Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we? Let’s imagine a world which never forces someone’s subjective reality on to the rest of us or else we’re ‘offending’ them. Or him. Let’s say ‘him’ because he is at the centre of this charade. It’s a world in which people who think their arm doesn’t belong to them, think they’re fat when really they are dangerously under-weight, think they’re disabled when they are non-disabled, think they’re someone who they’re not and think they are in the ‘wrong’ body or their current body doesn’t belong to them – are all people who are supported and the underlying causes of their mistaken beliefs addressed. However, the one thing which does NOT happen, ever, is that the delusions are confirmed by others because, well, because it’s actually dangerous to their well-being and may be dangerous to those around them. And because…it’s simply not true and what good can ever come out of agreeing with someone else’s false reality?

The converse of our imaginary world, where other people’s false reality is not only accepted as universal, but praised and admired, is all being played out before millions on UK Big Brother right now. We’ve left the sensible, logical, reality we’ve just created. We’re back in 2014. We’re in sci fi land where 1 person’s delusions are being encouraged, reinforced and cemented by the show, its producers, presenters and other contestants. I am not convinced that the watching public are going along with it so well, now they are seeing what it actually means up, close and personal, as opposed to ‘don’t be unkind to someone, they have problems’.

The man from the masculinist industry of boxing, who now thinks he’s a woman at the age of 60, is in a state of turmoil. Yet every time he expresses his doubts about whether the answer is to transition, his willing ‘friends’, usually women, say things like “You’re Kellie now. BE you”. And they say these things even when he says such revealing narratives as: “Frank was nasty, you didn’t want to mess with frank. Kellie is lovely, softer, gentler. Frank might come out again”. His speech is littered with stereotypes about what a woman is and what a man is. He quite clearly can’t see any other way out of being the ‘hard-nosed’ unpleasant masculinist caricature he’s played for decades. That doesn’t make you a woman, Frank.

His continuous masculinist behaviour and appearance causes the gay man in the house to keep calling him ‘he’ by accident. “oops she” he says, having only known him the past few days, supposedly, as ‘she’. Frank/Kellie thinks being a woman is about choosing outfits while making statements such as “You don’t want to cross me” and “Frank will come out again” (ie ‘as ‘Kellie’ I am weak, vulnerable and fragile and have to be a maculinist man to be aggressive and nasty’). He has outbursts of anger and viciousness and his lack of female socialisation leads him to tell a woman she ‘looks like shit’ . He so clearly isn’t cutting the mustard to anyone with an ounce of sense. However, they all rally around justifying this fact by saying it’s the ‘hormones he’s taking’. The hormones he’s taking, which he doesn’t need to take because he has no physical illness, is making him ill? Listen to yourselves, people. The facade that men are becoming ‘who they know themselves to be’ when they transition is being questioned by a public who haven’t had “transphobia” rubbed in their noses every two seconds.

When Audley says he’s ‘uncomfortable’ (because he knows what he cannot say – that there is a man in front of him who thinks he’s a woman and he’s not taken in), he is hauled to the diary room for a reprimand. Interestingly, the public rally round him and say it’s ridiculous he’s told what he said was ‘offensive’. Perhaps sense might prevail but, no, Audley goes out of his way to tell Frank how he just needs time to adjust.

During the conversation, Frank/Kellie says “Would you treat me this way if I’d lost a leg?”. Possibly not, but if you THOUGHT you’d lost a leg and hadn’t, it seems much more likely. And that’s the actual parallel situation with this one. And then he says: “It’s like me saying I am not going to get in the bathroom with you because you’re black”. No, it really isn’t. The viewing public don’t think so either. Racism is a material reality; institutions, structures and social attitudes are built on white supremacy where white people (usually men) benefit at the expense of black people (often women). It’s like comparing racism with someone who thinks they’re a dog. An offensive comparison to all those who experience structural racism.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the only problem here is that social attitudes and legislation are backing the mistaken beliefs of people who THINK they are a member of the opposite sex. At the root of those mistaken beliefs is the idea that gender roles are real and there is no alternative but to play them out. Frank/Kellie first played out masculinist stereotypes and, when he realised they left him less than human, he’s now attempting to play out feminine stereotypes. Or is it really that all this ‘I am trapped in the wrong body’ business is just a ruse to make sexual fetishes socially acceptable? Who can say? People can’t perceive that someone would go to such lengths as to be surgically altered unless the problem is ‘real’. Why do people who think their arm doesn’t belong to them go to such lengths as to try and cut it off? Why do women who want to look ‘young’, or like another woman, go to such lengths as having life-risking cosmetic surgery? People are prepared to take all kinds of risks because they are driven by psychological motivation rooted in cultural norms. It’s a subjective reality. It doesn’t mean the rest of us have to buy into it and believe it too. Only in the up-side-down world of transexualism, where, on the whole, it’s a system in which men demand that their rights are seen as more important than anyone’s, does the rest of society feel obliged to collude.

