Transing ChildrenTranscript: Mermaids Training - Do you still support Mermaids yet?

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[–]SeasideLimbs 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I like how the entire conversation just completely breaks down as soon as someone asks some basic, well-meaning questions. Notice how the audience member struggles to get out a single logical sentence and the Mermaids Trainer just goes completely quiet and later moves on without answering any of the questions. (Section: "The problem with 'Cis'") When you absolutely require blind faith, you're a cult. Sorry.

[–]luckystar 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Warning: OP links to a Google Doc which can track your e-mail address if you click it. I've copy pasted the content below so you can read it w/o clicking.
Transcript: Mermaids Training - Part 1

Audio link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cF90PFx5cSxHmKCI5Jwg0hqji9DDv8_f/view?usp=sharing

Mermaids - Trainer

MAW - Man At Work

A - Audience member(s)

Headings & time stamps:

(00:00) Babies, parties & gender (03:24) ‘I am not an expert on electricity...Colours...or even what a spectrum is…’ (05:00) Jelly babies = Gender identity. ‘Don’t think about it too hard...Trust me!’ (06:58) Introducing GI Joe... ‘Seriously! Stop thinking!’ (10:24) The saga of the Genderbread man - Brains, hearts, sex, science & style...never the twain shall meet… (15:23) Choose your stereotype...err, I mean Jelly Babies! (19:16) Intersex Navaho clownfish = Trans (24:45) Tomboys & male femininity (27:33) The problem with ‘Cis’... (32:26) ‘Transexuals, you’re outdated!’ Introducing the more fashionable choice of: Non-Binary, Gender-fluid & Gender-queer (Piers doesn’t know what they mean...hell, no one does, not even me!) (37:21) Sexuality. Trans rights are just like gay rights (46:23) Pronouns: from courtesy to hate crime

Babies, parties & gender...

Mermaids: ... the expectant mum can be just halfway through her pregnancy at 20 weeks and she can have a scan and find out if it's going to be a boy or a girl, so we now have the gender reveal parties.[laughter] Has anyone been to one? No? These are the next big thing after the baby shower. I went to my first one a couple of weeks ago and the parents didn't even know. So what they'd done is they'd gone for their scan, they'd got the ... what's the person who does the scan? Radiographer is it? ... to write it on the picture, put it in a sealed envelope, they then gave that envelope to their party planner, so they found out at the same time as we did. It was quite bizarre. It's all about building the anticipation and there's all guessing games and that leading up to it. But I sat there, and, I mean it was lovely, it was a lovely day, but ... my first thought was, this party cost a fortune, you'd have been better off putting money in the bank for the child. But then my second thought was, when they do the reveal, you're not going to go ‘I didn't want that’ are you? D'you know what I mean? You've got to be like, whoo! [laughter] So it was a little bit bizarre.

I've never heard of these gender reveal parties before. I'd heard of baby showers, but not an actual gender reveal, so I had a little google, and these are some examples of what I found, how people have announced the biological sex of their unborn child. So this one, the family filled a balloon with pink paint and the proud father shot it with an arrow, in a very phallic symbol of how the child got there in the first place, really. You can get cakes that are filled with either pink or blue sweets, so when you cut the cake open the sweets will cascade out. But that's my favourite one - the Harry Potter gender reveal. Any hufflepuffs? Yay! There's not many of us, there's not many. So depending on what you put into your cauldron, and obviously the spell, out will come either pink or blue smoke. Brilliant.

So what happens when we find out if it's a boy or a girl? Well the first thing, and it's instantaneous, we don't even realise we're doing it, the baby gets given its pronoun. So it stops being it, or baby, or bump, and gets he/she, his/hers. Straight away, we all do it. We probably will bin half of the names list, and even if we're going to choose a gender neutral name, often they're different spellings. We stop buying things in white, cream, lemon, mint green and we will get inundated with either pink or blue. We might even buy styles of clothing, so if it's going to be a baby girl, it's usually frills and them stupid headband things. If it's a boy, you'll often get tiny denim or tiny sports things, or them little romper suits with a slogan on, usually with the word dude somewhere. Our family and friends will start to talk about that child's future - ‘when he's older we're going to go there, when she's bigger, we're going to do this.’ There's plenty of families who will choose the school that the child will be educated at based on whether it is a boy or a girl. And for most kids that's fine because most kids will fit loosely somewhere within those boy and girl boxes, but lots of children don't.

[–]luckystar 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

‘I am not an expert on electricity...Colours...or even what a spectrum is…’

Mermaids: Now I'm going to state the obvious here but work with me because I do have a point. Now we've got two light bulbs here and one is on and one is off, do we agree?

A: yeah

Mermaids: Now, I am not an expert on electricity by any stretch of the imagination, but I know if I go into a dark room, I look for the switch and I will flick the switch and the lights will come on. If I flick it again the lights will go off. I know that much, yeah? So we've got boy/girl, on/off, yeah? Who can tell me what this is?

A: a dimmer switch

Mermaids: It's a dimmer switch, and how does a dimmer switch work? I don't mean like transformers and circuits, just very basically, how does a dimmer switch work?

A: You turn it and the more you turn it up the brighter it is.

