Letter in the Times - Plea To The Trans Lobby from group of transsexuals

[PimmsnLemonade]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/times-letters-reasons-for-private-schools-oxbridge-success-sqjb6kkgt

Recent BMJ letter by medical clinicians:

Published 29 October 2018
'Redesigning gender identity services: an opportunity to generate evidence'
authors: Richard Byng, general practitioner and professor in primary care research, Susan Bewley, emeritus professor of obstetrics and women’s health, Damian Clifford, consultant liaison psychiatrist, Margaret McCartney, general practitioner and freelance writer
(extracts)
"A recent feature in The BMJ implied that new services are all that’s needed to improve transgender healthcare. Providing timely, sensitive services for all, including those who decide to not pursue treatment or detransition, is important. But the article did not question the steep rise in referrals of mainly young women or the potential harms of medical overdiagnosis and overtreatment" (continues)

"Regulated medical practitioners should follow a framework of evidence, not simply respond to client expectations. Creating that evidence to inform quality standards is an ethical imperative. We need research to explore the interplays between gender identity, mental health and neurodevelopmental problems, sexual orientation, autogynephilia, and unpalatable gender roles" (continues)

open access link here:
www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4490.full?ijkey=6lX93kQA0lz5YoB&keytype=ref

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3410257-BMJ-article-We-need-research-to-explore-the-interplays-between-gender-identity-mental-health-and-neurodevelopmental-problems-sexual-orientation-autogynephilia-and-unpalatable-gender-roles

kay your respect for women is very low, isn't it? It's always horribly revealing how the identifying as a woman part is so skin deep as to be irrelevant.

I suspect you being transgender has little to do with this, just as I suspect Miranda's attitude has little to do with being transgender. And everything to do with you as people.

Plus, of course, Miranda has actually listened to feminists. And feminism. Miranda understands, only too well, exactly what stereotyping means and how it is used. Which has to be fairly hard, for someone who is trans. Because it utterly relies on stereotyping.

You are just offering false hopes to a few decent and guilt ridden trans people and a larger but still electorally insignificant group of determined feminists.

Twelves million unique users per month. A twelve fold increase in one year in the number of women accessing the site via this very board. (And there are literally dozens of boards on mumsnet.)

I'm just informing you, so you know you're wrong about that. But you calling women's concerns insignificant is just the same old bloody sexism that gave rise to transgenderism in the first place.

Society says that the interests I have, the way I act and apparently the way I think would be expected of someone who was biologically female.

If you think your behaviour on this board has, at any point, been typically female, Kay, I suggest putting yourself through the Freedom Programme. It may provide some insight.

I suspect you being transgender has little to do with this, just as I suspect Miranda's attitude has little to do with being transgender. And everything to do with you as people.

This is an insight I have had over the last few months. I think of all the
psychological gatekeeping that Kay and Cant always stress they had. Perhaps if it wasn't solely about whether transition would be good for them but also safe for women and had included an assessment of attitudes towards women, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But before I " go", and leave all this behind, me

Will this be your fourth or your fifth grandiose flounce-and-return? I forget.

It has to be recognised the role played by some older people who are transsexuals & part of transgender communities. They are prominant and influential TRAs:

From the 2013 Guardian article , important background & interviews including Stephen Whittle, Christine Burns, Sarah Brown, Paris Lees, James Barrett:

Christine Burns:
"In the 90s, when she was chair of the Women's Supper Club of the local Conservative party association in Cheshire, she quietly joined Press for Change. Even then, the new activists dared not be openly trans. "The thing that held us back in the 1990s campaigning was that fear of being out," admits Burns. Eventually, she came out in 1995; she jokes that she realised she was more embarrassed to be a member of the Conservative party than openly transsexual.

Much of their [Press for Change] campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press". In popular culture, the activists became more forthcoming in their attempts to increase popular understanding of trans issues."

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

The LibDem Layla Moran who was one of the MPs clearly influenced by TRAs propaganda acknowledged the influence/help she had received from Helen Belcher (Trans Media Watch)

James Kirkup comment:
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/this-mp-has-summed-up-everything-wrong-with-the-transgender-debate/

This is an insight I have had over the last few months. I think of all the
psychological gatekeeping that Kay and Cant always stress they had. Perhaps if it wasn't solely about whether transition would be good for them but also safe for women and had included an assessment of attitudes towards women, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Exemplified by James Barrett's comment at the successful appeal to enable a male convicted of very serious violent and sexual offences to be transferred to the female prison estate:

This was a very important case and set the precedent which enabled Karen Jones to be in the position to sexually assault vulnerable female prisoners. The women were locked in by the state with Jones a male prolific predatory offender.

