A very mild example of anti-trans nonsense from a reader comment

Debunking the myths of the anti-trans brigade

I wouldn’t have published this post, in part because I wrote back to the author in the comment section, but nobody will have seen that…and, like so many lurkers, he deleted his account immediately after posting. I can’t see why–his comment seems to pretty mainstream these days, if not mild–so not why he should skulk away, other than that he clearly knows better. I’ve included the link to his blog in case it comes back…

In an effort to educate and respond to the issues raised by comments which come up all the time in society at large, I republish his comment to this post on the countdown to my surgery…and my response…

“There is no such thing as a sex change operation. You can’t change your sex. Increasing numbers of people are regretting having the surgery and suicide tendencies increase in people that do. For your sake, for your mental health, please do not get this done.”

David Taylor From the TaylorBriefing.wordpress.com

Hi David. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I hope that you have enjoyed reading my post. I hope you read others, and come to understand them as the perspective of someone different than you. And in that, are able to find compassion and respect for those differences.

I am guessing that your statement “there is no such thing as a sex change operation” is coming from a place of conservatism, a place that says there are only men and women born in this world, and that there are no options, no grey areas. I know that amongst some circles this is a popular if misguided point of view. Throughout the natural world we find rich examples of the existence of a wide variety of sexes outside that which we might call male or female. The condition is known as intersex, and it affects an approximate 1.5% of the human population. Intersex can mean many things, but simply means, neither one nor the other, or possessing characteristics of both. Examples include people born with XY chromosomes but having the secondary sexual characteristics of a female (eg. breasts, vagina, etc). Or it might be its opposite, a person born with XX and having a penis. There are also people with XXY chromosomes who might have characteristics of both. There is also a condition in which approximately 1% of natal women are born without vaginal canals. The procedure to fix this is called the Davydov, after the Russian physician who invented it in the 1920’s. In recent years, there have been successful examples of vaginas being grown from a woman’s own stem cells and then successfully transplanted.

The examples above are not exhaustive, just by way of saying. The point is that biological sex itself is not cut and dried. Some people appear to struggle with this notion, and there may be many reasons for it, just as people once struggled with the idea that the earth was round and not flat, or that the earth rotated around the sun.

The fact is, sex change operations have become increasingly mainstream since the 1950’s, and there are thousands of them performed around the world each year. The WPATH organisation, which sets global standards of care for transgender people, and have established guidelines for carers, insurers, doctors, and governments since the 1970’s has a membership made up of professionals from all over the world which now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. To my knowledge, every practitioner who serves the community, adheres to the guidelines laid out, as do most governments, including every single one of the nations that make up the OECD. That means that by common understanding, it is possible to change sex, and that the world is not just binary: gender identity exists on a continuum. And anyway, nobody has yet to come up with an adequate, sufficiently inclusive definition of what makes a woman or a man from a sex perspective, and what makes female or male from a gender perspective. Go ahead, give it a shot.

Some people seem to struggle with the idea that there is a difference between gender and sex. Put simply, sex is your body, gender is your perception of self. The vast majority of humans do not have a disconnect between the two. What we describe as our gender is for most people unquestioned in life. And our perception of sex, in terms of selfhood, is perhaps the most fundamental aspect, a given, of who we are. But for a very small portion of people in society, this unshakeable alignment between sex and gender is just not there. There is some dispute about exact numbers, but estimates are that transgender people represent somewhere between 0.5% and 1% of the population, even fewer than are born with intersex conditions. Less than one in 100. About the same number of people on earth who have red hair. Not many at all.

Why there is so much political noise about such a tiny minority is beyond me. Why an educated person like yourself would choose to assert to a transgender person, who also happens to be a transsexual, that it is impossible to change sex is beyond me. But that’s for you to figure out. I just had a sex change operation. Before the laws established by a just society, I am legally not male, but female. I may call myself a trans woman, but as far as the law goes, I am just a woman. I would go further. Before God, I am a woman. And most importantly of all, to myself I am a woman. To my family and friends I am also a woman.