Mermaids: Exactly. So it'll start at off, and it will get gradually brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter until the light is completely on, because light is on a ... ?

A: Spectrum.

Mermaids: Spectrum, absolutely. Lots of things in nature are on a spectrum. Colours, for example, are on a spectrum. So, maybe the colour blue, you could look around this room, you will pick up lots of different blues. They're all blue but they all have their own unique place on that colour spectrum. Because colours start at almost white and get gradually darker until they're almost black. Lots of things about us are on a spectrum. We are part of nature. Are we all the same height? Are we all the same shoe size? Are we all the same skin colour? So there's just three spectrums that are part of us as humans.

Jelly babies = Gender identity. ‘Don’t think about it too hard...Trust me!’

Link to image: http://tinypic.com/r/nd3e6q/9

Mermaids: So we're going to look at it in a bit more detail. I want you to have a bit of fun with this but there is a serious point leading up to it. So this is my jelly baby spectrum and we're going to start with jelly baby number 1 - Princess Barbie. Most people have a Princess Barbie in their lives somewhere, whether it's a friend, a sister ... I'll send you these through by the way so you don't have to ...

MAW: Sorry ... yep

Mermaids: ... whether it's a friend, a sister, a partner or whatever. The one who takes like six hours to get ready to go out. They look amazing but they take a really long time, you know, lots of pampering and stuff like that. So when you think of a Princess Barbie, what colours pop into your head first of all?

A: Pink

Mermaids: Pink, yep. Anything else?

A: Maybe sparkles

Mermaids: Yeah? Describe her hair.

A: Blonde.

Mermaids: Blonde, yeah. Long. (whispers - I need you to join in)

MAW: It's totally unrealistic and it induces ...

Mermaids: Don't get into that yet.

[laughter]

MAW: Oh but it is though ...

[laughter]

MAW: Yeah, I just think - I'm worried that ...

Mermaids: I would not insult your intelligence, trust me.

MAW: Good, good, because ...

[–]luckystar 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Mermaids: So, Barbie's hair ...

MAW: ... the pictures are insulting.

Mermaids: ... long, blonde, yeah? Face ...

A: Make up.

Mermaids: Make up, yeah, a bit of eyelashes. Hands and nails?

A: All done.

Mermaids: Manicured. What d'you think her voice sounds like?

A: High pitched.

Mermaids: High pitched, yeah. I did this in a primary school and some kid went, 'miss, she would be a scouser.'

[laughter]

Mermaids: Clothing?

A: Frilly dresses.

Mermaids: Frilly dresses. Footwear?

A: Heels.

Mermaids: Heels. What d'you think she likes to do?

A: Go to the salon.

Mermaids: Go to the salon, lots of pampering, yeah? Ok, so we've got jelly baby number 1, Princess Barbie…

Introducing GI Joe... ‘Seriously! Stop thinking!’

Mermaids: We're now going to go right to the other end to jelly baby number 12, GI Joe. So what colours do you think of?

MAW: Well he's in camo, isn't he, 'cos he's in military, which is presented as the male ...

Mermaids: Yes, so you're thinking greens ... you're going too clever too quick. You need to take a step back.

MAW: OK, he's in green, he's in camo.

Mermaids: So it's what colours you think of when you think of a GI Joe kind of character.

A: Earth tones.

Mermaids: Yes, earth tones. That's a good one. Yes, so greens, browns, OK. Describe his hair?

A: Bald.

A: Bald? He's got brown hair.

A: He ain't got time to worry about the hair.

[laughter]

MAW: Crew cut.

Mermaids: Face?

A: Strong jaw ... stubble.

Mermaids: Strong jaw, stubble - chiselled, yeah? Hands and nails?

A: Dirty ... crusty

[laughter]

Mermaids: Voice?

A: DEEP.

Mermaids: Deep, yeah, you have to say DEEP. Yeah? Clothing?

A: Don't worry about it.

Mermaids: Don't worry about it, just functional, practical, yeah. Footwear?

A: Boots.

Mermaids: Boots. What do you think he likes to do?

MAW: Kill people.

A: Kill stuff.

[laughter]

Mermaids: Yeah, probably keeping fit ...

A: Go gym.

Mermaids: ... pumping iron, yeah, all that. So we've got a good description of jelly baby number 12, GI Joe. And yes, we are being extremely stereotypical. There's lots of reasons I use this, the first one is, if I look on there, and certainly when I was growing up, I knew I wasn't GI Joe and I was fine with that but I also knew I was not Princess Barbie. And all the girls in my class who were Princess Barbies, we had nothing in common at all. I liked football and I liked planes, still do. So if I look on there and I think, well where's my jelly baby? Particularly when I was little, I think I'm number 5, that's where I feel that I fit. If I'm going to a wedding, I'll make an effort and be a 4, but really I'm a 5. Yeah? So what I'd like you to do is to just take a minute, and based on those two extremes, and then your gut feeling, find your jelly baby.

A: Are jelly babies Jesus?

[laughter]

A: ... cos I don't mind getting stuck in, but I'm quite a like - I like to dress up as well.

Mermaids: It's interesting you say that because it is true, we're not [inaudible]

[jumbled discussion]

MAW: Is it just based on appearance and clothing?

