Thread has gone because some posts within it allegedly broke the rules. Can we discuss this without breaking the rules? It's important. It's false information, and false representation about the UK, the NHS, and about us, and women and our healthcare and lives in general. Also offensive to women, and making false equivalence and false inferrences. It's in the media, trending on twitter, liked over 200,000 times, shared tens of thousands of times...
mobile.twitter.com/PhilosophyTube/status/1355577911949070341
"Hello friends! I'm delighted to say I'm a trans woman; my name is Abigail and you can refer to me with she/her.
Thank you to everyone who kept my secret for such a long time as I prepared to come out publicly! I'm excited to continue my acting career and Philosophy Tube. Please respect my privacy and treat everyone with kindness and patience, even those who don't treat me kindly. It's so lovely to finally relax, to sleep well with sweet dreams and be at home in myself! But I'm also scared. Things are very, very bad for trans people in the UK and they're getting worse. My existing following means I have now instantly become one of the most recognisable transgender people in the country and I feel an enormous pressure to be "good at it", like if I could only be clever enough, or pretty or funny or articulate enough, things would magically come right! Alas, I can't be a perfect paragon of trans Britain, I'm just an actress, but I can relay the following facts:
Trans people have existed for as long as there has been a Britain (longer!) But even after a century of feminism the government still dictates what we may do with our own bodies. The NHS is forced by outdated rules to discriminate against us: if a cisgender (ie. Not trans) woman wants hormone replacement therapy for menopause she can get it from the GP, but if a trans person needs it to transition we have to travel to a separate clinic and be interrogated by psychiatrists. Because of this discrimination waiting lists are several years long. Women like me die waiting for the exact same medicines that bald men get from the GP to treat hair loss. Trans men die waiting for breast reduction surgery that cis women get for back pain. In England and Wales people under 16 can get an abortion, which is permanent, but trans children can't get life saving puberty blockers, which are reversible. Some politicians promise to reduce waiting times , but that's not equality; it's just more efficient discrimination. We don't have equal legal rights either. Cis people can use their passport as proof of ID when they get married or adopt children, but we can't - even though my passport says 'F' for Female i'd have to beg the government's permission to become a wife or mother. There has never been a trans MP , member of the House of Lords , MSP, MS, or MLA. No party has equal rights as a policy goal. Trans people, especially trans people of colour, are hit hardest by unemployment, homelessness, and domestic, sexual , and police violence, but the conversation always focuses on wealthy white cis women tweeting about toilets. Overworked journalists often don't know much about our lives, so antifeminists and religious extremists feed them pseudoscience and fear mongering. Antisemitic conspiracy theories about a mythical "trans lobby" controlling universities or government are printed without criticism alongside calls to have us "cured" with conversion therapy, which, shockingly, is still legal. Well-meaning folks worry about embarrassing themselves by 'saying the wrong thing', so they never speak up to help us. Like Suffragettes and black civil rights movements before us we are told to watch our tone lest the people denying us the means to live get hurt feelings.
I might only be an actress, but as a feminist I can't submit to civic inferiority or give up control of my body. In my view feminism isn't a tea party with the Queen or a girlboss brunch with #femspirational CEOs, it's our common struggle to be free. Today i'd like to add my voice to the many demanding new legislation for trans equal rights: an informed consent system of medical transition and a self-ID system of legal transition for all who desire it, including nonbinary people. Everyone else in Britain already gets their healthcare and gendered services that way; surely it's only fair that we should to? In my mind there's no question about it, just as there was no legitimate "debate" about whether to give gay and lesbian people equal rights; we don't "cancel" or "silence" Flat Earthers when we set aside their concerns about space travel and start listening to cosmonauts! That said, "equal rights" won't fix the poverty, criminalisation, surveillance, and state violence facing all those who work for a living rather than own property and capital. Trans equality must be part of a huge redistribution of power and resources so society serves human instead of profit. I hope that someday soon people of all ages realise that being trans is perfectly normal. Like all human beings we are inherently valuable and entitled to self -determination, and if that makes others upset then it's only because they're choosing not to live in reality. These are scary times, but "courage calls to courage everywhere and its voice cannot be denied." Even when other people make it hard, being trans is a gift. My love goes out to every trans person reading my words in Britain or overseas, especially those who can't come out - yet!
