Imagine a gentile, with no real understanding or appreciation of the discrimination faced by the Jewish community, writing about Jewish people (as someone of Jewish background I’m sickened by the thought). My guess is many people would think such a proposition ludicrous or that people would be outraged that baseless ideas would even get the time of day. Spot on. But when people who aren’t trans (cisgender) express extreme ideas about trans and gender diverse people this is suddenly considered reasonable?
We see this again and again, and I’m sick of it. The media regularly gives a platform to any number of cisgender people who reproduce stereotypes, exaggerations and outright lies about our community. Crikey did it just last week. I’d like to correct the record.
Firstly, it is simply not true that cis women are unsafe around trans women. Some fundamentalist right-wing groups have now candidly admitted that they “concocted the ‘bathroom safety’ male predator argument as a way to avoid an uncomfortable battle over LGBT ideology”. The bathroom debate was a lie (something trans and allies have been saying for years). It was just designed to tap into emotions, particularly fear — and also to try to wedge cisgender women from trans and gender diverse people.
This confected argument is also used against trans women seeking refuge at women’s shelters. As someone who has advised crisis accommodation on this issue for nearly 15 years, I know most providers have a code of conduct for residents including respectful behaviour. So no one, regardless of body, would be any sort of threat to anyone else. It’s often implied that there is a fear of seeing another person’s genitals, but most facilities have showers that are enclosed when a person strips down so no one sees anyone else’s body. The best, as per one newly-built shelter in Melbourne, have a toilet and a shower in each room so gender and body don’t matter. This also means trans young people, as well as people who identify as other than male or female, who are thrown out of home by uncaring family can be placed quickly and easily.
All of this ultimately stems from a basic prejudice. It seems as though whenever one trans person supposedly does something bad, it’s fine to bag all trans people. Yet in debates about “men behaving badly,” this sort of thinking is instantly drowned in football crowd-like chants of “not all men” — another gross inconsistency.
Likewise arguments around trans people and incarceration which combine an emotional fear-mongering law-and-order beat-up about violence in custody settings with stereotypical ideas re: gender and body. Or beat-ups on trans people combined with anti-lefty beat-ups, such as Crikey’s, that claim because there allegedly might not be 100% agreement on trans issues the left is “tied in knots”.
I’m saddened a media outlet that in the same week as running stories on outrageous media behaviours gave air to a columnist resorting to Murdoch media-like outrageous behaviours and who has demonstrated his repeated denial of the experience of trans people. I’m reminded of how I’ve lost track of the times a producer of a commercial radio program has contacted me and said things like “the presenter knows your side but only wants to debate bathrooms”.
Commercial media (along with other elements of society), for the most part, discredits trans people; it puts disrespectful labels on us that are not ours. Disrespectful labels like “male embodied”, as per Crikey’s article, that deny our sense of self. It also denies the numbers of trans people and tries to deny our existence altogether.
If we want to do something as simple as play sport, we’re called cheats and frauds and liars. But even more miniscule rights are under attack too.
Trans people are fighting for the right to get a legal document that doesn’t breach our privacy and “out” us when presented. We’re fighting for the right to get our identity verified online in an hour like cisgender people, rather than having to send paperwork by post and wait 15 days, probably missing out on a job in a tight job market. We’re fighting for the right to not be pathologised by having a health professional “approve” our gender when cisgender people don’t have to go through this experience. We’re fighting for the right not to be forced into often costly surgery that often involves jumping through hoops set down by a medical profession frequently dominated by limited perspectives.
I think that’s pretty fair and clear-cut; there’s nothing “blithely oversimplified” about it.
Einstein said “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. When we examine the underlying bias in who speaks for whom — what they say and don’t say, what evidence is used, what respect is shown if any — we might get on the road to solving the real problems.
This crisis will cut hard and deep but one day it will be over.
What will be left? What do you want to be left?
