Tag Archives: Transgender

Feminism & Gender, Sex & Sexuality

Neither the Courts nor Twitter should decide anyone’s Sex or Gender

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The court of social opinion or social media at least is no more relevant than an employment tribunal in determining someone’s gender. It is a reasonable place, though, to decide on the application of the Equality Act (2010) which protects both against sex discrimination and gender transition.  Respecting someone has little to do with the biology of sex and presentation of gender.

The Maya Forstater case in which she lost her job (non-renewed contract) was down to her “offensive and exclusionary” language in tweets questioning government proposals to allow people to self-identify as the opposite sex.

“My belief … is that sex is a biological fact, and is immutable. There are two sexes, male and female. Men and boys are male. Women and girls are female. It is impossible to change sex. These were until very recently understood as basic facts of life by almost everyone.” – Maya Forstater

Sex as “Biological…immutable” comes straight out of Trump’s US proposals to lock down sex as genitals by or at birth and only challenged by genetic evidence to the contrary. 

Judge Tayler’s ruling kicked off responses from some expected and unexpected sources.

Sex is indeed real and at first sight mostly binary. Gender is also a reality and mostly a bitch. By that I mean, it binds us, boxes us, oppresses us whether by social constructs and constraints or psychological identity.

Of course, sex/gender terminology, spaces, constructs, and  Trans/TERF* wars won’t be solved by two giants of fiction.

[*TERF=Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, seen as a slur-term by so-called TERFs who prefer Gender Critical Feminist or just Feminist]
 
Facts, on the other hand, will always get in the way of ideology. Just as science fiction is free from the constraints of science fact, so, too, sex and gender constructs can be made in our own or society’s image, and no two humans let alone scientists, trans activists, or gender critical feminists, will entirely agree without subtle nuanced differences. 
 
Reproductive sex (based upon binary gametes) is not the same as lived gender nor even outward sex. I have plenty of non-trans friends – some even happy being called cisgender (BTW saying you are not CIS means you are TRANS, lol!) whose outward sex may not reflect their reproductive gametes. One can be born with external female genitalia ie vaginal labia and internal male gametes ie testes. Incredibly rarely, one can also have external male genitalia and gametes and have an internal womb. These exceptions, it is claimed are disorders and dysfunctions that do not undermine sexual dimorphism – at a reproductive level (outside of laboratory help) this is true – it still takes two to tango, an egg and a sperm (after fighting off rivals and swimming faster whilst being healthy and fertile).
 
Sex, though, can be observed and assigned objectively from a series of outer characteristics though not necessarily accurately (mine took an hour or so to be sure at birth, small furry animals are equally risky to identify soon after birth!). Those outer characteristics may not match the inner when you come to try and have a family, then you may discover you are not just one of two gamete options (which could rarely be undifferentiated eg Mixed Gonadal Dysgenesis), but 22 chromosome possibilities from XX & XY (or even both in the same body) to XO, XXY to XXXXY, or that your body was insensitive or hypersensitive to or had delayed or early responses to sex hormones.

So whilst we are fixated with just two boxes there are many ways we can be sexed. Even many biologists, though not all, see sex as a spectrum.

“Biologists may have been building a more nuanced view of sex, but society has yet to catch up.” – Claire Ainsworth

Sex isn't binary

Sex isn’t binary, Liza Brusman, Molecular Biology, MassiveSci

Gender Isn’t Binary. Sex Isn’t, Either, Alexandra Kralick, Biological Anthropologist (Sex Differences), Slate

Sex is anything but binary, Simón(e) D Sun, Neuroscience, Scientifc American

Two sexes is simplistic, Claire Ainsworth, Developmental Biologist, Nature

Why Sex Is Not Binary, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Biology and Gender, NYT

Sterling, indeed, recognises layers upon layers of sex, saying that:

“It has long been known that there is no single biological measure that unassailably places each and every human into one of two categories — male or female.” 

She lists many of the following as a series of often non-binary sex markers:

  1. Chromosome sex (XX, XY and 20 others)
  2. Foetal gonadal sex (testes or ovaries)
  3. Foetal hormonal sex (androgens and estrogens)
  4. Foetal internal reproductive sex (uterus, cervix and fallopian tubes or vas deferens, prostate and epididymis)
  5. Foetal external genital sex (vagina and clitoris or penis and scrotum)
  6. Birth genital sex assignment (1cm rule!)
  7. Birth gender socialisation (pink and blue, dolls and dumpster trucks)
  8. Brain sex (though disputed neuroscience hormones affect brain)
  9. Pubertal secondary sex development (hormones and morphology)
  10. Post-pubertal sex or gender identity
  11. Gender expression and ‘performance’ (Judith Butler)

Add to nature’s diversity, society and nurture, our gendered response to our sexed state and environment and very soon the apparent dimorphic binary breaks down. We may be born one of two sexes with some 1-in-100 having physical intersex variations but very soon in life we are one of several genders. I’m often asked how many sexes or genders there are? I usually reply: “At least two sexes and around seven billion genders”, since we all interpret our gender in a sexed world differently. 

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of the laboratory of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the Francis Crick Institute, who discovered the gene that determines sex in mammals, said: “In the UK, I think most [people] would use ‘sex’ to refer to anatomical appearance and ‘gender’ to ways of behaviour.” To a scientist, he said, anatomy could appear male, female or somewhere in between, but a man who transitioned could be said to change sex. – The Times

Sex and gender should not be policed in a purely binary way. Not all sexes and genders are visible or divisible down toilet door lines and there’s scant evidence of abuse, the opposite if anything.

What’s in a pronoun? Mere politeness and respect that need not change your understanding of science (which may be different from the next person’s). Everyone has the right to privacy, safety, and respect and that means coming up with binary, unisex and non-binary spaces where appropriate that meet everyone’s needs and put nobody at risk. Risk assessments should be done on people that perpetrate not how people pee. A high vis jacket and a mop will get you into the ladies loo without any need to put on a dress.

The whole conversation around sex and gender identity has become more toxic than the blackwater bilge in septic sewage waste. Let’s discuss the science of sex and gender – their construction, oppression and expression – but separate from how we treat human beings with respect and dignity. 

Equalities law is clear, even if we’re going to be discussing sex and gender until the end of time! 

Anniversaries, Diversity & Equality, Feminism & Gender, Trans

Allies & Mutual Respect #WithTheT on Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV)

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I’ve written about the Transgender Day of Visibility (#TDOV) – meant to be a positive and the more negative memorialised Transgender Day of Remembrance (#TDOR) most years. Since 2014’s “transgender tipping point” and 2015’s year of transgender visibility, we now seem to be getting too much visibility and attention and not necessarily of a good kind. For with the visibility has come the vitriolic verbal violence that says we should go back into the closet and certainly not share one with cisgender people that match our gender identity. By that I mean trans women should not be seen in the same spaces or private areas (toilets, changing rooms, gyms, pools etc) as “real” “biological” women. Of course, the flipside is rarely addressed, i.e., whether trans men should be allowed in male gyms or loos and which instead silently suggests they should know their place and continue to use women’s facilities with their beards, biceps and deep voices. 

I’m not going into the ‘debates’ – I do that enough already with so-called ‘TERFs’ in person, privately, and online. I do, however, try to listen to concerns and allay them when overwhelmingly they are misplaced. That is not to say that the fears don’t feel real or come from personal but perhaps projected experience. The problem of men’s violence against women and girls (VAWG) should not be erased in the fight for trans equality and respect. Equally, men’s VAWG should not be projected onto all or any trans people as some kind of 1980s homosexual moral panic 2.0.

Mutual Respect

Rather, I want to talk about allies and mutual respect. Firstly, the latter. For many years I co-ran with some University feminist academics and local LGBT thinkers a Gender and Sexuality discussion group. There was never any trans exclusion but what did come up, very occasionally, was the idea that some trans people still had traces of male privilege and/or needed to go on a Feminism 101 induction course., and that we hadn’t experienced female oppression. It was never denied that we hadn’t experienced our own oppression and bullying for not conforming to gender construct norms. So our battle against gender oppression overlapped but was not the same. Being able to separate the personal from the analytical enabled me to discuss this without ever getting offended, though the first time I was called privileged it did hurt as it never felt that way, and I regard most privilege as relative, indeed being cisgendered is to have a presumed privilege of never having doubted one’s gender or suffered from gender dysphoria and its mental health associations.

