It might be helpful to note that one reason that prejudice is the overwhelming reason gender nonconforming people get forced into prostitution. I'm relatively sure that was true even in Rykener's time, though I can only speak from knowledge about the present.
Have I mentioned that I am trans? I think not. Actually it's more complex than that; I'm an old-school transsexual of long-standing, although I find I;m not allowed to say that any more, and in fact my line has been that I was transsexual ("two of us in this body and one of us has to go") but the nice endocrinologist and the nice surgeon sorted that with a bit of help from the nice psychiatrist who guaranteed that I was compos mentis. I don't always see eye to eye with today's trans activists and I must admit I don't always understand them but I do try to be empathetic and supportive.
Thirty years ago I did have to run the gauntlet of our lovely tabloid media and I did encounter some hostility from a small minority of feminists (although my most fervent allies were also lesbian feminists). Then, the charge wasn't that I couldn't be a woman because chromosomes, it was that I couldn't be a woman because I wasn't socialised as a woman and I had never experienced domestic abuse (although my ex-partner offered to testify that she used to throw crockery at me). It seems you can't win. Anyway, after the initial rammy I'd been quietly getting on with my life largely unnoticed until the last few years, when I began to feel the chill wind of hostility down my back.
In all the kerfuffle, ill-informed people have been trying to reduce sex to nice neat boundaries when, like just about everything in nature, it's fractal – fuzzy round the edges. To say that if you have a Y chromosome you are absolutely male and if not you are absolutely female is Ladybird Book of Genetics stuff, a gross over-simplification. It's not a Y chromosome that makes you male, it's the SRY gene which is usually carried on the Y chromosome but sometimes on an X. Like all genes, the SRY gene also has a number of variants. There are, albeit very rarely, born women who are XY and born men who are XX. In any case, gender isn't simply a matter of genes. Genes play a role, but so does the balance of hormones (in my case they were all over the place from birth) and, of course, socialisation (having your face unwillingly pushed into the mud on rugger afternoon when you'd rather be reading a book or at least playing hockey with the girls).
Being out of step with the 'norm' isn't a pleasant experience, especially when you're an adolescent, and not one that's easy to face up to even without social and clerical hostility. Certainly not one that anybody would choose of their own free will. As my consultant said at the time of my transition, it takes a thick skin and a strong personality to carry it off.
Nice post, Mavis. It also strikes me that in addition the transphobes are telling other people what their identity is, which seems high-handed to me. I don't want anyone telling me who I am. It's third person behaviourism, not a pleasant mixture.
Aside from anything else, no trans person thinks that wearing dresses is what makes trans women really women, and plenty of trans women don't wear dresses. It's just a cruel stereotype perpetuated by TERFs and other transphobes.
Indeed, it's the woman that makes the clothes, not the clothes that make the woman.
Back in the day I came under pressure to undergo all kinds of "feminisation" training, like learning to walk in a feminine way or do makeup. I never really did "girlie", more a kind of comfortable androgeny, although I do scrub up rather well when the occasion demands and I enjoy that. Jenni Murray the radio presenter was exasperated when she interviewed a trans woman; she asked what difficulties her interviewee had encountered as a 'new' woman and the interviewee talked about learning to walk and do makeup. I wanted to throw the wireless at the wall. My challenge was driving. There was a particularly tricky gyratory system that I knew like the back of my hand; exactly when to change lane and merge for which exit and so on. Doing that as a man was second nature and always went smoothly. Doing it as a woman provoked all kinds of honking, rude gestures and verbal abuse.
@Mavis Grind unfortunately due to how GICs work now - I don't know if it was different when you transitioned - you are expected to socially transition before you get access to hormones, so makeup and walking etc as well as voice training become more important for safety reasons for many trans women. In my experience it's more popular with trans men to learn how to walk, sit etc in a more masculine way.
As an aside, many trans people now are reclaiming the term 'transsexual' and I don't think many actual trans people (as opposed to activist 'allies' jumping on the bandwagon) would oppose you using the term to describe yourself. I think there are a huge variety of stances within modern trans activism.
Ah, the delightful psychs at Charing Cross – are they still around? Stopping your treatment if you turned up in jeans! Like you @Pomona I'm on the spectrum (there's a strong correlation there) and one manifestation of that is that I really hate gatekeepers.
I was very lucky in having a brilliant GP who made sure that I was placed under the care of an endocrinologist and bypassed the psychs except for the assessment to ensure I was of sound mind and definitely not suffering from any mental illness, which neither transsexuality nor autism are of course. It meant I couldn't have my surgery on the NHS although everything else was. I had that in Brussels for about half of what it would have cost me going private in Britain. I also had to arrange my own HIV test before surgery, so it was Ladies Day at the clap clinic along with the sex workers. An interesting experience!