[–]luckystar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Mermaids: This is just your gut reaction.

MAW: My gut reaction is none, because ...

Mermaids: OK, that's fine.

MAW: ... it doesn't talk about ...

Mermaids: That's fine. I know ...

MAW: ... equal pay, or ...

Mermaids: ... ohhh, you are ...

MAW: ... looking after the kids, or - does it?

Mermaids: D'you know what?

A: Wooaah

Mermaids: You need to really, really ...

MAW: Switch off?

Mermaids: ... just take a step down academically, yeah?

MAW: I don't think I'm being academic, I'm just saying the truth, my gut feeling is that that doesn't respond - I don't respond to that at all.

Mermaids: OK, that's absolutely fine. Not a problem. OK. Now, when we do this usually, yeah? I do normally hear people saying well, I think I'm that, but when I'm doing this I'm more like that, and sometimes I feel like this and when I was younger I was like that, but now I'm more like this, and that is true. Yeah? So we're going to go into a little bit more detail.

The saga of the Genderbread man - Brains, hearts, sex, science & style...never the twain shall meet…

Link to image: http://tinypic.com/r/r71306/9

Mermaids: So this is Stevie, my genderbread friend. So we're going to start with our brain. OK now if you think of that unborn baby, our brain is controlling functions a long time before we are born, you know, so in the womb our hearts are beating, we can move, we can blink, we can hear, we can suck our thumbs ... lots of things are happening. And then we are born and we take our first breath, and our lungs begin to work. We have our first feed and our digestive system begins to work. We don't then need to keep reminding ourselves to do those things, our brain takes care of that. And then we learn language, we learn to walk, we learn to talk, we go to school, you know, and we have the capacity to keep learning, most of us, until we die. That’s our brains. And we know that our sense of self and our gender identity is formed between the ages of about 18 months to 3 1/2. And we know who we are. So that comes from your brain.

So then there's your heart, so who you are attracted to, who you see as a partner, who you may fall in love with. So hands up who's ever fallen for a complete idiot.

A: [laughter]

Mermaids: It's a rite of passage isn't it growing up, really? You know, you'll fall for someone and your family might try and tell you they're not the best for you, or your friends might try and drop the hint, and that little voice in the back of your head that you never listen to. And you'll go in and get your heart broken. Or, have you ever fancied someone but you won't tell your friends you fancy them because you know they'll take the mickey out of you? Yeah? There's a couple of them.

A: [laughter] yeah

Mermaids: And it's not something that we can control, you know, we are - it's just a part of who we are, who we are attracted to. And it's not something that we can sort of schedule. You can't get your diary out and say, I'm free next Wednesday, so I'll put a wash on, I'll do a big shop and then in the afternoon I'll fall in love - pencil that in. That's not how it works, you know, someone will come into your life, often quite by chance, strange things happen that science still can't completely explain, and then you're in love, and your life's over. [inaudible]

A: [laughter]

Mermaids: And then there's your biological sex, so your physical body alone. Now, when I went to school a long time ago, we were taught that men have these chromosomes and women have these chromosomes and that was it. And most people still think that way, but what we now know, through advancements in science, is the human race can have a combination of up to 42 different sets of chromosomes. But still, in 2018, one person will look at the genitals of a newborn baby and say this baby is a boy, or this baby is a girl, and within six weeks that child has to be legally registered as that sex, and that is how they will be raised. And we do raise boys and girls differently. Occasionally a baby is born and it's not clear by looking at the genitals whether they're male or female, or it could be a combination of the both, and we will look at that in detail in a minute.

But even now as adults, in those boxes - those physical male and female boxes - there are spectrums. So those of us in the room with breasts, are we all the same bra size? You only have to go Marks & Spencers and see the vast spectrum, yeah? I won't embarrass those in the room with a lower appendage, I'm sure you're all 12s.

And then there's your expression. So that is your style, your mannerisms, likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, all that kind of thing is part of your expression. And as grown ups we like to think that we have complete control over that, but do we? I can go shopping with my mum, who is still secretly hoping for the Princess Barbie, and she will pick something up and she'll go, 'oh that will look lovely on you' and I'll go, 'it's hideous, put it back.' I have two criteria when I go shopping - will it need ironing and will it be comfortable. That's my starting point, I go from there. I could play a piece of music, half the room would love it, half the room would say, 'turn that noise off.' But if I then said OK, do a 1500 word essay on why - where would you even start? And our mannerisms, if you think of your walk, your walk actually says quite a lot about you. We can recognise people at a distance from their walk, yet we never really think about how we walk, and if we do, we start to, like, style it out and try and make ourselves cool.

A: [laughter]

Mermaids: So that's all part of your expression.

Choose your stereotype...err, I mean Jelly Babies! (15:23)

Mermaids: So, you've got your first jelly baby, which is just looking at those two really stereotypical extremes, and then me telling you where I feel I fit, so just like a gut reaction. I now want you to choose a jelly baby for your brain, so how you identify, a jelly baby for your heart, so which jelly baby are you most likely to be attracted to? A jelly baby for your sex - so your physical body alone - how manly or womanly are you? And then a jelly baby for your expression, so your style, mannerisms, hobbies, that kind of thing. So you'll end up with five jelly babies. So you've got your first one, which was those two extra - based on the two extremes and then me telling you where I fit. Yeah? One for your brain, so how you identify, or your gender identity. One for your heart, so which jelly baby are you most likely to be attracted to ... then one for your sex, so your physical body alone. How manly or womanly are you? And then your expression, so that's your style, your hobbies, that kind of thing.

