Women's rights, trans issues and gender dysphoria - a deluge of concern, worry and hope - you have your say

A word of warning: the accounts given by readers of this newsletter contain descriptions of rape and sexual abuse. There is foul and offensive language in parts, too. Anyone likely to be upset by such content, I would urge not to proceed.

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Friday 12th April…a couple of hours after I sent my editor’s newsletter; one that took a week of ponderance, reading, refining and finessing - HERE - a reader writes:

8.05pm:

Thank you for standing up for women’s rights and fairness, and against thought-policing driven by fear and bullying. I understand how bold and brave a move it is and appreciate it. All the best…

A letter from a reader. I was grateful - I always am. Most of the letters I receive are grumpy ones so it is always nice to receive a note of thanks from someone who seems to genuinely mean it. Then, unusually, another one:

8.20pm:

Thank you for this article, which makes some good points, but misses a very major one: to hear JK Rowling speak, one would think that all trans women are cis men pretending to be trans in order to gain access to vulnerable women. Given the abuse she has experienced, one might understand such misandry. Why is it, though, that your article only discusses trans women? Presumably, this is because you would not consider trans men to be a threat, but does this justify ignoring their existence, and so condemning them along with the “untrustworthy” biological males of whatever gender identity? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, or possibly even see them online.

‘Cis’ is a term I have learned recently. It wasn’t one I was familiar with. It essentially means sex is biologically (scientifically) assigned and is immutable. If you were born a male, you shall forever be a male. If you were born a female, you shall forever be a female, regardless of how you may wish to change socially.

As for my thoughts on this letter: I think it is either a deliberately naughty one, full of projection and conjecture, or it is from someone who is not paying attention. JK Rowling does not for one second suggest what this letter-writer reaches for and I felt it in bad taste to suggest that all women who have suffered abuse at the hands of men automatically develop an irrational hatred of all men. So those are my thoughts. You did ask!

9.17pm:

Thank you for this article. It is measured and balanced and compassionate towards all 'injured' parties. I agree with everything you say. The 'debate' comes on the backdrop of an individualistic zeitgeist. And, yes. Firstly the debate itself needs to be safe. It's a conundrum, but I have faith that it will be reconciled, although it may take another hundred years. As a species we have made huge progress, evolutionarily speaking. I think as a species we 'forget' or are ignorant to not being equipped for such en-masse rapid social change.

I am grateful to you for articulating this issue through the media forum that you have and long may it continue.

Another lovely note of support. Crikey, I thought. Three letters in the space of a few hours on the same topic. That’s not normal.

10.53pm:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your courage in tackling this subject. I am one of the women too afraid to speak out on social media. My concerns have always been three-fold:

1. the use of experimental drugs not licensed for the purpose of treating gender-dysphoric children (concerns now borne out by the Cass report);
2. males in female sports (there are separate categories for good reason);
3. the right for women to have male-free spaces for reasons of privacy, dignity and safety, especially in situations where they are vulnerable such as lavatories, hospitals and changing rooms.

At the same time, I believe that transwomen and transmen deserve to live their lives free from discrimination on the basis of their trans status. In fact, the same rights shared by us all. I do hope that there is a third way, or that sensible compromises are found. Most of all, I hope that the heat is taken out to allow discussions to take place.

I rather feel that I’ve just repeated what you’ve said in today’s newsletter, but far less eloquently. However, I want you to know that in my opinion you’re not far off the mark and that there seem to be an awful lot of people with similar views. The zealots on both sides will no doubt come for you (again), but please hold your nerve. We women need your support.

Thank you again.

Midnight passed. Onto Saturday…

12.21am:

Please continue to express your support for those who speak out to maintain the rights of women. I support those who speak out on this issue because (especially here in Scotland) it takes courage to do so openly - and my past experience has been that those who shout loudest about their rights to be heard are not eager to extend those same rights to their opponents. May you continue to be allowed to express your beliefs, without rancour or aggression; as you did in the article above.

From a believer in what you said so eloquently.

Of course, I want to repeat my gratitude to this letter writer, however, such a flurry of thanks, I thought, is actually a cause for concern. Honestly, in 22 years as a journalist I have never seen a reaction to something I - or anyone else for that matter - have written. Heightening my concern was that people were repeatedly requesting anonymity. The fear in this conversation is real and that fear is a significant barrier to civilised - essential and urgently needed - progress. Now, brace yourself. I did warn you that people care about this topic and, because of that, I think I owe it to those people to share their thoughts as fully as possible. So...

