Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism
In an age when falsehoods are commonly taken as truth, Janice Raymond’s new book illuminates the ‘doublethink’ of a transgender movement that is able to define men as women, women as men, he as she, dissent as heresy, science as sham, and critics as fascists. Meanwhile, trans mobs are treated as gender patriots whose main enemy is feminists and their dissent from gender orthodoxies.
The medicalization of gender dissatisfaction depicted by Raymond in her early visionary book, The Transsexual Empire, has today expanded exponentially into the transgender industrial complex built on big medicine, big pharma, big banks, big foundations, big research centers, some attached to big universities. And the current rise of treating young children with puberty blockers and hormones is a widespread scandal that has been named a medical experiment on children.
Whereas transsexualism was mainly a male phenomenon in the past with males undertaking cross-sex hormones and surgery, today it is notably young women who are self-declaring as men in large numbers. The good news is that these young women who formerly identified as ‘trans men’ or gender non-binary, are now de-transitioning. In this book, they speak movingly about their severances from themselves and other women, their escape from compulsive femininity, their sexual assaults, the misogyny they experienced growing up, and their journeys in recovering their womanhood.
Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism makes us aware of the consequences of a runaway ideology and its costs — among them what is at stake when males are allowed to compete in female sports and when parents are not aware of school curricula that confuse sex with gender and that can facilitate a child’s hormone treatments without parental consent.
OCTOBER 2021 | ISBN 9781925950380 | Paperback | 152 mm x 228 mm | 300 pages
Praise for The Transsexual Empire
Ostensibly, the ‘transsexers’ are curing a disease; actually they engage in the religious and political shaping and controlling of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ behavior … Raymond’s development and documentation of this thesis is flawless. Her book is an important achievement.
—Thomas Szasz, The New York Times
Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC)
Feminist Question Time with speakers from Australia, UK and USA discussing Janice Raymond’s latest book: Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism
Renate Klein on Spinifex Press & the book 'Doublethink' by Janice Raymond
Anna Zobnina on the book 'Doublethink' by Janice Raymond
Janice Raymond on her book Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism
Sheila Jeffreys talks about Janice Raymond and her book Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism
Susan Hawthorne on Spinifex Press & introducing 'Doublethink' by Janice Raymond
Read an excerpt from Doublethink via Women Are Human.
“Before I began writing Doublethink, I thought long and hard, knowing that the swarm of trans detractors would gleefully sting me again, only this time it would be more venomous. But I felt that since 1994, when The Transsexual Empire was reprinted and I wrote a new preface for it, I hadn’t really written anything that addressed the takeover of transgenderism and especially the rise in young women who were declaring themselves male. I wrote this book to dispel the myths of transgenderism and to take on the consequences of a runaway ideology whose reach is influencing medical care, legislation, government policies, women’s sports, childhood and university education.” READ THE INTERVIEW WITH JULIE BINDEL HERE
“I want it to be a wakeup call,” she says. “I want Doublethink to help make us aware of a runaway ideology of transgenderism and its costs, among them what is at stake when males are allowed to compete in female sports and when parents are not aware of school curricula that confuse sex with gender and that can facilitate a child’s hormone treatment without parental consent. I want Doublethink to be read by lesbians and feminists, but also by the general public.”
— Janice Raymond talks to Claire Heuchan in Lesbian & Gay News
With a directness that is characteristic of her work, Raymond cuts through the culture of fear and intellectual dishonesty that defines many discussions around gender identity. She names injustice after injustice, each with a common root: misogyny. And in so doing Raymond challenges the reader to question their own role:
“When labels turn people into fearful bystanders incapable of expressing an honest opinion, not just individuals but institutions are given permission to disparage women, and governments are emboldened to draft (and pass) legislation that codifies gender tyranny and erases women’s rights. Many people want to remain ignorant, not the ignorance of innocence, but a chosen ignorance that wills not to know.”
Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism explains why the radical feminist analysis that Raymond articulates so clearly is not a threat to trans-identified people but rather an alternative to the transgender movement’s liberal precepts, which are biologically incoherent and anti-feminist. Raymond shows that we can critique the ideology of the transgender movement without ignoring the suffering of people with gender dysphoria. We can affirm the rights of girls and women while rejecting discrimination against trans-identified people.
— Robert Jensen reviews Doublethink in Feminist Current
“There’s a sad irony at the heart of Janice Raymond’s new book on transgenderism and feminism. After decades of research and activism, she is uniquely qualified to contribute to the polarized debate over these issues. But because she has long been demonized by the transgender movement, her insights on sex and gender will be overlooked by many.” Read his review of Doublethink in Lesbian & Gay News.
Reviews
“Janice Raymond's book describes the reasons why that alternative world is deadly and unacceptable. This is an educative, informative, and groundbreaking book, a must read and an essential part of everyone’s library in today’s world and for the future.”
Read the full review at https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/vol7/iss1/5
— Dignity Journal
Reader Reviews
“This book is a reality check and a support for those who seek the truth.”
— Amazon reviewer
“Now I understand what people mean by Woke and why it’s dangerous to all people on the left who value facts, science and material reality.”
— Amazon reviewer
“Janice Raymond’s book “Doublethink” is an excellent complement to two other recent books about harms stemming from a belief that sex can be changed: the one by Abigail Shrier is about damage done to girls who are encouraged to act on this belief and the other by Helen Joyce is about not only damage to girls but also about the damage that boys and men acting on this belief inflict on girls and women.”
— Amazon reviewer
FIVE STARS. “This new book does not attempt to replace or rewrite the Transsexual Empire, which the author has made available for free download. For the most part it simply sets out a great deal of information about the current state of affairs, which arguably goes over the same ground as other recent books on the subject. What is different and distinctive is that Raymond never loses sight of the political framework within which these events and transgenderism in general have to be understood.”
— GoodReads reviewer
FIVE STARS. “This is the best book of the year on transgenderism: well researched, incisive, ethical, and easy to read.”
— GoodReads reviewer
FIVE STARS. 'Doublethink' brings together so many of the problematic aspects of the ideology of gender, and how it clashes with the interests of women and children.
— GoodReads reviewer
FIVE STARS. “An excellent analysis of the consequences of gender ideology. The book is well researched, incisive, humanely written in clear & easy to read/understand language.”
— GoodReads reviewer