Open Letter to Dr Hilary Cass

That's very interesting, and thank you for sharing it. It's good that you feel more right about yourself now, but it is unfortunate that you couldn't just look at yourself as you were and think, 'Not perfect, but it'll do'.

As you say, it is just how you feel, as is Crafty's experience, as is mine. 'Fair play to you', as we say here in Ireland, for acknowledging that it is just anecdotal, and for not presenting your feelings and your experience as something everybody should agree with.

The big problem is that a very small number of very vocal and sometimes violent trans identifying men have somehow turned their anecdotal issues with biology into a disproportionately influential and, I believe, damaging social movement.

Your experience is probably going to be 'read' in that context, which is a pity as you as you have always pointed out that you are not claiming to be a trans spokesperson.

You do understand that reading this, most peoples reaction is "it sounds like seethlaw needs significant mental health support. The absolute last thing she needs is to take puberty blockers or wrong sex hormones that will very likely cause massive physical harm whilst doing nothing to address the mental health issues".

Even if it were proven that there were precisely zero negative side effects I would still be arguing that there is no way that the best path involves affirming poor mental health when we have the option of trying to treat it.

Do you believe that all women who put on makeup do it to conform to stereotypes of femininity?

Well, @MistyGreenAndBlue said: "I only know how it feels to be me." It's the same for me - except "me" is sexed male. Like, literally: my inner vision of myself, ever since I was a little child, had a penis. And when I grew up, it didn't have hips or breasts. It's not that I didn't want them there; it's more that they were bizarre growths that didn't belong. Even to this day, whenever I catch sight of myself in a photo or a mirror, I have a moment of, "Oh, weird!" at the sight of my hips. I don't hate them or anything; I just don't understand what they are doing here.

Gender dysphoria isn't a condition in and of itself. Its a symptom of a mental disorder and can be brought on by many different issues. Finding out what specific issue or issues caused this is surely the first step that needs to be taken before putting kids on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.

So you admit it’s about stereotypes?

'I would feel like a man inside'

What does that mean, though? 'Like a man'?

I don't have one then. The only reason I know I'm a woman is my biology and the way I'm treated in society because of that biology. It's not innate or internal. I have no idea what it means to "feel like a woman" I only know how it feels to be me.

This is the key point. This is where a lot of transpeople who visit this board end up, and it sometimes gets heated because it is two contradictory viewpoints meeting head on.

You believe that men who identify as women, aka transwomen, are women. This is a belief than is not shared by most posters on here, probably because we tend to stick to demonstrable scientific fact as the basis for our opinions about things like sex and gender.
And the demonstrable scientific fact is that if you are born male, that's what you are and that's what you will always be. It is not possible for a human being to change sex.

It's difficult to argue with that scientific fact - I know there are outliers in the scientific world who do, but they are just that: outliers. It will take more than anecdotes from a poster - however sincere and well-meaning - about having an internal sense from childhood that they are in the wrong body to balance out the scientific evidence that human sex is binary and immutable.

Also, men saying they believe they are women is not neutral: it is appropriating an identity that is not theirs, and encroaching on relatively-recently-acquired rights which are specific to women as a social group. The refusal to respect women-only spaces a good example of the negative impact on women of the claim that the group 'women' also has to contain men - a suggestion so obviously illogical that it's amazing it has gained the traction it has.

I don't believe a beard and a flat chest define masculinity. They are merely culturally associated with it. But that's not even the reason I like them on myself.

If you truly believed you were a man, surely it wouldn’t matter what you looked like on the outside?

Indeed. I would feel like a man inside just as much if I dressed and looked like a stereotypical woman. I don't need to look more stereotypically male to feel more man; I just like it better that way. Some people (both men and women) put on makeup because they like what they look like with makeup on. Some people (both men and women) get tattoos for purely esthetic reasons. I grew a beard.

There is evidence that this is not the case for many transitioners. A lot of them come to realise that their problems have not gone away because it was never actually about their body. Some also end up having to face the truth that they haven't actually changed sex and that they are not seen as the opposite sex by the rest of society. It's not a cure. Quite often it just makes things worse.