Passing Privilege is something that many trans people long for but is not exclusively a trans issue. At recent gender critical discussions, I was somewhat amused to discover that trans people were accessing gender-aligned toilets with ease but some cisgender women were being questioned by other women for using toilets that didn’t seem to match their non-femme presentations. Just going to show that can’t always spot a trans person at 100 paces! I’ve never been questioned in a toilet except the men’s!

As to mutual respect, though, I’ve always felt that being accepted as female (actually I identify as non-binary but we don’t have our own changing rooms yet!) does not mean asserting that as a right but rather a privilege. The Equality Act (2010) and Gender Recognition Act (2004) may say that we should be treated equally and with respect but respect is also earned and the privilege of sharing same-sex spaces as ‘re-gendered’ individuals should be treated with gratefulness and grace not some sense of entitlement. If society follows the law then it does so not by waving GRCs or EA rules in people’s faces but by a growing sense of not just tolerance and acceptance but welcoming inclusion. An inclusion that, to me at least, comes from respecting the people whose space you are entering and sharing. Yes, we can exercise our rights but some rights are also won by mutual respect, not by a muscular assertion of them. I’ve only ever gone into women’s spaces that I felt welcome in, irrespective of what the law says. Most times I was invited, other times I enter cautiously and tread gently to see how I would be received.

#WithTheT

It is both encouraging and sad how many #WithTheT hashtags are doing the rounds. It is depressing how necessary it has become after the lesbian radical feminist #GetTheLOut stunt at Pride in London this year. It was followed by #LwithTheT, #BwithTheT and most recently #GwithTheT and #PrideWithTheT. I’ve even seen and appreciated #MPwiththeT and PeerwithTheT proving that Parliament has taken a few minutes off from Brexit!

At recent gender and trans discussions and events, I have actually found the issue was less that men or trans were vehemently asserting their views but instead two different groups of feminists were arguing over whether it was sisters or cisters, whether biology should be destiny or diversity, and over what form inclusion and intersectionality should take.

Now, more than ever, is the time not for Trans Visibility but for Allies Visibility and for that I thank them because it is indeed encouraging how many there are. They are the many, the majority, social attitudes have changed. Whether they are ‘cishet’ supporters or the #LwithTheT, we need to be allies not enemies, our rights were won by standing together be they the black trans women and queens standing with – or indeed starting, the early gay riots and Prides, or the LGBT movement standing with the miners or on other shared political platforms.

The ‘TERF’ kickback, the no LGBT education in faith schools, the occasional cases of trans violence upon cis (and more frequent vice versa cases) – these are all thankfully minority pockets of non-acceptance or abuse. We do live in better times and we should celebrate progress and the far more intersectional and diverse society we live in and how most of us get on and respect each other. I’m hoping the so-called ‘War upon Women/Trans’ (delete as appropriate depending which side you are on) is a passing hiccough in the march for LGBTQ acceptance and inclusion and treating each other as humans not labels or threats. History is littered with exclusion but the future is surely about inclusion.

 

Feminism & Gender, Trans

International Women’s Day, Positively Human

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In the current febrile atmosphere surround transgender women in single-sex spaces and indeed both trans and intersex trait women in sport, today – International Women’s Day is a good day to celebrate all women. Indeed, one of my preferred yet also subtle ways of being inclusive has been the addition of a plus sign at the end of many Women’s events, groups and societies. Women+ is such a (pun-intended) positive way of demonstrating inclusivity and intersectionality without erasing the word woman.

On a side note, etymologically woman is not a modification of male man (since ‘man’ meant ‘human’), neither is female of male. Both the modern word man and woman derive from separate roots. In Old English, wīfmann meant “female human” not female man. So the movement to respell woman as womban, womon, wimmin, womyn (Trans exclusive) or womxn (Trans & WOC inclusive) is to some extent misguided, linguistically at least to language pedants!

I like International Women’s Day because the only adjective added is international – inclusive of all women the world over. It is refreshingly broad in an age of exclusionary defining language such as biological woman, cisgender woman, natal woman, real woman, trans woman or woman defined by vagina, womb, low testosterone, motherhood, violence, abuse or oppression.

“…every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity. Is this attribute something secreted by the ovaries? Or is it a Platonic essence, a product of the philosophic imagination?” – Simone de Beauvoir, ‘The Second Sex’, introduction (1949)

Not every woman has the same experience and I’m not talking trans here, but the individual diversity of female lived experience. Some women have privilege, some at 21 are billionaires (Kylie Jenner). Some as Ivanka Trump, daughter of POTUS, are out of touch and have said people don’t need welfare and would be happy to make their own way in the world.

If biology – wombs, vaginas etc, is the root of women’s oppression why should their definition be rooted in oppression? Why not define by the positive factors of community, sisterhood, inclusion, lifting each other up, social enterprise, leaving no one behind, intersectionality and inclusion.

My response to the following greeting on #IWD on my Facebook wall was this:

Thank you. I feel honoured to be called a woman by women, whether I’m inspirational or not, in the current climate. It’s not an aspect of my identity I’ve used to gain entry to women’s spaces instead I’ve been consistently invited, welcomed, respected and included – and for that, I thank every other woman, most of whom are inspirational to me.

I define as a biological natal real human first, not cis or trans, intersex, male or female, man or woman, non-binary or otherwise.

I want to be known for my humanity, though. I have to admit I see more of that expressed in and by women, but not exclusively so. 

Women are not angels, nor devils wearing Prada, they are human. Capable of greatness and also of harm and hurt, like anyone else. 

Being a superhero-loving film buff, I found it particularly appropriate to go and see Captain Marvel today, a film in which the world is saved by a woman – without the help of a man, she even talks to other women – not about men, thereby passing the Bechdel test. Without an actual plot spoiler I’ll quote one short dialogue from the film:

“We’ll be back for the weapon”
“The Tesseract?”
“No, the WOMAN”

Take that how you like, I see the positive in it, woman and women’s power for positivity in this world.

I’ll end with a tweet I saw this morning that shouts out to me about the behaviour of some women (“some” RadFems/GC Feminists, “some” Trans etc). It says to me that you don’t raise yourself up by bringing other women down.

Gay, History & Culture, Human Rights, LGBTIQ, Trans

Homosexuality and Holocaust Memorial Day, A Gay Jewish Hero

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Why is Holocaust Memorial Day even necessary still? Because 1-in-20 people think the Holocaust never happened. Because 1-in-12 think it is exaggerated. Because genocides of people by ethnicity, faith, or sexuality, still happen. Because anti-Semitism, anti-Romani, anti-disabled, homophobic and transphobic feelings still exist. Running the Human Library in the UK, I see people’s incredulity at the persecution and prejudice still experienced by some minority groups. Jewish, Romani, Gay, Disabled, Transgender were all human books this last week. They were all persecuted by the Nazis too. Prejudice that is so often based upon stereotyping and scapegoating. Beliefs based on racial or heterosexual purity or supremacy. Eugenics and abhorrent forms of evolutionary biology. 
 
In the last week, a leading Nigerian police chief has told gay people to leave the country, a gay Brazilian MP has left the country because of the far-right leader’s overt homophobia and having received death threats, Chechnya continues to persecute, imprison and apparently kill gay people. Uganda, Saudi, Da’Esh/ISIS territory and 70 other places criminalise being LGBT, some with the death penalty. Many countries demand that transgender people are sterilized so they cannot reproduce. Hungary is pushing to set up integration camps for Roma; China has reeducation camps for Muslims. Anti-immigration, Brexit, Make America Great Again anti-Muslim or Mexican declarations are all symptoms too. 

What’s in a word?