I know what I want to see: I want to see a thriving, independent and robust Australian-owned news media. I want to see governments, authorities and those with power held to account. I want to see the media held to account too.
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Peter Fray
Editor-In-Chief of Crikey
20 thoughts on “Media outlets constantly twist trans issues and I’m sick of it”
Gwen Clark
August 9, 2019 at 1:43 pmThank you Sally for writing this. I regret to say that the comments on that piece have descended into the worst cases of transphobic comment I have seen in recent times. ( I don’t read anything from Murdock press) . I unsubscribed from the Guardian over a similar piece written by a completely ignorant man who offered the same tripe as fact.
I am considering doing the same here. I note that Crikey has a policy on transphobic comment. All I can say is that must set the bar extraordinarily high.
All I can say is that the piece you refer to is disgustingly transphobic, justifies its argument with completely debunked tropes and demonstrates the complete and unrepentant ignorance of the author. With decent editorial oversight it should never have seen the light of day.
Denise Thompson
August 9, 2019 at 2:58 pmIn relation to this author’s comment that ‘it is simply not true that cis women [i.e. women] are unsafe around trans women’ [i.e. men], readers might like to check out the instances recorded on this FB site:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1722756661380462/?hc_ref=ARR3s3MUhT-9saAtNuNplxQq0g02-D2G1BJlAC0HFhhx35s8fzir6V1nN70lNvb2AQI
There is no such thing as ‘cis women’, and those who call themselves ‘trans women’ are men. No one can change their sex, and ‘gender’ is meaningless gobbledegook.
Guy Rundle
August 9, 2019 at 3:44 pmAs the writer of the piece that occasioned this reply, a couple of points in reply:
1) sex and gender are universal categories, that any society has to have some adjudication of (even if that were to be to abolish state recognition of any and all gender). Therefore we all have the moral right to speak on public matters concerning such – especially at a time when sweeping changes to the law are proposed. I didn’t comment on trans experience, etc and wouldn’t.
2) the question I raised was related to a left/progressive stance on such, and was this: should the left adopt, as its sole recognition of such a social relationship, self-identified gender, or should it maintain that birth-given embodied sex was of crucial importance, and the prior social determinant? I suggested the latter.
3) given the possibility/likelihood that questions of access and right will come up as regards women’s spaces in a wide range of social functions, should the category of birth-given sex play a major role in decisions as regards that access? I argued that a left, if it is to be materialist, and not ungrounded liberal, must say it should.
4) that makes no statement as to whether specific transwoman are or would be a ‘threat’ etc to women using those spaces. Only that managers and users of the space might conclude that they want the space preserved for birth-embodied women and that, in the last instance, the left should side with such decisions, if they have to be made, as a consequence of a material notion of social being and oppression.
5) that may well result in harsh exclusion or treatment in some cases. But that’s the nature of prioritising a collective right over an individual one. Thus, assertions that transwoman aren’t a threat to women may be overwhelmingly true (although as the Karen White case shows, they can be – https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/11/transgender-prisoner-who-sexually-assaulted-inmates-jailed-for-life) the notion we have now of ‘safe’ and exclusive spaces, relies on certain totalities of exclusion for a feeling of safety – beyond a trust in good intentions – to be achieved.
6) the author suggests ‘birth-given’ body etc is an offensive term. It’s offensive only if you consider gender – as legal/social entity – to be wholly determined by psychic/discursive means. I don’t. If i believe that birth-given sexed being should be the crucial legal determinant – as many people do – then i simply don’t accept that such terms are offensive or transphobic, because I don’t accept the theory underlying the position opposed to me.
7) that said, and just to be clear, I accept trans as a real and distinct state of being, which grounds claims to justice. I just don’t think that gender abolished the real of embodied sex, or trumps it’s claims to justice.
Gwen Clark
August 9, 2019 at 4:48 pmGuy, you wrote this.
