The lisping haemorrhoid is back.
Part of the blurby bit
The room
It always startles me just how popular trans still is, ten years on from the Trans Tipping Point. Shon Faye almost sold out the event, a thousand seater, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank. It was mainly young women but a fair few trans-identified males of various ages were dotted throughout. On the whole it felt like a cis-het crowd though, if you’ll pardon the lingo, one desperate to align itself to everything woke and give a poke in the eye to its mum. Pre-signed books were available in the foyer, a neat way of letting us know that Faye was not to rub shoulders with us later. That didn’t bother Faye’s biggest fan though, sat next to me, who literally laughed, gasped, sighed, etc, non-stop in response to his asinine lispy utterances.
Seán comes out
Sorry, Shon. It’s not like me to deadname actually, even if I do always misgender. If someone has a new name, they have a new name, as far as I’m concerned. But I must admit something in me snapped seeing little Seán teeter in too-high high-heels and figure-hugging dress. The almost minute-long wild applause bamboozled me, until I remembered: People had paid to see him, of course they’d clap. Doh! As I say, trans is still hot and Faye is a ‘sleb. Gen Z and Millennials have a decidedly different approach to idols and they’ve decided that ex-journo Faye has something very important to say. A fount of lispy wisdom no less. Following on from his success of The Transgender Issue and a fuck-ton of facial feminisation surgery (FFS literally), it appears Faye has reinvented himself as the Marj Proops for his generation (Faye was born in March 1988, so is 37 years old at time of writing).
And yes, Faye has joined pals Munroe Bergdorf and Paris Lees, as one of the regular columnists at Vogue – agony aunt for the US edition no less, and this goes a long way to explaining how this dreary book about love came to be. Faye has undoubtedly benefited from the fact that his face has perfectly lended itself to FFS. Bar males who have been on puberty blockers, I can’t really think of another trans A ‘sleb who passes as well as Faye. Fight me.
An account of how and why we define our own self-worth in terms of love. Faye has a perspective and style that is distinctly her own but offers insight and enlightenment that is appealingly universal ― Vogue, ‘Best Books of 2025’
From the list of book endorsements
Horrible lispy voice
Yes, it’s my fourth(?) dig about his lispy voice, I know, and there are many more to come, but have I mentioned yet it is also painfully posh? Well, I have now. It really is quite difficult to follow the vocally-challenged in a big echoey theatre. Especially when there is also the distraction of four foot high captions running at a thirty-second time lag. I honestly didn’t know where to look, so sometimes I closed my eyes. When the audience laughed, I refused to believe that people were genuinely laughing since the nonsense was so inaudible.
What I did hear
Pally nut
Faye had been devastated by the last fifteen months of death and destruction in Palestine. Especially the deaths of so many writers. (I suspect he was referencing this report of journalists being killed but let’s not forget that much of the video propaganda arising from the attack on October 7 was taken and distributed by Palestinian photojournalists, so, no tears here.)
Then we had a reading from Love in Exile, skillfully lisped I must say. The prose was basically different iterations of: Am I worthy of love? Just like a certain A. Mole wondering when somebody (anybody) might recognise they were an intellectual, likewise nobody had noticed that Faye had been feeling lonely. Until this book. Faye ruminated over what became of his dispensed advice – did people take it? What became of them? What a professional. (For an example of dispensed advice, see here for ‘I think I’m a lesbian’.)
Short version of the story
Boo-hoo, poor Shon had a break up with a boyfriend. Allegedly this is what inspired him to write Love in Exile (not the fact he is Vogue’s agony aunt and in need of a tie-in to go with new persona). It definitely isn’t one of those kiss and tell memoirs though, he told us, and, as promised, we learnt next to nothing about the man he broke up with, or why. I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, just use a fictional scenario, FFS. Anyway, the whole point of the book really is to position Faye as more lonely and unloveable than all the cit-het normies because trans. Love’s just so much harder for the trans! Additionally ‘exile’ had the benefit of sounding political and religious, rather than a more straightforward case of no one wanting his oestrogen-shrivelled bawbag and penis. Faye has had the very profound realisation that everyone could experience the feeling of being left out and unloved.
Importance of platonic love
Like all good cult members, Faye was here to tell us about the importance of friendships. (Cults nearly always push this, by the way.) For Faye, friendship is as important as an intimate relationship because – well, we didn’t really hear a persuasive argument for this, except we can all agree a good friendship is more valuable than an abusive intimate relationship. What really sealed it for me though, was that there no reflection that friendships can also be bad.
