Transwidow 1
My ex-husband and I were together in total for 12 years, and married for 7. Whilst I knew that he had one brief gay relationship before we met, I was his first girlfriend and female partner. He had difficulty forging relationships and he acknowledged that his gay relationship was because he was desperate for human contact.
His social awkwardness had stemmed from severe bullying whilst he was growing up, but was exacerbated by his upbringing. He was the first child to a couple in their 40’s who had been born in the 1920’s and lived through the war. Austerity, making do and mending, and keeping up appearances dominated their lives. His father was head of household and what he said, went. His mother didn’t work, didn’t socialise, wasn’t allowed to make decisions, and was anxious. The family dynamic was strained, and his younger sister suffered from severe depression for most of the time I knew her. I had assumed my ex-husband was the “normal” one of the family; I was wrong.
Our sex life was disappointing and limited by his libido I thought (but subsequently found out that he masturbated daily to BDSM fantasies), but he gave every indication that he was only interested in women. There was absolutely no indication given throughout the time I was with him that he was anything other than a man with heterosexual interests and gender conforming hobbies (weightlifting, metalwork and DIY), till he announced he wanted to be a woman. He was having a bath and I walked in to find him shaving his legs. I asked why and that was what he told me
I believe it would have been easier for me to bear if he had died because he changed completely after making this declaration. He went to numerous doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and counsellors in the 9 months till I filed for divorce and, throughout that time, his only thoughts were for himself. He became consumed. He was not prepared to rest until he had gained the necessary agreement to have his penis removed and my feelings were never given any consideration.
His narrative about his feelings started with him wanting to become a woman, it morphed into him wanting to be sexless, and then veered towards wanting to swing with me and other couples, or have BDSM sex. On one memorable Sunday morning, he went through all of those options in the space of an hour before returning to stating he wanted to become a woman. He rejected any suggestion that his upbringing had repressed him sexually and was, perhaps, the basis of his belief that his penis had to be removed.
He was encouraged by healthcare professionals to meet with other transsexuals at the local TV/TS group. His social life expanded as he started to be egged on to go out dressed as a woman. He bought many outfits which could only be classed as overly revealing and would generally not be acceptable on a woman of his age, nearing 40. He was aroused by wearing women’s clothing, and masturbated in changing rooms when trying it on. He was “coached” by his new friends about what he had to say to have medical professionals believe him and treat him. He threatened suicide on a daily basis. He made a guillotine and rigged it up to an anvil in the garage and attempted to cut his penis off. He wanted me to stop pleading with him not to self-harm “but to take me to the hospital when I do it again”. He had no concern for what this was doing to my mental health whatsoever; he just wanted to have the operation, take the hormones, and ultimately live with me as a lesbian. He couldn’t understand why I couldn’t accept this.
Through his TV/TS group, he was put in touch with a psychiatrist, Dr Russell Reid, whom he saw privately (after he had rejected the diagnosis of an NHS psychiatrist). He was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and permission was given for him to proceed with the removal of his penis as a private patient by his second appointment, which was within a year of his coming out as “transsexual”, and without any period of living as a woman. I sent written protestations which were rejected by Dr Reid then decided that I could no longer live with the person he had become so I started divorce proceedings. It should be noted that Dr Reid was subsequently found guilty of misconduct. The operation went ahead and a few months later, I received a letter from my ex-husband blaming me for forcing him to go ahead with it because he had now discovered that he had just wanted to have wild sex and had been repressing those urges. Looking at his behaviour through the lens of time, I believe he was an autogynaephile.
If I had stayed with him, there is no question that I would have had a complete nervous breakdown. As it was, it took 4 years of counselling to come to terms with what had happened, and many more years before I felt it no longer defined me. I chose to be secretive about it because I was humiliated that I found myself in that position; I did not want people to gossip about me behind my back, I didn’t want to be seen as somebody who had been so misguided to have married a man who wanted to become a woman – or worse, that I had driven him to it. Today, I still have those feelings of guilt and shame, but I’m also angry that if he had those feelings from childhood, as he claimed, then he lived with and married me purporting to be something else and his actions were fraudulent.
The proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act to allow people to self-identify cause me grave concern in relation to men self-identifying as women. I am aware that my ex-husband’s motivation was sexual and there were other men who attended his TV/TS group who were aroused by dressing as women – they were completely acknowledged as heterosexual, just with a kink.
