Over the past couple of years I’ve been corresponding with a couple of older male transsexuals. They are courteous types who have watched in horror at what they see as the politicisation of the environment around their identities. Both are post-op and have Gender Recognition Certificates. Before what Róisín Michaux calls “the great entrooning”, both felt less under scrutiny to the extent they passed and/or were tolerated by their local communities.
One correspondent, who I have agreed we will call ‘Louise’, has written to me on several occasions about developments in the public sphere. Louise is annoyed at both “GCs” (gender critical people) and “transgenderists”, for various reasons. I value a heartfelt rant and so asked Louise to write something for this website.
I have let the assertions in the piece below stand untouched, as I think it offers an insight into a specific perspective which is worth hearing. I hope you get something from it:
“It’s a pleasant summer evening in a sleepy little village in Derbyshire. I’m seated on a bench with my partner, Scott [not his real name either], whom I’ve been dating since June. We’re enjoying a cuddle, just watching the traffic go by. A couple walking past quietly remark, “Awww, look at them”. That was so sweet.
It’s a deeply emotional moment for me, having at last found romance with a lovely man who truly adores me. It’s only taken me 31 years to find the right one, mind you, for as a transsexual woman who underwent complete sex reassignment surgery in 1995 the chances of someone ever loving me for who I am were remote. Aged 65 I’ve never known love until now. I’ve much to look forward to as Scott and I develop our relationship.
Alas, next morning, my hopes for happiness in the evening of my life are brutally shattered when my past catches up with me again. A letter arrives from my GP advising that my ongoing hormonal treatment will in future be handled by a transgender clinic…
What?! Surely it must be a mistake. I read the words over and over again, my hands trembling as I clutch the letter. But no, the doctor states unequivocally that big changes are coming for how transgender people receive cross-sex hormones on the NHS. I note the term transgender is used multiple times.
After 13 years with that GP surgery have they not yet understood that I am NOT transgender, but a transsexual, two VERY DIFFERENT things. Why the hell would I need to go to a gender identity clinic for God’s sake when I surgically transitioned three decades ago? Must I start all over again at the back of the queue just to be prescribed meds that I’ve been receiving without a single problem for over thirty years? Or do they actually think I am a cross-dressing man who identifies as a woman so requires oestrogen to enhance my expression of gender incongruence??? Preposterous.
I may as well abandon all hope if forced to enter such a clinic for the ‘specialists’ working there will have little idea of what transsexuality is. None of them do these days. A medical condition diagnosed by the NHS for 60 years and totally unrelated to transgender which is a lifestyle choice based on self-identity and driven mainly by social media (covering around 500,000 people in the UK). With only 9000 post op transsexuals, the medics will have scant knowledge of us. So lots of scope to foul things up mightily when it comes to things like hormone treatment.
Unlike transgender people who prefer to remain intact, it is essential for me to take cross-sex hormones for the rest of my life as my body cannot function without them. And knowing that it can take YEARS to be given a first appointment at these clinics I am mortified to think that in the meantime my health would go downhill rapidly, facing horrific bone deterioration, not forgetting changes to my appearance and cognitive decline. So by the time they saw me I could find myself in a wheelchair. Rather too late then I fear.
This move is DANGEROUS, and politically motivated too. The worst crisis to hit me since I lost my dear Mum.
If this change of policy is due to a new medical edict from the government then it is deeply worrying for all 9000 transsexuals in the UK. We have had excellent care from GPs for decades. It has worked perfectly. Being lumped in with half a million cross-dressing or non-binary people and anyone else that cares to self-identify under the trans umbrella will erase our care and is entirely inappropriate to transsexuals.
Catastrophic for those who have had major surgery, not for those who may regard being trans as just a game of dress up. That lifetime of NHS care cannot just be hived off to a woke clinic. And we should not be tossed out as just like those thousands of whatever those trans identities are now washing all over doctors surgeries for drugs. It may well be most GPs just see trans as a fad and a damned nuisance so want rid of them due to the rising cost. Pay ‘experts’ instead to deal with the transgender explosion they argue.
Only we get caught up with the same sweep of the brush.
If the government is behind this stupidity they are messing with a pattern of care transsexuals have had for longer than most MPs were alive. They need to stop this as we need continuity of care.
Ministers need to see my words. They need to know the folly of making trans one thing when it is very far from being that. The Supreme Court cocked up badly by not giving transsexuals a voice. How can the highest court in the land refuse to hear testimony from BOTH sides? Is that even lawful? A national scandal in the making? It beggars belief. Yet not one journalist in the UK has even thought to look into this.
Mr Burnham MUST now change that and give us a voice. Or losing NHS care will result in tragedy and lawsuits against the NHS.
Bad news for us is good news for transgender activists. Knowing transsexuals stand in the way of their self-ID, they desire our erasure from law. On the other hand the gender critical side seeks exactly the same as a means to bring down the trans ‘cult’ which was not even started by us in one fell swoop. So you see we’re the little guy in the middle being shot at by both sides. The sacrificial lamb in somebody else’s war.