“Sticks and stones…” Shoah, Holocaust, Jew, Sodomite, Gay, Queer, Persecuted, Interned, Tortured, Killed… Jews and Gays shared a common status as victims of Nazi hate. Some people were Jewish and gay, wearing a pink triangle over their yellow star for double humiliation and awaited horrors including torture, rape, and death.
 
70 years before the Holocaust, in 1868, the term homosexual was first used in private correspondence and the next year in print, trying to repeal the Prussian penal code on same-sex relations, a code that inspired the 1871 Paragraph 175‘s criminalising of homosexuality that continued through the Nazi-era despite a 1929 attempt to end it. A law not lifted till 1969! 
 
There was no 1945 full and true liberation for gay people in concentration camps, Jewish or otherwise. They were still seen as criminals. It is estimated that 50,000 were imprisoned and 20% of them interned in concentration camps with fewer than half surviving. Both gay men and transvestites were targeted. In 1938, the Institute of Forensic Medicine recommended that the “phenomena of transvestism” be “exterminated from public life.” LGBT was pathologised by the Nazis, by the church, and by medicine.

Magnus Hirschfeld

Also, in 1868 a Jewish boy was born. He was to become an eminent social philosopher, doctor and sexologist. He would also grow up to be gay. His name was Magnus Hirschfeld.
 
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, he travelled widely, lectured and wrote. He also experienced the gay sub-cultures of Chicago and elsewhere, exploring the phenomena in Tangier and Tokyo as well as Rio de Janeiro.
 
Hirschfeld became interested in gay rights when he noticed that many of his patients being treated for depression were actually gay and committing suicide because of it. In 1896, one such patient, an army officer, did just that and wrote about the reason in his Selbstmord (“self-murder”/suicide) note.
 
In 1897, aged just 29, the Prussian (now in Poland) physician was living in Berlin and angered at the Oscar Wilde trial he founded the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee or “Scientific Humanitarian Committee” – the world’s earliest gay rights movement. He wanted to advocate justice through science to counter both homophobia and indeed racism (which he also wrote about and saw anti-Semitism a part of) by countering prejudice based pseudo-science with true science. 
 
Whilst in France, Hirschfeld finished a book he had been writing during the 1930s, Rassismus (“Racism”). It was published posthumously in English in 1938. He wrote that the purpose of the book was to explore “the racial theory which underlines the doctrine of racial war,” saying that he himself “numbered among the many thousands who have fallen victim to the practical realisation of this theory.”
 
Magnus Hirschfeld at a costume party at the Institute of Sexual Research, 1920
Magnus Hirschfeld (far right with glasse, holding the hand of his lover, Karl Giese) at a costume party at the Institute of Sexual Research, 1920. Credit: Photo courtesy of Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V., Berlin.

The Institute for Sexual Knowledge

In 1919, Hirschfeld founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (“Institute for Sexual Knowledge/Science”) including the Museum of Sex. Over 14 years it gathered huge research on tens of thousands of cases and LGBTIQ diversity.
 
In May 1933, just months after the Nazis took power, Hirschfeld’s Institute was sacked by a group of university students belonging to the  from the National Socialist Student League. They stormed into the building (above which he lived with his lover Giese but was away) shouting “Brenne Hirschfeld!” (“Burn Hirschfeld!”), beat up the staff and smashed up the premises before later in the day the Nazi paramilitary Brownshirts showed up to burn thousands of books and files. The institute was then closed permanently by the Police.
 
Hirschfeld was away on a speaking tour during the crackdown and never returned to Germany, dying of a heart attack in 1935 instead. His lover Karl Giese killed himself in 1938 and his own relatives like Hirschfeld’s sister were gassed in a concentration camp in 1942. Both Hirschfeld and his lover were known to crossdress and were often referred to using feminine pronouns. 
 
In 1933 we lost 50 years of LGBTIQ study and 20s era queer culture and openminded society. In 1935 and 1938 with the deaths of Hirschfeld and Giese we lost two queer heroes who lost family to the Holocaust and were triply persecuted for their faith, ethnicity and sexuality.
 
We don’t live single issue lives as Audre Lorde said, we need to stand up for others, whether their persecution intersects with our own or not. We all know Niemoller’s poem – “First they came for…” Or do we, when a third of people now know little about the Holocaust and 20% of 18-34s in France have not heard of it!  Remember – Lest we forget!
 
Bergen-Belsen "To the memory of all those who died in this place" © KatyJon
Bergen-Belsen “To the memory of all those who died in this place” © Katy Jon Went
Trans

Trans Awareness Week & TDOR its Day of Remembrance for those killed

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Transgender Day of Remembrance 2018

Every 24 hours a trans person is murdered, 369 this year, nearly 3,000 the last 10 years – that we know about, i.e., it may only be the tip of the iceberg. It is a number that is rising annually and particularly affects those in the Americas but also in over 70 other countries around the world.

TDOR Candle lights
TDOR Candle lights

Since 1999, the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) has taken place every November, now following the newer Trans Awareness Week. It is the day when we recall and respect those trans and gender-diverse people who have been victims of murder or manslaughter. It does not include the countless numbers that take their own lives through suicide. Trans women of colour are the most likely to be killed of all transgender people, especially, but far from exclusively, those involved in sex work. Also, everyone from hairdressers to artists and activists, and many who were migrants.

Just this week, 40 trans activists at a rally in Kiev, Ukraine, were attacked by far-Right radicals throwing smoke bombs and punches.

Read more about the numbers, the lives, around the world, ended through transphobia and transmisogyny, issues in the media and feminism, and TDOR commemorations on 20 November 2018.

The person picked up in the media for being trans and a victim of violent crime in England and hence the only UK trans person this year to be added to the long list of transgender people killed was Naomi Hersi. Sadly, she typifies the fairly common context for many. She was a trans woman of colour, and a victim of violence during or after a sexual encounter. Ironically, she last tweeted 3-years before her death about trans women of colour facing an epidemic of violence and murder.

Transgender Tipping Point or Crisis Point?

Sadly, around the world, trans people are often in the news for the shocking recurrence of their frequent murders. Not in the news are the statistics that trans women can be even more prone than cis women to sexual violence and abuse, as many as 1-in-2.

That flies in the face of the alternate narrative put out by those fearing Trans rights and suggesting that trans women are rapists and murderers in drag, abusing gender self-ID (which in the UK we haven’t even got yet). The statistics of male-born sexual assault perpetrators in prison who may now be transitioning actually shows that gender self-ID isn’t the problem, but abusers are. The majority never dressed as women in order to abuse.

Transgender people are in the news or online media nearly every day. Frequently, there are several trans-questioning or outright transphobic articles in The Times every 7-10 days, not to mention other papers such as the Daily Mail, (I counted 7 in a 4-day period during late October in the DM alone) and continuous TV and Radio programmes to boot.

Last year, Ruth Hunt, CEO of Stonewall described Britain today as “at an absolute crisis point in how it treats trans people”, in no small part down to media attention.

“Britain is no longer considered a safe part of the world for trans people to live in…It should be considered a national embarrassment that this is where we now are as a nation.” – Ruth Hunt, Stonewall

Instead of the prurient public interest being in trans ‘sex changes’, former lives, and scaremongering fears of ‘sex pest perverts’ in toilets or prison (where they should be), the media should be concerned about the levels of abuse, bullying, murder and suicide that so blight trans lives.

The escalation to a “hostile environment” due to the ‘debate’ around an updated Gender Recognition Act (GRA) between some feminists (colloquially known as TERFs by trans people, but not a term owned by the so-monikered trans or gender critical radical feminists) and transgender people – mostly but not exclusively directed at trans women, has led to a toxic atmosphere.

Last year, Ed Miliband “hit out at the inaccurate coverage in the press, accusing newspapers of propagating a “moral panic” similar to the anti-gay coverage seen in the 1980s.” – PodCast

Trans people’s lives are already under a microscope as part of their transition pathway, but to be so in the media spotlight too puts their private and social lives up for involuntary discussion and invasive dissection.

