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Read this too.

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There are some animals that change sex that are more sexually dimorphic than humans, like Anthias (show below). They clearly have visible differences between males and females, but also clearly there is not a strict unchangeable binary between the two as there will be a transition process when the female turns into a male. The fact that human sexual dimorphism exists and is so comparatively low is how transition can work at all.

All male anthias were born female

I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women

But like all of the misinformation in JKR's post, these claims aren't just frustrating, they are also dangerous. Some medical conditions vary greatly between men and women and this is a perfect example of where treating sex as a strict binary greatly harms trans and intersex people. Sometimes the difference between how men and women react to diseases can be down to chromosomes, sometimes it's down to hormones, sometimes it's down to particular organs, sometimes a combination of those things, sometimes it's something else. Also it is often social too, and factors such as occupation, habits and diet play a role.

When the coronavirus news hit that men are more likely to die from Covid-19 than women, the almost unanimous immediate Gender Critical reaction was to claim that trans women would die at the same rate as cis men "because biology". Then days later, scientists, including those at the NHS, announced they were trialing giving cis men estrogen therapy as a treatment, something which the majority of trans women are already on! Other researchers also showed that smoking, something that men are more likely to do, was a factor. The reality is, as I have said several times already, biology is very complicated. It is likely we won't know all of the mechanisms involved that cause the difference in mortality rates between men and women for years, but to just blindly assert that trans women are the same as cis men reduces their chance of getting good treatment, and even harms study potential.
Education and Safeguarding

The second reason is that I'm an ex-teacher and the founder of a children's charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

I grew up in the era of Section 28, a horrible and oppressive law that made it illegal for schools to even acknowledge that LGBT people even existed. This meant my only understanding of what an LGBT person was was from American films where trans people were presented as perverts or a joke, and from my classmates who told me that being gay was bad. Every British LGBT person my age that I have met suffered with shame, low self esteem, internalised LGBTphobia and/or bullying directly from this, and it often delayed their coming out by years or even decades. General, non-specific "concerns" about what might happen if we were to teach children about LGBT people have been used to oppose LGBT rights for decades and beyond, and it comes from the fear that the reason anyone is LGBT is because they have been tricked or brainwashed into it - this is unambiguously and demonstrably false. You are born LGBT or you are not. Teaching kids about LGBT people, who may be their parents, teachers, friends etc, or even themselves, is clearly only beneficial to children. Letting kids be kids requires letting LGBT kids be LGBT kids.
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech is a hugely important issue and one that is regularly weaponised against trans people. In 2018 Canada added trans people to its laws around hate crimes, adding them to a list that already included "include age, race, sex, religion and disability, among others". Plenty of people were quick to declare a law against harassing trans people as " the end of free speech ", something they didn't say when the laws were first introduced for every other demographic of people covered. This was used to imply that trans people uniquely don't like freedom of speech, which of course isn't true. Trans people are finally, for the first time in centuries, being allowed to speak freely about what and who they are. Freedom of speech is what has allowed us to gain rights at all.

I personally know several trans journalists who were forced out of their jobs for either being trans or for opposing an editorial decision to run a fabricated story about trans people. The Guardian Newspaper forced three trans people out of their jobs this year due to transphobia in the workplace. Trans people's rights and even existence is debated on TV by rooms full of cis people almost every week. Trans people don't have a voice.

It is also worth noting that the Gender Critical side has a huge platform, many newspapers have published (often entirely fabricated) anti-trans articles every single week without respite. The BBC even gave someone a platform to go on TV and say that the NHS doctors helping trans children were Nazis without offering any trans or expert a chance for rebuttal, an action so extreme and unhinged I am still surprised it was allowed.

It is, of course, ironic that JKR talks about freedom of speech in an article she posted with comments turned off, and tweeted with replies turned off, days after silencing someone with a legal threat. She is not the first rich GC person to use legal threats to silence a trans person, having experienced it myself from someone else, and I am sure she won't be the last.

Note the use of "transgenderism" to imply being trans is a political ideology. It's not, not anymore than being gay is a political ideology, it's something you are born. No one would choose to face this
Lisa Littman and Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

The claims that LGBT people are confused, or that they've been tricked into being LGBT, or that they can be converted out of it are as old as homophobia and transphobia themselves. Not only are these claims wrong and completely unevidenced, they are very dangerous.

"Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" is a buzz phrase for "someone who woke up and decided to be trans", or who was "persuaded" into it. The World Professional Association for Trans Health (WPATH) notes "The term 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)' is not a medical entity recognized by any major professional association". There is only one single paper that attempts to provide any evidence for the existence of this phenomenon by Lisa Littman.

There was a lot wrong with Littman's paper. Firstly the study involved no trans people, just the parents of trans people. Secondly all of the participating parents were found on just a handful of websites such as "Transgender Trend" and "Youth Trans Critical Professionals", which run forums specifically for unsupportive parents of trans kids. As JKR notes the controversial paper received a lot of criticism from within the scientific community:

The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it.

But it is deceptive of JKR to describe what happened in this way. The post-publication review resulted in major corrections to the paper and an apology from the editor of the journal. The editor noted "the corrected article now provides a better context of the work, as a report of parental observations, but not a clinically validated phenomenon or a diagnostic guideline". For a comprehensive takedown of this paper see here.

So what is all this about? The point of this paper was to provide justification for putting trans children through "Conversion Therapy". Conversion Therapy, or as it's sometimes called "Reparative Therapy" or "Gender Critical Therapy", is the idea that you can change an LGBT person into a straight cis person. It has been rejected by mainstream science for decades and is illegal in many countries, there is no evidence to show that it works, and a lot of evidence that it can cause long lasting mental damage. Trying to change who someone is isn't just impossible, it's immoral.

Many trans people I know have faced difficulty with their families. Often, like myself, hiding being trans from the world for years or even decades. I'm sure to a lot of parents it does look "rapid" when their trans child comes out, that's often what coming out is - they are finally at the point where they cannot hide it any longer. To try and disregard the huge struggles many trans people have gone through with their families - often losing everyone - and to say that "no it's not my transphobia, it's actually that you were talked into being trans" is disgusting.
Desistance, Detransition and "If I Were a Kid Today I Would Have Been Transed"

I've wondered whether, if I'd been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition

No. You wouldn't have. This is a very common GC claim, the argument usually goes "when I was little I played with barbie/action man, therefore today I would have transitioned, but I am happy as I am today, so that would be bad, therefore we should ban everyone". This is part of the wider GC view that being trans is just about what you wear or what your hobbies are, and also that specialist doctors hand out diagnoses of hugely complicated conditions like they're prescribing paracetamol over the counter. No trans person thinks that they are trans because they liked painting their nails or climbing trees. As a kid I liked lego, trains and maths and pretty much nothing else and I was still trans. Doctors don't diagnose kids as trans unless they show persistent dysphoria, and have gone through therapy for years.

The NHS says that less than 1% of people detransition, some of those go on to retransition, and most cite transphobia and lack of family support for their reason to detransition, not "transition regret". That is not to say that people who do regret and other detrans people can be ignored at all. They often have all the same healthcare requirements as trans people, and sometimes even less support. It does mean that they should not be used as a tool to unempathetically wield against trans healthcare. That would be like pointing out that because up to 20% of people regret knee surgery (a regret rate over 20x higher than transition), we should ban it for everyone. If you genuinely wanted to decrease detransition rates and help detrans people you would increase funding for trans healthcare, remove the strict pressures on trans people to "transition the whole way or have no rights", and improve LGBT education.

I'm also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria

This can be a very complicated topic with lots of concepts to get your head around, especially when they are all intentionally conflated together by GC people, as JKR has done here. Some studies do show that prepubescent children showing signs of Gender Dysphoria will likely "grow out of it" ( though these studies have had their methods, data and analysis called into question), they also show that if Gender Dysphoria persists into adolescence that "it is almost certainly permanent". Conflating the different age groups of children together and ignoring the evidence from all of the leading medical organisations is done to make a narrative that this is all one big wild experiment, which is trivially nonsense.

The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment

From the NHS trans healthcare service for children

The number of people coming out as trans is increasing, and this is true for children as well as adults. This is because of increased awareness, increased social acceptance, increased legal protections and increased access to healthcare. There is no evidence to show or imply that the rate at which people are born trans is changing, and again, there is no evidence that being trans is something you can be talked into.

If we multiply the number of new births per year in the UK by a rough estimate for the rate at which adults are trans, we would expect about 4000 new referrals per year of trans kids in a transphobia-free society.

From this BBC article on left handed people

As well as watching out for the conflation between detransition and desistance, and the various age groups being discussed, it is also worth noting the conflation between referrals and diagnoses. Many people will be referred to gender services and will receive therapy and that is it - no medication or anything else. The earlier young prepubescent kids who will "grow out of it" often still benefit from a referral and therapy from experts.

Often here there is the implication that trans kids are being forced to transition by overzealous parent, to which WPATH notes " There are no studies to support [the claim that] children are forced to undergo treatments they may regret". All of this is, of course, brought up with the goal of stopping children having access to trans healthcare, regardless of whether they are trans or not. The reason this is such an emotionally powerful argument is because most cis people can imagine the horror of being incorrectly diagnosed as trans and go on to wrongly transition, but it is important to remember it is as bad to wrongly prescribe a cis person transition as it is to deny a trans person it. The pain experienced is the same.

But finally and most importantly on this section, why do you think you know more than all of the experts and doctors in this field of study? When you read a blog post that links to a handful of studies that seem to go against the entire worldwide medical consensus, why do you think you know enough to say science is wrong? How is wanting the government to step in and stop the experts from following the science any different to what anti-vaxxers want? Why do you think you know more about trans people than trans people and the professionals who study them?
Misogyny and Women as a Political Class

From the leader of the free world's long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of 'grabbing them by the pussy', to the incel ('involuntarily celibate') movement that rages against women who won't give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble

I wasn't born until 1989 so I don't remember the 80s, however I agree with her, there definitely seems to be a rise in misogyny in recent years as the world seems to be becoming more reactionary. This is most clearly seen in the USA with the rise of Trump and attacks on women's access to abortion and reproductive freedom. But the insinuation here that "trans activists" are part of this is beyond ridiculous - they are targets of the same force. With rising misogyny comes rising homophobia and, of course, transphobia. It has always worked like this - this is what feminists such as myself mean when we talk about "the patriarchy". Trump has consistently attacked trans rights almost from his first day in office. Incels, and in fact the entire "manosphere", generally have the same views of trans people and trans rights as Gender Critical people. They will regularly be seen allying together in arguments online, and sometimes you can't even tell them apart. This is why so often you see "TERFs are Nazis" being thrown around online, because they have the same views on trans rights.

Two of the core aspects of feminism are bodily autonomy and autonomy of sexuality. That means "to make your own decisions about your own body" and "to be allowed to love whatever consenting adult you want". These are both at the absolute core of both women's rights AND trans rights. Neither trans people nor women can be free without these two things. Yet GC people regularly argue against both.

Founder of the openly transphobic "Women: Adult Human Female" t-shirt campaign

As I have already said, trans women face misogynistic sexism and sexual violence for being women. Any increase in misogyny inevitably affects trans women too, and they know it because they experience it. Every single trans woman I know experiences #EverydaySexism. The insinuation that trans people either want, or don't care about, an escalation in misogyny doesn't make any sense, especially when they know GC people are trying to take away their protections from it.

It's also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or - just as threatening - unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class.

Trans women have been at the front of many struggles for women's rights. Most recently seen in the fight for abortion rights in Ireland. The idea that a trans woman who experiences sexism every day is actually part of a conspiracy to take away women's ability to organise by saying "yes this affects me too" is bordering on delusional.

As a feminist I cannot think of much more important than making sure that women are able to organise and fight against their oppression, and this has to include all women or you aren't fighting against the patriarchy, you are just fighting for yourself, and you end up being part of it and oppressing everyone else.
"Trans People Think Being a Woman is a Costume"

But, as many women have said before me, 'woman' is not a costume. 'Woman' is not an idea in a man's head. 'Woman' is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive.

As soon as someone says this in relation to trans people you can be sure that they don't know what they are talking about. One of the key premises of trans rights is that anyone can present any way and still be themselves. There are trans men and women who present in every single way imaginable. I personally know "masculine" trans women, and butch lesbian trans women, and trans women who play guitar in a death metal band (me!). I know "feminine" trans men, trans men who love makeup and dresses, trans men who are drag queens. Not only are trans people more likely to be "gender non-conforming" than cis people; the claim that they aren't is in direct contradiction to the other main GC claim: that "men are now just saying they are women and aren't transitioning"! It can't be both that trans people think that just wearing a dress makes someone a woman AND that trans women "don't even bother to wear dresses". Ask almost any trans person "do you think that wearing a dress makes someone a woman" and they will say no very assertively. This is unequivocally a strawman.
Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault
I truly extend my sympathy and empathy to JKR on her experience of domestic violence and sexual assault. There is no "but" to this. I unconditionally extend my love and support on this. I too survived an abusive relationship and I too stand in solidarity with those who have. I am glad she has felt she can speak up and I am sure that doing so has given strength to some survivors who felt they couldn't, and for that I thank her. The recent attack by the Sun Newspaper on her for this, and platforming of her abuser, was unambiguously disgusting, and rightly called out by the wider trans community.

Most of the trans women I know, including myself, have experienced sexual assault for being women, and I am grateful that JKR extends empathy and solidarity to the women who experience this:

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you'd find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

But with her comment on this there is a "but"...
Trans Women in Women's Bathrooms and GRA Reform

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman - and, as I've said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones - then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

As I pointed out in my last piece; in the UK - where both JKR and I live - trans women have used women's spaces longer than either of us have been alive, and have been legally protected to do so since 2010 (before that there was no clear law either way, though there were some protections for trans people, it has never been illegal). A Gender Recognition Certificate is not necessary to use women's spaces and it never has been, in fact using women's spaces for some time is required to obtain a GRC! If there was going to be a problem the moment that people were allowed into the facility they know is best for them then it would have already happened. It hasn't. All of the problems GC people propose with "Self ID" are always hypothetical, if it was going to happen, why hasn't it been happening for over a decade?

This is one of the most worrying pieces of misinformation put forward by her and by the GC movement as a whole. I, and many British trans people, are living in fear that the UK government is building up to trying to ban us from using public facilities. The reason they are claiming that trans women don't already use women's facilities is so they can frame taking away the rights trans people have today as "defending women's rights". Where do you think trans women have been weeing for the last 50 years?

Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women's concerns at their peril.

There are constant cries from the GC movement that "women's concerns aren't being listened to", but what they really mean is "you aren't agreeing with me". Scotland held a public consultation for the GRA reform. The majority of women and women's groups supported it ( also see here). The Scottish government specifically addressed the concerns in a response. England and Wales recently admitted that over 70% of the responses to their consultation were positive. It is plainly clear that it is Gender Critical people who are not listening to the concerns of women.

A collage of 2500 women who were proud to stand for trans rights

I was recently made aware of a woman in the USA who had endured months of extreme domestic violence culminating in her husband throwing her through a glass coffee table. She escaped, but he had control of her finances and car. She was turned away by at least two women's shelters because she is a trans woman and her only ID said "M" on it. Luckily a kind cis couple two whole time zones away, who I am now in contact with, took her in. One lady I talked to was raped by a gang of men and she said that while it happened she prayed they wouldn't realise she was trans in case they killed her.

As I have said above, trans women face misogynistic sexism and sexual violence for being women. Not just the unbearably horrible and extreme acts described above, but the same relentless everyday sexism that all women face. I have been sexually assaulted several times and get greasy men shouting at me on the street all the time. One time I was sitting on a bench, literally writing a Twitter reply to a GC person who claimed that no trans women know what misogynistic sexism is and a guy slowed down and shouted some misogynistic garbage at me out of his car about my legs.

This isn't theoretical, these are real women struggling with these things today. Some of my trans friends have endured unspeakably horrible things for being women, and we are supposed to treat them as men when it comes to helping them or giving them space from it? To treat them as second class citizens because of how they were born? I can already hear the bad faith GC reply to this "You think men are second class citizens?!". No. I think women who are abused for being women, but then denied support because they are trans, are.

We cannot also forget that fear mongering around trans people makes things less safe for cis women too. There are countless examples of cis women being thrown out of women's facilities because they "look like a man" from countries and states that have tried implementing bathroom bills (most have repealed them). There have even been incidents where cis women have been sent to the men's jail because they can't prove they are a "real woman". I also invite you to read rape survivor Kelly Lawrence's article on how she fears GC people more than trans people here.

I do not know how anyone who claims to have done any research on trans people could not know trans women already use womens spaces in the UK, and always have. This idea that it's new or we need to ban them because of something that might happen in the future is completely fabricated in the minds of people who fear trans people.
Fear

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They're afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

In 11 countries it is against the law and punishable by the death penalty to be a trans person. In the USA in 43 states it is still considered a valid legal defence to murder a trans person if you found yourself attracted to them ( yes seriously). Right now in the USA they are debating whether it's legal to fire someone for being trans in the top court in the land. Over half of the trans people I know personally have lost jobs because of being trans, though usually in that subtle "sure you used to be the top employee every month for the last 5 years, and this is nothing to do with you being trans, but we are downsizing one month after you have come out and only you are being asked to leave" kind of way. I've talked to trans people who have been beaten to the verge of death, who have been permanently mutilated, who have been raped by their own family, who have had to flee their countries and all kinds of other horrific abuses. I know people who are trans and no one in their life knows because they need to keep it a secret for their safety. I, a very privileged person, have personally been doxxed and received countless threats of violence just for standing up to transphobia.

Countless trans people have messaged me to say they're terrified of the state of trans acceptance in the UK. New Zealand has already accepted an asylum request from a British trans woman over it. Almost every trans person I speak to fears for their future, on top of the baseline fear of transphobia that all trans people deal with. The general mood in the trans community after JKR's letter was one of utter exhaustion and fear.

I do have sympathy for people who maybe said something clumsy about trans people on social media without thinking and received an over the top backlash. I go out of my way to be forgiving and ready for dialogue. But I find any comment about how those calling to remove trans rights are feeling scared of backlash tone deaf, unempathetic and even manipulative. As if trans people across the entire country aren't utterly terrified of losing the freedoms they have today. If you have a heinous view you should expect backlash when you express it.

It takes far more guts to stand up against a multi-millionaire, people who want to take your rights away, and irrational prejudice than it does to "stand up" to one of the most marginalised minorities in the country.
Conclusion
It is very clear that JKR has entirely bought into the "Gender Critical" worldview. This isn't someone who has innocently aired an ignorant position. It also is clearly not from someone who has spent any time talking to or being around trans people. Gender Critical is a rabbit hole, it could be described as a conspiracy theory and is often described by ex-members as "cult-like". From talking to ex-Gender Critical people it will be at best 2 or 3 years before she is able to snap out of it, though I personally suspect that she won't ever change her mind even in the face of evidence. I don't expect her to read or even see this article. I don't expect any Gender Critical person to actually engage with this article, most will have read her post and recognised it as The Gender Critical View, and will be primed to instantly disregard anything that disagrees with it. My hope is to put the counter information out there. Trans people are outnumbered and outgunned - JKR had nearly as many Twitter followers as there are trans people on earth, and probably more money than all the trans people in the UK combined - the best we can hope for is to put the facts out there.

Prominent Gender Critical man showing a fairly standard reaction to when the GC position is pressed for substance and evidence. The answer, by the way, is no for every country in the world that allows trans women to use women's facilities, including the UK and Ireland

So why am I doing this? Why respond to this kind of thing? I'm doing it because I'm terrified for the future of my friends and I, and I feel I have to do something. We are desperate.

Huge thanks to the following for helping me with this article
- Jen Hennings
- Jasmine Joséphine Sakura-Rose
- Sinéad Naoimh
- Christina Grimwade
Addendum
Since the first draft of this response, and in the same week that JKR wrote her piece, there have been two huge and harrowing pieces of news.

The USA has made it so that healthcare providers, doctors and insurance companies can choose to just not treat trans people (and LGBT people and women wanting reproductive freedom). In the past this has lead to a situations like the story of Tyra Hunter who was a trans woman who was injured in a car crash and died solely because healthcare providers refused to help her because she was trans. Many of my friends are now without healthcare at all because of how they were born, even for unrelated conditions.

The UK, my home, has announced that they are probably planning to try and ban trans women from using the women's facilities that they use today, and have done their whole lives without issue. This will ruin tens of thousands of people's lives including my own, and put trans people and cis women in danger for demonstrably no gain. There is no evidence that trans women using the women's facilities has caused any issues in any of the countries where they are legally allowed to do so, including the UK, Ireland and various American states.

I cannot express the horror that my friends and I are experiencing. I cannot stop crying.

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Addressing The Claims In JK Rowling's Justification For Transphobia

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There are some animals that change sex that are more sexually dimorphic than humans, like Anthias (show below). They clearly have visible differences between males and females, but also clearly there is not a strict unchangeable binary between the two as there will be a transition process when the female turns into a male.

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Meet the feminist academics championing trans rights

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Meet the feminist academics championing trans rights

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Patrick Strudwick for Buzzfeed UK, Dec 2018

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These Women Are Making The Feminist Case For Trans Rights

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The fight over transgender rights has ignored a key group: pro-trans feminists. Here, leading feminist thinkers told BuzzFeed News why feminism should include trans people.

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Puberty blockers can literally save the lives of transgender teens, new study confirms

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Puberty blockers can literally save the lives of transgender teens, new study confirms

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Vic Parsons for Pink News, Jan 2020

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PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service

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Puberty blockers can be "life-saving" drugs for trans teenagers, according to a landmark study that is the first to examine access to puberty blockers and suicide risk.

The study, published in medical journal Pediatrics, found that if trans teenagers have access to the medication their chance of suicide and mental health problems significantly declines.

Access to puberty blockers for a trans teen who wants them reduces their likelihood of trying to die by suicide in both the short and long term, the study found, as well as significantly reducing their likelihood of experiencing mental-health problems.

Multiple medical associations, including the Endocrine Society, have guidelines recommending doctors offer trans teens pubertal suppression therapy, also known as puberty blockers, which has been a treatment option in the US since 1998.

Puberty blockers delay puberty until a trans teenager is old enough to make decisions about having gender-affirming medical treatment.

"Historically we have known the puberty blockers are safe and effective and this is totally reversible, so the benefits far outweigh any risk. It is sort of a no-brainer to make these available in these circumstances," said Dr Michelle Forcier, an associate professor of paediatrics at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who was not part of the study.

