Lies about transgender people (and how to spot a rubbish journalist)
By Paris Lees
Notebook
Friday, 31 August 2012 at 1:30 am
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/31/lies-about-transgender-people-and-how-to-spot-a-rubbish-journalist/So, how can you tell if what you're reading is rubbish? ....there are 6 giveaways for poorly written trans features:
1.
Sex Change. This is seldom used by trans people and has zero medical currency. Authors who use this have nothing valuable to share on trans issues.
2.
Children having "sex changes". Always false. In the UK, trans surgery is only performed on those aged 18 and above. Children prescribed reversible puberty blockers will have been monitored for years following careful guidelines.
3.
Hermaphrodite. Widely offensive and biologically inaccurate. Humans with biological sex differences are described as intersex. Or people.
4.
Taxpayers/NHS waste of money/cosmetic surgery. Don't trust anyone who mentions tax during a polemic against trans people. Trans people also pay taxes...
5.
"Gender" – in quotation marks. Everyone has a gender identity. Clothing, language, toilets and many other arbitrary social cogs are gendered. Pretending that trans people have imagined their gender is, well, delusional.
6.
Regret. Studies show that an astonishing 98 per cent of people who undergo genital surgery express no regret. Regret usually focuses on surgical results. Any journalist who mentions transition regret, without acknowledging this, has made a terrible mistake.