Lucy Meadows took her own life in 2013 in strong part due to “the toll the press was taking on her mental health”, says her former partner. “The media later claimed, [that] by putting out an “official” letter, the school [where she taught] had “officially” placed Lucy’s transition in the domain of public interest.”

Katy Jon Went appearing on ITV Anglia news during Transgender Awareness Week
Speaking on ITV Anglia news during Transgender Awareness Week

More positive has been the campaigns of Stonewall, Comic Relief, various public bodies, and open-minded news outlets using the opportunity of #TransgenderAwarenessWeek to balance the negativity online. ITV Anglia broadcast a piece on transgender workplace discrimination and homelessness that can affect 1-in-4 trans people. 

2017-18 Transgender Monitoring Data

Two years ago, saw 295 trans and gender-diverse persons added to the list of those killed for being trans. Last year that number was 325, up 10%. This year it went up 13% to 369. Improved news monitoring could account for it but hate and visibility are also on the rise.

“These figures only show the tip of the iceberg of homicides of trans and gender-diverse people on a worldwide scale.”

The majority of the murders occurred in Brazil (167 static but up 40% from 2016 and who knows what climate Brazil’s new leader will bring), Mexico (71 up from 56), and the United States (28 up from 25 and 23 in 2016), adding up to a total of 2,982 reported cases in 72 countries worldwide between 1st of January 2008 and 30th of September 2018.

  • 16 trans people were killed in Europe (up 300% from 2017 and 60% from 2016)
  • 28 in the USA (4x more likely than in Europe, 6x UK)
  • 71 in Mexico (up 40% on 2017)
  • 167 in Brazil (37x more likely than in Europe, 53x UK)

You are 17x more at risk in the US than in India but 8x more at risk in Pakistan than India. Hate crimes against trans people in America were up 44% in 2016, according to FBI data. Donald Trump has recently tried to define sex in such a way that would make gender transition a legal non-entity.

“Since the election of Donald Trump and Mike Pence, there has been a notable increase in the vitriol and anti-transgender rhetoric — from the top levels of government down through the rest of American society.” – HRC Report

  • The majority of murders were of trans women (80% in the US)
  • Over 15% were sex workers (6% were hairdressers & 3% were activists)
  • Majority of the reported murder victims in W.Europe were migrants
  • Most of the victims in the US were people of colour
  • The majority of the victims were under 30 years old

In many countries, trans and gender non-conforming people live riskier lives, not by choice, but usually as a last resort due to the oppression, rejection and lack of rights within their cultures and societies. Many struggle to find work to survive, let alone to transition, and resort to sex work and/or flee their countries as migrants. Either or both of these paths putting them into the line of fire of greater exploitation and risk.

These numbers do not include suicides, the countless thousands who take their own lives – around 40% try, twice as many consider it. Sometimes it is the result of an attack:

These numbers are people. [Some of the names…]

These numbers are too many.

These numbers barely scratch the surface of the actual violence trans people experience, as much goes unrecorded, or are cause/status unknown.

Trans flag and candles, TDOR, UEA, 20 Nov 2017
Trans flag and candles, TDOR, UEA, 20 Nov 2017

Many countries don’t mention trans status in reports of violent death or in their internal statistics – particularly in anti-LGBT regimes and regions. Again, many may be killed in their acquired gender but the death not be because of it, or their pre-transition life simply not known about. 

In addition to violent deaths, 1-in-2 trans people experience domestic abuse and/or sexual violence (DASV). Trans men and women alike often suffer in silence and fear that shelters and services won’t be there for them.

81% of trans people have suffered physical and/or verbal abuse.

Are they not women if people and society perceive them as such and treat them equally badly?

Yes, their social and biological experience when growing up is not that of natal/cis women but many in medicine now recognise a biological rather than purely psychological basis for the origins of gender dysphoria.

“Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.” – The Endocrine Society

How then can some in society – conservative religions, some feminists, right-wing journalists, far-right radicals think that being trans male or female is something we need to fight against?

Intersectional Feminism?

The personal is political and it’s hard to avoid the political, for murder is as personal as it gets. The irony that this was a rallying cry of late 1960s/70s Second Wave Feminism and yet is also the lived and embodied risk of being trans is not lost on me. Women regularly experience sexism and discrimination because of their sex. Black women even more so, adding racism to the crimes against their person.

The majority of feminists recognise the intersections between sex, sexuality and colour, not to mention class. Again, most modern and particularly young student feminists recognise the further intersection with gender identity. A few do not, and instead regard trans women as a threat to gendered spaces and trans men as traitors erasing butch lesbianism.

The conflation of sex with gender and/or sexuality is an issue needing improved education to better understand people’s authentic ‘born this way’ identities. 

Don’t scapegoat us as perverts and rapists. Don’t harm us and kill us. Instead, be allies, support us to be ourselves, and let’s bring these murder, abuse, and suicide rates down in future years!

What can we do?

  • end discrimination at work, in training and employment opportunities
  • provide decent healthcare
  • create healthy environments at school to explore identity and expression
  • recognise that Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence happen to trans women and men too, at the hands of cisgendered men and women
  • ensure prejudice is rooted out of criminal justice and police systems
  • provide legal protections against online and offline hate
  • end the language of erasure and exclusion between TERFs, as well as other vociferous transphobes, and Trans
  • develop positive dialogues rather than debate our right to exist
  • foster greater unity with allies of the wider LGBT+ and feminist communities

TDOR Commemorations

Transgender poet, Roz Kaveney, wrote the brutally real, “Shot, Stabbed, Choked, Strangled, Broken” as a ritual for TDOR. It begins:

“It could have been me…”

And finishes:

“When people die
Their smiles are taken from us
Who might have seen them
And smiled back.
Their songs are taken from us
Who might have heard
And listened and been glad.
Their stories are remembered
By us, on this day
And always.”

TDOR remembrance meetups are held around the UK including London, Liverpool, Brighton, and Norwich, as well as worldwide including Paris and New York and dozens of other locations.

Norwich City Hall, Christmas lights during trans awareness week, pink and blue
Norwich City Hall, lit up during trans awareness week, pink and blue

Norfolk, my adopted home county is holding at least three TDOR events, one at the UEA – last year’s was attended by over 80 people (Concrete Online report), another at St John’s Timberhill, and a further

“Our Service for Transgender Day of Remembrance is a way of showing our commitment as people of faith; of declaring that the lives and the rights of transgender people matter to us all and ultimately to our community and our society if prejudice and intolerance are to be banished in the name of equality, diversity, justice and peace.” – Fr Christopher Wood, Rector of St John’s Timberhill Church, Norwich

Ten years of Norwich Pride and decades of trans support groups stretching back to Barbara Ross, OBE, Oasis and now more than half a dozen active groups supporting trans youth, non-binary, trans men, trans women, and families of trans, mean that Norwich provides a generally safe and supportive environment for trans people and gender dysphoric or questioning youth.

“These statistics are horrific and we all need to do more to support transgender people and ensure they can be safe and proud to be themselves.” – Michelle Savage, Norwich Pride

TDOR discussion on BBC Radio Norfolk with Nick Conrad and Katy Jon Went (1hr55m10s in)

Trans Day of Remembrance, TDOR, at UEA
Trans Day of Remembrance, TDOR, at UEA
Feminism & Gender, LGBTIQ, Trans

International Transgender Day of Visibility as the Political gets Personal

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For Trans People, the Personal is getting very Political

If the personal is political, then being trans has certainly become overly politicised in the last few months. Most transgender people just want to get on with their lives, not poke their heads above the parapet and be overtly public each Transgender Day of Visibility (#TDOV). 2014 was called the  “transgender tipping point” and 2015 the year of transgender visibility, but 2017-18 is fast becoming the year of the war on women and trans.

Sex Wars and Gender Recognition

The Gender Recognition Act (2004) aided that for some but not for all since it was not relevant to many transitioning people being mainly a requirement for pre-Equal, well Same-Sex anyway, marriage legal innovation. It is now front and centre of the new battle within feminism(s), the so-called “War on Women”, discussion of who or what is a woman, access to single-sex spaces and support services, and updates to the GRA.