The research comes as a dozen states in the US are promoting bills that focus on young trans people at the urging of conservative advocacy groups.

These bills include barring doctors from providing certain gender-related medical treatment to young trans people, including puberty blockers, and banning young trans people from playing school sports.

Forcier added that nobody would deny a child with asthma their inhaler, or refuse cancer treatment for a child with cancer, yet some parents still express reservations about puberty blockers.

She wants to remind these parents that pausing puberty is a "life-saving option", she said.

"By not allowing their child to use these drugs, that is not a neutral option," said Forcier. "This is why this paper is so important. This access is associative into adulthood and is important for safety. We know that access can offer protective effects. This is something that will help a parent keep their child safe."

Dr Rachel Levine, a practising paediatrician in Pennsylvania, said this new study is important because it's the first to specifically show the link between access to puberty blockers and a decrease in suicidality.

"It is very important for medical professionals to understand scientific studies like this," Levine said.

"It is also critically important as far as policy," she said, "that policy makers do not get in the way of medical standards of care."

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Puberty blockers can literally save the lives of transgender teens, new study confirms

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Puberty blockers can be "life-saving" drugs for trans teenagers, according to a landmark study that is the first to examine access to puberty blockers and suicide risk. The study, published in medical journal Pediatrics, found that if trans teenagers have access to the medication their chance of suicide and mental health problems significantly declines.

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Thoughtful thread by @HarryJosieGiles explaining why GRA reform in the UK and self-ID more generally does not impact on the provision of single-sex spaces.

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Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.

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Nature and sex redefined – we have never been binary

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Nature and sex redefined – we have never been binary

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Vanessa Heggie, Feb 2015. Guardian science blog referring to article from Nature.

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Nature and Sex Redefined - we have never been binary | Vanessa Heggie

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A recent article in Nature claims that biologists 'now think' that sex is not a binary feature for human beings - rather than being simply male or female, there are various kinds of sex, such as chromosomal sex or hormonal sex, and all of us exist across several spectrums of sexual identity.

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Series of podcasts exploring biological sex including discussions of intersex issues. June/July 2018.

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Radiolab | Radiolab Presents: Gonads | WNYC Studios

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Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia

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Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia

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Simón(e) D Sun , June 2019. Scientific American blog post.

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Antiscientific sentiment bombards our politics, or so says the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). Chief among these antiscientific sentiments, the IDW cites the rising visibility of transgender civil rights demands. To the IDW, trans people and their advocates are destroying the pillars of our society with such free-speech-suppressing, postmodern concepts as: "trans women are women," "gender-neutral pronouns," or "there are more than two genders." Asserting "basic biology" will not be ignored, the IDW proclaims. "Facts don't care about your feelings."

The irony in all this is that these "protectors of enlightenment" are guilty of the very behavior this phrase derides. Though often dismissed as just a fringe internet movement, they espouse unscientific claims that have infected our politics and culture. Especially alarming is that these "intellectual" assertions are used by nonscientists to claim a scientific basis for the dehumanization of trans people. The real world consequences are stacking up: the trans military ban, bathroom bills, and removal of workplace and medical discrimination protections, a 41-51 percent suicide attempt rate and targeted fatal violence . It's not just internet trolling anymore.

Contrary to popular belief, scientific research helps us better understand the unique and real transgender experience. Specifically, through three subjects: (1) genetics, (2) neurobiology and (3) endocrinology. So, hold onto your parts, whatever they may be. It's time for "the talk."

BIOLOGICAL SEX: HOW YOU GET IT

Nearly everyone in middle school biology learned that if you've got XX chromosomes, you're a female; if you've got XY, you're a male. This tired simplification is great for teaching the importance of chromosomes but betrays the true nature of biological sex. The popular belief that your sex arises only from your chromosomal makeup is wrong. The truth is, your biological sex isn't carved in stone, but a living system with the potential for change.

Why? Because biological sex is far more complicated than XX or XY (or XXY, or just X). XX individuals could present with male gonads. XY individuals can have ovaries. How? Through a set of complex genetic signals that, in the course of a human's development, begins with a small group of cells called the bipotential primordium and a gene called SRY.

A newly fertilized embryo initially develops without any indication of its sex. At around five weeks, a group of cells clump together to form the bipotential primordium. These cells are neither male nor female but have the potential to turn into testes, ovaries or neither. After the primordium forms, SRY-a gene on the Y chromosome discovered in 1990, thanks to the participation of intersex XX males and XY females-might be activated.*

Though it is still not fully understood, we know SRY plays a role in pushing the primordium toward male gonads. But SRY is not a simple on/off switch, it's a precisely timed start signal, the first chord of the "male gonad" symphony. A group of cells (instrument sections) must all express SRY (notes of the chord), at the right time (conductor?). Without that first chord, the embryo will play a different symphony: female gonads, or something in between.

And there's more! While brief and coordinated SRY-activation initiates the process of male-sex differentiation, genes like and maintain certain sexual characteristics during adulthood. If these genes stop functioning, gonads can change and exhibit characteristics of the opposite sex. Without these players constantly active, certain components of your biological sex can change.

There's still more! SRY, DMRT1, and FOXL2 aren't directly involved with other aspects of biological sex. Secondary sex characteristics-penis, vagina, appearance, behavior-arise later, from hormones, environment, experience, and genes interacting. To explore this, we move from the body to the brain, where biology becomes behavior.

THE BRAIN: WHERE STUFF GETS "MADE UP"

When the biology gets too complicated, some point to differences between brains of males and females as proof of the sexual binary. But a half century of empirical research has repeatedly challenged the idea that brain biology is simply XY = male brain or XX = female brain. In other words, there is no such thing as "the male brain" or "the female brain." This is not to say that there are no observable differences. Certain brain characteristics can be sexually dimorphic: observable average differences across males and females. But like biological sex, pointing to "brain sex" as the explanation for these differences is wrong and hinders scientific research.

Let's just take the most famous example of sexual dimorphism in the brain: the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (sdnPOA). This tiny brain area with a disproportionately sized name is slightly larger in males than in females. But it's unclear if that size difference indicates distinctly wired sdnPOAs in males versus females, or if-as with the bipotential primordium-the same wiring is functionally weighted toward opposite ends of a spectrum. Throw in the observation that the sdnPOA in gay men is closer to that of straight females than straight males, and the idea of "the male brain" falls apart.

Trying to link sex, sex chromosomes and sexual dimorphism is also useless for understanding other brain properties. The hormone vasopressin is dimorphic but is linked to both behavioral differences and similarities across sex. Simply put, the idea of a sexual binary isn't scientifically useful, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the brain. It also happens that transgender people have the brains to prove it.

It's easy to see sexual dimorphisms and conclude that the brain is binary; easy, but wrong. Thanks to the participation of trans people in research, we have expanded our understanding of how brain structure, sex and gender interact. For some properties like brain volume and connectivity, trans people possessed values in between those typical of cisgender males and females, both and transitioning. Another study found that for certain brain regions,trans individuals appeared similar to cis-individuals with the same gender identity. In that , researchers found specific areas of the brain where trans people seemed closer to those with the same assigned sex at birth. Other researchers discovered that trans people have unique structural differences from cis-individuals.

THE BODY AND THE BRAIN AND THE HORMONES BETWIXT

As if the brain and body weren't complicated enough, another biological factor influences the expression of biological sex in an individual: hormones. Anyone who has gone through puberty has felt the power of hormones firsthand. But like all things biology, hormones cannot be limited to the pubescent idea of "estrogen = female and testosterone = male."

For one thing, all humans possess levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone with sex differences not as prominent as is popularly thought. During infancy and prepubescence, these hormones sit in a bipotential range, with no marked sex differences. Through puberty, certain sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone and testosterone become weighted toward one end of a spectrum. But in developed adults, estrogen and progesterone levels are on average similar between males and nonpregnant females. And while testosterone exhibits the largest difference between adult males and females, heritability studies have found that genetics (X vs. Y) only explains about 56 percent of an individual's testosterone, suggesting many other influences on hormones. Furthermore, measurements of sex hormones levels in any one individual wildly vary across the range of "average" values regardless of how close or spread apart you take the measurements. The binary sex model not only insufficiently predicts the presence of hormones but is useless in describing factors that influence them.

Environmental, social and behavioral factors also influence hormones in both males and females, complicating the idea that hormones determine sex. Progesterone changes in response to typically male-coded social situations that involve dominance and competition. Estrogen, typically linked to feminine-coded behavior, also plays a role in masculine-coded dominance/power social scenarios. Though testosterone levels are different between males and females on average, many external factors can change these levels, such as whether or not a person is raising a child. Differing testosterone levels in both men and women can predict certain parenting behaviors. Even the content of a sexual fantasy can change testosterone levels. The fact is, behavior and environment-like cultural gender norms and expectations-influence sex-related hormones, and the biology of the body and brain itself.

SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: BETTER TOGETHER

While this is a small overview, the science is clear and conclusive: sex is not binary, transgender people are real. It is time that we acknowledge this. Defining a person's sex identity using decontextualized "facts" is unscientific and dehumanizing. The trans experience provides essential insights into the science of sex and scientifically demonstrates that uncommon and atypical phenomena are vital for a successful living system. Even the scientific endeavor itself is quantifiably better when it is more inclusive and diverse. So, no matter what a pundit, politician or internet troll may say, trans people are an indispensable part of our living reality.

Transgender humans represent the complexity and diversity that are fundamental features of life, evolution and nature itself. That is a fact.

* Editor's Note (6/18/19): This sentence was edited after posting. It originally referred to participants as transgender.

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Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia

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Antiscientific sentiment bombards our politics, or so says the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) . Chief among these antiscientific sentiments, the IDW cites the rising visibility of transgender civil rights demands. To the IDW, trans people and their advocates are destroying the pillars of our society with such free-speech-suppressing, postmodern concepts as: "trans women are women," "gender-neutral pronouns," or "there are more than two genders."

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"A measured, thoughtful, intelligent yet approachable tour through the most important and high-profile narratives around the trans community, turning them inside out and examining where we really are in terms of progress."

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Trans Like Me : Conversations for All of Us

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A personal and culture-driven exploration of the most pressing questions facing the transgender community today, from a leading activist, musician, and academicIn Trans ...

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Written 2019

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They'll insist it's distinct and separate from gender.(false) with sex being objective (false) and gender being a fiction (false).

Every single sentence, every statement they make about biological sex is false.

Why am I supposed to admit this is legitimate, again?

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Thread by @rozietoez: "So the transphoberati have been insisting "trans people don't believe biological sex exists!". And a lot of voices I love are pointing out t [...]"

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Thread by @rozietoez: "So the transphoberati have been insisting "trans people don't believe biological sex exists!". And a lot of voices I ling out that that's not true, just that it's more nuanced or complex than people like Singal present it. I ag [...]"

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Reasons to be Cheerful podcast: Transgender Rights are Human Rights

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Reasons to be Cheerful podcast: Transgender Rights are Human Rights

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"We talk to a parent of a trans child, Joe, award-winning writer Paris Lees, and Dr Helen Webberley, a doctor who works with trans young people who explain why advances in trans rights are Reasons To Be Cheerful." From Nov 2017.

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Episode 9. TRANSGENDER RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS - Reasons to be Cheerful with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd

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Thread by @christapeterso explaining Stonewall's Diversity Training Programme and rebutting criticism of it by GC individuals.

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Stock & co. have a letter to the editor in the Sunday Times today decrying UK universities using @stonewalluk diversity training programs because, among other things, they encourage instructors to use their students' correct pronouns rather than constantly misgendering them.

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Stock & co. have a letter to the editor in the Sunday Times today decrying UK universities using @stonewalluk diversity training programs because, among other things, they encourage instructors to use their students' correct pronouns rather than constantly misgendering them. https://t.co/AT2XL0gaRx

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Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.

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Stock & co. have a letter to the editor in the Sunday Times today decrying UK universities using @stonewalluk diversity training programs because, among other things, they encourage instructors to use their students' correct pronouns rather than constantly misgendering them. pic.twitter.com/AT2XL0gaRx
— worms cited (@christapeterso) June 16, 2019

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Stock & co. have a letter to the editor in the Sunday Times today decrying UK universities using @stonewalluk diversity training programs because, among other things, they encourage instructors to use their students' correct pronouns rather than constantly misgendering them. https://t.co/AT2XL0gaRx

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Stock & co. have a letter to the editor in the Sunday Times today decrying UK universities using @stonewalluk diversity training programs because, among other things, they encourage instructors to use their students' correct pronouns rather than constantly misgendering them. https://t.co/AT2XL0gaRx

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Stock & co. have a letter to the editor in the Sunday Times today decrying UK universities using @stonewalluk diversity training programs because, among other things, they encourage instructors to use their students' correct pronouns rather than constantly misgendering them.

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By Emi Koyama, 2001.

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8-part podcast (to date) exploring being non-binary. Very accessible.
Feb-Apr 2019.

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You might have heard the term non-binary. This is how it feels.

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“I’m not transphobic, but…”: A feminist case against the feminist case against trans inclusivity

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“I’m not transphobic, but…”: A feminist case against the feminist case against trans inclusivity

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by Lorna Finlayson, Katharine Jenkins, and Rosie Worsdale. Published on Verso blog, Oct 2018.

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This Friday, the 19th October, the Government's consultation on a proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) will close. The process has become a focal point for a heated and often toxic debate over what we as a society owe to trans people, and how the claims of the trans community - and of trans women in particular - relate to the characteristic commitments and concerns of feminism.

Some feminists see no difficulty in reconciling a commitment to feminism with a commitment to the rights of trans people. Feminists of this persuasion tend to take the view that trans women are women and that, as such, they - like cis (i.e. non-trans) women - are part of the 'constituency' that is feminism's primary concern. Trans people more broadly are also regarded as an oppressed group in their own right, and hence proper recipients of the solidarity of feminists who subscribe to the principle of 'intersectionality': the idea that the struggles against different forms of oppression - such as those relating to race, class, gender or sexuality - must be conceived of not as unconnected or competing struggles, but as fundamentally intermeshed.

But certain other feminists see things very differently. While expressing condemnation of transphobic violence and harassment, and affirming the right of trans people to live in dignity and safety, they contend that there is a deep tension between the demands of some trans women to access women-only spaces and a feminist concern for the safety and well-being of those born and raised female, who have often already been subject to violence and discrimination on the basis of their sex (see, for example, here and here).

Ultimately, we think this argument fails. Yet, we also think that it is unhelpful to lump it together with arguments that are explicitly based on prejudice. While there is no shortage of unvarnished transphobes who continue to depict trans people as perverts, freaks or monsters, some of the feminists who are now raising concerns about the proposed reform of the GRA offer an argument that is at least in principle distinct from this rhetoric. We have seen from experience that this argument is, in some cases, succeeding in raising doubts about reform among people who are broadly sympathetic to trans rights and who would therefore reject overtly bigoted arguments without hesitation.

For this reason, we believe that dismissing that argument as unworthy of a serious response is not a sensible move on the part of those who favour reform. Rather, we will examine the argument in what we take to be its most compelling form, and show where we think it goes astray. We would also like to note that those who make the argument in question often call for respectful and considered discussion on this topic; this piece is intended to be a contribution to just such a discussion.
What is the GRA?
Before outlining the argument we're focusing on in more detail, we will briefly explain what the GRA is and what changes are being proposed, since some of the accounts proliferating lately on social media and elsewhere are confusing or misleading.

The 2004 Gender Recognition Act enables some trans people to change their gender for legal purposes. As the Act currently stands, in order to make this change a trans person must submit a dossier of evidence to a panel who then make a unilateral decision on whether to grant a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which in turn facilitates the issuing of a new birth certificate. The required evidence includes a medical diagnosis of 'gender dysphoria' and proof of having lived for at least two years in the person's 'acquired' gender - for example, in the form of bank statements, payslips, or a passport with the person's preferred gender marker. Applicants must also provide details of any medical treatment they have received for gender dysphoria, such as hormones and surgery, although having undergone treatment is not a formal requirement for receiving a GRC.

The implications of having a GRC are less substantial than is often supposed. A trans person who does not have a GRC can still update the gender markers on many kinds of documentation including their passport, and can use gender-differentiated services and provisions that match their gender identity in most cases. The main difference a GRC makes has historically been in terms of who you can marry and the age at which you can draw your pension - issues which are becoming less important as pension ages are equalised and marriage and civil partnership provisions evolve.

Yet the ability to access a GRC still matters. Having incorrect gender markers on legal documents is understandably distressing, even if it does not actually prevent people from accessing the relevant services and procedures altogether: although two people can get married regardless of their genders, having the wrong gender recorded on your marriage certificate is likely to spoil your day, to say the least. Perhaps most importantly for many trans people, if someone has a birth certificate that does not match their other documentation this can 'out' them as trans, potentially leading to discrimination and harassment, and in all cases taking away their choice as to how and when to share this deeply personal information.

In addition, if a person is sent to prison then having a GRC can make a difference to whether they are held in the male or female estate. This is not straightforward, however. The default is to place prisoners in the estate that matches their legal gender, which for trans people with a GRC is the gender they identify with, and for other trans people is the gender they were assigned at birth. However, trans prisoners without a GRC may be transferred to the estate that matches their gender identity at their request following a review by a case board, and, conversely, trans women prisoners who do have a GRC can still be held in the male estate if they are found to pose a risk that cannot be managed successfully in the female estate (the same is true, incidentally, for cis women prisoners deemed to be sufficiently high risk). What this means in practice is that trans prisoners who do have a GRC can be somewhat more confident of being placed in the prison estate that matches their gender identity than those who do not.

The main change to the GRA that organisations representing trans people are calling for is that the current system of providing evidence to a panel should be dropped and replaced by a simple system of self-definition or self-identification ('self-ID' for short) such as is already in place in various countries, including Ireland and Malta. In other words, in order to obtain a GRC and a new birth certificate an applicant would need only to declare formally what their gender is.
The case against trans inclusivity
As we noted to start with, some feminists see the recent calls to reform the GRA as illustrative of a deeper tension they perceive between feminist principles and the inclusion of trans women in spaces set aside for women.

Their argument runs as follows. Men as a group systematically oppress and inflict violence on women. And trans women - or at least some of them - share, albeit to varying extents, in the features which make men more likely to inflict violence against, and otherwise to oppress, women. First, they may have certain bodily features, such as a penis, testes, and higher levels of testosterone. Second, they have been treated for at least part of their lives as boys or men. The first factor is often referred to by saying that trans women (or some trans women, at least) are 'biologically male' (or simply 'male'). The second is expressed in the statement that trans women have a 'history of male socialisation', and in the associated claim that they are bearers of 'male privilege'. Note that this part of the argument doesn't rely on claiming that trans women are more likely than cis men to be violent or oppressive to women. The claim is that trans women (or at least, those who are substantially similar to cis men in the respects just outlined) are just as prone to commit violence against women as cis men are.

There is then an additional worry, which is not about trans women per se. This is the worry that (cis) men might cynically exploit trans-inclusive legislation in order to inflict violence within women-only spaces, or simply to annoy and disrupt.

Between them, these considerations are sufficient to persuade some feminists that women-only spaces and services should be reserved for cis women only.

Those who make this argument are especially opposed to the use of self-ID, on the basis that the latter will make it easier for trans women in general, and for the 'wrong' kinds of trans woman in particular (as well as for some opportunistic cis men), to access spaces where women are vulnerable to violence and abuse. Note that these purportedly feminist worries are not just about self-ID, however, but about trans inclusivity more broadly. Any insufficiently stringent criteria for gender recognition and access, on this view, will both fail to differentiate between those trans women who do and do not pose a risk comparable to that posed by cis men, and will also be open to exploitation by those who are in no sense trans but who are sufficiently determined to gain access to vulnerable women (and as feminist critics of inclusivity have pointed out, we should not underestimate the lengths to which some men will go in order to terrorise women). The argument can thus be used to oppose access to women's spaces and services for all but those trans women (if any) deemed to have shed enough of their 'maleness' - through medical intervention and/or through a substantial period of socialisation as women - that they are no longer considered to constitute the same risk to women as cis men do. This is worth emphasising, since it indicates the potential reach of the argument in terms of restricting trans women's access to services and spaces they may wish to access, and which many already use. While some who are swayed by the argument are quite happy with that consequence, others may find that what is often presented as an argument against self-ID in particular ends up sanctioning a politics that is both more exclusionary and more intrusive than is apparent on first sight.

This argument against inclusivity has nevertheless been attractive to some feminists. The fact that the argument does not depend on the claim that trans women as a group are especially prone to violence is one thing that sets it apart from other arguments that are based on openly prejudiced claims, thereby making it possible for people who are committed to avoiding anti-trans prejudice to entertain it. It's also worth noting that the argument is in principle compatible with the idea that it is not appropriate for trans people to have to use spaces that conflict with their gender identity (e.g. trans women using men's changing rooms, etc). Indeed, the argument is not infrequently accompanied by the further claim that 'appropriate provisions' should be made to meet the needs of trans people in this regard whilst not permitting trans women to enter women-only spaces - for example, 'third spaces' specifically for trans people. Many who make the argument are also prepared at least to entertain the idea that trans women are, in some relevant sense, women, that their preferences as to names and pronouns, etc., should be respected, and so on. But they insist that access to women-only spaces must be restricted - meaning the exclusion of some or all trans women - and that self-ID is particularly inadequate for this purpose. Their grounds for taking this position - the prevalence of violence against women by men, the fact that men typically have certain biological features and have been socialised in a certain way, the fact that at least some of this seems to be true of many or even all trans women, and the fact that anyone can self-define as a woman, no matter how cynical or sinister their motivation - can all seem like unobjectionable, commonsense points which are decisive against proposals to reform the GRA to incorporate self-ID. But as we'll argue, this appearance is deceptive.
The Argument's Relation to the Law
The first problem with the argument is that although it has repeatedly been presented as a response to the GRA consultation, in fact it has almost nothing to do with it. This is because the proposed changes to the GRA will have very little effect on whether and when trans people are able to access single-sex facilities and services. The current law, the Equality Act of 2010, already allows trans people to use the facilities and services that best align with their gender identity in almost all cases. This entitlement does not depend on having a GRC or on having received any particular medical treatment. The Equality Act does allow for trans people to be excluded from certain services in a limited range of cases where this can be shown to be 'a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim'. Again, this provision applies to all trans people including those who hold a GRC. A rare case in which having a GRC currently makes a difference in terms of access to women-only spaces concerns prisons, where, as we have seen, the procedure for placing trans prisoners into the male or the female estate is different depending on whether or not they have a GRC, although trans people without a GRC can still be placed in the estate that matches their gender identity following a case review.

