The 2010's saw a huge increase in the number children being treated for gender identity dysphoria.  These are now young adults.  In the UK nearly 1% of 20-year-old women were born a boy.

Other issues in the UK include:

Stonewall advice participating organisations to avoid the use of the words "mother" and "father" (instead suggesting "parent who has/has not given birth"); "boy" and "girl" (instead use terms such as "learner"); and "he" and "she" (use "they").  As a result, for example, the NHS Scotland has been removing these offensive words from all of its publications, forms, leaflets and websites.  Compliance with Stonewall's guidance will gain Bronze, Silver and Gold awards. 

There has since been huge pressure to delete this scene from both the movie and a prospective stage show because it might offend some people. 

Man or woman?  Teddy Quinlivan (left), Angela Ponce and Nikol Spearman (right)

Despite all the high profile and superficially very successful LGBT+ campaigning (at least in the USA and Western Europe, I suspect that the vast majority (99% ?) of the world's human population still identify themselves as 'male' (a man) or 'female' (a woman).  Trying to encourage or even enforce the use of gender neutral terms such as 'them' (rather than 'he' or 'she'), 'person' (rather than 'man or 'woman') and 'parent and co-parent' (rather than 'mother and father') seems to me to be an oppressive rather than liberating action.  The words 'women' and 'woman' have social connotations for people who describe themselves as such that don't deserve to be destroyed by a very small minority with a differing opinion.  Deleting the word 'mother' is surely simply putting wishful or woke thinking before the reality of biology.

In October 2021 the European Commission published communication guidelines which attempted to ban gender specific words and phrases such as "man-made" and "ladies and gentlemen" and replace them with neutral phrases like "human-induced" and "dear colleagues".  This was withdrawn a month later with the official reason that it was not "a mature document and more work was required".  An alternative reason provided is that examples were in English but the French language categorises every noun as masculine or feminine - France is strongly advocating that French should replace English as the primary working language of the EU post-Brexit.

A Moment of Sanity?

T

Vittoria Schisano, Abril Zamora and Angela Ponce  attending an event about Gender Affirmation Surgery in Madrid, Spain, in March 2022.  They are genetically XY, don't menstruate and can't bear children.  So, are they men or women?

o widespread astonishment, in April 2022 the UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) unexpectedly pushed back against the headlong acceptance of transwomen who were still physically completely male as women.  It published guidance that allows "where proportionate" transwomen to be excluded from female-only changing rooms and lavatories, and said that a "service provider can exclude, modify or limit access to their service for trans people" ... "for reasons of privacy, decency, to prevent trauma or to ensure health and safety”. 

Examples of where restrictions would be applicable include:

•  "group counselling sessions for female sex assault victims where it is judged the victims are likely to be traumatised by the presence of a person who is biologically male”
•  "a domestic abuse refuge that offers emergency accommodation to female survivors"; and
• "female-only fitness classes because of the amount of physical contact involved"

These nurses are suing the NHS for being forced to share their changing room with physical men who identify as women.

The EHRC's guidance immediately hit a storm of criticism, including from the NHS which will have to change it's supposedly progressive policies to comply, and is reluctant to do so.  In June 2024 a group of NHS nurses in Darlington sued their employer for allowing transwomen to use the female changing rooms.  In particular, they felt unsafe and even experienced panic attacks after being required to change into work clothes in front of a sexually active biological male with an all too obvious penis who claimed to identify as a woman, and had changed her name to Rose.  After raising concerns, the nurses were told by HR that they needed to be "re-educated" - which Rose offered to help do.

In July 2024 the EHRC tried to clarify its guidance by stating that if an employer wanted to advertise for a woman-only job, that must only mean biological women or those who have received a gender-recognition certificate (GRC).  Unfortunately it is very easy to obtain a GCS and no evidence of medical treatment such as hormones or surgery is required. 

Woman or Transwomen?

A massive challenge that is never addressed by lawyers or trans advocates is the physical reality that there is a huge difference between transwomen, for example:

Example 1. A 20-year-old who is 160 cm tall (5ft 3in), weighs 48kg (106lbs), transitioned and began hormones age 17 under supervision after a medical assessment, had SRS age 19 and identifies as a heterosexual woman attracted to men.  However, her USA passport still states that he is "Male".

and

Example 2. A 58-year-old who is 185 cm tall (6ft 1in), weighs 102kg (223lbs), and transitioned age 56 without any medical supervision and doesn't take hormones consistently.  He is pre-SRS but identifies as a lesbian attracted to women.  He has obtained a UK Gender Recognition Certificate and her passport now states that she is "Female".

Four transwomen, all post-SRS/GCS, but some pass as a woman far easier than others.

Sadly, we are in a situation where there is a subjective element.  Not accepting example 1 as a woman seems hugely unfair but conversely accepting example 2 as a woman raises many problems - from women's toilets to women's sports to women's hospital wards.  

Applying a law where just completing a form makes an adult man legally a "woman" not only doesn't work, but it can dangerously abuse the rights of other women.   