“United We Stand, Divided We Fall”

We divide and misrule at our peril. Surely, to stand on the right side of history is to be on the side of progress towards human rights for all, not resisting them. Fourth-wave feminism understands intersectionality and trans sisters far more inclusively than second-wave feminism. This unfortunate fight is as much a battle within feminisms as it is between genders. Interestingly, just 59% of Mumsnet users call themselves feminists yet many have joined the trans resistance, i.e., are resisting the extension of gender-identity rights.

That said, there are peaceful cooperative ways to discuss legal provisions among those that are affected by the laws. Though, to be honest, since the majority of trans people don’t even bother with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) and have been accessing the most appropriate spaces and services to their gender or stage of transition for years, it hasn’t been a ‘problem’ until now. Equally, over half-a-dozen countries have introduced gender self-ID since 2012 to no known problems.

The UK seems to be unique in perceiving it as a massive attack upon the rights of and risks towards women. It is also tearing the Labour Party apart, much as the current discussion of alleged anti-semitism within it is. The vitriol of calling both trans activists and ‘TERF’s (see below) ‘Fascists’ is laughable since the majority of those fighting each other are Socialists, Marxists, and generally people on the Left of British politics, several of whom have been suspended or ejected from the Labour Party over this issue.

Who or What is a woman, BBC, 30 Jan 2018
BBC ‘Who, or what, defines you as a woman?’ Featuring Katy Jon Went and Linda Bellos

Visible Transgender History

One vocal opponent (aka ‘TERF’ or a Radical Feminist who opposes the inclusion of trans women in female spaces and a term considered a slur by them despite its reasonably accurate abbreviated description) said this week that “Transgenderism wasn’t a thing. It didn’t exist 30 years ago.”

That is akin to the Australian MP, Bob Katter, who recently claimed that LGBTI people had only been around for 60 years.

The willful ignorance of the history of transgender, third gender, and gender non-conforming individuals, is astonishing here. Not to mention, the nearly 50-years-ago trans-washing of the Stonewall riots (1969) and the numerous trans women and transvestites involved in protesting police violence and state criminalisation of LGBT people. 

“people have been crossing gender boundaries for millennia and in all kinds of civilisations” – Christine Burns, History Today

All of these transgender people (a third of whom are trans men) and thousands more clearly existed 30 years ago and had surgeries more than 40 years ago:

Lili Elbe (1882-1931), Alan L. Hart (1890-1962), Michael Dillon (1915-1962), Roberta Cowell (1918-2011), Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989), Jan Morris (1926-), Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy aka Coccinelle (1931-2006), Renée Richards (1934-), April Ashley (1935-), Lou Sullivan (1951-91), Caroline Cossey (1954-), Stephen Whittle (1955-). 

Medical Research & Mutual Respect

“Respectful, calm debate is necessary. How society and medicine deal with gender requires critical review in terms of the potential for unintended harms, even if there are no easy answers.” – Dr Margaret McCartney: Medicine must do better on gender, BMJ

Ongoing research is clearly needed and continues to show a biological/nature more than social/nurture origin of gender identity without it being a question of respecting people’s self-identity, whether part of gender dysphoria or not – something I struggled with for years. 

“Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity. Although the specific mechanisms guiding the biological underpinnings of gender identity are not entirely understood, there is evolving consensus that being transgender is not a mental health disorder.” – Endocrine Society

We sorely need a message of mutual respect and inclusion not trans exclusion, but the way it is being discussed in a verbally violent polarised way is making it a debate about people’s identity, human rights, legal protections (I admit these go both ways within the EA, but not the GRA) and making it seem as if trans women don’t care about natal women’s rights to freedom from abuse.

We should be fighting abuse together

Violence towards women is something that should not be projected onto the vast majority of trans women as if it were some kind of demonising 1980s homosexual moral panic.

We need to fight and protect against Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (DASV) together not apart.

The majority of the victims are indeed women (including trans women) and the majority of the perpetrators are men – 90% of whom are known to victims, so the idea of ‘stranger danger’ and men using female self-identity to access women’s safe spaces is an extreme rarity and not indicative of real trans lives. 

Transgender Day of Visibility TDOV
Transgender Day of Visibility TDOV, 31 March #TDOV2018
Crime & Justice, Feminism & Gender, Norfolk & Norwich, Trans

Norwich Reclaim the Night – Fighting for Safer Streets not Infighting

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The third Norwich Reclaim the Night took place on International Women’s Day 2018, spearheaded by UEA students and young intersectional and international feminists. It was inclusive of trans and non-binary people, as well as men, focusing on safety for all not gender. Sex worker freedom from violence, intimidation and harassment was also signposted. This was feminism for all without any infighting or exclusion.

Rallying talks and emotive poetry (all with content warnings) raised the issues of violence against women, of “Yellow Peril” racism on the streets, of domestic and sexual abuse, of hate crimes, and of the need to take back and create safe streets for all. The evening began with a talk about Leeway domestic violence and abuse services and also fundraised for them.

“Many marches are women-only and sadly some groups have discriminated against trans participants… We came out to show that Norwich is no longer a place where you can be harmed or discriminated against for the colour of your skin, your faith, gender, sex, nationality or sexual orientation.” – UEA event organising group

March chants – and Poppy Rose was in good voice, included:

“Love, not hate
Makes Norwich great!”

and 

“Claim our bodies
Claim our right
Make a stand
Take back the night!”

Norwich Reclaim the Night marchers 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went
Norwich Reclaim the Night marchers 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went

The march of some 50-plus people was one of solidarity, safety, and sensitivity, looking after the welfare of everyone involved, several of whom spoke of surviving sexual abuse or other forms of harassment. 

Spanish feminist solidarity at Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went
Spanish feminist solidarity at Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went

A number of young Spanish feminists found the event on Facebook, and were surprised more wasn’t happening on International Women’s Day whilst reflecting with sadness that they weren’t home in Spain during its first nationwide feminist strike of some 5 million women.

During the march, some dozen men on the streets asked me what it was about – there was no mockery but positive approval. Women standing in the queue for nightclubs gave us whoop-whoops as we passed, a couple of times cars honked their horns in solidarity.

This is indicative of how positive Norwich can be.

Unlike other Reclaim the Night events across the country, such as in London, which is considered a ‘women-only’ march, Norwich’s variation promotes an all-inclusive attitude towards supporting all individuals who may be affected by sexual harassment. Second year student, Ryan Jordan, who also delivered a speech and performed several poems, said,

“When I performed, my heart was pounding at first. But in the second half, I thought, ‘I’m with people who are amazing, and in Norwich you feel that you can do anything, unlike London…You’ve got a beautifully different array of people. It feels so safe. And UEA has always been very accepting. I feel okay being myself, and I feel that’s what Reclaim the Night is about.” – Ryan Jordan, as reported by Chloe Howcroft

As an invited speaker, for the second year running, I was loathed to draw attention to the issues of trans people, particularly trans women, and especially on #IWD, but current media headlines necessitated it and it was a safe place to do so given how inclusive an event the organising team had made it.

Here’s what I had to say:

Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018 speech

“Reclaim the night is an annual march … intended to reclaim bodily autonomy and space that is often stolen from us by gendered and sexual violence”
Or so says CUSU.
 
Student-organised Reclaim the Nights tend to be women and non-binary, and male allies and victims inclusive – many don’t even mention trans inclusivity as it’s taken for granted that trans women would be included in women.
 
Meanwhile, “London Reclaim The Night is a women-only march.” and and some groups within the London Feminist Network have actively organised against trans or sex worker inclusivity.
 
Manchester, Brighton, and happily Norwich etc are all trans inclusive.
 
