Robert Winston Radio 4 Today Programme

[PaleBlueMoonlight]

Interesting piece by Robert Winston on medical transition just now, as part of a piece on waiting times for gender surgery.

an expert in ethics and society

Made a misstep with that ethics part then.

I mean a deeply held belief about the sex one feels one is or should be.

Fieldofgreycorn Are you going to explain why you think this belief system should be imposed on others who don't share it?

"Intellectual wanking"! 😁

I shall be using this phrase in my everyday life now, going forwards.

(Sorry, missed how much thread had moved on since this excellent turn of phrase was presented by Datun)

Hormone wash or similar makes no sense to me
Girls do not like pink because they have a girl brain, they like pink because that is what out culture presents as suitable for their sex. How does the girl brain in the boy body know intrinsically what cultural norms there are in that particular time and place
Is it not more likely that a parent or other influence is telling them they shouldn't like pink because they are a boy?

Like Jazz Jennings. At 2 years old and undoing the poppers on the baby grow to create a dress, my kids undid poppers on everything but we'll ignore that, how did the infant know that girls should wear dresses in that particular time and place
What if we were back 50 years and boys wore dresses
It's a poor argument

Oh come off it. His speech is fine and actually accurate. In 2004 being transgender was relatively uncommon and I don't think there is any argument that some individuals have a strong and settled sense they are the other sex (psychological sex, maybe?)
I think many of us have refined our understanding and have a different view if transgenderism than we did in 2004 - I know I have.
None of what he said then is incompatible with being concerned about the affirmative transition process in place in 2020. And people are allowed to change perspective as more info becomes available.

Hormone wash is b/s.

When my dd came out as trans, this was the 'explanation' given to me by pro-gender support organisations. They could never explain the mechanism of 'hormone washing', let alone provide me with citations in support of it.

'Hormone washes' is just a way to blame mothers, and for homophobic men to make sense of butch women and feminine men.

littlecabbage

(Sorry, missed how much thread had moved on since this excellent turn of phrase was presented by Datun)

Sadly I didn't invent it, cabbage. But it called to me, instantly, and vehemently.

It encompasses, 100%, what many men do.

Well, I think hormone washes rather fail Occams razor, tbh. What is the most simple explanation for males or females in our culture feeling a sense of disconnect with their bodies which may relate to their preferences for certain activities and personality traits which the society around them has coded for the opposite sex? Is it the society around them coding these things erroneously, or is it a mysterious, unproven theory about hormone washes in the womb?

Anyway as per gay people, why would it matter why people are as they are unless there is a reason to want to cure them as with a painful or lifelimiting disease. Gay people have rightly fought shy of ‘a cause’.

The only issue with feeling more feminine or masculine than is typical for your sex is that society gets antsy about it. So why don’t we go back to the original motivation of Stonewall et al and accept people as they are and in the bodies they are in. Let’s do that and let’s also stop pretending people are born in the wrong body and can change sex. Let’s do those things and then we’re done and can get back to whatever matters we had in hand before this bullshit took hold.

Isn't it that some people want to be or feel an association and identification with the opposite sex and that they therefore chose to adopt the sex stereotypes associated with the opposite sex whatever those may be?

So it isn't that a little boy actually particularly likes princess dresses and ballet for themselves but that he feels an affinity with girls and wants to be like them so copies the stereotypical behaviour norms.

There probably is a link with being gay given how many children with dysphoria will grow up to be gay if left alone.

No idea if it could be caused by hormones in the womb. But like many human behaviours there are probably multiple causes both genetic and environmental.

I think gender dysphoria probably has far more in common with the various disorders that mean the brain can’t interpret the body properly.

I had a similar experience fleetingly when I had DD by CS and was numb from the waist down. After she’d been born she was taken away briefly and I was lying on the surgery table waiting to go to the recovery room and I looked down and saw this rather disgusting pink thing - the shape of a large triangle in front of me. I couldn’t make any sense of it but it felt repellant. After a few seconds I realised It was my leg, which had been propped up. It was the oddest sensation not to recognise my body as my own - it became an abstract blobby pink shape rather than a part of me - and to feel completely alienated from it.

My aunt who has had an amputation also suffers from appalling phantom limb pains and her foot which isn’t there gets terribly cold. She feels better putting a blanket over her nonexistent foot. The parallels with discomfort being eased by dressing as the opposite sex strike me quite strongly. The difference is nobody tells my aunt she actually does have a foot and she doesn’t shout at people who acknowledge the fact that she doesn’t actually have a foot.

