Sex Pests in the Trans Lobby

The news that renowned Tumblr feminist, trans rights activist, and comic-book writer Neil Gaiman allegedly perpetrates sexual abuse under the label “BDSM” with fans and employees shocked the publishing world. His publisher officially cut ties with him in retaliation, cementing the scandal as an archetypal #MeToo revenge narrative. Those of us who are familiar with the phenomenon of male feminist sex pests in the trans lobby were less taken aback by the whole sordid tale.

Gaiman is one of many male feminists who encourages women to experiment with their “sexual freedom” (that is, sexual availability) while dressing up such behavior as sex-positivity. He is also a notable champion of trans rights; here is PinkNews lauding him for “dragging anti-trans campaigners”, a common feature of Gaiman’s online activity, in the name of celebrating human complexity. Fortunately for women, when such heroes as Gaiman allegedly order their babysitters to ingest their urine while in the same room as their offspring, they are merely liberating us from the shackles of antiquated sexual mores and encouraging us to be more “complicated”.

Men with paraphilias have been using the false gospel of the sexual revolution, which holds that men and women might as well be interchangeable when it comes to sex, for their own gain for decades. Yet many paraphilias or “kinks” depend on and emphasize inherent sex differences, with women cast as objects to be victimized and men as subjects and perpetrators – or vice versa. Such men have been remarkably successful, with the aid of the porn industry, in normalizing and rhetorically sanitizing fantasies of violence by framing them as “kinks”, creating subcultures which invite women with complex trauma and low-self-esteem to enact those fantasies. The various testimonies against Gaiman paint a picture of one such man: boundaries are conservative, therefore it is “healthy” to cross them. If it takes a lot of persuasion to secure a verbal “yes”, it doesn’t matter – consent is the only criterion for “healthy” sexual activity. Love and respect are out-of-date.   

There is a significant overlap of porn-sick men and trans rights activists, whose stance on gender is a putative outgrowth of their progressive feminism, much of which developed in online spaces like Tumblr in the 2000s and 2010s. There are two main reasons for this.

The first is that a significant number of trans-identifying males (called “trans women” by establishment liberals) are motivated by a paraphilia called autogynephilia. Autogynephiles resemble men previously known as erotic cross-dressers: the idea and experience of dressing in feminine clothes, often highly sexualized garb, causes them erotic  euphoria– which has been recast as “gender euphoria”. Here is one self-identified transwoman discussing in Vogue how his identity relies on the euphoric thrill of wearing “bra tops”. It is in these men’s interests to get establishment liberals on their side, despite engaging in activity which the majority probably consider to be risqué at best. They have succeeded, smearing robust research into autogynephilia as “transphobic”, invoking outdated practices like conversion therapy for homosexuality as its equivalent.

The other major reason is that pro-transgender ideals collapse the distinction between the sexes at the expense of women’s safety, sexual integrity, and general preferences. If women and men can identify into one another’s genders, then what’s to distinguish them in the bedroom? Any desire possessed by a man can plausibly be possessed by a woman, whose sexual boundaries merely suggest that they are less advanced in their “journeys”, less liberated than men. A BDSM-obsessed man with sadistic tendencies can convince a woman who is sufficiently his thrall that his desires are “healthy”. At the same time, he can signal his virtue by championing the latest progressive cause: battling so-called “stigma” and straight-laced conservatives on gender ideology.

We forget cases like that of Jessica Yaniv at our peril. Yaniv made headlines a decade ago for repeatedly insisting that female-only services, like genital waxing, be provided to him, suing several small businesses when they declined. He also attempted to organise underage “topless” swimming parties, giving him access to LGBTQ+ children. Thanks to the investigative work of Reduxx, it is becoming clear that Yaniv’s case is not as exceptional in its grotesquerie and sociopathy as previously believed. Recent cases include several prison inmates, incarcerated for crimes of sexual violence, who have demanded access to women’s prisons as treatment for their “gender dysphoria” and cited their experiences with “transphobia” as mitigating circumstances. It does actually happen.