Transvestites don’t believe they are women, and they are not women by any stretch of the imagination, but under the Trans umbrella described by Stonewall, they are women and, it would appear Stonewall propose transwomen should be entitled to every sex based right that has been granted to women. However, sex based rights have been granted for a reason. Women require safety, privacy and dignity. That will not be possible where their segregated spaces have to be shared with men who claim to be women, even those who may have had gender reassignment surgery. Figures suggest that over 80% of transwomen retain their penises, and many identify as lesbians, so it is fair to assume that a large number don’t have gender dysphoria, will never have sex reassignment surgery, and should not ever be considered to be women.
Considering self-ID also opens the doors for predatory men who will take advantage of this change in boundaries and cause women distress with no recourse since self-id would allow any man to say they are a woman without any real ability to challenge the declaration, whether this is in a toilet, changing room or prison.
Whilst the people I told at the time were supportive of my position and horrified on my behalf, transwidows now face the prospect of being considered transphobic bigots for not accepting their partner’s “true identity” or wanting to remain in a sexual relationship with them when the goalposts of their relationship haven’t just been moved, they have been taken away and put up on a completely different pitch.
Why now?
The Cass Final Report on Children’s Gender Identity services (April 2024) and NHSE new enquiry launched into Adult GID services
It is hard to overestimate the relief which Sex Realists aka Gender Critical campaigners felt when Dame Hilary Cass published her Final Report into the Child Gender Identity Service at the Tavistock Clinic, on 10th April 2024. Her interim report of 2022 had heralded a return to a science-based approach to the evaluation of GID care pathways. It contained a “shot across the bows” of the Tavistock and the Scottish Sandyford Clinics, warning that “social transitioning” of children was not a “neutral act” and that the long-term outcomes from puberty blockers were unknown, but very poorly characterised.
Her Final Report runs to 388 pages. With help from the University of York, it analyses all studies published worldwide into puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children (under 18s) and ranks them for reliability according to well-established scientific principles of “meta-analysis”. Many published studies were very poorly designed or showed obvious biases or poor analysis of data by researchers, and these were given a very low reliability ranking. There were only a couple of reliable of published studies, and they showed that PB had very poor long-term outcomes, including poor outcomes for preventing suicidality. Puberty blockers were immediately banned from being prescribed by GPs or other doctors in England and Wales. The Sandyford followed a few days later.
A further study is being conducted into the use of cross-sex hormones in children aged 16+ at the Tavistock.
Importantly Dame Hilary’s enquiry had been given legal authority in 2021 (by the Sec of State for Health, Sajid Javid) to demand the “follow-on” records from the seven centres for Adult GID services in England, so that the health of children who “transitioned” could be followed into adulthood. Only one of the seven handed over their records (the one in Exeter), and even the Commissioning Head of GID services for England and Wales, Dr Derek Glidden, refused to co-operate. A few days later NHSE started an enquiry into the efficacy of Adult GID services and demanded compliance, on pain of legal proceedings.
We await the appointment of a suitably senior and authoritative medical practioner to conduct the same rigorous “meta analysis” into the Adult GID services. It is high time that the practices of the activist doctors in the seven GID centres are scrutinised with an impartial eye, given the blinkered, “affirmation-only” model which they adopted.
Previous Why Now?
Deadline for third consultation on Gender Recognition Act since 2015: responses to “Call for Evidence” from WEC to be submitted by 27th November 2020
Despite the announcement by the Government on 24th September 2020 of the nature and scope of the changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and associated guidance on the Equality Act 2010, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) has seen fit to launch a “Call for Evidence” on the same issues all over again:
https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/291/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act/
The “Terms of Reference” are the important questions and are split into two groups:
(1) The Government’s response to the GRA consultation
(2) Wider issues concerning transgender equality and current legislation
There is no need to answer all the questions. You can choose the ones for which you have evidence and/or a personal view. My gender-critical approach is, of course, the theme running through my responses.
There is one question which allows me to discuss four aspects of the enquiry which the WEC has neglected to address, but which are fundamental.
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What else should the Government have included in its proposals, if anything?
