LETTER TO Govt. Equalities Office

This is the text of my email sent to geo.correspondence@geo.gov.uk

I have not yet received an acknowledgment. Therefore I have sent a reminder and copied in Baroness Nicholson, who is taking an interest in this area. I am taking the trouble to document my response and post publicly.

Letter to Government Equalities Office.

I am a parent of a trans-identifying male. He is same sex attracted and, in my view, came to a “trans-identity” after years of homophobic bullying. (See below)

https://www.docdroid.net/kWO8DNY/the-influence-of-peers-during-adolescence-does-homophobic-name-calling-by-peers-change-gender-identity-pdf

I have resisted any medicalisation and, for now, he seems content to be a male, albeit one who rejects sex stereotypes. He is learning to navigate his way in the world. He is now 19 and fully able to take any steps himself. He has not, at present, done so. He came out first (as gay) aged 11. Three years later he re-identified as “trans”. I believe this is a consequence of the homophobic insult of “girl” being now incorporated into the national discussion which tells boys, like my son, he may literally be a girl. This, to me, is the new Woke Section 28.

It was hard to watch him excluded from things because he had all female friends. However I supported 100% the right, for parents of girls, to exclude him from sleepovers. When he was included I was delighted, for him, however this was a decision for the girl’s parents. He was included only when the parents felt his presence was safe for their daughters.

My son identifies with women’s experience sufficiently to use male facilities. At school he was accommodated without compromising girls rights to dignity, privacy and safety. He as allowed to use facilities away from male toilets /changing rooms where the homophobic bullying was a heightened risk. He was accommodated sensitively without sacrifice to girls rights. I am proud that he has maintained this stance and would suggest that this is what identifying “with” women looks like.

The school did not, as many schools transgender guidance allows, “affirm” his female identity behind my back. I have always used reality based approaches to address the very real issue of “Gender Dysphoria”, secretly affirming him would have hurt my son and not helped.

I note that the referral pattern to the Gender Identity Service at the Tavistock is now 75% female. This is an inversion of the sex ratio in less than a decade. The rise in females also concerns me. The rise in boys (& girls) is likely understated because parents, like me, have no faith in the people who run these services. My son won’t appear in any statistics. Neither will the other parents who look to groups who support a “watch and wait” policy. The vast majority of these young children/teens would reconcile to biological sex and many would simply be gay males or lesbians. (Not to forget the 30% of autistic kids being referred). If we put them on puberty blockers they invariably progress to cross sex hormones.They are then going to be infertile. See research below.

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/Biggs_ExperimentPubertyBlockers.pdf

I wholly support strengthening the ability for women’s organisations to enforce sex based segregated spaces. I would campaign for spaces which could help my son. He is not a woman and, whilst a lovely and empathetic male, he does not belong in female spaces.

Most women have no idea of this debate, which is happening by stealth, and represents a real attack on both women’s rights and gay rights. I don’t want to live in a world which tells “femme” gay males they are somehow #BornWrong. Neither do I wish to live in one which disregards women’s rights , as a political class, to organise and advocate on our behalf, to have female only spaces and sport.

I blog about this issue and also campaign in real life. Every single woman I have discussed this expresses disbelief that politicians could contemplate allowing men to self-identify as women. Like me they aghast that GRCs are given to fully intact males. Even more horrified when they realise a single judge can overturn a decision to reject a male for a Gender Recognition Certificate. Having read through the Hansard discussions on the GRA I believe we are well past the point of unintended consequences.

Tish (Full Name Supplied)

Sent from my iPad

#TheseAreNotOurCrimes

I don’t have the judicial transcript for the case I am covering here. I will add those details when they become available. These are the published details in these two articles. https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-news/derby-pervert-im-paedophile-123-4320791 and here

In brief the defendant was caught with a substantial hoard of the most serious category of Child porn (Category A). He attempted to use his “Gender Dysphoria” in mitigation, The judge dismissed this, The offender received a suspended sentence.

He was also given the “courtesy” of female pronouns in the press coverage. This is because it is mandated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation. It will be interesting to discover if the Judge also used female pronouns, in accordance with the advice given to Judges, via the Bench Book governing Equality Issues. This also mandates pronouns to be used which accord with someone’s “Gender Identity”. You can read this here. Bench Book

Even more interesting to find if this has been recorded as a female crime. These are crimes of the type overwhelmingly perpetrated by the male sex. A male with an unhealthy, predatory, interest in female children.👇

Category A offences are defined thus:

Category A images

Category A images are considered to be the ‘most severe’. The repercussions for indecent image offences within this category are typically the heaviest of all related offences.

Images classed in this category depict gross assault, sadism or bestiality – obscene images involving penetrative sexual activity. This category also extends to all images that depict a child subjected to pain.

Apparently it is still a step too far to correctly sex the perpetrator. In both the above articles we are treated to the hijacking of female pronouns to define a very male crime.

Here is the guidance produced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation which mandates female pronouns for the above offender.

https://www.ipso.co.uk/member-publishers/guidance-for-journalists-and-editors/transgender-guidance/#CasesInvolvingChildren

Here is the guidance on pronouns:

Here are the resources which IPSO links. All are Trans Lobby Groups. Were any women’s groups consulted about male crimes being blamed on women?

I have documented, in an earlier post, a small number of individuals who openly admitted their motive for “Gender transition” was paedophilia. This blog is here: Survey of Referrals to a Gender Identity Clinic.

Here is another blog about a male paedophile subsequently identifying as female: Girl Power: The Spice of Life?

I will shortly add a further case. The next one will be of an incarcerated paedophile, also male. This case is in the public domain because the offender has taken the NHS to Judicial Review to seek Sexual Reassignment Surgery. All whilst he is detained, indefinitely, at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

#THESE_ARE_NOT_OUR_CRIMES!

You can read another case in which similiar cross overs were identified Girl Power: The Spice of Life?

