It turns out Brits are much more transgender-friendly than the public debate may lead you to believe

The More In Common initiative asked 5,000 Brits for their opinions on various gender identity-related questions. It turns out the British people is very much in support of transgender people. Most agree that a trans man is a man and a trans woman is a woman.

 Luke Tryl of More in Common writes over at twitter:

“Today @Moreincommon_ we have published Britons and Gender Identity. Based on polling of over 5,000 people and focus groups across the country. We found the current divisive online debates simply don’t reflect the way the public think about trans and gender identity.

Why is More in Common interested in this discussion? Because we don’t think the current debate is serving anyone well and a conversation dominated by extremes risks leaving people feeling fearful, alienated, isolated and resentful.

What did we find? Firstly perhaps unsurprisingly for most people trans issues are not a top issue facing the country - just 2% say that. But that doesn’t mean that they are ignorant about the issues, most have thought about them. A quarter of Brits know someone who is trans.

And people’s starting point in every conversation we had - from Bury to Blyth to Long Eaton - was one of kindness & compassion. People recognise struggling with your gender identity is hard & they want to accommodate. This clip gives you a flavour of people’s thinking. [Clip embedded at the end of this post,]

Most people are comfortable calling people by the pronouns they want to be called by (though some didn’t want to display their own). Some were worried about being shouted at for making mistakes/using the wrong pronouns and wanted more space to understand the language.

Most agree that a trans man is a man and a trans woman is a woman. In focus groups its clear most think  being trans means someone who has gone through gender reassignment surgery or who has lived in their expressed gender for a long time. For a minority it is about self ID.

On sport the public do have concerns. Most think that trans women should not participate in women only sporting events. The public recognise this seems unkind, but for most it is an issue of sporting fairness. Most want to find new events to allow trans athletes to compete.

Again here - for the public this isn’t about definitional concerns ‘whether someone can call themselves a woman or not’ but worries about level playing fields. This clip gives you a flavour for how the public grapple with issues around trans people in single sex sport. [Clip 2 below].

The public want schools to be safe spaces that support pupils who might be questioning their gender identity. The public want schools to talk about trans people and the teachers we spoke to told us how they tried to make trans pupils feel comfortable.

Where the public have concerns is a worry young people are making irreversible decisions without proper advice + support. Most say the physical process of transition, incl cross-sex hormones shouldn’t start until adulthood, although there is more split on blockers. 

When it comes to single sex spaces, most distinguish between people who have and haven’t been through gender reassignment surgery. Many are happy/indifferent about the introduction of more unisex toilets in the workplace, but are less comfortable with them in schools.

I should add when we talked about some single sex spaces many other issues - unrelated to trans people came up. Turns out for instance lots of Brits (women and men) don’t like communal changing areas as is & one of the biggest objection to unisex toilets is mens hygiene.

None of this is to say that we think issues of rights and where they might conflict should be decided by majority public opinion, rather that listening to the common ground starting points of the British public provides a basis for a better discussion going forward.

See also: Forget toxic Twitter debates: the UK isn’t as divided on trans rights as you think and Britons not bitterly polarised over trans equality, research finds.

Finally there’s a whole lot more in the full report - including some recommendations for how we might move forward. For me the number one is to remember that this is fundamentally about people, not abstract concepts.”

Photo: Oversnap.

See also: Transphobia and anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes are waning fast in Britain

Integrating our masculine and feminine energies - an artistic exploration

Ken Balmer has shared an interesting slideshow with reflection on gender, gender identity and nonbinary experiences and expressions over at Slideshare. 

https://www.slideshare.net/kbalmer/balance-247729391

Ken Balmer writes:

 What is more basic than gender?

We come into the world assigned male or female. Our first room, our clothes, our toys all scream blue or pink. The social illusion of what this all means is constructed and reinforced by parents, siblings, friends, teachers and ever-present marketing messages. Most of us grow comfortably into these two clearly defined spaces; others feel a dissonance.

Jung tells us that we all have both the masculine and feminine in our psyche. Expanding, he notes that in later life we are all called to integrate the opposite energy into our being and behaviour. A man must inevitably meet and embrace his anima (female energy). A woman develops her animus (male energy). Many, however, are most comfortable living and expressing a balanced form throughout most of their self directed life: adopting androgynous fashions and behaviours. 

