From Country Squire Magazine of all unlikely places

It just seems a remarkable lack of compassion for a trans person struggling with issues related to their experience RatRolyPoly.

I did realise I was being pretty hard-nosed just then actually, but that is because I watched this person leave a poster (frogsoup) shaken and unnerved by their aggressive treatment at the hands of infamousT, and I remember at the time quite how frightened she was.

But I've let that colour my tone.

By all accounts infamousT has a huge amount of strength and resilience, more than most of us could muster I imagine were we faced with what they have been through. I would not dream of taking that away from them in any sense, despite my feelings about their views or my uneasiness over how they place the shifting blame.

*For the longest time it was the transexualism that was their saviour, and the people who didn't accept them in their transexualism were the problem.

Now, apparently, it's transexualism that's all that is evil and the people who don't accept it are the blessed relief.

You'll forgive me for calling that "quite the turnaround"*

But this story (with variation) is quite common amongst detransitioners. It will become more common as chemical/medical/surgical interventions are promoted, as will ensuing exacerbation of mental health issues. Tarquin seems a very troubled person (as well as a very creative and resilient one in other ways) and it is likely that their MH issues preceded transition and have remained after. This is not surprising, or, I believe, uncommon. Are only 'thank the lord I can see whereas before I was blind!' transitioners to be seen as 'real' transitioners and/or supported?

That's a really fair position Quarks and I'm not going to try and move you from that interpretation.

Mine, however, would be more along the lines that this is a prime example of how someone really vulnerable and unhappy, as a last resort after years of trying everything else to find peace, finally took drastic steps to find a way that they could live with themselves.

And that even though that difficult personal choice brought them, in private, greater peace and happiness than they had experiences thus far, the public lack of acceptance, discrimination, misconceptions and outright abuse led this person to hate those that had ever offered this path up as a solution.

But isn't it clear it could so easily have been the solution, were it not for the negative reactions they received? It doesn't seem to me that there are any guarantees that holistic therapy didn't involve transition would have achieved anything at all, and yet there does seem to be evidence in that article alone that the answer for Tarquin could believably have been transition in an accepting society.

Anyway, it's not my place to speculate what could have been, and if Tarquin says it is the transadvocates they now blame for their predicament then I am obliged to accept that as their current worldview. Along with a lot of their other worldviews as they previously accepted here on MN.

It just seems a remarkable lack of compassion for a trans person struggling with issues related to their experience RatRolyPoly.

It's almost like there's a sympathy hierarchy.

Just to clarify - I’m just describing what I’ve observed from following Tarquin / Tamsin on Twitter. I don’t claim to speak for them.

Rat, thanks for the article link. I guess potentially what that article in addition to T’s current position shows is that mental health issues should be compassionately treated in a holistic manner. The whole person and their history should be assessed in a neutral way.

One way of interpreting what has happened to Tarquin / Tamsin is that they had / have issues that were never properly faced and that healthcare professionals never properly assessed. As a result they were never given the support, care and treatment they actually needed.

It appears that transitioning was seen as a panacea and cure all solution and then T was left to it without being actually given real support. Indeed no one seems to have suggested that transition wasn’t a solution but actually something that would make their life even harder.

One might challenge that had they been given proper support when they first presented themselves to healthcare professionals that they could have sidestepped the complications and heartache they have no suffered as a result of transitioning and tackled the real source of their depression and sadness at their life at that time.

Ah.

Tarquin made me do it.

I think it is somewhat surprising to see a trans ally having a go at someone for having a shifting identity.

It's not their shifting identity that I'm interested in, it's who they think are the villains that keeps on changing.

For the longest time it was the transexualism that was their saviour, and the people who didn't accept them in their transexualism were the problem.

Now, apparently, it's transexualism that's all that is evil and the people who don't accept it are the blessed relief.

You'll forgive me for calling that "quite the turnaround".

Rat, you know you are doing a lot of outing and deadnaming and doxxing on this thread, right?

Everything is out there in the public domain, written by Tarquin's own fair hand.

