Sometimes, Problems are Personal. (Advisory: violence, domestic violence, SA of a minor, suicide reference, blood mentioned)

 

I don't usually write personal accounts. That's not what The Productive Pessimist is about, I tell myself. Problems are universal. Problems don't have names. We're here, as a company, to solve anyone's problems.

But The Productive Pessimist also claims to provide the solution by living through the problems.  We talk about how our lived experience informs and complements our professional expertise.  Which means, sometimes, personal accounts are exactly what The Productive Pessimist is about.

The recent EHRC legislation around access to "single sex" spaces is deeply personal.
So is Kathleen Stock's recent musing on "why are so many young people using walking sticks, hmmm?"

I won't be linking to either of them. They'll come up easily enough on a Google search.
I'll be speaking on both of them, because of both of them bring up problems for businesses, and both of them are deeply, brutally personal.

The advisory in the title isn't hyperbole.

. The UK government is returning to the way things were in schools when I was just a clueless "tomboy" in high school, with no idea about "transsexuals" (as the term was then) beyond "they're blokes who wear dresses, right?" (wrong - those are crossdressers, who retain a very firm identity as men, and who position their dressed selves as a form of "alter ego".   They want to continue living and being seen as men when they are not wearing obviously feminine clothing.)

There are no "transgender children."  You go into the toilet that matches what your birth certificate says.  Your parents get told about any nonsense are 'gender' that doesn't match that birth certificate, and those genitals.

In 2001 - years before the Equality Act came in, at the point of the "debate" around repealing Section 28 when those who wanted it to remain firmly in place realised they were going to have to accept the fact that it wouldn't, and were becoming very, very aggressively vocal about their views and positions, I was 15, 5ft 10", broad shouldered, square jawed, deep voiced, wearing "men's" trousers and shirts because men's trousers were more durable, and actually covered the tops of my hips, and came down to my ankles, and men's shirts were long enough to tuck in, as the school uniform code required, and also fitted my body more comfortably.  I had large breasts, which I hated - not because they provoked sexual harrasment; they didn't, because I had always made it a point to do everything possible to ensure they weren't noticed - including binding them with sellotape (don't do this, folks.)  I had had short hair for the past 6 years, the same length of time I'd been going by a masculine name.

I'd "wanted to be a boy" since I was 5.  When I heard about the "changes" of puberty, at around 7/8, I assumed that meant everyone got to be "the other sex" (my rationale? That would be why men and women were able to cope with living with each other for the rest of their lives; they'd both been both male and female, so they understood each other really well...yeah...not so much, it turns out...)  Puberty hit, for me, at 11.  It was not fun. (Especially because, as I only discovered during a hysterectomy as part of my medical transition aged 26, I had severe endometriosis...but, for a decade and a half, for the entirety of my  teenage years, I was told "this is just how things are when you're a woman." - to other women and girls; no, being able to lay in a literally scalding hot bath for up to an hour, and not feel the pain of the scalding water, because the pain you're using it to treat is worse,  being barely able to stand up straight for 3 days of the week of your bleeding phase, needing to change maxi pads/tampons every 2hrs, despite wearing both a tampon and a pad, and having literal clumps of bloody tissue fall out of your body is not "just how things are"... Endometriosis is not "just heavy periods.") 

I had extreme anger issues throughout my teens - think, putting a lad in hospital during a fist fight, breaking another lad's arm, and, in self-defence (she'd kicked me in the face, breaking my braces, and actually embedding metal into the inside of my mouth) bodily throwing a girl down a flight of stairs, as well as kicking through doors and throwing tables fully across a 12ft room.) Those anger issues became depression, which was deeply tied up with the discomfort and outrage about being seen and addressed as female I'd had since I was five years old - when I refused to wear a police woman's outfit in a class play. (It was the 1990s...I also fully remember the drama that kicked off when police uniforms were standardised across genders, and male and female officers would be known simply as "Police Constable", with the "Woman Police Constable" designation being abandoned....According to letters to the newspapers, and news programme commentary, people "wouldn't be able to tell the sex of an officer",  "How would you know to ask for the female officer you'd dealt with before? There'll be no continuity for victims of crime!",  and "women officers need to wear skirts, to be a reassuring, approachable presence! They're not going to be chasing suspects, their job is to comfort victims!"  and "So, women who've been raped will just be given some sexless representation of authority, rather than a woman who understands them, and are safe for them?!")   Apparently, biological sex wasn't and unchangeable in the 1990s - it could be very easily altered by wearing trousers, and not identifying yourself as a woman in professional situations, or, equally, wearing a skirt and chucking a W before any professional designation - the NHS never needed to provide gender affirming care at all.  No one needs to languish on a waiting list, or spend thousands on private care!  Who knew?

