Is Women's Disgust Literal Genocide?

Some quiet U-Turns in the GC debate.

Since the decision in the UK Supreme Court that women should be treated as adult human females in equality law, we are seeing some shifts in gender politics that include u-turns without apology that I can’t help but point out.

After many years of fighting the problems that western states are experiencing by placing gender identity in law, early last year, there were diverging opinions in gender critical politics about bending on some of our tougher principles.

It was proposed by moderates, that the more “reasonable” trans identifying men, who just wanted to wear the dresses, use the female names and pronouns, but who were against the outright violation of women’s rights to privacy and safety in public spaces and sport, could be given some social niceties and concessions.

Some of the smarter trans identified men, such as David (Debbie) Hayton, could see that they were going to lose protections to perform their fetish in their workplace, David is a teacher. In the UK gender identity was never going to gain the protection status that it had in other countries, so some of the Daves are seeking legal protection in the characteristic of “sexual orientation”.

Psychotherapy rationales came forward from fringe characters who claimed that research supported the idea that autogynephilia (AGP) is an orientation, like homosexuality, even though AGP it is a word used to categorise a sexual fetish, and homosexuality is not a sexual fetish.

Many gender critical people were sympathetic with David, including Janice Turner from The Times, who interviewed David Hayton and used female pronouns for him, saying on X that the use of female pronouns for David was a mark of respect.

It seemed reasonable to some, but the reader may not be surprised that it didn’t seem reasonable to me. Many women saw the claim that a paraphilia is like the legally protected characteristic of orientation, as a massive red flag, given that pedophilia is also a paraphilia.

Lawyer Sarah Phillimore came out for team David and all “the Daves” that want to wear women’s clothes. Phillimore claimed that insisting on male pronouns for the Daves was a form of speech compulsion, and was motivated by disgust toward the Daves. It was pointed out to Sarah, more that once, that open critique of what used to be called transsexualism, has existed in feminism since at least the 70s, when Janice Raymond wrote “The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male”. Not only have feminists had a long-standing critique of men performing female stereotypes for sexual reasons, more importantly, it was pointed out cleraly to the pro-Daves, that safeguarding principles are at stake.

Phillimore claimed in early 2024 that women who were opposing the social niceties to the Daves, were evoking the kind of disgust that leads to genocide. Phillimore said that she was about to visit Auschwitz, where she will be reminded “exactly where ‘disgust’ takes us and I will never willingly go there.” “Reliance on ‘disgust’” Phillimore claimed, in relation to the commentary of gender critical women toward the Daves, “is the reason Anne Frank had to be hidden”.

Recently, Phillimore has been more nuanced, when she was told that her gender critical activism was based in social disgust. Phillimore’s accuser didn’t talk about death camps and murdered children, but an avocado bathroom. Phillimore took a lot of time explaining why her own views are not based in the emotion of disgust, or part of a larger social disgust.

Last year when Phillimore was pointing the genocide stick at gender critical feminists, I was accused of acting “like a Nazi” by a gender critical man for my support of women “holding the line” on wrong sex pronouns. To my surprise Colin Wright, the US biologist “liked” a tweet accusing me of being like a Nazi and a Fascist. Mr Wright’s girlfriend, a Ms Buttons, said that her and Colin were “laughing their asses off” at me trying to defend myself against the ridiculous accusations.

This week, Ms Buttons, in the wake of an attack by trans-activist, has openly repented for her attack on the TERFs, stating that TERFs were right to hold the line all along. An admirable admission, so it seems.

Unfortunately, Colin Wright claimed in the comments under the Buttons post, that a segment of gender critical women are “still nuts”. A person, ironically named Dave, replied to Colin, saying “@msediewyatt is not nuts, Colin. Were you really laughing at her? Watching her being silenced and, frankly, abused did nothing to keep men out of women's prisons or children being mutilated.”

Colin replied by saying that he considers me among the gender critical women who are “legitimately nuts”. So no apology then Col?

Weaponising the Holocaust against women’s rights activists is low rent, but the structure of the argument used by Phillimore, Wright and Buttons, was also used more broadly and got, believe it or not, more problematic.

At the same time as pronoun-gate, early last year, Ms Buttons made a post saying that she had discovered the very useful phrase “Minor Attracted Person” for pedophiles, and that such a phrase is not to be seen as a way to normalise pedophilia but she was sure that “researchers in the field” cared about victims.

Michael Bailey, (a person that Genspect’s Stella O’Malley called a “respected researcher in the field”), replied to the post calling Ms Buttons “thoughtful and brave” and warning her that because she was talking scientifically and clearly, ‘rather than prioritizing outrage and disgust at all times” she will get “yelled at.” Bailey is a pedophile advocate, claiming that there is a moral panic, particularly among women and feminists, that has led to false CSA accusations against men.

Bailey has claimed that serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky was falsely accused, and that “virtuous pedophiles” should be praised and not shamed, that the harm of “child adult sex” has been exaggerated, and therefore prison sentences for pedophiles should be reduced. Bailey claims that penalties for child sex offenders “should reflect harm rather than moral outrage”, or what we may call “disgust”.

Like Colin Wright, Sarah Phillimore and Christina Buttons, Bailey continually paints female critics and feminists as “nuts”, unstable or acting out of harmful emotions like social disgust.

Last week Claire Lehmann made a few tweets, that appeared to defend autogynephilic men from criticism, and she saw the familiar bite of gender critical feminists, including Sall Grover. After a long interaction between Lehmann and Grover, Helen Pluckrose from Genspect boldly walked into the thread asking Sall if she thinks that “disgust alone at agp is a moral justification for visceral hatred or not”. Sall, who has been driven to the edge of Bankruptcy and sanity by a man who pretends to be a woman, managed to shrug Pluckrose off as the idiot she is. However, following the interaction, Pluckrose was again given a rinsing by gender critical women, who don’t like being accused of creating the pre-conditions for genocide.

Disgust, Phillimore acknowledged, in a tweet she made yesterday, is “necessary and important. Making it the most important or only thing, and reacting with abusive fury if others disagree, is dangerous and counterproductive.” So it's abuse that Sarah finds offensive, not disgust? if only she had said that in the first place, and shown legitimate examples of women being abusive, we may have avoided such a big fight.

Women engaging in political debate are frequently called nuts as individuals and accused collectively of pooling emotions so powerful, they can drive murderous political movements.

Gender critical women stand accused of hurling unjust hatred at men who fantasise about going into women’s toilets but stop themselves, and men who fantasise about raping children but stop themselves. In my humble opinion, it is just as fruitless to ask women to ignore the safeguarding risks of normalising men pretending to be women as it is to ignore the risks of normalising sexual attraction to children.

I honestly think this was never going to be a narrative that women were going to buy, but Genspect have given it their best shot. Helen Pluckrose was on the tweets a few days ago asking if people who experience disgust at trans identified men have “any responsibility to manage their feelings themselves?”, echoing Laurie Penny’s claim during the Wii Spa incident, that children should turn their heads away when encountering the penis of a registered sex offender in a public facility.

Helen Pluckrose has again taken herself of X and will no doubt return, complaining of persecution of gender critical women acting, as we do, solely in disgust.