“All genders welcome. This is a sex-worker inclusive event, and we actively advocate for the decriminalisation of sex work. This is also an explicitly trans inclusive march. Given the chequered history of Reclaim the Night elsewhere in the country, we consider this vital to state clearly, and to do all we can to challenge the worrying rise of so-called radical feminism” – Brighton
The UEA-led Norwich Reclaim the Night proclaims “let’s make Norwich safe for everyone” 
 
Trans people are no safer on the streets than cis gender women, creating safe spaces on our streets, at our workplaces, in our homes (where 90% of DASV occurs among people we know, ie not stranger violence) is about protecting the vulnerable and policing the aggressors, not stereotyping and dividing down overly-simplistic/reductionist gendered lines. 
 
Solidarity, inclusivity, and intersectionality should be with all victims of violence and gender-based oppression. 
 
We should be fighting oppression, arm-in-arm, not fighting each other.
 
Artist and friend, Katherine Gilmartin, says:
 
“Boss babes see one another fighting for not with other women and systems.”
One Billion Rising, International Women’s Day and Reclaim the Night are all occasions when I prefer to emphasise women and girls and not draw attention to trans specific issues, but the current heat on trans women makes it unavoidable.
 
Katy Jon Went speaking at Norwich Reclaim the Night. Photo by Helen Burrows
Katy Jon Went speaking at Norwich Reclaim the Night. Photo by Helen Burrows

It is claimed that trans women mark the same level of risk to cisgender women as cisgender men do when in fact they are themselves at a higher risk of some types of abuse and attack (and ironically trans women as perpetrators of extreme violence pose a greater risk to men rather than women!)

 
This debate has not moved on in a year and trans women remain under fire for “Not being real women”. It’s time for all women, all minorities and/or oppressed to stand together for equality, human rights and mutual respect. It’s #PressforProgress not regress.
 
Reclaim the Night and Take Back the Night began in the late 1970s, a time when women and LGBT people had been standing side by side to advance gay rights and women’s rights. 1970s American lesbian radical feminists embraced their trans sisters until the 1979 publication of Janice Raymond’s Transexual Empire and attacks on Sandy Stone. Now it appears some women and media muck-rakers are trying to take us back to the 70s! 
 
It’s an age-old war fast becoming an old age war. It is dividing feminists of one generation from feminists of the next. It is defeating our common aims of reducing violence and oppression because we are divided against ourselves. 
 
Today has been used by a number of feminists as an opportunity to leave the Labour Party en masse for its defence and inclusion of trans women (in accordance with equality laws).

Transgender activists and the real war on women, Judith Green, The Spectator, 8 March 2018

The first attack, I mean “free speech debate”, that I saw in the media was timed to coincide with International Women’s Day and was by Judith Green of A Women’s Place UK calling it “transgender activists and the real war on women“.

I would have thought that the real war on women was from Boko Haram, Saudi Arabia, FGM, everyday sexism and stereotyping, Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo and
 
TimesUp, Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went
TimesUp, Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went

Not from a handful of trans people who in almost equal numbers now are traversing the gender divide and leaving biological birth essentialist determinism behind thus showing that neither the gender construct nor birth lottery need define you. Surely, that IS feminism?

We are stronger together than tearing each other apart. I am proud and pleased that the April WOW festival in Norwich, like Reclaim the Night, is trans and non-binary inclusive, male allies and victims of abuse and gender role oppression also.
 
It is time we stood together, 
it is time we rise up together, and
it is time we marched together, 
 
to reclaim the media high ground, 
to reclaim our study and workplaces, and
to reclaim the day and the night as sisters diverse but not divided!
 
For united we stand, divided we fall. 
Safe streets for women, trans and all!
 

Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went
Norwich Reclaim the Night 2018. Photo © Katy Jon Went
Anniversaries, Crime & Justice, Trans

Transgender Day of Remembrance – 295 Trans murders #TDOR2016

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Transgender Day of Remembrance 2016

Every 29 hours a trans person is murdered in the world, 295 were reported up to this year’s annual 20 November Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). Most, some 85%, were in the Americas, but even in Europe, 5 were killed in each of Italy and Turkey. In Asia at least 11 across India and Pakistan. North America had 23 reported murders of transgender people, but Brazil had 123, ten times as many per capita. Honduras is, in fact, the most dangerous place per head of population, twice as bad as Brazil, with 89 people killed over 8 years of reporting. Over the last 8 years, some 52 trans people have been stoned to death – and not by ISIS, one just 3 weeks ago in Brazil; 630 were killed in the street, many as sex workers, but it begs the question about bystanders and communities not noticing or standing up as allies; one victim in Pakistan was refused medical treatment because she was trans, speeding her death.

These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg as statistics are based upon scouring news reports and some people may only be listed as a sex worker and/or their trans status not mentioned. Some may not have been killed because they were trans, but many were. Also, the numbers do not include the 33-50% of trans people who also try to take their own lives through suicide.

2264 Trans Lives lost Violently

Over 2008-2016 since the Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) TvT Project has been running, 2264 have been killed. By far the largest, 541 were sex workers, but 99 hairdressers and beauticians, 34 artists, and 25 activists were counted among the dead as well as 9 religious leaders.

Trans Awareness Week/Month

Katy Jon Went Transgender Awareness MonthAs an antidote, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to be involved in several talks and discussions during Trans Awareness Week, or even a full month being celebrated by some. UEA, my local university, was particularly busy with events on each day, in conjunction with other societies such as FemSoc and Pride. Events covered non-binary questions, trans student politics, Ava Rollason sharing her colourful life and journey, and the growth of diversity and even dissent within and towards trans* identities.

Trans Visibility without the Violence

Trans people have indeed reached a “tipping point” and yet that has not diminished their risk of harm – self, and assailant-based. With shockingly high suicide risks, 80% consider it, and 33-50% act on it, trans people are especially vulnerable, and now, especially visible.

With around 0.75 to 2.5% or more people identifying as transgender and/or non-binary, one interesting visualisation is that there could be on average around 250-1000 trans* people at each UK premiership football match.

Visibility without risk of violence is what trans people are seeking, although many would no doubt prefer a form of passing invisibility as opposed to a discriminatory erasure or prejudicial ignorance.

Candle burning in the darkMany have called 2015 the year of transgender visibility, after 2014’s “transgender tipping point” but what does that make 2016? One hopes that whilst deaths and murders are on the rise, that also, acceptance, diversity, and rights, are also increasing, and the killings are a temporary peak and will subside as countries make healthcare and transition access easier and more affordable, reducing the risks of sex work as a means of paying for surgeries. It should be noted that the primary victims of trans violence are trans people of colour, and that Trans Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter should be trending side by side, particularly as they were at the forefront of the emergence of trans rights in the USA. This month we remember the dead, celebrate the living, and offer hope to transgender people all over the world, and stand against the hate that takes so many of our lives.

Anniversaries, Books & Literature, Feminism & Gender, Sex & Sexuality

Simone de Beauvoir on Woman, The Second Sex, Female, Femininity & The Other

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Simone de Beauvoir, Sex-Positive Feminist, d.1986

Simone de Beauvoir, d.1986
Simone de Beauvoir, d.1986

It’s a generation since the death of author, feminist, and existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir on 14 April 1986. A lover of Sartre – in both senses of the word, she was a sexually liberated bisexual whose disregard for sexual convention – including age of consent laws, caused her to lose her right to teach in France. Her 1949 defining work on the oppression of women, Le Deuxième Sexe – “The Second Sex“, is widely considered a groundbreaking treatise on sex and gender for 20th-century feminism.

As to her sexual liberation, her “erotic liberty“, and open relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, she saw any sexual categorisation as restrictive:

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.” – Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

I recently quoted, knowingly totally out of context, this from de Beauvoir:

“One is not born a woman, but becomes one.”

I was quite promptly, and perhaps rightly, accused of ‘quote mining’. Contextomy or the unjustified use of an uprooted, and in this case anachronous, quote, to prove a point it was never intended to address, is a fair criticism.

