TRans rights in the uk, pt.1

- Episode 14- Transcript

Georgie Williams, in voiceover: This episode contains trigger warnings for the discussion of transphobia, suicidality and murder. Please proceed with caution.

In 2014, a 57 year old woman was granted asylum in New Zealand. A formal statement from the tribunal in Auckland declared that it would be “unduly harsh” to force her to return to her home country where her safety and wellbeing could not be guaranteed- where she could be subject to further violence and persecution as a minority. This woman was a British Citizen, seeking to escape a life of abuse and trauma she feared she may be forced to return to in the United Kingdom. She had suffered this persecution due to her existence as a transgender woman.

To be trans is both to live in constant vulnerability and exist in a precarious position where survival is uncertain- and if you are labouring under the misapprehension that the United Kingdom is in any way a safe haven, this is where we will dispel that notion. This is first of two episodes on trans rights in the UK and myself and my fellow transgender colleagues have worked hard to bring you these episodes- unpacking the experience of being trans in this country, and looking forward in part two to what will have to change in order for trans and nonbinary people to live in safety and security in the United Kingdom. Welcome to Episode 14 of /Queer. You’re here with me, your host, Georgie Williams.

When writing an episode that is, in many senses, so close to home, declaring one’s biases feels important. 60% of the /Queer production team are transgender and/or nonbinary. As always, talking about our standpoint, our perspective as a team is good research practice, but it does highlight an issue at the core of the trans* rights movement in the UK- that this movement is often dismissed on the grounds of it being ideological in nature. With ideology being defined as “a system of ideas and ideals”, the criticism here is that transgender identities and experiences are underpinned by subjective and thus unscientific beliefs and motivations. First and foremost, yes, transgender experiences and identities are subjective- to culture, time periods, social class, race and a great number of other factors- as are all gender identities, sexualities and social classes. However, what is objective is not always scientific, and the belief that science is innately objective is inherently wrong. All social science is subjective. All science is at risk of bias. There has never existed a scientist who lived without any biases or beliefs at all- and science and politics have, throughout history, gone hand in hand with each other. When we analyse, report or share any story, it passes through us first as a lens. We cannot turn that lens off- it is unconscious and shapes how we interact with everything around us. The human experience is subjective, let alone the transgender experience- but that does not mean that the facts and figures do not exist to back up why trans* people deserve their rights. And the facts and figures are as follows.

The exact number of transgender people in the UK is unknown, and while the 2021 census provided the most fitting opportunity to gather this information, the UK government took no steps to do so. In 2018, the equalities office estimated there were between 200,000 and 500,000 transgender people in the UK. Stonewall, a major LGBTQ+ organisation here in the UK, estimates that about 1% of the population could be transgender or non-binary, which would mean upwards of 600,000. But, despite how many trans people are estimated to reside in the UK, social stigma, prejudice and structural violence- defined as the imposition of power dynamics within society which deny marginal people their basic needs- continues to increase against this community. In 2019, hate crimes against trans people in the UK rose by 81%. Because this only takes into account those events reported to the police, it is not improbable that this figure is higher. With regards to mental health, it is thought that half of trans youth and a third of trans adults, have attempted suicide. While gender dysphoria- best described as the disconnect between one’s gender identity, their body and how they are perceived and gendered by others, was legally depathologized in 2002, which means it is no longer thought to be a mental illness, trans people experiencing dysphoria are still treated under the mental health departments of the National Health Service- often by professionals who have not received transgender-specific training or education. On a global level, the number of trans people murdered each year has been increasing every year since 2008, and of those killed 98% were trans women or trans feminine, and of those killed in the USA, 79% were trans people of colour. At this point in time, and I speak from my own standpoint now not only as a nonbinary trans person but also as an established academic whose career is centralised around transgender welfare- the struggles trans people face are caused almost exclusively by their oppression by the cisgender majority. Our rates of depression, anxiety and suicidality are not an indicator of anything pathological within the trans experience- they are a proportionate response to systemic abuse and disempowerment. Our series thus far has demonstrated how gender defies a binary in countries all around the world. Despite the impression we may have from decades of media slander and centuries of censorship and erasure- transgender people have always existed in the United Kingdom; not as a mutation, a deviance or a perversion- but as an authentic community and state of self. 

