Gender

That Equality Report

~ Cheryl

I promised you a post on the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s new report, How Fair is Britain? Here it is.

As I mentioned on Monday, mostly the report has little to say about the status of trans people in Britain because the EHRC does not have sufficient data to draw any conclusions. This isn’t surprising. The numbers of trans people are very small, they are not a fashionable group of people to study, and even if surveys did ask respondents if they identified as trans many trans people would lie for fear of outing themselves. Nevertheless, there are a number of rather depressing comments.

On Crime

In a small study of the experience of 71 transgender people, over half said that they had experienced harassment, and a smaller proportion (12 people) said that they had been physically assaulted: a large amount of crime against this group appears to go unreported.

A survey of attitudes among 872 transgender people found that two-thirds felt confident that they would be treated appropriately by members of the police service as their acquired gender. However, around 1 in 5 of those who had had contact with the police (68/367) felt that they were treated inappropriately, with attacks against them not being taken seriously and inappropriate searches being carried out.

On Health Care

The ‘Patient Satisfaction with Transgender Services’ which surveyed the opinions and experiences of 647 individuals at all stages of treatment/transition, found that 1 in 7 transgender people who responded to the healthcare section of the satisfaction survey felt that they had been treated adversely by healthcare professionals because of their transgender status.

On Education

In the same survey, transgender students were identified as the group who secondary teachers think are least supported in school (with only 7% of secondary teachers saying that this is the case). Also, only 7% of secondary teachers say that their school is ‘very active’ in promoting equality and respect for transgender pupils.

Despite two-thirds of lesbian, gay and transgender secondary students reporting that they have been victims of often severe bullying (17% of those bullied reported having received death threats), most teachers say that their schools do little to very actively promote respect towards lesbian, gay and transgender young people.

On Employment

Given the size of the transgender population, national survey evidence is unable to shed light on their economic position. However, a small 2008 survey of 71 respondents by the Scottish Transgender Alliance found that among respondents there was a high unemployment rate with 37% (N=26) receiving out of work benefits. There was also a high reported self-employment rate at 20% (N=14) perhaps because some members of the transgender community avoid situations where they do not have control over their work environment and the people with whom they have day-to-day contact.

There is very limited information about the economic position of the transgender population in the labour market, although research suggests that it is not favourable. A small-scale Scottish study (with 71 respondents) found that 55% of transgendered people had an HND/degree or postgraduate degree, but only 30% had a gross annual income of over £20,000, and almost half had a gross annual income of under £10,000.

Although little empirical work has been done in the area of employment for transgender people, it is reported in qualitative research and small-scale survey work that the employment sphere is the space in which transgender people face the most significant and pervasive levels of discrimination.

As a consequence of harassment and bullying 1 in 4 transgender people will feel obliged to change their jobs.

On housing

For transgender people, housing problems or crises can be related to aggression from neighbours and/or others in the local area, or the breakup of families on discovering a member of the family is transgender. These experiences may trigger a housing crisis or lead to homelessness.

I’m not posting this in the hope you folks will feel sorry for me. I know I have been very lucky. I have a home of my own, a decent income, and a wonderfully supportive relationship. But I have been through times when my annual income was in 4 figures (and I was afraid to go to social services for help). I have been through times when suicide seemed like a logical option. It is a bad place to be in, and there are many people in the UK, and around the world, who are in that place now.

Of course there are very many people who are much more seriously disadvantaged because they live in extreme poverty. But this is such a small problem in comparison to their plight. It is a problem that would be largely solved if we, as a society, would just change our attitudes. The economic cost is pitifully small.

So what can we as individuals can do about this? Trans people are such a small and despised minority that they are mostly off the political radar. Writing to your MP won’t help a lot. What we can do, however, is challenge opinions. The main reason why trans people are such a disadvantaged group is that politicians are afraid to do anything to help them. And that’s because when trans people are featured in the media it is generally either as the butt of jokes, or because some journalist is outraged that anything at all is done to support “perverts”. While those media attitudes exist, trans people will always be a political scapegoat rather than a protected group.

