I spent some time yesterday searching through old emails from four years ago trying to find some information I had been sent by a friend. I had met her earlier in the day for the first time since the dreaded pandemic has hit our mobility and it was lovely, a special couple of hours.

As I trawled through the emails from earlier years I realised how easy it is to forget the stages of arriving at where I am now. It was this friend who had supported me for being transgender before I started to transition. I was really surprised at how closeted I still was when we were corresponding, though she had only met me as my true self. Reading her supportive emails it was quite clear that she understood where I was far more than I did at the time but gave me the space to inch my way forward and finally transition.

I was clearly really scared of taking any steps out of the closet, worrying about how it would impact on every aspect of my life and oblivious to how it was limiting and damaging me by living a lie and a sham. I thought I was coping, doing okay!

It is only looking back from where I am now, fully out of the closet for some three years, living in my truth that I can tell the difference. I know it wasn’t easy facing up to transitioning. I probably made every excuse I could to put it off, such as I would face financial disaster, nobody would work with me.  I was self-employed, deliberately chosen so that I did not have to transition at work, but then of course I would not be able to get clients, or keep existing clients. I would never look good enough to be able to work and on and on it went.

The truth is none of my fears came to fruition. Yes there were difficulties, rejections, none earth shattering. Life doesn’t change as if by magic. Any problems you have before transition remain after transition. What does change is the ability to deal with them. Without the constant gender dysphoria being uppermost in your mind day in day out I have found myself over time to have become free which has given me the energy and impetus to deal with problems that were there previously. However, the greatest gift is to be able to live truthfully, not living a lie.

At has been interesting to see how far I have come, how much of the past has faded away and how rewarding it is to have transitioned. I am so grateful for the patience and support I received from my friend and that by having to look through the emails from a few years ago I have been able to recognise how much has changed. There is no point in wishing I had done it sooner. No point in regretting the lost time. It is as it is and I need to embrace every day of living the true me.

It has been a strange month, Pride month with many events and gatherings taking place despite the continuing Covid restrictions. What has impressed me has been the sheer number of people attending and being out and visible together with the substantial number of people who have not been able to attend and visibly sending their apologies. In the hope that the Covid restrictions will be behind us all this time next year I will be making plans to attend events next year. 

Of course, probably because it has been Pride month, the transphobic media has also been having a field day and although it feels as if they are everywhere and winning but when you see the numbers out and about I am encouraged that the transphobic gender critical are in reality a minority albeit a very vocal minority. I read over the weekend that there is a view that the tipping point has been reached whereby the numbers of trans people is such that it will no longer be possible to put us back in the box, though that will not stop people trying.

I am further encouraged by several of the EU leaders turning on the Hungarian Prime Minister making it quite clear that the homophobic laws he has passed are not acceptable, calling for the expulsion of Hungary from the EU. That isn’t going to happen but at the least they are calling him out over the issue. Similarly, Joe Biden is regularly speaking out in support of LGBTQ rights in the US and against the previous administrations homophobic and transphobic stance, revoking some of the laws that had been put in place. Hopefully, our government will not get too much traction with their woke wars which I have referred to in a previous post.

Then there is the commercialisation of Pride month when manufactures market items carrying LGBTQ+ logos, colours etc. I think my opinion on this is divided. It is very welcome to have the support of major companies but I feel their support should be less product based, with a view to profit, and rather more focused on practical help, stating their position on policy within their organisations and support of relevant organisations and events . I sort of feel it is a bit cynical to be marketing products for the cause, however maybe I am being a bit churlish since all positive support is welcome.

At the end of the day I have to keep faith, believe it is only a minority making the noise and that over time the situation for LGBTQ+ will continue to improve. 

This week I have strayed from simply trans matter as I have been shown an article published in the News  Review of The Sunday Times, written by Tim Shipman, entitled “How the Tories Weaponised Woke”. I was surprised it was in The Sunday Times, a Rupert Murdoch paper, as I understand his papers are encouraged to pursue an anti-trans agenda. It has been all too apparent that there is an increase in transphobia and a culture war has been developing in this country.I had taken the view this was a sad state of affairs and somehow it would work its way through just as s.28 and gay issues had done in the past.

This article claims that this is a deliberate policy to win votes by appealing to working class workers in the north to keep the penetration gained by breaching the red wall and more recently the seat of Hartlepool. Published on 13^th June and in it the writer says “this was the week that the government weaponised the war on woke”. In that week a Minister suggested that the English Cricket Board had gone over the top when they suspended a player for historic sexist and racist tweets, The Education Secretary caused a row over the removal of a picture of the Queen from the wall of their common room and by the end of the week there was a “standoff” over the English Football Team taking the knee in support of Black Lives Matters.

