According to the transgender blog in The Guardian, trans-activists caused a conference to be cancelled because they felt it was unrepresentative and that two of the speakers were either anti or unsympathetic to 'the cause'.
I'm not sure what I feel, other than it seems to prove that modern technology can effect change and that the opinions of minorities can be made louder than they otherwise might, especially in the past.
I'm hoping that eventually gender identity will be seen as a much more fluid affair than is currently the case, and that the disorder aspect of GID will be removed. It's true that those seeking surgical modification of otherwise healthy tissue will always need to be checked by mental health experts, but I hope that's all that's necessary.
It's sad that as a group, and we are a minority within minorities, seem to be constantly under attack by those who have their ideas of gender in very rigid boundaries, created by narrow visions of religion, sex or culture. But then looking at racism - which is officially illegal in most western cultures - and how it still thrives, albeit in a sometimes underground way, transphobia is going to be around for a lot longer.
Some of the comments are interesting, some are irritating and some are silly. But it is something of a surprise to me that activists were able to influence the Royal College of Psychiatrists - and shows that things might be changing. In my day, as an activist, it meant offering support and information to the community.
Finally, one of the commenters asked what transpeople feel about feminism. I don't necessarily see myself as a transperson, just a woman struggling to survive in a male dominated society. I support feminism, if not one or two of it's more outlandish figures, because I believe that all people are equal in their basic human rights to live and go about their daily business in peace, which is what feminism is ultimately all about.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/21/transgen...
Angharad.
Comments
A Minority Within A Minority
I guess, at most, the transgendered (of whatever kind) number one half of one per-cent of the population. I know the numbers are very rubbery and given the prejudice against us, we are not likely to get any closer on a statistical basis any time soon.
Angharad has it dead right. All most of us want is to be able to go about our daily business without having crap heaped upon us. Let me be brutally honest here. We get almost no help or sympathy from the GLB community. They and most of the media treat us as freaks. We all know how much support we get from the likes of Germaine Greer.
That leaves us on our own. You can't rely on self-confessed cowards like me either, so I just hope that the younger members of our "community" with guts to go forward and protest and demonstrate, will be able to convince the general public that we are not a threat to their way of life,
Joanne
Gay and Lesbian Including Bisexuals?
...that's GLIB for short! Oh Well! Maybe we can go with Heroically Undertaking More Autobiographical Narratives....
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Impressive ...
... that there are 6 pages of comments and even some of the anti ones weren't as abusive as they often are. I log onto the Guardian web site most days but I missed this one - perhaps the good weather had something to do with it.
However, some of the comments display massive ignorance on the part of the poster. Hopefully, after reading what others wrote their ignorance has been alleviated to some extent.
Robi
I think I'm probably most
I think I'm probably most annoyed about the fact you could have been credited with 6 CPD points for attending a conference where AZ Hakeem and Julie Bindel were speakers given the stuff I have to do to get CPD points!! The fact that both speakers biographys on the programme were white washed to remove any reference to their controversial statements and views is more serious in that it gives the impression of them being authoritative. The organisers seem to have caved in once they realised the thin layer of respectability they were purporting to have was exposed as a sham. I'm happy to take any successes we can get. :-)
On a less serious note, it amazes me that anyone can invite Julie Bindel to speak at anything. I once read an article about feminism and Generation X that was lamenting that rather than being feminists we were the daughters of feminists. It's probably true in that whenever I hear reference to Julie Bindel I feel the same sense of acute embarassment as a woman (and yeah, I really dislike the transwoman label) that I did as a teenager watching my parents dance at wedding discos.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I'm not sympathetic to present GID protocol
And it is sad that there is not more dissent. The whole area of GID treatment is rapidly evolving and I am happy to see that it is. Society as a whole needs to engage present scientific thought, and some unscrupulous counselors need to stop pulling those who are not actually GID into the fold.
There is much to learn.
Khadijah
This goes both ways, though.
From what I've heard there are far more GID patients, specifically along the TS line, who are denied help because they don't meet the psychological profile requirements set up by certain organizations.
Depending on the country, I wouldn't qualify for gender reassignment on a mental level. Why? I like jeans, and electronics, and generally being a lazy bum. None of that makes me a guy any more than liking skirts and flowery perfumes and the color pink would make me a girl, yet those are close to the types of labels that many psyche profiles seem to look for.
Rather than focusing so much on how much a candidate fits masculine or feminine generic behaviors and attitudes, I think more work should be put into making sure those who are seeking SRS or even hormone therapy are mentally sound enough to be making such a decision for themselves, and understand the consequences of such actions should they change their mind later. Like everyone, I've heard the horror stories of people who were unhappy with being a woman after having had their SRS, but just making the system more strict as far as feminine behavior or the like would be useless since anyone who wanted to could simply pretend to fit the profile more than they do, as I am fully aware that many people in the past have for that specific goal. Blaming the psychiatric community because you do or do not fit a profile doesn't help anyone -- asking yourself what it means to you that you do or do not fit that profile, though, can go a long way toward helping you come to grips with yourself.
Melanie E.
A refutation
of an earlier Julie Bindel article is actually very good and covers lots of points of contention. Some might have seen it before but I post the link anyway.
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/11/lets-get-few-...
In answer to Melanie, there is less importance attributed to gender stereotyped behaviour these days or clothing. I'm hardly a girly girl - I'm a cyclist, with interests in natural history and ancient history. I've spent a whole weekend renovating my back door (not finished yet) because I'm too mean/poor to get someone in to do it for me and because I have the means to work out what is required and try to do it - on the other hand, I can quite enjoy wearing makeup and dresses to go somewhere nice or 'cos I feel like it (prefer painting my nails to the bloody back door - boring).
Angharad
Angharad
Do I care any more?
I am so tired and weary of the debate that I have forced myself to move on from it.
For sixty years I tried to conform and failed. I have met other friends in the transvestite community who, like me, have concluded thay are all at varying degrees of gender location and find it hard to nail down their sexuality based upon the parameters set by those who are not transgendered.
When we meet at Tawe Butterflies our fireside discussions go on long into the night as we describe our own preferences and needs and we often have been forced to conclude that those preferences are changeable and sometimes volatile.
No matter how articulate or intuitive one might be it is almost impossible to convey to a medical individual who is locked securely in what they perceive to be a fixed condition, that there are countless other degrees of that condition. Sometimes I myself find it hard to decide if male and female are two ends of a straight line with many 'intersexed' sexualities in between or whether male and famale are two locations on the circumference of a circle with varying degrees of sexuality (and for that matter gender!)lying all around the remainder of the circle.
I'm not even sure if 'male' and 'female' are even 180 degrees opposed on that circumference.
I am certainly of the opninon that nobody but a transgendered individual has any right to set medical or social or legal parameters that affect our lives because they invariably seem to end up being restrictive and destructive parameters.
As I said at the beginning.
I'm glad I'm out of it!
Sexuality for me is now a lifestyle issue not a sex issue and the horemones have more or less neutered me so gender is immaterial.
Cheers all.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.