In my youth the best anyone who was gay encountered from many people was a lot of cheap sniggering at their expense and the worst was violent attacks. Until as late as the 1980s they still needed to hide their sexual orientation or face the sack from jobs such as teaching.
Now there are still plenty of ignorant and prejudiced people around but the standard attitude of the majority of the British public has become “live and let live” and most of the institutional barriers such as pension and inheritance rights have been removed.
When it comes to the rights of transsexuals things have moved rather more slowly but there is still a fundamental willingness from the majority of the community to let people who have different sexuality or different sexual circumstances to them to get on with living their lives without interference or criticism.
That willingness is best built on and strengthened by talking openly about issues that trans people experience that they find oppressive and by also being open about issues that the wider community doesn’t feel entirely comfortable with. The ideal approach is that we share experiences and try and find positive ways of working through any difficulties that might or might not genuinely exist as we seek to resolve them and move attitudes and circumstances on.
That isn’t entirely how the debate on trans issues is always conducted. There is a dangerous tendency for people to take up absolutist positions and to denounce others instead of to listen, to understand and to work out solutions.
So we have seen women with an excellent past track record on sexual politics, like Germaine Greer, let themselves down very badly by appearing to refuse to accept that anyone could ever change their sexual category at birth and become a woman.
We have also seen some equally wrongheaded attitudes expressed from within some sections of the trans community who are categorising anyone who disagrees with any of their own views as automatically some kind of monster who hates the entire trans community.
What we need from everyone is an understanding that issues are complex, people’s feelings are involved and solutions aren’t always simple and black and white. What we are getting all too often is an impression that only one set of people’s rights matter with some people only focusing on women’s right whilst others only focus on those of the trans community.
The obvious truth is that virtually every member of the trans community has different circumstances, different experiences and different needs and categorising “them” and treating “their” needs as a single monolithic entity is not helpful. It should not be a matter of principle whether a trans person is placed in a male or a female prison or sleeps in a dormitory with girl guides. It should be a matter of sensitively judged circumstance.
For example, those people who are trans because they are undergoing gender transformation aren’t going through a simple and quick process. Doctors can’t just flick a switch and move an individual from one clear category to another. At some point along the journey from being male to female a person is likely to decide that they prefer to move from living as a man to living as a woman. The attitude of the community towards this should be supportive and understanding and to help that person feel as comfortable and accepted as possible whilst they go through the transition. Respect for the individuals self definition is really important. Yet it is not the only thing that matters and there may still be circumstances where it is not yet appropriate to fully accept the self-definition of gender and a bit of caution is wise. It didn’t help the cause of trans rights to have a man who was transitioning to a woman allocated to a woman’s prison and, if the unreliable popular press is to be believed, then proceed to sleep with several of the inmates. That can’t have helped the lives of those who have transitioned to being women who are being forced to remain at real physical danger by being allocated to male prisons because of what their birth certificate says.
What we need is some subtle recognition of different circumstance and different needs. People have the right to be treated as individuals with their own needs. They don’t need forcing into categories and for everyone in that category to be classified as requiring identical rules.
Exactly the same subtlety is needed when it comes to discussion of trans issues. Discussion doesn’t need forcing into opposing camps of those who are “for” the trans community and those who are against “it”. What we need if we are to increase understanding and continue to improve life for people in our trans communities is not to get hung up on definitions and to hurl abuse at those who slightly disagree with us. We need a little more recognition of the importance of allowing diversity of views to be openly discussed and fairly challenged not banned and no platformed.
The twitter generation has become very good at abuse and at out-grouping “opponents”. It is time we moved on and became a lot better at tolerance not just of those who live a bit differently to others but also of those who think a bit differently about the best way to support those who do. Tolerance of those who think a little bit differently to us ought to be every bit as welcome as tolerance for those who live a little bit differently.