Royal College of Psychiatrists Statement

I think Jaycee is someone we need onside.
We do keep saying on these threads that we sympathise with "genuine" transsexual/ transgender people. Our issue is with those who for a variety of reasons, want to exploit gender self ID as currently proposed, and threaten women. Jaycee, have a peaceful and happy holiday.

Jaycee - without typing another several thousand words, can you:

a) define "gender identity" in one, objective and unequivocal sentence?

b) define "gender" as something distinct from biological sex in one, objective and unequivocal sentence?

c) confirm that you realise these terms are already used in law (GRA 2004 and EA 2010) but without the adequate definitions as set out in a) and b) that would be needed for good law?

Because when Barrack asked you that, you responded with hundreds of words about yourself. That's not helpful; it's deflection.

That's fine,Langcleg.

You win

I will toodle off as these threads usually drive away trans people who try to help.

By tomorrow you will no doubt post that none of us ever try to answer your questions patiently and all just want to argue and fight and change your life.

I know when it is pointless.

borntobe, yes we do seem to be in accord there.

There is no logic in being transsexual. It is just something you are.

I cannot imagine anyone aspiring towards it.

What sane person would volunteer to live with this festering insidiously inside of you and gathering power during the years of childhood when you should be enjoying life?

Instead of looking forward to adulthood and tomorrow you are overwhelmed by what seems to be an impossible, ridiculous but all too real need to transform yourself into something you are only too aware will always be an approximation.

But this is eating away inside of you and even though you fully see the absurdity and understand the profundity that you are forever giving up the chance of having children (as it meant that 100% back then and that hurt like hell) then you have no real choice in the matter. You just have to bridge that gap between inner self and body as best you can.

Every transsexual I ever talked to would happily have gone through any transformation possible to let them have periods or to have children. Many of us volunteered for experimental, sometimes dangerous surgery that we were well aware was going to be painful.

They did not let you do this unless they were sure you understood the risks and were realistic about the outcome. I often saw doctors almost shaking their heads in disbelief and then sadness at seeing someone apparently sane and intelligent and well aware of the limitations still adamant they would take any time as their true self after surgery we all knew could shorten our lives.

You will see transsexual women volunteering any day soon for womb transplants and ovary transplants and someone alive today will be the first trans woman to give birth (by caesarean).

This is not remotely a logical condition. It is very much a driven one.

Whilst you may hear a lot about self identification and wanting to express themselves as this or that I cannot still looking back figure out what makes me know I had no choice but to do what I did despite everything.

And now with 100% certainty I did the right thing and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Jaycee - because you completely ignored Barrack's point and typed reams of irrelevant stuff about you. This whole debate is all about what makes a woman and how the word gender and the term gender identity relate to that and Barrack's challenge about the definition of legal terms is vital to the preservation of women's rights. You did not define gender or gender identity - and Barrack's point is that nobody ever does.

That's why.

Langcleg, when have I said my discomfort has anything to do with women? I have never asked anyone of women. Except to be allowed to get on with my life now my problem had been resolved.

Which is what I and others did do. For many, many years up to 2004 with no legal recognition which was granted by the UK after other countries had already and more or less under duress from European courts. Though with the support of doctors who had studied this problem for many years.

I accepted the fact that it meant I could never marry my partner. I accepted the fact that I was paid as a woman a lower income whilst having to wait 5 years longer to get my pension. I accepted the need to give up my work and become a full time carer for 14 years because I could and my brother couldn't.

Where here was I imposing anything onto or asking anything of women?

Though I should add most women have always been totally open, welcoming and accommodating. I have personally never had anything to the contrary.

Nor am I 'defining' anything, particularly gender identity. As I said I am using terms that people seem familiar with to try to help understanding as just saying don't know or I cannot express it in words, as I often have, is not considered acceptable.

I have not once tried to force words on anyone or change words or descriptions or define anything.

For 45 years nobody anywhere had referred to me as a man. Yet repeatedly on this forum many of you have called me that. And I have not once argued or complained.

How do I know my dysphoria is the same as everyone's? I don't and have not suggested I do. I know very few trans people and all are transsexuals I met over 40 years ago and only one have a known as a friend ever since. From talking to them (and, of course, seeing what others describe on here) I have some inkling.

