Funny how these "I'm new to this debate" threads keep surfacing on Mumsnet — I think the last one was started just a couple of days ago, and they are easy enough to find if you type "transgender" into the search bar.
It's almost like someone wants to keep this particular pot boiling!
The reason these discussions are so often branded as "transphobic" is because they (almost) invariably follow the same pattern" a seemingly innocent question opens the door to "answers" that repeat the same old anti-trans propaganda, and the same old discredited links. If you want something unbiassed, try the NHS website. Or Parliament's Women and Equalities Select Committee www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/39002.htm
No-one knows what the amended Gender Recognition Act might look like, because it hasn't been drafted yet. But it seems most likely that it will involve nothing more than a change to the administrative procedures required for the issue of a Gender Recognition Certificate. It won't affect anyone other than people who are actually applying for one.
If you don't believe me, ask yourself how often anyone has been asked to produce their birth certificate in order to go into a public loo or try on clothes in a clothes shop? So why would anyone go to the bother of getting a certificate to do something that they can do already without a certificate?
The other common "issue" is the idea that kids are being forced to transition — with the 80% "desistance" rate being quoted as "evidence".
What that means is that a lot of kids who are referred to a gender clinic are not really trans. But that's good, isn't it? Compare it with breast cancer statistics: 90% of women who have been referred for further tests after a mammogram turn out not to have breast cancer. Does that mean they are "desisters" who should never have been referred for the more specialist assessment? Or that the other 10% have "desisted" if they wanted to, but only chose to go on having cancer because they were referred for further tests? Of course it doesn't ! So why can't we just be pleased for the kids that aren't trans, and relieved that those who are trans are able to access the expert advice and help they need, at an early stage, when they can make a good transition and build a happy new life for themselves, rather than being forced to go through decades of misery before succumbing to an expensive, painful, and often unsatisfactory transition later on?
Incidentally, in case you hadn't guessed, I'm a transwoman. I'm post-op, (i.e. I've had "The Operation") and I have a GRC. I didn't particularly want the GRC process changed, because I saw it as a negligible benefit in exchange for a huge risk that it would trigger a surge of anti-trans hatred ... as indeed it has.
There should be room for civilised discussion of the issues. But I don't see any chance of that happening while the fear-mongering and abuse continues, while statistics are distorted and expert opinion ignored, and while a tiny minority of vociferous anti-trans campaigners exclude or shout down anyone (of any sex or gender) who doesn't share their views. (as we saw on the Genderquake debate last week, where a feminist speaker was heckled and abused by trans-exclusionary radical so-called "feminists").