Stella O'Malley, Trans Kids: It's Time To Talk

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Apologies if there is already a thread about this. Channel 4, 10.00 tonight. 'Stella O'Malley considers the huge rise in numbers of young people embarking on gender transition, through the prism of the gender identity issues she experienced when she was a child.' According to The Times no TRA groups were prepared to contribute to this . Stella feels this may be because she was a tomboy as a young girl, (even insisting she was a boy until she hit puberty), and is now a confident, mature woman who believes that nowadays she would be pressured to go down the transition route. Sounds like it will be worth watching.

Juno Dawson Twitter Comment:
twitter.com/junodawson/status/1065368724419555328

When it comes to trans lives, you can listen to trans EXPERIENCES or cisgender OPINIONS. Your choice.

Alternatively - When it comes to women's lives, you can listen to women's EXPERIENCES or transgender OPINIONS. Your choice.

That tweet doesn't work quite as well as you thought it did, Juno.

It is pretty obvious that it is not really possible to come to an objective , fixed position on all this stuff. People on all sides have their views, and they work hard to "cram" things into looking like objective evidence.We see that in the Bristol meeting coverage; on the one hand the picketers behaved like fools, and said some foolish things that got through the editing process, but also those meetings are not really a discussion of the issues, are they? I've watched the coverage of some, and I am due to attend one shortly, but they are not even-handed at all. They are rallies of the like minded for the anti- self ID camp. ( of which I am a member, as a TS woman) … but hey, we all live to fight another day.

What saskia said

Im watching it now on the back of this thread, but would echo the posters thoughts on both debbies wife and cole both of whom seem lovely

IW has doubled down on her 'nazis' comment.

The fact that all those pro-trans groups refused to take part has given the TRAs an excuse to bleat about the doc being one-sided to an audience that doesn't know the facts.

The problem of adopting the middle ground when struggling with extremists is that the compromise position can often end up deep in the extremists' territory. One reason we're in this mess is that until now there's been acceptance of all kinds of demands, many of which work against the safety of women and gay/gender non-conforming children.

Getting a sensible outcome actually requires women to be uncompromising in what they think should be permitted. But this means that women, operating outside of their socialisation, are being seen as nasty and extreme. Well, so be it.

When I'm optimistic over this, I actually think the end result will be a compromise that preserves both the rights of women and of trans people. If this happens, I fully expect there to be a chorus of "what were you all worried about! we all knew it was going to be fine!". But we will only get to that point by pushing back hard now, when it's almost too late. Sitting back and waiting for a nice comfortable outcome will cost women and gay/gender non-conforming children dearly.

The solution is a third space where all the liberal women can choose to share with trans women, in the new third space.

Leaving the current female spaces for the 99% of women who only want to share with other biological women.

And wow to the meeting!!

Just horrendous

And yay to miranda

All the women there were so brave even going there with that bunch of reprobates yelling outside

It is interesting that so many TRAs find the documentary one sided - I felt it was quite balanced given that none of them would speak on it! The very act of saying that things need to be discussed being seen as one sided and bigoted - this is so extreme.

It was clear that the documentary maker didn’t feel comfortable with the Bristol meeting being quite one sided inside and she made the point that both sides should discuss things rather than being ranged against each other - and yet even that is seen as anti-trans by so many.

And yes, don’t get me started on the ‘cis’ gender male who thinks he can nonetheless define womanly souls in everyone else.

That Juno tweet is so tone deaf. I can't believe that there is any woman out there who doesn't accept transwomen as transwomen. What is wrong with that? The difficult experiences of transwomen stem from either male homophobia and male violence or from transwomen trying to co-opt the experiences and spaces of women. Stop doing the latter and join with women to combat the former and that's where the consensus can be built.

I would be proud of my children if they felt so strongly about something that they wanted to peacefully protest

I would be so disappointed if they felt the best way to do that was wear a mask, yell obscenities and prevent people from going somewhere they needed/wanted to go

The Juno tweet is so me, me. Trans people's experience and trans this and that. Totally missing the fact that children who are NOT trans will be harmed by this new fashion for medically transitioning before puberty. But then who cares about them - they're cis scum I suppose.

KayM2

My 'objective, fixed position' is that I am an adult human female - and I have objective scientific evidence of that.

Just watched it. Agree with what others have said about Debbie's wife. 'Broken' is the right word. Feel so sorry for her.

I admire Debbie for standing up to TRAs and speaking out as a trans woman but I think the documentary did a good job of showing the effect of transitioning on people close to the trans woman or man.

When a close family member of mine was severely anorexic and I expressed how it affected me (worrying they would die), the family member was extremely angry that I was in any way involving myself in their pain and problems. Later, when they were recovering, they could see that obviously they weren’t the only one suffering from their pain. I thought what Debbie said seemed quite reflective of that, realising later the impact transitioning had on everyone.

(I know the anorexia and trans analogy wouldn’t go down well with all - it is just an analogy, though if you accept gender dysphoria as a diagnosis, it is a mental health issue along with eating disorders).

