Trapped in the Trans world

[trappedbytrans]

Have done a name change for reasons that will be obvious.

I work in a civil society organisation where being pro-trans is religion. Not a single person is GC and to be honest when I joined I was totally with them. TWAW, TRAHR repeat to fade.

Reality and common sense has gone to me. I'm seeing healthy women in our organisation (staff not clients, we don't have clients as such) having mastectomies and changing pronouns. We even have one person who has to tell us their pronouns each morning as they are likely to change at least once each day.

I am in a very senior role and I could blow the doors off if I quit and went public. The problem is that I would be unemployable in a field where I am a national leader / expert, and I would lose 80% of my friends (we are a very pro-social organisation and network).

So that's it. I'm not here for advice (though that would be welcome!) but more to express my tiredness and frustration at my situation. I guess I'm hoping that more people blow the doors off and eventually I am forced to escape with a fat redundancy package.

I feel for you @trappedbytrans You sound very resilient and sensible.

I guess it’s a matter of biding your time as the excesses of transactivism and extremist gender ideology are abating. I think a lot of organisations will internally crumble under the weight of the contradictions and sheer sexism and homophobia of transactivism.

And think of your parachutes. How long till you can retire?

Time to find a new job. This one really isn't for you anymore. Pretending that your values and beliefs still align when they don't is unsustainable and soul destroying

@trappedbytrans

We even have one person who has to tell us their pronouns each morning as they are likely to change at least once each day.

Seriously? This is what's wrong with the world. If they came in each day with a different personality they would be medicated for schizophrenia, if they came in everyday with a different name no one would take any notice. For someone to change pronouns everyday is ludicrous

I really feel for you, but sadly the world has gone to shit and you can longer be Adam and Eve

I get it. I’m in a similar environment and my whole sector is like that. What I’ve started to do is not just to go along with things. Eg mentioning that I don’t like mixed sex toilets. Or that I think women should be able to request a female doctor.

No one ever actually disagrees, even if they are very trans women are women. I’m hoping that by starting a slow drip drip then when I do eventually tell people, they won’t be able to argue back because they’ve agreed with up to that point.

It makes me feel better at least.

Poor you. Other people's lives impacting you so much.

I don't think that you should be in your role when you harbour so much contempt for your colleagues and alleged friends.

And my opinion would apply whether it concerned GC, religion, politics, parenting, whatever.

You're a disgrace.

Yes, it might be surprising just how many are practising preference falsification.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

I'd like to commend trappedbytrans for being brave enough to come on here and say she isn't brave enough...
I'd like to think I'd blow the doors off myself but in fact I know I'd probably hang back hoping that somebody else would do it and suffer the consequences, I admit I'm not very brave..

So I like parietal's inbetweeny suggestions, and I know from experience that sometimes taking a few small steps brings the bigger steps into proportion - maybe I could be that brave after all?

I hope you get some ideas to fuel your next steps from the range of suggestions on here, OP. Wishing you well.

@MovingCrib - I have started to challenge work on the basis that they are being exclusive (you can't have inclusivity working one way). And I've quoted the Equality Act 2010.

We have a propaganda onslaught for trans awareness week and I am challenging this quite strongly.

Problem is lots of people just don't get it so you have to patient as the penny slowly drops.

I have asked why there isn't a lesbian visibility week for example and why one group is amplified over others.

I think that’s very brave wincarwoo, well done. Did you raise it at a senior level and what was the reaction ?

my only step has been to decline the heavily promoted Pride lanyard on the basis that there are many underprivileged groups and I don’t want to promote one in particular.

@everythingthelighttouches yes I raised it at senior level and the person concerned definitely understood the need to reflect more widely but I knew that they didn't understand trans activists and their propaganda sources.

I am having another meeting next week where I hope get further. Since my first meeting (an impromptu chat) there has been yet more trans week stuff which is depressing.

I would start putting some feelers out to the various GC organisations to see if you can gain work with them. Sounds like you have the type of experience they would value.

I am in a very senior role and I could blow the doors off if I quit and went public.

Glinner and others went through a stage of thinking, "Surely this will make people understand," but it never happened.

Look at the abuse scandals organisations like Oxfam have survived.

Stonewall was ousted as the BBC trainer of choice and replaced by Global Butterflies (?) which is the same material, different binder.

CiN still disproportionately funds organisations that promote gender ideology despite known previous concerns about Stephen Ireland.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5143082-founder-of-surrey-pride-charged-with-child-sex-abuse

Police Forces in the UK are ensorcelled by this ideology and their Advisory Groups are also captured and unable to act as guardrails.

‘I believe the College of Police is inherently corrupted by gender ideology'
'Recently, a man named Clare, Head of the Independent Advisory Group to Essex Police, said women with gender critical views should be treated as terrorists’
- Sarah Phillimore, Co-founder WeAreFairCop

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1769464221874434067

I would like to be wrong, but, when it comes to this ideology, I don't think anything will "blow the doors off" - I'm not even confident about substantial lawsuits. Look at all of the CoE and RC SA scandals that are rumbling on, decades later, with yet more lies and cover-ups exposed. Post Office Horizon.

There are times when I don't know if I'm being cynical or realistic.

So you should to. My trans colleague (proper transexual with changed organs, rather than a man dressing in women's clothes (transvestite) hated the thought of women being scared or worried in women's toilets / changing rooms. Would always ask at the swimming pool to use the disabled rooms because they are designed for single user.