I think it is somewhat surprising to see a trans ally having a go at someone for having a shifting identity

I'm not surprised. Unless trans people walk the walk and talk the talk and sing loudly of rainbows and unicorns they are as ostracised as the rest of us who question the orthodoxy.

Rat, you know you are doing a lot of outing and deadnaming and doxxing on this thread, right?

Which you normally completely condemn.

That link needs a warning for the sodding great picture at the top of the article.

So yeah. Quite the turnaround.

I think it is somewhat surprising to see a trans ally having a go at someone for having a shifting identity.

Thanks for that insight QuarksandLeptons.

Seconded.

They transitioned over ten years ago and now regret that decision and feel very let down by the coercion they feel was exerted on them by those around them in the run up to their decision to transition.

Well that's an interesting turnaround.

In 2012 deciding to transition gave Tamsin/Tarquin the ability, for the first time in their life, not to hate what they saw when they looked in the mirror.

And what drove them to contemplating suicide, in 2012 at any rate, was in fact the discrimination and abuse they faced for being transgender.

So yeah. Quite the turnaround.

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/i-owe-my-life-to-kind-twitter-users-who-rescued-me-from-the-brink-of-suicide-7737388.html

That is such a sad story Quarks.

I'm guessing that there are no groups (charities or whatever) who help people who regret their transition? Or who maybe even struggle to come to terms with the transition?

Presumably the likes of Stonewall wouldn't help?

Thanks for that insight QuarksandLeptons.

I’m familiar with Tarquin/ Tamsin Sutherland from twitter and they definitely have a powerful story to tell.

They transitioned over ten years ago and now regret that decision and feel very let down by the coercion they feel was exerted on them by those around them in the run up to their decision to transition. This includes friends and medical professionals and the wider group who actively promote a trans lifestyle.

My sense of them as a person is that they are intelligent and generally decent (they do have rants on Twitter about things that I would consider conspiracy theories occasionally) but they are very angry about where they have been left in life as a result of the unscientific ideas about changing sex that they feel they were led to believe in.
They now suffer from lots of medical conditions both physical and psychological and they have been the target of intimidation and bullying in real life. They have described how post transition they have been given no support by the state.

Their story is a stark reminder of the real human cost of the current accepted orthodoxy about changing sex. It’s not all unicorns and rainbows. Reality does exist and there are lifetime consequences for individuals. Individuals who are discarded by the group once they no longer go along with the fairytale that biological sex is changeable.

Tamsin writes good articles and was welcomed onto MN earlier this year. Sadly it turned into a car crash. Real shame.

While this might be the only time I ever write this, RatRolyPoly is right on some things in their post above. When Tarquin Sutherland came on here a while back they made comments on a wide range of topics, some of the things they were writing being well outside the mainstream.

Therefore, while this article is worth reading, if you recommend it just keep in mind that the author is prone to writing rather startling things elsewhere.

Me too. I like T but they do think some bonkers things as well as knowing a lot about the evolution of trans culture and disliking the pomo as much as I do.

I thought it was a good article.

Pulled a lot of strands together for people who are perhaps not aware of what has been going on.

While this might be the only time I ever write this, RatRolyPoly is right on some things in their post above. When Tarquin Sutherland came on here a while back they made comments on a wide range of topics, some of the things they were writing being well outside the mainstream.

Therefore, while this article is worth reading, if you recommend it just keep in mind that the author is prone to writing rather startling things elsewhere.

That's an insightful piece of writing. Bookmarked. Thanks.

The very idea of a Conservative government even giving this specious postmodernism the time of day – let alone accepting the language of the linguistic warfare of postmodernism by repeating their mantras and adopting their lexicon – should be enough to dispel any specious notions of this group of people being in any way ‘oppressed’. To the rational eyes of the bipartisan onlooker for whom this bleeding edge of the Culture War has only become recently and starkly apparent, it is plain to see that this tiny group is easily one of THE most powerful that our society has seen in a long, long time – and that they wield that power with a casual disregard for reputations, careers and livelihoods

Absolutely. Spot on.

I'd be surprised if InfamousT wasn't banned to be honest.