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Gender Refusenik Researching the impact of Gender Identity Ideology on women’s sex based rights and gay rights as well as the damage to Child Safeguarding.

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INFORMED CONSENT?

One of two articles on the complexity of Gender Dysphoria. As always feel free to bypass my commentary and go straight to the journal. You can access the article here. (Cost implications)

For parents, like myself, we often found ourselves stumbling about in a field about which we had no prior knowledge. Research supporting parents, who do not believe in medicalising our children’s distress, is gaining traction. On the day I found this paper the UK National Health Service amended its guidance on Puberty Blockers. It stopped implying/stating blocking pubertal hormonal surges allows a “pause” and are fully reversible. It finally published a more honest response. Its not fully reversible. Many of the consequences are unknown. I’ve blogged about this before Puberty Blockers. Part One & Puberty Blockers: Part Two

Matt Hancock (Minister of State for Health) could do well to take heed of the growing body of research supporting a “watchful waiting” approach to children identifying as “transgender”.

The criteria for “Gender Dysphoria” would see many of our children meet the diagnostic threshold but, as the authors of this paper point out, there is doubt about both its origins and its treatment.

There are many questions about this condition: the surge of referrals to UK Gender Identity clinics, the inversion of the sex ratio in referrals, and growing numbers of de-transitioners. These should raise questions about why the main treatment is “affirmative” . Practitioners, working in this field, risk falling foul of professional bodies which regard attempts to reconcile kids to their biological sex as a kind of “Conversion Therapy”.

This is the model which parent’s are being encouraged to follow. Parent’s resisting incur social sanctions for non-compliance. Yet there is substantial history of children with gender incongruence who desist and re-identify with their biological sex. Thankfully there are more clinicians emerging to question the affirmative orthodoxy.

Historically most children presenting with Gender Dysphoria desisted. We do not have data on the relatively new phenomenon of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). This is a much contested new clinical presentation covered by the research of Lisa Littman. At the time much effort was made to shut down the discussion of this rapidly emerging phenomenon. You can read about this Here

So lets just look at the dangers of following an affirmative pathway. There are no long term studies that support the effectiveness of this clinical pathway. Let that sink in.

In the U.K. the NHS has only this week stopped claiming that blocking puberty is entirely reversible. Yet data suggests that this is not true and if you research this clinicians have been warning about this for years. Literally. Years.

Furthermore, left unmedicalised, most of these children would desist. 👇

In the context of newly emerged groups of children/teens adopting a trans-identity it seems that there ought to have been some curiosity about this new group. It merited caution about setting this new cohort on a clinical pathway. We didn’t get caution but Tavistock whistleblowers did attempt to raise the alarm. This is from an interview in The Times. Over a year ago now. 👇

There are, however, clinicians that don’t endorse an “affirmation only” stance.

These clinicians take a more holistic approach and carefully explore why the child is bodily disassociative. They are cautious and questioning. Remember that reconciling to your biological sex avoids lifelong dependency on synthetic hormones /surgeries. This should be the gold standard treatment pathway. Therapy first. So why is there a headlong rush to a medical approach?

One argument is that our kids are at elevated risk of suicide, but the data does not support this. Suicide in the Trans Community. Moreover there’s a deafening silence on the post operative suicidal risk which was highlighted by this study Long term follow up of Transsexuals. This study found a suicide risk over 19 times that of the general population.

The authors turn their attention to the ubiquity of the “informed consent” model. The use of this model is often accompanied by arguments about bodily autonomy and places the decision making process in the hands of the child/young person. Attacking the notion of parental consent allows activists to remove the people who can legally slow down a transition. I have spent a lot of time looking at school policies on “transgender” pupils and the subtle, or direct, slurs against non-affirmative parents are common. However if the information is ideologically predicated is the consent freely given?

The paper goes on to question the model even where parents are acquiescent or evangelical about an affirmative approach. 👇

There are now glimmers of hope as organisations beat a tactical retreat from unthinking advocacy of the cult of Gender Identity. Here’s one organisation opting to quietly drop its previous “gender-affirming” stance.

This is quotation, from the paper under discussion, as a less ambiguous stance from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) in the U.K.,

I decided to take a look at the RCP guidance on transgender treatment, You can read it here: RCP. They are not quite the beacon of hope this quote suggests. Here are two further quotes from their guidance: The RCP have included “gender identity” along with homosexuality as vulnerable to unethical conversion therapy.

They also quote Jo Elsson-Kennedy who is somewhat of a high priestess of affirmative surgery. They also buy into the idea that sex is “assigned at birth”. Whilst it has set out a more nuanced position re transgender children the progressive conversion of Lesbians and Gay males seems to have escaped their notice. The woke are inculcating Gender Dysphoria, in our gay youth, who are responding by retreating into a faux straight, medicalised closet.

All in all a good paper. However the startling omission, for me, is lack of consideration of homosexuality. Many of the parents of proto-homosexual kids notice “gender-variant” behaviour in our children pre-dating the adoption of a “trans-identity”. The existence of femme gay males and butch lesbians would have been a useful reference point in this paper. The phenomenon of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria covers a wide range of presentations. Some had already come out as Lesbian/Gay or Bisexual. Some had autism and , though rarer in young males, some identified themselves as autogynephilic. (This is a phenomenon where a man becomes sexually aroused at the thought of himself as a woman. More than one autogynephile has located the origins of this paraphilia in excessive porn use at a young age).

I will, however , leave the final word to the authors of this paper. A stark warning which, sadly, will come to pass but too late for many post operative young women and men. Bring on the lawsuits. The end of this popular delusion can’t come soon enough.

Tavistock. Part Two: Clinical Dilemmas: Polly Carmichael

Talk by Polly Carmichael.

Part Two on the tension between different approaches for dealing with “Gender Dysphoria”. Hopefully part one provided some background for any neophytes. Tavistock Clinic: Part One.

