1998: the review of next year
30th December 1998
As 1998 draws to a close, I have been finishing off the review of the year which Christine had almost completed before going away. I ran it through the artificial intelligence program which normally succeeds in giving my writings some semblance of sense … but unfortunately that software has been messed up by an early version of the millennium bug, and it turned my words into a review of next year, i.e. 1999.
I decided that the result was too good to discard, so I’ll just offer it as is …
Claire McNab, December 1998
1st January 1999: In a new-year message of goodwill to all trans people, the Pope acknowledges the historical importance of research which revealed that the Vatican is built on the site of the temple of a sect of transgendered priests, whose symbol of a mitre hat the church had appropriated. Apologising for two millennia of Christian intolerance of trans people, His Holiness confirms that henceforth only post-operative trans men would be allowed to become Cardinals.
23rd January 1999: In an “exclusive” report by a team of correspondents, a Sunday tabloid newspaper reveals that the term “transsexual” applies not just to trans women, but that in fact there is also a category of people known as trans men. On pages 5, 7, 9, 10 and 11, the paper prints colour photographs of the breasts of pre-operative trans men.
1st February 1999: In a special press release, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announces that it is conducting a review of its judgements in cases affecting the rights of trans people in the UK, and warns the British government to “beware the ides of March”.
19th February 1999: In a move described as “uncharacteristic of New Labour”, the UK government announces a major nationalisation program. All excuses in the UK are taken under state control and shipped to Strasbourg in a massive airlift by the RAF, to be delivered to the ECHR in explanation of the government’s failure to offer civil rights to trans people.
6th March 1999: Twenty-three countries enter trans acts for the Eurovision Song Contest in the hope of repeating Israel’s success the previous year. Terry Wogan denies impropriety with the Norwegian entrant, following newspaper reports that he has showered her with gifts … mostly polo neck jumpers. Meanwhile, Dana International denies having had sex with President Clinton, insisting on nation-wide television that she “did NOT have sex with that man, within the meaning of the word as defined by Justice Ormrod”. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, courting the nationalist vote in the forthcoming elections, issues a press release blaming Dana’s success on “Palestinian terrorism”.
15th March 1999: The ECHR apologises for abandoning its review of judgements affecting UK trans people, and announces the premature retirement of all of its judges, confirming that they have been admitted en masse to a rest home after their brains turned to mush while trying to make sense of the UK’s excuses for not granting civil rights to trans people.
1st April 1999: Germaine Greer says sorry.
1st April 1999: Charing Cross Hospital’s Gender Identity Clinic announces a new “client-centred” approach to its treatment of trans people, which will involve listening to their needs, offering treatment as needed, and halving the cost charged to Health Authorities for extra-contractual referrals to bring the price down to a level only marginally above the rates prevailing in the private sector.
2nd April 1999: A hastily-issued statement from the Charing Cross GIC retracts the previous day’s announcement, blaming its unauthorised release on “a member of staff who had not been fully assessed”. The statement promises that the employee concerned will have all prescriptions withdrawn pending re-evaluation, and will be required to divorce before any further progress is allowed.
11th April 1999: Replying to an MP who had written on behalf of a trans constituent, a Home Office Minister explains that owing to cost-saving measures, the government will give up inventing new explanations for the failure to grant full civil rights to trans people, and that in any case all possible excuses had already been given away to the ECHR. Henceforth ministers will merely issue a one-word reply saying “because” and will confirm that the minister has a headache and that anyway we never listen and don’t care and never wash the dishes and never really loved him anyway …
21st April 1999: The American Psychiatric Association publishes the long-awaited fifth version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the DSM-V), which reclassifies “Gender Identity Disorder” as an incurable disease of the mind affecting overbearing psychiatrists who take pleasure in undermining the autonomy of trans people. In an historic apology to hundreds of thousands of trans people around the world, the DSM-V notes that previous application of the term “disorder” to trans people was a medically and psychiatrically inaccurate slur on a group of much-persecuted and misunderstood people who had suffered greatly at the hands of western psychiatry. The APA confirmed that trans people are neither sick nor disordered, and that its efforts to cast them as such were a “grave abuse of psychiatry”.
