Savage Minds

In this episode, Swedish journalist, writer, and activist Kajsa Ekis Ekman reviews the history of the New Left since 1968, when the values of the oppressed class were highlighted, to today, when power has adopted the language of the oppressed, what she calls “patriarchy changing clothes” while using feminist language. Discussing the importance of class issues within feminism, Ekman highlights how corporate slogans of Zalando’s “celebrate diversity” campaign cost these corporations nothing, as they prefer posturing their purity without making any real material changes to how they treat their workers. Comparing this class paradigm to current gender politics, Ekman gives an exegesis of the word “woman”, which is currently being erased in many western nations, even prefixed with “cis”, such that the meaning of “woman” has been perverted into a privileged oppressor of men vanishing all possibilities of women to speak of themselves as an oppressed class. Ekman notes that the left relies on the discursive framework of “being oppressed” to speak within the university and within wider society, detailing the bizarre disconnect between workers’ unions, which have historically highlighted their labour grievances, and the “sex worker unions”, which are consistently underscoring “how great” their “profession” is, meanwhile it remains “the only industry that has to kidnap workers to survive.”

Helen Joyce, The Economist’s Britain editor discusses her newly released book, TRANS: When Ideology Meets Reality (2021) exposes some of the origins of gender identity and its eulianarly accommodation within society when the numbers of transsexuals were quite small. Comparing this early demographic to “witness protection”, Joyce explains the many reasons why society accommodated these individuals, from the fact that people tend to accommodate even the most unfounded of ideas—that anyone could possibly be born in the “wrong body”—to the sexism within societies that still accommodate the implausible notion that someone could not only have a “pink brain“, but where such sentiment is received by subjects who themselves hold stereotypical ideas about the opposite sex. Discussing the larger political sphere of women’s physical boundaries, Joyce analyses how the silencing by the current gender identity movement driven by a tiny core of individuals requires that we must go along with a charade. She elucidates the bone-deep interpretability of sex that is missed when the debate takes place virtually, in the absence of the male body, where the only way that so many accept men in women’s private spaces is to pretend that there isn’t a “grotesque overstepping of women’s boundaries” as this debate takes place within the purely linguistic realm.

Julia Long, a lesbian feminist, writer and activist, discusses the inconsistencies within the feminist and gender-critical movements—from the formation of social media activism groups whereby some women play along with the theatre of the transgender identity from recycling the “preferred pronouns” to the most fundamental illogicity of a movement that claims to be against gender while reinforcing certain men’s delusions of gender. Highlighting this political move of certain women to play along with the illusion of gender, also known as the “true trans” model, Long highlights a fundamental split amongst those advocating for women’s rights. She also contends that women who don’t see the contradiction in claiming gender as harmful while keeping certain men as immune from this analytical critique are also contributing to the “general amnesia around radical feminist writing”, which Long highlights as being suppressed by the various actors who believe themselves virtuous actors engaging in political negotiations and lobbying, which involves “feminine socialisation” that compels these women to “play nice” to the male subject. For Long, the gender-critical movement highlights the lack of feminism, critical thinking and credulity in what they ostensibly claim to critique while stating, “There is no such thing as being transgender.”

Alan Sokal, Professor of Mathematics at University College London and Professor Emeritus of Physics at New York University, discusses his (in)famous "Sokal hoax" (1996), how the hoax was almost revealed, and the contemporary issues that have followed from his Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture (Oxford UP, 2008). Covering the historical backdrop of the current debates over identity politics, Sokal discusses the 1950s “Two Cultures Controversy” ignited by CP Snow, the culture wars of the late 1980s and early 1990s and the ensuing “science wars” of the 1990s. Sokal examines the ways in which politics of the left and the right affected academic debates on science and the humanities and how identity politics has become a dog whistle where orthodoxy to anti-science hokum indicts the subject as being necessarily affiliated with the far-right. Analysing the current debate on gender identity and the attack on women’s rights, Sokal discusses the effects of critical theory on this debate noting the anti-intellectualism within academic debates today whereby the analysis of “oppression” has been elevated to the status of an “unquestionable truth” as he notes the turn from a radical relativism to a dogmatic absolutism. Sokal critiques reified postmodernism, where political principles have firmly fixed themselves to fundamental truths that cannot possibly be questioned.

In this episode, former journalist and writer Simon Edge discusses the socio-political situation that inspired his latest satirical novel, The End of the World is Flat (2021). Covering the flatearthery at the heart of the gender debate that involves deliberate confusion and table-turning, Edge discusses how it is vital that we note the tactics employed that cement wider financial interests secured through oft-repeated lies that attempt to rewrite history, cast gay persons as transgender or pretend that the Stonewall riots were initiated by trans-identified persons. Where Edge’s latest novel frames this debate through the architecture and orchestration of new lies and myths, he analyses how, despite this being an era of heightened literacy, the ability to distinguish between what is true and what is false becomes muddied by social media and bots as well as by the many purposeful misrepresentations within the charity sector. Invariably, Edge claims that despite our having access to copious information through the internet, it is still difficult to assess which information is reliable given the many organisations behaving criminally while rejecting everything they know to be true in order to “curry favour” with online communities. Inevitably, people are willing to believe a lie, while those in positions of power cynically reject honest debate.