Dr Carmichaels speech is : here The summary is taken from a transcription provided by Mumsnet volunteers; for which I am very grateful.

The talk took place in the following context:

4500% rise in the number of referrals, to the Tavistock, over a decade.
Rise in females (reversing sex ratio in less than a decade)
Tavistock pilot to place younger children on puberty blockers.

This change in protocol followed work done by Dutch Gender Identity Services. As you will see, from my earlier blog, the Tavistock were under some pressure to revise their treatment protocols to allow earlier medical interventions.

The evidence from introducing puberty blockers, at an earlier age, has resulted in children invariably progressing to cross sex hormones and entrenched on a medical pathway. The pro-medicalisation Lobby argue this is because they are 100% accurate in identifying those children who would persist. The alternative perspective is that the act of blocking puberty somehow locks in the Gender Incongruence. If this is correct we are medicalising those who would have desisted and, historically, many of those would simply be gay. I cover this here The Woke Gay Conversion Therapy?

There are many people working in this field who have raised this as a concern:

We don’t know whether these children would have desisted and reconciled to biological sex. The pro-interventionists have another perspective. They argue this is evidence the screening is working and it may be unfair to the children not put on this clinical pathway! This is also the argument used against setting up a control group. From the perspective of the Tavistock it would be unethical to leave a cohort untreated if they meet the diagnostic criteria for intractable Gender Dysphoria. I do wonder if anyone has thought to include parents, who oppose medical intervention, to see what the long term outcome is for our children?

Another startling admission is that we simply don’t know what the long term implications are on developing brains. 👇This is a clear admission this is an experimental treatment. Have politicians,and parents, been persuaded to take this risk because activists claim our children are at a high risk of suicide? Have activists managed this by leveraging questionable data on likely suicide? (I blogged about this here Suicide in the Trans Community)

This paragraph is important because there are still documents out there calling this intervention a “pause”. Indeed here is Polly herself from the CBBC children’s programme “Becoming Leo”.

Many people working in this field have postulated that going through a natural puberty resolves gender incongruence in the majority of cases. Dr Carmichael is clearly aware of this research and emphasises that the treatment, at Tanner Stage 2, means that these children will at least have had a partial puberty.

She concedes the paucity of long term data on outcomes. She also anticipates concerns about competing mental health diagnoses. In this way the “Gender Dysphoria”, it is implied, has to be treated to resolve these other difficulties. This neatly avoids any suggestion mental health issues underpin the “Gender Dysphoria”, or desire to find a label/treatment.

The framing of this discussion is entirely reliant on whether you believe in an “innate gender”. If you do believe a child can be born in the wrong body it necessitates treatment. If you believe gender is a social construct then societal sex stereotypes are the problem. These seem to be irreconcilable belief systems. Worth having a look at how Mermaid’s diagnostic criteria works. Would anyone not meet the diagnosis threshold given this criteria?

Dr Carmichael , below, frankly admits that the evidence has yet to catch up with practice. She further acknowledges there is no consensus and there is concern about the long term health impact. The only way this treatment can even approach an ethical justification is if you are confident that:

a) Gender Identity is innate

b) The Tavistock have a reliable system for targeting irreversible treatments only on children who would, in any case, have persisted.

c) You believe data that suggests there is a suicide epidemic in trans-identified youth. {This makes intervention a life saver & justifies pharmaceutical interventions}.

So what has effected this change? Political Interest and Lobbying. Let us not forget the role of the Women & Equalities Committee. Since it morphed, from a Women’s committee, it has been successfully colonised. In its original incarnation it focussed on women’s issues. As predicted, women’s concerns have been pushed to one side with a wider focus on “Equalities”.

The quote below👇 touches on the real change in the landscape surrounding “Transgender” children. Dr Carmichael acknowledges that some children are being socially transitioned at pre-school age. This is also a reference to the growing condemnation of “watchful waiting” , now badged as a practice akin to #GayConversionTherapy. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) she references commits to a ban on therapeutic work to resolve Gender Incongruence. BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) & the BPS (British Psychological Society) have signed up to a ban on Gender Identity “conversion”. The Royal College of GPs has also signed this MOU.

The fact most desisters are predicted to be gay seems to have escaped their notice. Counselling, to reconcile to biological sex, is now officially condemned by these, erstwhile, esteemed professional bodies. As of May 2020 there are is a further move to outlaw any therapy to address “Gender Dysphoria” by, once again, conflating it with Gay Conversion Therapy. See here ⇒ Gender Identity Conversion Therapy

There’s a huge amount to unpack here. 👇

Dr Carmichael is not happy the Tavistock are being accused of not being sufficiently affirmative. She does appear to be trying to raise awareness of the changing nature of the child referrals. Her interpretation of the parents, mentioned above. does not accord with my own perspective. Socially transitioning a three year old and then attempting to report a young child for the Hate Crime of misgendering another child! Is this the behaviour of parents who are simply being protective! If I was relaying this story, verbally, my incredulity would be at such a high pitch only dogs would be able to hear me!

In the section below there are a lot of erms as Dr Carmichael hesitates over the admission the treatment compromises fertility . She is anxious about this, but not for the reasons you might expect. She is concerned about young people who defer medicalisation to try to salvage their reproductive health. The reason for this is they may not “pass” ,if they delay long enough to have a chance at parenthood. This is not an uncommon viewpoint. One practitioner in this field praises the children who are kind enough to see themselves as future child adopters.

Sacrificing fertility is quite a significant thing to ask children to consent to and yet her concern is one of “presentation”. Polly is aware this is indicative of that great sin of “binary thinking”. {Its almost as if she knows, on some level, there are only two sexes!} No doubt Polly would consider me a “biological essentialist” but, like many women (and men), I was in my thirties before I desired children. I would not have made a mature decision, to place my fertility at risk, at age 12.