3.39am:

I'm writing to say thank you for your opinion piece on JK Rowling, the Cass Report and Rotherham. I grew up with The Yorkshire Post but only read it occasionally now since I've lived in Somerset for over 20 years, but I still think of it as a model paper, a perfect blend of local, national and international, of broadsheet and tabloid (leaning towards broadsheet). Politically I believed the YP was always to the right of where I was but the reporting was good enough for that not to matter. I considered myself well left of centre, politically promiscuous but always politically active as a member of the Labour or Green party, usually voting Lib Dem tactically. I joined Twitter in late 2019 to argue about Brexit and find allies amongst leftie remainers.

I noticed early on some debates around trans. I didn't really understand it - assumed we were talking about a few tortured souls who had gone through surgical procedures to emulate the opposite sex, usually men pretending to be women. I'd met one or two, it didn't seem a big deal. Then I saw the clip of Lisa Nandy defending putting a child rapist into a women's prison. I watched many, many men on the left who I'd previously admired explain why it was fine for biologically male, violent sex offenders or murderers to be imprisoned with women. I started to investigate school policies, discovering that many multi-academy trusts have a policy that says if a child identifies as trans they should be able to use the facilities they choose from the day they announce it. This means teenage girls being forced to share toilets, changing rooms, showers and dorms with teenage boys (maybe boys who feel trapped in the wrong body or possibly just teenage boys working out it's a good way to get to see girls undressed). I read up on police policies and discovered that officers can also use the facilities of their choice from the day they announce they are trans and, if they are gender fluid, they may have more than one warrant card for their different identities on any given day. I read JK Rowling's essay in 2020 and realised I would be branded a 'terf.' (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist).

I discovered men were invading women's sports, I listened to the girls who had been forced to compete against Lia Thomas and forced to change in front of a boy who now declares himself a lesbian, and then discovered it wasn't just America, it was everywhere including Somerset and Dorset. I read about a man with a BDSM fetish and gun obsession acting as a Girl Guide Commissioner. Parents were being told their daughter would have female only supervision and yet Monica Sulley [a biological male identifying as a woman] was someone they considered 'female.' The mothers who objected were visited by the police.

When I've been to events to hear women speak about our concerns I've been threatened, abuse screamed in my face, telling me I'm going to die, confronted by indecent exposure in front of a crowd of police officers as well as children on a Sunday afternoon in Bristol. Men holding signs telling me to 'suck my girldick you transphobic c**ts' and similar. I watched the police ignore this, not even asking them to remove the sign which was in a busy Portsmouth shopping centre on a Saturday.

Also, I need to be clear, it is not both sides. Women do not turn up at trans pride events or conferences or vigils with loudhailers, threatening violence, playing loud music to drown out the speakers, and women do not punch or attack trans people or their supporters when they do gather. Trans people don't have to keep details of their venues for events secret until the last minute because of threats of violence or arson.

Then, of course, there is the whole issue of 'trans children'. Dr Cass has done a good job of highlighting some of the horrors but her cautious language doesn't begin to cover the harm. I know a 15 year old child, daughter of a friend of a friend. She declared herself trans just before her 15th birthday, the fourth girl in her class to do so. The school and her parents fully supported the change of name and pronouns. A few weeks later she had been given puberty blockers and then testosterone by a private clinic. In May 2023, four months before her 16th birthday, she had a double mastectomy planned. I tried to stop it and failed. Safeguarding teams did nothing. I know of another local family who use food banks because they are paying £250 per month for a private prescription for puberty blockers and hormones for their child. I worked with a local youth charity to find that about a third of the children and young people calling on their services declared a trans identity and I know of at least twelve young women who are on this pathway. Some are just a social transition but over half have had surgery and/or testosterone. The damage high-dose testosterone does to girls is horrific and irreversible - as is a mastectomy. Oestrogen also has damaging effects on boys, but less so. The NHS has failed these children but the private sector is circling them like vultures.

I was one of the original members of the Women's Rights Network and am very proud of what we have achieved. I used to believe in trans, I no longer do. Many people, me included, feel discomfort in their bodies or with their looks; many of my friends desperately wanted to be boys growing up. Most of us grow up and cope with having a big nose, being too tall/short/fat/thin/tanned/pale whatever; those for whom it is more extreme should receive counselling but never surgery or cross-sex hormones. We don't treat anorexia with a gastric bypass nor apotemnophilia with amputations. I cannot see how seeking to remove healthy sexual body parts for an idea in your head is any different. Autogynephilia is a sexual paraphilia which can become all-consuming and is becoming more widespread through certain types of niche pornography. Treating it with surgery is not the answer, nor is forcing women to 'be kind' to men in the grip of it by suggesting we share spaces where we are vulnerable, either physically or psychologically. Indecent exposure and voyeurism are well-known as crimes that are likely to escalate in terms of sexual offending and yet our daughters are being told that they can't say anything if the man exposing himself or leering at them in the shower says he's a woman/genderfluid/non-binary etc.