This above all: to think own self be true, and it must follow, as night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man!
Abigail XXx "
I am angry about this flippant remark about women: "Trans men die waiting for breast reduction surgery that cis women get for back pain." First it sounds minimising of the pain and conditions of women who need breast reduction, nerve , spinal issues. Trans people die, we just get back pain. Abigail really thinks women can just walk in to the G P and demand breast reduction (or mastectomy, since Abigail is comparing it to trans men surgery) and get it no questions asked? And the G P decides it? or they refer to a specialist immediately? Many have commented that the NHS refused to do breast reduction for them despite suffering with debilitating pain and conditions, and women who did get the NHS to do it wasn't easy and instant, having to wait and repeatedly ask to be refered, wait months to see different hospital consultants, different areas of medicine, prove their case, for example that they can no longer work a job, and took so much time to get it, their conditions deteriorated. Many women and men for different conditions are forced to go private and pay for treatment because NHS is slow, difficult, incompetent in an area, or won't do it. Women with health issues who wanted hysterectomy, the same things. Takes years if it even happens. Is there any need for these false comparisons? Same with the comment about abortion for under 16 vs puberty blockers, and menopausal women having HRT vs using hormones to transition sex. This was poorly thought out, uninformed, and offensive pitting themselves against women. A lot of this statement sounds ignorant, hateful and demeaning towards women. And a false picture is being painted where everyone, except for trans people, are getting great on demand treatment from the NHS, no assessment, no waiting, everything we want and NEED immediately. can't demand any prescription treatment or surgery or test. Even minor drugs. Doctor makes assessment of you and prescribes, or suggest treatment. You go ahead with their recommendation with informed consent about risk/benefit. That's what informed consent is. And GP/GP doesn't make treatment decisions and handle treatment in specialised areas... lol I've spent hours in hospitals at endocrinologists just for my hyperactive thyroid, for stuff that I wonder why GP couldn't do it. I don't think a transition can happen from a GP office? Women with long term female health conditions don't really get great care from my experience. I've felt like if you're not dying they don't care. Mayb e we should say we'll die if we don't get what we need. Do I need to mention women with cervical cancer symptoms who have died because doctors thought they were too young to get tested? Not just women, men and women have died or have advanced cancers because their cancer symptoms were dismissed and not even tested/referred for testing, even despite going back to doctor repeatedly. Anyway...
Also falsely representing the UK debate about this having anything to do with "religious extremists" , when it's absolutely not at all. And as we know is mainly left wing women, gender critical feminists who care about women and girls, (and gender non conforming boys). We're "antifeminists"? I also would like to know where this has been printed, "printed without criticism alongside calls to have us "cured" with conversion therapy", which UK "Overworked journalists" or publications have printed this? And when have any of us called for that?
Also, labelling as "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory", the truth of groups like Stnewall, Mermids and GI lobbying the government, politicians, universities (and many other places)??!
And I just want to put this here, since the claim is that UK and NHS is so awful, offering all of this for free:
www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/
NHS referrals for lots of things have waiting lists. Speed the time up, but apparently that's not enough... it has to be immediately whatever they want on demand, no assessment from professionals, because they think we get that kind of treatment, we don't. And they think things they're talking about are equivalent, they're not.
Btw, "everyone else" does not self-ID themselves as M of F . Our sex is observed and recorded at birth. And gender is bs, social constructed and conditioned forced upon us due to our sex.
Also would like to see the evidence for these claims, UK data please:
"Trans people, especially trans people of colour, are hit hardest by unemployment, homelessness, and domestic, sexual , and police violence, but the conversation always focuses on wealthy white cis women tweeting about toilets"
This part too.. "wealthy white cis women tweeting about toilets", just... Lol, really ?
Who exactly is this supposed to be a dig at "In my view feminism isn't a tea party with the Queen or a girlboss brunch with #femspirational CEOs" ?
And ?? :
"That said, "equal rights" won't fix the poverty, criminalisation, surveillance, and state violence facing all those who work for a living rather than own property and capital. Trans equality must be part of a huge redistribution of power and resources so society serves human instead of profit."