Haven’t had one for a while.
I’ve been following the whole gender ideology debate recently and finding it very interesting. I don’t know any trans people and had always had a vague “live and let live” attitude. To sum up my level of awareness: I’d find it rude and unnecessarily cruel for someone to misgender Haley in Coronation Street, but at the same time I’d feel a right eejit referring to Eddie Izzard as “she”.
Sifting through the usual wealth of insult and reactionary shite that dominates Twitter, I’ve found some reasonable, informed and informative voices on both sides. I found it particularly interesting to read some accounts by people who have de-transitioned and their discussions with trans people.
Of course, the issue can’t be boiled down to just “live and let live” or pronouns. It’s about real lives and freedoms and is made all the more complex because children are involved.
For example, the use of puberty blockers, when not medically necessary, seems abhorrent to me, yet I’ve read trans people who feel so strongly about it that they claim had they not been given puberty blockers as children they would probably have committed suicide.
One thing is for certain, there are some very awful people, including pedophiles, among the pro-Trans activists.
Father Ted writer Graham Linehan is one of the most well-known and outspoken critics of “gender ideology” and one can only applaud his exposure and condemnation of pedophiles within the activist movement and be sickened by some of the awful medical practices he reveals. And yet… it’s understandable why many trans people see him as a Tommy Robinson like character – demonising an already discriminated and vulnerable community by focusing on a minority within the minority.
On his YouTube channel I watched a video of Linehan chatting very politely and reasonably with a trans man. But he can be pretty rude on Twitter (quelle surprise!). He recently called David Tennant an “abusive groomer” because he wore a t-shirt with the slogan “LEAVE TRANS KIDS ALONE YOU ABSOLUTE FREAKS”. I’m not at all convinced David Tennant deserves to be called an abusive groomer and it certainly doesn’t help the discussion (“he started it, he called us freaks!”). David Tennant has a 10-year-old child who is “non-binary”. Tennant strikes me as a nice, reasonable, intelligent man, but the idea of parents defining their 10-year-old like that doesn’t make much sense to me. We’ve all known plenty of kids who were nowhere near the stereotypical image of boy/girl and in most cases it would surely be dangerously wrong to consider “gender dysmorphia” above other explanations (even more so to suggest “gender-affirming care”).
It seems the increase in diagnoses of gender dysmorphia in minors over recent years is now being questioned. Is it, as Linehan would have it, due to the fashionable but abusive cult of gender ideology or, as Owen Jones (the opposite side of the debate to Linehan, equally entrenched and outspoken) would have it, because trans people are now a lot freer to be themselves? I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, but to what extent each is responsible is far from clear.
Anyway, I’d be interested to hear any thoughts and observations on the whole issue.
This is an interesting topic to choose because it’s possibly the finest example of an exchange of views where you don’t really get any ‘debate’ at all. In a debate you might listen to opposing arguments, critique them constructively, and attempt some sort of consensus, reconciliation or majority opinion. You don’t get that with this issue. It consists, ironically, of binary opinions hurled like grenades from entrenched positions.
The starting point for me is to listen to women who have grown up as women and see what they think about trans women. None of the people you cite in your OP did that.
I agree it’s not easy to find debate without entrenched positions, and I think that the entrenchment is, if not commendable, understandable on both sides. But I’m finding the discussion, both sides, very interesting at the mo.
Linehan considers himself very much a defender of women’s rights and his critics as misogynists.
I think most people appreciate the idea that trans men should not compete against woman in sport and that woman’s “safe spaces” need protecting, what interests me more is how the conflict between accusations of child abuse and defence of trans rights will be resolved.
First paragraph there was spot on. The second went awry though – surely the starting point in any debate about any group of people is to listen to people actually from that group? Especially when they’re already a marginalised minority.
Twitter. Such a helpful and enlightening tool.
It most certainly can be. Where else would I get informed opinion from a trans person? Not in my day-to-day life. Today I read interesting comments on this issue from Martina Navratilova, a person who I’m more than willing to respect as things stand. I value reading opinions like hers.
Twitter is also horrible though. (I never tweet.)
Fair points both. Me neither but selected views can contribute positively I agree.
This is very timely, as I’ve been grappling with this issue of late trying to get to an informed opinion. Your opening post pretty much encapsulated my thoughts/ confusion. It may be my age but I’m now even finding some of the terms used leave me needing to reach for a dictionary! This issue is now sadly pretty toxic and I suspect hijacked by those who wish to stir up and create a new front in the whole anti woke culture war to deflect attention from how utterly shit this country is fast becoming. Back on topic though, I am also genuinely interested in other voices here. If plenty chip in to this will it then become a ‘mass debate?’ 😉
Sorry, in Moose’s absence and as I’m also from Hull I felt obliged to lower the tone..
I’m not at all used to the terms either. In fact, I’ve just noticed that above I refer to the unfairness of trans men competing in women’s sports. I meant trans women, of course. But I have to think about it!
I struggle with the terminology. Who’s supporting who and what. I’m a simple man but I think it’s not a subject that should be as polarised as it appears to be. My view is this…
Humans are usually the same physically and mentally. Male physically with male mentality and female physically with female mentality. I don’t believe that to be extreme nor unfair.
There are also occasions when physical males are born with female mentality and vice versa. This is proven and even a dinosaur like me accepts it is absolutely a thing. Trans people deserve our support and understanding. That understanding however should not extend to shared spaces. If a physical man wants to go swimming he should use male changing. Why? Well I wouldn’t have wanted a physical male changing next to my mum for example. Equally and this is where I feel the real problem lies is there are non trans men who wish to take advantage and access women’s spaces. This is proven and a dinosaur like me believes the only safe way is for there to be seperate physical male and physical female spaces.
I believe that there are many trans people who wish to transition quietly and with as little fuss as possible and would find the above absolutely fine. Those that scream the loudest have an agenda in my opinion and have no wish to be reasonable.
The quiet trans are the ones trying to deal with an unimaginable situation I feel most sorry for. I can’t imagine how it feels, it’s a cruel twist of nature to be born in the wrong body. I think the activists would make some hide their feelings for longer than is good for them to avoid the activists fearing them more than the odd neanderthal calling them names. Neither are right genuine trans individuals deserve better from all sides.
Finally leave children to be children. No problem with boys wearing pink dresses or girls wanting to play with tractors. Just leave them alone. They’ll find their way as the do with everything especially in these much more enlightened times. Let them try a 70s playground. We have moved on.
I would never post this view on Twitter because its just not worth the hassle. That says it all really.
Dave, that perfectly encapsulates my views on this.
Good post, Dave. Pretty much my thoughts. Especially “leave the children alone”. However bad things may seem for a genuine gender dysphoric kid, your thought of what it was like in the 70s occurred to me too.
Still nowadays plenty of kids have issues growing up and the best solution to many of their problems is simply to have patience.
“I can’t imagine how it feels, it’s a cruel twist of nature to be born in the wrong body.” I’ve thought about that too. It’s not difficult to imagine that if I had my exact same mind but in the body of a woman I wouldn’t be at all happy.
I agree with your point thatThose that scream the loudest have an agenda in my opinion and have no wish to be reasonable” but I think activists would argue that trans people are so discriminated and attacked (verbally and physically) that they need a loud voice in their defence.
Well said Dave. Sensible and thoughtful. Not really suitable for twitter then…
I’d be genuinely interested in actual figures re how many people actually identify as trans gender.
I’m not in any way critical or unsympathetic re the struggles of, to use a horrible phrase, someone being born in the wrong body or someone trying to understand/live a life with their own confused sexual identity but it seems to me there’s an awful lot of media fuss being made about what may well be a relatively minor percentage of society?
My computer’s Google found the answer to that question very quickly, but then I changed the page and have forgotten it just as quickly. However, I think a more important question is “why has the number of young people identifying as trans doubled in the last five years?” and also “why has the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria increased dramatically, not just in Britain?”
A reasonable explanation seems to be that this is something that has been suppressed and taboo but now support and acceptance is there and has increased. Similar to how it’s been for those like me who are left handed. Not that I suffered but it used to be suppressed and you were forced to change to being right handed. Thus left handed numbers increased with acceptance.
That’s one point of view, the other being that it’s more a result of the lefties winning the culture wars and everyone becoming frightened to criticise the gender ideology advocates who actively encourage young kids down the path towards gender transition. I’m not merely trying to play Devil’s Advocate or sit on the fence here: I see some truth in both views and am interested in trying to understand which “truth” is most likely to prevail? Because I can’t see a compromise. Not with one side rightly detesting child abuse the other rightly valuing their dignity, freedom and human rights.
