To be shocked/worried at the Transactivists treatment of this woman?

[Wobbleslikeaweeble]

This trade union member had to be removed from a picket line by the police for her own safety when she was confronted by Transactivists as shown by the footage.

Her crime seems to be that she attended a meeting held to discuss proposed changes to the current GRA and the new proposals for self identification.

Am i the only one that finds that his behaviour shocking? This is just one of several recent incidents where women have been threatened, and even attacked for trying to speak up or just attend a meeting.

womansplaceuk.org/footage-of-picket-line-attack/

As a trans woman I listened to that Today broadcast and looked at the footage of the protest.

Violence is abhorrent. Hurling abuse is too and not helpful. We need sensible dialogue that will never happen when that kind of aggression is what is visible. It needs to stop.

As I have posted in many threads on MN over the past 2 weeks the self identification proposal is a major change to the GRA (Gender Recognition Act) and cannot just be introduced without a proper discussion in which all parties involved need to be consulted and get engaged.

I signed the petition on here asking for Women's Groups to be asked to take part in this on the first day because that is important.

Broadly speaking the GRA has operated for 14 years and works. It was clearly created to cover what was then called 'transexuals' (of which I am one) who fully transition as far as science allows and who live quietly full time and in many cases have for decades. 45 years in my case. Most of which brought no legal recognition and until the late 1990s none was even asked for.

The creation of the act and its easy passage was entirely based on two things. That the numbers were small - about 5000 or so people in the entire UK was implied. And that the vast majority would physically transition their bodies as it was part of the diagnosis.

It created several things - including opt outs that places such as refuges or medical testing could object out of. It insisted upon several things - notably two separate medical diagnoses that there was a genuine problem that was being treated, a two year period of evidence of permanence of transition and successful integration as a contributing member of society and no evidence of any mental illness after the transition.

All perfectly reasonable safeguards built in for the protection of both the patient and women with whom they would interact.

Surgical transition was going to be included but was removed when it was noted that it would disenfranchise elderly trans people (some of us had been living without rights for 40 years at that point) who might not be medically able to have major surgery but would physically transition in other ways. This would have had to be removed later even if it had been included as European human rights court decisions later made countries that insisted on surgery drop that requirement. But the UK GRA had a sensible balance.

Around 2000 (mostly then long term) trans people qualified under the act in the first 2 years or so. There were more trans women than trans men, but you might be surprised that it has always been not as big a division as you might expect - around 70/30 split. And the gap has closed further in the past 14 years. In 2015 it was almost 50/50.

Most of those 2000 had had surgery or medical transition or both. Since 2004 the numbers of people obtaining a GRC through the process involved has run at a very small and consistent level - for the past five years the annual figures have been 236, 318,244, 332 and 318. And the total runs at almost exactly the 5000 predicted in the debate that led to the creation of the GRA in 2004.

Of the 3000 or so who got a certificate since 2006 we know that almost 900 had full GRS under the NHS. Others will have gone private or to clinics abroad. So the total figures for people with a GRC who have had surgery are not 'almost none' but a significant proportion and probably well over half (more likely about 70%) of the 5000. Again as the act predicted.

This is just to reassure you where we stand now if you feel the GRA act in 2004 created the current position.

It did not. It reacted to what was then known to be a consistent but very rare problem that had been well studied by doctors since the 1960s when the first UK clinic opened at Charing Cross Hospital.

The number of people having surgery there per year in 1976 (when I had mine) was about 90. There were an average of 87 NHS surgeries per year between 2000 and 2009. A very consistent figure.

What we have now are a very large number of gender fluid or gender confused or transgender, as in identifying, but not wishing to physically transition. One survey suggests 600,000 in the UK.

This obviously swamps the 5000 covered by the GRA and will indeed contain a majority who never adapt their bodies fully if it all. They have decided they cannot apply under the current rules because they do not want to see doctors or believe they are in need of doing so and that they should have a free choice to decide who they are without being checked or monitored and have to wait two years to prove they are serious, have successfully transitioned and they no longer have any illness that might effect other people.