But I can only ever tell what I experienced. That's all I have done on here. I am not an agitator or activist and have no desire to be. I just want to try to help bring a little insight by description. Nothing more.

I have no idea where you think I am trying to create a law or speak for activists. I am not doing either. Just telling what happened and how I feel.

How you choose to take it is entirely up to you.

Jaycee - yes - I understood that you came from a transsexual perspective and that if you used the word gender it was used appropriately and not conflated with sex - I should have made that clear in my post. Others though do make that mistake.

I wonder if my perspective is nearer to yours than some of the other posters simply due to age. As I said earlier with regard to the transsexual person I knew in the 70s, though we used the word transsexual, no one actually thought they were changing into a woman, just a better "approximation" (can't think of a better word) of one. My only problem was bafflement at why on earth anyone born a man would want to be a woman as for half the month I was crippled with cramps and bleeding and for another week nuts with PMDD.

borntobequiet - it is not the mistake of transsexual ideology, though.

That is the point I have been trying to make without perhaps unfairly seeking to create a 'real trans' versus 'not real trans' divergence.

I have had quite a bit of flak from some transgender people on other forums who see this as my intention.

And it really isn't. I don't know what causes either kind of being trans, or whether they are different causes or different degrees of the same cause, or just changes in society that have shifted focus. Or generational in that many transsexuals transitioned long ago and so have become realistic with time or by not being activists.

Plus there likely will be overlap and cases where the generalisations are not followed.

What I am saying is that the way that transsexual and transgender people interact with society seems to be noticeably different and related to big differences in the way the two groups see things.

Which may be something someone should be looking into as it seems quite stark and might illuminate the search for causes or resolutions if better understood.

Those who transition physically in the old 'sex change' way of talking appear not to be conflating sex and gender. We know the biological limits of sex and what can be changed and that we had to accept gender was being reassigned not sex changed. But the focus was still very much through physical adaptation to better fit in, because fitting in, getting on with being what we regarded our true selves to be and contributing to society, living happily and not causing a fuss or demanding anything back was all part of the major physical transformation we were willing to go through to achieve those goals.

These were once called 'transsexuals' because the focus very much was body and sex not gender and mind. There seem to have been a small percentage of people with this problem through history and in all cultures. So it does not seem to be based on gender stereotypes because these change with time and are different around the world. That there are still around a couple of hundred cases per year in the UK versus not much less 50 years back shows this is a pretty consistent thing not exploding in numbers as a modern fad as has been perceived.

However, there does seem to be another category of what are usually now all just called transgender people who do see this as rooted through gender identity and self expression and who appear to have less acceptance of gender and sex being different and so have been vocally fighting to change perceptions and definitions.

For them gender expression is the goal and not necessarily any physical transformation. Presumably as sex and gender are conflated so why bother changing body if you can just chanfe gender expression. Few want surgery and none want to be regarded as having any kind of medical condition and seek self identification to declare their gender without anyone else being involved.

The numbers here appear to be much higher (at least 50 times v transsexuals and possibly more) and do seem to have increased significantly in recent years.

So instead of say 200 transsexuals per year seeking medical aid there are now 10,000 + transgender people per year coming forward - and 6000 registered (with a GRC) versus up to as many as 600,000 who now wish to register via self ID.

It is easy to perceive the above as me suggesting these are two different problems or two different causes. But all I am doing is describing how things are. You draw your own conclusions here.

I am not suggesting that those seeking self ID and to avoid medical assessment should not be granted rights.

But I do think they have to be aware of the reasons why women in particular and society as a whole will likely equate unwillingness to be assessed and want legal recognition by saying so as fair enough if it has more safeguards and protections against what can go wrong in case someone nefarious slips through the net.

It probably does not matter whether transsexuals and wider transgender people have different causes or different depths of dysphoria associated with the same cause.

Women are going to have far more difficulty accepting and granting access to someone not wanting to change their body and express as a woman whilst being allowed to be still physically male and worry this might well invite the occasional criminally minded interloper using ease of access to self ID and a lack of gatekeeping to transition for reasons other than those stated on the declaration.