“This has already started to tie progressives up in knots. The huge battles in the UK between radical trans activists and radical feminists, drawing on materialist conceptions of sex, has seen veteran feminists physically assaulted by activists defined as trans women, but with the force/aggression capacity of a male body. Campaigns around violence against women have been stymied by an inability to talk plainly about the overwhelming ratio of violence that is male, and grounded in the particularity of the birth-given male body.”
This paragraph is almost entirely 100% B.S. and is transphobic to the hilt. If this is what you base your article on the article becomes B.S. as well. You won’t hear from me again. This is just too much and I am unsubscribing from Crikey.
I have had days now of transphobic comment, led by you and I am over it.
Always written about with yet another B. S. Theory. Never talked with, never believed. That’s the real trans experience.
Guy Rundle
August 9, 2019 at 10:00 pmWell there’s this:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/transgender-activist-tara-wolf-fined-150-for-assaulting-exclusionary-radical-feminist-in-hyde-park-a3813856.html%3famp
but actually I agree, these are relatively unusual events. I don’t think the comments string on the earlier article was ‘led by me’. It was a conversation between many people, yourself included, in which I offered a few brief comments.
Lisa Mullin
August 12, 2019 at 12:07 pm“given the possibility/likelihood that questions of access and right will come up as regards women’s spaces in a wide range of social functions, should the category of birth-given sex play a major role in decisions as regards that access? I argued that a left, if it is to be materialist, and not ungrounded liberal, must say it should.”
“that may well result in harsh exclusion or treatment in some cases.”
That means you want me banned from all the women’s spaces i currently, and legally BTW, use?
How ‘harsh’ do you want it? Should I get beaten up, arrested?
Moreover as a claimed ‘materialist’ you ignore all the physical brain evidence, and proven genetic and fetal hormone factors that make someone transgender. Thus you are denying science in favour of unsubstantiated bigotry based only on ‘I believe’ ….. so very ‘materialist’, about as much as the Catholic church is.
I’m dropping my subscription as well, if I want to read this sort of transphobic rubbish I’ll read The Australian.
Lisa Mullin
August 12, 2019 at 12:37 pmThis is what it is like, and where this eliminationist rhetoric leads to…stochastic terrorism.
“Harsh” enough for you Guy?
“The number of transgender hate crimes recorded by police forces in England, Scotland and Wales has risen by 81%, latest figures suggest. ”
“The Stonewall charity said it showed the “consequences of a society where transphobia is everywhere”.”
“Sue Pascoe, who lives near York, was flagged as a vulnerable person by North Yorkshire Police for the amount of transgender hate abuse and threats she had received.”
“A guy came out of a block of flats, called me a paedophile, threatened to stab me, smashed my car up, held a dog chain up to my face, just really unbelievable.”
– Note the victim wasn’t transgender, and it happened in public, in a shop, in London.
“So the woman turned around and just screamed, I’m a ‘transgender whore’ and I shouldn’t belong in this world, I’m ugly and she doesn’t know where I come from but wherever it is, I should get the f**k back.
“It was just horrendous. It was quite a few of them, it got worse and worse and people got involved.”
– US Nums:
“26% of transgender people reported being physically assaulted and 10% reported being sexually assaulted as a result of anti-trans bias”
“Transgender women were 1.6 times more likely to experience physical violence, 1.6 times more likely to experience sexual violence, and 1.4 times more likely to experience hate violence in public places within a population of hate crime victims and survivors”.
————————————
– Australia and transgender and gender diverse youth…”Harsh” enough for you Guy? Inciting violence and driving kids to suicide….
From Blues To Rainbows.
