Royal College of Psychiatrists Statement

I have just read the document. As a parent of a trans-identifying teenager, I thought it was OK. Note that it is a not a document on medical treatment for gender dysphoria, it is about how to deal with people who regard themselves to be of, and wish to be accepted as, the opposite biological sex.

I expect the RCoP are treading a very fine line in the face of activism, and doing it very carefully. It includes the need to take into account "parental concerns"; calls out the rush to social transition for gender non-conforming young children; it objects to conversion therapy but is careful to single out certain aspects of conversion therapy as being abhorrent, etc.

However, it fails to even acknowledge the massive rise in adolescents identifying as the opposite sex (mostly girls) and also overlaps with autism etc which is a glaring omission.

I am hoping that my child comes to realise in their own time, and unpressured by anyone, that denying your own biology and being a lifelong medical patient is not the best way to life their life. If that doesn't happen, however, I do not want them to be considered for the rest of their life as mentally disordered simply for that fact alone.

@poster Kneedeepinunicorns
For me the Wessely school is not about proving that ME is psychiatric so that they can prove ME isn't "real", but about trying to prove that ME is psychiatric so that they can prove that psychiatric diseases are real. It's that way round, but unfortunately they picked the wrong horse in that even under the broadest most enlightened possible definition of psychiatry, ME is not psychiatric.

I honestly think all these professional people and organisations hopping brainlessly onto this TRA bandwagon will end up getting sued by the people whose health and emotional wellbeing is going to be (possibly permanently) fucked over back in the real world as this idiocy becomes widespread service delivery.

'' I don't think that's what it means, is it? You don't identify with, you identify as. If you identify with that makes it sound like you're something other than that thing. ''

Let me try this. I identify as alive. I identify as 5'7'. I identify as long-sighted. I identify as a parent. I identify as a wife. I identify as an aunt. I identify as a sister. I identify as a daughter. If you went around saying you identified as the above, people would think you're bonkers and rightly so. How can you identify as a parent for example? Are you not a parent but you think you are, are you step-parent, do you act in a parental capacity to somebody who is not your child? These are the implications from using ''i identify as'', as opposed to '' I am''. In the words of the immortal creator who we now must all believe in on account of those who have a strong sincere belief in an immortal creator, ''I am that I am''.

I am failing at quotes today.

Depression is a "real" thing - it's a thing which we're pretty sure exists, and we can evidence that by the fact that lots of people report a particular feeling in conjunction with particular behaviours; that's how we know depression is a real thing. Similarly I suppose ASD or sensory processing disorder (I don't know about these things incidentally, it's just someone else mentioned ASD).

@rat In order to be diagnosed with the above, you generally need to tick a few boxes in the diagnosis criteria. Are these psychiatrists of yours sitting with a diagnosis criteria for the condition of womanhood that they check patients off against?

The problem is, as always, that they’ve confused biological sex and socially constructed gender roles.

If we got rid of gender for children, then there’d be no Robles here about behaviour. Except for the deeply dysphoric young people.

I know someone in this situation - who will publicly say they wish they did not have a penis. Not presenting or braving in any kind of female or feminine way, just deeply deeply body dysphoric. Very painful, and from all I can see, genuinely so, but only makes me think that he needs careful and extended therapy (talking therapy probably) to be relieved of his unease with his body - much as a someone with anorexia would receive - not irreversible surgery.

For all the virtue signalling about the non-binary, how much more binary can you be than to divide the world into transgender and “cis”gender?

The RCoP has always had a tenuous grasp of female biology. Witness Prof J Studd's attempts to make them understand that PND is an hormonal, not a psychiatric illness.
www.studd.co.uk/postnataldepression.php
Good name, though.

It raises an interesting question in my mind. Most of the women I know identify as people. Is this true for the majority, I wonder, or are we the outliers. Do men identify as men or as people?

That lets the medical and insurance community off the hook to treat transgender identified people and makes it an exclusively political issue.
"Pilate washes his hands in public."

Fair enough to take umbridge I mean.

Assassinated I think by rights they should be the same people replying yes to both; because the second simply means "who, when asked, replies "yes" to being a woman", and the first of course means "are you a woman"; so logically they're the same thing.

...but given the climate of things these days I'm sure they wouldn't be the same people in practice, not least because loads of women these days seem to take umbridge with the notion of "identifying as" a woman - probably because it implies the severance of womanhood from biological sex. Which is fair enough.

I realise I was unclear, it would be better written as "if you felt like/identified as a woman, man or other".

If you asked "who here is a woman?" and "who here identifies as a woman?", would you expect to get the same people answering yes to that all the time?