22nd April 1999: The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association condemns the APA’s decision as “a breach of the Standards of Care”, and withdraws all treatment from the APA.
25th April 1999: Environmental scientists warn of a greatly increased risk of global warming as thousands of copies of the “Standards of Care” are burnt world-wide in public ceremonies as part of a hastily organised international celebration known as “Bonfire of the Vanities”.
12th May 1999: The newly-formed “Happy we-Beat-them International Gender Freedom Association” (HBIGFA) releases its new “Standards of Care”, a set of guidance for trans people engaged in educating psychiatrists. The SOC specifies that: a) shrinks must undergo therapy for at least 6 months before being allowed to take humility drugs; b) that before being allowed to practice, such shrinks will be required to live for at least two years full-time in a role of supportive respect for trans people; c) that any instance of failure to respect the autonomy of trans people and their own inalienable right to a free choice of whether to undergo any medical procedure would lead to instant removal of the psychiatrist from the treatment program.
13th May 1999: Following protests from a combined ginger group of liberals and English language specialists within the trans community, the HBIGFA’s “Standards of Care” are unanimously approved for re-release under the new title of “Standards of Control”, which was the title that should have been applied to HBIGDA’s oppressive and mis-labelled “Standards of Care”.
4th June 1999: After thousands of new parents refuse to register their children’s birth because they reject the determinism of a gender-marker in the register, officials in the Office of National Statistics plead for trans people to apply again for a change of birth certificate … because otherwise they’ll be out of a job.
22nd June 1999: In a midsummer solstice celebration, HBIGFA burns all copies its “Standards of Control”, announcing that “the joke has run its course. It’s time to stop problematising trans people, and henceforth gender psychiatry will just be banned”.
29th June 1999: The European Union’s Free Trade Commissioner announces an anti-dumping inquiry into the UK government’s delivery of its entire national stockpile of excuses to Strasbourg. The Commissioner says that “there is a prima facie case that this action has flooded the Single European Market for excuses, and that all governments will now find their excuses devalued”.
17th July 1999: The National Association of Bill-payers (NAB) organises a protest rally outside Downing Street, demanding military action to repatriate the excuses dumped in Strasbourg. NAB members say that their lives and bank balances have been destroyed by their inability to claim that “the cheque is in the post”.
11th July 1999: Further concerns are expressed about the power of the Labour whips in the House of Commons, after the transition of a cabinet minister is followed by 309 other Labour MPs announcing their trans status.
23rd July 1999: As the House of Commons prepares for its summer recess, the Speaker announces the start of a major new building programme in the Palace of Westminster to accommodate the spiralling number of trans people lobbying their MPs.
29th July 1999: When a leaked memo reveals that the new facilities for trans lobbyists are to be constructed in the premises formerly occupied by the recently-abolished House of Lords, 391 of the now-defunct hereditary peers apply for admission to the Charing Cross Gender clinic in the hope that they can continue to use the parliamentary facilities now allocated to trans people.
30th July 1999: Charing Cross psychiatrists consult their textbooks to find out whether wearing ermine robes counts towards the so-called “Real Life Test”.
7th August 1999: Martian students at a human anatomy summer school in Bognor Regis fail the test at the end of their course, when they draw pictures of the female body with the vagina near the neck. Apparently, they had read Lord Justice Ormrod’s 1970 judgement in the critical Corbett-v-Corbett case, which undid the previous legal recognition of the status of trans people. Ormrod described the difference between anal intercourse and neo-vaginal intercourse as just “a difference to be measured in centimetres” — so the students concluded that on non-trans women, the vagina and anus must be several feet apart.