So next time you hear or see someone trashing trans people in public, do me a favor and challenge it, please.

You might also read this article by Matt Cheney, which I think is wonderful. If we were less obsessed with gender, and the maintenance of male superiority, we would be a lot less terrified by people who don’t fit our neat social boxes.

Update: For comparison, the National Center for Transgender Equality today issued a report on trans people’s access to health care in the USA. It makes horrific reading. The headline statistic is that 19% of respondents to the survey (of 6450 people) were refused care outright.

Trans People and Coming Out

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Today is International Coming Out Day. You can expect to see a lot of LGB people writing happy blog posts about what a positive experience coming out is, and how more people should do it. It is a wonderful, uplifting event. Posts by trans people, in contrast, will probably be rather less common, and not just because there are fewer trans people.

As Hal Duncan noted during the recent Salon Futura podcast on writing LGBT characters, social attitudes towards LGB people have softened considerably over his lifetime. That’s not true everywhere in the world, as yesterday’s reports from Serbia make all too plain. But conditions for trans people, even in the West, are far less friendly. A report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission titled How Fair is Britain? was issued today. Mostly what it has to say about trans people is “we don’t know” because there are so few of them, and they are so rarely studied, but what evidence it does have suggests that they are more discriminated against than any other group included in the report. I’ll comment on this in more detail another day.

On October 1st a new Equality Act came into effect in the UK. Mostly this is a very good thing that extends and consolidates rights for various disadvantaged groups in society. For trans people, however, it took rights away. In direct contravention of the existing Gender Recognition Act, the Equality Act states that trans people who have completed gender transition are not to be legally regarded as persons of their desired gender. It states that all trans people can be legally discriminated against in a wide variety of ways. I can legally be denied work and housing, thrown out of pubs and restaurants, denied service in shops, and denied access to transport services, simply because someone else says that they find my presence offensive. The right of other people to do these things to me is enshrined in UK law.

This new law is almost certainly in contravention of both British and European Human Rights legislation, but in the absence of a successful test case it still stands. Given the existence of such legislation, it is unsurprising that trans people are unwilling to be open about their status (though from what I recall of reading early drafts, the Equality Act makes concealing your trans status during a job application a criminal offense).

The argument for coming out is, of course, that the LGBT community needs role models. Gareth Thomas is doing a wonderful job in the rugby world, and the It Gets Better campaign on YouTube is providing much needed emotional support to frightened LGBT teens.

Trans people can be role models too. Chaz Bono has lent his support to the It Gets Better campaign. A potential role model in the UK is Nadia Almada, the Portuguese woman who won Big Brother. Judging from this interview with my friend Christine Burns, Nadia is a bubbly, confident person with a positive outlook on life. She’s busy setting up a new business. But the interview also touches on her suicide attempt following the recent Ultimate Big Brother show, which re-united past winners.

When Nadia was first on Big Brother, her housemates were unaware of her trans status. The programme’s producers played this up to the viewers, who were let in on the secret. That was part of the “entertainment”. For the reunion show, everyone knew about Nadia’s background. As this interview reveals, Nadia’s housemates were allowed to bully her, and this bullying was edited out by the TV company, thereby avoiding the outcry that resulted from the racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty, and making Nadia seem ill-tempered and hysterical to the viewers. This too was part of the “entertainment”. You can say this was all Nadia’s fault for wanting to be on TV, but putting yourself forward in that way is exactly what being a role-model is all about. You can’t inspire anyone if you keep yourself private.

It wouldn’t be so bad if all you were risking was yourself. Unfortunately homophobic and transphobic bullies don’t content themselves with persecuting the objects of their hatred. They often turn their attention to the families of those people too. You may have noticed that I have been rather more open about my own status of late. That’s because I am no longer living with my mother, and her home is no longer at risk of being vandalized simply because I live there.

The average age of gender transition in the UK is apparently around 40. That, I am sure, is an historical artifact. It makes no sense to transition at that age. Those people who want to transition are generally well aware that they are trans when they are at school. The longer you wait, the more time hormones have to make their mark on your body. The younger you can transition, the better. But until recently very few people have had the courage to go through gender transition, let alone come out.

