Elliot Page documentary

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Apologies if there’s already a thread about this. I searched but we all know what Mumsnet search functionality is like!

I’m watching the Elliot Page documentary on the BBC and I’m struck by how sad and depressed he seems. Has anyone else seen it? It’s such an awkward interview because the interviewer has a permanent grin on her face like she’s trying not to laugh!

Or possibly low levels of body fat combined with the effects of steroids and a lot of ab crunching exercises in the gym?

Yep. It's the first thing I've watched of Contrapoints' that I've felt was sincere. And yes, very sad.

So many of the 'elders' have been dismissed as 'truscum' etc, that the community is lacking in knowledge and wisdom and experience that might have been useful.

Definitely backing up the idea that making unalterable decisions to your body is a choice to be made only by the adult who has years of adult living in that adult body. Not the type of decision to be made while your brain and life experience is still immature

There's another aspect to this. Milo and Page are young. It seems from anecdotal reports that the younger you transition via pharmaceutical means, the more the effects embed. Older people who transition via pharmaceutical means seem to be able to recover more if they de-transition.

There's now reports about transmen experiencing vagina atrophy that is so severe, the vagina actually cracks and splits. I cannot imagine how painful that must be.

I look at Milo and Page, and I wonder how they will make it to 40. The damage is not just about mastectomy (you can live without breasts; many women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer do) or infertility (again, many women live with that) but the internal organ damage caused by pharmaceutical transition in women, well, you are talking about life-long, significant medical issues and near-constant pain.

There are now de-transitioned transmen who talk about perpetual UTIs. How is anyone supposed to live with that, day after day, month after month? Many of us will know what it is like to deal with a bout of cystitis; I cannot fathom how you deal with that on a pretty much permanent basis.

It beggars belief that this has been promoted to young women as a "cure" for psychological confusion, anxiety and social isolation.

I never thought I would say this, and I am not a religious person at all, but I now believe there is such a thing as evil. What has been done to these young women has been done by evil people, banal and evil people who simply wish to profit from the new normality of insanity.

I mean, Page is thirty-six. She started this as an adult, unlike poor Milo.

I haven't watched the doc yet but just an observation having seen this clip from Lorraine:

twitter.com/lorraine/status/1671587285895192600

The look of pity, concern and coddling throughout. It doesn't appear Lorraine is having an equal conversation with a man for a moment.

Reminded me of Miranda Sawyer's interview with Christine and the Queens, post-coming out as trans, which again was all 'poor Chris' and full of concern.

It's just not at all like the reception the Dylan Mulvaneys of the world get. And quite unlikely how a man with a public profile would be treated at all.

I would love to hoisted Page out and have airlifted Rachel Dolezal in.

What would Lorraine have said to her? How it was a struggle to be accepted as black, what would the advice be to any other white person trying to become black?

How Rachel was a hero to other trans racialists?

No, I don't think that's how it would have panned out...

I think there's a lot of truth in this, for many of the young people caught up in this they are so invested in the idea of being transgender, and it's such a part of their identity and gains so much social kudos, that if they later on decide it's not right for them, it becomes really hard to backtrack.

Also they get a lot of hate from their 'community' if they change their minds.

I remember a de-transitioner describing it a bit like a burning flame, that it was very intense and all consuming when they were in it, but when the flame went out they felt they were left with nothing.

But the rest of them looks wasted and not muscular, just skinny.

Interviewer is so crap. Comes across and nervous, giggly and sycophantic.

I feel like EP has more warmth in this interview than say the Oprah one where they looked like a nervous wreck.

I wonder if he is just quite a serious/solomn person. The character of Juno was so funny and spunky maybe that's coloured people's view of what Ellen was like.

My sister was an extra on an early film of Ellen Page (as she was then). I can't for the life of me remember the title but it's based on her running off to join the new age traveller community (my sister was recruited as an extra from a traveller site in Portugal, as were all her friends). It's a terrible film so I'd be surprised if anyone's seen it!

Apparently Ellen came across as lovely but extremely sad and somewhat envious of my sister and her friends' lifestyle and freedom. A bit of a lost soul. I haven't seen the documentary but sad to hear life hasn't improved.

I wonder if he is just quite a serious/solomn person.

