This is what the Portman Clinic had to say about Gender Transition in 2002

[BarrackerBarmer]

...pre Gender Recognition Act, following the court case which precipitated the GRA.

8 Portman Clinicians wrote this letter to the Telegraph:

"Sir - The recent judgment in the European Court of Human Rights (report, July 12), in which a post-operative transsexual person was granted permission to marry in his adopted gender role, is a victory of fantasy over reality.

The experience of many psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists working with transsexual patients is that they are individuals who, for complex reasons, need to escape from an intolerable psychological reality into a more comfortable fantasy. By attempting to live as a member of the opposite sex, they try to avoid internal conflict, which may otherwise prove to be too distressing.

It is a measure of the urgency and desperation of their situation that they frequently seek surgery to make their fantasy real. By carrying out a "sex change" operation on their bodies, they hope to eliminate the conflict in their minds. Unfortunately, what many patients find is that they are left with a mutilated body, but the internal conflicts remain.

Through years of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, some patients begin to understand the origins of their painful conflicting feelings and can find new ways of dealing with them, other than by trying to alter their bodies. The recent legal victory risks reinforcing a false belief that it is possible to actually change a person's gender. It might also strengthen the view that the only solution to psychic pain is a legal or surgical one."

(Bolding mine)

Are the same medics still there now? I wonder if the telegraph would follow up...

I remember HomefromtheHills posting about a document they had to sign pre SRS that confirmed she knew it wasn’t an actual change of sex procedure, because that’s not possible.

I wonder if NHS patients still sign similar paperwork? I would imagine the numbers of people going abroad for surgery make for far less consistency in specifics like this one?

Blimey, strongly worded stuff. Bigoted transphobes with their literal violence.

Money happened. A lot of it.

Money happened. A lot of it.

Also the internet especially internet porn.

Started googling (no time to finish up right now) and at least two are still practising in the U.K. albeit not at the Portman.

Shall we write to them and ask them their current position (and if it isn’t still broadly the same, what happened to make them change their minds)?

"A victory of fantasy over reality" just sums the whole thing up.

through years of psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Personally I have a very low opinion of psychiatrists who propose years of psychoanalysis - I think it's largely bunkum. Indepth therapy, on the other hand - very useful.

But otherwise how refreshing to see some sense. It's very sobering to see what a change in climate there has been in such a short length of time. I'd love to know where these people are too and why they aren't speaking up or being heard.

escape from an intolerable psychological reality into a more comfortable fantasy

This is expressed really sensitively and evocatively and really brings home the distress and desperation behind transitioning

wow!!!! Just wow.

Very cogent and direct. And articulates where I think I am beginning to move to....

Yes I have known people who are described exactly by this. I have no idea how or why this is no longer the accepted opinion. There has been no evidence to refute it. (Unless you count research carried out by trans researcher which is obviously biased).

There is much out there on the internet about people's own experiences with identity dypshoria and DID; Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) where people have a terrible internal conflict, often casued by serious childhood trauma and negalct/betrayal/abandonment by caregivers.

The mind is incredible in its ability to survive - by any strategy possible sometimes, regardless of the longterm or rational meaning or consequences and so the mind may 'split; into parts/ differnt identities to ease the distress and mkae it possible to cope with the unbearbale.

People suffering like this need compassion and support to accept truth. We can accept and validate that they feel dysphoria and suffer extreme conflict and distress without playing along with a delusion.

People who have suffered abuse in childhood have had their boundaries destoyed and violated and often have great difficulty in knowing where the boundaries should be and so push against them like a damaged child does. They can only be truly helped by people who can be safe and consistent and where truth and logic holds firm. To support without colluding, to question or gently challenge without undue provocation or shaming. Any weakness or inconsistency will be exploited out of desperation, or out of feeling uncomfortable with uncertain boundaries and needing to find were the line lies - even if they don't like it. This is why you hear the hyperbole of 'literal violence'. Because it feels violent and casues violent unstable emotional reactions in people who are seriously mentally unwell.