At age 12, I started doing weight lifting and resistance work alongside my Dad, who had a full set of dumbells and a resistance workout tool (I think it was called the "bullworker"...Google confirms...you can still buy the workout book for it on Ebay...) I literally just matched whatever my Dad was doing.  I enjoyed the workout, and the time spent with him.

At age 14, I got into kickboxing.  I sparred with, and later participated in amateur bouts against, men - there were a handful of female kickboxers when I started, but none who matched my middle-weight category at the time.  During my competitive spell (which lasted from 16-21), I had 9 fights, all against men; I won 6, lost 2, and drew 1, which I then lost on the rematch.

Aged 15, at school, I was followed into the girls' toilets (remember, I had breasts and periods...) by a group of around 20 students - girls and boys.  As I came out of the cubicle, they were waiting for me.  There was a fight - but I was outnumbered, I was forced to the ground, and remained fighting as my shirt was torn, and my trousers and pants pulled down. People had their hands on my arse , on my breasts, on my crotch.  Boys and girls were audibly masturbating.  I was still fighting when a teacher knocked on the door to demand to know "what's going on in there?" The group scattered, laughing.  I got up, tidied myself up as best I could, and staggered out, shaking and covered in my own blood.

The female teacher grabbed the collar of my shirt, and threw me against a wall, screaming "What did you do, you animal?" - the same female teacher who'd apparently just...not reacted to a bunch of boys dashing out of the girls' toilets...

I got suspended.  The conversation around my suspension included a long discussion with my mother on how I "couldn't expect people to be tolerant of my persistent cross-sex presentation. That there were limits to what teachers could present as acceptable expressions of self that other students should respect.

When we got home, my mother slammed the front door closed. She grabbed me by the neck, dragged me into my room, and threw me across my bed. She held me down with an arm across the back of my neck, and alternated between beating me with a round-barrelled, hard-plastic pronged hairbrush, and her other fist, whilst screaming profanities at me.

No one ever reported what was basically an attempted gang rape.

I wouldn't report either of the sexual assaults which came later, either, during the eighteen month period I thought that "being a woman" was just about "presenting and performing as" one.  I didn't want to be a woman; people told me I had to be. They told me I'd "stop having these silly delusions" if I "got married to a nice man."

I was 17 when I was next sexually assaulted - the guy was nice. He asked really politely if I'd touch his penis while we were laying in a park together.  I didn't have a problem with that. He asked really politely if he could touch my crotch.  I didn't feel comfortable about that, but it felt like bad manners to not let him. I pushed him off and ran when he then tried to 'touch' my crotch with his penis.  He took it well. He didn't chase me. He didn't shout slurs after me.

I was 18 the next time, again in a mostly consensual relationship. He made me  sit on his lap on the Tube - as in, started being observably aggressive and insistent, drawing attention. I sat on his lap to get him to shut up.  He put one hand on my crotch, the other over my breasts.  (Fun fact with this; this was the only time, as an adult, I have ever experienced transphobia - other people on the Tube started taunting the guy I was with about "having to hire he-she hookers" because he "couldn't get a real girl.") 

I was 19 when I came across the concept of trans men. 19 when literally fourteen years of feeling like I could never fit in, three suicide attempts because my experience of being human told me I'd be better off dead, suddenly made sense.

I changed my name the same year, and stopped 'correcting' people who assumed I was a cis man (that was most of everyone who hadn't known me since childhood, and were meeting me for the first time.)  It wasn't called "social transition" then, because transition was exclusively a medico-legal process when I began transition.

I was referred to gender services a year later, and first prescribed testosterone (Nebido injections) a year after that.

As soon as I started taking testosterone, I had to give up kickboxing - the option was "disclose I was transsexual" or lose my fighting licence because a drug test would show synthetic testosterone, which would be a full ban.  Neither of those were good choices, from my perspective.  I haven't participated in organised sports since. Almost twenty years of going from someone who was highly active to someone who is increasingly afraid of being active in public spaces.

I was told my bullies were "justified" in targetting me.
I was sexually assaulted, and I was the one who was punished.
I tried "gender is just performance" - it got me sexually assaulted twice more.
I knew I was male from the age of five. It took fifteen years before I received even the beginning of what we now refer to as "gender-affirming care."

I was beaten for being trans.
I was verbally abused for being trans.
I was nearly gang raped for being trans.

And, for most of that time, I didn't even know 'trans' was a thing people could be.

