Wokeism was born on American campuses. It has spread to England and the European continent. Will its cradle become its tomb? The time has come for a counter-offensive. And in the Anglo-Saxon world, resistance is being organized. This book chronicles it.
How to counter the woke wave? How to respond to its excesses? Gender theory, racialism, decolonialism, transactivism: the diversity system is imposed everywhere. The woke sees only victims and executioners around it and, to repair the world, works to pulverize it.
So strong minds refuse to give in to pressure and defend equal rights. Philosophers, academics, doctors, lawyers or ordinary citizens are working to thwart the advent of an Orwellian world. Faced with the violence of their adversaries, they risk their careers and their reputations, but defend their convictions in the midst of the din. Sylvie Perez went to meet them.
The result of a long investigative work, this book documents the responses emerging from all strata of society. By circumvention or by shock, by seriousness or by humor, the fight for freedom of expression is engaged. And the cultural battle rages.
Journalist, Sylvie Perez has worked in the written press and on the radio. She has published several essays, novels and books of interviews, and translated Agatha Christie's theatrical work from English..

Here are some good sheets.

THE WORLD UPRIGHT

Anglo-Saxon neo-progressivism is one step ahead. Its inventions arrive here with a time delay. What is happening here, most often, happened there a little earlier. So that observing the evolution of this movement in the Anglosphere is a way of reading the future. However, where it was conceived and implemented, wokeism is today the target of critical minds who unmask its slogans and document its dead ends. The advances of the anti-woke laboratory are plotted by contrarian minds from all philosophical, political, religious or ethnic horizons. They are concerned with containing this muddled ideology that shakes and weakens the very foundations of institutions; they have in common only the categorical refusal of post-truth and are busy thwarting the advent of an Orwellian world. The question transcends political families and mobilizes a new category of politically non-binary swordsmen. Wokism, instigator of fluidity and trans-identity, will also have engendered trans-politics!

From London, the staging point of wokeness between America and France, I was able to observe the development of response strategies and the current surge. If wokeness is a seismic movement that began in the 1980s, its most extravagant effects have appeared in the last ten years. As Simon Leys wrote¹ : " History has shown many times that it does not take much to plunge millions of people into the hell of 1984: a handful of organized and determined thugs are enough. They draw most of their strength from the silence and blindness of honest people. » 

Optimistic and determined, the dissidents of wokeism have developed the tools of resistance. Among them, a few tech geniuses exasperated by the political correctness of Silicon Valley, a few feminists who love men, a few daredevil comedians who laugh at everything, a few lawyers attached to the fundamental principles of law, a few artists who turn away from progressive realism and are busy creating rather than educating the people, a few PhD students who want to save the university, a few diehards who decode politically correct newspeak, a few absolutists of freedom of expression who are not fooled by sermons against 'hate speech', a few representatives of the black community unwilling to serve as puppets for anti-racist associations, a few transgender people who have no need to deny biology in order to exist, a whole world that prefers to stay alive rather than waste its efforts on self-censorship and denouncing the wrong-thinking. 

Already, excellent works have appeared in France, which document the effects of wokeness. This one chronicles the response, developed by the promoters of a society that rehabilitates irony and bad spirit, values ​​human genius, diversity of opinions, invention, research, knowledge, merit, a society where we can breathe again. A society, in other words. 

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THE PAST IS NOT WHAT IT WAS

The association History Reclaimed (History Rehabilitated), was formed in August 2021 to counterbalance the instrumentalization Woke of history, which reduces the Western past to three sacrileges: colonialism, imperialism, racism. Noting that this Manichean vision is turning into doxa, historians are getting involved in the culture wars. The site History Reclaimed is open to them to re-establish complex truths, to introduce nuance, to bring a historical perspective to the historical debate. 

