End "true trans": Women exist!
Feminists should finally stop putting women's rights up for negotiation
The Liebich case[1] has sparked a debate about the German Self-Determination Act (“Selbstbestimmungsgesetz”, SBGG) and male offenders in women's prisons. It is therefore high time to debunk the so-called "true trans" narrative and face the reality that even before the SBGG came into force, the devastating consequences of the legal fiction of gender reassignment were already becoming apparent. Even before the SBGG, men – including murderers of women, paedophiles and sex offenders – were imprisoned in German women's prisons[2] , and even before the SBGG, assaults by these men were documented [3][4] [5] .
Feminists who are new to the topic of transgender ideology usually assume that there are "real trans women" – that is, men who should be granted the right to change their civil status to female and falsify their birth certificates. All of this has been possible in Germany since 1981 thanks to the Transsexuals Act (“Transsexuellengesetz”, TSG), which was fought for and won by a castrated man before the Federal Constitutional Court in 1978[6] . Germany was an international pioneer in this area. Even among feminists who have been involved in the issue for a long time, the idea that there are "real trans women" persists. If you ask more specifically what this "real trans" is supposed to be, the reaction is usually quite brusque.
However, feminists who want to allow men to enter "female" as their gender entry should be able to explain without hesitation why they want this and what qualifies a man for this entry.
Several arguments are put forward here, if the discussion is not immediately ended and/or blocked:
1. The man is suffering
As a rule, no one wishes suffering on anyone, and many women are empathetic and committed to alleviating the suffering of others. But let's imagine that a man has a serious illness or disability, for example, from which he suffers greatly. We do not allow these men to declare themselves women and enter women's shelters. There is no illness that grants a man this right. We would rightly turn away a sick or disabled man if he demanded access to a women's and girls' changing room. In the case of a man who is ill or disabled, we could also immediately identify what is happening here: the man is attempting to assault and (sexually) harass girls and women. The fact that he uses his suffering as an excuse to enter a space where girls and women are naked and therefore particularly vulnerable is a form of psychological violence. The empathy of women and girls is manipulated in order to cross their boundaries. The suffering and feelings of insecurity, harassment and fear that this abusive behaviour by a man triggers in girls and women is immediately clear to us when the man is ill or disabled. However, if he claims the status of "trans woman", the suffering caused to women and girls is declared "transphobia". In the case of "trans woman" status, the man's alleged suffering neutralises the suffering and justified feelings of harassment experienced by women and girls. Any man who demands access to a women's shelter is committing an assault. There is no reason to grant a man this access. Women and girls have a right to these spaces. It is misogynistic to force girls and women to give up these spaces through manipulative strategies.
2. The man is castrated, takes hormones and has done so much to pass
A castrated man is still a man. Even a man who takes cross-sex hormones to manipulate his body into pretending to have undergone a sex change is still a man. A castrated man or a man who "passes well" is not necessarily less dangerous to women. On the contrary, a man who goes so far as to be castrated has escalated extremely far into his paraphilia[7] and his fiction of himself as a woman. Many of these men have been eroticising their own castration and the castration of boys and men for years. Feminist Genevieve Gluck documented that such castration fetishists indulge in fantasies about the castration of boys in eunuch forums and even share films of so-called gender reassignment surgery on boys in order to become sexually aroused by these ideas and images[8]. So they are not only castration fetishists, but also pedosadistic. The ideas of these fetishists have even found their way into the treatment guidelines of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health[9] , which also form the basis for the treatment guidelines for children and adolescents with so-called gender dysphoria in Germany.
A man who castrates himself is willing to inflict massive physical pain and extreme violence on himself. Many of these men have a strong urge to carry out this bodily harm. They are confirmed in this urge by corresponding laws that convey the message that people can change their gender or choose it themselves.
Some men have the urge to amputate their healthy limbs. They claim that they cannot continue living unless their legs are amputated[10] . We do not confirm this paraphilia, which is now classified as Body Integrity Disorder, by providing appropriate treatment financed by the general public, nor do we create laws that confirm and normalise this urge. Instead, we label this urge as perverse and draw a clear line here. In doing so, we protect these people from themselves, but also from society, because society as a whole would have to pay for this self-inflicted disability on a permanent basis. If they want to carry out this bodily harm themselves, they must finance it themselves as adults, and it will be extremely difficult to find doctors who are willing to perform this procedure, as it is considered unethical. Surprisingly, however, we have normalised the amputation and severe damage of primary and secondary sexual characteristics – even in minors – and as a society we pay for the procedures and the consequences of lifelong damage.
