I think it is really hard for those of us ‘in the echo chamber’ - most of us have been in this for nearly a decade, often supporting a child or family member who has gender dysphoria. We’ve liaised with specialists and consultants, read everything they’ve sent us in terms of reports, recommended books, research. This is not ‘echo chamber stuff’ as just as many of the consultants were affirming as were GC, plus until recently they could not openly state if they were GC if they worked for CAMHS, the NHS or GIDS - so the material we have ploughed through over the last 5-10 years and still reached our GC positions on is based on years of exposure to literature materials of all biases.
This means that when people cite purported facts, with or without links, that evidence third sex/innate gendered souls/increased suicidalty/harmlessness of PBs/reversibility of surgical interventions…it is difficult not to appear dismissive. We’ve probably read that piece of research, plus most of the materials cited in the footnotes and bibliographies/references, we’ve likely discussed them in detail with the clinical practitioners treating our family member, as well as in family forums like the Bayswater group.
Many of those posting that we are transphobic bigots have no idea the extents we have gone to understand, to support, our love ones. They have no idea the trauma we have witnessed or experienced. We start this journey desperate to believe that maybe our instinctive, gut level reaction to the idea of a true innate trans identity is misplaced and that we can re-educate ourselves. But it doesn’t happen. The more evidence we are exposed to, the more we see that it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, that the research protocols were flawed, that the subject selection was skewed, that the sample sizes were small and -effectively - rigged/biased, that the researchers had an agenda so cannot be regarded as ‘neutral… I could go on.
I have a friend whose partner has nearly died from sepsis after a mastectomy and whose wounds simply fail to heal a year afterwards (I’d share the picture of the pus oozing chest wounds but that would be deeply disrespectful); I have a friend whose child is only a few days younger than mine whose mastectomy was carried out around her 19th birthday, barely a year after discharge from a paediatric psychiatric unit where she was an inpatient for 18m, and only discovered her trans identity on forming a relationship with a trans man she met immediately afterwards. The trans ‘boy’-friend dumped her 3 weeks after surgery, btw. And I have a child who I have fought to ensure did not have PBS or surgeries over a 7yr period, who now no longer regards herself as male, though the scars on her arm from wrist to shoulder will likely never fade. She is physically intact, otherwise, and finally looking forward to going to university in September having worked her socks off to reclaim a life, albeit being a couple of years behind her peers.
So, I hope that those screaming ‘bigot’ and deriding our ‘echo chamber’ might perhaps meet us half way and understand that this is not ‘section 28’ all over again, but a group people who have been pulled into this reluctantly. People who desperately care for at least one person directly impacted by this. And this is before you get to the muslim and jewish family members who are impacted by trans inclusive policies that mean they can no longer risk using public changing rooms or participate in women’s swimming sessions at the local leisure centre so have found their worlds shrinking, their social networks impacted, their rights to safety and dignity in single-sexed spaces dismissed.