Speaking as a proud left-hander whose primary school teacher decided I had been born in the wrong body until my mother stepped in, I am hugely insulted and enraged by your characterisation of me as a ‘lefty’. How I vote is absolutely none of your business.
I struggle with the concept of being ‘born in the wrong body’ as it seems to throw up all sorts of philosophical problems that I can’t reconcile (or fully understand probably).
Having said that, I’m a firm believer in living whatever life makes you happy (or less unhappy) as long as you’re not harming others.
It feels to me that what’s going on at the moment is the seemingly inevitable rush to extreme and opposite positions that happens when a previously beyond the pale issue moves towards social acceptance.
I’m delighted that people now feel free to live as the gender they feel most comfortable being. God knows how many people lived miserable lives throughout history without this freedom. I maybe had some qualms about young children making irreversible decisions, but now accept that the earlier the better, in many cases.
I just attended a 30-year uni reunion (jeesus!) and two of my classmates have been on gender journeys with their kids. One has a child who transitioned from girl to boy at a young age. She told her mother matter-of-factly that if she went through puberty as a girl she would kill herself. They are a few years into the process and have absolutely no regrets or doubt that they made the right decision.
I don’t know why sport and changing rooms have become the defined battle lines for discussions about gender.
Live and let live.
My 14 year old daughter is discovering her sexuality in a way me and my missus are happy for her to explore.
We do not judge and are there for advice if and when she asks.
How would you feel if she declared herself gender dysphoric and wanted to start using puberty blockers and hormone injections now with the aim of transitioning at 18 (and counseling failed to dissuade her)?
There is an argument (on Twitter, natch) that gender transitioning has effectively become a kind of gay conversion. That young effeminate boys and masculine girls who could grow up to be happy well-adjusted gay adults are instead being persuaded by the “cult of gender ideology” that they are in the wrong body.
She is exploring girl on girl relationship at the moment.
She clearly identifies as female.
No apologies for kicking off with an eulogy.
No question about it! For me, you are one of the great voices of reasoned common sense on this blog,@Gary and I will read what you have to say with great interest.
You are interested in what is best for the children. Sadly, there are other political actors in Italy who are more interested in campaigning for their right-wing values than what is best for the kids.
Elsewhere in Italy, it’s sad to read how the ultra right are “orphaning children by degree and de-parenting the non-biological parent in families with same-sex parents.”
“These children are being orphaned by decree,” said Alessandro Zan, a gay politician with the Democratic party. “This is a cruel, inhumane decision.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/21/orphaned-by-decree-italy-same-sex-parents-react-losing-rights
That was indeed sickening, KFD. And to make it retroactive – as said, cruel and inhumane. Seriously ill hospitalised kids will now have full visting rights granted to only one of their parents. Pure evil.
Thanks for the kind words.
One thing is for certain, there are some very awful people, including pedophiles, among the pro-Trans activists.
Where? Point to/name one.
Awful people or pedophiles?
The former: Peter Tatchell.
The latter:
https://reduxx.info/uk-prominent-trans-activist-known-for-having-opponents-arrested-has-history-of-indecent-assault-on-14-year-old-boy/
But of course it would be terribly wrong and pernicious to imply that there is any natural link between the trans community and pedophilia and I think Linehan sometimes seems unappreciative of this danger. As said in the OP, I can understand why many among the trans community and its supporters view him as a Tommy Robinson like obsessive bigot.
I’ve known, and worked with, one trans woman. She seemed reasonably well-adjusted, with an active social life, and made a living of sorts on the fringes of London literary life. I always thought she must have had an idea in her head of the sort of woman she wanted to be – Greta Garbo, possibly – but being 6’2″ with huge hands and size 12 feet slightly got in the way of that. I was inescapably reminded of a rugby player in drag. She’d become a lesbian – I got a slapped wrist for suggesting it might have been less bother to remain male if she wanted to have sex with women – and lesbian clubs and pubs were her safe spaces where she was absolutely accepted. Obviously she was an object of curiosity wherever she went, and I imagine she had to be careful where she went at night, but as far as I know she was never attacked by knuckle draggers.
I haven’t seen her for years, and I’ve no idea what her life is like in today’s overheated atmosphere. Back then in the 80s, pre-Twitter, it never entered my head that she might be a paedophile or a danger of any sort to anybody. But I think of her often when yet another shitstorm erupts. Like most people around here it seems, I’m baffled and disturbed by the more extreme positions taken up by both sides, but I tend to find activists of all stripes a pain in the arse anyway. Live and let live, I say.
The seeming consensus above that trans women should stick solely to male spaces ignores the very real fact that to a sizeable part of the “heteronormal” male population, sharing spaces with “men in female attire” is something they don’t welcome and can be extremely obnoxious (if not aggressive) about.
While working on a building project some years back, we were tasked to do some rewiring of social housing flats in Pimlico. One of the flats was occupied by a trans person and nobody else wanted to do the necessary work in his flat. He’d had burning rubbish put through his letterbox on several occasions and on one occasion the person got in a lift with us and one wag said the usual “watch your backs”, much to the trans person’s annoyance and embarrassment. A complaint was made and was laughed off.
Frankly, the idea of trans women being expected to only use male public toilets and share changing facilities with hetero males puts them into a similar level of danger (of a different kind, e.g. homophobic violence rather than sexual predation) that women fear from trans women sharing their facilities.
I think a major part of the current problems pro- and anti- transgender rights is that quite rightly trans people think they need recognition and acceptance but, like everything else in our modern society, those that want something to change expect to get the change they want right now and that’s not a realistic expectation when there are a sizeable section of society who are opposed to pretty much any change in anything.
Very good points.
My only contact with a trans person was being served by one, an extremely pretty and sweet young trans woman, in a UK restaurant last year. I would be very reluctant to accept her having to use mens’ toilets. And that also applies to the trans woman who was in The Guardian’s ‘Divide Across the Table’ thingy not long ago. And to Hayley out of Coronation Street. But at the same time I think their presence in the woman’s toilets does normalise a situation that potentially facilitates predatory intrusion by men dressed as woman.
I don’t think safe spaces is the biggest dilemma though. For me the biggest dilemma is whether or not children should be diagnosed as gender dysphoric and set on the path to transition. The dilemma is between not wanting to harm children who don’t really need gender reassignment on the one hand, and wanting to help those who genuinely do on the other. Which is why I think examining the explanations for the recent increase in the number of children diagnosed as gender dysphoric or identifying as trans is so important.
The same sort of people are jumping on the Gender Dysphoria bandwagon as are involved in the disreputable end of private cosmetic surgery.
A couple of pronoun errors in my reply above. Not yet used to writing about this subject/can of worms.
Yes. Your post made my head hurt a bit, Mike 😏
Offering a pragmatic solution, could those who feel uncomfortable in Male or Female facilities use the Disabled facilities instead? Following a campaign by Crohn’s & Colitis UK, many now have a “Not all disabilities are visible” sign on the door.
I know being Transgender is not a disability, but a diabled facility is at least a safe sapce.
I carry a RADAR key (available for a fiver) and often use a disabled loo when I’m out and about. I don’t ‘look’ disabled (unless you put a camera up my intestines).
Sounds most sensible
I am very dull.
That’s actually a brilliant and obvious solution. Round of applause!
Well seemingly, but many trans women consider they are entitled to use the Women loo because they are, well, women.
I availed myself of some lavatorial facilities recently one was marked ‘Ladies’ the other ‘Everyone Else’
Which one did you choose?
I take my grandsons swimming in a local authority facility. The changing rooms are communal with individual cubicles to get changed in. I feel quite uncomfortable, fully dressed, talking through a door to a little boy, while people wander around in swimming costumes, dripping wet. The toilets are individual cubicles too, labelled men, women or disabled. The disabled one also sports the “not all disabilities are visible sign”. I don’t think anyone would notice a trans person.
I think the toilet / changing room thing is a pretty specious argument, to be honest. As Mike says above, it doesn’t take any account of what trans people might want or need, which pushes them even further to the margins. And when someone brings it up, I always think that if some nasty individual out there is hell bent on assaulting someone in a toilet that nominally belongs to the opposite sex, they don’t need to pretend to be trans to do it. It’s not like there’s a sensor on the door that only lets you in if you’ve got a skirt on.
Completely agree. The threat aspect of access to facilities must be quite low. It’s much more a matter of principle.
I think they should bring back lavatory/cloakroom attendants.
Trained security-vetted people who can ensure nothing untoward occurs in such facilities.
Disturbingly, you bring to mind the little old ladies in black, positioned by a green baize card-table littered with one drachma coins, who sat menacingly at the entrance to the mens’ loos in the ferryport building at Piraeus for years. I wonder if they are still there?
