LETTER TO JANICE TURNER (and some of the
horrific commentators)
Today is the day that I hit an all-time low in
terms of your distorted and dangerous comments about transgender people. How we
can be in 2017 and be publishing toxic bullshit that defines an entire group of
humanity solely by the contents of their pants leaves me both breathless with
astonishment and incandescent with rage.
I am the mother of an 11- year old trans child and
we have known since she was 4. We let her find her own way, explore her
identity and didn't get third party specialists involved until it became a
major source of fear and anxiety for her around 8 years old. Many people in
society accuse us of child abuse, or "persuasion", or for hurting our
child emotionally and setting her up for a lifetime of genital mutilation and
hormone pumping. Let me tell you some of the realities Janice. This is a DANGEROUS AND PERNICIOUS LIE WITH FATAL
CONSEQUENCES and you are perpetuating it.
Until you
are the parent of a trans child you have no idea what is like. How hard it is.
How you live in fear every day for your child's safety at school, on the
street, in adulthood. You think we choose or encourage this? You think there is
a “mindless rush” to be PC and “right-on”? What
planet are you on?? Would you choose to see your child deteriorate into a
panicked and confused state because "God made me all wrong". Would
you choose to watch your child cry themselves to sleep threatening to cut off
their genitals because they hated their body so much? Would you encourage them
to "jump on a trend" that made them ostracised, ridiculed, lonely and
self-loathing. Would YOU? It that TRENDY enough for you?
Because it's all so "new" isn't it? Where
have all these trans people suddenly come from?! Let me tell you
something. THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE. Since time began! They just hid themselves away because of
ridicule, violence, ignorance and the fear that if they 'came out' they would
lose their families, their homes, their jobs.
Which they very often do. Be exposed in the media (bless you) as
deviants, predators, a danger to others. Hidden in the dark like dirty secrets.
Invisible. BUT, when brave progressive souls expose themselves, others follow.
And then more. And more. And more. See? Always there. Never seen. Until the
walls come down. My child knows nothing of political agenda, she knows
nothing of media frenzy, she knows nothing of utter nonsense such as the
horrific headline of being ‘sacrificed to appease a
trans lobby’. She just knows that she is a girl, wants to live a life
free of hate, and is loved and supported by her family.
You imply that we are bad parents for getting
support and help for our children - “children are being
pushed towards drastic treatment before they can possibly understand how it
will affect their future relationships and lives”! Really Janice? If this emerged from your “research”, where
is the research that spoke to parents like myself and the hundreds of others
who actually live through this? If you had spoken to us (and we are not hard to
find) we would have informed you that no child is ever “pushed into drastic
treatment” - far from it. Parents who take their children to GIC clinics do so
to get support, information and advice. I am there with my child to explore her
feelings, support her convictions and tell her that her struggles will be
heard. It is a long, long, slow journey that takes MANY, MANY, YEARS and
it's one that is done with love and support at its heart. We have been
attending the Tavistock for 2 years, on top of a 2- year waiting list, and will
continue to be seen for another 6 years until my child reaches adulthood.
You
talk of “This craze to expedite gender
transition in children (that) goes against all clinical advice for “watchful
waiting”.
You are completely out of touch with the
reality of attending a GIC. My child is not on hormones and is not coerced into
anything - she is there to hold my hand,
talk to a gender specialist, talk about her feelings and fears and then leave.
One day she MAY have hormone blockers -
which are for the record Janice COMPLETELY REVERSIBLE AND JUST ACT AS A
PAUSE BUTTON while the child has time to develop physically, mentally and
emotionally and make more informed conclusions about who they are and how they
want to live their adult life. Like a reversible vaccine against potential
future harm. Would you vaccinate your child against danger Janice? Or leave it
to ‘luck’?Only THEN and post-16
will the conversation of cross-sex hormones even be discussed and all under the
criteria of strict NHS policy. However, you don’t focus on this do you, because
that wouldn’t be inflammatory enough would it?
You focus on the supposed “private cash cow clinics” and imply that you can just “get your 13-year old girl on
testosterone” on
a whim. Why is your
“research” so horribly warped? Have you any idea how complex the reality of
this is? Cross-sex hormones are very, very rarely prescribed, but HORMONE BLOCKERS
sometimes are, which I have already pointed out are reversible. The only time
cross-sex hormones would be administered to a younger person would be if the
risk of harm (i.e acute suicide ideation) is deemed greater than the risk of
treatment. On the rare occasion this happens, they are life-saving
interventions that prevent excruciating emotional and psychological harm. Not much point having a conversation about how
‘immoral’ the hormone treatment was if the child is dead is there?