The strategy is being put together by Doug Smith, an adviser to the Tories for thirty years and who is married to Munira Mirza, the Downing Street Policy Director. Together they are unseen and extremely powerful. Doug Smith is on the right of the party and is the main influence on issues of race, trans rights and the attacks on historic statues. What is really concerning is that he holds the key to appointments to public bodies, and Tory candidate lists. The result of this is that if someone does not subscribe to his agenda and buy into it they are not going to be appointed or make progress in the party and ambitious Ministers are willing to follow Doug Smith’s agenda to get on.

To win the hearts and minds of the middle of the road voters, including northern voters, Doug Smith has identified they are left on spending and public services but conservative and right on other issues. They support the Queen and country and are tired of being told that everyone is racist (all lives matter they say) and although they claim tolerance this section of society consider the “trendy left” or woke attitudes are an overreaction which needs to be curbed.

So systematically the government is picking off these targets and emphasising division. The response so far is his tactic is working. Tim Shipman writes in the article “however squeamish, MPs insist that refusing to buy into the new orthodoxies on race and identity is helping them amass votes.” It is thought that the policy is going to go down well in the Batley and Spen constituency by-election coming up shortly. Tim Shipman quotes Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire who has been campaigning in the Batley and Spen Constituency as saying “it’s the culture war and on the doorstep we’re winning”.

On the other side of the coin Sir Keir Starmer has come out and made a video supporting Pride events and putting his backing behind Self- ID for trans people. This has done just what Doug Smith wanted putting Labour on the wrong side of northern wall core voters they lost in 2019.

I am deeply concerned that this cynical policy to stoke intolerance is at the heart of government. In relation to my minority group trans rights have been developing quietly for over twenty years and although there is and has been prejudice in general there is a degree of personal tolerance and acceptance by a substantial number of people which in my view would have steadily continued to grow. 

The heart of the anti-trans debate is about self ID and they say the consequent right for men who have self-identified as women being able to use single sex spaces as if this was a new revolutionary idea fraught with danger. Transwomen have been able to use single sex spaces perfectly legally for decades. Self ID is about removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate yet this has been hijacked and distorted for political purposes.

The government’s policy will only inflame both transphobic and racial intolerance. I can only hope enough people will speak out against this.

The Court of Appeal confirmed that Maya Forstater was entitled to hold the view that sex is immutable and you cannot change the sex you are born with. The Gender Critical view point. As I have said previously I did expect that. However it is not the great victory that the gender critics hoped for and in some cases are saying it is.

Although it has been established it is a protected belief, the Court went on to say that gender critical beliefs may  be offensive and even profoundly distressing, have potential to result in the harassment of trans people, and might well be considered offensive and abhorrent to others and continued with the statement that mild hate speech is protected under Article 10 of the ECHR and does not justify invoking Article 17 of the EHCR. So it is not in the same league as saying someone is a Nazi.

All it is saying is that belief that sex is immutable is a protected belief and nothing more. By protecting that belief it does not stray into any other areas about single sex spaces, the use of puberty blockers, both of which are already the subject of established court findings and interpretation of statutes or does it make any comments about self ID. This is why the finding is not the great victory that the gender critical community think it is.

What was also made very clear is that just because it is a protected belief it does not give anybody the right to misgender an individual and they are subject to the normal rules about discrimination and harassment and any conduct complained of would be for an employment tribunal to determine. So it does not give the likes of Forstater to behave as it is alleged she did. I am not clear, as I have not been able to locate a full transcript of the Judgment, whether or not her behaviour has been referred back to the employment tribunal for consideration as to whether or not her behaviour was discriminatory. If it hasn’t, it should be because all the Appeal ruling is concerned with is whether her belief is a protected belief and not whether her behaviour stepped over the line and was discriminatory or amounted to harassment.

Sadly unless it is referred back to the employment tribunal for a ruling on her behaviour then many will see it as a green light to express their protected belief and it will take further decisions to clarify what is deemed to be acceptable behaviour or not.

At least the gender critical mafia have not received the landmark decision they had hoped to obtain though that has not stopped some of them hailing it as such.

