The transgender movement shifts by wearing a cloak of progressivism, human rights, equality, diversity and inclusion. It is particularly dangerous since it hides its authoritarianism in plain sight. Perhaps one day society will look back and wonder how, a century after women were ‘allowed’ to get the vote, women and men were prepared to vilify, exclude and gag by any means possible the women who saw through the pomp and stood aside from the baying, frightened crowd to declare: ‘The Emperor has no clothes.’

 - Heather Brunskell-Evans, from her conclusion

In her latest book, Transgender Body Politics published by Spinifex Press, Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans shifts her focus from the transgendering of children explored in her previous two books to now analysing the political movement of transactivism using a wider lens. In an impressively comprehensive yet lean volume, Heather makes a convincing case that certain campaigns under the label of “transgender rights” are, in fact, masculinist projects that centre men’s rights, and give supremacy to male feelings. This erodes women’s ability to name, understand and organise for themselves as a distinct group of human females separate to males and dismantles women’s sex-based rights. Heather interweaves her analyses with her personal journey and raised consciousness, particularly in the prologue and epilogue. It is to the great credit of the Spinifex editorial team that they suggested Heather insert more of her own narrative into this work; in this particular arena of discussion we rightly hear many stories from trans people, their challenges and vulnerabilities, but I’d argue the parallel considerations from women tend to be disregarded.

Heather divides her work into four key chapters and wisely anchors the discussion largely to the UK context, sketching out the situation for feminists here and providing an overview for anyone who is unfamiliar with all of the multiple developments. In “Women’s Bodies,” she covers the basic principles and touches on divisions within feminism, the so-called “intersectional versus gender critical” split. In “Girl’s Bodies,” Heather discusses the transgendering of children (ground she has trod before, and a very strong chapter indeed, perhaps the best in the book). “The Male Body Politic,” discusses institutions backing this ideology and the real consequences for women. Heather’s final chapter, “The Naked Emperor,” reads as a call to arms and covers issues such as diversity and inclusion training, the medical industry’s role and wider implications. Heather uses her research and philosophical expertise to connect seemingly disparate dots, drawing out themes including ideological capture, the negative impact of these developments on lesbians in particular, the damage to women and girls’ legal and political rights, demonization of women who speak up and, of course, the medicalization of children (and untold harms to girls’ bodies).

I do have two - very minor - critiques.  First, I should have liked to see a slightly stronger connection with Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire, given that Heather herself names what we are seeing as a “Transgender Empire.” She does reference Raymond, but it seems to me that Transgender Body Politics might well sit within the feminist canon as an update for the 21st century of Raymond’s seminal feminist text in this field from 1979. Second, Heather’s analysis and dissection of Queer Theory and its role in the creation of the situation we are seeing today is invaluable and perfectly pitched for readers such as myself who are (likely) never going to bother with those impenetrable texts. However, I worry the focus on Queer Theory risks “starting the narrative too late,” as it were. Many scholars in our universities may well endorse these ideas, and promote them through what they’d call “Intersectional Feminism,” but the figure of the transgender (or transsexual or transvestite) person had already been created by medicine many years before (and indeed, these ideas critiqued by Raymond over a decade before Judith Butler published Gender Trouble in 1990). My intuition is that Queer Theorists likely committed a basic philosophical error: “begging the question” – i.e. not properly deconstructing the premise of “trans,” but working from the assumption that it is a true category rather than, as I see it, a medically constructed phenomenon developed by male doctors, seemingly almost entirely from analysing the desires of male patients. (This has old roots, but at least one entry point in the Western medical literature seems to have been in the 1910s with Dr Magnus Hirschfeld and his descriptions of “transvestites.” Hirschfeld was a friend of Dr Harry Benjamin, who is considered the founding father of transgender medicine. However, I don’t have the time, interest or willpower to attempt to decipher the frankly opaque texts of Judith Butler… so I am thankful we have feminist philosophers like Heather who can take on that task.)

Those small points aside, let us turn to the more important question of: who should read this book? I think we learn much about the motivation behind its creation and intent from Heather’s dedication: For my young grandchildren… in the hopes that their healthy bodies can be kept whole and safe throughout their childhood, free from the tyranny of “gender identity.” In the interest of future generations, then, I’d recommend Heather’s work to every reader even remotely interested in this subject. It’s an accessible introductory volume and eloquent summary of the issues, useful to read even if you’re already quite familiar with them. Heather’s voice will prompt thoughts, reflections, memories and maybe, as for me, profound relief to see these feminist ideas collected and articulated so well in a printed book. I shall be asking my local libraries to stock copies.

Find out more about Transgender Body Politics and how to order the book here. Read more about Heather on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Reviewed by SD