11th August 1999: Following the “copycat” actions of the BBC’s Eastenders, ITV’s Emmerdale, and 312 assorted Australian soaps in seeking to emulate Coronation Street’s success by casting a trans character, the Independent Television Commission orders broadcasters to restore some balance by casting more intersexed people.
19th August 1999: Stonemasons in Oxford celebrate a new source of work when dozens of gargoyles announce their desire to transition, having been impressed by the obvious happiness of the gargoyle commemorating the transition of a University official.
25th August 1999: In a leaked memo confirming a delay into their major review of psychiatric literature purporting to comment on the nature of trans people, the Ethics and Standards Committee of the International Association of Scholarly Journals confirms that it has suspended work pending the recruitment of a kindergarten teacher and a gypsy mystic, since formal academic methods have proven unsuccessful in identifying any logical pattern in the body of work being assessed. [Later reports suggest that both recruits were dismissed, and replaced with a shredder].
29th August 1999: Storyliners for BBC Radio 4’s “The Archers” confess that they too had planned to cast a trans character … but that Nigella Pargetter’s transition had to be cancelled when it emerged that her birth certificate could not be used in the story, because it had been eaten by the death-watch beetle in Lower Loxley’s attic.
2nd September 1999: Announcing new plans for harmonisation of standards between member states, the European Union’s Single Market Commissioner announces that from 1st January 2001, there will be a new Single European Sex.
3rd September 1999: After Cassanova is seen looking morose and frustrated, he is given remedial lessons in reading comprehension.
13th September 1999: The Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic in London loses its bid for the UK franchise to implement the new Single European Sex, when ministers reveal that Charing Cross’s ten-year delay for those transitioning would leave the UK in breach of the EU directive for 8 years.
15th September 1999: Touchstone Pictures confirm rumoured plans to make a feature film on the life of Dr Stephen Whittle, featuring Ben Kingsley in the title role and Sean Connery in the supporting role of Alex Whinnom.
17th October 1999: Peter Mandelson denies reports that New Labour plans to solve the problem of constituency gender quotas by affirmative action to recruit hermaphrodite candidates. Rumours of secret Conservative Central Office plans to forcibly re-assign prospective candidates in marginal seats are rejected by Conservative leader William Hague, stating that, “This is a matter for individual constituency associations to decide for themselves, and we would not seek to influence their decisions in any way”. London’s newly elected Mayor, Katrina Livingstone, accuses Mr Hague of being economical with the truth. Leader of the Commons Mark Beckett and Home Secretary Jill Straw are joined by the Prime Minister’s partner Chuck Blair in denouncing Ms Livingstone as “off-message”.
18th November 1999: Clothing retailer Benetton blames poor financial results on the failure of its new line of polo neck jumpers … citing ’poor market research’ and ’some very misleading advice’.
5th December 1999: Saatchi and Saatchi’s and Press for Change surprise the markets with news of a merger, hailed by commentators as a “brilliant fusion of PFC’s campaigning expertise and Saatchi’s knowledge of consumer durables.”
17th December 1999: The merger between PFC and Saatchi and Saatchi is abruptly cancelled after efforts to glue PFC campaigners to billboards prove unsuccessful: apparently, the glue doesn’t work on skin altered by HRT.
30th December 1999: Prince Charles announces plans to undergo gender reassignment treatment in the new year. In a touching palace announcement released at the same time, Camilla Parker Bowles vows that she will stand by her love — and denies rumours that Charles plans to change his name to Diana.
31st December 1999: Flowers in the gardens at Highgrove congratulate Prince Charles on his transition.
Acknowlegdements: Many thanks to Christine, Jay, Mairi and Patricia for their suggestions, corrections and comments on this chronology. However, any responsibility for errors in fact-checking lies solely with me: I have tried hard to eliminate all facts and replace them with fabrications, innuendo and utter nonsense — but I may not have succeeded. Indeed, there is one fact which I deliberately left in: the January 1 item about the Vatican’s origins is an accurate report of the latest historical research, for which many thanks are due to Jed.
— CMcN, 1998-12-30