I don’t know where to begin really. I wanted to write about the concerted attack on Stonewall in the media concerning advice that the charity gave to the University of Essex. The advice had resulted in two academic speakers being excluded and centred around freedom of speech. It would seem that the charity did give advice that was not clear and involved a question of semantics, although the charity’s guidelines are in line with the Equalities Act 2010 which had been upheld as recently as the 6^th May when the Judicial Review had made it clear that the challenge by Ann Sinott of LGBQ was unarguable at law.

I actually find it too painful. The vehemence of the attacks goes way beyond reasoned argument and leaves me feeling really quite down. It is a subject I hope I will return to when I am able to be more detached. I think what I find depressing is that my experience in day to day life is such that there is really precious little transphobia. I can go about my daily life without huge hatred being dumped on me.

If I have to I will use single sex facilities, though because of the current hysteria being whipped up by anti-trans media I choose not to, I seek out facilities available to any gender (thank you Costas etc). I do not pass sufficiently that I can go “stealth” though I do try and blend in and not make myself an obvious target. The anti-trans lobby have this obsession that pre-op transwomen have this need to attack cis women in their safe sex spaces and this must be legislated against. I do not believe this is the way forward. It will result in collateral fall out for cis women too. Unless cis women fit into an acceptable presentation no doubt the “safe sex space police” will have difficulty in identifying who is trans and who is not.

It was reassuring to see Tweets such as the one from Kathryn Bromwich which said “there are plenty of cis women who are fully aware of the threats women face from predatory men-sometimes following first-hand experience- and still 100% support trans rights.” The thread had several supporting tweets.

I know that although very vocal it is a minority. However it does feel as though their platform is gaining credence and that the government is supporting the rolling back of trans rights.

My friends and colleagues simply treat me as myself, it is of no relevance that I am trans. I just want to be able to lead my life quietly being who I am. Is that too much to ask?

It has been a long weekend and for once in more years than I care to remember I have not done any work. I have been self-employed for over 40 years and holidays are designed for me to catch up with whatever has not been done so that I can start the next week with less of a back log. As long as I can remember there is always a list, usually a long list, of stuff going round in my head of what I should be doing.

I had a surprise call yesterday evening from a close friend I respect and who has helped me no end and supported my transition. She told me to have a day to myself, pamper myself…… I can’t remember the last time I did that…. There is always something that needs to be done, something that I need to worry about. 

So today that  is what I did. Pampering might be an exaggeration, there was no bubble bath (though who knows this evening)  but I did have a leisurely time, making sure I used moisturiser, fussing over my hair, eyebrows and generally making myself feel good. So what next, if I am not going to do any work. It was still cool and so I tackled some weeds I had been ignoring…they were outside the garden, on the parking space so easy to ignore. It only took 30 mins and was really satisfying. I had been looking at that for weeks, thinking I must do that but something work related always intervened. Today I did it for me.

The sun was up now and I decided to spend time quite simply chilling in the garden. Now that really is pampering myself…..actually doing nothing! Not even reading…..literally nothing. It was really quiet once you focused on the birdsong and blanked out the guy somewhere nearby who had clearly decided this was the day to fit a new kitchen (and the last two days come to think about it) and the brmm, brmm of 1000 c.c motorbike opposite as he got ready to go for a ride on his powerful beast. Truthfully all the sounds faded into background noise and did not intrude.

I found myself reflecting on how much change there has been in the last six months. I have realised I am not transitioning, I have transitioned. 

For the last few months, for the first time ever, I have actually been living my truth the real me. I suppose I thought that would be easy a dream come true and yes it is. At first I found it hard to accept that all of the “stuff” , the gender chatter” which had been going on in my head all my life had gone. Then comes the hard bit looking at the life of self-deception I had been living and had existed for so long, trying not to see it as time wasted, but most importantly re-evaluating that previous time, seeing how the self-deception had impacted on not only my life but on so many other peoples’ lives.

I realise now how I had built up a complex work situation over the years which had served as a complete distraction from my gender dysphoria. I knew I had gender dysphoria, or as it is now becoming known gender incongruence. I did not need to face it. I had worked out coping mechanisms, kept myself busy. Sadly this meant I wasn’t real so how could anyone know me, engage with me properly, fully?  I realise by living the lie I caused hurt and pain which I regret. A sobering process, not pretty. 

I cannot change that now I can only move forward in being as honest as I can be, honest in understanding who I am and what makes me tick. To do that with the help of my friend over time I have deconstructed my former self, peeled away the layers….probably a never ending process or at the very least a continuing process to guard against future self-deception. As to work? A day off, a day to myself, a day honouring my friend for her wisdom and support and tomorrow a day of work continuing to dismantle the complex structure that once distracted me and now needs to be made simple to produce enough to keep body and soul together and to meet such obligations as I have.