So we currently have a society in which trans people are going through transition in late middle age. Many of them will have married earlier in life in order to appear “normal”, or in an attempt to “cure” themselves of their feelings, just as gay people did in my parents’ generation. Some will have children. If they go public about their trans status, they put their families at risk.

Finally there is the whole question of what it means to be “out” as a trans person. As I have explained elsewhere, there are many different types of trans people. Some are adamant that they are neither male nor female, and are very happy to be identified as something else. Others, however, want nothing more than to be accepted as ordinary members of the gender in which they feel they belong. For them, being out as a trans person means that they can never have that acceptance. It means that people will forever be seeing them as “really” a member of the gender they hate being seen as belonging to. It means admitting to themselves that they can never have the life that they dreamed of as children. For some it is an admission that their lives have been a failure.

Despite the desperate need for positive role models, trans people are very reluctant to come out. I regret that, but I very much understand where they are coming from, and I will try never to condemn anyone for failing to do so. I hope you won’t either.

Playing Catchup

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

There was no blogging yesterday because I was busy. I spent a whopping 12 hours on the day job, which was a disaster in every way except that the clients seem happy and I can bill for it. Today I need to get on with Salon Futura #2 in half the time I had hoped to spend on it. But so that you don’t have to be bored for another day, here are a few things to keep you busy.

A BBC survey finds that 18% of British people are “uncomfortable” about having LGB characters on television. That’s depressing, but a good excuse to mention that The Salon this month features Nicola Griffith, Hal Duncan and Cat Valente (and me) talking about writing LGBT characters.

That report doesn’t address portrayal of trans people at all because, as you should be aware by now, the purpose of trans people on British television is to provide the audience with someone who won’t be protected by the Press Complaints Commission that can be the butt of any cruel jokes going. However, the Liberal Democrat part of our coalition government wants to have an “action plan” on transgender equality. It remains to be seen whether the Tories will allow Ms. Featherstone to actually act on the plan.

Talking of gender issues, Kyle Cassidy had a bizarre encounter in a bar last night with someone who is obviously well on the way to becoming a Republican senator. Who would have thought that Hello Kitty could arouse such ire.

Everyone has been blogging about the potentially habitable planet that has been discovered, but in case you missed it, here’s the story.

More worryingly (and because I haven’t given Kendall a “we’re all going to die” story for ages), here are some cosmologists worrying that the amount of time in our universe may be finite. Apparently we only have about 5 billion years left. Warning: even Hannu Rajaniemi might need to work a bit to follow the argument.

And finally on the science beat, the news that dinosaurs might have been a bit taller than previously thought, because they had a lot more cartilage in their joints than we do. It would have been a great article if it wasn’t for this:

Using a “cartilage correction factor,” Holliday determined that many theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus, were only modestly taller whereas ornthischian and sauropod dinosaurs, such as Triceratops and Brachiosaurus, may have been 10 percent taller or more. For example, Brachiosaurus, previously thought to be 42 feet tall, may actually have been more than a foot taller with the additional joint cartilages.

I’m guessing what they mean is that a Brachiosaurus’s legs would have been 10% longer. Much of its height is, of course, in the neck, which perhaps doesn’t have as much cartilage. But really, someone should have raised a red flag before that article saw print.

Bare Faced Cheek

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The political machinations that surround gay rights organizations are often a total mystery to me. US readers will be well familiar with the battles over Proposition 8, ENDA and DADT. The UK has a number of similar issues. While same-sex couples are allowed to enter into civil partnerships, this is regarded as something different from “marriage”. Bizarrely, opposite-sex couples are not allowed to enter into civil partnerships. This causes particular distress to trans people who are married before they transition and are forced to divorce if they want their change of gender legally recognized, and must then go through a civil partnership should they with to remain with their former spouse. It also annoys heterosexual atheists, who would prefer a more secular arrangement.