I would just like to say that this has been the best piece on the internets so far, that has helped me understand this.
Life is complex.
In my first post-university job, I sat at a desk opposite middle-aged Mike, with only a 5-ft room divider to separate us. Mike lived down the road from work and, every day, went home for his lunch. When Mike’s Mum died, he had a couple of weeks off work, which became a few weeks longer. When he returned, Mike’s wife had left him, to become a Nun.
Mike would go home for his lunch, come back to the office and, regular as clockwork, fall asleep. It was my job to ring Mike’s phone when our boss was doing his rounds, or he started to snore.
I left there about six months later, Mike left a year after me, and I found myself doing some contract design for the firm Mike had joined, only Mike was now Michelle. Michelle was 6′ 4″ with big hands and size 12 feet.
I had a technical question about the job I was doing, so I rang up the office.
Emily Howard voice “Hello, this is Michelle speaking”
Me: “Hello Michelle, it’s Steve. I have a question about that job I’m doing for you.”
Big man’s voice “Wotcha, Steve. ‘How’s it goin’?”
A few years later, I bumped into Michelle when out shopping with my 3-y-o Offspring. We chatted for a couple of minutes. When we were only just out of earshot, my daughter asked “Daddy, why was that man wearing a dress?”
It turns out that ‘lunch’ was hormone therapy, which caused extreme fatigue.
Your little girl immediately and without guile reveals exactly why this is a tricky subject.
Most impressed that she waited until out of earshot!
Good job she isn’t Australian*.
*See: My Rock & Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn.
An excellent post, and I totally agree with the desire to have a balanced argument about the issues rather than the current Us vs Them narrative at large (even as a non Twitter user and non tabloid reader can sense the divisiveness around the wider debate).
I’m 50, so my biggest worry personally speaking is saying the wrong thing and putting my foot in it, in public I mean. I’m well aware I’m on the wrong side of the generational divide to properly wrap my head around a lot of this stuff, and my brain is totally conditioned to think of a male-female duality. I work with a lot of younger people who seem to have no issue with stuff like always saying “they” as standard instead of “he” and “she” (I try my best but constantly trip up), and everyone adds their pronoun preferences to their email signatures as a normal procedure.
So it’s hard to separate my own conditioning with a desire to fit in to this new way of thinking. I think I generally manage though. Hard to believe how much times have changed: I went to high school in the 80s in the west of Scotland, so bullying and mocking of effeminate males and masculine females was par for the course and casual homophobia was absolutely rife. A weird early memory which has stood out for me is once asking my dad what a “pervert” was, and being told it was “a man who sleeps with another man”! I’m not saying that to castigate my dad: he was a good man, but (as with anybody) some of his unquestioned values and beliefs came from his upbringing and weren’t always PC.
I echo some of the concerns expressed above that MAYBE just MAYBE it’s become too easy for kids nowadays to explore gender fluidity in a way that might lead to more confusion and distress in the long run. It’s now not uncommon for teenagers to declare themselves a different gender or non-binary, although I feel like a reactionary dinosaur for even saying that. It might be my ingrained resistance to indulging the obsessions of kids, which (being kids) are always in danger of being just a passing fad.
Being young myself, I know I was (like most people) an idiot who thought I was the centre of the world and knew everything and had fixed beliefs: I also personally had massive issues as a teenager with what would now be diagnosed as social anxiety and self esteem issues (back then I was just known as a quiet sort and a bit weird and bookish). If at the time I had the option to wear some kind of badge of identity and acceptance, and take umbrage at people who refused to accept me, would I have done this? Possibly I would, and possibly I would have jumped at adopting a “neurodiverse” label or something. But in hindsight I balk at the idea and feel I did far better by developing resilience and coping strategies, and learning to accept I was never going to be an alpha male leader type or the life and soul of the party. In fact my insularity probably helped me develop the kind of skills and experiences that are more suited to quiet types: playing guitar, collecting music, reading, drawing. Skills that I have valued more than anything else over the years.
My point being that there’s a fine line between empowering kids and indulging them.
I hope I’m not coming across as dismissive or divisive. I know I have no personal experience of gender identity issues in me or my own close family or children. (And maybe I’m also going off on an irrelevant tangent). But, as Gary eloquently stated at the start, we need to be able to air our own views and concerns without it resorting to a fight.
A brilliant read, thanks Art. I too am well aware that because of my age and the times I grew up in I’m psychologically quite removed from the current debate, its subject and discourse quite alien to me in many ways. Perhaps that’s partly why I’m finding the whole issue so interesting.
“there’s a fine line between empowering kids and indulging them”
Quite. But I’ve read that a staggering 32-50% of kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria attempt suicide. Not indulging them might not be the correct answer either. I’d say councillors and parents need to work closely with the individual child to determine the validity of any diagnosis of gender dysphoria, but I imagine that already happens. I do suspect there needs to be stricter control to ensure the unbiased nature of any counselling.
Wow, a chilling statistic.
Yes, but it’s worth digging into some of these statistics. Many are from small and/or low-quality studies. An oft-cited one in the UK, which claims that 48% of young trans people attempt suicide, actually only asked 27 trans people under the age of 26, and was a self-selecting questionnaire. Another much bigger study, commissioned by Stonewall, has not published its methodology.
There’s also some difficulty around terms: few of the studies define what “trans” means. None is capable of saying what effect medical transition or puberty blockers has on instances of suicidal ideation, since no control group exists. And lobby groups in favour of these interventions are incentivised to talk up the dramatic consequences of public policy not taking up their recommendations.
So I’d treat all these stats with extreme caution, particularly on such an emotive topic. Fortunately, as Polly Carmichael – formally of GIDS – has pointed out, youth suicide is extremely rare and there’s no actual hard evidence that gender distress contributes to any deviation in the rate compared to the general population. She also suggests that invoking narratives of suicide in this debate is unhelpful at best, which I think is right.
This is where I came across that statistic:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178031/#ref13
And this is where they get the 48% in Britain figure from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280599733_The_RaRE_Research_Report_LGBT_mental_health_risk_and_resilience_explored
Yeah it’s a metastudy- without getting into the research methodology of each of the 21 studies underlying it, it’s impossible to say how valid it is. This is the trouble: without a proper, large-scale, controlled, longitudinal study (which this isn’t), nobody should be throwing suicide stats around, but everyone does! (I’m not talking about you: lobby groups on all sides will grab onto any percentage sign which seems to support their thesis.) We just don’t know enough yet, but that doesn’t prevent anyone claiming they do. Lies, damned lies, etc.
That’s one of the dangers of Twitter debates (and even this thread?) where everyone, including me, becomes an expert cos we read something on Google that looks kosher.
Which leads me to posit – is this forum, populated as it is by warm and wonderful people (and Gary), the kind of place such complicated and emotive matters as trans gender should be discussed?
Basically I have no idea.
There are no “dangers” to this thread. It is a thread full of peace, love and understanding, a place where harmony and wisdom reign. The kind of thread that would pick up a hitchhiker in the rain, leave biscuits out for the birds and remember the date of your birthday without having to look it up. It is the Keanu Reeves of threads.
Having had some considerable time now to fully ruminate on the matter, I’ve come to accept that picking up hitchhikers in the rain is, in fact, fraught with danger and my analogy therefore flawed.
Don’t think any topics at all should be taboo here, but I also think we should resist forming our opinions solely on what we read here or indeed anywhere on social media.
Public debate – aided by certain sections of social media – has become infantilised to the point where if you aren’t seen to be uncritically supportive of something, it’s assumed you’re vehemently against it. This is probably where JK Rowling currently finds herself.
This is the sort of debate you can have for hours, only to conclude that it’s very difficult: it is. Your local council, politicians and governing bodies of sport can’t settle for that level of ambivalence, however – they have to make concrete decisions that will, on some level, offend or upset someone.
In a democracy, contrasting opinions are welcome, but it’s rather easy for the Harry Potter actors to tweet that a ‘trans woman is a woman’; actors have no legal or moral responsibility for the ramifications of that comment. A women’s refuge does, however.
Personally, I think most people are relatively empathetic and reasonably understanding, but nuance is perceived as dull and doesn’t make headlines. Most people I know appreciate that someone who’s taken the difficult decision to have gender reassignment surgery or hormones hasn’t taken the decision lightly, and they would be treated with compassion and kindness. Would that compassion and kindness extend to a bloke who simply declares that he’s female and enters a female-only space? I doubt it.
And I’m no further on: it’s difficult.