My gender was very much not affirmed.  I was forced to live in accordance with my (assumed) biological sex (it turned out, during the course of my medical transition process, that was an assigned sex - my "biological" sex is actually intersex... but the UK government doesn't recognise that as an "immutable and unchangeable fact.")

My mother was actively hostile, to the point of violence. My father was neutral but "concerned."

Nothing in my lived experience "encouraged or promoted" the idea of transition.

I transitioned anyway.

I just...didn't come through it whole.  I transitioned angry, anxious, with a deep-seated distrust of other human beings. I transitioned pathologically self-sufficient (I managed my recovery from both bilateral mastectomy and hysterectomy completely alone, whilst also caring for the dogs I had at the time, living independently, and returning to work after a week, so that I didn't have to disclose why I'd been off in any level of detail.)

I lost friends.  My mother decided her vitriol and violence was completely justified...it still took me almost 20yrs to finally go no-contact with her.

I am a dangerous man because society made being dangerous the only way I got to survive.

I lived everything the UK government is now placing on trans people again - I was thrown out of women's toilets,  I was assaulted by some young girl's mother for "being a fucking pervert!" because her daughter had panicked on coming into the women's toilets and seeing me.

No one was safer.
I didn't "realise that being trans isn't this cool, trendy thing, and snap back to my senses."

I have a deep-seated fear of cis women.
I will not be putting myself in spaces where cis women are.

I've already accepted that healthcare, especially where there's a chance it will result in hospital admission, is no longer an option for me.

I've accepted that I will probably never participate in organised sports again, that I may never swim again.

I've accepted that long hikes are out (toilet situations...)

I've accepted that working freelance is the only way I can be safe whilst working.

But I'm still clear on one thing: I'm a masculine man.  I may not have been assigned male at birth, but I was never female, either.

I'm not "proud" of being trans.
I'm comfortable being a man.

The problem isn't trans people. The problem is the way we've lost sight of what "trans" actually means.

It doesn't mean "I don't agree with every gender expectation placed on me."
It doesn't mean "I prefer wearing clothes that are associated with the opposite sex."
It doesn't mean "I'm not like the other girls."


It's not "socialisation as your assigned sex" - it's "socialised to be alone", because you don't fit in with your assigned sex, but you're not allowed to fit in with the other sex.

It's not "niche marketing angle for sex work!" - even though many trans people, particularly trans women, are left with no option but to do very dangerous sex work.

I'm a man because I've always been seen as the "provider" for women.
I'm a man because defending my existence has always had to be done by force, rather than by praxis.
I'm a man because that's the only experience of being human that I don't have to work out piecemeal.
I'm a man because that's the internal image I have of myself.
And I'm a man because I want a penis, and see myself as someone who has a penis.  That has been the case since I was five years old.

And if "biology is immutable and unchangeable"?  What's the issue with letting people pick up hormones over the counter at Boots, or getting gender affirming surgery along with an ear piercing at Superdrug? (Since Claire's is sadly no longer with us...otherwise I'dve suggested them.)

High street gender care clinics, providing accessible prices through competition, would return more tax revenues to central government, and more rents and rates revenue to local government. They'd occupy currently disused, eyesore storefronts.  More trans people would be in a mental health position to engage with employment and their local communities.   And none of it perturbs anyone, because, hey, "biology is immutable and unchangeable" - so all of this gender affirmation is equivalent to tattoos and body modding - sure, it carries risks, but that's what informed consent is for. Pregnancy carries more risk, for both the person carrying the pregnancy and the foetus, but we don't even bother to really explain those risks to people, much less ask them to consent to them.

I am a man because I live as a man, present cohesively as a man, and accept the responsibilities and expectations that are applied to men in Western culture, which is my culture.

"Cohesive male presentation" can absolutely include a more feminine presentation; I have known several feminine men and queer heterosexual males (their own descriptions, in all cases), and their presentation was not "female" or even "female-skewed"; it was men whose cohesive male presentation was more feminine. In the same way, I've known several masculine women, who are firmly identified as women, and who present cohesively in a way that is neither "male" nor "male-skewed", but clearly communicates a masculine spectrum of female experience.

I have never wanted to be penetrated. I have never wanted to be pregnant.  I've never answered a question more quickly than I responded "No! No way!" to the question, asked at Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic, of whether I wanted to freeze my eggs before starting testosterone.