Children are now being bombarded on social media, television and even at school by LGBT+ messaging.  Organisations such as Stonewall are sponsoring television programmes and making adverts to encourage children 'to be themselves' and come out as transgender.  Their pamphlets and posters have also appeared in almost every school.  It's become trendy and attention gaining among teenage children to come out as transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, gender neutral, etc.  UK children with Gender Identify Disorder (GID) are almost doubling annually - the NHS accepted 77 children for treatment in 2009, 2,590 in 2019.  A typical UK school now has 1% of its pupils registered as having GID.

Since 2020 the term Sex-Reassignment Surgery (SRS) has largely been replaced by the term Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS).  I prefer the later term as SRS didn't change my physical sex - I'm still genetically 'XY' so it just seems a better fit.

Five friends - 2 cis and 3 trans.  In no particular order: Margherita Frezza, Lavanya Gowda, Bella Turner, Rachna Thalluri and Raksha Joshi.

As a teenager I knew that I was a boy and fancied girls, but also envied girls.  One night when at University I partnered a flatmate to a "Ladies Night", beforehand she spent hours making important decisions about her outfit, make up and jewellery - and occassionally asking for my opinion.  When I commented that I had got ready in 30 minutes, she told me "it must be so boring to be a boy, I would hate it", a statement was embedded in my memory. 

After several difficult years in my late 20's I reluctantly accepted, for reasons that I can never adequately explain, that I needed to live my life as a woman.  I began taking female hormones (estrogen) age 30 and increasingly went out as a woman to bars and night clubs, but I was 35 before I fully transitioned.  At the time it was slightly below the median average "western" age of 38 in 2000, but that has since dramatically dropped to 31 in 2017 and 26 in 2021 due to the huge numbers of teenage girls that are now transitioning as young as 15 or 16.

When I transitioned my gender was predominantly female.  Although I was taking hormones, to be successfully recognised as a woman at work and in daily life required me to have facial electrolysis and voice training.  I also had breast augmentation and eventually SRS/GCS in late 2004.  I was finally passing successfully as a woman physically and socially, but the financial cost was huge, whilst at the same time my take-home pay had dropped to about a third of that pre-transition.

In 2004 I also married (in a church - anything else whould have felt wrong) my long-time boyfriend.  Our marriage was legally in rather a grey area at first as whilst I had unexpectedly managed to change my passport to "F", my Birth Certificate was still "M".  Changes to the law in first the UK (2010) and later Ireland (2015) resolved this, and there is now no doubt over it's validity.  However, being legally a wife again doesn't necessarily mean that my "sex" is female.  I'm dubious that this is reasonable or factually correct.  For example, when we first married I was still just young enough to be regularly asked if we intended to have children, or even if I might be pregnant - but this was physically impossible.  However - for good or bad - I would have liked to have experienced periods, pregnancy and childbirth and it's a gaping hole in my life as a woman.

I'm registered with the Health Service in Ireland as "Female".  Given my increasingly mature age, I regularly need intimate medical examinations and tests - which can be a cause of confusion.  I haven't found the mammograms offered to me every two years since I reached 50 to be a problem, I inform the staff that I have breast implants and have [so far] always received an all clear letter a few weeks later.  However, it's not always so easy.  After several letters asking me to attend a cervical cancer screening for a PAP test, I eventually complied after discovering that there was a small possibility that my neo-vagina (constructed from penile skin) can contract this.  But my visit resulted in a confused nurse, a very puzzled doctor, and having to out myself as trans MTF.

In another example, I swim at a local pool during a women-only session as the time is ideal for me, but I now must sign for entry a form whose small print now oddly includes "people who are not having menstrual periods can be excluded".  As an alternative I tried another swimming pool and spotted a notice advising swimmers to "Use the Changing Room (Male or Female) you are most comfortable with".  This means that I could potentially be sharing the Female changing room with physically complete and sexually fully functional males.  It seems to be a victory for a tiny number of transactivists (often pre-GCS/SRS) over perhaps 1000 times more cis-women. 

Anne Jakrajutatip is a Thai business woman who in 2022 acquired the Miss Universe beauty pageant.  She is also transgender and the devoted mother of two children conceived using her sperm.

Even outside a women's changing room or toilets', I've met some very scary (both physically and behaviourally) individuals whom I've struggled to accept as being women.  I was astonished in a meeting to hear a very large and masculine looking transgender activist proclaiming as apparently a positive to 'her' LGBT+ credentials the fact that 'she' had not had any medical treatment!

Some countries such as Japan (since 2002) and Sweden (until 2013) require an applicant requesting a legal change of sex to have been sterilized (most commonly via an orchiectomy) or have completed sex-assignment surgery before this is granted.  There is a lot of well-argued opposition to such rules, but after many bad experiences I can also reluctantly see some merit in favour of this.  I've become worried that it has become too easy for a man or even a teenage boy who is wondering if they are transgender to be quickly sucked in to the system.  Any man with $25,000 can almost on impulse catch a flight to Thailand and arrive back home two weeks later minus his testes and a penis, and with a breast implants and a neo-vagina. 

Transwomen are often emerging from the process of changing their gender much poorer, jobless, disowned by their family and friends, struggling to pass as a woman, infertile, unable to sexually attract 'normal' men, and suffering from medical complications.  From my own experience I favour the rule in the now obsolescent V4 of the Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People which prescribes a two-year real-world test before a surgeon performs SRS/GCS.

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