It is hard to argue that anyone with devious intent might be deterred by having to be medically assessed, undergo psychological counselling, transition and live two years in the gender role whilst contributing to society and being regarded as mentally stable - let alone going through any physical transition, which, whilst not necessary under current rules are evaluated when the panel decide on granting recognition.

And if all of these things are replaced by simply declaring who they are on line that one or two might think this provides an opportunity.

Really that's all I am saying.

Jayceedove - you're describing dysphoria or body dysmorphia.

I think all of us, including Barrack, have great sympathy with such a body integrity disorder. But... but but but but but - your discomfort has nothing to do with women. It may well have to do with society's prescriptions for acceptable social roles for male humans, but your personal discomfort cannot be a legal definition of "gender" or "gender identity" to which women are also subject.

How do you know your experience of dysphoria is the same as anyone else's?

And besides, you may well be defining "gender identity" as a synonym of dysphoria. But you know as well as anyone here that transactivism has no such definition. Transactivism defines "gender identity" as each person's subjective declaration - unless of course, they are a "cis" woman, in which case "gender identity" is imposed on them whether they like it or not.

No offence, but what you personally have decided is a "gender identity" is of no relevance to Barrack's point - you can't legislate for something that has no objective definition. And if you do, your law will be a bad one.

@Jayceedove's use of the word gender in her post was fine, in its meaning of "appertaining to the feminine".
Humans do seem to have an innate sense of gender when naming things in a number of languages, so gender as a perception exists.
The mistake is in thinking that it can be precisely defined, or that it is synonymous with sex, which is the mistake of trans ideology.

Spoonless, it is not as simple as saying did you feel female or not just male? When this first starts so early you don't really get the difference in the way you do as an adult. So you don't wake up one day and say you are a girl. Or at least, I didn't. Though some trans kids these days seem to possibly because sex and gender are now taught and understood much younger than they were in the 50s.

You know it is in that general area and you get clues along the way I suppose you could say that gradually points towards the realisation it is based around the boy/girl polarity.

When you first figure it out you sort of feel as if you ARE a girl and for some reason God has given you the wrong body. I remember crying myself to sleep praying to wake up 'fixed'. But once you start to better grasp the realities you come to terms with the reality of biology and so asking God to correct the mistake drives you to a doctor to ask if they can please. Even if you have no idea that is possible - because remember in those days schoolkids did not know there was such a thing as 'sex change surgery' or 'transgender children'. As they do today.

So it is an impossible question to answer because it is not as concrete as feeling like a girl (what is that anyway?) or 'not feeling like a boy. All you really feel is a polarity or mismatch of two halves and as you realise the two halves are boy/girl you pin labels around those I suppose.

I have noticed recently with the rising number of transgender children that I can guess which of those are really transsexual and are probably going to have surgery when an adult (child surgery does and should not happen).

When that moment comes that they have to make aware their self (seems to be any point between pre school and in primary school - not much later) a boy will start off by saying they ARE a girl to incredulous looks ore disbelief and 'no you're not'. The insistence goes on but at some point it dawns on them that what to them was just a fact based on this inner awareness is not quite what it seems and is less a statement of who others surely can see that they are and more an aspiration to become what apparently they are not and they start to say I am GOING TO BE a girl.

This is not a difference in awareness or understanding or a lessening of the dysphoria, it is just growing old enough to see the root cause as not personal (your reality is the only reality and others around you must surely see what you see) but from a wider perspective (your reality was just your reality and others are explaining the actual reality so now you have to shift focus and BECOME what you are not rather than convince everyone that you are that already).

Anyone who reaches puberty without expressing any of this may well have something else going on or are luckily not so deeply dysphoric. As I cannot see how anyone can get that far without it being noticed by others or you yourself not having to tell someone and seek help.

Because by puberty you are going to know you have a heck of a problem and that it is in some sense to do with your physical self not being what your inner self says it is so self evidently you should be seeking help and advice to try to correct that imbalance.

Barracker - it is simply because there are no words to describe what is a kind of ineffable inner state that you have felt since you were old enough to think that the problems you see as problems exist. I don't see them as problems of reality just of trying to explain what I doubt anyone who has not experienced it can grasp.