“Almost two thirds of the young people had experienced verbal abuse in response to their gender presentation or non-conformity, and one fifth had experienced physical abuse. This abuse occurred in all types of places, but especially at school and in public sites such as the street and on public transport. Over 90% of young people who experienced physical abuse had thought about suicide in response to their experience”
“One in three participants did not feel supported by their family. Those with supportive parents fared better on a range of indicators, including their mental health and access to mental health professionals. ”
“It has been well documented that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young people can experience higher rates of bullying and exclusion than their heterosexual counterparts; however, gender diverse and transgender young people experience even higher rates of bullying and exclusion ”
“Many gender diverse and transgender people wish to change their sex/gender marker and/or name on their official documents (such as Birth Certificates, passports and school records) in order to affirm their gender identity. Currently, many of these official documents lie within State and Territory jurisdictions, with the exception of Australian passports which are a federal matter. With the exception of Australian passports (which now include a third sex category ‘x’), official Australian documents mostly adhere to the restrictive binary notion of sex, male/female, and do not cater to people who identify with gender-diverse categories such as agender. ”
“I am routinely called “freak” “tranny” “wrong” “weirdo” “faggot” “poofter”, or hear people in the streets exclaiming “What the fuck?” about me. People stare, appear aggressive or menacing, turn and watch or get their friends’ attention about me. High school classmates began seriously bullying me and another classmate who had both recently come out as trans women. This involved abusive language, pictures, statuses making fun of our anatomies and sending us hateful messages”
“Sixty-six per cent of participants experienced verbal abuse on the basis of their gender diversity.
Twenty-one per cent had experienced physical abuse on the basis of their gender diversity.
Thirty-one per cent had experienced other forms of abuse and harassment.
The most common location where this abuse took place was the street (40%), closely followed by school (38%).
Over 90% of young people who had experienced physical abuse had thought about suicide”
“Many had experienced strangers calling out to them in the street, on public transport, and in other public spaces.”
-‘ Harsh” enough Guy?
“Twenty-one per cent (n=38) of participants told us that they had been physically abused due to their gender presentation and 32 young people gave us examples of what they had experienced. For some, it was too distressing or traumatic to be explicit. Several young people told us about experiences of ‘corrective’ rape by both strangers and people known to them. Other physical abuse included being beaten up, pushed, hit, and grabbed. For some of these young people, physical abuse had led to a risk of losing their life. One young woman (20yrs) told us that she was “beaten up and thrown on the train tracks because [she] was wearing a skirt”. ”
– You should be happy at this.
“Participants were most likely to tell us that they avoided public toilets (65%, n=110). This is of concern considering the human need for these facilities and the impact that avoiding such places can have on young people both physiologically and psychologically (when they feel unable to access places such as cinemas). Understandably, change rooms and shopping centres/clothes store were also places that many of the young people avoided (60%, n=101 and 52%, n=88, respectively)”
– Result of “harshness”
“Eighty-one per cent (n=104) of the 128 young people who had experienced abuse and/or discrimination due to their gender expression had thought about suicide and 37% had made suicide attempts. Eighty per cent of this same cohort had thought about self-harm and 70% had harmed themselves. ”
“Some participants had experienced verbal abuse from immediate and extended family.”
———–
– Moreover what you want to happen to trans people is …illegal:
” Further to this, in June 2013 the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Act 2013 (Cth) (SDA Amendment Act) inserted new grounds into the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (SDA), particularly protections against discrimination for all Australians on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation and/or intersex status”
“The Act provides protection from discrimination for people who identify as men, women, and neither male nor female. This includes the protection of transgender, gender diverse, and intersex students in schools (although there are exemptions on the protections for transgender students in religious schools) regardless of the sex the person was assigned at birth, or whether the person has undergone any medical intervention. “
mark e smith
August 9, 2019 at 4:29 pmYou fall just out of the gate Sally. Only Jews can write about Jews and only trans can write about trans. This is the same silliness major writers are finally standing up against from the super woke folk.
There are lots of established philosophies about gender and radical gender theory is just one and is hotly contested.
Like it or not you live in a society and you have to try to carry us with you. Most of us have long been happy enough to live and let live. It’s not like trans people just popped up ten years ago. However no amount of guilt tripping and pontification will carry everyone and will possibly alienate erstwhile supporters.
