Janice Raymond

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'''Janice Raymond''' is a [[TERF]] well-known for her virulent [[transphobia]]. She was a [[nun]] with the Sisters of Mercy before she came out as a [[lesbian]] and began writing [[radical feminist]] literature. Her book ''The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male'' (1979) helped popularize the term ''she-male'' as a slur against transgender women, which while striking enough on its own, becomes more-so when the fact is considered that the term was previously a [[sexist]] slur used like a synonym for ''bitch''.<ref>Richard A. Spears (1991). [https://archive.org/details/slangeuphemismdi0000spea_k1z6/page/392/mode/2up?q=%22hateful+woman%22 "Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Racial Slurs, Drug Talk, Homosexual Lingo, and Related Matters"], 2nd revised edition. Page 393. Signet (Penguin Group). {{isbn|978-0451165541}}.</ref><ref>Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner (1975). [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofamer0000unse_j8i1/page/464/mode/2up?q=%22distrusted+woman%22 "Dictionary of American Slang"], Second Supplemented Edition. Page 465. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. {{isbn|978-0690006704}}.</ref>

She was once the "Co-Executive Director of the [[Coalition Against Trafficking in Women]]" (CATW), an anti-[[prostitution]] group. Her 2010 biography for CATW informs that she received grant money from various institutions, including the American intelligence agency USIA, or {{w|United States Information Agency||,}}<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100115022225/http://www.catwinternational.org/bio_JaniceRaymond.php "Biography of Janice Raymond"]. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, via the Wayback Machine (2010).</ref> a now-defunct agency that was "devoted to propaganda", particularly for foreign audiences.<ref>{{wpa|United States Information Agency}}</ref>

==Works==
===''The Transsexual Empire'' (1979)===
[[File:Janice Raymond - The Transsexual Empire.jpg|thumb|165px|]]
Her attacks on trans people began with her 1979 book ''The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male'',<ref>Janice G. Raymond, ''The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male''. Teachers College Press, 1994. {{isbn|0807762725}}.</ref> which includes the infamous line:

{{quotebox|[[Fundies Say the Darndest Things|All transsexuals rape women's bodies]] by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.<ref name="StanfordPhilEncPerspectives">[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-trans/ Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues] ([http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy])</ref>}}

The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' politely described this "thesis" as "difficult to assess since no [[argument]]s seem to have been given in its defense."<ref name="StanfordPhilEncPerspectives"/>

In ''Transsexual Empire'', Raymond includes sections that viciously attack Sandy Stone, a trans woman who had worked as a sound engineer for Olivia Records, and Christy Barsky. As a result, Stone and Olivia Records were deluged with hate mail and death threats.<ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2 The Dispute Between Radical Feminists and Trans People]</ref> Stone responded with ''The Empire Strikes Back: A Post-Transsexual Manifesto'' (1991{{efn|The essay was written in 1987 and first displayed at a conference in 1988, but first widely distributed in a 1991 book.<ref>{{wpa|The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto}}</ref>}}), which criticized both Raymond's point of view as well as the relatively conservative medicalization of trans identities that Raymond had fixated on.<ref>Stone, Sandy [http://sandystone.com/empire-strikes-back.pdf "The Empire Strikes Back: A Post-Transsexual Manifesto"]</ref><ref>Matthew Steven Carlos (2022). [https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/stone-publishes-posttranssexual-manifesto "Stone Publishes 'A Posttranssexual Manifesto'"]. ''EBSCO''.</ref>

Raymond also stated:

{{quotebox|"The problem of transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence."}}

Which can quite fairly be interpreted as a call for the gender identity equivalent of [[genocide]] (or gendercide)

Of course, like any bigot trying to backpedal in a world that has become more accepting of transgender women and much less amenable to the hate speech she has to offer, Raymond now tries to backpedal. On her official website, she is trying to rewrite her transphobia and walk it back,<ref>Raymond, Janice [http://janiceraymond.com/fictions-and-facts-about-the-transsexual-empire/ "Fictions and Facts about the Transsexual Empire"]</ref> forgetting that many copies of her book are still in circulation in libraries across the world.<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/title/transsexual-empire-the-making-of-the-she-male/oclc/4529467&referer=brief_results The transsexual empire : the making of the she-male]. WorldCat library search.</ref> Her "walkback" consists of her clarifying that she wants to mandate "transsexualism" out of existence, not trans people themselves. It's unclear why she seems to think the two positions are substantially different (perhaps she hopes to harness the old evangelical trope of "hate the sin, love the sinner", even though that doesn't fool anyone nowadays). This is strikingly similar to [[Michael Knowles#Transphobia|conservative Christian pundit Michael Knowles' rhetoric several decades later]].<ref>Mathew Rodriguez (March 6, 2023). [https://www.them.us/story/michael-knowles-transgenderism-cpac "CPAC Speaker Michael Knowles Says 'Transgenderism Must Be Eradicated'"]. ''Them''.</ref><ref>Ari Paul (March 10, 2023). [https://fair.org/home/a-taste-of-whats-in-store-if-right-wing-zealots-get-green-light-to-sue-media/ "A Taste of What’s in Store if Right-Wing Zealots Get Green Light to Sue Media"]. ''Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting''.</ref>

She asserts that she is "in the company of" fellow transphobes such as "author [[Sheila Jeffreys]], journalist [sic] [[Julie Bindel]], [...and] deceased writer {{wpl|Mary Daly}}" forgetting the fact that, like her, all of these people have definitively defined themselves as transphobes by their words and deeds. Raymond's hate speech against trans people almost completely ignores the existence of transgender men, focusing her hate almost exclusively upon transgender women—[[Irony|just like most ''men'']] who rail against trans people. Huh.

===''Women as Wombs'' (1993)===
In 1993, Raymond decided to have a book published about reproductive technology such as IVF or ova cryopreservation. She says there is a belief that infertility is a disease that can be helped by these kinds of technologies, and this is secretly an ideology called "reproductive fundamentalism" and not really feminist. She calls these technologies, along with surrogacy, "unsafe, experimental, and demeaning".<ref name="WAW93">{{Cite book |last=Raymond |first=Janice |url=https://archive.org/details/womenaswombsrepr00raym |title=Women as Wombs: Reproductive Technologies and the Battle Over Women's Freedom |date=1993 |publisher=HarperSanFrancisco |isbn=9780062508997}}</ref>{{rp|vii–xi}} Raymond acknowledges that many historical feminists, including both socialist feminists in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone, did not share her views.<ref name="WAW93"/>{{rp|88–90}} It nearly leaves one wondering whether Raymond's writings contain remnants of her "previous" socially conservative Catholicism rather than "radical feminism".

==See also==
* [[Abigail Shrier]], author of "the anti-transmasc Bible" ''Irreversible Damage''
* [[SWERF]], something else Raymond is
* [[Transmisogyny]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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[[Category:LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:TERFs]]
[[Category:SWERFs]]

Categories: LGBTQ people, Living people, TERFs, SWERFs