The Liberal Democrats are trying to persuade their Tory coalition partners to simplify the whole system by allowing all couples to choose which type of partnership they want, and making the legal status of the two arrangements equal. Stonewall, the UK’s leading gay rights organization, is apparently opposed to this because they think it would cost too much.

Yes, that’s right, the UK’s leading gay rights organization is opposed to marriage equality.

But it gets worse. Check through that Pink News article that I linked to and you will see Ben Summerskill, the boss of Stonewall, calmly telling the journalist that his organization has been talking to the government about changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

Say what? You see, Stonewall is avowedly not an LGBT organization. It is an LG organization that will tolerate B people as long as they don’t embarrass anyone by being B in public, and is rampantly transphobic. If you need a reminder about what Stonewall people think of anyone who isn’t respectably L or G (and gender normative), check here.

So goodness only knows what Mr. Summerskill and his pals think they are doing presenting themselves to the government as representatives of trans people but, as one of Roz’s friends remarks here, it can’t be good.

There will, I gather, be a demonstration addressing these issues in London early in November. I’ll be busy putting Salon Futura #3 together at the time, but if you are interested I can point you in the direction of the right people.

Sex and the Single Embryo

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The Daily Kos has a remarkable post up outlining the various ways in which human embryos, which begin life largely undifferentiated, acquire gender-related characteristics under the influence of hormones, etc.

The thing that impressed me most about the article is that it starts from the assumption that trans women are women, and trans men are men, they just have a rather more extreme case of developmental skewness than you find in intersex people. This is completely opposite to the usual media and medical (and common Feminist) view that trans women are “really” men and trans men are “really” women who can be surgically altered to look like the “other sex”. As the article makes plain, all human beings start out the same, and any medical treatment for trans people is adjusting what the body has done to itself.

The other important point that the article makes is that the natural variation in human development is far more significant than most people assume, and people with “abnormal” sexual characteristics are much more common than trans people. Furthermore, post-surgery, trans people fit well within the natural range of variation for their gender.

It is the most refreshing and complete article on trans biology I have read in a long time.

Warning: contains biology text book drawings.

Pride Bristol Friday

~ Cheryl

Last night went very well. The film, Diagnosing Difference, was very good. Much of the material about medical approaches to trans people was slightly off target because the UK doesn’t follow US psychology practices (no DSM here, folks, we are de-pathologized). However, the wide variety of trans people interviewed was very refreshing, and the attitude very positive.

The panel also went well. Roz and I, of course, are panel veterans (though as moderator I tried to stay out of things most of the time). Finn Greig and Natacha Kennedy did well as the professional experts, but we need to drag them along to a few conventions to get panel practice. Bethany Black, being a professional entertainer, was superb. And it turns out that she’s also a total fangirl.

Beth’s bio does say that she’s a Goth, but during the panel Roz likened the experience, as a kid, of finding out that other trans people exist to the “sense of wonder” experience in science fiction. She quoted the first couple of lines of Roy Batty’s death scene from Blade Runner: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.” And Beth immediately completed the quote.

She’s also very funny. We need to get this girl to Eastercon.

The ICFA Paper

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Some of you will remember that I was due to present a paper on trans characters in SF&F literature at ICFA this year, but could not do so due to being denied entry to the USA. In view of some of the panels it appears I may be on at Au Contraire and Aussiecon 4 it seemed appropriate to publish that paper here so that people attending the panels could read it. It is rather long, and being an academic paper is heavily footnoted, but it is now available for those who would like to read it. See here.

Luna

~ Cheryl

Having read f2m: the boy within, I decided that I should get on and read Luna by Julie Anne Peters [buy isbn=”9780316011273″] as well. It is a rather more famous book, being published in the US and having been a National Book Award finalist. It is also a very different book.

To begin with, Luna appears to me to be more emotionally intense. I’m not a great expert on YA books, but it felt to me that that book was aimed at slightly older kids, despite the fact that the characters in the two books are round the same age (late teens). Alternatively it could simply be that Hazel Edwards is used to writing for younger kids, and carried some of that over into f2m.

