Tag: children

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Healthcare Parent

I got the head of my kids’ primary school to implement the Transgender Trend guidance

I was a teenager in the 90s and grew up with 2nd wave feminism. I am big on female anatomy and biology. I have always supported women and children.

I got the head of my kids’ primary school to implement the Transgender Trend guidance. At work I have changed forms which conflated sex and gender. I have been in meetings with the Baroness Nicholson.

I have been writing endlessly to my local MP ( has never replied). I have been to Women’s Place meetings (sometimes with friends). I have radicalised my mother in law. I have lost friends (good, close real life friends) over the GRA (Gender Recognition Act) debate and cannot speak out completely at work.

C

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Healthcare

Maintaining single sex spaces is important for my sense of dignity and safety

This matters to me as a mother of both sexes and as a domestic violence survivor. 

Maintaining single sex spaces is important for my sense of dignity and safety. As a parent,  it matters that my children,  both male and female,  are able to use single sex spaces for their privacy and dignity, but especially to protect my daughters from sexual harassment. 

I am deeply concerned that children are allowed to make decisions that can have serious long term consequences and that we as adults allow them, when as adults we should be collectively protecting them from harm. 

I have discussed at work, with friends and on various social media platforms.  But I have to be careful,  because of my work and my volunteering.  I believe I can equally raise my voice in giving girls confidence to question the stereotypes society presents and to remain true to their own beliefs.  I have a few friends,  ironically one with two pre-teen daughters. 

I know the consequences if i spoke up to the wrong people,  and i have to be careful,  which makes me very cross. 

FR, Mother of 3

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children of trans parents Healthcare survivor

My biggest struggle has been explaining to my 3-year old daughter where grandad has gone and why she had to become gran

I care because human rights are important for everyone. It has become very personal as I now have a daughter, my dad recently identified as trans, I work in mental health which includes young people who identify as trans and females who have been victims of male violence. All of these people have rights – how do we balance them and not sacrifice one excessively for the sake of another group?

I care because I am part of the me too generation. Because I was so socialised to gender roles I allowed my ex to convince me it wasn’t rape. This socialising started before I even recognised my own gender. There has to be a space to think about this – but that space seems to be disappearing. Trans women do experience misogyny but do they have the same internalised misogyny from early childhood? This is not to diminish the massive internalised stigma and dysphoria that they experience – but these are different experiences.

I have discussed with people I trust. I have tried to educate myself – understanding all sides of the argument.

My biggest struggle has been explaining to my 3-year old daughter where grandad has gone and why she had to become gran. All books written for that age group on the topic refer to boys not liking pink (or similar) which goes against everything I try to teach her!

I have occasionally made attempts to discuss aspects at work.

I have been aggressively challenged when reflecting on my feelings about my personal situation (apparently it is not ok for me to have any difficult feelings about my dad identifying as trans – I am 41). I have been accused of misgendering by referring to her as “dad” (this was something I discussed with her and agreed I would do.

I feel this is a hugely important topic but do not dare raise it as the trans lobby is so powerful I worry I would be putting my professional registration at risk. One trans person raising concerns could be all it would take. Even though my experience would suggest most trans people would not share the view that my attempts to balance all needs are transphobic.

D.R., Mental health worker

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Healthcare

As a woman our rights and language are being erased and we are being dehumanised

I care because I read about the children being medicalised at an astonishing rate,  the cotton ceiling, Maria Maclachlan and Helen the Guides leader.

As a woman our rights and language are being erased and we are being dehumanised. Also the implications for safeguarding children either through being medicalised, manipulatiin or women and children only spaces. The creeping “emancipation” of children’s bodies and educational indoctrination of children’s minds is terrifying. There is only one logical outcome to this – distancing children from parental control in order to lower the age of consent.

I don’t have a large social group of friends and I wouldn’t dare say anything at work. You’d get sacked. I specifically joined Twitter to find further info and people with similar views to myself.

AC, Middle age public sector worker

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Healthcare Parent survivor

It took me a long time to find my voice and now that I’m supporting my daughter to find hers, we will not be silenced.

This matters to me because I’m not about to have a lifetime of sex based oppression, violence and sexual assaults brushed aside to appease anyone. It took me a long time to find my voice and now that I’m supporting my daughter to find hers, we will not be silenced.

I have spoken out online and within friendship groups, joined activist groups, written to MSPs and spoken to social services and my children’s schools.

I have been threatened with sexual and physical violence online as have my family members, one of which is a child, due to speaking up. I’ve had milk thrown at me by a man when delivering leaflets. I’ve been kicked from online and real life LGBT groups. I have also been kicked from many other ‘support’ groups like ones for autistic people and ones for women to uplift other women and a group for women fighting female cancers.

I permanently lost my twitter account for ‘hateful conduct’ because I differentiated between sex and gender. I’ve been marked red on an chrome extension called shinigami eyes which causes people to attack me online for being ‘transphobic’ even when I’m commenting on things not related to gender like my pet rat group.