And that last sentence! Actually wondering how the Tavistock can support children to feel comfortable enough to live with their bodies! Klaxon Klaxon Klaxon!! This is what parents would like to know! Shouldn’t the first line of treatment be body-positive? In less than a decade we seem to have normalised a bodily dis-associative disorder and completely over-turned decades of work, especially for the female body.

Another thing that is hard to keep up with is the removal of any reference to mental health issues. The diagnostic criteria for Gender Dysphoria has now officially been re-classified to remove suggestions it is a Mental Health issue. I sense Dr Carmichael really wants to find a way to talk about co-morbidities here. However activists have successfully rebadged Gender Dysphoria as a naturally occurring variation and references to mental health are removed from the official diagnostic manual.

How many of these children/teens placed on an irreversible pathway may have benefited from some good therapeutic exploration of their motivations? Therapeutic Interventions to resolve Gender Dysphoria

This is a good summary of what the impact of this Conversion versus Affirmation model does to practitioners in this field. I diverge on many points with Dr Carmichael but she is right that we are favouring medical solutions to resolve psychological issues. The lack of psychological support has also been raised by Tavistock staff who have now left and are whistleblowing.

To balance the pressure for medical intervention we need a diversity of voices. These should include detransitioners, It should include parents of children struggling with this “condition”. It should include people who understand the concept of an iatrogenic “illness”. It should include people who have expressed concern about what we are doing to young people. We need a countervailing voice to Lobby groups like Mermaids, Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence.

The above is not a bad summary.

We need more empirical data, less opinion.
We need to look at contextual factors. (School teaching on Gender Identity, for one)
I disagree about taking a lead from young people. Detransitioners have taught us that.

We need to urgently take measures to make certain we are not medicalising children who could have lived a life without hormone dependency and surgical interventions.

The problem with this service is that it seems to be driven by people who see this as a social justice cause, They are excited at disruptive thinking, eroding or destroying social norms. I will leave you with this quote from Bernadette Wren, who also works at the Tavistock. This is from the Transgender Equality Inquiry in 2015. I sense that Dr Wren should have been more careful. Sometimes a social revolution doesn’t take the form you, naively, imagine it will:

Tavistock Clinic: Polly Carmichael

This is some background to a talk given by a member of staff from the Gender Identity Services (GIDS) at the Tavistock. The talk is by Dr Polly Carmichael and provides insight into clinical/ethical issues for Gender Identity Services. I want to explore Dr Carmichael’s belief system and the alternative perspective of those of us who reject the Tavistock model. Dr Carmichael reflects on the tension between “affirmative” approaches to children with Gender Dysphoria and what she labels “reparative” or “conservative”. I will argue that parents resisting medical intervention are also “affirming”. You can listen to the talk yourself here

Proponents of an “affirmative” approach believe that a child can be “Born in the Wrong Body”. They will often use phrases like “assigned at birth” to describe how sex is determined. They argue the sex you are designated at birth may not match your “Gender Identity”. Therefore you may, in fact, have an opposite “Gender” to the sex which you were “assigned”. The theory of an innate Gender Identity mirrors established child development theory on the age a child realises they are a boy or girl. For advocates of Gender Identity Theory this is seen as a sign that we all have an innate sense of “gender” and become aware of it at around three years of age. Therefore if a child communicates some discomfort/distress, at being treated as a girl, or boy, they are deemed to be exhibiting a conflict between their sex and gender. As this is a feeling , relying on an internal sense of self, the child will, it is argued, know better than their parents which “gender” they are. This argument sets the stage for empowering children/teens to act without parental consent. Something lobbyists are openly arguing should take place. Those that subscribe to this belief often use language around bodily autonomy to push for positive affirmation of the child’s “gender”. This may take social forms; such as allowing a new name, style of dress or pronouns which match the preferred gender. This can also take the form of medical interventions such as Puberty Blockers followed by Cross-sex hormones.

Therapeutic Interventions to resolve Gender Dysphoria

This article shows how a good therapist can identify underlying issues and attempt to resolve Gender Dysphoria without medicalised responses to bodily discomfort. The therapist is fluent in Gender Identity speak but does have the courage to honestly interrogate what “Gender” means to the clients they see. It is important to note that any therapist may, or perhaps will, feel compelled to speak in approved language to get published. Additionally our young people have imbibed the new lexicon so the therapist may need to speak in the approved language, to establish a dialogue with Gender Dysphoric youth.

The article: Psychoanalyst on Transitory Trans Identity Author Alessandra Lemmas

Psychoanalysis pays attention to unconscious motivations in the formation of “identity”. This is in marked contrast to Gender Identity proponents of a medicalised response. Lemmas talks of the need for “a posture of implicit scepticism” when dealing with claimed identities. This is in marked contrast to Gender Identity medical practitioners who prioritise a subjective sense of self and demand only “belief”. This is an excerpt from a response to an article in the British Medical Journal about how to treat Gender Dysphoria. The response is from Dr Helen Webberly, currently suspended from the General Medical Council, who is not alone in her stance: Helen Webberly .

The belief that people can, literally, be born in the wrong body underpins the lack of a therapeutic approach to young people presenting with Gender Identity Issues. Merely to suggest that this may be an incorrect, self-diagnosis, generates outrage that we are denying the “lived experience” of the transgender community. Yet we know, as Lemmas, and many others, point out most desist, reconcile to biological sex and many are simply gay. 👇

The author subscribes/pays lip service to the idea that sex is assigned at birth, rather than merely observed, as it is in 99% + cases. She subshumes both Lesbians and Gay men underneath the “transgender” umbrella. The statistics on post-operative satisfaction accept the narrative from within the Gender Identity community with no acknowledgment of the methodological flaws with the phenomenon of “loss to follow up”. {This is where a patient loses contact with the Gender Identity Service they are using. Detransitioners say they don’t return to the services which, they feel, actively harmed them, so this cohort disappear from the “follow up”}

The three case studies, in this article, cover many of the issues raised by parents dealing with our gender Dysphoric offspring. All claimed a transgender identity with no prior history sound puberty. We are told about the huge spike in referrals to the UK’s main Gender Identity Clinics and a wider social context emphasising choice and very much of a piece with the atomising of the individual in neoliberal, capitalist, societies.