The more crucial difference, however, is that Luna isn’t really about a trans kid, it is about her sister. The story is told from the point of view of Regan, who is younger than Luna but is forced into the role of responsible adult thanks to Luna’s emotional turmoil and the dysfunctional behavior of their parents.

To some extent the book is an accurate portrayal of the emotional problems that accompany transition (and believe me that can mess up the strongest individual), but at the same time I spent a lot of time thinking that the characters were getting pushed around by the author in order to create increased, and probably unnecessary, drama. There are times when the book does the traditional farce thing of setting up a potential disaster and then ensuring that every character does exactly the necessary stupid thing to make it happen.

The problem with this, of course, is that the book could easily be seen as giving out the message that having a trans sibling is a total pain the butt and the sooner you can get rid of her and get your own life back the better. This is not a helpful message to be sending.

The book will undoubtedly be devoured by MtF teens — because let’s face it trans people are inveterate devourers of other people’s transition narratives when they are trying to make their minds up what to do with their lives — but even there it may be somewhat troublesome. Luna’s easy access to money never quite rang true to me, and the vast majority of trans teens simply won’t have that safety net. Consequently Luna’s story is of rather less help than f2m, where poor Finn makes do with part time work and is always short of cash.

Having said all that, simply having a book like Luna out in the world is of enormous benefit to trans people everywhere. It gets the message out that being trans is something that happens to ordinary, well-educated kids. Peters also does a good job of showing how Luna knew she was a girl from a very early age, and that any half-intelligent parent should have spotted the signs and could have done something about it, although the reactions of Luna’s parents are much more typical of what trans kids can still expect. In some ways Luna is a horror story of how badly parents, and expectations of gender roles, can mess up kids’ lives.

f2m: the boy within

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

For various reasons I have been reading a fair amount of YA fiction of late. Part of that has been checking out trans-themed books for teenagers. This is one of them. f2m: the boy within, is not science fiction. It is, however, relevant to my South Pacific Tour because Hazel Edwards is from Melbourne and her co-author, Ryan Scott Kennedy, is from Wellington. I understand that Hazel will be at Worldcon. I have no idea whether Ryan will be at Au Contraire, but I’m sure he’ll be very welcome if he decides to turn up.

The book tells the story of Skye, the lead singer and guitarist in an all-girl punk band, who decides to transition to male. He adopts the name Finn, and goes through the usual problems with family, friends and the authorities on his journey to be true to himself.

As kids’ books goes, this one appears to be fairly in the educational camp. While the subject matter is liable to cause conniptions amongst religious fundamentalists, the book itself is very approachable and non-confrontational. It is exactly the sort of book that I can imagine a progressive school approving of. Sure Finn is something of a rebel, and plays very loud music, but there’s nothing here any sensible parent could object to, and the treatment of the subject is honest and informative.

I’m sure that trans kids will devour the book hungrily, but I’m hoping that the real intended audience is non-trans kids, especially those who suddenly discover that one of their friends is trans.

Judging from her website, Hazel has an established career as a writer of books for children. She has also been to Antarctica, which is very cool in more ways than one. Ryan appears to have provided the expertise on trans people and punk rock, which is equally cool without the need for thermal undies.

The book was originally published in Australia, but there’s a Lightning Source edition available from The Book Depository [buy isbn=”9781876462901″] and you can also get it on the Kindle.

Anyone know of any similar books? I have a copy of Luna by Julie Anne Peters [buy isbn=”9780316011273″], and I’ve reviewed one or two fantasy books.

Judge Walker: Hero

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

So Prop 8 is dead, at least for a while. Of course there will be appeals. Doubtless there will be all sorts of rumblings in Congress. Many words will be written. I just want to highlight two things.

Firstly the State of California defended the case because it was legally obliged to do so. Now that the case has been lost, California will not appeal. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, The Gubernator described the court’s decision as, “an important step toward equality and freedom for all people.” Arnie also declined to appear in court to defend Prop 8.

And secondly, Judge Vaughn is a star. I have been skimming through the text of his ruling, and it is full of utter gems. Here’s one:

The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry. Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.

