Our discussion group met on 25 September 2023 to discuss Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. If there is a ‘bible’ of gender critical feminism, this book must be it. Joyce covers the whole range of trans and gender identity related issues including: the history of transsexualism and origins of gender ideology; the emergence of gender dysphoria as a mental health issue and its impact on girls especially; the erasure of women and the undermining of women-only spaces and women’s sport; the trans activist capture of the political left and official institutions; and the impact of gender ideology on society generally, e.g. with regard to free speech and ‘cancel culture’.

Throughout the book Joyce presents her evidence and arguments in a way you might think any reasonable person would find persuasive (though of course this hasn’t prevented the usual accusations of “transphobia” and bigotry).

A few aspects that stood out for were:

• a discussion of cult film The Matrix which, according to the testimony of one of the two directors, is a parable of trans identity; 
• the role of billionaires such as Soros and the Pritzker family in financing the trans movement (though as Robbie pointed out in our discussion, Joyce doesn’t go into the possible motives behind this);
• the factors that have influenced the trans debate in the USA including the historical memory of black slavery, the fight over gay marriage, and the extreme polarisation of US politics; and 
• the factors that have allowed the UK to go a different way, including a more centralised political system (making the conflict less complicated), a stronger and more successful feminist tradition, the impact of Brexit (which put all other political issues on hold for a long time) and last but not least, the transformation of social media platform Mumsnet into a political forum where gender-critical views could be safely expressed. 

The book is as up to date as something published in 2021 and revised in 2022 could be. Thus it includes the employment tribunal victory of Maya Forstater, which set such an important legal precedent for the employment and free speech rights of gender-critical people; but not the equally important (and far more spectacular) fiasco of the SNP’s failed attempt to bring in gender self-ID in Scotland. But, given how volatile the issues are, with important advances and setbacks apparently taking place every week, such a limitation is inevitable in a printed book. If you want to keep up to date you just have to follow Helen Joyce’s account on ‘X’.

One thing that is somewhat regrettable is the lack of an index, which would have been really useful for anyone wanting to quickly look information on cases as those of Lia Thomas or ‘Jessica’ Yaniv for example.