The relevant diagnostic criteria and treatment guidelines were created by men who have an interest in normalising these paraphilias (in this case, transvestic fetishism) throughout society. Men who want to inflict extreme bodily harm on themselves have been told that this is normal and even innate. As a result, society and legislators no longer set any limits. Both the external limits and the internal limits – the shame associated with this urge to castrate – have been removed.
Through the studies of feminists such as Genevieve Gluck[11] and Sheila Jeffreys, and through the statements of the men themselves, we also know that pornography has contributed massively in recent years to more and more men feeling the urge to appear in public in a female appearance. Gluck refers to this as a form of BDSM: a humiliation fetish fuelled by the consumption of sissy porn. What these men have in common is that they despise women. They eroticise the humiliation and pornification of women and women's bodies.
A man who believes he can embody a woman and assume a woman's identity like a costume has no respect for women and their reality. Even the nicest of these men will at some point reveal how much he despises women – especially when a woman sets a boundary and tells him that he will never be a woman. Therefore, even castration should not give a man the right to declare himself a woman and enter women's shelters.
3. The man suffers from gender dysphoria
Here we can return to point 1 and add point 2 to understand the dynamics. So-called gender dysphoria is a sexist pseudo-diagnosis that was brought into the world by dubious sexologists in particular. Transvestic fetishism was first declared a disease, only to be completely removed from the classification of diseases in the ICD 11, while at the same time continuing to demand that elective surgery be financed by the general public.
In her book Penile Imperialism[12] , Sheila Jeffreys argues that pathologising a sexual fetish among men helps to absolve men of responsibility for their deviant behaviour. As a rule, this fetish is fuelled by extreme porn consumption and is thus actively brought about by these men.
In DSM 5 – the American Psychiatric Association's handbook – it was even assumed that this form of deviance was congenital. The so-called "trans child" was created. This child fulfils two functions: on the one hand, it helps to relieve adult men of responsibility for their escalated paraphilia, because it is supposedly congenital and they cannot help it. Secondly, it serves paedophiles and paedosadists by ensuring that children are subjected to treatment in which they determine their own gender and are thus declared capable of consent, permanently retain a childlike body through puberty blockers and are chemically castrated. The "trans child" is a defenceless child on whom interventions are permitted that we firmly reject for all other children. The "trans child" is also assigned an informed decision-making ability about themselves and their body, which we do not allow for other children, thus protecting the child from momentous decisions[13] .
Gender dysphoria assumes that a so-called gender identity exists – an immaterial, sexist and unprovable feeling about one's own gender. In gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, gender identity does not correspond to physical reality. The individual wishes to escape their gender – which is impossible throughout their lifetime. Taken to its logical conclusion, this assumes that sexism is innate.
There can be very different reasons why people reject their bodies and their gender. In children, for example, it can be sexual abuse. For girls and women, the sexism of our society contributes to their desire to be boys. Consequently, the greatest increase in interventions occurred among girls and women after gender dysphoria was included in the DSM 5 as a condition requiring treatment. It is not an isolated phenomenon that a diagnosis first creates a condition and then fuels its spread.
"Gender dysphoria" is also the only psychiatric diagnosis that provides for surgical interventions – so-called "gender affirming care" – which are even determined by the patient themselves. "Gender affirming care" sounds nice. However, these are serious, body-damaging procedures, e.g. stopping puberty and thus the healthy development from child to adult – including with Lupton, a drug used for the chemical castration of sex offenders and which already has serious side effects in adults. It also involves the amputation of healthy breasts in girls and women, genital mutilation operations and castrations.
This is all the more serious and irresponsible given that it is not a verifiable and testable diagnosis as is the case with other psychiatric disorders.
A recent article by a clinical psychologist with 30 years of experience on the subject of gender dysphoria can be read at X[14] . Feminist psychotherapist Stefanie Bode has also published a detailed article on why we should no longer use the term "gender dysphoria"[15] . In addition, please refer to the videos by American depth psychologist Amy Sousa[16] .