I see no reason for instance why anybody for any reason except error should change their Birth Certificate because it’s a certificate of the situation at birth. To me it makes much more sense to certify changes to gender status in a separate document. These are contestable matters and like it or not it’s a whole of community decision. And it’s likely you won’t get everything you want. Just like other political decisions we have to live with.
Lisa Mullin
August 12, 2019 at 12:46 pmThere is no ‘radical gender theory’, just science. There are proven physical brain differences, proven genetic and fetal hormone factors in being transgender as recognised by psych, health and medical orgs around the world…including the WHO.
There are multiple reasons why birth certificates should be changed, and in fact are. I have.
This is a critical document allowing far easier other document changes, such as medicare card, driving licenses, etc.
What is proposed in Victoria (dropping the requirement for expensive, and not Medicare funded, surgery) brings it into line with multiple other countries, international recommended standards, SA, ACT and Tasmania, as well as multiple US states.
Margaret Marshall
August 10, 2019 at 5:17 amYes the media is about SENSATIONALISM. Like Crikey was going to put on some real hot expert journalists.
Maybe they got some people of the street that should be roof tilers.
[email protected]
August 10, 2019 at 7:26 amI had to look up what cisgender means, To me it appears the LGBTILMNOP society have overwhelmed themselves with issues of identity and I just don’t care. I am happy for people to just be who they are with whatever sexuality they have, I just get a bit tired of hearing about it and the carping of the religion industry with its button down ideological opposition when their credibility as our moral guardians is already out the window.
TheRabidHamster
August 10, 2019 at 9:32 amI assume that your problem with non trans people writing on trans issues is diminished where the author is supportive?
Alex Murray
August 12, 2019 at 12:34 amWhen do we get to hear women’s points of view on these issues expressed? It’s pretty rich to protest at how disenfranchising it is to have other people speaking over you about your own rights, and then spend eight paragraphs high-handedly dismissing women’s concerns as trivial, bigoted and groundless.
Lisa Mullin
August 12, 2019 at 11:53 amThat’s because these ‘concerns’ are factually wrong, and have been proven to be wrong.
Their purpose is to ‘morally mandate’ trans women from society (as TERF Janice Raymond called for), by making it impossible for us to live our lives as women.
They are not ‘good faith’ arguments and the sources of this have been traced back to the US religious right, as part of their campaign against all LGBTI people.
jenny
August 12, 2019 at 12:42 pmI admire Sally Goldner a lot and we really need to hear more from people like her in the mainstream media . My concern as a strong ally is the militant nature with some sectors of the Queer lobby .It’s become counterproductive and disheartening to read how much hypocrisy there is from progressive movements as well. There is a-lot of baggage especially from elders and it sometimes clouds their own judgements. I only hope they try and reach out to their opponents with a more sophisticated and intellectual approach in a very hostile political climate.
Lisa Mullin
August 12, 2019 at 1:38 pmUS Endocrine Society’s summary:
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.
Such evidence stems from scientific studies suggesting that:
1) attempts to change gender identity in intersex patients to match external genitalia or chromosomes are typically unsuccessful;
2) identical twins (who share the exact same genetic background) are more likely to both experience transgender identity as compared to fraternal (non-identical) twins5;
3) among individuals with female chromosomes (XX), rates of male gender identity are higher for those exposed to higher levels of androgens in utero relative to those without such exposure, and male (XY)-chromosome individuals with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome typically have female gender identity;
4) there are associations of certain brain scan or staining patterns with gender identity rather than external genitalia or chromosomes.
– Monash University and Hudson Institute of Medical Research.
“A new study led by researchers from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Australia has identified 12 significant genetic differences between transgender women and non-transgender males. It is hypothesized that these genes, known to be involved in sex hormone signaling, possibly contribute to a person’s ultimate sense of gender identity.”