Nic Williams, PhD, discusses her work as director of Fair Play for Women in providing advice to policymakers on how to fairly balance the rights of women and those who identify as “transgender”. Williams covers the push to keep women's spaces single-sex, detailing her work on prisons and sports from the grassroots level, to chatting with Martina Navratilova over the sports debate, and to having invited herself to a meeting hosted by World Athletics in Switzerland about the rules for trans athletes. Williams describes the climate over the past four years, which was when she was left ostracised and when she was oftentimes the only voice at the table speaking up for women’s rights. She also covers the triumphs, such as the recent high court victory against the Office for National Statistics (ONS) after Fair Play for Women took the ONS to court to stop them redefining sex in the census. Williams also expounds upon her concern for young lesbians, underscoring how being a scientist has informed her approach to this debate where evidence and facts matter.

Naomi Cunningham, a barrister and director and chair of sex matters, discusses her entry into the gender debate and the wider implications of the Gender Recognition Act (2004). Elaborating on the disconnect between the medical and legal frameworks on the subject of gender dysphoria, Cunningham notes how the surge of girls declaring themselves as transgender demonstrates a dereliction of duty by adults who should be protecting these adolescents instead of cheering them on. Cunningham also covers her work on submission and compliance to the Workplace Equality Index, highlighting how the Equal Treatment Bench Book has been exploited as she details the vast capture of these institutions by the transgender lobby that has homed in on the country’s judiciary. Considering how human beings are invested in “getting into a role”, as humans tend to be vulnerable to groupthink, Cunningham elucidates the concept of the Milgram shock experiment in explaining the way in which judges have been given “training” that “bypasses their critical faculties”.

In this episode, journalist Beatrix Campbell discusses her shift from the Communist Party to the Green Party analysing the horrors of Stalinism, the end of Perestroika in 1991 and the emergence of green politics to which she gravitated. Delving into the transgender issue that has plagued politics in the UK in recent years, Campbell discusses how the Green Party was captured by transgender ideology that decided that there was no debate and that the feminists who wanted to hold this debate were necessarily “transphobic,” a position that was instrumental in frightening people away from having any debate. Noting how trans ideology is highly sourced and hegemonic, Campbell elucidates how the Green and Labour parties were hammered by the toxicity and “cultish madness” of an identity politics that most people had never fully considered. Campbell also discusses her forthcoming book, Secrets and Silence (2022) about child sexual abuse and the cultural taboos around this social fact and the encouraging reality that today we are able to hold conversations on this subject.

Thomas Prosser, reader in European social policy at Cardiff University and author of What’s in it for me? Self-interest and political difference (2021), examines why political debate has grown so bitter and how recognising legitimate self-interest on all sides can lower the temperature. He argues that political positions are deeply embedded in economic circumstances and cultural needs rather than simple stupidity or malice, and that cultural conservatism in particular often reflects a basic human desire for security and closure in a rapidly changing world. Prosser contends that the left has largely failed to apply the same empathetic understanding to Western cultural conservatives that it readily extends to traditional communities elsewhere, while moralising and judgmentalism have become more pronounced on the progressive side. He explores how liberalism has historically struggled to prioritise redistribution, making issues such as immigration politically attractive because they signal openness without seriously disrupting economic hierarchies. Class, he notes, has been crowded out by cultural and identity concerns, weakening the left’s historic link with lower-income voters. Meanwhile, the political space itself is realigning, with parties of the right increasingly combining cultural conservatism and economic interventionism in ways that appeal to poorer and less-educated electors. Prosser highlights the growing social stratification that leaves people rarely encountering genuine opponents, encouraging crude stereotypes and tribal thinking, and calls for greater willingness to acknowledge nuance, shared constraints and the legitimacy of competing interests if liberal democracies are to remain functional.

James Esses, a former a Criminal Barrister and currently a Trainee Psychotherapist, discusses the current social dilemma at the heart of the gender identity debate where countries are banning “conversion therapy” while dismissing the beneficial uses of therapeutic approaches to gender dysphoria. Analysing the deeper issues central to the refusal to embrace anything but affirmation, Esses points out how it the proposed ban on conversion therapy in terms of gender dysphoria is “very dangerous” to the client-therapist relationship as he underscores the need to push against the stereotypes being recycled by the gender identity lobby asking “What is wrong with being gender atypical?” Claiming that we need to spend more time addressing gender stereotypes, Esses lays bare some of the fundamental dangers at the heart of a petition and he and other members of Thoughtful Therapists addressed to the British government, namely the conflation of “conversion therapy” with beneficial therapy which effectively mandates the affirmation of transitioning.