My use of the quote was because it resonated with the idea that people can be born female, raised a girl, but become a woman. A woman is as much experience, as nature. I’m not jumping in and suggesting, for example, that post-operative trans women are thus women, the same as those who were born with a uterus and raised as girls. Indeed, is anyone any less of a woman after uterine cancer (affecting 8,500 women in the UK a year) and removal of the womb via hysterectomy? Similarly, women can have various difficulties in reproduction due to infertility, or any number of intersex medical differences that may cause an XX or indeed other chromosomal combination such as XXY etc to present a body that defies the defined binary female stereotype. Women should not be defined by their ability to procreate and bear children – that much I am sure de Beauvoir would agree with.

My question is, though, whether de Beauvoir would have condemned or supported the rights of some to pursue a gender trajectory that more matches their inner feelings and psyche than their binary-born bodies. In other words, transgender, non-binary and other forms of gender fluidity or transition.

Simone de Beauvoir on Woman, Femininity, the Other, and maybe a Third Sex

Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex, 1949
Simone de Beauvoir “The Second Sex” (1949)

So to add insult to injury, to compound my contextomy crime, here are some further Beauvoirisms that might shed light on what might have been her attitude to “The Third Sex”. A phrase which I use, advisedly, for the main purpose of echoing her “Second Sex”, rather than for the purpose of defining all trans and/or gender non-conforming people as a “Third Sex” even though that is a way which some, especially in Asian and Indian cultures, do define.

Does ‘Woman’ even exist?

Beauvoir existentially questioned whether woman would always exist, suggesting that ‘she’ is an ephemeral concept ,driven by culture and construct as much as conception:

“Are there women, really? Most assuredly the theory of the eternal feminine still has its adherents who will whisper in your ear: ‘Even in Russia women still are women’; and other erudite persons – sometimes the very same – say with a sigh: ‘Woman is losing her way, woman is lost.’ One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should…” – The Second Sex, introduction (1949)

One can be female but not a woman

As to femininity, she saw it as something esoteric, and that female ≠ woman ≠ femininity:

“It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity. Is this attribute something secreted by the ovaries? Or is it a Platonic essence, a product of the philosophic imagination?” – The Second Sex, introduction (1949)

If female equals the “female of the species” reproductively, and feminine a cultural construct if not oppression, then woman need not be feminine and feminism a path to throwing off that oppression. But does ‘woman’ need to be female? If one can be female but not a woman, can one be woman but not a female?

What is woman?

If much previous philosophical, and biblical-theological enquiry, stemmed around “What is man?” and the nature of man, then de Beauvoir helpfully examines, what is woman:

If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through ‘the eternal feminine’, and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question “what is a woman”?

Yet would it not be more helpful to discuss what it means to be human, or are we still stuck seeing woman as something less than a man, and hence neither equal nor fully human since, as in the Bible, Adam stands for man and humankind as the first point of reference?

“Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him” – The Second Sex, introduction (1949)

On BBC Woman’s Hour today, British Army Captain Rosie Hamilton was interviewed about how female recruits are trained, but it was then made all about how many of them made the ‘male’ standard.

Woman as the ‘Other’

Beauvoir rebelled against the patriarchal concept that man is human and woman is defined only in relation to being man’s so-called opposite pole, that she is ‘othered’ in reference to him. Not that we have achieved gender parity yet, but I wonder how she would see trans, non-binary, intersex people now, as perhaps the new (however ancient a group of people they are) ‘other’?

“No subject will readily volunteer to become the object, the inessential; it is not the Other who, in defining himself as the Other, establishes the One. The Other is posed as such by the One in defining himself as the One.” – The Second Sex, introduction (1949)

Trans, Non-Binary and Intersex people are ‘othered’ by the default biologically and socially essentialist binary. In the same way, de Beauvoir saw woman as othered by man. Thus, gender non-conforming people, whether assigned male or female at birth, should have some solidarity with the feminist struggle to assert the equality of women with men, and their common core identity as human beings absolutely, not relatively. Sadly, that is not always the case and some folk do not see a common struggle between feminism and gender identity. As de Beauvoir said:

“Enough ink has been spilled in quarrelling over feminism” – The Second Sex, introduction (1949)

Some radical feminists, such as Julie Bindel, Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffries and others, are well known for exclusionary attitudes to trans people. Indeed, de Beauvoir others intersex people, formerly termed ‘hermaphrodite’, in her seeking to find an independent voice on ‘what is woman?’:

“What we need is an angel – neither man nor woman – but where shall we find one? Still, the angel would be poorly qualified to speak, for an angel is ignorant of all the basic facts involved in the problem. With a hermaphrodite we should be no better off, for here the situation is most peculiar; the hermaphrodite is not really the combination of a whole man and a whole woman, but consists of parts of each and thus is neither.” – The Second Sex, introduction (1949)

In a 1976 interview, when asked about excluding men from some aspects of the feminist struggle and female gatherings, she opined that sometimes it was necessary. So she may have argued against the full and unfettered access of some transwomen (e.g., pre-operative) to women-only safe spaces. She did also say, however:

“The battle of the sexes is not implicit in the anatomy of man and woman.” – The Second Sex, conclusion (1949)

Similarly, she spoke of some lesbian women, in particular, being male-exclusionary:

“There are other women who have become lesbian out of a sort of political commitment: that is, they feel that it is a political act to be lesbian, the equivalent somewhat within the sex struggle of the black power advocates within the racial struggle. And, true, these women tend to be more dogmatic about the exclusion of men from their struggle.” – interview (1976)

Anyone, who is oppressed has the right to gather in safe spaces – whether other oppressed minorities should have rights of access to the safe spaces of other groups who have been ‘othered’ is another matter. That siad, shared oppression is sometimes more important than shared hormones.

“Woman is determined not by her hormones or by mysterious instincts, but by the manner in which her body and her relation to the world are modified through the action of others than herself.” – The Second Sex, conclusion (1949)

It was Audre Lorde that said, whilst “any woman is not free”, then “no woman is”. Being the one oppressed is sadly part of a common humanity, and a common responsibility:

“Each of us is responsible – to every human being.” – Simone de Beauvoir

In some matters, if not most – except the most basic biological differences, “men and women” and anyone that is defined or identified outside that binary need to” unequivocally affirm their brotherhood”, as de Beauvoir concluded in The Second Sex.

So, could every Human be a Woman?

“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”

Beauvoir speaks of every human being, every human life, less of the categorisation that in a class-distinctive way oppresses all of us, even the men. For, in defining men and not women, as not soft or empathic, or similar stereotypes, we trap them in conventional masculinity, we oppress gay men, drag queens and transvestites who may still identify as male.

“…man, like woman, is flesh, therefore passive, the plaything of his hormones and of the species, the restless prey of his desires.” – The Second Sex, conclusion (1949)

We no longer accept feminism as the sole regard of women. True women’s liberation also liberates men from roles and rules of sex and gender.

“…the woman of today is [not] a creation of nature; it must be repeated once more that in human society nothing is natural and that woman, like much else, is a product elaborated by civilisation.” – The Second Sex, conclusion (1949)

If a feminist need not be a woman, and a female need not be a ‘woman’, and the ‘feminine’ just as possessable by males, then, perhaps too, a ‘woman’ need not be female, at least not assigned one at birth. In other words, is the very term ‘woman’ as much a social construct as gender itself, and the so-called masculine and feminine ideals?

“No single educator could fashion a female human being today who would be the exact homologue of the male human being; if she is brought up like a boy, the young girl feels she is an oddity and thereby she is given a new kind of sex specification.” – The Second Sex, conclusion (1949)

Only in an androgynous (but not uniform) utopia, where all human beings were raised without class or gender specificity, could true equality perhaps be found.

 

 

Feminism & Gender, Mental Health & Wellbeing, National Days, Trans

International Transgender Day of Visibility #TDOV

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Transgender Day of Visibility #TDOV

The last day of Women’s History Month, the day before April Fool’s, is the International Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV), 31 March. Since 2009, it has sought to celebrate transgender positivity in contrast to the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) events around 20 November that draw attention to the high levels of violence and murder that trans people suffer in some countries. Even where murder is less likely, bullying, harassment, and discrimination can be part of the transphobic package that can add to the likelihood of suicide, which some 40% of trans people attempt, and twice that number, consider.

