Julia Grant’s story crops up frequently in the book “Trans Britain” so, I have taken a break from that series to cover the story here. Grant was the subject of a documentary and many trans-identified males reference having seen this production.
You can still find the series on BBC iPlayer; if you are in the U.K. and have a TV Licence. There are five episodes.
You can also find the series on this YouTube Channel:
When I first encountered George I was inclined to be sympathetic because of his background. George was the oldest of eight children with a violent father and an alcoholic mother. Because of his mother’s drinking, and suicidal behaviour, he had to step in and perform caring functions, in her stead. There is also a suggestion his father attempted to rape him. Below he is described as “prostituting” himself as a teenager which I would describe, instead, as being sexually exploited as a young boy. It is not hard to speculate that any of these issues could have led to him wishing to escape his sexed body.
Marriage and the Gay scene.
George talked about becoming active on the gay scene from a very young age but he also admitted he was not comfortable on the gay scene and, in fact, he married a woman and fathered two children.
George went back and forth in respect of his cross-dressing behaviour which follows a familiar pattern, in men with a history of transvestism. These men will often pursue their cross-dressing furtively and, periodically, purge their wardrobes of “female” attire in an attempt to get their compulsion under control. This seems likely to be driven by autogynephilia, the usual diagnosis for men with heterosexual histories. This is how he described his marriage:
One interpretation of this is that somehow George internalised his self-image as a “mother” to his siblings and this became bound up with an urge to cross-dress. Admitting any erotic component to this activity would have likely resulted in a rejection by the gender clinic, so, his silence on any sexual motive unsurprising. This activity is accompanied by shame and attempts to “purge” this behaviour and fight the compulsion. It’s also worth reading this account of spouses from a conference set up so “trans” people could promote their cause. Quite a frank piece about the behaviour of “trans” spouses and the impact on the spouse which I am surprised made the cut for the “Gendys” conference. Tell me this is not a sinister manifestation of domestic abuse?
Here are a couple of clips from that piece.
Grant’s marriage was to break down and there is little focus on the issue from that marriage. There is one telling moment when Grant seeks access to housing and is asked to reveal their financial commitments. A financial obligation to fund electrolysis is mentioned but nothing about childcare support!
Grant’s attitude to homosexuals is also revealed in this clip. Is this lover more important because he validates “Julia”?
Did he think about women’s rights?
Like a lot of men who are colonising our reality George is no fan of feminists. Apparently we have “privilege” and he is going to do what he wants whether we like it or not.
Gender Clinic.
The visits to the Gender Clinic are with an incredibly pompous, patronising, patriarchal man who we now know was John Randall. Randall openly says that some men are “inadequate” in the male role and therefore assessed to see if they can be accommodated as “women”. In order to access “treatment” the men have to prove that they can be accepted as “women” by women. This is Handmaid territory; women as validation aids for female impersonators.
There is an interesting exchange which could have been articulated by modern day, gender critical women. 25 minutes in to episode one Grant explains, with the usual script, that he feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body. He explains that he has “feminine” thoughts and rejects his masculinity which is only a construction that is put on his body. Randall brusquely responds “It’s not a matter of society, it is a matter of anatomy” .
Grant continues in this vein explaining he feels like a woman and thinks like a woman. Randall breaks off to ask a woman in the room what it feels like to be a woman.
Grant is too impatient to follow all the hurdles before accessing fake breasts and is chastised by Randall for going against the clinic protocol. During this exchange he stubbornly insists he wants things to move at a faster pace and makes a statement that was to prove horribly prophetic.
In a catch up some years after the first documentary it is revealed that Grant had horrible complications just six weeks after surgery. Information “Julia” hid from the public arena for fourteen years.
This led to the breakdown in Grant’s relationship with Amir and he was unable to have sex.
Looking back on the impact of the documentary Grant expresses guilt about those that followed his path.
Ultimately, for him, surgery had been a failure but, even so, it seems it was worth it for the six weeks of “euphoria” he described following the surgery. Thereafter Grant had business ventures and worked as a drag act before moving to own bars in Manchester. Ultimately Grant would go on to marry (a man) until one day the man walked out one morning and did not return. Despite what appear to be problematic attitudes to homosexuality Grant would turn up in Benidorm to set up Benidorm Pride.
Attitude to “child” transition.
In later life Grant questioned the “transing” of children and incurred the wrath of trans activists, before his untimely death in 2019.
Grant also expressed reservations about surgery, full stop, and certainly the lack of information about the consequences.
All in all Grant had a backstory that inclined me to compassion, somewhat undermined by their total lack of consideration for the sex class, in which they are nothing more than an interloper. The annoyance at this male arrogance was tempered by their willingness to speak out about the impact on children and the terrible price they paid on their own body and sexual function.
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Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.
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Interesting stuff. Adam Curtis covered Julia’s story a little in EP4 of his recent BBC documentary “can’t get you out of my head”, but he didn’t mention the fact that Julia had actually fathered children, which is very interesting.