Over 50% of trans children attempt suicide because
of the ignorance and faux-protective ‘concern’ of others. To use a somewhat
hackneyed but nonetheless crucial phrase, I'd rather have a happy daughter than a dead son, so please spare
me the misplaced concern about children who know who they are and who they are
not. But kids don't know who they are I hear them cry! They're just kids! If
they said they were a unicorn would you believe them? To patronise a child and
deny them the authenticity of their feelings is both dangerous and incredibly
stupid. If your child told you they were in terrible pain but you couldn't
identify that pain, would you believe them? Would you help them?
But your article shows no
empathy for the children that are supposedly at the heart of this at all. Your
abhorrent comment that “PE teachers must tolerate
girls using binders to strap down their hated breasts “which can lead to
shortness of breath and can be painful during physical exertion” because they
have “a positive impact on a young person’s mental health” is a case in point. The PE teachers must
“tolerate” the poor girls breast binding!!? Oh, poor PE teacher! How on earth do you
think this compares to what the girl herself is “tolerating” – discrimination, misunderstanding,
insensitive comments, emotional pain, physical pain, staggering cruelty. However, they are doing it because all of that is less
agonising than having to force yourself into a body you do not want to be in.
Maybe the poor ‘tolerant’ PE teacher can
go get a nice cup of tea and read some Janice Turner articles while the trans
boy sobs helplessly into his crushed chest.
You also talk
about how parents should have the right to know if their daughter is sharing a
room with a trans girl. One brilliant commentator on your thread says “Think, for one minute, about the
consequences of such a rule for a genuine trans girl. The angry phone call to
the school from her roommate's parents. The teachers whispering in the corner,
trying to work out what to do. Being told that there's been a change of plan, and
having a sinking feeling in your stomach, because you know exactly why there's
been a change of plan. Because an adult, who you don't even know, doesn't trust
you, because of what you are”.
This is spot
on. There is no easy solution here, but there is a way forward that does not
shame the trans child into self-loathing. I had this exact experience on a PGL
trip and made contact with the other mums (who all by the way totally had my
daughter’s back on this) so that they were all comfortable about everyone
sharing. We talked it through. It was not imperative that they knew (as I do
not go around asking them what is in their child’s pants) but I did it to save
my child suffering the humiliation that is regularly heaped upon them for no
reason. My child is discreet (she hates her body, what wouldn’t she be?), she
changed separately to the other girls, but still tried to enjoy the normal
happy dynamic of a school trip with fun days and giggly nights in a dorm with
her friends. She is not a sexual predator, a weirdo, someone to be ‘protected
from’. Nor is she a ‘boy dressed as a girl’ (you try asking any 11-year old
cisgender boy to wear a dress to school and live as female for 3 years - see
how you get on with that!). She wants to listen to music, do her friend’s hair
and chuckle about funny snapchat pictures, just like any other pre-teen girl.
By over simplifying the issue (and the preposterous ‘dangers’ therein) your
implication that a trans child is somehow a threat to others is not only cruel
but utterly fallacious.
Being a transgender
person and the parent of a trans child is a
unique and complex struggle and unless you're in it you have no right to try
and cover up unimaginable anxiety with laughably sensationalist comments such
as “The apparatus of medical transition, a hormone
regime causing sterility, plus surgical removal of healthy tissue, is seen as
wholly positive”. Hormone blockers (I’ll say
it again) are reversible. Cross-ex hormones affect sterility but this is a
choice made as an adult, not as a child. And you imply that all trans people
want surgery! You are deluded. This is certainly not for everyone and would
only be performed on a consenting post-18yr old ADULT. But all that physical
change! It's not right to tamper with nature right?! So how come
cisgender adults can routinely have breast implants, penis enlargements, nose
jobs, face lifts, vaginal surgery to "neaten the labia", butt lifts,
whatever! Who's up in arms about that??! Why can't a trans adult choose to
change their body too? ALL aesthetically-driven cosmetic surgery is the removal
of healthy tissue – but this is routine, endemic and perfectly socially
acceptable. So, if it’s in the name of aesthetic vanity it’s OK, but if it’s
life-changing for somebody with gender dysphoria it is suddenly some kind of
shocking butchery!
The contents of someone's pants is nobody's
business but theirs. But then surely if a trans person goes into a gender
specific changing room they will show everyone their genitals, right!? Of course they will! They'll flash the parts of
themselves they hate! Logical assumption! Or, terrifyingly, a cisgender man
will use a "trans" disguise (cue spooky soundtrack) to go into
women's cubicles and changing spaces to prey on girls!! Of course they will! Because
there is no recorded evidence of a genuine trans person ever actually doing this! And of
course cisgender men haven't been stalking, raping, abusing and sexually
exploiting women and girls since time began have they! Oh I see, they just need
an excuse to put on a dress and then they have a reason to do it!
Silly me!!!