So if I use terms that you take to mean something more, like gender identity, it is just because if I call it a sense of something inside saying 'this is wrong' you call it not being explained.

I have no more idea WHAT it was than you do, only that it was. But you are placing your own meaning onto gender identity when I am only using it to describe some sense of mismatch.

In previous threads I have tried to say something like it is a feeling you have deep within that is like an itch you cannot scratch or when you just know something is not quite right with your body but you cannot figure out why. It starts out like a sense of something off inside and you ignore it but it does not go away, Then it starts to be a but more insistent and you think, something is not right here, but what is it? Then you can work out whether it is your back or tummy or whatever that does not feel quite right.

By now you know it is in some sense physical and you cannot keep it to yourself and you talk to someone and when this nagging inside increases you go to see a doctor and the quest to find out what it is begins.

Between about 3 and 8 I was in that position of it developing like that and it was never concrete enough to say what it was.

Though possibly had I not been so free to do as I wished and not be pigeon holed into doing things then I might have realised earlier it was in some way sex or gender related (I am not using those terms as I understand a difference just trying to avoid saying sex as I know the literal reality of biology but it DOES feel like your biology is wrong and so you look for some other word that's all).

It was my primary school teacher being aware that I liked writing and had created stories and was keen to foster that who first noticed (I hadn't) that they were written from a female perspective. He realised this was odd and, as my mum worked on school dinners, told her about this and asked her to keep an eye on me.

I did not find this out till I was about 14. But it was a sign of how gradually you became apparent what was the heart of the problem. And it always felt physical and was a drive to adapt the body to 'cure' this problem. Hence all the times you hear stuff like 'born in the wrong body' or 'twin spirit' or 'changing sex'.

They are clichés and medically wrong but they are clichés because they match well what is being experienced. I have consciously tried to avoid using them because I know they offend. And most transsexuals know they are just descriptions and not actual reality as we are only too acutely aware of the limitations of physical transition.

However, you want a better description, but finding one that is not too 'fuzzy' or offensively inaccurate is not easy.

You see it in terms of a soft mind based expression of personality sense. And I do agree that in many cases of self identification and no interest in changing physically it may well be.

But those who are transsexual, fewer in number it seems, based on my own experience and the few others I have talked to over the years, regard it more as a physical thing that seeks resolution through biology and not psychology.

Which again I stress is not to say we are claiming sex change happens in literal reality. We know it doesn't. But to us it is sex change we need to resolve the dysphoria as expressing gender or self differently without physical change is not going to remove the cause.

Sorry this really is like trying to describe the indescribable.

Probably

Tbh @Acorninspring I avoided the community like the plague until recently because I what's refusing to admits I was stuck with this disease, so I'm only really familiar with Phoenix Rising at its most awesome.

@Jayceedove So can you say, did you feel female or just not-male?

@spoonless yes personally involved unfortunately..... Maybe I didn't explain well - I totally agree with what you wrote above. I'm thinking of maybe 2/3 self diagnosed 'extreme activists' from quite a while ago (not related to the PACE trial, much before that). I guess I was just trying to say, that having such a different reception from those in power, points to the power that Tims in particular hold. Still not sure I've explained what I was trying to get at! Maybe another eloquent poster will manage better. Or maybe I need to rethink.

I was nodding along to your post until this:

if there is something wonky in the settings that attach some kind of gender identity to biological sex in parts of your brain then it might well feel like a kind of fuzzy awareness of that sense of mismatch. Which is how it was.

I wish I could get you to engage and not avoid this absolutely critical question

What do you imagine you mean when you say
Gender?
And what do you mean by
Identity?

This is critical to every claim made by anyone who believes transgender is an actual thing in its own right, more than being a rejection of one's own body.

You don't stop short at the claim of "I rejected the reality of my own body"
I accept this is a psychological experience with a potential cause.

You take it one step further.
You claim some knowledge or experience or feeling of the opposite sex. You call it gender and you claim commonality with females/girls/women.

It's this that has to be refuted. Your idea that feeling a rejection of who YOU are means that you are IN ANY WAY similar to what I AM.

As I say to my children: Use your words. Explain it.

Barracker, how can it 'effect my position'? I don't have a position.