What all of this means is that access to single-sex facilities and services is already governed by a principle of self-ID in almost all cases. The proposed reforms to the GRA will extend the principle of self-ID to cover legal documentation, which will have a positive effect for trans people themselves but will make no difference to which services trans people use, except in regard to prisons, where it may make a difference to where a prisoner is housed in a small number of cases.

The argument therefore has only a very tenuous connection to the proposed reforms to the law. This is worth pointing out, since it's so much at odds with the impression often given in recent discussions of this issue. However, it does not provide a particularly strong rebuttal to the argument, whose proponents may make several responses. They may say that the changes to prison procedures alone give sufficient reason to be concerned about the changes in the law. They may simply reply that all this shows is that there is reason to be concerned about the legal status quo as well as the proposed reforms - and it's worth emphasising that if they are consistent, proponents of this argument must oppose the status quo, given the existing provision for trans women to access women's services (and to do so mainly on the basis of self-ID). Moreover, they can argue that the envisaged reforms should be resisted as they further embed self-ID into law and will make it harder to reverse the current provisions and roll back trans women's access to women-only spaces in the future.

And of course, those who encounter the argument and find it somewhat persuasive may well still take it to establish the incompatibility of trans inclusivity with feminist concerns for women's safety, even if they don't see it as a reason to oppose the GRA reform in particular.

Our view, however, is that the argument fails to establish any such incompatibility. We'll now set out the reasons why.
The Basis of Risk
The argument against trans-inclusivity starts from the observation that men pose a heightened risk of violence to women, compared to other women. We do not dispute that this is so. What we take issue with is the argument's next move, which is to assert that this heightened risk is due to features which trans women, or many of them, share with cis men: namely, being biologically male (i.e. having a penis, testes, and higher levels of testosterone), and having a history of male socialisation.

Now, we recognise that language in this area is contested and highly sensitive. But it is certainly the case that some trans women - those who have not undertaken hormone therapy or genital surgery - do have the bodily features in question and thus are male in the sense that is in play in the argument we are considering, which is what matters for our purposes here. It is also clearly the case - virtually by definition, in fact - that trans women are people who have been classified as male, and treated in a way that reflects this, for some part of their lives. We grant all of this. But we dispute the claim that these features - either singly or in conjunction - are the correct basis for determining the risk that an individual poses in terms of violence against women. Although we do have overwhelming evidence that men commit violence against women at much higher rates than women commit violence against either women or men, this evidence does not establish that the basis of this heightened risk is, as critics of self-ID claim, male biology and/or male socialisation.

But do we need specific evidence for this? Some people might think it obvious that bodily differences such as genitals and hormones are the most likely candidate for the basis of the differential risk of violence between men and women. But there are good feminist reasons for not taking this for granted. Many feminists have argued, successfully in our view, that people in sexist societies are often very bad at distinguishing between differences that are the result of bodily features, and differences that are produced by social factors. More specifically, the idea that men's violence against women is largely underpinned by male biology has also long functioned as a way of 'naturalising' this violence, depicting it as something brute-like and pre-programmed, even inevitable. Radical feminist Andrea Dworkin cautioned strongly against the belief that women are 'biologically good' compared to men, calling it an instance of 'the world's most dangerous and deadly idea', biological superiority.

For this reason, many feminists have preferred to emphasise the role of social factors in making men violent. But since the argument we're considering also alludes to the socialisation that those classed as male receive, it may seem like all bases are covered: whatever the interplay between the social and the biological, some combination of the two is giving us men who are violent against women. That trans women share in the socialisation that produces men seems still harder to deny than the claim that some of them share a male biology. So why expect trans women to be different from cis men in terms of their propensity to violence against women?

Because, in short, trans women are different from cis men. The definitive difference is that trans women see themselves as women or even as female, and feel most comfortable navigating the social world with this gender presentation - many trans women report having this experience from very early childhood. There is clearly a difference between the experience of a child who is treated by others in ways that are characteristic of boys and also feels like a boy, and a child who is treated by others in ways that are characteristic of boys whilst feeling that they are really a girl. It is, to say the very least, not obvious that gender identity makes no difference to the way in which either biological and social factors manifest themselves.

It's important to be clear here: our claim is not that neither biology nor socialisation makes a difference to a person's propensity to commit violence, or to commit violence against women in particular. Given the vast body of feminist analyses of the ways in which cultural and social factors reproduce patriarchy, this would be an extraordinary claim for feminists to make. What we are saying is that all sorts of variables combine and interact with the factors of having a certain anatomy and being classified as a certain gender on account of that anatomy, affecting - potentially profoundly - the way in which those factors shape us. We are saying that gender identity is among the factors which could, quite plausibly, make a difference. Because most studies and statistics concerning violence against women do not draw clear distinctions between cis men, trans men, and trans women, there is little empirical evidence on this point, and certainly none that rules out our hypothesis. In light of this, feminist critics of self-ID are not justified in assuming that all or some trans women share with cis men the features in virtue of which the latter pose a higher risk of violence to women.
Playing it Safe
We don't pretend to know for sure, though. We don't think that this is something that anybody knows. The question, however, is what to do in the absence of knowledge. The sentiment, "better to be safe than sorry!" often surfaces at this point: we're pretty confident about the relative risks of violence against women from cis men and cis women respectively; trans women are an unknown quantity; so better to play safe.

But safe for whom? This is where the feminist case against inclusivity may again turn out to rest on a circular pattern of reasoning. When keeping women's spaces for cis women only is held to be safest for cis women, or 'females', is the tacit assumption that trans women are not ('really') women, and hence not a population which feminism needs to represent? If so, it would certainly be good to have this claim out in the open, since feminist opponents of inclusivity sometimes claim either to regard trans women as women or to be 'agnostic' on that issue - one which, as will become clear shortly, we believe to be a fundamentally political, rather than a biological or metaphysical question.

If, on the other hand, trans women are thought of as a subset within 'women' - much like the group 'white women', for example - then this just raises the question of why some women's safety should take precedence over that of others, especially when the risk allegedly posed to cis women by trans women seems to be purely theoretical - not supported by evidence - while the risk to trans women from cis men is beyond doubt. The World Health Organisation's systematic review of violence motivated by perception of sexual orientation and gender identity in 2017 found that transgender people suffer from a disproportionately high prevalence of physical and sexual violence. Research suggests trans people are more likely than cis people to experience homelessness, and trans women in particular are more likely to engage in sex work - both of which make a person more likely to experience sexual violence.

'Third spaces' for trans people are not the convenient panacea they are often made out to be, for a number of reasons - most notably, the fact that nobody is seriously proposing to provide them. The suggestion that trans people use 'third spaces' amounts in practice to the suggestion that trans people use the spaces associated with the gender they were assigned at birth, in which they may well be not only uncomfortable but highly conspicuous and therefore vulnerable to violence - or that trans people simply forego the use of gendered services at all.

In fact, if we think of trans women as one among many groups within the larger group 'women', then it becomes unclear how their exclusion from women's spaces could be justified even if there were compelling evidence that they were more prone to violence than cis women are. Would we advocate the same for other groups of women among whom cis women are included, should we find similar evidence of higher statistical likelihood of violence in their case? Or would we look for other ways to respond, ways to honour bonds of solidarity rather than resorting to exclusion? We would - or so we would hope.
A Political Question
As we have seen, the argument against trans inclusivity asserts - without justification - that the purpose of women-only spaces is to protect female people, and only female people, from the risk of violence. It assumes, in other words, that women-only spaces ought, in fact, to be female-only spaces. But we can't resolve the issue of who should have access to women's only spaces by deciding in advance, and without justification, that they are actually female-only spaces.

We do not, however, propose to rely on the contrary assumption that trans woman are women and should be included in women-only spaces for this reason. Rather, we believe that what is needed is an acknowledgement that women-only spaces are only a kind of best-fit measure for tackling the phenomenon of gendered and sexual violence. This phenomenon is complex and multifaceted, inflected by many types of difference beyond anatomy, including race, class, and disability. What the question of whether women-only spaces should be trans-inclusive demands, then, is an evaluation of whether trans inclusivity represents a better, more pragmatic response than excluding trans women from these spaces.

We believe that it does. The well-established vulnerability of trans women to violence at the hands of cis men means that requiring trans women to have to use spaces designated for men jeopardises not only their comfort but also their safety. As we have seen, the proposal to instigate 'third spaces' is less of a proposal than a way of washing one's hands of the issue. Even if such spaces could be created, their use would 'out' people as trans, which is still a highly stigmatised identity. Finally, any measures designed to keep out all or some trans women from women-only spaces would be highly intrusive and ripe for being influenced by various biases. Since people don't tend to carry a copy of their birth certificate in case they need to use the loo while they're out, it would in practice devolve into a system of amateur policing on the basis of who 'looks female enough', something that is likely to reflect the problematic ways in which gender stereotypes interact with other aspects of identity, such as race. Given all of this, and given the lack of evidence for the claim that trans women pose comparable risks to cis men in terms of violence against women, we believe that including trans women in women-only spaces is by far the most practical approach to take under the current circumstances.
Trans Women Are Women
We've argued that the question of whether women-only spaces should be trans-inclusive does not rest on the issue of whether trans women are women. But this issue certainly seems to matter to those on both sides of this disagreement - so let's address it.

We've suggested that the argument for excluding trans women from women's spaces on grounds of 'safety' may rest on a prior assumption that trans women are not ('real') women. This charge may be found puzzling. Proponents of that argument might say, in reply, something like the following: "If 'woman' means 'female', then trans women are not women - whatever they and others might say about it. But if trans women want to be addressed by their preferred names and pronouns and referred to as 'women', we're happy enough to oblige in most situations."

But our charge was not that our opponents tacitly assume either of these things - most are quite explicit on both points. What we were suggesting was that those who argue for exclusion seem, ultimately, to be presupposing what they are meant to be arguing for: that trans women don't belong in women's spaces and are, at best, possible allies in feminist struggle, as opposed to being a part of it. Hence our comment that the question of who counts as a woman is a political or ethical question, not a scientific or 'metaphysical' one.

When we affirm that trans women are women - and we do affirm that - we are not trying to deny that many trans women have the biological features that they have, nor are we defining womanhood in terms of some mysterious 'essence', nor equating it with a feeling that a person has or a statement that they make about themselves - so while we endorse self-ID in various contexts including the process of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate, this is not because we think that saying or feeling that you are a woman is actually all there is to being a woman.

While the three of us do not share a single, settled 'theory' of womanhood, we are all impressed by the suggestion - associated, in fact, with the radical feminist tradition - that gender is a matter of social position: roughly, that at least part of what it means to be a woman is to be subordinated on the basis of a classification conducted according to the type of sexual organs one either has or is imagined to have. But while some take this to place trans women irrevocably in a 'male sex caste', along with cis men, we don't accept the view that movement between the socially assigned positions of man- and woman-hood is impossible - and don't see why feminists should be concerned either to rule it out in theory or to contribute to making it more difficult in practice. We also believe, and one of us has previously argued, that a person's gender identity - their subjective sense of who they are - is an important aspect of what it means to be a woman, or man, alongside the 'objective' or social aspects. We believe that while this subjective sense does not exhaust what it means to be of a given gender, honouring it is, in most contexts, the right political and ethical response to a the social situation in which we find ourselves. That situation, as we see it, is one in which trans women's relationship to the structure we call 'patriarchy' has more in common with the relation in which cis women stand to that structure than with cis men's relationship to it.

While critics of trans inclusivity do acknowledge the reality of violence and discrimination against trans women, they often treat this as if it were unconnected to that faced by cis women. This seems to us a mistake. Those trans women who 'pass' (and many who don't) are routinely subject to misogynistic as well as transphobic treatment - treatment which is based on a perception of them as feminised or as aspiring to femininity, a femininity which functions in our society as a marker of subordination. Taken together, trans people make up a tiny, marginalised minority. In this context, it seems perverse for feminists to cast trans women as oppressors or usurpers instead of counting them as sisters.
"I'm not transphobic, but..."
Proponents of the argument we've tried to counter here deny charges of bigotry or transphobia, and as we've acknowledged, the argument does not involve any of the more explicitly prejudiced claims that are sometimes made about trans women - that their trans-ness is a delusion, a perversion, or a deception. The argument as we've reconstructed it does not involve saying that trans women are more likely than cis men to commit violence, including sexual violence, nor that abuse of trans people is acceptable. However, not all bigotry need be explicit or even consciously intended, and we are struck by the parallels between the argumentative devices we've encountered from feminists who oppose inclusivity, and certain points commonly made in the context of race and immigration.

For instance, we note the at times almost obsessive spot-lighting of the statistically tiny incidence of violence by trans women against cis women, and are reminded of the determination of those on the racist right to draw our attention again and again to comparable crimes by Muslim men against white women and girls, even while the vast majority of rapists are white. And we note the frequent insinuation, in both cases, that both the alleged problem and the alleged failure to confront it are the result of excessively inclusive or 'politically correct' attitudes which leave those in a position to intervene unable to do so due to a fear of being called 'racist' or 'transphobic' (as the case may be).

We note, in both cases, the leveraging of the fear that an inclusive and compassionate system will merely be exploited by those who are not the intended beneficiaries, whether 'benefits scroungers', 'bogus asylum seekers', or 'fake' trans women. We note the resonances of another argument that is sometimes made against inclusivity with regard to trans women: namely the argument that inclusion entails further reducing the already-limited resources and positions available for women, such as spaces in women's refuges (compare: 'putting a strain on our NHS') or places on all-women shortlists for desired roles (compare: 'taking our jobs'). We note the tendency, in both cases, to portray what are in fact profoundly disempowered groups as threatening to subjugate and overrun us, and to suggest that the 'real' victims - whether cis women or the 'white working class' - are being overlooked and not listened to while others monopolise the mantle of the 'oppressed'.

We are not saying that simply because the feminist argument we want to reject shares structural similarities with these right-wing claims, it must be right-wing. Nor - to be clear - are we saying that the argument is automatically transphobic because it does not grant that 'trans women are women'. We're saying that attending to the reality of trans women's social situation and their relation to patriarchy should suggest to us that this feminist argument is right-wing and transphobic - just as attending to the reality of race and immigration in Britain, and the relationship between this reality and the oppression of the so-called 'white working class', shows the parallel arguments about this to be right-wing and racist.

Given some basic observations about the conditions of trans people's lives, and given the familiar form of some of the arguments made by feminists to justify exclusion, it's no mystery why people might not only disagree but be offended or angered by those arguments. We do not, of course, condone violence, threats or abuse directed at anyone, including those with whom we disagree. But those who make the kinds of argument we've examined here are not really justified in being either surprised or affronted when others interpret those arguments as bigoted or hateful. The feminists in question may be sincere in believing that they are innocent of such charges, on the grounds that they have not said anything explicitly prejudiced - and have, in many cases, explicitly disowned such prejudice. But so are the people who get upset and defensive at the merest suggestion that their 'legitimate concerns' about immigration might actually be a bit racist. Yet making that suggestion - or its counterpart in the case at hand - is not abuse, and the right to 'free speech' does not include a right to say racist or transphobic things without anyone pointing it out.
In Conclusion
We haven't said much, it's true, about the part of the argument that concerns cis 'imposters' who might take advantage of self-ID. Our main response to this is to point out that, as with parallel fears such as the fear of benefit fraud, the available evidence suggests that the phenomenon is so rare as to be almost insignificant, especially in relation to the full scale of the threat of sexual violence and harassment against women. Men who want to attack women will in any case try get into spaces such as toilets and changing rooms, and those who are determined enough will eventually manage it, with or without a system of self-ID to exploit. And while it's true that abusive men will go to great lengths to access women's refuges, those refuges - for that very reason - have robust procedures in place to risk-assess anyone seeking entry (whatever gender they are presenting as). This is not to throw up our hands and accept that nothing can be done to prevent violence against women, but simply to say that ploughing our energies into opposing self-ID is one of the least effective strategies we could take. A more adequate response, we believe, would begin from an opposition to the policies that have decimated public services and systems of support for the vulnerable, with a disproportionately damaging effect on cis women and trans people alike.

We also believe that responses to the risk of deception on the part of cis men will need to be specific to different contexts, rather than a blanket approach. Let's take two examples that are often discussed: all-women parliamentary shortlists, and prisons. In the case of all-women shortlists, we think that it is highly unlikely that a cis man would maintain a prolonged pretence of being a trans woman in order to gain a place on a shortlist, given the stigma that unfortunately attaches to trans women and the general advantages of being perceived as a cis man. Put simply, it's hard to see how a cis man could derive any benefit from such a ruse, compared to simply presenting as a man. No additional checks seem called for.

On the other hand, the prison system is a context in which cis men do seem to have an incentive - in the form of better conditions, or otherwise rare access to women - to exploit trans-inclusive procedures, and those procedures may need to be designed with this in mind. For example, it seems reasonable to expect prisoners seeking a transfer to the female estate to demonstrate some history of expressing a female gender identity, and to carry out a risk assessment. In cases such as the highly publicised story of Karen White, it seems clear - given the provision, under existing law, for dangerous prisoners to be placed somewhere where they will not pose a risk to others whether or not they possess a GRC - that there was a failure on the part of prison authorities to conduct an adequate risk assessment according to the procedures that are in place. A convicted rapist, regardless of gender, should not be held somewhere where they have unsupervised access to potential victims. The austerity politics which has already brought the UK's prison system into crisis - the same austerity that has forced the closure of women's refuges - can only be expected to make such oversights more common.

To those who say that linking feminist concerns to wider political struggles is over-ambitious or naïve, and that we should content themselves with fighting for a greater share of the scraps for women - or for 'females' - we would reply: first, that we find it less naïve than the third spaces 'solution'; and second, that the current political moment - a moment in which neoliberalism is widely agreed to be in crisis and new movements have emerged across Europe in opposition to austerity - is not a moment for feminists to narrow the scope of their ambitions or to make enemies of fellow sufferers. At such a moment, we suggest, it makes no sense for feminists to be attacking the Labour Party, for example, for including trans candidates on its all-women shortlists, when we could instead join with trans women in trying to bring about a different kind of society.

As for the proposed reform of the GRA, this one should really be a no-brainer: its effects for cis women will be negligible, and it will make it a little easier for people to live with dignity and respect in the gender that fits their identity.

And then we can concentrate on our real enemies.
Lorna Finlayson teaches philosophy at the University of Essex. She is the author of The Political Is Political (Rowman & Littlefield 2015) and An Introduction to Feminism (CUP 2016). Katharine Jenkins is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, specialising in feminist philosophy. Her published work includes 'Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman' (Ethics, 2016), and 'Toward an Account of Gender Identity' (forthcoming in Ergo).
Rosie Worsdale is a postdoctoral research associate at CRASSH, at the University of Cambridge, working on the ERC-funded project Qualitative and Quantitative Social Science: Unifying the Logic of Causal Inference? This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 715530).

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"I'm not transphobic, but...": A feminist case against the feminist case against trans inclusivity

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This Friday, the 19th October, the Government's consultation on a proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act will close. The process has become a focal point for a heated and often toxic debate over what we as a society owe to trans people, and how the claims of the trans community relate to the characteristic commitments and concerns of feminism.

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Series of podcasts exploring biological sex including discussions of intersex issues. June/July 2018.

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Radiolab | Radiolab Presents: Gonads | WNYC Studios

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Transphobia and transmisogyny in the British left 

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Transphobia and transmisogyny in the British left 

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Long read discussing current challenges in the British left, asserting that gender/sex binary is a Western / Imperialist model (compare with India which recognises a third gender) then discusses transfeminism etc. March 2018.

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With the current 'moral panic' over trans people (almost exclusively aimed at trans women, trans feminine people and trans youth) effectively delaying legislation, further normalising transphobia in the general populace and causing burnout amongst the trans activist community. It is now more important than ever for the labour and trade union movement alongside the British left, more generally, to take a hard stance against transphobia and transmisogyny.

If we want to deal with this, we have to come to terms with the reality that the current British left is rampantly transphobic and transmisogynist. This is notably more prominent in the historically established groups, who have built themselves up to levels of comfort and outreach amongst a limited, selective, but influential group of the 'working class' who avoid some of the most brutal effects of austerity. In order for us to recover from these failures, looking towards materialist and socialist feminisms of the past and present can allow us to establish what is becoming more and more necessary, a feminism that is supportive of all workers, especially trans women fighting hand in hand for both trans liberation and women's liberation under socialism.

The article will have a stronger focus on trans women, trans feminine people and trans youth, this is in part because the majority of the backlash in the British left is directed more at these groups, as such what would usually be designated as TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) will simply be referred to as transmisogynists. When we talk about transmisogynists, there is a need to be aware of the differences between the outright hateful, usually individual personalities we see from sections of the British left and a much 'colder' form of transmisogny. These "cold transmisogynists" are those that enable transmisogynistic talking points to be further normalised by not only refusing to raise awareness of trans women and our struggles, but also ignoring our own voices for more palatable forms of 'feminist' discourse. This exists in all sections in the British left, who Bahar Mustafa points out have remained silent towards the hatred received towards trans activists such as Munroe Bergdorf and the ways in which all of this is not enabling the progressive politics on gender and sexuality that are so needed today from all of us.