Ealasaid

Categories
Healthcare

We have to be able to ask very difficult questions

This matters to me because if we change the definition of “woman” or “man” to mean anybody who identifies as a woman or man there will be unintended consequences. We need to think through those consequences really carefully.

It matters to me because I’m a child protection social worker. I see an increase in children who’ve experience significant harm now claiming to be trans. Sometimes they’re encouraged by their schools. Those children may develop to live as trans men or women and that is their choice, as adults. However…

we need to ensure a trans identity is not a maladaptive response to trauma, one that may leave the unmet underlying need while the young person seeks increasingly drastic physical changes to their body.

I worry about the fact that we cannot openly discuss this topic. In thinking about harm to the people with the least power and voice (young children) there can be nothing left unsaid. We have to be able to ask very difficult questions.

I worry about trans-inclusive guidance which tells girls that if they feel uncomfortable with someone in their personal space they should ignore that feeling. Children who’ve experienced trauma need encouragement to listen to their feelings, to their intuitive responses. We work with children to help them recognise the danger signals in their body and then act on those (children who’ve experienced harm may have learnt to “turn off” those survival mechanisms, to have a “flop” response to danger.) Yet trans inclusive guidance tells children the opposite. That’s not deliberate on the part of trans groups, but is the result of an atmosphere in which criticism is not allowed and lack of open consultation. 

It matters to me because -I was a girl who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes. As an adult I still don’t conform to traditional ideas about femininity. Trans identities/ non binary/ gnc etc pushes the idea that i may not be a woman, that I am Other.

I have spoken in my local Labour Party CLP meeting, spoken in my local Quaker meeting. I have campaigned through facebook and twitter, handed out FPFW (Fair Play For Women) and WPUK (Women’s Place UK) leaflets at Labour and LibDem Party conferences as well as at a Trade Union event. I have met with my MP.

I have been to meetings aggressively protested by trans supporters who see the campaign for womens rights as fascism.

I’ve been ostracised by some members of my local Labour Party.

I’ve been insulted in the street.

BV

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Healthcare

It’s a small life, I can’t trust all that easily and the wounds I carry bleed from time to time, but it’s a life and I owe that to the women that looked after me as soon as I left the airport.

I care about this issue because at the age of 14 I was raped to try and correct my homosexuality. I came to the UK as soon as I could at the age of 18 to seek asylum due to the harassment I received in my home country following the very public trial.

The people that raped me knew what a woman was, if I’d have been a gay man they would have hit and physically assaulted me and not raped me. It is important that we acknowledge and deal with the issues at the heart of violence against women in the UK as well as internationally.

If women coming to this country to seek asylum for MVAW (male violence against women) cannot tell their stories and get meaningful help because their language is now hate speech or exclusionary then how much of a safe refuge is this country?

I was broken when I came here in 2001, I’d experienced an unwanted pregnancy due to the rape and tried to abort at home due to abortion being illegal in my home country. It didn’t work and I was forced to carry my trauma with me for 9 months only to give birth to a child that only survived for 76hrs due to damage caused to his brain by my attempts to terminate. I have to live with this. A lot of women have to live with these kinds of wounds.

We need a place and a language to talk about our issues and to heal. To find support that demands nothing from us, not validation, not that we change our language, nothing.

I managed to get the help I needed and have managed to carve out a life here. It’s a small life, I can’t trust all that easily and the wounds I carry bleed from time to time, but it’s a life and I owe that to the women that looked after me as soon as I left the airport. The female doctors and nurses I was able to ask for, the female therapist who was with me for 15 years and delayed her retirement to help me stand on my own. The lecturers at my university who guided me and helped me gain a degree and become financially independent of the state. The lesbian community that helped me accept myself. They became my tribe, I am thankful.

I have written to my MP, I have been to his surgery to speak to him. He seems sympathetic, he’s from a Religious minority group himself and seems sympathetic but I’m not sure he has really done much about this as his party is firmly pro trans.

I have joined online forums and signed petitions and donated where I could. All the people I speak to seem to be very sympathetic and understand the insanity of where women find ourselves but many fear speaking publicly as do I.

I’ve lost friends. I work in an NHS mental heath setting and most of the people I work with understand the insanity of the current trans movement but this is whispered in dark corners and can never be said openly.

Everyone is scared, I had a colleague say to me a while back that we, as mental heath services, are going to pay dearly for this in a few years time but we daren’t go against the Stonewall lobby that is everywhere in our Trust.

As a mother, grandmother, feminist, educationalist, woman, this matters to me for a number of reasons. As a survivor of domestic abuse, I know how vital to me were women only spaces. I would not have been able to get the support I needed if I had not been confident that specific spaces were open only to women. The fear of such spaces being available to male-bodied people, however they identify, is very real and, I believe, would prevent women from accessing safety, support and much needed resources.

