BACP Gender,Sexual, and Relationship Diversity by Dr Meg-John Barker

[R0wantrees]

Good Practice Guide, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
(extract)
2.6 Gender identity: woman
Definitions
"Whether trans or cisgender, intersex or not, many people identify as
women. However, what this means varies a great deal depending on their other intersecting attributes. It is important not to assume, for example, that being a woman necessarily involves being able to bear children, or having XX sex chromosomes, or breasts. Being a woman in a British cultural context often means adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable, and concerned with appearance.
However, of course, not all women adhere to all these things. For example some neurodiverse women (on the autistic/aspergic/ADHD spectrums) may struggle to express emotions, or with social situations. In some northern working-class contexts femininity is associated with strength and aggression. As always an intersectional understanding is vital and we need to be mindful that what is culturally regarded as the epitome of femininity is white, middle class, youthful, non-disabled, heterosexual, cisgender, and thin. This strongly shapes all women’s experiences of womanhood.
Common concerns
While gender may not always be relevant to a woman’s presenting issues, mental health struggles are often gendered. Women have such high rates of body image issues that this has been labelled ‘normative discontent’.
It has been related to both narrow ideals of feminine beauty, and the
contradictory pressures on women today to conform to stereotypical
femininity and to be independent and successful. Food and body
can represent one potential area of control in an uncontrollable and
contradictory world. Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and many other emotional disorders. This has been linked to the way women’s identities are often bound up with other people, for example, rates of depression often peak for mothers when children leave home. Therapy with women may well involve exploring their relationships with others, and with being desirable, pleasing and/or approved of" (continues)

My understanding is that the majority of counsellors in the UK are BACP accredited. There is a great deal in this document to consider.

The author is the partner of Edward Lord who identifies as non-binary see recent threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3323475-Surprise-The-Masons-now-welcome-Transwomen-but-not-women
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3317922-City-of-London-Corporation-consultation-is-out-this-covers-Hampstead-Ponds
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3316098-Childrens-Convenor-Elected-Councillor-calls-women-cunts-on-Twitter-rants

Just been reading the BACP guide with interest and have come upon the following in the 'chromosomes' section:

'some of us have different chromosomal makeup in different parts of our bodies.'

Can someone scientifically qualified tell me if that's as entirely impossible as it sounds?

I think they're talking about chimeras. There are about 100 confirmed cases in the world. Out of 7 billion people.

Not a lot of people know this but the World Trade Centre was a spectrum. It might have looked like two towers to you and I but someone dropped a matchbox between them and that tiny 'building' means we can no longer talk as if there were two separate buildings.

Genetic material from one twin is absorbed into another. So, one organism, two genotypes. That's a chimera. You can google some beautiful chimeric cats. One is black down one side just like those aliens from a memorable if heavy-handed satire on racism in the original Star Trek.

It's nothing to do with transgenderism though.

thank you! That's fascinating. And a picture of a beautiful cat is always a bonus. i like the ginger and black with one green and one blue eye.

I think I came across TRA’s trying to appropriate Chimera’s before. Google Lydia Fairchild. She almost lost her kids due to being a chimera, sad and fascinating case.

Just been reading the BACP guide with interest and have come upon the following in the 'chromosomes' section:

'some of us have different chromosomal makeup in different parts of our bodies.'

Can someone scientifically qualified tell me if that's as entirely impossible as it sounds?

@bowlofbabelfish will I'm sure be best able to deal with this.
(I hope its ok to @ you bowl here?)

In fact, since growing a beard and accepting my presentation as a big queer bear, I have been a lot happier with the body I inhabit. But it is the intellectual concept of my gender that remains the challenge.

Fucks sake. How does he fit that BIG BEARDED head up his arse so neatly?

Current thread on all things biological sex, inc chimeras:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3354459-Sex-is-a-spectrum

Natacha Kennedy comment:
twitter.com/natachakennedy/status/1036875989228429313

link to article referred to: www.the-pool.com/news-views/opinion/2018/36/BACP-sexist-comments-on-women-and-gender

'Those “sexist” BACP comments on women? They’re more nuanced than Twitter suggested
A screenshot of supposedly “outdated” psychotherapy guidelines has created a stir on the social-media network. But in all the outrage, the report’s crucial point has been missed'