I don't know what caused me to be transsexual. Only that I felt it inside of me very young and by about 8 I understood what it was that I was feeling - that I was physically male but with some kind of inner instinct knew that was 'not right'.

It had nothing to do with those I played with (I played with both boys and girls) or games I liked to play (they were quite a mixture and I also played alone a lot but was fine with that as not many kids really 'got me') or toys (equally varied).

I never cross dressed before transition outside a few times as a very young child because it quickly felt like a pretence and just felt false. I was seeking a kind of unity. I have no idea what kind of unity. Or why. Just that is how it felt.

I had a good family upbringing, great parents who were really understanding for that era, no sisters. So there is no obvious social factors or pressure involved and for years doctors asked me about these things seeking one. And my parents were quizzed too a lot as I am sure the doctors were looking for anything in that direction.

So, again, as I have freely admitted, I don't know how it happened, maybe psychological - but if it was it has to have started in very early life - before about 3 so before any of my childhood memories as it was otherwise there from the get go - or physical - and again, if so, then exactly how or where as it is something not yet identified.

The research into brain state pattern differences - whilst not explaining what causes being this way - feels the most right as a way to a solution because if there is something wonky in the settings that attach some kind of gender identity to biological sex in parts of your brain then it might well feel like a kind of fuzzy awareness of that sense of mismatch. Which is how it was.

I have said that I do not believe you can or do change biological sex. I understand that reality and always have. But I do believe that what makes you who you are is a consequence of more than just biology. And that most often that is not realised because whatever else is involved in the process, and whatever you call it, tends to match up in most people and so never creates a dissonance.

One day I am absolutely sure someone will discover a cause and maybe even a fix for that cause.

For now all I know is that something was really there and it was powerful, burrowing inside your mind telling you to get this rectified. Hence the need to get medical help. It was always focused as a problem to be resolved and not a choice of any kind.

I can only report these things and if they are not good enough for some on here then I am not going to make things up for them. Because I am as much in the dark as you.

What I do know is that psychoanalysis failed , drugs failed, reinforcement therapy failed, and the only thing that worked was transition and physical body modification to close the gap between that body/mind divergence.

I am not telling anyone what to say or do anything about that. Only that this certainly - in some cases at least - is not a made up delusion or some design on conquering womanhood by men.

It is basically a rather insidious malfunction of the mind or body that in my case was only resolved with the professional help that I got.

Which is why I believe anyone who might have this needs proper medical assessment first and not just to fill in a form and become someone else. If that is what they want to do in the end then I would not want to stop them live their lives. But if they have what I had then I cannot imagine they would not seek medical help as soon as possible and want to find out what was wrong and what could be done about it.

But it really makes little difference to me now what causes this to happen. I

What BarrackerBarmer said.

The whopping difference between the ME/CFS analogy and trans is that there is an objective definition of pain/fatigue/exhaustion/depression. How a person experiences those things is subjective, yes, and establishing proof of self reported pain is difficult. But we all have a mutual understanding of pain. No one says it doesn't exist, because we've all experienced it and we have a frame of reference. There's a definition of pain. If I experience the definition of pain, I call what i am feeling 'pain'.

'Feeling' male or female is nonsensical. There is no way to feel ovaries you have never had or chromosomes you don't possess. A biological existence is not a feeling.

@Acorninspring. I agree the parallels are very extensive but I see it a bit differently. (Are you an observer or are you personally involved?)

The death threats and harassment are scare stories that have been exaggerated by ideologically-committed scientists to silence criticism whilst they pursue incompetent and misleading research that has caused huge damage. The treatments we oppose consist of a gaslighting process resembling conversion therapy that seeks to convince us the illness is an illusion; it doesn't work and it frequently makes people worse. Most of the "extreme activists" are actually well-reasoned and very courteous scientific critics.

The truth is gradually coming out now. This is an excellent summary:
www.statnews.com/2016/09/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-pace-trial/

As to the power, maybe trans activists just have more energy :D And an identity worth celebrating. We just have a horrible disease we desperately want to be rid of. It's never glamorous.

"Have a little compassion/we just don't know what it is."

It doesn't exist.
Logic takes you there to this conclusion, even without factoring in the evidence that there is no 'woman identity'.