The Labour Party and Transmisogyny

One of the most recent cases of the British left engaging in such violent behaviour against trans women is the gofundme page set up by transmisogynists in the Labour Party calling for trans women to not be included in all-women's short lists following comments from Labour's Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, Dawn Butler that trans women should be (as in, already are) included on all-women's short lists. The election of Lily Madigan as a women's officer for Rochester and Strood CLP and increased visibility of trans women in the Labour Party were a further context for the reactions that created this hate campaign. It might have been hoped that this gofundme would prove nothing especially as it went against not only gofundme's policies but the Equalities Act, instead it raised tens of thousands of pounds in a few days. This could potentially be wasted money (or, worse, as they say the leftover money will be used to prevent trans women accessing services and being in public spaces) but the numbers alone are horrifying reminders for trans women in the Labour Party, we are actively hated and despised, something further shown by fraudulent donations being made under the names of trans activists such as Travis Alabanza and Shon Faye. Disturbingly, it is evident that there are significant numbers of people with the money and influence in Party circles to promote such levels of funding. Essentially, the gofundme campaign and attendant hatred is trying to remove, silence and bully trans women from the Party and any other forms of political activism. For the Labour Party, the lack of prompt and clear decision making and the confusing and delayed responses from the NEC shows a lack of coordination between the leadership, understood widely, and members as well as significant differences in attitudes and knowledge towards trans women inside and outside the Party. Whilst leaked information ( subsequently confirmed by the NEC Equalities committee) has at this moment confirmed that Labour will include self-defining women on all-women shortlists alongside suspending Venice Allen and Jennifer James (the latter who started the gofundme), the start of 2018 has proven to already be another difficult year for trans activists, especially those engaged in Labour. Despite the progress seen in confirmation that trans women are included in all-women's shortlists, Labour still has a lot to deal with following the drawn out conflicts and hatred spurred by this godfundme campaign. It's perhaps also worth noting that the suspensions of James and Allen for bullying and harassment do not, in themselves, confirm that the Party is taking all transphobia from members seriously.

As we are approaching almost 10 years of austerity, this hate campaign and hefty donations from members is especially distressing, considering that austerity disproportionately affects women in the poorest parts of the UK. Amidst the growing privatisation of the NHS; the dismantling of domestic violence, care and welfare services; housing crises and the rapid increase of women in incarceration and detention centres, to see money thrown instead towards bigotry and hatred shows just how the extent that these people really care about fighting against oppression in society (Hint: They don't). Now more than ever do we need unified support and solidarity from the Labour Party, who still could be doing more to deal with these rampant levels of transmisogyny.

Outside of the Labour Party, those in the far-left have also shown their transmisogynist views in the last few months following the 'moral panic' in mainstream media. From the continuous hate pieces from the Morning Star that have persisted for years to the transmisogyny at the 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair, who responded by announcing no more bookfairs and defending the acts of violence. The bookfair has especially exposed the true extent of transmisogyny in all circles of the British left siding with the reactionary, right-wing led newspapers campaigns merely on amending the already outdated GRA (the issue being struggled over here is a long way from trans liberation).

Within the trade union movements, the problems are much more noticeable and concerning. At the start of the panic, transphobic remarks by Paul Embery, an executive council member for the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), were not condemned by the union. Other influential trade unionists, including FBU members would continue to endorse even more transphobia, this time taking the route of ultimate cowardice and aiming at trans youth, again paralleling their right-wing counterparts. When Stonewall published their research on LGBTQ+ youth in schools, they found that 46% of trans youth have attempted suicide and only two in five teachers pledge to fight against transphobic bullying. Following these grim findings, the NUT's vice president and convenor of the Socialist Feminist Network, Kiri Tunks, decided ( in her own personal capacity) to take the side of those austerity enforcers who are at the centre of destroying the education system. Despite the calls of solidarity from the LGBT+ section of the NUT, the damage was done and many of those who supported Tunks ( including Lucy Masoud, Treasurer and LGBT Secretary of the London FBU branch) would then support the hate campaigns manipulating the truth about incidents of transmisogynist violence. Whilst we can't expect all cis workers to be on our side and know what is best for us, we should never accept and tolerate these levels of violence against one of the most oppressed and marginalised groups of workers not only in Britain, but globally.

Transphobia, Imperialism and the Labour Aristocracy

The cases of transmisogyny in the British left also continue to showcase white supremacy and imperialist ambitions. The most vocal transmisogynists on the British left, almost all of whom are white, present themselves (and are also presented as such) as authentic, marginalised, working-class voices, 'saying it like it is' despite endorsements from mainstream media and national publications, even before the 'moral panic'.

A recent example of particularly imperialist character of British left transphobia that is especially revealing is transmisogynists on social media like Venice Allen "Dr Rad Fem" (who has since been suspended from Labour for bullying and harassment) proudly proclaiming that British women are the strongest and most powerful women on the planet. In all waves of feminism, white feminists in the British left and trade union movement have a tendency to ignore the problems of white supremacy and especially the consequences of imperialism. Not only this, there is a total failure to even try to understand the history of imperialism in enforcing transphobia, patriarchy and rigid gender and sex binaries. Sara Ahmed's 'An Affinity of Hammers' describes a case study with Suzanne Moore and a series of Twitter rants from January 2013:

Moore's rants are not only based in casual racism and an ignorance of the extreme rates of violence against travesti and trans women in Brazil, but is also a reminder that aggressive arrogance (taking pride in being deliberately offensive and insensitive) and the white supremacist, imperialist mindsets shape and dominate transmisogynist discourses. The arch-transmisogynist, Janice Raymond relies on casual racism and Islamophobia in her analysis as Stryker notes:

The imperialist ambitions are further shown as Irish feminists said in response to transmisogynists planning a speaking tour in Dublin:

Do you have any kind of concept of what a feminism in a country shaped by struggle against Empire looks like? Did you take even a second to consider that, in assuming you have the right to come here in any kind of position of feminist authority, you're behaving with the arrogance of just that imperialism? We have had enough of colonialism in Ireland without needing more of it from you

Scratch a transmisogynist and find an imperialist-endorsing white supremacist.

European colonialism and imperialism played huge roles in the destruction and genocides of gender-variant people across all the world. Considering how rampant the transmisogyny is in the British left, who trail behind the rise of unions fronted by women of colour and migrant workers such as UVW against precarious labour, it is certain that the connections to white supremacy and transmisogyny are also connected to the refusal of historically established and reputable groups to actually engage in a materialist analysis of the realities of the British working class now.

The growing levels of violence, especially intimate violence against trans women also coincides with the growing waves of rape apologism akin to the SWP emerging in historically established far-left wing groups exposing them for their protection of sexual abusers and/or cult-like behaviours from the leadership, which is indeed a further concern for all women and non-binary workers. Allegations of sexual violence and silencing of activists have emerged from the Revolutionary Communist Group, The Alliance for Workers' Liberty and Movement for Justice in the past few months, resulting in the dismissal and disregard of survivors of sexual violence in our struggles for survivor-led accountability processes in an already weak and fragmented socialist movement. Whilst trans women were not the only victims of abuse from these groups, the connections between tolerance of sexual violence and transmisogyny are crucial, especially when we see transmisogynists like Germaine Greer support sexual abusers and be against the #MeToo campaign. My own personal experiences with the RCG resulted in being removed for speaking out against rape apologism from the SWP and transphobia from the Morning Star, claiming these were 'not our positions' ' in the group. If we can't rely on these groups to protect survivors of violence, how can we expect them to protect trans women?

When seeing all of this, one has to wonder if the 'moral panic' is working and working class cis people hate us and have now learnt more about transmisogynist talking points. Or, is it a minority of the historically established left wing in Britain that supposedly represents the working class? Considering the majority of the transmisogyny in the left is from political representatives such as MPs in the Labour Party like Caroline Flint and significant figures in the trade union movement (Embery, Masoud and Tunks), we can assume the latter. The problem is that from the outside, assumptions on the attitudes of the working class from this would make us assume that we are hated unanimously by the working class, despite the majority of trans women being working class. This is further amplified by the silence of many MPs and councillors in the Labour Party towards the backlash and hatred trans women are currently dealing with.

The ways in which transmisogyny sits within and reproduces a set of attitudes and practices suggests it is, to a large extent, part of a sedimented labourism, a labourism whose class basis has in many aspects long past. It is worth being clear here both that on the one hand labourism extends beyond the Labour Party and the trade union movement and encompasses and, in some ways, structures left parties and groups outside Labour and on the other hand, Labour cannot wholly be reduced to labourism. In terms of transmisogyny and labourism, two analyses are deeply suggestive, the first from Hilary Wainwright, the second from Stuart Hall. For Wainwright, the major limit on labourism is its efforts to advance workers interests within existing capitalist purposes and inability to generate alternative values, and within this:

Stuart Hall notes how one of labourism's bedrocks 'working class unity and labour movement fraternity have often been underpinned by certain versions of masculinity, traditionalism and domestic respectability', and how the other bedrock, Fabianism, had its 'consciences shudder' and 'nerves rattle', by 'women who won't settle to their familial roles, blacks who assert their own self-identities'. For both Hall and Wainwright, moreover, writing in the 1980s, labourism represented and organised a working class which no longer existed, and a genuinely materialist politics entailed reckoning with the 'present and modern', 'politically and culturally more diverse' character of the working class.

However there is more to the realities of the working class and the divides that have always existed in the British working class, from those who supported colour bars and racism, to those who banned women from political activism (as we are seeing now) to similar moral panics against LGB people escalated and influenced by labourism. We have always seen similar trends of hatred and misdirection from the British left, especially in its well organised, historically maintained and generally more privileged capacities, with far less at stake during such intense, contentious moments in our history.

Trans Herstory and Left-Wing Solidarity

Reading all this can seem daunting and hopeless, but the trans community has always been fighting against exclusionary politics, directly or indirectly and across many different left wing groups, from lesbian feminist groups to trans women in the Labour Party and trade unions. History can especially help us in learning and engaging with transmisogyny in the British left, both in Britain and elsewhere.

The infamous West Coast Lesbian Conference of 1973 quite possibly started many of the same transmisogynist talking points we see. But what is less known is that two thirds of attendees supported the inclusion of folk singer and trans woman Beth Elliot (who was also a member of the organising committee) at the conference against the violent transmisogyny of Robin Morgan and the Gutter Dykes. Lesbian cis feminists such as Jeanne Córdova would be one of a few at the conference who supported the inclusion of trans women and helped to hold back Morgan and the Gutter Dykes own attacks on Elliot and other trans women in attendance. Reports of the conference at the time in The Lesbian Tide especially highlighted the solidarity from an unnamed blind trans woman with Elliot and other trans women:

Elliot herself had already been well established in lesbian feminist spaces and had gained solidarity from cis lesbian feminists against other transmisogynist incidents. This included the resignation of the entire collective of the San Francisco DOB's newspaper, Sisters, in solidarity with Elliot after she was outed as trans and expelled from DOB in 1972. Around the same time, we had seen statements of solidarity towards the gay liberation movement from the Black Panther Party as well as the Young Lords Party of which, the co-founder of STAR Sylvia Rivera was a member. An interview with Tommi Avicolli Mecca also highlighted the solidarities between the lesbian separatist DYKETACTICS and Radical Queens in Philadelphia:

Members of Transsexual Action Organisation (TAO) such as UK-based Brooklyn Stothard would begin on work on what would become the precursors to heterosexism and queer theory based on developments in the New Left and early second wave feminism. Known as 'hetsism', Stothard described in 1974 how:

Sadly, even all this pioneering work by trans people historically did not stop the ongoing transphobia and transmisogyny in feminist spaces and Elliot herself eventually decided to leave the conference from the pressure from the transmisogynists. That also proved too much for Rivera following similar incidents of transmisogyny at the 1973 New York City's Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, giving her influential ' Y'all Better Quiet Down! ' speech before retreating from politics until the 1990s.

Meanwhile in Britain, the 1980s would see a 'moral panic' similar to the current one, only focusing much more on lesbian and gay men and to some extent this would affect trans people (especially those who were also LGB). The responses from the British left and trade union movements were varied, but generally similar to the current trends now:

The backdrop of the HIV/AIDs epidemic and further hate publications from the British mainstream media did not help things and the current 'moral panic' seems to have desires to implement similar legislation against trans and gender non-conforming youth. The introduction of Section 28 in 1988 would further clamp down on any potential solidarities being pushed by some local Labour councils or other British left groups. The Bermondsey by-election in 1983 showcased the rampant levels of homophobia against Peter Thatchell and saw the largest by-election swing in British history. For trans people now, these examples are indeed a harrowing reminder of what the current 'moral panic' can do and will do to us and our activism. This was a far cry from the revolutionary activism from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), whose co-founder Mark Ashton, was the general secretary for the Young Communist League. LGSM was a significant example of support and solidarity amongst workers and oppressed people and in turn led to the question of gay and lesbian rights being supported at the Labour Party 1985 annual conference.

The world of labourism and the way in which it underpinned an aggressive backlash against the cultural politics, particularly around gay rights in alliance, as today, with the right-wing press of the new urban Labour left, then, suggests a context whereby we can understand the place of today's transmisogyny. Here we should be able to situate theoretically transmisogyny's links to imperialism and British chauvinism, its particular 'labour aristocratic' form class politics, that is, as with Golding, a class politics that is not for the whole of the working class, particularly in its modern form, its compromises, or worse with existing dominant power, especially in the press, its grounding in and efforts to reproduce the traditional family, and its hostility to the self-assertion of marginalised, excluded sections of the working class. Labourism essentially both advances the interests of the working class in the sense of making a demand for a greater share of the spoils of imperialism, integrating it as ( George Padmore) a "Junior Partner in Imperialism Ltd") and aims to organise the working class internally, maintaining and even strengthening the hierarchies, oppressions and exclusions made by capitalism. In the 1980s, in Hall and Wainwright's accounts, this internal organising of the working class meant at best indifference, at worst hostility to the self-assertion and needs of the women's movement, Black struggles and Gay liberation, today, it is no surprise labourist conceptions are a basis for transmisogyny.

Despite this and the influence of labourism, exceptions did exist of trans women who were active in labour and trade union struggles, especially in much more urban New Left circles. As early as October 1974, the newsletter for the National and Local Government Officers Association's (NALGO) lesbian and gay group called for 'all homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals' to be involved, even if there was no records of trans involvement at the time. Elsewhere in Italy, the 1980s would see the emergence of the Italian Transsexual Movement (Movimento Italiano Transessuale [MIT]) with support from the Italian Communist Party (PCI), the largest communist party in Western Europe at the time. The PCI not only supported what would become one of the earliest forms of (albeit flawed and very much out-dated now) legal gender recognition, but by the time of the second congress of MIT in January 1982, high ranking PCI members such as senator Giglia Tedesco Tatò would not only voice support towards trans rights, but also explicitly connect them to the women's liberation movement:

These remarks and the attendance of PCI members alone are impressive considering the long history of social conservatism from the PCI of pleasing the dominant Catholic populations whilst maintaining the more traditional ideas of gender and sexuality that many historical socialist countries would promote, with only a few notable exceptions (Cuba and East Germany) endorsing LGBTQ+ rights in the same decade. Following the splitting of PCI, one of their successors, the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) would endorse the first openly trans member of parliament in Europe, Vladimir Luxuria.

Rachael Webb is a more radical example who was not only a councillor in the 80s but would later work on sustaining women's rights for truck drivers all over Europe. She was briefly involved with the Self Help Association for Transsexuals (SHAFT), who kicked her out for her radicalism. However, her brand of radical feminism was heavily influenced and inspired by Janice Raymond, including Webb's own belief that trans women 'perpetuate misogyny when they indulge in a manipulative game of getting others to collude in their fantasy that they are women.' Her involvement in Militant Tendency was also questionable, due to the levels of homophobic abuse that they pushed throughout the 1980s.

But even then, historical cases of trans women in the trade union movement showcase complexities, especially, as with the LGBTQ+ community in general, trans women are not a homogeneous blob and each of us will bring our own different and unique experiences to feminism and politics. When Anna May Booth was interested in the Lesbians and Gays in the MSF (LAGIM) group in 1989, she herself was not given immediate approval due to the group never having had trans members, nonetheless she came to be accepted and would go on to speak out against discrimination and harassment in 1999, effectively outing herself to the entire male dominated union, showcasing the bravery of trans women even in the labour and trade union movement.

What does this have to do with trans women now? In recent years, similar cases of solidarity and activism have been brought up by many contemporary left-wing activist groups and trans rights groups. From the trans-inclusive Sister's Uncut and their direct action against the savage cuts against domestic violence services, focusing especially on the impacts this has on women and non-binary people. To the works of Action for Trans Health and their solidarity with prison abolition and connecting this with the issues of healthcare (or lack thereof) in incarceration.

Instead of challenging its own transmisogyny, the British left has created situations that exclude trans women, sometimes this has been directly in the forms of physical and mental intimidation and countless hate pieces by a small, well-established few in the labour aristocracy and labourist traditions. But more worrying though is the indirect forms of exclusion by the vast majority of the British left which seems to be ignoring and even tolerating various forms of oppressive behaviours that hurt trans women, such as rape apologism and ignoring the new developments in feminism and imperialism which demand consideration of the British left's own roles in imperialism and anti-feminism which still lingers on today. A socialist transfeminism needs to be adapted by the British left to counter both the tendencies of anti-feminism, but also the growing problems of rape apologism and imperialist/nationalist ambitions of the more populist, labourist varieties of the British left, desperately hoping for working class votes.

Towards a Socialist Transfeminism

What do we mean when we talk about transfeminism? Is it distinct from (cis) feminism? Emi Koyama's ' Transfeminist Manifesto' describes transfeminism as "primarily a movement by and for trans women who view their liberation to be intrinsically linked to the liberation of all women and beyond." The radicalism of Koyama shines through in her proposals that trans women should resist not only the medical definitions of gender and biological sex but also resist the narratives of being 'born in the wrong body', a tactic that we see consistently in trans rights organisation, charities and almost all mainstream representation, very much in common with the dominant 'born this way' rhetoric in mainstream LGB circles now. However, Koyama also rejects a model that trans women have 'always been' women by insisting that:

To say that one has a female mind or soul would mean there are male and female minds that are different from each other in some identifiable way, which in turn may be used to justify discrimination against women. Essentializing our gender identity can be just as dangerous as resorting to biological essentialism. Transfeminism believes that we construct our own gender identities based on what feels genuine, comfortable and sincere to us as we live and relate to others within given social and cultural constraint. ... Instead of justifying our existence through the reverse essentialism, transfeminism dismantles the essentialist assumption of the normativity of the sex/gender congruence.

Koyama's own analysis here is very similar to early second wave feminism, especially materialist feminist thought. Within the socialist feminist tradition, very little has existed that has connected trans liberation with socialism together. For many of us, the works of Leslie Feinberg helped provided us with a Marxist analysis of trans oppression in history and historical accounts of socialist, communist and anarchist solidarity with trans, gender non-conforming and gender-variant people throughout history. Feinberg's works helped many of us understand that we had a history and ze would apply historical materialist analysis to help further incorporate a Marxist politics in trans activism. However, ze did not take fully into account transfeminist demands in hir work and would only help provide the foundations of a socialist transfeminism.

When transmisogynists are burning us out by demanding we justify our existences again only to be humiliated, a socialist transfeminism is strongly needed. For many trans Marxists and transfeminists, there has almost been a return to the early second wave feminists for forms of inspiration and especially to incorporate again a materialist feminism that recognises the notions of gender and biological sex as socially constructed instead of the leftist transmisogynists' appeals to biological reductionism. Radical feminists such as Evelyn Reed argued a materialist feminist view of women's oppression that specifically mentioned that biology is not necessarily the destiny of the oppression of women. Other second wave materialist feminists would also play key roles in shaping ideas that can prove useful for transfeminists through a critical lens. One example that will be considered is the work of lesbian materialist feminist, Monique Wittig. Her own theories on the materialist forms of oppression towards women and lesbians would be especially influential on Judith Butler, whose ideas on the performativity of gender and biological sex would pioneer queer theory and still be a huge source of inspiration for many transfeminists now.

Kevin Henderson's attempts to apply Wittig into a queer-trans-feminism focuses on the man/woman binary in Wittig's own writings and modifies these theories to take into consideration the growing cis/trans binary we are seeing in transfeminist and transgender studies:

These are legitimate worries, as we have seen in what Nat Raha described as trans liberalism becoming the dominant narratives in British trans politics, further instilling notions that trans liberation is merely middle class and academic and against the more 'traditional' (i.e. misogynist and white supremacist) ideals of the labour and trade union movements. Whilst trans liberalism can help in certain fields such as legal gender recognition, research and awareness, it still relies primarily on a vision of liberation that is catered towards the dominant white audience, whilst paying lip service to the likes of intersectionality. Essentially it's trying to create a capitalist approach to trans 'liberation', or for those who are worthy of such under capitalism.

The necessity of a socialist transfeminism is made more paramount in pieces such as Anarchasteminist's ' Transphobia is a class issue'. The author highlights research that shows that not only are the unemployment levels of trans people higher than the national average, but for trans youth, the reliance on family support is a major deciding factor on life satisfaction and most importantly secure housing. Recent figures from trans liberal charities like Stonewall confirm these disparities with 25% of trans people experiencing homelessness in the past year, and 1 in 8 trans people being physically attacked in the workplace. As workers and carers, trans women under austerity deal with significant difficulties in gaining employment, care and housing due to transmisogynist employers, care services and landlords. Then there are the bureaucratic hurdles that an amended GRA (as is Labour's official policy, though this position is not without opposition in the Party) could remove as well the unmentioned and unresolved hurdles in the NHS and at the job centre. The majority of trans women not only get paid far less than their cis counterparts, we also have fewer support networks in labour and trade union movements, as well as feminist circles and social and welfare services for women.

Whilst Jennifer James and others may think they are fighting a class war for socialism by excluding trans women from political activism, services and public spaces, they're merely showcasing that the British left's transphobia and transmisogyny is more than just bigotry, but a failure to apply not only socialism, but feminism into the conditions of austerity and the rise of trans visibility and activism that goes beyond our own communities. In going beyond our communities of trans liberalism and a diluted socialist feminism, an effective socialist transfeminism must also take into consideration the question of the abolition of the family.

The abolition of the family is crucial yet until now socialist feminism has often ignored this topic and socialist countries would even enforce family units into law, whilst trans liberalism and queer theory have themselves looked upon/emphasised newly formed family units set up by those who have been rejected by their first families. These units have been essential for the survival of many trans women, especially trans women of colour with STAR house (set up by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera) being a significant historical example. Radical queer accounts against assimilationist views in the LGBTQ+ movement have long used these units as a means to survival, but survival can only go so far and for many of us, it is not enough to just survive and as JJ Gleeson and KD Griffiths established in Kinderkommunismus:

Queer rejectionism has not made any concerted effort to imagine what such a systemic shift might look like. Rejectionist accounts of revolutionary change present either the vaguest vision of "queer insurrection" against social norms, or in fact present no vision at all (focusing instead on the politics of "survival"). While our rejectionist comrades have made a decisive case for rejecting liberal-subsumed LGBT NGOs, they do not make any advancement toward the family's end. Their politics is one of celebrating tension, not collapsing the material foundations of straight identities. Their nostalgic-historiographical poetics have failed to provide an emancipatory path that will destroy the heterosexualizing coercion of the family. They have failed even to speculate clearly as to what such a path might look like.