The last four years have shaken my foundations. I never thought I would see this onslaught on women's rights and children's health, supported and cheered on by so many men and women on the left, people I had admired for so long. I am politically homeless as I no longer trust any party with this issue. There are some good MPs individually, and although I disagree with her stance on most things, I truly admire Kemi Badenoch for her grip on this issue. She has demonstrated a wide knowledge of the brief and has done much to right the course. However many other Conservatives, like Mordaunt, Nokes, May and many more claim to believe trans women are women, as do most of the Labour party, Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid Cymru and SNP. Those that do speak out, like Rosie Duffield and Tonia Antoniazzi, are vilified and sidelined.

The media has let us down: for example, reporting the horrific murder and animal cruelty of Scarlet Blake as being a woman's crime, as well as the police and courts recording it as a woman's crime. Thankfully, in England at least, Dominic Raab's legacy means he will not go to a women's prison. Had Blake been Scottish, Irish, Spanish, German, Canadian, Australian, Californian etc he most likely would. All our great institutions appear to be in the grip of this: the NHS, the police, the BBC and most of the media, the courts, the civil service, local government, universities, schools, social work, retail and banking.

I'm sorry this is such a long message, it was going to be a quick thank you but there is so much you need to understand. Your comparison to Rotherham and the grooming gangs is spot on. Interestingly, Julie Bindel is a common factor in calling out both scandals long before the media or police were prepared to act. Maybe you could start by doing an in-depth interview with her linking the two issues. She has paid a very high price professionally for speaking out - it would be nice to see her properly acknowledged.

Anyway, this is just a very long-winded thank you from an exhausted ex-Yorkshire woman. Your courage in speaking out is very welcome. Please, please keep researching and writing about this.

And that was when I realised just how much people do care; just how much fear seeps through every pore of the matter on all sides; just how far we have to go as a society before we even get close to articulating - and living - a considered, compassionate, caring way forwards.

3.51am:

I just want to thank you for the opinion you expressed in The Yorkshire Post, which I have just read online. It says so much about the subject, but more particularly about the way you have carefully interwoven a lot of considered thinking. We all need more articles and opinions to be so well articulated and explored as this.

8.55am:

Thank you for your thoughtful and compassionate opinion piece on April 12th about women's rights and the "transgender" issue. I agreed with pretty much everything you say and found the comparison with Rotherham helpful. I do not speak publicly on this because in my industry I would be without work overnight. I am freelance and the people who give me jobs all have pronouns in their email signatures and the trans pride flag in their banner headings. They tweet disparagingly at JK Rowling and would find others to do the work I do in a heartbeat.

The only part of your article I was uncertain about was your emphasis on the horrors of gender dysphoria and the steps we should take to help people experiencing it. There has been a 5000% increase in teenage girls referring themselves to gender clinics in less than a decade. When the gender recognition act was brought in, this issue affected predominantly middle-aged males. (That's how we know this is a men's rights movement - such a tiny minority of the population getting laws changed to protect their desires could only be men.) The rapid onset of this condition in a very different section of the population points to a social contagion - a trend - rather than a real illness that needs addressing in and of itself. The circumstances that are causing it need treating, not a whole new social set up to accommodate it. Post colonial theory is an appropriate lens because women's rights and spaces are being re-colonised. But decolonisation across the world took place decades ago and no one is saying we should "make space for" Russia's desires to dominate Ukraine. We are rightly supporting the fight to keep them out. To the best of my ability, through anonymous means, I will continue to do the same for women's rights.

Thank you for your time and support

9.54am:

I have just read your article and find I agree with its content. We, as a family, are finding it most difficult to adjust to our grandson now becoming our granddaughter. I don’t want to wade into the whole debate which seems to be raging right now, but I do have a burning question which nobody seems to have an answer to: my question is quite plain and that is - where do we stand on the issues of the crime ‘indecent exposure’? Some males who identify now as women use our ladies’ swimming pool changing rooms and make no effort to conceal, for modesty, their obvious maleness. It is quite upsetting for the little girls who may be present. One mother, quite rightly in my view, asked for the person involved to cover up, but was told where to go. I am very concerned.

I must confess, it is my rock-solid belief that this is not acceptable. It is not transphobic to suggest women and little girls must have spaces free from male genitalia on full display and free from biological men able to observe women and little girls in a state of undress. That, without question in my mind, is a right that needs to protected.