TDOV is an opportunity to portray positive role models, to let the many trans just coming out know that “it gets better“. I’ve spent ten plus years ‘out’ and it’s been a rocky road, with the almost requisite marriage break-up, suicide attempts, looks in the street, and transphobic abuse online. But that need not be everyone’s experience and for many, it is getting easier, with better support and a more accepting society.

SuperTrans Coming Out Transgender Visibility
SuperTrans ‘Coming Out’

Ironically, many trans people don’t want to be visible, they’d rather not be noticed, hopefully passing as fellow human beings in a crowd. Inevitably, some of us stand out more than others, some by choice, some by fate. Don’t always assume a trans person wants to be recognised or feted as one, many would rather be seen as your common or garden variety man or woman. I’m of the louder and more visual variety, who’ll probably die still not conforming to gender stereotypes and expectations.

Non-Binary leads to inevitable visibility

I’ve found, indeed, that being non-binary is a better fit for me than the discrete categories of man or woman, male or female, boy or girl. I, personally, don’t mind whether anyone sees me as a “real woman” or not, I know basic biology, although mine is more complex and many people exist that makes one think again about binary sex default and gender constructs.

I am, however, also not a “real man”, that too is fine! Perhaps, as one of my godchildren once cheekily remarked to me upon opening the door, saying, “Half-ladies first”, I am a “Shim”, also his delightful invention. Other people should be respected, however they prefer to be addressed.

Beyond He or She Gender Time Magazine cover
Beyond He or She Gender Time Magazine cover, March 2017

Whilst 2014 has been regarded as the “Transgender tipping point”, 2016-17 seems to be the year of Non-Binary Genderqueer and Genderfluid. In January, National Geographic ran a “Gender Revolution” special issue, and this March, TIME Magazine ran with “Beyond He or She”. 

Half of young people now see gender as a spectrum and identify their own sexuality between gay and straight. Most now know someone who is trans and/or non-binary, and they are broadly accepting, the best it has ever been, teaching older adults the way to be around identity and expression. Whilst traditional feminists regard gender as a construct, it is young women who are most likely to see it as a spectrum, blurring the lines between gender and sex. Some 22% of young women identify as other than 100% female.

New Gender Honorific Titles on Bank Cards

Just this week, HSBC announced 10 new non-binary honorifics besides the usual Mr, Mrs, Ms etc,. Metro Bank and RBS NatWest already allowed Mx (as I have) or no title. HSBC customers can now choose from:

  • Ind (individual)
  • M
  • Mx (pron. “mix” or “mux”)
  • Misc (miscellaneous)
  • Mre (mystery)
  • Msr (mix of miss/sir)
  • Myr
  • Pr (pron. “per”, for person)
  • Sai (pron. “sigh”)
  • Ser (pron. “sair”)

A Most Reluctant Transsexual

To be honest, I haven’t had it too hard, people have been accepting, and although gender dysphoric, at times I’ve been euphoric to finally be myself. Even with some trials and tribulations, it has been worth it.

Katy Went Transgender Voices NHS NSFT photoshoot
Katy Went “Transgender Voices” NHS NSFT magazine photoshoot

My ten-year journey as Norfolk’s “most reluctant transsexual” – as my psychiatrist once called me, has recently closed one chapter and turned the page to another. After nearly 6 years on hormones my resistance towards surgery shattered and I went ahead with a version of GRS that suited my identity and needs. It has made me a happier, healthier person, with no regrets. Rather surprisingly, to myself at least, it has improved my other mental health condition, bipolar, for now at least, with just pockets of extreme downs, rarer hypomanic highs, and many more days of productivity and calm.

In going ahead with surgery I found my mind changed as much as my body. It really was life-changing, even saving, surgery. Whilst I had near constant doubts leading up to it, I’ve had none since that no-going-back day of 6 February 2016, and felt as much lighter between the ears as between the legs. I feel like a psycho-emotional brain tumour has been removed, I have more space in my head, in my thoughts and feelings, no longer obsessed and disturbed by gender identity. I feel no more female, just less encumbered and more myself. Oddly, I feel just as non-binary, non-conformist as ever, and, if anything, less gendered, though more comfortable in my body.

NSFT NHS Insight Magazine
NSFT NHS Insight Magazine

Prevalence of transgender people

I am but one of millions of trans people worldwide, more than a million in the USA alone, perhaps 300-600,000 in the UK or more. The NHS used to say that there were around 1-in-30,000 people born male (AMAB) transitioning to female (MTF) and 1-in-100,000 people born female (AFAB) transitioning to male (FTM). Those serious underestimates are reflected in the huge waiting lists of 1000s of people to access the handful of UK Gender Identity Clinics (GICs).

Given that the incidence of trans people seeking NHS help is now around 7,000 new referrals p.a., figures over an adult working lifetime would suggest a prevalence of 300,000-600,000 adults, around 0.5%-1% of the population, 1-in-200 or 1-in-100 people, perhaps more. In addition, For every trans person not seeking HRT or surgery there are four or five feeling and presenting as gender questioning or non-conforming. Recent surveys suggest 2.5% may identify as non-binary, 1.75% may be born intersex, and 2% may identify as trans or genderfluid. Overlap between these populations may suggest around 5% total, 1-in-20 people. This isn’t to conflate intersex with trans, just that some can be both, and it shows the degree of sex and/or gender atypicality in the population as a whole.

National Geographic, Gender Revolution
National Geographic, Gender Revolution, January 2017

Visible Trans Persons

In the UK we have many visible trans already such as the comedian, actor and now marathon-addict, Eddie Izzard. Other trans comedians include Bethany Black and Andrew O’Neill. Then there’s the arts writer and ceramicist, Turner Prize winning artist, Grayson Perry. In the world of journalism, there’s LGBT Pink List-topping radio and print journalist Paris Lees, along with several contributors to the Guardian newspaper such as Jane Fae, Juliet Jacques, and Roz Kaveney. In the field of law and diversity, Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester – Stephen Whittle, Christine Burns, formerly of Press for Change, Rachel Reese of the University of Law, law partner Clare Fielding, and barrister, Caroline Harrison, QC.

In sport, there’s recently-out boxing promoter, Kellie Maloney, and MMA fighter Roxeanne/Alex Reid. In business, there is Kate Craig-Wood, an entrepreneur and founder of one of the UK’s largest IT groups. Musicians like CN Lester, Thomas Dolby’s son Harper, and a magician, Fay Presto. In politics, there are several trans people who have stood as councillors or for election, across the political spectrum. On television, there are actors and a spate of reality TV stars. Among people who came out in the 1960s and 70s, there’s models April Ashley and Caroline Cossey, and writer, Jan Morris –  all well known British women with open transgender histories. I could go on as I know of hundreds of trans lawyers, doctors, activists in public life, here in the UK alone.

Time Magazine Transgender Tipping Point Laverne Cox
Time Magazine “The Transgender Tipping Point” Laverne Cox

In the USA, Janet Mock, among others have blazed the way by being out and public in their defence of being themselves, creating a tipping point of trans visibility, perhaps leading to the timing of former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out.

Also, recently, we’ve seen big names like Lana and Lilly Wachowski of the Matrix films, Chelsea Manning of Wikileaks fame, Cher’s son Chaz Bono, and Laura Jane Grace of Against Me. Actors like Alexis Arquette, Candis Cayne (“Dirty Sexy Money”), Laverne Cox (“Orange is the New Black”) and Calpernia Addams. Nor are “Gender Outlaw” author Kate Bornstein or Jennifer Boylan to be forgotten. Dr Marci Bowers, is an American gynaecologist and surgeon and actually carries out gender/sex-reassignment surgery. There’s the US biologist and author of “Evolution’s Rainbow” Joan Roughgarden.

The names above are just a sprinkling of the probably tens of millions of trans and gender-variant people million worldwide.

For more information about the transgender spectrum visit www.genderagenda.net.