Notes from
Cambridge University 21st Feb 19
LGBT History Month Lecture: Trans People: Flashback and Backlash – Christine Burns
Overheard CB prior to meeting ‘we’ve got a whole LGBT leadership team here’!
EF: 11th Anniversary of this lecture, we forgot last year was the 10th year, so it’s great to have CB at our 11th!. The college has embraced visible signals and is proud to fly the rainbow flag. Important gesture to LGBT history, their lived experience and working to make institutions and education safer for LGBT people and help them to meet their full potential.
Christine Burns: Historian involved with the GRA and employment rights, it will be a challenge to fit everything into 30 mins as I’m usually given an hour.
Interest in trans history, a case study on the emergence of a minority group and the distance travelled to approaching the centre and not viewed as abnormal; as a reference point I am 65, born 1954, in 2014 Time had the first TW, Laverne Cox, on the cover and published a serial story about them.
2015 was the trans tipping point, the year of visibility. Public believing that trans is a fad, significant given the visible disgust in ’54.
Trans not visible in history due to corruption, but history and social anthropology show 1000’s of trans people throughout the ages and communities around the world. The west has got hung up on binary, but we’re not all the same height, weight, colour, there are differences/variations, but humans get hung up on binary.
Became a member of ___ press, there are 100’s of instances in media archives of trans people.
In the news currently J Barrie, in the 19thC Harry Stokes – outed as trans after death when it was discovered ‘he’ had a woman’s body, it was a shock event, written in the press, but just a passage of a life, not remarked on otherwise,
Medicine to transition not new. Psychiatrist Herschfeld did a study of gay men/crossdressers, many trans approached him, so he devised techniques for trans. Treated Einar Wegner (Danish Girl), successful, until he wanted a child, tried for womb transplant, but didn’t understand tissue rejection!
Found cuttings of people who drew press attention, the press weren’t shocked, but curious at finding men identifying as female! Usually these people had status and money.
Michael Dillon didn’t pass as ‘girl’, trained as a doctor, found a surgeon; Gillies, who helped and carried out surgeries so she could live as a man. The authorities/medicine were accommodating at the time changing all documentation to male; university certificates, identification docs etc, so she didn’t have to constantly explain.
1959 – Told my mum I wanted to be a girl, had been watching a TV programme (I can’t remember what CB said, but female lead/main character), can remember it was a Tuesday, as his mum always ironed on Tuesday and CB was under the table helping!
The same year (?) outed, s/he retrained and qualified as a Buddhist monk, but died later as the conditions they live in (waved away)…..
The press found a way to talk about trans people as it sells Sunday papers!!
1962 (12) Began to be able to access newspapers, April Ashley was in the news, CB had thought they were unique until this point, as no access to media unlike today.
1962 was also the year the Beaumont Society was formed which was the biggest watershed event in trans history.
Media stories tend to be about those with status as they know how to get things done, nothing about poor or working class people other than April Ashley, who married rich.
The Beaumont Society meant transpeople could talk and the realisation there was a system of discrimination at work and share methods of how to get round doctors; they were a minority group on the edges of society who created a community and shared communication.
1974 – Jan Morris published an autobiography. Jan had begun transition in ’67 and had surgical transition in ’72. Transition takes a long time, thought, logistics and planning, it is not done overnight, nobody does it on a whim.
CB in closet at uni which helped in some ways – highlighted commonalities within community; people either rich or intellectual, could afford to go abroad for medical care, it shows the desperation of trans people and the lengths they have to go to, hurtful when public say ‘maybe not trans enough’.
1979 – serialisation of trans on TV. Showed a route – find the surgeon in Hove.
After Beaumont Society there was no movement for 20 years, except for press titillation, politicians not interested as there was no benefit for MP’s in any party.
Mark Reece ’71 – transitioned and wanted to become priest. Cof E had no women priests, she was unable to marry as seen as ‘cis’ woman even though 100% man, it was a prelude to section 28, but society would only see same sex. The case was taken to ECHR, they heard the evidence and agreed with the case, as ECHR weren’t interested in hysteria and fake news, but only in the law. ECHR recognised Mark couldn’t function without being outed, but the case was lost because the ECHR works on consensus and couldn’t get agreement of all states, however, it got people talking.
27/02/92 Alex Carlisle, Libdem, invited trans group to HOP to discuss the issue, told them they need to become activists.
Activism began by taking cases to court to force action. Gained the right to bring cases with reporting restrictions. Mentioned P versus Devon council, they still don’t publicly mention P’s name, but P won their case as the European Justice agreed P had been discriminated against on grounds of sex discrimination.