Feminists should avoid using terminology that reinforces sexism and presents something as a serious medical diagnosis, which in a sexist world is a sign of resilience and health and even the core of feminist analysis: the rejection of rigid and regressive gender role stereotypes and the demand for the abolition of "gender" (meaning narrow gender roles). Puberty and the body conflicts that often occur during puberty are also not serious illnesses, but a normal phase of development. We should resist activists who speak of the "blessing of puberty blockage"[17] , such as medical ethics professor Claudia Wiesemann. It is not a blessing when the healthy development from child to adult is stopped. It is a serious human rights violation.
4. I know "trans women". They are nice
Yes, men can be very nice. Women who deny men the right to declare themselves women are not claiming that men cannot be nice. Nor is it hatred or extremism when women refer to men as men and say no to men entering women's spaces and shelters. A woman's no is not hatred.
However, it is fundamentally not nice of men to demand that their entire environment confirm their fiction of themselves as women. Nor is it nice when men demand to enter women's shelters because they have decided to change their civil status, wear a dress and a wig, undergo plastic surgery, take hormones or castrate themselves. It is not the responsibility or duty of women to support the decisions and fictions of men.
Women's safe spaces exist because men pose a potential threat to women and because women want to be among themselves. It is absurd and naive to believe that a man's potential for harassment and violence simply changes because he declares himself to be a woman. On the contrary, it is appropriate to view this form of mimicry as part of a dangerous strategy.
No man who respects women looks for ways and tricks to influence their perception and invade their safe spaces. The feeling of irritation that many girls and women have when a man enters their spaces in disguise is justified. No man who respects women would say he could be a woman. Men who recognise women as equals understand that they can never comprehend the physical reality of women's lives. Men who degrade women to an identity they can appropriate are not nice, and unfortunately this is confirmed time and again when women set boundaries for these men.
If individual women address men they are friends with as women, they cannot make this demand for all women. Women's rights and women's spaces have been fought for exclusively for women and girls – for people of the female sex. They apply in particular to women who are unable to defend themselves, for example due to severe trauma. Female pronouns and the words "woman" and "girl" belong to women. Women need clear language for themselves and their bodies in order to describe their reality and stand up for their own interests. Anyone who gives away the language about us and our bodies to men denies our reality.
5. Expert opinions are needed
There is no expert opinion that can turn a man into a woman. Humans are binary in sex and cannot change their sex. Even a man with a disorder of sex development is a man. Even a man who undergoes serious surgery on his body remains a man for life.
A man cannot feel like a woman either. The reality of women's existence cannot be a man's feeling. A man always feels like a man in a male body, even if he is castrated. If he takes oestrogen, he feels the feelings of a man who takes oestrogen. Feelings about one's own sex are determined by the body. Humans exist physically, and our physical existence determines a large part of the reality of our lives. It is therefore absurd to claim that women would erase the existence of men if they did not go along with their fictions about themselves and refer to them as men. No one dies because another person does not confirm them in their fictions about themselves. Existence is not a speech act.
The techniques of plastic surgery and other treatments, such as voice modification, are constantly evolving. It is therefore entirely possible for a man to become deceptively similar to a woman, or for a woman to become deceptively similar to a man. However, this requires massive interventions in the physical constitution, which confirms that this can never be a natural or even innate predisposition.
The consequences of deception about the sexual reality of people created by these interventions have not yet been researched. However, it can be assumed that great harm is caused here by confusing our instincts. The American depth psychologist Amy Sousa is working on this[18] . The instinctive perception of the gender of our counterpart is important for reproduction, among other things. For women and children, this perception is important for their safety, because men are a potential danger to women and children. A wolf in sheep's clothing remains a wolf. Animals reinforce and confirm the instincts of their young. Only humans confuse the instincts and secure sex perception of their children and require them to address a man as a woman.
In addition, anyone who demands expert opinions for the legal fiction of gender reassignment is perpetuating a practice that has been a reality in Germany since 1981 with the Transsexuals Act. This also perpetuates the practice of allowing male offenders access to women's prisons, thereby seriously violating the fundamental and human rights of women. A man with an expert opinion for a supposed sex change cannot be denied access to women's shelters. Those who advocate for maintaining the legal fiction of sex change are opening the door for particularly vulnerable women in women's prisons and women's shelters to be confronted with men. It does not matter that only a few men are likely to pass these assessments. Murderers of women, paedophiles and sex offenders have been passing these assessments for decades. A single one of these offenders poses a danger to a large group of women, for example in a women's prison – not only to the women in prison, but also to the female prison guards.