The Government should have discussed the intimidation of the Women and Equalities Committee itself since the WEC started discussion of trans matters, before 2015. It has been intimidated by Trans Radical Activists. TRAs have demanded that the WEC pander to their homophobia and misogyny. TRAs have depicted gay sexual orientation as “transphobic” in their faulty logic. Professional and academic women have been sacked or “no-platformed” for uttering gender-critical opinions (e.g. Maya Forstater and Professor Alice Sullivan to name only two of many). Attempts to compel ordinary people to use the “preferred pronouns” of TRAs will backfire as this is coercion. Ordinary people will not agree to hear or use humiliating and dehumanising language. The predictable adverse impacts of the GRA 2004 on women and girls in schools, prisons and hospitals, and on single-sex provisions of all sorts should have been drawn out and discussed by WEC.
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The present consultation is a call from the Women & Equalities Committee – a name that reflects the status of Women as a long oppressed and marginalised sex class. So it is shocking that the Terms of Reference for this Trans Enquiry omit mention of the need for an Equality Impact Assessment….. on Women and indeed the document fails to mention Women AT ALL. Surely this is highly irresponsible and fails to follow the Public Sector Equality Duty to foster good relations between protected categories?
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This dereliction of statutory duty from both the Government and WEC has also fuelled Quangos and public bodies like the EHCR to follow suit and issue faulty guidance, resulting in: perceived increased harm to the primary “victims” (trans individuals ) and much wider actual harm to the group targetted by TRAs (women). There is harm to society more widely.
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Gender identity ideology is a divisive belief tearing the country apart. GI ideology is based on a logical fallacy: it is simply not possible to separate the mind from the body. The mind arises from the body to which it is inextricably linked and no law should be enact a separation. Such a separation was, until recently, universally accepted as evidence of insanity. Gender identity ideology should be declared destructive and rooted out of UK law everywhere.
I think that it is time to grasp the nettle: Gender Identity ideology should be named and its destructive effects discussed.
It is important for respondents to think carefully about their own answers to the questions. I present this question and answer because it encapsulates the fault at the heart of the GRA.
Scottish Gender Recognition reforms – deadline for responses to the consultation is Tuesday 17th March 2020
[E&W] Gender Recognition Act changes halted after child fears
by Steven Swinford, Deputy Political Editor – The Times
At present NHS rules enable children to start gender transition treatment before puberty without their parents’ support.
Ministers are expected to drop plans to make it easier for people to change their gender [in England and Wales] amid concerns about the impact on children.
The government will formally respond to a public consultation on updating the Gender Recognition Act by the summer. The consultation, which was launched in 2018 by Theresa May, proposed to change the law so that people would be able to officialy transition simply by making a declaration of their gender.
At present they have to receive a medical diagnosis, appear before a specialist panel, and wait for two years for legal recognition of their new gender. They also have to pay a £140 fee.
The proposals to change the Gender Recognition Act have met with criticism from some feminist groups, whose members are concerned about the prospect of trans people being able to use single-sex spaces.
Ministers are also concerned about the impact the proposals could have on children, who are being helped to transition while still developing their “decision-making capabilities”.
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At present NHS rules enable children to start gender transition treatment before puberty without their parents’ support. Children unhappy with their birth gender can begin treatment after as few as three therapeutic assessments. They can discuss treatments separately from their parents and are encouraged to self-define their status and to develop “autonomy” in decision-making. Interventions include hormone blockers to suppress puberty and, later, cross-sex hormone therapy. The average age at which children begin such treatments is 14, but some are as young as 12.
NHS England has ordered an independent review into the use of puberty suppressant drugs and cross-sex hormones. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which is responsible for clinical practice guidelines in England and Wales, has also been asked to develop guidance for the first time about referring children to gender identity services.
Existing NHS treatment draws heavily on international guidelines that recommend approaches in care for gender dysphoria.
An NHS contract with the Tavistock & Portman Trust, issued in 2016, says that it will “conform” or “broadly conform” to standards of care issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in 2012. These say that they reflect the best available science and “professional consensus”. The Tavistock Trust works with children and young people with gender identity issues.
However, Gene Feder, professor of primary care at the University of Bristol and an expert in clinical guidelines, said that these fall far below the benchmark for British healthcare guidelines used by Nice and that he would not recommend their use.
Fair Cop judgment gives partial court win and victory for free speech
BBC 14th Feb 2020 : Harry Miller: Police probe into ‘transphobic’ tweets unlawful
On 14th February 2020, the judgement in the case of Harry Miller (“Fair Cop”) was delivered. The judge found that Mr Miller’s allegedly “transphobic” tweets were lawful and that the conduct of Humberside Police in visiting him at his place of work and warning him was disproportionate. The police had wrongly interfered with his right to freedom of speech.