@Mavis Grind fortunately I think most of the more Interesting characters on the Charing Cross staff team are now retired, and Covid probably sped that process up somewhat. In my case I had heard a lot of horror stories but the psychiatrist I saw was really nice, and the questions weren't weird/irrelevant or intrusive. But I also saw Dr Hammond at Harrogate for an NHS bridging prescription long before I got an actual appointment - I was referred to Charing Cross in February 2018 and had my first appointment in October 2022.
I found Chelsea Manning's autobiography a bit of a consciousness raiser about the personal impact of a minority identity being attacked in the political sphere.
I was in my RC Church this morning, which was celebrated by a visiting Columban Father. He spoke about a conference of LGBTIQ+ Catholics at Fordham University. During the sermon he said that the + was important because it gave people the freedom to identify in a non-defined way.
I hadn't heard that before, and was quite taken with the idea.
I'm thinking of the young person at our place who made his first communion two weeks ago at the usual age. He has a name that can be genderless, likes to wear long hair and made his communion in a lilac trouser suit with his hair up.
At the moment he is surrounded by loving acceptance, but he will have a difficult time from puberty onwards
My heart goes out to him.
I notice that the advice to schools on trans pupils has been delayed, because some of it may be unlawful. Well, presumably you can't just tell kids what name to use, what clothes to wear, etc. And the issue of having to tell parents if a child talks about gender identity seems incredible, esp if parents are hostile. But this govt would love to whip up hostility over trans kids.
The parental thing unnerves me too. I think there is a tendency these days in schools to tell parents everything; to try and hand over responsibility I suspect. But for some kids school is the safe haven away from home (often a home where they are generally cared for and safe but where there is potentially damaging judgement).
I’ve met young people who have found being accepted in their gender identity at school has helped their overall engagement with their studies, relations with their peers and development of self-confidence.
I’m not sure what the ideal guidance for school would be but I think the discussion should be led by young trans & non-binary adults who have been through the state education system.
The parental thing unnerves me too. I think there is a tendency these days in schools to tell parents everything; to try and hand over responsibility I suspect. But for some kids school is the safe haven away from home (often a home where they are generally cared for and safe but where there is potentially damaging judgement).
I’ve met young people who have found being accepted in their gender identity at school has helped their overall engagement with their studies, relations with their peers and development of self-confidence.
I’m not sure what the ideal guidance for school would be but I think the discussion should be led by young trans & non-binary adults who have been through the state education system.
The people behind this value conformity. They are threatened by diversity. They don't like anyone who doesn't conform to social norms. It's the same phenomenon that underlies everything from racism through hate crimes against sub-cultures, through to the pathological hatred some people have for vegans. It probably arises from evolutionary development of tribal identity.
If they can suppress transgender people, they consider that a win. Every trans kid to them is a rebel, a failure to conform. So if the parents aren't sympathetic, the last thing these people want is school being a refuge for them.
They are really not much different to the thugs at school beating the shit out of the weird kid. Same underlying phenomenon.
Yes, for the conformist, there has to be punishment of the nonconformist, as Karl argues, it runs across many social phenomena. Not sure about tribal identity, but the right wing unfailingly target minorities.
When I was at 'Grammar' school, I always felt the whole ethos of the school was one of oppressive conformity. I am the sort of person who loathes conformity, especially when it is irrational* - so it turned me into a rebel and severely damaged my learning. Except in such areas as sarcasm, which it developed astonishingly well.
* I think it's pretty sensible to conform when you're on a sinking ship and the captain tells you to do A, B and C. That sort of conformity I am quite happy with.
What it is like to be (say) gay in such an environment I shudder to think.
Yes, for the conformist, there has to be punishment of the nonconformist, as Karl argues, it runs across many social phenomena. Not sure about tribal identity, but the right wing unfailingly target minorities.
Nope, may be usually but not always. At my high school the attitude to enforcing school uniform was very lax. Girls, it was an all girls school, could get away with wearing black jumpers instead of brown and not just the kids who could not afford it. My particular group within the school rebelled by wearing down the line school uniform from the specified suppliers. We were rebelling by being conformist and in doing that made a statement about who we were. We did not expect others to be punished or particularly want it. It would have made our rebellion less potent.
Now before anyone makes the argument about data and anecdote let me get something straight. This is a case of all sheep are white. I only need to find one black sheep for that not to be the case. Conformity can arise from a number of scenarios, including rebellion against laxity or a particular type of non-conformity, and the assumption that these always lead to wanting to punish the non-conformist is an errant one.