By Amy Jones
(extracts)
"The screenshots on Twitter – which, I’ve later realised, were predominantly being shared by people with histories of objecting to trans rights and the idea that gender and sex are anything but binary – show a tiny part of a 66-page report on the best practice for counsellors and psychiatrists, focusing specifically on issues of gender, sexuality and relationship diversity. The sections screenshotted on Twitter are the ones where Barker is defining how women and men and trans, cisgender and non-binary people are commonly, socially and culturally understood, in order for those ideas to be later dismantled." (continues)

"Dr Barker is saying excellent, sensible things here, but the quote was taken hugely out of context in order to make a point – the erroneous point that whenever we progress trans rights, we must stamp on women to do so." (continues)

concludes: "Gender is a knotty, messy, complicated thing, because people are messy and complicated. It’s OK to not have the answers all the time, to not have clear-cut definitions and rules, especially when it comes to people’s lives. Both feminists and trans-activists want to dismantle strict, patriarchal ideas of gender. We should be working together to do so, not against each other with these endless fights. It is infuriating that we seem to see rights as a zero-sum game, that whenever there are conflicts between the rights of cis women and trans people the knee-jerk reaction is that we have to throw it all out, rather than work through them together. And it’s enraging that some people on Twitter took the out-of-context words of someone who is trying to help seriously vulnerable people feel safe, seen and understood, and twisted them in order to provoke outrage."

I just don't get this, really.

Sex = your bits
Personality = whatever you want to do
Gender = whatever you want to do but ascribed to a sex by some arbitrary means

The solution seems obvious to me, and also to many feminists. Why are people making it more complicated?

Presumably it’s especially messy when one is northern?

There was a brilliant comment from glosswitch on a Twitter thread on this (I think started by Sarah Ditum). She talks about the arrogance of saying you're not defined by your sex but refusing to say what you are defined by.

I think people are working backwards from 'my gender is whatever I say it is and sexed bodies are irrelevant' and so when you get to 'what do sexed bodies mean then?' they have no answer without resorting to 'transphobic' statements. The writer says if you asked her to define herself as a woman it would be a blank piece of paper with a shrug emoji.... Strange days indeed when your biology is considered irrelevant!

a person calling themselves 'doctor' ought at least to know that a clitoris is not a small penis.

''I'm not a woman - the pool was cold!''

I saw this article which is aimed at young people recently via Twitter and noticed how similar it seemed to The BACP Guide's ideology.

July 13, 2017 'What’s Your Gender?'
(extracts)
"If you’ve had some basic AF sex education you might have been taught that there are only two sexes and two genders. Wrong. Sex and Gender is a lot more complicated than that.

You get to choose your gender your gender identity, whether you are a he/she/they or zie and you get to choose how you want to do your own gender. This is true no matter what body you may have, or what chromosomes you may have or how you feel about your body.

You can work out your gender by learning some more about different identities and seeing if any of those fit you, or you can try to understand your own unique gender for you. Hopefully you will find this [diagram opposite] useful" (continues)

For one, like I point out in this article, sex is a very complicated idea. It’s not just about our chromosomes (a lot of people don’t know what theirs are, XX, XY, XXY … ) but also; which hormones kick in, when they kick in and how they kick in; and then how genitals may take shape. Our genitals are on a spectrum in terms of: how much erectile tissue sticks out (clitorises and dicks and inbetween); where the prostate is; where the wee hole is; whether the gonads are inside or outside; vagina size. Many people are in the middle of this spectrum with how their bodies are configured.

Also sex, like gender, is not just about biology but is also to do with how we feel about ourselves and what society tells us about ourselves – it’s biopsychosocial."
www.bishuk.com/about-you/whats-your-gender/

From the site's 'about me':
"BISH is a guide to sex, love and you for everyone over 14. It’s for people who are (or are thinking about) having sex and relationships. Hopefully it’s for all genders and sexualities (even asexual folk), people with disabilities, backgrounds, beliefs and values. It’s got a UK vibe so we say ‘snog’, ‘fancy’ and ‘shag’ a lot.

I started this website in 2009 but only really added lots of good content from 2011 ish. I set it up because I thought young people needed better sex and relationships advice online "

"I’m a qualified and experienced sex educator
I’m a qualified youth worker and sexual health trainer. I’ve worked with young people for over 20 years and I’ve been doing sex and relationships education since 1999. As well as doing this online I’ve been working with actual people in real life – in schools, colleges, youth clubs but working with adults and people working with young people. I also worked in sexual health projects in young people’s clinics, giving confidential advice about all the stuff you can see on this site.