If you follow British news at all, you may be somewhat aware of the recent furore surrounding the reformation of the Gender Recognition Act. The GRA is legislation which allows trans people to obtain Gender Recognition Certificates, which then allow them to receive new birth certificates and all the legal rights and recognitions afforded to their gender, including marriage rights. A Gender Recognition Certificate can only be obtained at this point in time if you are 18 years or above, have had two medical reports - one from a GP and one from a registered gender specialist, such as those at Gender Identity Clinics - that diagnose gender dysphoria, and have proof that you have been living as the ‘acquired gender’ for at least two years, which includes evidence such as driving licences, passports, payslips, and utility bills. 

The GRA is far from perfect- among many controversial facets of this legislation is it’s accommodation of what has come to be known as the ‘spousal veto’; a person is only able to apply for an interim Gender Recognition Certificate if they are married, unless their spouse signs a statutory declaration to say they are happy to remain married. If they do not, an Interim Gender Recognition Certificate is considered grounds for annulment- meaning that the marriage is null and void, as if it had never happened. This effectively constitutes an ultimatum for the marriage privileges and rights of transgender people.

Campaign groups such as Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, and GIRES sought the removal of the medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a reduction of the current £140 it costs to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate, greater access to trans health care and the ability to self-identify in applications without medical proof, or evidence of having lived as the ‘acquired gender’. In 2020, a full public consultation carried out by the government found that of the over 100,000 people that responded, 80% supported the removal of the requirement for a full medical report that details all surgeries and treatments undergone in order to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate.

In September 2020, the government's Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, issued a response to the campaigning and consultation. This promised a “kinder and more straightforward” process, with steps to streamline the application process, increase capacity for healthcare, and a commitment to the 2010 Equality Act. However, the response has many significant issues. The GRA still made no efforts to address the legal or medical processes for trans children. Further, the language of both the GRA and the Equality Act give no explicitly protections or rights for non-binary people. The response also made no effort to remove the requirement for a medical diagnosis, despite the results of the consultation.

It felt pertinent to outline the significance of the GRA reform for this episode since, on the day of interviewing, our interviewee for this episode had come straight from her consultation in parliament on the Gender Recognition Act to talk with /Queer.

Cat Burton, in interview: What’s currently misunderstood is that all we are trying to do is be ourselves. We’re not making it up, we’re genuine, we’re authentic, and in-fact we weren’t making it up before we became authentic.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Cat Burton is the chair of the Gender Identity Research and Education Society, a UK-wide organisation whose purpose is to improve the lives of trans and gender diverse people of all ages. Cat is also a member of the board for Trans Media Watch, a British charity founded in 2009 to improve media coverage of transgender and intersex issues. Her day job is as a senior flight instructor after having worked for 45 years as a British Airways pilot. 

Cat Burton, in interview: So I spent the last part of my career pretending to be male. I was pretending to myself as well, I wasn’t just pretending to the outside world, I was hiding from myself my true identity. But if I hadn’t, if I’d been a trans female back in 1972 and come to that if I was a cis female back in 1972 I wouldn’t have made it as an airline pilot. There weren’t any female airline pilots in 1972. So, I’ve had a brilliant life and a lot of that was because I was presenting as male. 