I am not suggesting they be not given some help to integrate into society. But it is not at all unreasonable that women would view this vast increase in numbers, removal of all need for any physical transition and no checks, balances or medical assessment of any reason this might not be the best solution as something that changes the situation too far not to just be allowed to pass through.

Hope this has helped inform some of you who did not know what was happening or why.

Thanks for that post Jaycee, it puts into words a lot of the things I feel.

I don’t see how I can be transphobic if I support everyone’s rights to appropriate healthcare, protection in employment etc but ask for the impact of widening the “trans” label to self identifying people who will never seek to transition to be looked at carefully in the context of women’s and girls rights.

Just horrifying behaviour.

Please consider signing this important petition. Your details are kept private.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

Thank you Jayceedove for that very clear and informative post. Can I ask a couple of questions?

What benefits does being legally identified as whichever-sex-you've-transitioned-to give? eg, protection under equality law against sex discrimination? Being assigned to sex-specific spaces (hospital wards, prison etc)?

Do transsexuals have a note on their medical files to flag potential medical conditions in relation to their underlying anatomy but which aren't relevant to their transitioned sex? Eg cervical cancer, prostate cancer, aortic aneurysm screening for men etc. So would a MtoF transsexual be warned about prostate cancer etc or is it up to them to be aware of such issues and proactively raise it themselves?

I have to ask as I really don't know. So a transwoman is not a transsexual (or a transvestite) any more?

They can be a man who had had a sex changeor a man who has had no physical changes, no hormones or counselling or even 'lived as' (whatever that means) a woman. The can even call themselves Hector and sport a large beard but will have the same label as, day April Ashley?

The definition of trans has been broadened (I believe by Stonewall) to include any man who identifies as a woman. Be that a transsexual who has had full surgery and HRT, through to males who wear dresses and change their name all the way through to the likes of Eddie Izzard.
If the laws change a man could go to work as Claud, “identify” as a woman at lunch time to use the loo as Claudia and then be a bloke again for his 3pm meeting.

You knew where you were with transvestites and transsexuals...

Jaycee, thank you again for patiently and calmly sharing your information. Gender critical women on Mumsnet are not transphobic, they just want the recent situation you have described to be managed without damaging women. I hope you can excuse those times when people's frustration with badly behaving individuals overboils into harsh words.

If the laws change a man could go to work as Claud, “identify” as a woman at lunch time to use the loo as Claudia and then be a bloke again for his 3pm meeting.

I don't think that's right, is it? Under the law the person would be permanently the sex/gender they have transitioned to. What you're describing can already happen: companies allowing informal self-identification. If someone is genderfluid they may feel male today but female tomorrow, and possibly use facilities appropriate to whichever sex/gender they are feeling that day (or part of day - presumably it can change throughout the day?).

Yetanotherusername - The GRA is the only act that legally conveys a reassigment of gender in terms of the law.

If you have a GRC (the 5000) you have fully protected legal status for all purposes in the gender acquired (it was altered from sex to gender in the act so as not to contradict biology).

Yes, that means in terms of the law, if you get into trouble, though hardly anyone with a GRC ever has given the tiny numbers, most of the cases you read about do not have one and so are dealt with on a case by case basis locally. And in terms of marriage, pension, and most other purposes.

There are opt outs where in certain sensitive situations like refuges, giving intimate care, etc but have been altered a little by the Equality act. As the specific wording of Gender Reassignment medically supported within the GRA seems to have been fudged a little for the purposes of the Equality Act to potentially broaden its scope beyond those with a GRC. Though not sure those differences have ever been tested as the GRA provides written evidence and Equality Act is just a set of guidance to be interpreted.

Hospitals have always dealt with transsexuals locally but given the extent of physical transition and the rarity given the small numbers have as far as I know always assigned according to physical gender markers and appearance.

A GRC allows you to alter your birth certificate - though it has to have medical support to make that added change and under half he 5000 or so have done this I believe.

I should stress this is a copy certificate in your new sex (the only place sex as such is changed) and the original birth record and certificate is not removed or altered. The copy certificate serves as a way to offer proof of age to transsexuals without confusion as until recently it would have been considered very odd for an apparent woman with a female name to claim to be the same male person in the birth certificate. I have only ever used it to get my bus pass as I had no passport or driving licence.

