7th February 2023
There appears to be a great deal of difficulty experienced by some people to accept the fact that someone can be transgender.
This is seen by the amount of hate spread via social media, especially aimed towards transgender women, who are seen to be in some way a threat to cisgender women. This attitude is one that I struggle to understand, especially perhaps due to my own experience with knowing members of this community.
Whilst I had been aware of transgender people previously, the first instance whereby it became 'personal' to me, was when a friend who I had known as Peter for two decades, announced their new name of Joanne. This was a friend who I had gone on 'Dads & Kids' camping weekends with, attended conferences and parties with, shared flights with and developed a great friendship with.
Whilst it was a surprise when I first found out about Joanne, it certainly wasn't something that troubled me. It didn't make me question our friendship, or change how I viewed them as an individual. I guess it may have meant that I changed the way I spoke to them slightly, in that we (or at least I) don't generally use 'bloke's humour' when chatting with women. But, aside from that, it really didn't change how I felt about them.
It was quite a few years later that my youngest child, then aged 16 and at college, told me that she considered herself to be a female and now wanted to be called Evie, rather than her birth name of Josh (or Joshua).
I had no hesitation in welcoming Evie and accepting her announcement. I did, occasionally, mistakenly refer to her in the masculine rather than the feminine. These were accidents, probably largely born from the fact that I had known them as their birth gender and name for their whole life. I always apologised for these errors and, thankfully, they now rarely (if ever) occur.
Neither of these people pose a threat to other women, whether they're cisgender or transgender.
Neither of these individuals are going to enter a women's toilet with the intention of harming another user of the facilities, physically or emotionally. When they enter such places, it is quite simply so that they can use the toilet, wash their hands or other normal things that people do in pubic toilets - I'm guessing women might do things such as checking their make-up.
Some people have struggled with their gender dysphoria for many decades. In the case of my friend Joanne, she was about 50 when she 'came out'. She had been married for decades and had adult children. So, she had borne the weight of her dysphoria for far too long. This has to have a significant impact on the individual's mental health and wellbeing. When my daughter made her announcement, my initial reactions weren't just about showing support for her. I was also grateful that she felt able to come out at a young age.
In the case of Isla Bryson, there is no doubt that they deserve to be imprisoned for their crimes. There has been a lot of aggressive commenting about the fact that she was sent to a female prison, with the suggestion that this was a risk to other inmates. However, this seems to miss the fact that prisons are typically filled with people who, at best, have questionable morals, but frequently are dangerous. Prison staff have a duty of care towards their prisoners and this applies to all cases. To say that Bryson should be sent to an all male prison, seems to ignore the potential threat to cisgender convicts who have been found guilty of sexual crimes against people of the same gender. Perhaps, more importantly, it ignores the fact that prisons should operate in such a manner as to protect inmates from violent and sexual crimes perpetrated by other inmates.
Bryson was initially sent to an all female prison. However, as would be appropriate for someone with a violent history against other women, she was segregated to protect other detainees. Following an outcry and intervention from Scotland's First Minister, she was moved to a male wing of HM Prison Edinburgh.
In many prisons across the UK and around the world, some prisoners are segregated from others. In some cases this is to protect the segregated prisoner, whilst in others it is to protect the rest of the prison population. I'm not sure why this could not have been the settled outcome in this case; whether this was at an all-male prison, an all-female prison or a prison that houses both males and females.
Worryingly though, in my opinion, this case has been used by some to further the narrative that all transgender females are a threat to all women. This is quite preposterous.
Some people are bad.
Some of those people are gay, but others are straight. Some of the bad people are non-white, but some are white. Some criminals are Christians, but others are Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or non-believers. Some are transgender, but the vast majority are cisgender.
Transgender women, or transgender men, are not a threat to our society or our personal spaces. To suggest they are is just as wrong as to suggest that people of any other protected characteristic pose a threat.
My teenage, transgender daughter does not pose any threat to anyone else, whether they are male or female, cisgender or transgender.
She however, does feel very anxious when using public toilets. In fact, she will avoid them unless she is accompanied. Usually, this would be using female toilets whilst accompanied by female friends.
When I've mentioned this in social media threads where bigots are calling for transgender women to be banned from women's toilets or other such spaces, the reaction is to refer to my daughter as 'he' and make very definite and strongly worded comments about them being a threat.
Why?
Are these people so fearful of something that they don't understand, that they refuse to stop and think?
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