A few days ago I put up a very short – 1m 30s – video from the feminist activist Genevieve Gluck about the trans flag and how it shares the same colours as the symbols used by paedophile organisations, put up by Women’s Declaration International. The video was an extract from this much longer piece, which lasts just over 35 minutes. The video explains how the flag was invented by Monica Helms, a transwoman, formerly Richard Hogge, who had been in the American navy. Interestingly, Helms seems to regard herself as both male and female, and that she can flip between those genders at will, rather than strictly trans female. Helms had been married when a man, but this broke up as he began to transition.
The video also discusses how Helms/Hogge had been a member of a transvestite organisation, Tri-Sigma, or the Society for the Second Self. Sigma is the Greek letter representing the ‘S’ sound. It deliberately sported a classical abbreviation in order to sound like the American college fraternities and sororities. It defined itself as ‘a sorority without women’. It was anti-gay, and part of its campaign was to make more women supportive of their husbands’ cross-dressing. She shows a number of cartoons from the pages of its magazine, whose jokes seem to be about the husband lying back in female attire while his wife does all the housework. One of the creepier shows a husband and son together, both in drag. The magazine also published advice about how its readers could become more feminine, such as by reading women’s magazines, choosing a female hobby and so on. With the exception of the sexism in the cartoons and the one with the father and son, which looks very much like grooming, this seems harmless enough. Where it becomes sinister is in the colours of the trans flag, baby blue and pink, which are the same as those used in their symbols and logos by real paedophile organisations. These predate the trans flag, but Helms says he wasn’t aware of them.
Helms has also written a book of his fiction exploring his sexuality. Some of his stories are about women, who die and whose identifies are taken over by their widowed husbands. They also include magical little girls who mysteriously don’t age.
Where this becomes sinister is when the same kind of fantasy and pornography is published on the web by organisations that include truly vile and horrific material. Gluck discusses one such organisation and website, which includes not only the transvestite porn, but also paedophilia, bestiality and castration fantasies. It’s able to do this quite legally after the judge ruled in a court case brought by a group for the porn industry that it could be published as long as it was all text without images.
Gluck, like many gender critical feminists and other critics of the trans ideology, is afraid of the links between parts of the trans movement and the paedophile fringe. She notes the way there was also a move to legalise paedophilia in the 1970s along with gay rights and those of other sexualities. In Germany the only people that opposed this was the feminist group Emma. The video clearly expresses the fear that pro-paedophile activists are trying to do the same through their connections to part of the trans movement.
I do not support the persecution, abuse, physical assault or discrimination of anybody because of their gender presentation or sexual orientation. I also certainly don’t believe that transpeople are paedophiles, nor wish to promote that idea.
Following my earlier video, Jim Round, one of the great commenters on this blog, remarked that he had worked with a transwoman, who quietly got on with her job and got married. He believes that most transpeople, at least 80 per cent, are like that, and is suspicious of the culture war against them by right-wing organisations like GB News. He is particularly afraid that they are trying to whip up hatred against all transpeople. I agree with him on much of this. I believe most transpeople probably do just want to get on with their lives as quietly as possible as ordinary citizens. I doubt very many trans people are aware of these links. And while some of the right-wing activists and spokespeople criticising the trans ideology are, I believe, sincere, I also think there’s more than an element of propaganda there as well. The horrors and idiocies committed by part of the trans movement is a convenient stick for the right, with which they can beat the left. And Graham Linehan has talked to gays and transpeople, who are afraid that they will suffer as a community for the ideas and actions of the extremists. What gender critical activists like Graham Linehan wish to do is take the situation back to c. 2010, when there were only three or four cases a year being treated and before the massive explosion in transgender activism, which seems to have encouraged tens of thousands of mentally and emotionally vulnerable people to see themselves mistakenly as trans.
Trans people should not be persecuted, but there are deeply sinister people and organisations on the fringes, who do need to be exposed and purged.