Sascha Bailey - son of iconic photographer David - describes how close he came to becoming a woman and fears for other young people like him: 'Society has a gun to its head. You're either for children changing their gender, or you are transphobic'

[UtopiaPlanitia]

This is a very interesting article - I hope Bailey finds happiness within himself as a man and that this isn’t a binge and purge cycle (his description of wanting at one stage to be a blonde Barbie makes me wonder about this possibility).

At any rate, this is one of the more honest showbiz male explanations of wanting to transition that I’ve read - more Oli London than Tommy Dorfman. Useful to know what was going through Bailey’s mind during this period of his life.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12989635/Sascha-Bailey-photographer-David-close-woman-fears-young-people-transphobic.html#

'So I guess you could say that the slowness of the NHS helped to save me,' he says with a smile. Back home, and with space to think, Sascha says he came to a realisation that changing his external identity was not going to resolve the complex feelings he had inside. He has been diagnosed with PTSD as a consequence of experiences within his marriage.

He says he realised two things: 'One, there was no actual way I can know what it feels like to be a woman because I'd never been one, so the idea of me saying 'Oh, I feel like a woman' was absurd.

'And the second thing I came to realise was that I didn't actually need to change my outside because of how I felt on the inside. I just needed to come to terms with it.''

without hearing the ex wifes account of what happened it’s a very one sided article. Would thoroughly recommend watching Lost boys-searching for manhood, on YouTube. This explains how other young men have been caught up in this ideological insanity.

I've just been reading this article and came online to see if anyone was talking about it.

There's so much packed into that one feature. 10/10 to the DM for reporting on this. I think we need to see this cause as a separate issue to the problem of AGP trans people. Personality disorder at play, perhaps?

It's noteworthy that he seems to change his facial/hair aesthetic to mimic that of his romantic partner in both the photos of him standing next to a partner.

His ex-wife is variously described as 10 or 20 years older than him - I do wish they'd at least be consistent.
I came away with the impression that they had said she's 20 years older and the marriage lasted 10 years.

I think we need to see this cause as a separate issue to the problem of AGP trans people.
Why? There's indications in the story he is exactly like "AGP trans people".

No there's a post by you making evidence fit your theory. 🤷‍♀️
If we're going to delve into causes, I expect some sort of reasonable, repeatable scientific method.

I still think he says some thoughtful things.

It is impossible to judge from a single article, but concerns for me would be:

• young and confused with no obvious path in life
• SEN and an incomplete education
• famous parents whose success would be hard to emulate
• quick marriage to someone 20 (?) years older than himself whilst in his early 20s against the advice of family and friends.
• apparent mental health issues
• part of a generation where gender ideology is rampant across the internet, and with, for varying reasons, people whether doctors, parents or whoever, reluctant to take anything other than a gender affirmation approach.

We were all young once and knew people, or were those people ourselves, who acted like arseholes in various ways. Some of us grew out of it. Others did not. Tinsel may be right, but I think there is an equal chance she is wrong.

The wife looks as if she might have Japanese ancestry. This might be one of the things that drew them together so moving to Japan could have been a joint decision, and not isolating for her. Again we don't know.

If we're going to delve into causes, I expect some sort of reasonable, repeatable scientific method.
Thats not how red flags work.

I mean I don't need a peer reviewed study to suspect that a man who wants to look like a Barbie and flirts with doing this on a full time basis, is AGP.

Red flags aside, this incredible simple and incredibly obvious statement says it all…. there is no actual way any man can know what it feels like to be a woman because no man has ever been one, so the idea of any man saying 'Oh, I feel like a woman' is absurd.

Btw this comment was about the richard hoskins article - sorry if that wasn't clear.

I am yet to come across someone trans who doesn't have masses of issues with depression and doesn't have social issues fitting in (which won't be fixed with identity changes).

There are some incredibly valuable messages coming out of this story which may speak to young men in a similar position. The clarity with which he cuts through is very powerful. He realised he could never be a woman because it is impossible to do this and he realised it was completely the wrong answer for the distress that he was feeling.

When I read Dr Az's book Detrans (there are a few discussion threads on Dr Az), it was abundantly clear that this Malaga Airport/ROGD crossover is still very poorly understood. Although he's at the older end of the ROGD cohort, the influence of social media shows that he was vulnerable in the way that younger people are too. It's a little reminiscent of Oli London's story in some ways: a lost adult without a strong foundation, looking for answers and being influenced by the celebratory world of Be Kind rainbows pulling them in and giving them a community to belong to.

Very interesting. I've never heard that point of view before.

This makes sense. Many girls and boys turning to being trans, when distressed and disturbed, thinking it's the answer, when it clearly isn't.

We aren't helping teens enough, to deal with all the questions they have, to realise this (turmoil and period of feeling that you don't fit in, things just aren't right) is all normal. Changing sex isn't the answer for most.

At least she knows the issues he’s experienced and isn’t going into the relationship with no clue.

It's pretty common for women to go into relationships with very damaged men with the belief that our love and care can fix them.

