Katie Roche's Blog

Book Review-"Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" by Helen Joyce

"Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" by Helen Joyce was released last week. This book has been an enormous hit. An Amazon bestseller. Many retailers have run out of physical copies. But is it worth the hype? This book examines transgenderism in society from a gender-critical feminist perspective. Based on interviews with experts on transgenderism, Joyce analyses the negative impacts of transgenderism on women.

She argues well-intentioned people who don’t see the harms of what they advocate have driven transgenderism. For instance, the original intentions of measures to enable legal sex change were created in a time when transgender people were a tiny group who’d either undergone gender reassignment or intended to do so in the future. And when transgender children were virtually unheard of. Whereas, nowadays, the term encapsulates a vast number of people, including occasional cross-dressers and nonbinary people. Joyce also explores the gender-critical feminist movement’s fight for women’s rights. She highlights the repeated failure of policymakers and NGOs to consider the impact of transgenderism on women. Joyce also highlights the regressive nature of transgenderism in its focus on gender stereotypes. Something that most feminists are against. Indeed, it’s baffling to hear someone who claims to be against gender stereotypes to endorse an ideology built around them. With children especially.

This is an excellent book. Joyce has successfully brought this issue to the fore. The book is very fair-minded. She is sympathetic toward those with Gender Dysphoria who’ve undergone sex reassignment surgery. Even condemning laws such as the North Carolina bathroom bill for its impact on those individuals. It’s clear that Joyce’s chief concern is with the rights of women, rather than a hatred of transgender people. She gets some impressive names. Including Ray Blanchard, who identified autogynephilic and androphilic transgender subtypes.

However, not all reactions have been positive. Aside from the expected slew of people calling Joyce transphobic, Joyce has also been accused of anti-Semitism. I am not a Jew, and I cannot speak on behalf of Jews. But I don’t think she has said anything that is anti-Semitic. The section in question in found in chapter 11. Joyce writes briefly about the funding behind the transgender movement. She focuses on three people: George Soros, Jennifer Pritzker and Jon Stryker. She describes them as white biological males. On Twitter, many people are claiming Joyce uses the trope of rich Jews quietly funding the downfall of society. This argument is flawed for several reasons.

First, Joyce hasn’t arbitrarily chosen to analyse these people. Joyce has written about the three biggest named donors to transgender causes in the USA. According to Funders for LGBTQ Issues", a pro-trans charity, the biggest donors to transgender rights groups between 2011-2013 (the most recent data), were the Open Rights Foundation (founded by George Soros), the Arcus Foundation (founded by Jon Stryker), anonymous donors and the TAWANI Foundation, (founded by Jennifer Pritzker). This is old, but it’s the newest data available on donations specifically to transgender causes. As well, these organizations were the only ones who gave more than $1 million to trans causes during the period. Which is probably why she wrote about these three. Two of them happen to be Jewish. Pritzker is transgender, which explains her interest in the cause (many critics omit this detail). Admittedly, Joyce herself hasn’t helped matters. She could have explained this and provided more sources to explain why she was focusing on these three individuals. But it proves that she hasn’t arbitrarily picked two Jews to criticize.

Second, Jon Stryker isn’t Jewish. There is little information on Stryker’s religious beliefs and ethnic background. But he appears to be from a Christian family. His grandfather’s funeral was held in a church (his grandfather, Homer Stryker, founded the company). He also donates heavily to charities promoting LGBT acceptance in the church. This information is easy to find. But why let the truth get in the way of a good story? Joyce picking on three Jewish people sounds much more compelling than the reality. The assumption that Stryker must be Jewish because he is a billionaire says more about Joyce’s critics than it does about Joyce. It’s also interesting that most of these accusations are coming from transgender rights activists who aren’t Jewish. Furthermore, Joyce isn’t saying that they have malevolent intentions. Rather, she is examining why this former niche cause has suddenly attracted so much attention. As well, being biological males, they don’t understand the implications of transgenderism for women. As far as they are concerned, they are doing a good thing by helping this downtrodden minority. Being affluent, their donations are concentrated in the west and on issues most pertinent to middle-class transgender people.

It’s regretful that these smears have overshadowed Joyce’s book launch. I suspect critics have struggled to find any actual problems with the book, and so have resorted to calling her an anti-Semite. Even so, this is a must-read book of the summer. I’m glad to see it’s selling so well. It deserves all the praise it gets. Hopefully, it will play a role in helping many more people reach peak trans.

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