The ruling is a splendid (and delightfully clear) demolition of just about everything the pro-8 camp has done and said, including chastising them for using insulting stereotypes of gay people in their pubic campaign, and then abandoning all of those arguments when they got to court because they knew they would not stand scrutiny. I’m very impressed.

A Little More Progress

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Today’s good news is that the UK’s supreme court has firmly told the Home Office that if someone comes asking for asylum because they have been persecuted in their home country for being gay (or lesbian, bi, trans, etc.), telling them to go home and be discreet about their activities isn’t very helpful. Whether this will actually make any difference, at least until a whole bunch of expensive cases have been brought to court and won, and someone in government decides to kick ass to save money, remains to be seen, but it is a step in the right direction.

That Old Silent T

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Today’s Guardian has an article about a new resource produced by Stonewall for prospective university students. As thousands of young people make final decisions about where to spend the next few years of their lives, many will be asking, “which institution will allow them to feel comfortable about who they are?” The article goes on to say:

It is a question the lobby group Stonewall aims to help answer for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students through a new guide to “gay-friendly” universities.

Two Stonewall spokesmen (Luke Tryl and Gary Nunn) are quoted in the piece. Both apparently use the LGBT acronym when talking to the Guardian reporter, Harriet Swain. And yet, if you click through to the document in question it states: “Stonewall’s University Guide is for all lesbian, gay and bisexual students; and all those in-between.”

What exactly does that mean? Well one thing it very clearly means is “NOT T”, because if you read through the document there’s very little mention of that additional letter. For example:

University description: A bit about the University, its unique selling points, the student LGBT society and the local gay scene.

Checklist: An at-a-glance indicator of how gay-friendly a university is by showing what provision they offer to LGB students.

In other words, the university may have an organization that caters for LGB and T students, but the Stonewall guide is only interested in what that organization does for LGB students.

You don’t write something like that by accident. Stonewall has had a long standing policy of not being in the slightest interested in trans people unless they happen to be LGB as well. But why is the Guardian article so misleading? Why, in particular, has the newspaper added a T to LGB everywhere in the list of criteria by which universities have been judged, when the Stonewall document very clearly does not use that T?

All sorts of reasons are possible. It could have been an enthusiastic sub-editor. It could be Ms. Swain’s mistake. It could have been the Stonewall people misleading the newspaper. But whatever the reason is, it is quite wrong for The Guardian to suggest that Stonewall cares about trans people. It doesn’t.

In view of this it is quite telling that the government has started to talk about “LGB and T” rather than “LGBT” (example here). It is a clever political move. On the one hand it makes clear to trans people that they are not just an afterthought, and acknowledges that the issues they face may be very different. On the other it mollifies the people in Stonewall who wouldn’t be seen dead advocating for trans rights.

Anyway, Southampton scored 8 out of 10, and no university did better than 9, so I’m quite pleased with the old place. With I knew how it did on T issues though.

Update: There’s a comment on the Guardian article from someone who claims to be on the executive committee of Warwick Pride (and I have no reason to doubt this claim, but equally no proof it is true). According to this person, one of the criteria by which Stonewall judges a university is whether or not the local LGBTetc. group has signed up to Stonewall’s “diversity” program. A number of universities have allegedly refused to do so because of Stonewall’s lack of inclusivity. If this is true, Stonewall is actually marking universities down for being more inclusive than they like. I’d try to check this, but the Stonewall site linked to above appears to have vanished. Whether this is because it has been hacked, has died under the weight of interest, or been withdrawn in embarrassment I have no idea.

Different for Boys?

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Mention forced marriages and the image that immediately springs to mind is some poor teenage girl being traded like a prize cow to a guy she’s never met. Today’s Guardian, however, has a rather different take on the issue. The UK now has something called the Forced Marriage Unit, which aims to help people being dragooned into matrimony against their will. Last year around 13% of their calls were from men. The Guardian’s Amelia Hill explains:

Men report being forced into marriage because they are gay or bisexual, or because their families suspect that they are. But it can also be a result of family commitments to relatives abroad or their own expectations, securing visas or an attempt to control their son’s behaviour or protect a family’s reputation.