Throughout that time, I wasn’t in any doubt that I was male. However, when I finally opened the little box at the back of my brain where I hid everything, and that was in my 50’s, my whole life perspective changed, and I realised that I’d been kidding myself all those years. I lived with a beard for most of my life as an adult, I had a very strong beard – I could grow a beard from scratch in 4 days and it wouldn’t look like stubble it would look like a full-on noble beard! Um, it was camouflage, the whole flying thing was camouflage – I still love it, I still can’t give up flying, it’s my absolute life passion, but it was camouflage. I became chair of the Sub-Aqua associations group and I was an instructor trainer with them. Another rufty-tufty male type of thing, although by then we actually had some female flyers I’m glad to say. But it was all camouflage, it was all me trying to be so male that nobody realised I wasn’t, including me. And then the box opened, and everything changed. All of a sudden I looked back on so many things in my life and with the perspective of hindsight, I knew that everything I’d been doing was because I was female and I was doing my best not to show that. Because to show it would’ve been too painful. To show it would’ve caused me to lose my job, my livelihood, my love, my career, you know it’s amazing how much we can hide even from ourselves, just for an easy life. An easy life unfortunately isn’t necessarily the best life you can have. 

From the moment I came out to myself, my life improved and it’s continued to do so with every single day since. I am living the most productive life I ever had, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and that’s despite a recent divorce which happened because I’m trans, you know, there is no way I could’ve been any more useful to myself or the world than I am now, If I hadn’t come out. 

If the rest of the communities realised that that’s all we’re trying to do – be the best person we can possibly be … there’s so much talk of the danger of letting trans people into ‘single sex’ spaces, and what do they think we’re going to do in there? The simple fact of the mater is its derailed the gender recognition act which is a shame, but it’s nothing to do with the gender recognition act it’s to do with the equality act 2010 which protects single sex spaces, but it doesn’t give blanket protection to them. What it does is on a case-by-case basis, you may be able to exclude trans people. All of the equality act provisions for single sex spaces, don’t take into account that there’s no law on who can go into a single sex space. I teach police cadets, you know, I go in and give them a transgender awareness talk and I say to the guys ‘do you think you’re allowed to go into the ladies?’ and they scratch their heads for a bit and I say ‘well actually, when you think about it, what if you’re called to a disturbance in a ladies, are you allowed to enter?’ and they say ‘oh yeah we are then, definitely’. And that’s the point. There’s plenty of cleaners that are in single sex spaces that aren’t of the ‘right’ sex, all transgender people are trying to do is go and have a pee! And there is no law whatsoever against us using either space to have a pee. The laws that would apply, are public order laws. So if you go into a single sex space and cause a problem, let’s say you go into a female changing room and flash inappropriate genitalia, you are going to be committing an offence, you’re gonna be breaching the peace. Likewise, if you go into a ladies loo and go into a cubicle just for a perfectly normal quiet pee, and you don’t cause any fuss, you’re not breaking the law. But if a cis gender woman in that loo decides to create a fuss because a trans woman has gone into a cubicle for a quiet pee, that cis gender woman is the one that is breaking the law. Because they’re breaching the peace. So, it’s very much more complicated than just saying you know ‘you’ve got to protect female spaces by excluding trans women’ and trans women generally speaking, we’re not predators. In fact, the treatment of sex offenders used to be chemical castration and one of those sex offences was to be gay. Alan Turing was forced to be chemically castrated. An awful lot of trans women had been chemically castrated even if they hadn’t had surgery because we take testosterone blockers, GNRH’s, so you know, there is so substance what-so-ever in all this it’s fear mongering and it’s orchestrated and it’s directed at derailing a perfectly reasonable request to be treated as human beings in terms of general recognition, in the same way we are in so many other countries these days. 

Georgie, in interview: One of the things that you’ve so clearly highlighted there is that, one of the biggest misunderstandings is that, trans people are pushing for the trans rights movement just because we are trying to cause a fuss or because this is some arbitrary decision we’ve made it being our authentic selves, it being our identities. 

That leads me on so well onto my second question which is how does research and education play a part in transforming social perspectives on transgender and non-binary identities and what changes do you feel need to be made in both sectors for the sake of the wider trans and gender diverse community?