Meanwhile we all live in a world that subconsciously seeks and values integrated male and female energies; and is simultaneously uncomfortable being around and accommodating those who live somewhere along, rather than at the ends of the gender spectrum.

This art has given me the opportunity to reflect on gender balance, options and challenges.

To see more of Balmer’s art, go to their website.

Canada is the first country to provide census data on transgender and non-binary people

Statistics Canada has provided the first insight into the number of transgender people in the country. Beginning in 2021, the precision of “at birth” was added to the sex question on the census questionnaire, and a new question on gender was included.

They write:

Of the nearly 30.5 million people in Canada aged 15 and older living in a private household in May 2021, 100,815 were transgender (59,460) or non-binary (41,355), accounting for 0.33% of the population in this age group.

The proportions of transgender and non-binary people were three to seven times higher for Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2006, 0.79%) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1996, 0.51%) than for Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980, 0.19%), baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965, 0.15%) and the Interwar and Greatest Generations (born in 1945 or earlier, 0.12%).

The increase in the number of trans people across generations reflects an increased acceptance of gender variance.

Merriam-Webster threatened with violence after defining female as “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”

The highly influential English language dictionary now  defines “female” as “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”.  A California man was arrested and charged with making threats against Merriam-Webster Inc. for its  inclusive language around gender.

Language is power, which is why the transphobes so desperately try to reduce gender to biological sex. Any  acknowledgment of  gender, gender expression or gender identity being real phenomena with real consequences for all, means an end to their hegemony.

A circular definition?

In case you wondered: Male is defined as  “having a gender identity that is the opposite of female”. 

If you think this leads to a circular kind of logic, you are absolutely right, because as far as gender goes, an insistence on there being only two genders  will necessarily lead to definitions of male and female that depend on each other.  

Men are “not-women” and women are “not-men”. This is how human language works (or at least Modern English). 

People don’t judge you on the basis of your chromosomes

Social and cultural roles are not really based on concept of biology or genetics, but on how certain people are expected to behave and see themselves.

It is the expectations of others that force you to behave in a specific way gender wise, not your chromosomes. Indeed, people will treat you as a man or a woman even if they haven’t seen you naked – or studied your DNA.

These gender expectations vary wildly from culture to culture and from time period to time period, so it is impossible to get to a clear definition of what it means to be a woman that is true for all times and all cultures (or even within one culture).

The midwife ritual

The fact that doctors and midwives look between the legs of babies to define them as blue or pink does not change this. This is still a cultural ritual, and not a medical one, as the doctors and nurses are unable to see the gendered sense of self this baby is going to have in the future.

In the real world social and cultural gender is as real as chromosomes. The traditionalists therefore need to control language to make everyone think and behave as they want they you to. 

This is why they so desperately try to connect gender to biological sex. They see this as a kind of firm ground from which to battle all the “gender radicals.” 

So they take a cultural ritual (the one performed by doctors and nurses) and turns it into a pseudo-scientific fact, making the cultural and psychological side of gender “unreal” in the process. 

It is not a perfect definition, though

To be honest, I am not too fond of the Merriam-Webster definition. I appreciate the “having a gender identity” part, but I do not understand why they had to relate it to the other gender. This makes gender very binary.

Note that the dictionary’s definition of “gender identity” takes the whole gender spectrum into consideration:

“a person’s internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female“

So a much simpler definition of female would be “someone who are having a female gender identity”, or “someone who deeply and consistently experience themselves as female”. 

The attacker may go to prison

The transphobe attacking the Merriam-Webster company, a man called Jeremy David Hanson, wrote:

“I am sick and tired of these cultural Marxists denying science and destroying the English Language. Merriam-Webster headquarters should be shot up and bombed. Boys aren’t girls.”

The  publisher closed its offices for a week because of the threat. Hanson faces up to five years in federal prison if convicted.

IllustrationDenis Novikov

9March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility – a day of focus, love and support for trans people and issues. One in which our community actively stands defiant and visible against all of those who would much rather us be neither seen nor heard. There are various events, activities and calls to action led by trans people all with the aim of supporting the community.»