Results: A significant association was identified between gender dysphoria and ERα, SRD5A2, and STS alleles, as well as ERα and SULT2A1 genotypes. Several allele combinations were also overrepresented in transgender women, most involving AR (namely, AR-ERβ, AR-PGR, AR-COMT, CYP17-SRD5A2).
Conclusion: Gender dysphoria may have an oligogenic component, with several genes involved in sex hormone-signaling contributing.
————-
“The idea that a person’s sex is determined by their anatomy at birth is not true, and we’ve known that it’s not true for decades,” said Dr. Joshua D. Safer, an endocrinologist and executive director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York.
“In studies of twins, if one is transgender, the other is far more likely to also be transgender if they are identical, rather than fraternal twins. Identical twins are near matches, genetically; fraternal ones are not. The findings are similar for twins who have Type 1 diabetes, which is known to have a strong genetic component.”
“Some of the most compelling evidence for the idea of gender identity being hard-wired into the brain comes from medical reports on people who were born in the 1950s and 1960s with birth defects involving their genitals. Doctors thought the humane solution, to spare such children from being ostracized, was to perform surgery to make them one sex or the other.
Since it is easier for surgeons to make a vagina than a penis, most of these babies were made female. Their parents were advised to raise them as girls and never to tell them about their condition at birth. The general belief was that their upbringing — a triumph of nurture over nature — would make them truly female.
The idea was a failure. As they matured, many had a clear sense that they were male. According to a study of 16 of them, more than half wound up identifying as male.
“Considering the fact that you can brainwash some people about just about anything, failing with so many is catastrophic,” Dr. Safer said in an email.”
————–
Prof Robert Sapolsky. Neuroscience of the transgender brain
Trans people are “people who got the wrong gendered body”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3C4ZJ7HyuE
——————–
“examined sex differences in the brain activation patterns of young transgender people. The study included both adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria and used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to assess brain activation patterns in response to a pheromone known to produce gender-specific activity. The pattern of brain activation in both transgender adolescent boys and girls more closely resembled that of non-transgender boys and girls of their desired gender.”
“The investigators performed a structural analysis in search of differences in gray and white matter volume based on MRI scans of the brains of 80 individuals between 18 and 49 years of age and found biological differences.”
“Variations in the volume of the brain region called the insula in both hemispheres for both groups of transgender women. This discovery is insightful as the insula plays a key role in body image and self-awareness, among other things. Autonomic control, homeostatic information, and visceral sensations are processed within the central nervous system by the insula.”
“We found that trans people have characteristics that bring them closer to the gender with which they identify and [that] their brains have particularities, suggesting that the differences begin to occur during gestation,” said Giancarlo Spizzirri, first author of the study.”
“Teenagers with gender dysphoria have brain structures and responses that are similar to that of their experienced gender rather than their birth sex, according to research presented at the European Society of Endocrinology annual meeting.”
“The researchers first assessed brain activation when participants were exposed to androstadienone. This putative male chemosignal induces sex differences in hypothalamic activation (women > men). When examined, Bakker and colleagues observed that teenage girls and boys with gender dysphoria diagnoses had hypothalamic reactions that resembled their experienced gender rather than their birth sex. ”
“The researchers first assessed brain activation when participants were exposed to androstadienone. This putative male chemosignal induces sex differences in hypothalamic activation (women > men). When examined, Bakker and colleagues observed that teenage girls and boys with gender dysphoria diagnoses had hypothalamic reactions that resembled their experienced gender rather than their birth sex. ”
“In summary, brain slice studies have examined two sexually dimorphic areas of the brain: the BSTc and the INAH3. The structures of both in transsexual women resemble those of cissexual women, not cissexual men. This suggests a biological basis to transsexualism.”
” Berglund et al (2008) found that pre-transition transsexual women had activation patterns similar to cissexual women; they had hypothalamic activation in response to ANDR and olfactory activation in response to ESTR.”