‘We’re increasingly lonely,’ Faye grandly told the room, talking in very general terms about longing. In fact, the whole of the interview we were always on the horizon of hearing him reveal something with the moment never arriving. Instead Faye preferred shallow political analysis. For example, technology was alienating us but he didn’t explain how this had manifested in his life. He also had stern words to say about capitalism but, again, we didn’t learn why then he had chosen to work for Vogue, a glossy magazine for the affluent which relentlessly promotes the billion dollar fashion industry. With an advertising/copy ratio of around 99/1. I believe the words ‘feminist marxist analysis’ may have been uttered, which must be very reassuring for Vogue’s trustafarian readership.
Mothers
With no mention of the pushback he had received a few days previous talking about motherhood on Nish Kumar’s lame podcast (the clip was quickly deleted), the breathy one told us it was a chapter he ‘had’ to write, despite not being a woman or parent of any sort. Nay, he indeed had an advantage over the millions of mums of the world. He was ‘trans’. Seriously. This gave him the opportunity to address the women in the theatre as ‘cisgender’, i.e. privileged, and himself a poor ickle ‘trans woman’, whose whole existence was just ‘surviving’, his non-ownership of a womb ‘very painful’. His expertise in this area related to being bought up by his own mum. Seriously. Being a single mum in Blair’s Britain was apparently ‘very stigmatising’ (‘he doesn’t know he’s born,’ is a boomer phrase which springs to mind). His real concern for mothers was that they had been duped into it, when they could be spending their time doing something much more worthwhile instead. (Presumably working their arses off to spend their £££ on Vogue and expensive face creams instead, quite the marxist feminist argument.)
He literally had the brass neck to sit there and say that one of the disadvantages was that mums got no support, without specifying from whom. I’m guessing he meant the state, rather than mum and dad, but surely a real feminist, such as he, would simply make the argument for better support? It did very much sound like a sad old cultic bawbag, crossing his fingers and toes that there were more childless women in the world (and thereby children), just because he has made himself ‘unloveable’ (and I suspect this isn’t really true and the FFS paid for).
On the other hand, there was much concern in the media about transgender healthcare and kids … so, more or less admitting this was a tit-for-tat with terfs? He was glad he had drugs and surgery (if I remember correctly he implied, by gesticulation, this was ‘bottom surgery’, which I’m pretty sure he hasn’t had). Dutiful tittering from the audience.
‘Most trans people are fully aware when they are making these decisions,’ said Faye pompously, but then failed to specify what decisions, referring only to ‘changes’, rather than ‘lifetime of permanent infertility’ or ‘massively increased risk of heart failure’ or ‘egregious surgical outcomes’. No, Faye was very honest. You don’t wanna be a mother, well, he don’t want to be a mother either!
Fathers
The interviewer, ditzy Moya Lothian-McLean, said – and she only noticed this on the fourth/fifth read (sic) of the audiobook*, mind, – that there was no chapter on Fatherhood. Why not? More moronic tittering from the audience, I can only think it a reflexive outburst to the rather obvious double standard Faye had set.
*A you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies if there ever was one.
Faye dealt with the question by explaining that if he had written a chapter on fathers it would be about forgiveness, because dad was an alcoholic. Addiction was an overarching theme of the book. They had been estranged from each other for a number of years but recently Faye had re-established contact. For years Faye had wanted to be like him but on reflection realised he didn’t want to be a man or an alcoholic. The link had to be severed.
Addicted to love
Writing about alcoholism and substance addiction is boring so he chose to write in nebulous terms about a mysterious relationship break-up instead. Faye believes that lots of people mistake addiction (he meant desire really) for love. (I guess switching a few words around makes it sound as if he were discussing a brand new concept, rather than one which pre-dates the Old Testament.) Men were his addiction, he got high on them. Indeed, on further inarticulation Faye revealed his fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between substance addiction versus obsessional behaviour, bringing up the example of terfs saying things on Twitter. Really. LOL, Seán.
The pantomime
I would have guessed this would be the chapter where Faye goes all post-modern but according to the interviewer it is the one where he goes on about sex (as in fucking, we know he doesn’t do biology). The interviewer then either read a quote out or paraphrased his text:
The popular perception is that gay men love giving head more than straight women. So to be a gay man is, to some extent, defined by one’s own desire. Whereas to be a het woman is still so often to be defined by someone’s else’s.