Don't think I have ever used my GRC as yet as I don't plan to get into trouble at my age. But I can imagine a couple of situations where it might have helped in the past.

All transsexuals are advised by the treatment programme (assessment goes on for several years for check ups) to always tell their GP on first contact but there are pretty extensive records in your files. Because of the surgery and permanent medication we need annual blood tests to check many things - E and T levels - other possible side effects of long term HRT (which in effect is what it is) and mammograms, of course, and other checks not unlike (but obviously not) smear tests. Prostrate levels are blood tested but problems exceedingly unlikely with surgery and long term hormones as T levels are usually on the low side of those found in women and E levels can be similar to that for a pregnant woman and without the lab being informed by your doctor it is not unusual for them to ask if you could be pregnant.

So nothing is served by transsexuals not engaging fully with their GP. Remember most of us have been seeing doctors about this since childhood. I first saw a doctor over 50 years ago when at school. And given our file it would be hard to hide.

This is one very important reason why I am opposed to removing medical assessment from any changes to the GRA. It is there for many reasons - including protection to the patient for things they might not consider.

Transsexuals have been medical cases all our lives because we went to doctors seeking help in times when nobody had heard of transgender or transitioning or identifying so we went to resolve what we interpreted as a physical problem.

If you cut that out with hundreds of thousands of self identifiers you are not only risking society at large from them but putting them at risk from things they might do to themselves.

Fekko, transsexual is the medical term that applied to those of us who were diagnosed as such and were then given medically controlled surgical and physical transition as the only cure found to work. Though, of course, we know reality and that it was not a biological transformation. Just an accommodation that allowed us to function as close as possible.

We had to sign waivers pre surgery that our gender was being reassigned and our sex was not being changed. So we all have never not understood this. So it was the doctors wanting to express medical accuracy that created the reference to gender not sex. Though the word transsexual remained because the difference between us and someone transgender is that we believed our body had somehow gone wrong and so endeavoured to transform it as far as possible, whereas someone changing gender is expressing a behaviour and social pattern and does not regard it as a physical anomaly.

Transgender is a recent term started in the US that has become all consuming and so broad in its application that those of us who were diagnosed and have a GRC have started to reclaim the term transsexual to try to explain there is a difference. The transgender community seem to want rid of the term transsexual because of its official medical connotations and they want transgender to cover a much wider array of what they believe are non medical conditions.

Hence wanting to remove the need to see a doctor to qualify to get a GRC. They see the medicalization as the big problem,. I think it is an essential safeguard.

Because when I was in the NHS system 90% of those who saw doctors then seeking a 'sex change' were found by the doctors and psychiatrists to often have various other problems - such as a fetish or depression and other mental illnesses that manifested as a desire to be the opposite sex. And they were advised not to transition (and often changed their minds themselves) and many went on to marry and have kids.

So these are going to be some (not all) of those now seeking to gain recognition now - which may not be in their interests and certainly not of those around them.

Those who are genuine have no need to fear an assessment and could get a GRC now. But they want no medical checks before they do. I worry that is because some (again by no means all) subconsciously know what might happen if they do.

pickleme - thank you, and, yes, I do understand what you are saying. This is why I have taken time on here to try to listen and explain. I understand the reservations and am not offended. Most of us who went through this over the past decades have never been litigious, never formed groups or joined activist parades and just quietly got on with our lives finally free to be (more or less) who we have felt ourselves to be since early childhood. We have just been grateful to be able to do that and many of us stopped thinking of ourselves as ill or thinking of this subject at all as it was no longer impacting our lives day to day. The sudden public explosion of controversy caught us on the hop as we were not asking for anything more and were happy.

Thank you again Jayceedove.

I hadn't taken into account how medicalised being a transsexual is (maybe I've been unconsciously brow-beaten by the "transwomen are women, end of" argument that I'd forgotten the lifetime of hormone-taking). I hadn't meant to suggest that transsexuals want to hide their history, I was concerned they might miss out on specific screening. But of course with that level of medical interaction such things won't get overlooked. I suppose that's a good argument for being treated by the NHS; their whole medical history is in one place and a medical professional can advise accordingly. If people are self-medicating and having surgery in different places then there's no single record of their medical history.

