Worse, Dr James Barrett of the Gender Identity Clinic stated in his evidence that the only women in prison who would object to Jones are THE SORT OF WOMEN WHO ENJOY CONFLICT
Dr James Barrett is a Quaker
Article from ;The Friend'
‘It is soul-crushing and miserable for anyone to live pretending to be something they are not.’
11 Apr 2019
(extract)
"James Barrett runs Britain’s largest and oldest gender identity clinic. In the first of a Friend series on gender identity issues, he gives his reflections on thirty years of work. (continues)
Gender’, in fact, firms up a bit on closer examination and a bit of linguistic dissection. There is, for example, ‘gender’ used to describe the way anyone has a sense of themselves. Most people feel male or feel female (a few people feel neither or a bit of both). For most people that sense of themselves fits their body and the label that came on their birth certificate. For a few people, it does not. How anyone feels can’t be argued with; it’s their reality.
Then there is a social gender role. This is the way we are perceived by society and as a consequence are expected to behave, to dress, to work (this to a pleasingly diminishing extent) and even, perhaps, to think. It predicts how others expect us to behave, too. Others might expect us to be collaborative, communicative and nurturing if we are perceived as female, competitive, overbearing and maybe even violent if we are perceived as male.
It is soul-crushing and miserable for anyone to live their lives pretending to be something they are not, no matter how good the pretence they put up. As a society we don’t ask people to conceal their religious or political views; as Quakers we always took the opposite stance. Even if ethnicity could be concealed, as a society we wouldn’t suggest it and as Quakers we would be at the forefront of opposition to such a thing. History eloquently records the blighted lives of gay and lesbian people who tried to live as if they were straight, which is why it’s not required any more, and as Quakers we led the way in ending that requirement. It is equally soul-crushing to live in an inauthentic social gender role. Just as life-enhancing to, at last, be able to be one’s true self.
I think that when we are in Meeting for Worship or otherwise get closer to God, the spirit, the light or however we choose to describe it, we do so with our minds, or possibly our souls, but decidedly don’t do so with our bodies. It is not our spleens, lungs, gastrointestinal or reproductive tracts that matter. We are Quakers, we are deeply rooted in equality, so I don’t think it matters what gender we are, in either a personal identity sense or a social role sense." (continues)
It has been said that ‘self-identification opens the doors to individuals who would abuse the legal right to create new identities. This could create risks for the safety of children, women and other vulnerable groups’. Generally speaking, I’ve noticed, this amounts to a fear that men will use this means to inveigle their way into places that would otherwise not admit them and, once inside, behave reprehensibly.
That door, surely, has already been opened. As a society we let men teach primary school children, become midwives, work in nurseries, become nurses and gynaecologists. Any of those men might also behave in just such a way but nonetheless they continue. I suppose we do so because we accept that while this is a possibility it’s just not reasonable to exclude all men because some might do so. It just wouldn’t be fair or proportionate.
As Quakers I think we are, or certainly should be, all about open doors, not closed ones. About assuming sincerity and good intentions on the part of those who walk through those open doors, seeking to discern that of God in them, rather than being constantly concerned about the possibility of the evil that is, in truth, present in all of us bursting forth from every new person who walks through our doors. Let our communication and interaction be with the minds, the personalities, the souls of the visitors who come through that door, accepting their sense of themselves as being as valid as our sense of ourselves. To do otherwise is to interact instead solely with their birth certificate or their genitals, wilfully ignoring exactly what it is that makes them unique, a child of God, just as we all are."
thefriend.org/article/it-is-soul-crushing-and-miserable-for-anyone-to-live-pretending-to-be-somet