The first case is illustrative of the complicity of transgender identity. More on “Anita” below. 👇. As you can see Anita claims multiple identities encompassing male, gay & female as well as “drag queen”. Already taking cross sex hormones but with no intention to progress to more surgical changes.

The dialogue seems to settle on the idea that gender identity can be fluid and an exploratory phase. Nevertheless Anita is already medicalising, We leave this case here, though I will just add that I have never seen a satisfactory explanation of what “living as a woman” means. It seems to depend on circular reasoning /a retreat to sex stereotypes.

Janes case is more complex and, arguably, requires a more robust interrogation since Jane seems to fully intend a full transition to “live as a man”. The sessions are challenging and, on more than one occasion, the analyst reports the anger triggered by the exploration of underlying issues. What emerges is a young girl whose parents have traditional gender roles in the household. Janes perception is that her mother is a “hostess” with little power, standing in the household. On being pressed much of Janes “Identity” seems built about rejecting all the signs associated with being a “girl” such as make-up and long hair. Here are some of Jane’s thoughts on what being a girl means to her:

Tellingly., Jane reveals that they did not feel they measured up to the expected level of attractiveness as a girl. Even more revealing is an expression of same sex attraction. Not as a lesbian but as a male attracted to females. Another common theme in detransitioners is the yearning for passing privilege as a male and how this, in retrospect, seemed to become more unattainable as they sought to identify as male.

Jane is also adopted and vehemently rejects any idea this relates to their gender identity issues, However it later emerges that the birth mother was from a culture which prized male children, in preference to girls. This prompts some self reflection and the realisation / admission that maybe this was bound up with the idea that her mother may have kept a male child.

Janes situation resolved itself without medical intervention. She is in a same sex relationship and has found a way to identify as a strong woman in her on line world after previously observing that she felt “insubstantial” and, significantly, failed to garner the same respect when she was coded female.

The third case study is Alex, who is a female who identified as male at 16. Alex was not interested in being dissuaded from hormones and surgery, as is common with our Gender Dysphoric youth. Alex’s parents affirmed the new identity and accepted their daughter as a son. Alex, however,still wished to access therapy, but still underwent a double mastectomy at age 19. Post surgery Alex was, initially “happy” but then became depressed and suicidal and revisited the sexual abuse that they had endured at age 10, and realised the link between the abuse and the desire to remove their breasts . Tellingly, the parents were not aware of the sexual abuse and it did made me reflect on their role as affirming parents and, if they had been aware of this history, would it have made them exercise more caution? I do NOT say this to judge those parents. Any one of us could have genuinely advocated for this stance in the belief, pushed relentlessly by our media and advocated by public bodies, that this is the right thing to do.

I am conflicted about the “woke” language. By espousing the idea that someone can born “in the wrong body” {which is the belief system underpinning transgender ideology} the danger is our Gender Confused children are getting mixed messages. On the one hand the implication is that they may be hard-wired with a conflict between sexed bodies and an opposite sex brain. At the same time it is clear that some of these cases are complicated by sexual orientation, history of sexual abuse and family dynamics. There remains no diagnostic test that can separate the influence of “neuroplasticity” from the notion of an opposite sex brain. In an ideal world we would start from the clear premise that there is no solid evidence that there is a biological basis for this incongruence between sexed bodies and a “gender identity”. That does NOT mean that Gender Dysphoria does not exist or that it cannot, in a minority of extreme cases, be extremely debilitating and, for adults, may lead to an inescapable desire for medical intervention.

Irrespective of these misgivings this is a good article and those of us dealing with Gender Dysphoric teens know how hard it is to navigate this terrain. Some solid therapeutic work seems to have built up sufficient trust to garner some solid insights from these young people. Of course I wish that self-awareness pre-dated significant surgery but for parents struggling with this, especially, I do recommend this piece.

Sexual Reassignment Surgery: A prisoner’s appeal

This legal case centres on a prisoner who wished to access, NHS funded, Sexual Reassignment Surgery during a prison sentence. Covered by The Times here: KK appeal for SRS

In anticipation of the general denial on this issue I include, as always, the official, judicial transcript. KK: Legal Challenge for SRS.

There are a number of interesting aspects to this case. Firstly the recurrent appearance of the same clinicians whose advice is sought. There does seem to be quite a small number of specialists in this field. A feature of this case, once again, is the claimant’s complicating history of sexual offences. This is not unusual, in the cases which leave a trail in court paperwork. Another recurrent theme is the vexed notion of what “living as a woman” means. This resists definition and exercises the minds of our specialists, and the judiciary, far too little. Here we are told the claimant is 60 years of age, was sentenced “as a man” and has been given an indefinite sentence for public protection (IPP). We also discover that the bar for obtaining Genital Reassignment Surgery (GRS) is lower for a prisoner who will never be released than for those with the possibility of parole. There is no rationale given here for this policy.

The legal claim is made on a number of grounds. One of these is whether there exists a protocol which discriminates against prisoners wishing to access sexual reassignment surgery. Another aspect of the case is a rarely articulated concern about regret, in post-operative transsexuals. Here it is adduced as a factor in the, efusing the prisoner GRS. The existence of post-surgery regret is not denied. Instead, the argument hinges on the lack of peer reviewed research showing prisoners are at a higher risk of regret. The Trust, for its part, denies there is any such protocol.

Below is a reminder of the criteria to access genital surgery. It can be done from age 17, mental health conditions are no bar they must merely be “controlled”, a patient is allowed to progress even if they are “unwilling” to undertake hormone treatment. Furthermore the prospective patient should not be judged on how they perform their gender. God forbid we assign arbitrary expectations to performative gender, it might make us suspect the entire ideology is underpinned by reductive, sexist stereotypes. The absence of any externally verified way of measuring “Living as a Woman” does, however, beg the question how is this being measured? How can you assess if a male person is really of the female gender? What does living in the female gender role mean?