It is five years since I really started to transition and although I have known all my life that I was transgender I had always managed it with coping techniques. I had followed the well-trodden road of thinking I was a cross dresser that dressing was just a way of calming the nerves and feeling good for a short time, along with the guilt of doing that feeling that was not normal and regularly purging all your clothes. At one time I would be buy clothes one day and throw them immediately afterwards, the same day!

Move on a few years and I had admitted to my partner I liked wearing feminine clothes and I was given a lovely flowing nightie as a birthday present. I guess I had progressed to admitting it had reached the stage of being a fetish. Actually, I did not derive any sexual pleasure from wearing female clothes. It just gave me the opportunity to relax and feel “normal” at home.

Then I was secretly soon self-medicating on phyto estrogones, and I wasn’t purging my clothes anymore just hiding them better realising I was transgender but that was fine I could keep that my secret. As long as I was okay with it I wasn’t hurting anyone was I? So I continued leading my life apparently coping with the usual stresses and strains of running a business. Nobody knew I would slip away and escape for a few hours to relieve the pressure of hiding my secret.

Three years ago I changed my circumstances and moved half way across the country and started sharing a house with friends beginning to live full time apart from work meetings where I still maintained the charade. I was making real progress with the support of my friends. They were brilliant and totally kindly were able to show me how deluded I was about so many things and how my self-deception about who I was had influenced how I dealt with life and my dealings with people even those close to me.

This started another journey of unpicking and coming to terms with who I really was and to lead to finding my truth. I came out completely full time went into the open and obtained a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and started on HRT. I had to start living full time, not just the times I needed to escape. My head was filled with all the ifs buts and what ifs, I nicknamed this “gender chatter”. Although I was transitioning changing my name officially getting my new passport saying “female”, everything was new, I was learning a new way of being and although it felt brilliant it was also unsettling.

What I have discovered over the last year has crept up slowly and almost unseen. I realised one day the gender chatter had stopped, the changes to my body where no longer new they were my body. The most important change was that I was now living my truth, who I am, authentic. I no longer had to dissemble and pretend to be somebody I was not and that has changed how I behave. It had always been easy to lie to put a spin on things to make them look better, people pleasing. After all that was what I did. Working through with my friends I could see ways of behaviour that needed to change and which I now find really uncomfortable and unacceptable being able to live authentically. As with life this is an ongoing journey and challenge to continue to develop and live in my truth and be authentic.

People use the term transition and transitioning from one gender to another. I feel that is no longer really how it is. I have always been female, feminine. I have not transitioned from male to female I have simply discarded a shell which hid my true self and allowed the feminine me to live in the light of day.

I have been really disappointed in what happened with the present government on many things but in particular over their efforts to reform the Gender Recognition Act. The fact that they were making the right noises that they were going to do away with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria caused huge disappointment and disillusionment and accusations of a lack of leadershipwhen the  so called reforms were announced and which did very little except reduce the fee for obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate.

I was surprised to read  yesterday an article in Pink News entitled “Why Tories and Liz Truss dropped vital Gender Recognition Act reforms” in which it states a wholesale Gender Recognition Reform Act had been on the cards and had the support of the Prime Minister to do so, as had been widely trailed.

The article says that evidence has been submitted to a judicial review in the Northern Ireland High Court which is looking at the need as to whether medical evidence is needed for Gender Recognition.  The evidence submitted by the Government Equalities Board shows the “behind the scenes wrangling” over the GRA reform and that all of the proposed reforms were shelved due to the input of Dr Michael Brady, the National Advisor for LGBT Health. Reading the article I am really disappointed that the original plans to reform the act were abandoned on the advice of one clinician. 

The government proposal as late as March 2020 had been to do away with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. As there is a waiting list of five to six years for a NHS Gender clinic appointment obtaining such a diagnosis is nigh on impossible and has resulted in considerable mental health problems for transgender people. In proposing this the government had listened to the proposal from the 2018 consultation on the Gender Recognition Act and the guidance from the WHO had removed a diagnosis of gender identity out of its disorder chapter and used a description of gender incongruence under its sexual health chapter. The reason for doing this was to reduce stigma and the Human Rights Watch had indicated that governments should “move swiftly” to reform laws that require this now “officially outdated diagnosis”.  It seems the government were willing to do that.

