Today programme item on why so many children are questioning their gender

[hackmum]

Anyone else here this? About 8.40 this morning. John Humphrys interviewing a young trans man called Colin and someone from the Tavistock Clinic. Very soft touch questions - Colin had felt himself to be a boy from the age of 3 and now at the age of 18 or 19 he's looking forward to chest surgery. Guy from the Tavistock was very reassuring about not everyone has hormones or surgery etc, everyone has "different ways of expressing their gender". No hard questions about long term impact of surgery and/or hormones.

I didn't listen, though DH told me it was on. I knew exactly what kind of questioning could be expected from those institutionalised child groomers at the BBC.

Whoops I just started a thread too.

Tbf Colin did say Colin had stopped taking hormones because the “negatives started to outweigh the positives”.

Does John Humphrys ever do hard questioning of anything? I've heard complaints on other topics that he doesn't challenge things.

And JHs dry “that explains the hair colour” made me lol and wake the dog up...

I caught the last 40 seconds of this and felt my hackles rising. I knew it would be a fudge.

I caught the last 40 seconds of this and felt my hackles rising. I knew it would be a fudge.
Same here. I can't bear to go listen to it because I need to stay calm today, but there's some good tweets amongst the Brexit/Farage and Greer fallout.

I heard it. I thought Humphreys did try and probe a little bit. When Colin had said that they had felt like a boy since they were 3 or 4, was a tomboy etc, JH asked if they were unhappy about it and Colin admitted that they weren't unhappy. Colin admitted that it was at about 14 that 'the pieces came together' and they realised they were transgender.

I think the nature of the interview is quite difficult isn't it? I was thinking of the parallel of interviewing an anorexic: When did you realise you were fat? What do you do to keep the weight off? etc etc. It just couldn't be done, I suppose because it is accepted by society (and is also, err, a fact) that starving yourself is damaging, whereas at the moment, the prevailing social context is that it is ok to 'express your gender' by taking drugs and surgically altering your body.

The sad thing is that I agreed with a couple of sentences in that interview. Something like 'we feel that people should be free to express their gender however they want' Yes! Of course!

It's sad that some of the opening arguments are the same as those of feminism, but the conclusion they reach seems so twisted.

I thought it was freaking appalling 'journalism' (but hey, do we expect more of Mr. J Humphreys?). It made me shout angrily at Prof. Gary Butler's cavalier misuse of the terms 'sex' and 'gender' (one would hope he would know what he was talking about, he is after all a medical doctor and surgeon) and I was furious that an item on Today that was trailed as a 'problem item' (eg. Why are more and more of our children saying they want to change gender?) turned out into little more than a puff piece supporting one single point of view. They had a trans person, Colin, who seemed very nice, and then Prof Butler, who basically filled three minutes with unscientific waffle. I have absolutely nothing against Colin and I'm glad they're happy, but I was very disappointed that there was no counter to the HCP, who I think was basically spouting a lot of waffle.

LatinForTelly - see, I don't think Humphreys should have targeted his 'probing' questions at Colin - I think he should have challenged Butler. But he's never comfortable with anything vaguely scientific ...

Humphrys can be very hard hitting with politicians - tediously so - but you're right, Glom, he's very uncomfortable with scientific topics. Butler got away with a load of platitudes and waffle about being "assigned female at birth".

They also did an interview with Germaine Greer this morning about her views on rape, which was potentially interesting but not long enough to explore her ideas in detail.

Yes @GlomOfNit JH always seems to be revelling in his inability to understand science, maths or engineering, so a bad choice for this interview.

Yeah agree the doc used assigned at birth I was oh here we go
Why do they say that
No one assigns anything

My comment was on another thread that I'm repeating here:

I also heard the interview with the transman on the Today programme. They have taken cross-sex hormones to the extent that they've got the changes they want, particularly a passable male-sounding voice. They said that was sufficient and didn't need to continue taking them. They were aiming next to have their double mastectomy.

In the case of that transman I was thinking that it sounded like the cosmetic aspect was paramount. If that's right then that's a very heavy price to pay to enable a transman to pass in society.

I do agree. It's just very, very uncomfortable, isn't it, with this fragile person as part of the conversation, to challenge? I think so anyway.

I was shouting at the radio.

My neighbours must think I'm mad if they heard, "sex, sex... it is not gender, gender is not assigned at birth'.

It was trailed as "why are so many girls questioning their gender" which I thought sounded promising, but that wasn't the item at all. At no point did they address the issue of why there's been a 4000% increase in girls being referred for treatment. No gender critical voice included. No mention of the inquiry Penny Mordaunt has asked for (although I did go through a tunnel and miss a few seconds). Really disappointing.

Colin said something like he enjoyed confusing people including about his gender/sex. He is an arts student. I am not sure he has dysphoria, something his doctors should know. I hope he has a good long think before going ahead with the surgery.

Colin basically said that they weren’t unhappy as a tomboy and didn’t like the sex hormones. It didn’t make much sense to me and they didn’t sound like they have dysphoria from the interview.
It just sounded like someone who had grown up around sexist stereotypes and wanted to break the stereotypes, rather than change sex.
The doctor was pretty clear there was a difference between dysphoria and presenting differently.
I think a distinction between presenting yourself a bit differently to Kim kardashian and actively hating your body needs to be made.
Transgender and body dysphoria are completely different to playing dress up because you like to present ina slightly masculine way (and ‘confuse’ people).

There's a really interesting discussion to be had about issues like gender stereotyping and gender non-conformity which we are not having because of the toxic 'no debate' culture of shouting 'bigot' and 'transphobe' at everyone who disagrees that children who declare themselves trans should be affirmed in their preferred gender and medicated as soon as possible.

Why are so many girls declaring themselves transgender? Would they be doing this if the 80s culture of gender non-conformity hadn't been submerged in a sea of pinkness and rigid sex stereotypes?

Colin wasn't suffering distress at being a girl, but wanted a deep voice and to be able to confuse people about whether Colin was male or female. It doesn't sound like Colin was someone with gender (or sex) dysphoria.

But the use of hormones and surgery is applicable only to someone with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. If someone doesn't meet the criteria, then the standard of care does not apply.

Otherwise it is cosmetic surgery. In which case the standards of care for cosmetic surgery should be applicable, and it shouldn't be funded by the NHS.

DId anyone else hear a trail on the Today programme for a programme (not sure whether radio or tv) about cheating in the Paralympics? ie athletes being encouraged to pretend they were more disabled than they actually were to go into a different class.

Can't think what that reminded me of.

It was disappointing. Colin still sounded quite immature for 19. I'd have liked JH to ask them where they first learnt about the concept of trans, and if the Internet didn't exist would they have continued being contended as a gender non-conforming girl. No, they did not sound dysphoric.

I am not sure the sentence about ‘people being free to express their gender’ is a point of confluence with feminism.
Because the gender critical view is to suggest that people should be free to express their personality.

I increasingly struggle with what exactly ‘gender’ is. A societal construct of masculine or feminine behaviours or appearances which some people identify with more than others, and which are historically grounded in sexual differences - that is possibly a definition that works. But the idea of a gender identity which everyone has? Or that gender is fixed? I struggle to work that out.

My challenge to myself is no longer to use the word gender, but to explain in different words what I mean. Because people are using the same word to mean different things.

I don’t think I can express my gender, because I do not have one. I am female, but that surely does not confer any personality traits? Maybe some trends at a population level, but even that is sticky. So until someone gives me a workable, commonly understood definition of gender, I am avoiding the word.