Yesterday’s Daily Malice contained a lengthy article purporting to expose the evils of Britain’s “Gender Industry”. Unfortunately, as is common for the Malice, their journalists knew very little about the subject and got much of it wrong. In particular they fingered the Portman and Tavistock Clinics as leaders of this industry, when in trans communities this organization is known as deeply conservative and often acting in ways directly opposed to the interests of trans people. For an example, in 2002 a group of their staff wrote to the Daily Telegraph as follows:
The recent judgment in the European Court of Human Rights, in which a post-operative transsexual person was granted permission to marry in his adopted gender role, is a victory of fantasy over reality.
If there is someone that these people deem worthy of treatment, you can bet that the case is very clear cut.
The reality of care for trans people is very different. There are probably a few surgeons who make good money, though I’m guessing less than they could get in more glamorous specializations. Organizations that care for trans people are often heavily dependent on charity, which in turn relies on actual trans people for donations, and they are chronically underemployed. Medical professionals are constantly at risk of being hit with malpractice suits from conservative colleagues should they be deemed guilty of treating trans people with compassion and respect.
Of course the British people, and indeed concerned persons all around the world, do need to know more about this clandestine and hugely profitable gender industry. I have therefore taken it upon myself to indulge in a little investigative journalism. Here is the awful truth of how cunning trans people have made fortunes by replacing “real” men and women with “fakes” in work that does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes.
One of the first gender entrepreneurs in the UK was Roz Kaveney. A struggling journalist and aspiring writer, Kaveney was introduced by her friend, Neil Gaiman, to an equally ambitious American screenwriter called Joss Whedon. Whedon had a plan to create a TV series based around the cult movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, he was unable to persuade any Hollywood actresses to star in the series. They felt that taking the role of a kick-ass, vampire-killing heroine would be damaging to their public images, and to their long-term careers. Whedon therefore asked Kaveney to supply a group of trans women to act in the series.
When Buffy became a surprise hit, Kaveney was suddenly in great demand in Hollywood. Every studio wanted a similar series, and Kaveney’s company, Trans R Us, was the leading supplier of suitable actresses. Kaveney’s products later went on to star in TV series such as Alias, and in movies such as the Underworld and Resident Evil series.
Her commercial success allowed Kaveney to return to her first love, writing. Realizing that no self-respecting “real” woman would write romance novels featuring kick-ass, monster-killing heroines, she began to write novels featuring characters similar to Buffy. The idea took off, and soon Kaveney found books by her pen names, including Laurell K. Hamilton, Carrie Vaughn and Kim Harrison were becoming best-sellers. Pretty much all of the early output of the paranormal romance and urban fantasy genres was penned by Kaveney herself. However, despite her success, women writers were willing to follow her example for fear of a public backlash, or being blacklisted by published who deemed their work insufficiently feminine. Unable to find suitable talent within the trans community, Kaveney hired a number of male ghost writers to write her books for her. Successful authors such as Tim Pratt, Daniel Abrahams, Ian McDonald, Sean Williams and John Scalzi all got their start ghost writing for Kaveney.
Although Kaveney is believed to be the first British trans woman to become a millionaire through her business interests, her wealth and fame is far eclipsed by that of the health industry mogul, Christine Burns. Around 2004 the Blair government began to run into problems recruiting staff for the National Health Service. Their program of gender equality in education had been so successful that all young women studying medicine now wanted to be doctors rather than nurses. Unfortunately a high profile study by the Royal College of Psychiatry had proved conclusively that male hospital patients are unlikely to recover successfully unless they have pretty young women to look after them. The shortage of female nurses looked set to result in a major health crisis.
Some of the shortage was made up through immigration, but Burns approached the government with the idea of transforming aspiring young male nurses into women. The idea proved very effective in solving the nurse shortage, and Burns was awarded an MBE for her services to the NHS. Indeed, so successful has she become that other companies in the UK health sector poured millions of pounds into Conservative Party coffers in the hope that they could win an election and put a stop to Burns. The NHS reforms championed by Andrew Lansley are the end result of this campaign. NHS staff, many of whom owe their jobs to Burns, are vociferously opposing the reforms. It remains to be seen whether Burns’ commercial empire will survive the assault.
Gender entrepreneurs have been successful in many other walks of British life. For example, the entertainment industry has long held that women simply aren’t funny. In any case, feminists have no sense of humor so there would be no sense in catering to them by providing women comedians. However, the general trend in society towards equal rights did require at least a semblance of balance. As a consequence, Bethany Black has built a substantial business out of supplying trans women comics, including Ellen De Generes, French & Saunders, and Jo Brand. You didn’t think they could be that funny if they were “real” women, did you, people?
The gender industry has been much slower on the uptake when it came to trans men, but one notable business has been built in sports. Back in 2006, Delia Smith was worried about the poor performance of her Norwich City football club. An internal enquiry had identified that a major problem was the team’s yellow shirts. They were deemed “too girly”, and as a consequence top flight players were unwilling to join the club. The enquiry recommended a change of strip, but Smith is a committed traditionalist who was unwilling to abandon not only the club’s colors, but also their nickname of The Canaries. Even the club badge would have to be changed. She turned instead to gender entrepreneur, Juliet Jacques, herself a life-long Norwich fan, and asked her if she could turn top quality female players into men.