Yes, for the conformist, there has to be punishment of the nonconformist, as Karl argues, it runs across many social phenomena. Not sure about tribal identity, but the right wing unfailingly target minorities.
Nope, may be usually but not always. At my high school the attitude to enforcing school uniform was very lax. Girls, it was an all girls school, could get away with wearing black jumpers instead of brown and not just the kids who could not afford it. My particular group within the school rebelled by wearing down the line school uniform from the specified suppliers. We were rebelling by being conformist and in doing that made a statement about who we were. We did not expect others to be punished or particularly want it. It would have made our rebellion less potent.
Now before anyone makes the argument about data and anecdote let me get something straight. This is a case of all sheep are white. I only need to find one black sheep for that not to be the case. Conformity can arise from a number of scenarios, including rebellion against laxity or a particular type of non-conformity, and the assumption that these always lead to wanting to punish the non-conformist is an errant one.
As ever with sociological phenomena, they're never absolute and things are always more complicated than they look.
Your situation could also be described as you failing to conform to the norm of being lax about the uniform. Or alternatively, given that the de facto standard was inherently lax, both your and other groups were both conformist.
If you read my original post, you will notice I said:
They are threatened by diversity. They don't like anyone who doesn't conform to social norms.
Not all conformity arises from this motivation. I was talking about the conformity which does.
Your conformity was a deliberate and rebellious choice. The conformity we're talking about is more instinctive and in the mind of the conformist is the only acceptable path.
And there is a scary and dangerous amount of it around. I have commented before that there is a particular brand of head teacher who will deny a half day off to go to a grandparent's funeral on grounds of every absence having a negative effect on learning, but on the other hand send a child home for two weeks while their hair grows back past an arbitrary minimum length or a temporary tint fades.
An interesting anecdote which may be illuminating, irrelevant or merely tangential - I remember some years ago talking to a friend and discovering that some people - him for example - automatically drink what everyone else in their group drinks when at the pub.
It had never crossed his mind to drink anything but snakebite with his hockey club, because that was What The Club Drank.
It would never occur to me to do this. We both found each other inexplicable on this matter.
Trans people don't reinforce gender norms, gender norms are often enforced on trans people in order for them to have access to medical transition. Trans women have been denied hormones for turning up to an appointment in jeans rather than a dress - these are rules invented by cis gender clinicians, not trans people. Also to access hormones on the NHS you have to have been living as your 'acquired gender' for at least two years before doing so (including using bathrooms and changing rooms etc), on top of any wait the person has had. This is often the most dangerous time for trans people as it's when they pass the least - and passing as cis isn't necessarily something trans people want, but primarily a matter of safety. So often trans people go hard on the gender norms to protect themselves by passing better before hormones have done their work.
I found this really illuminating. I hadn't thought previously about how someone transitioning would be pushed into a an extreme gender norm in order to justify themselves.
Also respect and thanks to @Mavis Grind for some very illuminating posts.
Comments
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nb-education-gender-policy-1.6836059
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John/Eleanor_Rykener#:~:text=John Rykener, also known as,Cheapside while wearing female attire.
It demonstrates that these issues have not just been invented.
It's pretty sad that US Republican culture war targets are spreading into Canada.
Thirty years ago I did have to run the gauntlet of our lovely tabloid media and I did encounter some hostility from a small minority of feminists (although my most fervent allies were also lesbian feminists). Then, the charge wasn't that I couldn't be a woman because chromosomes, it was that I couldn't be a woman because I wasn't socialised as a woman and I had never experienced domestic abuse (although my ex-partner offered to testify that she used to throw crockery at me). It seems you can't win. Anyway, after the initial rammy I'd been quietly getting on with my life largely unnoticed until the last few years, when I began to feel the chill wind of hostility down my back.
In all the kerfuffle, ill-informed people have been trying to reduce sex to nice neat boundaries when, like just about everything in nature, it's fractal – fuzzy round the edges. To say that if you have a Y chromosome you are absolutely male and if not you are absolutely female is Ladybird Book of Genetics stuff, a gross over-simplification. It's not a Y chromosome that makes you male, it's the SRY gene which is usually carried on the Y chromosome but sometimes on an X. Like all genes, the SRY gene also has a number of variants. There are, albeit very rarely, born women who are XY and born men who are XX. In any case, gender isn't simply a matter of genes. Genes play a role, but so does the balance of hormones (in my case they were all over the place from birth) and, of course, socialisation (having your face unwillingly pushed into the mud on rugger afternoon when you'd rather be reading a book or at least playing hockey with the girls).
Being out of step with the 'norm' isn't a pleasant experience, especially when you're an adolescent, and not one that's easy to face up to even without social and clerical hostility. Certainly not one that anybody would choose of their own free will. As my consultant said at the time of my transition, it takes a thick skin and a strong personality to carry it off.
