
(2/2) The first time I heard “other women” used in that context was incredibly jarring, but I assumed the professor was just a radical…until I looked at my (mostly significantly younger) classmates and saw nothing but acceptance. That was a learning moment for me. Towards the end of the semester, I realized that he was never going to discuss transvestitic fetishism at all, much less the link between TF and predatory and/or inappropriate sexual behavior, so I asked about it directly. I got a scolding for “transphobia” and an answer so circuitous that it had no actual meaning when you finished translating it into normal English. When I attempted to clarify what he wanted to say, I got a curled lip and a “no wonder you went into law enforcement; academia seems a bit much for you.” He clearly intended the comment to have a withering effect, but even the nicest of the 3 drill sergeants who pushed our platoon through Basic Training would have laughed at him (and then made him do push ups until his arms stopped working) for coming up with a weak insult like that, so I just told him politely that he was probably right, since I cared more about facts than I did about what other people think, and left. I signed up to repeat the class the next semester with a different professor, and ran into the same thing: a facade of “this is what we used to think and it was wrong” laid down to hide a clear reluctance to discuss facts that the psychological and law enforcement communities have known for decades. This professor wasn’t a jackass, but his answers to my questions on the subject were just as circuitous and contorted as the other’s had been. That was when I really understood that this wasn’t being ignored because of a few radical professors, but that the school itself was almost certainly telling these men what they could and could not teach. This was a classroom full of students who would need this knowledge in the future: would-be psychologists and psychiatrists, would-be federal agents, students like myself and two others who were already in law enforcement, people who wanted to work in probation and parole - the list goes on. For almost everyone there, the sexually predatory nature of most MTF transitioners was crucial, vital information that needs to play a key role in the way we do some aspects of our jobs — and we were being deliberately misinformed. I went back and complained to my lieutenant, and he promised to handle the issue, but two weeks later, DEI initiatives were put into place, with “LGBTQIA+ sensitivity training” mandated for everyone in the department. I’d been openly dating another woman for years, but that didn’t get me out of it, more’s the pity. Instead, our lieutenant sat the entire Homicide unit down and flat out ordered us not to bring up predatory or murderous “trans women” or crossdressers under any circumstances. We were told that Special Victims was getting the same warning, and that anyone in either unit who disobeyed the order by so much as mentioning one of those men would spend the next year riding a desk, and then be transferred out of Homicide or Special Victims altogether and for good. Since all of us had spent years working to get where we were, we gave him a chorus of “no sir yes sir”s, and when the training came along, we were as quiet as so many mice. I won’t torment you with all of the details of DEI training, but it was bad. Honestly, it felt cult-like. The DEI trainers they’d hired called us up one at a time and asked us questions about our feelings on race, gender, and sexuality. If we said something they disliked, they would pounce on it and tear it to shreds for whatever imagined prejudice they could contort the words to convey. It reminded me of the “struggle sessions” of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Genderism is a dangerous ideology that interferes with the ability to conduct a proper criminal investigation.