The project took a long time to bear fruit. Amongst the teething problems was the fact that large doses of testosterone made trans men prone to fits of anger and violence. Some early models such as Robbie Savage and Joey Barton have become notorious for their poor disciplinary records. Eventually, however, the years of research paid off and Norwich is once again back near the top of the Premiership.
Meanwhile, determined to make the best of her initial failures, Jacques tried selling some of her early models to rugby clubs. This proved ideal, and although rugby is a much less wealthy sport it provided a healthy income for Jacques and her company. At one point she supplied the entire squad of the top Parisian team, Stade Français. This deal came to an end thanks to events in Italy.
In 2010 a newspaper owned by a rival media company exposed the fact that all of the prostitutes at one of Prime Minister Berlusconi’s famous orgies were actually trans women supplied by wealthy Italian gender entrepreneur, Vladimir Luxuria. As part of the fall-out from this, it was revealed that the Italian rugby captain, Sergio Parisse, a Stade Français player, was actually a trans man. The scandal spread back to France, and the Parisian club ended their deal with Jacques. The team has languished in the lower reaches of the French league ever since.
The gender industry is by no means confined to Europe. Indeed, it is currently playing a major role in US Politics. Back in 1998, Newt Gingrich was scouring Hollywood for a rugged, right-wing actor who could be groomed to be the next Ronald Reagan. Arnold Schwarzenegger was ineligible due to being foreign-born, and Gingrich found the majority of male Hollywood stars — people like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio — to be a bunch of effeminate metrosexuals entirely unsuited for political office. Then he met up with gender entrepreneur, Calpernia Addams, and American politics changed forever.
The project was put on a back burner during the Shrub Presidency, and when it was revived early attempts to produce potential female candidates from right-wing males proved disastrous. The subjects were unable to successfully integrate their new female identities with the level of misogyny required of them. Projects such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann were notable failures. However, Addams then came up with a new idea. Combining the successful work of Juliet Jacques on trans men with the assistance of top quality Hollywood cosmetic surgeons and make-up artists, she began to develop a series of trans male replicants. These could take the place of under-performing Republican politicians and push the party line that Gingrich wanted. Products such as Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have proved very successful with Republican voters in recent months.
Unusually Gingrich, who had tired of the hurly-burly of political life, also opted to have himself replaced by a replicant. His new career as mild-mannered investment consultant, “Bernie Madoffâ€, went very well until his business ran into trouble during the recent financial crisis. The real Gingrich has therefore been forced to watch from jail as his trans replicant hits the presidential campaign trail.
The hot young talent in the gender industry is Paris Lees. Tall and slender herself, Lees quickly realized that the standard shape for catwalk models doesn’t work for women. They simply don’t have, well, shape. So Lees began a modelling agency for trans women. Her initial products, Lea T and Andrej Pejić, have been hugely successful. Given Lees’ energy and business acumen, it seems likely that she’ll be the major supplier of catwalk models for years to come.
There have long been rumors in fandom that I am fantastically wealthy, and I can now reveal that much of my income has come from a burgeoning business in gender derivatives. The idea is deceptively simple. Rich couples are able to take out an option on the gender of future children. If a pregnancy turns out to be for a child different from what they wanted, the option pays out and they can afford gender reassignment surgery. Some of my customers have instead opted to have the unwanted child adopted, and to choose a new child of their own. This has led me to become close friends with prominent people in the celebrity adoption industry such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie. Many of my best clients come from European royal families. Indeed, Kevin and I will be attending the Monaco Grand Prix in style this year. Look out for us in the Royal Box during the trophy presentation.
Thanks to my interests in the gender industry, I am now financially secure and able to indulge in a little philanthropy. I have decided to help out the campaign for gender equality in the science fiction and fantasy community. It is well known that no “real” man would ever give up his place on a panel in favor of a woman. However, by licensing the trans replicant technology from Calpernia Addams, and severely toning down the testosterone doses, my staff have managed to create a range of male writer replicants with an interest in gender equality. As you might have guessed, one of our first products is Paul Cornell.
Unfortunately the real Paul Cornell didn’t take kindly to being replaced. He has converted to Catholicism and is currently studying at a remote monastery in the Calabrian Mountains in Southern Italy. He is a member of a new militant order of Catholic monks founded by Pope Ratty and financed by Berlusconi and prominent Mafia leaders. Penis Dei is devoted to saving the world from the Transgender Menace by hunting down trans people and selling their stories to British tabloid newspapers. Their headquarters are believed to be in Ireland, where they disguise themselves as mild-mannered, fun-loving bookmakers.
I would like to thank Julie Bindel and her tireless colleagues at the pressure group, Trans Empire Watch, for their help in preparing this article.
The management accepts that certain details presented in this article may be somewhat less than entirely factual, but they have been retained for artistic effect. We assert that the Truthiness quotient of this article is no less than that of some articles about trans people published by the Daily Malice. Furthermore we assert that, in the world of the UK’s tabloid newspapers, the concept of “truth†is entirely fungible and often used to indicate that the material in question is entirely made up.