Labour ’97 – tried to mow trans into the ground, only partially implemented recommendations. 300 people wrote in and derailed the process and won the right not to be discriminated against in employment and referrals to the NHS.
2002 Commission of Human Rights gained a majority and told UK they had to do something about trans rights which led to the GRA 2004. The battle left most activists burned out, we need new blood, not only to maintain existing rights, but to push for equality, we’re encouraging new, younger people to rise up and push equality forward and move to a point where discrimination is illegal.
Slavery is illegal, it goes on, but is deemed unacceptable.
Social change takes ages and needs visibility.
2015 – Backlash. An unfortunate confluence of events. People acting in bad faith. Trans people have argued with facts and that’s why they have won.
Happy to have a discussion with people regarding the GRA who have done their homework, but not otherwise. Facts are better than opinions, most of it uninformed and soundbites.
Quote from ---
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you - where we are now, the wheels are coming off their argument, society will have to work out a new system of facts. Then you win.
Well meaning people taken in by fake news.
Q & A
AW – Best of lectures, great having a speaker who is making history happen. Activism powerful thing, CB historian who is excellent on ground work.
CB – We’re still in the shadows, LGBT history not chronicled, it’s a big enough issue finding women’s history, where women have achieved, but it gets claimed by men, wiping the women’s achievement away. (CB appears to class transwomen in this women’s achievement!).
‘Masters/PHD students should study Trans history – students always get A’s’ (Odd look from lecturer; meaning not clear)
Q1 fm audience – Good people misled into anti trans movement, it’s said money coming from ….
CB – yes, yes. Thanks for the question – it’s the backlash, or a ‘perfect storm’. 2016 Evangelical Right given OK to beat gays, a way to regroup/reunifying subject. Trump doing bidding – bathroom laws, banning from military.
UK 2015 prioritises improvement of treatment in press and employment. Improve access to NHS not just for gender reassignment, but other interactions as a daughter aiding parents, as a parent to a child, an employee.
T May election manifesto – GRA reform ‘where did it come from?’ It needs doing in time, but I had been having meetings with civil servants to reduce the paperwork so the medical requirement wasn’t overdone, the government fired the gun putting women’s rights at risk.
Passports, the provision of birth certificates, lots of checks and balances to prove identity.
Only thing GRA proposing was reduction of medical evidence, the only people who want to jump through hoops are trans, nobody else would want to do this.
Loo’s – go into any loo and there are men cleaning signs. If you’re a pervert go to B & Q, buy a mop and bucket and you can get access. Toilets are secure, like Fort Knox (nodding FM uni staff/audience).
Q2 fm audience – given legal rights long before social acceptance. Non binary rights bleak, artificial binary. Cambridge uni believe students are NB and are accepting, but I’m having trouble at work, they say they believe then every month HMRC query NB status (NB in this instance clearly a woman).
CB: The world needs to get it head round why we collect info we don’t need. They want to know gender, age etc, but very often it could be discriminatory, GDPR rules state don’t collect information unless there is a need. We mostly ask for and supply this info because we always have done. The state doesn’t need to know gender/sex, but what individual needs are. NB people don’t need legislation, we just need to ask why the information is needed and why it is being collected. We need a quiet revolution in common sense.
Toilets with everything included – we can solve issues by taking a fresh look at things we have done before due to habit and change it.
Q3. Cambridge is a bubble, I’m planning on moving abroad and transitioning, how do I work out where is safe?
CB: Cases are unique. Work out the logistics, ask will this foul me up.
ML: Safe place at Uni where you can discuss this and help you formulate plans.
End –Audience invited for drinks and opportunity to talk to CB and buy book.
I was surprised that there weren't that many students in attendance given the articles in university publications that have complained about Maniac Magpie on Kings Parade and about other women raising awareness around Cambridge. The hall was only about 2/3 full max, the audience was a mixed age range, students to pensioners.
Some of the text doesn't flow as CB seemed to lose the thread of the speech quite often, whether this was due to cutting prepared speech down, or age, or something else, it sounded odd at times, which was apparent when I wrote up my notes the same evening.
CB mentioned women written from history, then just slid in transwomen, with the implication that women who had achieved were transwomen, which I found insulting to all the women whose lives and achievements were again being appropriated to benefit non-women. By implication CB fails to understand and disregards the fact that women have fought to participate and achieve in life and not be held back due to the sex they were born, because they choose to disguise themselves as a man in order to do this, cannot then be extrapolated out to mean they thought they were a man. However I can see why this argument is necessary if an individual requires validation for their own identity.