There is a lot about this topic that I don’t understand, but what confuses me most is how much attention is focused, one way or another, on what appears to be an extremely small number of people. According to the last census,* about 0.1% of respondents (48,000 people) identified as a trans man, and the same number as a trans woman (with more saying they are non-binary or not replying in detail) yet not a day seems to go by without a furious argument on social media about trans issues, or some tabloid story about toilets, changing rooms, etc.
Like so many here, I’m a live-and-let-live sort of person, and if an adult feels like they’re in the wrong body (I cannot begin to comprehend what that must be like), they should be able to do something about it, and I hope it makes them happier. (I don’t know enough about the subject to comment about children’s feelings regarding dysmorphia, puberty blockers, etc.) At the same time, I think it is still possible to believe that women continue to get an unfair shake in society and their delegated spaces (including sport) deserve to be protected in the interests of the majority.
It’s a difficult issue, and I can’t pretend to know what’s right or wrong. Good luck to all those who have to make decisions on this.
* https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/genderidentity/bulletins/genderidentityenglandandwales/census2021#gender-identity
A cynic might say that it’s become a hot topic because a desperately unpopular government who have wrecked the economy, destroyed the health service and presided over a huge fall in the general standard of living in this country, along with their media owning mates who are eager to stay on the tax cut gravy train, have seen that pretty much their last hope is to stoke up some imaginary culture war and turn a tiny wee mouse into a big scary elephant to shore up what support they have left amongst their core demographic.
So I guess I’m a cynic.
I tried to say something similar in a post further up, I suspect our current political masters are more than happy to stoke the flames on this issue for their own dismal reasons.
I’ve certainly appreciated the many informative comments on this however
My starting point is that you can’t be born in the wrong body. Your body is you. So I just don’t accept the basic terms of the debate: there’s no evidence such a thing as a “gender identity” even exists, and what does “feeling like a [man/woman]” even mean? How would you know?
Having said that, I think if you experience real distress at presenting as the set of stereotypes associated with your sex, fair enough: do what you need to do, within reason. I don’t care how anyone dresses: live your life. But there are conflicts of rights here – particularly around being able legally to change your sex purely on the basis of self-identification – and it’s not a grown-up response to just say “no debate” and howl that anyone who thinks otherwise is a bigot.
There are some bigots, but most people just want a common sense approach. Should someone who went through male puberty, with its added bone density, musculature, height, leverage, etc. really be competing in powerlifting or football against someone who didn’t? Obviously daft. Should “women in business” awards be given to someone whose career was largely conducted pre-transition and who started wearing a dress last year and now only does so half the time? Obviously daft. Is your biology altered by how you prefer to dress? Obviously not. Are there more than two sexes in mammals? No.
But should any of that mean we treat people who want to dress and “behave” as the opposite sex – whatever that means – in any way prejudicially, or denigrate them, or tell them they can’t? Again, I’d say obviously not.
After his first paragraph (which I need to think more about) hedgepig sums up my thoughts on this almost perfectly (and better than I was thinking of putting it).
I consider myself fair, balanced and completely without bigotry in all areas (which some people would call “woke”) but there are some parts of this “question” that seem to go beyond common sense. Maybe that’s just my version of common sense.
I’d go further and say that he’s very well described my own thoughts on this issue, and that the first para pretty much nails things by pointing out the inherent nonsensical nature of the concept of ‘wrong body’.
I’m a biologist by education, and start from the position that there are very, very few humans who are genuinely biological gene genies – best guess stat says about 0.02% of the population. Everything else is psychology. I’m all for common sense psychology.
Biologist Richard Dawkins* says very much the same. Yesterday he tweeted a long article explaining why and addressing some of the issues.
*What? I don’t mind him. He seems nice enough, etc.
That’s who I’m quoting with the stat.
I haven’t followed the debates that much, but the subject pops up in all kinds of places outside of the debates in media, so you can’t help hearing the different opinions as well as hearing about the experiences from the trans community.
I’m curious why you think that Tennant is “defining a 10-year old kid”, rather than that his kid is defining themselves – I highly doubt that he’d define his kid as anything unless the kid asked to be.
You don’t go about your innocent little life unaware of your feelings about your body and sexuality until you reach adult age and magically gain now age-appropriate understanding of such things. All kids want to be “normal” and know very clearly when they’re not.
I’m not gay or trans, but aro-ace, and I knew very early that I was different – but I didn’t have a word for it at the time I grew up, or even a correct description of what asexuality is, so I wasn’t able to define myself as such until long into adulthood, when society and science had caught up with reality.
I think the reason why more kids are defining themselves as non-binary, trans etc now is simply because they have the words for what they feel, and easier access to knowledge about these definitions. Instead of walking around feeling like an unspecified freak and not knowing what the “problem” is, they can now hear and read about others like themselves, recognize their own feelings and understand that they’re not alone.
Will some kids get misdiagnosed? Probably – that happens with physical ailments which can be scanned and measured as well, so why would it be easier to get it 100% correct in cases of non scannable complaints? But I can understand why trans kids – especially male to female transitions – are pushing to get treated early…they don’t want to become those “bricklayers in a dress” type women that some of you describe above, and that’s often hard to avoid once puberty has done its thing.
Not offering an opinion on what’s right and what’s wrong; I think it would have to be up to the individual child and their parents alongside professional experts having done a careful evaluation of the individual case (as with most everything else). Fingers crossed that you’d get a good expert, and are the child of sensible parents able to look beyond only their own concerns.
As a woman, the “safe space” argument is – for me – a bit silly. However, I’m a product of 70s Sweden, where you grew up seeing all of your friends’ parents naked in the sauna, so I’m not that bothered about things like that. I can see that others might not be as unbothered, but it can’t be that difficult to separate a third changing room/bathroom for an “other” category.
If men (by birth or design) wants to join the endless queues to the women’s bathrooms…knock yourselves out. We only have lockable stalls in ours, so no peeks to be sneaked!
Jokes aside, it seems to me that a lot of the debate stems from overthinking and overcomplicating things for the sake of making political points.
Very interesting points, thanks Locust.
“I’m curious why you think that Tennant is “defining a 10-year old kid”, rather than that his kid is defining themselves – I highly doubt that he’d define his kid as anything unless the kid asked to be.” I was thinking more about the adult perspective. I imagine if I had a 10-year-old boy/girl who said “I’m not a boy/girl” I’d take it as seriously as if the child said “I can fly”. The thin line between empowerment and indulgence that Art mentions above.
Perhaps the first time they said it, but if the subject came up again I’m sure you’d sit down and ask some follow-up questions and have a deep conversation about it.
I don’t know Mr Tennant, but I’d be surprised if he – as a person of some fame – would openly talk about his kid’s definition of their gender unless he’d gone through the process of making certain that this was real and important for his child, and had their approval.
Because of his fame, I’m personally unsure if it’s a good thing that he’s talking openly about his kid or bad, and I guess only time, and the positive or negative results of this, will tell. But I don’t think he’d do it if he wasn’t convinced that it’s true (which, of course doesn’t mean that it has to be).
♥️
Great post.
I know a couple of families with non-binary teens. I can’t particularly say I blame those kids for jumping off the bullshit merry go round of gender, and I really can’t see where the harm is, given that they’re not making any irreversible changes. Even if it turns out to be a phase, so what? All they’re saying is they view themselves a certain way right now. And if it’s not a phase then thank god they have parents who’ll listen (provided those parents aren’t overly ideological about it, obvs).
I think this stuff feels very very different when you actually encounter it in real life, with human beings involved, vs hypothetically online being argued by the worst bellends each “side” can muster.
I also think the quest for hard and fast rules is largely futile. It’s just not that sort of issue, it’s often pretty nuanced and case specific.
Devil’s advocate here! You say, “Even if it turns out to be a phase, so what?” – well, I think the harm is potentially indulging kids in their passing fancies rather than allowing them to learn resilience and a mature approach to reasonable conformity.
Having said that, I realise my appeal to conformity sounds a bit Orwellian! So as a disclaimer I will say that I’m not trying to tar every case with the same brush. I definitely agree that a “nuanced and case specific” approach is best.
For teenagers who decide they are non-binary I suspect the outside world will do a fairly thorough job of teaching them resilience without their own parents joining in. Just my own view though.
There’s a trans woman who regularly uses the same gym as me. She uses the women’s changing room, which is not one with individual cubicles. This isn’t an issue.
I think part of the concern is that, in the UK at least, there is real doubt as to the quality of evaluation of individual cases. This much is clear from the findings of the Cass review of practice at the Taviatock clinic.