Then along comes Dr Brady.  His view apparently was that “whether the diagnosis was categorised ( under mental health or sexual health) didn’t matter, it remained a diagnosis but was not perpetuating a mental health stigma”. Dr Brady recommended continuing with using the term gender dysphoria as it was used in the medical community and suggested any reform should be clinician led. In the evidence submitted to the judicial review in Northern Ireland it was revealed that removing the requirement for a gender dysphoria diagnosis was “impractical’.

According to the Pink News article even despite this Liz Truss and the Government wanted to change the terminology to gender incongruence and remove the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria as late as 22^ndJune. However by the 2^nd July this had been dropped and effectively there were no changed to the GRA save for a reduction in the fee from £140 to £5. There is still a five year wait to get a diagnosis unless you are able to afford to go private which the majority of people are unable to do.

Dr Brady’s opinion according to NHS England is that “in line with the majority of respondents to the governments consultation on Gender  Recognition Act, the process for requiring a gender recognition certificate should be as seamless ad barrier free as possible.”

It beggars belief. How can one clinician go against the tide of opinion and change the direction of proposed reforms in this way.

In writing this post I fully acknowledge the information from the Pink News article referred to above.

I was pleasantly surprised to read a report of the refusal of the application for a judicial review of the Equality Act 2010 in relation to the definition of single sex spaces. That in itself was pleasing, what was even better was that the Judge Mr Justice Henshaw said that the applicants case “was unarguable” and that the interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 which the LGB Alliance were putting forward was “wrong in law”. 

The LGB Alliance had argued that any women’s single sex space automatically becomes a mixed sex space if a trans woman enters it. It had been proposed that any trans woman whether with or without legal gender recognition should be excluded for women’s single sex spaces. The Q.C representing the LGB Alliance argued that the EHRC’s guidance put women at risk because “trans women are men”. That old chestnut biological sex is immutable again.

Thank goodness the Judge  made it clear that trans men and women can already be excluded quite properly from single sex services on a case by case basis through existing exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 if it was “a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim”.

The judge stated that women were protected under the Equality Act by the protected characteristic of sex and that trans people were protected under the Equality Act by the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. So both groups were protected under the Act and that there were mechanisms in place were any situation was needed to deal with any conflict in a specific situation.

I would like to think this was a turning point. I doubt it and will not hold my breath. The LGB Alliance has been given charitable status and funded this case to the tune of £100K by crowdfunding.  I am sure this will not be the end of their challenges. However, it was a pleasant surprise to read that their case was “unarguable”.

An Appeal has been lodged by Maya Forstater against the original finding against her by the employment Judge. My immediate reaction was oh no, here we go again. What seemed worse initially was that the Index for Censorship and the Commission for Equality and Human Rights had intervened.

I was, many years ago a practising lawyer, and  as the  submissions were available I had a read. The point of the Appeal is that Forstater’s is seeking to establish that her belief that sex is biologically immutable is a protected belief. She maintains that there are only two sexes, male and female and nothing in between. Forget for a moment that this is probably scientifically wrong, it does not matter a great deal if she is able to establish that this is a protected belief because if it is then so this the opposite. A belief that a trans woman is a woman and a trans man is a man. It is just as valid as a principle and the fact the someone believes that gender is not determined by biological sex will also be protected. It is not saying no more than it is a belief.

It seems evident that the Judge in the Employment Tribunal did make an error in law as he mixed together the question of whether this was a protected belief with how she acted on her belief in the workplace.

The most likely outcome in my view is that she will win the appeal and establish it is a protected belief. Then the case will be passed back to the Employment Tribunal to come to a conclusion as to how she behaved to other people. At this point I would expect the case to go against her and she would lose again once it has been passed back to the employment tribunal to consider her behaviour and whether she was unfairly dismissed. I have often wondered about that point for a different reason as I understood that she was not actually dismissed but that her fixed term contract was not renewed. To me this is a different scenario.

My fear is that should Forstater win her Appeal and her view is acknowledged to be a protected belief this will not be seen by Gender Critical people and transphobes in such a narrow context but will be taken as green light for people who hold that belief to be able to express their protected belief in freely however they feel fit. This is not so. All it means is that she can hold her belief. It does not give her any right to go to work and insult people, nor does it mean that trans people can be thrown out of the toilets congruent with the gender to which they identify.

I suppose it is a question of watch this space and hope that whenever the decision is handed down the extent and effect, whatever the outcome, is made crystal clear.