Thoughts: I watched a BBC segment on a young transman this morning. It was very one sided, no input from the family or medical profession about feelings or facts, no information about transition and the medical reality of it. What happened to the BBC being impartial on topics?
The second thing I found interesting on the topic was this young person saying their dysphoria was so bad they couldn't get out of bed some days. I said to my wife, "If I call in sick tomorrow and use my dysphoria as the reason, how do you think that would go down?"
The point I am making is not that dysphoria is not serious. It is. It's not the thing that stops people getting out of bed though. That's other mental health factors. Why aren't we discussing the fact that this young person clearly has other underlying conditions going on?
Why aren't we hearing from their concerned family, yet the BBC are happy to let the young person blame their family on public TV (that we pay for!!) for decisions they're taking? Why is this young person making these decisions when they're still asking mummy what they can wear?
To label talking therapy as the thing that is conversion therapy when we literally have young people actually transitioning themselves medically, surgically, is fucking absurd. It makes me so sad and angry at the same time for young people.
This particular young person clearly has no real clue who they are as an individual, yet the BBC are still showcasing them for this cool new thing you can now do if you feel even slightly uncomfortable in your own skin. They also implied heavily you could be in the wrong body.
The programme, the visuals, wreaked of one sided, Rose tinted beliefs and the young person in it, I felt sorry for. I wish them well in life, I really do.
I couldn't help feeling they were running away from themselves, from their family, from the responsibility that they would pay in their religion and culture just by being female. I understand that.
The thing I find interesting about trans identified people is the language they are using. It's not "I am a man", or "I am a woman". It's, "I feel LIKE a man", or "I feel LIKE a woman."
I think people use the word 'gender' instead of 'sex' when they talk about transition because they know perfectly well that transition does nothing to change their biology. It's words they can use to keep a pretense alive.
The thing about pretenses is, the rest of the world is not obliged to play along with your beliefs, or anyone else's for that matter. This is why the pronouns debate pisses so many people off. You can't make ppl call you anything, you can't make them believe what you believe.
To make this clear, I think adults should be able to make whatever decisions they want about their own body. I worry that transition is being used to treat a plethora of mental health issues, despite being shown in research to have no significant positive impact on those issues.
Dysphoria may be a problem, but is transition really the answer? I don't think so, in the majority of cases. Maybe in a few. Unpopular opinion: I think this wave of transitioning youth is potentially this generations new thalidomide scandal.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