Gleeson has discussed this in greater detail, especially focusing on the ways in which the family unit under capitalism isolates and normalises queer/trans dispossession.

The family serves as a unique bastion organizing heteronormativity, and through ensuring the inter-generational procession of wealth and access to fixed capital, also anti-blackness. Upbringings and intimacies existing outside of norms which have developed along with capitalism are widely disparaged, and culturally subordinated. For as long as heterosexual parents are relied on for giving queer kids upbringing, widespread dispossession will be the rule. The role of social reproduction parents are tasked with at present can only be relied on to produce alienation, and rejection. For as long as the family remains 'private', the actual lives of many queers will feature commonplace threats from regret to physical attack. Only through breaking the current monopoly of families on inter-generational recreation of society can we truly liberate successive generations from the arbitrary brutalization of gender.

Socialist transfeminism must platform the abolition of the family in its programme to ensure that those of us who may or may not have been disowned by family are given the same opportunities and qualities of life as those who do.

Whilst trans liberalism and their groups simply argue for more family support and an insistence on maintaining family units, socialist transfemininsm must take into account the ways in which capitalism enforces the family unit and especially the ways in which these particular units of the capitalist family normalise transphobia, especially in terms of the resources we have access to as well as the impact on our own mental health. Even Stonewall, despite their research on trans lives (which only began in 2015), focuses on and insists on assimilation into (British) society and doesn't pose a threat to capitalism or the heteronormative family unit. These examples are prime examples of trans liberalism hoping to gain a wider audience that can accept trans people in the current conditions of patriarchal capitalist norms. A subtle example of this is the ways in which trans liberal groups will emphasis that trans people 'identify as' instead of saying 'are' our own genders with no criticism of the social constructions of biological sex. What does this mean for trans women? Trans liberalism is paradoxical in that it tries to establish that we are our own genders, but at the same time, these subtle linguistic changes help to further promote something of an evolved form of the current gendered divisions of labour under capitalism, which will in some way try and invalidate our genders and our own experiences as women. Our experiences of womanhood and participating in the women's liberation movement as the women we are is ignored, especially the social reproduction we produce as women and 'feminised' labour due to the lack of 'conventionality' in this labour (e.g. STAR house) compared to white cishet feminist accounts. This can be further recognised in an Action for Trans Health piece written by Amy Cohn that discusses ' wages for advocacy ' and briefly touches upon the forms of social reproduction in our advocacy work, without which situations for trans people in healthcare and elsewhere would be far worse:

Wages for Advocacy" is the acknowledgement that our labour is just as - if not more - important than the formal labour of administrators and clinicians to the provision of trans healthcare. Those systems necessitate and demand our labour, and it is those systems - not service users - that should bear the cost of it.

Therefore, it is important to include trans women as women in the political sense against the trans liberal discourses emphasising that simply we 'identify as' or are 'Assigned [Sex] at Birth'. This is especially needed as the latter is becoming more and more the polite form of the transmisogynists spiteful 'trans-identified males', always reinforcing what capitalist society wants to perceive us as to invalidate our struggles as women and our own womanhood, with our own unique struggles.

As mentioned, the majority of transmisogynists in the British left are well-established and not in constant danger and risks from deportation, sanctions and incarceration or daily harassment just for existing. Trans liberalism doesn't provide the solutions to combating either transmisogyny or the wider, disproportionate threats trans women face and, moreover, can even perpetuate the transmisogynist talking point that we're all just middle class, white academics. The hatred from the well-established, labourist British left creates an atmosphere in the trans community that the cis working class is not there for us and never will be and there are dangers to this:
1. Trans women will not be welcome in the British left and have no choice but to join middle class, assimilationist trans rights groups to just feel safe and be active.
2. It is playing into the idea that bigotry is 'bottom up' rather than 'top down', despite the countless evidence of solidarity between working class trans people and other activist movements both then and now.

Anarchasteminist shows the ways in which established 'working class' transmisogynists show this:

We see a similar process with transphobia, bigotry against trans people is positioned as definitively working class, and thus the existence of working class trans people can be ignored as impossible by definition. A well paid Observer journalist can mock trans people en masse as middle class kids, obsessed with identity politics, because everybody knows that real working class people are white, cishet and hostile to anybody who is not white or cishet. The reality, of course, is that this image of an "ordinary" working class as the default is a fantasy, the working class is a weird, wonderful and diverse class and only a politics that recognises the many and varied ways in which we experience exploitation and oppression can allow us to build a movement to end oppression, end exploitation and ultimately abolish class itself.

By creating the idea that transphobia and transmisogyny is 'working class', the same well-paid 'working class' journalists reduce and define the working classes they claim to represent as merely a homogeneous blob of bigotry, generated from alienation under neoliberal capitalism.

It is essential for us to look forward towards a socialist transfeminist future that incorporates socialism alongside further continuing its tradition of supporting women's liberation and introducing components that include support for trans liberation. It is necessary to ensure that reactionary views that serve the patriarchy, such as transmisogyny and upholding the cis/heteronormative family models under capitalism are eliminated. We are up against the successive victories of an anti-materialist and reactionary British left trying to gain relevance following decades of isolation from working class communities. Hope amongst workers and oppressed people for something new under a Corbyn-led government and beyond can only go so far when even in Labour and the wider British left, there are still such dismissive views of trans women (and that these views are often more widely tolerated and allowed to pass unchallenged). Yes, we have seen calls of solidarity from in the British left inside and outside of Labour and the mainstream trade union movement, but we are hurting ourselves by appealing to the calls of these transmisogynists, who constantly demand that trans women justify our existences and constantly repeat the same basic talking points that are easily debunked by Koyama's manifesto and other pieces both historical and contemporary.

Hope does exist not just from the Labour Party, but Scotland has already begun their own consultations on amending the GRA and in the British left, we are gradually seeing more and more initiatives from newer groups to take on transmisogyny and also continue to develop a socialist feminism that rejects labourist tendencies and can be incorporated alongside the transfeminist ideas we are constantly seeing all over the world. The Women's Strike here in the UK has emphasised the struggles of trans women and stressed the need for cis feminists to be in solidarity with trans women in fighting against patriarchal violence.

It all might seem daunting at the moment, but as we have seen that even under the bleakest periods for the left in Britain and elsewhere, cases of solidarity can shine through and be an affirming reminder that when we are united in the struggle, we can certainly achieve monumental things.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'You are more oppressive than our oppressors': Transphobia and transmisogyny in the British left

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With the current ‘moral panic’ over trans people (almost exclusively aimed at trans women, trans feminine people and trans youth) effectively delaying legislation, further normalising transphobia in the general populace and causing burnout amongst the trans activist community.

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Why won't you choose one? May 2019.

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Graphic showing complexity of sex determination

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Graphic showing complexity of sex determination

# data[].attributes.body
From Scientific American. Preview is not the graphic! Sep 2017.

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Advertisement

Humans are socially conditioned to view sex and gender as binary attributes. From the moment we are born-or even before-we are definitively labeled "boy" or "girl." Yet science points to a much more ambiguous reality. Determination of biological sex is staggeringly complex, involving not only anatomy but an intricate choreography of genetic and chemical factors that unfolds over time. Intersex individuals-those for whom sexual development follows an atypical trajectory-are characterized by a diverse range of conditions, such as 5-alpha reductase deficiency ( highlighted in graphic below). A small cross section of these conditions and the pathways they follow is shown here. In an additional layer of complexity, the gender with which a person identifies does not always align with the sex they* are assigned at birth, and they may not be wholly male or female. The more we learn about sex and gender, the more these attributes appear to exist on a spectrum.

*The English language has long struggled with the lack of a widely recognized nongendered third-person singular pronoun. A singular form of "they" has grown in widespread acceptance, and many people who do not identify with a binary gender use it.

This article was originally published with the title "Beyond XX and XY" in Scientific American 317, 3, 50-51 (September 2017)

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0917-50

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Read This Next

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beyond XX and XY: The Extraordinary Complexity of Sex Determination

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humans are socially conditioned to view sex and gender as binary attributes. From the moment we are born-or even before-we are definitively labeled "boy" or "girl." Yet science points to a much more ambiguous reality. Determination of biological sex is staggeringly complex, involving not only anatomy but an intricate choreography of genetic and chemical factors that unfolds over time.

# data[].attributes.headline
Graphic showing complexity of sex determination

# data[].attributes.subject
Graphic showing complexity of sex determination

# data[].attributes.body
From Scientific American. Preview is not the graphic! Sep 2017.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Advertisement

Humans are socially conditioned to view sex and gender as binary attributes. From the moment we are born-or even before-we are definitively labeled "boy" or "girl." Yet science points to a much more ambiguous reality. Determination of biological sex is staggeringly complex, involving not only anatomy but an intricate choreography of genetic and chemical factors that unfolds over time. Intersex individuals-those for whom sexual development follows an atypical trajectory-are characterized by a diverse range of conditions, such as 5-alpha reductase deficiency ( highlighted in graphic below). A small cross section of these conditions and the pathways they follow is shown here. In an additional layer of complexity, the gender with which a person identifies does not always align with the sex they* are assigned at birth, and they may not be wholly male or female. The more we learn about sex and gender, the more these attributes appear to exist on a spectrum.

*The English language has long struggled with the lack of a widely recognized nongendered third-person singular pronoun. A singular form of "they" has grown in widespread acceptance, and many people who do not identify with a binary gender use it.

This article was originally published with the title "Beyond XX and XY" in Scientific American 317, 3, 50-51 (September 2017)

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0917-50

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Read This Next

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beyond XX and XY: The Extraordinary Complexity of Sex Determination

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humans are socially conditioned to view sex and gender as binary attributes. From the moment we are born-or even before-we are definitively labeled "boy" or "girl." Yet science points to a much more ambiguous reality. Determination of biological sex is staggeringly complex, involving not only anatomy but an intricate choreography of genetic and chemical factors that unfolds over time.

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Christian Right tips to fight transgender rights

# data[].attributes.subject
Christian Right tips to fight transgender rights

# data[].attributes.body
Report on how the Christian Right see fighting trans rights as a way to fight LGBT rights more generally. Oct 2017.

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Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon and former Trump deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka all addressed the crowd, thanking the Christian evangelical audience for having put Trump in power.

A three-times Values Voter speaker, Trump has long been courting the support of the Christian evangelical right. The Trump administration's explicit hostility to LGBT rights, in the name of religious freedom, has in part earned the president the unabashed support of the Values Voter attendees.

The Values Voter Summit has historically served as a meeting place for anti-LGBT groups and individuals, and this year is no exception. On Saturday, at a panel entitled "Transgender Ideology in Public Schools: Parents Fight Back," speakers took turns offering strategies to defeat trans-friendly measures passed by various school boards.

The panel focused on Fairfax County's school board (the 10th largest school district in the country), and its measure to add "gender identity" to their nondiscrimination policy in May 2015. The measure soon faced roiling opposition from anti-LGBT groups across the country: it was challenged in court by Andrea Lafferty, president of the anti-LGBT hate group Traditional Values Coalition,, who was represented by anti-LGBT hate group Liberty Counsel. The case was deemed to have no standing by the Virginia Supreme Court in April 2017.

The lessons from Fairfax were at the center of Saturday's panel, with two of the panel members affiliated with Fairfax County: the first, Elisabeth Schulz, was the lone no vote on the Fairfax County school board, while the other, Meg Kilgannon is the executive director of Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County.

Passing as Progressive, Feminist, and LGB-Friendly

As Right Wing Watch also mentioned in their coverage of the same panel, a trend emerged during the session, as various speakers wrapped their opposition to nondiscrimination measures in rhetoric passing as progressive: transgender rights were depicted as anti-feminist, hostile to minorities and even disrespectful to LGB individuals. This seems to be part of a larger strategy, meant to weaken transgender rights advocates by attempting to separate them from their allies, feminists and LGBT rights advocates.

In her presentation, Kilgannon mapped out three non-negotiables in the fight against the so-called gender identity agenda, a conspiracy theory touted by anti-LGBT groups that disavows sexual orientation and gender identity. The first is to "divide and conquer. For all its recent success, the LGBT alliance is actually fragile and the trans activists need the gay rights movement to help legitimize them." In other words, separate trans activists from the gay rights movement, and their agenda becomes much easier to oppose. As Kilgannon explained, "Trans and gender identity are a tough sell, so focus on gender identity to divide and conquer." For many, "gender identity on its own is just a bridge too far. If we separate the T from the alphabet soup we'll have more success."

Kilgannon identified a wide coalition of potential allies outside the Christian Right who could confront trans friendly measures. Here's her advice on how to draw them in:

Explain that gender identity rights only come at the expense of others: women, sexual assault survivors, female athletes forced to compete against men and boys, ethnic minorities who culturally value modesty, economically challenged children who face many barriers to educational success and don't need another level of chaos in their lives, children with anxiety disorders and the list goes on and on and on.

The list could almost read like a manifesto for intersectionality, if it weren't for its exclusion of some key groups, most notably transgender people themselves.

For Kilgannon, an example of effective coalition building includes the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition (HATAC), a group that unites religious and non-religious women to oppose transgender rights. The co-founders of the group are sexual assault survivor Kaeley Triller Haver and lesbian activist and radical feminist Miriam Ben-Shalom, who was discharged from the U.S. Army for declaring herself a lesbian in 1976. This started her decades-long battle against Don't Ask Don't Tell.

In 2016, Ben-Shalom was disinvited from being the grand marshal of the Milwaukee Pride parade because of her views on trans people and support for so-called "bathroom bills," which would deny people access to public restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identities. Ben-Shalom claimed to Fox6Now in Milwaukee that "my fight is ensuring that women are safe from the pretenders who might use the trans issue to get in and hurt somebody," a popular talking point on the anti-LGBT right as a justification for anti-trans bathroom bills.

The group, according to Kilgannon, is mobilizing seemingly progressive rhetoric to oppose transgender rights: in the group, she says:

The feminists make eloquent arguments that gender identity really is the ultimate misogyny and the erasure of women. And lesbians in the group are concerned that trans and masculine girls is a form of lesbian eugenics.

With little transparency on its website about who and what formed the group, HATAC might simply be a secular-facing iteration of the same anti-LGBT agenda that has driven the Christian Right for decades. Hands Across the Aisle sent a letter to Ben Carson, director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, speaking out against the inclusion of trans women at single-sex women's shelters. Revealingly, the letter's co-signers (which include Meg Kilgannon) also include Michelle Cretella, the current president of the American College of Pediatricians, an anti-LGBT hate group that pumps out junk science on LGBT people, including attempts to link homosexuality to pedophilia or claims that LGBT people are a danger to children.

The attempt to depict the pushback against nondiscriminatory measures that include transgender people as a feminist struggle (an ironic fact for a movement that often derides feminism) was also embraced by other panelists. Cathy Ruse and Peter Sprigg, both senior fellows for the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council embraced this rhetoric. Cathy Ruse, who gave the opening speech of the panel, declared:

Now what about girls? Did you know that feminists are at odds with the transgender movement? Last year a prominent feminist published a compendium of article under the title of Female Erasure. The subtitle is: what you need to know about gender politics' war on women, the female sex, and human rights? What is the impact on girls who are bombarded with gender transition messages? In their young minds, do they hear that being female isn't good enough?

Peter Sprigg, who peddles myths linking homosexuality to pedophilia and has hinted that homosexuality should be criminalized, also wrapped his intervention in feminist rhetoric, commenting that:

It's particularly ironic that as our culture has developed where there is a greater range of choices, of activities, of careers that are available to men and women, boys and girls than there ever was before. And it's really kind of ridiculous and almost retrograde to assume that we have to identify somebody's gender identity on the basis of their activities or preferences.

In many ways, there are possible allies to this pivot toward anti-trans secular movements: trans-exclusionary radical feminists, dubbed TERFs by some activists, have made waves in recent years. Some TERFs have reclaimed the term and redubbed themselves PERFs, penis-exclusionary radical feminists. Their rationale is that people who are assigned male at birth can never experience the same conditions as women do, and still hold on to their male privilege. (The latter becomes harder to prove in the face of the discrimination experienced by trans and gender non-conforming people.) As reported by Political Research Associates, trans-exclusionary feminists "may actually be guilty of drafting [the Christian Right's] talking points, adding fuel to the fire of this dangerous anti-trans frenzy."

The Use of Junk Science to Advance Anti-LGBT Goals

Kilgannon's two other non-negotiables facilitate her divisive strategy: the first is to "never ever attack LGBT people or trans people or parents of trans children." She goes on: "don't play into their victim narrative because in this culture war they are the bullies, not the victims." The last non-negotiable, for Kilgannon, is to not approach the topic of gender identity with religious arguments, which are "simply not effective." Instead, she recommends using arguments "based on biology and reason."

Rather than obviously opposing transgender rights using moral or religious terms, the key strategy of the religious right's opposition to transgender rights has been to couch anti-LGBT rhetoric in scientific or medical terms - a strategy long used by anti-LGBT groups. Here, Sprigg, refers to the "naturalness" argument that animates a lot of the Christian right's anti-LGBTQ agenda, but shifts to focus on science and health:

Some of us, a lot of us in this room, might just object to the transgender movement in principle, that it's a violation of the natural law in some sense but we would have a harder case to make in the public square if it could be shown that in fact people with gender dysphoria actually are healthier if they undergo gender transitions ... But this is not the case.

Most of the panelists focused on peddling debunked pseudo-scientific falsehoods about LGBT people. To target survivors of sexual assault, for instance, panelists upheld the idea that trans women's use of women's restrooms could facilitate assault. In 2016, however, Media Matters published a report citing law enforcement officials and other experts in 16 states showing no uptick in sexual assault in jurisdictions that had passed trans-inclusive rules or legislation. Still, anti-trans groups have been exploiting this fear-mongering tactic (one that implies that trans women are potential perpetrators of assaults, rather than potential victims of it) and using it as a way to appeal to sexual assault survivors. Often, this focuses on sexual assault by strangers, as pointed out by program and policy director at the transgender advocacy group FORGE Loree Cook-Daniels, which obscures the fact that in eight out of 10 rape cases, the victim knows the person who sexually assaulted them, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Some have resisted the attempt to use sexual assault survivors' experience to advance goals oppressive to transgender individuals, many of whom already suffer from discrimination and violence. Kelly Herron, a Seattle-based sexual assault survivor vigorously opposed the attempts of Just Want Privacy, a campaign to repeal a Washington state law that allows transgender people to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity, to exploit her experience of assault. Just Want Privacy used Herron's story to do fundraising to advance their anti-trans agenda (Herron was assaulted by a man hiding in a restroom at a Seattle park.) Just Want Privacy's communication director, Kaeley Triller Haver, is the co-founder of the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition.

Many more claims made at the panel were scientifically unsound. Despite attempts to mobilize diverse voices, the religious right's use of misleading science leaves little doubt that their secular-facing attempts to oppose transgender rights will be motivated by the same hateful agenda they have long embraced, rather than out of real solidarity for oppressed groups.

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Christian Right tips to fight transgender rights: separate the T from the LGB

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Last week, from Thursday, October 13 through Saturday, October 15 the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council put on its annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC., A prime networking event for the Christian right where anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim rhetoric is rife, this year's summit welcomed its first sitting president as a speaker, Donald Trump.

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By Riley J. Dennis, 2017. ~7min.

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Some children are transgender, and that's okay | Riley J. Dennis

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5 Ways to Help Kids Think Outside the Gender Binary

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5 Ways to Help Kids Think Outside the Gender Binary

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Maya Gittelman, 2018.

1. Don’t essentialize gender.

2. Don’t gender personal characteristics and attributes.

3. Don’t gender toys and careers.

4. Do teach diverse history.

5. Do encourage identity exploration.

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When I was in middle school, I would ask my mom if I could watch certain TV shows other kids were watching: FRIENDS, Scrubs, etc. She said sure (she's pretty chill about stuff like that), but she told me there were a lot of jokes I wouldn't get. She was right. I didn't understand why the laugh track played when Ross forcibly won't let his toddler son play with a Barbie, he fires the nanny for being a man, or he and the other men get disgusted at breast milk. I didn't understand why JD and Turk's "guy love" was such a joke, or why entire episodes revolved around stereotypes like women who can't play sports, promiscuous lesbians, and instances of assault (Paolo, anyone?) taken lightly. I now recognize that for the most part, when jokes in the media are "adult," it's because kids haven't been indoctrinated with sexism yet. You aren't born knowing scripts that men are supposed to be disgusting to women, women are supposed to be shallow, and god forbid anyone doesn't conform to a binary. Rewatching those shows now, I see just how heavily they rely on these tropes, how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go.

Gender is a spectrum. The concept of binary gender is a Western, colonialist construct, and its perceived ubiquity is a tool of oppression and limitation. Across the globe and throughout history, cultures recognize and respect gender outside the binary , the the two-spirit, the x-gender, the gender nonconforming, etc.. To be limited by the gender binary is erasure and oppression.

It is crucial to raise a generation who can access these conversations more easily than our predecessors. We must work to help children think outside the gender binary - to raise them with the language, tools, and mindset to recognize that gender is a spectrum, that the binary is incorrect, incomplete, and reductive, that they are permitted to explore across genders, and that trans and gender nonconforming people are valid.

The gender binary reinforces dangerous stereotypes and reductive roles. It disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of people who do not identify as one of two genders, participating in their dehumanization and serving as cause for violence and discrimination. We must fight for respect, equity, and protection for trans and gender nonconforming people right now, and for future generations.

It's not easy to confront and combat something so ingrained it starts from birth - even birth, as we start gendering at baby showers and the blankets they are to be wrapped in once they enter the world. Here are some ways to help kids think outside the gender binary - from their childhood and beyond.

Gender essentialism is the misconception that there are only men and women, and that they are two distinct and fixed identities, with all the trappings of stereotype. It means that in order to be valid, you must conform to certain standards of manhood or womanhood.

Even now, when more and more of us can recognize the cis gender identity as a position of privilege, we still too create a binary of cisgender and transgender, erasing nonbinary and gender nonconforming identities and perpetuating gender essentialism. Gender essentialism is toxic, and it manifests from childhood and earlier.