I do pick up a tone of compassion in your message, which is why I approved it, and am taking the time to respond to it.

You mention this idea that “increasing numbers of people are regretting having the surgery and having suicidal tendencies in people that do.” I am not sure where you are getting your data, or whether you are listening to too many unsubstantiated political talking points, but do know this: the incidence of “regret” is extremely low. Actual numbers of detransitioning are below 3%. And when you ask why, the answer is never, I regretted changing sex, but that the social stigma and pressure was so great that it made it just too hard. In other words, the refusal of people [I’m sorry to say this, but like you] who do not accept transgender people, transsexual people, and make it very hard for us to exist in society, to hold jobs, to interact, and the extremely toxic narrative surrounding us is what causes people to regret. In other words, and making it personal, I used to be a white man, and now I am a trans woman…I have already lost two jobs because of it, and my career as I know it may well be over. Why? Because bigots think I am less capable because of what’s between my legs.

And the bigotry we face as trans people is very real. Know this. A trans child is 100x more likely than a cis child to attempt their own life by the age of 18. 100 times! Why? Because having gender dysphoria is devastating. There isn’t a trans person on this planet who wanted gender dysphoria. And gender dysphoria is not something like a case of the sniffles that just comes and goes…it is a devastating and lifelong disconnect between what are bodies seem to say we are, and who we know are inside. And yes, there is a reason that the entire global medical and mental health professions have rallied around the idea that this is not a mental health issue, it is a medical issue, because gender dysphoria doesn’t go away by telling someone to not transition, or to not express themselves, it only goes away by letting them become who they need to be. This is why it is classed as a medical condition, and why hormone therapy and surgery are now the most common routes for dealing with it.

Yes, some trans people can get by without transitioning. I tried. I tried to do it for my entire childhood, my youth, my early adulthood, my married life and career years…and I did this through an almost lifetime commitment to weekly psychotherapy. And then I reached a point where I knew I would take my own life if I had to live one more day without changing sex. And this would not have been the first time I had experienced suicidal ideation–and this was arising because I was not doing anything about my gender dysphoria and attempting to sweep it under the carpet. Only this time, I knew it was real (not that I hadn’t thought so previously), only this time, I REALLY knew. And I didn’t want to die. I hired four therapist at once and saw someone twice each week. I told my wife that I was struggling and there was no help there. Instead, ridicule. But I didn’t want to die. I love my children, I love life, and there is no f@$%king reason on this earth why I shouldn’t be able to exist and enjoy life and be a productive and proud citizen even if I change sex…ipso facto, a society which tells a trans person that there is something wrong with them is the same kind of society that treats all of its minorities like dirt, is discriminatory towards women…you name the group…

I don’t know where you are from, but assuming it is the US or the UK, we are talking about fundamentally unequal societies rife with institutional racism, dysfunctional political systems where political leaders actively spout bigoted ideologies to win votes, and where systemic inequality is so great that the gap between the haves and have-nots, the educated and the under-educated are shocking…

Anyway. I have had the surgery. And I am better for it. I will have regrets, but those will be that I have to put up with bigotry, with being stared at, with having to listen to idiotic and offensive comments that trans people are groomers, or that they did it to compete in sports, or that they just wanted to get into women’s locker rooms or bathrooms. The idea that someone would subject their bodies, their lives to what we go through to just be able to go out in public as ourselves, what a commitment it is (FOR LIFE) to take hormones and the consequences, how freaking painful it is to have this operation and the many others we get just to fit in, OMG, the idea should be dead on arrival.

I apologise for my long-winded response. I’d be happy to engage in a factual discussion on these and other topics, but I encourage you to read my blog and to open your mind. Trans people are humans, deserve the same respect as anyone else, and there aren’t very many of us, so we are easy to pick on…I expect better from society…and I will expect better from you.