But the more substantial action, a wider challenge to the legality of the College of Policing’s guidelines on “hate crimes”, was rejected.
These define a hate incident as “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender”.
Mr Justice Julian Knowles rejected Mr Miller’s challenge against the guidelines, ruling they “serve legitimate purposes and [are] not disproportionate”.
The guidelines are problematic because the complainant does not have to provide evidence of any actual harm nor is there a test of “reasonableness” – what a reasonable independent person would understand about the action that is complained of. The guidelines assume that a “hate incident” has been committed on the sole allegation of a complainant, not a “victim“. The use of the word “victim” implies that a “hate incident” has occurred. Thus the guidelines are defective and the bar to proof of a “hate incident” is set far too low.
Mr Miller has appealed against the ruling about the College of Policing guidance and permission has been granted for the case to go straight to the Supreme Court.
Transwidows: in defence of biological reality
I am a transwidow. I was married for a long time to a man who suffers from male late-onset gender dysphoria or “autogynephilia”. He finally walked out on me and his family, leaving behind emotional and financial turmoil. The man I thought I had married had in fact “died” long ago or never existed at all. He is a very confused biological man. “Widow” implies the end of a man’s life and grief – grief because he has no insight at all into his confusion.
This was in 2006. I was divorced from him in 2014, and our two children have barely known the man I married. Although he traveled past our door many times on his way to the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital for three years, he never once visited us. Of course I never guessed any of these events when I married him in 1992.
A few months before we were married my ex-husband asked me: “Do you believe in androgyny, the idea of a third sex?” We were in a busy restaurant, I had no idea why he asked this question and, when I looked back with a blank expression, he immediately dropped the subject. He rightly understood that I would never suspect that he suffered from a life-long hidden mental disorder. It was a malicious question. He was checking that he could go ahead with his plan to deceive me. It was the most glaring of his “ambiguous” utterances, which I now know to be narcissistic teasing, and which silently amused him. Others included assertions that he had “small feet” and “shapely legs” for a man. He referred to “someone of the male persuasion”, not “a man”. Strange but not immediately worrying. I now understand that these snippets revealed his diagnosis, but I was not suspicious at the time because I was not trained in psychiatry. His bizarre and highly unusual statements were rare and his behaviour seemed mostly within a normal range. And I was not looking for reasons not to marry this charming, intelligent, well-educated man who was very attentive to me.
Decision to publish and be visible
There are only a handful of websites written by and for transwidows. It took me time to write in a sustained calm voice after years of psychological abuse followed by divorce which was a return to conflict. My slow recovery started the moment he revealed, in 2006, that he was a “transsexual”, because I was able to start an emotional and scientific investigation. I wanted to understand the psychiatry and physical medical consequences of his condition. I knew that I bore no blame whatsoever for his pre-existing disorder. But first I had to accept the fact of his premeditated deception, as described above. It is not an easy truth to absorb and bounce back from! I read and I read so much that I learned a PhD’s worth of psychiatry, especially “gender identity ideology” and contrasting “gender criticism”.
I hope that we have just lived through “peak Trans”. Through the 2010s western media fell over themselves to reveal to a confused world the “newly discovered” mental disorder of gender dysphoria and the supposed existence of “gender identity”. Some critical voices in right-wing publications like “The Spectator” and “The Daily Telegraph” questioned “transgender lives” as a fashion or lifestyle choice. They looked closer, especially at confused children called “trans kids”. Sex, oh sex! Why is it always so difficult to face squarely the biological reality of sex in human animals? It never changes, nor does the embarrassment. The judge in the Maya Forstater case (Dec 2019) couldn’t face it, and so a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Some young people are frustrated in their sexual and economic outlook and and seek to evade this uncomfortable truth (“rainbow genders”, more accurately sexual hybrids). Newspapers have repeated utter nonsense for years. Then finally some kind and sympathetic people remembered that the transitioning men have left behind wives and families. Some understand the trauma and moral outrage of the abandoned women. As a “transwidow” I accuse psychiatrists and surgeons of corrupt complicity with their gender dysphoric patients. I accuse them of not exploring the psychological history of these patients and their co-morbidities. I accuse them of not stating biological truth to their patients.
It’s time for transwidows to speak up, be heard and influence the global debate.