The impression I got was how great Debbie’s family are. I don’t really want to speculate on how her wife feels as she seemed quite reticent about it all, but she is obviously looking after her family - and that did strike me as very much the lot of natal women in these types of situations, however they choose to do it.

Also interesting that Stella used ever meeting with Debbie to reflect on the potential negatives of transitioning later (difficulties of already having a family who have to adjust to this huge change, heterosexual wife, mental health problems from trying to repress trans nature for years...) - I thought this was quite balanced as it was in many ways a potential argument for earlier transitioning. (Though also, of course, for counselling and openness about gender and roles and what you want and feel you should do in society which might mean you made other choices earlier, I suppose).

Got myself in a mess with my pronouns above - I try not to use pronouns concerning trans gender people as I don’t want to be offensive to them or untrue to my own beliefs, but I did use pronouns with Debbie. When I said ‘she is obviously looking after her family’ I meant I felt that Debbie’s wife is looking after her family, in the way she is approaching and managing things.

It was interesting, but I prefer good investigative journalism. I think the trouble is with using personal experience as a bit of a yardstick here, is that it is just one person’s experience. Stella felt like a boy and came out of it. That’s interesting, and I think we need to know that this happens, and also that children also start the process then stop, but one or two examples is not compelling.

I think the real story here is that the puberty blockers can be dangerous, that the trans agenda, supported by gov and major political parties, is pushing their use. What did not get asked once in the programme as far as I saw, was to ask these young people what they mean when they said they felt like a boy. What was disturbing about being a girl? What is their understanding about what it means to be a boy or a girl? Louis Theroux never asked that in his documentary either. Annoyed the heck out of me.

The Bristol mob remind me of those calling for the death of Asia Bibi in Pakistan. They’re totally unhinged.

I'm just catching up on this and haven't rtft.

I've just had a big query;

I just wonder how much of the fact that Stella clearly openly expressed her self through stereotypical boy ways as a child, helped in some ways to not have those feelings as an adult?

Because it's harder for boys to do this. I knew I could act and dress 'like a boy' in the 80s (I'm 41). But the little boys I knew certainly couldn't. And I wonder if it's been harder for girls in recent times too.

I think the trouble in the whole debate is that quite often things come across as one-sided which makes it easier for people to dismiss it as transphobic. I remember reading Transgender Trend's schools information and all the examples are of people who made mistakes and were glad they didn't end up regretting them. I know that's sort of the point but that also makes it easy for trans rights activists to dismiss it.

Neuro - that’s a very interesting point. I feel like being ‘boyish’ was much easier to do in the 80s (I’m just shy of 40), and in the 90s we had goth and grunge which was great for boys and girls. The ‘pinkification’ has got really out of control and the less ‘gender conforming’ daughters of friends of mine seem to go much further in their looks to be ‘boyish’ than any of the ‘tom boys’ I knew as a kid - it feels like you’re not allowed to be slightly ‘boyish’ now nearly as much - as if you have to go the whole hog and have very short hair and just superhero/blue clothes etc. Maybe that’s because the only other choices available as very girly, I don’t know. I know it’s a real struggle and getting harder to find clothes for 8 year old DS that aren’t all just blue, brown,khaki boringness.

I see that some people on Twitter are making a distinction between being non-gender conforming and being ‘really’ trans. So they would argue that is ‘all’ Stella was - gender non conforming. But the only evidence for being really trans seems to be feeling it, or being more extreme about it, and we can’t take that out of the society which is increasingly polarised, so it’s very hard to tell where that line is drawn (if anywhere).

letera; that is not a " fixed position", intellectually, it is a biological fact.

I was referring only to the difficulty of being objective about the various aspects of the controversy.

I’ve just watched on catchup. I’m so, so glad that this side of the debate has been put on TV.

Neuro I think you’re absolutely right.

The position of the spouse in these cases is not addressed often enough. Their position is often awful, and is always unenviable.

On the other hand ( the trouble with this business is that there is ALWAYS " another hand" ,to ask someone to put the GD on one side is natural but often quite impractical. Some manage it. Very often they can't. Who is to say how much the Gender Dysphoria impacts in individual cases?

I try not to judge others in this; usually everyone tries to do " the right thing". Often " the least worst thing", in the end.

Excellent programme I thought. I’m another who like Stella would have been a prime target for transing if I’d been born 25 years later. I’m autistic. And now very happy as a woman. It’s terrifying to think what I would have missed out on, pregnancy etc. I found it really sad when Kenny was talking about the possible loss of sensation on surgery. Kids potentially missing out on any sex life at all as adults, let alone the infertility issues. Kids and teens are known for not understanding the long term consequences of their actions, it’s part of growing up, but the potential permanent changes just shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

The protests were horrific, I found myself laughing at how pathetic they were but it must have been scary to be there at the time. The person talking about pronouns, it was like a parody. Ridiculous.