10.10am:

Dear James, I am one of those women who would see you as an ally and a defender of women (and for their hard-fought rights). I am also a mother of a daughter, and a senior mental health clinician. I write to thank you for this rational, reasonable, sensitive opinion piece posted on April 12th. I don’t agree with every part of it: I am not convinced that gender dysphoria is a ‘thing’ in the same way that I am critical of other mental health diagnoses. As an aside it’s worth looking at the critical history of psychiatric disorders (Dr Jess Taylor, Lucy Johnstone, Drop The Disorder have all written brilliantly on this) if you’re unfamiliar. I do believe children can become distressed about their bodies and their sex, but before this became a massive social contagion, this was seen as a normal developmental process with many growing out of this distress. Having a fantasy about being the opposite sex is also common in children and young people but no one was previously told (now bombarded with) information that supported the myth that this could actually happen!

Despite being a highly thought-of clinician and colleague previously, I’ve been ostracised at work the last few years for trying to express ‘wrong-think’ opinions and raising concerns, and put through a horrendous work investigation because I objected to initiatives meant to support women at work being promoted with an asterisk alongside the word woman. I’m sure you’ve heard many stories like mine, but the narratives that have been dismissed most are those of the young people who’ve been irrevocably

harmed by gender ideology; detransitioners and those with extremely painful regrets about their transition and also the other children who have been force-fed this harmful, regressive ideology and compelled to participate in other people’s transitions. No one ever asks if these children consent to this? No one ever considers the possible harm to children who are (unwilling/unknowing) witnesses and who are unwittingly made accomplices, nobody talks about the safeguarding risks when we teach children to disregard their own instincts and boundaries (especially girls).

I could write and write but I imagine you’ll be receiving a lot of emails, so I’ll stop there. Thank you for stepping up and speaking up. I just ask you respect my anonymity, if you please.

Of course I do and I will. I get it. Honestly, I do. Which is why I have decided to offer to be a willing conduit to legitimate concerns - so they can be aired.

10.57am:

I have just read your post online and can say that I totally agree with you. This is the most worrying part of what is happening today – but it is also happening in the realm of climate change/veganism/sustainability: we are scared to admit that we don’t believe wind turbines and solar panels plus plant-based diets will be a panacea to all ills. Clearly they can’t be and, if we are not careful, we will end up with the next generation having massive problems made by us. None of this is new. The world is going mad and in some ways reminiscent of the mediaeval times when people were persecuted for believing in the wrong God - now don’t get me started on that one!

Live and let live seems to be a pursuit that is fast dying out. Thank you again for making a stand.

11.16am:

I'm sitting at work, putting off ordering books for a reading challenge for some of our high school pupils, and surfing the web. Your article on JK Rowling and the Cass Report appeared and so I read it. Very fair and I really hope that no one shouts it down as transphobic or uncaring.

However, the third space idea has been mooted many, many times. And each time there is a massive pushback. It's not a third space they want, it's access to women's spaces. There was a swimming world cup in Berlin last year that had a transgender open category. It had to be cancelled because no one entered. Why? Because that's not what they want. They want to be in the women's races so they can race against women, and, frankly, get changed with women. They don't want to race against other transwomen and get changed with other transwomen.

Anyway, I really need to get these books ordered! Have a lovely weekend, and thank you for the great article

11.29am:

Thank you, Mr Mitchinson, for putting into words all the fears and anxieties transgender and biological women have with this ongoing debacle. I praise and admire you for your bravery. I have tried to have similar conversations with my daughters and I am accused of being all sorts of things, the least of which is out of touch with the modern world. Why is there so much anger and hate when trying to have a sensible dialog about something so important as women's rights? My daughters do not realise the potential danger of what they are losing, having had these rights all their lives.

I might be old but I do understand, I have a good friend who is a transvestite, not transgender, but I understand perfectly the difficulties faced. In discussions with her, I find that she also feels that the Transgender community is going too far and demanding too much, and is waiting for the backlash she fears will come and undo all the progress made over the last 20 years.

I apologise for my ramblings, I have trouble putting my thoughts onto paper, please keep doing so on our behalf.

11.35am:

I have just read the above opinion piece and want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your carefully chosen words on this issue. I am the mother of a son who now lives and is known as a woman. This in itself was not a problem to me because whatever they do they are my child; I accept them and I love them very much. However, as you rightly pointed out, their choice takes place in a public and social (one might say political) context which is increasingly poisonous.