You
say that “the current trans movement is doctrinaire, uncompromising. Led by
mainly older trans-women — ie born men — it won’t acknowledge women’s rights or
feelings”It
is also led increasingly by parents like myself, parents who are sick of the
media lies that are peddled our way on a daily basis. Parents who love their
children and support them through this hard and painful road to discovery.
Parents who would rather a trans child than a dead one, parents who are crying
inside daily because they fear that the world just refuses to accept that there
is a gender spectrum rather than 2 neat little draconian boxes to shove their
children into. Parents who despair at the disgusting and hurtful implication
that our children are a threat to others purely because of the genitals they
were born with and not because of who they are.
We are normal families trying to
raise happy children, not your so called ‘trans lobby’ who are “prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of children”. We
are the largely voiceless parents in the midst of this debate who desperately
want to tell people the truth about our lives before another few hundred dead
trans kids fill the headlines of our shameful press.
You
finish your piece by saying “But in a decade, when our adult children turn to
ask, “Why did you let me do this? Why didn’t you stop me?”. Let me tell you something Janice. If I
manage to get my daughter to the age of 22 unscathed by bullying and
misunderstanding, walking freely and happily in a body she doesn’t hate,
growing up in a world that accepts her for who she is I’ll be lining the cat
litter tray with your article and popping open the Moet.
And while I’m drinking
it I'll be celebrating being a
parent who refused to be silenced by the backlash brigade. A parent who loves
their kid and has their back. A parent who has a beautiful, bolshy, sassy kid
who won't take shit from anyone. A kid who I've raised to grow one set of balls
to replace another. A kid with hope that one day she can just be treated like
everybody else. That should be a right and not a privilege.
Wow!!! I hope this goes viral! You go my dear. Very well written and Janice Turner should be ashamed of herself AND her ignorance. I wish you and your daughter all the love and light this world has to offer. Be well and stay strong! - Tanya
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ReplyDeleteThank you. Please keep speaking truth! I am a trans woman, now fifteen years post-op...that grew up forced to hide in shame what I was...forced to go through an unwanted male puberty...forced to try the best I could to pretend to be what I knew I was not.
ReplyDeleteI am SOOO jealous of your little girl, and wish it could be me!
Let me tell you what happens to those like me...who wait until adulthood, with NO PAUSE BUTTON...if we make it there at all (I survived two suicide attempts)
We have IRREVERSIBLE and horribly unwanted secondary sex characteristics we don't want and make us uncomfortable, and the target of ridicule and discrimination...I have done a lot of work on my voice, but it still sounds way too deep to my ear, and is a source of distress for me.
Every time I apply for a job, even though I have not used it in twenty years...I am forced to reveal my dead name, because I have worked under that name (Job appllications always ask you to list all former names under which you have worked)
If I fail to fill that out, and they find out later...I can be fired FOR CAUSE (lying on an application) and try getting unemployment if you are fired for cause!
If I DO fill out the line...here in NC and 30 other states, I have just given them a legal reason to deny me the job for which I just applied...and I have many times been discriminated against this way! Furthermore, I have been forced to reveal my very personal and private health information (the fact of my gender reassignment...let's face it, it does NOT take a rocket scientist to figure it out when Diane goes to apply for a job and has to write on that line that she was once known as Jack!!)
Please keep fighting...and I shall continue to do the best I can to fight for children like your daughter,...that they may have the life that should have been mine...but which I will forever be denied...because the damage done by the unwanted puberty is just too much to completely overcome. Finances are not good already for trans...and finances are what you need to reverse the unwanted seconndary sex characteristics.
(Original post deleted for typographical errors, no way to edit once posted...this is now what was meant to be posted)
Thank you for your lovely words of support and for sharing your story. I do wish you the very best, you sound like you've been through enough already and we are all
DeleteRooting for you here for a good life that can bring you happiness in spite of your struggles. Much love to you xx
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this! You have laid out the evidence clearly and correctly. Being trans is *not* a choice. I have been trans my entire life, despite my epic fight to *not be*.
ReplyDeleteI know parents of trans children, and I am in awe of them. It's hard enough to stand up for myself as a trans person, when I can make sense of my feelings (even if I can't make sense why I feel that way). For a cisgender parent of a trans child, you are asked to believe something about your child which is completely foreign to everything you've ever known or felt. There just aren't enough words in any language to express what it feels like to have your gender not match the one you were assigned at birth, and your child is still learning how to use language in the first place - how can they explain this?
You (and other supportive parents of trans kids) are true heroes. You are what is right with this world. Thank you for standing up for your child (and others) by embodying radical acceptance and believing what your child tells you.
Thank you Amy for your lovely kind words, I will never ever give up on trans children, they are the new generations who will change the gender landscape and stamp out the hatred. It's a long fight but worth every ounce of energy and commitment. Sending you love x
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