Way back in the 80s when I first started courting the girl who was later to do me the great honour of becoming my wife she was living at her family home which was situated in an ordinary street in our post-industrial Welsh steel town. In a house near the end of this street lived a person who was at that time caring for their elderly mother. This person was in the nomenclature of those times undergoing the process of a sex change. Donna told me of the not infrequent abuse and threats of violence that were shouted at the pebbledashed exterior of their home by some of our less than liberal citizens despite the presence within of a very elderly lady in the last days of her life and deserving of a little bit of peace for herself and her child.
I guess this is sadly unsurprising. It was at the time certainly unsurprising to us. That old town was then and it remains still a pretty tough place. Not exactly a bastion of progressive thought. It’s alluring to believe that attitudes have changed but sadly although much in life has undergone change I’m afraid some people’s attitudes do not. They still tend to react to those who are perceived as different with hostility.
I have very little to add to this debate in terms of facts and statistics. Equally I have little other than the above remembrance of a time and people long gone from my life to add. Unfortunately this aspect of the human condition has turned into a very unpleasant shouting match, part of the un-cultured wars and I really don’t see any middle ground in evidence at the moment or even much of a desire for one in the arguments I have unfortunately been privy to witness online. The never ending shouting match that’s being conducted across social media and elsewhere about this and other issues comprising of both important matters and the utterly trivial I find completely dispiriting and hugely unhelpful. Both sides in every dispute arguing their position, achieving absolutely nothing and creating nothing more than a widening of the gap and a further retreat into their entrenched positions. I gave up on social media for the sake of a bit of peace and quiet. It’s been easily the best decision I’ve made for some time.
I think this is a brave thread to post as this is a very tangled and thorny subject. I wish I had something more insightful to add but it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I have anything that remotely approaches an understanding of these matters. I’m afraid I simply don’t so I will leave this to those that think they do.
I’ve tried to understand this and read around it a bit given my daughters keen interest in all things LGBTQ+ – she’s bisexual. We’ve tiptoed around discussions of trans issues – respect trans rights that doesn’t mean throwing away hard-earned women’s rights (especially when there is still much inequality). I understand this is more or less JK Rowling’s view, which I’m basically in agreement with, who seems to be one of the more reasonable and and thoughtful commentators out there – though she’s clearly taken a side. However my thoughtful and intelligent basically shuts it down with ‘But, trans rights’ and leaves it at that. Definitely a generational thing.
One other thing is how the polarisation of debate seems to lead to more and more extreme views – on both sides. I read Graham Linehan’s blog from time to time in an attempt to understand (someone had to) and while some of the cases he highlights are horrific – though it’s never clear at all how commonplace they are – he does seem to have tipped over into straight-out bigotry. It’s also startling how many of those commenting there (and him) seem to turned to GB News or the Daily Mail. If your world-view is so single-issue that you’re able to overlook the other guff these places churn-out you are probably setting off down a pretty unfortunate path.
I also find it pretty weird that a middle-aged ex-comedy writer appears to have appointed himself as the saviour of all women. Did he ask them? Of course, some of the middle-aged men on the other side – Billy Bragg springs to mind – have taken it on themselves to explain to women’s-rights campaigners that they’re bigots. Neither is a good look.
This is a line of argument that I am a bit confused by. Could you please clarify:
If you respect trans rights, do you accept that trans women should be allowed to use women only spaces?
Which women’s rights are you referring to?
Only if you absolutely equate trans rights with access to women only spaces. I would assume trans rights is a broader spectrum than just that single issue. The problem with this kind of argument is that it starts the polarisation of views process that ignores all of the nuances of the discussion.
Of course it’s a broader spectrum, but I don’t see how trans rights doesn’t include trans women’s rights of access to women’s only spaces.
It does include it but it’s a regular reductive focus of the debate. Which makes it immediately far more binary (pun intended). It’s not helpful in moving the understanding and debate forward. It’s designed to close down the debate rather than open it. In my opinion.
It is the wedge issue for anti trans people who try to pretend they are not homophobic that’s for sure.
It’s also an issue for women who don’t want to share single-sex spaces with people who are biologically male.
Of course women worry about predatory males being given access to spaces they currently have exclusive access to.
Genuine trans women are not any more sexually predatory than well-adjusted males or indeed females.
It is likely that among the heterosexual “biologically female” population there are a similar number of transphobes as there are in the heterosexual “biologically male” population. Neither minority are likely to publicly announce themselves as such but their influence needs to be guarded against.
I’m intrigued to know what infallible method exists to distinguish between those members of the ‘heterosexual biologically female population’ who are ‘transphobic’ as opposed to those who simply don’t wish to see swinging dicks in the swimming pool changing room. Heaven forfend that the latter group express their preference in the form of unwelcome ‘influence’.
Infallible method: There isn’t one.
Doesn’t mean there are no female transphobes. It’s a social conditioning thing, same as it is with the hetrosexual biological males who are transphobic. No reason to assume the numbers are bigger or smaller in either group.
Regarding avoidance of “swinging dicks”, there are a sizeable proportion of males who will not piss in a gents urinal unless they absolutely have no other choice. Squeamishness?
Also: Male lavatory facilities are heavily reliant on the presence of urinals, which are completely impractical for persons in dresses or skirts, particularly if tights are being worn.
Just noting that every festival I have been to has had women queuing to use the mens loos!
@Twang Festival-going females are obviously not so intimidated by those “swinging dicks”. Also the queues are generally shorter at the mens facilities.
I don’t particularly want to see swinging dicks in the men’s changing rooms either.
Fortunately, I generally don’t need to worry about that, because people typically get changed in a considerate matter without waving their genitalia around the place.
The exception is old dudes, who seem disproportionately happy to hang dong right in everyone’s faces. Maybe we should ban them?
Ultimately, if someone (of any gender) is being an exhibitionist in the changing rooms, talk to management and they’ll sort it. It’s not an issue unique to Trans people and I’m not aware of any firm evidence that they’re more prone to the problem than anyone else.
Anent festival etc. loos. I too have seen women use male facilities. Invariably in groups though, which tells its own tale.
And even then, why would that invalid the strongly expressed preference of women that single-sex (women-only) spaces should be a penis-free zone? They’ve made their view clear, surely that should be the end of it?
If a majority wanting something was enough to end the debate we’d have the death penalty back, we wouldn’t be discussing the government’s Rwanda policy and Homosexuals would never have made it into men’s changing rooms to demonstrate they weren’t all rapists either.
But besides that, is there any evidence for a clear consensus among women on this issue? The polling I’ve seen looks pretty split, and the numbers seem to move around a lot between surveys.
I think we can safely say that a significant proportion of women want to retain single sex spaces, for a variety of reasons. I honestly can’t see what else needs to be said. Unless the argument is that those women should be forced to accept biological males, no matter how ethically/religiously unacceptable, traumatic, plain offensive etc. they find it?
Traditionally, a significant proportion of a group finding something offensive or religiously unacceptable hasn’t been enough for us to automatically ban it.
Ultimately, this is a balancing of rights between two groups; Women and Trans people. It should be resolved via dialogue and a careful, considered give and take, rather than with one group’s wishes (even if they were to be as monolithic as you’re implying) simply taking absolute priority over the other’s.
Otherwise, to flip your question round, we’re simply demanding that Trans women accept being treated as biological males, no matter how ethically unacceptable, traumatic, plain offensive etc. they find it. We should look for solutions that at least attempt to recognise the rights and feelings of all those involved.
It’s not though, is it. It’s about trans women being not being treated as biological males except in the relatively small number of single sex spaces reserved for biological women. Reasonable enough, surely?
Not that this isn’t really a choice for transmen at all – because they would be putting themselves at risk. Which itself makes the case for single-sex spaces.
Speaking as a health professional, with experience of “managing” trans folk for 40 years, as in being their nominated Dr, I can’t begin to presume or understand the agonies most such individuals go through along the way. The one thing that matters is to be kind.
Interestingly, today is the day the GMC added that instruction to how all Drs should practice. Hard to police but a great statement, if from a, at times, tarnished and hypocritical body.
Works for me.
re that first sentence, one of the trans people I’m acquainted with is a woman who transitioned a long time ago, certainly before I knew her (so at least a dozen years). She wrote something once about her childhood experiences, and it was heartbreaking. Crying themselves to sleep every night, desperately praying to wake up as a girl the next morning…she appears to have had a wretched time (much happier now), and I don’t know how anyone can feel anything but compassion and empathy.
A hypocritical Hippocratical body perhaps.
I’ll get me white coat.
@Gary – I’m not sure that you got the “heated debate” you were asking for – the above mostly seems measured, reasonable and informative.