She once asked me how she could put down TERFs and make them shut up? My answer to her was that she couldn't, that their rights, thoughts, fears and choices were as valid as hers. That conversation made me go away and think long and hard about it because I realised that I too have beliefs which would align me with TERFs (what a nasty acronym). Growing up and reaching puberty in the 70s/80s was a deeply horrible experience for me. Granted, the kind of behaviour I experienced then is no longer acceptable now but I have always been grateful for the comparative safety of female only spaces and passionately do not want to see the rights that women have worked so hard for lost or diminished. However, my now daughter also needs that comparative safety and also has rights, so how do you reconcile the two? This is just me spouting stuff from the top of my head and my thoughts just swirl round and round most of the time which is why I was so happy to read your piece.

Yes a rational, respectful debate is well overdue and if it gives rise to a third way - well, hooray!

Many many thanks for sticking your head above the parapet!

11.38am:

Well balanced and well said. I totally agree that the Trans thing has gone too far - it is too self-opinionated and policed by rather selfish, uncompassionate and self-righteous bigots. You are correct that the topic needs starting all over again, from scratch. It needs to take into account biological females and stop the slurs on them.

I have male colleagues and acquaintances who have, (I do not like the term 'transitioned' as it infers to me something like a perfectly natural chrysalis becoming a butterfly. Surgical anatomical restructuring is NOT a 'transition' it is a definitive surgical procedure to alter the genitalia and breast tissues of a biological male or female in order to physically 'appear' with similar attributes to the opposite sex, though without the functions of true biological genitalia and breasts) undergone the full surgical anatomical restructuring. One man, who was 71 when his wife passed away - he had always had the urge to be 'like' a woman - felt free to go down his ever-present urge for years and became a woman. She is very happy in her new look and bodily changes and doesn't parade around the village demanding children must be taught transgenderism from the age of five, and in fact finds it quite abhorrent in what she defines as the 'grooming' of infant minds - most of which don't even know or need to know what 'gender' even means. She also does not launch derogatory insults on biologically female women. Neither does she suffer verbal abuse from neighbours and locals who find her quite unusual but basically the man they used to know, only in a dress with bosoms.

Another, who I'll call Tom, was just 40 at the time of undergoing the surgery after pondering the change for many years and felt born into a male body with female thoughts. She went through three years of counselling and outside of work dressed in female attire and make-up during that time. She then announced at work that she would be changing sex and would be known by a woman’s name after her initial breast implants, followed by genitalia restructuring. For that year she was happy and quite delighted with the situation, as she never had a relationship with a male or female. So she was happy and had a live-in boyfriend for one year, though he had told her from day one that he would go back to his home country after a year in the UK. However, when the relationship ended and she tried dating sites and clubs she never found a new relationship, which has left her depressed and unsure if the change was a mistake and partly now wants to go back to being a man.

The idea of a third route in society could be a perfect answer: one where Trans people can live their lives with people who welcome the change, leaving the greater majority of Heterosexual and Homosexual people to live their lives as they have done for many years. We should not - under any circumstances - suggest that the ideology be taught in infant schools, encouraging if not forcing vulnerable minds to take on the ideology, children are quite capable of mixing with others not 100% the same as them without enforcement.

What it all comes down to, as you say, is respect for one another; not enforcing an ideology on people, and by relaxing the tension, freedom of speech may return and if neither side tries to banjax the other into submission to their ideals the world will be a better place.

Banjax. I rather like that word.

11.46am:

I read your article: JK Rowling, the Cass report, women's rights and a hauntingly worrying similarity to Rotherham child sex abuse.

I've never written to a journalist to thank them for their contribution before. Spot on, balanced and compassionate but won't be received that way by everyone. Well done for being brave. I was pilloried in a conversation for saying that our minimal but growing understanding of the science of the human brain makes it foolish for people to hold dogmatic views on gender dysphoria and that we should therefore all keep open minds and be compassionate. I was surprised that that was controversial.

In addition to women's rights and women's safe spaces, I think free speech is desperately important, and affects everyone. I think the trans debate has become a symbolic battleground for free speech. If someone self-identifies in a particular way then others still have the right to an opinion.

I'll exaggerate to make a point: if someone is in court protesting their innocence, I would reserve the prosecution's and ultimately the jury's right to hold a different, evidence-based opinion. I should have the right to disagree - based on evidence. Discuss! And that's the point. Discuss!

Thank you for your article.