[–]luckystar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

A: You're so Barbie.

A: Me?

[general discussion]

Mermaids: Now, I will send this through, so you can do them on your own with a bottle of wine if you want to, yeah? But there's lots of reasons I do this exercise. The first one, yeah, is that, you know, as humans, we're just lots and lots and lots and lots of different jelly babies, layered together to make us all completely unique. There's only one of you. But also, as a population, there's not many people whose jelly babies are all number 12 and they're only attracted to 1. Or all number 1 and they're only attracted to 12s. Most of us are a bit more of a mixture of that. Would you agree? Yeah? Yet, if you think of things like story books, movies, songs, magazine campaigns, TV adverts ... sort of the subtext, if you like, of our culture, is sort of geared towards Princess Barbie finding her GI Joe, falling in love, living happy ever after, making baby boys and girls who are going to be Barbies and Joes, on that ever perpetual cycle, and it's not really a mirror image of us. And that's before we even begin to factor in things such as ethnicity, disability, age, body shape ... yeah? It is slowly changing, yeah? But very slowly, and we're certainly not seeing ourselves 100% of the time in what we view, what we read, what we hear, yeah? So it kind of gets you thinking about where we are at the moment, and where we maybe need to be, and what we can do about that.

Intersex Navaho clownfish = Trans (19:16)

Mermaids: But that is just our culture at the moment. There's lots of other cultures who think and feel very differently to us. And the Navajo tribe, a Native American tribe, are one of many cultures around the world who see, as humans, that we are not just Barbies and Joes, there's much more to us than that. They actually recognise up to 5 genders. They're known as two-spirit people because they have two spirits, not just one. So regardless of the announcement when they're born children are raised kind of pretty gender neutral really, and everyone is just allowed to find their own place within the tribe. So some of - a baby could be born and the announcement may be it's a boy, but as that child is growing up, if they recognise that some of their jelly babies are further down towards Barbie, they may take on a female name, wear more female clothing and live and work as a female within that tribe, and it's a completely natural part of their culture. If you're familiar with the LGBT calendar, or if you saw the Pride flag flying in May and you weren't sure why, it comes from IDAHOBIT, which is the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, and it goes right the way back to ... the Navajo tribe.

So I mentioned about sometimes a child's born and it's not always clear by looking at the genitals whether they are male or female, it can be a combination of both, and that means the child is intersex. Now a person can be intersex in one of three ways or any combination. So the first is the appearance of the genitals, it can be unclear or it can be a combination. The second is chromosomes and the third is ovaries and testes not being where they should be or how they should be. And it can be discovered at any point. So if it's the appearance of the genitals it will be discovered at birth. It can be discovered through a medical procedure. So, for example, there was a young child, appeared to be female so was assigned female at birth, raised as a girl, needed her appendix out when she was 9 and that was when they discovered that, instead of a uterus and ovaries, she had internal testicles. So that's how they discovered that she was intersex. It can be when puberty begins and maybe you don't get what you were expecting, it can be through exploratory things in adulthood, so maybe if someone's trying for a family and they're not successful, they may have exploratory tests and it's discovered then, and there's plenty of cases where it's been found post mortem. Because it's not had any impact on that person's life, you know, it's never been an issue. 1 in 2000 babies are born intersex so it's really, really not unusual. They say that there are as many intersex people in the UK as there are redheads.

Now, I've told you as much as I know about intersex, I'm not an expert on it. The reason I do this, there's 2 reasons. First of all, this is the I in the LGBTQAI. So the intersex population put themselves under the rainbow because they suffer a lot of the same things that the trans population do with regards to lack of education, discrimination, people assuming that it's a negative, yeah? And also there are some similarities in certain parts of the treatment pathway. But also there's lots of scientific data that's been coming out that seems to be bringing the trans population and the intersex population closer together. We don't know where that's going to end up but it's really getting very interesting, and we will look at that a bit later on.

MAW: Sorry, can I just say, I've got some intersex friends and they're not at all happy about being included in trans, cos they say it's not about identity, it's a medical condition. So that's worth saying, you know, it's not a given that there is total common cause, they're really quite vocally unhappy about it.

Mermaids: Well, there are trans people who don't want to be under the rainbow, there are gay people ...

MAW: Yeah, yeah ...

Mermaids: ... who [don't want trans people ?] under the rainbow, that's just ...

MAW: ... yeah, yeah …

Mermaids: ... yeah, that's just part of it. And actually trans is - is - there's scientific data to say that it is part of the human race, it's not a choice, but we'll get onto that a bit later on. So, we all know Nemo and we know Nemo is a clownfish, and if we're really honest, we only know he's a clownfish since Nemo, before then he was just a fish. All clownfish are born male, so the only announcement that they have is 'it's a boy!' What happens at breeding season, the dominant males, so all the GI Joe Nemos, will physically change biological sex and become female. Then they will mate. When that female dies, the next dominant male will come forward and take her place. It's known as sequential hermaphroditism. There's lots of examples in the animal kingdom where a species will make either part or whole changes, physically, or they will display characteristics of the opposite sex for either defence or mating purposes. So it is very much part of the natural order.