Cat, in interview: So research and education should be the tool that allows us to prove that we are not dangerous. It should be the tool to let us state unequivocally that this is me, and I’m just trying to live my life. Regretfully, society doesn’t pay a great deal of attention to science, and it doesn’t pay a great deal of attention to the perspectives that science can bring. It’s far more likely to read the Daily Mail and unfortunately the Daily Mail is completely scientifically illiterate. And so are an awful lot of the communities that raise very simplistic questions about sex and gender. I mean, we were asked today what we would like to see as the definition of sex and the definition of gender, fortunately the answer that pretty much all of us agreed on was we wouldn’t like to see that anybody tries to define them as a general rule. Because if they did, the fact that the English law doesn’t recognise any difference between sex and gender in most English law would mean that most English law would have to be re-written to differentiate between one and the other. If it says gender it means sex and if it says sex it means gender, you know, the difference is a recent one. But if we need to look into what is sex, what we must avoid is the simple fact that the protests against us being female or male are using Year 11 science to try and justify their arguments. They are quite literally saying “chromosomes are king”. If you’re XX you’re female, if you’re XY you’re male. And that’s utter rubbish. There are so many people and their even more underrepresented in society as trans people who are intersex. Who may have an extra chromosome, or a completely different set of chromosomes. 

Far more influential in terms of how a person develops in the womb and beyond are hormones. So are hormones king or queen? And the response to that is, it’s complicated. Because my hormones are almost the same as any other post-menopausal woman. Virtually no testosterone, I have not too much of all the other stuff either because I’ve stopped taking it. I’m 68, and I’ve gone through a menopause reasonably gracefully, all the hot flushes and everything else. And what does that mean? Does that mean that most post-menopausal women aren’t women anymore? No, of course it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. It’s all about lived experience and ok, for an awful long time my lived experience didn’t let  me acknowledge that I was female, but looking back on it, most of it has actually written me as I am today. My experiences come together to form me, and my experience is not only different to yours, as a non-binary person, it’s different from cis-gender women, it’s also different to every other transgender woman.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: In December 2020, a High Court case focused on the prescription of medical and hormonal suppressants to transgender children by a Gender Identity Clinic or GIC in London, the Tavistock Centre. These suppressants, which pause the release of hormones during puberty are best known as puberty blockers. Ultimately, the High Court ruled that children under the age of 13 were “highly unlikely” to be able to consent to these blockers and that it is, quote “doubtful that child aged 14 or 15 could understand and weigh the long-term consequences”, unquote, and that those aged 16 or over could consent to the treatment. 

This is a complex case with many different layers and facets of importance, but what is most significant to understand is that this ruling effectively re-entrenches cis-gender and gender-binary adhering individuals as the norm, and any form of transness as a deviancy that children must be protected from. This parallels the moral panics around Section 28 in the 1980s- the UK legislation that ultimately prevented gay teachers from being out about their identity in schools because of the assumption that firstly, children weren’t gay without external influence and secondly, that children could be turned gay via exposure to gay culture and that this should be avoided. Corruption and perversion narratives have historically been used to demonize and ostracise people based on race, socioeconomic status, gender, disability and sexuality. Transgender moral panic is merely a re-dressing of gay and racial moral panics of the 20th Century.

The Government’s response characterises a long history of people in positions of power not listening to trans people on the very issues that define trans experience. The dismissal of individual experience and knowledge is something Cat has much experience with.

Cat Burton, in interview: You know we’re individuals, we’re human beings who have an ingredient called being female, or male, or being neither or both, or whatever variation of non-binary you might be. And that simple fact means that my ingredients are woman. Every bit as much as any other woman. But I’ve got another ingredient that floats to the top when it’s relevant called being trans. If it’s relevant I’m perfectly happy to embrace that as one of my ingredients, but if it’s not relevant… Let's say I’m teaching people to fly, I’m an instructor. Being female isn’t that relevant although it may mean that I get more female students than some of the other instructors, but it's not especially relevant to being a flying instructor. So at that point the ingredients that matter are that I’m a very experienced pilot and I’m to pass on those skills. When I’m in an interview like this, yes I’m female, but, happily, I’m also trans. Otherwise you wouldn’t be talking to me today, and that would be a shame. So all of those things need to be improved. Not only by research but by believable research and the education that gets that research across. Mainly and mostly through journalists, unfortunately. If we could get the media more on side with them actually listening and learning, then we’d probably have an easier time but the whole general public needs to listen to us, because we are gender experts, each and every one of us. 