The real question here I think is, do you accept that for the vast majority of these children this is not the case? They are not dysphoric in the same way you were and don't need to be transitioned? That they should be left to go through puberty and see if the situation resolves as it does in 85% of these cases?
Do you agree that this trial will not prove anything and that therapy and watchful waiting would be a better solution for these kids?

And have you never wondered if you yourself might have reconciled yourself to your sex if you had been given proper therapy and help?

Then your statements are directly contradicting each other. You can’t say you think you look “more male” with those features without also believing that those features are what define masculinity? If you truly believed you were a man, surely it wouldn’t matter what you looked like on the outside? You are a man so no matter how you look, you’re a male?

No? I enjoy the look and feel of myself with a beard and without breasts, but that doesn't mean that I think a man without a beard or with moobs is less of a man, or that a woman with no breasts or with facial hair is less of a woman.

Yet you said you want to look “more male”, so you must do?

How so? I honestly don't care what other people look like, and I don't think that what someone looks like has any impact on their femininity or masculinity.

But whether you consider it or not, you’re leaning into (often very patriarchal) stereotypes.

I can't and won't talk for other trans people, but in my case, it's nothing to do with "you", ie. with other people. It's strictly about myself, about looking like a more male version of me. I don't consider anybody else's femininity or masculinity, at all.

It’s not a belief. ‘Trans women’ ARE men. People who deceive about their sex are deceitful.

I think the thing that really gets my back up with the “trans” movement is why is everything they do to change themselves based on looks? Facial feminisation surgery, boob jobs, hair extensions etc etc.

Why is my femininity suddenly decided by how I look? Why is that what makes us women? It really unsettles me

Do you believe in honesty in friendships? I do. By ‘trans’ you mean ‘the opposite sex to that being presented’. In your case male. Yes I would be very much upset if I found that a friend had lied about something so fundamentally basic about themselves. That’s how friendships tend to operate. Honesty.

One of the main reasons you said you were trans is because you wanted to be friends with the opposite sex. If you made friends with someone you thought was the opposite sex to their actual sex, why would you not be disappointed? It was a major factor in your life changing decision.

Authenticity is something that fascinates me, though I admit what really gets me interested is the concept of authenticity in the arts (especially in music).

When talking about authenticity one can mean almost anything.

If you were brought up by a stay at home mum and a bricklayer father is it "authentic" to your upbringing to choose to work in the building trade and have a traditional family set-up? What if you're really good at school and love philosophy - is it inauthentic to go to Oxford, or is it inauthentic to settle for the building trade like your dad?

It seems to me that truth and honesty are the important things, and "authenticity" is much more about how others perceive you as opposed to anything that can be pinned down.

It seems to me that people who self describe as living authentically tend to be people who claim that their self perception matches their feelings (eg, "I am a man and I feel like a woman - by putting on a dress I am living authentically").

In my view "I am a man and I want to wear a dress" is the attitude of someone who is infinitely closer to meeting the definition of authenticity.

Hannah Barnes's book was so worrying about this - the so called Dutch protocol screened out all those with co-morbidities and unstable home lives. That's the polar opposite of the cohort the Tavistock was treating with the same thoroughly irresponsible pathway. And they offered regular counselling sessions rather than a couple of quick meetings and straight onto irrevocably harmful drugs.

We all owe a debt to those who dug deep to expose what was really happening. I hope one day there will be serious consequences for the people who put vulnerable young children in such harm's way.

Furthermore, the evidence suggests that those who think they 'ought to be' what they patently are not often have other mental health co-morbidities. It seems to me that by focussing on transition they are very often ignoring other MH co-morbidities, which allows their MH to deteriorate further. If they do seek MH support for the MH co-morbidities then one wonders whether talking therapies can be effective if the therapist is unable to be fully honest with the patient.

If you are lying to others about what you are, there's nothing authentic about you.