That certainly seems so - again just an observation but Page just seems like someone profoundly in the wrong business at this point. They know how the machine works but simply do not seem comfortable with any aspect of it, especially now. Will these dour, introverted appearances really do anything for the book sales?

Is fact that Page sounds on the verge of tears all the time down to the effect of T on the vocal cords?

I wonder this too, as someone who's had periods of having to have a lot of medical appointments/surgeries. You get a lot of attention during, and everything shrinks down to the next appointment and the next thing. Once the final surgery is done there's a definite euphoric feeling because it's been so stressful beforehand but you've survived it. It's done. And then reality sets in once you have to start dealing with the reality of being post-op. There's a programme on netflix about a young australian transgirl who has surgery and is 'fighting' for various things (law changes etc) and at the end, you definitely get the impression that this person can't seem to grasp that they're now expected to settle down into an ordinary, dull existence. Their family looks exhausted and I could see them thinking that there was supposed to be an end point at which their lives would stop being just about this person and this issue and they thought they'd reached it, they've done all the things on the list, so why is there this drive to keep it going.

Re the destransitioners I also wanted to add (having had a hysterectomy/oophorectomy and being glued together by artificial hormones ever since) that the decline after you start messing with hormones isn't immediate, it takes a while, sometimes years. I've got all sorts of problems now that I didn't have two years ago. But then I assume that the focus on someone 5 mins after treatment has started is deliberate. It doesn't look so good when you ask someone 5 years later and they talk about the grinding misery of bone pain and bladder pain and weight gain they can't shift etc.

https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/every-forward-step-in-my-transition

'At 42, in that moment, I was reduced to a child — no longer able to think or objectively feel. All the suffering throughout my life, the yearning to fit in, of being different, and not wanting to be…same sex attracted and more could be fixed.
You see the idea of embracing that I was born in the wrong body, all my problems I ever had would have been gone. And all the problems I would have in the future would not come up.
You see, embracing something that doesn't help anything but is such a long process… it grabs you and hold on to you. Because you always think there's a next step and there's the next step. And there's the next step.
You see — I was loud and pushy. I was strong willed and forceful. I was sporty and smart. I was successful in a mainly male dominated sales field. On the other hand, I was feminine, and men were constantly trying to cure me prove to me and ultimately break me and my attraction for women. I was tormented for being gay. I felt that I belonged nowhere. I was different yet unable to accept my differences. Just like these kids who believe that they're transgender today.
Every forward step in my transition at first brought elation, but it was ephemeral. As the joy faded, I was encouraged to take the next step. And then the next step. I was not only a cash cow, I was a willing disciple. I'm seven years post-trans. And just like the only long term study predicted, I have regret.
But after nearly dying from transition surgeries, I cannot detransition. I cannot endure another knife into my skin or open myself up for more stares and questions. I accept my body today. Because I have to.'

Lorraine was mothering the ten year old boy!

It was sickening to watch - in a sugar candy floss overdose style sickening.

And I know we aren't meant to make personal comments but Lorraine's pink satin confection must have triggered every teen girl who rejects femininity everywhere. Frankly I think it was cruel of her to subject Page to that.

You definitely get the impression that this person can't seem to grasp that they're now expected to settle down into an ordinary, dull existence. Their family looks exhausted and I could see them thinking that there was supposed to be an end point at which their lives would stop being just about this person and this issue and they thought they'd reached it, they've done all the things on the list, so why is there this drive to keep it going.

You know, there's something about this that I am noticing in my own (very parochial) life. We seem to now have a culture where it is perceived as normal for ordinary people to have storylines of ongoing drama, as though we all live in a soap opera.

I see it with family members, some parents at school, certain friends, some people I work with on civic projects: it's never-ending generated drama, often over pretty much nothing at all (or in the case of my SiL, another round of utter batshittery that makes no sense and is, in reality, legally impossible).

It has got to the point where I am absolutely fatigued with it, and now just refuse to engage (and to be blunt, I'm just too busy to give a fuck about dealing with their shit). But I do wonder why these behaviours have become so normalised in society.

I think there's now such a deep, internalised phenomenon of narcissism that quite a lot of people can no longer recognise that other people are actually real humans, and not just supportive NPCs in some grand biopic of their lives.