I don't enter competitions, or apply for roles, which state they are specifically for women - even though, according to the UK government and the EHRC, there'd be no issue with me doing so, since absolutely someone of six feet, fifteen stone of mostly muscle, with a tenor voice and a beard, is a "biological female" (unless, of course, that person actually is a woman...then, cis or trans, she "can't be", apparently...)  I would like to join a men's group,  but I don't want to hear men whinging about their wives, or women generally.  I don't want to be around the likely misogyny, racism and homophobia that is very prevalent among men in my area,  but, equally, groups for "Queer men" don't resonate - I'm a very masculine, very binary, trans man.  Even before I was able to have top surgery, I did everything possible to obscure my breasts.  I never identified with any kind of "female socialisation."  I didn't even really wear makeup when I was part of an active goth scene.

That's the personal side of the "transgender problem" the government and a bunch of deeply toxic, very wealthy, cis women believe we have:  What's the professional solution?

. Reality - if "biology is immutable and unchangeable", then there's no reason why people shouldn't be able to engage in gender affirming care as part of an informed consent, over the counter, high-street thing once they are legal adults.   I wasn't born with tattoos or ear piercings, but no one tried to convince me not to have them.  There are some higher-risk piercings I want to get; again, no one will insist I need psychiatric evaluation, that I should wear fake piercings for at least two years before I get the piercings, no one will present horror stories of people who "regretted" their piercings - I'll be asked to complete an informed consent form, I'll hand over money, and I'll live with the outcome.   And yes - piercings do permanently alter your body; I still have a faint scar from an eyebrow piercing my body decided it wasn't dealing with, and it's been over 20yrs since that piercing rejected.  I had a lip piercing become infected, despite following full hygiene and aftercare.  That's part of informed consent as an adult.

Reality is also the fact that everyone would be better served by mens' toilets having cubicles with lockable doors; men need to poop, too.  I've known several cis men who are "pee-shy", and prefer to use cubicles where they can.  Men use - and need to change and dispose of - continence wear, even if you refuse to accept that trans men are men, and men can therefore have periods.  It's uncomfortable, and unsanitary to insist men use urinals.

Reality is that intersex people exist; that is their "biological sex."  Many will have been forcibly, non-consensually, surgically altered to reflect their parents' preferred form of child.  My body is able to produce muscle growth and facial hair consistently even though I haven't taken testosterone since 2013, when I had a full ovo-hysterectomy (and both the endometriosis, and evidence of physical intersex status, was discovered...I'd found out I was hormonally intersex when I started medical transition, and was asked if I'd been self-medicating with "DIY" testosterone - I hadn't, but my testosterone tested at 21nmol - with no self-medication, no supplements, and being "biologically female"; even if I hadn't been trans, I wouldn't meet the restrictions applied to women's sports...so, the same rules which say trans people aren't real and only what's written on a birth certificate counts would also say I "wasn't really" female...)

Reality is that you cannot tell someone's "biological sex" when they are fully clothed.
I was 11 when I went on a school trip to France.
On the English side of the Eurostar, the toilets had attendants; the woman working the female toilets refused to allow me to enter. I ended up pissing myself, very publicly, because of how fixated she was on arguing with and shaming me - when I tried to turn away to use the disabled toilet, and verbally indicated I was doing so, she physically grabbed me and held me in place (which was when I was no longer able to hold on.)

In France, when our coach driver was stopped for speeding, and armed French police decided they were checking everyone's passports, my 11yr old self got bodily dragged from the coach, at gun point, with officers screaming at me in French - too rapid for me to follow. Our teacher - a native French speaker - followed: the police didn't believe I was the "female" represented on my passport.  

This is reality; what is being presented as "biological reality" is actually just "adherance to typical Western gender cues and gender norms."  I hadn't even heard of trans people at 11.  But I still wasn't seen as a "biological female."

Reality is that respect and dignity are fundamental human rights. If someone goes into whichever toilet they feel most comfortable in, does their business (behind a locked door, if possible), comes out, washes their hands (with soap), and dries them properly - ie, they treat other people using those toilets with respect and dignity - their "right" to be in those toilets should not be challenged.

The reality is that organisations are not required to have single-sex spaces; you can absolutely provide gender-neutral spaces. You can identify toilets by "has urinals" and "doesn't have urinals".

The reality is that it's no less the case that a women's group which welcomes trans women would "have to" accept cis men than it would be that a women's group which is for Black women or disabled women would have to accept white or able-bodied women.

The reality is that you don't have to know someone's sex, or even their gender - "Hi, what's your name, and how do you like to be referred to - for example, if I'm talking about you to someone else, do you prefer your name be used, or particular pronouns?" is fine for almost every situation I can think of.   