[–]luckystar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Tomboys & male femininity (24:45)

Mermaids: So, tomboys. I was a tomboy growing up and it was never a problem. I never got bullied, I never got laughed at if I went out in my football kit, I never got gently coerced to play with other things, or other people. And even as I grew up and became a teenager, it was just not an issue at all. These are just typical google images of what you would expect a tomboy to be, and that is the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary: A tomboy is a girl who enjoys rough, noisy activities, traditionally associated with boys. But what about the other way round? Well we don't have a word. In the English language we don't have a word that just describes a boy who enjoys activities traditionally associated with girls. The nearest two which are still in the dictionary are sissy and pansy. The top google search I found was 'Men - do you like girly girls or tomboys?' - askmen.com. I thought that was just creepy, and there were no google images that I could share professionally - there were a couple I kept for myself, but there were none ...

[laughter]

Mermaids: And the only reason that's there, is because I was in my parents' house when I was doing this and my mum said 'oh use that picture 'cause it's nice, and she might be [inaudible] lesbian [inaudible]' and I said 'yeah, she might be, but it's not really what I was looking for.' I think naively I thought I was going to find like, a little boy in a Disney princess dress, or a teenage lad with really cool, funky makeup. That's what I thought I would get, but I didn't. And it kind of really drove home to me that it is really still a big no-no, you know, for a boy to like girl stuff, whatever that is, or a man to like woman stuff, whatever that is. And I go into a lot of schools and usually in a primary school, I'll get the teacher, reception, year 1, and they'll say 'Oh no, we've got a little boy who comes in and he goes through the dressing up box. It's not a problem, not a problem.' And I'll say 'OK, well let's have this conversation again when he's in year 6 and he's still doing it,' because then it will become a problem, maybe not for him, but the adults around him will begin to get worried and they'll begin to get fearful, because they want him to be safe, they don't want him to be picked on or bullied. Well we need to start turning around and dealing with the bullies properly. We need to start calling people out. We need to let them know that it really doesn't matter. It absolutely really doesn't matter. But again, it gets you thinking.

The problem with ‘Cis’...(27:33)

So this is just a little bit of basic terminology. If you really want to improve your terminology, Stonewall website is the best place to do that. And the thing about language is it's constantly changing, so I learn something new every single day. So when it comes to gender identity, you're either cisgender or transgender - cis or trans. So, very basically, you are cisgender if your brain jelly baby and your biology jelly baby are in alignment, so if it says male on your birth certificate and you feel as though you are a man you are cisgendered. If it says female on your birth certificate and you feel as though you are a woman you are cisgender. Trans or transgender is an umbrella term and it just means that the brain jelly baby and the biology jelly baby are not in alignment to varying degrees.

MAW: Does that mean you're not dysphoric? Is that how you know that you're cisgender? Because you've not got a dysphoria?

Mermaids: Not all trans people have a dysphoria.

MAW: I'm just thinking, if I know I'm a man, what am I measuring that against? What's the gold standard that I know I'm a man? You know, you know what I mean? Where is it? What is it I'm supposed to be comparing myself to?

Mermaids: It can be culturally, it can be a sense of self ...

MAW: So different - in every different culture, cis would mean something different?

Mermaids: I don't know what cis is in other languages.

MAW: No, what I mean - what you're saying is if - if you don't feel that your body's wrong ... you know what I mean? What are you judging yourself against? Is there a gold standard of being a man, that I would know that I'm a man? Do you know - is that ... ?

A: Yeah, I know what you're saying. And I think it's binding to the binaries isn't it, that - you know, your logic brain goes, we know they don't exist - but actually they do. And the messages are - the gold standard is GI Joe.

MAW: It's culturally created isn't it, it's not real.

A: Absolutely, but it becomes real when millions and millions and millions of people buy into it.

MAW: Oh yeah, for sure.

A: So it's that [inaudible]

MAW: I was just thinking if a woman who - 20 or 30 years ago, a woman who wanted to work and not be at home ... she wasn't cis was she? I don't suppose, according to that, cos she's saying ... what you're presenting ...

Mermaids: Yes because it's about gender identity, she would have known she was a woman.

MAW: ... because she's not dysphoric?

Mermaids: Because her brain jelly baby and her biology jelly baby are in alignment.

MAW: Yeah, I don't really buy the jelly baby. I can't - I honestly, I'm not just trying to be awkward, I just don't get it, and I really want to get it because I work with lots of young people. If cisgender is used commonly, and Stonewall, you know, I've done their training and stuff, is every one of us in this room thinks - I think I'm a man because everything I've ever been exposed to by being a man is that - and this chap, and this chap - we'll all be different. We've got a different store of what it means to be a man, so I don't know how we can commonly say that we all agree we are at peace, or in harmony with, that description cos I don't understand what we're supposed to compare ourselves against.

[–]luckystar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

A: I suppose it means what it means to you, you know. What does being a man mean to you? And if you feel that way then that means that's how you identify, you're a man.