Yep. It’s nice when that happens. Someone once described this thread as the Keanu Reeves of threads. What a lovely thing to say. With this complex issue on Twitter it’s hard to claw your way through the constant barrage of insults (“transphobe, misogynist, bigot, child-abuser, perv, thick, spindly, fascist pig-dog, lardy-arsed muppet muncher, Les Dennis’s crew-cut” etc). It left me feeling like Audie Murphy in whatever film he was in. The AW is cut from far superior cloth. Though that might just be because Baron H didn’t join in.
I think he did (his “riposte” to you on the Wordle thread)
I totally agree. I’ve been sitting back and trying to learn from this thread rather than throwing in my own barely informed opinions, and it has shifted my perspective slightly.
We are Fantastic – as Frank Sidebottom would say!
He really would.
Except Little Frank.
Wrote this the other day so there are a few points others have made. It’s a very tricky one, this. My natural liberal instincts are that everyone should be able to express themselves and love who they want and it’s no one else’s business. The harm principle says if no one else is hurt by it, you’re entitled to do it. The tricky thing is where it rubs against other people’s rights and beliefs and this is where the whole thing gets difficult. Many women, especially older ones, remember when they were second class citizens and fought hard for their rights which include women only spaces. Does someone else saying they are a woman make them a woman, who can wander into your changing room? Even if the law says they can, does that make it right? Very tricky.
I don’t know what the answer is, though a bit of give and take all round would help a lot, but it’s such an emotive subject this is frequently not possible. Is being on a university campus where a lecturer doesn’t agree with you really a threat to the point where they should lose their job? I think not. You have to accept that, as an adult with agency over your life, other people may think different things to you, and that’s just the way it is.
I also struggle with the idea that someone “feels like” they are the other gender. What does that feel like? I don’t know what other men feel like, never mind women.
Live and let live is a great idea, if we could work out a way to do it in practice.
“I don’t know what other men feel like, never mind women.” Ha! True dat.
A lot of the discussion here seems to have focussed on the “safe spaces” issue. But, tbh, I’m more interested in the children issue. Puberty blockers, hormone treatments.
The anti-gender identity types are most up in arms about what they see as child abuse. Particularly puberty blockers, hormone treatments and affirmative care. (Many on Twitter even seem to think it’s all orchestrated to boost Big Pharma profits!). Then on the other hand, no one wants to exacerbate what is clearly a troubling time for many young people by denying them the help they need.
It’s easy to dismiss many of the people on both sides as a bit nutty, but when you’ve got seemingly very sensible and smart people saying “leave the kids alone” and equally seemingly sensible and smart people saying “leave the trans kids alone” listening to one group and not the other is potentially going to hurt a lot of kids. So who’s right? For me, it really is a case of “what the fuck do I know?”
I wonder where the conflict of interest is headed. (Perhaps the argument will still be raging long after we’re all gone?).
Which women only spaces did older women have to fight for?
Women’s toilets didn’t used to be provided in pubs and certain other places, because formerly they were places “respectable” women weren’t supposed to go.
Women’s refuges appear to have only been in existence since the beginning of the ’70s.
Slightly off topic, but in that way that great art can hit you emotionally and make you think about issues you hadn’t considered before, the song For Today I Am A Boy by (then named) Antony and the Johnsons (and now Ahnoni and the Johnsons) was one which first brought home to me what gender dysphoria must feel like (probably before I even knew it was a thing). It’s a great song. The Unthanks also did a fantastic version.
Couple of things to add.
The first is that I’m very much for people being their real selves and developing their full potential (and yes that does entail an essentially faith-based belief that they will be ‘good’ people). So if that means someone adopting a gender different from their biological sex, then those people deserve support and respect. However, for many women ‘being their real selves and developing their full potential’ entails single sex spaces limited to biological females. And that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. There are relatively few of these, after all.
The second is that we hear relatively little about transmen. I wonder if, having been socialised as women, they are quietly getting on with living their best lives (yes, huge generalisation in there). I feel no threat from transmen in male changing rooms etc. – because I’m a man. However, anyone exposing female genitalia in a male-only space is putting themselves at risk. At best they will be stared at – witness the plethora of ‘top shelf’ magazine that cater for men who want to do that. So that risk stems from their biological sex, not their assumed gender; sex does indeed matter.
Reading this thread has certainly expanded my simplistic view of this issue. However I do have a question that is not designed to provoke just to help me. I stated in my post ” I can’t imagine how it feels, it’s a cruel twist of nature to be born in the wrong body.” Many others have stated along the lines of “you can’t be born in the wrong body.” So my question is why do physical men who wish to be women go through incredibly complex and painful surgery to alter the body they were born with?
I don’t think there’s one answer to that. Nobody knows what being trans – experiencing gender dysphoria – actually is, when it comes right down to it. Is there a thing called a gender identity which can be proven to exist? If so, great: nice and easy, we should be able to test whether yours matches your sexed body and act accordingly. Trouble is, it’s not that easy – gender identity is based on self-report. There’s no good science that says the brain can be more male or female: a lot of what we understand about gendered behaviour beyond actual biological instincts is social, not neurological.
Some will say it’s therefore a mental health issue: your feelings about your sexed body cause you a lot of very real distress. At which point the question is how can we help? The two options seem to be affirmation: surgery and drugs and changes of appearance and name and pronouns will make your body and feelings more like your desired sex and the dysphoria will go away. Or else non-affirmative treatment: your dysphoria is an inaccurate set of ideas about your body caused by a disorder, like an eating disorder. We don’t tell a girl who’s 4 stone that she’s right to want to be skinnier. You don’t tell a paranoid schizophrenic that the voices have a point.
That last bit is where lots of the flashpoint is. A strong consensus among many is that affirmation is the only path, because they’re reminded of conversion therapies used against gay people, etc. Understandable, tbh. But is gender identity even analogous to sexual orientation? Who even knows? Most of the thinking on this has been done by social scientists, and is buried in layers of postmodernism, so… god help us.
The questions about what all of this means are so essentially metaphysical that the reactions are essentially religious in character. It’s about team. In group, out group, who you want to stand with and who you don’t. That’s why so few people are doing any listening, or if they are, they’re saying that only one side deserves to be heard. Recipe for a clusterfuck.
Perhaps because the surgery is less complex and painful than the *feeling* (as opposed to the fact) of being born in the wrong body? I imagine the short- term pain and stress of the surgery and associated psychological assessments, etc feels more bearable than the lifelong distress of your felt identity not matching your appearance.
My position on this isn’t ‘How you feel doesn’t make sense to me so get a grip’, it’s more ‘how you feel doesn’t make sense to me but it’s obviously very real and distressing to you and you deserve whatever help you need to ease or resolve your pain’.
Fascinating responses. I have an eating disorder, a drug addiction or believe I can fly society says very firmly no Dave we will fix that for you. I believe I’m a woman society is being expected to say “yes Dave you are a woman” carry on. I stand by my view that kindness, support and understanding is essential but that also applies to all of the above. Essentially my response shouldn’t be “wrong body” it should be… Actually I’m not sure what it should be. Challenging my simplistic view from a few days ago leaves me with more questions
Part of a helpful and compassionate response to disordered eating, addiction or being R Kelly should be to address and reduce the intrinsic harm they can cause (so a ‘no Dave’ approach is appropriate). Believing you’re in ‘the wrong body’ isn’t necessarily intrinsically harmful (or what harm there is can be mitigated) if certain adjustments and accommodations are made. At least some of the harm, in this case, is caused by others denying your lived experience (so a ‘yes Dave’ approach could be appropriate).
While the responses are different, the intent is the same – to ease suffering.
I’m sure someone else could have put the above more concisely but I hope you get my point.
(Edited to add: I should be clear that I mean ‘yes Dave, I believe that’s your experience’ not ‘yes Dave, I believe you’re a woman’).
“Believing you’re in ‘the wrong body’ isn’t necessarily intrinsically harmful (or what harm there is can be mitigated) if certain adjustments and accommodations are made.”
That’s the part that’s at issue. If the accommodation you need to feel like a woman, whatever that means, is to be housed in a women’s prison in the event of committing a crime, or to have access to a women’s domestic violence shelter in the event you’re assaulted, or to compete against women in mixed martial arts, or to be awarded the women’s prize for fiction… many would say that there is harm there, but to others, not yourself. I doubt anybody but very uptight people are really that bothered by self-expression, but this issue isn’t only one of self-expression.
Once you’ve got past the metaphysics, the question is whether the expressive self-actualisation rights of the individual trump those of others in all cases. It’s a balance between whether a woman eg traumatised by male violence has the right to a small number of spaces free of male bodies, or whether the expressive rights of a trans woman trump that. There is a conflict there, and the reason this debate has become so toxic is the insistence there isn’t, that rights aren’t a zero sum game, when definitionally that’s exactly what they are. It’s important to listen to all voices, not just the one interest group, and that’s not happening with quite a lot of people on all sides of this debate.