As with forced marriages of women, the motivations here are either a desire to avoid “shame”, or the use of children as property in some transaction. The consequences for the boys concerned can be quite severe:

Just two weeks ago, the FMU took a call from a young man living in Leicester whose family had locked him in his bedroom after discovering that he was gay. He told the FMU that his family were downstairs, discussing whether to take him to India and either kill him, abandon him there or marry him off.

The FMU reports that calls from boys last year were up by 65% on the year before, and they look like rising again this year. As the article notes, the biggest problem for boys (and even men) in such situations is that people don’t believe that such things happen. This reminds me of an email exchange I had a couple of weeks ago over a tweet I made about domestic abuse. Again there are men who have been victims of violent wives — I happen to know a couple — but way too many people refuse to take such things seriously.

At root this is really just another example of the failure of the binary. Not all men are aggressive and domineering; not all women are meek and inoffensive. Anyone can become a victim.

Some Trans Links

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

A quick round-up here for those interested in such things.

At Feministing Queen Emily explains why outing trans people can be so dangerous. What she fails to mention is that it is not only dangerous for the trans people in question — anyone who is a member of their family, or who has helped and supported them, is also put at risk.

In The Guardian Roz Kaveney attempts to navigate the minefield of labeling, with predictable results. I’m sure that somewhere out there people are yelling about how “straight” and “white” and “male” are horrible insults that people shouldn’t be allowed to use.

And finally, at The Stranger, Dan Savage discovers a lunatic doctor who is treating pregnant women with experimental drugs in the hope of ensuring that their daughters grow up to be “proper women”. I note that while there is outrage at Dr. New trying to prevent the birth of lesbians, career girls and the like, no one seems to mind the same drug being used to prevent the birth of intersex people.

Melbourne Does T (Again)

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Last year I reported that Melbourne-based writer, Alison Goodman, had produced The Two Pearls of Wisdom, a YA fantasy novel with a positive portrayal of a trans character. This wasn’t entirely innovative. There are non-fantasy books with MtF trans characters, notably Luna by Julie Anne Peters, and there are books such as Lauren McLaughlin’s Cycler and Recycler that use fantasy to create the gender change. But until now I wasn’t aware of any YA or children’s books that featured an actual FtM character. Step forward another Melbourne writer, Hazel Edwards, whose new book, F2M: The Boy Within, does just that. I am rather proud of my former home town, and I’d love to meet both Goodman and Edwards while I’m there for Worldcon.

Of course if any of you know other YA or children’s books that include FtM characters I’d love to hear about them.

The Unkindest Cut

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

While I was out and about it Bath yesterday much outrage was being vented on Twitter about female genital mutilation being performed at Cornell University. Given the people who originally raised the issue, I thought this was probably something to do with cultural issues and the bizarre tradition of “female circumcision”. However, having looked into the story myself I discovered that this wasn’t anything to do with stopping women having orgasms. Indeed, the surgeon concerned, insensitive and stupid though he may be, was at least worrying about whether his patients victims would still have sensation in their mutilated organs.

So what was going on here? The surgeon, Dix Poppas, was cutting bits off little girls’ clitorises because they had been identified as “too large”. Not, of course, too large to be able to perform their function, or too large and thereby posing a risk to their owners’ health, but simply too large for the comfort of people who have arbitrarily determined how big a clitoris ought to be.

PZ Myers is amongst those who expressed outrage yesterday. His comments include this:

It is a non-issue; five year old girls will not be judged on the size of their clitorises, and even adult women should not…

Well no, they shouldn’t be, but they most certainly are. Indeed, I’m pretty certain that the whole nonsense surrounding Lady Gaga’s possible intersex status resulted in a huge flood of desperate parents contacting Dr. Poppas and begging for his help. Indeed, that might have been exactly the thing that caused people to notice his shoddy little operation.