Again, interestingly, even though this person is clearly desperate to find a safe space to ‘discuss’ this issue, they asked for anonymity. Clearly, the writer cannot see where the safe space yet is, bar writing sincerely to a newspaper editor. Interesting…

1.14pm:

Dear James, I've just read your very considered and sane article and wanted you to know that I think it’s an excellent statement calling for sanity and calm debate. I'm biologically female, a trained scientist and heading for retirement this year so I feel I have many decades of experience being a woman plus I love science: objective, evidence-based and irrefutable when proven. I completely get the social notion of 'gender' and that some people feel that the persona they were born into in our society/heavily gendered culture is not who they feel they are. We all need reminding that we are still today living with the effects of social conditioning after four centuries of Romano-British culture and then the Victorians social construct of women being subservient to men. Go back over a thousand years and there was probably less of a division between the biological sexes other than women were the only ones who could give birth. That has led me to question, "what is a woman" from a gender-only perspective, biological sex to one side. It's very hard to answer that because I feel that first and foremost, we are individuals and should behave and dress as who we are, irrespective of our biological sex, as long as we respect others and do them no harm.

Scientifically, women are physiologically very different from men. Men and women's brains are different by the end of puberty, men don't have periods, endometriosis and womb issues governed by hormones that affect your moods. Having sailed through the menopause (something else that men don't have) I'm incredibly chilled in my 60s but it makes me very angry that a small but vociferous minority of biological men who are or have transitioned to what they feel is a 'female state' think they know what it's like to experience life as a biologically born woman; they do not. Some are behaving in a very entitled way - perhaps due to their male upbringing - and how they've been conditioned to think. We don't hear anything like this from trans men! A minority is gas-lighting others and making life incredibly difficult for a larger number of people trying to live as they want to be, many of whom are gentle and vulnerable trans people who need support. Surely we can find a way to give biological and good-faith trans women the spaces they need.

Best wishes and keep up the good work

2.23pm:

Just came across your article, and you said you'd welcome emails on the subject so here goes…Thank you for writing this! It speaks for us who are afraid to voice our thoughts on the issue. We have this debate in my house. My daughter's friends are trans and I have resorted to silence, not daring to voice my opinion as I would be vilified in my own home for supposedly anti-trans views. I am a Harry Potter fan and sympathise with JK Rowling in her predicament. She had an abusive marriage and is understandably keen to support women's safety. I hope she isn't hating on trans people, though, as they are human, like everyone else.

I'm going to throw out some thoughts on sex change / trans-ness that might sound inflammatory, but usually I don't dare to voice them: I think that if you are born a certain way, you should learn to accept yourself. Including the body and mind that you are born with. Unless you are so poorly that it's life threatening. Why can't we have this third space that you mentioned for all Gender-In-Between people, and celebrate all versions of uniqueness? I know that trans people might say they need a sex change because it will affect their mental health if they can't have it, though. But lots of people have mental health issues that cause life threatening depression, and if therapy can help them, why can't it help gender dysphoric people to accept their born body and mind?

Sex change and taking hormones is a luxury in my opinion, things that rely on huge amounts of money and medicine to keep going, much like insulin to diabetics. What would happen if it suddenly became unavailable? (war / lack of NHS money etc), those affected would potentially transition back again, causing terrible mental health issues once again. To me, mental health issues should be dealt with firstly by counselling and psychiatric help, not leaping straight into hormones and sex changes, especially when still a child. Sex change could be seen as violence against one's own body. Would young trans people actually hate and want to change their own body if they hadn't been brought up in a mainly binary society? (think about the internalised misogyny women act out when we feel the need to transform ourselves daily to be presentable to society by make-up, hair dye, hair style, shaving our entire body, face lifts, high heels, botox, keeping up with fashion etc - much of which is harmful. I don't do much of this, actually, as I have always thought it was unfair that women were expected to do this, but not men). I am sad that young trans people growing up feel that they need to take hormones / chop off breasts and penises / have sex changes.

There are so many accepted and creative ways of having sex these days, that surely, staying in the body you are born with should not deter anyone from enjoying a sex life, and, much simpler, less painful and cheaper than changing gender. What's wrong with just being gay? Or non-binary? My daughter tells me that there are now names and pronouns for every possible type of body/ mind/ gender variety!

My daughter and her friends seem to see things very differently from my generation, and I don't quite understand her hating on me when I say what I think. Why is she so angry at me and unwilling to listen to my side? For me and a lot of my friends my age, we find it hard to believe that a trans woman is actually a woman, when we know that biologically they are still a man. It's like the emperor's new clothes to us.

I have been following the debate about trans women athletes for years, with great interest. I do feel that biological women should be allowed to compete fairly, and that it's unfair to allow post-puberty trans women to win all their medals. A middle ground has been suggested, but having purely trans competitions is not financially feasible yet, due to lack of numbers... so your Third Space is in discussion in sport anyway!