How can you possibly assess whether this identity is being adopted correctly if you don’t have pre-conceived notions of what “living as a woman” entails? Is it possible that this is a tad sexist?

Another revealing admission is that many of those who claim the status of “woman” in fact have no bodily modification at all. So living as a woman does not require anyone to be divested of that very male of appendages. One could be forgiven for assuming the penis part of the male anatomy which would give rise to dysphoric feelings. Yet it seems not to be the case. A large number retain their male anatomy. At the same time we, second class women, the biological kind, are expected to share our intimate spaces with the new, male-bodied, version of womankind. We hear much of the comfort surgery can bring to sufferers of Gender Dsyphoria. Where is the consideration for the discomfort of ,unbepenised, women forced to share our intimate spaces?

Cue cries of “transphobia” for wishing to be free of all genders of penis when women are in intimate spaces.

The next excerpt from the case provides more information on the sexual offences committed by the prisoner. Here we learn that the defendant begain offending in the 1980’s; when he groomed and abused a young girl, at the age of 12 . The defendant was, at that stage, 32 years of age. The girl endured this for four years. He served just one year. He was still sexually offending in 2006.

The claimant is late to a belief they are really a woman. He remained trapped in a man’s body at age 51. The claimant professes, to the therapist below, that his sexual offending may cease if he is allowed to transition. The therapist offers an alternative view. What if his attraction to the child images is related to him having missed out on 51 years of being a girl (WTF!). He may, in fact, be at a higher risk of offending after gender reassignment. He then proceeds to amend his statement with the outrageous implication that he resorted to offending to “vicariously experience womanhood”. Because nothing screams woman louder than sexually offending against a pubescent, female teen and downloading child porn! Types furiously…

Again there is a lot of evidence that males, who retain a sexual interest in females, and wish to transition, also have co-existing paraphilias. But hey, what could possibly go wrong!

Dr Lorimer is well aware that masochistic fantasies are not unusual. A cursory acquaintance with sections of the community reveal a correlation with interests in BDSM. Indeed here is a Masters Thesis about how sado-masochistic, role play helped one transwoman cement their identity. Naturally they played the submissive role. BDSM & Transgender Identity

Cross-dressing usually has an erotic component but the prisoners states this was not the case for them. Well he would wouldn’t he? Fetishising a female identity is pretty much the essence of the movement but I would say that wouldn’t I?

Fetishising sexual roles, with notions of submission and dominance, seems to be a core feature of how many males experience their female role. Acting female in a male prison is vastly different from women’s material reality, as pointed out below:

Here we find that the prisoner remains in a category C Male prison. Since they have been “in role” for 10 years in a male prison it rather begs the question about lack of safety in the male estate. Dr Barrett makes it clear they are not able to make a referral for a Gender Recognition Certificate. As we found out from earlier cases there is no bar to obtaining a GRC, from within prison, even with convictions for sexual offences against women. There are always other clinicians and a wealth of private providers that the prisoner can approach. Good to know. I was worried for a while.

We soon learn that the prisoner has been moved to an open prison. We are not told if this remains in the male estate. The prisoner has, however, been granted accompanied and unaccompanied visits to the local town. This is to gain that all important “real life experience” of living as a woman, whatever that means! This is a prelude to release. Prisoner also has hormone therapy increased. Below is another revealing statement that acknowledges that most denied of phenomena: “detransition”. When word gets out that Dr Lorimer has used this word will he be cancelled?

The prisoners sexual offences are deemed to “complicate” the picture for our clinicians. Further confirmation is provided below. Here we have a prisoner presenting as female, in the male estate, for 10 years! Again Dr Barrett makes it clear the imprisonment of a patient is no bar to obtaining GRS and, additionally confirms female prisoners are being made to share accommodation with pre-op males.

Yep Dr Barrett you bet the experience of living in the female role is artificial. I agree with you but probably for different reasons. Late transitioners, with a history of sexual offences, are a red flag but you can’t say that can you? We must not undermine the notion of a man trapped in a woman’s body. #AcceptionWithoutException. Though Dr Barrett comes pretty close with this gem of a contribution about Women “living in female bodies!” (spoiler there is no other kind ). Yes! We tend not to groom female children and perform oral sex on them.

So without wishing to labour the point the prisoner is denied. No mention is made of the obvious reasons! You know the late -transitioning, sexual offence history and interest in child porn. No. The real issue that seems to justify the refusal is a failure to demonstrate real lived experience, as a woman, because prison is an artificial environment! Whilst a male cos-playing as a woman is not artificial, in any way!

Case Dismissed.

Gender Recognition Panels: A Judge talks.

Revolutionary? Evolutionary? Or just a massive mistake?

The process by which a Gender Recognition Certificate is issued is overseen by a Gender Recognition Panel. Here a judge talks, with breathless excitement, about their involvement in the process. It is rare to get any insight into the workings of the panel except, as I found, by looking at Legal Cases which do shed some slight on its ~~laxity~~ sorry, complexity. This piece is very revealing in its tone, and use of language. Remember this panel determines who can redefine themselves, in law, as the opposite sex and be treated as if they were legally a man, or a woman. Though note the legislation had amendments to prevent a woman inheriting a peerage or accessing legacies entailed on the male line. They made sure the important things were protected. Exclusions were built in to legally discriminate against females who claim a male identity. Ireland did the same with the priesthood.

Article, in full, here Gender Recognition Panels

I think a lot of the people involved in the “gender identity” business feel they are claiming a place in history (the right side of history) by working in such a radical/revolutionary field.

This article is written in the language of social justice warriors not of cool, calm, deliberative thinkers. This is legislation which has massive implications for women’s rights. It directly impacts the implementation of legislation around single sex spaces and women’s right to exclude men from our political organisations. Yet NOT ONCE does this essay even touch on the potential (I would say actual) implications for women’s rights!

