Does Flip Grater’s desire for a matriarchal future include matriarchs with willies?

Men doing matriarchy coming to a place near you soon.

When a woman excoriates other women for not believing that men can be women just upon their say-so, then there’s every reason to believe that in her eyes a matriarch could justifiably sport boy bits ‘down there’.

Flip (Clare) Grater - a New Zealand singer-songwriter, author, and entrepreneur according to her Wikipedia blurb – has written an opinion piece for The Press titled In an unsafe world, the future must be the matriarchy (paywalled). The trouble is that Flip believes men can be women, which means her ‘matriarchs’ would include males, so what exactly would change to make a matriarchal future safer?

I used to admire Flip. She lives in the same city as me, is also a vegan, and had a plant-based business for a while. I guess when those we’ve previously thought well of turn out to be trans-simpering acolytes, our disappointment is elevated. And when a paywall indicates they get paid for their opinion, well – apart from good luck to them if they can get that gig – they’re doubly in for criticism.

But, perhaps she’s changed her mind since September 2024, when she tore into terfs for not believing that men can be women, and now believes than only women can be matriarchs? Back then she opined that terfs were the “underbelly of feminism”, occupied one of the “most unpleasant spaces on the internet in 2024”, and our concerns about men who say they’re women is just “irrational fear gone mad”. I returned the favour by giving her some of my own thoughts about her opinion, and with the help of Duncan Garner during one of his stand-in gigs on The Platform, gave it some airtime. She never actually thanked me for that.

If Flip has changed her mind to embrace biological reality now instead of embracing ‘trans’ fantasy, then her latest opinion piece about a matriarchal future – regardless of what you think of it – might be readable. If she hasn’t changed her mind, then it’s just a joke. Naturally, she trots out examples of how heterosexual men can be heinous individuals and commit heinous crimes against women and girls, but swerves past the fact that men who say they’re women are imprisoned at around twice the rate of other men for sexual offences, and sometimes more often than that. These are the men who Flip would include in the group called ‘matriarchs’.

I daresay she would also include these two hulking drag queens below, who featured in the opening picture for a recent International Women’s Day event in Auckland. This is what future matriarchs would look like in Flip’s world. This is not a drill.

The event was put on by the Auckland Government Women’s Network, in conjunction with the Auckland Transport Women’s Network, the Auckland Council’s Women’s Network, and the Public Service Association Women’s Network. The keynote speaker was a man called Mary.

Future matriarch Mary appeared by video link instead of in person, after he and the organisers got wind of the fact some terrible terfs were talking about him online, and not in a good way. We were treated to the usual fulminations about this on the day of the event from the MC and 6’ 2” Mary, of course.

A few terfs registered to attend the event in person, so they could intersperse themselves in the audience and shout “he’s a man” at various intervals during Mary’s talk. However, days before the event, the organisers – running scared - changed the terms of entry to only allow in those who could produce a public service workplace ID. Yvonne van Dongen, who tried to attend but was turned away at the door, writes more about the debacle in He’s A Man!

Mary’s talk was abysmal. It came across more a like a pep talk for 15-year-olds than an address to professional women, which was who the event was promoted at. He talked about his childhood and growing up, how women were amazing and how we should be our authentic selves – e.g. a man in a dress, I suppose – and his own fabulousness and fabulous wardrobe. The icing on the cake, though, was him praising all the men who had helped him in his life. Not women. Men. At an International Women’s Day event.

If you can access X, here is my post containing two short clips of Mary effusing about those men - https://x.com/KatrinaBiggs2/status/2029626488090488918?s=20

So, basically, Mary the man spent three-quarters of his keynote talk at this International Women’s Day event talking about men.

If Flip’s matriarchal future contains men who say they’re matriarchs, and women who suck up to them, I can’t see anything of value in that kind of matriarchal future for me.

• NB: because there are always men who ask when International Men’s Day is, it’s November 19 – and I’ll put money on it that there will be no women who say they’re men invited to be keynote speaker at any event.