Unpicking all of this makes me realise why people take such entrenched opposite views. It’s easier than thinking or talking it through.
I’ll admit I’m still struggling with the “wrong body” thing. I’d love to talk to a trans people who have been through surgery and ask them. Not that I haven’t learned from these responses I justA don’t have the answer that satisfies me.
On the point of whether being born a physical man and wanting to be seen as a woman is harmful or not it would be interesting again to talk to fully transitioned people to see how they felt post surgery. Genuinely not meaning to be glib if you look like Jason Statham no amount if surgery or hormones is going to fix that so you are absolutely going to draw stares, comments or worse. We’re a long way as a society from that level of
acceptance. Maybe that’s ultimately the point. Society is in transition and in 50 years our kids and their’s will simply shrug. Let’s hope so x
I think that those above who suggest we approach the issue with compassion have hit the nail on the head.
To me, gender is purely a social construct. I don’t particularly think of myself as being part of some homogenous group labelled “men”, and I feel like I’ve spent quite a lot of my life hearing “you are a man, therefore” followed usually by absolute bollocks. We should be looking to dissolve those boundaries, rather than to bolster them. Although I recognise that’s not where the culture is heading right now, I am confident it’s where we’ll end up eventually, because the gender filter through which we’re all encouraged to view ourselves (and which is in my view the true “gender ideology”) is fundamentally illogical.
So, no – I don’t really understand the idea of “gender” as a fixed characteristic that could be misapplied at birth, or being in the wrong body. To me, the self is the self, and the healthiest path is to figure out how best to love yourself as you are and independent of all of that nonsense.
But then, I don’t need to feel this stuff, do I? I don’t even really need to understand it fully. I just need to know that a non trivial number of people appear to be experiencing life in this way which is so counter to my own worldview, and show them the respect of accepting that their path might not look like my own, that their self-image might not be something I can ever understand. So long as they’re not hurting anyone, I can’t see why I would do anything other than the above.
I think religion is a very apt comparison here. I have not an ounce of religious faith in me, I cannot really comprehend that there might be some higher power directing us all and the idea seems ludicrous to me. But I accept that a large number of people feel otherwise, and I sincerely respect that unshared feeling.
And yes, some of those people who claim to be Trans might be following a fashion, or they might be lost souls looking for a port in a storm, or whatever else. But that’s between them and their priest – I don’t need interrogate the foundations of the beliefs of others, unless they show evidence of bad faith, or they harm others. For all the same reasons that I don’t feel I need to justify my own self-image to others: because I am mine, and they are theirs and until they harm others what does it really have to do with me anyway?
On the harming others front, this has to be a case by case analysis, doesn’t it? But the risk of harm needs to be evidenced, and it’s not enough to rely on fear of harm alone.
Two decades ago, flying alongside Muslims made a lot of people nervous that their “safe space” was being violated. That wasn’t enough to prevent Muslims from flying, nor should it have been. We don’t dole out collective punishment/judgement (nor should we), and we don’t punish people for things they haven’t actually personally done. If Trans women are attacking women in bathrooms, and can be statistically (not anecdotally) evidenced as an elevated risk, let’s talk about it and figure it out in a way that doesn’t tar them all with the brush of being predators.
But it’s not enough (for me, at least) to say that these are sacred women’s spaces and fear of attack alone should suffice to keep Trans women out. Fear is only fear – you can manufacture it with headlines and scare stories and prejudices. It doesn’t trump the facts. I can think of many offices, restaurants and even nightclubs I’ve been in where men and women shared facilities without an eyelid being batted, and it’s only relatively recently that this has become such an emotive issue. Equally, there will be obvious exceptions, such as women’s shelters, where different rules should apply, but I suspect these are fairly limited in number.
Conversely, with regards to sports, I don’t think anyone should insist on exercising their right to compete where doing so would either risk serious injury to competitors, or skew competition so entirely as to reduce proceedings to a joke (although I note the latter doesn’t stop Man City).
I don’t think we should be looking at fixed rules for bathrooms, or for sports. I think we should be looking to establish common sense rules on a case by case basis, based on some modicum of mutual respect and ignoring the bad actors on each side who infest social media and hyperbolise the debate with ludicrous claims that if they aren’t given their own way they are “literally being erased” (and we see this nonsense from both sides).
For me, the benchmark is safety. If there is a legitimate threat to safety that can be demonstrated (as in sports) then it’s entirely fair for the rights of Trans women to be curbed, because frankly that’s just being an adult. But by the same token I don’t see any issue at all with a Trans woman winning an industry award for women – it may not be considered entirely fair, but then neither is life; if you can win one of those awards despite growing up rich, being privately educated, massively benefiting from nepotism and/or never having kids (which is still about as material a later stage career advantage over other women as you can ask for) then I don’t see why being Trans should be any different.
And all of these are edge cases anyway. For the vast majority of Trans people who aren’t permanently Online what’s at issue isn’t winning an Olympic gold medal for wrestling, or entering a battered women’s refuge. It’s just hoping for a modicum of tolerance and not being ridiculed, othered, treated as a lunatic or sex pest, and/or physically attacked. And the relentless focus on these issues, the treatment of them as if they’re pressing and must make the headlines
daily, ultimately breeds suspicion and judgement.
On the issue of Trans kids, I think surgery/medical intervention is a water’s edge at which plentiful safeguarding is required, and that anyone who attempts to obviate those obviously necessary safeguards wants to have a word with themselves. But short of that, I don’t massively see the issue. If a teenager says they’re Trans and you tell them to pipe down and be more normal, what do you think actually happens? You can’t really control their self image, you can only make them hide it and resent you for doing so. Equally, I’d suggest that accepting their claim shouldn’t preclude a door being kept open in case they want to change their mind in future. Because that’s what being a teenager is; traversing all that self loathing and uncertainty to reach some sort of self acceptance. Trying on a few hats whether our parents care for them or not – sometimes wearing those hats for the rest of our lives, other times discarding them relatively quickly. What makes us think this would be any different? Our sons and daughters are beyond our command, I’m afraid. So we need to balance scepticism and support, listening openly with recognising the limits of what you can ever really know at that age.
This strikes me as an area where the comparison to other members of the LGBTQ spectrum is entirely appropriate. 30 years ago if you were a 14 year old telling your parents you were gay you’d have run into many of the same arguments at play here, and we now look back on those as retrograde, largely because most of us have met/befriended gay people, or at least heard their stories, and we recognise that it’s quite possible for a 14 year old to know something about their own sexuality that their parents might not.
I think it’s a great shame that the people who have seemingly elected themselves to speak on behalf of the Trans community do such an evidently piss poor job of it, but that doesn’t change the simple maths here; we should show compassion and understanding wherever possible and where differing sets of individual rights conflict we should look to achieve compromise like adults.
I do think the debate would be greatly simplified if more people had the opportunity to speak to a Trans person in real life, and if we were able to set aside a lot of the identity politics theorising which has been mainstreamed in recent years and approach one another as human beings first and foremost. How on earth the Trans community and Feminists have come to find themselves so firmly at loggerheads when they should in theory have so much in common I will never know, but I personally believe it speaks to the extent to which we’ve now been educated to view the tensions between differing identities as an entirely zero sum game in which edge cases become symbolically critical and wherein ensuring that our team wins is the ultimate goal.
Likewise, we’ve been taught that the rights of a marginalised group will always come first, that their lived experience is the most important data point, and that there is a hierarchy of marginalisation that must be observed. What we’re largely seeing is a section of the Trans community attempting to apply that same faulty logic to themselves and being rebuffed. If the women’s movement tell us that it’s the responsibility of men to police one another’s language because language leads directly to violence against women, should the same not be the case with our use of language in respect of Trans people? Or is language only directly tied to violence in respect of some groups but not others (and notably not the group who appear to be on the receiving end of at least as much abuse and violence as any other)?
I firmly believe that art produced by the Trans community has the power to close the gap in understanding. Less than six months ago I watched Christine & The Queens perform their full set from a distance of about five yards and I have to say that it changed some of my views; not because it contained any political proselytising, but because it gave a brief window into the emotional life of someone on the other side of that silken veil. It demonstrated for all to behold the pride and anger and fear and inner conflict involved, and it was as legitimately brave and powerful as anything I can remember seeing onstage.
