Within the ongoing and toxic “debate” about trans rights, secondary school teacher, trade unionist and writer Debbie Hayton offers a unique perspective — she is a trans woman with gender-critical views. Her debut book, Transsexual Apostate, uses memoir as a jumping-off point for her wider theories and opinions about transgender identity. It promises to act as a “compassionate call to move beyond ideological conflicts”. But it’s often hard to find much compassion in a book where so many of her arguments hinge on perpetuating harmful tropes, dodgy studies, largely debunked theories, outdated gender stereotypes about both men and women, and a handful of outrageous claims.
Hayton starts off by sharing her own personal experiences, writing about the sense of shame she felt as a young child who desperately wished to be “magically turned into a girl” and her relief at starting a relationship with now-wife Stephanie, who also shares her perspective in an epilogue. “I was pleased with how life had turned out; without the internet, it might well have continued that way,” Hayton claims.
