Remember Alice Dreger whose book Galileo’s Middle Finger I reviewed recently? Dreger investigated the persecution to which some scholars were subjected for advancing unpopular ideas. One of the cases Dreger analyzed in the book was that of a scholar hounded by trans activists for departing, in some minor way, from what they considered to be the “correct” theory of transgenderism. The fellow was subjected to outlandish abuse simply for conducting his research.
Well, how do you think these unhinged trans activists reacted to Dreger ‘ s book? They are now hounding her and trying to shut her up. And all she did was write about the guy who wrote something not 100% orthodox about transgenderism. Both Dreger and the scholar she wrote about are completely pro-transgender rights, by the way. But that isn’t enough to shield them from vilification because this isn’t about rights. It’s about repeating the same mantras that constitute identity discourse without changing a single syllable in them.
Clarissa's Blog 
There’s actually a lot more detail to the transgender theory in question, and much of the relevant science was left out of the book. Parts of her interpretation of the theory are pretty misleading and don’t really show the whole picture. http://genderanalysis.net/2016/04/alice-dreger-autogynephilia-and-the-misrepresentation-of-trans-sexualities-book-review-galileos-middle-finger/
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The intricacies of the theory can be debated by scholars. The important thing, though, is that nobody should be persecuted or threatened for voicing their view of the matter.
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A bigger issue here is that the theory itself, even in academic contexts, is rather clearly being used for vendettas and stigmatization – one of the sexologists she quotes has published multiple papers singling out trans women who disagree with her and calling them ugly and unfeminine. This bleeds over into her own popularization of the theory, like the section where she essentially describes an elderly woman’s family photo album as “sexual” and tries to diagnose her under this theory. The details of the science can admittedly be pretty obscure, but she leans on it really heavily in the book and uses it in inappropriately personal ways. I’m not at all surprised that people would (belatedly) realize this book isn’t offering anything positive toward the LGBT community and probably doesn’t deserve an award for that.
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“A bigger issue here is that the theory itself, even in academic contexts, is rather clearly being used for vendettas and stigmatization – one of the sexologists she quotes has published multiple papers singling out trans women who disagree with her and calling them ugly and unfeminine.”
“This bleeds over into her own popularization of the theory, like the section where she essentially describes an elderly woman’s family photo album as “sexual” and tries to diagnose her under this theory.”
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I’ve read the book and its sources as well, which are definitely worth following up on just to see how much the book left out. I think it’s disturbing that the contested theory at the heart of the controversy is being leveraged by supposedly professional scientists for the pursuit of personal grudges against individuals involved in the dispute. Let’s be real here, there’s nothing scientific or justifiable about using an academic journal as an outlet to call your critics ugly.
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