RatRolyPoly wrote - "I'm definitely not making a direct connection between transgenderism and homosexuality (yes, yes, one is a sexual orientation), but I am genuinely curious as to why our inability to currently identify transgenderism in the brain means it can't be something present from birth."

Today, heterosexual people everywhere are sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex. Homosexual people everywhere are sexually attracted to people of the same sex. It was the same 1,000 years ago and it will be the same 1,000 years in the future.

In brain difference studies, sexuality is a relatively static target in terms of the behaviour of people in both time and place. It still seems to be proving very difficult to find brain differences, even after decades of searching.

A male child who likes kicking a ball is currently gender conforming in Brazil, the UK or Germany. If he spends time in other less-football-centric societies, e.g. the USA, he is at risk of being assessed there as gender non-conforming, because different gender stereotypes prevail in those societies. Nowadays, he is at risk of his behaviour in less-football-centric societies being used to diagnose him as transgender, at least for the duration of his visit. If he then returns to his home country, he is suddenly gender conforming again. At home, is he still transgender or is he not transgender again, or is he something else? How will scientists control their experiments to cover such scenarios? Supporters of gender identity expect brain studies to explain this gender conformity and non-conformity as "nature" not "nurture".

In brain difference studies, gender identity is a moving target because it varies with time and place. I think gender identity brain studies have to control for more variables than are involved in brain studies of sexuality. I'm not impressed with the quality of gender identity experimental controls that I've seen so far. I don't expect gender identity to be found in the brain in the near or medium future, but I won't be surprised if some people claim this prematurely.

Sorry, like not with in my first paragraph.

I suppose if you were being asked about gender you'd be asked if you felt/identified like a woman, man or other.

I don't think that's what it means, is it? You don't identify with, you identify as. If you identify with that makes it sound like you're something other than that thing.

The notion of "identifying yourself as" something just means you've done something to let other people know what you are.

So if someone says "can all the women please put up their hands" and you put up your hand, you've identified yourself as a woman. You identify as a woman.

Likewise if you tick the "woman" box on a form, or answer the question with "I'm a woman"; then you will have identified as a woman. And a transman would say, "i'm a man".

That's all it means isn't it? Or is it something specific I'm not aware of?

I would probably say I felt more masculine than feminine but I would definitely say I'm a woman. But really the whole gender thing is nonsense!

If you pushed me to define my own gender, I'd have to go for gender neutral

I would say stop framing the question so that I can't answer it meaningfully.

If you asked me my sex, I would say female/woman.

If you asked me my gender, I would need a text box so that I could reply - Do you mean my gender identity? If so, I don't have one because gender identities do not exist. Do you mean what role does society try to force on me whether I want it or not? If so, gender would be feminine but I'm doing my best to reject it.

All of this is framing the question so that people cannot dissent or deviate from a pre-set ideology. Not on.

gerbil, I'm with you. I feel very uncomfortable in 'feminised' (for want of a better phrase) clothing- it is alien and I feel like I am in fancy dress. I am a woman though.

" "are you a man, a woman or "other"?" - is this asking about your sex or your gender identity? Man/woman are descriptors related to sex, "other" would apply to intersex people.

I suppose if you were being asked about gender you'd be asked if you felt/identified like a woman, man or other.

A former colleague has been asked to co-sign a letter (along with what seems to be a large group of doctors) asking for further clarity on a number of matters laid out in the statement.

I haven’t seen a draft.

If you pushed me to define my own gender, I'd have to go for gender neutral

This is really interesting to think about, I was just wondering what I'd think about myself. I feel kind of neutral I suppose, but then if someone asked me outright, "are you a man, a woman or "other"?", I'd be answering "woman!", no doubt!

So I guess that's me identifying myself as that gender.

I guess I identify myself as a woman in society in other ways too; some stereotypical ways like wearing my hair long, and some less so like not wearing makeup (I don't wear makeup not because I don't feel "womanly" about it, but rather that I like being the kind of woman who sticks two fingers up at slathering expensive shit on my face). So I suppose I do "feel like a woman" in the things that I do.

I'm really trying to comprehend how it would feel to answer the question "are you a man, a woman or other?" with "a man" and really mean it... Perhaps it would be the difference between my not wearing makeup now and feeling like a "cool woman" about it, and not wearing makeup because I desperately didn't want anyone to mistake me for a woman because I didn't feel I was one.

I really do find it interesting trying to imagine life in someone else's shoes.

If I was made to wear hyper-feminine clothes, high heels and make up I'd definitely feel discomfort. I've often described it as thinking I'd probably feel pretty much the same as most men would if they were made to dress like that too.