I've asked the opposite, why do we need a special week for it. Does it mean that 51 other weeks we shouldn't be aware? te answer I got back was "We should all be aware all the time". My response back was "But by giving 1 week you are sending a very confusing message, and you are making exclusivity the norm." To which there has been no reply so far.

There's a great series of podcasts out now all about EDI in the workplace and some great encouraging and challenging conversations.

It's called "This isn't working" the aim is to normalise discussions that have previously been discouraged or out of bounds in the workplace.

Disclaimer: I'm just a fan and I find them very encouraging when you know that there are people prepared to challenge and have open discussions about EDI and some of the unintended consequences.

@Secradonugh I like that. Hoping you get a response.

Your 'proper' trans colleague has no problem with appropriating the hard-won facilities that disabled people fought for decades to achieve, though.

Disabled spaces are not for able-bodied trans people to feel comfortable in.

😁 I recommended a resource that is gender critical (Not that you'd necessarily tell from the title) and it's sitting proudly amongst other resources - I think they haven't looked closely but every time I visit the building it makes my day. Sometimes it's the small wins...

Basically, you don’t want anybody trans doing what they have to be do you? This is why trying to appease to the side that don’t really like trans people being who they really are doesn’t really work and I say that as somebody who has a trans friend

Are you sure people feel better after transition?

A Dutch study in 2011 of those on cross-sex hormones, found that, while outcomes for the female-to-males seemed generally positive, for the much larger male-to-female group—72.6 percent of the total—“total mortality was 51 percent higher than in the general population, mainly from increased mortality rates due to suicide, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome [AIDS], cardiovascular disease, drug abuse, and unknown causes.” The timing of the suicides also provides important information. None occurred within two years of treatment, but “there were six suicides after two to five years, seven after five to ten years, and four after more than ten years of cross-sex hormone treatment”.
Cecilia Dhejne et al.’s 2011 Swedish study is among the most well-known studies on transition outcomes—partially due to its surprisingly negative results, and partially due to differences among authors in interpreting the data. The sample was of 324 post-surgery transsexuals with median follow-up time of over ten years, the largest study of those post-SRS (sex-reassignment surgery). Findings included 7.6 times more suicide attempts than controls and nineteen times more completed suicides. Psychiatric hospitalization was 2.8 times higher, even after adjusting for prior psychiatric morbidity.
Most recently, a 2016 Danish study compared psychological treatment before and after SRS in a group of over one hundred transsexuals. Concerning psychiatric morbidity, “no significant differences were found between the number of MtF [male-to-female transitioning] and FtM [female-to-male transitioning] individuals suffering from psychiatric morbidity pre- and post-SRS.” While psychological problems improved for some in the group, it worsened for others, and there was no statistically significant net benefit. Due to the lower numbers in this study, there was no analysis possible of the mortality data; but “ten individuals were registered as deceased post-SRS with an average age of death of 53.5 years,” and there were two suicides—both surprising data.
In fact, out of the six long-term outcome studies (over more than ten years) that have useful data on mental or psychological functioning, no less than five report mixed or poor outcomes. A small Swedish study in 1986 found that mental health and employment were highly mixed after SRS, leading the author to conclude that “it seems reasonable to expect only marginal improvement psychosocially after surgery.” A Swiss study in 1998 with a high loss to follow-up found significant deterioration in a post-SRS clinical sample. The authors state that the negative outcomes, including a high percentage of regret and inability to work, are likely a function of time.

TLDR: transition makes trans people feel worse, experience seriously adverse health outcomes, and die earlier.

Yes, no wonder trans activists worked so hard to shut down research and suppress Cass.

OP only you know what you can live with. I know a few grifters doing well out of all things trans-related. Soon, as the wheels come off the transwagon, their new hustle will no doubt be 'brave whistle blower speaks out.' They will then quietly disappear, leaving the disfigured bodies behind.

She's not a man though. She's a woman who has had her breasts removed. If she feels better without breasts & that helps her dysphoria or other mental health issues then that's absolutely fine & not a problem to anyone else. The problem starts when she believes she has somehow changed sex & has become a man.

Well this survey shows many trans Americans are happier after transition however causation and correlation is not the same thing the fact remains that it is really difficult for trans people to find employment as your study suggests so maybe they’re very unhappy because society even when you look at the debate on this group is very stigmatising for these people so I would think that my mental health would be very unhappy if a community around is not accepting.
as your study suggests they are quite happy once they have had the transition it’s only down the line that a lot get worse. I would imagine that’s because you have to sit in society and you think everybody’s gonna be okay but you read post like this or even on Twitter and things like that God knows what awful stuff saying about minority people it wouldn’t be allowed if we said all this stuff about black people. For example.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/07/trans-survey-transition-gender-affirming-care#:~:text=The%20report%20found%20that%2094,15%25)%20with%20their%20lives.

That’s your opinion I’m not gonna debate about gender critical stuff what I’m saying she is that’s how she is or how he is if that’s what he wants to be known as then what does it matter to you? What does it matter that a grown adult does what they want to do.

it wouldn’t be allowed if we said all this stuff about black people

That's an interesting comparison; my ExDH is Black and I often felt a greater sense of belonging amongst his Black family than in my own, not to mention admiring and loving many aspects of Black British and Black American culture: their literature, their music, their art and film-making.

Can I identify as a Black Woman in the same way that Elliott Page identifies as a man? If so, do I simply declare it or will I need surgery?

If not, why not?