Ultimately, what we are faced with here is an issue about which we currently know relatively little in the grand scheme. We simply do not have the necessary output of reliable research conclusions, or duration of study, to reach fixed positions on a number of key questions. I think that’s something we should bear in mind before we pin our colours to the mast too readily; this is an area in which we are likely to want to change our minds on some or all points in future. But until we do get to some deeper level of understanding? Accept that women are not a monolith, and neither are Trans people, and that it’s super limiting to try to have this debate at the level of absolutes. Look past the hyperbole, ignore Twitter wherever possible, seek compromise and nuance, speak to real people in real life where you have the opportunity to do so and compassion, compassion, compassion.
Good, non finger pointy thread btw.
*applause*
I have not had a chance to read this whole thread, but agree with Bingos comment above re approaching with compassion.
Just come on here to recommend a book called ‘Trans: A Memoir’ by Juliet Jacques which i found very interesting. It was written some years ago so predates a lot of the recent politicized debate, but is the better for it as focuses on the personal journey. It certainly made me appreciate (& go someway towards understanding) the idea of being born in the wrong body.
I was at Shrewsbury Folk Fest over the weekend, and Billy Bragg was there, fresh from offending and upsetting folk all over the x-sphere (or twittersphere, if you must) about his take on trans rights. Heck, he has even changed the words in Sexuality, specifically losing the sharing the common ground line, now making a mildly amusing gag about pronouns. But, in the postamble to the song he explained how his opinion had been misrepresented, and, in his explanation, he made a good point I hadn’t appreciated before, or not to that point. He was defending the right of female-identifiers to change in female changing rooms, which had brought down a bit of a backlash from those who felt the other people in there should be protected from the sight of unexpected penises in their midst. Which had been my view, until Bragg pointed out that the alternative was for said female identifiers to have the living shit kicked out of them, if straying into the male room, as the main risk is toxic masculinity. (As women already know to themselves.) So a shocked woman in a female changing room is actually a lesser travesty than a dead trans on the male locker room floor. And I sort of get it, in the comparative. I think. But my wife may not. Tricky, innit?
When Bill Bragg speaks, I tend to listen
Once again, he emerges as a voice of common sense in this very heated debate. But I like your comment about your wife’s reaction.
Not sure he is the voice of common sense, more just another self appointed Twitter know it all running with his mob. As for me, when he ‘sings’ I tend to NOT listen. I’m outta there.
I have to say, specific issue aside, the idea that Billy Bragg is someone especially worth listening to about anything made me snort out loud.
I didn’t realise that Mr Bragg was such a Marmitey artist.
I won’t make any great claims about his vocal capacity but he uses what he has very well.
I’ve seen him live several and he has never disappointed.
Different strokes for different folks!
I actually really like his music, but I have to agree with others above that he’s very tribal in his politics. You can generally predict his view on a subject before he begins to speak.
He does make some fair points above though.
Here’s my favourite Bragg from my favourite of his albums:
But the tribe seems to shift. He has at various times endorsed Labour, the Liberals, the SNP (or at least Scottish independence) and the Greens. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind, but it just strikes me that what is important to him is to appear as a political figure whose opinions matter in a public debate. The trans stuff seems to be the latest in this – what’s the latest thing to latch on to.
Last week….
He addresses mind-changing and compromise in his song From Red To Blue (about an old mucker going the whole hog and voting Tory):
Sometimes I think to myself
Should I vote red for my class or green for our children?
I hate the compromises that life forces us to make
We must all bend a little if we are not to break
It’s a good song, though I’m not a fan of his voice.
Yeah I wasn’t talking about his records, a few of which I really like. As a person, I think he’s a bore and a boor and reliably predictable (75% chance of definitely wrong) to within a micron in every position he takes.
This discussion was interesting to me as someone who doesn’t live in the UK and only encounters BB when he turns up to do a concert in Stockholm.
“What is important to him is to appear as a political figure whose opinions matter in a public debate. ”
Clearly he is often rolled out to be interviewed on different topics by the BBC and other media. Except for perhaps catching the occasional headline in the Guardian, I rarely if ever see this side of him.
My opinion might be more somewhat different if I did.
Well, I generally like him. And if he struggles to find the political party that best fits his unflinching old school socialism and union supporting, haven’t we all, in these strange days?
A top notch bloke who like everyone else is not perfect and sometimes makes mistakes but a heart of gold. Compassionate gold.
Once again, I’ll note that this isn’t an option for transmen. Exposing their female genitalia in male changing rooms wouldn’t draw complaints, I suspect, but would certainly put them at risk. That makes plain where the balance of sexual power lies. Which is why many women don’t want to share a changing room with biological males. And they should not be forced to do so.
So what I get from this thread now is that the changing room question is what it all boils down to, and perhaps I’m out of touch – I haven’t gone swimming since I was a teenager – but is this really a huge problem? Are trans men and women all flocking to go swimming? And none of them have had any reconstruction work done? (Because I assume that nobody in the changing rooms with them would have a problem if they couldn’t see that they shared it with someone biologically different to their own gender.)
I’m thinking that if I was trans I’d probably have so many body issues and insecurities that the last thing I’d want to do was to enter a public space where I’d have to reveal my body and confront my insecurities and other, unknown people’s prejudices and fears. Especially if I knew that my transformation wasn’t completed.
If I wanted to swim in this scenario, I think I’d probably change into my swimming costume at home, underneath my clothes, and go to the sea to have a dip. Much less hassle.
Unless I was a trans activist who wanted to make a point, but in that case I’d make sure to bring some friends, for safety in numbers.
Perhaps that’s why all of those trans swimmers – allegedly – turns up at the swimming baths all of the time!
Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not saying I think trans people should give up swimming, I just thought the debate had gone in a weird direction…
I rather suspect that changing rooms is not just changing rooms, but a proxy for other previously women-only venues.
Rape Crisis Centers, for example. Domestic Violence refuges.
I assume that neither of these facilities are just one big room where everyone mingles, unsupervised. There must be ways to separate trans women and those who feels uncomfortable around trans women, and still get everybody the help they need, whether that is in the same building or separate ones.
If you sit down and list every detail of every situation that may or may not occur in life – not only regarding trans people – then everything will be a problem that can’t be solved by anything except bad solutions. Some men rape women. Bad solution: women should stay at home and avoid meeting men alone – or wear a burqa so the men aren’t tempted. Hooray! Problem solved!
I just suspect that most of the “problems” that people cite against trans rights (or just plain everyday tolerance) are constructions with very little relevance in reality, or not as difficult to solve as they pretend. And that people worry too much about things that doesn’t really concern them much. And that the whole debate is a massive misdirection to stop us from questioning the bigger problems going on in the world.
But what do I know – prior to this thread I can’t say I gave this issue many in-depth thought processes, just a general sense of how I felt about it but mostly a sense of “it’s none of my business”.
I guess that confronted with such a variety of opinions I figured out (mostly) what mine is!
My impression, as mentioned above, is that the debate is more focussed now on children and puberty blockers rather than adults and safe spaces. Specifically, why has there been such a big increase in young children being given puberty blockers and hormones recently? Is it a positive thing (young children feeling free to be themselves and getting the help they need to do so) or a negative thing (young children being persuaded by fashion/ideology to change their bodies)? Having read a lot about the issue, I still have no idea. But that’s the question I feel needs addressing most, not safe spaces or sport.
This documentary was on Australian telly recently. Doesn’t seem to be viewable online, which is a pity. It looks like a very one-sided, agenda driven documentary, but I’d be interested to see it nonetheless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgxjYqjvDuQ
To me the non-binary/genderqueer labels makes much more sense, because in aro-ace (as I am) it’s all about where you are on a scale, not are you 100% sexual/romantic or 100% asexual/aromantic.
Permanently transitioning to the other gender seems so drastic and unnecessary to me, who isn’t in that situation, that I have to suppose that the people who choose to do that really, truly believe that they are meant to be the opposite of what they were born as.
But non-binary is a fairly new concept so older trans people probably didn’t have that option and that gray scale to find their place in, and some must have felt that staying in their biological gender was unacceptable to them. Thus making a choice that perhaps wasn’t them either, and finding out that they were equally unhappy in that gender.
I’d hope that with the non-binary choice of not having to choose, less people in the future will make unnecessary decisions, but the problem is also that it takes years to figure out where you are on the scale, and what works for you.
And everybody knows that the longer you wait to transition (for male to female especially) you will have gained more physical attributes that makes it difficult for you to “pass”. And beauty being the favoured currency in society, no wonder that younger kids are feeling the pressure to transition as early as possible.
Which is why you hope that they are being councelled by sensible people with no other agenda than making them feel comfortable with who they are and showing them that no label fits 100%.
But I do believe that some still need to transition to find inner satisfaction. If you’re 95% on a scale it’s going to tip over, and everything else will feel like dress-up to you, I suspect.