Because of our society, our media, and our culturally-reinforced misunderstandings of gender as a binary instead of its true spectrum, we have engrained ideas about what men and women are, what defines them, and what they should be. Unless you have consciously deconstructed these ideas, you have them too. Men are strong, capable of few and blunt emotions that are always valid, rational, athletic, leaders. Women are weak, susceptible to emotions, fragile, docile, supporters. This list was nauseating for me to write out, and I hope you rolled your eyes - I hope you know we be past this. Not only is gender a spectrum, people on every designation on that spectrum have the potential for a full range of identities, characteristics, and emotions. Your gender defines or doesn't define you as an individual up to a point - from that point forward, you are an amalgam of everything you are, and those traits aren't inherently gendered, they only have gender imposed on them (more on that next). However, as obscenely reductive and fallacious as they are, those stereotypes govern our relationships with ourselves and others, as well as institutional and professional decisions . We must combat gender essentialism, and to do so, we must recognize it.

You were not born with these ideas. They were taught to you, reinforced by every princess story and adventure tale, by every blue "boys" aisle filled with constructive toys and workable clothes and every pink "girls" aisle filled with imaginative toys and decorative or outright objectifying clothes.

Teach your children that people are people. Raise them to see individuals for who they are, not who they are expected to be based on their pronouns. Do not assume that your son will grow up to like sports and girls, your daughter to grow up to like clothes and boys, and do not assume the gender of your child before they are old enough to determine it for themselves. Normalize the use of "they" pronouns. Introduce it to your child just as they are taught "he" and "she." Normalize the use of "friends," "guests," or "everyone" instead of "boys and girls."

Allow the phase "gender is a spectrum" to enter your child's vocabulary from the moment they learn what a boy and what a girl is. Teach them that there are boys, girls, people who are both, and people who are neither. Teach them that just like how their genitalia is private, the genitalia of other people is not their business. Teach them to stand up for the rights of people who fall within the gender spectrum, just as they'd stand up to anyone being bullied. Teach them they are permitted to explore their own gender.

Do not allow your child to grow up in an environment that encourages casual misogyny or permits toxic masculinity. When a peer, friend, or teacher says something that essentializes gender - arguing that a boy can't wear a dress, that girls are worse at sports, that girls must like fashion or boys can't like boys, don't let it slide. Don't let "jokes" slide, don't excuse a boy's harassment with "boys will be boys." Children aren't born understanding the intricacies of the gender binary - they're taught. Teach the narrative of a gender spectrum to the children with whom you interact.

Gender essentialism intersects with and manifests through misogyny and toxic masculinity.

Don't gender personal characteristics and attributes.

Don't color code children. Pick gender neutral colors from the beginning - reds, greens, yellows, beiges - or just include both pink and blue until they can choose their preferences for themselves. Let them choose what to wear, and what to be.

We gender everything from foods to fabrics to colors and behavior. Capitalism thrives on sexism and the gender binary, gendering everything from tea to tape to books and attractions. Capitalism plays on our culturally constructed insecurities, emphasizing that you need this razor or that diet pill to be a valid "woman," this deodorant or that shoe to be a valid "man," etc. I was devastated when I saw the new editions of Roald Dahl books. I grew up loving how they could appeal to any kid, celebrating the weird and sometimes painful aspects of childhood, not shying away from tough subjects - or cool girls. Now, some of his most popular titles have been brazenly color-coded, and I want to fight this as much as possible. Any kid can love (or be terrified by) Matilda and the BFG!

Point this out to your kids. Show them that gendered products are essentially the same, and that they're welcome to use whatever they want, whatever fits them best, or perhaps to support a company that doesn't exploit the perceived gender binary.

Also, raise your kids to recognize that anyone can be compassionate, clever, strong, or rational. Raise them to approach their emotions, to understand why they feel a certain way. Don't write off young men as inherently aggressive, young women as inherently weak or spineless. Raise them to recognize that men's anger is taken more seriously, to anticipate that women's anger or pain is dismissed. Take their emotions seriously, no matter what. Ask them why they feel sad or angry, and talk about it. Teach them to be compassionate human beings, to themselves or others.

Do not participate in the degradation of the female. "Gender neutral" doesn't mean "male." Allow them to celebrate that which is coded female in themselves, it's there, and if it's not, teach them to respect it. Misogyny is in engrained in our society. Too often, raising "strong women" or "strong men" is perceived to mean destroying compassion, communication, and sensitivity. Teach children that these traits are strength and maturity, not weakness.

Don't expect you know what they want because of their gender.Women are disproportionately discouraged from pursuing careers in STEAM fields, and men are still ridiculed (or hyperpraised) for pursuing careers in domestic fields. Fill your child's walls and shelves with role models across genders and careers. Talk to the children in their life about what they love doing, and why.

Western society still sees men as better logicians and businesspeople, woman as caregivers and administrative. Men as constructive, productive thinkers, women as irrational and sensitive. This is, of course, incorrect, reductive, and sexist, and toys and narratives that we routinely give children perpetuate these harmful ideas.

When we allow ourselves to look beyond the gender binary, and when we help kids think outside the gender binary, we open ourselves up to a society with the potential to be more fulfilling, to allow every person to follow their actual interests and potential.

Give them toys and tools that are both imaginative and constructive: dolls and LEGOs, littleBits and storybooks. Teach them to use both, and to value both ways of thinking. They may end up being better at one or the other, they may end up being well-rounded - either way, the important takeaways are that neither is inherently better, both are important, and anyone of any gender can be best at either, and successful in any career.

More Radical Reads: 5 Ways I Teach My Children Intersectional Feminism... And Why It Matters

Don't let the patriarchy get to them first! Don't let sexism and gender essentialism shape the way they see the world and themselves! Give them stories and scripts that open their minds instead of narrowing them. Teach them that there are so, so many ways to be a valid human beind.

Teach them about women doctors, scientists, and politicians. Teach them about gay activists, trans and gender nonconforming role models. Teach them about radical black men, radical Asian men, radical Native men who fought patriarchal injustice. Teach them Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Laverne Cox, Harvey Milk, Angel Haze. Encourage them to read , Gracefully Grayson, Beyond Magenta, Lumberjanes - Worm Loves Worm , And Tango Makes Three, The Answer, and for the earliest starts! To watch and read Steven Universe, featuring canon nonbinary characters!

More Radical Reads: You Are Not Your Parents: How Making Peace With the Past Shifted My Parenting Skills

Allow children to be themselves! Allow them to wear suits, dresses, heels, boots. Allow any child to be a princess, a hero, a knight, a firefighter. Encourage them to experiment and explore, and support their peers to do the same! Make your own clothes and Halloween costumes, or let them shop in any section of the store they prefer. Encourage the children in your life to recognize, in these little ways, that gender is a spectrum, and that neither perceived gender nor genitalia prescribes who a person will become - and it'll end up being a pretty big shift.
Allow gender neutral and gender-spectrum language to be more familiar and natural than the language of the binary and patriarchy.
Advocate for them. If a child in your life is nonbinary, reach out and seek community if you can. No matter who your child is, advocate for the understanding of gender as a spectrum. Stand up for them! And importantly, be a role model. They're watching the way you talk about men and women, the way you include or neglect other genders. They're listening to gender neutral language. They're listening to the expectations you have of them, who they'll grow up to be and love. Allow them space and possibility beyond the binary.

Seriously, they'll get it. When you show kids the possibilities that open up when they're not trapped by the binary, they'll start to see the world as a place of far more opportunities. They'll grow to see people and gendered concepts as they truly are, and start to discover who they really are as a person.

Hopefully, these will help individuals of all ages think outside the gender binary.

[Feature Image: A photo of a child's face pressed against a chain link fence. They have short dark hair and are wearing a blue and white shirt. Their hand is clutching the wire of the fence. Source: United Nations Photo]

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5 Ways to Help Kids Think Outside the Gender Binary

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When you show kids the possibilities that open up when they're not trapped by the binary, they'll start to see the world as a place of far more opportunities. They'll grow to see people and gendered concepts as they truly are, and start to discover who they really are as a person.

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By Riley J. Dennis, 2017. ~7min.

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Some children are transgender, and that's okay | Riley J. Dennis

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Comment: Allowing children to express gender identity does not harm children. Repressing that need does

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Comment: Allowing children to express gender identity does not harm children. Repressing that need does

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James Morton for the Herald, 2018.

I want children to be able to play with whatever toys they like without shame and not be pressurised by adults into thinking of themselves in any particular way. Most children who don’t conform to gender stereotypes are not transgender – there has to be intense persistent identification as a different gender for a child to potentially be transgender.

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When clothing manufacturers first realised a century ago that they could sell more by gendering the colours of children's clothes, they declared that "pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl" (Earnshaw's Infants' Department trade magazine, 1918). For reasons unknown, they switched it around in the 1940s. I agree with feminists, and most sensible people, that gender labelling of colours is a sexist marketing ploy. So I despair when people falsely claim that simply because I'm a transgender person, I somehow must believe any boy who likes pink is really a girl.

People like me do not suddenly wake up one morning in adulthood and decide to become transgender. Transitioning makes us a target for derision, suspicion, rejection and even violence from wider society. Nearly always, we have been painfully aware of not identifying with our birth sex since before we reached puberty and experienced great harm to our wellbeing due to lack of acceptance and repressing such a fundamental part of ourselves. The idea children cannot be transgender is proven false by our experiences of being transgender in childhood. Although it is estimated 0.6% of the population are transgender, currently only around 0.05% of young people come out as transgender. There is not some epidemic of gender confusion among young people.

I don't know why I was a transgender child who became a transgender adult. I personally believe my gender identity gradually developed during my early childhood through a complex individual interplay of bio-psycho-social factors that I had no control over. Other trans people may have different theories. Science is still researching the impact of prenatal hormones, genetics, brain development and socialisation experiences on gender identity formation. I'd be surprised if any firm conclusions are reached in my lifetime.

So does the absence of certainty about why a tiny number of children are transgender mean it is harmful to allow them to express their identities? No, what's actually harmful is repression. I was a transgender child back when Section 28 still banned teachers from supporting LGBT pupils. Alone without any transgender information or role models, I believed that I was an unacceptable freak. I had no way of imagining a bearable future. My experience of puberty was not one of discomfort fuelled by society's sexism like many of my female friends experienced. Instead, I experienced agonising alienation and intense distress every day as I awoke to a body completely at odds to my constant sense of self and to my embodiment in every single dream I remember having. It was so intensely unbearable that I believed I was going insane and prayed for death. I made three serious suicide attempts before I knew transition from female to male was possible.

I don't want today's transgender children to suffer like I did. As a transgender equality activist, I want children to be able to play with whatever toys they like without shame and not be pressurised by adults into thinking of themselves in any particular way. Most children who don't conform to gender stereotypes are not transgender - there has to be intense persistent identification as a different gender for a child to potentially be transgender.

If a child is one of the small number who find their gender identity is consistently and painfully at odds with their birth sex, I want them to have the words and confidence to tell an adult who will believe and respect them. I want them to be allowed to use a different name and pronoun if that reduces their distress. They deserve to receive non-judgemental support to explore their identity that does not try to push them in any particular direction. Refusing to allow their self-expression or to acknowledge a child's distress around their gender purely because of their age cannot be described as neutral. The supportive approach is what specialist child psychologists, who have worked with transgender children for decades, have evidenced to be the safest and most humane response. This is why the LGBT Youth Scotland guidance for schools recommends it.

LGBT organisations and the NHS are not rushing or pushing any young people into transition or medical interventions. Only 25 transgender teenagers are currently receiving reversible puberty delaying medication in Scotland. Paediatric endocrinologists carefully monitor their treatment to safeguard their physical health.

I wish that embracing second-wave feminism or undergoing psychotherapy could have cured my gender dysphoria. I spent my teenage years desperately immersed in both, in the hope that they might help. I, and many trans people, try hard to challenge gender stereotypes, but the world and our sense of ourselves have remained gendered despite our best efforts. Society's oppressive gender expectations are not going to disappear anytime soon and it is unreasonable to expect transgender people to martyr ourselves by not transitioning. Trans people get accused of perpetuating gender stereotypes if we try to blend in after transition and accused of not being genuine in our identities if we don't. Like everyone else, we are just imperfect individuals trying to muddle through and survive as best as we can.

In Scotland, transgender equality activists have been having calm and sensible dialogue with feminists for many years. We are working together with Engender, Scottish Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and public bodies to ensure that transgender equality and women's equality progress together and not in opposition. Trans equality progress is not based on "magical thinking" or "denial of reality". We are very aware, and constantly rudely reminded by others, that our bodies are atypical for the sex we live and identify as. We simply want to be able to live our lives without humiliation, exclusion and pathologisation.

The European Court of Human Rights has carefully considered transgender equality issues over recent decades, in several detailed legal cases. It has ruled we have the human right to respect for our lived gender identity regardless of whether or not we undergo medical treatments, and to privacy about our trans status. In a civil society, trans people's genitals and histories cannot be regarded as public property for strangers to demand knowledge of. Individuals lawfully going about their ordinary lives must not be harassed and barred from facilities just because others think they look like they might be transgender.

Virtually all Scottish single-sex services have been transgender inclusive for several years without any harm befalling anyone. Increasingly, Scotland is adopting gender-neutral fully enclosed cubicles for toilets and changing rooms, as continental Europe successfully has for decades. This provides privacy for everyone and particularly benefits single-parent families and disabled people with different gender carers.

Human rights law is clear that transgender children are entitled to the same dignity and privacy as transgender adults. So where a pupil has started living in their gender identity, teachers have a legal duty to respect this. Case law upholds their right not to be barred from toilets, and before a school could treat a trans pupil less favourably in regard to changing room use they would need to be able to prove that they could not install any privacy curtains or cubicles in the changing room. Teachers know the personalities and dynamics between all the pupils in a class, enabling robust risk assessment and management.

There has been some agitation over Scottish guidance that advises schools must not notify the parents of other pupils that a child is transgender, without consent. This is not a random piece of advice. Current law protects this information from disclosure, just as it protects from disclosure other sensitive personal information such as whether a child is HIV+ or has special educational needs.

Learning about the existence of transgender people in an age-appropriate way does not put any children at risk. It improves the safety, inclusion and wellbeing of transgender children, and of children who have a transgender parent. It prepares other pupils for the diversity of society. Scaremongering about trans people, on the other hand, causes nothing but harm.

James Morton is the manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance.

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Allowing children to express gender identity does not harm children. Repression does

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When clothing manufacturers first realised a century ago that they could sell more by gendering the colours of children's clothes, they declared that "pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl" (Earnshaw's Infants' Department trade magazine, 1918).

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It’s okay to let your transgender kid transition — even if they might change their mind in the future

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It’s okay to let your transgender kid transition — even if they might change their mind in the future

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Jack Turban for Vox, 2018.

A large study of transgender adolescents from the Netherlands found that only 1.9 percent of those who hit puberty and start puberty blockers decide to stop treatment like Alex did.
There is more debate around how likely prepubescent children are to later not identify as transgender. For this reason, they are not offered hormone therapies. They also, by definition, have not yet started puberty, and thus there is no puberty to block and no need for hormone therapy.

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Alex was born with male anatomy. She grew up knowing she was "supposed to be a boy," but as a young child, she never felt like that gender fit. When she hit puberty, she became anxious and depressed about how her body was becoming more masculine. She started dressing in gender-neutral clothing and wearing makeup, and was happy when strangers perceived her as a girl.

In ninth grade, she took on a female name and came out as transgender to her friends at boarding school. She started going to a therapist, who diagnosed her with gender dysphoria. At 15, she asked to transition, and her parents, though reluctant, brought her to the Boston Children's Hospital Gender Management Service, where she started a puberty-blocking medication. She was prescribed estrogen pills about a year later to help her go through female puberty.

After four months on the hormonal medications, she decided she did not identify as female but rather as gender nonbinary (neither male nor female) and would use the gender-neutral pronouns they, them, and theirs. At this point, they also stopped the medications and went through male puberty.

Alex, whose case I described recently in the journal JAMA Pediatrics with two other Harvard physicians, has no regrets about taking the hormones. Though the hormones left Alex with some cosmetic changes - redistribution of body hair and fat - Alex says they were necessary to fully solidify their gender identity. (Their name was changed to protect their privacy.)

As a doctor and researcher who studies the mental health of transgender youth, I was alarmed to learn that the Trump administration is planning to invalidate the experiences of transgender people by defining gender based on a person's genitalia at birth. This comes in the midst of a flurry of media stories about transgender youth who choose to stop hormone therapies, ranging from a cover story in the Atlantic to more heavy-handed pieces from conservative writers and pundits who have painted a picture of crazed liberal doctors irreversibly "mutilating" the bodies of confused children.

The reality could not be further from the truth.

The vast majority of transgender kids who begin hormonal treatments do not change their mindsabout medically transitioning. For the very small percentage who do, like Alex, this isn't the horrible outcome that conservative media outlets lead people to believe. Sometimes "de-transitioning" is just part of a person's healthy psychological development.

How likely is your transgender child to change their mind?

Before parents let their children start hormone therapies, they often want to know how likely their child is to later change their mind about transitioning. The answer depends on if their child has hit puberty.

For adolescents who have reached the earliest stages of puberty, the odds are very low. A large study of transgender adolescents from the Netherlands found that only 1.9 percent of those who hit puberty and start puberty blockers decide to stop treatment like Alex did.

There is more debate around how likely prepubescent children are to later not identify as transgender. For this reason, they are not offered hormone therapies. They also, by definition, have not yet started puberty, and thus there is no puberty to block and no need for hormone therapy.

Parents should not panic about reversible interventions for transgender youth

It's possible that many prepubescent transgender children will, in fact, change their minds about transitioning medically. We don't have great research to know.

Luckily, the interventions that doctors would recommend for kids this young are completely safe and reversible. Medical guidelines advise that prepubescent children not be offered any hormonal interventions. What a psychologist or psychiatrist might recommend is allowing the child to "socially transition" if the child so desires.

A social transition may involve the child taking on a new name or new pronouns, or wearing stereotypical gendered clothing. Mostly, it means not placing restrictions on how your child wants to express their gender. A social transition is, of course, completely reversible, and not inherently dangerous.

Early studies have shown that transgender youth who are allowed to socially transition have mental health nearly indistinguishable from their cisgender peers (a stark contrast to past studies of transgender youth who weren't allowed to socially transition who had high levels of anxiety and depression). If a child stops identifying as transgender at this stage, they simply go back to the pronouns, dress, etc. of their gender assigned at birth.

Again, if a child has hit puberty and identifies as transgender, they are much less likely to later stop identifying as transgender. At this stage, a doctor may offer a "puberty blocker." These medications temporarily stop puberty from progressing, allowing the adolescent more time to explore and understand their gender identity. (It's very helpful for the adolescent to be in psychotherapy during this time to navigate these decisions.)

Puberty blockers like Lupron are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and have been used for decades for precocious puberty, a condition in which very young children go through puberty too early. The only significant side effect is that the adolescent may fall behind on bone density. For this reason, doctors will regularly check bone density while the patient is on the medication. If the medication is stopped, bone density catches up to normal after a few years as the child goes through the puberty of their gender assigned at birth.

Alternatively, if an adolescent continues to identify as transgender and starts on gender-affirming hormones like estrogen or testosterone down the line, this will also catch them up on bone density. The great thing about puberty blockers is that if you stop them, puberty will progress as if the medication were never started. Parents can think of a puberty blocker as buying their children more time to figure out their gender identity without going through puberty.

The potential mental health benefits of gender-affirming hormones usually outweigh the risks

Gender-affirming hormones like estrogen and testosterone are bigger decisions. They are generally not prescribed until a patient is 16 (though they can be prescribed as early as 14 in select clear-cut cases). They will cause body changes that are not easily reversed, like body fat redistribution and changes in body hair. Adolescents should be counseled extensively before starting these medications.

Parents should also remember, however, that these changes are mostly cosmetic. The potential benefits from gender-affirming hormones (improved mental health) will usually outweigh the low risk of an adolescent later changing their mind and regretting cosmetic changes. This risk-benefit analysis should be carefully discussed in therapy before these drugs are started.

Surgery is, of course, irreversible and requires serious thought. Big surgeries like phalloplasty (construction of a penis) and vaginoplasty (construction of a vagina) are not offered until patients have reached adulthood.

Every decision in medicine involves weighing risks and benefits. Lipitor, a medicine doctors use to prevent stroke, also increases the risk of rhabdomyolysis, a condition of muscle breakdown that can damage the kidneys. However, the potential benefit of preventing stroke far outweighs the potential risk of this unlikely event.

The same is true for transgender youth and gender-affirming care. Will a small number change their mindsabout medically transitioning? Yes. Does this mean we should withhold a treatment that has a high likelihood to provide a big mental health benefit? No.
Jack Turban is a resident physician in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital. His research focuses on the mental health of transgender and gender diverse youth. Will you support Vox's explanatory journalism?
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It's okay to let your transgender kid transition - even if they might change their mind in the future

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De-transitioning is rare and not as bad as people think.

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How Many Kids Actually Change Their Mind About Being Trans?

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How Many Kids Actually Change Their Mind About Being Trans?

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Kasandra Brabaw, 2018.

A parent's greatest fear is that they'll make a choice that hurts their kid, says Sara Kaplan, the mom of two transgender children. It was that fear that made her realise that supporting her kids in their transitions was the only choice. [...] Odds of a transgender person attempting suicide or abusing drugs and alcohol are significantly reduced (almost on level with non-transgender people) when they have their families' support.

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The Atlantic's cover story yesterday opened with the tale of Claire, "a 14-year-old girl with short auburn hair and a broad smile." But Claire isn't your typical 14-year-old girl. Readers learn that Claire once considered herself a transgender boy, who was ready to start taking testosterone and have surgery to remove her breasts when she realised that she actually wasn't trans at all. As it's presented in the article, Claire's story serves as a warning to parents of trans kids: "Detransitioners" (people who take permanent measures to transition, like hormones or surgery, and then regret it) exist, and you need to be careful that your kid doesn't become one of them. While there's nothing inaccurate about the article (people like Claire do exist), many in the trans community are worried that focusing on a small group of people who regret their transitions takes away from the monumentally larger group who survive because they're able to take hormones and have surgeries.

This article can and will cause real, tangible harm to the trans community and trans youth. You know who's subscribed to the Atlantic? The parents of trans kids. My parents in particular, who tried to hospitalize me against my will to "cure" me of my transness.
- Victor Manuel Markhoff (@victormarkhoff) June 18, 2018

To be fair, The Atlantic article does mention that detransitioners are a minority and that transgender youth fair far better when their loved ones believe and support them. But the overall framing is still problematic. Consider, for a moment, if the story had been about ex-gays instead of detransitioners. A handful of people who claim they were able to change their sexuality ( through something like the power of God) don't take away from the huge numbers of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people who still exist. Yet, hearing about people who were able to "choose" not to be gay bolsters anti-gay groups who believe that being queer is easily changeable. So a story like this, which focuses on the rare people who feel that their transitions were a mistake, could add credence to misguided arguments that people choose to be trans because it's trendy.

