and other establishments prohibiting attire that expresses transgender identity. If a boy or young man comes to school cross-dressing wearing a provocative dress with copious amounts of eye and facial make-up, suspend him indefinitely until he comes back dressed as his actual sex, as restaurants and other establishments open to the public should refuse service to men dressed as women as well. The same rationale applies to so-called female-to-male transgenders, contemptuously referred to as “pooners” in Internet parlance.

As evidenced in how transgenderism descends ideologically from the feminist bid to obliterate gender roles and society’s recognition of the differences between the sexes, it is not unreasonable to suggest or consider that by tolerating and even encouraging women to wear pants and other modes of dress that were typically male, the key principle of Defining Deviancy Down reveals itself again. While ultimately this author cannot fully endorse the position that women ought to be prohibited or deterred from wearing pants, the slippery slope phenomenon does indicate that perhaps society ought not have indulged feminists at all by even conceding an inch on matters of gender roles and expectations.

If we had stopped them at trying to rescind the obligation to wear dresses, cultural norms regarding sex would not have progressed further. At the very least, the notion that women should be allowed in the armed forces and on-the-beat roles in law enforcement needed to be resisted with much more fervor than what establishment conservatism had to offer. Anderson and many others of this tepid breed of mainstream conservative would of course balk at many if not all such radical, innovative ideas, whether stigmatizing and discriminating against youths who entertain transgender folly or rethinking whether giving even an inch to the feminists was a good idea in hindsight[7]. Nor do they falter only because some or all of these ideas would currently run afoul of our misguided, corrupt legal system that is tantamount to anarcho-tyranny. Mainstream conservatives like Anderson recoil out of their dumb “principles” that, if not embraced because they actually are paid-to-lose a la what the Washington Generals are to the Harlem Globetrotters, they might as well be.

Aside from this defect, the text does not discuss to a sufficient degree what a horror-show a lot of these procedures are. This seems to be another critical defect in the temperament of most mainstream conservatives. They never want to get down and dirty, and actually talk about what something is intrinsically. To be sure, he notes that victims of this craze will become sterile, as he also, to his credit, refutes the lie that puberty blockers do not cause irreparable harm. He goes into some detail about the monstrous absurdity that is the neo-penis, but does not fully describe the horrors entailed in the unflinching, unvarnished manner necessary to invoke righteous outrage in his readers. None of the prose is prone to excite the reader with moral outrage or consternation as some passages from Irreversible Damage did or certain select passages from “This Psychic Toll,” “What Consenting Adults Do Is Our Concern,” or “Leaping Into, Delusion, Death, and Personal Destruction: The Cost of Tolerating Transgenderism” by this author.

Particularly since Elon Musk took over Twitter and expelled Vijaye Gadde and her minions, much of the material found on Twitter is more expositive regarding what transgender lunacy is. Reader discretion is advised regarding the neo-penis.

The book certainly has its merits, and will educate most readers concerned about this important issue on various facets of the transgender matter, facets that people need to have a grasp of in order to articulate why transgenderism is the insidious evil that it is. That stated, it is wanting for being too cautious, for the author’s misguided preoccupation to be a “respectable conservative,” and for not describing these horrors for what they are in an unflinching, uncompromising way. Mainstream conservatives always seem far too squeamish about hard truths, and this volume seems to be no exception.

Verdict: recommended with some reservations.

Please see Richard Parker’s new Substack page, The Raven’s Call, featuring essays and other writings with a unique, hard-right perspective.

Notes

[1] German, for example, has been beset by the insidious forces of transgender and gender ideology, as they have interfered with masculine and feminine nouns with asterisks. The greeting “Meine Damen und Herren” is no longer used by Lufthansa.

[2] For those unacquainted with this most disturbing paraphilia, autogynephilia is a condition in which a man experiences intense sexual arousal and excitement by imagining himself as the object of female sexual desire. This explains why many so-called male-to-female transgenders wear sexually provocative attired, such as short skits, slutty-open toed heels, and so on. This author is unable to understand this fetish, but recognizes that it exists.

[3] As explained in greater detail in other essays by this author, this concept, Defining Deviancy Down, explains how society, any society, becomes unable to regard undesirable behavior as deviant if that behavior is not properly sanctioned and stigmatized, as that behavior gradually becomes mainstream. Once that formerly deviant behavior becomes mainstream, other more outrageous behavior that was regarded as more deviant or even unthinkable becomes less deviant and takes the place of marginally deviant behavior on the cusp of behavior in that society. This fundamental concept informs why media encouraging or normalizing deviant or destructive behavior is so deleterious to society, as it also demonstrates how painfully stupid the blithe assertion to just “turn it off” or “change the channel” really is. For a more in-depth and yet concise introduction to this key, fundamental concept, see the Introduction to Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork.

[4] A brief glance and cursory skimming through What Is Marriage: Man and Woman: A Defense did not reveal any of the reasoning in “This Horrid Rainbow” or for that matter Slouching Towards Gomorrah. That glance compelled neither a desire not interest to read that volume at this time.

[5] One may concede that opposition to civil rights regarding race transgresses serious social taboos, or that for example race is an immutable characteristic. Even mainstream conservatives who are convinced that race is not only immutable but an arbitrary or meaningless distinction (despite mountains of evidence contradicting such wishful thinking) have no excuse for making the concessions found here. A proprietor of a sports bar that caters to a particular fan base can exclude rival fans. An establishment should be able to exclude transgenders, if for no other reason than their physical appearance is a blight on the senses.

[6] See generally “Thrust Into It All: The Individual Defined by Culture and Circumstance” which explains some of the ways in which individual choice and autonomy are far more constrained and limited than what our Anglo-American tradition traditionally imagines.

[7] To be fair, he sets forth a lucid, convincing analysis on how gender roles derive from sexual dimorphism. The impression his writing leaves is that the gender roles ought to have been left intact, but it is less than clear he would ever favor any policies that force the issue.