What inter-gender people need, in my opinion, is acceptance from day one. I know someone who is very obviously non-binary although still a young child. He loves to wear pretty skirts and dresses, rainbows, sparkles etc, and the female members of his family have surrounded him with celebration and support. His brother and dad have been educated by this. They have supported him at his school, helped him through some bullying from other pupils spouting their own parents' homophobia. He is a happy and self-accepting boy. It will be interesting to see if he feels the need to be angry against society and violent to his body, when he grows up, when he's had so much acceptance when young. I've always believed (since I was old enough to understand) that non-binary-ness was just nature. We have gay cats, and penguins, hermaphrodite worms etc. We are all accidents of nature.

Anyhow, if you got this far, thanks for listening, and thank you again for daring to risk public reaction, and speak out on a controversial subject.

I certainly did get that far and I am grateful to you for taking the time to share your own experience with me.

2.45pm:

Hello, James: re your piece of yesterday on J K Rowling and women’s rights - well put! I message you as a 77-year-old grandfather who has grown up through a number of exciting phases of social change. This current one leaves me more angry than any before. How is it that the women’s rights movement earned so much respect, found women placed rightfully on an equal footing in so many walks of life, only now to find their rightful position as equals now under attack? Shame, and not societal progress, never mind the scandalous attacks from bigots. Enough said from me, I could go on, but again, a piece well put.

3.52pm:

I cannot thank you enough. I don't know why I have such an interest in this topic - for years now - it is not my usual...it trumps the NHS/Healthcare or any of the other mainstream, "trot out" we hear daily, on the lips of all, on News Channels. However, I have the wit to stay away from social media and the vitriol and the trolling and the bullying that goes on there...

I am the eldest of eight Irish Catholic sisters, a degree educated business woman in Northern England. We were brought up in my father's business, which was in a male-dominated, manufacturing and engineering domain; I was the son that he never had and much fell to me. So I am intrinsically strong, resilient, robust and used to be fearless! Now, however, having travelled the world to return home, I am afraid. Afraid of what I, as a straight, heterosexual woman am supposed to love. I am afraid of men.

Michelle O'Neill (Sinn Fein), in her inaugural speech some weeks ago (when she eventually got to make it), said her first point of business was to end the violence against women and young girls in N.Ireland, where it was now endemic - a state of emergency. I ain't no Republican - but for that and only that, she will get my vote in the next election - this is a vote I vowed at 18, as a Catholic, that I would never make and never have! But I will. She didn't roll out NHS and education, she rolled out a woman's right to have peace and safety in her home and in her community, in her place of work and in her life - she made it her no.1 priority.

I have two daughters - one of whom is a student and has been raped. The youngest works as a Mechanical Engineer; she spent all of her first year - from day one - fighting against some boys (work colleagues and university acquaintances), who bullied her relentlessly - for being a female and for being Irish.

When she could take no more and after a whole year - failing an end of year exam in the process - she had to sit alone, in a foreign country (England), at 18 years of age, through five senior management investigation panels, and take on a five-month investigation. That was into the boys who held her in a choke hold in her workplace, threatened to rape her and threatened to bomb her car. Despite having 1,200 pieces of written evidence against them, they suffered only a written warning that was to be expunged from their records six months later...what a policy!

These are two beautiful, well-educated, honest, hard-working, contributing, strong women, with many strings to their bows - outside of their work/degrees. These are my babies, who I love, who I have protected like a lioness, from birth. These are my girls, who have been abused (outside the home), by men and young boys, relentlessly! Why? Just because they are women and just because men and boys can! What are we living in? Certainly not a democracy where women's rights are protected! As a young woman, I was much better off in the 80s, almost 50 years ago, than my girls are in the 2020s' - the age of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI).

Even though they are who they are, my daughters are afraid. Afraid in nightclubs, where a 6ft4 well-built man, can put on a wig, wear a skirt, with Doc Martin boots and a beard and walk into the previously safe space of a woman's toilet, late at night, drunk and drugged up and for no other reason, than he can...regardless of gender dysphoria or not - he just can - if he wants to … so, men who feel like doing this can, so they do and in doing so, make young girls like my daughters feel fear to their very core.

When they, or other young girls, their friends, women in the loos together gossiping, have had a drink or possibly even too much to drink, have been spiked, have been assaulted sexually or otherwise, in the same nightclub, they run to the ladies toilets, as the first port of safety, (as we always trained our daughter to do). Then other women can try to help and run to get bouncers to the scene - but, now: any man can walk in, posing as a woman.

One of my daughters is a first aider and has previously escorted young girls to hospital, from nightclub toilets, after being spiked. In their midst, now, men purporting to be women. Why? Why is he there? Why is he allowed to be there? And why does it have to be at the expense of safe spaces for women? Why on his journey of self-discovery and self-liberation does he get to take our feeling of safety away from us? Why? And why is it handed to him on a plate with no consideration, no care, no thought for the safety and well-being of women who might object?