Wokeism has focused on the history of the triangular trade and the terrible episode of the slave trade. It would like to repair the past in the form of financial compensation for the descendants of slaves. Robert Tombs, professor of history at Cambridge and founder ofHistory Reclaimed, doubts the merits of this approach. According to him, the research project funded by the University of Cambridge on its links with slavery and the need to consider reparations, is a public relations operation rather than an academic project: " If the question is: "did the university benefit from slavery?", the answer is obviously yes. All European institutions benefited, directly or indirectly, from the income of slave industries (sugar, cotton, tobacco), he told me. What characterises Cambridge is its anti-slavery work. In 1785, the university's vice-chancellor launched the paper: "Can Men Be Enslaved Against Their Will?" The student Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) won a prize for his essay, after which he campaigned tirelessly for the abolition of slavery. In 1789, a young Tory MP, William Wilberforce, also a Cambridge graduate, led a campaign in the Commons against the slave trade that led to abolition. So while the university received money from industrialists who had made their fortunes on the slave trade, it was also very active in banning slavery. Only, this research programme was conducted as part of "racial equality initiatives", the aim was to self-flagellate so that it could claim: "look how virtuous we are". It would be a good idea to offer scholarships for African students, not for the sake of reparations, but because we no longer have African students. It is a pity.» 

Understanding the present in light of the past rather than judging the past in light of the present. (…) Robert Tombs' association undertakes to defuse the mines Woke on the battlefield that history has become. The site presents itself as a digital scholarly journal, publishes contributions from historians, offers a podcast, access to reliable historical sources, reading lists, a history book prize and debates on the topics that are buzzing. 

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HEALTH SCANDAL

What could two modest psychotherapists do in the face of such a powerful social movement? I met Marcus and Sue Evans on February 3, 2020 to talk about the cases that propelled them to the front pages of the British press. The Evans couple then found themselves embroiled in a daring legal storm. Marcus Evans resigned last year from the board of the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust, in London, which houses the GIDS (Gender Identity Development Service), the largest gender clinic for minors in the world. Sue Evans, meanwhile, is taking legal action against the same Tavistock which she accuses of subjecting children to experimental hormone treatments. (…)

As in the US, gender dysphoria has spread to the UK. The number of children consulting GIDS has increased from 77 in 2009 to 5000 in 2021, an increase of 6400%. And the figure has doubled in just two years, between 2019 (2500) and 2021 (5000). Social contagion is a concern, particularly among girls, who now represent 76% of patients., Marcus Evans told me. This situation is unprecedented. However, no serious research has been undertaken on this subject. » (…)

Sue Evans worked at GIDS between 2003 and 2014. Noticing that children were being rushed into hormone treatment, she raised concerns with management. Despite an internal investigation, nothing changed. We saw young people who were prescribed hormones after only three or four sessions of psychotherapy, Sue Evans told me. I had followed patients for two years, for problems with eating disorders. I could never have cured them after four consultations! Transgenderism is comparable. The patient is very determined in his story. He has identified the problem (I was not born in the right body) and the solution (I have to change sex). A patient suffering from anorexia is convinced that he is too fat. Agreeing with him will not help him. The affirmative approach advocated by transgender associations consists of subscribing to the patient's story from the outset and sending him to the endocrinologist. It makes no sense. Psychotherapy aims to adapt the mind to the body, and not to modify the body so that it corresponds to the idea that the patient has of it. Transgender activists want to remove gender dysphoria from the psychological field.» 

To treat gender dysphoria, the Evans couple advocates exploratory therapy, rather than affirmative. We listen to the patient, we ask him about his gender identification problem, but also about his family and school environment, we try to understand his suffering together. In 90% of cases, without hormonal treatment, the patient ends up reconciling with his body, Marcus Evans explains to me.. Puberty is a complex, anxiety-provoking stage. A whole range of problems are at play during adolescence, a time of sociological, psychological, physiological metamorphosis. Young people must be allowed to go through this phase as naturally as possible, at least until the age of 25, at which time they become more peaceful, they assume responsibility for their bodies, their sexuality. Activists say that puberty blockers are "just a pause." But there is no "pause" button in a child's development! By interrupting his development, you are removing him from his age group. While his peers are changing, the child on hormone blockers keeps his childish appearance. You are depriving him of a normal social life. This is not a neutral act in any way. » 

Puberty blockers are not approved to treat gender dysphoria, nor are they approved in the United States for use in the treatment of Food and Drug Administration, nor in the United Kingdom where the National Institute for Care and Health Excellence (NICE), in 2020, after reviewing the studies published on the subject, concluded that there was insufficient evidence in favor of hormonal treatment for gender dysphoria. There is not enough perspective to judge the benefits/risks of this misuse² puberty blockers on transgender children. And the side effects observed so far are alarming: alteration of brain development and intelligence quotient, osteoporosis, drop in libido, sterility when treatment is initiated very young. 