MAW: Totally individual?

A: Yeah. Then it - you can't - I don't think you can compare - that's part of the issue in terms of schools as well ...

MAW: Yeah, yeah ...

A: ... You can't, people compare with other people too much, so in terms of ...

MAW: Oh yeah, for sure ...

A: ... totally, to you ... Are you talking about social media and stuff like that?

MAW: Yeah, yeah ...

A: If someone - if I say I'm looking at that - what am I to me, in my head? Am I saying I'm cis? I'm a cisgendered - to me I'm going to say I'm cis, that's just cos I think that's what I think to me. That doesn't mean ...

MAW: Yeah, yeah ...

A: ... your cis is any different. If I'm concentrating on myself then it doesn't matter, do you know what I mean? It's in terms of having confidence in what - who you are and who you are as a person. At the end of the day that might mean to you, that that doesn't mean anything to you, you know yourself as a person ...

MAW: yeah ...

A: ... it means your self esteem is high, regardless. I guess that's the common goal that we're trying to gain in terms of being [inaudible] I wouldn't stress on that too much.

MAW: In terms of value I totally get you. It's just that one is encouraged to use the term cis, like, for example, a feminist woman rejects lots of ... nonsense, don't they? You know, you don't have to stay at home looking after kids, you don't have to do the cleaning, you don't have to do x, y and z, you don't have to give sex on demand. For some people they're not real women and that is one of the criticisms against feminism isn't it? You're not doing this right. And if they're not doing it right, they're not cis. I'm not - I'm tr - I'm not ...

Mermaids: I know, I know ...

MAW: Anyway sorry ... move on ... my fault.

Mermaids: OK, so this is just, as I say basic terminology, so cisgender and transgender. We try to avoid using terms like transgendered because it can have an implication that something has happened to someone to make them trans. Transgenderism - we avoid that because it's not a movement, the transgenders, I've had that one put to me and I just replied with 'well, they're not a band ...[laughter] ... yet.'

‘Transexuals, you’re outdated!’ Introducing the more fashionable choice of: Non-Binary, Gender-fluid & Gender-queer (Piers doesn’t know what they mean...hell, no one does, not even me!)

Mermaids: The word transsexual is considered to be outdated and certainly the younger generation really don't like it. They say that they feel as though it medicalises them. There are some members of the older trans population who are kind of owning it as a sense of empowerment. I would never use that, the press use it a lot because they know that it sort of antagonises people but just remains just under the law. Just about. But I would never use that unless someone said to me, 'I identify as transsexual and that's how I want to be known and referred to.' Otherwise I would just stick to trans because it'll cover everything and offend no-one.

So non-binary, it's what makes Piers Morgan's head explode for some reason. Non-binary people make him very angry, I'm not sure. There's lots of different ways of explaining non-binary but if you're well outside of the LGBT bubble the easiest way to describe it really is that somebody's brain jelly baby is just right in the middle so they obviously don't feel a draw or an identification with either of the binaries. So it can be either no binary at all or a combination, an equal combination of both. But I think most non-binary people will sort of explain for themselves what it is to them.

So gender-fluid or gender-queer, so again, the term queer is a self-identifying term. It doesn't bother me getting called queer, I sometimes refer to myself as queer, but yeah, I've got friends my age who absolutely hate it and they think I should be offended by it, but I'm not. So if someone is gender-fluid the easiest way to describe it really is that their brain jelly baby is [inaudible]. So, most people, your brain jelly baby is fixed by the time you're 4. Some people will remain fluid and it's quite common in children, it's quite common in teens, and some of those will settle in their birth gender and some of them won't. And then there's a small number who are gender-fluid for life, so their brain jelly baby will never ever fix. So the most famous person you may know is Eddie Izzard, so Eddie Izzard now identifies as trans, and gender fluid. And you can tell where his brain jelly baby is by what his expression jelly baby is doing, yeah? So some days you'll see him and he presents as what we will perceive as masculine, other times he presents as feminine. He keeps his male name and his male pronoun, he doesn't feel the need to change that.

So, social transition, medical transition - does what it says on the tin really, so a social transition is where someone will change their name, their pronoun and often their appearance, to align with the gender with which they identify, so who they are. A medical transition is when someone will seek medical help to make physiological changes to their body, again to align with the gender with which they identify. Someone's transition begins and ends when they tell you. So, for example, if I was part of your team and I'd come in today and said, you know, OK, I recognise I'm trans, I'm a trans man, I'd like to be known as Paul and for you to use he and him pronouns. That is all you ever need to know. The next time I see you, you don't have to ask if I'm on hormones, or if I've had the op, you don't have to point to it, we know where it is, yeah? You know, I didn't start today by saying, 'Good morning everyone, how are your genitals?'

A: Fine, thank you, how are yours?

[laughter]

Mermaids: We just - you know, we just don't do that. But quite often when someone is transitioning people seem to think it's OK to just ask these very personal questions and it's really not. If someone wants to share they will happily, but please don't ask them. There's lots of reasons for this, you know, but one of the main ones really is that they may not know where their ending is. They may not have got there yet, so that it's - when they feel as though they are who they are that is enough for them. So some trans people will - a social transition is enough for them. Others will go down the medical pathway and there are lots and lots of things on that medical pathway, and it's different for everyone.

