The Press for Change Debate (Foreword)
Foreword
The plight of transsexuals in Britain is something of a state secret, to judge by the lack of knowledge displayed by normally well-informed people. When the press deals with the topic at all, then it is usually in a simple and voyeuristic fashion, ignoring the real legal issues that face people who’ve made such an important choice about themselves.
It isn’t just that transsexuals can’t get married, although this is important … nor is the refusal of the authorities to annotate their birth certificates as trivial an issue as it may at first sound.
Transsexuals are only offered treatment by respectable medical professionals because the distress they are suffering is recognised worldwide as a rare but statistically constant syndrome in all societies. The cause is suspected to be genetic, and there is strong circumstantial evidence to this effect, but if there is any uncertainty as to the cause then the effect is very well-documented and understood. When untreated, studies have shown that as many as 30% of subjects commit or attempt suicide; the extent of their distress is that great. Yet when treated in the only way that has been found to work (by so-called surgical re-assignment) other studies show the success rate to be up to 95%. Informed medical opinion worldwide is therefore now totally united when it comes to diagnosing and treating such people.
However, once a transsexual embarks on the carefully monitored process of social, hormonal and (finally) surgical adjustment to resolve their crisis they loose a whole collection of fundamental rights overnight, without a single word against them in the statute book. They can be dismissed quite blatantly for their condition, regardless of circumstances, and with no legal protection. They are unprotected by the law in their adopted role yet, if they transgress themselves, then their punishment will often include being sent to an inappropriate prison … and often includes cessation of their treatment. Their unaltered social security status leaves even the best settled of cases open to exposure for the rest of their lives and, when they die, a transsexual’s next of kin will have to tidy up their affairs with a death certificate which records their ’legal’ sex. In-between they are left the full responsibility to disclose that ’legal’ sex in any situation where it is conceivable that omission to do so would constitute a fraud. The simple business of getting a car insurance quote is, for instance, transformed into a major nightmare.
A straightforward and very successful medical treatment, is therefore prolonged as an issue for the rest of the subject’s natural life, during which time they are scorned for whatever types of relationship they try to form. With heterosexual partners, the law declares them homosexual and prohibits marriage and the founding of any sort of family by adoption or fostering. Yet partners of the same sex are scorned too.
Bureaucracy, at every turn, seems determined to make the transsexual a burden on the state … when all the transsexual wants is to be accepted and get on as a full member of society.
Recent cuts in expenditure by a number of NHS trusts have also placed the treatment in jeopardy, and therefore the lives of the many non transsexuals who, having incorrectly diagnosed themselves, fall prey to the unscrupulous private clinics trading in this field.
When this syndrome is not treated seriously it destroys lives.
Press for Change is a political lobbying and educational organisation, which campaigns to achieve equal civil rights and liberties for all transsexual people in the United Kingdom, through legislation and social change. In September 1995 the author, a Press for Change activist (and post-operative transsexual herself), set out to use the new UK Politics Forum on CompuServe to draw attention to the issues involved. An unusual objective for a Conservative party activist.
It seemed to be a difficult discussion to kindle at first, perhaps because of the widespread ignorance of the issue … or because of the legacy from so much long-term trivialisation of the subject. Perhaps transsexuals are not viewed sympathetically. Maybe people feel that their problems are self-inflicted. A few took the bait however, and the result was a discussion running to 13,000 words over just six days … covering the subject to a level of detail that could not have been possible in any other medium.
This is the record of that discussion. It suffers the usual problem of trying to stitch together a two-dimensional online discourse in printed form; replies do not always follow-on from the messages that gave rise to them … but hopefully the sense is still there. The discussion started as an aside to a discussion on ministerial responsibility (since the author has been putting these issues before no fewer than seven present cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister for over two years) and it was accompanied by a library posting which comprehensively detailed the background and aims of the campaign. (See PFC Issues in this database).
It still seems a pity that the debate did not take off in true Forum fashion .. with people joining in to trade opinions without the intervention of the discussion leader. However, on reflection a lively debate requires disagreement .. and this was scarce. Nobody, it seems, had any substantial issue with what Press for Change set out to achieve, other than a government dedicated to fighting each attempt to change things all the way to the European Court of Justice, at an apathetic public’s expense.
The only question remaining unanswered is where now?
Press for Change has been actively campaigning for about five years. The issues we campaign to resolve have been around for almost 26 … created by a divorce case that set the only landmarks in English law. The author has been campaigning personally for almost three years, and the experience of everyone who has written at length to the Home Office, Department of Education and Employment or Department of Health is that each generation of ministers adopts the same impassive stance to the issues, no matter how compelling the argument. A cross party parliamentary forum has attracted the interest of a few interested and sympathetic MPs across the spectrum, and the world’s medical experts in the field have published a review of current clinical opinion which criticises the effect of the legal status quo upon their patients’ well-being. Yet there is no widespread will to change things. The campaign is in many ways becalmed between public indifference and official intransigence.
The 1995 conference season will include fringe events at the Labour and Conservative party conferences organised by Press for Change … and this will include many transsexuals giving up what privacy they’ve earned themselves to put a face to the campaign for the first time. That includes me. It is a sorry affair to be driven to this. To negate all that you have achieved in the face of so many obstacles over the years and offer yourself as an object for public discussion. To stop being just ’that nice woman next door’ or a moderately successful businesswoman and take on a pejorative label instead. A senior local politician opined (when briefed) that it was the end of any political ambitions I might have. But then, in the face of so much apathy what choice is there?
Think hard about this issue as you read the transcript of the forum debate. Don’t think in abstract terms about odd people labelled transsexuals, but about a woman like me. A friend. An intelligent thinker. A successful self-employed businesswoman. A lover. One of you. Your own child maybe.
And remember, there but for the grace of God …
Christine Burns
17th September, 1995