My daughter, who was raped, no longer goes out into town, because of this exact scenario where transgender men use women's toilets. What a shame at 21-years-of-age, when she should be partying until she drops! Imagine looking back on your student days and saying I never went to gigs, or clubs, because I was afraid to use the women's toilets - I was afraid of men who potentially were mal-intentioned - but now have permission to be close to us in intimate spaces.

Women are sacrificing any rights we have, for a very small minority of men. I work always from a simple premise - equality for ALL, not for some and not at the expense of others. I work on fairness - but what DEI has brought is a moment where the majority's rights are being sacrificed - interminably - to cater for a minority.

Everyone is so afraid of being called an "ist" or a "phobic" and it is at the expense of the majority’s rights and at the expense of common sense.

All I know is that, with a life lived, with an education and a travelled experience, I find myself utterly silenced, utterly bereft of a voice, utterly powerless and constantly feeling like my hands are tied behind my back, frightened to offer a well-thought-out opinion - even in a small rural community like mine. I have suffered depression and crippling anxiety (which I have managed myself - not on benefits). I have realised it is because I am in a society where freedom of expression is prohibited; tut-tutted, mostly by those who think they are on the side of the righteous, and, for the most part, have zero understanding of the impact of their output from their laptops and their lips. The impact of their virtue signalling, on many who are right-minded, intelligent and fair, is debilitating.

As Dr Cass has said, our children are being let down and it struck me when someone said "to allow children to transition socially or medically, without the knowledge of their family, is profound abuse." I note how Dr Cass et al, are now calling for psychiatric evaluation and a kind, holistic approach to this epidemic, where children are confused and influenced (bullied), by those with ofttimes sinister agendae.

I thank you for your courage in writing your article. I have never responded to anyone - until now…

My word. What a privilege it is to be an editor when people open up like that on their own lived traumas, experiences, hopes, dreams and fears.

9.30pm:

Dear James, THANK YOU for this sensible and compassionate piece. Thank you for speaking up. I stumbled upon this newsletter and am so glad I did. Thank you for the hope you have made me feel.

Most of us just want to get on, play fair and have a laugh with our mates, don't we?

The Yorkshire Post has a new reader who lives in East Sussex!

Saturday passed and Sunday came…

7.47am:

Dear sir, re: JK Rowling, the Cass report, women's rights and a hauntingly worrying similarity to Rotherham child sex abuse. Thank you for this wonderful article. You have, as they say, hit the nail on the head. Please keep up the good work by speaking for the silent majority. We have rights too. The Rotherham syndrome you speak of is happening everywhere.

4.08pm:

Reading your latest tweets about women was a breath of fresh spring air and a great start to my day — thank you so much. Apart from the inevitable (irrational) anger I have no doubt you are facing from some, you will probably also get some women criticising you for "waiting so long” or "only putting your head above the parapet now" or some variation of that. In case that is the case, I wanted to let you know that I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts/questions on the subject and that I think criticism of this kind is unfair (and unproductive).

I do, though, understand the frustration and anger of women who have been silenced and ignored for so long, who spoke up sooner and lost jobs etc, who are critical of men (in particular) currently speaking out, but as someone who managed to bury my head in the sand for many years, I think we all have our own experiences and start asking questions at different points – and that is OK. I hope you have a good day and the response to your tweets is not too overwhelming. I am sure I am not alone in being really very grateful for them.

And, if you’re still with me, that’s where the letters dried up. This newsletter, then, runs to some 9,000 words. You, readers of my newsletter, have between you produced a dissertation. If you were filing for the paper you’d be sent back with a flea in your ear for over-writing!

But, seriously. Thank you to you all. All of your kind words mean the absolute world to me. In your responses there is courage in adversity, there is fear and worry. I can sense confusion and anger - with justification for as much given - but more than anything I can feel the desire, the hope that by talking about this openly, we can wrestle back the conversation from the spiteful extremes and begin forging a new frontier that enables everyone - of all persuasions - to be loved, accepted and supported. We have to find a way of making everyone feel they belong, without ransacking the rights of others in that process. Inevitably, that is going to require mature, thoughtful, selfless compromise.

More than anything, you told me: women’s rights are women’s rights - they are non-negotiable and we have to guard against well-intentioned ideas having unintended, unwanted, unsafe consequences. That does not mean women who so viscerally feel this are transphobic, you said. Quite the opposite was the sense I got - and that gives me hope. So thank you.

Please, look after one another.

James

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Write to me at: [email protected] - it’s nice to read a friendly word or two.

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