Will I draw fire from Social Justice Warriors if I appropriate the Chinese Curse “May you live in interesting times”. Women, in the UK, are indeed living in a cursed place.

Ms Gray is very frank about the process and the stance of the panel. I am not surprised. Much of what she says is controversial, in feminist (non libfem) circles, but has been utterly normalised by the, cognitively captured, judiciary. If only women had managed to capture the state with such alacrity we could be living in a very different world! If only women were part of this marginalised community what we could do with such power?

The use of language is highly revealing. “avant-garde” and “radical” . This is language more appropriate for someone authoring experimental fiction. Though in a sense they are doing exactly this but with real life consequences, not just a critical review in high brow literature journals. The judge seems almost disappointed that we were pipped at the post by other jurisdictions who have already moved to “self-selection of one’s gender”. The Pick and mix of Sex coming to a courtroom near you. The Judge seems disappointed she is stuck with our old-fashioned and “oppressive” desire for some “evidential requirements”, this is a Judge rejecting evidence as “oppressive”. Are we lamenting that we have we not kept pace with the social engineering that has embedded itself in western (elite) culture because we are no longer leading it?

For this judge it has been an exciting opportunity to be at the “cutting edge” ,or not, of a Brave New World. This excitement is not quite shared in the real world where ordinary women deal with the consequences. The judge wants us to know how this “small group of judges” decided how they would operate. As we can see , below, they decided the progressive thing to do was to be “enabling” and facilitative. They certainly have been “enabling” and I am not sure I would speak of what they have “enabled” in such gushing terms.

They have all we are told gained their experience via the “Social Entitlement Chamber” which is just the most fabulous name for a school of judges who seem so out of touch. Here ⇓⇓ we are told that the team work to be as accommodating as possible so that the applicants can demonstrate their “entitlement to a GRC”. Ms Gray takes this very seriously and has only refused 3 out of an estimated 2800. So less than 0.1% were refused. Even then the applicant can go on to appeal. At that stage only one judge needs make the decision. (See my earlier review of one such case: GRC Appeal)

I dare say the answer to this blinkered view is that time and time again the lobby groups advising are from one sector only. Any implications for women have been ignored and, if considered at all, clearly discounted. They have spoken to “professionals in the field” including endocrinologists and psychologists. The problem with these “experts”, who are encountered again and again in legal cases , is that they are ideologues. The “experts” are wedded to the notion that “gender identity” is a real, biological, phenomenon and only a bigot would define women as a biological sex class.

Ms Gray anticipates that her role may be at an end. No doubt seeing the requirement for any scrutiny to be disregarded in a rush to impose Self-identified status as a woman/man. I too wish for an end to the Gender Recognition Panel but for entirely different reasons. It was a mistake to enshrine a legal requirement to recognise a change of sex as if it was literally possible. The eradication of the notion of “sex” will hurt women and, ultimately, those who wish to be protected as “same sex oriented”. This is not revolutionary. Its regressive.

Sex by Deception? Perjury?

Sex by deception: Legal Case.

I was not intending to blog this case. I fear the bald facts lend themselves to a curiosity born out of prurience. I myself was intrigued so I am not in any position to judge. It is hard not to question the circumstances, as laid out in the case. Transcript

The bare facts of the case are:

On reflection, I decided to blog as it raises the issue of Sex By Deception, currently a criminal offence. There is talk about reviewing the law. Stonewall are one of the organisations lobbying for this:👇

Whilst there could be a progressive case for reviewing the law covering sex by deception (I am thinking of Spy cops) it’s also fraught with risk. I am mainly thinking of #CottonCeiling here. The term #CottonCeiling was coined by a trans porn actor and activist, Drew DeVeux. It describes the “exclusionary” practices of Lesbians from a trans perspective. Sex by deception laws,currently offer some remedy if sexual activity is embarked upon without disclosing your sex / anatomical status. Trans activists don’t think sex is a meaningful status, only gender, so they oppose this legislation. A taste of the rhetoric on this topic is below:

From a Lesbian perspective #CottonCeiling rhetoric posits their same sex orientation as “bigotry” and trans exclusionary. In fact it is male exclusionary and doesn’t necessarily exclude females who self-identify as Transmen. Many lesbians have also pointed out that this is all too reminiscent of the “corrective rape” practiced on Lesbians. (Still happening now I hear from South African Lesbians) How dare they exclude males from their dating pool?

The term cotton ceiling is a twist on glass ceiling but here it is not about the barrier to women’s opportunities but the barrier (women’s knickers) to sex!

The person who led this workshop moved to the UK to work for Stonewall. Its not just a few outliers on the internet.

The cases I am aware of, in the UK, have, however, all been “transmen”. In a practical sense testosterone does seem to do a lot more heavy lifting, than oestrogen, so a passing “transman” seems more common. Outside of celebrity world a passing “transwoman” is more rare. Transmen are maybe more likely to commit this, from an opportunity perspective, not from a propensity. Transactivist rhetoric, however, seems more focussed on females excluding males from their bedrooms I have not seen an equivalent movement around the #BoxersBarrier. Psychologically de-programming male socialisation seems to be a much harder task, perhaps the prominence of sexual demands, made of women, by males, is to be expected.

This legal case pre-dated the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 so used a charge of perjury but it has implications for fraudulent claims to be of the opposite sex. We need a discussion on how that speaks to “consent”. The current law provides for 👇

This original case was tried on the basis of perjury from this legislation.

I don’t have the transcript of the original case (yet). The later cases relate to a long legal battle for the trans-identifying female to have access to the children, born during the marriage, and financial support from the ex “spouse”.

The case struck me as rather sad, which it is. However, as I thought more about it I was struck more by the consequences, for the woman, caught up in this deception.

