Posie Parker Won’t Tell Us About the Billionaires

On air, she alludes to a conspiracy theory — and then won’t explain it

The journalist Kim Hill admirably managed a difficult interview with the British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker. The interview aired yesterday on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report. The 12-minute audio: “Anti-transgender activist on stoush around her entering NZ.”

Hill asked Parker why Nazis attended one of her recent rallies, ostensibly in support of her anti-trans agenda. Parker had no explanation; she turned her outrage against the reporter for asking the question. Hill also asked why Parker is so alarmist about the existence of trans women. Parker simply repeated her alarmist talking points.

One notable segment of the interview is Parker’s unfounded claim that certain unnamed shadowy billionaires are somehow backing trans people for an unspecified agenda.

Billionaires?

Parker says gender ideology is funded by billionaires

Interview segment (4:55–5:38)

Hill: “When you are asked about the motive of the trans lobby, you said: At the extreme end, it’s very dangerous people who want — ” Parker: “Yes.” “ — access to children and an entire dismantling of society. Do you think that that is not ‘catastrophizing’?” “Do you not know that the billionaires who are — the billionaire men, who are pushing this ideology and funding it — Are you not aware of those people?” “No, tell me more.” “Are you saying that that doesn’t happen?” “No, tell me more.” “You just need to — No.”

Parker briefly rants on an unrelated topic

Interview segment (5:38–6:15)

Attempting to change the subject, Parker claims that cis women are afraid of trans women in women’s spaces. This was not what the reporter asked.

Journalist redirects to the question of billionaires

Interview segment (6:15–7:15)

Hill tries to convince Parker to stop complaining about trans women in women’s spaces and instead to say something specific about her allegation of unnamed billionaires funding an alleged trans agenda.

Hill: “Could you please tell me a little more about the billionaires funding the transgender lobby?” Parker: “Well, yes, you’ve got Big Pharma, for example. They make a substantial amount of money at transgenderism. I want to know why it’s not important to a journalist to address the fact that there are men in women’s spaces.” “It’s really important, as a journalist— ” “Why is it not important — ” “ — for me to know more— ” “Why is it not important — ” “ — about the billionaires funding the transgender lobby. And since you raised it. [Parker tries to interrupt.] And since you raised it. [Parker tries to interrupt.] I’m interested to know further details.” “OK.” “What can you tell me?” “Well, I would like to — I would like to know why, as a journalist, you’re prepared to be distracted by that, as opposed to — ” [laughs] “Well, but you mentioned it!” “I haven’t finished. I’m sure you don’t think interrupting is appropriate, consistently, when you’ve invited me on your show.”

Parker went on to say that she worries about rugby players considering that men are physically larger than women, and she did not give any more details about billionaires.

Why This Drew My Attention

The ‘Billionaires’

First, the reference to “billionaires” is a dogwhistle to people who get excited about conspiracy theories. Whether Parker had a specific conspiracy theory in mind, I can’t say. If you’d like more info on how the “billionaire” trope gets used in conspiracy theories about trans people, see my recent article about the anti-trans writer Jennifer Bilek.

The reference to “billionaires” is often an antisemitic substitute for “Jews,” and that may be what’s happening here, especially since in this same interview Parker refused to acknowledge that the Nazis at her rally were supporting her side. Go back a couple months: a speaker at another of Parker’s rallies quoted Adolf Hitler to make an anti-trans talking point. This is an ongoing problem with her movement. It’s useful to be able to spot the antisemitic thread here, not because there is much to parse and analyze in Parker’s limited words in this Radio New Zealand interview, but because we need to develop the capacity to quickly recognize what side people are really on.

I’m not going to credit Parker with being imaginative enough to invent a conspiracy theory about pro-transgender billionaires. I think she’s well aware of the antisemitic roots of these fake stories, and I believe she wants to play the game of alluding to them on the radio without admitting their bad origins and bad destinations.

By the way, Parker has a billionaire on her side: JK Rowling, who tweeted in defense of Parker’s rally last September.

The ‘Transgenderism’

Secondly, I note Parker’s use of the word “transgenderism” in her statement: “Big Pharma…make[s] a substantial amount of money at transgenderism.” Here, she seems to be using the “-ism” to refer to the identities and experiences of trans people, especially the medical aspects of their transition processes.

As an aside, I point out that her allegation of a profit motive doesn’t make a lot of sense. “Pharma” suggests that she’s referring to hormones, which are relatively cheap — at least for consumers, compared with other medications. Consider also her contradictory complaint in the same interview that “95 percent of men who call themselves ‘women’ don’t even take hormones” (10:35–10:40). If (as she claims) so few trans people take hormones (which cost less than other meds), she’s failing to make her case that Big Pharma could have a profit motive in promoting trans identity.

I’m not an expert in healthcare economics, but a quick internet search shows me a Grand View Research report anticipating that the global market for hormone replacement therapy, measured in revenue, will increase over the decade of the 2020s from about USD $20 billion to $35 billion. Nearly half of that revenue is currently associated with addressing symptoms of menopause. Trans people are not mentioned in the report summary. Cis people use hormone replacement therapy too, and trans people’s use of it is apparently not a major driver of global profit, based on a quick peek at this report.

But what I really want to observe here: The anti-trans movement uses the word “transgenderism” inconsistently. Recently, when Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire said transgenderism must be destroyed, he and his supporters insisted (disingenuously, I believe) that he was exhorting the conquest of an ideology, not the genocide of actual trans people. He, like Posie Parker, does not recognize that anyone is or can be trans; it is the concept of being transgender he claims he wants destroyed; he says he’s unable to genocide that which doesn’t exist in the first place. But then you have Parker, a leader in the same anti-trans movement, using the word “transgenderism” to refer to taking hormones. The transphobes aren’t cautious about how they use this word “transgenderism”: sometimes they use it to noncommittally touch-tag a concept they claim they don’t believe in, and other times to describe something about a real person’s actual life. Given that accusations of genocidal intent are on the line, you might expect they’d be collectively cautious about how their movement uses the word “transgenderism,” if they actually cared about not-genociding trans people.

But they aren’t cautious. Their rhetoric is deliberately all over the place. That’s why, when transphobes say that transgenderism must be destroyed, we hear them saying: Destroy trans people.