The elephant in the room is that many women are ostensibly, indeed sincerely, on board with the sexual politics described above. Young women in the West are a demographic overwhelmingly likely to be pro-trans and “sex positive”. Being high in conformity, they often feel compelled to sign up to whatever the latest feminist dogma is, lest they be perceived by their female peers as traitors to their own sex (the irony is, of course, extraordinary). Being conservative on sex and gender after the sexual revolution is difficult: it can lose you the temporarily rewarding attention of men. You might be called a prude. You might have to curtail your own desires in the short term in order to avoid disaster in the long run. Being risk-averse is unfashionable.

But is it really? What #MeToo reveals is that women who regret sexual encounters which were unpleasant in some way, even though they might have given their formal verbal consent in the moment of the act, believe they have been wronged. Gaiman’s accuser’s account shows that consent is not the only criterion for a “healthy” sexual experience; she was financially dependent on Gaiman and mentally unwell at the time. With consent as the only criterion for a licit sexual encounter, women are often left confused and suffering with the burden of hindsight. This system of norms punishes men accordingly, despite the fact that those men likely did not believe that they were violating their sexual partners. Indeed, Gaiman insists that none of his behavior was “illegal” or “nonconsenual”, naturally withholding commentary on whether it was decent.

This is the plausible, and remarkable, truth about Gaiman. It is entirely possible that he did not consider himself to be doing anything dubious, let alone abusive, when he allegedly coaxed nervous and admiring young women into doing things they have never dreamed of doing. For one thing, male celebrities are often perfectly used to having women submit to them. Perhaps his years-long habit of enticing fans of his to send him sexual material on Tumblr allowed him to believe that he could have unrestricted access to women in real life without any consequences. What is noticeable about his historic online exchanges is his language: NSFW images are “happy photos”; the digital sphere, in which images can be uploaded instantly and yet burned into digital memory forever, is just the delightful “speed of internet”.

Another noted sex pest in the trans lobby is the high-profile Canadian activist Eli Erlick, who has bragged publicly about breaking the law in order to supply impressionable minors with hormone replacement therapy, or drugs which facilitate the irreversible transition of the body into a state of androgyny, at best. A darling of Penguin Random House, Erlick has been noted in his own community for coercive and violent sexual activity with inexperienced younger admirers. What is the relationship between encouraging children to experiment with their sexual characteristics and behaviors under the guise of “inclusivity” and being a sexual predator, you ask? The mental work required to figure it out is not strenuous.

Experimentalism has long been positioned against conservatism to its detriment in liberal media spaces. Few establishment liberals have entertained the idea that being relatively conservative on the matters of sexual activity and gender-related expression is not motivated by the desire to repress, but the desire to limit regrettable behavior. #MeToo reveals just how destructive widespread regrettable sexual activity can be for both sexes in different ways; detransitioners’ testimonies reveal even more urgently how dangerous reckless medical experimentalism can be. 

It makes perverse sense, then, that the kind of leftist who embraces experimentalism for the sake of his own sexual satisfaction should extend that attitude to other social issues including transgenderism. Superficial catchphrases like “people are complicated” reject face-value truths like “there are two sexes, which are not interchangeable” and “women and men frequently exhibit different sexual desires and behaviors”.  It is the job of good social policy to align people in those differences, not to subordinate one set of people to another in the name of sex-denialism. Gaiman’s story reveals how sex pests have managed to take advantage of the woke movement, who justify sexual overreach with faux-revolutionary sexual politics. I want to conclude by pointing to the vital work of the organization Sex Matters, who have put in the investigative work to expose just how extensive the phenomenon of sex pests in the trans lobby is. I encourage my readers to peruse this chronology of cases of sexualized violence and threats dispensed by trans activists to gender-critical feminists in the UK alone. From intimidation to exposure to pornography, their methods are frequently displays of a perverse, fetishistic, and dehumanizing kind. Their lobby is full of men who hate women.