Georgie, in interview: Yeah, I totally agree. I think you and I mentioned before our interview here that it feels like the conversations that trans people have within your own groups, they’re so different from the conversations we have with people outside of our community, they are so much more nuanced.

Cat, in interview: Yes, they are

Georgie, in interview: We all have to be anthropologists, psychologists, endocrinologists, because we live in this state where we continually have to justify our existence and I think that is perhaps one of the more frustrating aspects all of this, is that people are so dismissive and infantilising of our experiences, our stand points and our perspectives. When we have had to put in the effort, do the research and learn how to self-advocate.

Cat, in interview: yeah, and all of these arguments that we get, most of them are (literally) year 11 debating points and you know, I’m not up for debate, I’m me. That’s the simple fact of the matter which is why a lot of trans people shy away from it, it’s because we’re so used to being ambushed and you know not necessarily just interviewers asking awkward questions, I’m happy to field any question, but most particularly by other people on panels, the panel may well have people with very minority views and anti-trans feeling is actually a very minatory view with a very loud voice despite the fact they’re saying they’re constantly being silenced. They’re not, because they’re the ones who’ve got the ear of mainstream media at the moment which is pretty much all transphobic so, they’ve got a very very loud voice, and they’ve got some arguments that on face-value sound quite persuasive, and of course we don’t necessarily get the opportunity to put our even more persuasive arguments to the people that they’re talking to because they don’t want to listen to us. 

Georgie, in interview: Absolutely, and I think on top of that, one of the most frustrating aspects is when trans people do interviews when they are involved in the mainstream media, there is this suggestion that there is a trans debate going on.

Cat, in interview: yes, there is isn’t there?

Georgie, in interview: yes, as if one can debate human rights and the idea of a balanced panel in the mainstream media is having a trans person, more often than not an expert, talking about their lived experience talking about the research, and then they’ll have someone on the other end arguing that trans people aren’t even people. That is not a fair or balanced argument what-so-ever. 

Cat, in interview: in fact the most recent one I saw on television had four cis gender people arguing about our existence, there weren’t any trans people on it. And I can understand why that might happen because as I say, trans people are very reluctant to be ambushed in these sort of circumstances. That said, I work with BB, ITV, I work with Channel 4, and I am a specialist in live interviews or live TV shows. I’ve been called into the gallery at ITV Wales newsroom in order to give an immediate comment, they said ‘don’t watch the news!’ ‘come in without watching anything because we’re going to show you a clip of one of the members of the Welsh assembly who’s made some very bigoted comments and we want you to see it live on camera and make a comment’. Which I did. I was on live camera outside my house thanks to lockdown, with BBC and they’d asked me to come on because the Welsh government have just launched a really interesting campaign called ‘Hate Hurts Wales’ and they wanted me to come on and talk about it. And yeah Adam Smith from Stonewall Cymry had pre-recorded his interview about 3 minutes long I’m glad to say, they’re probably filmed about 10. And it wasn’t butchered, it was a perfectly good representation of the meaning of what he was saying, but my advantage was they wanted me to do it live, and when you’re actually live on camera they can’t edit you, they can’t make you say things you’re not trying to say. It’s up to you to get the message across in one take which was great and I love doing it. And it’s fantastic to get the opportunity to speak live, knowing it’s not going to be edited I just find it very enjoyable. 

Georgie, in interview: Yeah and I think it’s so important that we have a certain amount of control over the media that’s put out pertaining to us as well because for the longest time our representation has been absolutely abysmal and I think that has been the benefit of social media.