Which is why you see so many trans people pushing boundaries where they keep moving and can be trampled, seeking and gaining power and safety by being able to impost their own reality; or feel rage when boundaries are held firm against them. Of course personality disorders abound and some will reproduce the abusive behaviours, which you do see more often in men it seems :(

I am so sad and worried that such desperate people are not getting real the help they need to feel safe and to be safe to others, and that women are suffering and will suffer more because doctors/ politicians/ other people with agendas/ well-meaning but unaware people are playing along with or manipulating people's delusions and mental illhealth.

Outstanding post fractalplimsoll.

2002- It is a measure of the urgency and desperation of their situation that they frequently seek surgery to make their fantasy real

2018- It is a measure of the urgency and desperation of their situation that they seek to brainwash the entire world to make their fantasy real

DH met someone recently who is a psychiatrist. She started out as a plastic surgeon, board certified in the US and practiced for a few years. She said that she realised that a huge number of her elective patients were trying to cure a psychological issue with surgery and she was more interested in the underlying psychological issues so she switched.

You wonder how the whole world has managed to go insane in such a short space of time.
Trans ideology is so obviously a fantasy.

Dr Az Hakeem recently published this book TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria

I had a quick look at that book which seems a broad (possibly neutral which would be nice) look at a broad range of issues around transgender issues.
In the Kindle preview he says, refreshingly:

GENDER

Unlike ‘sex’, which is a biological characteristic manifested in bodies and determined by chromosomes, ‘gender’ is a psychosocial construct without any location in the body. Gender relates to psychological, behavioural, and social characteristics attributed to a particular sex, as perceived by a person or the society they live in. It is my opinion that gender has no biological or genetic basis within the individual, and is reliant on a societal context in order to have meaning, although I am sure plenty of other gender specialists may disagree.

I’ve ordered the paperback. Will report back.

This is incredibly interesting. I'd love to hear what the ex-Portman doctors have to say now, (if they respond). Thank you so much for finding and sharing this.

That actually made me feel really sad. Yes I get it.
Changing the outside to try and change the inside never works.

I

But does it? Do those changes made to the body actually have a relieving effect? By my understanding, many people who transition report that they do feel significantly better for doing so, hence the NHS funding for treatment.

I am another who's very much in the MN mainstream in not believing that a person can change sex. But I have never thought that transition wasn't a real option for some adults and that it has a powerful effect. I see it as both an individual psychological response but also a cultural response to horrific crimes, bullying and . I do think it is both brave and interesting - almost a Houdini-like escape for the traumatised individual - 'you did what you did to my sexed body, but that body no longer exists and I am living another life - fuck you.' Reminds me of that Roald Dahl story, which was publicised a lot around the time of James Bulger's murder, about the boy who escaped his bullies by growing swan's wings and flying away.

It is my opinion that gender has no biological or genetic basis within the individual, and is reliant on a societal context in order to have meaning,

This is the gender critical position.

BarrackerBarmer

It's fantastic that you've unearthed that. The content is unsurprising, since I think it makes perfect sense.

It's certainly something that can be referred to.

ya i remember clinicians in gender services back then, most of them were spending all there time making careers for themselves and asking you near impossible questions and expecting you to be separated from your partner to find full employment before you could progress to tratment in the NHS, while also running private clinics where they would treat you without the wait for a cost. They set themselves up as the experts in there field and anyone who challenged there view was reported. The younger clinicians who were coming through who actually wanted to help trans people get treatment were usually vitoed at panels where clinicians decided your treatment without you.

I have a psychiatrist friend who works at the Portman (albeit not on 'gender' issues), I shall ask him what he and his colleagues think.

Something obviously anti-trans from the era of Section 28 has been dug out and is being passed off and discussed as though it is still current and relevant today. That is the sort of thing which gets the FWR section on Mumsnet a bad reputation among the LGBTI community.