A few days later frank asks if (‘after the operation’) he’ll be a lesbian if he has sex with a woman. His housemates get confused ‘yes’, ‘no’ ‘you’re a woman aren’t you? Yes, you’ll be a lesbian then” Why not ask actual lesbians that question? Here’s my answer. NO. Not on your life, mate, are you, nor will you ever be, operation or not, a lesbian. (I’m willing to bet a lot of money he’ll never have an operation in any case, especially if he’s asking stupid questions that he must know the answer to). Leave lesbians alone. You can’t stop being male. You are who you are but you don’t have to live according to gender role stereotypes. That’s the only choice you have – and you’re not taking it.


9 thoughts on “FRANK HAS COME OUT TO ‘PLAY’

  1. ” If you THOUGHT you lost a leg but hadn’t”
    Oh this sentence mare me LOL because it’s so true!

    I’ve written a post myself on Frank, and there are some posts about him on twanzphobic since forever. The charade is morbidly fascinating.

    When they had the convo about whether he would be a lesbian, I noticed it was James who was very quick to say he would definitely be one, whereas Claire had an unsure look on her face that seemed to say “WTF?”. The women in there are being gaslighted by all the men except Audley, but they’re starting to fight back a little. Frank is stepping on the women’s toes too much in there. He got lots of boos from the public. As others have said, the more they try to increase awareness about trans issues the more suspicious normal people become.

    • We hadn’t realised there were other posts about him – will take a look, thanks.

      I think I found Lauren (BB earlier this year) at least as offensive, if not more so, because he’s had the op and is now ‘schooling’ women on how to do ‘femininity’ as well as he does it (!). And then he trips across the floor in a long gown, with false, mock ‘feminine’ strides, and he’s about as plausible as a wet sponge. When asked by a gay man if he’d had a big penis before the op, he replied “My vagina is very deep”. Yeah, we all go round saying this kind of thing, objectifying our bodies in such a way, so like a laydee, go Lauren!

      • I didn’t watch BB when Lauren was in it but I saw him being introduced as a panelist this time. They showed a clip of how he was getting on with his singing career since he’d left the BB house and then I realized that all the people surrounding him were humouring his belief that he was a star and a singer. That’s when you KNOW you’re looking at a male person. Women aren’t humoured or given the time of day at all. You have to be exceptionally talented to be taken seriously when you’re a woman. A woman who sang like Lauren would be laughed out of the room.

      • The deep vagina statement just cracked me up. I have never, ever thought of the depth of my vagina. I have never ever heard another woman refer to the depth of her vagina. When my mother told me about the “facts of life,” a deep vagina was never mentioned. But the womb was. If you include the womb, the whole deal is pretty deep, deep enough to hold a child, and some of these children are 20″ long. So, there it is. Something I never thought about before. The stupidity of the depth of vagina statement is hilarious, really. Sometimes ya just gotta laugh.

      • Um. Does the “depth” of vaginas even vary? I mean, it obviously depends on the size of a woman, but if two women are the same size, they’re bound to have the same vagina length, or their uteruses would have to be somewhere up in the ribcage.
        It’s a statement no woman would make.

  2. Heh. I’m writing about Frank too. He’s so typical of these men. I’m hoping his stint on BB will backfire spectacularly and we will see a nationwide peak trans moment.

  3. Thanks for the article. I get so confused about men who think they’re trapped in the wrong body. I want to be liberal-minded, to let others be whatever they want, and for me your observation, “Only in the up-side-down world of transexualism, where, on the whole, it’s a system in which men demand that their rights are seen as more important than anyone’s, does the rest of society feel obliged to collude.” hits the nail on the head. It’s fine to do your own thing, but only in so far as that does not negatively impact others. I have great sympathy for people who feel they cannot live in the world as it is and search out alternative ways of being, but they lose my sympathy when they set their own needs above those of everyone else. I also had to listen to a performance poet last week. He/she ranted on angrily about lesbians not accepting him/her as an equal woman, while simultaneously insulting women by saying that since he started taking his hormone therapy a few months previously he has to have help carrying heavy shopping. Really?! I’m over 60, hetero for what it’s worth, and quite capable of carrying my own shopping. I’ve spent a lifetime fighting such demeaning stereotyping of women. Usually by… oh, guess who? That’s right. Men. QED.

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