Sex is real. Women are women. Women’s oppression is based on sex. Women’s hard-won rights are in real danger of being eroded. Trans people have rights and, obviously, shoukd do. These are safeguarded in law. As are sex-based rights. The two are separate. One set of rights should not, and need not, trump another. Women are women, transwomen are transwomen and both should be safeguarded.

I am deeply concerned at what is being promulgated in schools and what children and young people are being told online. Feminism has fought for years to break down gender stereotypes. Our nonconforming children should be allowed/encouraged to be just that. Dress wearing boys and tomboy girls should not be told they are in the wrong body.

It’s clear that many young people, disproportionately girls, disproportionately those with conditions like autism, are being put on a path to medicalised transition too early, too quickly and often inappropriately. There is insufficient research into the impact of puberty blockers and what evidence there is suggests not the ‘pause’ as is often cited but the first step in an increasingly inevitable pathway.

Women are being silenced. We are afraid to speak for fear of casually being labelled and abused as transphobic. We are not. Generally, we are progressive women with histories of fighting for human rights and many causes. We haven’t suddenly become bigots. We are not transphobic. We ARE supporters of women’s rights.

I’ve made social media posts, attended consultation at House of Lords and submitted evidence to the Gender Recognition Act consultation.

P, Women matter

Categories
Healthcare Others

Sex based stereotypes have massively increased with social media where the most lauded women look like Kardashians.

I have never understood why just because I have a female body I should have lesser opportunities than my brother, why I should be listened to less than my male bodied colleagues. After a lifetime of this I understand that women are oppressed on account of their biology.

At about age 6 I told my mum I was a boy and she should refer to me by a boys name and she should also inform my teacher. I remember the fury I felt when the teacher referred to me by my female name! I don’t really remember why I wanted to be seen as a boy. I think I had told someone i wanted to be a pilot and their response was girls can’t be pilots ( this was 1970s). I fear that if that happened now I would be on a trans pathway whereas in reality at that age I had absolutely no conception of gender but was learning about sexism.

I  fight on behalf of my 6 yr old self and all other “gender non-conforming” children. 

In my opinion sex based stereotypes have massively increased with social media where the most lauded women look like Kardashians.

I have spoken to friends,  colleagues (although warily), have pointed out the mistake  in an online training package where gender was listed as a protected characteristic but not sex. I’ve posted on social media about this.

I’ve been put on terf blocker or block terfs or whatever list. I left the Scottish Green Party. I’ve become politically homeless.

M

Categories
Healthcare

I am a social worker and I know that people have lost their registration from saying what I think

Any issue where debate is stifled is frightening. This one in particular feels so cultural and of its time and yet it has real long term consequences for the lives of women and men. I’m also deeply uncomfortable with the medicalisation and (invasive) treatment of something that feels like it is more about social factors -trauma, inequality, mental distress.

Such a lot of campaigning effort and big money is being put into protecting the gender identities of a sub group of vulnerable people – but I suspect that the reason many of these people adopt these identities is because they suffer wider deprivations/exclusions.

When my trans friends ask me to call them by their preferred pronouns I do it to protect them from a reality which is hurting them, not because I believe that this is their actual gender.

It feels like a society-wide avoidant strategy which obscures the real issues of poverty, inequality, social disconnection and mental distress by landing on one coping strategy of many and fetishising it. Which hides the pain, and devalues the suffering of countless others.

I am a social worker and I know that people have lost their registration from saying what I think. Fortunately for me, when I worked in children’s social care I did not have any cases where there was a safeguarding concern related to gender identity, otherwise I would have been forced to be more vocal, but at that point I would have sought professional support before doing so.

M, Social worker

Categories
Academics and researchers

I know what awkward teenage years are like

I care because, having been 6 feet tall since I was 12, I know what awkward teenage years are like. In my late teens my parents came under pressure from medical professionals, which they were ultimately able to resist, to allow my younger and taller sister to be prescribed carcinogenic drugs to stunt her growth and keep her within socially acceptable height limits for females. It was the participation of tall women in Olympic sports that changed that perception.

I care because from childhood onwards I was subjected to criticism and sanction for attempting to participate in society on equal terms with boys and men:

  • At the  university I attended female students (only admitted 3 years previously) were massively outnumbered, routinely harassed and the subject of derision about their intellectual abilities in the absence of any female faculty.
  • At Westminster, where I spent the next 20 years as a researcher.

I care because my daughter fitted the model of awkward, bullied, girl with ASD, unsure about her sexuality and  susceptible to the argument that she was “born in the wrong body”. Referrals to groups where she never met another girl with her diagnosis until she was 13 did not help her feel more comfortable, however well-meaning they were. Lesbian role models in her family and social network did. Representation matters.

I have contributed to discussions on social media, attended meetings and events and discussed these issues with friends.

I have lost some friends, although not close ones.

Miriam, Legal & criminal justice policy researcher, administrator, migrant