For sports, do a mixed "assessment phase" - and then group people by performance levels. (This also, incidentally, makes it easier for people to visibly process their progress, which promotes continued engagement with sport, and better mental health.)  Horse racing is entirely mixed (stallions, mares, and geldings, male and female jockeys, in the more prominent gatherings.)  The amateur marathon runs are entirely mixed.  For contact sports...female jockstraps exist. Helmets exist.

That's the EHRC legislation dealt with...now...onto Kathleen Stock's 'concern' about 'young women with walking sticks and vague syndromes."

Kathleen Stock has issues with "so many young women" using walking sticks "for vague syndromes" - which suggests she's actually just misogynistic, because of course young men who are using mobility aids need those! Their conditions are absolutely real and valid; only women would invent something that makes them weak and vulnerable.

While there are discussions to be had about people who simply need to be more active, and particularly to do more load-bearing/resistance workouts, because the "pain" they are experiencing is just a deconditioned body, the fact is that, if people are experiencing pain because of deconditioning, they may well actually need to use a mobility aid while they recondition their body.

"Vague syndromes" usually just mean "medical conditions I don't understand, because I'm not actually a doctor."

You cannot and do not know someone's medical history unless you are not just a doctor, but, specifically, their doctor.  Unless you are a doctor, you don't need to know about peoples' medical history or active diagnoses.

With the increase in diet culture and the use of Ozempic, etc, and its resultant impacts on muscle development and bone density (heads up: the impacts aren't good), and increasingly stressful adult lives likely making psychosomatic illnesses more common (psychosomatic, by the way, isn't "people imagining it" - psychosomatic means the brain creates the experience of pain, illness, etc as a last resort attempt to communicate "Hey! You need to slow down and take some rest here!"), it is actually not surprising that more people, and younger people, are finding it helpful to use canes for mobility.

And if they are "just using those for confidence, or because it's trendy now?" - so what? If having a cane is the difference  between someone feeling they can cope with some form of paid employment, and that person feeling they're not able to work (because they experience pain, for whatever reason, because they feel unstable, because they worry about falling), isn't it better that they are able to engage with work, and social activities, whilst using a cane?

Kathleen Stock isn't asking how many elderly people "need" the canes they use - the focus on "young women" is ageism and misogyny at its very loudest - and, coming from a woman who will, if luck remains with her, be elderly one day, that's not a good look.

I sometimes have to use a white walking stick, rather than the guide cane I typically use as someone who is registered blind, because I also have a long-term injury on my left side, which, sometimes, flares badly enough that I can only walk comfortably and safely with a walking stick.  My guide cane isn't load-bearing.  On the days I need a walking stick, walking without it risks my hip completely seizing, my ankle turning over, or both things happening (and me therefore falling over.)

My wife has ataxic cerebral palsy; she "looks able-bodied" at a distance, but, without a walking stick, she isn't able to manage walking for more than 10-20mins without severe pain, which then leaves her unable to do much of anything else for 2-3 days afterwards.

I have a friend who sometimes has to wear heavy duty ankle and knee supports; she works in hospitality, and an old injury means that long shifts spent continuously on her feet cause extreme pain and swelling.

Some people may be using walking sticks to help enforce distance between themselves and other people in busy, crowded environments, which can be the only way they can be in those environments, including work environments, when they are dealing with anxiety or OCD.

And if some people "just think it's trendy to have a walking stick now" - so what? Mostly, these are canes people have purchased from commercial suppliers; no one is "taking anything away from" disabled people who can't afford to buy mobility aids, but who need them. 

This isn't even really a "problem" - but the solution is the same as it is for the EHRC legislation:  Reality.

Reality is, you don't need to know someone's medical history - you just need to ask how they work best, and whether they need anything to help them work at their best.

In my case, for example, I work best when I'm just given expectations, deadlines, and signposts to support, and left to get on with it. I need recognition of the fact that I'm wholly dependent on public transport, or will otherwise need taxi costs covered, I need a larger than standard computer monitor, and the ability to work with headphones in (so that I can use screenreaders), I work best when communication is in writing, and I am provided with a schedule in advance, which doesn't alter without advance notice.  I work best from home, because I'm completely night blind, and working from home means winter dusk times aren't a hard stop point.  I work best alone, or in small groups.  I prefer to have protected time for deep focus work, and am not great in the early mornings, or later afternoons (although I can work long into the night).  I need freedom to move around while I'm working, as sitting or for extended periods causes hip and back pain. (Yes, even in "ergonomic" chairs.  When I'm working from home and not in meetings, I actually work laid down, getting up and moving around typically every hour or so for 5-10mins.)

If you want to book an engagement/support session around any of the issues discussed here, please email theproductivepessimist@gmail.com.