She then invited him to respond to his own pesky effluent from the perspective of him being a ‘het woman’. Faye responded it was the most difficult chapter to write. He had to be very meta and he would look back over the paragraphs he had written and reflect: Is that true? Hence, revealingly, ‘the pantomime’. As a ‘woman’, Faye was fearful of writing about his enjoyment of sex, because it was considered ‘something that has to be punished by the state’ (‘abortion laws’ and ‘transphobic laws’ appaz). He has also been worrying his pretty little head as to what extent he was pleasuring male partners because he was a silly little wim suffering from a nasty case of patriarchy. (Reminder, this is a Sunday Times bestseller.) He wanted more writing from women about the nature of their heterosexual desire and more feminist political analysis. Well, if you just stepped aside, Seán. FFS.
In Community
Ah, the one where the trans activist peddles the myth that there is any community at all between the disparate groups of people claiming trans-identified and queer identities. Tellingly Faye’s friendships are now his source of love and provides affirmation for his identity. Although Faye is a ‘woman’ who only dates men, he still retains the right to describe himself as ‘queer’ (giggles from the audience, yet again indulging a blatant double standard).
Again, Faye revealed his crucial misunderstanding . This time of the relative importance of friendships, in that those who are childless and partnerless necessarily have to invest in friendships. Those who have children to look after, have to put them first. This isn’t rocket science. And again, I feel embarrassed to even point this out, as if you, the reader, couldn’t deduce this yourself.
Reproducing was all part of the capitalist conspiracy, said Faye, and, that The Right was winning. How do women and ethnic minorities, etc, fight back against the pale stale male? And then spouted some soppy drivel about being nice to your friends.
The interminable Q&A
What did you leave out?
Faye had not yet spoken about his chapter on spirituality doing the promo for the book. He had a Catholic upbringing, being taught by nuns ‘until the age of seven’ and had wanted to be a monk in his teenage years. When he is feeling down about the oppression of being trans, it is the spiritual world which centres him and the ‘only thing which works’. He is a big proponent of therapy but it didn’t ‘hit’ in the same way.
How do you feel a relationship is transformed when men are taken out of the equation, e.g. when it is trans-on-trans, or woman-on-woman?
Asked by woke-bro, probably sat next to a woman he was hoping to shag later. Faye told us he couldn’t speak about the matter authoritatively (strange that he is now an agony aunt then, doing just that) as he had no direct experience of the same (apart from a few times, know-worra-mean), possibly making a quip that lesbian relationships sounded ‘tough’, curiously met with knowing laughter by most of the audience.
How can we more mindful in sexual relationships?
Very difficult to summarise the answer but it very much sounded like Faye has experienced a lot of fear and loathing and felt this was a fear of intimacy. Meaningless one night stands with people you don’t really like sounded like a more likely explanation to me though.
Was divine love the hardest type of love to be open about in the book?
Which served as a reminder that people really had read the book and really did think what Faye had to say was of enormous importance. Faye answered at length without really saying anything. Yes, it was hard to write that chapter, but it had also been hard writing other bits of the book. It was hard for the people he loved to read the book to find out that he had not been that happy at times. This was the kind of insight he had to share.
He did also mention his other book, The Transgender Issue, which he was only able to write because he had connected with his ‘inner terf’, which I thought an interesting turn of phrase.
I really loved the last chapter. What does prayer look like to you? Do you regard it as a political act?
Another bonkers question. Faye prays for transphobes, was the short answer. He didn’t extend that prayer to actually going over to any terfs to say hi, but ya know, he tries. Faye thinks a lot of the new age type spirituality is a bit navel-gazing. (Full face-palm for this one.)
What are our responsibilities to each other in the community?
Faye isn’t a fan of cancel culture and recognises that when he was younger he was quite self-righteous and spent a lot of time calling people out. He also asks himself who does he forget he might be in community with? And then gave homeless mentally ill drug addicts on the streets of Lewisham as an example of his comprehensive empathy faculty. It was obvious the questioner really wanted some insight as to why the scene (aka ‘the community’) was such a hostile isolating place, but hey-ho.
Absolutely and utterly chronic.
Just before the Trans Tipping Point, Faye was writing articles in the Guardian proclaiming the intricacies of make-up wearing for men, despite being an utter Nobody (now with Eddie Izzard’s photo used as illustration, whereas it used to be his). Today he is wanted for his political, religious and philosophical insights, on book two (and probably book deal three), he and his agent clearly trying to crack the US market. Chronic is a word I overuse but it’s the only one I can think of.
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The Lies They Tell 
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