Dr James Barrett of the Gender Identity Clinic, Charing Cross Hospital, who had also known the Claimant for many years, explained why living in role in female accommodation was required:

"it will become clear that she is so widely accepted as female in that unit that location in the main prison will follow. I think that such acceptance will pretty generally apply in the main prison, also, although there will probably always be a small number of prisoners who will choose to make an issue of the matter because they are the sort of women who enjoy conflict. If this patient is able to cope with protracted close proximity women of that sort I would judge her able to cope with the less prolonged, more avoidable, travails of the civilian world."

www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2009/2220.html

James Barrett described in the Guardian article above, "is the lead clinician at the Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic, the largest and oldest in the world, which receives 1,400 NHS patients a year, a figure that is doubling every five years. About one in five referrals end up having genital surgery"

This is misogyny and sexism unchallenged and endorsed by the courts:
there will probably always be a small number of prisoners who will choose to make an issue of the matter because they are the sort of women who enjoy conflict.

What it really comes down to is this: if you’re going to claim to be different to TRAs, then you actually have to be different to TRAs.

Indeed. If you go back a few years I was initially inclined to take the "two groups, transexuals are fine and we can work with them, men for whom transition means putting on a wig and a garter belt not fine" approach. I wanted to try to work with transsexuals to resolve this mess. You know what happened to change my mind? I actually talked to transsexuals, and much to my dismay discovered that for every Miranda or Hamster there are at least 100 Kay's or Jaycee's. I started paying attention to what people were saying made them women, and it's been sexist as hell from the very beginning, all the way back to the period during the 60s that some now try to frame as an example of getting things right. I started to notice the sense of entitlement, and the selfishness, and the insistence that what makes transsexuals happy is ultimately far more important than any sacrifice women have to make in order to make that happen. I noticed the tendency to speak in the language of commands - "you have to", "we're going to do it anyway so you need to start from there" - and the language of manipulation - "I'm old so can't you just let me?", "Can't you just be kind (to transsexuals, certainly not to yourself or to other women and girls)?" - and I started putting the pieces together.

So, no, we can't assume that there are two clear groups and everyone in the TS group is a decent person who has empathy for women, because time after time TS people prove that it's not true. And no, we're not going to pretend that it is true just because you'll throw a tantrum if we don't.

I was also where AAK was 2-3 years ago. And, as she says, what's changed? Familiarity, I'm afraid. Specifically, familiarity with the same old Duluth wheel behaviour patterns. If you had them before transition, it seems, you keep them after. Perhaps if all this lady training that goes on included behaviour modification, we could talk. Otherwise, I'm afraid it's a flat no from me.

I'm not sure why anyone thinks that surgery and hormones would be a cure for dysfunctional and/or sexist behavior, honestly. In retrospect that seems like a very silly thing to have assumed.

Wow, Kay really is determined to show us who they are, huh? Some of us believed you the first time...

This, though? This was funny, and I needed a laugh.

Though as jokes are not part of your usual manner

Now you really have gone way too far.

Familiarity, I'm afraid. Specifically, familiarity with the same old Duluth wheel behaviour patterns

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3452784-Coercive-Control-a-need-for-better-awareness

Kay
You say " it always has been ,and always will be, impossible to get transsexual women ( and some who are not TS, ) out of the ladies loos. This is a fact. Simply, a cast iron fact. It is impossible to police, even if it were lawful to try to do so."

This is the same argument for against trying to end male domination of women and girls is any context- it simply seems futile.

Men will always spy on, expose themselves to, assault, rape, hurt, abuse, dismiss, dominate and even kill women. It is impossible to police even if it is lawful to do so.

Males will always be dominant.
Males will always act without women's consent, even if this is crossing women's most intimate personal boundaries.
Males will keep going right ahead no matter who says no or how no is expressed.
Males will ensure women's rights to boundaries are politically deprioritised and poorly resources.
Therefore

Women saying no to men is futile.

But guess what Kay? Women are pretty fucked of with being dominated and disrespected by males. This collected fucked off-ness is called feminism. Males telling women that feminism is futile is nothing new. But you know what? We have no other choice. If we don't fight, even if the odds look stacked up against us, our only other option is to give in. I won't be doing that any time soon.