We're adults. Not the audience in a Peter Pan play clapping furiously 'I do believe in fairies' in case a fairy dies because we didn't believe hard enough.

Society shouldn't be changing laws, medicine shouldn't be medicating, surgeons shouldn't be operating if the best anyone can attempt to offer is 'its too hard to explain, so I won't'.

Even flat earthers will have a crack at trying to explain their beliefs and to demonstrate why they think nasa has it wrong.

The English language is rich enough that we can find words to explain concepts.

I've never in my life seen such a nonsense word used with such authority by so many supposedly learned people and with such enormous impact, yet with no ACTUAL MEANING.

If the question 'what do you mean' makes people defensive, avoidant and obstructive, it is certain that the true meaning is something they want to avoid stating, obstruct you from hearing, because they know it attacks and destroys their position.

What is gender?
How is it different from sex?
How does it manifest?
What are the characteristics?
How can it be a group category if it is completely subjective to each individual?
What is meant by 'identify as'?

These are not difficult questions. Everybody can reach the answers.

@spoonless I've thought recently that there is an interesting comparison here to people with ME/CFS. It was considered very important to believe people (in part because of the medical culture etc), and this did lead to a degree of 'self identification' being accepted amongst the community. However, there also ended up being a very small number of fairly extreme (self identified as having ME) activists. At one point, a scientist who ventured into ME/CFS research received death threats I think (when results didn't match with what the activists wanted). So it seems to me that there are parallels. However, at that point, the narratives diverge, because the extreme activists certainly didn't gain traction, and if anything, the whole of the ME community was blamed and negatively affected and lost credence. Because they don't have any power as a group. To wield the influence that they currently have, tras have to come from a group that holds power in society. Otherwise surely the narrative would look more like that of people with ME/CFS ?

Sorry, missed out the bit about our understanding of the need for our coworker's surgery was to be able to fit more easily into a female role. Neither they nor we ever thought it involved "becoming a woman".

Jaycee, thank you. I worked with someone in the 70s who was transsexual and was preparing for surgery. They were someone of physically very male appearance who had previously worked in an almost exclusively men's job. I'm sure they had many difficulties to contend with, but not among female coworkers who were most accepting and I think went over the top with advice about clothes and makeup...the customer facing part of the job could have been tricky but I can't recall any unpleasant instances. I lost touch with them, but often wonder what happened to my friend and hope they had a contented and settled life.

Jaycee thank you very much for your post. It helped my understanding.

However I reckon that for the general public, transsexuals' sex reassignments did more to dislodge gender from biology than all the feminist dialectics and postgraduate gender studies in the world. Do you see any mileage in that view?

I sort of do

How can reinforcing gender roles help to remove the concept of gender from people's lived experience? Sex reassignment (I assume you mean surgery) simply reinforces the idea that if you want to appear/live in a certain way you need to have one particular type of body. That is the opposite of the feminist argument.

I see what you're saying about reinforcing stereotypes, but to someone who hasn't thought much about gender at all, hearing about or meeting someone transgender does make you think about what it means to be a man or a woman and how much that has to do with biology.

There is another thread on here at the moment (started as a response to Shon Faye) with pictures and clips of lots of celebrities who didn't/don't conform to gender stereotypes (e.g. Boy George, David Bowie), I guess they probably did more to help to question stereotypes, whereas transgender people make others think about what gender means.

I haven't figured out a clear opinion on what I think gender means myself yet. I don't have a strong inner feeling of gender - but then I'm not the most self aware person you're ever likely to meet. I am swayed by some of the evidence of phyiological brain differences, although as far as I'm aware the studies have all been in adults and it will be different to pick apart the innate from environmental influences. I'm thinking of the measurable changes in the physiology of the brains of London cabbies when they do 'the knowledge'...

Clearly there is strong evidence for the influence of socialization. That definitely has a major role, but I'm not convinced there is no physiological influence at all.

So, unless someone can provide a clear, non-circular definition of gender, I remain worried about legislating on the basis of people's feelings about it.

(disclaimer, I am very new to thinking very much about feminism. I would have always claimed to be a feminist, but confess to not having thought about it at all deeply until getting involved in this debate.)

Jaycee Thank you for giving us context & sharing.