An Open Letter to Dr. Phil
Inset image credit: Dr. Phil on YouTube
August 11, 2022
Dear Dr. Phil,
It is with deep gratitude that I thank you for doing a show on “The Erasure of Women”. It was an honor to be included as a guest on this show. I hope that you will continue bringing diverse views on this topic, bringing voices to the audience that are not usually heard. I am personally very concerned about transitioning children with no long-term studies on puberty blockers and hormones, as well as treating adult transgender individuals with medicines based on gender identity when, in medicine, sex matters. The malpractice lawsuits have already started.
I’m also writing because I wish I had been able to bring more to the conversation than time allowed. I am always hoping to suggest ways to build a bridge. Your producer Ann Tardiff had sent me a list of questions that you might be asking about, and I am hoping that you might be willing to read my response to two of the questions that we didn’t have time to get to. My view is based on my 45 years of working with women and radical feminist philosophy that disagrees with gender identity as equivalent to one’s physical sex. Women who hold perspectives like mine are pejoratively called “TERFs” (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) by trans activists.
Radical feminist goals include changing the culture we live in that socializes girls and boys, women and men, into stereotypical roles of masculinity and femininity. In other words, gender is what culture makes of sex. Liberation from gender roles was a focus of feminists of the “second wave” in the 1970s and 80s. Yet these culturally enforced roles are what the very definition of “gender identity” is comprised of: “The term “gender identity” is defined as the gender-related identity, appearance, mannerism, or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of the individual’s designated sex at birth.” (The Equality Act). In this definition of “gender,” our sexed bodies are erased, disassociated, and the performance of gender stereotypes is what matters. This definition reinforces sexist stereotypes that oppress both women and men.
I believe that restrictive gender roles based on the sexed body you have is a major source of the distress and pain that people who identify as trans and many people feel. Many people choosing to transition are basing their decision to identify differently because of the limitations of these stereotypes that oppress them. However, in my view the radical feminist perspective and transgender ideology differ in how to deal with the distress – we can work to change the culture that limits expression of people based on their sex or we can work to change the body to conform to these stereotypes – namely through disassociation from the natal body through changing pronouns, medicalization and surgery. A wise woman put it this way, “If the shoe doesn’t fit, do we cut off the foot?” (Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions). I want a different world where we accept and celebrate the sexed bodies our mothers and fathers gave us, and are free to express ourselves without limitations. This would be real freedom and requires no drugs or surgeries.
IN A PERFECT WORLD, HOW DO YOU THINK PEOPLE WOULD EMBRACE THEIR GENDER IDENTITY AND BIOLOGICAL SEX?
We already have a model for this - Indigenous societies that have more than two genders recognized in their cultures don’t cover up or erase the reality of the sexed body. There are name categories for indigenous people who are outside of their culture’s social roles. There needs to be another category of some kind that allows for respect, inclusion, and all those other important concepts, without forcing the whole population to deny what our eyes and common sense tells us.
My perfect world would be accepting of differences in people who express themselves outside the boxes, without stigma, rejection, or violence. All of us would be free of enforced gender stereotypes that have caused so much pain and suffering. We would be free people.
There would be no need for gender identity, and no need to transition, because you would live in a world who accepted you exactly as you are whether you are heterosexual, bi-sexual, gay, lesbian, or celibate. Girls and boys, women and men are safe to express themselves however they wish to while honoring the sex they are. I believe it behooves us to ask the question about “gender identity,” “Who made this up, and whose cause does it serve?” Who is benefiting from the medicalization of gender? There is big business profiting from this suffering.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST FEARFUL OF ABOUT THE FUTURE IF THIS MOVEMENT CONTINUES?
Erasing SEX as a protected category is exactly what trans activists and their allies are already doing. In many U.S. states, women and girls have already lost their rights that address sex-based issues. This undermines what feminists have built to address oppression on the basis of sex – the right to draw boundaries (like around women’s sports and shelters, the right to privacy in intimate settings like bathrooms and showers, support services for rape survivors, the right of disabled women to have female caregivers, and not letting sex offenders into women’s prisons).
The so-called Equality Act, that has not yet been passed in Congress, has already removed “sex” as a protected category. And unless “sex” is added into the Equality Act, only gender identity will be protected, and sex-based protections for women as a class will be left out of the law.
It is revealing that transgender proponents do not seek a “both/and” approach to protections in the law which acknowledges sex-based violence and oppression. It’s only about them and their needs. The material reality of sex is apparently so threatening to someone who disassociates from the sex they are, that mention of sex itself must be dismissed as irrelevant to the point of complete erasure.
While adults are free to do as they wish with their bodies, a generation of children and young people are being influenced through social media, TV celebrities, and well-meaning parents, that to be truly themselves they need to chemically and surgically alter themselves. Puberty is hard enough without the companies behind the trans industry pushing their sole solution for teen angst for their profit. Psychological issues from sexual and physical abuse, anxiety over new bodily changes, and other social issues that cause trauma are rarely explored anymore before steering the child to transitioning.
Young people are being sterilized and will depend on big pharma for the rest of their lives. The majority will not have the ability to experience sexual pleasure. Treatments like puberty blockers and hormones used on minors cause harmful effects on the bones, organs, brain, etc. Countries like Finland and Sweden are now scaling back their approach to transitioning children. Tavistock, the premier gender clinic in the UK, is being forced to shut down due to pushing children to transition too quickly and lack of follow-up care. Please see this piece from Times of London that recently came out for more information on the Tavistock clinic.
In the U.S. there is resistance to consider anything other than medication and surgeries. To suggest otherwise is not allowed. I know several therapists who feel that, due to pressure on this issue, they cannot provide the care that the patient truly needs, as in exploring other reasons for their body hatred.
Again, with deep gratitude for caring enough about this issue to begin covering it on your show, I hope that you will continue exploring and exposing aspects of this issue to the public. If there is any way I can assist with this, please feel free to contact me again.
Sincerely yours,
Ruth Barrett
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