'in' any context

I have to say that watching Kay' male pattern entitlement on this (and other threads) has been quite eye opening. And has been useful in helping me refine my views, although possibly not in the way Kay intended.

If you go back a few years I was initially inclined to take the "two groups, transexuals are fine and we can work with them, men for whom transition means putting on a wig and a garter belt not fine" approach.

I was still in this mindset when I completed the GRA consultation, but since then the scales have fallen from my eyes, and the trans widows' stories have been a big revelation to me.
Every time we make concessions to males, a woman gets ignored.

*Men will always spy on, expose themselves to, assault, rape, hurt, abuse, dismiss, dominate and even kill women. It is impossible to police even if it is lawful to do so.

Males will always be dominant.
Males will always act without women's consent, even if this is crossing women's most intimate personal boundaries.
Males will keep going right ahead no matter who says no or how no is expressed.
Males will ensure women's rights to boundaries are politically deprioritised and poorly resources.*

I got accused earlier of gender stereotyping so I find this somewhat a generalisation but I do absolutely accept that gender stereotypes aside women have been downtrodden, oppressed and abused for centuries.

Of course women need to stand up for their rights and move society forward but right now what is happening is that genuine transsexual people are being asked to relinquish what they fought hard for because the modern transgender umbrella hijacked it.

The Gender Recognition Act has been in force 14 years now and was never really an issue until those who it clearly did not apply to co-opted it for their own for a selfish agenda.

R0wantrees quote earlier...
"Regulated medical practitioners should follow a framework of evidence, not simply respond to client expectations. Creating that evidence to inform quality standards is an ethical imperative. We need research to explore the interplays between gender identity, mental health and neurodevelopmental problems, sexual orientation, autogynephilia, and unpalatable gender roles"
is absolutely totally correct and this is certainly what I and the transsexual people that I know have been saying for years. Transsexualism / Gender Dysphoria / Gender Identity Disorder MUST remain medicalised within a multi disciplinary environment with a set diagnostic pathway as laid down in the DSM.

Unlike some of the transgender people I meet, presenting as the opposite sex is not something I enjoy - it is as of this time the only coping mechanism I have to deal with GD, a condition I would not wish on my worst enemy. Unfortunately we are seeing a shift in some environments where a diagnosis becomes simply an affirmation of the clients own desires irrespective of motivation. Worse still we are seeing a shift that to some being transgender rather than being a medical condition is simply an alternative lifestyle which one can establish on a whim.

I wholeheartedly agree that the transtrender, demedicalisation, self id bull shit needs to stop. We need to go back to 15-20 years ago where you would be lucky if there were only 5,000 transsexual people in the country who sought medical diagnosis and treatment. For those people the GRA, in basically its current form serves a purpose and I personally beleive it unfair that I am asked to relinquish that. Fine, Im not a woman and I never will be a woman but I am not "just another man"; I detest everything that men stand for and represent and I want nothing to do with the attitudes, the misogyny, the chauvinism....

NAMALT would be more pithy.

cantgetridofthekids
As this is discussion and MN are keen that it is civilised, might you consider reading and listening to more of the posts please?

I got accused earlier of gender stereotyping so I find this somewhat a generalisation

It's not nice to make people roll their eyes this hard. Migraines hurt, you know.

I detest everything that men stand for and represent and I want nothing to do with the attitudes, the misogyny, the chauvinism....

Oh, the irony.

cantgetridofthekids - I suggested above that a psychological assessment of attitudes to women should form part of the medical gatekeeping that you tell us you support. Do you think this would be a good idea and would help assure that transitioning transsexuals do not bring male entitlement and harmful behaviour patterns into women's spaces?

I really see no reason why women's spaces should include males who are aware that other men can be shitheads sometimes. Also that sounds a bit like if I were to argue that I shouldn't be considered British because I think colonialism was terrible.

You don't get to opt out of demographics that you belong to just because the actions of some other people within those demographics make you feel shame, or don't feel like things you would ever do yourself.

I agree, AAK. I just wondered whether cant would approve of such gatekeeping/screening procedures that would provide added protection to women.

Seems Kay causes as much conflict here as she did on trans forums from what I hear. It never ends well.

Interesting that Debbie Hayton, who is routinely fawned over, has a fairly similar 'I'm entitled to...' viewpoint to Kay, but is a lot more careful with their language to avoid upsetting you lot.