Many people also call this kind of narrative transphobic, because it reinforces the idea that being transgender isn't real. "The idea is that we have to protect cis people from thinking they're mistakenly trans," says Jesse Kahn, LCSW, director of The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Collective. "When in actuality the folks that I work with that have done anything that resembles shifting their desires around transition are still trans." Maybe they decide not to take hormones anymore or realise that they don't actually want gender affirming surgeries, but they still consider themselves somewhere on the transgender spectrum. A person who transitions medically and then later realises that they are cisgender (not non-binary or gender non-conforming or simply happily trans without hormones) is incredibly rare.

But imagine what reading stories about people who regret their transition feels like when you're the parent of a trans child. A parent's greatest fear is that they'll make a choice that hurts their kid, says Sara Kaplan, the mom of two transgender children. It was that fear that made her realise that supporting her kids in their transitions was the only choice. "Affirming a kid's gender to me is a life or death situation," she says. She's seen the statistics that back that feeling up. Odds of a transgender person attempting suicide or abusing drugs and alcohol are significantly reduced (almost on level with non-transgender people) when they have their families' support. Yet, the fear of making a bad choice for their child also keeps some parents from helping their child transition (like Claire's parents, who told her they were looking into resources but were actually waiting for her gender dysphoria to pass).

"When people talk about this narrative and this fear, they almost present it as if doctors and surgeons are just passing out hormones on the street and that's not all the case. It's a process," Kahn says. The general rule guiding a child's transition is " consistent, insistent, and persistent." A child can't just tell their parents that they feel like a boy instead of a girl and then start testosterone the next day. Before anything permanent can happen (which, btw, isn't usually allowed until someone is at least 16), both the kid and their parents are evaluated by mental health professionals, Kahn says. Even adults who want gender affirming surgeries (like those that add or remove breasts and reconstruct genitals to match their gender) need to work with a therapist to make sure they want to change their body.

"If I want to go in and get rhinoplasty or calf implants, any surgery that's going to be me moving toward an ideal of what other people think my gender is supposed look like, I wouldn't need approval," Kahn says. "Your ability to question whether that's something you could regret later isn't assessed." So why do we worry so much about the possibility that someone could regret physical changes like body hair growth and breast augmentation or removal? It's because society doesn't allow for fluidity in gender in the first place, Kahn says.

So, when thinking about people who "detransitioned," we need to remember not only that their experiences are rare, but that everyone deserves the right to explore their gender. If a child consistently says that they're transgender and is persistent about wanting to transition, then they should be allowed to make the first steps without terrified parents questioning their needs.

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How Many Kids Actually Change Their Mind About Being Trans?

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The Atlantic's cover story yesterday opened with the tale of Claire, "a 14-year-old girl with short auburn hair and a broad smile." But Claire isn't your typical 14-year-old girl. Readers learn that Claire once considered herself a transgender boy, who was ready to start taking testosterone and have surgery to remove her breasts when she realised that she actually wasn't trans at all.

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My parents and I survived my ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.’ This is our story.

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My parents and I survived my ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.’ This is our story.

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Sam, 2018. Personal account by a young trans man including how his mum supported him and explaining the reality behind the apparent rapid onset of his dysphoria.

Dysphoria isn’t this obvious neon sign that appears from the minute you exit the womb, especially in a society that does everything it can to make transgender people totally invisible to begin with.

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Yes, it's true.

I am a survivor of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, otherwise known as ROGD.

And if you'd talked to my mother back then, you would've gotten a very panicked account of how abrupt my coming out was.

But my story isn't hers to tell.

(She, by the way, would totally agree with that statement. This is why she isn't posting about me in online forums or participating in "studies." Also: Hi Mom, love you.)

And while I wish I had the Perfect Transgender Narrative™ to convince you of my validity, I don't. I didn't always know I was transgender. I'm not even sure exactly when my dysphoria really started.

But if you knew my story, you might realize why that makes sense.

I was a sheltered kid growing up in suburban Michigan. And while I'd been bullied for being "weird," and always felt like the "black sheep" wherever I went, I knew literally nothing about queer or transgender people... much less "gender dysphoria."

There was no context to place that sense of isolation into. It never occurred to me that gender was a thing I could have feelings about, and I certainly didn't know that I didn't have to identify as a girl if it didn't exactly fit.
Having an older brother that was so close to me in age, my androgyny wasn't exactly odd, either.
I figured it was a natural product of being so close to him. We shared our toys as kids, played video games for hours, and my many interests - ranging from the stereotypically "feminine" to "masculine" - made me gender-ambivalent at best.

If you'd asked me how I felt about my body as I got older, I would've said I "felt ugly." When asked to describe myself? "I'm just weird." There was no other vocabulary available to me, because my world was incredibly, incredibly tiny.

Even if I did have some sense of dysphoria, I didn't have the ability to place where it was coming from.

I was a kid with obsessive-compulsive disorder and ADHD. As such, I was in a constant state of anxiety and agitation growing up. When it became unmanageable, I would get really depressed.

In other words, emotional overwhelm was a constant in my life. Teasing apart where any of it came from wasn't a simple process.

It only became more complicated as I got older. When I was a teenager, I developed an eating disorder and then found myself in an abusive relationship. The disconnect from my own body from there only became more intense. I was numb to it in so many ways.
Gender was not my concern at that time - simply surviving my mental illness and that relationship was all I could muster.
But thoughts about it started to surface, slowly but surely. When I began considering taking on a more androgynous appearance, and started questioning gender in my late teens, my abuser told me that I "wouldn't be attractive anymore."

My self-esteem was already so diminished. His comment made me feel so deeply ashamed for ever having considered being anything other than hyperfeminine and cisgender.

So I didn't just tiptoe back into the closet... I leapt back in.

At first, I put any kind of gender-related thoughts on the highest shelf in a locked box. I couldn't handle the idea of destabilizing my life in the way that transition - and by extension, ending that relationship - would've triggered.
There just wasn't room for questioning my identity at that time in my life.
Between my OCD and my traumatic relationship, I was repressing the hell out of any gender-questioning thoughts. I didn't have the emotional capacity, resources, and support to work through it.

It wasn't until I got out of that relationship and started therapy that I could begin to untangle everything.

As I started to better manage my OCD and heal from the relationship that had destroyed my self-esteem, those questions about gender start to find their way to the surface again. I begin to wonder.

And I started searching online.

That's when I really began questioning if some of my earlier feelings about being out of place - especially among girls my age - meant something.

I wondered if being disconnected from my body might be connected. I wondered if being drawn to androgyny (and the little things, like enjoying playing as "boy" characters on my favorite video games) might have meaning, too.

And I'll be honest, I didn't know for certain if those aspects of my earlier experiences did or didn't have a gendered significance. Very few of us do in actuality, because identity is complicated, and gender is, too.

Not to mention, my history was very complex and painful. The thing about dysphoria is that so much of it is very abstract. Feelings aren't as crystal clear as a lot of cisgender people seem to suggest.
Dysphoria isn't this obvious neon sign that appears from the minute you exit the womb, especially in a society that does everything it can to make transgender people totally invisible to begin with.
We often don't know where our feelings are coming from, especially if our backgrounds include trauma.

Which is why changing circumstances externally - our clothes, our pronouns, our names - can be so important. We do it to see how our feelings change so we can better understand what caused them, and more importantly, what we can do about them.

So I came out as genderqueer when I was 19 years old. I felt uncomfortable continuing to identify as a "girl" when I was having all these questions about my identity and my body.

I cut my hair, started changing how I dressed, started binding my chest, and began to imagine what my future might look like. I wanted to see if I would be happier or more comfortable in doing so.

For my parents, though, we'd never really had a conversation about my gender. What they saw was their teenager going off to college and catching something quite an awful lot like "rapid onset gender dysphoria."

Except instead of the internet, it was that dang liberal arts school corrupting me.

But it became obvious, with each step of my social transition, that something magical was happening - I was coming out of my shell. I was happier. I felt a little more adventurous. I felt a little more at home.

I sat with myself and I said, "Okay. There's something here." I knew there was because with every change I made, I felt a little lighter in a way I never had before.

I soon learned that a disconnect from your body or self, disordered eating, anxiety, and a sense of isolation can all be a part of the transgender experience we call "dysphoria."

It seems to be something a lot of us share. And more importantly, when some people transition, those experiences improve or even go away entirely.

When I finally understood that a gender transition was making me feel better and brighter... I was thrilled. But I was also hit with waves of very acute, very new gender dysphoria.
My internal reality was solidifying, but my experiences as I moved through the world weren't aligning at the same time. That gap became more and more stark - and much more painful.
This was the "rapid onset."

And if you talk to transgender people, a lot of us have the same story - we know our truth, but it also magnifies our pain. There's the new distress of realizing that no one else sees it but us. The pain of invisibility.

While you are becoming the person you are meant to be, you simultaneously become invisible to the rest of the world - even to the people you love.

That is traumatic - and it can come on gradually for some people, and quickly for others, depending on when you came to understand your identity.
I knew who I was and I wanted that to be recognized. But it wasn't. And the more erased I felt, the more pain I experienced.
I found myself focusing more and more about the aspects of my body that kept me from feeling seen. I'd never felt comfortable in my own skin, but now I had a better understanding as to why - and I had a clearer idea of what needed to change.

That's when I started considering hormones.

At 22 years old, I was now growing impatient and miserable. I didn't share these things with my parents at first, though, out of a fear of being rejected. They were your typical Midwest "ranch dressing" kind of parents - they knew very little about what any of this gender stuff meant.

But I came out to them anyway.

They were, in the deepest sense of the word, confused.

But more than that, they were terrified, because they'd never once heard me talk about questioning my gender. For them, the pain I was describing was sudden and life-altering.

And, yes, "rapid."

But it wasn't the dysphoric feelings that were necessarily new. It was the urgency to address them that was new - because I learned there was a solution, a path I could finally take.

That urgency made the dysphoria feel stronger. But in all likelihood, it may have been there in some form all along.

But either way, it hardly seemed to matter when it began. I just needed to know if testosterone could help me. And if it didn't? I could always stop.

So I held my breath, emailed my parents, and told them what I was prepared to do. And my mother especially - while she was terrified about what would happen next - did what every parent of a trans youth should be doing: she stood by me.

Rather than looking to change who I was, or digging for evidence that I was delusional, or blaming somebody else in my life... she pumped the brakes. She moved through her fears and came out on the other side of that as my biggest supporter.

And being supportive didn't mean that she wasn't afraid. It didn't mean that she didn't have questions, doubts, or worries. It didn't mean that she understood everything that I was talking about.

What it meant was that she had the courage to walk through those fears with me, and do everything she could to support my own happiness, even if the path was totally unknown and even scary to her.

My mom didn't see my coming out as a fluke, nor did she see my transition as a threat. She saw it as an opportunity for her to grow.

And while she stumbled and wasn't always graceful, she did everything she could to be there for me, no matter what.

With my family's support, I began my medical transition. I won't lie - I was scared, too, at first. I wondered if I could be mistaken. I wondered if it was my OCD playing tricks on me. I worried that maybe trauma had led me astray.

But after years in therapy, and multiple gender specialists weighing in, this was the conclusion we had all reached. It was worth a try.
I'm grateful every single day that I took the chance. And I'm just as grateful that my parents were by my side, supporting me through it.
I started hormones, I got top surgery, and with each step, there was a light in my eyes that wasn't there before. I came alive. I was happier, more confident, and the emotional overwhelm that seemed to buzz around me my whole life slowly began to fade.

As my parents saw this unfolding, even they couldn't deny what was happening. I was finally calm. I was optimistic. And most importantly, I was ecstatic.

And one of the greatest, most unexpected gifts of my transition?

My mom (who I will freely admit, like most teenagers, was not my favorite person growing up) became one of my best friends.

Even as my mom struggled to understand me (and still does sometimes), that has never once been an obstacle in her loving and supporting me.

My parents are proud of their gay, transgender son. I know this because they don't hesitate to remind me.
And looking at their example - two people who really couldn't have been more unprepared for a trans kid - is what still gives me hope, even as proponents of this pseudoscience try to undermine and invalidate trans youth.
Hope even for the parents that participated in the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria "study," who may someday learn that their fear is worth embracing - that it's an opportunity to grow, to love, and to listen.

An opportunity to better know this wonderful person that they brought into the world - to see, for the very first time, what lies in their heart, and to prove to them that they're still worthy of love exactly as they are.

My parents embraced that opportunity despite all the grief that came with it. And when I ask them why, their answer to me is always simple: "Because we love you."
We didn't always know that I was transgender or that I even had gender dysphoria. But when my parents look at me today - and they see a happier, healthier adult - none of that really seems to matter anymore.
I hope that one day, we'll live in a world where parents of transgender youth, no matter how "rapid" their coming out, will get to experience that same joy, too.

That moment when they look at their kids, brighter than ever, and finally understand that the journey is absolutely worth it.

If you're suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386, or reach the Crisis Text Line by texting "START" to 741741.

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It's funded by readers like you via Patreon!
Every donation counts. Help keep resources like these accessible to everyone that needs them! And help buy me a cup of coffee, because I write a lot of these blogs after work, late at night, so I could definitely use the caffeine.

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My parents and I survived my 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.' This is our story.

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Yes, it's true. I am a survivor of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, otherwise known as ROGD. And if you'd talked to my mother back then, you would've gotten a very panicked account of how abrupt my coming out was. But my story isn't hers to tell.

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Everything You Need to Know About Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

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Everything You Need to Know About Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

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Julia Serano, 2018. A biologist writes about ROGD.

Rather, what’s “rapid” about ROGD is parents’ sudden awareness and assessment of their child’s gender dysphoria (which, from the child’s standpoint, may be longstanding and thoughtfully considered).

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photo by FreeImages.com/Joanne Kim

As a biologist, I've always been fascinated by Hollywood's tendency to portray science laboratories as being filled with test tubes and flasks full of various colored liquids. I've worked in research laboratories for most of my adult life, and I've used all sorts of liquids and solutions in my experiments, but they were almost always clear. Seriously, most liquids and solutions are clear! So what's up with all those gratuitous shots of beakers with boiling blue liquid in them? Well, most people don't know much about science, so it seems exotic to them. And colored liquids also seem exotic, and therefore "science-ish" in many laypeople's minds. Even though such depictions are not rooted in actual science.

"Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" (ROGD) also seems science-ish on the surface. After all, it's a four-word technical-sounding term - seriously, who but scientists would have come up with such an esoteric-sounding name?! And I can easily imagine how laypeople who may have come across this term in The Globe and Mail, National Post, or National Review (all of which have recently published ROGD op-eds) might mistake this for an authentic medical condition or diagnosis, even though it is not rooted in actual science.

So for those unfamiliar with this term and curious as to what it's all about, I have put together this handy primer.
Who invented the term Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria?
Zinnia Jones from Gender Analysis has written two excellent articles chronicling the origins of the phrase "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria." Basically, it originated in July 2016 on three blogs (4thwavenow.com, Transgendertrend.com, and YouthTransCriticalProfessionals.org) that have a history of promoting anti-transgender propaganda. The term was intended to explain some parents' observations that 1) their children came out as transgender seemingly suddenly, often during puberty, and 2) their children also had trans-identified peers and interacted with trans-themed social media. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for reluctant parents to presume that their child has adopted a trans (or LGBTQ+ more generally) identity as a result of undue influence from other children and/or outside sources - hence the recurring accusations about transgender agendas, peer pressure, and trans identities supposedly being "trendy." ROGD takes this presumption one step further: It asserts that any gender dysphoria these adolescents experience represents an entirely new phenomenon that is wholly distinct from the gender dysphoria that transgender people have historically experienced (e.g., as described in the DSM-5, the WPATH Standards of Care, and many decades of past research).

While ROGD is scientifically specious, the concept serves a very clear practical purpose. It provides reluctant parents with an excuse to disbelieve and disaffirm their child's gender identity, under the presumption that it is merely a by-product of ROGD. It also provides a rationale for restricting their child's interactions with transgender peers and access to trans-related information, as such things are the imagined cause of the condition.

In addition to these parental motivations, ROGD provides political cover for those who wish to rollback trans rights and healthcare. For instance, anti-trans groups can cite ROGD as a rationale for excluding trans kids and censoring trans-related media and resources (under the presumption that these things are causing ROGD in other children), and limiting or eliminating the ability to transition (under the presumption that some kids who seek this out are merely ROGD, and/or because ROGD is a brand new medical condition that will require years of further study). And if anyone objects to such measures, these ROGD proponents can conveniently claim that they are not anti-trans - after all, they acknowledge the existence of transgender people and gender dysphoria! (in some cases, at least) - it's just that they are acting primarily out of concern for "ROGD kids."
Is this really a new phenomenon?
No, it is not. Within trans health circles, it's been well established that trans people may become gender dysphoric and/or come out about being transgender at any age. For instance, in the current WPATH Standards of Care (published in 2011), the section entitled "Phenomenology in Adolescents" explicitly states:
Yet many adolescents and adults presenting with gender dysphoria do not report a history of childhood gender-nonconforming behaviors (Docter, 1988; Landén, Wålinder, & Lundström, 1998). Therefore, it may come as a surprise to others (parents, other family members, friends, and community members) when a youth's gender dysphoria first becomes evident in adolescence.
And as Zinnia Jones points out, the DSM-5 diagnosis for Gender Dysphoria (published in 2013) contains similar language:
Late-onset gender dysphoria occurs around puberty or much later in life. Some of these individuals report having had a desire to be of the other gender in childhood that was not expressed verbally to others. Others do not recall any signs of childhood gender dysphoria. For adolescent males with late-onset gender dysphoria, parents often report surprise because they did not see signs of gender dysphoria during childhood.
There is nothing inherently erroneous or illegitimate about a "rapid" onset of gender dysphoria - some trans people experience an epiphany during which all the clues and puzzle pieces suddenly come together, and they finally realize that they are transgender. (This is what happened to me when I was eleven, as I describe in Chapter 5 of Whipping Girl and Chapter 13 of Outspoken.) But the above passages - both of which describe parents experiencing "surprise" - illustrate that the word "rapid" in ROGD doesn't necessarily refer to the speed of gender dysphoria onset, especially in the many cases where the child keeps their experiences to themselves for a time before sharing them with parents. Rather, what's "rapid" about ROGD is parents' sudden awareness and assessment of their child's gender dysphoria (which, from the child's standpoint, may be longstanding and thoughtfully considered).

As ROGD has garnered increasing mainstream attention, many adult trans folks have taken to sharing their "ROGD stories" on social media - for instance, pointing out how they came out as trans during adolescence, much to their parent's surprise, and how their parents insisted that they weren't "really trans" and/or attempted to suppress their gender explorations. In other words, this is not a new type of gender dysphoria, but rather a new name for a recurring parental dynamic.
But isn't there a research study on ROGD?
To date, only one research study on ROGD has been published - it is authored by Lisa Littman and appeared in PLOS One a few days ago. There are numerous problems with this study, as Zinnia Jones and Brynn Tannehill detailed in their critiques of an earlier rendition of this same study back when it appeared as a non-peer-reviewed poster in the Journal of Adolescent Health. For starters, this was not a study of the children themselves, but rather their parents, who were instructed to fill out a "90-question survey . . . about their adolescent and young adult children." What's even more troubling is how this sample set of parents was selected: "Recruitment information with a link to the survey was placed on three websites where parents and professionals had been observed to describe rapid onset of gender dysphoria (4thwavenow, transgender trend, and youthtranscriticalprofessionals)."

In other words, this supposed study of ROGD is entirely based on the opinions of parents who frequent the very same three blogs that invented and vociferously promote the concept of ROGD. Frankly, this is the most blatant example of begging the question that I have ever seen in a research paper. The fact that Littman didn't even bother to post a link to the survey on any of the many other online groups for parents of trans kids (i.e., ones that do not push an ROGD agenda, and who thus might have very different assessments of their adolescent trans children) strongly suggests that she purposefully structured her study to confirm the former parents' assumptions, rather than objectively assess the state of their children.

All of this would explain why Littman published her article in PLOS One, rather than a more respectable journal. PLOS One's publishing philosophy is quite different from other research journals in that, as an online open-access journal, they focus on quantity over quality. While they review the more technical aspects of each paper they publish (a fairly low bar to clear for an article analyzing an online survey), they are generally hands off with regards to "subjective concerns" - such as which experiments the authors choose to carry out, and their interpretation of the results. Another journal would likely press Littman to use a more representative sample, provide concrete evidence that ROGD is distinct from regular old gender dysphoria, and more thoroughly explore other possible explanations for the results, as any spurious or unreasonable claims made by Littman would reflect poorly on the journal itself. PLOS One, on the other hand, is not concerned with such matters, as they believe that the importance and relevance of an article should be determined by the scientific community post-publication (via debates and citations). Within scientific circles, researchers are well aware of this, and will take any claims made in a PLOS One article with a grain of salt, if not multiple grains (note: I have subsequently elaborated on this point here). Unfortunately, the lay public (not being aware of this) will likely take this study as "proof" that ROGD is a scientifically validated concept. Even though it isn't.
So how would a researcher prove that a novel form of gender dysphoria exists?
I am so glad that you asked this question! Because this is the gargantuan elephant in the room, isn't it? I mean, it's not like you can just urinate into a cup, send it off to some lab, and await the results to find out what kind of gender dysphoria you have. There are no tests for gender dysphoria! It is entirely experiential - meaning that the only way to know whether someone is experiencing gender dysphoria is if they tell you they are experiencing it. (I discuss this, and its ramifications, at considerable length in this essay.)

Over the course of the twentieth century, there were countless attempts to classify transgender people based upon a variety of factors (e.g., gender non-conformity during childhood, adult gender expression, sexual orientation, age of onset and severity of gender dysphoria) in the hopes of finding indicators of a "true" trans identity and garnering insight into what causes gender diversity. However, every categorization scheme researchers invented was confounded by overlap between groups and countless exceptions to the rule. One of the last such taxonomies to be taken seriously was Ray Blanchard's autogynephilia theory (circa 1989). Blanchard claimed that there were two distinct causes of gender dysphoria in trans women: an early onset version (which he seemed to conflate with effeminate male homosexuality) and a late onset version experienced by lesbian, bisexual, and asexual trans women (which he claimed was driven by paraphilia). While Blanchard made many bold claims about the supposed causations and distinctions between these groups, numerous follow up studies (summarized here) failed to support the notion that trans women fall into two fundamentally distinct classes, each with a unique cause.