Women exist. No man can be a woman. No, that is not extreme!
Women exist as fully-fledged human beings and as a separate sex class with a specific, physically determined reality of life. At the same time, women and girls worldwide are discriminated against, abused and killed because they are female – primarily by men[19] . There is nothing extremist, radical or right-wing about the fact that women exist and that they are exclusively entitled to fundamental and human rights, as well as specific sex-based rights and spaces. On the contrary, it is extremist, misogynistic and inhumane that women in Germany have been degraded to the identity of a man for almost 50 years and that they are expected to cede their rights, spaces and language to men who fantasise about being a sexist version of "woman".
Anyone who wants to represent and defend women's rights convincingly shall not grant any man the right to declare himself a woman, nor shall he or she insult other women who consistently insist on the abolition of this legal fiction, which has caused great suffering to girls and women for decades.
In Germany, we have almost 50 years of experience with the damage caused by the concept of "gender identity" and the legal fiction of gender reassignment. A progressive society abolishes laws that reinforce sexist stereotypes, normalise male fetishism and allow male perpetrators welcome loopholes – at the expense of girls and women and society as a whole. A man who wears a dress or a wig is and remains a man. Our constitution allows him to do so. But being a woman is not a fundamental or human right!
[1] https://www.nzz.ch/international/offiziell-heisst-er-marla-svenja-neonazi-sven-liebich-bald-im-frauenknast-ld.1898617
[2] https://lasst-frauen-sprechen.de/offiziell-bestaetigt-schon-jetzt-keine-geschlechtertrennung-mehr-in-deutschen-gefaengnissen/
[3] https://www.bild.de/regional/dresden/transsexuell/transsexuelle-wuergt-gefaengniswaerterin-21976478.bild.html
[4] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus255085432/Sexuelle-Gewalt-Mehrere-Uebergriffe-von-Trans-Frauen-auf-weibliche-Haeftlinge-in-Gefaengnissen.html
[5] https://was-ist-eine-frau.de/nur-ein-einzelfall/
[6] https://www.ronalyze.de/p/deutschland-ein-marchenland-tsg-and
[7] https://www.msdmanuals.com/de/heim/psychische-gesundheitsstörungen/paraphilien-und-paraphile-störungen/überblick-über-paraphilien-und-paraphile-störungen
[8] https://reduxx.info/academics-involved-with-top-transgender-health-authority-publish-paper-on-choosing-castration/
[9] https://www.nzz.ch/panorama/verband-transgender-gesundheit-eunuch-als-geschlechtsidentitaet-ld.1703568
[10] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00481-008-0581-3
[12] https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950700
[13] https://www.ronalyze.de/p/die-transkind-erzahlung
[14] https://x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1808825717204922755
[15] https://lasst-frauen-sprechen.de/4-gruende-warum-wir-den-begriff-geschlechtsdysphorie-vermeiden-sollten/
and
[17] https://www.ronalyze.de/p/der-segen-der-pubertatsblockade
[19] https://www.amazon.de/Womens-Sex-Based-Oppression-21st-Century/dp/B0BW2GW1V6/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=tWDry&content-id=amzn1.sym.817029af-e454-4232-b5af-1807424db210&pf_rd_p=817029af-e454-4232-b5af-1807424db210&pf_rd_r=262-5274768-0381409&pd_rd_wg=2qUQQ&pd_rd_r=15801a8f-c0d6-4734-9f11-a80d248c5bcd&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
The insistence on the essential existence of “women” as a category is powerful – but do you see risks in how patriarchy polices even these boundaries? How do we recognize lived suffering without fueling gatekeeping? Would love if you could check out my piece https://vostrength.substack.com/p/is-arranged-marriage-just-pimping?r=3alikv and any of my other posts on women’s autonomy, and share your thoughts!
The insistence on the essential existence of “women” as a category is powerful – but do you see risks in how patriarchy polices even these boundaries? How do we recognize lived suffering without fueling gatekeeping? Would love if you could check out my piece "Arranged Marriage = Legal Trafficking, No Cap" and any of my other posts on women’s autonomy, and share your thoughts!