So on that note we lay blame on both the overreach of transgender agitators for getting us into this mess but also the GC movement for their spreading of untruths and disinformation about us.
For example they keep tossing around home office data which tells of shocking levels of sex abuse by men identifying as women. The end result being a strong case to argue that trans women are just as dangerous as all men and even worse. So they must be treated as men. And housed in male jails or male hospital wards.
Here’s the proof they say. Except it is not proof, for the GCs never reveal that Gender Recognition Certificate holders are NOT part of the data, no stats being available for them.
A new untruth making the rounds currently seems to be a new tactic of the GCs, pinpointing controversial or exhibitionistic examples of cross-dressing men in the media and claiming these are transsexuals, and that they are all the same. After years of referring to trans people as transgender why have they suddenly shifted to using the transsexual label? At least one national newspaper is guilty of this.
Transsexuals are NOT cross-dressers but I believe GCs are desperate to erase the difference between them in the hope of persuading the public (who never cared before) that they don’t want these people anywhere near their wives and daughters.
Crazy lies making our lives look dangerous and mad. Labelling us all as monsters is not a winning strategy. Other than for an audience of bigots.
Their leaders are not stupid. They are well aware we are not the problem. But it is clear the GCs are determined to blatantly LIE about who we are to win their argument. What they are weaving is nothing short of propaganda against a tiny community in the pursuit of an ideology every bit as questionable as that which they seek to eradicate. My goodness, Dr Goebbels must be looking on with wry amusement in the depths of hell.
That is what this is all about. Not toilets. Not hospital wards. Extermination. Egged on by bigots who screech that we are just perverted men in dresses, the vote-hungry politicians react. Putting in place dangerous policies meddling in vital healthcare after we have had irreversible sex reassignment surgery or SRS – tantamount to genocide through the back door. Their hands will be red with blood when the tragedies start occurring. Only they will just blame someone else.
I think GCs are literally scared of the truth that a modest number of us – 9000 from 70 million population – can and have integrated into society. But don’t allow a single one of us tell our life story nor give our perspective in a major book since such facts would demolish the GC narrative. I’d be most happy to donate my time with any royalties going to women’s aid charities – not in the hope of being liked but because that’s who I am. I believe in fairness and justice. Sadly no publisher will touch me with a bargepole.
Recently Nick Wallis examined a study into the alleged high failure rate of SRS, such as post operative pain, sexual dysfunction or incontinence. Yet many of us who underwent the procedure have rarely encountered such problems. So are today’s surgeons inferior to those who operated on us so long ago? Of course not. But once again SRS is handed out as a free choice to rather too many unsuitable candidates self-identifying. Hence the surge in the rates of detransition (virtually unknown when I was young). Leading to calls to ban SRS altogether claiming it harms everyone.
When we know in rare cases and not the majority this is a path that does not DESTROY lives it saves lives and enriches the people who are patient and sensible.
JK Rowling astounded critics last month by her social media post in which she agrees SRS is the right treatment in some cases, once the individual suffering with gender dysphoria has tried all means of psychiatric help to resolve their pain. We had YEARS of therapy. She adds that transitioning is made too easy these days when things were much stricter in the past. And blames transgender activists for creating a lot of the problems.
Ms Rowling and I are indeed on the same page on this. I praise her for bringing attention to our plight. If only her side could see transsexuals are not part of the problem but actually part of the solution. We can offer sound advice, we’ve had the lived experiences. But as I say nobody wants to listen. We are too few. Terrified of the brewing storm many of us have gone into hiding. Our voices are but a whisper in the face of a howling gale.
How in 18 months have transsexual lives been utterly overturned when we have done absolutely nothing wrong? How could the UK act like this? We are in a very very dangerous turning point. Our very existence is now a political football and it is no joke to suggest it could cost lives…
Returning to my own tribulation in this discourse I see no alternative but to fight my GP’s decision. Their letter was an order, a diktat allowing me zero say in a very serious matter which will impact my life. Kind of reminded me of those Supreme Court judges.
I will contest this to the bitter end – literally since my life and wellbeing depends on it. Even to the courts. The NHS diagnosed me. The NHS operated on me. And the NHS medicalised me. Thus they have a duty of care, not just drop me due to cost or political expediency.
Though I keep sobbing and feel that I just want to be with my Mum, in the final analysis I must think of Scott. I must stay strong for him. After all, someone prepared to invest their entire soul in another is one of the most beautiful and fundamental things.
It makes life worth living.”
My thanks to Louise for taking the time to write this out. If you would like to respond you can do so using the comment form below. I am reasonably tolerant of nonsense sent in my direction, but as Louise is a guest poster, there will be lower bar and I will bin anything rude. If you would like to write a guest post responding to Louise, or anything relevant to the gender wars at all, please message me via the contact form on this website. Thanks.
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