Lierre Keith and Marian Rutigliano, discuss the book written by Janice Raymond in 1979, based on her 1977 PhD dissertation, and later updated in 1994.
The book “The Transsexual Empire” shows that some women were onto the “transgenderism” phenomenon well before it became a social issue in the 21st Century.
Lierre Keith, executive director of the US organisation Women’s Liberation Front, answers the question often asked as to why so many feminists have taken up the cause of so-called “trans rights” at the expense of hard fought-for women’s rights, while overlooking the misogyny and patriarchy behind transgenderism.
As Raymond said: “These women fail to recognise that accepting transsexuals into the feminist community is another rather unique variation on the age-old theme of women nurturing men, providing them with a safe haven, and finally giving them our best energies.”
When Janice Raymond was writing, the capture of young women and adolescent girls had yet to catch on as a social contagion.
In this episode of Radical Feminists Perspectives, a webinar series hosted by Women’s Declaration International, Lierre and Marian show how ethical values of choice, freedom and autonomy came to be replaced by what Janice Raymond called “health values” of therapy, hormonal treatments and surgery (i.e. the medical model).
Critical examination of sex, sexuality and sex stereotypes in women’s studies was replaced by what is now known as “gender studies” following the release of “Gender Trouble”, Judith Butler’s 1989 book, unintelligible as it is. Lierre Keith argues that anyone who went through gender studies programmes from the 1990s was lost to feminism as this was replaced by the “be kind” liberal feminism.