Amy Hamm is a nurse, but has training in journalism, and is an excellent writer. She has written for Quillette, the Post-Millennial, and elsewhere.
However, apparently clarity of thought and communication combined with a deep knowledge of subject matter is not an appreciated skill set in the 2020’s. Amy found this out when she dared to challenge the required thinking around the very difficult and contentious transgender issue.
Amy uses the word “TERF” in our discussion. For those of you who don’t know, this is a nouveau, derogatory term meaning “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist”. To translate into English, a TERF is someone who believes that there are differences between a man who undergoes a variety of treatments (or in some cases no treatments) and then calls himself a woman, versus someone who is born female.
I often think that if someone went into a coma in 2010 and then woke up in 2023 and saw that people had lost their jobs, been physically threatened, and censored by social media for saying statements like “men are not women”, I think they’d want to be put back into the coma. “Wake me up when things are sane again!”.
Amy is articulate, thoughtful, and brave. Her involvement with paying to install an “I (Heart) JK Rowling” billboard landed her in hot water, and a drawn-out and still-not-complete investigation by the BC nursing college overlords. Like Jordan Peterson and other medical professionals who have been persecuted for their views, the complaints against her have nothing to do with her nursing care or competency, and the complainants have no repercussions to worry about as they are anonymous.
As we discuss in the podcast, the vast majority of trans people, just like the vast majority of non-transgendered people, are not criminals. But we don’t need rules and laws for those of us who are harmless. We need them for the small percentage of the population who are sociopathic or psychopathic, and will use loopholes to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. Opening women’s sports, shelters, and prisons to anyone who identifies as a woman is potentially a buglight to these bad actors. How do we accommodate trans people while keeping this loophole closed? These are complex questions that need vigorous debate, not censorship and coercion.
Apologies in advance for the sound quality, but despite some challenges Amy and I had an interesting conversation about her situation, the state of the gender wars, and the importance of pursuing truth, damn the torpedoes. Thanks to her, and we look forward to hearing her (and her lawyer Lisa Bildy) speak at the FSIM conference Oct 27-29th in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. We hope to see you there.
Amy Hamm