I do this for adults too!
So me and my mate Meg-John Barker write about this kind of stuff too. It’s aimed at a slightly older crowd than this website, so it’s probably a bit more advanced. If you’re interested you can check it out at megjohnandjustin.com or you can buy our book ‘Enjoy Sex (how, when and IF you want to)‘.
www.bishuk.com/about-bish/

links to his work with children / young people , training and resources for schools etc:
bishtraining.com/

co-written schools' resources: www.dosreforschools.com/

‘wee hole’ I mean the whole thing is bad but wee hole that’s something an under 5 would say.

I can’t work out if some of these people are deliberately predatory or just very damaged with no idea how dangerous they actually are. Either way they need to stay the hell away from children!

Wasn't there a recent discussion on Twitter about a health site which referred to 'front hole'?

On the plus side I don’t think teenagers say ‘snog’ ‘shag’ or ‘fancy’. That’s more what I’d say so hopefully young people reading it will think it’s written by old people and ignore it? Possibly not the vibe the writers were going for

current threads discussing 'Bish' :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3357713-BISH-proudly-supported-by

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3357488-When-did-people-stop-saying-sex-and-start-saying-gender

Yep! I recall a ‘front hole’ discussion. ‘Ask people how they refer to their own genitals’ again completely contradicts PANTS training where we try to get all the children to know the words ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ so that disclosures from young children don’t get ignored when they tell somebody they don’t like it when their ‘moneybox’ is touched! Ffs!

IAmLurkacus

Apparently Bish is very popular website amongst young people & Justin Hancock also provides workshops and resources for professionals working with children / young people:

"This website is not meant to be used in the classroom, and it shouldn’t replace really good relationships and sex education. If you are a teacher and would like some really great resources (which I’ve co-written) please head over to dorseforschools.com or my own website bishtraining.com

IRL I teach a broad range of subjects: the usual condoms and STIs stuff, gender norms, sexual bullying, porn, love, relationships, consent, good first time sex, sexual readiness, self-esteem and even lessons on dealing with failure. I’ve run sessions in PRUs, colleges, secondary schools (state and leading independent schools), youth clubs and even in a castle (true fact). I also run training courses for practitioners who would like to teach young people about this stuff. Again, more details at bishtraining.com"

Thanks R0wantrees I’ll see what my kids know about that. Not one I’ve come across!

The thought of kids in PRU’s being targeted with this fuckwittery 😮

Please tell me there’s no connection with the FOI on which schools had vulnerable children in and where this training is delivered?

I had a look at Justin Hancock's tweets via Google and I can't help reading #RSE as ARSE, so that his tweet runs 'I can help you with your ARSE for next year' etc etc.

[gets coat]

IAmLurkacus
from Justin
"This website is mostly read by young folk (it’s most popular with teens and twenty somethings) who are looking for some top notch advice and information for themselves. However, I also know that there are a few fans of BISH who are here because they are teachers, or academics, or activists, peer sex educators, or parents. So this one is for them. Thanks for coming and I hope you find BISH helpful, but can you also help me?

Background
BISH is a pretty popular website, with thousands of visits per week and over a million unique visitors in the last 12 months. I have a survey for young people to give me their thoughts about the website and they are very positive, 69% of young people rated it ‘very helpful’, with 15% saying it was ‘helpful’.

However, despite it being so popular I think that it’s still a bit of a well kept secret. A lot of the young people contacting me say that I should promote more. This is really hard to do because:

People don’t like sharing stuff about sex education online
Facebook and Instagram don’t like sex education materials (I’ve had a number of posts taken down without even being told)
Even though I get sponsorship from Durex (thank you, thank you, thank you) that’s only enough for this to be a part-time job for me, I don’t have the £ to pay for ads, promotion, social media management etc.
So this is why I’m asking for a favour from you. Thanks in advance if you can help (I’m not asking for money, well maybe right at the end).

Can You Promote IRL?" (continues with examples)

"What I hope to do with all of your help here is to demonstrate how worthwhile a website like this is so that I can attract more funding (either from Durex or an additional source, like Wellcome Trust or someone similar). I have enough funding to do what I do (as a part-time job), but not enough to expand it, or promote it, or to pay for writers, or to pay for social media folk, or to create a moderated community like at The Mix or Scarleteen. The dream is to turn it into a charity or social enterprise."
www.bishuk.com/parents/can-you-help-bish/

Interesting tweet:

Sep 5

As a @BACP registered therapist I am outraged my organisation has published the most sexist, retrograde document I've ever read in my life. And I'm saddened many think all bacp therapists must align themselves with this thinking. We don't, we're as appalled as the rest of you.

I hope it's true.