I've found Page's tv appearances often kind of odd and bizarre for a long time. There was a Letterman appearance that seemed completely manic and unhinged at one point. I think there have been some significant mental health issues for some time.

I also think that it seemed like the marriage ended after the decision to transition at the time, it might have been just before, I think this might have come out in the book?

I hope you’re ok MadamPickle. I don’t understand why information about the side-effects of hormone treatment is not more readily available. Surely patients need to be fully aware of how it will affect them years down the line, not just in the short-term?

The sad thing for Page is, I think how they feel at this moment in time, with the transition still fairly recent, is probably as good as it’s going to get.

Because you always think there's a next step and there's the next step.

i think this is such an important point from Scott newgent. I’ve seen it happen with people I know, know of and some in the public eye. Almost all female. They start off with non-binary, then it’s “transmasc”, then a male name and all male pronouns, then onto the testosterone, then the mastectomy. Each stage lasts a few months or a year or so. I think the sense of a new start and a special community and the celebration and praise wear off, and they need to go a step up, like a drug addiction.

One said to me upon becoming NB, “I know who I am now, I won’t change my mind”. But they did and have now progressed to being a trans man and on T.

Detransitioners report being ostracised, but it’s fine in the gender it’s community to change your mind, as long as it’s in the direction of becoming more trans.

I wonder if it's because fighting a battle is how they find meaning?

I saw an interesting interview with a guy who used to write movies a week or so ago. He was talking about why so many films are such shit now. One of the things he said was that it is because Hollywood no longer believes there is a soul, so there is really nothing for a story to do.

I wonder, if these kids, or the culture, aren't able to find meaning in some kind of inner life, maybe the only option is some kind of externalization?

I would imagine it's externalising problems. Projecting them onto things that one has more apparent control over. Hate yourself? Change yourself!

It seems easier than accepting oneself, and the subsequent pain that that might cause to surface.

I would disagree with the idea that lack of a soul renders stories meaningless, though. Story is about personal truth, which is not necessarily anything to do with a soul!

I would imagine it's externalising problems. Projecting them onto things that one has more apparent control over. Hate yourself? Change yourself!

I think I read this recently as coming from Page, in reference to going through female puberty: "I didn't consent to this". It's up there with "government names" and "assigned at birth" et al. But it's simply reality - and this insidious idea you can opt out if you don't like it is causing wider problems for society as a whole.

I think that gets into the question of what is the person, and what is truth.

If we are just reactive organisms without meaningful free will, what's the human story about? If the universe is a meaningless sequence of events, what's the plot about?

I saw a very interesting discussion, not the same one with the writer, about how the narrative arc has changed in many Hollywood films. It specifically looked at the original Star Wars compered to the most recent rilogy, and the live-action remake of Mulan, but he argues this was a common change in approach. He suggested that in the earlier films the hero might have had latent talent, but it was only developed after a lot of work and even failure, and might not manifest always in the way the hero had hoped. In the recent films, they seemed to possess almost magical powers without any real effort. They were born with certain qualities and all that was required to unlock them was to recognize them.

If we think of some kind of secular humanism to have been the underlying framework for many 20th century people, you have a kind of ideology that rejects the idea of God, but functionally retains the concept of something like a soul, the possibility that there can be meaning, growth, truth that we instantiate internally. Now we have all of these kids who perhaps are growing up in a time when there is no sense of those thing. Nothing gives meaning, there is no real growth, no truth apart from atoms and elements and flesh. And I am not sure those things are enough to give meaning to most people.

I have thought about this before in terms of something like the republican model of the state. Where the state is seen as a kind of contract we all enter into in order to live together in a civilized way.

But a contract implies there is some kind of consent to the terms from all sides, which is clearly not possible when most of us are born into a place, didn't have anything to do with the development of the political arrangements, and can't do anything now to get out of them in most cases.

It seems much more accurate to me to conceptualize the state as something more like a family, where we usually just have to deal with the family we get, breaking away is often damaging even when it is possible, and everyone has to try and think of the good of others, rather than from just the perspective of fulfilling minimum requirements, for it to really work.

But I do wonder if this idea that even society requires a kind of consent by individuals allows some people to imagine other natural systems do too?