So these are just some abbreviations that you probably won't need to use, but you may see it on documentation if you are looking after a trans person. So it just indicates which way the transition is going. So FtM is female to male, MtF is male to female, you may see FtNB, so female to non-binary, MtGF - male to gender-fluid, so it's just so you're aware of what they mean.

[–]luckystar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Sexuality. Trans rights are just like gay rights (37:21)

Mermaids: Now, I say this quite a lot because I do a lot of work well outside of the LGBT bubble. I go into lots of conferences and seminars, and when you are sort of networking professionally, you know, you introduce yourself and say, you know, where you are from? So I'll say hi, I'm [name redacted] from Mermaids - Oh, what do Mermaids do? - so I'll tell them and then they'll tell me about someone they know who is gay, or a drag queen, and if that person who they know who is gay is from Liverpool then they'll assume I know them. So, they're both under the rainbow, so gender identity and sexuality are both under the rainbow but they're at completely different ends. The easiest way to remember it is, your sexuality is who you go to bed with, your gender identity is who you go to bed as. So your sexuality is who you are attracted to, who you see as a partner, who you want to have sex with. Your gender identity - it's your sense of self, it's your mindset, your thought processes, your perceptions, it's, you know, it's who you are. It has nothing to do with sex at all. And I think that's why people often struggle to understand transgender children, particularly little ones, because we sometimes make it a big, grown up sexual thing when it's really not.

So just as you can be cisgender and you can be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, so you can be trans and you can be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual. Because they're two completely different jelly babies. So if you are assigned female at birth but you identify as male and you are attracted to women, then you would be straight. You would be trans but you would be straight. Do you want me to say that again? So if you're assigned female at birth but you identify as male and you're attracted to women, you are straight. You're trans but you're straight. But there's lots of people who are just busting all these boxes apart, yeah? So I think this next generation are embracing the spectrums and the fluidity a lot more, yeah? Rather than saying I am this, I fit in this box or that box.

It's quite common as well for, particularly with teens, if they're that busy coping with being trans, if they're struggling with it, their sexuality can get put on the back burner, and they'll deal with that another time. It's also quite common for them to be exploring both at the same time and they kind of feel it's a kind of overlap, but they do remain separate things.

So what is it like to grow up LGBT+? So there used to be a programme on,I don't think anyone in here is old enough to remember, it was called The New Avengers and they had characters in like Purdey and Steed, has anyone ever heard of it? ... you have, yeah. So Purdey was this amazing, like, woman superhero and I thought she was absolutely fabulous and I had my hair cut - the Purdey cut, do you remember the Purdey cut anyone?

MAW: Yeah yeah, Joanna Lumley, wasn't it?

Mermaids: Yeah, it was, I only found that out a couple of years ago. Well I had the Purdey haircut, I used to practice my Purdey kicks, usually on my brother. And I was only about 7 and I just said out loud, I want to marry Purdey when I grow up. Well, you do when you're 7. My parents weren't bothered but my older brother was 9 and he was quite protective and he kind of took me to one side and he went, 'you can't, it's not allowed. And don't tell anyone or you will get beat up.' Now, for the time, he was absolutely right. It was the early 70's, we didn't have same sex marriage and it was incredibly homophobic. I would have got beat up, that's a fact. But at 7, to be told that something that just felt so natural and so lovely was not only wrong, it could put me in danger - what do you do with that when you're 7? Yeah? You push it down and you get your knot. I call it my Purdey moment, and I think most LGBT+ adults can tell you the exact moment in their life when they got their knot. And some people will learn to live with it, some people will turn it into a positive and become activists, but for a lot of people, it can consume them and they can go down a really, really dark path. Now, if you are cisgender and heterosexual you won't get that knot. You might get other knots, cos that's life, but not that particular one. And even now, I mean there's hardly a week that goes by where I don't hear something, or see something, or something on social media that reminds me of that. That reminds me that there are countries in the world I cannot go. Yeah? That there are places where I would be in danger, that there are people - yeah? - and it could be someone in this room, who ... who hates me because of who I am. So that is like a constant sort of undercurrent.

So we asked some of our teens to either create or find an image that answered that question for them, about growing up trans. And these are some of the things they've come up with. So one of our young people put this together and said, 'Imagine those words are rocks and the darker the colour, the bigger and heavier the rock. I had that in my backpack all the time, that weight. Before I put in my books or my sports kit, or anything else. I had that constant weight all the time.' Another one of our teens said, 'That was me in the school corridor. That's how I felt, I had this constant fear that I was going to be outed, or verbally or physically abused, and that my world was just going to go whoomph from under me.' And he said when he got onto firm ground was when he came out the first person as being trans, and that person was his mum. And his mum did not take it well. He said what happened then, he had to go back to the beginning and cross it again, carrying his mum. That's how he described it, because he was then reassuring her, supporting her, educating her. It was like a complete role reversal. And that is a real common thread, particularly with our teens, that when they come out as being trans, they are then expected to be the font of all knowledge for all of the adults around them. And quite often they don't have that knowledge, they certainly don't have the confidence, most of them.