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LOST IN TRANS-NATION

Even the most renowned gender doctors are concerned about trans-affirmative fundamentalism. Among them is Dr. Marci Bowers, herself a transwoman, a world-renowned obstetrician-gynecologist specializing in vaginoplasties (she has performed over two thousand). She operated on the famous Jazz Jennings (the little American boy who felt like a girl and whose transition was televised in real time). Dr. Bowers has not hidden the complications she encountered when constructing Jazz Jennings' vagina, due to the fact that her patient, who was put on puberty blockers at a young age, had small genitals with little tissue. Dr. Bowers recommends caution in administering puberty blockers because they compromise sexual pleasure and fertility in adulthood. 

Erica Anderson, also a transwoman, is a famous Californian pro-gender affirmation psychologist, and Laura Edwards-Leeper is the co-founder of the first American gender clinic in Boston (USA). At the end of November 2021, Anderson and Edwards-Leeper co-authored an article in the Washington PostThey expressed their concern at the exponential number of young girls being referred for hormone therapy before they even had access to proper psychological care. The influx of patients to psychologists and gender clinics, combined with a political climate that views the care of each individual as a test of society's tolerance, is leading practitioners down a slippery and dangerous slope. (...) The pressure from activists within medical staff and psychology departments who, in concert with some LGBT organizations, silence detransitioners and sabotage any discussion about what is happening in this area, is unacceptable. (...) This casts doubt on the honesty of our profession and our dedication to helping trans people. » 

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THE POST-WOKE ERA

Wokeism is an ideology conceived on the left and fought from all political sides. In France, the charge is carried by the republican, universalist and secularist left and, with the same vigor, by conservatives and by the proponents of liberalism, all attached to a common world. The Anglo-Saxons, strong in their experience of wokeism, have developed a modus operandi to curb a neo-progressive influence gone mad. In their country, the counter-offensive is entering its third phase. After having identified the current phenomenon, it was necessary to understand it, in order to finally combat it. Thus now appear real anti-woke policies that unravel the diversity system with its anti-democratic commissions and surveillance entities. After the theoretical sequence, we approach the practical: solving the problem. 

None of the three steps - identifying, understanding, developing the tools of the counter-offensive - was a walk in the park. It was important to remember this. Because the same people who yesterday assured us that wokeism does not exist, tomorrow will claim that they were the first to fight it. This is because a reversal of the trend is beginning to take shape. New York Times, American media giant, organ of wokism, is beginning to have doubts, after having pilloried those who had questioned it before it. Yes, of course, we must put an end to wokism, the matter is settled, we are told. Only some people had to cry wolf for this matter to become audible. They came out of the woodwork when the going was tough, risking their reputation if not their situation. According to a tried and tested pattern, opposition to wokism, first ridiculed, then violently fought, will be perceived as obvious... 

If the contrarians hold firm, tolerating being slandered in the mainstream press, it is because once the transgression is committed, there is no possible return to polite society. Wokism demands penance but does not grant forgiveness. From then on, the dissidents, freed from all caution (they have nothing more to lose), listen only to their hearts and move forward, gathering reinforcements, "so much so that seeing them walk with such a face, the most terrified regain courage"... The ranks are swelling.

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Unconscious prejudice, white guilt, safe spaces, trigger warnings, phobias of all kinds, wokism only talks about trauma. Diversity coaching organizes group therapies where everyone is required to verbalize his bad thoughts. The culture of offense heroizes the susceptible. The descendants experience by ricochet the past bullying suffered by their ancestors because of their race or their sexual appetite. Everything is psychology, everything is feeling. It is the reign of the mad, the empire of dolorism. In a strange presentism, we deny the past and renounce all intellectual heritage, but we hold our ancestors omni-responsible for all the scourges of the moment. Under the pretext of compassion, the great emancipators have allowed an unbreathable atmosphere to settle. It is high time to get rid of this gangue of resentment; to enjoy the world that has been bequeathed to us. The reconstructors are at work. The post-woke era is before us. Race wars, gender wars and gender wars will then be nothing more than a bad memory.