After I posted a brief reference, on twitter, the responses (mainly disbelief) made me dig a little deeper. Eventually I found a much earlier case, involving the same couple, which provided a lot more background. 1996 case. There will also be an earlier case relating to the perjury charges. I have not located a transcript for that case.

What is clear, from the earlier case, is that the wife was not aware of her partners sex, certainly not at the time of the marriage. Just when she was fully informed is not entirely clear. Certainly both parties had opposing interests when it came to establishing when the fraud was exposed. The “husband” faced a possible seven year sentence for the deceit. The “wife” faced battles over the children (conceived by artificial insemination) and sharing financial assets. Should the partner be able to claim rights to her property and financial assets? If it was determined a crime had been committed then the party to the deception likely had no legal claim on any financial assets accumulated during the “marriage”.

The FTM had undergone a bilateral mastectomy (In 1977) but the surgery had not been straightforward so the patient opted not to undergo a phallioplasty. Interestingly here is an audio recording detailing the complications from a recent recipient of a phalloplasty This appears to be a dangerous, and poorly regulated, procedure over 40 years later. The decision to avoid it, from a health perspective, seems to have been a wise choice.

The skepticism about the wife’s ignorance of her “husbands” sex seems to be explained by her youth and inexperience and the use of a prosthetic device. Elsewhere in the testimony it is clear that much effort was made to preserve bodily privacy, by the claimant. (The claimant in this case is the FTM as it concerns access and “ matrimonial assets”). The differing backgrounds of the claimant and “spouse” are detailed also 👇

Following the marriage it was not until some years later that the couple sought help to conceive. It is not known if they had been “trying” up to that point. If they had then this was a cruel deception. No details are included as to whether the mother had been subject any other fertility tests or treatments. What seems clear is that the male had not been subject to any tests, not unusual for the time. Far easier to medicalise the “infertile” wife than question a man’s masculinity. With the increasing clamour to be attracted to “gender” not sex this is one of the consequences of denying biological reality.

The relationship began to breakdown in 1994. At this point the wife confided in a friend who was also a private investigator. Below is an account of what led to the discovery and the shock it occasioned to the mother.

There is a lot more speculation in the transcript. From my own reading it does seem as if there was, at the very least, some awareness of the physical irregularity in the FTM. A letter is referenced which appears to show some incident occurred which was a revelation, of some sort, to the wife. From a legal point of view It was the facts known at the time of the marriage that were the determining factor in any claim against “matrimonial” assets. There is a clear admission that the facts were not declared.

The basis on which the “husband” was tried and the defence case are briefly summarised below 👇

Point three in the defence minimises the offence as “not so serious” and go on to imply diminished responsibility, due to the nature of the “personality disorder”. I presume this is no longer a legitimate defence since the condition of Gender Dysphoria has been reclassified. It is no longer, officially, a mental health issue. More on the politics of this classification shift here: Diagnostic Status of Gender Dysphoria Written by a Transexual Dr Ann Lawrence.

In any event the defence failed to convince the Judge.

The judge found that perjury had been committed. The deceit had been perpetrated because the claimant had known that the marriage would not take place if their sex was acknowledged. The 2006 case hinges on any claims for ancillary relief. In lay terms the claimant would not, legally, be allowed to benefit from a “criminal” enterprise. A stealth existence and need to “pass” must place intolerable pressure in those with gender Dysphoria. The judge references this, sympathetically, but this doesn’t equate to an absence of responsibility for the deception.

However should a real psychological need take precedence over someone else’s right to make informed choices? When this is about who has access to your body? The judge deemed it a profound betrayal of trust.

Now the concept of an “innate gender identity” is treated as a medical, but not a mental health, condition much of this defence would, presumably, be moot. A genuinely held belief that you are the opposite sex doesn’t change biological reality. If someone has a Gender Recognition Certificate there are privacy laws protecting that information. They are to be treated as if they are the opposite sex. Is there any protection, other than sex by deception, for women, or men, deceived in this way? Extreme activists would say there is no deception. They would argue they literally are the sex they say they are. That there is a deeply held conviction I can accept, that I should have to share it is the sticking point.

All mainstream political parties have mainstreamed transgender rights. Labour explicitly say they wish to review the legislation in this area. I single out Labour only because I am a lifelong Labour voter and my fear is we are throwing an election over this. 👇 I am indebted to Mumsnet for the quote below. [The link was included but this document is no longer available to view. Hopefully this is because they are reviewing the content. Hope springs eternal: Securing Trans Equality]

“Point 14: Review the law relating to legal issues of consent to rape and sexual offences to ‘sex by deception’ in order to remove potential discrimination and criminalisation of trans/gender variant people….”

Why are this community a special case? This suggests we are going to be legally compelled to validate “gender identity” even in our most intimate relationships. Are gay men allowed to reject trans men? Lesbians Transwomen? Will an offence have been committed if sexual contact takes place only to be confronted with a seven inch surprise? These are real ethical and legal issues. I have zero faith that our political elite will make the right choice.

Transgender extremism, violence against feminist meeting at British Labour Party conference

via Transgender extremism, violence against feminist meeting at British Labour Party conference

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LETTER TO Govt. Equalities Office

Letter to Government Equalities Office.

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INFORMED CONSENT?

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Tavistock. Part Two: Clinical Dilemmas: Polly Carmichael

Talk by Polly Carmichael.

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Tavistock Clinic: Polly Carmichael

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Therapeutic Interventions to resolve Gender Dysphoria

Sexual Reassignment Surgery: A prisoner’s appeal

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Gender Recognition Panels: A Judge talks.

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Sex by Deception? Perjury?

Sex by deception: Legal Case.

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Transgender extremism, violence against feminist meeting at British Labour Party conference

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Letter to Government Equalities Office.

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#THESE_ARE_NOT_OUR_CRIMES!

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Talk by Polly Carmichael.

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Revolutionary? Evolutionary? Or just a massive mistake?

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Sex by deception: Legal Case.

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