This really, really struck a chord with me, because when you are LGBT you don't just come out once in your lifetime, you will come out a thousand times and more. And you always have to make that split second judgment call. Is this going to be OK? Am I going to be accepted? Am I going to be discriminated against? And in some cases, am I going to be safe? Yeah? I have delivered training and when I've got back to my car, my car has been keyed, and I know why. Yeah? People assume that homophobia doesn't really exist. It really really does. Yeah? It's a lot better, don't get me wrong, it is improving, but we still have such a long way to go.

[–]luckystar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Now, I've met you all today for the first time and we may never meet again, yeah? But it could be that there's a conference on in a couple of months time and we might both attend, and we might recognise each other and go 'Oh, you were [inaudible] how are you?' bla bla bla - might have a cup of tea. And then we might discover we're going to be at another event, so we might swap numbers, arrange to meet up, have a bit of lunch, then we might poke each other on facebook, yeah, and it could go on and on and on and on and on, yeah? At what point in that relationship is it going to be absolutely essential for you to know my gender identity and my sexuality?

[long pause]

A: Never

Mermaids: It would only be if we were going to get intimate that you would need that information. Yeah? So why are LGBT kids still having to come out? And still having a really hard time doing it? I've never met anyone who's had to come out as straight.

[long pause]

Mermaids: Yeah? Again, it's getting better. Still an awful long way to go, and I know it's different with trans kids because they will make those changes for everyone to see, and they need a bit of support in doing that, but I long for the day when kids can just go 'This is who I am,' - brill, what do you want for your tea? That's where I [would rather ?] us all to be, it's just not an issue any more.

Pronouns: from courtesy to hate crime (46:23)

Mermaids: So, pronouns. So we talked before about as soon as we find out if it's a boy or a girl, the pronouns are just given automatically. Most of us don't really think of our pronouns very often, and we will give someone a pronoun, automatically, based on what our subconscious tells us we are seeing in front of us, because that's what we are conditioned to do. And for most people that's fine, because for most people we get it right. But not for everyone. Now, you may have noticed when I introduced myself, I said 'I'm [name redacted], I use she and her pronouns', yeah? I've got two missions in my life, that is my first one, that that just becomes the norm, yeah? When we introduce ourselves, 'Hi, [name redacted], she/her.' Yeah? And I want - by September I want to have every teacher in the country, on your first day of term, when you meet your new class, you say your name and your pronoun.

Now, I did not do that for my benefit. It has no impact on me at all if you misgender me. I don't have gender dysphoria, so it doesn't have any effect on me at all, but my friend who is a transwoman said that every time she is misgendered, it is like mental sandpaper - that is how she described it. Now if you're working with a young person, say they're 15, yeah? They've had 15 years of mental sandpaper. They then pluck up the courage to say, 'This is who I am,' - please never underestimate how much courage that takes - 'I want you to use this pronoun,' and everyone around them goes, 'Oh well I don't know if I'm gonna remember.' Yeah? If you take nothing else away, the importance of this, it is so, so important. I've got the best job in the world, I get to see over and over and over again, when a child or teenager gets the right pronoun for them. You physically witness their self-esteem [get higher?] you actually physically see it before your eyes.

Now, we know he/him, she/her, cos we use them every day. A lot of non-binary people will like to use they and them as a personal pronoun. And it's only really been about a hundred years or so that we stopped - stopped using they and them, we used to use it all the time. If anyone is a Jane Austen buff, like me, if you go back and read her work again, you'll see that she uses it constantly, because they did then. And then Zie. Some of our gender-fluid teens have started using zie as a pronoun. I don't know that it will catch on, but I'm just making you aware of it, that you may meet someone and they may give you a completely different pronoun that you've never heard of before. Now, it's OK to make a mistake, you know, we're only human. If you make a mistake, correct, apologise and move on. That's fine, but obviously what is not fine is just not respecting someone's pronoun, yeah? At best it's just rude. At worst it can end up becoming a hate crime.

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman🇬🇧🌳🟦 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Man At Work has the right idea, Jesus.

[–]turtleduck23 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

how can you read this entire transcript and not once think "wow, this sounds like cult"?

[–]TurkishCoffee 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You made it through the whole thing? it sounded like the most uneducated shit i've read. i stopped at 42 chromosome combinations because i went "....And here's where somebody does not understand genetics past 2nd grade level then heard some shit".

I"m not even sure there are 42 viable combinations of XY. (i could be wrong. maybe). But most of them that are not XY or XX are disorders. Not fucking "special genders". (sorry but not sorry. they do have medical downsides and often require treatment. CAIS being perhaps one of the simpler and most overabused examples TRAs take but Kleinfelters etc are not exactly choices, nor are they "genders" nor are they "new sexes". Christ. I mean XXX is still female and not particularly a giant pain in a lot of people's lives, but they're still female.

[–]Femaleisnthateful 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Reading that transcript was hard because it sounds like so much incoherent gibberish. All I got out of it was that not using one's perferred pronoun can be an innocent mistake or a hate crime.

Also, kids' 'gender identity' is fixed by age 3.5 - 4? Really? Because my 5 yr old stepson still asks if so-and-so is a girl or a boy.