While there remain a few outliers and holdovers who still embrace these outdated categories and theories of etiology, the field as a whole has moved on. It is now widely accepted that trans people are simply a part of natural variation, that there are many different transgender trajectories and potential identities, and that trans people may vary from one another in almost every possible way (including in their gender expression and age of onset, as explicitly acknowledged in the DSM-5 and WPATH Standards of Care passages that I cited earlier). ROGD proponents act as though they've discovered something new - whoa, there seems to be a brand new second type of gender dysphoria! - when in reality, they are merely retreading over old abandoned theories. Indeed, the very phrase "rapid onset" seems to intentionally harken back to a time when "early onset" and "late onset" trans people were viewed by some researchers as unrelated species. And rather fittingly, Blanchard and his fellow die-hard-autogynephilia-supporter J. Michael Bailey have subsequently embraced ROGD as a logical extension of their antiquated pet theory.

Anyway, to return to the initial question: What would it take to prove that ROGD is a novel condition that is entirely distinct from regular old gender dysphoria? A preponderance of evidence - that's what. Rather than offering mere speculation and hypotheses, show me that there is some specific reproducible cause of gender dysphoria in "ROGD kids" that is largely or completely absent from kids who experience regular old gender dysphoria. Or show me that kids who are deemed ROGD exhibit an entirely different spectrum of outcomes than other transgender children. And while you're at it, why don't you begin by explaining how you can even distinguish between "ROGD kids" and the children described in the aforementioned DSM-5 and WPATH Standards of Care passages - you know, the ones who did not exhibit early childhood gender non-conformity, yet experienced gender dysphoria as adolescents, even though this was years before ROGD was supposedly even a thing. Because seriously, all of the ROGD anecdotes that I've come across do not seem unique or unusual in any way. They basically sound like regular old gender dysphoria stories, with the same old surprised and disbelieving parents.

Until convincing evidence materializes to the contrary, we should adhere to the principal of Occam's razor and presume that these children are experiencing regular old gender dysphoria. This is not to say that all trans-identified children are exactly the same. Individuals will no doubt experience their genders somewhat differently, have different needs and desires, face different obstacles, and so forth. We should meet each individual child where they are in the present, give them space to explore their genders, and refrain from coercing them into relinquishing their identities and isolating them from their peers (which is what some ROGD proponents are currently advocating).
But what about the shifting demographics, YouTube videos, and "cluster outbreaks"?
If you have ever taken a logic, statistics, or science class, then you are likely familiar with the axiom " correlation does not imply causation." That is to say, just because A and B often occur together, it does not necessarily follow that A causes B. It could be that B causes A. Or that some independent factor C causes both A and B. Or maybe C causes A, but not B (or vice versa). Or perhaps A and B co-occur due to mere coincidence. And so on. Because ROGD proponents cannot (and will likely never be able to) prove that ROGD is a novel form of gender dysphoria, they often rely on such "false causation" arguments to help bolster their case. In this final section, I will address the three most commonly cited arguments to this effect.

I have already alluded to two of these: ROGD proponents frequently harp on the fact that "ROGD kids" tend to have other trans-identified peers, and spend lots of time immersed in transgender-themed social media. The clear implication is that said peers and social media are somehow causing or contributing to the gender dysphoria and trans-identification they experience. But here's the thing: I'd bet that children who have regular old gender dysphoria also tend to have transgender friends and spend lots of time on trans-themed social media. Hell, I'm an adult, and if I had to make a guesstimate, I'd probably say that somewhere in the ballpark of 25% of my close friends are trans-identified. (That figure probably goes up to 60-70% if you broaden it to LGBTQ+-identified.) When I was first coming to terms with being trans, there was no social media, but I eagerly read everything and anything that I could find on the subject. And when I transitioned in the early 2000s, I spent tons of time on trans-focused email groups (the social-media-equivalent of the time).

I can understand how straight cisgender people might jump to the conclusion that A (trans friends and social media) causes B (gender dysphoria and trans-identification). But from a trans/LGBTQ+ perspective, it seems clear that these people are ignoring the crucial element C - the fact that trans/LGBTQ+ people are highly stigmatized, face harassment, and our perspectives are largely discounted and not readily accessible in society at large. This (aka, C) is what leads trans/LGBTQ+ folks to seek one another out (regardless of age) for mutual support, shared understanding, and the exchange of relevant information and ideas.

In Littman's PLOS One article, she makes a really big deal out of "ROGD kids" having other trans friends - she actually refers to them as "cluster outbreaks of transgender-identification," as if they had all come down with the pox at the same time. She even does math to it:

The expected prevalence of transgender young adult individuals is 0.7% [4]. Yet, more than a third of the friendship groups described in this study had 50% or more of the AYAs [adolescents and young adults] in the group becoming transgender-identified in a similar time frame, a localized increase to more than 70 times the expected prevalence rate.

Wow, that does sound highly unlikely! But what if we do math to my hypothesis - i.e., that the marginalization of trans/LGBTQ+people leads such kids to seek one another out? When I was in junior high and high school (way back when), the average class size was about 500 students (your mileage may vary). If the prevalence of adult trans people is around 0.7% (the same statistic Littman uses), then we would expect approximately 3.5 potential trans kids per grade in that case. And if we're talking about a four-year middle or high school, that could be as many as 14 potential trans students per school! Not to mention additional trans friends these kids may have met through other activities or online (remember, we've been told that they spend lots and lots of time on social media, seeking out trans stuff!). Given all this, doesn't it seem quite plausible (if not outright likely) that these kids might find and befriend one another?

Littman also makes a big deal out of "cluster outbreaks" among pre-existing friends (i.e., who knew one another before any of them were out as trans), or friends who all came out as trans within a relatively short period of time. She presumes that all of these kids started out as "not trans," then suddenly "became trans" en masse (because transgender is a "social contagion," according to her argument). But how could Littman possibly know this to be true? It is well established that trans/LGBTQ+ youth often share their experiences and identities with one another before opening up to their parents (e.g., see here, plus my and many other trans/LGBTQ+ people's personal experiences). So they very well could have been out to one another as trans (or gender-questioning) early on, without others being aware of it. Furthermore, Littman's only source for all this are the parents who frequent pro-ROGD blogs and (as such) are likely skeptical of their children's trans identities. Don't you think these kids would pick up on this skepticism fairly quickly? And wouldn't it likely lead them to be less forthcoming about their transgender friends and experiences with gender? And even if they are completely open with their parents, who's to know whether these parents are even reporting their child's experiences accurately? Maybe they're playing down the longevity and severity of their child's gender dysphoria? Or maybe they're playing up certain aspects of their child's story so that it conforms better to the canonical ROGD narrative? Seriously, getting at the truth here is like trying to discern adolescent sexualities and sexual histories when all you have to go on is a survey of parents who frequently visit abstinence-only blogs.

The third and final "false causation" argument that I will address here goes something like this: 1) There has been sharp increase in the number of adolescents who were assigned female at birth (AFAB) who are now coming out as transgender and expressing a desire to transition to male, 2) ROGD primarily afflicts AFAB adolescents, 3) therefore, ROGD must be responsible for driving this new artificial pandemic of AFAB trans-identification.

There's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with point #1: While this may be true, I cannot confirm it, as there are no reliable statistics to this effect. And I must say that I'm experiencing a bit of déjà vu here, because I vividly remember people making similar alarmist claims - that there was a sharp rise in AFAB people transitioning to male, and how they couldn't possibly *all* be trans - back in the early '00s, and yet now it's fifteen years later and there's no evidence that this was an aberration, or that there was widespread regret amongst this population. Maybe the numbers did rise back then, and perhaps they are rising again now? But these claims might also be related to the fact that we, as a society (and especially in the media and trans-related discourses) have historically been obsessed with trans female/feminine people, whereas trans male/masculine individuals have received considerably less attention (for reasons I explain in my book Whipping Girl and in this essay). Even today, some people are surprised upon hearing that trans male/masculine people even exist! So I can't help but wonder whether these "sharp increases" in AFAB people transitioning to male (whether today or back in the early '00s) simply reflect the fact that people have a tendency to overlook this demographic in the first place.

Come to think of it, given that people are often surprised by the existence of AFAB trans people, and that the only distinguishing characteristic of ROGD (insofar as I can tell) is that parents are "surprised" by their child coming out as trans, couldn't point #2 (i.e., that "ROGD primarily afflicts AFAB children") also be a by-product of this trans male/masculine invisibility? Something to consider . . .

Anyway, even if point #1 is true, there is not necessarily anything anomalous about it. Rather than insisting that ROGD is artificially causing this increase, couldn't it simply be that historically AFAB adolescents who were predisposed to being trans didn't come out as such due to a lack of information and the invisibility of trans male/masculine people in the media? But now that social media exists (including all the YouTube videos and Tumblr posts ROGD parents are constantly complaining about), these same AFAB adolescents are now aware of trans male/masculine lives and perspectives, and perhaps this has opened up possibilities for them that they would not have had in the past?

Proponents of ROGD keep pushing the idea that "social contagion" is turning kids transgender. But there is a far simpler explanation for the rise in trans-identification (whether among AFAB individuals, adolescents, or people more generally). As I explained in a previous essay, what we are seeing today is akin to the rise in left-handedness during the twentieth century:

from BBC News: "Do left-handed people really die young?"

Both left-handedness and transgender identities are pan-cultural and trans-historical phenomena that have been historically stigmatized in Western societies. During the 1900s, as left-handedness gradually became less stigmatized, there was a sharp rise in left-handedness, as individuals no longer had to hide or suppress that natural predisposition. Similarly, while transgender people remain quite stigmatized, this stigma is gradually abating, allowing more and more individuals (including adolescents) to express their gender-diverse tendencies and gravitate toward transgender identities.

If there was suddenly a new movement - let's call it Rapid Onset Left-Handedness - that involved parents refusing to let their children interact with left-handed peers, or consume media created by or involving left-handed people, for fear that their children might be "turned left-handed," we would probably consider that to be, not only irrational, but mean-spirited and unfair to left-handed children and people everywhere. Including these parents' own potentially left-handed children, who would be forced to suppress their natural tendencies.

Transgender kids exist. They don't have magical powers of persuasion to "turn" your child transgender. (If trans people did possess such powers, I can assure you that way more than 0.7% of the population would be transgender by now!) And if your child tells you that they are experiencing gender dysphoria, it isn't because they've been "turned trans" by other children, or because it's "trendy" (because seriously, it's not - if it was, way more than 0.7% of the population would be transgender). Far and away, the most likely explanation is that they are simply experiencing regular old gender dysphoria. I encourage you to take them at their word, and give them the space to explore their gender and figure out who they are for themselves.
Note added 8-28-18: in response to questions & criticisms of this essay, I have written a follow up piece: This essay is free & accessible thanks to the support of my Patreon supporters - if you liked it and want to see more like it, please consider supporting me there. You can learn more about my writings and activism at juliaserano.com Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, scientific debate, and suppressing speech

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Everything You Need to Know About Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

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As a biologist, I've always been fascinated by Hollywood's tendency to portray science laboratories as being filled with test tubes and flasks full of various colored liquids. I've worked in research laboratories for most of my adult life, and I've used all sorts of liquids and solutions in my experiments, but they were almost always clear.

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CN: suicide. Over half of trans male teenagers in US attempted suicide in last year

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CN: suicide. Over half of trans male teenagers in US attempted suicide in last year

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Ella Braidwood for Pink News, Sep 2018.

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PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service

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More than half (51 percent) of trans male teenagers have attempted suicide in the past year, according to new research.

The new study by researchers at the University of Arizona also found that more than four in 10 (42 percent) of non-binary adolescents and 30 percent of trans female teens had attempted suicide.

Overall, more than a quarter (28 percent) of teenagers questioning their gender identity had tried to take their own life.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults aged between 10 and 34 in the US.

The latest data revealed that transgender and non-binary teens-aged between 11 and 19-are at a significantly greater risk of attempting suicide than their peers who are cisgender, meaning their gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Nearly two in 10 (18 percent) of cis female teens, and 10 percent of cis male adolescents, had tried to end their lives, according to the study.

Russ Toomey, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, who led the research, based his findings on an analysis of data from the Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors survey-a national survey of 120,617 adolescents in the US.

The survey, carried out between 2012 and 2015, included data from 202 transgender teenagers, 70 per cent of which were trans male adolescents.

Commenting on his research, Toomey said: "Transmasculine youth and non-binary youth are the two populations that often are the least focused on in the transgender community.

"So really reorganising our efforts to focus in and try to really understand and learn about the experiences of these youth is critical."

Building on Previous research

Past research has shown that a shocking proportion of transgender people have attempted suicide.

In 2016, a study by the NationalCentre for Transgender Equality found that 40 percent of transgender people had tried to end their lives.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey revealed that one in four trans adults reported attempting suicide.

Other studies have also revealed that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people are more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts.

A 2016 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people are almost three times as likely to seriously contemplate suicide than heterosexual youths.

It also found that LGB youth were five times more likely to have attempted suicide than heterosexual young people.
If you are in the US and are having suicidal thoughts, suffering from anxiety or depression, or just want to talk, call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255. If you are in the UK, you can contact the Samaritans on 116 123.

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Half of trans male teens have attempted suicide

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More than half (51 percent) of trans male teenagers have attempted suicide in the past year, according to new research. The new study by researchers at the University of Arizona also found that more than four in 10 (42 percent) of non-binary adolescents and 30 percent of trans female teens had attempted suicide.

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'Transphobes are driving children's confusion about gender – not the trans community or their supporters'

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'Transphobes are driving children's confusion about gender – not the trans community or their supporters'

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Natasha Devon for TES, 2018.

The idea that you can "talk someone into" a sexuality or a gender is palpably nonsense. That doesn’t stop fearmongering about the abilities of society to "persuade" children that they are transgender, however.

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When I was in Year 10 at my all-girls school in Essex circa 1996, there was a rumour circulating that one of the lads from the local boys' school was "pretending to be gay". He was doing this, we were told, so that girls would befriend him and "let their guard down" and then he could "get with them". I can neither confirm nor conclusively deny the truth of this rumour. However, I suspect, like much of the information I gleaned via the furtive whispers exchanged between students in the corridors of my school, it was a load of old arse.

I couldn't help but recall this as I watched Andrew Marr interview Jeremy Corbyn on his weekly BBC One political TV show. Corbyn was forced to defend accusations from unidentified but allegedly numerous sources that the Labour Party's progressive stance towards transgender women would encourage male MP candidates to "pretend" to be trans in order to gain a place on all-female shortlists. Considering the psychological turmoil and physical upheaval associated with transitioning, the continued existence of widespread social prejudice (a Stonewall study recently revealed that one in eight trans people has been physically attacked), not to mention how closely linked our gender and our sense of identity are for the majority of us, this seems to me a highly unlikely scenario.

Anti-trans voices broadly fall into two camps, the first being a kind of grunting incredulity and a refusal to accept transgenderism as a phenomenon, which tends to come from the political right wing. The second is TERFS (trans exclusionary radical feminists) who believe that the social acknowledgment of transgender women threatens the hard-won rights and status of people who were born women, and they tend to be on the left. Both weave elaborate webs in an attempt to disguise what is, in reality, simple transphobia. Yet, as Owen Jones recently pointed out in a piece for the Guardian, they are dusting off the exact same arguments that were used to protest against the abolishment of Section 28 back in 2003.

These include but are not limited to:

1. 'It's a mental illness'

The same people who once claimed being gay was a "perversion" that needed to be "cured", rather than "encouraged", now say that those with "gender dysphoria" need "sympathy and therapeutic support", as opposed to being allowed to live their lives according to their true gender identity.

2. 'It's a lifestyle choice'

The idea that you can "talk someone into" a sexuality or a gender is palpably nonsense. That doesn't stop fearmongering about the abilities of society to "persuade" children that they are transgender, however. Which brings me to...

3. 'This will confuse children'

Peppa Pig has a female mum and a male dad. Every Disney princess is straight and, for most of them, their "happy ending" involves becoming embroiled in a heterosexual relationship. Heterosexual romance is everywhere. For children who have two dads, or two mums or who have those feelings many gay and bisexual people say they felt long before puberty which indicated to them that they were "different", it's right that they should have visible equivalents in the wallpaper of their world.

For some reason, any mention of LGBT+ people is inextricable from thoughts of sex for many commentators, which in turn leads to the widespread and hugely damaging belief that the LGBT+ community is "predatory". This isn't about sex. It's about life, representation, inclusion, community and belonging. If you thought anything else, it's you who needs to get your head out of the gutter.

4. 'This only affects a small proportion of the population. Why should we have to change?'

I'll tell you why - because we are all responsible for creating the communities and society in which we live. Whether it's the one in 10 young people affected by mental illness, the 10 per cent with learning difficulties or the approximately same proportion who are LGBT+, if there are small changes we can all make to ensure that their lives are happier, healthier and more fulfilled then it's our responsibility to do so.

This doesn't just impact people who are "other" - it benefits the so-called "mainstream". Learning that not everyone is the same and how to get along with people different from you should be a fundamental cornerstone of education, since it's pretty much the key to success in life.

5. 'They can't take it back'

The "what if children wrongly think they're gay and say it and try it and hate it?" brigade are now claiming that "children as young as 5 are being offered gender realignment surgery". I cannot say this loudly enough: there is absolutely no evidence for this. Psychologists and endocrinologists are generally reluctant to provide hormone therapy to anyone under the age of 16, and obtaining sex realignment surgery prior to the age of 18 is almost impossible in most countries throughout the world. Furthermore, transgender people, who know only too well the pain and distress associated with being in the wrong body, are the last people who would encourage gender realignment on a whim.

Clothes are a different thing altogether. It should be less of a big deal for children to wear garments traditionally associated with the opposite sex, if they feel like it. If - and this is a big "if" - there is a problem with children being "confused" about their gender, then it is transphobes who are driving it, not transgender people or their supporters.

I'm inclined to think, however, that all the bluster about confusing children is largely hokum. An endlessly curious five-year-old child of a friend, upon hearing that some children who look like boys are girls on the inside and vice versa, merely said, "Cool. Can we get ice cream on the way home?" It's the most vocal critics, who have been systematically socialised into attaching their sense of the world to the notion that being straight and cisgender is the normal, natural/god-appointed way of things, who are in fact the ones who are frightened and confused by this.

We shouldn't allow their fear to drive this vital conversation. After all, as the huge leaps that have been made in our understanding around sexuality since the relative dark ages of the 1990s have shown, history will not look kindly on them.
Natasha Devon MBE is the former government mental health champion. She is a writer and campaigner and visits an average of three schools per week all over the UK. She tweets @_natashadevon. Find out more about her work here Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and Instagram and like Tes on Facebook

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'Transphobes are driving children's confusion about gender - not the trans community or their supporters'

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When I was in Year 10 at my all-girls school in Essex circa 1996, there was a rumour circulating that one of the lads from the local boys' school was "pretending to be gay". He was doing this, we were told, so that girls would befriend him and "let their guard down" and then he could "get with them".

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Published by LGBT Foundation (Manchester UK), May 2019

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Puberty blockers can literally save the lives of transgender teens, new study confirms

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Puberty blockers can literally save the lives of transgender teens, new study confirms

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Vic Parsons for Pink News, Jan 2020

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PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service

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Puberty blockers can be "life-saving" drugs for trans teenagers, according to a landmark study that is the first to examine access to puberty blockers and suicide risk.

The study, published in medical journal Pediatrics, found that if trans teenagers have access to the medication their chance of suicide and mental health problems significantly declines.

Access to puberty blockers for a trans teen who wants them reduces their likelihood of trying to die by suicide in both the short and long term, the study found, as well as significantly reducing their likelihood of experiencing mental-health problems.

Multiple medical associations, including the Endocrine Society, have guidelines recommending doctors offer trans teens pubertal suppression therapy, also known as puberty blockers, which has been a treatment option in the US since 1998.

Puberty blockers delay puberty until a trans teenager is old enough to make decisions about having gender-affirming medical treatment.

"Historically we have known the puberty blockers are safe and effective and this is totally reversible, so the benefits far outweigh any risk. It is sort of a no-brainer to make these available in these circumstances," said Dr Michelle Forcier, an associate professor of paediatrics at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who was not part of the study.

The research comes as a dozen states in the US are promoting bills that focus on young trans people at the urging of conservative advocacy groups.

These bills include barring doctors from providing certain gender-related medical treatment to young trans people, including puberty blockers, and banning young trans people from playing school sports.

Forcier added that nobody would deny a child with asthma their inhaler, or refuse cancer treatment for a child with cancer, yet some parents still express reservations about puberty blockers.

She wants to remind these parents that pausing puberty is a "life-saving option", she said.

"By not allowing their child to use these drugs, that is not a neutral option," said Forcier. "This is why this paper is so important. This access is associative into adulthood and is important for safety. We know that access can offer protective effects. This is something that will help a parent keep their child safe."

Dr Rachel Levine, a practising paediatrician in Pennsylvania, said this new study is important because it's the first to specifically show the link between access to puberty blockers and a decrease in suicidality.

"It is very important for medical professionals to understand scientific studies like this," Levine said.

"It is also critically important as far as policy," she said, "that policy makers do not get in the way of medical standards of care."

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Puberty blockers can literally save the lives of transgender teens, new study confirms

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Puberty blockers can be "life-saving" drugs for trans teenagers, according to a landmark study that is the first to examine access to puberty blockers and suicide risk. The study, published in medical journal Pediatrics, found that if trans teenagers have access to the medication their chance of suicide and mental health problems significantly declines.

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The Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria Study (1972–2015): Trends in Prevalence, Treatment, and Regrets

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The Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria Study (1972–2015): Trends in Prevalence, Treatment, and Regrets

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The Journal of Sexual Medicine (15:4), Apr 2018. Article (paywalled) on prevalence and treatment of gender dysphoria and rates of regret about treatment.

Abstract conclusion states: "The number of people with gender identity issues seeking professional help increased dramatically in recent decades. The percentage of people who regretted gonadectomy remained small and did not show a tendency to increase."