I’m sure that Poppas had a nice little earner going anyway because there will always be idiots who think that a larger-than-average clitoris will “cause a girl to grow up lesbian”. That, however, is unproven speculation. Most parents are not daft enough to fall for that sort of thing. What really terrifies otherwise loving and caring parents is that their little princess might have to go through life bearing the stigma of being “really a man”. And yes, Dr. Myers, even girls as young as five will be judged in that way.

So yes, what Poppas is doing is appalling, but the people he is preying on are not just dupes who have swallowed nonsense about preventing kids growing up gay, they are responding to a very real threat to their daughters. And as long as we, as a society, continue to hold that making fun of trans people (of all types, not just intersex, with the usual apologies to intersex people who hate being included in the trans umbrella) then parents will continue to panic about issues such as this. I am talking to you, Press Complaints Commission; I am talking to you, BBC; I am talking to you, Stephen Fry. It is your willingness to continue to use trans people as an acceptable target for vicious and demeaning “jokes” that is causing these little girls to be treated so appallingly.

Gender Science Breakthrough

~ Cheryl

Via the National Institute of Medical Research I have learned of a major breakthrough in the understanding of how mammals (at least, but remember that other types of animals have very different sex systems to ours) develop major sex characteristics. We have known for a long time that physical sex is much more complex than simply having XX or XY chromosomes. According to this article we know understand the exact mechanism by which a body will develop either testes or ovaries. Of particular importance is the fact that this mechanism involves a gene that is not on either the X or Y chromosome, and is active for only a very short period in the embryo’s development. There are therefore definite possibilities for things to go wrong in an embryo with perfectly normal X, and Y if it exists, chromosomes.

Even more startlingly (and potentially annoying for feminist separatists) is the following:

The research challenges several long held assumptions, such that female development happens by default, or that once formed, mature tissues are immutable or fixed.

Really we shouldn’t need this sort of discovery to put an end to the nonsense that human beings exist in only two, mutually exclusive, genders, and I don’t suppose the religious fundamentalists will believe it anyway, but hopefully it will help convince courts and governments.

Medical science being what it is, much of the talk around the discovery is about how it may help us “cure disorders”, but equally it opens up some fairly radical possibilities for gender medicine. My position, as ever, is that brains are much more complicated than bodies, and we should apply whatever treatments help the patients be happier as themselves rather than try to enforce social norms and expect the patients to adjust mentally.

(Hat tip to Sarah Graham and Christine Burns via Twitter).

Drag Racing Takes Off

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The joke about drag racing being a sport for men in high heels is as old as those daft cars themselves, but actual races by drag queens appear to be getting more popular of late. Bristol Pride has one organized for June 26th as a fund raiser for the main event in August. Even the Evening Post has got behind it. Maybe people round here know how much I miss San Francisco.

A weekend earlier there will be a similar event in London. Stephen Fry tweeted about it today. This one has a rather more serious purpose. It is raising money for research into cures for prostate cancer. I guess the idea is to highlight the fact that prostate cancer is a disease that only men suffer from.

Personally I am very happy to see this happening. Two very dear friends of mine have been diagnosed with prostate cancer recently. Thankfully both of them caught it early enough to make it easily treatable. But catching it does rely on regular screening (or good luck).

There is, however, a darker side to people raising money for prostate cancer by dressing in drag, because prostate cancer is one of the major health risks for trans women. They might have had other bits of their anatomy removed, but they still have prostates and, as this American Cancer Society paper notes, their decreased testosterone levels may make them more vulnerable to the disease. This is complicated by the fact that health professionals may not know that trans women need to have such screening, and the women themselves may be afraid to ask to be screened for fear of being discriminated against. Trans people are routinely treated abominably by the NHS. I hope someone points this out to the Great Drag Race people, and that some of the money raised is put towards a bit of education.

Attention Oxford

~ Cheryl

If you live in or near Oxford you may be interested in an event on Monday night (June 7th). It is called Trans-Script Oxford, and it is part of the 2010 Oxford Pride festival. The event promises “A night of poetry, stand-up comedy, Monologues and drinks!” In particular my good friend Roz Kaveney will be performing. If you want to know more, there is a Facebook Event.