Interesting about the amended birth certificate being a copy, not the original. Changing the original would seem to be erasing history but that's not what actually happens.

Thank you again.

What's supposed to be happening in that video?

I don't know the context - but is it a women being targeted by trans activists because of her views - and this targeting is happening where she works?

If so, that's disgusting. People should be allowed to express their views without fear and certainly should not face protests at work.

As someone who has gone through HRT and surgery, all these protests by TRAs just make for more negativity towards the whole trans community including people like us.

yetanotherusername - yes, transvestites like Eddie Izzard or Grayson Perry are not transsexual and were never intended to be covered by the GRA. They like presenting themselves in a female guise but mostly identify as men.

This seems the main problem. The GRA was created to cover thise who have physically transitioned permanently under proper medical supervision. Not those who have different sides of themselves that they wish to present from time to time.

In our more modern gender fluid world some want a kind of half way house where transition can be non physical but as temporary, semi permanent or permanent as they choose.

Fitting that into the GRA seems very hard - as it was designed quite clearly for something else (an accepted medical condition as seen by the World Health Organisation and for which possible signs of a potential physical cause was reported just last week in the medical literature). Especially given the massive increase in numbers it would involve.

Thanks Jay - so are transsexual/transvestite terms that are offensive or out of date these days?

It makes sense to me that there is a different word for those who have gone through what sounds a pretty arduous process to do what is possible to become as close to a woman as science allows (including counselling), and men who think for some reason they can 'be female' by wearing a dress on their male body because they have decided that this is what they are today (and vice versa of course).

Then the men who then say they are actually lesbians blow my mind.

I'm too old for this!

The GRA was created to cover thise who have physically transitioned permanently under proper medical supervision

And they want to change 'gender reassignment' to 'gender identity' as a protected status.

Thanks Jay - so are transsexual/transvestite terms that are offensive or out of date these days

I describe myself as transsexual. I have been told by people who aren't transsexual but are 'trans allies' that transsexual is out of date and I shouldn't be calling myself that

Oh well, I'm out of date then. This is how the guys and gals would refer to themselves in my clubbing days!

The trans' you'd meet in the ladies' loos (wasn't ever a problem back then) would have no truck with a bloke wandering in either.

What happened?

I’m quite alarmed that the person in that video being the most aggressive is already facing a court case for assaulting another women at speakers corner. If the police were there does anyone know if they removed that individual?

yetanother - the birth certificate was not requested but was added by the government (ahead of other counties - though many do it now too). In 2004 trans women with a GRC could then legally marry men - remember same sex marriage was still a decade away. So some ministers may want to see something that justified the right to marry for religious reasons.

In reverse of the above, by the way, any trans woman wishing to become legally female and who was then married to a woman had to divorce first as a condition of getting a GRC. As otherwise the subsequent law would have sanctioned a marriage between two women which at that time was not on the horizon.

That footage is horrifying. (And like others, I'm struck by how aggressive some of the handmaidens are).

Jay thank you for your input into these threads. It's really informative, and great to hear your perspective on it.

yetanothertranswoman, yes. That's exactly what's happening.

The trade union official was identified after attending a WPUK meeting.

She didn't speak, she merely attended and was ambushed at the picket line.

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/female-trade-union-official-bullied-own-picket-line-international-womens-day

Oh, and my vote of thanks extends to yet as well - it's good to hear reasonable trans voices in this debate. I hope we can get a consultation so we can end up with a workable solution which protects you and jay while not opening the floodgates to a load of fetishistic cross-dressers. (In fact, I don't know about you, but I'd be quite happy with the present law continuing. It wasn't perfect, but it seemed reasonably workable in the grand tradition of "great British compromises.")

Like yetanothertranswoman I stopped using transsexual because I was told it was out of date and we were all just different flavours of transgender.

Without arguing that might be true I think the word transsexual was the official medical term and accurately conveys how I see myself.

So I will 'self identify' as transsexual. :)