Indeed, it's the woman that makes the clothes, not the clothes that make the woman.
Back in the day I came under pressure to undergo all kinds of "feminisation" training, like learning to walk in a feminine way or do makeup. I never really did "girlie", more a kind of comfortable androgeny, although I do scrub up rather well when the occasion demands and I enjoy that. Jenni Murray the radio presenter was exasperated when she interviewed a trans woman; she asked what difficulties her interviewee had encountered as a 'new' woman and the interviewee talked about learning to walk and do makeup. I wanted to throw the wireless at the wall. My challenge was driving. There was a particularly tricky gyratory system that I knew like the back of my hand; exactly when to change lane and merge for which exit and so on. Doing that as a man was second nature and always went smoothly. Doing it as a woman provoked all kinds of honking, rude gestures and verbal abuse.
My dear wife is not only a better driver than me, but she is also way better at parking in tight spaces.
This is a simple demonstration of how stereotypes are nonsense.
As an aside, many trans people now are reclaiming the term 'transsexual' and I don't think many actual trans people (as opposed to activist 'allies' jumping on the bandwagon) would oppose you using the term to describe yourself. I think there are a huge variety of stances within modern trans activism.
I was very lucky in having a brilliant GP who made sure that I was placed under the care of an endocrinologist and bypassed the psychs except for the assessment to ensure I was of sound mind and definitely not suffering from any mental illness, which neither transsexuality nor autism are of course. It meant I couldn't have my surgery on the NHS although everything else was. I had that in Brussels for about half of what it would have cost me going private in Britain. I also had to arrange my own HIV test before surgery, so it was Ladies Day at the clap clinic along with the sex workers. An interesting experience!
I was in my RC Church this morning, which was celebrated by a visiting Columban Father. He spoke about a conference of LGBTIQ+ Catholics at Fordham University. During the sermon he said that the + was important because it gave people the freedom to identify in a non-defined way.
I hadn't heard that before, and was quite taken with the idea.
At the moment he is surrounded by loving acceptance, but he will have a difficult time from puberty onwards
My heart goes out to him.
I’ve met young people who have found being accepted in their gender identity at school has helped their overall engagement with their studies, relations with their peers and development of self-confidence.
I’m not sure what the ideal guidance for school would be but I think the discussion should be led by young trans & non-binary adults who have been through the state education system.
The people behind this value conformity. They are threatened by diversity. They don't like anyone who doesn't conform to social norms. It's the same phenomenon that underlies everything from racism through hate crimes against sub-cultures, through to the pathological hatred some people have for vegans. It probably arises from evolutionary development of tribal identity.
If they can suppress transgender people, they consider that a win. Every trans kid to them is a rebel, a failure to conform. So if the parents aren't sympathetic, the last thing these people want is school being a refuge for them.
They are really not much different to the thugs at school beating the shit out of the weird kid. Same underlying phenomenon.
* I think it's pretty sensible to conform when you're on a sinking ship and the captain tells you to do A, B and C. That sort of conformity I am quite happy with.
What it is like to be (say) gay in such an environment I shudder to think.
Now before anyone makes the argument about data and anecdote let me get something straight. This is a case of all sheep are white. I only need to find one black sheep for that not to be the case. Conformity can arise from a number of scenarios, including rebellion against laxity or a particular type of non-conformity, and the assumption that these always lead to wanting to punish the non-conformist is an errant one.
As ever with sociological phenomena, they're never absolute and things are always more complicated than they look.
Your situation could also be described as you failing to conform to the norm of being lax about the uniform. Or alternatively, given that the de facto standard was inherently lax, both your and other groups were both conformist.
If you read my original post, you will notice I said:
They are threatened by diversity. They don't like anyone who doesn't conform to social norms.
Not all conformity arises from this motivation. I was talking about the conformity which does.
Your conformity was a deliberate and rebellious choice. The conformity we're talking about is more instinctive and in the mind of the conformist is the only acceptable path.
And there is a scary and dangerous amount of it around. I have commented before that there is a particular brand of head teacher who will deny a half day off to go to a grandparent's funeral on grounds of every absence having a negative effect on learning, but on the other hand send a child home for two weeks while their hair grows back past an arbitrary minimum length or a temporary tint fades.
It had never crossed his mind to drink anything but snakebite with his hockey club, because that was What The Club Drank.
It would never occur to me to do this. We both found each other inexplicable on this matter.
I found this really illuminating. I hadn't thought previously about how someone transitioning would be pushed into a an extreme gender norm in order to justify themselves.
Also respect and thanks to @Mavis Grind for some very illuminating posts.