Sorry Tinsel, I usually agree with most of your posts but this situation is far from standard. His ex-wife sounds quite predatory, from what I can find she was a lawyer in her 30s who captivated a 19 year old who was working a model, which is a notoriously abusive industry. And their relationship put strain on his family relationships. They lived in Japan, for what appears to be her benefit, which would have been a fairly isolating experience for him.

As much as control and abuse tends to happen much more by the husband towards the wife, there are cases where that dynamic is switched and this genuinely looks like that was the case in this instance. What the hell would an accomplished full-grown adult see in a messed up teenager? It's generally because they are more easily controllable.

I'm in full agreement that as the tide changes, we will see more and more de-transitioners, speaking up in order to be lauded. Narcissists who went trans for attention and plaudits, will quickly detransition if there is more positive attention in that direction. But I don't think that's the full story with this young man at all.

Oh do please stop telling us all how to think @TinselAngel I applaud him for having the courage to tell his story.
Maybe not so stunning but given how the TRAs will be after him now certainly quite brave.

We aren't helping teens enough, to deal with all the questions they have, to realise this (turmoil and period of feeling that you don't fit in, things just aren't right) is all normal.

Absolutely. The majority of the young people that are caught up in this are female but adolescent boys (and their parents) are also in a very difficult position, with very little useful advice available. Although Sascha is older, the rapid onset nature of his issues suggests that there are several parallels between his experience and that of teenage boys.

I don't believe Stella has it quite right here, particularly in the way that she skips over the significance of the overlap between types 3 and 4 in her breakdown, but it's a helpful way to look at it this way for general understanding IMO:

The HUGE caveat is the lack of full understanding (by anyone, including Dr Az) in this overlap. Genspect seems to be yo-yoing back and forth with how they are approaching it and they don't seem to understand the risk that they are bringing in with this lack of understanding e.g. the risk that comes with not applying critical thinking to the input that they get from people with the Málaga Airport acronym. Thanks to some of this input, at one point, Genspect said that Malaga Airport was a sexual orientation, but they have since (thankfully) pulled back from this. Adolescent boys, particularly those with autism, need help with unpicking the conflation of their emerging development of sexual feelings and their vulnerability towards the influence of porn and anime, amongst other online sources, which can lead them to believe that a transgender identity is the answer to their feelings about their bodies.
The latest backwards step from Genspect is the unhelpful and poorly informed nonsense coming from their new appointee, Helen Pluckrose. However, there are some positives. Including the recognition from Stella O'Malley in this conversation with KJK that Malaga Airport is a very dangerous paraphilia and public awareness needs raising on this. From memory, this part of the conversation is in the final third or so of the conversation. For context, this conversation happened after a self-declared Malaga Airport person caused controversy with a thinly veiled public performance of the subject in hand.

Changing sex isn't the answer for most.
Nobody can change sex but yes, it is very true to say that taking cross sex hormones and/or having surgery to create a simulated version of the opposite sex is incredibly unlikely to be the right outcome for the people who are caught up in this mess. That's why this article is so powerful. There are definitely lots of other relevant issues relating to Sascha's relationship with his ex-wife (and potentially his new girlfriend) but the key point still remains that he recognised and publicly called out the damage that gender identity belief is doing to vulnerable children and young adults.

@BonfireLady

Changing sex. Yes, very sorry I worded that badly. You can't change sex. We all know that. We don't need Sir Robert Winston (bless him) to remind us of this, it's basic biology. Basic common sense.

Taking that road, deciding to go down the trans route, will it provide the peace the teen craves. Invariably not.

All good 👍👍
There is a lot of confusion amongst the teens who are caught up in this about whether they are changing sex or changing "gender identity". The conflation is inevitable because of the way that the people who believe that we all have a gender identity (or more likely pretend to believe it, in the case of many of the loudest activist transwomen voices) talk about sex being "assigned at birth".

Taking that road, deciding to go down the trans route, will it provide the peace the teen craves. Invariably not.

Exactly. Sascha's story brings this in to sharp focus from the personal perspective of a young heterosexual male who has underlying mental health issues. I fully agree with a PP's comment above that he is brave for stepping forward to share it and I hope it acts as a wake-up call to others in a similar situation. I have no doubt that left unchecked, an ROGD/porn/"fledgling fetish"- induced opposite-sex identity in a male is likely to lead to embedded, destructive and escalating behaviours. But I don't believe that all adolescents and young men who find themselves pulled in to this are beyond help.

I've fairly recently come across online discussions on transitioning where it is quite clear that some young people, in fact, do believe that they will turn into the other sex or at least will never be clocked as transgender.

What's more troubling is that many more seem to believe that they will automatically turn into beautiful/handsome members of the other sex, and that is what they are aiming for.

A few wish to look like anime characters, even (large eyes, toddler-girl faces, sexualised adult bodies).

All of which demonstrates the inadvisability of giving children and teens the right to make life-shattering decisions of this kind without any external checks.

Though who knows how common these ideas are. Still worth bringing this up.