That’s my take on gender dysphoria - at least for adults. For children it’s 99pc horror of puberty I think.

I know we are not supposed to mention the other thing that goes on with adult men - the lace dresses and all that. That’s a whole other story imho.

God yes, the brain is full of all sorts of bizarre phenomena that can be very compelling. Once, in the grip of psychosis, i believed I could fly. For a great many years I had persistent suicidal ideation because I believed I was utterly damaged goods, worthless and that my sexuality made me degenerate.

I was completely in error in both these sincerely held beliefs. I'm very glad no one suggested a skydive without a parachute, or suggested I follow through taking my life, and instead helped me come to terms with reality. I can't quite believe we are still in a place where sincere but obvious nonsense beliefs are being treated by body modification, to use as neutral a term as possible.

Great posts binterested

I don't understand why gender dysphoria is treated by changing the body, rather than by psychological treatments.

It is worth remembering that when the first Act was debated it was assumed that around 5,000 were affected. (In the end I think slightly fewer than 5,000 certificates were issued).

This was before queer theory really took hold, and when many people had real sympathy for transexual pioneers like Jan Morris and April Ashley.

I assume Robert Winston may have come from a similar place, as that legislation raised barely any public opposition. Then, like many others, is shocked at the Pandora's Box that has been opened. Many people still think transgender means transexual, and are
unaware of Stonewall's alphabet soup definition. I suspect many transexuals are equally unhappy that their own distress has been hijacked, in part by apparent fetishists and opportunities.

Yes well said need

Apart from him using "gender" where the correct word should have been "sex" a number of times, that was very interesting

yes!!!! That frustrated me (shouting at the radio). But otherwise, what he said was science & evidence-based, measured, compassionate, and sensible.

Oh that the Tavistock and other clinics were led by people like him.

I mean a deeply held belief about the sex one feels one is or should be.

If biological sex is a social construct because intersex, what does that even mean?

It was the oddest sensation not to recognise my body as my own - it became an abstract blobby pink shape rather than a part of me - and to feel completely alienated from it

I had an inkling of this after a bone fracture which led to severe nerve problems in that limb. It's not uncommon - Ann Oakley (2nd wave feminist academic.) wrote a book called Fracture where she explores this.

A couple of years back I met him and had an interesting chat about neuroanatomy, sex stereotypes and brain plasticity. Where he agreed with all what I said, then somehow came to the conclusion of different sexed brains causing tgism. Fuck knows tbh.

If he has changed his stance, he needs to make that absolutely 100% clear and acknowledge that he has had a part in this.
Anything less just isn't good enough.

I think scientists find it difficult to communicate uncertainty. During the GRA 2004 debate it sounds like Robert is stating supported hypotheses at that time and scientific knowledge at that time. The problem with supporting any hypothesis is that there will be unknowns. Scientists err on the side of caution by saying but and if and we don't know all the facts. Policy makers don't want unknowns they want black and white facts. Policy makers want certainty and simplicity. Eventually a diluted compromise is achieved. If Robert joined the debate to discuss DSD then what he says is that it is complex, which I guess it is. As others have said this was before the rise of gender identity.
Still disappointed though that he mentioned sexed brains.

Interesting how he was brought on to Radio 4 to discuss lengthy waiting times for gender dysphoria, but would not be drawn into that debate. I also liked how he seemed to leave an open invite to come back and talk about children and he did use the word mutilation I believe.
As with others I'm annoyed he used gender instead of sex on numerous occasions, but I did feel he got some important points across.
Standing for Women quoted there are 26000 females on Crowdfunder asking for donations for surgery to affirm them as men.

I think the BBC are beginning to recognise that the transitioning of children might end up not on the right side of history

Well cbbc aren't getting that memo

Fantastic post Barracker.

The hormone wash stuff has been misinterpreted from genuine effects of hormones on the development of babies in the womb; Gina Rippon has a lot on it in her book the gendered brain. But her whole book is about the way the impact of this on personality expression is misinterpreted as blue pink brain rubbish.

We impose gender stereotypes on character. Eg ADHD is often seen as a male issue and girls with the condition can get labelled "stereotyped" thrice over; behaviour like a boy, "that's usually a boy thing," and then the actual stereotypes surrounding the condition. I know Erin Brewer who has gender dyphoria due to a sexual assault as a child and also due to adhd and how she was treated with this condition growing up has written about this. A similar process of stereotyping and assumptions definitely exists for women with autism.