Cat, in interview: Yeah I think you’re right, I think that the benefit there is that we’re self-edited. Of course the disadvantages of social media is if you’ve got a reasonable reach, you’re also going to get piled on now and again, that’s just one of the prices you have to pay for having a reasonably visible presence on social media. And it’s a shame you do because it really does affect people badly when we’re attacked on social media. I can totally understand why some of the most prominent trans advocates take holidays from social media, the likes of Jack Monroe and Paris Lees. You know, they get so much abuse that sometimes it’s just too much. You know, we’re people, we’re vulnerable, we don’t want to be hurt all the time, you know, just walk away from it for a few weeks. Jacks’ handle on Twitter at the moment is ‘Jack Monroe, I’m not here’ *laughs*

Georgie, in interview: It is I think important to take that time to take care of ourselves because I think sometimes trans people feel an obligation to be visible, and it is because of this history of being invisible and pushed at the margins and over-looked. And sometimes I think we want to put ourselves out as positive representation, but obviously there are huge disadvantages to doing that, as you said.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Resilience is a strange concept. As something we build in adversity, it is a survival tactic upheld as a virtue. Cat Burton is an example of an individual whose resilience in the face of bigotry and hostility extends beyond her, outwards, to her community work and her advocacy for those who cannot advocate for themselves. But, in these moments when we consider all that the transgender experience may encompass- it feels like resilience is absolutely essential. That in order to be visible, to represent your community to those outside of it, you have to be able to withstand a great array of injustices and even abuses. It seems like an uphill struggle for transgender individuals in the United Kingdom to secure the most basic of rights and services.

In the UK, access to gender affirming health care such as hormone treatment, speech therapies, hair removal, and surgeries are all administered and controlled by a system of Gender Identity Clinics. In order to secure a first appointment with a GIC, you must be referred by your GP. However, waiting times for a first appointment at a National Health Service GIC can be up to 4 or 5 years. Gendered Intelligence, an organisation that lobbies and campaigns for greater recognition and rights for trans people in the UK, recently stated that, if the intake of patients holds at its current rate, waiting times for new patients in London will soon reach 26 years. 

That isn’t a mistake. This data is freely available online. Twenty-six years.

With this in mind, our question going forward is as follows. What changes to ensure situations such as this don’t occur- situations where individuals who require life saving treatment- for the sake of their personal mental health or general welfare in a transphobic environment- are denied access for twenty-six years? What levels out the uphill struggle? What does effective and measurable change look like, to ensure that future generations of transgender individuals do not have to develop as thick a skin as women like Cat Burton?

These are not hypothetical questions- there are answers, and trailblazers like Cat have worked hard to make the necessary knowledge and tools available to those who wish to make that change happen. What should be taken from this episode is not discouragement- it is a righteous anger- a sense of injustice that motivates trans people and allies alike to organise and resist as a collective. Our solidarity and desire for change can, should and must extend beyond our awareness of all that is unjust. Implementing direct action requires us to work off of models of what a better world for transgender people looks like. In episode two we answer that crucial question- how do we make the United Kingdom a safe country for its transgender community?

This episode of the /Queer Podcast was edited by Sam Clay, transcribed by Bronya Smith, co-scripted and produced by myself and Matt Thompson and hosted as always by me, Georgie Williams. A very special thanks to Cat Burton from the Gender Identity Research and Education Society for her contributions to this episode. Thanks as always to our Patreon subscribers- your continued faith in and commitment to this project is how we’ve now reached engagement in 111 countries around the world, which is almost unfathomable for what was once such a wee project. If you’re not a patron and want to support the podcast, you can find the /Queer Patreon at patreon.com/slashqueer. That’s S-L-A-S-H Queer. The link is also available on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages. We are still selling our merchandise and are accepting donations via Ko-fi, and you can find the links to both in the description for this episode. For those of you who continue to like, share and listen to this podcast, thank you. Your support means the world to our little team.

This episode was recorded on location in London, the United Kingdom. Music in this episode was composed by our resident audio king, Sam Clay. If you enjoyed this episode or have any feedback, please get in touch on Instagram or Twitter at @SlashQueer or email us at slashqueer@outlook.com. As always- stay kind, stay radical and stay queer.